Shooting Lessons: 1000 Pictures

Target #284: Klute (1971, Alan J. Pakula)

2009-12-26T01:57:00.001-08:00

TSPDT placing: #797
Directed by: Alan J. Pakula
Written by: Andy Lewis, David P. Lewis
Starring: Jane Fonda, Donald Sutherland, Roy Scheider, Charles Cioffi, Dorothy Tristan

For the most part, the advent of sound was utilised simply to accompany the on screen action. In Klute (1971), director Alan J. Pakula does something very interesting: he uses audio to layer one scene on top of another. Call-girl Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda), held at the whim of a desperate sexual deviant, is forced to hear the tape recording of a murder. The camera never leaves Bree's face, but the viewer barely sees her. Instead, the mind conjures up an entire scene that was never filmed, the sickening final moments of a drug-addled prostitute at the hands of a disturbed man. A less-assured director might have used video footage, or even a flashback. Pakula understood that the audience would provide its own flashback, and his merging of disparate visual and audio streams allows him to tell two stories at once. In this respect, I wouldn't be surprised if the film was the partial inspiration (along with Antonioni's Blow Up (1966), of course) for Coppola's The Conversation (1974).
Though the film takes its title from Donald Sutherland's small-town detective John Klute, the character himself remains oddly detached throughout. Instead, Pakula is most concerned with Fonda's reluctant call-girl, an aspiring actress who keeps returning to prostitution because it involves an "acting performance" during which she always feels in control. Fonda brings an acute warmth and vulnerability to a film that is, by design, rather cold and detached. Pakula deliberately distances the viewer from the story, placing his audience – not in the room where the action is taking place – but on the opposite end of a recording device. His accusation that the viewer is himself engaging in voyeurism runs alongside such films as Powell's Peeping Tom (1960), Antonioni's Blow Up and many works of Hitchcock. It is Fonda's performance that gives the film its core, more so than the mystery itself, the solution of which is offered early on. However, the extra details we glean from Bree's regular visits to a therapist could easily have been peppered more subtly throughout the film.
8/10

Currently my #5 film of 1971:
1) A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick)
2) Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah)
3) Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart)
4) The French Connection (William Friedkin)
5) Klute (Alan J. Pakula)
6) Get Carter (Mike Hodges)
7) Bananas (Woody Allen)
8) The Stalls of Barchester (Lawrence Gordon Clark) (TV)

Repeat Viewing: The Shining (1980, Stanley Kubrick)

2009-12-04T23:21:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #148

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

Written by: Stephen King (novel), Stanley Kubrick (screenplay), Diane Johnson (screenplay)

Starring: Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, Scatman Crothers, Barry Nelson, Philip Stone, Joe Turkel

As do most, I can clearly remember the first time I saw The Shining (1980). I must have been thirteen or fourteen, and had just read Stephen King's novel. There was something cold and clinical about the film that really shook my spine; I could never quite put my finger on exactly why. Perhaps it was the drab colours, the detached camera-work, an overwhelming sense of apathy towards the characters' fate. Just recently, I took the opportunity to see The Shining at the cinema (on a double-bill with A Clockwork Orange (1971)) and my appreciation for the film hasn't faded. An unhappily-married couple (Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall) are employed to caretake the Overlook Hotel over winter. As the long, bleak months progress, the Hotel's rich and dark history begins to manifest physically, and Jack's alcoholism and unstable psychological

state begins to crumble into maniacal madness.

Jack Nicholson's grotesquely over-the-top performance is terrifying, and hilarious, and insanely watchable; Kubrick encouraged Nicholson to overplay the role to its demented maximum. Not surprisingly, his favourite actor was James Cagney, who frequently eschewed realistic method acting in favour of a broiling intensity that suggested a time-bomb on the verge of exploding. Shelley Duvall, meanwhile, does a very good imitation of a complete mental breakdown (in fact, the director himself drove her to the brink with his endless insistence on re-takes, sometimes as many as 100). The exaggerated central performances are strangely at odds with John Alcott's detached cinematography, which surveys the carnage of Jack's mental breakdown with a disquieting aloofness. However, the camera doesn't merely act as an observer; Kubrick uses it to tell the story, his peculiar use of quick zooms serving to claustrophobically constrict the viewer's field of vision and emphasise an element of interest.

Throughout the film, frequent (but irregularly-spaced) title cards signal the passage of time, as though counting down to a historical moment. Jack's plummet into insanity thus becomes set in stone, inevitable, and every preceding frame is plagued by the hand of Fate, gently nudging the man towards a predetermined end. In the film's ambiguous epilogue, Jack's image appears in a photograph dated July 4, 1921. Hence, even before we see Jack Torrance first enter the Overlook Hotel, he has already become a part of its history (just as the previous caretaker Charles Grady had formerly known the Hotel through his historical doppelganger Delbert Grady, the butler). Alternatively, these visions could be a manifestation of Jack's alcoholism – note that, in every scene featuring a ghost, there is a mirror present. It can't be mere coincidence that Jack's axe-assault on a bathroom door was clearly inspired by a sequence in Victor Sjöström's Körkarlen (1921), which concerns an alcoholic husband and father.
9/10

Currently my #2 film of 1980:

1) The Elephant Man (David Lynch)

2) The Shining (Stanley Kubrick)

3) ‘Breaker’ Morant (Bruce Beresford)

4) Star Wars: Episode V- The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner)

5) Stardust Memories (Woody Allen)

6) Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese)

Repeat Viewing: A Clockwork Orange (1971, Stanley Kubrick)

2009-11-25T14:17:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #93

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

Written by: Anthony Burgess (novel), Stanley Kubrick (screenplay)

Starring: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Michael Bates, Warren Clarke, Adrienne Corri, Anthony Sharp, David Prowse

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

In Kubrick's adaptation of Anthony Burgess' bizarre 1959 dystopian novel, a juvenile delinquent (Malcolm McDowell) and his gang of droogs whittle away their time partaking in such wholesome activities as beating homeless drunks, warring with rival gangs, raping helpless women, and enjoying the music of Ludwig Van Beethoven. There are two things happening in this film: one that Kubrick inherited from Burgess' writing, and another that is endemic to the cinematic medium.

The first role of A Clockwork Orange (1971) is as a rather vicious political satire, dryly mocking the hypocrisy of the government and its policies on institutionalisation and criminal rehabilitation. In the film, the Minister of the Interior (Anthony Sharp) is depicted as opportunistic and self-serving, latching onto the unproven Ludovico technique in a bid to stem his party's failing popularity with voters. When public opinion turns against the therapy, the Minister very swiftly back-peddles, reversing the treatment so that Alex may return to his former ultra-violent ways: "I was cured alright!"

The UK edition of Burgess' novel contained a final chapter in which Alex sees the error of his former ways, and vows to reform into a productive member of society. Kubrick was unaware of this addition until he had almost completed the screenplay, and never considered using it in the film. This was, I think, a good decision. Burgess' ending shies away from the problem: by letting human nature run its course, he seems to be implying that the problem of juvenile delinquency will sort itself out. Kubrick, admittedly, doesn't offer any solutions of his own, but the corrupt manner in which he ends the film leaves a sour taste.

The Ludovico technique depicted in the film involves the screening of movies, which allows Kubrick room for a degree of self-referentiality. It is in the audiences' nature to recoil from acts of sex and violence, and Kubrick's hard-nosed, deliberately-subversive approach (utilising the perspective of its biased protagonist and narrator) only encourages this response. Just as Alex is exposed to the Ludovico aversion therapy, Kubrick is exposing his audience to the same treatment. Does it work? Do we become desensitised to the violence, or do we begin to associate socially-accepted cues (i.e. Beethoven's Ninth, "Singing in the Rain") with acts of evil?

9/10

Currently my #1 film of 1971:

1) A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick)
2) Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah)
3) Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart)
4) The French Connection (William Friedkin)
5) Get Carter (Mike Hodges)
6) Bananas (Woody Allen)
7) The Stalls of Barchester (Lawrence Gordon Clark) (TV)

Repeat Viewing: Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991, James Cameron)

2009-11-25T14:06:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #565

Directed by: James Cameron

Written by: James Cameron, William Wisher Jr.

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Edward Furlong, Robert Patrick, Earl Boen, Joe Morton, Xander Berkeley

Watching Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991) for the first time in three years made me remember how amazing movies could be. Director James Cameron had previously achieved unexpected success with The Terminator (1984), a moody and relentlessly bleak tech-noir thriller. The inevitable sequel came armed with a blockbuster budget and state-of-the-arts visual effects, and it is a triumph on every level. The two films are very different, of course – just as Cameron's Aliens (1986) was very different from Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). The first Terminator film was a down-and-dirty dystopian sci-fi, where the modern-day setting is just as drab and ominous as the terrifying future. In Judgement Day, Cameron juggles a tricky juxtaposition of hope and despair. The blindingly-vivid 1990s action sequences feel as though they were captured in the flash of a nuclear explosion, and their dazzling intensity make our glimpse of a bleak, war-ridden future all the more horrific.
Science-fiction has often tackled the notion that Mankind's technology is destined to rebel, as in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). However, unlike most entries to the genre, T2: Judgement Day takes the time to explore the idea. As in Kubrick's film, the fates of humans and machines become inescapably entwined: Man is no longer merely the designer (a la Dr. Frankenstein) who creates an artificial son, but one who must learn from his progeny. Accordingly, John Connor (Edward Furlong) and the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) share a father-son relationship that twists back on itself like a Moebius strip, each half teaching the other. In one haunting sequence, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) grimly contemplates the Terminator's unwavering loyalty towards John, and his ironic suitability as a father figure. This grotesque interlacing of familial roles speaks a clear message: if Judgement Day is to be averted, Man and Machine must coexist as equals, though human vanity may never allow it.
Throughout the film, Cameron weaves one astonishing action set-piece after another, utilising a seamless combination CGI and optical trickery. The T-1000 Terminator at first glance seems reasonably innocuous, but Robert Patrick brings something icily sinister to the role, a cold intelligence that isn't strictly mechanical but somehow filled with imagination. An equally fascinating character, I thought, was Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor, a complete reversal from the innocent Sarah Connor of the previous film. Now emotionally hardened by the prospect of nuclear holocaust, Sarah sees only ghosts where she once saw people, her apathy stemmed only by her maternal instincts towards John. In a haunting dream sequence, Sarah Connor is powerless to warn a younger version of herself (representative of society at large) of the coming dangers, her screams consumed by a nuclear blast that levels cities and engulfs her in flames. Hamilton's performance is bold and ferocious, perhaps cinema's most intense female action role (not coincidentally, James Cameron also provided us with the runner-up, Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) in Aliens).

10/10

Currently my #2 film of 1991:

1) The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme)
2) Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron)
3) JFK (Oliver Stone)
4) Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola)
5) Barton Fink (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)

Target #283: 42nd Street (1933, Lloyd Bacon)

2009-10-17T16:35:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #438

Directed by: Lloyd Bacon

Written by: Bradford Ropes (novel), Rian James (screenplay), James Seymour (screenplay),

Whitney Bolton (contribution to treatment) (uncredited)

Starring: Warner Baxter, Bebe Daniels, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Guy Kibbee, Ginger Rogers, Dick Powell

The backstage Broadway show has always been a staple of the Hollywood musical, and Lloyd Bacon's 42nd Street (1933) might just be the grandfather of them all. The concept itself is appealingly self- reflexive: the process of manufacturing drama creates its own drama. Behind the theatre curtains, unbeknownst to the waiting audience, lives are being changed forever – love blossoms, hearts are broken, and directors wearily await the public verdict. Similar structures were later used in Powell and Pressburger's The Red Shoes (1948) – in which the backstage drama is foreshadowed by the ballet being performed – and Minnelli's The Band Wagon (1953). Better still, Singin' in the Rain (1951) took the same premise and applied it to movies themselves, a direct brand of self-reflexion that would only grow more overt with the likes of Federico Fellini and Charlie Kaufman. In any case, it is sufficient to say that the film's storytelling approach proved hugely influential, and many musicals have carried forth its various clichés.

In Depression-era New York, overstrained Broadway director Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) vows to make his final stage-show his greatest of all. It won't be easy: his leading lady, the glamorous but snooty Dorothy Brock (Bebe Daniels) is torn between love and stardom, bouncing between her wealthy benefactor (Guy Kibbee) and an old vaudeville partner (George Brent). Into the show comes shy, fresh-faced Peggy Sawyer (Ruby Keeler), who learns the art of the Broadway musical, and incidentally becomes a star in the process. Among the supporting cast there are a few very familiar faces, including a sprightly Dick Powell (a decade before he toughened up with Murder, My Sweet (1944)) and Ginger Rogers, who proves her comedic spark even before pairing up with Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio (1933). For the most part, 42nd Street has an incredibly optimistic outlook, making it ideal for a lonely winter night. There's not a single unlikable character in the mix: even the snobbish Dorothy Brock has a few words of encouragement for Peggy before her nervous debut.

Audiences are more likely to connect with the adorably innocent Ruby Keeler, but the film revolves most strongly around Warner Baxter's disenchanted Broadway director, whose body and mind is gradually but inevitably failing him. At first, Marsh seems determined to do whatever it takes to taste acclaim one more time. In a scene borrowed straight out of Warner Brothers' contemporary gangster films, he orders hired thugs to intimidate Pat Denning, Brock's secret sweetheart, but Denning gets away with little more than a cut forehead. Marsh's eventual triumph is heartening, but bittersweet, as he anonymously enjoys the poetry of critical praise just one last time. It's the only moment in 42nd Street that strays from the film's otherwise-buoyant mood, and so it leaves an indelible mark. Most impressive of all, however, is Busby Berkeley's choreography, which really only arrives in the final act. It's remarkable how he uses human bodies like the cogs in a machine, melding human figures and movement, shot from above, into stunningly liquid abstract shapes and tessellations.

7/10

Currently my #3 film of 1933:

1) King Kong (Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack)
2) The Invisible Man (James Whale)
3) 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon)
4) Duck Soup (Leo McCarey)
5) Flying Down to Rio (Thornton Freeland)

Target #282: Ninotchka (1939, Ernst Lubitsch)

2009-09-21T03:50:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #282
Directed by: Ernst Lubitsch
Written by: Melchior Lengyel (story), Charles Brackett (screenplay), Billy Wilder (screenplay), Walter Reisch (screenplay)
Starring: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Bela Lugosi, Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart, Alexander Granach

I find it a little odd that, on the cusp of WWII, Hollywood delivered a piece of anti-Communist propaganda, when clearly there were, at that time, more immediate threats to European freedom. Ninotchka (1939) was produced while Ernst Lubitsch waited for Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart to become available for The Shop Around the Corner (1940), but it was by no means merely a fill-in project: the film was Greta Garbo's first and only collaboration with Lubitsch, and the actress' penultimate role before a premature retirement. MGM's publicity campaign used the tagline "Garbo Laughs!" to advertise that this was a new type of role for the enigmatic actress, a comedy that promised to humanise her otherwise somber screen persona {this campaign deliberately referenced the tagline for Garbo's Anna Christie (1930), which had proclaimed "Garbo Talks!"}. Though the screenplay by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch unsurprisingly has many genuine sparks of wit, the balance of romance, farce and political commentary never quite sits as comfortably as one would expect given the talents involved.

When three Soviet diplomats (Sig Ruman, Felix Bressart and Alexander Granach) arrive in Paris to sell off some jewelry confiscated from the Grand Duchess (Ina Claire) during the Bolshevik Revolution, they find it difficult to keep their minds on their work. Far away from the cold, drab apartments of Moscow, the French capital is bustling with life, warmth and prosperity (just forget that the French upper-class are not, in fact, a reasonable yardstick for comparison with the Soviet proletariat). Playful aristocrat Léon (Melvyn Douglas), the Duchess' romantic lover, succeeds in corrupting the bumbling diplomats by flaunting the luxuries of capitalistic society. To ensure that the transaction goes through smoothly, the Soviets send down Ninotchka (Garbo), a curt, tight-lipped Bolshevik with a militant hatred of Capitalism and everything it stands for. Against all odds, the debonair playboy Léon and the belligerent Ninotchka fall for one another, an attraction that ultimately proves more significant than one's national allegiance.

Unfortunately, once love softens the formerly stone-faced Ninotchka, the film shifts from being a lighthearted political farce {not unlike To Be or Not to Be (1942) or Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961)} to a weepy romance. Lubitsch followed Ninotchka with The Shop Around the Corner. What worked so well in the latter film, I thought, was that Lubitsch's heart was not necessarily with the star-crossed lovers – James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan – but with Frank Morgan's shop owner, and his familial relationship with its employees. The three reluctant Soviet diplomats in Ninotchka are utterly charming supporting characters, but too often they are shunned in favour of the central romance, which seems to tread water once, as advertised, Garbo breaks character and enjoys a hearty chuckle. Nevertheless, Melvyn Douglas is magnificently debonair, bringing something distinctly likable to the role of a lazy playboy aristocrat. During her opening act, you can almost see a smile forming beneath Garbo's icy exterior, and she plays the role with just the right amount of breeziness.

6.5/10

Currently my #11 film of 1939:

3) Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)
4) The Wizard Of Oz (Victor Fleming, Mervyn LeRoy, Richard Thorpe, King Vidor)
5) Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood)
6) The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (H.C. Potter)
7) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (William Dieterle)
8) La règle du jeu {The Rules of the Game} (Jean Renoir)
9) Dark Victory (Edmund Goulding)
10) Another Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)
11) Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch)
12) Drums Along the Mohawk (John Ford)

Target #281: JFK (1991, Oliver Stone)

2009-09-18T02:26:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #492
Directed by: Oliver Stone
Written by: Jim Garrison (book), Jim Marrs (book), Oliver Stone (screenplay), Zachary Sklar (screenplay)
Starring: Kevin Costner, Jack Lemmon, Gary Oldman, Sissy Spacek, Michael Rooker, Joe Pesci, Walter Matthau, Tommy Lee Jones, John Candy, Kevin Bacon, Donald Sutherland

Oliver Stone's wildly-speculative conspiracy theory epic JFK (1991) opens with a montage of archival footage depicting the presidency of John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, up until 12:30PM on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas. However, even before this historical prologue has come to an end, Stone has already introduced his own dramatisation – a beaten prostitute, dumped on the side of a road, pleads that Kennedy's life is in danger. Her agonised cries play over familiar documentary footage of the Presidential motorcade. Already, Stone is defiantly blending fact and fiction, speculation and dramatisation. On its initial release, the film stirred enormous controversy due to its flagrant disregard for historical fact, but that's not what JFK is all about. Oliver Stone may (or may not) genuinely believe all of Jim Garrison's conspiracy theories – which implicate everybody up to former President Lyndon B. Johnson – but his film nevertheless offers a tantalising "what if?" scenario, an unsettling portrait of the fallibility of "history" itself.

Having undertaken some light research, I don't feel that Garrison's claims hold much water. However, that doesn't detract from the film's brilliance. Crucial is Stone's more generalised vibe of government mistrust, the acknowledgement that political institutions are at least conceptually capable of such a wide-ranging operation to hoodwink the American public. JFK also paints a gripping picture of its protagonist, torn between its admiration for a man willing to contest the sacred cow of US government, and its pity for one so hopelessly obsessed with conspiracy that it consumes his life, family and livelihood. Kevin Costner plays Garrison as righteous and stubbornly idealistic, not dissimilar to his Eliot Ness in De Palma's The Untouchables (1987). The only difference is that Garrison is chasing a criminal far more transparent than Al Capone – indeed, a criminal who may not exist at all. Costner is supported by an exceedingly impressive supporting cast: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Kevin Bacon, Donald Sutherland, Joe Pesci, Michael Rooker, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman and John Candy.With the Director's Cut clocking in at 206 minutes, JFK is an epic piece of work. However, the film is so dazzlingly well-constructed that watching it becomes less of a choice than a compulsion. Stone frenziedly throws together seemingly-unrelated puzzle-pieces, systematically peeling back layer after layer of conspiracy until all that remains is what Jim Garrison believes to be the naked truth. Beneath the sordid details, Stone speculates on the nature of history itself. Archive footage blends seamlessly with dramatisation – but what is recorded history but a re-enactment submitted by the winners? Not even the witnesses to Kennedy's assassination, clouded by subjective perception, can know for sure what exactly took place on that dark day in Dallas. Perhaps Zapruder's 486 frames of grainy hand-held footage (combined with that of Nix and Muchmore) represents the only objective record of the event – but Antonioni's Blowup (1966) argued that even photographic documentation is unreliable through the inherent bias of the viewer. In short, nobody knows what really happened that day. JFK is Oliver Stone creating his own history – or merely correcting it.
9/10

Currently my #3 film of 1991:
1) The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme)
2) Terminator 2: Judgment Day (James Cameron)
3) JFK (Oliver Stone)
4) Hearts Of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse (Fax Bahr, George Hickenlooper, Eleanor Coppola)
5) Barton Fink (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)

Target #280: Days of Heaven (1978, Terrence Malick)

2009-08-15T03:02:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #164

Directed by: Terrence Malick

Written by: Terrence Malick

Starring: Richard Gere, Brooke Adams, Sam Shepard, Linda Manz, Robert J. Wilke, Jackie Shultis, Stuart Margolin

Terrence Malick is less a storyteller than a visual poet. At times, the images in Days of Heaven (1978) seem too beautiful to be believed – could Mother Nature even construct such moments of magnificence at her own accord? Cinematographers Néstor Almendros and Haskell Wexler (credited only as "additional photographer") consistently shot the film during the "magic hour" between darkness and sunrise/sunset, when the sun's radiance is missing from the sky, and so their colours have a muted presence, as though filtered through the stalks of wheat that saturate the landscape. Crucial alongside the film's photographers are composer Ennio Morricone – utilising a variation on the seventh movement ("Aquarium") in Camille Saint-Saëns's "Carnival of the Animals" suite – and a succession of sound editors, whose work brings a dreamy, ethereal edge to the vast fields of the Texas Panhandle. The film's final act, away from the wheat-fields, recalls Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967), but otherwise Malick's style, contemplative and elegiac, is in a class of its own, more comparable perhaps to Kurosawa's Dersu Uzala (1975).

Malick refuses to explore his characters' motivations. The viewer is deliberately kept at an arm's length, and Malick eschews cinema's traditional notions of narrative development. Instead, the story is told as a succession of fleeting moments, the sort that a young girl (the film's narrator, Linda Manz) might pick up through her day-to-day experiences and muted understanding of adult emotions. Note that the girl is always kept separate from the dramatic crux of the film – the love-triangle between Billy, Abby, and the Farmer – and her comprehension of events is tainted by her adolescent grasp on adult relationships and societal norms. I was reminded of Andrew Dominik's recent The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007) {another sumptuously-photographed picture}, which also refused to explore its title character, Jesse James, kept at a distance through the impartial objectivity of the historical narrator. In Malick's film, Linda's narration tells us one thing, and the viewer sees another. But one can never fully understand the complex emotions driving human behaviour, so perhaps the girl's perspective is as good as any other.

Days of Heaven derives its title from a passage in the Bible (Deuteronomy 11:21), and Malick's tale of jealousy and desire is suitably Biblical in nature. Essential to this allegory is an apocalyptic plague of locusts, which descend upon the wheat-fields like an army from the heavens. When the fields erupt into flame, quite literally from the broiling emotions of the film's conflicted characters, the viewer is confronted by the most intense manifestation of Hell-on- Earth since the burning village in Bondarchuk's War and Peace (1967). But, interestingly, Malick here regresses on his own allegory: Judgement Day isn't the end, but rather it comes and goes. Life is driven by the inexorable march of Fate: The Farmer (Sam Shepard) is doomed to die within a year; Bill (Richard Gere) is doomed to repeat his mistakes twice over. In the film's final moments, Linda and her newfound friend embark purposelessly along the railway tracks, the tracks being a physical incarnation of Fate itself: their paths are laid down already, but we mortals can never know precisely where they lead until we get there.

8/10

Currently my #2 film of 1978:

1) Watership Down (Martin Rosen)
2) Days of Heaven (Terrence Malick)
3) Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman)

Target #279: A Matter of Life and Death (1946, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)

2009-08-01T17:48:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #126

Directed by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Written by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Starring: David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Richard Attenborough, Marius Goring, Raymond Massey

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

The films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger effectively introduced Technicolor to British cinema, but it's how they utilised the new technology that is astonishing. The Red Shoes (1948) and Gone to Earth (1950) each boast a wondrously flamboyant visual style, rich in lush colours and vivid tonal contrasts. A Matter of Life and Death (1946), a post-War fantasy that builds on Powell's work in The Thief of Bagdad (1940), is equally magnificent. As in many of The Archers' colour films, there is a certain slap-dash quality: rather than bearing the products of careful, meticulous planning, it feels as though the directors simply threw caution to the wind and went with whatever felt right {certainly, cinematographer Jack Cardiff took his to heart, choosing to "feel" the correct lighting rather than use a light meter}. Though the parallel settings never quite gel with complete harmony, the wealth of imagination, creativity and sheer gob-smacking wonderment left me utterly entranced for two hours.

In 1945, a doomed British aviator (David Niven) falls in love with June (Kim Hunter), the American radio operator to whom he conveys his final words. After bailing from his floundering plane without a parachute, Peter Carter is resigned to death, but later wakes up on the beach to find that the heavenly angels overlooked him in the fog. He quickly requites his love for June, but Heaven soon sends a romantic French "Conductor" (Marius Goring) to retrieve Carter and correct their previous oversight. However, having suddenly found something meaningful for which to live, Carter demands a celestial appeal, winning the right to argue his case for extended life. Powell and Pressburger are judicious in avoiding any direct mention of Heaven, opening the film with a canny subtitle in which we are told: "This is the story of two worlds, the one we know and another which exists only in the mind of a young airman whose life and imagination have been violently shaped by war. Any resemblance to any other world, known or unknown, is purely coincidental."

Roger Livesey's astute neurologist is the film's most rational character, recommending a surgical procedure to curtail what he believes to be elaborate post-traumatic delusions. In tales of this sorts, the skeptic ultimately suffers at the hands of the director, but here they're apparently on his side. That Carter's visions of the afterlife are a product of a shell-shocked mind is reinforced by the film's subtle nod to The Wizard of Oz (1939); both the celestial Judge and the surgeon are played by the same actor, Abraham Sofaer. However, the romantic in me – and, may I add, the atheist romantic in me – wants the converse to be true. At the time A Matter of Life and Death was released, the nations of the world were still mourning the War's significant human losses, and to see young British soldiers emerging from death, wide-eyed and cheerful, must have been emotionally reassuring for grief-stricken families, particularly the purely innocent image of a fresh-faced Richard Attenborough remarking, "It's heaven, isn't it?"

A Matter of Life and Death is a masterpiece of contrasts. In one memorable moment, the idyllic and vaguely-mythological scene of a naked goatherd on the beach sands is unexpectedly punctuated by the overpass of a low-flying Mosquito bomber. The most crucial contrast, of course, is that of Cardiff's photography. Inverting the logic of The Wizard of Oz, the Archers shoot their fantasy sequences in ethereal monochrome, whereas the terrestrial scenes are captured in glorious, vibrant Technicolor. This stylistic decision is also important thematically, typical of the filmmakers' Capra-like optimism in the years during and directly following the War (until they began to indulge in operatic tragedy). The film's afterlife is a Utopia of sorts, where the populace can indulge in their hobbies and neglect the worries of mortal life. However, the Archers' preference is most certainly for the real world. The souls of Heaven seem frozen in time, sporting the same dreary clothing and prejudices of their era. Conversely, the people of Earth – like Peter and June – are living, loving and learning every day. Life is a colourful wonderland of emotion, so make the most of it.

9/10

Currently my #3 film of 1946:

1) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
2) It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
3) A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
4) The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)
5) Duel in the Sun (King Vidor)
6) The Killers (Robert Siodmak)
7) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
8) The Locket (John Brahm)
9) Crack-Up (Irving Reis)
10) The Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak)

Repeat Viewing: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962, Robert Mulligan)

2009-08-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #252

Directed by: Robert Mulligan

Written by: Harper Lee (novel), Horton Foote (screenplay)

Starring: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford, John Megna, Brock Peters, Robert Duvall, Frank Overton

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) has stayed with me since the time I first saw it, perhaps because the film caught me at an impressionable age. This was in 2004, not a particularly long time ago, but it feels an age away. High school greets you at a young, idealistic age, when the world sits at your fingertips just waiting for you to take it. Having just read Harper Lee's Pullitzer Prize-winning novel in English class, we followed it with Robert Mulligan's film adaptation, which scored an Oscar for Gregory Pick and would have won Best Picture had David Lean not hustled in with his masterpiece. Even when lamentably broken up into fifty-minute intervals, To Kill a Mockingbird left me captivated by its magic – and, yes, there is magic. Though typically celebrated as a statement on racial prejudice in the American South, the true core of both Lee's novel and Mulligan's film is distanced from Tom Robinson's rape trial, and lies in terrible, wonderful and beautiful experience of growing up.

The film, as in Lee's novel, is told through the eyes of Scout Finch (Mary Badham; voiced by Kim Stanley as an adult), the tomboyish daughter of small-town lawyer Atticus (Gregory Peck) and younger sister of Jem (Phillip Alford). Along with visiting neighbour Dill (John Megna), the two siblings whittle away their summers obsessing over local recluse "Boo" Radley, an agoraphobic, mentally-ill man towards whom the children develop both a fear and fascination. Meanwhile, Atticus is appointed to defend an African American (Brock Peters) accused of raping a white woman, and his determination to give the man a fair trial leads to heated racial tensions in the bigoted Southern township. To Kill A Mockingbird follows Jem and Scout as they go about the processes of growing up, learning of the bitter immorality and prejudice that lurks beyond the security of their home. Ironically, the film is weakest during its narrative crux – Tom Robinson's courtroom trial – as Mulligan strains to keep the story focused around the children, though Peck's virtuous performance compensates for the lapse.

I've never quite been able to put my fingers around why To Kill A Mockingbird is, to me, such an emotionally-draining (and fulfilling) picture. Perhaps it's Elmer Bernstein's musical score, sad and wistful, like the lamentation of a fairy-tale punctuated by reality. Childhood itself is not unlike a fairy-tale, a time of infallible ideals and black-and-white ethics. Mulligan justly celebrates the steadfast moral courage of Atticus Finch, but the overriding emotion at Tom Robinson's sentencing is instead one of sinking disillusionment: while Scout watches on, uncomprehending, Jem buries his head in his arms, his childish conviction in the goodness of adults irreparably shattered. Yet, even then, hope survives for those who, like the Finch family, preserve their moral integrity. The film's fairy-tale mood, at times reminiscent of Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1957), is enforced most strongly in the children's final walk through the forest, described as their "longest journey together." Arthur "Boo" Radley, a mockingbird who might have been destroyed by less sympathetic souls, ultimately becomes their saviour.

10/10

Currently my #2 film of 1962:

1) Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean)
2) To Kill A Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan)
3) La Jetée {The Pier} (Chris Marker)
4) Le Procès {The Trial} (Orson Welles)
5) Birdman of Alcatraz (John Frankenheimer)
6) Ivanovo detstvo {Ivan’s Childhood} (Andrei Tarkovsky, Eduard Abalov)
7) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford)
8) Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson)
9) Panic in Year Zero! (Ray Milland)
10) The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer)

Repeat Viewing: North by Northwest (1959, Alfred Hitchcock)

2009-07-21T03:22:00.001-07:00

TSPDT placing: #49

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Written by: Ernest Lehman

Starring: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis, Leo G. Carroll, Martin Landau, Philip Ober

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

Following the commercial failure of Vertigo (1958), Alfred Hitchcock needed a crowd-pleaser. He certainly gave us one. North by Northwest (1959) might just be the most outright entertaining of the director's pictures, a film that exists solely to give its audience a rollicking good time. Throughout his career, Hitchcock often utilised his established stars – for example, Cary Grant in Suspicion (1941) or James Stewart in Vertigo – as an opportunity to deconstruct their ingrained public image. Here, instead, he simply goes with the flow. In his fourth and final film for the Master of Suspense, Cary Grant plays with a familiar persona – debonair and charming, cocky and mischievous. His Roger O. Thornhill (the arbitrary middle initial an overt jab at producer David O. Selznick) is an advertising executive, superficial and self-serving, but with the charisma to support these dastardly qualities. Such a man is surely in need of a comeuppance, and Hitchcock delights in every plot twist that sees Thornhill plunged ever further into a sadistic practical joke cooked up by the Cold War.

Ernest Lehman's screenplay outwardly appears to be little but a selection of spectacular set-pieces strung together by Hitchcock's trademark "wrong man" motif, but it nonetheless amply supports its running-time (among the director's longest). Cary Grant's charming banter with double-agent Eva Marie Saint is tinged with sly sexual innuendo, and only Hitchcock could have ended a film with the hero's train entering the leading ladies'…. well, you get the picture. James Mason brings a dignified vulnerability to the role of Commie spy Phillip Vandamm, but Hitchcock seems only marginally interested in the character, and, indeed, his ultimate fate is completely skipped over (instead, Martin Landau's vicious henchman is given an arch-villain's death). Hitchcock's climax atop a studio reconstruction of Mount Rushmore is only effective thanks to Bernard Hermann's momentous score, but other sequences reek of the director's astonishing aptitude for suspense. The breathless crop-duster ambush is worthy of every accolade that has been bestowed upon it, and Grant's comedic talents shine during both a drunken roadside escape and an impromptu auction-house heckle.

That the audience learns of George Kaplan's fictitiousness long before Thornhill ever does may admittedly weaken the suspense, but Hitchcock's motives are instead to recruit the audience into his own position, as director, of omnipotent power. Beneath its surface, North by Northwest appears to be a subtle swing at Cold War politics, and particularly the power wielded by the FBI and government committees like the HUAC. As Thornhill fights to unravel himself from a tangled web of deception and espionage, Hitchcock unexpectedly crosses to a panel of FBI agents, headed by Leo G. Carroll, who bicker indifferently over the mess into which they've got this oblivious pawn. These government employees are happy to sit listlessly by as citizens place their lives on the line, their quarrels bizarrely resembling the conversations of the gods in Jason and the Argonauts (1963). Indeed, like deities, the FBI men wield the power to invent (Kaplan), destroy, or even resurrect (Thornhill) human beings, and intercede sporadically in a suitably Deus Ex Machina-like fashion.

9/10

Currently my #3 film of 1959:

1) Die Brücke {The Bridge} (Bernhard Wicki)
2) Room at the Top (Jack Clayton)
3) North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder)
5) Our Man in Havana (Carol Reed)
6) On the Beach (Stanley Kramer)
7) Le Quatre cents coups {The 400 Blows} (François Truffaut)
8) Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
9) Ben-Hur (William Wyler)
10) The Tingler (William Castle)

Target #278: The Best Years of Our Lives (1946, William Wyler)

2009-07-12T02:42:00.001-07:00

TSPDT placing: #122

Directed by: William Wyler

Written by: MacKinlay Kantor (novel), Robert E. Sherwood (screenplay)

Starring: Myrna Loy, Fredric March, Dana Andrews, Teresa Wright, Virginia Mayo, Cathy O'Donnell, Harold Russell

The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) is one of the most powerful war films I've ever seen, and yet its story begins after WWII had officially ended. Too often in cinema, the end of the battle is considered the end of the war: a sweeping camera movement, an upwelling of stirring music, the hurrah of victorious soldiers, and suddenly everything is all right. But war doesn't end when the guns stop blazing, nor when the politicians put their pens to paper. War lingers for days, months, and years. Returning veterans, even those who emerged from conflict without a scratch, faced an uphill battle to reclaim their former lives, having sacrificed their happiest years in service to their country. In 1946, the issues faced by war veterans had only just come to public light. Two years earlier, congress had introduced the G.I. Bill, which allowed ex-serviceman access to low-interest loans with which to rebuild their lives. Post-traumatic stress disorder in soldiers had previously only been explored in the film noir The Blue Dahlia (1946).

Three soldiers from different social classes, returning to their home-town after years of conflict, are united in their desire to rekindle their former lives. But things will never be the same as before. Homer Parrish (true-life war veteran Harold Russell) lost his hands in battle, and fears that his faithful girlfriend (Cathy O'Donnell) remains with him only out of pity. Working-class pilot Fred Derry (Dana Andrews) finds that, despite his distinguished achievements in war-time, he still lacks the necessary experience to assimilate into civilian life. Al Stephenson (Fredric March) returns to children he barely recognises, but finds consolation in "the perfect wife" Myrna Loy. The intertwining journeys faced by each of the veterans are often uncomfortable to watch, sometimes shameful and embarrassing, but the overriding message is one of hope: whatever adversities these men must confront, they can be sure to rely upon the support of their family, friends and the grateful United States government.

Gregg Toland's crisp deep-focus photography is excellent, but the major strength in William Wyler's drama are the characters themselves. Harold Russell, who actually did lose his hands in combat, was hand-picked from a military documentary on rehabilitated soldiers, and his performance works so well because it's genuine. Russell is clearly an amateur next to the neatly-balanced dramatics of March and Andrews – he even flubs his characters' wedding vows – but the emotion is authentic, and his pain heartbreaking. Fredric March won his second Oscar (after Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)) for his role as a banker who lost his commercial hardness in the trenches. A little disappointingly, his character doesn't figure prominently in the film's second half, his role somewhat reduced to that of a vector facilitating Andrews' melodramatic, but satisfying, romance with Teresa Wright. I would have liked the film to have more thoroughly explored Stephenson's detached relationship with his children, but evidently there were time constraints to be considered – having said that, though, the 172 minutes flies by effortlessly.
9/10

Currently my #3 film of 1946:
1) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
2) It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
3) The Best Years of Our Lives (William Wyler)
4) Duel in the Sun (King Vidor)
5) The Killers (Robert Siodmak)
6) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
7) The Locket (John Brahm)
8) Crack-Up (Irving Reis)
9) The Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak)
10) The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall)

Target #277: East of Eden (1955, Elia Kazan)

2009-07-11T02:39:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #583

Directed by: Elia Kazan

Written by: John Steinbeck (novel), Paul Osborn (screenplay)

Starring: Julie Harris, James Dean, Raymond Massey, Burl Ives, Richard Davalos, Jo Van Fleet, Albert Dekker

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

I haven't read John Steinbeck's novel "East of Eden," but I'm familiar with enough of the author's work to know that he wasn't a "glass half-full" kind of man. Steinbeck's characters appear to persist despite their misery, devoid of hope and comfort, and persevering out of sheer bloody-mindedness. This potentially poses a problem, because Hollywood has traditionally taken the stance that it is optimism, not pessimism, that sells tickets. This clash of sensibilities is seen readily enough in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), in which John Ford's assurance in the hardiness of American families sits at odds with Steinbeck's stark brand of realism. Nevertheless, Elia Kazan was an ideal candidate to adapt the 1952 novel "East of Eden," having already dealt with unflinching dramatic themes of family and societal conflict in the films A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954). The pair had collaborated previously, with Steinbeck writing the screenplay for Kazan's Mexican Revolution biopic Viva Zapata! (1952), starring Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn.

Whereas A Streetcar Named Desire had been a completely stage-bound film, owing to origins on Broadway, East of Eden (1955) allowed Kazan to spread his cinematic wings, so to speak. Steinbeck had intended his novel, in part, as a tribute to the Salinas Valley in Northern California, and so location is everything. Cinematographer Ted McCord captures the setting in lush WarnerColor, the fertile green fields consciously opposed to the bleak inner conflict raging inside the heart of the film's protagonist. Despite being visually impressive, it is – as in all Kazan pictures – the director's genius for working with actors that really shines through. James Dean, in his major picture debut (and the first of only three lead roles), delivers one of the most heartbreakingly tragic performances I've ever seen. His Cal, the Biblical Cain to Richard Davalos' Abel, has endured a life without love, every misguided bid for his father's (Raymond Massey) approval met with indifference or remonstration, as though only to cement his self-belief that he is inherently "bad."

In adapting "East of Eden," another director might have aimed for sheer scope, winding up with something not unlike Gone with the Wind (1939) or Duel in the Sun (1946). Instead, Kazan plays his strengths, and it's a telling sign that the film's most powerful moments unfold, not in the outside environments that McCord captures so well, but between four walls – inside homes, sheds, and brothels. Dean's character skulks mousily in the corners, fearful about making eye contact, as his articulate, proper brother Aron makes unconsciously-condescending remarks, perpetuating roles that have been drummed into both since childhood. Only Aron's sweetheart Abra (Julie Harris) understands Cal's torment at the hands of his cold, naive family members, but by then it may already be too late to same him. At under two hours, East of Eden perhaps doesn't explore its characters and their motivations as fully as it might have – for example, Aron's metaphorical "slaying" at his brother's hand isn't give enough exposition – but nonetheless stands as a beautiful and astonishingly powerful piece of storytelling.

8/10

Currently my #7 film of 1955:

1) Du rififi chez les hommes {Rififi} (Jules Dassin)
2) The Ladykillers (Alexander Mackendrick)
3) Bad Day at Black Rock (John Sturges)
4) Kiss Me Deadly (Robert Aldrich)
5) Mr. Arkadin {Confidential Report} (Orson Welles)
6) The Big Combo (Joseph H. Lewis)
7) East of Eden (Elia Kazan)
8) Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
9) Nuit et brouillard {Night and Fog} (Alain Resnais)
10) Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray)

Target #276: Wagon Master (1950, John Ford)

2009-07-09T19:32:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #623
Directed by: John Ford
Written by: John Ford (story) (uncredited), Patrick Ford, Frank S. Nugent (written by)
Starring: Ben Johnson, Joanne Dru, Harry Carey Jr., Ward Bond, Charles Kemper, Alan Mowbray, Hank Worden

By 1950, John Ford had already fully-developed the ideas and motifs that would form the core of his most successful Westerns. Always present, for example, is a strong sense of community, most poignantly captured in the Joad family of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath (1940). Within these communities, even amid Ford's loftier themes of racism and the pioneer spirit, there's always room for the smaller human interactions, the minor friendships and romances that make life worth living. Wagon Master (1950) came after Ford had released the first two films in his "cavalry" trilogy – Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) – and it covers similar territory, only without the military perspective and, more damningly, the strong lead of John Wayne. Ben Johnson and Harry Cary, Jr. are fine actors, but they feel as though they should be playing second-fiddle to somebody, and Ward Bond's cursing Mormon elder, while potentially a candidate for such a role, isn't given quite enough focus to satisfactorily fit the bill.

In Wagon Master, Ford seems so comfortable with his tried-and-tested Western formula that any character development is largely glossed over. Ben Johnson's romance with Joanne Dru is treated as an obligation more than anything else, and Harry Cary Jr's charming of a Mormon girl is so perfunctory as to be almost nonexistent in the final film, leaving one to ponder the survival of deleted scenes. Only in Charles Kemper's charismatic and shamelessly-villainous Uncle Shiloh does Ford try some different, and it works, even with his being surrounded by a troop of insufferably hammy slack-jawed yokels. Where Ford does succeed is in orchestrating the conglomeration of three distinct races of Americans – the values-orientated Mormoms, the easygoing horse-traders, the eccentric travelling showmen – into a cohesive community of pioneers looking towards a bright future. This apparent harmony is thrown into disarray by the arrival of Uncle Shiloh's gun-toting outlaws, who exploit the lawlessness of the Western frontier but ultimately lose out to the noble cowboys who "only ever drew on snakes." Ford reportedly considered Wagon Master among the favourite of his films, and perhaps this has something to do with the absence of big names like John Wayne or Henry Fonda. Armed only with his stock selection of usual players, Ford is able to generate a sense of community by avoiding placing focus on any one character, though most of the Mormom travellers still remain completely anonymous. Despite being undoubtedly well-made, I can't help feeling that this film only does well what other Ford pictures did even better: the terrific majesty of the the Western frontier was presented more beautifully in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon; the romances and friendly squabbles among community members took greater prominence in Fort Apache; the early relations with Native Americans, only hinted at here, were more thoroughly examined in The Searchers (1956); the bold pioneering spirit of the early settlers was explored more movingly (albeit by Henry Hathaway and George Marshall) in How the West Was Won (1962). Wagon Master is pure John Ford, but it isn't a landmark.
6.5/10

Currently my #15 film of 1950:
6) Destination Moon (Irving Pichel)
7) All About Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
8) The Asphalt Jungle (John Huston)
9) Gone to Earth (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
10) Panic in the Streets (Elia Kazan)
11) Stage Fright (Alfred Hitchcock)
12) Rashômon (Akira Kurosawa)
13) The Killer That Stalked New York (Earl McEvoy)
14) Armoured Car Robbery (Richard Fleischer)
15) Wagon Master (John Ford)

Target #275: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951, Elia Kazan)

2009-07-05T02:20:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #356

Directed by: Elia Kazan

Written by: Tennessee Williams (play & screenplay), Oscar Saul (adaptation)

Starring: Vivien Leigh, Marlon Brando, Kim Hunter, Karl Malden, Rudy Bond, Nick Dennis, Peg Hillias, Wright King

Elia Kazan was noted during the 1940s as one of America's most creative stage directors, and yet he'd also proved his film-making prowess on such films as the film noir thriller Panic in the Streets (1950). Naturally, he was a prime choice to adapt Tennessee Williams' acclaimed 1947 play "A Streetcar Named Desire" for the screen. Eschewing the naturalistic visual style of his previous film, Kazan unashamedly directs A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) as a filmed play, utilising a small, intimate cast and few sets. The film's success spawned a number of Tennessee Williams adaptations, including Baby Doll (1956) and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), the first of which was directed by Kazan. A Streetcar Named Desire also launched the successful Hollywood career of one of the all-time great actors, Marlon Brando, whose mesmerising performance as Stanley Kowalski (and especially his inimitable cry of "Stella!" at the foot of the apartment stairway) continues to resonate even with those who have never seen the film in its entirety.

Blanche DuBois is an intriguing character because she is a tragic victim despite bringing much of her fate upon herself. Having shamed herself in scandal following the loss of her family home, Blanche arrives in New Orleans in complete denial of her moral failings. While desperately maintaining a facade of upper-class respectability, Blanche continually speaks of her brother-in-law Stanley with utter condescension, deriding his Polish heritage and working-class habits. Only by disparaging others can she sustain her self-enforced illusion of lingering youth and grandeur, and yet every attempt at remaining young ironically makes her seem as old as Norma Desmond. But Stanley is also a brute, exuding primitive cruelty and sexuality through every sweaty pore. Had he understood Blanche's psychological condition, and offered kindness instead of resistance, her breakdown might have been averted. Stanley's pig-headed selfishness is despicable, and yet – like Blanche – his behaviour seems to arise not from deliberate cruelty, but from child-like naiveté, an obliviousness towards the consequences of his actions.

There's no doubt that A Streetcar Named Desire finds its performers at the peak of their work, but, even so, I consider it a minor miracle that such contrasting acting styles were able to coexist so comfortably. Though Marlon Brando had previously performed the role on Broadway to great acclaim, the studio-appointed casting of Vivien Leigh provoked some consternation among the crew, who feared a clash of "classical" and "method" acting styles. Leigh, speaking with a Southern accent that is, I think, inherently theatrical, accentuates every twitch of insecurity in the emotionally-decaying Blanche DuBois. Brando, on the other hand, was a student of Lee Strasberg at the Actors' Studio, an influential proponent of method acting, and his Stanley Kowalski speaks in an often- incomprehensible drawl that works precisely because you can imagine hundreds of uneducated New Orleans workers speaking in the same manner. The gamble on Leigh proved successful, with she and co-stars Karl Malden and Kim Hunter taking home Oscars for their fine work; Brando lost out to Bogart in The African Queen (1951).

8/10

Currently my #4 film of 1951:

1) Strangers On A Train (Alfred Hitchcock)
2) The African Queen (John Huston)
3) The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick)
4) A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan)
5) The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton)
6) The Day The Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise)
7) The Thing from Another World (Christian Nyby, Howard Hawks)
8) An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli)
9) Royal Wedding (Stanley Donen)
10) Roadblock (Harold Daniels)

Target #274: Ashes and Diamonds (1958, Andrzej Wajda)

2009-07-05T02:07:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #118

Directed by: Andrzej Wajda

Written by: Jerzy Andrzejewski (novel & screenplay), Andrzej Wajda (writer)

Starring: Zbigniew Cybulski, Ewa Krzyzewska, Waclaw Zastrzezynski, Adam Pawlikowski, Jan Ciecierski, Bogumil Kobiela

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

During WWII, two ideologically-opposed factions, the London-directed Home Army and the pro-Soviet People's Army, joined forces to defeat a common enemy, the Nazis. When the war came to an end in May 1945, however, so too did the groups' shaky alliance, and from momentary peace was suddenly sprung a whole new struggle for power. While a new Communist regime began to build its foundations in the shell-shocked Polish cities, the remaining Home Army rebels took to the forests, where they dutifully continued their liberation campaign using guerrilla tactics. If WWII itself is considered necessary – or, if not necessary, then at least justified given the Nazi menace – then this post-War skirmish is the ultimate waste of life, prompting murder on the grounds of mere ideology. In Andrzej Wajda's Ashes and Diamonds (1958), a weary Home Army youth, Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski), faces an internal conflict between fighting political causes and living a normal life, not coincidentally the same dilemma facing the nation of Poland as the War came to a close.

Wajda's film opens with an cold-blooded ambush, in which two concrete factory workers are needlessly gunned down in a case of mistaken identity. These shootings take place at the front steps of a country chapel, and with a child within earshot, highlighting the heartless resolve with which the Home Army rebels carry out their murders. However, despite the pro-Communist climate in which Wajda produced his film, he stops well short of demonising the "enemy" rebels, and, indeed, young Maciek is portrayed as the tragic victim of the story. In fact, the film goes to some length to emphasise the parallels between Maciek and Communist leader Szczuka (Waclaw Zastrzezynski), implying the needlessness of their conflict, and so the tragedy of their fatal opposition: both men fought valiantly against fascist dictatorships (the former in both Spain and Poland), and remember fondly the war comrades who died in pursuit of an ideal that, to both, should now be deemed realised. Instead, Szczuka dies in Maciek's arms as Poland celebrates its liberation.

Polish cinema reached its peak in the late 1950s, following the Khrushchev Thaw that saw an ease in Soviet censorship, and Andrzej Wajda was at the forefront of this cinematic New Wave. Jerzy Wójcik's stark black-and-white cinematography is elaborate and beautifully-executed, capturing the main character's claustrophobic isolation using closed sets and a cramped frame. The war itself took many prisoners, but Maciek – ironically a "freedom fighter" – finds his freedom restrained in a less overt manner. Even with the liberation of Poland, Maciek is obligated to continue his blood feud, denied the ordinary happiness offered by a life with pretty bar-maid Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska), with whom he spends a night. Cybulski's character squanders most of the film in boisterous, overcrowded surroundings, finding room to move only in fractured moments, such as a late-night stroll through the crumbling town ruins. Even in his death throes, Maciek stumbles through a cluttered wasteland of garbage, ultimately joining the detritus of the twentieth century's most costly conflict.

7/10

Currently my #5 film of 1958:

1) Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock)
2) A Night to Remember (Roy Ward Baker)
3) Touch of Evil (Orson Welles)
4) Look Back in Anger (Tony Richardson)
5) Popiól i diament {Ashes and Diamonds} (Andrzej Wajda)
6) Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks)
7) The Fly (Kurt Neumann)

Target #273: The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)

2009-06-29T07:34:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #128

Directed by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Written by: Hans Christian Andersen (fairy-tale), Emeric Pressburger (original screenplay, written by), Michael Powell (written by), Keith Winter (additional dialogue)

Starring: Marius Goring, Anton Walbrook, Moira Shearer, Austin Trevor, Albert Bassermann, Ludmilla Tchérina

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 2 only]

Aside from a few compulsory school-related occasions upon which I look back with the utmost antipathy, I've never danced in my life. I've never wanted to, and I plan to hold firm at least until the day of my wedding. As late as last year, I regarded ballet as among the least interesting forms of dance, my assertion based not on experience, but mere conjecture. Then I saw Norman McLaren's extraordinary short film Pas de deux (1968), in which an optical printer is used to demonstrate how the dancers' movements transcend space and time, the majesty of human motion revealed in every gentle, graceful spin. Suddenly, inexplicably, I saw beauty where I'd never seen it before. I consider The Red Shoes (1948) the affirmation of this revelation. The child of writing/directing team Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, under the banner of The Archers, the film showcases the pair's talent for imbuing their work with lush colours, warmth and personality, displaying a faculty for capturing atmosphere that is unmatched then or since.

The Red Shoes revolves around the production of a stage adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's eponymous fairy-tale, in which a ballet dancer receives a pair of cursed red shoes that keep her dancing until the day she dies. However, rather than being a simple story of success in show- business, the behind-the-scenes events are themselves a loose variation on Andersen's fairy-tale. When asked what she wants from life, young British ballerina Victoria Page (Moira Shearer) replies, "I want to dance." Just as Mephisto offered Faust everything he wanted at the cost of everything he held dear, Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook, of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943)) offers Victoria immortality in the art of ballet, but at the expense of life, love and happiness. Finally, torn between her two great loves – to her husband Julian (Marius Goring), and to ballet – she chooses to abandon both, throwing herself in front of a train as though compelled to do so by the red dancing shoes that had so overwhelmingly commanded her life.

As in most Powell/Pressburger collaborations, it's not adequate to merely praise the co-directors. Hein Heckroth's costumes, Arthur Lawson's art direction, Jack Cardiff's lush cinematography, Brian Easdale's musical score; all are utterly masterful, the fruits of a alliance in which every crew member understood perfectly what was required of them. The film's incredible centrepiece is a twenty- minute balletic interlude in which the audience is shown the stage production itself, perhaps the most breathtaking and purely cinematic musical sequence I've ever seen. As Victoria Page is swept up in the fantasy of her role, she is inundated by surreal visions of Faustian tragedy and horror that deliberately recall F.W. Murnau's 1926 film. In Hollywood, The Red Shoes proved hugely influential, noticeably inspiring the likes of Stanley Donen and Vincente Minnelli: An American in Paris (1951) featured a similar, if not so comfortably integrated, ballet interlude, and The Band Wagon (1953) feels like a sunny feature-length rebuttal to the tragedy inherent in The Archers' film.

8/10

Currently my #5 film of 1948:

1) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston)
2) Ladri di biciclette {The Bicycle Thief} (Vittorio De Sicae)
3) Rope (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Oliver Twist (David Lean)
5) The Red Shoes (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
6) Macbeth (Orson Welles)
7) Key Largo (John Huston)
8) Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls)
9) Secret Beyond the Door… (Fritz Lang)
10) Musik i mörker {Music in Darkness} (Ingmar Bergman)

Target #272: Seventh Heaven (1927, Frank Borzage)

2009-06-05T17:20:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #913
Directed by: Frank Borzage
Written by: Austin Strong, Benjamin Glazer (screenplay), H.H. Caldwell (titles), Katherine Hilliker (titles), Bernard Vorhaus
Starring: Janet Gaynor, Charles Farrell, Ben Bard, Albert Gran, David Butler, Marie Mosquini, George E. Stone

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

Seventh Heaven (1927) is usually compared to Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), and not without reason. Director Frank Borzage has a keen sense for lighting and shot composition, perhaps not as effortlessly graceful as that of Murnau, but the film superbly explores three-dimensional space, most memorably in a vertical long take that follows the characters up seven floors of staircases, and a backwards tracking shot through the crowded trenches of a battlefield. Janet Gaynor, who also starred in Sunrise, is once again a perfect picture of fragility and helplessness, a persona at which she was bettered only by Lillian Gish. More interesting, however, is that Gaynor's character undergoes a startling character arc, developing from a weak, embattled victim – a trampled flower – to a decisive and assertive woman, a member of the workforce, and an independent but devoted wife. Her husband, played by Charles Farrell, likewise undergoes a transformation, of the spiritual kind. Together, they share a love so definitive that the formula has since become familiar, but Borzage keeps it fresh.
Perhaps the greatest miracle about Seventh Heaven is that the romance works at all. Farrell's Chico is a haughty, athletic sewer worker, so determined of his own worth that he bores his grotesque colleagues with anecdotes of his future greatness. Gaynor's Diane, a small creature routinely lashed by her sleazy sister, is at first an object of derision for Chico, who uses her mere existence to affirm his atheism. Indeed, so aloof is his attitude towards her that I could scarcely believe that the pair were to fall in love, but the transition is carried out gradually and convincingly. As in most great romances, the two star-crossed lovers are swiftly separated by the onset of war. Here, once again, Borzage's keen eye for visual storytelling results in some wonderful sequences of conflict, with his portrayal of the battlefield perhaps serving as inspiration for Lewis Milestone's war drama All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). Only with the occasional moments of misplaced comedy – the ritualistic bowing of the street-sweepers, for example – does the director fumble with the film's mood.
This reviewer being an atheist, films dealing with a central religious theme face an uphill battle. Chico opens the film not unlike myself, as an obstinate atheist who curses God for failing to answer his prayers. Christianity intercedes through a kind-hearted priest, who offers Chico his dream-job as a street-sweeper, as well as two religious necklaces. Predictably, our hero is converted by the film's end, and, indeed, stages a resurrection that borders on Biblical. This "miraculous" ending could easily have had me rolling my eyes, but – somehow, and against all odds – it didn't. Borzage doesn't play Chico's survival as a startling revelation, and nor does it feel tacked-on, as does the fate of Murnau's hotel doorman in The Last Laugh (1924). Alongside Diane's stubborn insistence that her husband is still alive, to actually see him pushing through the crowds seemed like the most natural thing in the world. And even if Chico is dead, then his wife is already there in Heaven, on the seventh floor, waiting to greet him.
7.5/10

Currently my #4 film of 1927:
1) Metropolis (Fritz Lang)
2) Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (F.W. Murnau)
3) The General (Clyde Bruckman, Buster Keaton)
4) 7th Heaven (Frank Borzage)
5) College (James W. Horne, Buster Keaton)
6) The Lodger (Alfred Hitchcock)

Target #271: French Cancan (1954, Jean Renoir)

2009-05-14T02:23:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #426

Directed by: Jean Renoir

Written by: André-Paul Antoine (idea), Jean Renoir (adaptation)

Starring: Jean Gabin, Françoise Arnoul, María Félix, Anna Amendola, Jean-Roger Caussimon, Dora Doll, Giani Esposito

A NOTE TO THE READER: This post is to rectify a previous omission. I originally watched French Cancan on January 14, 2009, but was unaware that it was on the TSPDT list. Thus, my statement that "I haven't yet been completely blown away by a Jean Renoir film" neglects my later review of The Grand Illusion (1937).

I haven't yet been completely blown away by a Jean Renoir film. The closest candidate so far was the wonderful A Day in the Country (1936), which unfortunately suffered the handicap of being unfinished. Even so, I find the director's films to be extraordinarily pleasant viewing, and I'd much sooner sit down for a Renoir than I would for, say, a Godard or Fellini film. French Cancan (1954) is a completely pleasant, and entirely unpretentious, musical comedy that goes by so breezily that you're apt to forget that you're watching the work of France's most respected filmmaker. Less concerned with cultural satire than The Rules of the Game (1939), the film is instead similar in tone to Elena and Her Men (1956), a completely inconsequential piece of cinema that is nonetheless a lot of fun to watch. Both of these films were shot in exquisite Technicolor, of which Renoir takes full advantage, filling the frame with glorious costumes, colours and people.

Henri Danglard (Jean Gabin) is a respected theatre producer who lives the high life, despite relying upon financial backers to sustain his extravagant lifestyle. A charming chap, and convincingly debonair given his age, Danglard shares the company of the beautiful but temperamental Lola de Castro (María Félix), into whose bed many have attempted to climb (and probably with little resistance). When Danglard woos a pretty young laundry-worker, Nini (Françoise Arnoul), into dancing the cancan for him, Lola is overrun with jealousy, and all sorts of anarchy takes place amidst this romantic rivalry. Meanwhile, a handsome European prince (Giani Esposito) offers Nini his hand in marriage, but she's not willing to make such a dishonest commitment, more inclined to stay with Danglard, who inevitably plots to discard her as soon as his next promising starlet comes along. Jean Gabin, who had previously worked with Renoir in the 1930s, is terrific in the main role, overcoming his mature age to succeed as a potential lover.

It's interesting to compare Hollywood films of the 1950s with their European counterparts. Thanks to the Production Code, most American romantic comedies kept the romance almost entirely platonic, whereas here Renoir's characters speak of sex and adultery as though it is a perfectly acceptable practice. Even the adorable Françoise Arnoul, who occasionally reminded me of Shirley MacLaine, is treated as an openly sexual women, and not just because her character specialises in a dance designed purely to display as much leg as possible. Like many of Renoir's films, the characters themselves aren't clearly defined, and so it's difficult to form an emotional attachment. Indeed, only in the final act does Danglard come clean with the extent to which he romantically exploits his dance recruits, though even this moment is overshadowed by the premiere show of the Moulin Rouge. Perhaps it is through his caricatures that Renoir is making a quip about bourgeois French society – that they're all hiding behind fallacious identities and intentions. Or am I looking too far into this quaint musical comedy?

6/10

Currently my #8 film of 1954:

1) Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock)
2) Animal Farm (Joy Batchelor, John Halas)
3) Dial M for Murder (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Viaggio in Italia {Voyage in Italy} (Roberto Rossellini)
5) Sabrina (Billy Wilder)
6) The Glenn Miller Story (Anthony Mann)
7) The Maggie (Alexander Mackendrick)
8) French Cancan (Jean Renoir)
9) The Caine Mutiny (Edward Dmytryk)

Target #270: Bonnie and Clyde (1967, Arthur Penn)

2009-05-12T04:17:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #137
Directed by: Arthur Penn
Written by: David Newman (written by), Robert Benton (written by), Robert Towne (uncredited)
Starring: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman, Estelle Parsons, Denver Pyle, Gene Wilder

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

In 1967, two films ushered in a new wave of Hollywood film. Mike Nichol's The Graduate (1967) introduced casual sexuality into the mix, with young graduate Dustin Hoffman enjoying a tryst with Anne Bancroft's Mrs. Robinson, highlighting the vast generation gap between the Baby Boomers and their parents. Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967), likewise, pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable to show in film, featuring glorious set-pieces of violence that would influence the later work of Sam Peckinpah and Martin Scorsese. This new brand of authentic yet stylised brutality may have been borrowed from Spaghetti Western director Sergio Leone, whose own "Dollars" trilogy had proved successful with American audiences {his Hollywood-funded follow-up, Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), was a magnificent film, but noticeably toned down the violence}. Many reviewers were initially indifferent to Penn's picture, and Warner Brothers had little faith in its financial prospects, but the support of critics like Pauline Kael prompted a swift reevaluation, and Bonnie and Clyde was soon a box-office hit.

Despite being set in the 1930s, and, of course, based on true events, Penn's retelling of the Bonnie and Clyde story overtly reflected the revolutionary cultural times in which the film was made. The two titular fugitives symbolised the attitudes of the young people of the day – brash, impudent, dismissive of authority, and indifferent as to the consequences of their actions. Intriguingly, Bonnie and Clyde appears to suggest that something more than mere anarchistic tendencies fuelled the pair's violent escapades. Clyde Barrow (Warren Beatty) is portrayed as sexually impotent, and a lengthy, uncomfortable would-be sex scene emphasises the self-loathing frustration that, perhaps, fuelled his personal inadequacy and prompted him to seek other, more destructive means of alleviating his stress and exhibiting his masculinity. Bonnie Parker (Faye Dunaway) is depicted as a young woman whose sexual repression at the hands of a well-meaning but morally-uptight mother has stifled her femininity, and only through societal rebellion does she appear to regain her sense of identity. This theme ties in nicely with the Women's Liberation of the 1960s.

Beatty and Dunaway are perfect in the two leading roles, displaying enough charisma and sex appeal to come across as likable, but also inspiring sympathy and disapproval for their clearly irresponsible and reprehensible behaviour (the film initially provoked controversy for its perceived "glorification" of criminals, but, though the audience's empathy is recruited to some extent, the destructive and inevitable consequences of the gang's actions are hardly glossed over). The famous, gruesome climax – in which Bonnie and Clyde are apathetically gunned down in a bloody police ambush – was perhaps the most intense minute of cinema American audiences had ever experienced. Of course, once the floodgates were opened, New Hollywood began to adopt his fresh, powerful frankness in its storytelling. Sam Peckinpah, no doubt inspired by Penn's efforts, decisively raised the bar with his Revisionist Western The Wild Bunch (1969). A landmark American film, Bonnie and Clyde furthered the reputations of both its director and star Warren Beatty, and successfully launched the acting careers of Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman and Gene Wilder.

8/10

Currently my #4 film of 1967:

1) Voyna i mir {War and Peace} (Sergei Bondarchuk)
2) The Graduate (Mike Nichols)
3) In the Heat of the Night (Norman Jewison)
4) Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn)
5) Cool Hand Luke (Stuart Rosenberg)

Target #269: The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)

2009-04-25T23:36:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #147

Directed by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Written by: Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Starring: Roger Livesey, Deborah Kerr, Anton Walbrook, Roland Culver, James McKechnie, Albert Lieven, Arthur Wontner

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) was produced at the height of World War Two, and that such an illustrious Technicolor production was completed amid both nightly London bombings and the opposition of Prime Minister Winston Churchill is a testament to the consummate professionalism of The Archers, producer/writer/director team Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Certainly one of the more magnificent British productions of the 1940s, the film starred Roger Livesey as Clive Wynne-Candy, an illustrious veteran who with the onset of WWII, to his dismay, finds himself ignored by those who should be respecting his military experience rather than dismissing it. Livesey (a replacement for Laurence Olivier) plays Wynne-Candy in three stages of his life, authentically and sympathetically tracing his fluctuating disillusionment with "honourable warfare" through years of hard-earned living. The portrayal sidles a delicate line between geniality and parody, and as a lifetime-spanning dramatic performance, it's easily on par with Robert Donat in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) and Orson Welles in Citizen Kane (1941).

The film's title was borrowed from a comic strip by David Low, in which the titular Colonel Blimp was presented as dim-witted British reactionary, a bloated old man with a walrus moustache who issued absurd political commands from the comfort of a Turkish Bath – "Gad, sir," he once says, "we must have a bigger Army to protect the Navy, and a bigger Navy to protect the Army." As a political candidate, Low's Colonel Blimp proposes "shooting down politicians and establishing a Dictatorship of colonels to safeguard democracy." Contradictory and anachronistic, a symbol of both jingoism and complacency, the character epitomised Low's dissatisfaction with contemporary British politics. Powell and Pressburger's version of Colonel Blimp is substantially more sympathetic, tracing in flashback the leading character's transformation from a young, impetuous Boer War soldier to a pot-bellied veteran with an outmoded belief system. As the times changed, our Colonel Blimp didn't. But a new World War demands a new set of rules, and if Britain is to survive she must embrace the dishonourable tactics of her enemy.

I originally decided to watch The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp as a tribute to the recently-deceased cinematographer Jack Cardiff, but I apparently got the film confused with a later Powell and Pressburger production, A Matter of Life and Death (1946). Cardiff did, indeed, serve as a camera operator in 'Colonel Blimp,' but the praise for the film's breathtaking Technicolor photography must go to Georges Perinal, who captures and savours every vibrant hue, transforming each frame into a vivid cinematic canvas. If for no other reason, then the decision to shoot in Technicolor was worthwhile for capturing the stunning green eyes and red hair of Deborah Kerr in her first major role. As Clive Candy's "romantic ideal," to which all other women in his life must aspire, Kerr demonstrates such beauty, elegance and independence that you just about want to marry her – not once, but three times. Antony Walbrook also does an excellent job as the impressively-named Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff, Candy's German duelling opponent and later best friend.

Powell and Pressburger, to their credit, didn't deal in stereotypes. Even in propaganda pieces like 49th Parallel (1941), the enemy Germans were portrayed as ordinary humans, with their own hopes and ambitions. Likewise in 'Colonel Blimp,' the character of Kretschmar-Schuldorff is inherently good, despite his occasional disenchantment towards the "winning" side. Note, for example, how readily Candy and his adversary reconcile their differences in the Berlin nursing-home, not with violence – as was forced upon them by their respective nations – but through mutual understanding; its with some irony that the filmmakers satirise how easily individuals, but not countries, can reach a satisfactory compromise. The manner in which Powell and Pressburger goodnaturedly (and even nostalgically) poke fun at the stuffy ceremonial formality of traditional warfare reminded me of the exploits of fictional French patriot Brigadier Ettiene Gerard. Pressburger must certainly have been aware of the stories, since he worked in a reference to Arthur Conan Doyle {and while we're on the topic, watch out for Arthur Wontner and Ian Fleming, who had previously played Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, respectively}.

9/10

Currently my #1 film of 1943:

1) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
2) Five Graves to Cairo (Billy Wilder)
3) Shadow of a Doubt (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (Roy William Neill)
5) This Land is Mine (Jean Renoir)
6) Journey into Fear (Norman Foster)
7) The Seventh Victim (Mark Robson)
8) Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (Roy William Neill)
9) Hitler’s Children (Edward Dmytryk, Irving Reis)

Target #268: Cat People (1942, Jacques Tourneur)

2009-04-12T01:14:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #471

Directed by: Jacques Tourneur

Written by: DeWitt Bodeen

Starring: Simone Simon, Kent Smith, Tom Conway, Jane Randolph, Jack Holt

In Vincente Minnelli's The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Hollywood producer Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) brainstorms ideas for the latest B-movie horror project to fall into his lap. Unhappy with the feline costumes they'd been testing, he proposes not showing the titular "cat-men" at all: "And why? Because the dark has a life of its own. In the dark, all sorts of things come alive." Shields was obviously referencing Jacques Tourneur's Cat People (1942), the brainchild of legendary horror producer Val Lewton, who made B-movies so professionally-crafted that to call them B-movies would be to do them a disservice. My first Lewton film was The Seventh Victim (1943), a clash of superb cinematography and a ridiculous plot, but fortunately Cat People has a more palatable storyline – though, of course, you'll still have to suspend disbelief on the odd occasion. If this film is a triumph, then it's a triumph of atmosphere, with Nicholas Musuraca (one of film noir's most accomplished cinematographers) prolonging the intrigue and suspense through his masterful use of lighting and shadows.

When American Oliver Reed (Kent Smith) marries Serbian immigrant Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon), he convinces himself that his wife's fear of intimacy is simply a remnant of her superstitious childhood. But Irena is adamant that she not consummate the marriage, for she fears that, due to a Satanic family curse, her sexual passion will force her into the form of a bloodthirsty panther. Irene constantly surrounds herself with feline imagery, is instinctively drawn to a captive zoo panther, and her fears swiftly become a psychological obsession that threaten to take her over. Oliver confides his concerns in attractive co-worker Alice Moore (Jane Randolph), who is biased by her love for him, and psychiatrist Dr. Louis Judd (Tom Conway, who oddly appeared in the same role in The Seventh Victim), who dismisses Irena's worries as mere insanity. The three supporting players give good performances, but Simone Simon is weak; she does display a certain exotic allure and a shy vulnerability, but her dialogue delivery is entirely unconvincing.

Val Lewton originally instructed Tourneur to completely avoid showing the elusive panther, but RKO demanded more money-shots. Even so, Irena's feline form is on screen only for a few shots, and never in plain view. The filmmakers evidently understood that seeing nothing was infinitely more frightening than seeing a trained animal, and so the unknown – a shadow that lurks cunningly in the shadows – is exploited for maximum thrills. Lewton's initial insistence on not showing the panther, maintaining ambiguity on Irena's mental state, suggests that he had in mind something more than a simple "monster picture." Is this panther that plagues a shy, married woman's mind representative of something within ourselves – of suppressed jealousy, aggression and lust? Sex and violence have often blended together in mythology. Mafdet, the Ancient Egyptian goddess of justice and execution, possessed the head of a lioness; she was later replaced by Bast, whose image then changed to represent fertility and motherhood. In the same way, Irena's marital lust is intrinsically linked with her aggression, and abstinence alone will only temporarily quell her desires.

7/10

Currently my #8 film of 1942:

1) Casablanca (Michael Curtiz)
2) To Be or Not to Be (Ernst Lubitsch)
3) This Gun for Hire (Frank Tuttle)
4) Holiday Inn (Mark Sandrich)
5) The Major and the Minor (Billy Wilder)
6) The Glass Key (Stuart Heisler)
7) The Magnificent Ambersons (Orson Welles)
8) Cat People (Jacques Tourneur)
9) Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (John Rawlins)

Target #267: The Wild Bunch (1969, Sam Peckinpah)

2009-04-11T01:53:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #58

Directed by: Sam Peckinpah

Written by: Roy N. Sickner (story), Walon Green (story & screenplay), Sam Peckinpah (screenplay)

Starring: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates, Jaime Sánchez, Ben Johnson, Emilio Fernández, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Albert Dekker, Bo Hopkins

The Wild Bunch (1969) is about the end of the Western era, a theme director Sam Peckinpah also explored in his first success, Ride the High Country (1962). The year is 1913, and the aging gunslingers of yesteryear now find themselves strangers in a modern, civilised world: the once indispensable horse is being replaced by the automobile, and traditional firearm duels now play out with M1917 Browning machine guns, which belt out bullets at 450 rounds/minute. So advanced, in fact, has the American West become that its cowboys must seek out action over the national border in "primitive" Mexico, where oppressed civilians fight valiantly, with minimal resources, to overthrow the resident dictatorship of General Mapache (Emilio Fernández); it is only in these revolutionists that the heroic spirit of the Old West survives. Aside from Angel (Jaime Sánchez), who is fighting for an ideal, there is not a single noble character in the film, not even the law-enforcer (Albert Dekker), who arrogantly and cowardly bullies criminal bounty-hunters into doing his work.

The surviving outlaws of the Old West – William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien – cling to the tattered vestiges of their former ways, embracing an outdated code of "honour" that feels woefully inadequate in the modern world: they are "unchanged men in a changing land. Out of step, out of place, and desperately out of time." But unlike 'Ride the High Country,' which featured genre stalwarts Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as washed-up Western heroes, none of the "Wild Bunch" ever were heroes. Having always lived on the dark side of the law, as wanted outlaws, how can these men possibly recover any sense of nobility? They do, indeed, march wordlessly across General Mapache's headquarters to reclaim their captive member, but only after passively watching him endure hours of torture. Is it guilt that prompts Pike Bishop to come to the aid of his companion? With the old Western heroes long dead, must it fall to its villains to display some sort of decency? Is that what our society has come to?

The stylisation of Sergio Leone (particularly Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)) was clearly an influence on The Wild Bunch, but Peckinpah also makes the style his own. Unlike Leone, whose greatest mastery is in the prolonged build-up rather than the climax, Peckinpah simply prolongs the climax itself. The tempo of Lou Lombardo's editing seems to resemble, if anything, the spatter of machine gun fire, cutting ferociously from one shot to another – often utilising almost balletic slow-motion – and consciously mimicking the feverish confusion of a shootout. Though one might describe Peckinpah's use of violence as gratuitous (and many did in 1969, with the film almost landing an X-rating, and garnering plenty of controversy), there is a clear streak of disapproval running through the film's two major bloodbaths, in which the participants are seemingly depicted as immature children gunning each other with toy weapons; it is as though the anachronistic outlaws are merely grasping for their younger years, when their actions were considered significant, and their environment well within their control.

8/10

Currently my #3 film of 1969:

1) Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger)
2) Andrey Rublyov {Andrei Rublev} (Andrei Tarkovsky)
3) The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah)
4) Take the Money and Run (Woody Allen)

Target #266: The Bad and the Beautiful (1952, Vincente Minnelli)

2009-04-09T22:58:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #714

Directed by: Vincente Minnelli

Written by: George Bradshaw (story), Charles Schnee (screenplay)

Starring: Lana Turner, Kirk Douglas, Walter Pidgeon, Dick Powell, Barry Sullivan, Gloria Grahame, Gilbert Roland

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 2 only]

If there's one thing that filmmakers know, it's Hollywood. It's the charm, magic and otherwordly emotion of a studio movie set, or – the flip-side – the seedy underbelly of greed, ambition and betrayal. The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) is an excellent drama about Hollywood, but it's not quite on par with the similar show-business satires of previous years, particularly Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950) {which concerned the stage, but tread similar territory} and Wilder's Sunset Blvd. (1950). Perhaps the difference lies in director Vincente Minnelli, whose work is as graceful and professional as ever, but who is quite obviously an optimist: he loves Hollywood, and can't bring himself to despise all that it represents. Whereas Billy Wilder apparently hated everyone and everything, lending Sunset Blvd. its legendary bitter edge, Minnelli looks down upon his disgraced producer Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas) not with hatred, nor even pity, but almost admiration – as a misunderstood genius making a final hopeful bid for redemption. Unlike that Gothic grotesque Norma Desmond, it seems that Shields' "return" will be a success.

The Bad and the Beautiful employs a similar storytelling device to All About Eve (1950), telling its story almost entirely via noirish flashbacks. Three successful artists – a director, actress and writer – arrive at the home of Jonathan Shields, the disgraced Hollywood producer to whom each of the three owes their monumental success. So why do they loathe him? Shields gave director Fred Amiel (Barry Sullivan) his big break in cinema, worked with him to great acclaim, and then shut him out of his dream project, a Gone with the Wind-like epic called "The Faraway Mountain." Georgia Larisson (Lana Turner) was likewise plucked from obscurity, rescued from a lifetime of self-loathing sex and alcoholism, before being abandoned in her moment of triumph. Novelist James Lee Bartlow (Dick Powell, in another great dramatic role) already had some acclaim, but also the hindrance of distracting Southern belle wife Rosemary (Gloria Grahame). Though he couldn't possibly have foreseen the consequences of his actions, Shields took care of that, as well.

Each of the three owes their livelihood to Jonathan Shields, and I think that this is the true root of their hatred: they're eternally in debt to him, and like Faust, feel as though they have traded their souls for a room at the top. Kirk Douglas portrays Shields wonderfully, and in the film's most searing moment, he explodes into a fit of rage, his short, stocky stature seeming to inflate as his antagonism grows. But Shields isn't really as inherently "bad" as the film's title would have you believe. He is presented as a flawed genius, whose personal shortcomings stem from the same artistic vein as that which fuels his cinematic intuition (a Graham Greene quote clarifies my meaning: he once described himself as having "a character profoundly antagonistic to ordinary domestic life," and that "unfortunately, the disease is also one's material"). Indeed, Shields was modelled on several filmmakers, most noticeably Val Lewton (whose Cat People (1942) gets an indirect reference), Orson Welles, and David O. Selznick, whose box-office flop Duel in the Sun (1946) also exhausted considerable funding and several directors.

7/10

Currently my #5 film of 1952:

1) Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen, Gene Kelly)
2) Limelight (Charles Chaplin)
3) Umberto D. (Vittorio De Sica)
4) On Dangerous Ground (Nicholas Ray, Ida Lupino)
5) The Bad and the Beautiful (Vincente Minnelli)
6) High Noon (Fred Zinnemann)
7) Macao (Josef von Sternberg, Nicholas Ray)

Target #265: The Shanghai Gesture (1941, Josef von Sternberg)

2009-04-04T23:27:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #790

Directed by: Josef von Sternberg

Written by: John Colton (play), Josef von Sternberg (adaptation), Geza Herczeg, Jules Furthman, Karl Vollmöller

Starring: Gene Tierney, Walter Huston, Victor Mature, Ona Munson, Phyllis Brooks, Albert Bassermann, Eric Blore

Having just watched The Shanghai Gesture (1941), I'm not even sure what to make of it. Was it a good film? Was it a complete mess? The 100 minutes unfolded like a drug-induced haze, the alluring scent of an opiate hanging thickly in the air. Somehow, the film's plot – whatever it may have been about – seemed totally and utterly inconsequential, with director Josef von Sternberg placing additional, almost superfluous, importance on the development of mood. Indeed, aside from atmosphere, there's little else to keep you watching the film: the characters are sleazy and grotesque, the sort you'd expect to find at a seedy casino, its employees imbued with the mock dignity of one who deals exclusively in exploiting the weaknesses of lesser men. A good cast – Walter Huston, Gene Tierney, Victor Mature, Eric Blore – is not exactly wasted on such poorly-developed characters, but one gets the sense that even they are not exactly sure what they're doing in this place. But, if the film is a failure, then it's a genuinely fascinating one.

"Mother" Gin Sling (Ona Munson, in unflattering Oriental make-up) is the mysterious and ruthless owner of a Shanghai casino, where desperate men come night or day to gamble their lives and fortunes. Employee Doctor Omar (Victor Mature) does his best to charm the beautiful girls who come his way, in one night snagging both smart-talking American Dixie (Phyllis Brooks) and conceited rich-girl "Poppy" (Gene Tierney). When threatened with closure by wealthy entrepreneur Sir Guy Charteris (Walter Huston), Gin Sling springs into action, using her enormous influence to rebuff the challenge. The Shanghai Gesture is sometimes categorised as film noir. Certainly, other noir pictures like Macao (1952), which Josef von Sternberg directed until he was replaced by Nicholas Ray, utilised a similarly exotic Asian setting, so the non-American locale doesn't immediately preclude it from consideration. In some ways, it fits the bill: every character in the film has a weakness – something to hide – through which they can be manipulated; a shady past that has come back to haunt them.

Despite being restricted by the provisions of the Production Code, The Shanghai Gesture is one of the sleaziest films of its era, leaving a bitter, uneasy taste in the mouth, despite impeccable production values. Hollywood's interpretation of Eastern cultural values was evidently unflattering, and every Asian character is utterly devoid of morals, with particularly prominence given to the proudly misogynistic attitudes of one Chinese employee who likes to brag of his polygyny. A shocking history of sex slavery is exposed, with New Year's Eve guests treated to a recreation of these ghastly practices (or, at least, we're told that it is merely a recreation). But it isn't only the Chinese whose immorality is exposed, and even the seemingly upright Sir Guy betrays a suspect past, doomed finally to suffer for his perceived sins. Walter Huston is excellent as always, bringing conviction to a film in which everybody else seems uncertain of their roles. Gene Tierney, perhaps her most ravishing performance outside Laura (1944), isn't particularly convincing, but her falseness does strangely work, given the desperate phoniness of her character.

6/10

Currently my #8 film of 1941:

1) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
2) The Maltese Falcon (John Huston)
3) 49th Parallel (Michael Powell)
4) The Wolf Man (George Waggner)
5) Shadow of the Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)
6) Swamp Water (Jean Renoir)
7) High Sierra (Raoul Walsh)
8) The Shanghai Gesture (Josef von Sternberg)
9) Suspicion (Alfred Hitchcock)

Target #264: Rome, Open City (1945, Roberto Rossellini)

2009-04-04T21:50:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #98
Directed by: Roberto Rossellini
Written by: Alberto Consiglio (story) (uncredited), Sergio Amidei (story & screenplay), Federico Fellini (screenplay), Roberto Rossellini (uncredited)
Starring: Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani, Marcello Pagliero, Vito Annichiarico, Nando Bruno, Harry Feist, Giovanna Galletti

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 Only]

On its initial release, Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945) was hailed for its harrowing documentary realism, sharing the 1946 Palme d'Or, and even today it is regarded as the type specimen of Italian neorealism, a movement that produced such treasures as The Bicycle Thief (1948) and Umberto D. (1952). The film's photographic style, which is coarse and unstylised, could certainly be considered classically neorealistic, as could Rossellini's unavoidable preoccupation with Italy's fascist history and war-time devastation. One might suggest that the film's unexceptional film-making technique was imposed upon Rossellini rather than being an entirely deliberate artistic decision; the Germans had only just withdrawn from Rome, and its citizens were still reeling from years of Nazi occupation and Allied bombing. Just as Carol Reed filmed The Third Man (1949) amid the crumbling ruins of war-torn Vienna, Rossellini uses the backdrop of a fallen city to emphasise the disintegration of a formerly unified nation, now surviving only in fragmented patches of human spirit that must now be forged back together again.

Rossellini's film is most often praised for its realism, and for its primary focus on the ordinary citizens of Rome. However, during the film's first half, I didn't find this approach entirely successful. Rather than centering the film intimately on one or two characters, as Vittorio De Sicae did in his two well-known neorealist films, Open City instead jumps from one to another, manufacturing a sense of unity among the oppressed citizens of Rome, but also diluting the viewer's ability to identify with any one character. In this sense, the film is similar to Pontecorvo's The Battle of Algiers (1966), or even Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin (1925), in that individual characters hold lesser prominence than the ideals for which they are fighting. Suggesting that the art of neorealism took several years to perfect, Rossellini also occasionally veers towards melodrama. Scenes involving the arrogant Major Bergmann (Harry Feist) establish a simplistic "us versus them" mentality, offering Germany as the outright villain in a manner similar to that of any early 1940s American propaganda film.

I must admit that I found myself less-than-captivated during the film's opening half, perhaps because Rossellini wouldn't focus exclusively on any one character. The most interesting moments were those tinged with drama – a German soldier unexpectedly removes a gun from his pocket, a terrorist bomb shakes the city buildings. But if I had any doubts about the director's technique, then the harrowing realism of Anna Magnani's death, photographed as though through the lens of a bystanding newsreel camera, without any dramatic fanfare or unnecessary cinematic punctuation, convinced me of its merits. Notably, Rossellini deviates towards drama in his film's second half, but I considered this an improvement, my complete sympathy now directed towards a specific character, the dignified Roman priest Don Pietro (Aldo Fabrizi). The German treatment of captured rebels is unflinching in its hostility, including a prolonged torture session with a blow-torch, and a sombre firing squad execution as city children watch on with downcast eyes. Interestingly, Rossellini doesn't end the film with an Italian victory, as might be expected. The misery lingers; any victory could only be hollow.

7/10

Currently my #7 film of 1945:

1) The Lost Weekend (Billy Wilder)
2) Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock)
3) Brief Encounter (David Lean)
4) 'I Know Where I'm Going!' (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger)
5) Leave Her to Heaven (John M. Stahl)
6) Scarlet Street (Fritz Lang)
7) And Then There Were None (René Clair)
8) Roma, città aperta {Rome, Open City} (Roberto Rossellini)
9) Blithe Spirit (David Lean)
10) Cornered (Edward Dmytryk)

Repeat Viewing: Modern Times (1936, Charles Chaplin)

2009-03-22T01:59:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #48

Directed by: Charles Chaplin

Written by: Charles Chaplin

Starring: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Henry Bergman, Tiny Sandford, Chester Conklin, Hank Mann, Stanley Blystone

By 1936, Charles Chaplin was already an anachronism – albeit, an anachronism who was also treasured as an artistic genius. The arrival of The Jazz Singer (1927) did little to curb the director's enthusiasm for silent cinema, and, though he considered at length the commercial implications of converting to synchronised sound, his first film in the "talkie" age was almost completely silent (Chaplin compromised by composing a musical score). Nevertheless, the critical and commercial response to City Lights (1931) was strong, reaffirming Chaplin's status as a cinematic master, and vindicating his decision to linger with an otherwise extinct medium. Thus, Modern Times (1936) was to follow in the same mould, despite a synchronised soundtrack which includes a musical score, sound effects and several lines of spoken dialogue (always spoken through a mechanical "barrier," such as a record-player, radio or loudspeaker). The film is historically significant in that it was Chaplin's first overtly political work, raising concerns inspired both by the economic hardship of the Great Depression, and Chaplin's growing interest in socialism.

The title "Modern Times" is used to deliberate ironic effect. Traditionally, to be modern was to be at the forefront of human progress, a step forwards in Man's noble attempt to assert his dominance over his environment; in short, to further distinguish our species from the lower animals. Yet Chaplin believed that such widespread industrialisation was a step backwards for society. Even from the opening shot, he draws comparisons between the hustling crowds of factory workers travelling to work, and a flock of sheep being herded through a corral. The dehumanisation caused by the workers' monotonous factory work is played for maximum comedic effect, with Chaplin's Tramp eventually driven to a nervous breakdown by Frederick Taylor's apathetic brand of scientific management. In these conditions, direct human interaction is minimal, and almost always channelled through an mechanical mediator. In a scene predating Orwell's "Nineteen-Eighty Four (1949)," Chaplin is reprimanded by a telescreen in the bathroom, the image of his boss looming overhead like the spectre of Big Brother.

Chaplin may also have been remarking upon the rise of the Hollywood studio system, which by then employed a comparable assembly-line approach to film-making. Chaplin, who was given full artistic control through his co-ownership of United Artists, worked in complete opposition to these practices, though it could be argued that his perfectionism and often improvisational style was so inefficient that only an artist as wealthy as he could have gotten away with it. Truth be told, there's nothing particularly distinguished about Chaplin's direction – despite his strong reliance upon actions over words, his silent films were never as visually accomplished as that of Murnau or Lang, for example. However, his greatest talents as a filmmaker were concerned with the plight of people, and, however much sentimentality he liked to dish out, there can be no doubt that, in Chaplin's characters, one found individuals with whom they shared a very real human bond, of empathy and compassion. For all the director's criticism of modern society, he possessed a genuine belief in the value of human spirit.

When Chaplin came under fire for alleged "communist sympathies" in the late 1940s, the content of Modern Times was scrutinised for evidence to support the allegations. Certainly, within the director's distaste for industrialisation one may discern an underlying dissatisfaction with capitalism, but Chaplin was definitely not a communist; after all, a prime motivation in his choosing to continue producing silent films was to retain his commercial popularity in foreign-language markets – that's the capitalist spirit! Nevertheless, Chaplin was eerily prescient when he included a scene in which his Tramp is falsely accused of being a communist, mirroring his own intense political troubles, which concluded in 1952 with the retraction of his US re-entry visa. Though he was initially hesitant about breaking his screen silence, as Chaplin's political convictions grew, so too did his desire to have himself heard. For that, he would, however reluctantly, have to embrace the technology of sound, and, for a mouthpiece, he would choose the most hated man in Europe.

9/10

Currently my #1 film of 1936:

1) Modern Times (Charles Chaplin)
2) After the Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)
3) Swing Time (George Stevens)
4) Partie de campagne {A Day in the Country} (Jean Renoir)
5) Follow the Fleet (Mark Sandrich)
6) Sabotage (Alfred Hitchcock)
7) Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Frank Capra)
8) Secret Agent (Alfred Hitchcock)
9) Intermezzo (Gustaf Molander)
10) My Man Godfrey (Gregory La Cava)

Target #263: The Godfather: Part III (1990, Francis Ford Coppola)

2009-03-19T05:06:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #616
Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Written by: Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Al Pacino, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, Andy Garcia, Eli Wallach, Joe Mantegna, George Hamilton, Bridget Fonda, Sofia Coppola, Raf Vallone, Franc D'Ambrosio, Donal Donnelly, Richard Bright

My three-week engagement with Francis Ford Coppola's Godfather trilogy came to a close this week, and, contrary to the prevailing public opinion, I find myself satisfied. The Godfather: Part III (1990) has always been the Fredo of the Godfather family – frequently disparaged, resented or otherwise ignored. Certainly, there was considerable risk in returning to the Corleone family after a sixteen-year absence, especially given the mixed critical and commercial reception towards much of Coppola's 1980s output {indeed, the director only accepted the studio offer to recoup his past financial losses}. Nevertheless, that a second sequel wasn't produced sooner demonstrates Coppola's dedication towards getting everything right, and the result is a picture that successfully expands upon the two previous instalments, respectfully and solemnly drawing the saga to a close. Any film is liable to suffer in comparison with two of the great gangster pictures of our time, but, despite a few issues – which I'll get to shortly – The Godfather: Part III is a more than worthy addition to the family.

Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) has spent the last two decades trying to legitimise his operations, perhaps a last futile attempt at reconstructing his shattered family. However, still tormented by the memory of brother Fredo, Michael knows that he can never truly wash his hands of organised crime ("just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in!"). Sonny's illegitimate son Vincent (Andy Garcia) offers his services to Michael, proving his dedication towards the family, even if he shares his father's recklessness. Michael's two children have since grown up. Anthony (Franc D'Ambrosio) has defied his father's wishing by becoming an opera singer, and Mary (Sofia Coppola) begins a worrying incestuous relationship with Vincent. Meanwhile, in a further bid to improve his reputation and importance, Michael moves to purchase the Vatican's shares in real-estate company Immobiliare, a bid that ultimately reveals corruption and treachery in the highest echelons of the Catholic Church, a group traditionally regarded as pure and virtuous. Here, Coppola shows that policemen, judges, and even priests, can readily be bought.

For the most part, The Godfather: Part III is a wonderful film. Gordon Willis' return as cinematographer ensured that the film remained aesthetically consistent with its predecessors, and Coppola's film-making is, for the most part, handsome and professional. The screenplay, co-written by Coppola and Mario Puzo, is just as convoluted as the original film, but I'm confident that a second viewing will substantially improve my understanding of each character and their motives. Though the first few dialogue scenes seem strained, as though the actors are easing into their roles, the performances are generally excellent. Only Sofia Coppola – and I don't want to labour the point, since she's been lambasted enough – fails to construct a well-defined screen persona. She wears a peculiar scowl for most of the film, and her role in the story is vague and superficial. Nevertheless, any of the picture's weaknesses are quickly forgotten in lieu of an unforgettable climax, set amid an operatic performance of "Cavalleria Rusticana," perhaps the finest instance of prolonged suspense since the Albert Hall sequence in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).
8.5/10

Currently my #2 film of 1990:

1) Miller’s Crossing (Joel Coen, Ethan Coen)
2) The Godfather: Part III (Francis Ford Coppola)
3) Misery (Rob Reiner)
4) Back To The Future Part III (Robert Zemeckis)
5) Total Recall (Paul Verhoeven)

Repeat Viewing: The Godfather: Part II (1974, Francis Ford Coppola)

2009-03-13T16:15:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #20
Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Written by: Mario Puzo (novel & screenplay), Francis Ford Coppola (screenplay)
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, John Cazale, Talia Shire, Lee Strasberg, Michael V. Gazzo

To call The Godfather: Part II (1974) a sequel doesn't quite do it justice. It is more of a companion piece to the original film, serving as both a prequel and a sequel, both expanding and enriching the characters and story presented in The Godfather (1972). This week I was fortunate enough to attend a cinema screening of the second film {each instalment of the trilogy played over three consecutive weeks}, and needless to say it was well worth the late night. When we last left Michael Corleone (Al Pacino), he'd just been "baptised" into the world of organised crime. Now, years on, he must accept that his position of corrupt power can only lead to the disintegration of his family, and the loss of everybody he's ever cared about. Michael's plateau of despair, following the impressive rise we witnessed in The Godfather, is here juxtaposed with the historical ascent of his father Vito Corleone (now played by Robert De Niro) from a humble but traumatic childhood in Corleone, Sicily. The comparison delicately suggests the downside of the so-called "American Dream" in which Vito believes so passionately.As with The Godfather, Coppola's film could only have succeeded with interesting and authentic acting performances, and the cast doesn't disappoint. Al Pacino has rarely been better, playing Michael Corleone with a violent intensity that suggests the lasting influence of brother Sonny (James Cann), who was assassinated in the previous film. Pacino's scene with Diane Keaton, in which we learn that she received an abortion for her unborn son, is one of the most traumatic moments of spousal interaction I've ever seen, with Pacino exhibiting a barely-suppressed rage through his severe, almost fearful, eyes, and a quiver in the jaw. An under-appreciated John Cazale brings depth and pathos to weaker brother Fredo, and Robert Duvall is excellent as Tom Hagen. New to the Godfather cast are Lee Strasberg (President of the Actors Studio) and Michael V. Gazzo, as business associates who may be plotting against the Corleone family. De Niro won an Oscar for his portrayal of a younger Don Vito, understatedly evoking the essence of the character without parodying Marlon Brando.

The Godfather: Part II is certainly an impressive achievement, but it doesn't quite manage to equal its predecessor. Whereas the original film achieved the bulk of its emotional power through the transformation of its central character, Part II leaves Michael hopelessly stranded in his despair, portraying neither his rise nor his downfall. Having effectively sold his soul for the family in the previous film, Michael must now come to terms with his desolation, alone in his misery, and having long forsaken any opportunity for salvation. He concludes the film still at the height of organised crime in America, and yet receives no reassurance from his position of power. Michael is alone, a dejected and self-loathing soul, without comfort from the family he helped destroy. It's a haunting ending that will remain with you for hours afterwards, but nevertheless doesn't seem like a conclusive ending to the entire Corleone saga. Fortunately, Coppola returned sixteen years later to direct The Godfather: Part III (1990), which charts, I believe, Michael Corleone's inevitable downfall. Hopefully I won't be disappointed.
9/10

Currently my #1 film of 1974:
1) The Godfather: Part II (Francis Ford Coppola)
2) Chinatown (Roman Polanski)
3) Vérités et mensonges {F for Fake} (Orson Welles)
4) Young Frankenstein (Mel Brooks)
5) The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (Joseph Sargent)
6) The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola)
7) That’s Entertainment! (Jack Haley Jr.)
8) The Front Page (Billy Wilder)

Target #262: The Band Wagon (1953, Vincente Minnelli)

2009-03-07T17:05:00.001-08:00

TSPDT placing: #157

Directed by: Vincente Minnelli

Written by: Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Alan Jay Lerner (uncredited)

Starring: Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, Oscar Levant, Nanette Fabray, Jack Buchanan, James Mitchell, Robert Gist

In the 1950s, nobody could beat M-G-M when it came to producing musicals, and The Band Wagon (1953) is certainly among their best. A musical comedy based around the staging of a musical comedy, Vincente Minnelli's joyously entertaining picture does for stage shows what Singin' in the Rain (1952) did for making movies. Fred Astaire, who retired in 1946 only to discover that he couldn't stop tapping, here successfully lampoons his aging public image (he was 54 years old), and yet somehow manages to make a romantic relationship with the stunning Cyd Charisse (32 years old) seem entirely plausible. Bing Crosby attempted to tackle a similar age discrepancy with Grace Kelly in High Society (1956), and, I'm afraid to say, didn't quite pull it off {though that film is still worthwhile viewing for all musical fans}. Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray provide light musical and comedic support, while Jack Buchanan is a veritable laugh riot as Jeffrey Cordova, a pretentious Orson Welles-like theatre director who manages to transform a light musical comedy into a desolate modern incarnation of "Faust."

Tony Hunter (Astaire) is a has-been, a washed-up musical comedy star who's all but faded from the public memory. Anonymity is a fate he's since accepted. When offered the starring role in a stage show written by his friends (and two remaining fans), Tony is at first reluctant, and even more so when he finds out that he'll have to stand his own alongside a beautiful and popular ballet dancer, Gabrielle Gerard (Charisse). It doesn't help that the director (Buchanan) seems oblivious to the show's intended genre, cramming in so much doom and gloom that the premiere audience leaves the theatre in a hushed despair, no doubt contemplating suicide. Can "The Band Wagon" be spruced up with comedy before it leaves them all bankrupt? Will Tony and Gabrielle overcome their differences and learn to like, or even love, each other? A happy ending is, of course, never in doubt, and the musical numbers are all completely enjoyable, even if songs like "Louisiana Hayride" and "Triplets" felt somewhat poorly integrated into the plot.

Certainly the most memorable of the film's musical numbers is "That's Entertainment," written by by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz, an infectious little ode to the joyfulness of the musical comedy genre. MGM musical fans would note that the song also featured prominently in the nostalgic documentary That's Entertainment: Part II (1976), in which Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire dance together, for only the second time in their careers. Cyd Charisse, whom we lost just last year, is absolutely gorgeous as ballet dancer Gabrielle Gerard, and her wordless pas de deux with Astaire in the park ("Dancing in the Dark") is one of the latter's all-time most most touching duets (equal, perhaps, with the "Never Gonna Dance" number in Swing Time (1936)). Also worth mentioning is a film noir-inspired stage musical sequence, its surrealism recalling the climax of An American in Paris (1951), with Astaire as a weary detective who is entranced by a shifty femme fatale – Cyd Charisse resurrecting her vampiric dancer from Singin' in the Rain (1952).

8/10

Currently my #8 film of 1953:

1) From Here To Eternity (Fred Zinnemann)
2) Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder)
3) I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) The Titfield Thunderbolt (Charles Crichton)
5) Le salaire de la peur {The Wages of Fear} (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
6) Roman Holiday (William Wyler)
7) Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller)
8) The Band Wagon (Vincente Minnelli)
9) The War Of The Worlds (Byron Haskin)
10) The Million Pound Note (Ronald Neame)

Repeat Viewing: The Godfather (1972, Francis Ford Coppola)

2009-03-07T16:53:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #6
Directed by: Francis Ford Coppola
Written by: Mario Puzo (novel & screenplay), Francis Ford Coppola (screenplay)
Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, Diane Keaton, Talia Shire, John Cazale

The Godfather (1972) doesn't need an introduction, nor does it necessarily require a review. Nevertheless, I'm going to go on telling you what you already know: this is one of the great American films of the twentieth century. The 1970s was a landmark decade for Hollywood film-making, and Francis Ford Coppola was particularly productive, releasing the first two Godfather films (1972 - 1974), The Conversation (1974) and, perhaps his magnum opus, Apocalypse Now (1979). This week I was fortunate enough to experience a cinema screening of The Godfather, and this second viewing only inflated my respect for Coppola's achievement. On my initial viewing in 2006, I had been very impressed with the film, but also hopelessly lost for the most part. With literally dozens of speaking roles, and frequent allusions to otherwise unseen characters, the plot had left me stranded, just as The Big Sleep (1946) always manages to do. Suddenly, however, much of it became clear to me; the characters' motivations, deceptions and emotions gently drifted into focus. This was stunning, complex cinema, the sort of bold film-making that puts most modern movies to shame.

A notable artistic observation regarding The Godfather is that Coppola's film-making style is strictly traditional. Whereas a new generation of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and William Friedkin were introducing a gritty new cinema aesthetic, Gordon Willis' cinematography is graceful, understated and handsome, predating his excellent work for Woody Allen {the most notable example being Manhattan (1979)}. A sprawling family saga, The Godfather boasts a staggering ensemble cast of emerging and established actors, as well as many unknowns who nevertheless give letter-perfect performances. The scenes of violence are typically abrupt and effective, but much of the film's running-time is more closely concerned with dialogue and human interaction, particularly among family members. Needless to say, the quality of talent is more than enough to make these scenes, not only watchable, but astonishingly compelling. Every character down to the smallest speaking part – and there are a lot of them – has such a richly fleshed-out personality, making their actions and development throughout the film both authentic and interesting.

Marlon Brando – in what, along with Last Tango in Paris (1972), was deemed a grand comeback – gives a towering, Oscar-winning portrayal as Don Vito Corleone, the aging head of an Italian organised-crime family. Having endured decades of corruption and inter-family conflict, and seeing his household disintegrate in the futile pursuit of family honour, Vito finally understands in his final moments the folly of his wasted life, and the fateful mistakes that led to this undesirable lifestyle {these precursor years would be explored in greater depth, with Robert DeNiro in the role, in The Godfather: Part II (1974)}. Most central to the story, however, is the transformation of youngest son Michael (Al Pacino), who, in the course of the film, effectively sells his soul to retain that elusive "family honour." The climactic sequence, utilising Eisenstein's style of montage to its fullest extent, intercuts the baptism of Michael's nephew with the simultaneous assassination of the Corleone family's enemies. This scene also serves as a baptism of sorts for Michael, symbolising his irreversible initiation into a life of crime, and the final transaction of his soul.

10/10

Currently my #1 film of 1972:

1) The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola)
2) Sleuth (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
3) Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes {Aguirre: The Wrath of God} (Werner Herzog)
4) A Warning to the Curious (Lawrence Gordon Clark) (TV)
5) Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock)
6) Avanti! (Billy Wilder)
7) Silent Running (Douglas Trumbull)
8) Jeremiah Johnson (Sydney Pollack)
9) Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (Woody Allen)

Target #261: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961, Blake Edwards)

2009-03-07T16:32:00.001-08:00

TSPDT placing: #401

Directed by: Blake Edwards

Written by: Truman Capote (novel), George Axelrod (screenplay)

Starring: Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, Mickey Rooney, José Luis de Villalonga

Even beforehand, I got the feeling that Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) wasn't really my sort of film. Adapted from Truman Capote's controversial novel of the same name, it tells the story of Holly Golightly, a free-wheeling call girl (in the novel, at least) who attempts to dissolve herself into upper-class society by attending lavish parties and courting wealthy men whom she denies her honest affection. There's plenty to like about the film, and it's certainly the most polished and elegant effort I've seen so far from director Blake Edwards {The Pink Panther (1964) and The Party (1968) seem somehow irretrievably trapped in the 1960s}. However, in what is probably a simple case of personal preference, it never quite clicked, at least not in the same way as Casablanca (1942) or An Affair to Remember (1957). I did, in any case, understand to some degree why many viewers, particularly women, could connect with the main protagonist on a more intimate level. Maybe they can see a little of themselves in Holly Golightly.

Of course, any mention of Breakfast at Tiffany's immediately calls to mind the image of Audrey Hepburn, and it's certainly among her most iconic performances, which is interesting given how it strayed somewhat from her typical screen persona. Unlike the shy and girlish "Cinderella" of Roman Holiday (1953) or Sabrina (1954), Holly Golightly is slightly arrogant, intrusive and fiercely extroverted. So determined is she to remain a free-spirited personality that she has barred herself from any meaningful human relationships, despite having accumulated a social circle that extends into the hundreds. Truman Capote had originally envisioned Marilyn Monroe in the main role, but Hepburn brings to Holly a certain delicacy and keen-eyed intelligence that is unique to her. Behind the character's breezy and outgoing personality is a sense of vulnerability and loneliness, of a drifting soul who idly attaches to thirty lovers a month without making any sort of emotional connection. Blake Edwards poignantly ties up the climax with an embrace in the rain, demonstrating a tenderness and sophistication that I hadn't expected of him.

Among the supporting performers, Martin Balsam is most certainly worth a mention, playing Holly's womanising, to-the-point agent, who publicly holds the opinion that his client is a "real phony" – that is, she herself genuinely believes in her own spurious lifestyle. Finally, I like Mickey Rooney as much as the next man, but what's going on here? When Richard Barthelmess donned ridiculous Oriental make-up in Griffith's Broken Blossoms (1919), at least the portrayal was respectful and sympathetic. Racial stereotypes can work adequately enough in comedies (see Peter Sellers in The Party (1968) or Murder by Death (1976)), and Breakfast at Tiffany's certainly has comedic elements, but the rest of the film also has an impeccable elegance that clashes horribly with the dim-witted slapstick of Mr. Yunioshi. If, indeed, the character had to exist, it would have been far less distracting had an Asian actor been cast in the role; some would certainly have existed in Hollywood at the time. Blake Edwards really needed to give that one a second thought.
7.5/10

Currently my #3 film of 1961:

1) The Innocents (Jack Clayton)
2) One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder)
3) Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Blake Edwards)
4) Judgement at Nuremberg (Stanley Kramer)
5) Murder She Said (George Pollock)

Target #260: You Can't Take It with You (1938, Frank Capra)

2009-02-20T03:34:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #992

Directed by: Frank Capra

Written by: George S. Kaufman (play), Moss Hart (play), Robert Riskin (screenplay)

Starring: Jean Arthur, Lionel Barrymore, James Stewart, Edward Arnold, Ann Miller, Spring Byington, Donald Meek

I'd forgotten how therapeutic a bit of Capra-corn could be. I sat down to a pleasant romantic comedy about two lovers overcoming their class differences, but ended the film practically in tears – tears of joy, as only Frank Capra could produce. You Can't Take It with You (1938) was the first of the director's collaborations with Jimmy Stewart. However, the heart of the film actually centres around another familiar Capra face, Lionel Barrymore – who, never to be forced into retirement by his painful arthritis, acts the entire film on crutches. Forget the dastardly Mr. H.F. Potter, his Martin Vanderhof is the "richest" man in town, not because he has very much money, but because his kindness and sense of community has made him more friends than he can count {this is a theme that Capra used regularly; see Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) and It's a Wonderful Life (1946)}. But the daughter (Jean Arthur) in the hopelessly-eccentric Vanderhof family has fallen in love with the son (Stewart) of a rich banker (Edward Arnold), incidentally the poorest man in town.

An evening with the Vanderhofs is something akin to a Marx Brothers movie, with each character doing their own thing without regard for what outsiders might think. While some family members test fireworks in the basement, sister Essie (Ann Miller) practices her ballet to the xylophone music of her husband (Samuel S. Hinds), as her uptight Russian instructor Boris (Mischa Auer) complains that everything "stinks." Mother Penny (Spring Byington) attempts to finish writing a play, and Alice (Jean Arthur) slides down the staircase banister. With twelve activities happening at once, it's the farce of Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) without those troublesome murders. But behind all this chaos is the unmistakable unity of a close-knit family, and (as in many Capra films) it only takes a recognisable musical tune to bring together the Vanderhofs – and the snobbish Kirbys – for a collective performance that is genuinely charming in its sincerity. At least you can always be assured that a Frank Capra film will always leave you feeling good about yourself, the world, and the people in it.

Alongside the compassionate performances of Barrymore and Edward Arnold, enjoyable performances are also given by James Stewart and Jean Arthur, such that they repeated their love affair in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). You Can't Take It with You was adapted by Capra-regular Robert Riskin from a successful play by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. I found it interesting that the screenplay bore what appeared to be a socialist slant, with Martin Vanderhof decidedly rejecting capitalist labour in favour of performing his preferred tasks for a minimum wage. This approach, we are shown, leaves one happier and assists the wellbeing of the entire community. I'm not so certain, however, of Vanderhof's insistence on not paying income tax, on the basis that he's not getting anything back from the government – this doesn't seem socialist, nor does it sound particularly "American," either. Even so, everybody can sympathise with the notion that money isn't everything, and that a single kindhearted gesture can go much further than a thousand dollar bills.

9/10

Currently my #2 film of 1938:

1) Angels with Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz)
2) You Can’t Take It with You (Frank Capra)
3) The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz, William Keighley)

Target #259: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, Sergio Leone)

2009-02-13T02:02:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #73

Directed by: Sergio Leone

Written by: Dario Argento (story), Bernardo Bertolucci (story), Sergio Leone (story & screenplay), Sergio Donati (screenplay), Mickey Knox (dialogue: English version)

Starring: Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson, Gabriele Ferzetti, Woody Strode, Jack Elam

Sergio Leone may not have chosen the high-brow subject subject matter of his 1960s European contemporaries, but, boy, his films are pure cinema. Leone may have progressed beyond the charming but erratic editing style of his earliest Westerns – A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and For a Few Dollars More (1965) – but his use of the camera is unlike any other filmmaker I've ever seen. The director's wide frame, captured in Techniscope, is like a freshly-painted canvas, its watercolours glistening under the intense Western sun, and style dripping from every shot. Mostly gone is the slightest hint of parody that I observed in his earlier films; Ennio Morricone's score, rather than being joyously overwhelming as in The Good, The Bad and the Ugly (1966), instead meditates gracefully on the passions and losses of its major characters. This added grace recognisable throughout the film emerges no doubt from a far greater budget, the film bankrolled by Paramount Pictures and shot largely in the United States {with Leone paying tribute to John Ford through the use of his favoured Monument Valley}.

Leone has stated that "the rhythm of the film was intended to create the sensation of the last gasps that a person takes just before dying." That most of his set-pieces end in a bloody shootout suggests the aptness of this analogy. However, like Leone says, the heart of his pictures is not to be found in the moment of death – however gratifying we may find it – but in the final gasps for air. Once Upon a Time in the West opens with an astonishing ten-minute prologue in which three armed outlaws (Woody Strode, Jack Elam and Al Mulock) impatiently await the arrival of a train. The minutes pass by almost without dialogue. In the sweltering heat, the men lazily brush away flies; a windmill creaks as it spins idly in the breeze; a telegraph machine chatters inside the railway station. This simple act of waiting, in less talented hands, could easily have been tedious, but Leone rejects the standard perceptions of time by allowing the viewer to immerse themselves in the canvas that he has just painted.

As in the director's previous effort, the film's main characters blur the line between "good" and "bad" (and "ugly"), but the clear villain of the piece is, memorably, Henry Fonda as Frank. His against-type performance is wonderful, not because it's a far cry from his usual persona, but because it isn't. Close your eyes, and you'll hear that same righteous drawl that spoke with such rectitude in 12 Angry Men (1957). But Juror #8 he certainly isn't; Fonda adds a nasty, sadistic sneer, and Leone focuses most closely on the actor's hypnotic blue eyes. It's almost frightening how Fonda's squeaky-clean persona can be corrupted so readily. Claudia Cardinale plays Jill McBain, a stunning widower who refuses to bow down to those who murdered her husband and his family. Morricone's score only has good things to say about Jill, but Leone appears to admire her precisely because she, like her male cohorts, is not a hapless innocent. A former prostitute, this lady from New Orleans has absolutely no qualms about sleeping with the enemy. No pride, only objectives – that's how you survive in the West.

8.5/10

Currently my #2 film of 1968:

1) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick)
2) C’era una volta il West {Once Upon a Time in the West} (Sergio Leone)
3) Whistle and I’ll Come to You (Jonathan Miller) (TV)
4) The Odd Couple (Gene Saks)
5) Rosemary’s Baby (Roman Polanski)
6) Night of the Living Dead (George A. Romero)
7) The Party (Blake Edwards)

Target #258: The Grand Illusion (1937, Jean Renoir)

2009-02-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #25

Directed by: Jean Renoir

Written by: Jean Renoir, Charles Spaak

Starring: Jean Gabin, Dita Parlo, Pierre Fresnay, Erich von Stroheim, Julien Carette, Georges Péclet, Werner Florian

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

Re-reading my review of Stalag 17 (1951), I see that I referred to it as the template for every prisoner-of-war film that followed, including The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and The Great Escape (1963). Once again, my relative inexperience with cinema seems to have caught me out; this film from Jean Renoir uses a similar formula, and predates it by almost fifteen years. Billy Wilder must certainly have seen The Grand Illusion (1937) – since it features Erich von Stroheim, whom he himself used in Five Graves to Cairo (1943) and Sunset Blvd. (1950) – and so Renoir's influence is present throughout. It's a WWI film, but we see no combat. Whereas most anti-war films illustrate their stance by pounding the all-too-familiar adage "war is hell" through images of death and destruction, Renoir's approach is considerably more understated. He highlight the futility of war through human interaction, both between the captured French prisoners and between the Germans who watch over them.

Just what is "the grand illusion?" Renoir derived his film title from "The Great Illusion," a 1909 non-fiction book by Norman Angell, in which the author argued for the impossibility of a large-scale European war for economic reasons. That WWI broke out five years later obviously proved detrimental to Angell's arguments, and Renoir deliberately plays on the irony of this knowledge. More significant, however, is that the book was released in a revised edition in 1933, the general argument modified to assert the utter utility of waging war, a theme that supports Renoir's stance: this would not be the "war that ends all wars." With WWII just around the corner, there's an bitter urgency to what the film has to say; just three years later, the director would be fleeing France. The topicality of the film's message proved especially successful overseas, and The Grand Illusion was unusually nominated for the Best Picture Oscar in 1939.

Of course, no Jean Renoir film is complete without some class-related social critique. Most striking in this regard is the relationship between Capt. de Boeldieu (Pierre Fresnay) and Capt. von Rauffenstein (von Stroheim), from which, scandalously, it is implied that one's class forms a more binding camaraderie than that of nationality. The two men, both multilingual upper-class aristocrats who sense their social dominance is drawing to an end, seek solace in each other's company, and feel closer to one another than to the lower-class men of their own armies. However, there is hope in Renoir's vision of society. The age of aristocracy is coming to a close, and a new social order – in which all men are accepted as comrades – is at the cusp of existence. Boeldieu accepts this inevitability, and, despite the initial suspicion of his fellow Frenchmen, ultimately offers his life to allow two "lower-class" companions to escape. He betrays von Rauffenstein in favour of duty to his country, even if his death provides only temporary relief from the inescapable futility of war.

8.5/10

Currently my #2 film of 1937:

1) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (David Hand)
2) La Grande Illusion {The Grand Illusion} (Jean Renoir)
3) Shall We Dance (Mark Sandrich)
4) A Damsel in Distress (George Stevens)
5) The Awful Truth (Leo McCarey)

Target #257: Duel in the Sun (1946, King Vidor)

2009-02-02T14:38:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #540
Directed by: King Vidor, Otto Brower, William Dieterle, Sidney Franklin, William Cameron Menzies, David O. Selznick, Josef von Sternberg (all but Vidor uncredited)
Written by: Niven Busch (novel), Oliver H.P. Garrett (adaptation), David O. Selznick (screenplay), Ben Hecht (uncredited)
Starring: Jennifer Jones, Joseph Cotten, Gregory Peck, Lionel Barrymore, Herbert Marshall, Lillian Gish, Walter Huston, Charles Bickford, Harry Carey, Orson Welles (voice)

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 3 only]

With Duel in the Sun (1946), David O. Selznick was obviously trying to emulate the massive success of his Gone With the Wind (1939), and, though the picture is now widely regarded as a failure, I found it remarkably entertaining. This overcooked multi-million-dollar Western epic is dripping with its excesses – the music is loud and sweeping, the melodrama is almost operatic, and the dazzling Technicolor palette is a feast for the eyes. When Selznick gives us a sunset, he damn well gives us a SUNSET! Such an achievement, guided by the producer's fastidious tastes, demanded the efforts of no less than seven directors, including Selznick himself, though only King Vidor received on screen credit; William Dieterle, Josef von Sternberg and William Cameron Menzies were among the filmmakers whose efforts were disposed of during the course of production. 'Duel in the Sun' might also be the most "epic" two-hour film I've ever seen. The story covers an extraordinary amount of ground, and the vivid cinematic style, making copious use of close-ups, is occasionally prescient of Sergio Leone's Spaghetti Westerns.

Then there's the cast, of course. Jennifer Jones plays Pearl Chavez, a half-breed Injun who is invited to live on a respected Texas ranch after her father (Herbert Marshall) murders his unfaithful wife and her lover. Pearl's ethnicity is shamelessly exploited to perpetuate the stereotype that Native Americans inherently possess some sort of uncontrollable base sexuality; Pearl spends most of the film fighting to keep her clothes on, and she is instinctively drawn to Lewt (Gregory Peck), a downright bastard with almost adolescent sexual urges. Joseph Cotten plays the selfless McCanles brother, and Lillian Gish and Lionel Barrymore (probably the only Hollywood actor to carry on a prolific career from a wheelchair) are excellent as the owners of the ranch. The cast is rounded off nicely by Charles Bickford as a genial rancher, and Walter Huston, who hilariously overplays his role as a preacher ("The Sinkiller") and steals every scene. Indeed, most of the performers overplay their roles, perhaps recognising that the story (adapted from a novel by Niven Busch) would not work if played entirely straight.What I found most interesting about Duel in the Sun is how, even as early as 1946, it subverted the traditional notions of honour and nobility that formed the backbone of the Western genre. Joseph Cotten's character remains the film's only decent male, and yet he is dismissed mid-way through the film, and must settle on marrying a woman who is far less sensuous and desirable than Pearl Chavez. The film's climax involves two lascivious lovers scrambling through the dirt to each other's arms, only seconds after mortally wounding each other with bullets (inspiring the film's derisive nickname "Lust in the Dust"). Their attraction is purely physical – Pearl is disgusted by Lewt's moral decadence, and yet is inexplicably drawn to his embrace, even after sealing his demise. If the film's intention was to present Pearl's struggle for acceptance into "honourable" white society, then she nevertheless ends the film as she started, stranded between conflicting instincts and emotions that she can't control. Her bid for nobility has failed. Perhaps this is the birth of the Revisionist Western.
8/10

Currently my #3 film of 1946:
1) It’s A Wonderful Life (Frank Capra)
2) The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks)
3) Duel in the Sun (King Vidor)
4) Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock)
5) The Locket (John Brahm)
6) The Dark Mirror (Robert Siodmak)
7) The Blue Dahlia (George Marshall)
8) Dragonwyck (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
9) A Night in Casablanca (Archie Mayo)

Target #256: Ivanovo detstvo / Ivan's Childhood (1962, Andrei Tarkovsky)

2009-01-28T22:59:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #538
Directed by: Andrei Tarkovsky, Eduard Abalov (uncredited)
Written by: Vladimir Bogomolov (story) (screenplay), Mikhail Papava (writer), Andrei Konchalovsky (uncredited), Andrei Tarkovsky (uncredited)
Starring: Nikolay Burlyaev, Valentin Zubkov, Yevgeni Zharikov, Stepan Krylov, Nikolai Grinko, Valentina Malyavina

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

Andrei Tarkovsky landed his first major project {after his diploma film, The Steamroller and the Violin (1961)} when original director Eduard Abalov was fired from the production, his work deemed unsatisfactory and unusable. Given that Ivan's Childhood (1962) was initiated by other artists, one gets the sense that perhaps Tarkovsky's heart wasn't entirely in this one – it feels like a substantially less-personal film than Andrei Rublev (1969) or Stalker (1979), the other two I've seen so far. Nevertheless, I think I loved it even more than both of these. In his ability to establish mood, Tarkovsky was unsurpassed by any except perhaps Kubrick, boundless emotion communicated through a single beautifully-captured shot. The relatively straightforward narrative and themes of Ivan's Childhood remove the nagging ambiguity of which the director was so very fond, allowing the viewer to simply immerse themselves in the overwhelming atmosphere. Perhaps it'll prove the least durable of Tarkovsky's efforts, but, for now, I have to say that I adored every moment.

The loss of childhood innocence is a common motif in war-themed pictures, and seems particularly prevalent in Soviet cinema – for the finest example, look towards than Elem Klimov's harrowing Come and See (1985). In this film, a close forerunner, Nikolay Burlyaev plays Ivan, a twelve-year-old orphan employed as a Russian spy on the Eastern Front. After his bright, idealistic childhood is yanked away by German soldiers, Ivan commits himself to the Soviet cause, refusing to attend school in favour of infiltrating enemy territory to gather strategic information. Stubborn and weary, he tramps cautiously through the clammy river swamps, keeping low to avoid detection. Even back in Russian territory, Ivan no longer bears any traits of the lively youth he once was. He resents the interference of adults, even those who tentatively regard him as an adopted son. The film's title, Ivan's Childhood, notably refers only to the vivid flashbacks of Ivan's earlier years; from the moment his mother fell from a bullet, his childhood was over.

It doesn't need saying that Tarkovsky's film is beautifully-shot – indeed, that would be an understatement. Vadim Yusov's cinematography is crisp, haunting and atmospheric, a truly marvellous effort from a photographer whose only previous experience was also on Tarkovsky's diploma work. Ivan's Childhood contains little of the rampant brutality that made Come and See such a traumatic, visceral experience, but instead achieves success through subtle contemplation, as was the director's style. Ivan's forever-shattered innocence is most startlingly recognised in the shadowy serenity of the river swamp, encroached only intermittently by the silent arc of an enemy flare. Ivan's wistful childhood memories are always basked in a radiant sunlit glow, but his present and future are confined only to the murky gloom of a marshland, or the cold walls of a military bunker. When the Russian base is faced with a German blitz, his only worry stems from the surreal realisation that he's not frightened in the slightest. An irreversibly corrupted mind and soul, Ivan marches onwards to his death.
9/10

Currently my #6 film of 1962:
1) Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean)
2) La Jetée {The Pier} (Chris Marker)
3) Le Procès {The Trial} (Orson Welles)
4) To Kill A Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan)
5) Birdman of Alcatraz (John Frankenheimer)
6) Ivanovo detstvo {Ivan’s Childhood} (Andrei Tarkovsky, Eduard Abalov)
7) The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford)
8) Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson)
9) Panic in Year Zero! (Ray Milland)
10) The Manchurian Candidate (John Frankenheimer)

New Blog: "Short Cuts"

2009-01-03T23:58:00.000-08:00

Hello to all my fanatical readers,
First of all, I promise that this'll be the last blog I create - you'd think I had nothing better to do with my time! Short Cuts, which was unveiled just yesterday, is an online tribute to the art of the short film. Though typically dismissed as an inferior medium of artistic expression, I wholeheartedly believe that short-subject cinema has just as much capacity for brilliance as its more long-winded cousins.

This new blog allows a portal through which I can advertise the best that short films have to offer, through reviews that are, I hope, concise and enjoyable to read (though, if a certain title strikes my fancy, I wouldn't be averse to exploring its virtues in greater detail). The venture was inspired by the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? top 250 listing of short films - entitled Brief Encounters - which is apparently due for official release soon, though I managed to scrounge a preliminary list from sources that shall remain anonymous. In order to allow greater freedom with my blog, I won't be basing my viewing choices on the list, but will instead utilise it only as a loose guide.

In short, please head over to the new blog and peruse at your leisure.

Thanks,

Andrew

Target #255: Le Salaire de la peur / The Wages of Fear (1953, Henri-Georges Clouzot)

2009-01-01T00:44:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #206
Directed by: Henri-Georges Clouzot
Written by: Georges Arnaud (novel), Henri-Georges Clouzot (writer), Jérôme Géronimi (writer)
Starring: Yves Montand, Charles Vanel, Folco Lulli, Peter van Eyck, Véra Clouzot, William Tubbs, Darío Moreno, Jo Dest

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

For a brief period during the 1950s, French director Henri-Georges Clouzot captured the mantle of "The Master of Suspense" from Alfred Hitchcock, owing mostly to his two most recognised thrillers, The Wages of Fear (1953) and Les Diaboliques (1955). It's a difficult title to live up to, but Clouzot knows precisely what he's doing, even if he seems to lack Hitchcock's distinctive sense of showmanship. What I've always loved about cinema is its ability to manipulate reality, to elicit genuine emotions from situations that, in real life, would seem mundane, or even ridiculous. An example I've used before, I believe, is Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979), in which a peaceful and benign forest is inexplicably transformed into an environment of intense mystery and foreboding. Now consider The Wages of Fear, when actor Peter van Eyck funnels what is probably water into a drilled hole in the rock. There's zero suspense in this simple act of pouring. However, taken within the context of the story, this water suddenly becomes nitroglycerine, and I got sore fingers from gripping the chair so tightly. The Wages of Fear contains two particular sequences that rival anything Hitchcock ever did in terms of suspense. In the first, to which I briefly alluded above, a small amount of nitroglycerine is utilised to demolish a huge boulder blocking the road, the slightest lapse in concentration certain to lead to disaster. In the second, Mario (Yves Montand) and Jo (Charles Vanel) wallow pathetically in a deepening pool of crude oil, drowning in the black tar that represents the United States' rampant capitalistic greed {the motif of oil epitomising greed is not an uncommon one in cinema, and most recently turned up in P.T. Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2006)}. What I think prevents Clouzot's film from being truly brilliant is the opening half-hour or so, which is not only unsuspenseful, but damn near uninteresting. Of course, I suppose, it's important to note the changes that take place in the characters both before and after their new job – the dominating Joe quickly reveals his cowardice, and the sycophantic Mario takes over the role of boss – but Hitchcock, at least, would have made these introductions far more compelling.

Towards the film's ending, I have conflicting emotions. On the one hand, it is a wonderful masterwork of cinematography and editing, as Mario's driving is intercut with the waltz of his acquaintances back in town, to the tune of Strauss' "The Blue Danube." There's an astonishing momentum to the camera movements; we foresee what is about to happen at least a minute before Montand's character does, but are powerless to stop it. He carries on his Dance Macabre (a figurative "waltz with death") until he loses control of the truck, begetting a spectacular, fiery plummet over the cliff edge. On the other hand, the entire incident – however satisfying filmically – doesn't seem like a natural progression of the narrative, possessing the air of a conclusion affixed only to achieve a surefire audience reaction. Unfortunately, similar cases of characters acting illogically litter the story, providing what might be described as mere cheap thrills: Mario continues to reverse the truck even after being told to stop, and Luigi, at one point, ludicrously decides to run towards an impending explosion rather than away from it.
8/10

Currently my #5 film of 1953:
1) From Here To Eternity (Fred Zinnemann)
2) Stalag 17 (Billy Wilder)
3) I Confess (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) The Titfield Thunderbolt (Charles Crichton)
5) Le salaire de la peur {The Wages of Fear} (Henri-Georges Clouzot)
6) Pickup on South Street (Samuel Fuller)
7) Roman Holiday (William Wyler)
8) The War Of The Worlds (Byron Haskin)

Target #254: Pickup on South Street (1953, Samuel Fuller)

2008-12-29T23:20:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #737

Directed by: Samuel Fuller

Written by: Dwight Taylor (story), Samuel Fuller (screenplay)

Starring: Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, Thelma Ritter, Murvyn Vye, Richard Kiley, Willis Bouchey, Milburn Stone

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 2 only]

Shock Corridor (1963) was my first film from Samuel Fuller, and there I was impressed with the director's astute blending of B-movie and big-budget aesthetics, even if the story itself was pure schlock. Pickup on South Street (1953) was released a decade earlier in Fuller's career, obviously produced on a larger budget from a big-name studio, Twentieth Century-Fox. Nevertheless, the visuals are still notable in that there's a somewhat raw, naturalistic element to the photography, not unlike Dassin's Night and the City (1950) and Kazan's Panic in the Streets (1950) {the latter was also shot by cinematographer Joe McDonald}. In some scenes, Fuller shoves the camera so close to his actors' faces that they're out of focus, bluntly registering the intimate thoughts, emotions and brief inflections that are communicated through that most revealing of facial features, the eye. Though (unexpectedly) prone to melodrama, and with just a hint of anti-Communist propaganda, Pickup on South Street is a strong film noir that succeeds most outstandingly in its evocation of setting – the underground of New York City.

When just-out-of-prison pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) snags the purse of a woman on the subway (Jean Peters), he pockets more than he'd originally bargained for. The woman, Candy, and her cowardly ex-boyfriend Joey (Richard Kiley) had been smuggling top-secret information to the Communists, and McKoy has unexpectedly retrieved an important roll of micro-film. Will he turn in the MacGuffin to the proper authorities, or sell it to the highest bidder? If Pickup on South Street has a flaw, it's that the story seems designed solely to bolster an anti-Communist agenda, reeking of propaganda like nothing since WWII {Dwight Taylor, who supplied the story, also notably wrote The Thin Man Goes Home (1944), the only propagandistic movie of the series}. For no apparent reason, every identifiable character – even the smugly self-serving Skip McCoy – eventually becomes a self-sacrificing patriot, the transformation predictable from the outset. In traditional film noir, the unapologetic criminal always gets his comeuppance, the rational punishment for his sins, but apparently not when they've served their country; patriotism wipes the slate clean.

Richard Widmark, an actor who I'm really beginning to like, plays the haughty pickpocket with composure, though always with that hint of ill-ease that suggests he's biting off more than he can chew. The opening scene on the train is the film's finest, as McCoy breathlessly fishes around in his victim's hand bag, recalling Bresson's Pickpocket (1959). Thelma Ritter is terrific as a tired street-woman who'll peddle information to anybody willing to pay for it (though, of course, she draws the line at Commies). Jean Peters is well-cast as the trashy dame passing information to the other side, playing the role almost completely devoid of glamour; Fuller reportedly cast the actress on the observation that she had the slightly bow-legged strut of a prostitute. Nevertheless, Peters must suffer a contrived love affair with Widmark that really brings down the film's attempts at realism. Fascinatingly, upon its release, Pickup on South Street was promptly condemned as Communist propaganda by the FBI, and the Communist Party condemned it for being the exact opposite. Go figure.

7.5/10

Currently my #5 film of 1953:

Target #253: Ben-Hur (1959, William Wyler)

2008-12-26T01:34:00.001-08:00

TSPDT placing: #321

Directed by: William Wyler

Written by: Lew Wallace (novel), Karl Tunberg (screenplay), Maxwell Anderson, Christopher Fry, Gore Vidal

Starring: Charlton Heston, Jack Hawkins, Haya Harareet, Stephen Boyd, Hugh Griffith, Martha Scott, Cathy O'Donnell, Sam Jaffe, Finlay Currie, Frank Thring, Terence Longdon, George Relph, André Morell

Watching Ben-Hur (1959) is a lot like paying a visit to the Colosseum. Situated in Rome, Italy, this massive elliptical amphitheatre is the largest ever built in the Roman Empire, able to seat up to 80,000 spectators for gladiatorial games and various public spectacles. I've never been to Rome myself, but I'd imagine that one would look up at this amazing feat of ancient architecture, and be left in awe at the scale of it all. You would marvel at the amount of care and labour that must have gone into such a project, particularly given the comparatively primitive tools with which the builders had worked. I feel the same way about Ben-Hur – William Wyler's epic of epics, and, at the time, the most expensive film ever made. Winner of eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, this colossal cinematic gamble resurrected M-G-M from financial ruin. But is it worth nearly four hours of your time? Like a lumbering elephant, Ben-Hur wallows in its immensity, extravagance and self-importance. But it is epic – oh, so very epic! – and, like the Colosseum, demands our awe.

Earlier this year, I decreed Ben-Hur to be the one film that I wouldn't watch for the first time until I had the luxury of viewing it at the cinema. Sooner than expected, the opportunity came along, though the Christmas Eve screening date made it essential that I bring the usual holiday festivities forward one day. The sacrifice was much warranted, for the film can only be fully experienced in the movie theatre, not least because of the breathtaking 70mm anamorphic print, with an aspect ratio of 2.76:1 – one of the widest ever made. William Wyler fills every frame with rich extravagance, such that even the quietest person-to-person conversation takes place in a magnificent, lavishly-decorated chamber. Such expansive surroundings often promote coldness and detachedness from the audience (many uninvolving historical epics were produced around this period), and Ben-Hur doesn't entirely escape the same fate; for every exciting and emotional sequence, there are maybe two scenes of negligible exposition. But the film thrives on its excesses, and, fortunately, the good scenes are so incredibly good that they merit the wait.

Charlton Heston won an Oscar for his portrayal of Judah Ben-Hur, though his performance is merely adequate without being particularly brilliant. Heston, an actor who flourished mostly on sheer charisma, I think, appears to struggle in the film's most emotional moments {my personal pick for the award that year would have been Laurence Harvey in Jack Clayton's Room at the Top (1959)}. Stephen Boyd, though un-nominated, is quite terrific as Messala, Judah's boyhood friend who was later corrupted by the evils of the Roman Empire. Though there are many exciting scenes – such as the fiery ocean battle or Christ's crucifixion – the film's undisputed centrepiece is, of course, the extraordinary chariot race, a marvel of adrenalin-charged action and suspense. Every single metre of the contest had me enthralled, every jolt and tremble of the carriage sending an agitated chill down my spine. The sequence's enduring influence is to be found in practically every historical epic that followed, most noticeably Ridley Scott's Best Picture-winning Gladiator (2000).

To be denied one's name is the film's greatest tragedy. When condemned to a lifetime of slavery aboard a Roman galley, Judah loses his important status and is delegated a generic identification number – #41. His mother and sister, having contracted leprosy after years in confinement, later flee to a leper colony, where, we are told, names are of no use. After being liberated from captivity by the kindly nobleman Quintus Arrius (Jack Hawkins), Judah takes on the name of his newly-adopted father, a compassionate gesture but one that he is later ashamed to have accepted. To be denied one's face, on the other hand, is apparently divine. Claude Heater, as Jesus Christ, is never properly seen, glimpsed only from behind or at a distance. In this way, the Messiah is portrayed as something holy and angelic, not to be glimpsed by mortal eyes. Though the story of Christ may only form a subplot, thematically it sits at the film's heart. Ben-Hur is about the beginnings of Christianity, and how its teachings have inspired people from the very beginning, and ever since.

7.5/10

Currently my #8 film of 1959:

1) Die Brücke {The Bridge} (Bernhard Wicki)
2) Room at the Top (Jack Clayton)
3) North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder)
5) On the Beach (Stanley Kramer)
6) Le Quatre cents coups {The 400 Blows} (François Truffaut)
7) Pickpocket (Robert Bresson)
8) Ben-Hur (William Wyler)
9) The Tingler (William Castle)
10) Some of Manie’s Friends (Bob Finkel) (TV)

Target #252: Heat (1995, Michael Mann)

2008-12-26T01:18:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #381
Directed by: Michael Mann
Written by: Michael Mann
Starring: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Mykelti Williamson, Dennis Haysbert, William Fichtner, Natalie Portman

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 2 only]

Like him or not, director Michael Mann has his own distinctive style, but what matters is how well he is able to use it to tell a story. Manhunter (1986), a solid and well-acted thriller, was tarnished by Mann's excessively "trendy" style, and a musical soundtrack that has kept the film perpetually trapped in the 1980s. More recently, Collateral (2004) demonstrated a precise and balanced combination of style and substance, making excellent use of the digital Viper FilmStream Camera, perfect for capturing the low-key lighting of Mann's favoured night-time urban landscape. His follow-up, Miami Vice (2006), was almost entirely devoid of substance, a meandering crime story redeemed only by a thrilling shoot-out in the final act. Heat (1995) is among Mann's most lauded achievements, and I'm happy to say that it's probably the finest of the director's films I've seen so far. Most noted for being the first film in which Al Pacino and Robert De Niro shared the same screen (they were separated by decades in Coppola's The Godfather: Part II (1974)), Heat is sizzling, action-packed drama.

Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) is something of a cliché, the hard-working homicide detective who is distant from his family. However, Pacino gives the character depth, a hard-edged, street-wise cop who is basically good at heart. When writing dialogue for Al Pacino, the temptation is always there to make him shout a lot, and there are several scenes when Mann does exactly that, but the character is strongest when he's not talking at all, lost in silent contemplation or embracing the hysterical mother of a murder victim. Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) sits on the opposite side of the law, a principled professional thief who has dedicated his entire life to crime. McCauley has a motto: "don't let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner." His failure to adhere to this advice is ultimately what gets him killed, for, though he is prepared to discard his relationship with a sincere art designer (Amy Brenneman), McCauley unable to walk away from his own principles.

Heat boasts an impressive supporting cast – including Val Kilmer, Tom Sizemore, Dennis Haysbert and Jon Voight – but it's no surprise that Pacino and De Niro dominate the film. Their single face-to-face encounter is a corker, as they sit opposite each other sipping coffee (the table between them representing not only the border between police and criminal, but also a mirror of sorts). Hanna and McCauley exchange terse pleasantries like old friends, despite having never met before, and the two master actors coolly and effortlessly exude charisma with every word. The film's promotional tagline boasts "a Los Angeles crime saga," suggesting that Mann was attempting something akin to his own The Godfather (1972), though he doesn't quite pull it off as readily as Coppola. His film could have done with a few trimmings, excising a few largely superfluous personal subplots, including an impromptu suicide attempt that came right out of left-field. Nevertheless, Heat is a gripping crime story, with great performances, and one of the best shootouts that you'll see anywhere.
8/10

Currently my #3 film of 1995:
1) Twelve Monkeys (Terry Gilliam)
2) Se7en (David Fincher)
3) Heat (Michael Mann)
4) GoldenEye (Martin Campbell)
5) La Cité des enfants perdus {The City of Lost Children} (Marc Caro, Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
6) Braveheart (Mel Gibson)
7) Apollo 13 (Ron Howard)
8) Babe (Chris Noonan)
9) Die Hard: With a Vengeance (John McTiernan)
10) Toy Story (John Lasseter)

Target #251: Get Carter (1971, Mike Hodges)

2008-12-20T22:31:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #570
Directed by: Mike Hodges
Written by: Ted Lewis (novel), Mike Hodges (screenplay)
Starring: Michael Caine, Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland, John Osborne, Tony Beckley, George Sewell, Geraldine Moffat

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 2 only]

1971 was the year when mainstream filmmakers began to the push the limits of what was acceptable to show on screen, both in terms of sex and violence. Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971) enthralled and disgusted audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, picking up a surprise Oscar nomination for Best Picture but later being voluntarily withdrawn from circulation by its director. Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971) shocked audiences with its uncompromising exploration of inherent human violence and vigilantism. Likewise, Get Carter (1971), from director Mike Hodges, is an incredibly gritty underworld gangster film, so much so that you can almost taste the gravel between your teeth. It won't escape your notice that all three of these films are British, or, at least, were produced with substantial British input; apparently, it took Hollywood a few more years to become quite as well accustomed to such themes, though that year's Best Picture-winner, The French Connection (1971), does rival Get Carter as far as grittiness goes.

Jack Carter (Michael Caine) is a London gangster, an entirely unglamorous occupation that entails such duties as gambling, murder and watching pornography. After his brother, Frank, dies in Newcastle under suspicious circumstances, Jack goes up there, against the wishes of his employer, to find out exactly what happened, and to punish all those responsible. What he finds is the usual assortment of sleazy low-lifes and lascivious whores, all part of the underground lifestyle into which he sold himself. Get Carter obviously derived a degree of influence from the trashy pulp-fiction novels of Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane, and, indeed, this inspiration is openly acknowledged when Carter is seen reading "Farewell My Lovely" {adapted by Edward Dmytryk as Murder, My Sweet (1944)}. Like many of the hard-boiled anti-heroes of 1940s and 50s film noir, he has sold his soul for a chance at revenge, and there's no going back. A detail worth noting is that Carter's eventual assassin is first spotted in the opening credits, sitting opposite in the train carriage. A cruel coincidence, or was his fate sealed from the very beginning?Get Carter may have served as inspiration to the recent generation of British gangster film, but the Quentin Tarantino/Guy Ritchie style of film-making favoured today – the most notable example of which being Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) – is often excessively trendy and highly stylised. Mike Hodges' idea of a gangster film is ugly – disgustingly and uncomfortably repellent, offering not a glimmer of respectability nor nobility in its selection of depraved characters. Even Jack Carter himself is not a man we are asked to admire. He may have a steady supply of droll one-liners at hand, but at his heart he is cold, almost completely devoid of human emotion. Just watch Carter's stone-face as his car is rammed into the bay (with an unfortunate captive in the boot), or his indifference to the fate of friend Keith (Alun Armstrong), who is thoroughly roughed-up while lending a hand. Hodges appears only to find decency in the deceased Frank, who represents the honest, working-class type of man. However, even this legacy is coming to an end, for the next generation, Doreen, has already been corrupted.
7.5/10

Currently my #5 film of 1971:
1) A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick)
2) Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah)
3) Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart)
4) The French Connection (William Friedkin)
5) Get Carter (Mike Hodges)

Target #250: Missing (1982, Costa-Gavras)

2008-12-20T01:17:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #841

Directed by: Costa-Gavras

Written by: Thomas Hauser (book), Costa-Gavras (writer), Donald Stewart (writer), John Nichols (uncredited)

Starring: Jack Lemmon, Sissy Spacek, Melanie Mayron, John Shea, Charles Cioffi, David Clennon, Joe Regalbuto

Of all the frustrating story devices, red tape is among the worst of them. You can't see it, but Missing (1982) is absolutely swathed in red tape, invisible twines of lies and empty promises that may keep you momentarily satisfied, but ultimately get you nowhere. Costa-Gavras' 1982 political drama is based on a true story, and so, as in real life, there are no easy answers. Exactly how and why did Charles Horman die? Were United States officials somehow responsible for his death? Ed Horman (Jack Lemmon) wanders dutifully from hospital to hospital, to every prison and asylum centre, in search of his missing son, gradually becoming disenchanted with the government bureaucrats in whom he'd placed his trust and hope. If the film's conclusion feels somewhat unsatisfying, then Costa-Gavras has succeeded in communicating Horman's confusion, anger and exasperation at the immobility of the political machine. Just as the missing man's father and wife were left without closure, so, too, are we. There can be no resolution as long as governments are set upon protecting their own interests.
Jack Lemmon was no stranger to frustrating film experiences. The Out-of-Towners (1970) is among the most exasperating movies you'll ever see, for its demonstrates a perfect (comedic) incarnation of Murphy's Law, in which nothing goes right, and there's nobody you can blame for it. Missing notably differs in that Costa-Gavras singles out a target for our frustration – the country's self-serving officials and corrupt military officers– and so our annoyance swiftly turns to anger. Lemmon gives one of his finest dramatic performances as as Ed Horman, continually haunted by the incomprehensible disappearance of a son he could never understand. Sissy Spacek isn't quite as strong, but her Beth Horman – the missing man's young wife – is quiet and vulnerable, a woman of fierce convictions that she's too small to carry out. Any filmmaker should utilise a soundtrack by Greek composer Vangelis with caution, for nothing screams "1980s" quite so loudly. However, it isn't all bad news for Missing, as the electronic musical score does actually add a sad, nostalgic element of surrealism to the scenes of violence and bloodshed.

I liked how Costa-Gavras cut directly to flashbacks without exposition or explanation, leaving the viewer disorientated, and wondering if we are, indeed, watching the past or the present. This technique recreates the confusion of the characters involved, and emphasises that our narrator is not omnipotent, but merely, like Ed, trying to piece together the facts as best as he can. The scenes of military violence, with the contribution of Vangelis' soundtrack, are oddly and eerily surreal – particularly the striking image of a galloping white stallion being pursued by a volley of bullets. The visitors to Santiago (though the name Chile is never uttered) are all strangely sedate in response to the images of bloodshed, their schedules unfazed by the nearby murder of local citizens, as though their status as "Americans" somehow places them above all this. At the film's end, Ed Horman dejectedly states "I just thank God we live in a country where we can still put people like you in jail." There's a deliberate hollowness behind these words; as we've just seen, America's policies aren't quite as righteous as they'd have us believe.

7.5/10

Currently my #4 film of 1982:

1) Blade Runner (Ridley Scott)
2) Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (Carl Reiner)
3) First Blood (Ted Kotcheff)
4) Missing (Costa-Gavras)
5) The Verdict (Sidney Lumet)

December 2008 TSPDT Update

2008-12-18T17:08:00.000-08:00

That time of year has arrived. After slaving away at the They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? Top 1000 for almost one year, the good folks who run the website have released their annual update, which encompasses a wider range of film polls and critics’ lists. Though I had expected my current progress (sitting at 241/1000) to receive a thorough bludgeoning, I’ve actually done quite well for myself here.

The following is a list of new additions and omissions from the updated list; I’ll list only the films that I’ve seen (out of a total of 96 changes).

New additions:
#483: Toy Story (1995, John Lasseter)
#541: Swing Time (1936, George Stevens)
#565: Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991, James Cameron)
#576: MASH (1970, Robert Altman)
#601: An American in Paris (1951, Vincente Minnelli)
#644: The Usual Suspects (1997, Bryan Singer)
#660: My Fair Lady (1964, George Cukor)
#733: The Matrix (1999. Andy Wachowski & Larry Wachowski)
#778: City of God (2002, Fernando Meirelles)
#868: Arsenic and Old Lace (1944, Frank Capra)
#878: From Here to Eternity (1953, Fred Zinnemann)
#880: Radio Days (1987, Woody Allen)
#898: Starship Troopers (1997, Paul Verhoeven)
#899: Leave Her to Heaven (1945, John M. Stahl)
#917: Donnie Darko (2001, Richard Kelly)
#952: Scarlet Street (1945, Fritz Lang)
#953: Lost in Translation (2004, Sofia Coppola)
#956: Memento (2000, Christopher Nolan)
#979: American Beauty (1999, Sam Mendes)
#981: Fort Apache (1948, John Ford)

Total additions seen = 20

Omissions:
* The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926, Lotte Reiniger)
* L’ Arrivée d'un train à la Ciotat (1895, Lumière, August & Louis Lumière)
* Blood Simple (1984, Joel Coen & Ethan Coen)
* Jason and the Argonauts (1963, Don Chaffey)
* Knife in the Water (1982, Roman Polanski)
* Love and Death (1975, Woody Allen)
* Rififi (1955, Jules Dassin)
* Russian Ark (2002, Aleksandr Sokurov)
* Shock Corridor (1963, Sam Fuller)
* Stray Dog (1949, Akira Kurosawa)
* The Thin Man (1934, W.S. Van Dyke)
* The Tingler (1959, William Castle)
* Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971, Mel Stuart)

Total omissions seen = 13

So, as you can see, the newest update actually boosts my count of films seen, from 242/1000 to 249/1000. Believe it or not, I’m one viewing away from being one-quarter of the way there!

Thoughts on the changes? Well, I’m devastated to see Dassin’s Rififi (1955) and Van Dyke’s The Thin Man (1934) drop off – two very different films, of course, but each brilliant in its own way. From memory, that means that the Top 1000 is now Jules Dassin-free, which is a sorry state of existence {I recently viewed Night and the City (1950), which is even better, as part of my “Shooting in the Dark” blog}. Furthermore, a list without Nick and Nora Charles isn’t really a list at all. I think I'll drown my sorrows with a martini. We may also lament the childhood favourite Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), Woody Allen’s epic Love and Death (1975) and that piece of campy, demented brilliance that is William Castle’s The Tingler (1959).

As far as additions are concerned, many of the new titles appear to be rather mainstream populist films of the last decade; such as The Usual Suspects (1997), American Beauty (1999), Memento (2000) and Donnie Darko (2001). These are all decent films in their own right, but it’s sad to think that they’ve stolen the place of that obscure Czechislovakian war drama that I’ve never heard of, and probably never will now.
The additions I’m most happy with are Capra’s Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), a superb piece of Halloween craziness, and Swing Time (1936) – one can never have too much Fred and Ginger! Oh, and Terminator 2 is awesome.

Target #242: À bout de souffle / Breathless (1960, Jean-Luc Godard)

2008-12-14T17:06:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #29

Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard

Written by: François Truffaut (story), Jean-Luc Godard (writer)

Starring: Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg, Daniel Boulanger, Jean-Pierre Melville, Henri-Jacques Huet

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!! [Paragraph 2 only]

As much as I'd like to think that, after two exciting years, I've been well-and-truly inducted into the world of cinema, I'm really still an amateur. I hear the term "French New Wave" and immediately become intimidated. What's it all about? Hand-held photography, jarring jump-cuts and pretentious philosophical musings? It was with some trepidation that I approached Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de soufflé / Breathless (1960), supposedly the cornerstone of the French movement, though I was somewhat reassured by a brief plot description that sounded uncannily similar to a modern urban thriller: "a young car thief kills a policeman and tries to persuade a girl to hide in Italy with him." In many ways, Breathless is just like a contemporary film. The hand-held camera-work has a gritty, documentary-like immediacy, and a dynamic freshness that wouldn't arrive in Hollywood cinema for another few years {Sidney Lumet's The Pawnbroker (1964) is the earliest example I can think of}. Stylistically, even recent thrillers like Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) and Michael Clayton (2007) owe a lot to Godard, as curious as that may sound.

Both leads are excellent in their respective roles. Jean-Paul Belmondo plays a Humphrey Bogart-wannabe, an out-of-his-depth car thief who speaks tough, but whose brave frontage is immediately transparent. His character works effectively as a semi-affectionate satire of Hollywood's hard-boiled film noir heroes – ripped from the pages of Hammett, Chandler and Spillane – who don't actually exist in real life. Jean Seberg, an American actress who only found success after migrating to Europe, is beautiful and sensual as his independent some-time lover, who finds excitement in the notion of a fugitive boyfriend, but has yet to decide if she loves him or not. As far as the romantic subplot is concerned, Godard emphasises the selfishness of his new generation. Love is no longer an intimate and enduring connection between two people, but a succession of lurid and meaningless sexual encounters. Though Michel and Patricia frequently speak their love of each other, their motives are purely egocentric in nature. Each character frequently alludes to their own needs and desires, and Patricia eventually informs on Michel to prove, for her own benefit, that she is indifferent to him.

My only previous Godard work, Alphaville (1965), had sufficiently intrigued me with its half-satirical espionage thriller set against a backdrop of science-fiction. However, when the narrative periodically came to a standstill, so too, I found, did my interest in the film. Breathless gave me similar sentiments, albeit to a lesser degree. While never boring, there is a sizable patch in the middle of the film – in particular, a long scene spent inside Patricia's apartment – where Michel's status as a wanted man is entirely forgotten. The film's narrative drive comes to a grinding halt, and the two characters are left in limbo. When he's not trying to entice his American companion into bed, Michel raises seemingly arbitrary philosophical questions – such as, out of nowhere, "do you ever think about death?" – that apparently serve no purpose other than to justify Godard's film as an important "arthouse" picture. Much has been said about the pioneering use of jump-cuts, a creative trick to trim down the running-time without losing key scenes, but I found the technique unnecessarily jarring and unpalatable.

7.5/10

Currently my #6 film of 1960:

1) Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock)
2) The Apartment (Billy Wilder)
3) Peeping Tom (Michael Powell)
4) Inherit the Wind (Stanley Kramer)
5) The Time Machine (George Pal)
6) À bout de souffle {Breathless} (Jean-Luc Godard)
7) Village of the Damned (Wolf Rilla)
8) The Little Shop of Horrors (Roger Corman)

Target #241: Partie de campagne / A Day in the Country (1936, Jean Renoir)

2008-12-03T22:49:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #147

Directed by: Jean Renoir

Written by: Jean Renoir (writer), Guy de Maupassant (short story)

Starring: Sylvia Bataille, Georges D'Arnoux, Jane Marken, André Gabriello, Jacques B. Brunius, Paul Temps, Gabrielle Fontan, Jean Renoir

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

Last week I watched Jean Renoir's The Rules of the Game (1939) for the first time, and, while I quite enjoyed it, I felt rather distanced from the story, as though the film was so preoccupied with snappy characters and dialogue (as in a stage play) that it didn't bother with emotion or atmosphere, the evocation of time and place. Happily, this wasn't a problem with Partie de campagne / A Day in the Country (1936). Renoir's unfinished adaptation of a short story by Guy de Maupassant gains a wonderful personality through its on-location filming. Even though we ourselves never observe the oppressive, polluted Parisian streets, Claude Renoir's outdoor photography sweeps over us with the cool and cleansing touch of a fresh breeze, somehow translating into visuals the revitalising sensation of clean country air in one's lungs. Unfortunately, it was also this on-location shooting schedule that proved the film's demise, weather problems delaying and eventually leading to abandonment of production. The film was not released until 1946, faithfully edited together using the existing footage.

Renoir's film undoubtedly feels like an unfinished work, but what exists is nonetheless brilliant. Unlike many unfinished orstudio-butchered would-be masterpieces, that A Day in the Country was not completed to the director's satisfaction causes minimal detriment to the sequences that remain today. The narrative up until the "ending"is perfectly-structured and enjoyable to watch, all planned sequencesup until this point having presumably been filmed without incident. However, after Henri (Georges D'Arnoux) and Henriette (Sylvia Bataille) come together for the first time in a reluctant but passionate embrace, the story then jarringly cuts to a years-later epilogue, a wistful conclusion that reflects on events that seemingly never took place. "Every night I remember," confesses Henriette, as she meets her former one-time lover, having settled on marrying a scruffy imbecile (Paul Temps). But exactly what does she remember? There had been nothing in the film to suggest that she and Henri had fallen in love; this eventuality had always been implied, but never satisfactorily executed.
A strong cast – including André Gabriello, Jane Marken, Jacques B. Brunius and Renoir himself – bring lighthearted humour to their respective roles, but it is the budding romance (never quite realised) between D'Arnoux and Bataille that form's the story's heart. Following its eventual 1946 release, A Day in the Country was lauded as an "unfinished masterpiece," and I suppose that such a description is appropriate. Had filming been completed, such that the story followed through its intended and logical arc, I can only imagine what a powerful piece of cinema the film might have been. Have you ever had a wonderful dream from which you were woken prematurely? This is how I feel about A Day in the Country. Everything up until the hasty ending is funny, emotional, glorious, and invigorating, yet we're wrenched from the dream-like clasp of Renoir's hand unexpectedly and disappointingly. But I'm an optimist: we should simply be glad that this much of the film exists for us to enjoy. Reflecting on what might have been is a task that should ideally be left to movie characters.

8/10

Currently my #4 film of 1936:

Target #240: A Night at the Opera (1935, Sam Wood)

2008-11-30T03:53:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #196

Directed by: Sam Wood, Edmund Goulding (uncredited)

Written by: James Kevin McGuinness (story), George S. Kaufman (screenplay), Morrie Ryskind (screenplay), Al Boasberg (uncredited), Buster Keaton (uncredited), Robert Pirosh (draft, uncredited), George Seaton (draft, uncredited)

Starring: Groucho Marx, Chico Marx, Harpo Marx, Kitty Carlisle, Allan Jones, Walter Woolf King, Sig Ruman, Margaret Dumont, Edward Keane, Robert Emmett O'Connor

The Marx Brothers were anarchists. They shunned order in favour of spontaneity and irreverence, and their early work – both onstage and in their films with Paramount – is characterised by this loosely-structured chaos. Story? The Marx Brothers didn't need a story: all that was required was a woman for Groucho to insult, a uptight bureaucrat to whom Chico could speak his own peculiar version of Italian, and an over-sized prop that Harpo might abuse in whatever manner he pleased. When the comedy team (minus Zeppo, who, tired of being the straight man, struck out for greener pastures) moved to MGM, producer Irving Thalberg decided that their style of comedy needed to be combined with the musical extravagance for which the studio had already required a reputation. The Marx Brothers were given creative freedom, glittering sets, elaborate musical numbers and, above all else, a story. Some fans of the comedy troupe view this as an inconvenience, the narrative merely getting in the way of all the jokes, but I think it works.

As a result of MGM's influence, A Night at the Opera (1935) bears a remarkable resemblance to an Astaire-Rogers style film (despite most of these being produced at RKO), the only difference being that the bright pair of young performers (here played by Kitty Carlisle and Allan Jones) have the aid of three bumbling comedians to facilitate their happy ending. The tale revolves around young in-love opera singers Rosa and Ricardo, the latter of whom can't achieve the recognition he deserves, due to the overbearing influence of the stuffy virtuoso performer Rodolfo (Walter Woolf King). Groucho, proving that he does have something akin to a heart after all, agrees to help Ricardo achieve success in New York, though he takes a lot of coaxing from Chico and Harpo, who are really just along for the ride. Allan Jones fills in the void that would previously have been played by straight-man Zeppo, though Kitty Carlisle's dazzling opera singer is the highlight of the supporting cast. Also enjoyable is the ever-serious Margaret Dumont and Sig Ruman.

I've never really been the greatest fan of the Marx Brothers, but I nonetheless enjoy their witty style of humour – particularly anything that Groucho has to say – and, in this film, I appreciated the greater degree of class afforded by the opera setting. In keeping with MGM's standing as the industry leader in movie musicals, A Night at the Opera even includes several genuine opera performances, and it's the real singing voices of both Carlisle and Jones that you are hearing. Chico and Harpo, likewise, don't miss an opportunity to show off their own impressive musical talents, with the former dancing his fingers across the piano keys, and the latter doing likewise on both a piano and his signature harp. While Duck Soup (1933) may have the greater rate of jokes-per-minute, fans of the Marx Brothers can do much worse than to sit down and enjoy the first of the trio's two most commercial successful films {the other being A Day at the Races (1937)}. Going to the opera has never been this chaotic.

7/10

Currently my #5 film of 1935:

1) Top Hat (Mark Sandrich)
2) The Informer (John Ford)
3) The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) The Raven (Louis Friedländer)
5) A Night at the Opera (Sam Wood)

Target #239: La règle du jeu / The Rules of the Game (1939, Jean Renoir)

2008-11-29T00:26:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #3

Directed by: Jean Renoir

Written by: Jean Renoir (scenario & dialogue), Carl Koch (writer)

Starring: Nora Gregor, Paulette Dubost, Mila Parély, Odette Talazac, Claire Gérard, Marcel Dalio, Julien Carette, Gaston Modot, Jean Renoir, Roland Toutain, Pierre Magnier, Anne Mayen

The Rules of the Game (1939) arose from Jean Renoir's desire to create a "pleasant" film about a society that he believed had become rotten to the core. His brand of satire, from a screenplay he co-wrote with Carl Koch {husband of animator Lotte Reiniger}, is razor-sharp and unapologetically direct. For the French Bourgeoisie, morals and integrity have become a thing of the past. Married couples frequently hold mistresses and lovers, such that to not have one is considered abnormal. Society not only accepts these transgressions, but encourages them, and neither spouse can justly object, for they each have their own alternate pair of arms in which they may seek comfort. When the film was initially released in 1939, many audiences didn't appreciate Renoir's apparent disdain for their existence, and the critical response was bitter and disheartening. One outraged cinema-goer even attempted to burn down the theatre! Thus, it's not hard to understand why the director subsequently removed critical scenes to cater to his critics, and it wasn't until the 1950s that a near-complete print was reconstructed.

This was my fourth film from Jean Renoir, but only his second feature-length offering, so I'm still trying to familiarise myself with the director's style. The Rules of the Game is enjoyable, of course, but one does idly wonder why it's held at the pinnacle of the cinematic pantheon. For one, there doesn't seem to be anything truly "cinematic" about it. Others have mentioned the pioneering use of deep-focus, which I admittedly never noticed (somebody must be doing their job right, I suppose), but the whole film had a vibe of theatricality that kept me detached from the story. In other words, the characters were on the stage, and I was sitting back in the audience, enjoying their shenanigans but never feeling a part of them. Compare this to a comedy from, for example, Ernst Lubitsch, in which we can readily relate to the characters because we feel a part of their close-knit group. Perhaps Renoir's use of largely unsympathetic characters, who treat human relationships as some sort of perverted game, played a pivotal role in my inability to be feel involved in their story.

These disagreements aside, The Rules of the Game is all about the dialogue, which is both frequent (a catastrophe when you're trying to read subtitles) and frequently witty. The story, particularly the second half, kept me consistently entertained; I laughed my head off at Shumacher (Gaston Modot) chasing Marceau (Julien Carette) around the house with a revolver, and the rather nonchalant manner in which the house guests responded to the disruption. Renoir's own character, Octave, was my favourite, a chubby middle-aged man with plenty of friends but no lovers. It's not difficult to see where Robert Altman got some inspiration for Gosford Park (2001), particularly in how he compares and contrasts the extravagant upper-class and their servants (who aren't really all that different in their unscrupulous sexual urges). Renoir himself also used similar would-be philandering hijinks in the more light-hearted romantic comedy Elena and her Men (1956), with Ingrid Bergman. I look forward to enjoying some more of the director's work.

7/10

Currently my #6 film of 1939:

1) Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (Frank Capra)
2) Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks)
3) The Wizard Of Oz (Victor Fleming, Mervyn LeRoy, Richard Thorpe, King Vidor)
4) Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, George Cukor, Sam Wood)
5) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (William Dieterle)
6) La règle du jeu {The Rules of the Game} (Jean Renoir)
7) Dark Victory (Edmund Goulding)
8) Another Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)
9) Drums Along the Mohawk (John Ford)

Target #238: Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948, Max Ophüls)

2008-11-26T04:06:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #74

Directed by: Max Ophüls

Written by: Stefan Zweig (story), Howard Koch (screenplay), Max Ophüls (uncredited)

Starring: Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians, Marcel Journet, Howard Freeman

WARNING: Plot and/or ending details may follow!!!

Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) signals a tragedy from its earliest moments. The film's carefully-constructed narrative structure, with the entire story unfolding through flashbacks narrated by a dying woman's final letter, prematurely reveals a romance doomed from the outset. Whatever meetings take place, whatever promises are made, whatever hope is afforded us, we are always fully exposed to the knowledge that misfortune is only just around the corner. As such, a blanket of melancholy has descended upon every scene in the film, and all emotions seem stifled and distant; not through any fault of the filmmakers, but rather through the audiences' individual empathy for the heroine's ill-fated affection, towards a charming womaniser who can't even recall her name. This was undoubtedly the tone for which director Max Ophüls was striving; if you're looking for an uplifting romance to conclude a bright and happy day, this isn't it. However, there's a certain sedateness that the film struggles to overcome, the hollow feeling of a story not going anywhere, a train having already arrived at its destination.

Not surprisingly, given the director's nationality, Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) has the feel of a European film. It's a bit difficult to put my finger on exactly why this is, but the Viennese setting probably contributed. Additionally, American romances – both of that time, and today – usually seem so anxious to please, doling out hope with every new meeting, and typically ending with the heroine carried off into the sunset in her eternal lover's arms. It's for its acknowledgement of the hopelessness of love that Ophüls' film, and others such as Lean's British-made Brief Encounter (1945), are regarded above most romantic pictures; after all, is there any love more poignant and memorable than unrequited love? Joan Fontaine, a favourite actress of mine, is as delicate as a flower, a quality that Hitchcock notably exploited twice in both Rebecca (1940) and Suspicion (1941). Her love for the dashing French pianist Stefan Brand (Louis Jourdan) is so incredibly passive that you already know that she's going to lose him.

Throughout the film, Lisa Berndle watches her lover from afar; she listens to his music through the physical barrier of a door; she quickly comes to know him, but only later comes to meet him. Fontaine's character is simply too weak to succeed in love, and only in her dying moments does she realise that her strength of will was required to bridge the gap between herself and the womanising, forgetful Stefan, who probably loved Lisa but never realised it. Though Ophüls' narrative framing device suggests the intervention of fate – that faceless, indifferent force to which most failed cinematic romances are attributed – into the couple's doomed romance, the blame instead falls to the two lovers. Their personal failings not only denied them love, but ultimately granted them death. That we are alerted to these inevitable eventualities in advance (both through the framing device, and a coldly-brutal sequence that indifferently alerts us, but not Lisa, to a typhis outbreak) makes it all the more difficult to bear.

7/10

Currently my #7 film of 1948:

1) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (John Huston)
2) Ladri di biciclette {The Bicycle Thief} (Vittorio De Sicae)
3) Rope (Alfred Hitchcock)
4) Oliver Twist (David Lean)
5) Macbeth (Orson Welles)
6) Key Largo (John Huston)
7) Letter from an Unknown Woman (Max Ophüls)
8) Secret Beyond the Door… (Fritz Lang)
9) Musik i mörker {Music in Darkness} (Ingmar Bergman)
10) Fort Apache (John Ford)

Target #237: Odd Man Out (1947, Carol Reed)

2008-11-20T23:10:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #394
Directed by: Carol Reed
Written by: F.L. Green (novel & screenplay), R.C. Sherriff (screenplay)
Starring: James Mason, Robert Newton, Cyril Cusack, Kathleen Ryan, F.J. McCormick, William Hartnell, Fay Compton, W.G. Fay, Elwyn Brook-Jones, Maureen Delaney, Denis O'Dea

A few years ago, when I first watched The Third Man (1949) {needless to say, one of the top ten films ever made} I made the mistake, as I'm sure many amateur film buffs do, to assume that this was the only film of note produced by director Carol Reed; a one-of-a-kind fluke. From here, I subscribed to the all-too-common but completely erroneous idea that Orson Welles had directed parts of the film, which might explain why it turned out so damn good. That I hadn't ever heard Reed mentioned as a distinguished veteran of British cinema is disheartening and ludicrous, for, even after only three of his films, I see no reason why he should not be held aloft alongside the likes of Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger and David Lean. The Third Man had an Ealing-style whimsy that worked superbly well in the lopsided streets of post-War Vienna, but Reed's Odd Man Out (1947) is equally engrossing, a sombre and straight-faced exploration of political unrest in Northern Ireland. Though his film follows – and, to an extent, sympathises with – the activities of an IRA-like organisation, Reed largely avoids making any sort of political statement. The story opens with a brief title-card in which we are assured that "it is not concerned with the struggle between the law and an illegal organisation, but only with the conflict in the hearts of the people when they become unexpectedly involved." The involvement of a "terrorist" organisation in the story is not to show support for the IRA or similar causes, but to suggest how political differences have eroded society's morals to such an extent that perfectly decent people will not extend their hand to help a dying man. As Johnny McQueen (James Mason) stumbles through the bitter winter snowstorm, frozen and bleeding following a botched robbery attempt, he is passed from one person to another, each of whom either turns him back out into the cold, lest they become implicated in his crime, or they exploit him for their own selfish means.

What works so magnificently about Odd Man Out is how authentically Reed is able to establish mood. The story unfolds in a single day, the bulk of which is spent in the darkness of a cold winter's night, snowflakes falling delicately to the ground, lending the film an icy chill that, even though it's approaching summer down here, had me drawing the clothes tighter to my body. No small praise should go towards Australian-born cinematographer Robert Krasker, whose elegant photography captures both the cold despair of the winter snowstorm, and the persistent warmth in the eyes of McQueen's young love, Kathleen (Kathleen Sullivan). In American noir, you usually come face-to-face with grotesque characters who are frightening and ugly; in British films, and I'm not exactly sure why this is, there's a certain charm about the grotesque. F.J. McCormick plays a doddering bum who tries hopelessly to profit from his discovery of Mason's dying fugitive, and yet his character is oddly likable. Robert Newton, likewise, plays an eccentric, humorously-flamboyant artist whose one obsession is to paint the portrait of a doomed soul.
9/10

Currently my #1 film of 1947:

1) Odd Man Out (Carol Reed)
2) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
3) Monsieur Verdoux (Charles Chaplin)
4) Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur)
5) Dark Passage (Delmer Daves)
6) The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles)
7) They Won’t Believe Me (Irving Pichel)
8) The Fugitive (John Ford, Emilio Fernández)
9) Bush Christmas (Ralph Smart)
10) Song of the Thin Man (Edward Buzzell)

Repeat Viewing: Citizen Kane (1941, Orson Welles)

2008-11-20T04:24:00.000-08:00

TSPDT placing: #1

Directed by: Orson Welles

Written by: Orson Welles, Herman J. Mankiewicz

Starring: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, Ray Collins, Erskine Sanford, Everett Sloane, William Alland, Paul Stewart, George Coulouris

Orson Welles' debut feature Citizen Kane stands as one of the twentieth century's most revered films, and, indeed, the title of "The Greatest Film Of All Time" has often been bestowed upon it, from as early as Sight and Sound's 1962 rankings, when it indefinitely dethroned De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948). After two viewings, I can't say that I find it to be the greatest film of all time, but any work with such a label would find it extremely difficult to live up to impossible expectations. Having said that, however, Citizen Kane is nothing short of masterful. In 1939, in an unprecedented studio contract, RKO offered young prodigy Welles, fresh from his success on the stage and the radio, a two-picture contract with full artistic control (a promise that ultimately wasn't kept). Borrowing elements from the lives of tycoons Robert McCormick, Howard Hughes, and Joseph Pulitzer, but especially American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, Welles and fellow screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz weaved together the tragic story of Charles Foster Kane, poignantly highlighting the inescapable shortfalls of American Dream.

Charlie Kane (Welles) rises from humble beginnings to become one of the most famous and powerful people in America. At a very young age, Kane's mother inherits a gold mine and becomes suddenly wealthy, sending away her son to live with Walter Parks Thatcher (George Coulouris), his mother's banker. Proving something of a disappointment for Mr. Thatcher, Kane shows little aspirations for success until the age of twenty-six, when he decides to head the 'Inquirer,' for the simple reason that he "thinks it would be fun to run a newspaper." Kane eventually becomes rich and powerful through publishing "yellow journalism," which, though frowned upon by most critics, proves immensely profitable. Decades later, after two unsuccessful marriages and a failed bid for public office, Kane sits alone in his massive, unfinished Xanadu mansion (the most massive, impersonal and even sinister abode ever to grace the silver screen), pining for the lost innocence of his childhood. This is the story of a tragic life, and the ultimate testament that money can't buy happiness.

The most remarkable thing about Citizen Kane is its narrative structure. The film opens with Kane's death. As the image fades into a large "NO TREPASSING" sign on the gate of Kane's vast and lonely dwelling, we progressively cut to images closer and closer to his house, witnessing the enormity of Kane's wealth, and yet all his riches seem to be in disrepair. A lone lit window stands eerily amidst the snow, before the light inexplicably goes out, the figure hunched within suddenly plunged into darkness. We see Charles Foster Kane's withered hand clasping at a snow-globe, and his lips utter the mystifying words, "Rosebud." With a sudden crash, the snow-globe slips from Kane's hand and shatters on the floor. A maidservant enters the room and covers the dead man's body with a blanket. Following his death, the producer of a newsreel about Kane asks a reporter, Jerry Thompson (William Alland), to uncover the significance behind Kane's final words, a well-meaning but rather naive attempt to encapsulate a man's entire life in a simple seven-letter name.

A criticism often levelled at Citizen Kane is that it feels less like a warm, involving biopic than a formal masterclass in film-making technique. It's true that Welles was exploring largely unmapped cinematic territory at the time, and there's a certain sense of experimentation about the film. Mankiewicz and Welles constructed the screenplay as a series of fragmented, non-chronological flashbacks, each sequence filling in the missing parts of Kane's life, sometimes even showing the same event from differing perspectives. Greg Toland's elaborate cinematography makes unprecedented use of deep focus, in which everything in the frame – foreground, background and anything in between – is constantly held in sharp focus; the end result is a film that feels far more dynamic and "animate" than anything preceding the French New Wave. All innovation aside, anybody who suggests that the life of Charles Foster Kane is somehow uninvolving really needs to revisit the film; Welles pours his heart and soul into portraying the arrogant, tormented and ultimately lonely millionaire, and it's uncanny how the director's own tragic career drew clear parallels with that of his most memorable character.

9/10

Currently my #1 film of 1941:

1) Citizen Kane (Orson Welles)
2) The Maltese Falcon (John Huston)
3) The Wolf Man (George Waggner)
4) Shadow of the Thin Man (W.S. Van Dyke)
5) High Sierra (Raoul Walsh)

Repeat Viewing: The African Queen (1951, John Huston)

2008-10-24T00:34:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #305
Directed by: John Huston
Written by: C.S. Forester (novel), James Agee, John Huston (adaptation), Peter Viertel, John Collier (uncredited)
Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull

I can't imagine anybody not enjoying a thrilling romantic adventure like The African Queen (1951). Though it may not pack the emotional punch of The Treasure of Sierra Madre (1948) or Moby Dick (1956), this is nonetheless John Huston at his most entertaining, thanks largely to the impeccable chemistry between two of Hollywood's all-time most charismatic stars. In 1914, as the outbreak of WWI disturbs even the remote depths of wild Africa, Humphrey Bogart – grizzled, gruff and coarse – must form a tentative alliance with prim and proper British spinster Katharine Hepburn, if they are to triumph over the evil forces of Germany. With only the vague objective of somehow sinking the feared German warship, the Louisa, the two near-strangers strike out downriver in Bogart's small but resilient steam-powered supply boat, the African Queen. A continual bombardment of jungle obstacles, both natural and human, frequently threaten their survival, but the more prevailing question is whether or not the two polar-opposites will be able to survive each other!

John Huston's rousing adventure was largely filmed on location in Africa, though many of the white-water sequences were obviously shot before a rear-projection screen in London; fortunately, these optical effects are far less distracting on a cinema screen. It can often be problematic to build almost an entire film around just two characters, but Bogart and Hepburn are clearly up to the challenge, sharing a chemistry that is infectiously entertaining. Whether they're engaged in awkwardly-formal conversation, at each other's throats, or falling in love, every line of dialogue (from a screenplay by John Huston and James Agee) is an absolute delight, all the more so because we know that Charlie and Rose will eventually end up in each other's arms. At either end of the adventure, Robert Morley lends some pathos to the tale as Rose's humble missionary brother, who dies following a German raid; and Peter Bull, though perhaps too cartoonish to entirely fit the film's overall tone, adds some lighthearted humour as a temperamental enemy captain.

Just what is it about The African Queen that has made it such an enormous viewer favourite? I think that much of this has to do with Huston's predominantly lighthearted approach to the material – if you're not gripping your seat in excitement, then you're laughing at the interactions between the two leads. However, there's also a less-pronounced political commentary at play. Reverend Sayer's death might been viewed as symbolising the inevitable death of British Colonialism. That Bogart's roguish, hard-drinking North American (he's actually a Canadian) effectively conquers the prudishness of Hepburn's formal British spinster may likewise be taken to foreshadow the United States' rise as the world's most influential superpower. All politics aside, I find it amusing that just last week I attended a cinema screening of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), in which an intrepid team of soldiers venture into the darkness upriver. Just consider The African Queen as that film's polar opposite – for this time we're going downriver, and we're gonna have a rollicking good time.

9/10

Currently my #2 film of 1951:

1) Strangers On A Train (Alfred Hitchcock)
2) The African Queen (John Huston)
3) The Man in the White Suit (Alexander Mackendrick)
4) The Day The Earth Stood Still (Robert Wise)
5) The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton)
6) The Thing from Another World (Christian Nyby, Howard Hawks)
7) An American in Paris (Vincente Minnelli)

Target #236: Russkiy kovcheg / Russian Ark (2002, Aleksandr Sokurov)

2008-10-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

TSPDT placing: #920
Directed by: Aleksandr Sokurov
Written by: Anatoli Nikiforov (written by), Aleksandr Sokurov (writer), Svetlana Proskurina, Boris Khaimsky (dialogue)
Starring: Sergei Dontsov, Aleksandr Sokurov, Mariya Kuznetsova, Leonid Mozgovoy, Mikhail Piotrovsky, David Giorgobiani, Aleksandr Chaban, Natalya Nikulenko, Oleg Khmelnitsky, Alla Osipenko, Artyom Strelnikov, Tamara Kurenkova

In many ways, Aleksandr Sokurov's Russian Ark (2002) sits beyond the bounds of conventional film criticism. It unfolds as if in a lovely dream – vivid, dazzling and unforgettable, and yet simply indescribable. The film is quite literally a casual wander through centuries of Russian history, each elaborate room and hall of the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg representing a different period of the nation's extremely rich history. Sokurov is not at all interested in telling a straightforward tale of Russia's past – there is no substantial plot to speak of – but rather he seeks to explore it, and every room, every graceful camera movement, every astounding set-piece of costumes and music, captures a tantalising snippet of a historical period long lost in the sands of time. An almost inconceivable feat of preparation and execution, the film was famously shot in a single, uninterrupted take, a technique that progresses far beyond being a mere commercial gimmick and envelopes the audience within Sokurov's mighty cinematic canvas. In other words, you're there.

An unseen twentieth-first century narrator, whom we assume to be Sokurov himself, awakens at the snow-swept entrance of the Hermitage Museum, having presumably died unexpectedly. For the next 90 minutes, his eyes become our eyes; we can only watch, awestruck, as he wanders through this living, breathing capsule of Russian history, every different room yielding a fantastic new time period that we may explore. It is in this way that Sokurov's one-take technique becomes absolutely indispensable. I love Roger Ebert's (31/1/2003) concluding observation: "If cinema is sometimes dreamlike, then every edit is an awakening. Russian Ark spins a daydream made of centuries." The steady, uninterrupted flow of images keeps the journey vivid and authentic, sustaining an illusion that feels so genuine as to be almost inhabitable. By the end of the film, it is no longer Sokurov who is exploring the Hermitage, but it is us, and the richness with which each time period has been recreated is simply astonishing to behold.

I found interest in some critics' description of Sokurov as an "anti-Eisenstein," demonstrating that our emotional register is not solely triggered by the artificial suggestiveness of purposeful film editing. Montage may very well tell us what we're supposed to think and feel, but the single take of Russian Ark succeeds more momentously in immersing us in the moment, and so allowing our own individual emotions to form. The use of the dynamic long-take has been used, to varying extents, and for this reason, since around the time of Eisenstein – I particularly remember a sweeping outdoors shot in Murnau's Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927). Hitchcock famously used long-takes in the brilliant Rope (1948), and less-famously in the not-quite-so-brilliant Under Capricorn (1949). Even in Russian cinema, Mikhail Kalatozov made incredible use of the technique in The Cranes are Flying (1957). However, technical considerations aside, does Sokurov's film have much to offer us aside from a vague lesson in Russian history? I say that this question is an irrelevant one; all that matters are the emotions instilled within us.
8/10

Currently my #7 film of 2002:
1) Minority Report (Steven Spielberg)
2) The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (Peter Jackson)
3) Adaptation. (Spike Jonze)
4) Road To Perdition (Sam Mendes)
5) Catch Me If You Can (Steven Spielberg)
6) The Pianist (Roman Polanski)
7) Russkiy kovcheg {Russian Ark} (Aleksandr Sokurov)
8) Red Dragon (Brett Ratner)
9) Mou gaan dou {Infernal Affairs} (Wai-keung Lau, Siu Fai Mak)
10) Cidade de Deus {City Of God} (Fernando Meirelles, Kátia Lund)

What others have said:

"Though casual viewers with no special interest in either film history or Russian history may be bored to tears, for serious film students Russian Ark is a must-see. Sokurov’s achievement is notable not only for being the first film shot in one take, but for offering a striking antithesis to the Soviet montage cinema of early Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein. Eisenstein’s edit-driven approach was forward-looking and characterized by decisive, revolutionary action, reflecting Marxist optimism about the future. By contrast, Sokurov’s film is awash in nostalgia and dreamlike passiveness, reflecting the lack of a clear way forward for contemporary Russia."
Steven D. Greydanus

"Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark is one of those movies more easily admired than genuinely enjoyed, let alone loved... It is from that technical choice that the most compelling drama emerges; wondering if Sokurov and cameraman Tilman Buttner will screw up or not is far more interesting than the fairly inert parade of historical figures such as Catherine the Great and recreations of historical events such as the Royal Ball of 1913. The opulent pageantry and the works of art on display make for undeniable eye candy, but what is shown is ultimately less captivating than the manner in which it is shown."
Michael Dequina

"Russian Ark is less like watching paint dry than like watching it sit on the wall and stay wet. A lot of expertise has gone into making a movie that is the same thing for an hour and a half -- the same boring, posing, meandering journey of weirdness, impossible to follow or stand. It doesn't change. It doesn't develop. It makes little effort to arouse the audience or communicate its content. There are those who call it an amazing technical achievement, and they are correct. But the movie is also extraordinarily boring. Go see it if you want an insight into how it must feel to be a teacher with nothing to do except pace up and down an exam room, waiting for the mean old clock to move its hands."
Ian Waldron-Mantgani