Scott's Film Watch

Film #71: La nui americaine (1973)

2012-01-24T23:26:00.000-05:00

Title for us English-speaking types: Day for Night

Director: Francois Truffaut

Initial Release Country: France

Times Previously Seen: none

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

A director deals with the endless technical and emotional chaos on the set of his current picture.

Extended Summary (A more detailed plot synopsis, including spoilers. Fair warning.)

France, 1973. Noted film director Ferraud (Francois Truffaut) is trying to get his current project up and running smoothly. Well, as smoothly as possible for a film. The financial backing is imposing stifling deadlines, the script is in constant flux, and the cast and crew have brought all of their emotional baggage with them.The film the Ferraud is attempting to make, May I Introduce Pamela, involves a young man bringing his new bride home to meet his parents, only to have her and his father fall in love and leave the rest of the family.

As emotional as this fictional tale might be, it pales in comparison to more immediate concerns of the cast and crew trying to bring the story to life.Ferraud must deal with almost no end of troubles. Each member of the cast either has gone through, is going through, or is trying to recover from some sort of depression or mental fatigue. The lead actress, Julie (Jacqueline Bisset) is returning from a hiatus to recover her mental health. The young actor Alexandre is an emotional juvenile whose neediness and jealousy knows almost no bounds. The elder supporting actress, Severine (Valentina Cortese), is in the full grip of alcoholism and struggles to so much as remember her lines. Add into this the little quirks and difficulties of the crew, from the script co-writer right down to the lowliest prop man, and Ferraud has his hands both full and tied.

It takes an army. Virtually everyone in this shot either loves, hates, has slept with, and/or will sleep with someone else in this shot. Maybe multiple someones.

The greatest tests come near the end of filming. First, Alexandre’s girlfriend, the older and more worldly Liliane, leaves him for a British stuntman. This leads to Alexandre sleeping with his co-star Julie, much to the chagrin of Julie’s real husband. Just as all of this gets sorted out, one of the other key actors, Alphonse, dies in a car accident.Despite the insanity and tragedy, Ferraud manages to see the film through to its end. As shooting wraps up, the cast and crew part ways, though many of them clearly expect to see each other on projects. As strange and chaotic as it seems to most, this is the life they choose.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this first viewing, before any further research.)

Day for Night is an enjoyable, extremely well-constructed film that I probably don’t need to watch again.In a style similar to some of Robert Altman’s more renowned movies (M.A.S.H., Nashville, and especially The Player), Francois Truffaut decides to give us a panoramic view of the insanity surrounding a film set. I suppose some people see the subject matter as being self-important and self-aggrandizing, but Day for Night certainly doesn’t come off that way. The interactions between the characters is far often far too playful to be mistaken for pretension on Truffaut's part.

Director Ferraud instructing Julie on exactly how to hold her hands. Day for Night is full of such minutiae of film-making. It's actually fascinating.

There is no way that I can avoid comparing this movie to its chief forebear: Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ . If looking at a brief treatment, it may seem as if Truffaut pirated Fellini. Both films are about making a film, and both convey the maelstrom surrounding the endeavor. Fellini, though, focused much more on the fantastic inner mental workings of the director-as-artist. Truffaut’s Day for Night takes in the entire scope of the project, not giving too much time to any one person, only delving slightly into a few characters’ minds. The only other clear similarity is that both films expertly achieve what they wish.

As mentioned, there are some graver moments and themes in the movie, such as Severine’s waning ability and waxing alcoholism. But this is tempered by her generally amiable demeanor. There are also Julie’s recovery from depression and her affair with Alexandre, as well as Alphonse’s sudden and tragic death. These, as upsetting as they may be, are quickly resolved and the film, just as the crew in the film, moves on. We viewers are given little more than a few brief moments to feel any lingering pain before being swept away by the inertia of the film-making process and lifestyle. Truly, the show must go on.

Technically, the film is brilliant. While there are no special effects to speak of, the cinematography pulls off plenty of great little maneuvers to draw the eye. To add a layer, you are often getting to look behind the curtain of filming, as we see plenty of the wild and contorted techniques that the May I Introduce Pamela cameramen have to employ to achieve the desired shots. At times, it’s like watching gymnasts do magic tricks in the middle of their routines.

One of the many shots that's not only eye-catching but also pulls back the movie magic curtain a bit.

On par with the visuals is the acting. Every person plays their part perfectly, from the highly emotional and quixotic actors to the earthier and more practical crew members. Even Truffaut, playing himself in spirit, if not in name, does admirably. The key is that virtually all of the characters are either intriguing, funny, tragic, or a compelling combination of all three. In this, Day for Night taps into the voyeurism that is at the core of the appeal of cinema. We want to watch what all of these people do with and to each other.

All of this being said, I doubt that I will ever watch the movie again. As much as I enjoyed it and can see its strengths, I simply don’t know what I could get out of a second viewing. Hardcore film experts and budding film-makers could probably milk it for endless inspiration and knowledge, but I’m neither. I’d recommend it to anyone who enjoys learning about the filming process and enjoys a healthy dose of oft-light drama and humor. It’s also a great little follow-up to the aforementioned 8 ½ .

Take 2: Why This Movie’s Considered “Great” (Done after a wee bit o’ research.)

A very wee bit.

It would seem that this movie has gained its praise for the sheer love of film that it conveys. Roger Ebert revisited it in this 1997 review, and he expresses a lot of the enjoyable elements of it well. He points out how the film shows how all of those involved in the film industry, creators, actors and crew alike, are often inebriated on the culture of the filming process. The quirky, high-drama relationships that develop and then dissipate over the course of a few weeks of filming seem as a drug. I suppose it should be no surprise that film critics, almost all of whom must truly love the medium of film, would love such a movie. It taps into their own passions, so a playful, thoughtful, and entertaining movie on the subject is bound to be adored by the professional critics. Day for Night fits the bill.

After this little bit of digging, I feel that Day for Night is a touch overhyped. Compared to nearly all of the other movies on this list, including Truffaut’s own 400 Blows, Day for Night I feel is considered great more because of its subject matter rather than any standout novelty. I do think that viewers who are looking for something a little different and humorous would enjoy it, but perhaps shouldn’t expect the mind-blowing movie that you may expect from an “All-TIME 100 Film”.

That’s a wrap. 71 shows down. 34 to go.

Coming Soon: Chinatown (1974):

The classic film noir genre gets brought up to date in this slick 1970's Roman Polanski classic. This film kicks off a great streak of 1970s movies in the coming weeks that are some of my absolute favorites. Come on back for my take on it.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #70: Aguirre, der zorn gottes (1972)

2012-01-08T17:33:00.000-05:00

Title for us English-speaking types: Aguirre, The Wrath ofGod

Director: Werner Herzog

Initial Release Country: Germany

Times Previously Seen: once (about 8 year ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Small crew of conquistadors & slaves search for El Dorado. One of them goes batty, much to the dismay ofthe rest.

Extended Summary (More complete plot synopsis, includingspoilers. Fair warning.)

Peru,1560. The conquistador Pizarro is in the middle of his search for El Dorado, the fabled “City of Gold”,which is rumored to be hidden deep within the Andes.However, with supplies running short, Pizarro decides to split his group,sending a scout group of forty farther down the river to find El Dorado. The leader of the group is the noble Don Pedrode Ursua, with Don Lope de Aguirre given second command. Joining them are ahandful of other conquistadors, several Spanish soldiers, about a dozenindigenous slaves, Ursua’s wife, and Aguirre’s daughter.

The scout group heads downriver, but things soon go awry. Oneof the rafts is caught in an eddy, and most of the men aboard are mysteriously slaughteredovernight while the rest of the crew sits unaware on the opposite bank. Ursuawants to bring the dead men back to main camp for a Christian burial, butAguirre circumvents this plan by having a crony sink the raft and dead menbefore anyone can retrieve them. Thus begins Aguirre’s usurpation of the group.

The buffoonish Don Guzman, unwittingly about to be "elected" as "Emperor of El Dorado".

Over the coming weeks, the expedition unravels. Aguirreheads a mutiny, puts Ursua in chains, and nominates the bloated Spanish nobleDon Fernando Guzman as their new leader. Guzman, however, is merely a proxy forAguirre’s ever-growing mania. Obsessed with obtaining glory and power, Aguirreand his reluctant followers draft a declaration of independence from Spain.The group dubs Don Guzman as “Emperor of El Dorado” and the Spaniards begindreaming of laying claim to the untold hoards of gold somewhere in themountains.

As the treasure-seekers continue, their numbers aregradually reduced. A few men are killed by cannibals, silently sniping themfrom the river banks with arrows. The river rises to a point that their raftscannot reach the land. Their food dwindles, and their spirits wane. Don Guzmanhimself is eventually found dead on their raft. With their “Emperor” gone, thefew remaining in the crew are at the mercy of Aguirre’s ever-deepening mania.He has Ursua hanged and demands that they press on towards El Dorado. When one of the Spanish soldiers plots toescape and return to Pizarro, Aguirre immediately has his head cut off.

The crew drifts on for several more weeks. Their foodsupplies become exhausted and they are gradually laid low by disease anddelirium. Just at the point when the few survivors are in the final stages ofstarvation, they are attacked by the natives a final time. Arrows take downnearly all of them, including Aguirre’s daughter. Aguirre, now fully insane,imagines himself and his now-deceased daughter not only finding El Dorado, but building a world-sweeping empire together.He stands alone on the corpse-laden raft, stuck against the shore, as dozens oftiny monkeys swarm around him.

For a bafflingly exhaustive synopsis, check out imdb’s link here.

Now thoroughly lost in his own dementia of grandeur, Aguirre preaches to the only thing left living.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recentviewing, before any research.)

Aguirre, Wrath of God is a really impressive film, thoughnot in very obvious ways.

Since making this movie, director Werner Herzog hassolidified his reputation as an adventurous, film-making wild man, whose primetheme is nature’s indelible power over humanity. Through his dramatic filmsand, more recently, his brilliant documentaries, he has explored MotherNature’s inescapable impacts on humans. In the relatively early work, Aguirre,he explores how natural forces can crush even the most powerful, driven, andmaniacal impulses of mankind. It’s fascinating and disturbing to watch.

Visually, Aguirre may initially seem a touch amateurish.When compared to similar films such as The Mission or Black Robe, thecamerawork seems shaky. However, it’s merely a function of hand-held technique,and I actually enjoyed the documentary type feel that it lends the tale. I gotthe sense that this is probably about as accurately as someone could portraythese events from several centuries ago, giving an “if you were there” feel toit all. By the end, the little jolts and wavering of the camera angles enhancedthe mounting chaos surrounding the expedition.

The disintegration of the conquistadors makes forcompelling, if depressing, cinema. The more level-headed and righteous DonUrsua is subdued with disturbing ease by the quietly ruthless Aguirre. Almostas warped is the compliance of the accompanying monk, Brother Carvajal, whoreadily admits early on that “the church has ever been on the side of thestrong”. The remaining Spaniards, dreaming of gold and glory, are willing tooverlook Aguirre’s obvious psychosis so that they may lay claim to the chimericaltreasures said to lie farther down the river. One could look at all of this asallegory, which can be fun, but it’s plenty interesting enough in and ofitself.

The rather un-Christan Brother Carvajal, one of the majority who choose to chase Aguirre's mad dreams for power and glory.

Most viewers, myself included, would have to admit that someof the supporting acting is a bit shoddy. Fortunately, it hardly matters, asthe primary roles are done well. Of course, the title role of Aguirre himself iskey, and Klaus Kinski is amazing. His frog-like, protruding eyes and widemouth. The wildly off-kilter shoulders and strange gimp. These physicaldeformations belie the dementia-driven ambition that lies within the obsessedwould-be conqueror. Often with little more than an intense stare, Kinski’sAguirre wills nearly all those around him into doing his bloody bidding. It’sabsolutely mesmerizing, and Kinski draws your eyes in virtually every scene.

Amid the intense and brutal exploits of the Spaniards arethe eerily quiet moments of the western Amazonian rain forest. As the raftsfloat along the river, the latent power of the whole environment is palpable. Asthe film progresses and the crew is gradually laid low, it becomes clear thatthey never stood a chance. Their cannons and rifles may have given an advantageover some of the primitive cannibal tribes that they encounter, but ultimatelythe locals and the jungle wipe out the invaders. Perhaps most interesting isthat, while the “conquerors” failed tragically in their quest to subdue theland and its people, the land and its people quash the interlopers with nary abat of the eye. Aguirre and his crew’s grand ideals for power and immortalityamount to little more than an insignificant nuisance, if even that, to theirdestroyers.

As you can tell, this is not exactly a popcorn movie. Oneprobably should not expect to be “entertained” by it. At only a little over 90minutes, though, it is not a massive time commitment, and there’s plenty ofbeautiful, natural imagery juxtaposed with the brutality. I would recommendthat everyone watch it at least once, for it offers a great perspective onhumanity’s place in the natural world. The themes in Aguirre, though expressedin a setting nearly five centuries old, are just as poignant today.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love this Movie (Done after somefurther research.)

How much fact? How much fiction? Anyone who watches a“historically based” movie has to wonder this. The answer in the case ofAguirre, The Wrath of God is a mix. Herzog did use a few historical accountsabout a real expedition involving some of the men and women portrayed in thefilm. However, Herzog streamlined and refashioned them to keep the filmtighter. The reality is actually more terrifying. The historical Aguirre didattempt to lead a revolt against Spain.Rather than meet his fate in the middle of a Peruvian river, though, he set upon an island off the coast of Venezuela.His vainglorious attempt to overthrow the Spanish crown ended with his mendeserting him for pardons and Aguirre being captured, drawn and quartered, butnot before he killed his own daughter.

As if the film rendition of the psychotic Don Lope de Aguirre weren't terrifying enough, the actual man was probably even more frightening.

Herzog’s modified film version is what any maverickfilm-maker seeks: a monumental piece of art made on a laughable budget. Herzogmade this film on a measly $350,000, but he showed how vision and talent canovercome such financial limitations. While not released in the U.S.for several years after its unveiling, Aguirre was an instant critical successaround the world. In the forty years since, its stature has only grown. Some ofthe most heavily and obviously influenced films to follow Herzog’s basictemplate are: Apocalypse Now, Predator, The Mission, and The New World. I’veseen the first three, and though they are vastly different from one another, Ilove them all.

There are no real surprises when it comes to why this movieis so lauded. In this 1999 review, Roger Ebert does a nice job capsulizing themerits that virtually all other professional reviewers see in not only thismovie, but many of Werner Herzog’s others.

Probably the most fascinating thing to learn about thismovie is the borderline insanity of lead man Klaus Kinski. If you read theEbert review referenced above, you get some of the tales. An even more completelist of Kinski’s Grade-A whack-job antics is here at wikipedia, including hisshooting off an extra’s finger, and basically scaring the living hell out ofeveryone on the set. Herzog used this to the film’s advantage, allowing Kinskito have his volcanic temper tantrums, run out of energy, and then film thedesired scene. The result is magic. By adding the odd limp to his stride,coupled with his own very real, smoldering anger, Kinski as Aguirre is a frighteningsight to behold.

By the end, this is all that's left of the men's hopes of reaching the Lost City of Gold.

That’s a wrap. 70 shows down. 35 to go.

Coming Soon: Day for Night (1973):

Another film that I know nothing about, aside from what itsays on the sleeve of the DVD. Come on backin about a week to see what I think about this French film.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #69: Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (1972)

2012-01-01T12:00:00.001-05:00

Title for us English-Speaking Types: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

Director: Luis Bunuel

Initial Release Country: France

Times Previously Seen: once (about 3 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Sextet of middle-classers try to get some grub repeatedly. Fail repeatedly. Have weird dreams between each failure.

Extended Summary (Slightly longer plot synopsis. Spoilers included. Fair warning.)

Actually, my little caveat above is more pointless than normal. It's all but impossible to “spoil” this movie, given the story.

In early 1970s Paris, four middle-aged, middle-class people arrive at a pleasant home for an evening dinner, only to surprise the supposed hostess, who tells the four that their dinner date is for the following evening. This also explains why the hostess' husband is not there. The five improvise and head out to a nearby inn for some dinner. Their effort is thwarted, however, when they enter the inn to find a funeral service being given for the recently-deceased owner.

The next day, the three men, two of them French government officials and the other a diplomat from a South American country, meet in the diplomat's office. The three are involved in drug smuggling. The two Frenchmen's wives and single sister-in-law are clueless to their doings.

Just one of the many soon-to-be interrupted attempts at dinner. If you look closely, you can almost see the arrogance and entitlement radiating off of all six of the "friends".

Over the next several days, the sextet repeatedly attempt to have a meal or a drink together, only to be thwarted at every turn. Whether they are in pairs, trios, or larger groups, every time they are about to be served, something interferes. Some interruptions are mundane: the first evening's schedule mix-up, or a restaurant being out of basically everything. Others are far more bizarre, such as being interrupted by strangely forthcoming soldiers barging in and unburdening themselves with odd tales. Still others take the form of dreams begun but unfulfilled.

Most of the six people get lost briefly in a dream of theirs. Some include the embarrassment of being caught on a theater stage, having forgotten one's lines. Others have dreams about being in a duel, or being arrested with all of their friends for their illegal drug smuggling. Whatever the dream or interruption, not one of the person's tales, or even tales within tales, is completed.

One of the more violent dream sequences, with the Senechal gunning down a man who has offended his honor.

Interspersed throughout the menagerie of unfulfilled narratives are occasional looks at the entire group of six, walking along a desolate road in the middle of the country, with no clear goal in sight.

I would offer a link to a more detailed, complete plot synopsis, but finding one it rather difficult. Read into that what you will.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing of the film, before any research.)

When American comedians make fun of “weird European movies”, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is almost certainly what they have in mind. As you may be able to tell from my rather vague plot synopsis, this movie does not fit into any standard categories. There is no main story arc (aside from six people trying to get some food), and virtually no standard cohesion from one scene to the next. The mad hopping between dream sequences and quirky occurrences can be dizzying, and I think any viewer can be excused for uttering “Whaaahh...??” more than a few times while watching.

Did I like it? Actually, yeah. More or less.

I felt like I had a pretty good handle on what director Luis Bunuel was doing with this movie. I had seen it before, and I felt like I “got” the point. And then, after watching, my girlfriend articulated it far better than I could. She explained that she'd never seen a film that captured the “unfulfillment aspect” of dreams so well. Every single little story, of which there are no less than a dozen, leaves the viewer wanting, just as the characters in the movie are constantly left wanting. This is, for many people, much like their own dream experiences.

One of the more universal dream fears is revealed in the dinner-on-stage scene. The main players almost all flee due to self-consciousness or nervousness at having "forgotten their lines".

When dwelling on it, I can't help but compare it to a recent blockbuster film dealing with dreams, Inception. In that much more recent movie, the hyper-organized Christopher Nolan deals with the malleability of dreams, but keeps the story air tight, almost to the point of snapping the seams. In The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Bunuel was clearly going for the true dream-like experience: the tighter you grasp for the meaning or a sense of closure, the more you're going to lose them. Once you figure this out, it's easier to sit back, stop wondering about the point, and enjoy the bizarre spectacle.

Lest you think the movie is just a cluster of peculiar scenes thrown against a wall, I need to clarify. There is a rather loose narrative that holds things together. The six middle-class main characters are rather self-absorbed and not exactly likable. For this reason, I didn't mind seeing them spun about and tormented by their own mildly warped circumstances or inner thoughts. It also brought to mind the wonderfully strange Flann O'Brien book, The Third Policeman. In it, a young thief and murderer is sent to hell, but doesn't know it. As things go from familiar to strange to absolutely torturous, he never realizes exactly where he is. Every time he comes close to getting a handle, the entire situation shifts, leaving him even more confused, frustrated, and dejected than before. Bunuel's film isn't as disturbing as all that, but the general feel is similar.

The film also keeps a nice level of humor throughout. The oddity of many of the situations is humorous, if in a wry way. More than this are the dead-pan performances of most of the cast. Weirdness is at its funniest when it's played straight, and the actors got it right on in this movie. This isn't a gut-busting, laugh-fest by any means. Still, I found plenty to smile and laugh at, from the attempts to eat plastic stage prop food in the “theater dream” scene, to the clever little evasions about exactly where the fictitious country “Miranda” really is, and even to the oddly open soldiers’ tellings of their private dreams. Added to it all is the acceptance of every other character of the quirkiness of all of these things.

The second of two wryly humorous scenes in which soldiers simply show up, interrupt, and tell bizarre tales about their own dreams of horror and death. A contrast with the pithy concerns of our egocentric sextet? Possibly.

This is yet another movie that you need to be in the right frame of mind to deal with. If you take each scene at a time and don’t attempt to judge the whole by the standards of most narrative films, you should find it enjoyable. I certainly did, though this isn’t a movie I see myself running back to anytime soon.

Take 2: Or, Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research on the movie):

In reading up on this film, I realize that my Take 1 missed mention of the obvious – the social commentary. This is not something that is difficult to miss in the film, though other commentators have done a far better job analyzing it than I could.

What gives The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie an even greater helping of food for thought is what gave most, if not all, of Luis Bunuel’s movies the same: the revelation of hypocrisy. I’ve only seen a few of his other films, but the theme is clearly there. Politeness, manners, and fashion are a thin façade behind which lurk the basest animal desires and fears. Lust, humiliation, and death are all represented in this movie, filtered through the self-interested viewpoints and subconscious of the main characters’ dreams. These things might be presented as horrifying by many other directors, but Bunuel always had a different approach.

The Senechal, almost escaping notice and capture, reveals his own presence to the police by reaching out a taking a sandwich from the table. One example of some common visual humor blended into other moments of a dryer comic type.

In this review of the film, Roger Ebert does a nice job explaining some of the subtleties of Bunuel’s themes, and how he used humor to reveal the human psyche. The interesting thing to me is that Bunuel never really took a side in his commentaries on social classes. His works seemed to attempt to reveal the hypocrisies at work in all people. Some of these revelations are humorous, while some can be highly disturbing.

In this 1973 essay by Carlos Fuentes (done shortly after the release of Discreet Charm), a much broader and deeper look is taken into Bunuel’s life’s work up to that point. It’s an interesting read, in which Fuentes ties together not only the themes mentioned by Ebert, but also the visual techniques that Bunuel employed to convey his messages as an artist. It’s a good little read for anyone who has seen a handful or more of Bunuel’s films.

After this reviewing of the movie and a little bit of research, it is now no surprise to me why The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is on the TIME 100 list. It truly is a different species of film, and piece of art that may very well be a part of the artistic landscape for decades, if not centuries, to come. Like an abstract Picasso painting, you may not always “understand” every little thing about it, but it certainly does catch the eye and stimulate the mind.

That’s a wrap. 69 shows down. 36 to go.

Coming Soon: Aguirre, The Wrath of God (1973):

Another one that I watched a number of years ago, but probably didn’t appreciate very much. I’ve come to like Werner Herzog quite a bit, so I expect to get more out my second viewing of this early work of his.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #68: The Godfather (1972)

2011-12-11T20:56:00.001-05:00

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: 4 or 5 (last seen about 5 years ago)

*The critics who put together the TIME list counted The Godfather and its sequel, The Godfather II, as a single show (no Part III, for reasons obvious to anyone who has ever seen the final installment). I am reviewing them separately, however. Come back in a few weeks to see my review to Part II.

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Mafia family undergoes serious changes following World War II. Mafiosos get whacked in between various family functions.

Extended Summary (A more complete plot synopsis, spoilers included)

Brooklyn, New York. Late 1945. The young Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) has returned from fighting in World War II. He attends his sister's wedding – a massive affair with hundreds of people in attendance. He explains to his new girlfriend, Kay (Diane Keaton), that his family has deep criminal connections, as evidenced by the numbers of people lining up to ask his father, Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) for various political and criminal favors. Michael readily admits to all of this, but assures Kay that he never has and never will have anything to do with that part of his family's business.

The Godfather, Don Vito Corleone, listens to one of the many requests put to him.

Soon after the wedding, Don Vito Corleone meets with his eldest son, Santino “Sonny” (James Caan) and his adopted son and the family's legal counselor, Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall). They discuss a newcomer to the New York area, a narcotics trafficker named Sollazzo, or “The Turk”. The Turk seeks Vito Corleone's protection through his many political connections, so that he can operate his drug business free of police interference. While Sonny and Tom try to convince their father Vito that this would be a lucrative connection to make, Vito decides to refuse. His reasoning is that narcotics is far more dangerous and far less socially acceptable than their standard rackets of gambling, liquor and prostitution. He respectfully tells The Turk as much during their brief meeting.

A few days after his meeting with The Turk, Vito Corleone is gunned down while shopping at a grocery. Vito lives, but is seriously injured. The assassination was arranged by The Turk, who seeks Corleone out of his way so that he and one of the smaller, less powerful rival crime families can move in on his political contacts and usurp the Corleone family's power. Vito, in the hospital and stable but unconscious, has another attempt on his life averted by his son, Michael, who happens to be there for a visit.

With his two attempts to eliminate Vito Corleone having failed, The Turk attempts to coax a truce, using the civilian Michael as the negotiator. Before the meeting, Michael convinces his brothers and family lieutenants that there can be no truce with The Turk, as his father is the lone obstacle to the newcomers' goals. Instead of arranging a deal with The Turk, Michael conceives a plan to assassinate both The Turk and his bodyguard, local police captain McCluskey. Much to the surprise of his brothers, Michael succeeds in killing both targets. However, he must flee the country due to the political and legal pressures.

In hiding from extradition and the other New York mafia families who supported The Turk, Michael spends several months in Sicily, around his father's home town of Corleone. He keeps quiet, but does fall in love and marries a local beauty, Appolonia. Back in New York, Sonny has taken over the Corleone family business while his father gradually recovers his strength. Sonny, however, is not the most level-headed of crime family leaders. His fiery temper allows him to be goaded into racing to his sisters, without his normal guards, on the pretext of protecting her from her abusive husband, Carlo. Sonny is gunned to death at an isolated toll booth. In Sicily, a similar attempt is made on Michael. This assassination attempt, though, goes horribly wrong and kills Appolonia instead.

Sonny getting ambushed and annihilated on the causeway. This causes, and paves the way for, Michael's rise in the family business.

In New York, Vito Corleone has recovered a certain amount of strength. With Sonny dead and Michael a constant revenge target, he calls a meeting of family heads. He calls for a truce from all sides, swearing that, as long as Michael’s safety is assured, he will use his political contacts to assist any family who wishes to delve into the illegal narcotics business. From the interactions at the meeting, the savvy Vito also determines that it was his rival Don Barzini who had supported the Turk and set up the initial assassination attempt on his own life, as well as Sonny's and Michael's.

Michael returns to New York and reunites with Kay. They get married and, over the course of a few years, have children. Meanwhile, with the help of his aging father Vito, Michael slowly becomes the head of his family's business, legal and illicit alike. Michael is quickly thrust into the role of full-fledged family head when, unexpectedly, Vito dies of a sudden heart attack.

At his father's funeral, new Don Michael quietly and ruthlessly calculates how to retain and increase his family's power. Other bosses, beware.

Michael then moves with blinding quickness to consolidate and secure his family's interests. In Las Vegas, where his doltish elder brother FredoBarzini, and even Moe Green in Vegas, are executed.

As his final moves, Michael coolly calls for the deaths of two men very close to his family. One is his brother-in-law, Carlo, who had a hand in Sonny's death. The other is his deceased father's long-time lieutenant, Tessio (Abe Vigoda), who was going to attempt to assassinate Michael himself. When these murders are completed, the Corleone family's control in firmly in Michael's hands. Kay, who has been willfully ignorant of Michael's actions, finally asks her husband if he had a hand in all of these brutal slayings, including their brother-in-law, Carlo. Michael coldly lies to Kay, who buys the lie and sees Michael's ascension to “Don Michael”, the new Godfather and head of the Corleone family.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing)

An absolute titan of a movie, and one that I really never get tired of watching.

After you've seen The Godfather once, it's almost impossible to see it with fresh eyes. The movie has become so firmly ingrained in our popular culture that you would think it might become stale and tired. Yet it doesn't. This speaks volumes for how strong a film it is, and its strength comes from sources that go far beyond what a mere plot synopsis can convey.

The story of the Corleone family's crime involvement and its interpersonal dynamics are a great melding of Greek tragedy and the American Dream. This theme is as simple as it is attractive to many of us American viewers – riches and power can not save people from themselves. As powerful as the Corleone family is, the odd dysfunctions of any family remain. However, unlike most families', the falls are far greater and more spectacular when happening from such heights of ostentatious wealth. This runs through the Corleone family, but most obviously in Sonny, whose Herculean rage leads directly to his own brutal and bloody demise.

Looks like a nice family, right? Wrong. Just in this picture, you have: a hot-headed womanizer, a dangerously doltish stooge, a cold-blooded killer, and several willfully ignorant and complicit spouses. And I haven't even gotten to the adults in the photo.

Of course, The Godfather was far from the first gangster movie, or even the first mafia movie. It was, though, one of the first to bring this notion of family responsibility and honor to the fore. The first 30 or so minutes take place at a wedding – the most cordial and joyous of family events. While the guests are laughing, dancing and singing, however, sinister things are going on in the dark office of Vito Corleone. When not briefly outside with his guests, Don Vito makes deals with various supplicants, promising to use his power to give them what they want, provided that he can call on favors from them in the future. These quiet deals are what make the entire wealthy family machine run. Seeing the wedding take place right along side of it drives the point home.

The point of family cannot be overstated, and it is a great exercise to ponder its various meanings in the story of The Godfather. When watching this recent time, I began to realize just how, in the tale, we are seeing a more subtle transition within the Corleone family. Beyond the handing over of power from Vito to Michael, or the transition from New York to Las Vegas, is the ever-so-slight shift in the family/crime formula. Though we don't get Vito's back-story until the sequel film, we can understand that he is a man for whom family is paramount. The fact that his methods of supporting his family happen to be illegal is of minor consequence to him. We viewers don't have to agree with it, but we can understand and maybe even sympathize with him a little, for Vito does have a moral compass. His children, on the other hand, are a different breed. The hot-tempered Sonny, while a loving brother and son, is easily tempted by money and women. Michael seems to understand the value of family as a concept, but lacks the genuine emotion that was his father's most endearing trait. For Sonny and Michael, the family becomes a sham facade that supports their illegal and immoral activities. This inversion is fairly clear, but the elements that tip the scales are only matters of degree between generations of Corleones.

Michael gets advice from his father. Michael has the brains and wherewithal to do what needs to be done. However, he never does have or obtain the genuine love of people and family, which are his father's redeeming traits.

Of course, the higher-minded themes are only a part of a great movie. A compulsively watchable film needs great characters, as well, and The Godfather has them in spades. The Corleones themselves, Vito, Tom Hagen, Sonny, Fredo, Connie, Michael are fascinating enough, with odd dynamics throughout. But equally compelling are all of the minor characters. The Godfather has a solid two dozen memorable faces and characters, many of them with their own linguistic hooks and gestures that stay with you long after the film is over. A prime example is the bombastic and megalomaniacal film producer Jack Woltz. Woltz's self-satisfaction, pride, and epithet-riddled tirades are hilariously engaging.

Woltz also brings up another great element – the humor. The Godfather is loaded with drama and several brief, brutal, and graphic scenes of violence; these are fantastically tempered by the many moments of humor sprinkled throughout. Whether it's Woltz shifting from his condescension of Italians to the German-Irish Tom Hagen by calling him his “kraut-mick friend!”, or it's Appolonia's oblivious butchered English (“Mawnday, Toosday, Thursday, Wensday...”), or even the simple silliness of Vito Corleone scaring his grandson by sticking and orange peel in his mouth, there is a gamut of levity offered throughout. This is also another element that builds a sense of genuineness in all of the characters, and makes them far more than cardboard cutout cliched gangster characters.

The composition of the film is rightly regarded as the height of cinema. Francis Ford Coppola may have only outdone himself with The Godfather II, but only slightly if so. The classic look and feel of every environment and shot in The Godfather is iconic, which is why it has become such a standard for any film. I recall a former New York journalist who, in the 1990s, recounted the cultural effects of The Godfather. He said that it became the movie that every wannabe-wiseguy in the country watched, in order to learn how to “act like a genuine gangster.” It's not hard to see why – so many of the characters possess the ruthlessness, savvy, and style that any aimless young hood would aspire to.

This is exactly the icon that nearly every mafia hopeful and poser aspired to for decades after Coppola's movie. A good haircut, an expensive suit, and a leather chair from which to dispense life and death.

It is difficult to find faults with the movie, but a few things do show up to me. One is that there are a few jerky time jumps. In the second half of the film, around five or so years whisk by, with only a few nonchalant mentions by the characters. It is slightly dizzying. More than this though (and I may be in the minority on this) is that I have never been overwhelmed by Al Pacino in this movie. As great as he has been in other movies, I always find his turn as Michael Corleone as very flat. I understand that he is supposed to be the cold, calculating, and lethally capable heir to his father, and this part comes across just fine. The thing I have never bought is exactly what the naive and warm Kay sees in him. Perhaps this is something that is explored far more in the source novel by Mario Puzo, but it is never clear in the film.

These things aside, The Godfather is superb. Even a person who is not enamored of gangster movies should love watching such an epic tale of the inner working of a dynastic family like the Corleones. It expertly blends nearly every element of great cinematic storytelling into a movie that is uniquely American, yet universally appealing. If you have never seen it, you absolutely need to give it a try.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research on the film.)

When it comes to such a universally-hailed film like The Godfather, there's not much someone like me can do to “explain” its status. Volume after volume has been written about it, and one doesn't have to look very far to find scores of interesting background and factoids on the movie. Here are just a few of my favorites:

The improvisation. I absolutely love learning what things have been concocted, extemporaneously, by the actors. I always assume that this is what marks the absolute greatest actors – the ability to add things into the movies from their guts, which become as memorable as anything. The Godfather has a few gems. One is James Caan's rapid-fire addition of the phrase “bada-bing!” when he's explaining to his “nice, college boy” kid brother just how he'll have to shoot Sollozzo and McCluskey in the face. All of us, even those from far outside of New York, are now well familiar with this little Italian-American-ism. Another is Brando's open-handed smack of Johnnie Fontaine, when he commands him to “act like a man!”. Apparently, actor Al Martino was too tight in the scene, and Brando decided to shake him up. It worked. You just have to look at Martino's face to see it. There are plenty of others, but these were a few of the standouts.

Rather than go on and on, I'll just recommend that any fan of this movie should seek out a few of these behind-the-scenes pieces. A really excellent one is the recently-published The Ultimate Book of Gangster Movies, written by George Anastasia and Glen Macnow. These two guys did a great job of assembling analyses and critiques of their “100 greatest gangster movies”, warts and all. The Godfather and its sequel (which top their list at numbers one and two) get plenty of pages. Another great source is the extra materials on the DVD collections. There are tons of tales of the near-castings and near-firings of Pacino and Coppola, and the countless things that Coppola would not compromise on with the studio, all for the better.

That does it for The Godfather, but I'll be watching Part II in several weeks, and doing a separate write-up for it.

That's a wrap. 68 shows down. 37 to go.

Coming Soon: The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972):

I've seen this Bunuel movie once before. Peculiar. Mind-boggling. Oddly humorous. These are a few of my impressions. Maybe I can glean a little more out of this second viewing.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #67: Xia Nu (1971)

2011-11-26T17:10:00.000-05:00

Title for us English-Types: The Dignified Lady, a.k.a. A Touch of Zen

Director: King Hu

Initial Release Country: Taiwan

Times Previously Seen: none

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Chinese scholar helps a young woman deal with corrupt government officials who pursue her. Many people brandish swords and jump really high.

Extended Summary (Slightly longer plot synopsis. Spoilers included.)

In a small village in Ming Dynasty China, a young man named Ku lives a humble life. He is an artist and a scholar who ekes out a living doing portraits and scribing. The only seeming worry is his mother, who constantly badgers him about his bachelorhood and apparent lack of ambition for more prominent work within the government.

Within a short span, several strangers appear in the town: Doctor Lu, the blind fortune-teller Shih, a government official named Ouyang, and the young woman Ying. The very private and rarely-seen Ying actually moves into the supposedly haunted fort next to Ku's ramshackle home, which is part of a larger dilapidated and disused castle.

Over the next several days, it becomes clear to Ku that each of the newcomers is hiding something beneath their simple public personas. After a few moments of mystery and suspense, Ku learns that Ying, whose real name is Yang, is the daughter of a former magistrate who was going to inform the emperor of massive corruption. The primary figure involved in the corruption is someone known as “Eunuch Wei”, who intercepted Yang's father and had him tortured to death. Yang flees with two trusted generals – Shih and Lu – until they find refuge in the monastery of fighting Buddhist monks and remain there for two years.

Back in the present, Ku and Yang share an evening in each other's arms. Shortly after, Ku helps Yang and her two general protectors to lure Eunuch Wei's forces into a trap. Using local superstition and his own mechanical contrivances, Ku entices hundreds of Wei's forces, led by corrupt local officials, into the “haunted” fort and methodically lays waste to them with various traps. His plan is executed brilliantly, but he finds that Yang has fled the morning after their night-time victory.

Yang, Ku, and the generals trek through the jungle. You can bet that bodies and blades will be soaring through the air, shortly.

Ku, over several months, tracks Yang back to the monastery where she previously was sheltered. Before he can ascend the monastery mountain and find her, though, a monk brings down a newborn child – the result of his single night with Yang. With the child is a note from Yang asking that she not be disturbed, for she seeks permanent solitude in the monastery. Ku, dejected, begins to take the child home.

Ku and his infant son do not get far when he is accosted by a small band of soldiers, headed by Hsu Hsen-Chen, the brutal and powerful leader of Eunuch Wei's forces. Before Hsu can take Ku, however, Yang and the monastery's master, Abbot Hui, intercede. The immensely powerful yet impassive Hui uses his remarkable martial skills to eventually subdue and dispatch the considerable might of Hsu, though not before receiving a mortal wound at his hands.

In the end, the wounded but living Ku and Yang look on as Abbot Hui struggles to ascend a nearby rock formation. Hui sits in a lotus pose and becomes one with Buddha.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this one viewing, before any research on the movie.)

This movie is as good as I can imagine a kung-fu movie getting, which tells me that kung-fu movies just are not my thing.

A Touch of Zen has a ton going for it, which is good since it clocks in at over three full hours. There are plenty of compelling things that will enthrall a viewer, as they did me. The movie blends several strong components with a style that, though familiar, takes on a different feel due to the unique setting. However, after a certain point, the genre elements of the movie became rather dull.

The movie is divided into two parts, as most 180-plus-minute movies are, and the division is not just temporal. The very style of the movie changes drastically between the first and second parts. When dwelling on the first part of the movie, I can't help but think of the previous movie that I reviewed for this blog, Once Upon a Time In the West. Like that and other Leone films, A Touch of Zen begins with very deliberate, quiet pacing. It allows the viewer to passively drink in the scenery, the characters, and everything about the setting. I found this enjoyable since the director, King Hu (yes, that was his name – your sophomoric joke here), had a real eye for camera placement. I don't know if he was a student of Sergio Leone's films, but the parallels are hard to miss. Plenty of wide-angle shots cut with close-ups, featuring the vibrant faces and varying landscapes catch the eye throughout the film.

Many of these earlier scenes in the village create a great feel for the little place, not unlike Sergio Leone's Westerns.

Another great strength of the first half of the film is revelations about the various mysterious characters. It takes well over an hour to get the whole story of Uoyang, Ying and the generals, but until you do, the intrigue makes for great theater. I also found it great that a lot of the suspicions and enigmas are, initially, merely hinted at through looks and gestures rather than superfluous dialogue.

Hu definitely took a slow-burn approach to this, and I loved the way that it inched its way into the movie. It starts with a small attack between two people. To this point, there has been nothing outlandish in the film. Suddenly, in the midst of a fight, two fellows are deflecting daggers with their bare hands and leaping ten to twenty feet in the air off of tree branches. These initial dashes of the supernatural work well within the movie early on, and they lend an entertaining sense of adventure.

However, the second part of the film defines the phrase “too much of a good thing” to me. Whereas the first 90 minutes mostly comprise still moments punctuated by gradually-extended action sequences, the second half of the film is almost all action, with very few quieter moments. It's pretty neat to see a few people flying around like trapezists and dueling with swords for a bit, but after an hour, I found it tedious. I can certainly appreciate the acrobatic, choreographic, cinematic, and editing skill that all of these scenes took, but come on. Once the point is made that the characters are possessed of these Buddha-granted fighting powers of extraordinary magnitude, it morphs into pure stylization. And I can only handle so much style when there's no substance being added.

Abbot Hui, whose Enlightenment will kick your ass off.

A saving grace did come at the end for me. While roughly 45 minutes of the final hour of the film consists of extended fighting sequences, the finale is one of very interesting imagery. Abbot Hui, who was brilliantly played by the quietly imposing Roy Chiao, sitting in the lotus pose with the setting sun forming a halo behind him puts a wonderfully ambiguous and iconic stamp on the tale. Perhaps the implication is clearer to viewers more familiar with Buddhism, but a novitiate Westerner like myself is left to marvel and ponder exactly what this all means, especially in light of the fact the never-seen arch enemy, Eunuch Wei, is never conquered.

Despite this satisfying and metaphysical moment of closure, it takes a long time to get there. It also highlights one of the things that I wanted to see more of – the monks. Perhaps restraint was the best course here for the filmmakers, as too much of these orange-robed warriors as salt might have spoiled the broth. Still, I felt that there were plenty of questions left unanswered about this key component to the story. What is their philosophy, that it leads them to train themselves into nigh-unbeatable unarmed combatants? How do they do it? What is the synthesis between the pacifist Buddhist mindset and the ability to throw trained soldiers around like rag dolls? The lack of exploration of these questions left me wanting.

The only other thing that bothered me is something that the filmmakers possibly had no control over. Maybe due to a shoddy DVD transfer, some of the night scenes are impossibly dark. Typified most by the long midnight ambush of Ku and Yang's followers on Eunuch Wei's forces near the end of Part 1, there are times when the viewer can barely tell what's happening on screen. It's only emphasized by how well the rest of the movie is shot, with its masterfully composed sets and framing. The night sequences often blur into random shadows rushing around amidst the screams. The impenetrable murk did little to enhance these moments. Again, though, this may just be an age and DVD quality issue.

The ultimate question for me with any of these movies is, “Why did the fellows who did the TIME list put it on with the other 99 shows?” Whereas it is totally obvious with many of the movies on the list, with A Touch of Zen, I can only speculate. My guess is that it was probably one of the first films to have the high-flying, effects-enhanced martial arts action sequences that have become renowned the world over, thanks to films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. Beyond this, it combines pathos with a polished, epic feel that many action films aspire to, but rarely achieve.

Would I watch it again? No. Not in its entirety, at least. Oddly, I would watch the slow first hour for its gradual and soothing pacing. More though, I would watch the final ten minutes again, as the final scenes offer some food for philosophical thought. You can keep the 90-plus minutes of over-the-top sword fights.

Take 2: Or, Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research on the movie.)

When it comes to this movie, there's really not a wealth of material to dog through on the Internet. Within what I did find, there was nothing surprising. Critics, both past and present, hailed A Touch of Zen as an excellent film, in terms of technique (It won the 1975 Cannes Film Festival Technical Grand Prize, and was nominated for the Palm d'Or.). No shocker there, as the visuals still hold up exceptionally well, even here in 2011.

The theme of Buddhism comes up quite a lot. Apparently, King Hu was lauded for his blending of the philosophy with the flash and style of the fighting sequences.

The only other common thread running through any materials I found was how A Touch of Zen has continued to be emulated. Virtually every site I found mentions either Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; House of Flying Daggers, or both. All you have to do is watch a ten-minute clip of the 1971 original movie to see exactly why.

Would I recommend it? Only to people who know they like kung-fu movies, as A Touch of Zen is to kung-fu movies what the Godfather is to mafia flicks. It set standards that have and will persist through the decades. If, like me, the genre is not your thing, I highly doubt you'll be willing to hand over the three hours it takes to watch. Maybe just youtube the final ten minutes or so.

That's a wrap. 67 shows down. 38 to go.

Coming Soon: The Godfather (1972):

Yes!! I'm as excited about this one as I was about Casablanca. I don't care what kind of film snob you might be, you lose credibility if you don't enjoy this classic. I haven't watched it in several years, so I'm due. Come on back and see how I put my admiration to words.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #66: C'era una volta il West (1968)

2011-11-07T18:08:00.000-05:00

Title for us English-Speaking Types: Once Upon a Time in the West

Director: Sergio Leone

Initial Release Country: Italy

Times Previously Seen: once (about 10 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Mysterious drifter meets beautiful widow in the Wild West. Tangles with a wild outlaw, a bad dude in black, and railroads. Stares at everything.

Extended Summary (Slightly longer plot synopsis, spoilers included. Fair warning.)

An unnamed man (Charles Bronson) with a penchant for playing a harmonica arrives in a developing part of the West during the expansion in the 19th century. He has come looking for revenge against man named Frank (Henry Fonda). Frank is a cold-blooded assassin hired by a railroad magnate, Morton, to help his railroad reach the west coast. Standing in their way is Jill, a former prostitute who has recently married the enterprising Brett McBain, a landowner who has been murdered, along with his three children, by Frank and his gang of thugs. McBain had, years before, foreseen that the railroad would need to come through the area, so he bought land and planned to build an entire town around it – a town he would name Sweetwater. Now, only his widow Jill is left to see his dream come to fruition, if she avoids Morton and Frank's attempts to get rid of her.

Mixed up in all of this is the outlaw Cheyenne (Jason Robards). Cheyenne is on the run from the law, but has a certain dignity and code that ingratiate him to both Harmonica and Jill. Cheyenne has been framed by Frank for the murder of the McBains, so he also has motivation to find this cunning killer. It takes a while for Harmonica, Jill, and Cheyenne to uncover McBain's plans for Sweetwater. Once they do, they realize their aims are in line with each other. After some close calls and a few twists, Morton is killed by Cheyenne's men, and Harmonica gets his showdown with Frank. Harmonica shoots Frank in a stand-off and only then reveals that he is the younger brother of one of Frank's many victims over his bloody years. He has waited patiently for decades to confront Frank and put an end to his murdering life.

Harmonica gets his cold revenge.

With Frank dead, Harmonica heads away from Sweetwater, the construction of which is now in full-swing. Brett McBain had bought all of the wood and supplies needed to construct the train station and the town around it. With Morton and his goons out of the way, Jill and her dozens of hired men are free to build up her dead husband's ultimate wish.

An exceptionally detailed, full plot summary can be found here, at imdb's website.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any further research.)

I now see why the creators of the TIME list put this one on there. It's not only a standout western, but simply a great movie, regardless of genre. My quick-shot summary above gives you no idea of just how great.

I had watched this once before and wondered why, with The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly already on the list, the fellows at TIME had put another Leone western on it. After all, aren't his westerns all similarly unique in carrying those Leone trademarks? Yes and no.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is brilliant, no doubt. (You can read me gush about it in this post that I did several weeks ago). And while there are glimmers of some deeper commentary about U.S. history and violence in the movie, it is ultimately an epic adventure story. Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes hop from locale to locale, trying to out-duel and outsmart each other in ways that keep the watcher engaged in a very accessible way. Once Upon A Time in the West, despite some excellent action sequences, is another breed.

With this film, Leone slowed things down considerably. One only needs to watch the first ten minutes to see it. In that former film, you start with an extended close-up and a few slow minutes of build-up before you get Tuco Ramirez gunning down three bounty hunters and crashing through a barber shop window. In Once Upon A Time, it's nearly ten minutes of almost no action. We watch three of Frank's men walk into a train station and patiently wait for Harmonica as the opening credits intermittently pop up. Missing also is the early introduction of a rousing Ennio Morricone soundtrack, which one doesn't hear until nearly ten minutes in. I imagine that many modern viewers would lose patience with such pacing, but it's perfect for conveying the eerie and misleading stillness of the terrain and the characters.

It takes nearly ten tension-building, dialogue-free minutes to get to the first piece of fast action. Harmonica (in the distance) is about to show these 3 hombres what happens when you mess with the quiet guy in a Leone Western.

It is with this same slow and gradual pacing that the entire story of the film is told over two hours and forty-five minutes. I can't help but think that many modern viewers would not have the wherewithal for it. For those who do, though, there are payoffs galore. The sweeping long shots of the wide open southwestern terrain are incredible, surpassing even the earlier works of Leone himself. I was reminded of another director's observation that Leone, like many other Italian artists raised on steady diets of classical painting techniques, had an innate knack for frame composition. Time and again in this movie, you can simply drink in the landscape and marvel at how the characters and their story fit into it.

Of course, the movie isn't telling the tale of southwestern U.S. geography. Its lifeblood is in the narrative and the characters. Like his other spaghetti westerns (a slight misnomer, since some scenes were filmed in Utah and Arizona), Leone's characters are not exactly the most well-rounded you will ever come across. Still, they are intriguing, and they have just enough facets to make them compelling. Sure, Harmonica is pretty much the same “man with no name” that Eastwood played in the “Dollars” trilogy; and sure, Cheyenne is a slight twist on Tuco Ramirez from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. All the same, they're entertaining. The most novel addition is Jill – easily the strongest and most prominent female character in any of Leone's movies.

The biggest eye-opener in terms of characters is Frank. Not so much because of the character (not too dissimilar from Angel Eyes in The Good) , but because of who played the role. Having established and all-American swell guy Henry Fonda gunning down children, kidnapping women, and generally exuding evil is hypnotic. With those piercing eyes and almost kindly voice, it borders on terrifying to see him do his butcher's work with such icy satisfaction. Fonda was so good at the role that it almost seems a loss that he didn't get pegged for more dastardly roles earlier in his career.

Fonda's gaze is as dead as the pale corpses he leaves in his wake. Tom Joad, this ain't.

Fonda is clearly the standout, but a few other performances shouldn't go overlooked. Charles Bronson is, well, Charles Bronson. He's still. He's quiet. He has a mean glare. That was enough for this role, just like every other role he every had. Claudia Cardinale is solid as the world-weary ex-prostitute, Jill. She was smoking hot, no doubt, but also has a sultry wisdom that fit the part to a tee. Easily the best of the other main players, though, is Jason Robards as Cheyenne. Most markedly in his scenes with Cardinale, Robards is outstanding as the scuzzy yet compassionate, larcenous yet honorable criminal. I don't think I'll put him up there with Tuco in my esteem, but he's pretty close.

On top of the great visuals, pacing, and solid characters and acting, is the underlying theme of western expansion. This is what puts this movie over the top. While Leone made a few feints at social commentary and figurative imagery in his previous film, he really goes for it in Once Upon a Time, and I feel that he does it right. The West was “won” by the sweat, blood, and pain of who-knows-how-many people, and the idealism and greed of wealthy magnates who didn't much care who got ground up along the way. This movie can be seen as a forefather of more modern film takes on the subject like There Will Be Blood. Fortunately, Leone never bashes you over the head with symbolism. Probably the best moment of restraint is when the decrepit rail magnate Morton is dying, face-down near a tiny puddle. We could have been treated to a clumsy interposition of the Pacific Ocean right then, but we aren't. We simply see the image play out, along with Frank, and take in just how a grand scheme can end so pathetically.

The rail magnate Morton gazes at a picture of his dream, the Pacific. The closest he gets is the shallow pool of dusty desert water, where he dies.

If there's anything to nitpick, one is that Leone often pushes verisimilitude to the back so that clever film style can be front and center. Some scenes are easy to dismiss as a bit silly and unrealistic, such as when Frank's thugs silently take over the auction for the Sweetwater property. A touch goofy it may be, but even scenes like this are simply chances for Leone to use visual rather than dialectic storytelling. And, as anyone who has seen and knows his films can attest, he was brilliant at this. I've always been a fan of being forced to actually watch the movie, and not just rely on exposition. I can see why some viewers might poo-poo these sequences as parlor tricks of sorts, but I'm always amused and impressed by them.

My only other minor gripe is that the Ennio Morricone soundtrack in Once Upon a Time is not quite as strong as The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. It's certainly as quirky and unique, but I actually found the integrated harmonica wail mostly annoying. Luckily, Cheyenne's theme song had a playful bounce to it, which accompanied the character's more amiable nature nicely.

Jason Robards has the look and psychology of the cynically humorous thief, Cheyenne, down pat.

Any who enjoy westerns or simply well-crafted movies that make full use of the techniques particular to the medium should give this one a serious shot. As I suggested in my review of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, a good primer is working through Leone's three films with Clint Eastwood, starting with the 90-minute A Fistful of Dollars. The production isn't nearly as sharp (it was probably made with about $45), but the director's skill is easy to see. If you enjoy that, work your way through the rest, and cap it off with Once Upon a Time in the West, probably the most enduring of them all.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after a little more research on the film.)

After some digging, I am reminded why many movie lovers can be forgiven if they have never seen or even heard of this movie. Here in the U.S., it was a total flop.

Thanks to Paramount's meddling and editing, the original had 20 minutes cut out of it, which never helps narrative cohesion. More than this, though, was a seeming lack of preparation on the parts of the viewers. Both Paramount and American audiences were hoping for another skewed, high-paced action flick like the previous "Dollars" trilogy. They weren't ready for such a slow, deliberately paced movie. Even Roger Ebert, who was often ahead of the critical curve with his viewing eye, was lukewarm in his original review in 1969. In contrast, French and Italian audiences loved it. So much so that the movie would run in some places for up to four years following the initial release. In the U.S., it barely lasted a few months.

It wasn't until the mid-80s that the studio restored the original version, and the few American cinephiles who had always revered it could share their vindication. With the intercession of decades, you see the movie pop up all over “best movie” lists.

On the DVD I watched, the most recent special release, there are some excellent short documentaries, featuring past and modern interviews with some of the cast and crew, as well as several prominent modern film directors. They all marvel at how Leone concocted an ultimate summation of the greatest American westerns in Once Upon a Time. The list of films from which he drew is almost an encyclopedia of the genre's greatest works – High Noon, Shane, the Monument Valley films of John Ford, and around a dozen others. Leone not only blended the strongest elements of them all, but he added his own style and cynicism to the themes and characters. One modern commentator called it a massive homage to, and final dirge for, the film Western.

Taking a play right out of the John Ford play book, Leone shot several scenes in the exact same spots of Monument Valley. This shot, along with dozens of others, capture the expansiveness of the whole region.

A note of more specific interest was learning how the music for the film fit into the process. Contrary to almost all other films, the music score was composed first, and the scenes shot to match. The four primary pieces of music, each specific to the four main characters, are introduced separately in turn, and then blended by the end of the movie. The effect is truly remarkable, and a testament to Leone's vision.

Actors loved working with Sergio Leone. This only came as a surprise to me in light of the fact that he was such a visual perfectionist. Another renowned perfectionist, Stanley Kubrick, was notoriously difficult for actors to work with, because of his demands and inflexibility. Leone, on the other hand, gave his actors plenty of latitude to do as they saw fit. Integrating such freedom from performers with his own crystal clear vision is something that boggles my mind.

A final note on Leone's film genius. As I'd heard mentioned when researching The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, apparently Leone never did any story boarding of any kind. Unlike nearly all other highly visual directors, who physically map out their scenes so that the sequencing is correct, Leone had a pure, completely finished tale worked out in his head by the time filming began. I'm reminded of the scene in Milos Foreman's Amadeus when Salieri marvels at seeing Mozart's uncorrected, flawless first drafts of his symphonic and operatic scores. Whether this was true of Mozart or not, it was very true in Leone's case. The fruits of such a sharp imagination can be seen in all of his works.

So again, I highly recommend seeing this movie for those with the time and who know what they're in for. Be patient, soak up the beauty of it, and know that you are watching a film Western classic the likes of which can only be imitated, but never replicated.

If the film artistry isn't enough of a draw for you, maybe this shot will entice you. It also explains why Claudia Cardinale as Jill had jaws dropping across oceans.

That's a wrap. 66 shows down. 39 to go.

Coming Soon: A Touch of Zen (1971)

I'm totally in the dark about this movie. Never heard of it, and only know that it looks like a sword-swinging kung-fu extravaganza. It'll also be the first Chinese movie that I review for this project.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #65: Bonnie and Clyde (1967)

2011-11-01T21:57:00.000-04:00

Director: Arthur Penn

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: once (about 10 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Restless Texas redneck lovers go on a bank-robbing spree during the Great Depression. “Laws”, emotional highs and lows dog their heels.

Extended Summary (More complete plot synopsis, including spoilers. Fair warning.)

Rural Texas, 1931. The 21-year old Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) is agitated by her dead-end life as a waitress living with her mother in a small town. She spies a handsome, dapper young man outside of her house, casing her mother's car, seemingly to rob it. After running out to stop him, the two strike up a conversation during which the man, Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty), readily admits that he has recently been released from prison for an attempted robbery. Bonnie is skeptical to the point of egging Clyde into robbing a nearby grocery store. When Clyde does just that, Bonnie, rather than flee the armed robber, readily hops into a stolen car with him and drives out of town.

When the pair stop just outside of town, Bonnie is so overcome with excitement that she throws herself at Clyde. Surprisingly, Clyde roughly rebuffs her, claiming that he “ain't no loverboy”. Despite this odd reaction to the beautiful and willing Bonnie's advances, the two see that they have a unique connection with each other. Both are seeking to make names for themselves by breaking away from societies' rules. Clyde plans to rob his way to fortune and fame, and Bonnie is all too happy to join him.

The pair of fugitives size up the next member of their little gang.

The two make a failed attempt to rob a bank that has recently gone out of business, but they soon start to find more success. After picking up a strange and disenfranchised young gas station attendant, C.W. Moss, as their getaway driver, they manage a successful bank robbery. However, Clyde shoots and kills a man during their semi-bungled escape.

Once in a safe hotel room, Clyde offers Bonnie a chance for escape. Realizing that he will now be wanted for murder, he urges Bonnie to return home and avoid any potential capital punishment. Bonnie refuses to leave Clyde, thus reaffirming their bond to one another. The two attempt to consummate their love, but Clyde's impotence prevents it yet again.

The trio of fugitives soon meets up with Clyde's older brother, Buck (Gene Hackman), a fellow ex-con, and Buck's wife, the reserved and rather dim-witted Blanche. The fun-loving and simpler Buck readily joins his younger brother's crime spree, Blanche in tow. Clyde welcomes the company of his brother, but Bonnie soon becomes highly agitated at Buck and Blanche's utter lack of sophistication. While Bonnie has some spark of creativity, even writing poetry, Buck, Blanche and C.W. seem to find the game of checkers the height of mental gymnastics. The tensions begin early and grow steadily.

The gang of 5 continue robbing banks throughout Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and other nearby states, hopping borders in order to avoid capture. They avoid some early attempts at capture as they perfect their thievery. They efficiently loot multiple banks, but never take any money from the more humble farmers and locals. Their legend and fame grows rapidly, as newspapers regularly report the deeds, as well as falsely attributing several robberies to the gang.

The gang grows more confident and skilled in their robberies.

Eventually, the law begins to close in. After C.W. Allows himself to be seen in a little town, the police raid the gang's hotel room. After a furious and bloody shootout, the gang escapes, but not without serious injuries. Buck sustains a horrible head wound, Blanche suffers eye damage, and Clyde is shot in the arm. After camping outside to recover slightly, the gang is once again tracked down and attacked. Bonnie, Clyde, and C.W. Manage to get away, though Bonnie is also wounded in the arm. Buck and Blanche are not so lucky. Buck is shot again and soon dies. Blanche, now completely blind, is taken away by the police.

The injured Bonnie and Clyde are driven to safety by C.W., receiving a little support along the way from impoverished Dust Bowlers who are awestruck by the celebrity thieves. C.W. takes the pair to his father's tiny farm, and the man seems to welcome them. This ostensible kindness is merely a front, though. As Bonnie and Clyde recuperate, C.W.'s father privately berates his son for a fool and eventually informs the Texas Rangers about the two fugitives.

In a simple set-up while Bonnie and Clyde return from buying groceries in town, C.W.'s father pretends at having car trouble. The pair pull over to assist, but do not sense the trap. Before either Bonnie or Clyde can react, let alone surrender, a score of Rangers and lawmen open fire upon them from behind the nearby bushes, riddling the couple and their car with dozens of bullets. The mutilated corpses of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow fall limp onto the ground, ending their renowned spree.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any research on the movie.)

Really good movie that holds up exceptionally well.

Bonnie and Clyde may not seem so special to modern, first-time viewer, but with a little awareness of the context, it's not hard to see why it is considered so very influential. Based on my film-watching experience, it created a unique blend of tried-and-true standard film-making conventions with a dash of the novel, leading to entire shifts in the way that crime stories have been told in film.

The story itself is intriguing enough, being based in reality. I personally don't know much about the real Bonnie and Clyde, but I'm eager to do the research for the Part 2. I have to assume that the screenwriters took certain liberties with the dialogue, and even some of the action. What little I do know, however, tells me that the singular personalities and passion of the titular pair of thieves is not a mere fantasy. The bizarre quirks of the two – Bonnie's predilections towards intellectualism and Clyde's sexual impotence, to name the most obvious – give the story a very compelling eccentricity that is lacking in most crime films.

Of course, such unique characters can only be given life by solid acting, and Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty do phenomenally well. While Beatty's Texas accent is a bit inconsistent at times (maybe I can say that only because it's my home state), this is a minor gripe. In all other things, the two actors nail the charm, passion, foolishness, pretentiousness, and rebelliousness that make for intriguing and rounded characters. Being able to pull off such a range of traits can't be easy, but Dunaway and Beatty do just that.

The supporting cast is also quite solid. A young Gene Hackman stands out wonderfully as the loud-mouthed yokel, Buck, and his wife is played to pitch-perfect annoyance by Estelle Parsons. It doesn't take long to see why the more reflective Bonnie takes an instant dislike to the shrieking, mulish Blanche. Even the minor roles by Michael J. Pollard and Gene Wilder (!) make great accents to the film.

The performances and story are certainly strong, but no stronger than quite a few other good crime movies. What sets this one above the rest, I feel, is the direction. Bonnie and Clyde is one of those rare films that wastes nary a second. Every scene, every word, every glance between characters means something and adds to the tale. From the opening shots of a bored Bonnie Parker, pining away in her room, to the final shots of hers and Clyde's lifeless bodies on the ground, this movie is about as tight as they come. There are certainly quiet moments, as well, but even they invite the viewer to pay close attention, as body language and eye movements are telling stories that words aren't. One needs only see a few of Bonnie's eye rolls to see my point.

The quarters get tighter, and Bonnie's patience with her goober gang-mates runs thinner.

Even beyond all of this is the overall story arc and the tone. Bonnie and Clyde might have been the first movie to tell the tale of two criminals in a way that endears them to the audience, and then shoves their bloodied corpses right in your face. The first half of the movie is far heavier on comedy, a lot of which holds up really well, 45 years later. It feels like you're on a fun little escapade with a few young renegades. However, there are allusions of what is to come. After one bank robbery, a farmer whose money Clyde purposefully did not steal, says to a reporter, “That Clyde Barrow done alright by me. I'll be bringin' the Missus to their funeral.” This and other signs remind the viewer of just how this will all end.

Once the “laws”, as Clyde and Buck call them, begin to close in, the humor begins to fade and deadly seriousness takes over. There's a sequence in the film when, at Bonnie's behest, they go out to see her mother and family in a remote rock quarry. The scenes are shot in a washed-out, sepia tone that lends a hazy heaviness to this part of the story. This is totally appropriate, as Bonnie mother senses her daughter's imminent demise and detaches herself with a final, matter-of-fact goodbye.

When the end finally comes, director Arthur Penn puts his ultimate stamp on violent film-making. With a death scene that would be emulated within a scant few years in films such as The Godfather and others, Bonnie and Clyde are mowed down in quick, brutal fashion. In such scenes in earlier films, I can't recall them ever being so shockingly realistic. The likable duo are machine-gunned to death with a scant few seconds. There is no slow-motion or music score to add any semblance of romance or glory to it. There are no death throes or final words from either of the two lovers. One moment they are smiling and alive; the next they are simply no more.

This single frame gives a good sense of just how brutal the finale is. It's lightning-quick and ultimate.

It is the elements in this final scene that set a standard for film violence that many directors misunderstand and misuse today. Someone like Michael Bay seems to think that the violence itself is the artistry and the draw of such things. However, he glamorizes and ultimately anesthetizes people to it through cinematic slight-of-hand. David Cronenberg, on the other hand, follows the Arthur Penn model, in his way. If you watch the death scenes in his recent films A History of Violence or Eastern Promises, you see that these scenes, while few in number, are brutally graphic and shockingly quick. I heard him explain in an interview that this is because he wants the audience to know that violence is not to be polished up for easier consumption, even in a tale of fiction. I think Arthur Penn had this figured out long before his imitators.

Bonnie and Clyde is a revolutionary film, though probably not so obviously a one as other films. It wasn't until I watched it, slept on it, and thought about it for a day that I realize this. I would recommend it virtually anyone who is not completely turned off by rather graphic violence, as the latter half of the film features plenty of it. This aside, it has something for nearly any attentive film-watcher.

Take 2; Or, Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after further research on the film.)

There's almost no end of material that one can lose oneself into when it comes to the Bonnie and Clyde film. Let's start with the real history:

Volumes have been written, so in the interest of time, I went to that oh-so-reliable reference source, wikipedia (hey, I'm running a blog for fun here, not writing a dissertation!). It becomes quite clear that Arthur Penn's movie, as is usually the case with movies, plays extremely fast and loose with the facts. Sure, some of the locales and people's names are correct, and even a few of the general actions are true to fact. Still, a large portion of the true story was molded, shaved, and fashioned into something very different. And this, of course, was the only way that it would work.

The reality of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow is, of course, far less sexy and far more tragic than a Hollywood movie can convey. While true that the two were renegades and had no small affection for each other, the film conveniently leaves out just how many civilians they murdered. Or about Barrow's very troubled younger days, being raped in prison at age 16, essentially channeling his rage to become the personification of the philosophy “Get rich or die trying.” If you read a brief description of Bonnie and Clyde's exploits throughout the Dust Bowl, you become less sympathetic than you probably would be for Beatty's and Dunaway's more affable duo.

The real deal Bonnie and Clyde, goofing around with a shotgun. Unlike the film, in which the duo are unarmed when killed, the originals were loaded for bear and had already taken the lives of multiple civilians and lawmen, alike.

Of course, Arthur Penn's film makes no claims at being a documentary, and so we can view it in a very different way.

Apparently, the going was very rough for the production of the film. A few very talented people were interested, but Warren Beatty landed the production rights. After the film was made, the studio and test audiences apparently hated it, so much so that the studio was planning to only release it in Texas drive-ins. The story goes that Beatty literally begged the studio, on hands and knees, to give it a real chance. They did, to initially lukewarm and even poor reviews. When it was released, the original TIME reviewer called it “sheer, tasteless aimlessness”.

After several months hovering in obscurity, people eventually came around. Once again, Roger Ebert, having only been at the professional film critic gig for less than 6 months, was ahead of the curve. In this more modern 1998 review, he outlines the story of the film with far more detail. He also points out some of the more interesting tones and themes in it, some of which I mentioned in my own “Take 1” above.

In short, the novelty of the movie has resonated right through the succeeding decades, into out very own. For those of us who have grown up with Thelma & Louis or Natural Born Killers as part of the mainstream movie landscape, Bonnie and Clyde may seem rather tame. One only has to realize, however, that this movie was the granddaddy of them. As with Citizen Kane, in inspiring so many imitators in terms of techniques and styles, it's almost hard to see Bonnie and Clyde for just how embedded its innovations are in so many movies that have followed.

I suppose what brought some of it home to me was reading about how many of the early 1967 audiences were shocked, bordering on disgusted. Bonnie and Clyde was seen by many as more violent and sexual than any movie had a right to be.

And you know what? The kids loved it.

Even now, in 2011, some of the scenes have a somewhat uncomfortable promiscuity to them, but maybe that's just that 1960's, grainy look that the film has. Whatever the characters are doing, it always seems to be more illicit when it was filmed in the 1960s and 1970s. Whatever the case, younger viewers were right on board with the maverick tones of sex and violence flying right in the face of the moral majority.

All of this just scratches the surface of the myth-versus-reality angle, the story of the film angle, and any of a number of others. All I really need to do is reiterate that, if you haven't seen this movie, you really should give it a shot. If you do, and you really watch what's being said and done, it's easy to see it for the a truly revolutionary work.

That's a wrap! 65 shows down. 40 to go.

Coming Soon: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

As much as I love Sergio Leone and his movies, I was surprised that they put a second Western of his on the list, already giving The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly a slot. Whatever the reason, I certainly don't mind setting aside about three hours to watch more long shots, extended close-ups, and bizzaro sound effects, as scuzzy buckaroos try to out-shoot and out-stare each other.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #64: Mouchette (1967)

2011-10-24T19:00:00.000-04:00

Director: Robert Bresson

Initial Release Country: France

Times Previously Seen: none

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Sad young teen girl, in sad family situation, in a sad town, gets even sadder due to uncontrollable forces.

Extended Summary (More complete plot synopsis, including spoilers. Fair warning):

Mouchette (Nadine Nortier) is a 14-year old girl in a small town in France in the 1960s. She has virtually nothing going for her. She lives in poverty with a slowly dying invalid mother, a drunken thief of a father, and a helpless infant brother. Whether at school, at work, or removed from either, the only person who seems to value Mouchette at all is her mother, who is confined to her bed and is barely conscious most times. Otherwise, Mouchette is humiliated by teachers and classmates, abused and extorted by her father, and generally given little more than a passing glance by anyone else. Any brief moments of pleasure that she can steal for herself seems to be promptly quashed by some larger, oppressive force in her life.

At a local fair, Mouchette follows a young man she takes a fancy to. Soon after, she is slapped and derided by her domineering, scumbag father.

While sulking through all of this drudgery, Mouchette's life suddenly becomes more frightening and exciting. While hiding in the woods nearby her school to escape a heavy rain one evening, she is near a scuffle between the school's gamekeeper and a local poacher, Arsene (Jean-Claude Guilbert). The two men have romantic designs on the same woman in town, and the gamekeeper confronts Arsene. They tussle a bit and seem to settle their differences by sharing a few shots of liquor.

Some time shortly after, a drunken Arsene wanders through the woods and comes across Mouchette, still huddled under a tree. Arsene, thinking Mouchette may have seen something, brings her out of the woods and to a nearby shelter. Mouchette is aware that Arsene had fought with the gamekeeper, but neither she nor Arsene is sure of the exact outcome, which may have been a murder; Mouchette because she was not there and Arsene because he is too drunk to recall. To be safe, Arsene gives Mouchette an alibi that she can use for Arsene, in the event that the poacher has killed the gamekeeper. Mouchette seems to go along with it, out of either fear or some strange attraction to the nefarious rogue.

Arsene brings Mouchette to a safe-house in the town, where he plans to burn tons of firewood in order to corroborate his concocted alibi of being there all night. As he continues to grill Mouchette on their story, he goes into an epileptic fit. Mouchette comforts him briefly. When Arsene recovers, however, he becomes suspicious and will not let Mouchette leave. After a brief chase around the room, he captures her and forces himself upon her. She resists at first, but then relents to his sexual advance.

Mouchette is bullied by yet another force - the poacher Arsene.

Early the next morning, Mouchette returns home to find her mother in dire condition. After a brief exchange with her, her mother dies quietly, leaving Mouchette with only her father and infant brother.

The next day, as her father sits in mourning over his wife, Mouchette leaves the house on an errand for milk. On her way, she stops at a bakery, where the proprietress is kind at first, but turns insulting when a shaken Mouchette begins to act strangely. Mouchette then goes to the gamekeeper's house, where she unexpectedly finds the man alive and well. She is pulled inside and grilled for a bit by the man and a housemaid, the latter being more sympathetic. The two get the story out of Mouchette of what, exactly, happened with Arsene, with Mouchette embellishing slightly by calling Arsene her “lover”. Mouchette then leaves on her way back home. Along the way, she makes one last stop at an elderly townswoman's house. The woman rambles a bit, but tries to speak to Mouchette about her own life. She even gives the sullen young girl a dress with which to cover her deceased mother at the funeral. Mouchette merely hurls an insult at the old woman and runs out.

Instead of returning home, the thoroughly dejected Mouchette goes to the side of stream and looks out over the water. After some time pondering, she attempts to roll herself down the hill and into the water, only to be prevented by a collection of rushes on the bank. Once more, the girl goes back up the hill. Rolling down with more force of will, she send her body through the rushes and into the water, drowning herself.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this first viewing, before any research):

Boy, these realist films don't play around.

Before watching Mouchette, I did the same thing almost anyone would do – I read the little summary on the DVD sleeve. Within that tight little sub-100 word reading, all of the following words and terms can be found: “...haunting...bleak, hopeless life...alcoholic father and terminally ill mother...grim surroundings...harsh...tragic tale...”

So yeah. I knew what I was in for.

With this foreknowledge, I was spared any nasty surprises, and I probably enjoyed the movie a little more than I would have. Still, it truly is a downer of a movie after which I can't help but ask “What's the point?”

Mouchette's visuals right up there with the best of the naturalist black and white films of Ingmar Bergman and others. While the director, Robert Bresson, used a few more cameras than Bergman, thus creating slightly more kinetic motion, he also used dialogue much more sparingly. Instead, he used wonderful visual storytelling a la the older silent filmmakers and contemporaries like Sergio Leone (though Leone told tales of a completely different ilk).

One of Mouchette's few pleasure. For several minutes, you can see every ounce of joy and attraction on her face as she rides the bumper cars around.

It's also not hard to see how different this film is compared to what was mainstream in the day. Yes, realism had already been around for a few decades, and had even achieved international recognition through films like the Apu Trilogy, Umberto D., Tokyo Story, and plenty of others. Of all of them, though, only the Apu Trilogy comes close to this sad tale of a lonely little girl who has nothing truly going for her, in terms of the weeping factor. And Mouchette goes even further down the road of depression, as the title character is left in the end with absolutely no hope, unlike the young Apu. Hence Mouchette's ultimate decision to end her own life.

Along the way, Mouchette's tale is told with heart-rending realism and subtlety. Often through mere facial expressions and body language, we can see every ounce of humiliation, anger, and even, short-live though it may be, joy that the girl goes through. One can realize that, while poverty is doubtlessly crushing for anyone, it might be even more so for a young person just reaching the age at which she is most emotional, quixotic, and malleable. The only moment of contact she has is a virtual rape. While it is understandable to see this scene with anger at the “she was asking for it” implication as Mouchette rapidly goes from resisting to embracing Arsene, I think it is incorrect. I took it to mean that Mouchette sees this horrific violation of herself as the only connection she can have with anyone. So much so that she even convinces herself that she is now Arsene's lover. Such is the result of utter poverty: physical, emotional, and spiritual.

The end is the icing on the cake, so to speak. I can't pretend to understand suicidal tendencies, but it's not hard to see how the title character's environment would lead to such a mental state. I suspect, though, that most viewers would, like I did, merely want to shake the girl and tell her to snap out of it. When she finally does herself in, I wasn't even sure what to feel. I would have to describe my mental state as the emotional equivalent of a shoulder shrug: “Oh, well. Saw that coming.”

Mouchette's first, failed, attempt at suicide. She gets it right on the next go-round.

As depressing as it all is, it wasn't as much of a chore to watch as I had feared. Mouchette's tale is told with the backdrop of a sexier story involving a jealousy between the gamekeeper and the rakish Arsene. With these more dynamic characters' confrontations adding a spice of energy to things, the movie avoids being an hour-and-twenty-minute drag.

If it isn't obvious from this review, I do not plan to watch this film again. As strong as the technical merits are, and as bold as it is for telling a harrowingly realistic tale, I can't see getting anything more out of repeated viewings. I would only recommend it to those who enjoy such melancholy fare, or are hard-core fans of very sound filmmaking.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love this Movie (Done after some further research.)

There's actually not much to be found on this movie, at least not in my basic searches. However, watching 2 of the documentaries offered on the Criterion Collection DVD that I had offered a little more.

The most interesting tidbit is why director Robert Bresson chose to tell the sad tale of the adolescent Mouchette, something he had done several times in previous films. Apparently, Bresson was fascinated with the malleability and unpredictability of adolescence. I can see his point – in this film, Mouchette succumbs to the abuse and neglect she faces. She attempts to get past it, but ultimately cannot. If this had been a Hollywood film, the title character would almost certainly have triumphed over the negative elements in some way. It may be far more cliche, but it doesn't make it any less probable. One never knows how a young person with react to adversity. Mouchette looked at the darkest side of it.

“[Mouchette] can't be summarized. If it could, it'd be awful.” - Robert Bresson.

After writing my own summary for this movie, I was glad to hear Bresson say this. The story of Mouchette (which is based on a French novel) is exceedingly simple. And yet, no summary can convey the tragedy and the reality of the tale. The truth is, you never quite know how Mouchette will react to the different forces acting on her, and therein lies the little bit of intrigue that can pull a viewer through the movie. It worked for me, even if the film isn't terribly exciting.

On a final note, I have to say that it was nice to watch a few “behind-the-scenes” documentaries about Mouchette. If nothing else, seeing Nadine Nortier smiling and laughing helped to wash the taste of the melancholic fatalism out of my mouth.

That's a wrap. 64 shows down. 41 to go.

Coming Soon: Bonnie and Clyde (1967):

Whew! After the Thorazine pill that was Mouchette, a rootin', tootin' Hollywood shoot-'em-up is just what I need. I haven't watched this one in many a year, so I'm looking forward to it.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #63: Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)

2011-09-17T17:13:00.001-04:00

Title for us English-speaking types: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Director: Sergio Leone

Initial Release Country: Italy

Times Previously Seen: approximately 7 or 8

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Three tough hombres seek out a hidden fortune in the Wild West. During the search, they try to avoid becoming casualties of the Civil War and each other.

Extended Summary (A more complete plot synopsis, spoilers included. Fair warning)

The American West. Early 1860s and the States are far from United. The Civil War is in full swing, though in the deserts and plains of the West, it is only a peripheral presence. In a remote town, three gunmen storm into a barber shop, only to be rapidly gunned down by a rough-looking character named Tuco. Tuco jumps on a nearby horse and flees the town.

Elsewhere, a man in black drifts into a small hacienda. The man has been paid by another to find the current alias about another missing man, one called Jackson. The owner of the hacienda fearfully tells the man in black that Jackson now goes by the name Bill Carson, and also mentions a stolen cash box filled with $200,000 that Carson has in his possession. The frightened man assumes that the man in black has been paid to kill him, and he offers him double his fee to desist. The man in black responds to the offer by killing the man and his son and taking the money anyway. He returns to the man who hired him. He learns that Bill Carson was part of a small group of Confederate renegades who stole the gold from a Union convoy. Upon learning this, the man in black, who goes by the name “Angel Eyes” kills his original patron in cold blood.

Angel Eyes, "The Bad", begins his blood-soaked path towards the treasure.

Back on the plains, Tuco is riding along on his stolen horse, but the horse is shot out from underneath him. He is surrounded by three bounty hunters who seem intent on taking him in the for the $2,000 reward being offered for the capture of this inveterate criminal. Just as the three hunters close in on Tuco, a quiet stranger emerges and tells the three bounty hunters to back off and allow him to take Tuco. The three men try to shoot the brazen newcomer, but the man kills all three of them with lightning quickness. Tuco, believing the man to be his savior, tries to thank him and be on his way, but the stranger merely straps him onto the back of his horse, brings him into the nearest town, and collects the reward for himself.

Shortly after he spews and endless litany of insults at the lone bounty hunter, whom he calls “Blondie” for his light-colored hair, Tuco is placed into a noose, with only a horse between him, the ground, and oblivion. When sentence is passed and Tuco is about to he hanged, Blondie, who is hidden in a nearby barn hayloft, shoots the rope apart, freeing Tuco. He also shoots the hats off of several citizens, to ward off any chance of pursuit. It turns out that Blondie has struck a deal with Tuco – Tuco gets turned in, Blondie takes the reward and then saves Tuco. Tuco's bounty goes up, and they repeat the process, splitting all the reward money. Tuco complains about wanting more than a 50-50 share, but Blondie suggests that his “aim might be affected” if his share drops. Tuco drops his complaint, but assures Blondie that double crossing him would be a grave mistake.

In a new town, Tuco sits atop another horse, his neck in another noose. On the edge of the town, Blondie, already with the reward money for Tuco, waits to free him with another rifle blast. Casually looking over the scene is Angel Eyes, who happens to be in town to follow the lead of Bill Carson. He learns of a prostitute who Carson frequents in another town. Angel Eyes makes note of Blondie and Tuco, but leaves town in pursuit of the prostitute. Just as before, when Tuco is about to be hanged, Blondie fires his shot, but slightly misses. Tuco dangles from the neck for a few seconds from the half-cut rope. Blondie fires another shot that cuts the rope completely and frees Tuco again. The two hop onto Blondie's horse and head out of town.

Blondie and Tuco, the "Good" and "Ugly", respectively, discuss their business deal.

Once they are many miles from the town, Tuco rails at Blondie for nearly missing the rope. Blondie quietly lowers Tuco onto the ground and explains that he thinks they have milked their little scam for all its worth. Leaving Tuco stranded and tied in the middle of nowhere, Blondie rides off with all of their ill-gotten gains.

On a subsequent evening in yet another town, Angel Eyes tracks down the prostitute who knows Bill Carson. After a mild beating at Angel Eyes' hands, the girl tells him which regiment Bill Carson is in. Angel Eyes is getting closer to the money.

On a following day, Tuco staggers into a tiny village. He has somehow survived the miles-long exodus that Blondie forced upon him, and he now has two things on his mind – getting water and getting revenge. He makes a good start of it by pilfering some water from a well and then robbing the shop owner of his best revolver and all of his cash. He even tracks down Blondie to a hotel and almost exacts his revenge then and there. At gunpoint, he forces Blondie onto a stool and gets a rope around his neck. Just as TucoTuco through the floor and allowing Blondie to escape.

After several days of tracking him across the plains, Tuco finds that Blondie is in the middle of the same old scam. He lays behind the cover of a low hill, his rifle cross-hairs on another hanging rope around the neck of another criminal. However, just before he is meant to fire his life-saving shot, Tuco sneaks up behind him and takes him prisoner. Blondie's new “partner” is left to die and Blondie is now the captive of the last man in the world he would want to be captive of.

Echoing their last parting, Tuco leads Blondie to desert. As Tuco rides atop a horse, he forces Blondie to try and keep up with him along a 100-mile trek across the scorching hot sands. With the comforting shade of a parasol and ample water, Tuco delights in the slow death of Blondie, even teasing and taunting him along the way. Blondie remains stoic, but eventually his endurance is baked away by the relentlessly brutal desert sun. After walking for many hours without water or shade, he finally collapses. Tuco, having appeased his desire for retribution, slowly moves in for the kill.

Tuco now has his man, Blondie, right where he wants him.

Just as Tuco cocks his gun, though, a riderless wagon comes barreling out of the desert. The distracted Tuco leaves the nearly-dead Blondie and heads off the wagon. In it, he finds several dead Confederate soldiers. One soldier, however, still clings to a small shred of life. It is Bill Carson, and he explains that his group was attacked out in the desert. He promises Tuco that he will reveal the location of his stolen gold coins if only he can get some life-saving water. Tuco tries to pry the information from him, and manages to get the name of the cemetery, but not the specific name on the grave where the gold is hidden. Carson loses consciousness, and Tuco scrambles to find some water in order to revive him. When he returns with the water, though, Tuco sees that Blondie has dragged himself to Carson. Carson has died, but not before he whispered the name of the grave to Blondie. Tuco, who moments before was joyfully going to kill him, now has 200,000 golden reasons to ensure Blondie's safety.

Tuco brings Blondie to a mission where the monks start to nurse him back to health. Tuco tries to weasel the location of the grave out of Blondie early on, but to no avail. Once Blondie's health is returned, the two men prepare to set out after the gold. Before leaving, Tuco seeks out his brother, who is the head Brother at the mission. Tuco and his brother, Pablo, recount their very different paths through life, each one casting aspersions and disgust at the other. The two part, regretting that they cannot reconcile, but they part all the same.

Out on the plains again, in their found wagon and Confederate uniforms, Blondie and Tuco make toward the gold. Tuco knows the general location, and Blondie the specific grave, so neither can find the treasure without the other. It isn't long before they are found and captured by a traveling Union army. They are presumed to be rebels, thanks to their uniforms, and are sent to a P.O.W. camp.

At the camp, Blondie and Tuco are surprised to see Angel Eyes there, somehow in the position of a Union sergeant. Angel Eyes has positioned himself here in order to best come across any word of Bill Carson. During the prisoner role call, when Bill Carson's name is sounded, Blondie convinces Tuco to assume the role. Angel Eyes promptly has Tuco brought into his office and brutally tortured in order to find out what he knows about the real Bill Carson and his stash of gold. Tuco parts with his half of the information and is sent off on a prison train with a massive and violent man as an escort. Angel Eyes next brings Blondie into his office. Realizing that torture will not work with Blondie, Angel Eyes forms a partnership with him instead, now that Angel Eyes has the name of the cemetery. Blondie cautiously accepts, for he has no other choice.

Angel Eyes, posing as a Union officer, as he prepares to squeeze information about the gold out of Tuco.

On a cargo train with his ogre-like guard, Tuco makes his move. Feigning the call of nature, Tuco hurls himself and the guard to whom he is handcuffed off of the moving train. He promptly kills the guard, and soon after manages to get the handcuffs off by laying them (and his guard) across the railroad tracks. Another train comes along, severs the chain, and frees Tuco.

A little time after, a little farther along, and a little closer to the cemetery, in a town decimated by the War, Blondie takes a breather with Angel Eyes and the five mercenaries who Angel Eyes has brought along. Tuco has also found his way into the town, but he has been spotted by one of the men he shot in the barber shop at the beginning of the story. Tuco shoots the man in self defense. A short way off, Blondie recognizes the report of Tuco's gun, and strolls away from his companions. Angel Eyes gestures for one of the guns for hire to tail Blondie.

A few buildings away, Blondie rounds on the mercenary and kills him. He then finds Tuco and reinstates his deal with him, assuring the never-say-die bandit that Angel Eyes still does not know the name on the grave where the treasure is hidden. Tuco and Blondie then kill their way towards Angel Eyes, gunning down all of the remaining four hired guns in Angel Eyes' employ. When they get to his hiding place, though, they find Angel Eyes himself gone. Blondie and Tuco strike out again.

Eventually, the two men come to a bridge that will lead them to the cemetery. The only problem is that it is the setting of a current stalemate between two large forces – one Union Army and one Confederate. The two sides are locked in war of attrition, with neither side willing to give up on the bridge. Tuco and Blondie remedy this problem by sneaking out to the bridge and using dynamite to blow it to pieces. Just before they do, however, Tuco and Blondie agree to swap their pieces of the information – the cemetery is named Sand Hill and the grave is that of Arch Stanton. Once the bridge is removed, Tuco and Blondie cross the river.

Across the river, Tuco breaks away from Blondie and dashes towards the cemetery. He gets to Sand Hill and races through the hundreds of gravestones until he finds that of Arch Stanton. He starts to dig when Blondie arrives with a shovel for him to use. Just as they are about to open the grave, Angel Eyes sneaks in and holds the two men at gunpoint. Just as he thinks he has the upper hand, however, Blondie surprises both other men by kicking open Arch Stanton's grave to reveal nothing but a pile of bones. He explains that he never told Tuco the right grave, not trusting him with it.

To settle it all, Blondie proposes to write the name of the real grave on the bottom of a stone, which he will place in the middle of all three men and they will simply have a three-way showdown for it. The name is written, the rock is placed face-down, and the three men slowly back away from each other. After several minutes of carefully measuring each other, the men make their moves. Angel Eyes draws first, aiming for Blondie, but Blondie is quicker and kills him. Tuco, meanwhile, has been firing his weapon in Angel Eyes' direction, but to no effect. He apparently has no bullets in his gun.

The middle of Sand Hill Cemetery - scene of the grande finale, three-way standoff.

After the tension has eased, Blondie explains that he had unloaded Tuco's gun the night before, as they were waiting out the aftermath of their sabotage of the bridge, and Tuco was asleep. He also shows Tuco the “name” rock, which has no writing on it, whatsoever. It turns out that Bill Carson had told Blondie that the gold was stashed in the grave marked “unknown” next to Arch Stanton's. This is where Blondie urges Tuco to dig, and where they do indeed find the sacks heavy with the gold.

Blondie plays one final trick on Tuco. At gunpoint, Tuco is forced to stand atop a wooden grave marker and place his head in a noose hung from a tree. Blondie leaves Tuco's half of the money on the ground and rides away. Just as Tuco is about to slip and hang, however, Blondie emerges from behind a distant tree and, recalling their early scams together, shoots the rope. Tuco is freed to take his money, but not before he screams a few parting insults at his “business partner”.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any further research.)

A movie like this may never be made again. I've seen it many times now and I still love it. Yet, despite my undying enjoyment at watching The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, it is a film that I would hesitate to recommend to everyone.

I recall a conversation I had with one of my anthropology professors around 1999. I had learned that he enjoyed Western movies, so we got to talking about them one day, touching on the John Wayne/John Ford Monument Valley films and others. When I brought up Sergio Leone and his “Man With No Name” series, I was crestfallen to hear this professor poo-poo them as “silly.” I was a bit thrown.

And yet, when I watch any of the Leone westerns now, I can see why he said it. Compared to a typical American western, there is something quirky and blatantly stylish about a movie like The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Still, it's these offbeat elements that are part of their indelible magic.

Tuco Ramirez. Never has such an entertaining bag of scum been filmed so skillfully.

Before getting into the more peculiar aspects of the Leone westerns, one needs to look at the more traditional standards. The clearest of them all is the visual element. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly can easily be placed right next to any of the titans of western movies in terms of visuals. The composition and framing of every shot, be it the vast sweep of the plains or the extreme close-ups of the gnarled and lined faces of the characters, is the height of film aesthetic. Even when compared to Leone's previous “Man With No Name” films, this one excels.

Closely related to this is one of my favorite aspects – the visual storytelling. As I've mentioned in my reviews of several silent films like The Last Command and others, visual storytelling is, oddly, a nearly lost skill in films. It's odd since it is arguably one of the very few things that can set film apart from any other storytelling medium. Far too many films rely on excessive dialogue or exposition. Sergio Leone was quite the opposite – he seemed to relish the chances to tell a tale without a character saying a single word, and his movies are replete with examples. One of my favorites in this movie is when Tuco emerges from his death-defying escape from the desert. As he bursts into the shop, silently disassembles and reassembles various revolvers, and robs the shopkeeper, the man's entire character is laid bare: He's driven. He's skilled. He's ruthless. He's even oddly funny. This is all clear in a roughly five-minute sequence in which barely ten words are spoken. So few directors have the imagination or technique to do such a sequence, and Leone made a habit of it.

One of the nearly countless clever shots of Leone's. When the camera pans up to this perspective, you get several seconds to dwell on what it means for Tuco.

Speaking of Tuco, the character has a special place in my heart. Thanks to good writing and a phenomenal acting job by Eli Wallach, Tuco Ramirez is one of my all-time favorites. It's hard to even think of another character like him in movies. He's clearly scum of the lowest order, but I can't help but like and almost admire him. His exploits in the movie make it all clear – while he possesses some of the basest of human qualities (greed, selfishness and violence), he also possesses several admirable, if somewhat twisted, qualities. He's as tough as they come (how else does one survive hangings, being marooned in a desert, severe beatings, and countless shootouts?) and he absolutely never backs down. Most importantly, he's as capable as anyone in the movie, and this is my favorite bit. While Tuco already serves the most humorous role in the film, Leone could have written him to be a total clown, yet didn't. As lethal as Blondie and Angel Eyes are, Tuco is just as deadly. The former two may be more intelligent and collected, but Tuco is easily as dangerous. By not relegating Tuco to the role of some goofball bandit, the story is granted much greater balance.

In addition to my fondness for Tuco, a few things need be pointed out about the other title roles. Of the three, Lee Van Cleef as “The Bad” is clearly the most two-dimensional. He's simply a cold-blooded killer out for himself. No more. Blondie and Tuco, though, are different cases. In some ways, they embody abstract, mythological archetypes of the western tale: the calm, cool, unflappable drifter with impossibly perfect aim; and the dirt-encrusted, blood-drenched bandit. Yet, there are scenes in the movie in which they are made more endearing. With Tuco, it is through his touching interactions with his missionary brother. With Blondie, his quiet observations and kindnesses to the downtrodden and dying he comes across. These scenes show the two men to possess a humanity that their harsh exteriors belie. It's this unusual blending of mythical and humane that set Leone's films apart from their cruder ilk.

I can't let a review of this movie pass without mentioning the music. Even if you've never seen these movies, you know some of the tunes. Scored by the absolute master, Ennio Morricone, Leone's spaghetti westerns all had a sound of their own, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was the best of them. The driving bass drums, human grunts, Jew's harp, discordant piano notes, and lonely guitar picks all add to the tone of the movie. The music echoes the odd blend of funny, cool, serious, and tense, and does it like no other soundtrack ever has or perhaps will.

So back to my former professor's judgment of Leone's movies as “silly”. I think he was put off by the lack of authenticity when it came to the action elements of the movie. There is certainly some contrivance in the name of style. Leone had a knack for coming up with cool and clever visual tricks. Blondie's serape and ever-present cigars. Tuco's over-the-shoulder gun sling. The wacko music. Lee Van Cleef's cartoonishly evil sneering and laughing. Sure, these are not things that were part of “the Real Wild West”. But that's not what Leone's movies were about. They were about telling a tale of adventure, featuring interesting characters in a setting only somewhat based on history. That dusty, wide-open setting is the perfect crucible in which to crush three hard cases, forming a flashy and volatile compound.

The tragi-comic, drunken Union colonel. One of the many elements of the movie that has just enough reality to avoid being dismissed as mere camp.

If you haven't seen this movie, you may ask, “Should I watch it?” As alluded to earlier, this is hard to say. Leone's films are for lovers of epic adventure movies, sure, but they also require a true love of cinema. I've read plenty of reviews on Netflix and other places in which viewers trash his movies for being way too slow. I know they refer to the extended close-up shots and the long periods without dialogue. Personally, I love these moments. They force you to pay attention and always provide a payoff – either a tale is told or tension is built. If you're OK with westerns and want to see a classic like none other, give this one your time. A good approach is to watch Leone's first, A Fistful of Dollars. Not only is it a solid remake of the Kurosawa samurai great, Yojimbo, but it's a much more accessible 90 minutes.

NOTE: I watched, for the first time, the 40th Anniversary Special Edition of this movie. It includes an extra 15-or-so minutes that were cut out of the original. Word of warning – get the original, theatrical release. The added scenes are not only superfluous and a bit choppy, but they are voiced over by 70-year old Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach, who had to go back and re-dubbed the sound. All of the added material detracts from the flow of Leone's original cut.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research on the film)

There are plenty of interesting, puzzling, and downright hilarious factoids to dig up about this movie.

There are a few short, strong documentaries on the film, including plenty of modern interviews with Eastwood and Wallach. They recount just how “cheap” spaghetti westerns were, in almost every respect. The film they made with Leone was not much of an exception, as they had to act through complete language barriers and loosey-goosey attitudes towards the filming process. Eastwood having been a Hollywood reject, he began working with Leone because he didn't have too many options. He and Wallach tell many a tale about how they narrowly avoided serious maiming and death on the sets several times. Funny in hindsight, I guess.

Going through some other commentary, such as the film doc “The Leone Style” with Richard Schickel or Roger Ebert's revisiting of the movie, it's interesting to see how the recognition of Leone's true mastery of the form took time to coalesce. This original TIME magazine review was apparently a rather typical mixed bag, and clearly has no use for Eastwood's acting, calling his to-date film works “consistently awful”. But even such a lukewarm critic was not blind to the visual genius of the movie.

Arguably one of the most iconic western movie shots of all time. Eastwood may not have had much acting range, but he damn sure knew how to strike a stoic pose.

It was curious to find that, to my surprise, the historical Civil War events portrayed in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly were rooted far more deeply in fact that I had suspected. While I, and I suppose many other people, assume that there was little to no large-scale fighting in the Southwest, apparently there was. As referenced in the movie, there really was a General Sibley, who really did make a desperate gambit to storm through Union forces, up the Rio Grande and into Colorado, in an effort to take charge of that state's silver and gold supplies. He failed rather miserably, but not before several thousand of his men were killed along the way. This is not so different from the backdrop of the wild quest of Angel Eyes, Tuco and Blondie.

I also discovered something about the “added” scenes that I disliked so much. These extra 16 minutes were actually part of Leone's original cut, released in Rome. He unwillingly cut them out at the behest of United Artists, who claimed American audiences would find his original 177-minute version too taxing. Regardless, I still found most of these edited scenes unnecessary. Maybe it's just because I had always seen the 161-minute version, and any change to it feels unnatural. Whatever the case, I'll go back to the shorter version for future viewings.

Whether the editing helped or not, the reception was fairly clear. When released in 1967, the movie was a hit. American audiences were enamored of the odd little tweaks to the all-too familiar western genre. They had already been able to adapt to them with Leone's first two westerns featuring the stone-faced Eastwood, A Fistful of Dollars and For A Few Dollars More. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly kept all of the idiosyncratic flourishes of style and polished the aesthetics to a high finish.

Looking slightly ahead on my list, I see the later Leone western, Once Upon A Time in the West. I have seen this one a few times before, and it is good. However, I'm left to wonder exactly why it is considered a separately “great” film. I suppose I'll find out in another few weeks.

That's a wrap. 63 shows down. 42 to go.

Coming Soon: Mouchette (1967)

This one looks like a serious change of pace. I'm going from a raucous shoot-em-up to a dreary-looking French film about a teenage girl's suffering an misery. I may have to whack back a fifth of Scotch to get into the right mindset for this one. Come on back and see if I can stay lucid enough to figure out what make Mouchette “great”.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #62: Ostre sledovane vlaky (1966)

2011-09-11T13:35:00.000-04:00

Title for us English-speaking Types: Closely Watched Trains

Director: Jiri Menzel

Initial Release Country: Czechoslovakia

Times Previously Seen: none

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Young, newly-minted train station operator passes boring hours by obsessing about losing his virginity. Backs into involvement in a World War.

Extended Summary (A more complete plot synopsis, serious spoilers included. Fair warning.)

Towards the final months of World War II, in the middle of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, the young Milos Hrma is taking a major step in life – he is preparing for his first job. While his mother helps him don the fresh uniform of a train station dispatcher, Milos mulls over his family history, which is not exactly glowing. Milos seems to come from a long line of duty-shirkers, layabouts, delusionals, and generally disagreeable loafers.

Milos Hrma. Not exactly the sharpest tool in Czechoslovakia's shed.

On his first day on the job, the skinny and shy Milos absorbs his new workplace and workmates. The station is in shoddy repair, being connected to the station master's home and farm. The master himself spends as much time tending chickens as doing his job. Milos' immediate superior is the calm, affable, and randy Hubicka. Hubicka uses the many quiet hours on the job to seduce any attractive woman within sight.

Hubicka readily takes the wide-eyed Milos under his wing and starts to show him the ropes. The actual job is laughably simple and dull, which leaves plenty of time for Hubicka to start asking after Milos' love life. Milos has a girlfriend of sorts – a young, pretty train assistant named Masa – though they are yet to consummate anything. Milos is made all-too aware of this as he sees the savvy Hubicka bed several women while on duty, which inflames Milos' libido even more.

Opportunity comes when Masa invites Milos to stay at her uncle's house/photo shop. Masa makes strong advances on Milos, but Milos sullenly and strangely turns away. Not understanding the rebuff, Masa returns to her own bed. Early the next morning, a bomb attack blows down the house Milos is in. No one is hurt, but the house is destroyed.

Later that day, Milos checks into a hotel and attempts suicide. He is found and saved by a hotel worker, and sent to a hospital. While there, he explains himself to the doctor. It turned out that he had suffered impotence or premature ejaculation, which was why he did not have sex with Masa when he had the chance. He thought that this equaled a lack of manhood – something that he could not live with. The doctor assures him that this is normal, and Milos returns to work.

The devastated Milos prepares to do himself in after his "failure" with Masa.

Back at the station, things have been stirring. Hubicka and a handful of other locals have been conspiring to blow up a German military transport train. This is all being planned under the noses of politicians subservient to the conquering Nazi forces. Milos returns in the midst of this, and Hubicka welcomes him back to work. Once he hears the story of Milos' hospitalization, Hubicka soothes the young man and suggests that he find an older woman with whom he can relax and enjoy his first sexual foray. Hubicka also lets Milos in on the plan to blow up the Nazi train, and the two plan the sabotage together.

The eve of the sabotage arrives. A beautiful woman arrives at the station late in the evening, offers a password, and gives Hubicka a package with the explosives in it. The woman stays in the station, and Hubicka urges Milos into her arms. With the older woman, Milos finally enjoys his first night of sexual pleasure.

Milos looks out over the tracks, his slacking mentor Hubicka looking over his shoulder.

The next morning, the day of the planned attack, the train station begins buzzing. A few government officials show to follow up a complaint about Hubicka, who had previously bedded the young woman who works at the station with him. In the middle of his interrogation at the hands of the bureaucrats and the young woman's grandmother, Milos brazenly takes the explosives, shimmies out onto a structure hanging over the tracks, and waits. When the Nazi cargo train passes underneath, he deftly drops the explosives onto a middle car. However, just as he begins to soak in his success, a soldier on the train spots him and shoots him dead.

The train makes it about a mile farther down the track when it blows up in a massive explosion. The remaining workers at the train station rush out to see the tell-tale smoke clouds rising in the distance. Hubicka, oblivious to the death of his young co-worker and countryman, lets out a satisfied laugh over the victory.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this one viewing, before any further research)

Closely Watched Trains is a very uniquely hilarious movie.

Right from the opening minutes, I was laughing. As the sheepish, gawky little Milos is being dressed by his mother, his dry summary of his male forebears is great. His even-toned description of each man's laziness, oddity, and ultimate fate is accompanied by great still shots. It does a great job in setting the tone for the rest of the film.

The entire telling of Milos' pursuit to vanquish his own virginity is funny enough, but Milos himself is so hilarious in his innocence and naivete that it amplifies the comedy immeasurably. It starts with the aforementioned role call of his own lineage of laze, but it gets even better after his sexual failure with Masa. His attempted suicide is morbidly realistic, but his subsequent actions and behavior are so funny that they make you forget the darkness of it. So socially oblivious is he, that he seeks advice from any person available, openly proclaiming his problem of “premature ejaculation.”

This and his pubescent notions about manhood can't help but make you laugh, if only because everyone around him takes it in such easy stride. At one point, in his quest for a “mature woman” to help relieve him of the burden of virginity, he approaches the train station chief's 60-something year old mother as she stuffs a massive goose. While Milos awkwardly explains his plight, the woman calmly takes in the confession/plea while massaging foods down the goose's massive, phallic-shaped neck. Perhaps not very subtle, but the actors play it so straight that it's comedy gold.

The station master's mother placidly takes in Milos' tale of impotence, holding a suggestively fashioned goose.

While Milos more or less quietly steals the show, as he should, the supporting cast can't be overlooked. The libidinous Hubicka is a fantastically lovable loafer and ladies man. He basically has everything that the unimaginative Milos hopes to – a thoroughly undemanding job and a seemingly endless procession of young women to sleep with. What makes the otherwise selfish Hubicka so likable is that he is more than willing to help the hapless Milos achieve his dream. Sure, it's hardly a master/apprentice relationship on the scale of Socrates and Plato, but it's heartwarming in a much earthier way.

The entire mini-saga of Milos is funny enough, but what puts Closely Watched Trains in that rarer category of great movies is the setting. Being set in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia adds a strange element to the character study. In the movie, the Nazi presence is tangential to the main plot, and the Germans are almost never seen. We mostly hear about them through the Czech bureaucrats, who obey them more out of fear rather than any loyalty. This reduction of the enemy presence emphasizes how an inexperienced teenage boy would prioritize such things: Number One = Sleep with a woman. Number Two = Find the easiest job possible. Number Whatever = Anything and everything else, including World War II. This totally bears out in the story, as it is only with his job secured and his virginity firmly stamped out that Milos is able to play a small part in the rebel cause.

The train station staff, caught in the blow back of the train explosion - Milos' lone confident and heroic act.

The movie does end on a somewhat weird vibe, as poor little Milos is shot and killed a few seconds after his crowing achievement as “A Man.” However, as I think back on it, it's not as sad as it seems. Had Milos lived, he almost certainly would have gone down as just another slacker in a long line of slackers in the Hrma family. His role in the attack on the Nazis probably would have faded, and he would have probably ended up just like his father – prematurely retired at age 50, lounging on a couch and being ridiculed by his working neighbors. As it was, he got to die a “hero's death” of sorts.

The characters, story and tone of the movie are clearly the outstanding elements of this movie, but a few other aspects shouldn't be overlooked. The filming is fantastic. It's in black and white, but the sets and framing show skill that goes beyond the norm. Some of the compositions and juxtapositions of characters and props enhance the physical comedy greatly, and usually is very sly ways. Whether its Hubicka playfully stamping his young co-workers legs and buttocks in the station or the uncomfortable stand-off between Milos and the goose-stuffing station master's mother, the visuals do nothing but enhance everything about the story.

As I write this, it had been four days since I watched Closely Watched Trains, and with every passing day I realize more and more just how much I liked the movie. As I think about the different levels that it was working on, and just how solid a film it was in all regards, I can see it as a film that I would watch and enjoy again. Anyone who enjoys somewhat dark, tongue-in-cheek humor would do well to track down this movie and give it a shot.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love this Movie (Done after some further research)

Some of the writing on Closely Watched Trains has sent me into philosophical crisis. I don't know whether to be hopelessly frustrated at human stupidity or grudgingly thankful to it for providing the fuel for artistic genius.

A little bit of research has informed me a little more of the political climate, and the geographical and historical context that allowed the birth of a film such as Closely Watched Trains. The best of what I read is this essay by Richard Schickel, in which he gives a thumbnail account of Czechoslovakia's unique place in European political affairs. He describes how its odd and interminable position as an occupied country led to a culture of “impish rebellion” that could be seen in its arts. It's a really interesting read, and one that makes the Czechs a very endearing group to me, a person who has never been there and only known a handful of the country's people (they were great, and boy, did they know their beers).

Milos' first of many near-kisses with Masa. This is just one of the much lighter comic moments sprinkled throughout this very sly film.

One other thing that stuck out a bit to me was that, in this original review in 1967, the TIME magazine reviewer didn't seem to view the character Hubicka as genial as I did. At best, he is written about with indifference. I felt that I agreed much more with Schickel's take (in the same essay as above) about Hubicka's more well-rounded character. Schickel even points out how Hubicka quite possibly represented the entire Czech nation, with his humorous self-absorption not completely drowning out his penchant for causing headaches to boorish and idiotic superiors and conquerors. I guess its no surprise how characters and filmmakers like that would appeal to viewers not only in the U.S., but throughout the Western world.

That's a wrap. 62 shows down. 43 to go.

Coming Soon: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)

I'm giddy with glee that this one is next on the list. I've probably seen it 10 times, and I can't wait to watch it again. Come on back to read me gush about one of my absolute favorite films of all time. Maybe I can convince a few uninitiated to give it a shot.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #61: Persona (1966)

2011-09-06T17:16:00.000-04:00

Director: Ingmar Bergman

Initial Release Country: Sweden

Times Previously Seen: once (about 6 years ago)

Teaser Summary (no spoilers)

Young nurse & mute patient engage in intense psychological back-and-forths.

Extended Summary (More complete plot synopsis, including spoilers. Fair warning.)

Middle-aged and prominent Swedish actress, Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullman), is inexplicably stricken dumb in the middle of her performance as the title role in the play, Electra. She is sent to a psychiatric institution, where she maintains her utter silence and unresponsiveness.

She is placed under the care of the beautiful, 25-year old nurse, Sister Alma (Bibi Andersen). Nurse Alma's gentle and dutiful ministrations elicit some positive, if mild, responses from Elisabet, but the actress remains completely mute. The head psychiatrist decides that the best thing is for Sister Alma to accompany Elisabet to a seaside retreat, where the two women can advance Elisabet's treatment. Alma expresses her concerns that the clearly willful Elisabet may be more than she can handle, but her worries are quickly swept aside by the doctor and her own naivete.

Sister Alma, a kindly nurse who has no idea of the mental trial ahead.

At the picturesque seaside house, the pairing makes a promising enough start. While Elisabet refuses to speak, she seems an eager listener as Alma fills the silence with expositions about her own life. Alma talks of her life, educational background, her fiance, and other more casual topics for several days. All the while, Elisabet lends her ears and absorbs it all.

Eventually, Alma begins to reveal much more personal thoughts and feelings. One evening, with both women rather deep in their cups, Alma shares a rather scandalous episode in her life. While on vacation with her fiance, she and another woman engage in some naked sunbathing, away from their significant others. A few young boys approach them and, following the lead of her new-found companion, Alma has sex with both boys. In an attempt to cover up this unforeseen foray into hedonism, she later has sex with her unknowing fiance. She becomes pregnant and soon has an abortion, actions that Alma is deeply conflicted over – she clearly feels guilty about it all, while simultaneously acknowledging the pure, if temporary, delight of the amorous escapade. As always, Elisabet seems to take in the entire tale without judgment, and she offers Alma the comfort of a warm embrace.

An ever-silent Elisabet calmly absorbs Alma's most personal revelations.

The next day, as Alma drives to the nearest town for supplies, she glances at a letter that Elisabet has written to a friend. In the letter, Elisabet has written a rather detailed account of the sordid tale that Alma told her in confidence the previous evening. Feeling utterly betrayed, Alma begins enacting forms of revenge back at the house. At first, she leaves a broken shard of glass on the ground for Elisabet to step on. Alma also begins verbal attacks, accusing Elisabet of being a sort of dramatic parasite and using Alma's confessions as potential acting fodder. The most violent attack is when she nearly hurls a pot of boiling water at her charge, only pulling up at the last minute when Elisabet screams her first words: “No, don't!” Alma desists, and after slinging a few more sharp accusations at her, feels remorse and asks for Elisabet's forgiveness.

Over the next several days, the bonds between the two women deepen in disturbing ways. Alma imagines that Elisabet is speaking to her and quietly visiting her in the night, even when Elisabet denies it. At another point, in what may be a dream or reality, Elisabet's estranged husband, an older blind man, shows up at the house. When Elisabet still refuses to talk, Alma takes her place as a proxy, going so far as to make love to the man, who mistakes Alma for his wife. All of this is done as a passive Elisabet looks on, doing nothing to prevent it.

Towards the end of their time together, the lines between Elisabet and Alma grow even more blurred. As the two sit across a table from one another one afternoon, Alma begins to narrate a personal event from Elisabet's life – that of the birth and life of her son, whom Elisabet has also retreated from. Alma tells a story of Elisabet, the actress, only becoming pregnant in order to become more “motherly” in the eyes of her fans and critics. However, through and after the pregnancy, none of the outward motherly emotions were real. Elisabet has always been thoroughly detached from her child, despite his unconditional love of her. It seems at this point that Alma has achieved a complete psychic transference with the woman behind the shroud of silence – so much so that she can speak of Elisabet's innermost despairs with first-hand authority.

Their strange personality shifts having run their course, the two women are undeniably, in indefinably, changed. There is, however, nothing more for them to say or do to one another. Instead, they simply pack their belongings, clean up the vacation house, and leave.

Near the end of their stay together, Alma is able to see deep into, and essentially become, Elisabet.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (My impression of the movie, based on this viewing & before any research)

Persona is another film that I have to say is an excellent artistic work, and one that was a very interesting intellectual exercise, but a film that I may never watch again.Seeing its opening shots, a viewer is inclined to feel that they are watching some bizarre, incoherent art house work. There are spliced film cells, brief images of cartoons, silent films, and animals being butchered. The montage ends with a shot of a young boy laying on a cold slab. He wakes, looks around, reads a book for a moment, and then notices a massive, blurry image of a woman who seems to be looking over him. If you're wondering what any of this has to do with the main plot or two women who develop a co-dependence on each other, you know exactly how I felt.Immediately after this odd, 2- or 3-minute overture, the story proper begins, and we are given a traditional narrative to follow.

The story of Sister Alma and Elisabet Vogler is highly intriguing for anyone interested in psychology and its probings into the darker recesses of human personality. The Elisabet character is rather unique – one who speaks only three words and whose silence turns her into a blank slate of sorts onto whom the young Alma projects her own feelings and desires. This element aside, one is left to puzzle out exactly what shocked Elisabet into her self-imposed muteness. The film gives hints and suggestions, but with a vagueness that allows the viewer to fill in the blanks. Some may find this frustrating, but I found it engaging.

One of the iconic images of the bizarre opening montage of Persona.

The tone seems perfect. By making the setting a quiet, peaceful beach side house, an eerie tension is built between the two women. It's not hard to see how the cheery Sister Alma goes from seeing Elisabet as trusted Mother Confessor to betrayer to emotional vampire. The final phase, in which Alma seems to virtually become Elisabet in a way, seems somehow organic. This is even more amazing when you realize that the film is a mere hour and 20-odd minutes.

The ever-morphing feelings of the two women are communicated even more clearly thanks to the camerawork. With a starkness that I last saw in the German film The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band), the many black-and-white still shots are incredibly effective. The isolation of Alma and Elisabet is palpable. When Alma reveals her past moment of unbridled sexual abandon, the dark shadows in the house, the quiet of the scene, and the authenticity of the performance are remarkable. It reminded me of a similar scene in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, when Nicole Kidman's character does something similar, sending her husband into the mental anguish that propels the rest of the story. Bergman built up the same kind of power, without color and three decades before in
Persona.

One of the many haunting and quiet images that blur the line between reality and dream between the two women.

So it should be clear that I found plenty of intellectual food for thought and that I think that the film is executed brilliantly. So why do I say that I would probably not watch this movie again? Because it's rather painful in its rawness. This was something that Bergman seemed to veer towards in the latter parts of his long career. Years later, he would go much further with the horrifyingly emotional Cries and Whispers. Persona is not nearly the trial of this later movie, but the discomfort is still there. And when Bergman approached such subjects, there was nary a second of comedic relief. He went at you hard, and didn't dilute the tale with anything that didn't fit the overall sensations he meant to draw out.

The closing scenes of Persona echo the first ones – the young boy, the roughly edited footage, and a film reel burning to its end. However, by the end of the movie, it seemed to make much more sense to me. I may be way off (my further research will probably tell), but it seemed that the fractured images are meant to reflect the mind of Elisabet Vogler. She, as an actress, can be seen as a paid, professional liar who has forsaken any real, human connection for her own success and fame. When this realization strikes her, it sets off the events of the film and results in the fallout for Sister Alma. This is just one theory of mine, however, and the film offers many avenues for more. This is what makes it fascinating, if not exactly pleasurable.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research)

It always feels good to know that you weren't completely missing the point, eh?

In reading several essays and writings on Persona, I found that I did, for the most part, “get it”. However, this may not be something that the average viewer could or would want to do. It would seem that a fair amount of familiarity with Ingmar Bergman's pre-existing body of work goes a long way. This original review in TIME magazine shows how that reviewer, knowing of Bergman's iconic film images, was able to see the underlying structure of the film right from the strange, fractured, opening shots. Well, that's great if you're an aficionado or just know Bergman's films, but what if you aren't privy to these things? Confusion galore. That's what.

It seems that Persona was very much a major turning point for Bergman himself. He had apparently gotten very ill shortly before making it, and his experience in the hospital served as the inspiration for the story. He even said in a later interview that he had been suffering so much emotional distress that, if he hadn't made Persona in order to release his anxieties, he probably would have fallen apart. When one watches the film, it's not hard to see the existential angst that pervades all of the film's basic conflicts.

Another of the best-known shots from the film. Within context, it can be one of the eeriest, most sensual, and thought-provoking scenes you can see. And not a word is spoken.

One other tidbit that I found interesting, if only for the fact that it didn't strike me while I was watching the movie. For 1966, this film was incredibly daring. In particular, the scene during which Alma is recounting her sexual escapade on the beach. Bibi Andersen, Ingmar Bergman, and numerous critics have pointed how people will often recount this part of the movie as if it were actually shown on the screen, and not just relayed through Sister Alma's recounting. Such is the power of the scene. When I think about how forthright and honest the description is, it's not surprising to find out that several edited versions of the film were cut up for American audiences (we're always the prude ones).

Whenever I come across such an editing incident, it reminds me of just how Puritan our culture is, at root. Bibi Andersen's telling of the story as Alma is so authentic, and the story so incredibly believable, that most people would find it uncomfortable. Yet, most countries didn't feel the need to cut it out. Why? Because that's reality, folks. Sometimes the sweet, naïve, pretty nurse decides to throw caution to the wind and have some unprotected sex on the beach with some strange boys. Alma made a decision to dive into the unbridled sensual life for an afternoon, and Persona shows her reliving it through the retelling, with more circumspection and introspection than actual remorse. That's what Persona gives you – plenty of complex actions and emotions for mature, meditative humans to think about.

That's a wrap. 61 shows down. 44 to go.

Coming Soon: Closely Watched Trains (1966)

I'd never heard of this movie, but here's the summary on the DVD, verbatim: “Surrounded by but seemingly removed from the violence of Word War II, a naïve railroad apprentice working at train station in Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia carves some excitement by exploring his own sexuality.”

Now I ask you – how could I top that, and how can I not watch this film?!Come on back to see how this little “adventure” goes.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #60: Bande a part (1966)

2011-08-27T13:20:00.000-04:00

Title for us English-speaking Types: Band of Outsiders

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Initial Release Country: France

Times Previously Seen: none

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Trio of young, restless Parisians attempt a heist, in their own silly, amateurish way.

Extended Summary (A more complete plot synopsis, spoilers included. Fair warning)

In 1960s Paris, buddies Arthur (Claude Brasseur) and Franz (Sami Frey) are in the midst of planning a burglary. The two men are complete novices at thievery, but they seem bored and mildly desperate, and opportunity presents itself. That opportunity has come through Odile (Anna Karina), a pretty young girl whom Franz has met at an English school. Odile lives with her aunt in an impressive home, where she says their current boarder has a stash of millions of francs which he has stolen from the government. Odile tells Arthur and Franz that the money is left in an unlocked cabinet in an unlocked room. The three decide to relieve him of the money and escape their dull lives in Paris.

Over the course of a few days, the three grapple with their impending crime and their own feelings for each other. All three seem friendly enough, in their own flighty ways, but they all face uncertainties. Franz is a bright, well-read man who has genuine feelings for Odile. Odile, the youngest, the most nervous and guilt-ridden of the three, falls for Arthur. Arthur has a quirky yet dark charm, but is somewhat cold and beholden to his heartless and greedy family.

The triangle takes shape: Odile (left), accepts a cigarette from Arthur (right), after coldly refusing Franz (middle).

When the planned date of the robbery approaches, problems start to arise. Odile’s nervousness increases, but the fellows calm her enough to go in and allow them entry to the house. After they “break” in, they soon discover that the previously unlocked room is now firmly locked. They try the outside window, but this too is locked. Odile explains that her aunt and the boarder must have gotten suspicious, based on her own slight disheveling of the room on a previous search through it. Franz and Arthur, frustrated, abandon the job for the day, but pledge to return on the morrow.

The next day, the scene from the prior day repeats itself, to a degree. Odile lets the men in, and Arthur and Franz bully her aunt into giving them the room key, and then they bind her, gag her, and lock her in a massive cabinet. They get into the boarder’s room, but the cabinet is now empty of all but a few thousand francs. When they return to try and get the money’s location out of the aunt, she appears lifeless. They assume she is dead and they flee the house. Just as Arthur, Franz, and Odile are about to drive away, Arthur decides to double back and check to see if the aunt is indeed dead. He promises to meet Franz and Odile a short while later.

During the second robbery attempt, Arthur unleashes his nasty side, while Odile looks on.

Franz and Odile, driving away from the house, spot Arthur’s nefarious uncle, who has known of the planned caper all along, heading towards the house. Franz has a bad feeling about it all, makes a quick U-turn, and tries to catch up. When he and Odile approach the house, their fears are realized: they see Arthur emerge from the house, go into an attached doghouse, and fish the missing money out. As he is carrying the bundles of cash away, his own uncle steps out of the bushes and shoots him several times, the money spilling onto the lawn. Arthur does manage to shoot and kill his uncle in return, but then dies himself. Odile and Franz, watching from afar, then see Odile’s aunt, alive and well, come out of the house just as the boarder arrives on the scene. The two scoop up the money and scramble inside. Franz and Odile leave the bloody scene and drive away.

On the road away from the carnage, Franz and Odile share their feelings for each other and realize that they love one another, even through the attempted crime gone horribly wrong. They decide to board a ship and head to Brazil, where they hope to live happily together and explore a place far removed from their lives in Paris.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done before any further research)

This was a peculiar little movie, but a rather enjoyable one.

Before watching Band of Outsiders, the only other Jean-Luc Godard film I had seen was the influential science fiction film, Alphaville. I found Alphaville interesting and imaginative, but also rather baffling. Band of Outsiders was also a bit baffling, but in different and more amusing ways.

While watching this movie, I couldn't help but think of one of my absolute favorite comedies, The Big Lebowski, that fantastic, bizarro take of the Coen brothers on the noir genre. The Coen's clearly took the premise of “What if a burnt-out stoner were thrown into a 1940s-style noir crime tale set in 1990's Los Angeles?” and ran with it. In Band of Outsiders, Godard seemed to do something similar, asking, “What if three semi-hapless youths tried to pull a heist, and the story were told in noir style?” The results are pretty entertaining and, I imagine, quite novel for 1964.

From the beginning, the film does a good job of establishing the tone. Franz and Arthur drive out and “case” the house they plan to rob, but they can't help lapsing into silly games of “Billy the Kid versus Pat Garrett,” romping and rolling around the street like a couple of 8-year-olds. Master criminals, these are not.

Arthur and Franz, clowning around in the middle of their first recon of the house.

When the young, pretty, uncertain and almost accidentally devious Odile appears, she adds another dimension. Like Franz and Arthur, she knows only that she doesn't like her current life in Paris. Throughout the film, the three flirt with each other and make attempts to reveal their feelings about and to one another, without much success. Franz has a deeper, more thoughtful attraction to Odile, who is infatuated with the more reckless, immature and mysterious Arthur, who lusts for Odile but is more interested in the loot. It's a half-baked love triangle that one would expect from aimless youth.

The style of the film is a comedic take on noir movies. The voice-over narration reveals the inner thoughts of the three main characters. In a standard noir, such as Out of the Past or Double Indemnity, this adds psychological depth, mood and tension through terse, poetic language. In Band of Outsiders, it provides an extra layer of humor by revealing that neither Franz, Arthur, nor Odile is possessed of so much as a fraction of the ability, weariness or resignation of legitimate noir protagonists. They are restless and scattered, and their preoccupations make them horribly suited for lives of crime. But, what else are they going to do?

The plot itself is nothing extraordinary. When I saw “French” and “crime” on the DVD summary, I was ready for something quite different. Having enjoyed several French crime/escape flicks, such as Le Trou and Rififi, I hoped for a similarly tight, fast-paced caper film. Band of Outsiders makes the object of the thieves' desires one that any crime film can utilize – bundles of dirty cash – but makes its obtainment (and failure of) so simple that it's laughable. The money just sits in a cabinet, and the thieves are first thwarted when the cabinet is locked, and later when the money is moved into a nearby doghouse. There's something oddly and hilariously more realistic about all of this.

The "bande" kill some time before the heist by racing through the Louvre. Just one of their sillier adventures.

The acting is all solid. The roles were not extremely demanding, but the three main characters needed to convey uncertainly and antsiness in just the right amounts, and all of them did so. As with any film in a language that one doesn't speak, I'm sure that I even missed some of the subtle humor that can be conveyed by phrasing and tone, but the subtitles seemed to do a good enough job to keep me laughing in appropriate moments.

If a have to knock my viewing experience at all, I would say that it was due to the disorienting nature of the movie. Perhaps this was due to my ignorance of the film going in, but it takes a while to get a full grip on what the movie is trying to do. There are moments of silliness, gravity, dancing, somber soul-searching, deaths by gunshots, and overblown death throes, among others. At times it borders on incoherent, but it never slipped over the edge to me.

Another thing that tried my patience a little was the dialogue. Like many French nouveau movies of the same era, the characters tend to speak in oddly existential epigrams at times. This may have been another element that Godard meant as a mild spoof, but it was hard to be sure. When someone like Odile, who, according to the narrator “wondered if the boys noticed her breasts moving beneath her sweater,” later observes that, "All that is new is, by that fact, automatically traditional." It's hard to tell whether this is supposed to imbue her with a more rounded character, or if we are simply supposed to laugh at her suddenly-found profundity and/or pretension (two things that many French films have in nauseating abundance). Hard for me to say.

Band of Outsiders was a fun, quirky little film to watch. It was far from taxing, length-wise (a mere 93 minutes), and never got mired too deeply in the few elements that I could have found annoying. Would I watch it again? Perhaps, but I wouldn't rush to do so.

Fin. Franz and Odile take a slow boat to Brazil - some place that's not France.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research)

Not a ton of information out there on this movie, and nothing that surprised me or altered my view of it too much.

In general, it seems that this movie is revered for the blending of its lighthearted tone with its aping of previously-established styles. Several scenes and visuals in the film inspired several later homages in other movies. The one most often mentioned is the “Madison dance” scene. I didn't mention it, but it is a standout scene for its humorous strangeness. One of the more modern and well-known homages of the scene is the Vincent Vega/Mia Wallace dance number in Pulp Fiction.

The famous "Madison dance" scene. Strange? Yup.

A rather heady 2003 essay by Joshua Clover can be found here. Mr. Clover is clearly well-versed in film history, and he draws connections between many elements of Bande A Part, its American root elements, and the relationship to the French New Wave movement of the time. It's an interesting read, though dizzying at times.

That's a wrap. 60 shows down; 45 to go.

Coming Soon: Persona (1966)

Ingmar Bergman has gone all serious, psychological, and disturbing on us! Last time one of his films was in this list, it was the delightful Smiles of a Summer Night. I've seen Persona before, and I know not to expect the easygoing, sly comedy of that earlier film.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film # 59: A Hard Day's Night (1964)

2011-08-20T23:19:00.001-04:00

Director: Richard Lester

Initial Release Country: United Kingdom

Times Previously Seen: none

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

The iconic pop quartet spend a day running from fans, being cheeky, and mixing in several smash hits.

Extended Summary (Spoilers included, not that it matters)

Pop music sensations The Beatles are busy young lads. On one “typical” day, they spend their time charming some fans with their playful puns, avoiding stodgy drags with impish impassivity, or simply driving the teenyboppers wild with their monstrously popular tunes. They bounce from trains to limos to concert halls to night clubs, bringing their playfully subversive charm with them.

Accompanied by Paul McCarthy's rakish granddad and the band's managers, the Fab Four break into song several times, be it in a train car, on the street or in its presumed proper place, a concert hall. After a series of misunderstandings nearly lose their drummer, Ringo Starr, to arrest by the local police, the four arrive at that evening's gig just in time play their set, sooth the panicked stage manager, and send the adolescent girls into absolute rapture.

Lennon & Harrison, dazzling adoring fans by their meer presence.

After all of the screaming, cheering and hoipaloi die down, John, Paul, George and Ringo run off with their managers to board a helicopter and fly away, presumably to the next day's gig and yet another bout of non-stop insanity and hijinx.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this first viewing, before any research on the film)

I simply don't get it.

This isn't to imply that there's anything about the movie to “get”. What I mean by that opening line is that I don't get why it's placed on the TIME magazine “100 Great Films” list. A Hard Day's Night is ultimately harmless fun, featuring arguably the most popular band of all time. Still, it showed me nothing that would explain bestowing “great film” status on it.

I suppose full disclosure would be appropriate. I am not a huge Beatles fan. I have nothing against them. I certainly don't dislike them. In fact, I have several albums of their and actually quite like several of their songs. However, I've never felt drawn to them with the religious dedication seen in so many millions of other people. Not even close.

The rabid fandom gets going early and continues through the film and into the 21st century.

I can best describe myself as being a “post drugs” Beatles fan – a person who likes the music they made after they started dabbling in better living through chemistry. Hence, all of the songs I like are from 1965 and after (Revolver, Rubber Soul, and their successors). A Hard Day's Night predated these by a few years and was the apex of The Beatles early, teenybopper heyday (after seeing this film, I might dub The Beatles as the first ever “boy band”, though they grew out of that shortly after). The music was pure bubblegum – catchy, crisp, and lyrically shallow. The movie follows suit, for the most part.

Going into the movie, I didn't really know what to expect. I didn't know if it was a pure documentary or what. The answer was “or what”. A Hard Day's Night was a comical take on the hectic daily life of an incredibly popular “band on the run”. While the four band members play themselves, everything in the film is totally scripted, and it is quite clearly meant to be a lighthearted farce. The boys crack wise, ditch their uptight managers, and generally frustrate any person over the age of 30. The kids obviously loved it.

I, however, am not a starry-eyed 15-year-old British girl (so my girlfriend tells me). Whether my age had anything to do with it, I can't be sure, but I found the movie to be mostly a bore. There are a few one-liners that elicited a chuckle here and there, but the vast majority of the movie was plain dull. The jokes were mostly lame puns and the physical comedy was sadly sophomoric.

McCartney hides from fans by wearing a fake moustache. Just one of many silly jokes I can only guess were aimed at the vaudevillian/8-year old demographic.

One reason I assume people rate this movie highly is the music. The soundtrack is, essentially, the album of the same name. Without doubt, some of the band's most enduring and infectious hits are to be heard and seen performed. If you love that album, you'll no doubt love the movie, just for hearing the songs. As previously explained, though, these are not the Beatles tunes that draw me in. For me, these little musical interludes simply tried my patience.

I do have to say that the movie is shot well. It's in black and white, but the framing is solid and the acting is decent enough. Alas, it takes far more to make a great film. Sure, this one features a pop music group the likes of which may never be seen again, since our modern culture precludes the dominance of any one superstar band or group, but it's still very flat to me.

For people who love The Beatles in general, or just prefer their earlier G-rated vibe, this movie is probably one that you'd like. It wasn't my cup o' tea, sorry to say.

Take 2: Or, Why Film Geeks Love This Movie. (Done after some further research on the film)

A little research has shed a wee touch of light on the enduring praise of A Hard Day's Night.

While the earliest reviews, including this original one from TIME magazine, seem to find the movie far funnier than I did, several more modern reviewers bring up more salient points. As is often the case, Roger Ebert saw the greater picture in this 1996 review of his. Though he also found more humor in the movie than I did, he pays even more attention to the technical merits exhibited by director Richard Lester. Lester's unique blending of various filming styles apparently influenced movies, TV shows, and television commercials for decades to come. I certainly can't argue with this, as the cinematography was a clear standout aspect of the movie.

The other semi-novelty is that A Hard Day's Night was apparently an early stab at the "mockumentary". It certainly doesn't go all the way, as later films such as "The Ruttles" or "Spinal Tap", but one can see how the zaniness is there, though much tamer than those later entries to the genre.

I must that that, even in the more sober reviews, I couldn't help but think that the writer's couldn't shake off a certain amount of nostalgia. I'd probably do the same for any group that provided the primary soundtrack to roughly 15 of my formative years, if such a band existed. Despite this, I have to take the glowing reviews from the Baby Boomers with a tiny grain of salt.

That's a wrap. 59 shows down; 46 to go.

Coming Soon: Band of Outsiders (1964)

A French crime movie, oui? Actually, I've found many a pleasant surprise in watching French crime films, so I look forward to this one. Come back and check out my review, non?

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film # 58: Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

2011-08-15T19:28:00.001-04:00

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: Roughly 7 or 8 (Last time – about 5 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Wingnut general unleashes nuclear bombers on Russia. Loads of bizarre and hilarious characters fumble their way through the insanity.

Extended Summary (More complete synopsis; spoilers included. Fair warning)

In the middle of the Cold War, at Burpelson Air Force Base, deranged, rogue brigadier general Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) sends out a “go” code to an entire fleet of bombers. His orders are for them to dump their nuclear payloads onto scores of targets inside the Soviet Union.

General Jack D. Ripper - the man who seeks to annihilate the entire Soviet populace based on a rather...unusual theory.

When word of this catastrophic attack command reaches the U.S. War Room, General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) is called to confer with the country's executive and military leaders. Turgidson is a buffoonish hawk, completely caught up in the Red Scare, and suggests that the U.S. simply allow the unauthorized attacks to take place, as this will give them the upper hand in a Third World War. President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) scoffs at this and starts the process of contacting the U.S.S.R. In an attempt to warn the Soviets and seek a solution.

In the air and fast approaching Soviet air space in the crew of one of the B-52 bombers, this one being flown by Major “King” Kong (Slim Pickens). The crew is rather nervous about getting the attack codes, as it signifies the start of all-out nuclear war. Still, the crew is determined to carry out their mission.

Back in the War Room, it soon becomes very clear than recalling the bombers is an impossible task. General Turgidson explains to all present that recent and obscure legislation allows for a single general to enact an attack under his own authority under certain provisions. While these provisions were not met, the rogue General Ripper has ceased to care. The President grows more desperate.

General Buck Turgidson continues his half-baked attempts in the War Room to bulldog the rest of his peers and superiors into pressing the attack on Russia.

Back at Burpelson, British group captain and executive officer Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers again) soon discovers that the supposed Russian attack is not true, and he confronts General Ripper. Ripper locks Mandrake into his office and explains his reason for launching the bomber attack: he believes that the communists are taking over American “bodily fluids” through fluoridation. At this point, it is clear than General Ripper is thoroughly insane. Mandrake demands the recall codes, but to no avail. He must await his psychotic superior's next move.

In the War Room, President Mandrake calls on the Soviet premier and calls in the Soviet diplomat in an attempt to resolve the crisis. In explaining the impending catastrophe, it is revealed that the Soviets have just created a “doomsday device” that will exterminate all life on the face of the earth, should any attack be made on the Soviet Union. The choices are now stark – the president enacts two assaults: one by the Americans on Burpelson Air Force Base, in order to wrest the recall codes from Ripper; and another, Soviet attack on the B-52 bombers that are rapidly approaching their targets inside the Soviet Union.

At Burpelson, the base has come under attack by the U.S. Army, and Ripper fights back. With Mandrake attempting to reason with him, Ripper keeps up his fight until the last moment. When it is clear than he can hold out no longer, Ripper commits suicide, seemingly taking the recall codes with him into the hereafter. However, Mandrake puzzles out the codes from some of Ripper's desk scribblings. After a bizarre hold-up at the hands of a dense and over-zealous army officer, Mandrake reaches the president.

In the War Room, the government's plan seems to have worked. The Soviets have shot down many of the American bombers, and the codes sent along by Mandrake have recalled all of the others. All, that is, except...

...the B-52 piloted by Major Kong. Their coding equipment having been shot up, they have not received the recall code from base. In addition, they have eluded all attempts to shoot them down. With gumption that is almost admirable, they make it to one of the targets and attempt to drop their payload. However, the bomb doors are jammed. In a final act of wherewithal, Major Kong straddles the bomb, fixes the bomb door wiring just above it, and rides the bomb down to its target. Nuclear winter has begun.

Major Kong succeeds in bringing his payload. Personally.

Back in the War Room, the mood is understandably somber. That is until the floor is taken by the wheelchair-ridden Doctor Strangelove (Peter Sellers, yet again), an ex-Nazi-turned American adviser. He seems oddly chipper about the entire scenario. He explains that the world's leaders can survive within caves beneath the earth. In his scenario, he suggests that the military and political leaders will take precedence and that they will have ample provisions to survive. In addition, in order to repopulate the earth after the fallout clears, they will need a high ratio of women to men. The cherry on top is that these women will need to be exceptionally attractive, so as better to allow the men to function in their role as procreators. With all of this to ease their worries, all of the men in the War Room seem to have already moved far beyond the nuclear apocalypse taking place above their very heads, to the point that they are already plotting how to get a leg up on post-Apocalyptic competitions with the Russians.

Did I Like It?

If you noticed how many times I've seen this film before, the answer is obvious. This most recent viewing did nothing to change my mind – this movie is one of the greatest comedy films of all time.

Now sure, there are probably other movies that I've laughed at more, and there are probably some comedies that have been wittier. But for balancing sheer inventiveness, zaniness, and canny social commentary, Dr. Strangelove is all but untouched.

While the theme of lampooning the Cold War era political philosophies of fear-mongering and arms racing may seem dated, it surely is not. The entire notion of the pre-emptive strike will never go away, and Dr. Strangelove takes the idea to its Swiftian extreme. Considering how the specter of nuclear holocaust continued to haunt the world for decades after the book and movie's release, Dr. Strangelove has serious staying power. By pushing the era's prevailing martial ideologies a little (I stress “a little”) further, it's easy to see how laughably insane they were. (We can laugh now, anyway.)

Beyond the brilliance of the story line and its execution is the real strength of the movie – the actors. Dr. Strangelove is mostly populated by caricatures goofy enough to laugh at, but also frighteningly real for what they represent. Such a strange balancing act can only be pulled off by just the right cast, and this film got it perfectly. Sterling Hayden as the chillingly calm, thoroughly insane General Ripper is as horrifying as he is hilarious. (His interactions with Mandrake are some of my favorite scenes in any movie). I can't imagine gung-ho pilot Major King Kong being played by anyone other than uber-hick, Slim Pickens. Even the bit role of Sergeant “Bat” Guano is done to pitch perfection by Keenan Wynn and his fantastically mispronounced catchphrase, “pre-versions”. As excellent as all of these, and other, actors are in the film, they are far surpassed by one of the all-time greats.

Peter Sellers, who had some of the most memorable comic performances of all time throughout his career, pulled off his greatest feat in Dr. Strangelove. In playing the amusingly sober Commander Mandrake, the oddly pliant President Muffley, and the hilariously twisted title character, he utilized every one of his considerable acting skills. It's been said of Sellers that few people (if any) actually knew the real man, for he would so completely lose himself in the characters that he was playing. In watching Dr. Strangelove, it's not hard to believe this. If you didn't know better, you may not even guess that the same actor is playing all 3 vastly different roles, as each of the three is busting your gut in vastly different ways. Just seeing him is more than worth the price of admission.

Officer Mandrake does his best to weather the storm of deranged General Ripper's apocalyptic dementia. Seller's role as Strangelove may be more iconic, but his turn as Mandrake is far funnier to me.

One interesting mental note I made as I watched the movie this most recent time – I had a moment of emotional guilt, not unlike when I was watching Double Indemnity earlier in the list. At the moment when the B-52 crew is trying to desperately make their bomb run, I felt myself pulling for them. Major Kong, the all-guts patriot/pilot redneck, shows no end of moxy by shrugging of missile attacks, broken fuel lines, and other malfunctions to get to his target and drop his payload. As I watched him almost single-handedly overcome each obstacle, I admired the simple yet brave soldier. Then I realized, “Wait a minute...this guy's about to trigger the ultimate nuclear winter!!!” There's something about watching a truly determined character use sheer willpower to smash through barriers that's gratifying, often regardless of their ultimate goal.

So yeah – I love this movie. I'll certainly watch it many more times in the years to come, and I can't recommend it highly enough. There may be a few moments where things seem a little slow (particularly in the B-52 scenes), but this film is a masterpiece the likes of which may never be duplicated.

That's a wrap. 58 films down, 48 to go.

Coming (Very) Soon: A Hard Day's Night (1964)

The Fab Four in one of their early feature films. I certainly respect, if not exactly love, the Beatles. Let's see how they did on the silver screen.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #57: Charade (1963)

2011-06-02T21:28:00.000-04:00

Director: Stanley Dolan

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: once (about 2 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Newly widowed, ever-chic waif is hounded by mean strangers over a mysterious fortune left by her enigmatic dead husband. Wears fantastic hats.

Extended Summary (Lengthier synopsis, including major spoilers. Fair warning)

Somewhere in France, a body is found beside a railroad track. The corpse was Charles Lampert, whose widow, Regina (Audrey Hepburn) at first knows nothing of her husband's death. Instead, she has been whiling away her time on a ski slope, complaining to a friend about how she knows virtually nothing of her husband, and will soon be asking for a divorce. While at the ski lodge, she has a brief flirtatious encounter with Peter Joshua (Cary Grant), a suave American seemingly on holiday as well.

Upon her return to Paris, Regina discovers that she and her husband's 5-star hotel suite has been completely gutted of all belongings. At police headquarters, she is informed that her husband has been found dead, but not before he had sold off he and his wife's belongings and attempted to flee the country for some unknown reason. The questions about Regina's deceased husband increase.

Regina Lampert, sporting the only sunglasses that could possibly be larger than her Japanese animated character eyes.

Back at her hotel room, Regina is soon met by Peter Joshua, who has looked her up and found her deep in thought. After hearing her story, he offers to help her in any way that he can. At Charles Lampert's funeral the next day, Regina witnesses more oddity: three distinctive men, known as Panthollow (James Coburn), Scobie (George Kennedy) and Gideon, one-by-one, approach the open coffin of the dead man and carefully check to see that he is dead. Regina merely watches in stunned amazement.

After the funeral, Regina is contacted by U.S. Treasury official Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau), who clarifies a few things, while adding new mysteries. He explains that Charles Lampert's real name was Charles Voss, and that he was part of a small U.S. military group that stole $250,000 that was meant for the French resistance during World War II. Voss/Lampert was part of the five-man conspiracy, which included the three strange men from Lampert's funeral, as well as a fifth man named Dyle. Voss/Lampert, after many years of waiting, snuck in and stole the money and was running off with it when he was killed. With Voss/Lampert dead for a certainty, the surviving conspirators are all after the money that they are sure he spirited away from them. The problem is that no one knows where the money is, but everyone thinks that Regina does. The only clues that Charles Voss/Lampert left behind are in a travel bag which seems to contain nothing out of the ordinary.

As if this winding tale weren't confounding enough, the confusion grows as Peter Joshua becomes more involved. At first, he is the helpful compatriot, Peter Joshua. However, he then seems to be in cahoots with the other three thieves, as they refer to him as Dyle. He later explains that he is not the original Dyle, who is presumed dead, but Dyle's brother, and he is seeking revenge on the other three treasure seekers. This, too, is another fabrication, as “Dyle” admits to a third identity – that of an international thief named Adam Canfield. All of these shifts and covers are slowly revealed to Regina through their interactions. Frustrating as it all is to her, she finds herself falling in love with this mystery man, as he repeatedly saves her from the other three fortune hunters.

The mystery man shows off his true professionalism by not laughing at that ridiculous excuse for a hat that Regina Lampert is wearing.

The serious problems start when more deaths occur. First is the massive Scobie, who is found drowned in The Mystery Man's tub. Shortly after, Gideon is discovered with his throat slashed in the same hotel's elevator. It would seem that the only suspects are the still-living Tex Panthollow or Regina's identity-shifting protector/rogue, The Mystery Man.

Just as all of this is transpiring, The Mystery Man presses Regina for any information that will still lead him to the $250,000 and save her from any further threats by Panthollow. She does recall a meeting place and time, which is in a nearby public park. When The Mystery Man arrives, he notices that Panthollow is already there. At first, neither of them understands the significance of the park. That is, until they both notice the massive swap meet of stamp collectors. Panthollow recalls that one of the items in Charles Voss/Lampert's travel bag was a letter affixed with three stamps. He also correctly assumes that these stamps must be the hiding place of the quarter million dollars. He races back to Regina's hotel room to get the stamps. The Mystery Man puts together the same pieces, finds Panthollow back in the room, but discovers that, while the letter and envelope are still there, the stamps have been torn off.

Back in the park, Regina sees the results of her own little maneuver. She had realized the value of the stamps and sent them to a friend for safe-keeping. Following a nearly disastrous sell-off of the stamps, she recovers them. We then learn that the three stamps are, indeed, worth an amazing $250,000.

Regina returns to her hotel room and is horrified to find Tex Panthollow's dead body in her room. His dead fingers have sketched out the name “Dyle” on the carpet. As Regina flees, The Mystery Man himself arrives and begins to give chase. Regina runs and manages to contact the Treasury Agent Bartholomew for help. All three people converge between the massive marble pillars of an outdoor plaza. Both Bartholomew and The Mystery Man are armed and ready to kill each other. It is only now that The Mystery Man realizes and explains to Regina that Bartholomew is actually the original Dyle; that he was never killed in the War, and that he has been posing as a Treasury agent and killing the other thieves in order to get at the money through Regina. While he denies it at first, Bartholomew eventually admits to the truth. He threatens Regina in an attempt to wrest the valuable stamps from her, but The Mystery Man gets to the real Dyle first, shooting him dead.

Hamlton Bartholomew, one of several characters who are not quite what they seem.

The following day, The Mystery Man and Regina go to the American Embassy to return the $250,000 that was originally theirs. The Mystery Man decides to remain in the hallway, claiming that, being a professional thief, it would hurt him too much to see so much money simply given away. This, however, is his final ruse. When Regina strolls into the office of Treasury Director Crookshanks, she discovers that he is, in fact, the man who has been so rapidly swapping names. This final identity is, however, genuine, and the two fall into each others' arms.

The Verdict

Charade is a decent enough movie, and it held my attention, but this was despite some really serious problems I have with it.

The good? One thing is the overall plot. As far as playful suspense movies go, the story in Charade clicks along really well. Like many of Alfred Hitchcock's stronger suspense movies, the viewer is intrigued enough to try and piece together the strange scenarios. However, every time you think you have a handle on it, one of the variables changes. This is typified by the nominal chameleon, Agent Crookshanks. Even though I wasn't completely in love with this movie, the time flew by pleasantly enough as I scrambled to keep to up with the plot.

Helping out the telling of the tale are some humorously 2-dimensional characters brought to life by some solid acting. While I have serious problems with some of the acting (I'll get to that in a moment), James Coburn and George Kennedy are enjoyable. Even better, I felt like Walter Matthau steals all of his scenes. His effortlessly dry humor is perfection.

Another undoubted strength is the visuals. As might be expected from a director who was behind such technicolor musical standards as Singin' In the Rain and many others, Charade's vibrancy is rather appealing. The shots are framed perfectly, and all actors and props are right in their places. Such compositions make the film exceptionally easy on the eyes.

One of the many shots in the film that could make a pretty decent postcard. Note the artful arrangement of colors.

All of these positives just barely outweighed the nuisances to me. First among these bugaboos is that there is a serious lack of cohesion in the speech and actions of the main characters. Both Regina Lampert and Crookshanks make odd swings between being silly and playful to being highly emotional. This leads to some rather strange scenes and annoying interactions. Most obvious to me is a rather weird scene in which Crookshanks, to bring a smile to Regina's face after a near-death experience, jumps into a shower fully clothed and pretends to wash. I think it was meant to be charmingly goofy, but it comes off as just bizarre.

The greater problem to me is a major bias of mine: Audrey Hepburn. I am simply not a fan of hers. Granted, the fact that the character she plays is a confusing hodge-podge of attitudes and emotions, and perhaps no actress could have pulled it off. Still, there has always been something about Hepburn's giant-eyed posing and aristocratic air that irks me. I realize that she was the “it” girl in her day and is still seen as a fashion icon, and I guess I understand why. All the same, the only movie in which I've been able to stomach her is My Fair Lady, and that only because she is verbally abused relentlessly by Rex Harrison. Her role in Charade managed only to annoy me with her odd shifts from comically apathetic widower to hopelessly fawning romantic or from clever, cool customer to skitish, hapless victim.

One of many scenes in which Audrey Hepburn over(re)acts. Seriously - it's just a friggin' match, lady.

Will I watch this movie again? Probably not. The riveting aspect of this movie was the suspense of the unknown. Even having watched the movie a few years ago, I had forgotten nearly all of the plot details. Now knowing them all, further viewings would only highlight the things that I don't like about the movie. I would still recommend that nearly anyone who enjoys films give it at least one go. Anyone who really likes Audrey Hepburn and/or Cary Grant will surely not be disappointed, as the former is at her most “adorably” elfish, and the latter is...well, he's Cary Grant.

That's a wrap. 57 shows down. 48 to go.

Coming Soon: Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

One of my favorite comedies of all time, by the otherwise dead serious directing great, Stanley Kubrick. If any film on this list has a chance to unseat Kind Hearts and Coronets as “darkest comedy”, this is the one...

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #56: 8 1/2 (1963)

2011-05-23T13:07:00.000-04:00

Director: Federico Fellini

Initial Release Country: Italy

Times Previously Seen: once (about 5 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Star film director attempts to balance the manic production process of his current project with his own flights of fancy and real personal problems.

Extended Summary (A more complete plot synopsis, spoilers included. Fair warning)

Star film director Guido Anselmi (Marcelo Mastroianni) is surrounded by chaos. He is in the midst of producing his latest movie – a high-budget monster that has his creative team scrambling to and fro, trying to meet their distracted director's insufferably vague demands. Wannabe actors and actresses constantly badger Guido for parts in the movie, financial backers seek to know more about the mysterious project, and critics, religious figures, and journalists from all over the world nag him for his views on everything from love to politics to religion. In the middle of the maelstrom, Guido, suffering from poor health, goes to a spa, bringing the entire circus with him.

In his mind's eye, Guido dreams himself a balloon about to be brusquely yanked back to earth.

Added to all of the hoopla surrounding the movie itself are Guido's personal problems. He asks his mistress, the pretty but hopelessly dense and materialistic Carla (Sandra Milo), to join him. She offers a bit of escapist comfort, but only for a short while before the pressures of the film start to weigh down on Guido once more.

Throughout the dizzying tap-dance, Guido often finds his only respite in his own fantasies. He recalls past loves and scenarios, painting them with the exceptionally vibrant palette of his revisionist imagination. From floating above the crowd as a balloon, to interactions with past lovers, to conversations with his dead father, Guido loses himself in his own mind as easily as he lights up a fresh cigarette. However, just like the cigarette, each fantasy burns down to its end, leaving him back in reality.

The ever-chic looking Guido, taking in the world around him. What the mind behind the shades does to that world is anyone else's guess.

His reality becomes even more muddled when, after his desperate plea for mature companionship, Guido's wife Luisa (Anouk Aimee) comes to visit him at the spa. The reunion is amiable enough at the start, but soon turns sour as Luisa realizes that her husband is still the same immature dreamer who has cheated on and left her many times in the past. Their 20-year marriage seems completely destroyed when, at a set of screen tests, Luisa sees that her husband has used their most intimate conversations as fodder for his movie script. She storms out of the screen tests, with only marginal protests by Guido.

By this time, the pressures on Guido to become more active in the filming process, respond to critics, and answer to his financial backers finally get to him. At an ill-conceived tea party at one of the movie sites (with scaffolding for a massive rocket ship), Guido is put on a dais and commanded to give answers. In his mind, he escapes by imagining himself crawling under the table, pulling a gun and shooting himself. In reality, he merely cancels the entire picture and sends the entire hoipaloi packing.

In his final waking dream, Guido stares at the now-useless scaffolding and imagines an entire carnival of characters being led about by a little boy in all white, with a flute. The boy directs everyone off of the stage, remains for a few moments more, and is the last to leave.

My Take on the Film

This is a movie that will divide viewers into 2 clear camps: those who find it incomprehensible, Eurotrash nonsense, and those who find it a phenomenally skillful, humorous and entertaining look at the life and mind of an artist. When I first watched this movie about five years ago, I was probably more in the former group, but I am now with the latter.

If you are a movie viewer who demands a plot-driven story that follows the classic hero/heroine overcoming obstacles to prevail for truth and justice, Federico Fellini is not the director for you, and the film 8 ½ is probably the ultimate Fellini film. This is not least of all because it is certainly the most auto-biographical of his many films. I suppose some may say that a film director making a film about a film director making a film is the height of narcissism and self-aggrandizement. This thought did occur to me, but I dismiss it. For any person who has ever attempted any artistic endeavor, it is not hard to understand the character Guido Anselmi's desire to leave behind the trappings of the material world and vanish into any number of fantasy worlds of our own making. Therein lies the emotion of 8 ½ – the desire of escapism. After all, what are most of us looking for in films but to escape?

That attempt at intellectual analysis aside, the most striking thing about 8 ½ is the portrayal of Guido's daydreams. On my past viewing, I simply wasn't paying enough attention to see how they were related to everything else going on in the film. Now, however, I see the very clear connections and why each and every one of his flights of fancy are touching and/or hilarious. This is part of what is captivating about this movie – the viewer is waiting to see just when Guido will warp the world around him into his own vision, and exactly how he will do it. From the very beginning, in which he imagines himself drifting out of his car stuck in traffic and up into the air like a balloon, to the very end in which he sees his role as director symbolized by the little boy leading around thousands of strange characters, it all points to the absurdities that swirl around the world of art.

This is not to equate the absurd with the useless. Absurdity is the ocean in which many comic treasures can be found, and Fellini was the Jacques Cousteau of finding such. He had a such a great eye for the strange, silly, and wonderful moments in life that entertainers can provide. From the little, insensitive comments towards babbling actors to the hilariously ridiculous visions of Guido as the head of his own harem, 8 ½ runs a spectacular gamut of humor.

The ocean-side prostitute, Saraghina - One of the countless indelible images in the movie.

Not only could Fellini find this great variety of humor, but he could present it in such an appealing, eye-catching way that his films are often a pleasure to watch. Even someone who has no time for the fanciful nature of 8 ½ has to admit that the film is captivating to look at. From the cast, all striking either for their beautiful or singular looks, to the sets, locales, and shot framing, everything is in its proper place in the movie. It all further reinforces the notion that art can provide the order and pleasure that real life rarely offers.

A final merit to be pointed out is that Fellini cut himself no breaks in this movie. While the character who represents him, Guido, is fairly likable and, but the accounts of the ancillary characters, an artistic genius, his failings as a man are made plain for all to see. Once his wife, Luisa, and his sister show up, it becomes clear that, emotionally, Guido is nothing more than a scared and selfish little child. He lies to cover up his infidelities and uses his and his wife's most intimate moments as little more than fodder for his own movie script. What you get is a man who represents many a great artist – brilliant in his medium but sorely lacking when it comes to the quieter, closer moments of life.

I suppose if I can knock this film at all, it is that it ran out of just a little bit of steam by the end. Coming in at over 2 hours and 15 minutes, I found myself flagging a little bit by the time the end was near. I felt that I had received a near overdose of Guido Anselmi's perpetual mental fluctuations and just wanted the end to come. However, I must say that this may have been because it was late at night, and I was probably just tired. Turn my experience into a cautionary tale – set aside the right time to watch this movie.

The final image of the movie, with the little "band leader" boy symbolizing the director himself.

That's a Wrap. 56 shows down. 49 to go.

Coming Soon:Charade (1963)

This one may be a bit of an effort. Despite having some kick-ass actors in it (Cary Grant and James Coburn, to name a few), it also contains one of my least favorite leads – Audrey Hepburn. Come an back to see if I can stomach it.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #55: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

2011-05-15T18:33:00.000-04:00

Director: David Lean

Initial Release Country: United Kingdom

Times Previously Seen: once (about 12 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Bright, charismatic, and quixotic young British officer fosters & leads major Arab military campaigns during World War I.

Extended Summary (Spoilers included. Fair warning.)

In Cairo, in the midst of World War I, a young British military intelligence officer, T.E. Lawrence (Peter O'Toole), whiles away his time and immense intellectual abilities making maps. This all changes when his commanding officer decides to send him to the Arabian desert. Despite Lawrence's seeming lack of respect for authority and discipline, he is fluent in multiple languages and shows a rare and genuine interest in the region. He accept the assignment to seek out the British ally, Arabian Prince Feisal (Alec Guinness), and see how his battle against the enemy Turks is going.

In western Arabia, after an arduously scorching journey across the desert, Lawrence meets up with his superior officer, Colonel Brighton, and finds Prince Feisal just as he and his tribes suffer an air raid by the Turks. Although Brighton and high British command urge Prince Feisal to move his people to the south and await British aide, Lawrence expresses his distaste at the Arabs relying solely on foreign assistance, though it comes from his mother country. He convinces one of Feisal's warlords, Sherif Ali (Omar Sharif), to launch an assault on the heavily fortified, Turkish held port city of Aqabbah. To show his confidence in the plan, Lawrence agrees to go along with the fifty-odd fighting men on their perilous trek across the desert towards the occupied coastal city.

Still clad in mostly British soldier gear, Lawrence makes one of his first forays into the scorching Arabian desert.

After a weeks-long journey under the punishing Arabian sun, during which several companions die, Lawrence and Sherif Ali's fighting force clear the desert. They are met by Auda Abu Tai (Anthony Quinn), the local sheik who has been bought off by the Turks not to attack Aqabbah. Ignoring Sherif Ali's disgust and personal desires not to accept help from such a man, Lawrence stokes Abu Tai's pride and thirst for gold, and he convinces him to join forces to take Aqabbah from the Turks. The plan works to perfection, as the Turks never expect a landward attack and are quickly routed. However, Abu Tai is disgusted to find no gold anywhere in Aqabbah, and centuries-long blood feuds threaten to break out between the two Arab tribes. Lawrence decides to head back to Cairo, across the Sinai peninsula, to bring word of the victory and ask for more military aide from his British commanders.

After yet another brutal journey across the desert wastes of the Sinai, this one killing one of Lawrence's body servants, he makes it back to headquarters. The mere sight of him, sun-stroked and wearing a tattered robe of a local khalif, shocks the standard British officers and high commanders. After a few emotional outbursts, Lawrence calms enough to explain the situation in Aqabbah and convince his commanders to supply armaments and training to the Arabs. The goal will be to disrupt the Turkish rail supply chain through guerrilla attacks that Lawrence will lead himself.

Lawrence and Sharif Ali, on the brink of yet another one of their guerrilla raids.

Many months pass, and Lawrence's guerrilla fighters are succeeding beyond expectations. Their hit-and-run dynamiting tactics are sending Turkish supply routes into chaos. The fighters have become famous enough that Lawrence has even attracted an American photojournalist, whom Lawrence is more than happy to indulge.

In the middle of the Arabs' wild successes, however, Lawrence finds himself extremely torn. All this time, he has fought with the Arabs for their own freedom from foreign control, and he has become a hero of near mythic proportions both in Arabia and abroad. Still, he feels a mounting desire to set down the mantle of responsibility, turn away from all of the bloodshed, and just become an average person again. Complicating his moods even more are his equally strong feelings of vanity and sense of importance. It is all of these conflicting emotions that pull Lawrence briefly back to headquarters in Cairo.

At British headquarters, Lawrence makes a desperate plea to be allowed to become just an average soldier again. His commanding officers convince him that he is too valuable and send him back to Arabia.

Once back in Arabia, Lawrence continues to fight, but has become a gruesome specter. He leads his ever-dwindling number of troops northward towards Damascus, where Britain and her allies hope to deal a death blow to Turkish forces. On his march, the previously-compassionate Lawrence no longer balks at wholesale massacres of Turkish forces, and nearly all evidence of his past flamboyance and vanity have been burned away. After another spell of self-doubt, Lawrence actually wanders into a nearby town, allows himself to be captured and brutally beaten by Turkish forces.

After being treated for his wounds, Lawrence returns once again to headquarters in Cairo. This stay is very brief, but before leaving, Lawrence extracts a guarantee from his general and the local British diplomat: that Britain has no designs on moving in and taking over Arabia once they have banished the Turks.

On returning to Arabia, Lawrence's Arab forces make their final push northward, and manage to take over Damascus even before the European forces arrive. As such, the various Arab tribes have sectioned off the city by tribe, leading to different segments of the infrastructure being under that control of rival groups, including his old comrades-in-arms, Sherif Ali and Abu Tai. Lawrence attempts to get the divergent groups to sit, talk, and negotiate, but seemingly for naught. He sees the chaos that is resulting from centuries-old tribalism, and decides that he can do no more. He leaves Arabia and becomes an anonymous British soldier once again.

An exhausted Lawrence makes his final attempts to unify the Arab League, with Abu Tai at his side.

Years later, in 1935, at the age of 47, Lawrence dies in a motorcycle accident. It is only at his funeral that people seem to recall what an extraordinary person he had been, though none can rightly say that they knew exactly what had been in his heart.

My Take on the Film:

Lawrence of Arabia is a true epic, and one that I really enjoyed watching, even if I don't find it flawless.

Part of the reason I enjoyed this massive picture is that I knew what I was in for. Having a running time of 216 minutes staring me in the face, I set aside a Saturday morning with nothing else to do. Mother nature helped me out by adding a rainstorm. Perfect movie-watching weather. Anyone who's thinking of taking in this classic, be sure you understand what's expected of you, and plan accordingly.

So, what does Lawrence of Arabia give you? The most obviously stunning element is the visuals. As far as the TIME list goes, this was only the fourth color film that I've watched (Pinocchio, Meet Me In St. Louis, and The Searchers being the others). In 1962, the vast majority of films were still being filmed in much more cost-effective black-and-white. If they were filmed in color, nearly all backgrounds were painted mock-ups. When Lawrence of Arabia hit the screens, it must have completely blown people away. The sweeping, on-location desert landscapes are incredible. Even someone like myself, who has grown up in an age of unparalleled cinematic visuals, has to marvel at David Lean's eye. The wide-angle shots convey the beautiful vastness and desolation of the Arabian desert, as well as the affects that such a landscape would have on humanity. The setting is clearly as much a character as T.E. Lawrence himself.

One of the almost countless stunning images of the pitiless yet oft-beautiful desert as it surrounds the characters.

The history of the modern Arab world is also a major theme. This may not be of interest to some viewers, but it certainly has a certain bearing, considering the changes the Middle East is undergoing as I write these words. This relatively brief slice of European doings in modern Saudi Arabia and its neighbors is likely to pique the curiosity of most. I realize that it is a dramatized version of events, but I do plan to dig a bit to find out more about this very seminal moment in world history.

Of course, the movie is not called “History of The Middle East”. The titular protagonist is certainly one of the most intriguing people the West has ever produced. A rather tortured intellectual, Lawrence was, by the few accounts that I've read, a walking collection of contradictions. The movie does as well as it can at displaying as may of the facets of T.E. Lawrence as possible. The quiet, ponderous scenes in the desert evoke his passive, philosophical nature; while the desert fighting scenes show a savage, sadistic warrior in the throes of battle rage. We get a fantastic scene of Lawrence alone and preening in his newly-given khalif robes, clearly absorbed in his own vanity; later, we have an emotionally shattered Lawrence begging to return to the British military, desperate to be “just one of the chaps” again.

Of course, it was a very young Peter O'Toole tasked with acting out David Lean's visionary bio-pic. O'Toole's performance is certainly packed with emotion, and is very effective. However, I do have to say that, after three-and-a-half hours, I had grown a bit weary of all of the quivering. It seemed to be the way that was decided upon (by O'Toole or Lean, I don't know) to convey a range of Lawrence's various emotions. Lawrence is angry? He shakes with rage. He's crushed by sadness? He shakes in despair. And so on. There are more tranquil moments that offset this; it's just an impression that I come away with.

The only other element of the movie that I found a bit frustrating is one that probably cannot be avoided. Because the real T.E. Lawrence was apparently such a difficult man to pin down, I came away from the movie rather befuddled by the title subject. As most people are, I am accustomed to protagonists who are, on the whole, clearly defined, be they “hero” or “villain”. Lawrence was one who clearly defied easy categorization. It's the thing that makes him fascinating, but also left me with the sense that the movie's study of him, despite being nearly four hours, was somehow incomplete. I don't really feel that this was due to poor storytelling on the parts of the filmmakers; it's simply the subject matter.

Lawrence of Arabia is a great film, though one that may seem like an unsatisfying trial to many viewers. If you can be patient and drink in everything it offers, its merits shine as brightly as any film's. If longer films without pat conclusions are not your thing, you may not have the wherewithal for this one.

That's a wrap. 55 shows down, 50 to go.

Coming Soon: 8 ½ (1963)

The Italian filmmaker's filmmaker, Federico Fellini's well-known film on making a film. Say all of that five times, quickly.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

*Note on future content: As a few of you may have notices, I did not include the “Take 2” segment in this review. From this point on, I will cease doing this portion of my reviews, as they had become simply too time-consuming. Henceforth, I will keep it limited to a brief summary and my impressions of each movie. I hope that you will still enjoy them.

Film #54: The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

2011-04-21T17:34:00.000-04:00

Director: John Frankenheimer

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: once (about ten years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

U.S. Army officer has mind bent into an assassin during Korean War, comes home, experiences strangeness; Machiavellian mother.

Extended Summary (Complete summary of major story points, MAJOR spoilers included. Fair warning.)

In the thick of the Korean War, Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey) is the thoroughly uppity, humorless and utterly disliked Staff Sergeant of a small platoon. One night, thanks to their traitorous Chinese interpreter, the entire platoon is captured and dragged away by mysterious, black-clad figures.

Fast-forward several weeks. Raymond Shaw arrives home in the United States to much fanfare. We are told that he had escaped capture by fighting his way out of a POW camp, destroying enemy fortifications, and rescuing his entire platoon, save two men, in the process. For these acts, he has been awarded the prestigious Medal of Honor. His plane is met by marching bands and hordes of reporters, as well as his mother, Eleanor Shaw Iselin (Angela Lansbury) and step-father, Senator John Iselin. It soon becomes apparent to the young Shaw that the entire pageant has been set up as a platform for his step-father's political ambitions. Raymond is clearly disgusted and embarrassed by the entire show.

Elsewhere in the country, two of Raymond's fellow soldiers from Korea are having some bad experiences. Major Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra) and Corporal Allen Melvin are having bizarre and terrifying dreams. In these dreams, they see themselves and their platoon sitting in a hotel lobby, listening to what starts as a lecture on hydrangeas. Eventually, however, it becomes an exposition by a Chinese hypnotherapist, Doctor Yen Lo, to high-ranking communist party leaders from places such as Russia. Lo is explaining to his comrades how he has brainwashed the platoon, but particularly Raymond Shaw. Shaw has become a weapon that, upon seeing or hearing the correct triggers, will follow whatever orders he is given. To demonstrate, he has Shaw kill two of his own squad members in front of the others. At this point in their dreams, Marco and Melvin always wake up.

Bennett and Shaw, brainwashed with the rest of the platoon.

In the waking world, a shaky Marco Bennett is assigned as a press relations attache to a federal congressman. On his first duty, at a small press hearing, he comes almost head-to-head with the blustering Senator Iselin, who shows up unannounced and loudly levels anti-Communist accusations towards many unnamed members of Congress. While the doltish Iselin holds the position of power and the attention of a communist-wary public, it is clearly his wife, the cold and calculating Eleanor, who is behind all of his fear-mongering.

Bennett's dreams continue to disturb him; so much so that he is temporarily relieved of duty. He seeks out Raymond Shaw to find some sort of answers, and finds him working for a left-leaning journalist in New York. In speaking with his ever-misanthropic former subordinate, he learns that he is not alone in his dreams, as Raymond had received a letter from Melvin shortly before. This, however, is all he can tell Bennett. Soon, Marco convinces his superiors of the validity of his suspicions, and he and Melvin are separately able to identify some of the communist leaders they have seen in their dreams. The army decides to let Bennett stay close to Shaw to keep tabs on him.

While being under Bennett's watch, Shaw reveals a seminal moment in his past: the one time that he has both truly loved and been loved. It was with the lovely Jocelyn Jordan, the daughter of Senator Thomas Jordan, the staunchest rival to Raymond's fanatical mother and her puppet Senator husband. Raymond and Jocelyn had a summer of happiness before Eleanor learned of it, and forced Raymond to break it off in brutal fashion. Raymond then enlisted in the army.

Shortly after this revelation of Raymond's past, Major Bennett witnesses a clue to the brainwashing technique through a bizarre accident with a deck of cards. During a random encounter in a bar, Bennett sees Raymond hear the suggestion, “Why don't you pass the time by playing a little solitaire?” Upon hearing this phrase, Raymond robotically follows the suggestion until he overturns the queen of diamonds. Whatever suggestion is made to Raymond after he sees this card will be seen through and completely forgotten by him, no matter how ridiculous or brutal.

Bennett works out the triggering mechanism for Raymond's fugue assassination states.

Raymond's mother decides to throw a costume party with two subversive purposes. She invites her arch-enemies, the Jordans, so that she might reunite Raymond and Jocelyn, thus getting Eleanor closer to her rivals. Also, she reveals to Senator Jordan her plans to spearhead her husband's nomination as Vice-President in the upcoming elections. Jordan informs her that he will seek to impeach Iselin if they do any such thing. In a side room, Jocelyn, costumed as the Queen of Diamonds, steals in upon a dazed Raymond, and inadvertently hypnotizes him into eloping with her.

While all of this is happening, Major Bennett has been back at headquarters, puzzling over Raymond's strange behavior. He eventually puzzles out all of the triggers, and he plans to find Raymond in order to try and de-program him. Whom he finds first, however, is Jocelyn Jordan, who pleads with Bennett to give them 48 hours together while on their honeymoon. She assures Bennett that hers and Raymond's love for each other will overcome any potential brainwashing. Bennett reluctantly accedes.

Back at the Iselin residence, Eleanor schemes. She knows of her son's elopement, and puts her darkest plan into motion: We now learn that she has been the communists' agent in America, and she uses Raymond's triggers to hypnotize him and send him to kill both Senator Jordan and Raymond's own new wife, Jocelyn. Raymond does so, in the same mechanical fashion as he had killed his fellow soldiers.

The slaying of Jocelyn and her father by her own husband. One of the most distrubing scenes I've ever watched.

We also learn that, in addition to eliminating Senator Jordan, Eleanor has even greater ambitions: she has orchestrated the assassination of the presidential candidate who her husband will be running with as Vice-Presidential candidate. Her overall plan is to use the killing, which will happen in mid-acceptance speech, to whip up such powerful anti-communist sentiment that her husband will become president (with her making all the decisions, as usual), enact martial law, and turn the country into a war machine that will crush the supposed “Red Menace”. During her exposition of this plan to her entranced son, she recalls how she had requested an assassin from the communists, not knowing that they would use her own son in an attempt to bind her to them. Alas, she is willing to sacrifice Raymond for her own ends.

Upon hearing of the deaths of the Jordans, Major Bennett is wracked with guilt and self-doubt. He realizes that he could have stopped it, but did not. He receives a call from Raymond and races to meet him in hotel across the street from the fast-approaching acceptance speech for Raymond's detested step-father. Bennett finds Raymond and uses his own deck of cards, all queens of diamonds, to send Raymond into a trance and attempts to “rip out the wiring” by telling him that its all over now, and that he is free of the psychological strings that the scientists attached to him in Korea.

Still, it would seem that Bennett's work has gone for naught. When the speech approaches, Raymond frees himself from Bennett and seems to fall back under his mother's control. He disguises himself as a priest and takes a rifle into a high point in the convention hall. Bennett and another officer get to the speech just as it starts and desperately search for Raymond. As the speech nears the point at which Raymond is to kill the presidential candidate, Bennett spies Raymond's position and runs up to him. Just as he reaches the door, Raymond turns his rifle sights away from the presidential candidate and rapidly shoots and kills both his step-father and his mother. He puts on his Medal of Honor, turns, looks at Bennett, and sadly explains that “nobody else could have stopped them”. Then, he puts the rifle in his own mouth and kills himself.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done before any research)

I'm still trying to get my head around this one. It's not hard to see why so many of the original press releases and posters had things like, “You'll have to watch it again immediately!” Quite true. If I hadn't seen it once already, I would probably feel the same way. Even still, as you can see from the massive plot summary, it's hard to give a thumbnail synopsis of this movie. There are too many bizarre, novel, and absolutely necessary elements to explain.

But really, do they all amount to a movie that I liked? Overall, yes. While there are some clunky elements, I really enjoy the film and recommend it to nearly anyone with a stomach for very dark subject matter and stories that go for the slow reveal.

First, the bad, though perhaps “bad” is not quite the right word. As fascinating and unique as so many of the facets of The Manchurian Candidate are, there are some odd ones as well. Probably foremost are the several false leads that the movie throws at you. In a film that, from its very beginning, is all about not taking things at face value, there are many conversations and happenings that lead you down false paths. Marco Bennett's reading books of odd and varied topics is one of them. In a movie that so masterfully interlocks seemingly disparate and puzzling story elements, this is one that is never explained or connected to any other element. Or if it was, I'll be damned if I can figure it out.

Related to this are two things that are themselves connected. In the middle of the film, a very shaky Major Bennett is on a train and meets the gorgeous Eugenie Rose Cheney, played by the sultry Janet Leigh. The two have a conversation that is, in turns, flirtatious, awkward, and laden with bizarre questions and answers that lead we viewers to think that there is something much deeper going on. Is Rose romantically interested in Bennett or is she some kind of agent for one of the great Cold War powers? Well, it turns out that she merely fancies Bennett. No more, no less. Once this is clear, the strangeness of their initial conversation seems far out of place.

On top of these strange feints and hintings at things that are not there, it seems completely incoherent to have a romantic plot-line that does nothing to enhance the story. Hollywood has always been notorious for this, and rarely has it been more obvious than in The Manchurian Candidate. The characters of Rose Cheney and her wooing of Major Bennett have so little to do with anything else going on in the movie that they are mere distraction. It's utterly bizarre to me that a film that was, in all other respects, so carefully crafted and rich in story would have such a malformed component attached to it. I strongly suspect that this was something that the studio, not the original creative forces, demanded. I plan to find this in my research.

Aside from these clumsy add-ons, the film is a wonderful mind-bender. I can only imagine the impact that it had on audiences in 1962, in the middle of the Cold War, but I have to assume that it took real guts to pull this one off. You have double-dealing, backstabbing, and brainwashing thrown into a dizzying plot-line that rarely gives the viewers a moment to truly figure out whose side they're on. The political climate would have been just post-McCarthyism, who the buffoonish Senator Johnny Iselin is clearly based upon, but having him be the puppet of a communist-backed, double-dealing, viperous marionette in Angela Lansbury is just plain wicked, in all of the right ways. The layers of fear and betrayal going on in this movie are astounding, but never completely out of reach for us viewers. This is a testament to John Frankenheimer's directorial powers.

Raymond Shaw, the last guy you want to be seeing from this perspective.

I suppose that part of me feels that this movie is a sign of the times. Having been released in the middle of the Cold War, when the fear of spreading communism was all-too-palpable, The Manchurian Candidate must have been quite a shocker in that it demonizes both political extremes. The hard-core communists are portrayed as manipulating, soul-less monsters. However, their monstrosity is equally matched by Senator Johnny Iselin and his dictator wife. In the end, the movie is the ultimate condemnation of fanaticism, which gives it a life far beyond the political climate of the Cold War decades.

The acting is quite solid. Sinatra does fine (though he does add in some strange, “Brat Pack”, hipster lingo here and there.) The strongest performances, though, are from Laurence Harvey and Angela Lansbury. Who would have thought that the woman most of us know as a kindly, geriatric sleuth on Murder, She Wrote could so convincingly play an icy, calculating, she-demon? When you see her go to work on both her son and dunce of a husband, you're as scared of her as of the ostentatiously sinister communist hypnotherapist, Doctor Yen Lo.

The visuals are just right for the movie. Done in black-and-white, the stark tone is set and compliments the theme of dual extremes that is explored. There are many shadows and skewed angles that enhance the viewers' sense of unbalance and the warped nature of what certain characters are doing. A bonus for me is that I watched this movie on a cold, rainy day. It was perfect, and I recommend anyone else try the same.

Considering the ultimate fate of Staff Sergeant Raymond Shaw in The Manchurian Candidate, I'll go ahead and say that it is the darkest, most disturbing movie I've seen from the TIME list so far. So many films claim to go to dark places, and some of them even flirt with it, though very few actually plunge right into those shadowy recesses. The Manchurian Candidate doesn't balk at leading you into the abyss. Darkness and all, this movie is one-of-a-kind. So much so that I probably will never watch the recent re-make with Denzel Washington. I never have seen it, and I simply don't see how it can pack the same punch.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research):

Ah-ha. After some digging, some interestings factoids emerge, and I feel less stupid about a few things.

The Manchurian Candidate was adapted from Richard Condon's novel of the same name, published in 1959. Most of the elements from the novel are kept for the movie. However, one notable change was made: In the novel, Eleanor Shaw not only uses her son as an assassin to further her nefarious political goals, but she also leads him into a hypnotized, incestuous relationship with herself. This, as we can all imagine, was not going to fly in a mainstream movie in 1962. The closest the film gets is a rather disturbing, lips-on-lips kiss that Eleanor delivers to her mesmerized son just before the movies' climax.

A curious side-note about the novel: it has since been cited for blatant plagiarism from the Robert Graves classic novel, I, Claudius.

My moment of vindication came when, after reading several critical reviews, including the cinematically erudite Roger Ebert's, it became clear that the conversation between Bennett and Rose Cheney that so befuddled me has been perplexing viewers for decades. Apparently, this was also taken almost word-for-word from the novel and is universally baffling. Ebert, in his review here, offers the interesting notion that we are meant to infer that, though never openly suggested, Rose may also be a communist agent of some type. If this is the case, then the movie is flirting with an ambiguity that may be just as upsetting as any of the other aspects of the story.

The altered "incest" scene, tamed for the masses.

The initial critical reviews were almost unanimously positive. Almost. TIME magazine's rather short review from 1962 does seem to criticize it, but more for lacking some of the literary punch of the novel.

One final interesting note: The Manchurian Candidate was pulled from release and basically never shown between 1963 and 1988. The reason? The Kennedy assassination, which happened a mere week after the movie's premier. Frank Sinatra, who had purchased the rights to the film, reportedly felt it in poor taste to allow a film about political assassination to reap profits for anyone, including himself. So, the movie remained in virtual hiding for 25 years. Good thing for us younger movie lovers, he opened up the cage.

That's a wrap. 54 shows down, 51 to go.

Coming Soon: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)

Law-RENCE! Law-RENCE! Law-RENCE!

Once I find the roughly four hours it takes to watch this behemoth, I'll let you know how it went.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #53: Yojimbo (1961)

2011-04-08T18:03:00.000-04:00

Title for Us English-Speaking Types: “The Bodyguard”

Director: Akira Kurosawa

Initial Release Country: Japan

Times Previously Seen: once (about 8 years ago)

Teaser Summary (no spoilers)

Skilled, masterless samurai whittles away two rival gangs in a dusty Japanese village. Drinks plenty of sake.

Uncut Summary (A full plot synopsis, including spoilers. Fair warning)

In 19th century feudal Japan, Sanjuro Kuwabakate (Toshiro Mifune), a drifter samurai with no retainer, wanders into a tiny village. He soon runs into a small horde of raggedy hoods who bar his path through the town. Not itching for a fight (yet), he casually retreats into the tiny nearby sake shop. While there, the owner, Gonji (Eijiro Tono), explains the ill-fated town's situation. The entire village is the setting of a current stalemate between two rival gang families, headed by Seibei on one side and Ushitora on the other. They are both competing for domination of the local silk and sake trade. The competition is so fierce that each boss has appointed his own mayor and essentially owns a complete half of the village. Sanjuro sees this as a money-making opportunity.

Sanjuro, getting the lowdown and considering his money-making options.

He first strolls over to the Ushitora gang, goads some of them into attacking him, and effortlessly slays three of them in full sight of the Seibei clan, who is watching from the far side of the village main street. He walks over to Seibei and extorts major cash from him to side with him. After the deal, though, Seibei's venomous wife pulls her husband aside and convinces him to kill Sanjuro after he helps them exterminate Ushitora and his minions. Sanjuro overhears this, but does nothing immediately.

Emboldened by his new-found sell-sword, Seibei calls out the Ushitora clan and calls for a showdown. Both sides square off, but just as they are about to begin their slow approach towards each other, Sanjuro throws Seibei's money into his and his wife's faces, loudly proclaiming how insulted he is that they were plotting to assassinate him. He then calmly scales the central bell-tower, overlooking everyone. Seibei, now in no position to back down, begins the slow march towards Ushitora's gang. From on high, Sanjuro gleefully watches what he hopes will be a bloodbath that eliminates both gangs at once, without much effort on his part.

Unfortunately, just as the two gangs are about to start fighting, an inspector rides into town. Sanjuro's plan is stymied. He returns to Gonji's shop to plot his next move. He learns of a nearby murder of a local magistrate (conducted by Ushitora's men), and decides to wait and see which clan outbids the other for his services. He doesn't have to wait long, as Ushitora's comes with a very generous offer. Sanjuro refuses, saying that he has many offers to consider. Later that night, Ushitora's youngest brother, the handsome but psychotic Unosuke arrives, brandishing a brand new pistol.

The night deepens, and Sanjuro approaches Ushitora, offering to spy on Seibei for him. Ushitora accepts and pays Sanjuro. Shortly after, Sanjuro runs across the two drunken thugs who Ushitora sent to kill the magistrate. Sanjuro quickly rounds them up and brings them to Seibei, who pays him handsomely for the chance to have proof of Ushitora's assassination order. Sanjuro then quickly returns to Ushitora and informs him that Seibei has captured his men (leaving out the fact that he's the one responsible). This leads to a quick deal for a hostage swap: Ushitora gets his men back, and he will return one of Seibei's prized stable girls, Nui, whom he had stolen and pimped out to his puppet mayor. After one failed attempt, the deal eventually goes down, much to the dismay of Nui's poor husband and young son. Sanjuro watches the exchange with these last two, and shows no sympathy for the quivering husband.

Sanjuro goes to work. Scum-thugs flee in terror.

Without much ado, the homicidal Unosuke kills the two returned assassins, and his elder brother Ushitora returns Nui to the lecherous mayor's home. Sanjuro learns of the latter and coyly suggests that he check on the house, despite the six armed guards that Ushitora has placed there. Sanjuro goes with Ushitora's middle brother, the dull-witted thug Inusuke. Just before they arrive at the mayor's house, Sanjuro distracts Inusuke, pretends to have inspected the mayor's house, and then tells Inusuke that the six guards have all been killed. Inusuke, without bothering to check Sanjuro's story, runs back to his brother's house to rouse the troops. Sanjuro then storms the mayor's house, easily slaughters the six guards, and grabs Nui, whom he returns to her husband and son, who have been hovering just outside. They try to stay and offer their profound thanks, but Sanjuro disgustedly ushers them on their way.

Ushitora's men soon arrive at the mayor's house, which Sanjuro has just demolished in order to lend credence to his lie that the place had been stormed by a group of Seibei's men. Ushitora buys it, and they all return to his place in anger.

A few days later, Sanjuro is relaxing in Gonji's sake shop when he receives a letter from Nui and her husband, thanking him again for saving their lives. Sanjuro repeats his distaste for such “weak people”, though Gonji openly admires Sanjuro's heroism. Then, the cold-blooded Unosuke arrives with Inusuke. He has had his doubts about Sanjuro's tale about the mayor's house. In addition, he has heard through the grapevine that Nui and her husband have been seen in a nearby village, claiming to have been saved by a single skilled samurai. Sanjuro plays it cool and tries to dismiss the accusations and inconspicuously dispatch the note from Nui, but Unosuke sees and snatches it first. Sanjuro is finally caught in his deception. His sword is taken from him, leaving him all but defenseless.

Back at the Ushitora compound, Sanjuro is locked in a side room and beaten mercilessly for a full day. Eventually, he is left alone and he takes his chance. He crawls inside a chest and waits. When his two thug guards return and don't immediately see him, they believe he has escaped, panic and run out of the room, leaving the door open. Sanjuro painstakingly crawls out the door and, with agonizing slowness and a little luck, manages to evade Ushitora's brothers and gang.

He makes it to Gonji's and asks the sake maker to smuggle him out of town. Gonji and the local casket maker load Sanjuro into a casket and begin to carry him to the local cemetery. Just as they begin their trek, though, they see that Ushitora has launched an all-out assault on Ushitora's compound. Ushitora believes that Seibei is responsible for Sanjuro's escape, and he sets fire to his rival's house, with all of those fleeing the inferno being either cut down by a gang member or gunned down by Unosuke. Sanjuro watches from afar, the fact that half of the town's cancerous crime is dead bringing his battered body some small relief. He is then carried to a safe house on the outside of the village.

Sanjuro spends several days quietly recuperating and practicing hitting a moving leaf with a throwing dagger. He has also heard that Ushitora has fired most of his thugs, now that Seibei's entire crime family is dead. Both Gonji and the casket maker have been smuggling him food and water during this time, but a serious problem emerges. The casket maker informs Sanjuro that Gonji has been discovered and captured, and that Ushitora has him strung up in the middle of town. Sanjuro's decides to cut his recovery shorter than expected.

The final stand-off commences.

In the middle of town, Gonji hangs from a low gibbet, tied around his body and awaiting his fate. Less than a dozen gang members are left to support Ushitora and his two deadly brothers. Sanjuro walks into the center of town, only to be met by these last, most powerful criminals. A few words are exchanged, and then the fighting breaks out. Unosuke, predictably, pulls his revolver first, but Sanjuro is faster and hurls his throwing dagger, striking Unosuke directly in his shooting forearm. With this primary threat neutralized, Sanjuro routinely mows down everyone left with his sword.

With all of the criminals now dead, Sanjuro pronounces the town clean of its human filth and walks out, leaving it to Gonji, the casket-maker, and the scant few others remaining to rebuild anew.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any research.)

To use one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite phrases, this movie is bad-ass. Or, perhaps more accurately, Sanjuro Kuwabakate is bad-ass. So, what accounts for its bad-assitude? I thought you'd never ask...

Before really looking at the greatest strength of this movie, I have to give credit to several other impressive aspects. First is the story. The notion of having a seeming mercenary drift into a lawless town, wreck shop, save the remaining innocents, and coolly walk away from it is legendary. I'll have to do some digging to see if this idea has been used before (I'm reasonably sure it has), but Kurosawa molded it into one hell of a fun film to watch. Waiting to see just how Sanjuro would play one side against the other and take advantage of their own insecurities and paranoia is as entertaining as can be.

Here's a great scene. Sanjuro uses hits wits to con the doltish Inusuke, then his unmatched swordsmanship to dispatch basically everyone else who gets in his way:

The setting itself is worthy of mention. While this tale could easily be told in a large, thriving city, and in a more modern time, doing it in a tiny 19th century village lends a perfect sense of unity to everything that's happening. With such a limited cast of main characters and individual places, one can really sense how connected everything is and just how imminent the dangers are.

Of course, these two previous components are only enhanced by the flawless direction of Akira Kurosawa. By this point, Kurosawa was fully established as a brilliant filmmaker. While I know that he had some critics, I don't think that anyone can see a film such as Yojimbo and deny just how great he was at visual storytelling, pacing, and overall directing. Just one of the many great examples might be early in the movie, when Gonji is giving Sanjuro the low-down on all of the dirty dealings in the village. Both men are inside Gonji's weathered, wooden store, with Gonji excitedly throwing up the various windows as he points out the different factions and ne'er-do-wells. This short scene is filled with so much energy that you almost can't help but get caught up in it.

The crowning element of the whole thing, though, is Toshiro Mifune's turn as Sanjuro himself. Anyone who has seen both The Seven Samurai and Yojimbo has to marvel at the man's range. Sure, both roles were feudal-era Japan swordsmen, but they could not have contrasted more. Six years prior, he played an uncontrollable wildman. In Yojimbo, he portrayed a character as psychologically poised as a bamboo reed and cool as the snowy slopes of Nagano.

However, it would be hasty just to lump him into the standard “calm, calculating maverick hero” department. With Kurosawa envisioning Sanjuro as a generally amoral, eminently scruffy, and only occasionally fallable rogue, he created something new. Mifune brought the master director's vision to full life with his lazy gaze, shifting shoulders, and unhurried manner. Mifune did in 1961 what great character actors like Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt made careers of decades later.

Upon dissection, my guess is that most, if not all, of the components of Yojimbo have their inspiration in other direct sources. Still, I found it to be a fantastically unique and entertaining film. As long as one realizes that the scenarios and characters are rather ridiculous, it's easy to see this movie for the masterpiece that it is.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research)

As suspected, Yojimbo was not created in a vacuum. Akira Kurosawa, a junky of the western noir and western film genres, apparently took the story and Sanjuro character ideas from one or two Dashiell Hammett novels, namely The Glass Key and Red Harvest. The visual style was adapted from classic John Ford westerns, most notably the now-standard scene of the hero in foreground, enemies in the distance, and dust blowing through the streets. In fact, this last element is almost comically overdone (intentionally?) in Yojimbo.

A great shot of Sanjuro, hopinng to watch the two gangs weed each other out, thanks to his own skillful machinations.

When it was released, Yojimbo was a massive hit. Kurosawa's name had already been well-established throughout the cinema world, both popular and critical, but Yojimbo offered something new. While it was still clearly a samurai movie, the character of Sanjuro provided a rather new creature: a true mercenary with only the odd pangs of morality. Essayist Alexander Sesonske gives a really interesting analysis of it here.

Popular audiences loved the sword-swinging action and the steady dose of sarcasm throughout the movie, and this is no surprise. What was a tad surprising to me is how universal the critical praise was for such a “western style” action film. This original TIME piece, in addition to raving about Yojimbo, offers a really insightful look at Kurosawa himself and his place in Japanese film history (it was already clearly staked out, even back in 1961).

Yojimbo may have borrowed certain elements from other, earlier, sources, but its mark has been so indelible as to have spawned several direct remakes, set in different places. The first, and probably the greatest, is the Sergio Leone spaghetti western, A Fistful of Dollars (1964). Other less notables include the science fiction version, The Warrior and the Sorceress (1984), and the return to black-and-white noir, Last Man Standing (1996). Love the first one. Never seen the latter two.

My final word? Steam up some rice, warm up some sake, and fire Yojimbo into the DVD player!

Coming Soon: The Manchurian Candidate (1962)

Chinese communists! Brainwashing!! Assassination plots!!! Angela Lansbury!!!! Frank Sinatra!!!!! How can one film have literally EVERYTHING??!!! Come on back later and find out!

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

INTERMISSION AWARDS!

2011-03-13T17:22:00.000-04:00

Awards presented by myself, a humble cinephile, based on the first half of TIME magazine's 2007 list of “All TIME 100 Films”.

So here it is. I have now made it virtually halfway through the mildly monumental task of watching 100 “shows” (actually 105 since several of them are separate films that constitute a “whole” one). In honor of this middle point, I offer a little intermission in the form of my own awards. There is, of course, no Art Deco statuette, cash prize, or any other reward of any practical use. Merely my respect, admiration, and even derision in one case.

Several of these awards will seem very familiar, as they are right in line with any standard film award show. A few others are of my own design based on other criteria that I and many others often apply to movies. The one thing they all have in common is that they are all thoroughly subjective and completely open to debate.

Without further ado, let's have a look at the “winners” and runners-up, starting with a best of the worst:

“Insufferable” Award - given for excellence in the field of making me wish I could have gotten back the hours of life I lost in watching this film. And the winner is...

Meet Me In Saint Louis (1944)

I would have to be paid some SERIOUS cash to watch this schlock again. The shallow characters, the threadbare plot, the excruciatingly cheesy pop songs. It all added up to two hours that were only made bearable by my girlfriend and I cracking wise through the whole thing. Musicals are my least favorite genre, and Meet Me In Saint Louis only further strengthened its position as such.

Runner-Up: The Awful Truth (1937) – A bunch of fast-talking, condescending aristocrats goofing off. It was about as funny as rickets.

“That Dog Don't Hunt No More” Award- Given to the film that has lost the most luster over the succeeding years. Even the classics sometimes die. And the winner is...

The Crowd (1928)

It seems like the down-to-earth dialogue and several very creative camera shots stamped this movie in the minds of audiences and film aficionados for decades. Eighty-plus years later, this film is about as bland as raw tofu, and nearly all of the humor is unintentional. It still has a smidgen of charm, but overall is tiresome by nearly every modern standard.

Runner-Up: King Kong (1933) – Some people still love this original version, and I have to give it props for originality, ingenuity, and a spirit of adventure. Alas, 78 years of special effects and action movie evolution have seriously dimmed the great ape's former brilliance. Even the Eighth Wonder of the World gradually wears down, I guess.

And now, on to the more positive side of things...

“Fine Wine” Award- Given to the film that I believe will, in the year 2101, still hold a place among great films and be watched and discussed by some schmo like myself. And the winner is...

Ugetsu (1953)

This movie, along with only a few others from the first half, transcends merely powerful cinematic storytelling and brings us into the realm of more universal myth. It taps into centuries-old folktales, and is so well-crafted and faithful to the spirit of such myths that I can't help but think that it will possibly outlast every other movie on this list. And that's saying something.

Runners-Up (tie): The Olympiad (1936) and Man With a Movie Camera (1929). The former will appeal to sports historians for many decades to come, and the latter is perhaps the purest film, in terms of art, on the entire list. Neither one will be disappearing from the cinematic landscape any time soon.

“'I'm Not Talkin' Here!'” Award - Given to my favorite silent film from the list. Those movies in the days of yore when it all relied on either pure visual film technique, great sight gags, or some of both. And the winner is...

The Last Command (1928)

This one packed a serious punch. An epic story that is told in a tight 90 minutes, the brightest among this film's many bright elements is a fantastic leading performance by Emil Jannings, the very first Academy Award “Best Actor” winner for his role as a traumatized Czarist Russian general.

Runner-Up: Metropolis (1927). The original science-fiction masterpiece is still just that – a massive film that was so far ahead of its time that modern viewers can still find things to appreciate. The acting is necessarily way over the top, but the visuals are still well worth taking in.

“Subtitle Me!” Award - Given to my favorite film made by one of those non-English-speaking types. And the winner is...

Sommarnattens leende (Smiles of a Summer Night) [1955]

This early, lighthearted number by oft-depressing Swedish master, Ingmar Bergman, was really fun. If one has to do a 19th-century aristocratic period piece, this is how to do it: sharp visuals, plenty of witty and dry humor, and consistently strong acting. I'll go back to this one sooner rather than later.

Runner-Up: Les enfants du paradis (Children of Paradise) [1945]. Grand in scope and in production, this French mammoth is worth the full 3 hours. It may drag in just a few places, but overall was well worth the time invested.

“Hidden Gem Award” - Given to the film that I previously knew absolutely nothing about, yet enjoyed immensely. And the winner is...

Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949)

I had never so much as heard of this film, and I feel ashamed for it. It was so damned funny that I'm itching to watch it again already. It was hands-down the darkest comedy from the list so far, and may very well retain that title by the end. The British mastery of finding humor in normally dreadful and morbid doings is on full display in this one, wonderfully accented through Alec Guinness and his eight separate and hilarious roles.

Runners-Up (tie): Dodsworth (1936) and In A Lonely Place (1950). The former was wonderfully-executed tale of the American dream personified in the title character, who then grapples with unexpected personal obstacles. The latter was an incredibly tense character study of a deeply disturbed genius, played by Humphrey Bogart.

“'Just Because You Are a Character, Doesn't Mean That You Have Character' Award” - Given to the individual character that I liked the most. And the winner is...

Rick Blaine, Casablanca (1942)

It may not be an original choice, but Rick is the friggin' man, man. He's tough, sensitive, witty, and above all, smooth. Anyone who watches Casablanca wishes Rick were real and, like all the other characters in the film, rightfully wants to be on Rick's good side. He'll buy you a stiff drink, give you a fair shake, and if he likes you, he'll absolutely go to the mat for you.

Runner-Up: Jeff Markham, Out of the Past (1947). I seem to have a type. Jeff Markham is the archetype noir protagonist: quietly tormented, capable of great nobility, though subject to a few serious demons. He out-thinks, out-smokes, and out-sarcasms every other dark soul in the picture. His Achilles heel, just as with all noir tough guys, is a pretty face masking an absolute Gorgon.

“'I'm A Movie Star, Not an Actor!!'” Award – Given to the man whose performance I dug the most. And the winner is...

James Cagney as Cody Jarrett in White Heat (1949)

The little New Yorker went all in when he played this violent, ruthless, fully psychotic criminal with major mommy issues. Cagney injects every scene he's in with energy that magnetized me to the point that I was watching his every gesture and facial expression. And that's not even getting into the great one-liners he delivers throughout.

Runner-Up: Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates in Psycho (1960). In the most recent movie I watched, I saw a mesmerizing performance by Perkins. He was so naturalistic with all of the divergent facets of Norman Bates that it is still astounding. He alone makes it worth watching the movie.

“I'm Ready for My Close-Up!” Award – Given to the woman whose performance I dug the most. And the winner is...

Barbara Stanwyck as Lily Powers in Baby Face (1933)

In this tale of a downtrodden woman empowering herself by sleeping her way up the corporate ladder, Stanwyck showed herself so far ahead of her time that it's scary. When Hollywood films were still firmly entrenched in more theatrical and dramatic (i.e. “exaggerated”) styles of acting, Stanwyck was one of the few who could seem so relaxed that she made everyone else on the screen look like amateurs.

Runner-Up: Ingrid Bergman as Alicia Huberman in Notorious (1946). I seem to have a type. My favorite female performances would appear to involve either sex or booze, or in Alicia Huberman's case, both. Not unlike Stanwyck's most memorable roles, the adorable Bergman shifted gears in Notorious and was surprisingly adept at playing a reluctant spy with very questionable habits in relation to alcohol and men. A brilliant showing by the classic Swedish beauty.

“Mmmm...This Is An Excellent Movie!” Award – Given to my absolute favorite film of the first half. And the winner is...

Casablanca (1942)

I sure won't get originality points for this, but I can't ignore how much I still enjoy this standard of American film. Casablanca may not be a life-changing film of immense learning or depth, but it contains all of the elements of the magic of movies. It created a fictional place that was equal parts alluring and frightening, characters who were intriguing, charming and strong in turns, and situated all of these elements within a compelling tale that, while very temporal and geographical, seems to transcend these clear boundaries. Add in one of the greatest scripts in film history, and this movie still has enough gas in the tank to be a standard for decades to come.

Other Nominees – These are the four other films that I had to seriously consider for this award, as they are ones that I will certainly return to and enjoy many more times in the future: Double Indemnity (1944), Out of the Past (1947), Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), and The Sweet Smell of Success (1957).

Imagine now the orchestra in a crescendo, not-so-gently telling you that the show is over.

That's a wrap. Still 52 shows down, still 53 to go.

Coming Soon: Yojimbo (1961)

Sword-swinging samurai action from perhaps the greatest samurai film director/actor duo in history: Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune. This one should be fun!

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #52: Psycho (1960)

2011-03-06T20:08:00.000-05:00

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: once (about 8 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Restless secretary steals serious cash, then runs across a socially awkward creep at a motel.

Uncut Summary (A full plot synopsis, serious spoilers included. Fair warning. No seriously, if you have not watched this movie and have intention of doing so, do NOT read this summary!)

In Phoenix, Arizona, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) is a secretary who has an itch to change her life. She's wrapped up with a lover, Sam (John Gavin) who must use much of the little money that he makes on alimony payments. She's been in the same static job for ten years. Her professional and romantic lives are in a complete rut.

And then, opportunity presents itself. Her boss has just completed a major deal with an out-of-town high-roller. The new client comes into the office, makes some overtly lecherous passes at Marion and drops $40,000 on her desk. The money is part of her boss's new deal with the man, and she is charged with putting the money in the bank. Instead of seeing the task through, though, she takes the money and hits the road. She clearly sees this as a chance to join Sam and use the money to live a better life.

Marion, driving away from Phoenix, considers her recent theft.

Once she hits the road, Marion gradually becomes a nervous wreck. She begins to imagine her boss, friends and relatives wondering where she is and just how the imminent pursuit will begin. She eventually pulls over and falls asleep on the side of the road, only to be awoken in the morning by a curious police officer. Rather shakily, she tries to brush the cop off, but only succeeds in arousing his suspicions. She does, however, manage to avoid any kind of arrest or more serious trouble for the time being.

The next night, with rain pouring down and her nerves worn thin, Marion decides to pull into a roadside lodge called the Bates Motel, a twelve-room inn that sits beneath the shadow of an imposing Victorian-era house. She sees the silhouette of an old woman in the window from the road, but it is a young man who comes dashing down to help her. The man, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), is friendly in his greeting and checks Marion in for the evening. Despite her fatigue, Norman convinces her to have some dinner and chat with him in the motel office.

In the course of their conversation, it becomes clear that Norman is a rather awkward fellow. He explains that the motel, which once was on the major highway, has seen very little business in recent years and that he is inextricably bound to his mother. This surprises Marion somewhat, as she had overheard the woman's voice berating and browbeating Norman in their home a short time earlier. In hearing about Norman's trapped existence, Marion becomes more ponderous and even rethinks her larcenous plan.

In the office of his motel, Norman describes his own lonely life to a receptive Marion.

After she retires to her room (into which Norman briefly peeks through a hidden hole in the wall) Marion seems determined to return to Phoenix, give back the money, and avoid trapping herself by becoming a bona fide felon. Having made this life-preserving decision, she hops into the shower, with horrendous results. A shadowy figure of a woman stalks into the bathroom with a massive knife, attacks and kills Marion, leaving her body on the floor.

Moments later, Norman comes running from the house and into Marion's room, where he finds the horrifying remains of Mother's attack. Once he recovers himself, he carefully gathers up the body, along with all of her personal affects (including the $40,000, which was hidden in a newspaper), loads everything into her car, and pushes it all into a nearby swamp.

Roughly a week later, Marion's sister Lila shows up in California, where Sam works. By now, people back in Phoenix assume that Marion stole the $40,000 and must be with Sam. Sam admits that he knows nothing about this and hasn't seen Marion since their last rendezvous before she stole the money. Also on the case is private investigator Arbogast, who has been hired by Marion's boss to recover the money. Arbogast decides that Marion must have been somewhere close, and he starts looking into all of the nearby motels.

After searching dozens of motels in the area, Arbogast eventually arrives at the Bates Motel. In questioning Norman Bates, Arbogast finds not only probable evidence of Marion's presence in the form of an alias in the motel registry, but also a suspiciously nervous Norman Bates. He doesn't get any direct admissions from Bates, but squeezes an admission from Bates that he saw Marion. Bates also accidentally implies that Marion had spoken with his mother. When Arbogast asks to speak with Norman's mother, however, Norman rebuffs him, explaining that his mother is an invalid and unable to take visitors. Arbogast reluctantly leaves.

After quickly checking in with Lila and Sam, Arbogast decides to return to the Bates motel and try to speak with Mrs. Bates. Once he returns, he quietly strolls directly to the Bates house and enters. As he ascends the stairs, however, the same be-dressed, knife-wielding figure who murdered Marion sets upon Arbogast. Before he can react, he is knocked down the stairs and stabbed to death.

The figure of Norman in front of his family home, where things become more mysterious and murderous.

Back in town, Sam and Lila grow nervous. Having not heard from Arbogast for hours past his stated meeting time, they call the local police. The sheriff is skeptical of what he hears, especially when Sam and Lila relate their notion that Mrs. Bates knows something about Marion's whereabouts. The sheriff explains his surprise by informing the two that Mrs. Bates died ten years before. This raises the question: exactly who is the “Mrs. Bates” back in the Bates house?

Sam and Lila decide to take matters in their own hands and head to the Bates Motel themselves. They have Norman Bates check them in as a phony married couple and hatch their investigation. Sam distracts and interrogates Norman while Lila slips away to the house. She searches through the house, but finds no evidence of “Mother”. Back at the motel, Norman grows very nervous under Sam's questioning, realizes the ploy, knocks Sam out and runs to the house.

In the Bates house, Lila sees Norman coming and scuttles down into the basement. In a far corner, she sees the back of an old, withered woman sitting in a rocking chair, presumably the enigmatic Mrs. Bates. When she turns the chair around, however, she is mortified to see that it is, instead, the semi-mummified and rotted remains of the deceased woman. Just as Lila shrieks in horror, she turns to see the door behind her burst open and Norman Bates, donning his mother's dress and a wig, hoisting a massive blade and ready to kill her. In the nick of time, Sam barrels in and subdues Norman before he can get to Lila.

Some time later, back at the police station and with Norman in custody, a psychologist explains everything. After intense interviewing of Norman, he explains that Norman has been a split personality. That he had, in fact, been so close to his domineering mother as a young boy and man that he felt them to be inseparable. Eventually, however, Norman's mother had taken a lover and began to shun her son. Norman apparently suffered a severe mental collapse and killed his mother and her lover. Unable to take the guilt, his mind fractured further and he began to live out both his own life as well as that of his dead mother. He took it so far that, if he would ever have any yearnings for any other woman, his “Mother” half would lash out and kill that woman. Hence the death of Marion and the subsequent killing of Arbogast.

In the end, Norman Bates was no more. After the final shock and capture, the only personality left was the “Mother” part of his persona. Left in a solitary room, he mutely awaits their judgment, lost in his own mind and delusional to the point that he believes that his current silence and timidity will save him. “They'll look at me and say,” thinks “Mother” while staring into space,”'She wouldn't hurt a fly.'”

A final look at Bates, lost in his own mind.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any research)

This is definitely one that has seriously lost some of its luster.

Don't get me wrong. This is not because of any flaws in the film; it is simply due to the passage of time and the fact that so many of the elements that were dazzlingly fresh and shocking in Psycho became old hat some time ago.

I realize that I may be smacking around a very sacred cow here, as Psycho is universally acclaimed by critics as a cornerstone of cinema. No argument there. It is obvious that with this film, Alfred Hitchcock took mainstream viewers to places they had never been before, and he changed both suspense and horror films forever. Still, a viewer who is coming into Psycho for the first time is bound to be underwhelmed a bit. I think it helps to look at each of the strongest and innovative elements of the movie and see how they have held up over the past fifty years:

One – The psychological darkness. As far as a I know, Psycho was the first popular movie (by an immensely accomplished and respected director) to take watchers into darker places than they had ever been. The disturbing nature of the brutal knife murders and the probing look at Norman Bates' mental schisms were certainly new ground for the 1960 viewer. Anyone with a shred of morbid curiosity would have been enthralled by the entire concept. Now, in 2011, however, we cannot be shocked by such things as split personalities or fairly graphic violence in movies. Our culture has grown highly aware of bizarre psychological maladies and has seen them used in fiction for decades now, from films like Sisters and Seven, to television shows like Dexter. Within a modern context, this element of Psycho is knocked down several weight classes.

Two – The “twist” at the end. When a crazed Norman comes crashing through the basement door, in drag and knife held high, I admit that it still gives me a bit of a jolt. I imagine that if I had seen it as a viewer in 1960, I probably would have soiled my pants. I can only imagine how many minds were blown by that famous scene and how it probably haunted people for years. Once again, though, a modern viewer cannot be so easily caught off guard. The notion of “the twist” has been done so many times that we are almost trained to anticipate it. The wilder the possibility, the more likely we are to expect it. This cat-and-mouse game between viewer and screenwriter has fueled the entire careers of people like M. Night Shyamalan. In the end, Psycho's finale is now severely watered down.

Three – The sex! From the very earliest movie posters to the first seconds of the movie, Hitchcock makes no bones about titillating you. The very first scene has Janet Leigh in a rocket bra, lounging in a post-coital afterglow in bed with her strapping lover, Sam. Add to this a few other scenes with a touch of skin and the shower scene, and you have a film that probably had the more Puritanical elements of our society up in arms. Once again, though, what was probably highly erotic in 1960 film does not pack quite the same punch these days. It's not that Janet Leigh isn't still sexy in the movie (she certainly is), but one need only scan a magazine rack these days to find no less than a dozen “FHM”-type publications which don covers that go well beyond Psycho in terms of skin and sultriness.

Here's that most famous of shower scenes:

Four – The camerawork. Psycho has, without a doubt, some of the most iconic shots and scenes in film history. It's nearly on par with Casablanca in terms of being so thoroughly entrenched in popular culture that even people who have never seen the film are familiar with several of the images. This strength of the film most certainly does hold up. The composition of some of the scenes is still stunning, and shots like the slow, backward-panning, spiraling shot of a dead Marion on the bathroom floor are just as powerful now as ever.

So, from this little list of mine, only one out of the four groundbreaking elements has anywhere near the same force that it had decades ago.

I should point that, in addition to the camerawork, there are several excellent verbal exchanges throughout the film, most notably between Norman and Marion and Norman and Arbogast. This is part in due to the writing and part due to outstanding acting, with Anthony Perkins turning in a phenomenal performance as the twitchy, intense, creepy and yet oddly vulnerable Norman Bates.

Despite the handful of lasting merits, I would suggest that anyone new to Psycho not get their hopes too high. It's still a good movie, and one worth watching at least once, but I think that any newcomer under the age of 40 will likely not feel it to be one of the greatest films that they've ever seen. For many, there may be a “seen that before” feeling to it all.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research):

There are all sorts of great little tidbits about Psycho; some are well-known and some are pure urban myth.

The book Psycho, written by H.P Lovecraft understudy Robert Bloch, was based on a very real incident of a murderer in Wisconsin. The screenwriter, Joseph Stefano, along with Hitchcock, decided to alter many things in order to appeal to the audience. Foremost is that the Norman Bates character, who in the book is an overweight, boorish and wholly unsympathetic butcher, would become a handsome, mildly charming and very vulnerable person. It's quite a trick that would not have been possible had Anthony Perkins not given such convincing life to the role.

Speaking of Perkins, I learned that he was, in fact, a gay man who had struggled throughout his life under the pressures of homophobic society. Apparently, he was often rather uncomfortable around women, and for decades at odds with his own desires. While he would later be very open about his sexual orientation and find some semblance of comfort, one has to believe that these very strains were tapped into to create such an affecting performance in Psycho.

The shower scene, one of the most famous in all of cinema, is surrounded by all sorts of tales. From the difficulties of setting up and editing a nude scene to using chocolate syrup as blood to Janet Leigh having to lay stock still during the final pull-away shot, all of these were very true. They also amounted to this seemingly simple, 1-minute piece of finished film taking a whole week to shoot. One myth that I myself had shattered is that Hitchcock had ordered that, during the moment Bates pulls back the curtain, the shower water be turned ice cold in order to extract a more blood-curdling scream from Leigh. This, according to Leigh herself, was entirely untrue. Makes for an amusing story, though.

One of the scenes that will seem to drag to modern audiences is the psychiatrist's exposition near the very end. This scene was, in fact, one that Hitchcock initially felt unnecessary. The screenwriter Stefano, however, himself undergoing psychiatric treatment at the time, convinced him otherwise and it stayed. I think this is yet another element that was probably quite interesting to the 1960 viewer but will seem unduly long and all but redundant to us here in the 21st century.

The release of the movie created several trends, as well. The studio, under Hitchcock's adamant demands, ordered all theaters not to allow any late entrants into the shows. In addition, there were rather humorous signs posted outside of many theaters imploring people not to spoil the ending for others. In seeing footage of this, it became clear that Psycho was meant to be at least as exciting as it was disturbing. In fact, Joseph Stefano said he was pleasantly surprise at just how many people, on leaving the theater, would be simultaneously gasping and laughing. He likened it to how people feel when exiting a really good roller coaster. I have to feel that this is exactly as Hitchcock intended. He wasn't trying to create Silence of the Lambs, but rather an engaging thrill-ride of a movie.

The critics, unlike the audiences, were not as amused. Many of them gave it very tepid reviews, such as this original TIME magazine review, and some panned it altogether. Many of these professionals seemed to think it beneath the director of such sharp, colorful, and adventurous movies like North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief, and many others in the prior Hitchcock canon. Joseph Stefano offered another theory on the lukewarm critical reception: that the reviewers were annoyed that they were not allowed to watch previews of the movie, but had to wait until nationwide release like everyone else. Perhaps this is the case, but we'll never know for sure. Curiously enough, several critics who initially torched the film would later list it among the year's best.

I have to repeat that I think any fan of films needs to see this movie at least once. You may not find it to live up to its massive reputation, but it is one that you can have fun developing an opinion on.

This is the original, full-length trailer hosted by the incomparable Alfred Hitchcock himself. It is absolutely hilarious and reveals so much of the man's genius:

That's a wrap. 52 shows down, 53 to go.

Coming Soon: Half-Time Awards!!

In honor of my finishing essentially half of this list that I started a little over a year ago, I will look back over the first 52 shows that I've watched, develop some awards of my own, and dish out completely non-existant prizes. I may drop an F-bomb or two, and maybe I'll post myself in eight different outfits, a la Anne Hathaway. After that little intermission, it's back to the movies!

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #51: Les Quatre cents coups (1959)

2011-03-03T19:14:00.001-05:00

Title for Us English-Speaking Types: The 400 Blows

Director: Francois Truffaut

Initial Release Country: France

Times Previously Seen: once (about 10 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

French adolescent eases down a slippery slope from bad student to petty thief.

Uncut Summary (Full plot synopsis, including spoilers. Fair warning)

In 1950s Paris, fourteen-year-old Antoine Doinel is the proverbial bee in his teachers' bonnet. He shirks his studies and mocks the instructors whenever he gets the chance. One day, after mouthing off and defacing a classroom wall, Antoine is given an extra writing assignment for French class. None too pleased, he heads home.

Just one of several times Antoine gets into hot water at school.

At home, we see that Antoine lives in an apartment tiny enough that its narrow rear entry hall doubles as Antoine's “bedroom”. His parents, though not abusive, seem to treat Antoine as much a nuisance as their only child. His young, beautiful mother harps on his poor grades and behavior at school, and his father, while a pleasant office clerk, is as interested in his auto racing club as anything else in his life. Antoine's life seems to consist of little more than the criticisms of his teachers and the mundane bickering of his parents.

Having not done his punishment homework the night before, Antoine is afraid to return to school the next morning. His equally irascible buddy, Rene, convinces him to ditch class, swipe some cash from his parents, and roam the city. The two partake of the usual hooky activities of the 1950s – a movie, pinball, and junk food. While traipsing about, Antoine runs across his own mother, who happens to be with a man not her husband. After the brief glimpse of each other, Antoine and his mother swiftly head in opposite directions. That night, Antoine's mother tells her husband that she's working late, leaving Antoine and his father to have a semi-pleasant evening together.

The next morning, it's time to pay the fiddler. Antoine knows that he has to show up at school, despite not having a note from his parents. When firmly questioned by his teacher, Antoine claims that he was absent because his mother has died. While this shocks the teacher into penitence and sympathy for Antoine, the ruse only lasts for a few hours. Antoine's parents show up before long and go ballistic, along with his teachers.

Unable to deal with the constant hassling, Antoine decides to run away from home. He sleeps in a factory that Rene knows of for a night and ditches school the next day. After a day of panic, he is found and his mother finally shows some form of repentance. In a quiet moment, she offers Antoine a bit of a bribe if he will return to school and bring up his grades. Antoine makes the attempt, but is foiled when he attempts of plagiarize a short story from famed French author, Honore Balzac. The teacher easily detects the cheat and calls out Antoine once again.

On the lam with his cohort, Rene, Antoine indulges a bit.

This is, indeed the last straw for Antoine. Punished yet again, he takes the first opportunity to run away once more. This time, he and Rene raid Rene's wealthy and separated parents' petty cash and live it up for a time. When the money and food run out, Antoine steals a typewriter from his father's office. When they can't fence it, Antoine tries to return it to the office. He gets caught, though, and is dragged by his parents to a government office.

At the government office, Antoine's mother concedes that she is unwilling to deal with her son anymore. She turns him over to the state to be placed in a sort of correctional facility for troubled boys. At the camp, Antoine gives an interview to a psychologist in which we learn that he had already spent several of his younger years with his grandmother since his mother did not want the trouble of raising him. We also learn that, even when he tells the truth, no one believes him; therefore, he sees no reason to bother with it.

After a short time in the camp, during which Antoine undergoes the same cycle of scrutiny/slip-up/punishment that he has always known, he dashes out of the camp during a recreational soccer match. Antoine eludes his pursuers for a time and eventually makes it to the shore, where he stops and turns back. Thus ends the story of the boyhood of Antoine Doinel.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any research on the film):

I enjoyed this movie more than the first time I watched it, but that may not be saying much.

When I first saw The 400 Blows, I was about 25 years old and didn't have much knowledge of either more artistic or international films. I suspect that this was why, back then, I found this movie to be slow and lacking any clear punch. After a succeeding decade, during which I've learned to be more patient and enjoy slower stories with something deeper to impart, I can now appreciate such movies much more.

Still, I have to say that I was not blinded by the supposed brilliance of this movie.

Like many other films of its standing, I cannot deny the artistic merits of the movie. Director Francois Truffaut attained exactly what he sought with outstanding skill. On top of that, it's a different sort of crime story. Rather than follow the hackneyed path of sensationalism, Truffaut is far more subtle. Most tales that attempt to tell the “creation of a criminal” story will make the external forces clearly manipulative and overtly despicable. Whether it's Scorsese's Goodfellas or the great Brazilian film City of God, the environments that create the criminals are so obviously poisoned by poverty, gangsters or a host of other deleterious influences, that the viewer has no trouble following how a character becomes a hardened felon.

With The 400 Blows, however, Antoine is not pulled, but rather ever-so-gently nudged into his larcenous life as a reluctant rebel. The negative components are disturbingly commonplace: a teacher who is not tyrannical, but just short-tempered enough to prevent Antoine's academic growth; a mother who is not abusive, but just negligent enough to deprive Antoine of the unconditional love he seeks; a father who is not uncaring, but who is just self-involved enough to deprive Antoine of the fatherly guidance that he needs; and a society that is not toxic, but just apathetic enough to allow Antoine to slide, ever-so-gradually, through the cracks. It's the blending of these very authentic aspects and their affects on a troubled child that set this film apart from others, and is clearly it's greatest strength.

Here's a clip of highly dubious quality, but it shows one of the most engaging scenes in the movie - Antoine is in the government's compound for socially maladjusted youth. He's being interviewed by the center's psychiatrist:

On top of the plot's elemental alchemy, the filming itself cannot be overlooked. I'm far from well-versed in film technique, but I imagine that a person would have a difficult time in criticizing any of the technical points of The 400 Blows. The story flows very well, the dialogue and acting are pitch-perfect in conveying the necessary realism, and the directing and camerawork are outstanding. Many of the settings are stunning and quite memorable.

Still, I shall most likely never watch this film again. While all of the above points are wonderful merits that will assure this film's place in cinema history for many decades to come, in the end, I feel that this film is a piece of art more to be studied by film academics and students than to be enjoyed by the common viewer (clearly, I count myself in the latter group). It's tragedy of the slow-burn variety, and while it's not without some humor, it ends up being a rather depressing affair. In short, while it wasn't exactly a chore to watch, I feel that there's nothing else that subsequent viewings can offer me.

There it is. For my part, I don't know if I can recommend this movie to too many people. Perhaps if you are looking for a very well-crafted tale of a young, semi-likable French rascal's slow descent into delinquency, this will clearly be for you. Or, for those who are looking to delve deeper into film history and technique, The 400 Blows will surely offer a treasure trove of lessons. For the rest of you who like your movies a bit quicker, flashier, and perhaps more imaginative, you may want to steer clear.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research):

There's one curious thing in digging through some essays on this movie. Every one of them makes key the fact that the movie is highly autobiographical. Apparently, Truffaut himself went through many of the things that Antoine Doinel did in his movie. I suppose that this goes no small way in producing the authenticity of the tale and the emotions portrayed.

And yet, this brings up a much larger issue in terms of art. Why should it matter to me, or any viewer, just how fictional or factual a story is? I could very well go on an extended rant on this, but I shall rein myself in. Suffice it to say that I was highly surprised to find that so many professional film analysts and critics seemed to focus on the mere fact that Truffaut was telling a story that was his own in many ways. To me, the focus should be the film itself, independent of any connection it may or may not have to any sources.

The end result is that, in my relatively limited searching, I found less critical analysis of the film and more lauding of Truffaut and his life as a young man. This did me little good. The analysis I did find did confirm my own feeling about the movie, though: that it was very well-acted and offered a tale very different from what had been shown to larger audiences before its arrival. It is, in fact, considered one of if not the first great “French New Wave” movies, a genre that would define much of 60's cinema.

The 400 Blows was an immediate success, wowing critics the world over and garnering several major awards. This is no mean feat, as it was Francois Truffaut's first feature film. He would go on to make a few more movies on Antoine Doinel, chronicling his later life. I have to say that, while I certainly have no overt problems with Doinel's story, I am unlikely to seek out the subsequent films in the series.

While it loses its emotional impact when watched on its own, here's the oft-discussed, iconic final few minutes of the film. If you want to see the most famous image, just watch the last 20 seconds:

That's a wrap. 51 shows down, 54 to go.

Coming Soon: Psycho (1960)

Oh, yes! The suspense movie that changed the genre forever! I've only seen it once, though I don't remember being exactly blown away. Maybe I'll be more impressed on this second go-round.

What's that? Yes, Mother, I'm coming...

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #50: Apur Sansor (1959)

2011-02-13T18:58:00.000-05:00

Note: Apur Sansar is the final installment of the Apu Trilogy. Here are my reviews of the first two, Pather Panchali and Aparajito,

Title for Us English-Speaking Types: The World of Apu

Director: Satyajit Ray

Initial Release Country: Bangladesh

Times Previously Seen: none

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Young and artistic Bengali man faces myriad of emotional swings when reality clashes with his ideals.

Uncut Summary (A full plot synopsis, spoilers included. Fair warning)

When last we saw the young Apu Roy, he was leaving his ancestral home after his mother's tragic death. He was returning to Calcutta to proceed with his university education. It is now a few years down the road, and he has only been able to partially complete his education due to lack of money. With only an Intermediate diploma, he is hard-pressed to find work. He dreams of being a writer, and works diligently at it, but can only pay his bills through modest tutoring jobs.

Under the threat of eviction from his worn-down room, he seeks a more regular job. However, when he learns that the only jobs available are the most menial and mind-numbing of tasks, he decides to continue eking out his living through tutoring and writing. He does receive word that one of his short stories has been accepted for publication. This is perhaps a hint at potential future success.

A very poor but fairly contented Apu plays his pipe to while away time in his battered room.

Apu is eventually visited by his old college friend, Pulu. Pulu is initially disappointed that Apu has not been heard of since leaving college, and the two bicker over Apu's idealist notions compared to Pulu's more practical approach to life. The two do rekindle their friendship for one another, though.

On Pulu's invitation, Apu travels to his friend's impressive family home to witness his younger cousin, Apurna's, forthcoming wedding. Things go horribly wrong, though, when the groom-to-be shows up and appears to be stark mad. Pulu's family is distraught, as they believe that a cancellation of the wedding will curse Apurna for the rest of her life. Desperate, they ask Apu if he will marry Apurna so that their family will not be cursed and disgraced. Apu is at first appalled, and he angrily refuses. After some thought, though, he decides that it would be highly virtuous to accede to their request. As such, he becomes the unexpected groom.

On the wedding night, Apu comes clean to his new wife, who is quite beautiful, if rather young. Apu explains his reasons for marrying her and admits that his artistic aspirations likely preclude any possibility of riches. He has accepted a life of poverty and asks if she is willing to do the same. Despite being from a family of significant means, Apurna accepts the situation and agrees to go with her new husband back to Calcutta.

Apu and his new wife, complete strangers, make awkward attempts to get to know each other.

On first arriving, Apurna has a few moments of quiet sadness as, in Apu's dilapidated apartment, the realization of her new life hits her. And yet, she soon comes to love her husband's kind nature. She even rebuffs his proposal to find more work so that they may be a little more comfortable, preferring instead to simply spend the time with him. She has realized that any material wealth is as nothing compared to being with the man that she loves. Apu sees this and his love for his wife grows deep and profound.

Soon, Apurna becomes pregnant. She leaves Apu in Calcutta, in order to be with her family for the few months leading up to the birth. Then, tragedy. One of Apurna's brothers unexpectedly shows on Apu's door to inform him that Apurna has died in a premature birth. His child lives, but Apu has lost the one thing that he treasures above all else in the world – his loving wife.

With Apurna gone, Apu becomes a shell of the man he was. He turns his back on nearly everything, including his newborn son, Kajal. Leaving Kajal with Apurna's family, Apu becomes a wanderer who has lost faith in everything. He even takes his novel,his semi-autobiographical prized work, and jettisons the pages off of a cliff. Everything that was his has now been taken or thrown away.

Five years pass. All who once knew him now know almost nothing of Apu's whereabouts. His young son is now a very troubled child, causing no end of mischief for his de facto guardians, his great aunt and uncle. In the midst of Kajal's turmoil, Pulu shows up. Upon seeing Kajal's behavior, he decides to seek out his old friend, Apu.

After losing his beloved wife, Apu becomes an aimless drifter.

After a little searching, Pulu finds Apu drifting between coal mining and writing jobs, saving money in order to leave the country. At Pulu's insistence, Apu confesses that he feels nothing for his son. He explains that he cannot get past the fact that it was Kajal's life that caused Apurna's death. Apu, therefore, feels that he cannot act as the child's father. Nevertheless, Pulu convinces Apu to at least visit his son to see if he might have a change of heart.

On returning to his in-laws' home, where Kajal is living, Apu faces more difficulty. His in-laws are rightfully accusatory, and Kajal greets him with willful reluctance. Apu explains who he is to his son, and even tries to melt away some of the bitter iciness that Kajal has for him. Alas, it does not seem to be, and Apu decides to leave for good.

On walking along the road from his son and his keepers' house, however, Apu turns back to see Kajal following him. Kajal seems to be interested in Apu, even if he does not want to believe that he is his real father. Kajal asks if, should he agree to go with Apu, they could go to Calcutta to “find his father,” a pact that Apu is glad to make. Father and son continue along the road, one tiny stitch mended from the shredded fabric of their relationship.

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this first viewing, before any research)

The Apu Trilogy is an amazing piece of work, though one I may never feel the need to watch again.

After taking in the entire trilogy, it is clear that Satyajit Ray constructed a wonderfully unique set of films. The tale of Apu's growth into his late twenties blends universal sentiments that can move any viewer, yet the films have a distinctively regional feel. This masterful mixture is due to many components.

Here's a fantastic sequence from before and through the botched marriage. It actually makes for a great little mini-tale that can be taken completely on its own. Just start at the beginning and watch for a few minutes:

The story is one that has something for every fan of humanistic movies. Apu overcomes nearly-crushing poverty and personal tragedies through his intelligence and perseverance. Through the three movies, each successive death in his family takes a greater and greater toll on him. The first, his sister Durga's death, is one that the six-year old Apu moves past with an alacrity that only a young child can possess. In the second film, his father's passing is also overcome by the ten-year-old Apu's further bonding with his mother. When she too dies, he turns towards the beckoning word of academics for solace. When he is unable to see this through, his surprise marriage promises to give him the love that is missing. With the death of Apurna, however, Apu seems unable to cope any more. His devastation at this loss turns him into a rather unsympathetic character, though one can understand his plight in light of everything.

Running through the second half of the roughly five-and-a-half hour fully story is the conflict between Apu the artist and Apu the man. Any person who has attempted to carve out a livelihood in the creative arts can easily understand the friction that results when idealism meets the cold, hard realities of being a husband and father. The family tensions are always palpable, though not presented in the highly dramatic fashion of most popular drama.

How does director Ray communicate this to the viewer? Unlike most other directors, he uses very quiet moments of reflection during which you can see the calm anguish on certain characters' faces. With Ray often not relying on the dialogue to pass this along, we viewers have to adopt the same contemplative state that the characters show. It brings us closer to them by allowing us into their minds and spirits in a more authentic manner. A fine example is Apurna's arrival at Apu's run-down apartment in Calcutta. She arrives and Apu leaves the room for a moment. Apurna, still adorned in her wedding dress and make-up, sits down on his bed, looks out at the tattered neighborhood, and begins to cry softly. She never voices this initial disappointment, but I could feel it almost as if it were my own.

Here is a clip which includes that very scene. Start it at 6:20:

The backgrounds of India and Bangladesh, and Ray's integration of these areas, are a major part of what give the Apu Trilogy its distinctive look, sound and feel. With the eye of a cultural anthropologist, he includes the locales, music and customs of Bangladesh and India. We foreign viewers may not understand the reasons and feelings behind some of the traditions we see, but we can certainly grasp their significance for the characters in the tale. One of the many sequences that exemplifies this is the wedding. From Apurna being dressed up by her mother, aunts and sisters, to the actual ceremony itself, there is a wealth of visual wonders to take in. Ray set up these scenes and shot them so as to maximize our ability to slowly absorb them and dwell on what they mean to all characters involved.

I need to say more about Ray's general filming style. I still need to check on who the primary cinematographer was, but the final product is dazzling in its efficiency. An array of great work is done, from still to low-angle to wide-angle to panning shots, each technique is measured and executed perfectly. They draw the eye to exactly where it needs to be, while allowing one to take in the greater whole when necessary. Between the first and third films, I feel that Ray went from great to phenomenal in these respects. By even summoning certain sounds and images from the earlier films, such as windows, trains and beds, The World of Apu adds a satisfying sense of cohesion to the whole.

Here's a clip from near the end. You can pick any place and just watch for a little while. The work is so well-done that it's not hard to pick up the mood of the entire scene or figure out exactly what's going on:

The only complaint I can possibly imagine anyone leveling at these movies is that they are rather slow and mildly depressing. The truth is that I can't really argue against this. However, these are certainly cultural biases that would lead one to feel that the Apu Trilogy is not an “entertaining” set of films. Entertaining they may not be, but I feel that they transcend mere entertainment, and bring us something of greater depth and artistry. I may not ever be in the right frame of mind to sit through them again, but I have no doubt that these three movies will stay with me for the rest of my days.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research)

No real shockers in the digging. Here's what the professionals say:

Right from the jump, The Apu Trilogy, including the final installment, was recognized as a phenomenal piece of work. Between the three films, it raked in heaps of awards at film shows all over the world, and it opened up entire new worlds for Indian/Bengali filmmakers. Apparently, virtually all films in the region had been basic swashbucklers or musical romances (which is ironic, since there is a scene in the third film in which Apu and Apurna enjoy taking in an Indian pirate flick of just such fare). Even the TIME magazine reviewer in 1960 gushed about it. Here's their review.

Even more recent critics seem unable to ignore this black and white story that was done for a pittance. Roger Ebert brings up many of the things that I couldn't help notice, but articulates them better than I can, and of course adds a few minor observations in his review here.

The only other note of interest was what I dug up on the photographer. He was a man named Subrata Mitra, and, like nearly everyone else on the cast and crew, had never done any film work before Pather Panchali. To this day, filmmakers and critics alike all seem to marvel at just how Mitra, along with everyone else, wrung so much from such meager finances (the entire trilogy was made for $3,000! Try that in today's market!). I suppose it's amazing what true talent can do.

That's a wrap. 50 shows down, 53 to go.

Coming Soon: The 400 Blows (1959)

Joy of joys – French cinema verite comes alive. (Be sure to read that last sentence with an extremely sarcastic tone.) I can't say I've enjoyed the verite films that I've seen, including this one, but I'll try to watch this one with fresh eyes. Wish me "bon chance!"

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film # 49: Some Like It Hot (1959)

2011-01-29T19:58:00.001-05:00

Director: Billy Wilder

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: once (about 9 years ago)

Teaser Summary (no spoilers)

Pair of jazz musicians dress in drag and travel with all-girl band to flee gangsters. Shenanigans abound.

Uncut Summary (Full plot synopsis, spoilers included. Fair warning.)

Chicago, 1929. Joe (Tony Curtis) and Jerry (Jack Lemmon) are a couple of jazz musicians who play in a hot speakeasy run by notorious gangster “Spats” Colombo. That night is payday, and the two are working out how to pay back all of their many debts. Just as they bask in the appreciation of simply having a steady job, the police raid the club off of a tip from a local rat, “Toothpick” Charlie. Joe and Jerry see it coming and get out, but the police manage to shut down the place.

The next day, Joe convinces Jerry to put all of their money on a horse. The horse loses, and gone is the fellows' remaining cash, leaving them broke and jobless. They head to a talent agency, to no avail, finding only the tantalizing job for a bass fiddle and sax, their instruments, but for an all-girls group heading to Florida. Instead, they take a small gig on the far side of town. Joe even connives his way to borrowing a secretary's car to get there.

Early that same evening, the boys stroll into the garage to pick up their loaner car. While waiting for the tank to be filled, though, a pack of mafiosos storms in, led by Spats Colombo himself. They have Toothpick Charlie cornered there and gun him down, along with a half dozen other unlucky saps. Joe and Jerry witness it all and are about to join the recently deceased, but they luck out and escape the garage.

On the run, they decide to pose as women and join the all-girls band that they had heard about earlier that day. They adopt the names Josephine and Daphne, don some wigs and dresses, grab their instruments, and show up at the train station. On the train, they meet all of the other girls in the band, including the sultry Sugar Kane (Marilyn Monroe), the group's bombshell singer and ukulele player. Joe and Jerry have to fight their male urges amongst the scantily-clad women, especially the voluptuous, naive and vulnerable Sugar.

"Josephine" and "Daphne" sashay their way down the platform.

Once in Florida, Joe and Jerry seem to be in the clear, but only to an extent. While Jerry is eager to ditch the masquerade, Joe reminds him that Spats is likely looking in every jazz club in the country for them. They decide to remain Josephine and Daphne for a while longer, though it's starting to pose its own unique problems: Jerry has already had to fend off a grabby, though very wealthy suitor – the playfully lecherous Osgood Fielding III.

This also gives Joe the chance to weasel his way into Sugar's arms. He uses what he knows of her search for a rich man “with glasses” and takes on his second persona: the heir of the Shell Oil Corporation. Under this guise, he finds Sugar on the beach and she falls for it, hook, line and sinker. The two part ways, but Sugar is clearly starstruck.

Back at the hotel, Jerry receives a call from Osgood, who invites “Daphne” to an intimate evening on his yacht. Joe convinces Jerry to let him use Osgood's yacht to woo Sugar under his “Shell Oil” millionaire persona. Jerry reluctantly agrees to this as well as keeping Osgood busy on shore for the evening.

That evening, Joe's devious plan works to perfection. Jerry keeps Osgood occupied with an evening of romantic dancing while Joe works a cunning game of reverse psychology on Sugar. After ferrying her out to Osgood's yacht and pawning it off as his own, he weaves a tall tale about the freak death of a past love and how he is no longer able to feel love for any woman. Sugar, taking up the challenge to re-ignite his passions, kisses Joe repeatedly and clearly falls in love with his fictitious persona.

Sugar and "Shell Oil Junior" get further acquainted.

Back at the hotel in the morning, Joe returns from his evening of deception and snuggling with Sugar to find his pal Jerry in a bizarre daze. After a marathon evening of lively dancing, Osgood has proposed to him, and Jerry seems to actually be considering marrying the goofy old sod and extorting alimony checks from him after the inevitable annulment. Joe manages to snap Jerry out of this odd and felonious notion.

At the same time downstairs at the same hotel, one Spats Colombo has arrived for a meeting of mafia dons, all under the heading of a gathering of “Italian Opera” aficionados and presided over by head boss Little Bonaparte. Bonaparte has a serious bone to pick with Spats, as Toothpick Charlie had been a friend of his.

In the lobby, Joe and Jerry stumble across Spats, fortunately in disguise, but think that they've been discovered. They immediately hustle back to their rooms and pack for a hasty getaway. However, while clambering down the banister outside their room, they are spotted by Spats and his crew. A chase ensues, but the boys manage to elude capture by ducking under a banquet table. Unfortunately, the banquet is for the “Italian Opera” mobsters, including Spats. The banquet turns into a bloodbath as Bonaparte has Spats and his crew brutally gunned down. Joe and Jerry a discovered by Bonaparte, but the police arrive, allowing Joe and Jerry to slip away once again.

In the lobby, Joe and Jerry hide and overhear some of Bonaparte's goons explaining that they have all of the roads and public transportation routes out of town covered, in order to intercept Joe and Jerry. They realize that they can take Osgood's yacht to escape, and Jerry channels “Daphne” to make Osgood amenable. Osgood agrees, and the only order of business is for Joe to break away from Sugar without breaking her heart. He decides to once again use Osgood by sending Sugar some flowers and a diamond bracelet that Osgood had intended for “Daphne”. This initially crushes Sugar, but she decides to pursue her Shell Oil man as he flees to the shore with Joe and Osgood. She joins them on the boat just as they depart for Osgood's yacht. Joe finally comes clean to Sugar, dropping all masks, but she hardly bats an eye and accepts Joe, wholeheartedly.

Jerry, still dressed as Daphne and riding next to an elated Osgood, tries to let him down easily. Osgood is not so easily rebuffed, forcing Jerry to finally remove his wig and confess that he is, actually, a man. The euphoric Osgood misses not a beat and delivers the most timeless line of the film, saying, “Nobody's perfect.”

The love-struck Osgood and his muse, "Daphne"

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any research)

Eh. Inconsistently entertaining.

Some Like It Hot has some really funny moments peppered into an underwhelming barrage of flat gags. The movie is clearly meant as a silly, screwball affair. From my reviews of earlier classic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth, His Girl Friday and The Lady Eve, it should be clear that the genre is probably my second least favorite, with musicals taking the top spot. Some Like It Hot, however, eliminates the elements that I always despised, namely the focus on the rich and sophisticated class. By having the two main boobs (not counting Marilyn Monroe's) be average Joes (Josephines?), the condescension found in most screwballs is blessedly absent. Joe and Jerry are semi-lovable, if deceitful, morons who stumble their way through the movie. Unlike the typical “Cary Grant” protagonists of earlier screwballs, I found them far more amusing than annoying.

The humor is so intentionally silly that you can't help but laugh at times. This is mostly due to some great script work and top-notch comedic acting. While I couldn't care less for the endless gender humor (e.g. the fellas tripping in high heels, Jack Lemmon adjusting his fake breasts, et al), the interactions between Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe are priceless. Once Curtis adopts his “Shell Oil” persona, complete with a dead-on Cary Grant affectation, there are plenty of great moments between him and the laughably gullible Sugar Kane.

Here's some of the primo stuff, when Curtis and Monroe are hitting on all cylinders as "Shell Oil Junior" is trying to cunningly lure the dim-witted Sugar Kane into amore:

A personal side-note and observation: watching Marilyn Monroe in this movie is an interesting exercise, as a modern viewer. She was excellent at playing what amounts to a bimbo who is, in her own character's word, “not too bright.” More interesting to me, though, are the more subtle moments when she would be recounting past failures in love at the hands of abusive men. There are moments when, between sips of bootleg hooch, her eyes would narrow and her pain seemed eerily genuine. Knowing how Monroe's life played out and ended, I wondered just how much “acting” she was doing at these moments.

As funny as some of those moments are, there are plenty of duds to me. Nearly all of the supposedly funny moments with Spats Colombo and his gorillas were anything but. I got the sense that they almost didn't go far enough with the parody. All of the characters in the movie are meant to be cartoonish, but this concept was not fully realized with the gangsters, especially with their dialogue. Instead of being slyly ridiculous, their lines were merely hackneyed. Had some of the other characters' dialogue not been so sharp and clever, I might not have noticed, but compared to Curtis, Monroe, and Lemmon's lines, the writing for the gangsters seems a bit lazy.

One thing that distracted me a bit was the utter shallowness of the characterization, typified most by a lack of consistency. During the first portion of the film, Joe seems to be the slick-talking shyster and Jerry the level-headed, uptight straight man. Without warning, though, Jerry becomes the libidinous and irresponsible clown of the pair. Then, the voice of reason shifts back to Jerry's lips for the last part of the story. I know better than to ask for much character depth from such a goofy comedy, but a little bit of consistency would have been nice.

The plot is hardly worth mentioning. It was clearly just a device for setting up scenarios that, for mainstream Hollywood of the time, were probably rather risque. Having a bunch of nubile women scamper around in their underwear and bathing suits was probably titillating enough; the added element of Curtis and Lemmon's overtly lusty observations and comments almost certainly blazed new trails for popular sexual comedy. It goes without saying that having Marilyn Monroe's undulating curves and generously displayed cleavage, highlighted through Billy Wilder's direction, clearly sent the sex-o-meter into the red. Alas, in this day and age of Farrelly brothers and Judd Apatow flicks, such old-school fare is a relative lightweight.

Some Like It Hot is yet another movie which, if you know a little about cinema history, poses no mystery as to its lasting place in the annals of film. Still, it's another “classic” that I feel has faded to degrees in recent decades.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research)

Some Like It Hot seems impervious to wear, as far as critics are concerned. Even now, it is ranked by the American Film Institute as the 22nd greatest American movie of all time, and THE best American comedy of all time. (I respectfully disagree.)

There are no real surprises as to what critics have loved about the movie, which are the same things that I found enjoyable: the sharp, farcical scenarios and dialogue and the timeless sensuality of Marilyn Monroe. Something that does surprise me is how many critics, including this original reviewer back in 1959, cite Jack Lemmon as turning in the strongest performance, for which he was even nominated for several awards. Lemmon was excellent, no doubt, but Tony Curtis provided me with far more laughs.

As he often does, Roger Ebert points out an interesting aspect – Monroe's ability to be such a sex-pot while remaining so genuinely innocent. He recounts the well-known (among hard-core film buffs, anyway) tales of the troubles with Monroe, including her trouble with the lines and the domineering presence of then-husband Arthur Miller. There's also the curious tale of Tony Curtis saying that kissing Marilyn Monroe was “like kissing Hitler.” Check out his review here.

Speaking of Monroe, something was confirmed for me that I made no mention of above – that she did, in fact, perform all of her own singing. I have to agree with the reviews that I read that state that she did outstanding work with them. She may not have been any kind of world-class vocalist, but she was certainly skilled enough to “sell” the lyrics, as Ebert put it. As a person who nearly always dislikes musical numbers in movies, I had absolutely no problems with any of them in Some Like It Hot.

Here's my favorite number from the movie:

Another point of note is that, due to its blatant sexuality, Some Like It Hot is credited as being one of several contemporaneous films that began to break down the Hays Production Code, the ratings code that had been in place for over two decades. In fact, it received a rating of “Condemned” by the “National Legion of Decency” back in '59. I have to think that that piqued the public's curiosity to no end. Fortunately, such Protestant ideals of art and censorship would be mostly shattered in another five or six years' time.

Considering that it's hailed as arguably the greatest closing line of all time, I have no choice but to finish up with this:

That's a wrap. 49 shows down, 56 to go.

Coming Soon: The World of Apu (1959):

The final installment of the Apu Trilogy. The second was an understated delight, and I'm intrigued to see how Satyajit Ray completed his tale of the thoroughly human Bengali boy.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.

Film #48:Sweet Smell of Success (1957)

2011-01-20T21:02:00.000-05:00

Director: Alexander Mackendrick

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: once (about 2 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Unscrupulous press agent hustles through New York, stabbing backs to climb the social and professional ladder.

Uncut Summary (A full plot synopsis, spoilers and all. Fair warning)

New York City, 1957. Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) is the hustlingest press agent around. He's also a very minor player in the big city, but he's willing to try every dirty trick in the book to climb out of his self-described hole. At story's beginning, he has just been frustrated by his meal ticket, the immensely influential newspaper columnist and nationalist television pundit, J. J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). Falco believed that one of his clients would be given a positive review in the day's paper, but Hunsecker has left it out.

Sidney scrambles to Hunsecker to find the reason for the snub. He learns that Hunsecker is ignoring Falco's clients because Falco has not yet performed a requested service for him; namely, breaking apart the relationship between Hunsecker's young sister, Susie (Susan Harrison) and an up-and-coming jazz guitarist, Steve Dallas (Martin Milner). Realizing that his career won't advance until the relationship is ended, Falco races to the night club where Dallas is playing.

"Match me, Sidney," says cock-of-the-walk Hunsecker (right) to the ambitious weasel, Sidney Falco.

At the club, Falco discovers that not only are Susie and Dallas still together, but that he has proposed marriage to her. Falco and Dallas have a confrontation during which Dallas accuses Falco of being a sneaky henchman for J.J. Hunsecker. The two part ways without blows, but only just.

When Falco relays the news to J.J., Hunsecker reiterates that Falco will get no meaningful work in the town unless he sabotages Susie and Dallas's relationship. Hunsecker also reveals his reason – that Susie is the only family that he has left, and he refuses to lose her to anyone else, especially not a jazz musician. Falco sets out again.

The first place he goes is to a rival columnist of Hunsecker's, Al Evans. He tries to get a smear piece run on Dallas, claiming he is a druggy and communist, by attempting to blackmail Evans. He threatens to reveal to his wife that Evans made advances on a cigarette girl at another club. The plan backfires, as Evans confesses the truth of the story to his wife, leaving Falco with nothing to show for it. Falco happens upon another rival columnist immediately after, the lusty Otis Elwell, who agrees to run the column if Falco can find him some female companionship. Falco obliges, pimping out the very cigarette girl that Evans had propositioned. The smear piece is run the next morning and Dallas' band is promptly fired by their night club.

On Falco's advice and to maintain the illusion that he is not behind the subterfuge, J.J. Hunsecker calls the night club the next morning. With Susie looking on, he vouches for Dallas and has him rehired. Falco's notion is that Dallas will never accept the charity, refuse to take the job, and the strain will divide Susie and Dallas. He's almost right, too.

Dallas shows up on the set of Hunsecker's television show, and the two have a confrontation that begins calmly but escalates into Dallas accusing Hunsecker and Falco of being totally devoid of morals. Susie watches the entire scene, and is terribly unnerved by everything. After Dallas leaves, Hunsecker tells Susie that she must not marry him, and she demurs. Seemingly, J.J. Hunsecker has obtained what he wanted. This, however, does not seem to be enough. He now wants Steve Dallas's career destroyed as punishment for casting aspersions as Hunsecker's character, claiming that an attack on him is an attack on his “60 million readers.”

Hunsecker and Falco deal with an increasingly agitated Steve Dallas (far right).

Later that night, Hunsecker directs Falco to plant marijuana on Dallas and call a crooked cop to make a bogus arrest. Falco initially balks at this vicious plan, but soon agrees on the promise that he will be allowed to write Hunsecker's column for a three month period while the man is away with his sister. Falco does the deed and Dallas is arrested.

Some time later, after he has had many a celebratory drink to toast his diabolical success, Falco is contacted by Hunsecker. He is told to get to his apartment right away. When Falco arrives at the Hunseckers', he finds Susie, who has heard of Steve's arrest and is wracked by grief to point of being suicidal. Falco coldly assures her that she is merely being immature and that it will pass. However, Susie nearly makes good on her threat by attempting to throw herself over the balcony. Falco stops her, and begins to calm her down.

Just then, Hunsecker arrives. He disavows Falco's claim that he was the one who had called him, and it soon becomes clear that Falco has been set up. Hunsecker has planned to have Falco framed for an attempted assault on Susie. Hunsecker begins to batter Falco, and eventually Falco blurts out how Hunsecker had arranged the frame on Dallas. Hunsecker relents just long enough for Falco to flee from the apartment, but Susie has heard everything.

The fighting over, Susie sadly packs her bag and leaves the apartment, but not before performing a final act of courage: she looks her domineering older brother straight in the eye, tells him that she would rather die than live with him, and that she pities him. Out on the street, Falco is captured by the police and arrested. Nearby, the immensely powerful J.J. Hunsecker watches helplessly as his young sister walks out of his life.

Comeuppance, I'd like you to meet Mister Sidney Falco...

Take 1: My Gut Reaction (Done after this most recent viewing, before any research)

This film confirms one thing: I'm a full-fledged United States citizen, all right.

Don't get me wrong. This is not some patriotic thing. I mean to say that, after watching several slower, meditative, humanistic films of a realistic bent, made in foreign lands, watching Sweet Smell of Success spoke to me loudly and clearly. It said, “You, my son, were raised on fast-moving, slick-looking movies about fast-moving, slick-looking characters, and by God, you'll always love them!”

Who am I to argue?

I watched this movie once about a few years ago and was ambivalent, but upon this recent viewing I have decided that I simply wasn't paying close enough attention. It's great. Sure, there may not be a probing, deeper message beyond the “greed kills” theme, but it has enough substance to match all of the flash that it has.

The story intrigued me plenty. Seeing the curtain pulled back on the press agent and publicity businesses is interesting enough. As most are well-aware, the news sleeps for no one, and anyone who's desperate to make their mark in the field had better be tireless. Sidney Falco is certainly that, which sets up that great dichotomy that, while not distinctly American, can probably be found in our films in greater numbers than anywhere – that obsession can lead to an inexhaustible work ethic but a complete absence of circumspection and self-reflection. Following Falco around from one seedy, shadowy locale and deed to another is fascinating. The tale only slows down a few times just long enough to catch your breath and try to keep up with the impassioned hustlers involved. Unlike longer, more measured films like Aparajito and Pyaasa, the time flew by while I watched this movie.

Greater than the plot itself are the characters. It's rare that not one but both main characters are unlikable in a movie. Sidney Falco is a self-obsessed monomaniac whose complete lack of compassion for others is only matched by his utter absence of ethics. His idol and partner-in-crime, J.J. Hunsecker, is the 1950s version of Rush Limbaugh or Glen Beck – a media mastodon who wraps himself in a flag and uses his power to raise up or cast down those he deems worthy, with extreme prejudice and without moral compunction. Seeing them try to manipulate the events around them and each other would be entertaining enough, but Susan Hunsecker turns out to be the final ingredient. She's really the only character who evolves and is sympathetic in the end, though she is not in the picture nearly as much as either Falco or her brother. Quite a storytelling trick, that.

Here's a great scene. It's the introduction of J.J. Hunsecker. Start it at 2:00. It takes a few dozen seconds to pick up the glacial intimidation that Lancaster emits:

As always, great characters can only truly shine through when put in the hands of great actors, and here we have a couple of “legends” in their prime. While I'm not a particular Tony Curtis fan, I have to say that he was spot on as the slimy Sidney Falco, complete with impish good looks and devilish wit and charm. Burt Lancaster, solid in everything I've seen him in, does a great turn as a powerful megalomaniac. Despite the dorky glasses that he sports, he uses his broad frame, clenched jaw and granite-cold eyes to bore holes into anyone he sees as lesser than himself. Which, in his view, is everyone.

The script is great. Co-adapted for the screen by the author of the source novella, Ernest Lehman, it crackles with all of the silver-tongued, noir-ish dialogue you would hope for from a tale of the New York media scumbag biz. There are plenty of quotable lines, not the least of which is the oh-so-revealing quip by Falco, “Don't do anything I wouldn't do. And that gives you a lot of leeway.” And he wasn't joking in the least. Sure, there are a few moments during which the script gets a little too clever for its own good, a la older screwball comedies, but this is rare, in my view.

Here's a clip of one Falco's particularly sleazy moments. Start from the beginning and watch for a few minutes. You may even see Falco's skin taking on a scaley quality:

The dialogue is noir-ish, but the cinematography is noir unfiltered. At this point, I'm sure that United Artists could have sprung for a color picture, but this film demanded black and white. This was essential to enhance the mood of the darkness, shadows, and looming gray facades and harsh, glaring lights of Manhattan and midnight. Falco is one of countless weasels who wants to be a big shot, and J.J. Hunsecker may be a big shot, but they're all gnats in the shadows of the city itself.

I'd watch this movie again in a heartbeat. It's one of those movies that sails along at such a fast clip that it virtually demands more than one viewing. Now that I know all of the twists and turns of Falco's ethical gymnastics, I can watch to enjoy the performances and nuances a little more.

Take 2: Why Film Geeks Love This Movie (Done after some further research)

Sweet Smell of Success was not received well by a test audience, which led producers to think that they had a severe flop on their hands. Apparently, Burt Lancaster physically threatened director Mackendrick after the initial test screening, thinking that he had sunk them. This, however, was premature. That first audience was apparently taken aback by seeing two established “good guys”, Lancaster and pretty-boy Curtis, as utter scoundrels. Once released to wider audiences, though, the high praise came flowing in. This is rather clear from this first review back in 1957 by TIME magazine. This review, along with nearly every other that I've read, cites the tight, “whiplash” dialogue as being the element that makes the movie so singular and worthy of respect.

This is probably the most well-rounded scene, in which all of the major characters go after each other. Start it at 4:00 to see the verbal showdown between Hunsecker, Falco, Dallas and Susie:

As is often the case, the story behind the story is interesting. The Hunsecker character was modeled on real-life New York gossip columnist Walter Winchell, who held sway in the big city for decades. Original novelette and co-screenwriter Ernest Lehman had been a columnist and used his experiences with press agents to build the tale.

The thrumming urgency of the plot and dialogue was very likely the product of the filming process. Lehman had become ill just before shooting, so Clifford Odets was brought on to finish the job. Instead of doing a two- or three-week quick polish, he dismantled much of the script and began reconstructing all of the relationships through the dialogue. It took several months – so long that filming began before Odets had completed the work. The result was that Odets was often finishing pages mere hours before the scenes were shot. I have to believe that this added to the built-in stress and tension in many of the scenes. There's a snippet of director Mackendrick's description of the process here.

Worth looking at more closely is the interplay between Falco and Hunsecker. Roger Ebert does a nice job breaking down their symbiotic relationship in his review here. Ebert actually suggests something else that others have also picked out – a possibly latent sexual interest by Hunsecker towards both his young sister and Sidney Falco. I suppose that this is fair, though it's hardly what makes the film truly entertaining.

Some modern critics point out that a few of the aspects of the film are dated: that 1950s version of the hip New York and the age of the all-powerful gossip columnist. Still, even those who point these things out concede that they do little to diminish the timeless strengths of the movie.

That's a wrap. 48 shows down, 57 to go.

Coming Soon: Some Like It Hot (1959)

From one Tony Curtis movie to another. One with Jack Lemon and Marilyn Monroe, to boot. This one is invariably put in every critic's “top 10 American comedies list”. I watched it some years ago, and have never felt a desire to watch again. Well, I was surprised in my re-viewing of film #47, so I should go into this one hoping for the best.

Please be sure to pick up all empties on the way out.