Django (1966)

Director: Sergio Corbucci

An OK second-tier spaghetti Western, clearly aping the style so inimitably pioneered by Sergio Leone a few years prior.

The movie follows Django, a mysterious and lethal drifter who drags around a coffin everywhere he goes. When Django wanders into a town, he finds himself quickly caught between two feuding groups - one a gang of Mexican revolutionaries and the other a crew of ex-Confederate soldiers. Django rescues a young woman, Maria, from one side, and soon is shifting his allegiances between groups, eventually including a group of bank robbers, to serve his own ends. In the end, he cunningly kills off his adversaries and drags his wounded self off to begin a new life with Maria.

Django is decent enough fare for the genre, but I can't say it spurred any desire to watch more of its ilk. I absolutely love Sergio Leone's "Man With No Name" movies, along with his others. But as much as I love them, I also realize how ultimately silly they can be in certain respects, and it's only in the hands of a narrative and cinematic master that one can easily look beyond those films' weaknesses in terms of emotional depth or complexity. Django does a nice job using solid film technique to capture that same hyper-colored-yet-dusty aesthetic of Leone's movies, and it even has a few of the clever plot devices of those earlier movies. But it doesn't all come together or have quite the complete sense of coherence of the originals.

This was apparently a huge movie, though, Maybe not quite as big, worldwide, as Leone's westerns, but big enough to spawn a ton of sequel films, starring quite a few different actors in the lead roles. It really was like a spaghetti western Jame Bond kind of franchise through the 1960s and 1970s, and even hanging on well beyond that, with the most obvious recent incarnation being Quentin Tarantino's version of the character, starring Jamie Foxx. With this in mind, I would recommend it to those who love the look and feel of A Fistful of Dollars and its semi-sequels enough that they want more of the same. For my part, I won't be going out of my way to take in more of them. 

Before I Die #523: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970)

Original Italian Title: L'ucello dalle piume di cristallo

Director: Dario Argento

It's a good movie, to be sure, but one that didn't quite live up to the cultist hype, in my view.

To be fair, my expectations were rather high, given how highly touted this film and director are by some cinephiles and film critics. Perhaps it is due to director Dario Argento's body of work and solid reputation as a solid suspense and horror filmmaker. I can't be sure, as this was the first of his films that I've ever seen. Therefore, I can only give my thoughts on this film based on its own merits, rather than where it fits into Argento's career arc.

The movie is often compared to several of Hitchcock's most famous suspense films, with good reason. There are Hitchcockian elements throughout the film - a bystander witnesses a brutal murder attempt (a la Rear Window), and he then gets wrapped up in a cat-and-mouse game with a psychopathic killer on the loose in Rome. There are plenty of well-executed moments of tension and fear, including a few pursuits through and around the winding streets of the ancient city.

Probably the most obvious strength of the movie is the visual technique. It's amazing to me just how many Italian filmmakers seem to have an innate knack for framing shots. Whenever I see a Da Sica, Leone, Fellini, or other Italian director's film, it's obvious that they have a portraitist's eye for composing a four-sided picture in the most beautiful manner. Dario Argento is another fine example. So many of the scenes are just enjoyable to drink in, thanks to a keen photographer's eye and some vibrant costumes and set designs.

Alas, the film wasn't what I would call a "masterpiece." There are some actions by the main characters that defy logic to a certain extent, and some of the dialogue is stilted and artificial (though I must admit that one line was hilarious - when a police inspector, without a trace of irony, asks for a suspect lineup with the line, "Bring in the perverts."). The acting was also a bit spotty, being what you would expect from a low-budget spaghetti Western. Somehow, I'm used to the amateurish acting in those more mythical Leone Westerns, but it seemed out of place in this more modern, realistic, urban setting.

One of many haunting, visceral, and masterfully framed shots
in the movie. The cinematography is an inarguable strength.

Those criticisms aside, I must confess that the movie did offer me something pleasantly unexpected - an interesting theme on human memory and psychology. In something one might ponder after reading or seeing Rashomon, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage finds its resolution to the mystery in a way that relies very heavily on the mental state of the witness - a mental state that can apply to many of us. It is this ultimate reveal that sets the movie apart from the great Hitchcock movies, though these latter may be superior in terms of coherence and overall execution.

I'll be eager to see some more of Argento, as I've heard some enthusiasts say that they consider a few of his other films even better than this one. If they are, then I expect some very impressive things. 

FIlm #92: Leolo (1992)

Director: Jean-Claude Lauzon

Initial Release Country: Canada

Times Previously Seen: none

Rapid-Fire Summary

In a Montreal, Quebec slum, twelve-year old Leolo Lazone is steeped in misery. His family is impoverished, and all of his relatives suffer from some form of severe limitation. His brothers and sisters are all either mentally challenged or lapse into insanity on regular bases. His loving but completely uneducated parents obsess over their children’s bowel movements, and his grandfather not only tries to kill Leolo, but is also a sexual deviant.

While there is no true physical escape for Leolo from his warped environment, he is able to escape within his mind. Through a little bit of reading and a lot of his own writing, he concocts various tales about his own origins and the people around him. Envisioning himself as the son of an unknown Italian, he constantly dreams of being on the gorgeous Italian coast with his beautiful neighbor, Bianca. It is with similar imagination that he deals with the extremely strange behavior of his family and the ways that it affects him.

Leolo in two of his refuges - the bathroom and his writing. The noose around his neck can certainly be seen as a not-too subtle symbol of his life circumstance.

Eventually, the final straw is placed. After attempting to kill his perverted and unstable grandfather and bearing witness to one too many distorted sexual acts around him, Leolo finally snaps. He becomes catatonic and is placed in a mental institution, presumably for the rest of his days.

My Take on the Film

I’ll never watch this movie again.

Don’t take that completely the wrong way. Leolo is, indeed, unique and shows a wealth of skill on the part of writer/producer Jean-Claude Lauzon. In reading a brief summary like mine above, it will seem that the movie has little more than depravity and depression to offer a viewer. This is certainly not the case, but these dour themes are what I ultimately take away from the film.

For a good part of the movie, Leolo actually keeps just to the right side of the line between darkly humorous and simply dark. During the earliest scenes, depicting a very young Leolo being forced by his delusional parents to ingest laxatives and defecate on command, one is almost overwhelmed by how repulsive, desperate, and hopeless his situation is. Yet, once he begins to twist his surroundings into his own imaginative reality, some welcome levity is added. Seeing his pathetically dull older brother go from the classic “90 pound weakling” to a muscle-bound body builder is rather amusing. Also, his regular trips to the psychiatric ward to visit his other family members as they enter and exit various stages of psychosis provide some humorous moments.

One of the somewhat lighter moments in the film - Leolo (middle) about to be hurled into the sea by his brother (left) and an accomplice, so that he can retrieve fishing hooks to be resold.

Still, by the end of the film, there is nothing left at which to laugh. Once his siblings have all gone thoroughly insane and Leolo bears witness to a wretched act of bestiality by one of his peers, the little boy joins his brothers and sisters in their inescapable states of catatonia. For me, at this point, any of the lighter moments from earlier in the film had ceased to have much meaning. While Leolo’s fertile and active mind had given some entertaining and touching attempts at escape, they are all for naught in the end.

Another lesser problem I had with the film is that it is not exactly as original as one would believe, reading many of the critical reviews. One of the more notable scenes, in which the adolescent Leolo explores his sexuality with liver (no, that is not a typo – it is just the kind of thing that this film offers), is actually ripped off from Philip Roth’s novel Portnoy’s Complaint. More generally, the graphic nature of the sordid, impoverished sexuality is something that I have seen in other films such as Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America. And so, there was not even some sense of “bravura” novelty to be taken in.

I must say that the visuals are stunning in the film. The technical merits are laudable, and there is a wealth of clever framing and shooting. The contrasts between Leolo’s stark reality and his vibrant imaginings are made very clear through the camera work and frame compositions. In many scenes, the film is pleasant to look at. However, once again, there are many scenes in which the actions taking place are repugnant enough to undermine an appreciation of the aesthetic skill.

Leolo finds warmth and refuge in this makeshift shelter with his sister. The soft glow of the candles is captured extremely well and conveys the sense of comfort.

On a final note, this film brought to mind a few other, more recent pictures – Terry Gilliam’s Tideland and Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth. Tideland tried to pull a very similar trick, telling the story of a young girl in absolutely miserable circumstances (drug addict parents who both die of overdoses) who copes by envisioning an entire fantasy world around her. Alas, like Leolo, Gilliam failed in my mind, and the story is just far too depressing to be overcome by some bright visuals. Pan’s Labyrinth, on the other hand, actually succeeded. The overall tale is arguably just as downbeat as Leolo or Tideland, but del Toro managed to find the right balance and leave the viewer with the right amount of sweetness to accompany the bitterness.

I would only recommend Leolo to those who are not put off by extremely depressing movies. If such themes do not bother you, you may very well find this movie one of the more creative and engaging of its type. To me, though, one viewing was plenty.

That's a wrap. 92 shows down. 13 to go.

Coming Soon: Farewell, My Concubine (1993):

Don't know much about this one, except that it has the look of a rather sad tale. This will make number 2 in the "depresso 1-2-3 punch" of current films for me, preceded by Leolo and succeeded by Schindler's List. I'll be mixing in some Farrelly brothers movies, just to maintain some kind of balance here. 

Film #78: Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Initial Release Country: Germany

Times Previously Seen: none

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Former thug gets out of jail, tries to go straight, fails miserably, goes crazy, embraces crime, goes crazy again, and then gets well. Sort of.

Extended Summary (Relatively more complete pot synopsis, including spoilers. Fair warning.)

* This film is reeeeaaaally long, so I’m giving you a very short version of the plot. If you’re really curious about the little details, check out this more complete synopsis at wikipedia.

Berlin, 1928. Germany is in the middle of a horrible economic depression. Franz Biberkopf (Günther Lamprecht) has just been released from prison, where he has spent the past four years for the involuntary manslaughter of his prostitute girlfriend. After an initial period of confusion about how to reintegrate himself into society, Franz decides to leave his criminal past behind him and live a straight life, free of illegal activities.

It doesn’t take long for Franz’s plan to fail. Despite trying to go straight by taking menial jobs selling newspapers and hawking various wares on the streets and going door-to-door, he starts to be taken advantage of. One business partner robs one of Franz’s clients, sending Franz into a manic depressive bout of heavy drinking, away from any friends or associates.

When Franz emerges from his bender, he finds one of his old criminal associates, the kindly Meck, who introduces him to the highly unsavory Reinholt. Franz begins a bizarre scam with Reinholt, who is a compulsive womanizer, to take Reinholt’s girlfriends off of his hands after he inevitably tires of them. Franz eventually ties of these strange deceptions, though he maintains his friendship with the warped Reinholt.

Franz Biberkopf, the man at the middle of this massive, swirling tale.

Franz then takes up with a local crime gang. He is initially taken on a night robbery, without his knowledge, and forced to be the lookout. Franz reluctantly goes along with it, but as the gang is driving away, a car begins to follow them, merely by chance. Reinholt becomes suspicious and soon pushes Franz out of the back of their vehicle. Franz has his arm run over by the following car. The arm is so badly damaged that it must be amputated.

Franz, now without his right arm, rejoins a pair of old friends to recuperate. One is a former prostitute who was under his control in his days as a pimp – Eva, who still has deep affection for Franz. The other his Eva’s lover, Herbert, who is also involved in various petty crimes. The two take in Franz and tend to him carefully, seeing Franz as a decent person who is prone to bad decisions, bad luck, and strange fits of emotion. Eva and Herbert even find a young woman to be Franz’s new lover – the prostitute whom Franz names Mieze. The two instantly fall in love with each other.

Franz and Mieze move in together and they continue to adore each other, though their relationship is not without difficulty. The one-armed Franz begins pulling robberies with the local gang again, and Mieze’s job as a prostitute leads Franz to become severely jealous at times. The worst is when Mieze admits to an unplanned affair with a client’s younger son, whom she claims to have fallen in love with. Franz goes into a rage and beats Mieze bloody, stopping just short of killing her. Despite the brutal attack, the two make up with each other shortly afterwards.

A few days later, Franz brings Mieze to their local bar to introduce her to Meck, Reinholt, and the rest of the gang. The compulsive Reinholt immediately blackmails Meck into setting up a meeting between him and Mieze. Meck does so, and he brings Mieze out to a forest retreat to meet with Reinholt, Mieze hoping to learn more about her beloved Franz from his friends. Instead, when Reinholt brings Mieze out to the woods, he tries to force himself on her repeatedly. Mieze teases some information about Franz out of Reinholt, including the fact that Reinholt was responsible for Franz losing his arm. This disgusts Mieze and she repels Reinholt. Reinholt, in a fit or rage, strangles Mieze to death and leaves her in the woods.

The utterly twisted Reinholt, attempting to seduce his "friend" Franz's girlfriend, Mieze.

Back in the city, Franz grows worried after not hearing from Mieze for several days. Meck, who had helped Reinholt bury Mieze’s body despite not knowing that Reinholt would kill her, decides to inform the police. When Mieze’s death is reported in the newspaper the next day, Franz breaks into a crazed laughter, deliriously happy that Mieze’s absence was due to her death and not due to a willful abandonment of Franz.

Franz goes into a complete daze. We start to see his tale from a bizarre perspective, including two angels following him and commenting on his confused state. Franz walks along in an odd dreamlike realm in which the dead are strewn about. Back in reality, Franz is taken to an asylum, and Reinholt is being held in prison under and mistaken identity. In the asylum, we see inside Franz’s tortured mind. He sees himself interacting with various characters from his life in the past year, both dead and alive. He shifts perspectives with many of them, and even faces off with the specter of Death. Franz seems to see himself as deserving of any punishment he receives, as he and others are butchered in an abattoir.

We snap back to reality, at a court hearing for Reinholt, who is on trial for Mieze’s murder. Franz testifies to Reinholt’s good character, which helps Reinholt receive a relatively lenient sentence of ten years in prison. Franz takes a job as an assistant gatekeeper at a car factory. He is attentive to his work, but seems utterly detached from anything happening in the word around him.

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

Looooooooooooong.

Berlin Alexanderplatz is fifteen and a half hours long. Fifteen. And a half. Hours.

I watched it over the course of about three weeks, and by the end, I was ready for it to be over. Perhaps I would have been better served to spread it out more, but hey, I have nearly 30 more of these reviews to do, and I want to get on with it.

It’s not really the length itself that it a little tough to take. Some people might be able to watch all of this show in a few days, but I would find it rather tough. However, this is not because it is bad in any way. It’s merely that the tone and look can be a tad monotonous.

That said, this is a haunting humanist story. This itself was a bit surprising, as I was expecting a more epic tale that connected one man’s journey into the Third Reich. I expected to see plenty of direct references to the rise of the Nazi party and their growing control of Germany. Such is not the case at all.

This may seem odd, by I couldn’t help but think of Henry Miller’s novel, Tropic of Cancer. That novel was a lightning rod for being so honest and frank about the human experience, including the most sensual (some thought indecent, at the time) elements. The difference is that Tropic of Cancer had a relatively rosier tone and outlook; Berlin Alexanderplatz takes a hard look at the mental degeneration of a man who has slipped right through the cracks of a failing society.

Franz partakes in one of his favorite vices to escape - binge drinking on a level that would would make even a German (maybe even an Irishman) blanch. [note: I'm of Irish descent, so don't get up in arms.]

Berlin Alexanderplatz tells the story of a man who is, in many ways, highly unsavory. And yet, it’s impossible to dismiss Franz Biberkopf as a purely despicable villain. Unlike the titular protagonist of Barry Lyndon, Franz actually has several admirable traits. With his close friends, he has incredible loyalty and enthusiasm. His emotions are on his sleeve for all to see, and he is generally a social creature. His vices are, at root, ones that most people who are honest with themselves can understand – booze and women. Franz is at his most despicable when he is in the throes of passion or rage, or when he is victim to his own mental instability. Not long into the massive film, you start to see him as pitiful as much as anything. This is not unlike another film character that I will be seeing soon on this blog – the very real Jake LaMotta as depicted in Raging Bull. Both can be destructive, though Biberkopf is easier to like.

Most of Franz Biberkopf’s tale is easy enough to follow, in basic terms. He gets out of prison, he tries to go straight, he fails, and he suffers several brutal losses. However, there is a reason that the director chose to use over fifteen hours to tell the story and not two. Franz is complicated, and some of his actions are plainly irrational. To make any sense of them, we need the time to see how his more reasonable friends react to him. This gives us a better compass to navigate with. When characters like Eva, Herbert, and Meck show up to help Franz, we viewers need them just as much as Franz does. When the narrative of Franz’s life loses direction, they give us some semblance of meaning.

During the course of watching this whole thing, I often found myself pondering just what such an environment would be like. I can only imagine what it is like to live in the middle of a true economic depression, and how this affects one’s life choices. It would be hard enough for a person of decent means, but I believe Berlin Alexanderplatz gives a very real and disturbing view of how such a depression affects the already downtrodden. Those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder begin to engage in strange, irrational, short-term gain behaviors. A lot of people will watch this film and find the actions in it too distasteful to stomach, and to be honest, I did at first, as well. However, once I thought about it some more, I couldn’t help but feel that there was a disturbing authenticity to the entire tale. The corrupt actions of the characters reflect the polluted environment they are in, as they do whatever they can to survive and find any sort of solace that they can.

Franz and Mieze, a criminal and a prostitute, find some measure of happiness together. Their relationship may seem perverted to some, but it makes far more sense within their constraints.

There are some rather strange elements to Franz’s tale, though. Some are ones that I found a bit perplexing. Throughout the show, we have a disembodied and unknown narrator offering commentary that sometimes includes observations about the characters, but also Biblical verse, song lyrics, and readings from philosophical treatises. The connections are sometimes clear, but other times simply baffling.

Related to this is the final Epilogue episode, which is right out of surrealist left field. The previous 14 hours of the show are quite straightforward, with only occasional lapses into the aforementioned narration. The final episode, though, goes right into the realm of mind-blowing oddity. At least, that’s how it seems at first. When I thought about what all of the stunning and wild images had to do with Franz, most of them became clear. It didn’t make them any less shocking, though.

Just one of the many dark, disturbing images that we see in the Epilogue. This shows the tattered, tortured state of Franz's mind after losing his beloved Mieze.

Aside from the story itself, the other elements of the film are not ones that I would call spectacular, though they are very strong. The acting is very solid, all around. Günther Lamprecht is outstanding as Franz. Considering the incredible range of emotions and attitudes that he needs to show, it’s remarkable how he pulls them all off naturally – he can be charming, funny, pathetic, crazed, manic, depressed, or meditative at nearly any moment. Among the rest of the cast, there are really no weak links.

The visuals are rather intriguing. There is a somewhat dreamy, soft glow to most of the shots. This also often leads to an unusual halo effect that reminds me of the look of Sergio Leone’s 1984 gangster epic, Once Upon a Time in America. Beyond that, the several scenes in the forests outside of Berlin, where Mieze is killed, look eerily like the woods used in Miller’s Crossing. Some of the scenes even seem to be set up the same way. I will have to check on whether the Coen Brothers in fact used this show as inspiration.

While the technical merits are all there, this show is really all about where this one singular character, Franz Biberkopf, fits into his own strange sub-society – a sub-society that exists in shadows that most of us don’t want to think about or acknowledge.

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

Researching this massive film is filled with peaks and valleys. I watched a documentary that got behind the scenes and had a few good interviews, but didn’t add much to my understanding. There is a lack of information in my normal go-to places for this sort of thing, as well.

Then, there is Peter Jelavich. Jelavich is a professor of European history, especially German historical culture. I watched an amazingly concise, 25-minute documentary in which the man clearly answered my every question about Berlin Alexanderplatz.

The novel, by Alfred Döblin, was a masterpiece of its day. Written in 1929, it was one of the very earliest “metropolitan” novels that effectively depicted life in a modern mega-city, such as Berlin. Jelavich likens it to the contemporary novel Manhattan Transfer, by John Dos Passos. I haven’t read that novel, but having read Dos Passos’ U.S.A. trilogy, I know exactly what he means. The narrative is an enormous, sometimes dizzying, literary montage of sights, sounds, and images as perceived by an individual living in those days.

A major theme of these works is the rise of mass media. In watching the movie, this was something that confounded me; I did not understand the narrator giving me little snippets of songs, advertisements, articles, political treatises, and so on. Now knowing the intent, it all makes perfect sense. All of these little phrases are the straggling pieces of information that Franz has inadvertently picked up simply by living in Berlin. On top of that, I realize how genius Döblin was, and just how much foresight he had. When I think about my own mental state, and how much information and little, random tidbits flow through my mind on a daily basis, it’s amazing to think that Döblin saw it all coming long before its impacts were fully realized.

The original cover for the novel. It conveys the life Franz Biberkopf, surrounded by an overwhelming amount of text and information.

The other significant thing that Jelavich confirmed for me is just how to take Biberkopf the character. He is, as I felt, meant to be seen as a sympathetic figure. He essentially has a good heart and wants to do the right things, but he is incapable of it. Sometimes this is due to the endless social pressures around him, and sometimes it is because of his own lack of abilities. Either way, you want to see him find some sort of happiness. This makes it more tragic when he fails.

Believe it or not, there was a film version done shortly after the novel, back in 1931. Despite having Döblin himself working as a writer, it was far shorter and had a much sunnier ending. When Fassbinder took on the project in 1979, he was already established as something of an eccentric genius of film. He was given a lot of latitude, and he had been an incredible fan of Alfred Döblin’s novel. Wanting to do it justice, he stayed very close to the source material. The only personal touches he added were some aural references to 1960s and ‘70s pop culture, drawing a parallel between the 1929 novel and his own world in the late 1970s.

There is also a 2007 essay here by Tom Tykwer, which seems very thorough and probing. However, it dives into elements and connections with German culture that fly right over my head, in most cases. For anyone who can get something out of it, though, check it out.

The reception of the film was fairly positive, especially among critics. As you can imagine, some viewers weren’t sure what to make of the gargantuan film. Many complained that the visuals were too dark, but this was really the only common gripe. Overall, people saw it for an amazing piece of work.

That’s a wrap. 78 shows down. 27 to go.

Coming Soon: Raging Bull (1980)

 This is one of my all-time favorites. I love several of Scorsese’s movies, but I think I put this one at the top of the list. Come back and see how I break down the sad but entrancing life of the very real Jake LaMotta.

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

Film # 76: Star Wars (1977)

Director: George Lucas

Initial Release Country: United States

Times Previously Seen: No idea for sure, but easily 25 times. (Last time – about 3 years ago)

Teaser Summary (No spoilers)

Backwater planet yokel gets swept up in intergalactic war. Learns spirituality and how to use a magic wand.

Extended Summary (More detailed plot synopsis, spoilers included. Fair warning.)

Note: OK. I’m going to assume that virtually everyone reading this has seen Star Wars. If not, first of all, you should probably have your United States citizenship revoked. Second of all, I’m going to make this relatively brief. Third of all, if you really need a blow-by-blow of the narrative, check it out at imdb’s site here, where some detail-obsessed Star Wars nerd has gone way overboard (right down to the make and model of all of the machinery and droids).

Long ago, in a galaxy far away, on the fringe desert planet of Tatooine, young farmer Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) buys a couple of droids for his aunt and uncle’s farm. Little does he know that these droids, C-3PO and R2-D2 by name, were sent by Princess Leia Organa of the planet Alderaan (Carrie Fisher) to abscond with technical blueprints for the Galactic Empire’s massive, planet-destroying space station known as the Death Star. Leia is part of a rebellion against the Empire, which rules the known galaxy with an iron fist. Leia had just been captured by Lord Darth Vader (David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones), an imposing, black-clad prime figure within the Empire. She sent the droids away in a desperate attempt at assistance.

Following Leia’s orders, R2-D2 leads C-3PO and Luke deep into the desert, to the hermit Ben “Obi-Wan” Kenobi, who had long before been a Jedi Knight, an order of peace-keeping warrior monks. Obi-Wan seems to know something of Luke’s history, and after they retrieve Leia’s plea for help from R2-D2, they set out to help. Luke is reluctant at first, but his resolve is solidified when he discovers his aunt and uncle have been killed in his absence by the Empire, who are pursuing the droids. Obi-Wan also begins training Luke in the use of “The Force”, which is an energy field that binds all life and can be harnessed through concentration and discipline. It was this that Jedi used as their source of power, until they were all but wiped out by Darth Vader and the Empire.

In the desert wastes of Tatooine, the ever-patient Ben "Obi-Wan" Kenobi guides the whiny C-3PO and naive Luke Skywalker towards their destinies in the skies.

In the nearby space station of Mos Eisley, Luke, the droids and Obi-Wan hire the mercenary rogue pilot Han Solo and his companion Chewbacca, a towering, fur-covered alien with expertise in machinery and fighting. The sextet narrowly escape capture in Solo’s spacecraft, the Millennium Falcon. They head toward Leia’s home planet of Alderaan, only to find that it has been destroyed by the Death Star. They also find a massive Imperial “Star Destroyer” battleship, which captures the Millennium Falcon.

Through several tricks and some good luck, the six companions avoid capture on the Star Destroyer and rescue Princess Leia, though not without some help from Leia herself. Unfortunately, they also watch as Obi-Wan, after an extended light saber battle with his former pupil Darth Vader, is cut down and seemingly dissipates into thin air.

The remaining five companions and Princess Leia flee the Star Destroyer, though they have been, in effect, allowed to escape so that the Empire can follow them to the Rebellion’s secret base. Leia and the Rebellion use the Death Star blueprints to find a weak point, though it will require a highly risky and daring aerial assault. Luke, hungry to make a difference, immediately signs on. The self-serving Han Solo, on the other hand, takes the reward that he has been promised and leaves the Rebellion to its fate.

Luke, Leia, and Han Solo in the midst of their daring escape from the Star Destroyer. Leia insults Solo at every turn, but I think her hand in this still shot tells us everything.

With the Death Star approaching an attack window that will allow it to obliterate the rebel base, the rebel fighter squadrons attack. After an intense battle, Luke and his two wing men make a last-ditch attempt to hit the Death Star’s minuscule weak spot. With his wing men both shot down, and none other than ace pilot Darth Vader himself positioning his cross-hairs on Luke’s fighter craft, Han Solo swoops in and scatters the pursuing Imperial fighters. Luke, listening to the disembodied voice of Obi-Wan, turns off his targeting computer and uses The Force by relying on his instincts. Doing so, he hits the target and the Death Star is destroyed, saving the rebel base and fending off the Empire. At least for a time…

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

What does one of my generation say about this movie? In short, it’s still damn good, though some viewer maturity and the benefit of hindsight cast much more light on its shortcomings.

Star Wars is arguably the greatest pop culture phenomenon in history. Very few, if any, single entity, individual, or fictional realm in entertainment has become so famous, so widespread, and so embraced by so much of the world. Having seen this movie dozens of times, starting at age 4, it’s impossible for me to view it with fresh eyes. Yet try, I did. (Sorry, Yoda.)

It had been a few years since I’ve watched the movie (this time, I watched the original, theatrical version), and I am now 36 years old. This being the case, I can be slightly more objective than I would have been fifteen or even ten years ago. Please keep in mind that I am fully aware of the deconstruction of the Star Wars movies into their basic elements, and the fact that Lucas “borrowed” heavily from several major sources. Still…

Honestly, who wouldn't want to find out what these four chaps were up to?

Star Wars is still a lot of fun to watch, and I’m still impressed by the magic of the formula that George Lucas concocted. Until this movie, there had been absolutely nothing like it in movies. Sure, there were some highly innovative, creative, intelligent, and even visually stunning science fiction movies. However, there was nothing on Star Wars’ scale, in terms of epic storytelling and breadth of captivating elements.

True to the spirit of classic adventure movies, Star Wars tells a pretty gripping tale of a damsel in distress (though Leia is hardly helpless), fighting against tyrannical powers. The entire universe is a mystery in the beginning, but from that very first moment that you see the pursuit of Leia’s spacecraft by a gargantuan Star Destroyer, you want to know more. With every passing scene, we are given hints at a universe that is as much fantasy as science fiction. This mythical quality is given to us right away with the now-iconic phrase, “Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” With these words, high-tech is no longer equivalent to “futuristic”. Already, the tale has our minds expanding a bit.

The true trick of Lucas’s Star Wars galaxy was just how he blended the elements. There are cool gadgets and star ships for the techie, science fiction types. There is the mysticism and philosophy of The Force, the Jedi, and the Sith for the dreamier, more spiritual types. Most importantly for its mass appeal, though, is that there are all of the elements of a rip-roaring adventure story, complete with daring escapes and rescues, gun fights, and aerial battles. And of course, the light sabers. My cousin believes that it is the lightsaber that truly makes Star Wars what it is, and he has a point. If you take out those stately, blazing, “elegant weapons”, as Obi-Wan refers to them, then the Star Wars galaxy gets significantly blander.

The first lightsaber battle in the entire Star Wars movie franchise. These would become the hallmark ending of every single one of the six films in the series. One could argue that the lightsaber is the single most iconic prop in the history of film.

The main characters that everyone knows are almost all on display in this first film, save Yoda, who first appears in The Empire Strikes Back. Basically everyone on Earth is familiar with at least a few of the eight main characters in Star Wars. Oddly enough, in watching it this most recent time, I found Luke to be more annoying than anything else. He is rather whiny, but it’s easy to dismiss this, as he is basically a redneck farm boy who has no idea just what he’s stuck his dusty little toes into.

As much if not more than the characters, though, is simply the spectacle of the entire thing. From highly-functioning robots to bizarre species of creatures like the Jawas, Bantas, to the entire motley crew in Mos Eisley space station, so many things in the movie capture the eye and the imagination. I do have to say, also, that this is where the original, untouched theatrical release needs to be cherished. Lucas’s attempts to go back and give his own films facelifts met with harsh criticism from purists, and I wholeheartedly agree. There was absolutely nothing wrong with anything in the originals, in terms of the visuals. Simply using makeup and costumes, without the benefits of computer generated imaging, always makes those characters more tangible to me. Computer graphics are incredible these days, but let’s face it – we can always tell when they’re computer graphics. Not using these high-tech methods helps us suspend our disbelief a little more easily, in my opinion, and the original Star Wars was and is testament to this.

One thing that does not hold up over the years, or at least has become a more obvious weakness, is the dialogue in the movie. Now that most of us have seen the other George Lucas-penned scripts in Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, it’s even easier to see that the man was simply atrocious at writing dialogue. While Star Wars isn’t nearly as bad as Episodes I or II, it’s far from good. There’s a lot of hokum and very hackneyed attempts at humor. Probably the main reason that it doesn’t stand out as much is that the actors are talented enough to gloss it over. Hamill, Ford, Fisher, Guinness, and Jones are much stronger presences than Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman, and the discrepancy in their abilities to sell lame dialogue shows it. The cast of the original Star Wars was, three-fingered hands down, far superior.

Even hungover with horrendous bed-head, Alec Guinness could out-act anyone else in the Star Wars series. He needed all of his skill to overcome the oft-lame dialogue.

So upon watching it this time, the movie is still great fun to watch. Perhaps I can’t really look at it with total objectivity since it captured a place in my heart at the time when all of our hearts are so impressionable – those magic years between ages three and ten when fantastic stories and movies can imprint themselves on our very beings. I suppose an older viewer who watches Star Wars for the first time may be a tad disappointed, considering just how massive the entire franchise has become. All the same, I think anyone can marvel at just how unique a potion George Lucas mixed up for us, and I know that I’ll never tire of the original trilogy.

Take 2: Further Thoughts (Based on the context of the entire Star Wars series & random factoids.)

Did you notice how, on the “All-TIME 100 Films” list, certain film series are put together and counted as one movie? Namely, The Apu Trilogy, The Godfather Parts I and II, and The Lord of the Rings? Notice how Star Wars sits alone, without either of its immediate sequels, The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi? Did you notice that? I did. So, why do you think it is?

My guess is that, while the original trilogy was just that, Star Wars can actually stand alone and separate from the latter two films, which rely on the other two. When any Star Wars dork is asked which of the six films in the series is the best, the answer is almost overwhelmingly The Empire Strikes Back, and I agree. I suppose that this movie wasn’t included because, unlike Star Wars, it did not end with any sense of closure. It was therefore connected to the slightly inferior Return of the Jedi (only made weaker by those silly little Disney puppets, the Ewoks). With the choice of either putting only Star Wars on the list or having to include the entire trilogy, I guess the list compilers went with the former option. It makes sense to me.

That's right, fellas. Your respectable series just got down-graded to pre-kindergarten levels. Don't worry in the back there, Luke. In a little while, you'll have an awesome lightsaber fight with your pops...

So, in light of Episodes I, II and III, what do I think? Basically, Episode I is nearly putrid. I remember how, back in 1999, as a 23-year old who was unspeakably excited about the new films, I was bafflingly disappointed. Like many of my ilk, the entire Jar-Jar Binks character was insulting to my intelligence (and, I assume, the intelligence of anyone over the age of four). Liam Neeson and Ewan McGregor were fine, but Jake Lloyd as the young Anakin Skywalker was dreadful (I checked imdb and he hasn’t had an acting gig since then. Small wonder.) The film is only watchable because of the pod races and the three-way light saber battle at the end between Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon and Darth Maul. Aside from these few things, The Phantom Menace was a flashy mess.

After that debacle, things got a tad better with Episode II, and even closer to tolerable with Episode III. Still, none of these prequels could hold a Yoda-levitated candle to any of the original three, not even its weakest link, Return of the Jedi. To me, the reason is simple. George Lucas got too crazy trying to use modern movie magic to try and please every fan. Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back did things using special effects to greatly enhance an engaging, if simple, adventure story. When he went back and did the prequels, it was almost as if the effects became the story.

After Episode II, Attack of the Clones, came out, a friend of mine was disgruntled with it and told me that it seemed like George Lucas had basically read a bunch of fan emails and tried to satisfy every fanboy’s wildest fantasies. You want to see more of Boba Fett? Well, here’s his daddy, Jango Fett! You want to see Yoda use a light saber? Well, here’s Yoda bouncing around with a light saber! It continued in Episode III, but not as egregiously.

Yoda getting his game on in Attack of the Clones. One of several elements Lucas put in seemingly to appease many fans' daydream desires. Personally, I liked it better when Yoda's martial prowess was merely implied and never revealed.

When I go back and watch Episodes IV and V, I absolutely love how scaled down the effects are and how the tale itself is the dominating force. There are many things that are hinted at, but never completely explained. How did Obi-Wan and Luke end up in the Tatooine desert? How did Yoda end up in the swamps of Dagobah? What pushed Darth Vader to the dark side of the force? In truth, I didn’t really need to know the answers to these questions, though I wanted to. Now that I do know, I basically wish that Lucas hadn’t even bothered with the prequels and simple left it all up to our imaginations. It would have saved me a lot of disappointment and would have left Episodes IV, V and VI to stand on their own, something they can do quite well.

Now that nearly three decades have passed since Return of the Jedi was originally released, there has been no end of study done of the Star Wars phenomenon. By now, many people are aware that its tremendous success was no accident. In conceiving his “science fiction soap opera”, George Lucas consulted the renowned cultural anthropologist Joseph Campbell on just what constituted the ultimate story. In a thoughtful (some cynics might say Machiavellian) approach, Lucas used what he learned about popular myths to construct the overall drama of the Skywalkers. The archetypical protagonist that is universal to the greatest of human mythology became Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader – the flawed hero who falls from grace, then redeems himself in his waning hours.

We also learned long ago that the filming of the original Star Wars itself was far from original. In basic narrative and even in shot composition, George Lucas “borrowed” (many say “stole”) from Akira Kurosawa’s classic adventure tale The Hidden Fortress. Despite these borrowed elements, Lucas was one of the earliest to depict a science fiction universe that was used up and grungy, unlike nearly all of the sleek, polished looks of sci-fi TV shows and films that had come previously. Sort of like what Sergio Leone did to the Western picture.

A shot from Akira Kurosawa's 1958 samurai movie, The Hidden Fortress. In this shot, you see the "inspirations" for Princess Leia, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and the droids C-3PO and R2-D2. Lucas also used the settings and locations in his first Star Wars movie.

Out of the countless other oddities and peculiarities about this series, there are two about the cast that have always intrigued me. Perhaps not surprisingly, they both deal with actors who were talented and professional, but didn’t really think much of their roles.

The first is Harrison Ford. He basically thought Han Solo was an idiot. And you know what? After watching the Star Wars movies as an adult, it’s obvious that Han Solo was not the sharpest tool in the shed. He was brave and funny, and he was an amusing rogue, but mostly he was a dolt. Harrison Ford has always said that he would always play Indiana Jones as often as possible because he liked the character, but that he would never play Han Solo again because he was a dunce. In fact, Ford tried to convince George Lucas to have Solo killed off at the end of either Empire or Jedi, to no avail.

The other is Alec Guinness. Anyone who has seen Alec Guinness in his film roles between the 1940s and 1970s knows that he was incredible. Whether it was as Fagan in Oliver Twist, his multitude of roles in Kind Hearts and Coronets, Colonel Nicholson in Bridge on the River Kwai, or any others, you know that he was an actor of incredible range and skill. As Obi-Wan Kenobi, he absolutely nailed the part as the wizened old knight who could quietly harness supernatural powers while mentoring the clueless young Luke. Guinness himself, however, seriously disliked certain things about playing Kenobi. One was that he found the dialogue to be atrocious, and could barely stomach delivering such hokey lines. He even succeeded where Harrison Ford failed – he convinced George Lucas to kill off Kenobi, ostensibly because he felt it strengthened Kenobi as a character (which it does). Later, though, Guinness admitted that it was also because he wanted to get out of reading dialogue that he found horrendous. More nuisance was to come in the succeeding years, as Star Wars mania grew to epic proportions. Guinness, a man of staggering accomplishment on both stage and film long before Star Wars, would forever after be known as “Obi-Wan Kenobi”.

In very limited screen time, Guinness played Kenobi so well that it became his blessing and his curse. This "silly role with terrible lines" overshadowed his previous decades of outstanding work. Oh well. At least he made serious cash out of it.

I used to feel sorry for Alec Guinness in that last respect. That was until I found out that he did something that showed great foresight. Unlike nearly everyone else involved with the original Star Wars movie, he thought that it would be highly successful. He therefore negotiated a contract that would pay him percentage royalties rather than a flat fee. As you can imagine, this ultimately led him to live very comfortably for the rest of his days. I guess in the end, it was a decent enough trade-off for him. Leave it to the Brit to show some foresight and do the responsible thing.

I could, like nearly any fan of science fiction and films, go on forever about the Star Wars franchise. Suffice it to say that it’s an incredible world that Lucas constructed, and it’s fun to go back into that world from time to time. These days, people can do it through novels, video games, role playing games, comic books, and myriad other sources. Still, there’s nothing quite like going right back to where it all started – with that massive, groundbreaking film in 1977 that set new standards for wondrous adventure movies. I’ll be shocked and amazed if the phenomenon of Star Wars dies out in my lifetime, and I know that I’ll go back and watch those original three every few years for as long as I live.

That’s a wrap. 76 shows down. 29 to go.

Coming Soon: Mon oncle d’amerique (1980)

This is one of the few “modern” movies that I know absolutely nothing about. It’s French and Gerard Depardieau is in it. That’s all I’ve got. Come on back in a week or so to find out what I think of it.

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

Film #67: Xia Nu (1971)

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)

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.