My family was late to the party when it came to getting a VCR. We got our first one in Christmas of 1986. So it must have been sometime shortly after that when I saw The Graduate for the first time. I must have been 18 or 19. 20 years after it first came out. Essentially the same age as Benjamin Braddock, the titular character. I had barely started college. My family wasn’t as well off as the one in the film. The ‘80’s were not the ‘60’s. And yet I recall to this day how I was struck by the timeliness of this story. A young man, drifting through life, who had always done what he was supposed to do. Admittedly, I questioned a bit more, but I felt the basic struggle. He followed the path, went to college, got a degree, and now what? He hadn’t taken the time to figure out his identity. He had never questioned and now he was all about questions but didn’t know which ones to ask. Everyone was always talking at him, but noone was actually listening to him. I could go on. Needless to say, I was really looking forward to seeing this one again and was glad for Justin to join me. This was everything I’d remembered and more. It seemed just as timeless as ever. In part, because it takes place in California in the ‘60’s, in part in Berkeley, but you don’t really see any hippies. Vietnam isn’t mentioned. And yet the undercurrent of unease is there that could easily translate to a college graduate in 2010 going into a shit economy and approaching double digit unemployment. Of course the golden boy who’s always done as he’s been told is apprehensive about what lurks in the real world. Justin and I could barely contain our enthusiasm for this film. It seemed we were constantly pausing to talk about how great a scene or a shot was. I really have to give credit to Mike Nichols for making an amazing transition from the theatre world into film. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf was great and well shot, but the director was not as apparent. This film makes it clear that he’s well aware of the camera, how to frame a shot, composition, etc. There’s the obvious one where Dustin Hoffman is shot between Anne Bancroft’s legs, but there’s so much more. Dialogue is sometimes spare, though one of my favorite dialogue heavy scenes is one where Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson are in a hotel room engaged in one of their trysts. Benjamin is desperately trying to connect so he can feel. Mrs. Robinson just wants to lose herself in sex so she won’t feel how empty her life is. At various times they both seem on the verge of leaving, but by the end they both stay. And neither of them seems to want to. The best known scene without dialogue has to be the closing shot. Benjamin and Elaine are escaping on the bus. Nichols could have ended on their moment of triumph. But he lingers. And as he does reality starts to creep in. They’re triumphant that they’ve actually done something of their own choosing. But it slowly dawns on them that they have no idea what to do next. This scene was everything I remembered it to be. But another scene really struck me. Benjamin is having an affair with Mrs. Robinson, has started seeing her daughter Elaine, has told Elaine he’s had an affair with an older woman, but has left out the most crucial detail. The scene where she finds out is done with almost no words. And the entire story is told by one expression on Anne Bancroft’s face. That expression not only tells Elaine the horrible story, but allows us the closest glimpse of honesty into her character. Every other moment we see her is a façade of some sort. The seductress, the harpy seeking revenge, etc. But in that one moment we see her pain and desperation, her emotions naked for the first time. I’m so rapturous even in my remembrance that I hesitate to even mention Ebert’s recent review(1997). I just hope that in 15 or so years from now I haven’t changed so much that I agree with him. And I know we have some common ground ahead. Look out 1968.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Day 49: 1967(Part 3)
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Day 46 and 1967(Part 2)
Bonnie and Clyde is credited with a lot of things. Some herald it as the beginning of the New Hollywood movement. It’s heavily influenced by the French New Wave. Truffaut was even approached to direct it. It portrays violence in more graphic ways than anyone had seen, especially in American films, though it seems somewhat tame by today’s standards. It put new vitality into the careers of Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway. Beatty struck new ground as an actor/ producer. Curiously, a lot of critics at the time dismissed it at first, Ebert being a notable exception. As audiences flocked to it, some critics actually reversed themselves. There’s no doubt that it’s an important film. It paved the way for what was to come. I find it entertaining and visually stimulating. I appreciate all the performances. It’s filled with great location shooting. It follows the themes both of anti heroes and distrust of authority figures. It even has newfound relevance as it casts bankers as the villains. As we’re repeating the depression, it’s almost more relevant in that regard than it was in 1967. This is another case where the fact that it was so new at the time I’m sure I would have been one of its biggest champions. But despite all my appreciation for all these things, I have to admit that my gut reaction is that this just leaves me a little cold. Glad I saw it. Had a good time watching it. I think I actually appreciate Warren Beatty more as a producer than as an actor. He certainly does his job well here, but I’m more impressed with what he went through to get the film made. The characters are kind of shallow and uninteresting and, though perhaps they didn’t deserve quite as brutal an ending as they received, I didn’t necessarily feel much when I saw it. It’s a lot of fun. But, for me, it just doesn’t hold up as well. But, in deference to Mr. Clooney, I can certainly see why it’s on the list as it’s a touchstone of the era.
Wait Until Dark is a curious entry to have on this list. It’s been about 11 days since I saw it and I enjoyed it very much. But I can’t say it’s really stuck with me. That doesn’t mean I don’t remember the plot points or the performances. That just means I enjoyed it a whole lot more watching it than it actually resonated with me. This continues the theme of crime, but otherwise it’s a fairly conventional genre thriller, the one unique aspect being that the woman in peril is blind and uses her disability to get the upper hand in the climactic scene. And, of course, the fact that said woman is Audrey Hepburn raised the stakes for 1967 moviegoers. It’s probably the finest performance I’ve ever seen her give, which may seem like faint praise if you’ve read my entry on My Fair Lady. I also didn’t see the appeal of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. But I truly feel she’s very effective here. It was also great seeing Alan Arkin do such good work. He’s always great, but he hasn’t gotten a chance to do something this meaty in some time. It looks like he has other works represented on the list and I look forward to it. Wait Until Dark is based on a play and, as such, it’s mostly on one set. Director Terence Young also directed a number of the early James Bond films and displays a talent here for building suspense. Clearly, I don’t have a great deal of original thoughts on this one. If there’s even such a thing as a truly original thought. I think I need to work harder on getting these up in a timely fashion. It’s a good movie. Not the strongest of this batch, but worth your time.
My friend John joined me for the next two films starting with Cool Hand Luke. I saw this one for the first time probably around ten years ago. Memory is a curious thing. I don’t remember most of this. I remember the egg eating scene. I’m pretty sure I remember him dying at the end. But for the most part, this great looking Blu Ray transfer felt new to me. Ebert wrote about this one both in his original column and for his Great Movies series. He speculates in both reviews about anti hero archetypes and antiestablishment themes. He places the beginning of the antihero with Brando in The Wild One. But Paul Newman is a different breed. Not scowling or moody, he smiles through it all. Though the title comes from the line where he remarks during a card game that, “Sometimes nothing can be a pretty cool hand,” cool is the best word to describe Luke himself. Whether he’s spending the night in the box, eating 50 eggs in an hour, or processing the death of his mother, he never seems to be asking for pity. Though he certainly does suffer, he never asks for pity. When he finally escapes, the act of rebellion doesn’t seem to be an act of desperation. He’s put in “the box,” a tiny room where a prisoner can’t even really lie down, simply because his mother dies, which always makes prisoners “turn rabbity” as the warden says. Even in the stacked deck of prison rules, it seems he can’t take getting punished merely for something that happens to him as opposed to something he does. He was always popular, but this sets him on the road to martyrdom with the other prisoners. I was struck by how much this plot mirrored that of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, especially with the somewhat heavy handed Christ imagery near the end of it. This is Newman’s first appearance on the list and I’m looking forward to his other titles. Not much else to say here, but this is a good one.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Day 41. 1967(part 1). Cops, Robbers, a Musician and a Graduate
Dont Look Back is a fly on the wall cinema verite documentary chronicling Bob Dylan’s tour of London in 1965. I first saw this just a few years ago, also on DVD. Thanks to my sister Carole for gifting me with this copy. Directed by D.A. Pennebaker who went on to direct many concert films, music documentaries, the Clinton campaign documentary The War Room, and is still working today(most recently with 2009’s Kings of Pastry), Don’t Look Back is a classic of the genre. This is where watching the films chronologically gets interesting because I found it very curious watching this on the heels of A Hard Day’s Night. They’re both, on paper, essentially the same story. Following a popular music act backstage and onstage, dealing with fans, the press, their entourage, partying, etc. They both are shot in black and white and the Beatles film even imitates the verite style. Of course the Beatles film was fictionalized, not presented realistically, filled with absurdist flights of fancy, and the Dylan film is all real. Or is it? There’s always been a debate over how objective documentary filmmaking actually is or whether it even has a responsibility to be. Documentaries have hours and hours of footage that is never used. The director, in editing the film, essentially writes the story that he’s able to find within. On top of that, Dylan, even at 24, seemed to enjoy tweaking his image. It’s been said by those who were on the set that he was always very aware of the camera. So when he berates and grills one of the guests partying in his suite about who threw a glass off the balcony is he actually upset? Is he performing for the camera? Is he performing for the assembled crowd? I suppose one interpretation is, if he is deliberately presenting false images and impressions to the camera and others, then the image he chooses to portray, real or not, says something about him. Ultimately, I care less about the veracity of what we’re presented with, than the fact that I find it compelling. Though I thought he seemed a little rough on the science student(as he’s described) interviewing him, I have less sympathy for the journalists asking him inane questions at a press conference. It may not have the lighter wit that The Beatles had, but in both cases there’s a sense of performing. Is Dylan combative for the sake of being combative, or is he trying to challenge the norms? I find there is some wit in, while appearing to berate the press, he’s actually trying to get them to move beyond asking the same dozen or so questions that everyone asks him. By refusing to engage in the dull circus, he’s trying to elevate the tedium into an actual exchange of ideas. This is where Ebert confounds me. Both in his original 1968 review and in his 1998 review of the rerelease, he seems very dismissive of Dylan, describing him as, “immature, petty, vindictive, lacking a sense of humor, overly impressed with his own importance and not very bright.” It seems to me that Dylan doesn’t lack a sense of humor, but he lacks Roger Ebert’s sense of humor. It seems that Ebert is genuinely a fan of Dylan’s music, so perhaps this portrayal of him was tantamount to having a hero knocked off a pedestal. It seems he might have considered blaming Pennebaker rather than taking the Dylan he sees in this 96 minutes entirely at face value. In any case, I really enjoyed revisiting this and respectfully disagree with both the 25 and 55 year old Ebert. I should note that, his scorn for the version of Dylan in this film aside, his praise for the music is still high and the review is a moderately positive one.
I know I’ve seen In the Heat of the Night before, but it has to be a good 20 years ago or more. Though the details had faded, my basic impression of the film is the same. Here’s a film that tackles the issue of race relations in the late ‘60’s head on, but presents it in the form of a genre piece, a police procedural murder mystery. This gives audiences the opportunity to feel they’re seeing something important while still getting caught up in the whodunit aspects. I don’t mean to make this sound dismissive. I actually think it’s a rather clever idea. A small town in Mississippi has a murder on their hands and it just so happens that the only person who can help them is an African American homicide detective from Philadelphia who just happens to be passing through town. Rod Steiger is the bigoted, but maybe not as bigoted as you think, sheriff. Sidney Poitier is the visiting detective who gets introduced to Steiger after being arrested shortly after the murder. He’s from out of town, someone’s been murdered, he’s at the train station at 3 in the morning, and he’s black. So of course he’s arrested and assumed guilty without even a cursory check of ID. And thus begins the cycle. Poitier is constantly being second guessed and abused, yet the voices of reason always prevail. There’s always someone who’s listening closely enough to realize he knows what he’s talking about. Some reviews I’ve looked at are critical of the broad Southern bigot stereotypes. I think, if anything, beyond the characters treating him the way a black man would be treated in Mississippi in 1967 because that’s how it was, there are probably a lot more reasonable characters in it than is probably plausible. Yeah, they all call him boy, but when he points out that they have the wrong suspect because he’s lefthanded, they don’t dismiss him out of hand, or worse, just try to railroad the suspect through so they can satisfy the public. These cops may be as racist as the world they’ve grown up in, but they actually care about finding the real murderer. There are a number of irredeemable racist characters in this film, but generally speaking, they’re not the cops. Though acknowledging the flaws in the system, this film wants us to think it’s basically good. Flawed but not broken. Which makes it just controversial enough to get headlines. But mainstream enough to sell tickets and win awards. And, I should add, I did like it. I should also note that I enjoyed the Quincy Jones score yet again, though not quite as much as The Pawnbroker or another upcoming 1967 film.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Day 34 and 1966
Alfie is directed by Lewis Gilbert, written by Bill Naughton(based on his play), and stars Michael Caine. From a cursory sweep, I can’t find anything particularly remarkable about Gilbert or Naughton, career wise or artistically speaking, other than Gilbert going on to direct three Bond Films and a couple of other play adaptations I’ve heard of. He’s worked steadily, won a few industry awards, but doesn’t seem to have a specific voice of note. As for Naughton, he’s got 12 IMDB credits over 50 years, two of which are a sequel to and a remake of Alfie. I say none of this to diminish their work here. I just wonder how it is that their paths led them where they did. Because this absolutely belongs on the list. As noted, it’s heavily dialogue driven, in part because Alfie is constantly talking to the camera, scarcely ever taking a breath before explaining to us exactly why he does what he does, his philosophies on life, etc. He starts this from the very beginning, explaining to us that we’re not going to see any opening titles after the main title card. It almost seems as if he’s warning us we’re going to have our expectations confounded at every turn. We see a handsome and charming young man and we might assume he’s going to find a young lady, perhaps quarrel with her a bit and by the end they’ll both skip away into the sunset. But this is not a romantic comedy. And Alfie, though ostensibly the protagonist, and indeed a handsome and charming young man, does not behave as we expect such men in movies to behave. The opening scene has him fumbling about in a car with a married woman, then immediately after explaining to us why this is the best situation for all parties involved, including the husband. We see Alfie flit about London, impregnating one woman, and never taking responsibility for it, have a brush with death, then turn around and betray a friend(if Alfie has any true friends) by knocking up his wife and setting up the abortion. All the while he winks at the camera, smiles at us and justifies his behavior. He has the occasional glimmer of humanity, such as when he starts to gain affection for his son, when he confronts his own mortality, when he realizes for a moment that he’s actually aging, and when he catches a glimpse of the aborted fetus that might have been his child. Well, maybe not humanity, exactly, but a pause where he seems to briefly doubt his course. At the end of the film, it seems that these moments of realization may have changed him slightly, may have a modicum of influence on his path, but probably not. I told my friend Adam I was watching this film and he said something about how bleak it was. I agreed that Alfie’s outlook might be bleak, but the film, in large part due to Caine’s performance, didn’t feel bleak to me. It says something for Caine that he made me mostly enjoy spending two hours with someone who, in real life, I probably wouldn’t want to spend two minutes with, let alone let him near my wife or girlfriend. Then again, I also allow that it’s hard to match three of the last list films, The Pawnbroker, Alphaville, and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold when it comes to bleak. But that does bring me to another theme I’ve noticed. Many of these titles have flawed male protagonists. Steiger and Burton’s chararacters essentially seemed to be just waiting to die, but were so drained of existence to lack the will to cause it directly. Alfie, on the other hand, was a pleasure to be around, all things considered, though it probably won’t be pretty to watch as he gets older and the charm wears off. I also could see a direct line between this grinning amoral sociopath and Alex from one of my favorite films upcoming on the list, A Clockwork Orange(#45).
Admittedly, there isn’t much to Claude Lelouch’s A Man and a Woman. In plot, it’s a fairly straightforward love story. Boy meets girl, etc. From my, as usual, minimal research, this was very influential in future romantic films. Generally speaking, I have little patience for the films it supposedly spawned. Many critics, though acknowledging its influence, insist it hasn’t aged well and seem to be somewhat. Maybe I’m a sucker for visual style, as I’m certainly not one for this genre. But I found this extremely compelling. Admittedly, this was largely due to the visual style. It shifts between color, black and white, and sepia tone. It includes numerous flashbacks with varying degrees of subjectivity, one even turning into an extended musical sequence. So, I suppose, it’s not always the story, but the storyteller. In addition to the visual style, the lead actors, Jean-Louis Tringnant and Anouk Aimee, are quite natural, believable, and watchable. I also think that the hesitancy of the would be lovers lends it a lot more credence than a film that just dives in to the relationship and is all about being in love, letting us bask in the seemingly eternal happiness. This isn’t about being in love. Or even necessarily falling in love. It’s about two people wanting to love, but, on some level, not sure if they can. Even the ending, though optimistic, is preceded by what looks like the opposite. As a result, it achieves an ambiguity that’s easier to swallow. It ends with a moment of happiness but it’s far from certain what’s next for these two. Oh, yeah, and it looks great, too.
It’s probably been 25 years since I last saw the film version of Edward Albee’s brilliant play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. But it’s time to declare some baggage. It’s one of my favorite plays of all time by one of my favorite playwrights. I saw the 2005 Broadway revival with Kathleen Turner and Bill Irwin twice. I even started to convince myself that Irwin’s interpretation of George was a more valid one than Burton’s. Not surprisingly, I was looking forward to revisiting this one with great anticipation. I wasn’t disappointed. Not only were all the performances riveting and compelling, Albee’s dialogue is given all due reverence. This was Mike Nichols film directing debut, previously better known as a performer and a theatre director. It’s very fortunate that he and the producers were wise enough to respect the fact that Albee’s writing was the most essential part. Apparently, the screenplay, adapted by Ernest Lehmann, was thrown out and replaced by all of Albee’s original dialogue save two lines. There are a few attempts to open it up, as the play took place all on one set. Though these attempts, particularly one to a roadhouse, are hardly necessary, they don’t detract from the power of the work at all. I could go on and on about this one. Perhaps the best work ever done by Taylor and Burton. Beautifully shot in black and white, both emphasizing the starkness of this existence and successfully masking the attractiveness of its two stars. Well, not entirely. Taylor is still quite attractive, but successfully pushed in the other direction to appear past her prime. I do want to say one last thing about my previous misconception about Burton’s performance and that of Bill Irwin’s on Broadway. Though revisiting this one reminded me of its power and I no doubt appreciated it more fully than I did in my teenage years, it in no way diminished the impact of the brilliant stage version. If anything, it reinforced how great the writing is, being malleable to all sorts of power dynamics. Two different but equally valid interpretations.
From a 130 minute film where the dialogue is almost nonstop, I moved on to Blow Up, Michelangelo Antonioni’s film about a young, brilliant, and temperamental photographer. Though artfully scored by Herbie Hancock, this film also has long sections with no dialogue and no score. I first saw this at a revival house only a few years ago, and this was one of the things that most impressed me. It’s hard to imagine contemporary audiences having the patience for this, when so many films are overscored and indicative, frequently cueing the viewer how to feel. When Hancock’s score was used, it reminded me, coming on the heels of Alfie and The Pawnbroker, how effective jazz can be as a scoring device. Unlike traditional film scoring, which, to some degree was parodied in Alphaville, jazz creates a mood in more of a subtle way. At least it does in these examples. This also continues the theme of antisocial young man mentioned in Alfie. David Hemmings character gets away with all sorts of horrible behavior, both in the way he treats his subjects, and in the way he constantly seems to be trying to keep people off balance. In one restaurant scene, he stops a passing waiter, simply points to a plate, indicating “I’ll have one of those” and merely says “and a pint.” Presumably he gets away with this because he’s a brilliant artist, and of course, this is always tolerated, especially in the fashion industry. One particular memorable version of this is a scene where he’s telling Vanessa Redgrave about his “wife.” As he tells the story, he keeps changing it, indicating that he’s married to her, but not, that they have kids, but not, that she’s easy to live with, but not, and that’s why they don’t live together, etc. This scene is also notable in the fact that Vanessa Redgrave is topless for a good portion of it, and Antonioni comes up with endless ways to shoot her without exposing her breasts. The nude scene in Austin Powers must have been partially inspired by this. Anyway, Hemmings discovers that he may or may not have witnessed a murder and in his investigation into this, his attitude changes entirely. As he tries to uncover this, he only gets further away from what may or may not have happened, and kept me second guessing what I had and hadn’t seen. The film finishes with more questions than answers. A murder mystery with no resolution. Some commentary I have read suggests it to be a criticism of 60’s youth culture. The cavalier and callous character perhaps representing young people mocking society and reevaluating when confronted with something real. If so, this represents a rather conservative point of view, as it ignores the very real social protest movement which was more than merely a rejection of norms but a confrontation of what was wrong with the system. Or that could be all bullshit. In any case, this is a very compelling film and I was glad to revisit it. Admittedly, the pace is rather slow at times, and I found I was more prepared for this on a second viewing.
Overall, I found 1966 to be one of the strongest years to date. I find the more films I screen that I’m truly engaged in, the less I find myself concerned with contextual analysis, re: why it’s on the list, how it fit into the climate, etc. And I’m not especially concerned with that. If the tone changes from entry to entry, if I’m inconsistent, I think that’s just how I want this to organically evolve. Certainly one of the most freeing things about the blogosphere is that I can make up my own rules. And then change them. Anyway, hope anyone paying attention out there is enjoying this. Just passed 100 hits and have acquired one follower. Not much in the scheme of things, or anything, but it is what is. Be back soon with 1967 part 1.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Day 28 and the delayed end of 1965
The Pawnbroker fascinated me on many levels. Rod Steiger’s performance was phenomenal, not only for his central performance, but playing two other distinct versions of himself in several brief but haunting flashback sequences. Interestingly enough, almost all the titles in ’64 and ’65 are in black and white. Perhaps coincidentally, the two that aren’t are my least favorite of the batch. In addition to Steiger’s gifts as an actor, black and white affords a 40 year old man the ability to convincingly play someone more than 20 years his senior for most of the film. As a New Yorker(adopted as I’ve only been here 13 years), I also found the location shooting fascinating, especially in the sequences where Steiger roamed the streets of Harlem, including a shot of the Apollo, where the massive marquee advertised such talents as Nina Simone and Flip Wilson. Although there were a few sequences where overly manipulative underscoring tended to intrude, for the most part, Quincy Jones’ score was a compelling character in itself. This may seem like little more than a trivia question, but I had no idea that, though not written for this film, Jones wrote the classic instrumental tune Soul Bossa Nova, included in one of the nightclub scenes. This is better known to contemporary audiences as the Austin Powers theme. None of this would matter if it weren’t for the incredible storytelling abilities of Sidney Lumet’s direction. As much as has been made of the young iconoclasts blazing the New Hollywood auteur movement, Lumet was over 40, working in the system for over a decade, starting in television, and created some of the most vital work out there. Coppola and Bogdanovich are still struggling to create anything close to what they had in this period. Somehow Lumet hasn’t waned.
I consume a great deal of cinema. And yet I have blind spots. Though I’ve often intended to change this, Godard is one of them. Alphaville was my first Godard film. I was fascinated from the beginning. The bleak futuristic vision looks like it cost about a buck fifty. The punctuating score acts as a parody of film noir detective films. Occasionally, there are long passages where voiceover stretches go on too long to establish the philosophy. And yet. I couldn’t take my eyes from this film. I occasionally backed up scenes to make sure I fully comprehended what was said. Though it was occasionally didactic and polemical, the style kept me off balance and intrigued. It does a wonderful job of showing a future that’s a little like our world but extended to the absurdist extreme. All decisions are made by machines. It, to some degree, is an extension of the nuclear nightmare scenarios from ’64. If we have the power to destroy the world, we can’t possibly make that decision ourselves. We must program machines to make these decisions logically. And, of course, when logic is pushed this far, it becomes illogical. People are executed for not being logical in bizarre rituals involving water ballet. Forbidden words are constantly being established, meaning new editions of dictionaries are issued almost constantly. It’s Phillip Marlowe, 1984, and a little Heart of Darkness all rolled into a campy philosophical treatise on the evils of mechanized society. Though uneven at times, I’m very glad this one was on the list.
Cat Ballou is the Technicolor studio film represented in 1965. It’s a crowd pleaser. A silly western goof, with singing troubadours Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye functioning as a singing Greek chorus, Jane Fonda as the title heroine, and Lee Marvin in a dual role that won him an Oscar. I think the reason this is here, aside from being a bit of comic relief in a year with oppressive and bleak titles, is that it’s more subversive than it appears at first glance. The lead character is a woman who doesn’t accept injustices nor her role in society. The town is horribly corrupt, with the sheriff providing an alibi for an assassin, all to protect corporate interests. It even has a positive, though very silly, portrayal of a native American(though that term wasn’t widely used at that point). Though perhaps not as artful, in its own way, this is in the same family as Dr. Strangelove, as it uses humor to portray some of the worst elements of our culture. Apparently, the Farrelly brothers love this movie. Its influence is clear in There’s Something About Mary. I’m pretty sure we wouldn’t have Roger Miller’s singing chicken in Disney’s animated Robin Hood without this one. But the first thing that I thought when I saw Cole and Kaye cheerfully warbling about Cat Ballou’s imminent hanging in the opening scene, was Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Cannibal the Musical. Not a film I think I need to see again. Probably the weakest this year. But a good deal of fun.
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold is our last title from 1965. Martin Ritt directs Richard Burton in a film based on John LeCarre’s novel. At a time when James Bond was at his peak, LeCarre’s Alec Leamas couldn’t be more removed from the glamorous world of Ian Fleming’s 007. He’s world weary and ready to be done with this business. Even his superiors freely admit that, though they think they’re working towards something good, there’s no real difference in tactics on either side. British espionage techniques are just as despicable as those of their Communist counterparts, but it’s presumed that the ends justify the means. Probably. When Leamas is told this by his superiors, they don’t even seem that convinced of it themselves. Rather than Bond’s dapper suits, scantily clad women, and swanky casinos, Leamas gets a cover of working class drudgery, rearranging books in a library. Though he is given a love interest, there doesn’t seem to be a great deal of joy in the relationship. No martinis here, Leamas’ drink of choice is cheap Scotch he has to bully the local grocer into giving him on credit. Ultimately, it turns out the mission he is given is not even what he’s told it is, resulting in a series of double and triple crosses. And the very government he’s given his life and, indeed his very vitality to, sets him up to sacrifice the woman he loves and, ultimately, himself. Ritt is another director who came up from ‘50’s television and came to be very well regarded for being an actor’s director, perhaps owing to his work in the Group Theater. Based on this, I’d say this is also because he’s not especially adventurous with technique, but lets things unfold in a very naturalistic way. Ritt, though not as prolific as Lumet, went on to other highly regarded work, the best known perhaps, being Norma Rae. He doesn’t show up on the list again until near the end with The Front. I’m looking forward to seeing it.
So, two years, and 11 titles in, how do these four contribute thematically and to the evolution of cinema? As to the latter, I’m not prepared to go there yet. I need to wait for that pattern to emerge. As to the former, the antiauthority theme remains and is perhaps growing. Those we’ve been led to trust are corrupt and corrupting us. The Pawnbroker has a man believing he’s been running a legitimate business for years which he discovers is a front for a local crime syndicate. Alphaville, well, it’s pretty much the whole movie there. Cat Ballou has a corrupt government bowing to corporate interests with much of the townspeople eagerly falling in line to accept it. And The Spy Who Came in From the Cold questions the very nature of whether any element of the Cold War is worth it. Perhaps the very nature of the conflict is our governments dragging us all into the gutter. So that’s it for 1965. On to 1966. Hopefully I won’t keep you waiting nearly two weeks this time for another entry. But, as its been very clear to me, there’s no predicting. Only good intentions. Until next time.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
I enjoyed A Hard Day’s Night. I’m a big Beatles fan. Though, admittedly, more of the later period than what was evidenced here. According to Wikipedia, Bob Dylan turned them on to weed in 1964, so I’m sure that was a crucial part of their artistic development. I actually saw this one a number of years ago, but I don’t think it made much of an impression on me. I will also concede that certain of the songs in this film such as the titular track(apparently only composed after it was chosen as the title for the film) and If I Fell certainly hint of the sophistication that is yet to come. I did find this film very enjoyable and I’m envious of what it must have been like to experience it at the time. In a year when three Elvis movies were cranked out, expectations for pop star vehicles must have been excruciatingly low. And yet, here are the Beatles, essentially playing themselves in an absurdist take on a day in the life of burgeoning pop sensations. Yes, they burst into song at peculiar times, but everything’s peculiar about the world of this film. That’s part of its charm. Though I didn’t necessarily appreciate it on a visceral level, I think I understand why it was important at the time. And, oddly, the more I research it and write about it, the more I look forward to seeing it again.
I first saw Fail Safe just a few years ago and looked forward to revisiting it. It was released by the same studio as Dr. Strangelove, but Kubrick had enough clout to insist that his film be released first. Though it received respectable reviews, it wasn’t embraced by audiences. In the wake of Strangelove, it was hard to take seriously. It got unintentional laughs. Henry Fonda, who played the president, even said that if he had seen Strangelove first, he probably wouldn’t have done Fail Safe. The plots are eerily similar. A number of planes accidentally are sent to attack the Soviet Union. The president negotiates with the Soviet premier. Crisis appears to be averted but one plane gets through resulting in catastrophe. I should be clear that everything just described occurs in both films. To be fair, Fail Safe is quite a remarkable film. And it also marks director Sidney Lumet’s first of five appearances on the list. Lumet is as prolific as Kubrick was perfectionist. He has 72 directing credits(mostly in film and some in television). Every decade Lumet worked in has remarkable examples of his work. His most recent film, 2007’s Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead, is as vital, if not more so, than directors half his age. Fail Safe could feel stagey or talky as it is heavily dialogue driven, yet it is always very cinematic and looks great. The cast, ranging from veterans to young up and comers always feels fully invested and the situations are riveting. In fairness to 1964 audiences though, I can understand how, after seeing Strangelove, the solution in this film might seem absurd. The president agrees that, if Moscow is destroyed, he will destroy New York City in exchange for the Soviets not retaliating. And then he does just that. Like the Kubrick film, it highlights the absurdity, though using a completely different technique. It’s amazing Lumet was able to sell this as believable. In an odd way, Fail Safe almost feels more optimistic about humanity. It ends very abruptly. And I felt for these seemingly good men who had to make this horrible choice. Strangelove, on the other hand, ends with the generals in the war room scheming about how, in 100 years, when the survivors emerge from the rubble, the Americans can start figuring out right away how to start getting the upper hand. In Kubrick’s world, the carnage is greater. Humanity is wiped out. But we had it coming.
The last 1964 film on the list is My Fair Lady. Winner of 13 Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor. I promised when I started doing this that I’d check my baggage upfront. I’ve already mentioned that Dr. Strangelove is one of my favorite films of all time. Truth is, it’s also the type of film I’m more inclined to like. Every other film on this list from 1964 is one I’m more inclined to like than this one. This is a studio picture directed by a man born in the 19th century who even described himself in such terms as “not an auteur” and “perfectly competent.” The casting for this film was based on who would sell tickets as opposed to who could do the job. As a result, Audrey Hepburn’s singing had to be dubbed by Marni Nixon. Baggage declared. That being said, I don’t feel like I went into this with a chip on my shoulder. It’s on the list. I wanted to give it a chance. And I liked it. For awhile. Though I thought Hepburn was overacting a bit in the early scenes, I often found myself laughing at her mugging in spite of myself. I found the film thoroughly engaging for the first half and a bit beyond. I enjoyed the acting, the music, the stylized approach. It actually has something in common with A Hard Day’s Night in the sense that it totally exists in its own world. I also appreciated the liberal use of Shaw’s dialogue from Pygmalion(the play it was based on). As a result, it certainly has a much better script than many musicals. Justin, my viewing partner for this one, was essentially on the same page as I was. Not inclined to like it, but curious nonetheless. In fact, he told me that one of the reasons he attended the screening is that he couldn’t imagine he’d choose it on his own. We were both charmed as the plot unfolded. As Eliza went from cockney flower girl to refined lady. It also occurred to me how Shaw was in a sense ahead of his time. That perhaps the sly social commentary on class anticipated the civil rights movement that was beginning to unfold. But maybe I’m giving it too much credit. Maybe this was just being in the right place at the right time. My point is that I liked it better than I expected. For a long time. But not long into the second half, we both started to tire. And when I say second half, I should point out that this is a nearly three hour film including an intermission. I’m not opposed to three hour films. To paraphrase Roger Ebert, no good film is long enough and no bad film is short enough. But it just didn’t feel like this one had enough story to justify its length. In the last half hour(perhaps more) it just started to feel a little self indulgent. Every song, when I thought it was over, just kept going. And going. I’m glad I saw this. I really think that these six films paint a picture of what was going on in cinema in 1964. But I must also add that of all the films on the list so far, it’s the one I’m least likely to want to watch all the way through again.
So that’s 1955 and 1964. Seven films. Five days. And ten days of other stuff happening. I promise to get this thing going again as soon as I can. You’ve been very patient, blogosphere. I promise I won’t let you down.