The film begins with the irresistible "grabber" of a dead Hollywood star spoken over in the authoritative tones of Bogart's character as a Hollywood writer who has seen too much not to be cynical. But looking past all the stiff rhetoric spoken by the film's 3 storytellers (the device used so memorably in "Citizen Kane"), we come back to the image of Gardner as the Contessa. We've been told she's conquered Hollywood and the world with her beguiling beauty, but where's the evidence?. Where's the vibrant spirit of this beguiling creature who has been exploited by the media system, then wafted away by a storybook Count who replaces Hollywood's false fantasy with his own illusory view of social royalty? Gardner's Contessa does not even manifest the vulnerability of a woman exploited first by the Hollywood system and next by a wounded patriarchy posing as the rescuing prince of the Cinderella story. The picture might have been redeemed by a younger, more vulnerable face--perhaps Audrey Hepburn's. As it stands, the movie--like the life-sized monument of Gardner (now in Frank Sinatra's garden)--is a statue, capable of arousing curiosity but not satisfying our need to know its inspiration. The film, like the statue, is an ambitious, provocative attempt at capturing a life-like beauty that is ultimately a meaningless--if not lifeless--totem.
Reviews
25 Reviews
The Brothers Karamazov
(1958)
Charismatic, inspiring film that led me to Dostoevsky and a Ph..D. in literature
20 October 2020
This movie, which I first saw 65 years ago (!), held me in its grip during and long after my time in the movie theater. Still a high school student, I quickly went to the novel and consumed it in mere weeks, not months (including the section on "The Grand Inquisitor," which is missing from the film. The images of the movie stayed with me while reading the novel (after which, the same author's "Crime and Punishment" was slow, drawn-out, thoroughly boring.)
One of the themes of the movie is the classic Oedipal struggle between father and son, which entails manliness, money, religious faith, and sex. I was struggling with my father's meek ways (like the sick little boy whose father is humiliated by Dmitri (Brynner). I didn't realize it at the time, but as a father today I recognize a similar rebellion and rejection in my relation with my own "grown-up" son.
But the film's under-appreciated performance is that of Maria Schell as Grushenka. Within seconds of meeting her, Dimitri is smitten--and the audience must feel the same for the story to work. Schell lights up the screen with the most memorable, expressive face--signifying joy, sensuality, carelessness, indifference, ironic detachment, total commitment--all in the language of cinema--not of the theatrical stage (the problem with the negative review quoted in the film's Wikipedia entry). Rumor long had it that the part was first offered to Marilyn Monroe. Though I'm also an M.M. fan, Maria Schell is the one and only Grushenka--the heart of this remarkable film.
One of the themes of the movie is the classic Oedipal struggle between father and son, which entails manliness, money, religious faith, and sex. I was struggling with my father's meek ways (like the sick little boy whose father is humiliated by Dmitri (Brynner). I didn't realize it at the time, but as a father today I recognize a similar rebellion and rejection in my relation with my own "grown-up" son.
But the film's under-appreciated performance is that of Maria Schell as Grushenka. Within seconds of meeting her, Dimitri is smitten--and the audience must feel the same for the story to work. Schell lights up the screen with the most memorable, expressive face--signifying joy, sensuality, carelessness, indifference, ironic detachment, total commitment--all in the language of cinema--not of the theatrical stage (the problem with the negative review quoted in the film's Wikipedia entry). Rumor long had it that the part was first offered to Marilyn Monroe. Though I'm also an M.M. fan, Maria Schell is the one and only Grushenka--the heart of this remarkable film.
99 River Street
(1953)
Exceptional "film noir" elevated to Actor's Studio status by Evelyn Keyes
7 April 2019
The film starts with John Payne's last match as a prize fighter, soon exposed as the memory of a "has-been" who, like Brando in "On the Waterfront," laments that he "could have been the champion" within hearing distance of his pretty but unsympathetic (and unfaithful) wife. He was sucker-punched after his opponent's count of 9, but the same won't happen in this under-dog's last fight--which occurs not in the ring but on the waterfront against criminals who have framed him and threaten to finish him.
The film would not rate ten stars for its conventional, crowd-pleasing ending or even for the believable performance by Payne as the hounded and harried, wronged and manic fighter. It's the captivating, dominating performance of Evenlyn Keyes in cooperation with a camera that one moment uses angles, dark-lit scenes, and split-second cutting (with the virtuosity of Hitchock's shower scene in 'Psycho") and, the next moment, goes to soft-lit, long takes that serve as a perfect complement to and showcase for the extraordinary acting skills of Keyes and perhaps the most expressive eyes ever seen on the silver screen (ironically, it's Payne who is blinded hot only by hard luck and poor choices but by the threat of permanent physical bllindness by his last fight . But there's more . . . It's not only Payne's character that gets sucker-punched by Keyes' eyes. In an amazing scene set in an apparently empty theater, Keyes gives a performance that continues for minutes without a single cut yet rivets our attention, making us her susceptible if not captive audience no less than her apparent auditor, Payne's character.
The only problem, for both Payne and the spectator, is that once we've been drawn in, or "sucker-punched" and "fooled" by Keyes' performance (suggestive of Circe's magical hold on not merely Odysseus but all the men who are attracted to her), neither Payne nor the spectator can trust her. Is she acting (the answer for the spectator is easy-- certainly an incontrovertible "yes"!) or is she being honest in her apparent conversion from actor to Payne's best friend and sincere supporter, bound to him by unqualified love?
Of course, it doesn't really matter. She's an actress who has proven that she can not only faithfully deliver but "transcend" any script. Next time I hear the familiar reference to "Betty Davis' eyes," I will instantly react with: "Wait until you see Eveyln Keyes' eyes." They're capable of replacing the cutting knife of the film's editor and the pan and tilt of the camera as well as the choreography of flying fists and falling bodies.
In short, this film manages, like only a few others, to penetrate the "4th wall" in Keye's singular scene in a theater where she speaks directly to and affects the fictional audience as well as the actual audience--the spectator of the film. Only one comparison comes quickly to mind. It's a sciene in which Maureen O'Hara plays a stripper in a burlesque theater from the 1940 romantic "comedy" "Dance, Girl, Dance," directed by the first woman filmmaker accepted in Hollywood, Dorothy Arzner.
The film would not rate ten stars for its conventional, crowd-pleasing ending or even for the believable performance by Payne as the hounded and harried, wronged and manic fighter. It's the captivating, dominating performance of Evenlyn Keyes in cooperation with a camera that one moment uses angles, dark-lit scenes, and split-second cutting (with the virtuosity of Hitchock's shower scene in 'Psycho") and, the next moment, goes to soft-lit, long takes that serve as a perfect complement to and showcase for the extraordinary acting skills of Keyes and perhaps the most expressive eyes ever seen on the silver screen (ironically, it's Payne who is blinded hot only by hard luck and poor choices but by the threat of permanent physical bllindness by his last fight . But there's more . . . It's not only Payne's character that gets sucker-punched by Keyes' eyes. In an amazing scene set in an apparently empty theater, Keyes gives a performance that continues for minutes without a single cut yet rivets our attention, making us her susceptible if not captive audience no less than her apparent auditor, Payne's character.
The only problem, for both Payne and the spectator, is that once we've been drawn in, or "sucker-punched" and "fooled" by Keyes' performance (suggestive of Circe's magical hold on not merely Odysseus but all the men who are attracted to her), neither Payne nor the spectator can trust her. Is she acting (the answer for the spectator is easy-- certainly an incontrovertible "yes"!) or is she being honest in her apparent conversion from actor to Payne's best friend and sincere supporter, bound to him by unqualified love?
Of course, it doesn't really matter. She's an actress who has proven that she can not only faithfully deliver but "transcend" any script. Next time I hear the familiar reference to "Betty Davis' eyes," I will instantly react with: "Wait until you see Eveyln Keyes' eyes." They're capable of replacing the cutting knife of the film's editor and the pan and tilt of the camera as well as the choreography of flying fists and falling bodies.
In short, this film manages, like only a few others, to penetrate the "4th wall" in Keye's singular scene in a theater where she speaks directly to and affects the fictional audience as well as the actual audience--the spectator of the film. Only one comparison comes quickly to mind. It's a sciene in which Maureen O'Hara plays a stripper in a burlesque theater from the 1940 romantic "comedy" "Dance, Girl, Dance," directed by the first woman filmmaker accepted in Hollywood, Dorothy Arzner.
Roma
(2018)
A Loving Tribute to Cinema's Most Some of Cinema's Past
1 April 2019
Warning: Spoilers
The story is set in the turbulent early '70s, a time of social change,student protests, Woodstock, Watergate, "Deep Throat," Viet Nam, and Plato's Retreat. At one extreme were the selfishness and sexual experimentation of a pre-HIV, pre-Apple computer group of self-indulgent flower children and child-adults who appropriated the term "swinger" from popular music and jazz and applied it to "free love" in the Age of Aquarius. At the other extreme were those who suffered from the worship of youth and the thoughtless behavior of self-possessed males whose fixation on penis size stymied growth in self-understanding and empathy.
Yet at such times cinema can serve as a "criticism of life," helping expose the root causes of social unrest and spiritual stagnation. At the time depicted by "Roma," many thoughtful, serious types were looking to the redemptive visions in the work of socially-conscious film "artists" such as Fellini and Bergman, André Bazin, Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson while European directors also looked to Hollywood directors like Wyler and cinematrapher Toland for the best techniques to "show the world as it is," as opposed to some fantastical escapist version of reality.
"Roma" is a love-letter to such visionary film artists of the past as well as to the public that revered their films. Even before any story is under way, director Caron allows us to see for ourselves the characters at work and play, along with the outer circumstances that influence and reveal the characters inner selves and relationship with others. Rather than a cinematic "construct" that makes the film editor the most important producer and manipulator of what we see and feel, the first hour of the film "preserves" the continuity of space and time with carefully composed, steady and stately, camera work and deep focus that are antithetical to the intentionally shaky cameras and shock editing of modern filmmakers intent on exciting spectators and pleasing the sponsors who can fund their next project.
The film loses its interest when it goes for some dramatic, even sensational, conflicts--the scene of a Dionysian party with the unfaithful husband, then of a widespread destructive fire, and shortly afterwards a violent demonstration that goes from the streets into a store, where the pregnant servant-maid and main character (Cleo), meets up with her faithless lover, who stays by her long enough to demonstrate his phallic power and pride but leaves when he impregnates her.
Cleo is neither beautiful nor strong, but she's an "over-achiever," whose empathy and creativity provoke her to "play dead" for the benefit of the children she's responsible for protecting and minding. And in the film's climax, she ignores her inability to swim and takes on the turbulent life-like ocean and its potentially lethal undertow by going into the waves--as deep and far as she's able--after giving birth to her own still-born child--to save the two children who have disobeyed their birth mother by not staying close to shore.
It's an act that binds this little community--a grandmother, a mother of 3 children, and a heroic dark-skinned Mexican nanny--we feel their emotion and loving trust and, thanks to the composition of the shot, the strength of a new family bond. The director's composition shows the group on the beach and in the formation of a triangle, the most rigid, or strong, of all shapes (as geometrists and architect-housebuilders know well).
The film uses moving objects--oversized American cars (Ford Galaxies)--to provoke the viewer to find life and meaning object soon seen as symbols--the car denoting excess, carelessness, male vanity and a sense of power. The film eschews a music score but compensates with images and sounds we trust far more than the contrived excitement of shaky cameras, jump cuts, and special effects. This is the kind of movie Bazin glimpsed in the work of Wyler and Welles, both indebted to the deep focus lens of cinematographer Greg Toland. The attention to a servant girl devoid of resources is close to the subtle characterization of Robert Bresson in "Mouchette. And the focus on details exposing the dynamics of a family evokes Ozu's masterful "Tokyo Story."
There's an important difference. The ending not only promises a loving household but allows the viewer to make sense of Cleo's ascent to the roof of the building via an outdoor ladder, or fire escape. There's a hint of danger as we look up at the mass of steel--a structure we see as more in line with Cleo's abilities to climb than anyone else's. And as Cleo disappears, leaving us with the structure and the sky, the sense of danger is mitigated by the hope we have in Cleo's ability to use a fire-escape not for its nominal purpose but to come closer to her dreams. Welles definied film as a "ribbon of dreams," Fof Cleo that definition is contradicted by her experinece with boyfriend Fermin (a phonetic twin of "Vermin") in a movie theater. But it might be applied to the fire-escape--or to the viewer's experience of seeing Cleo through the lens of a camera we have learned to trust like that of the film auteurs of the last century.
Yet at such times cinema can serve as a "criticism of life," helping expose the root causes of social unrest and spiritual stagnation. At the time depicted by "Roma," many thoughtful, serious types were looking to the redemptive visions in the work of socially-conscious film "artists" such as Fellini and Bergman, André Bazin, Jean Renoir and Robert Bresson while European directors also looked to Hollywood directors like Wyler and cinematrapher Toland for the best techniques to "show the world as it is," as opposed to some fantastical escapist version of reality.
"Roma" is a love-letter to such visionary film artists of the past as well as to the public that revered their films. Even before any story is under way, director Caron allows us to see for ourselves the characters at work and play, along with the outer circumstances that influence and reveal the characters inner selves and relationship with others. Rather than a cinematic "construct" that makes the film editor the most important producer and manipulator of what we see and feel, the first hour of the film "preserves" the continuity of space and time with carefully composed, steady and stately, camera work and deep focus that are antithetical to the intentionally shaky cameras and shock editing of modern filmmakers intent on exciting spectators and pleasing the sponsors who can fund their next project.
The film loses its interest when it goes for some dramatic, even sensational, conflicts--the scene of a Dionysian party with the unfaithful husband, then of a widespread destructive fire, and shortly afterwards a violent demonstration that goes from the streets into a store, where the pregnant servant-maid and main character (Cleo), meets up with her faithless lover, who stays by her long enough to demonstrate his phallic power and pride but leaves when he impregnates her.
Cleo is neither beautiful nor strong, but she's an "over-achiever," whose empathy and creativity provoke her to "play dead" for the benefit of the children she's responsible for protecting and minding. And in the film's climax, she ignores her inability to swim and takes on the turbulent life-like ocean and its potentially lethal undertow by going into the waves--as deep and far as she's able--after giving birth to her own still-born child--to save the two children who have disobeyed their birth mother by not staying close to shore.
It's an act that binds this little community--a grandmother, a mother of 3 children, and a heroic dark-skinned Mexican nanny--we feel their emotion and loving trust and, thanks to the composition of the shot, the strength of a new family bond. The director's composition shows the group on the beach and in the formation of a triangle, the most rigid, or strong, of all shapes (as geometrists and architect-housebuilders know well).
The film uses moving objects--oversized American cars (Ford Galaxies)--to provoke the viewer to find life and meaning object soon seen as symbols--the car denoting excess, carelessness, male vanity and a sense of power. The film eschews a music score but compensates with images and sounds we trust far more than the contrived excitement of shaky cameras, jump cuts, and special effects. This is the kind of movie Bazin glimpsed in the work of Wyler and Welles, both indebted to the deep focus lens of cinematographer Greg Toland. The attention to a servant girl devoid of resources is close to the subtle characterization of Robert Bresson in "Mouchette. And the focus on details exposing the dynamics of a family evokes Ozu's masterful "Tokyo Story."
There's an important difference. The ending not only promises a loving household but allows the viewer to make sense of Cleo's ascent to the roof of the building via an outdoor ladder, or fire escape. There's a hint of danger as we look up at the mass of steel--a structure we see as more in line with Cleo's abilities to climb than anyone else's. And as Cleo disappears, leaving us with the structure and the sky, the sense of danger is mitigated by the hope we have in Cleo's ability to use a fire-escape not for its nominal purpose but to come closer to her dreams. Welles definied film as a "ribbon of dreams," Fof Cleo that definition is contradicted by her experinece with boyfriend Fermin (a phonetic twin of "Vermin") in a movie theater. But it might be applied to the fire-escape--or to the viewer's experience of seeing Cleo through the lens of a camera we have learned to trust like that of the film auteurs of the last century.
The last shall be first but not until the next game
17 March 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Paul Brown's new Cincinnati Bengals with 1 win and 5 losses would hit bottom after this game with the Steelers, leaving them with a "hopeless" 1 win vs. 7 losses at mid-season in 1970. But the next week the Bengals would begin a march to the top, winning all of their remaining 7 games with a healthy Virgil Carter to end the season with an 8-6 record and a Division Championship in the AFT Central. Steeler fans can enjoy their one victory against rival Cincinnati and catch a glimpse of their heavily promoted new quarterback. Coming with expectations that he would be a welcome "shot in the arm" for the Steelers, Terry Bradshaw shoots himself in the foot with 4 completions in 12 attempts for.a grand total of 40 meaningless yards. But rival QBTerry Hanratty would lead the team to victory with help from former Big Ten basketball player, Preston Pearson (who never played a down of football at U. of ILL) and Don Hoak in a potent Steeler running attack. Nevertheless, the 3-4 Steelers would lose their last three games to end the season with 5 wins and 9 losses, putting them in 3rd place in the AFC Central Division.
NFL Monday Night Football
(1970– )
When the game was real -- played with few rules and even less protection.
11 March 2019
I shudder to think of some of the serious injuries to those who risked life and limb for the sport not to mention the more subtle but equally devastating effects on cognitive function, often going undetected for decades after retirement. But the game was definitely more close-up, exciting and "real" during the '70s (the so-called "dead ball era" with lower scores and less yardage along with impenetrable defenses like Pittsburgh's "Steel Curtain") and the '80s (despite rules against bumping receivers all the way down field and prohibiting defenders from grabbing quarterbacks' faces and necks, players were not as yet monitored by digital medical devices during play, and they did not wear outsized "bubble-head" helmets to guard against "concussing." Nor did they look like cartoon figures in bright, colorful tights indistinguishable from icons in a video game. But the game continues to attract sponsors along with big sums of money, so if enhanced media hype can compensate for the loss of human authenticity, the game will survive. However, some of us will never get over the game as it used to be played--and covered--by a fight promoter (Cosell) and several of the game's more eccentric ex-players. Today I occasionally watch a few minutes of the game, but I prefer watching hours of the Lombardi Packers and Ditka Bears, the Paul Brown Browns and the Paul Brown Bengals. I just pray the games from the '70s and '80s are maintained in pristine condition and are available for years to come.
Seminal football: a contrast between two styles of play.
11 March 2019
This game looms larger with time and hindsight. First, it was a shoot-out between the NFL's #1-rated passer, Ken Anderson, and the game's renowned rusher, O.J. Simpson. 2nd, it was a contrast between the old hard-nosed style of solid defense and rushing vs. the new style devised by Bengal QB coach Bill Walsh--an aerial attack bringing more yardage, scoring and fun. Ironically, the new style became known as the "West Coast Offense" even though its point of origin was Cincinnati and rising star Anderson. This would be head coach Paul Brown's last Monday Night game. The football legend--founder of the Cleveland Browns and of the new Cincinnati team--would retire at the end of the '75 season. But the game is, above all, a rare opportunity to see the best of the old (Simpson in top form) vs. the new (Anderson throwing like the sky's the limit). Regardless of fans' preference, Bill Walsh's vision would soon dominate professional football--on the West Coast, the East, and in the Heartland.
Not representative of the newly competitive Bengals
10 March 2019
Under quarterback Ken Anderson, the Bengals with legendary head coach Paul Brown and quarterback coach Bill Walsh were still a new team to the tough AFL Central Division. They had already emerged as a viable threat to the seemingly invincible Steelers, whom they had tied for their Division Title in 1973, a year that would end with the Dolphins winning their 2nd consecutive Super Bowl. Anderson, a raw talent discovered, scouted and groomed by future '48er coach Walsh, was the sole Bengal star, who in '74 would win the first of four #1 Passer ratings (placing him 2nd best of all time) while putting up NFL-leading numbers in total yardage and yards gained per completion. But to be effective, Anderson, like Shula's Dolphins, needed receivers and a rushing game. The Bengals on this night had no weapons to offer the largely frustrated quarterback. Essex Johnson, their most effective rusher, was lost to injury, and the sensational speedster, wide receiver Isaac Curtis was neutralized by Shula's combination of a relentless pass rush and triple-teaming of the league's fastest receiver. This is a game from the "Era of the Dead Ball" that lives up to its name. Dolphins' fans will enjoy it; Bengals' fans can be grateful that games like this would become increasingly rare for this young, usually productive team.
Let's Make Love
(1960)
Problematic, but don't hang it on Marilyn.
24 March 2018
Marilyn lights up every scene in which she's not engulfed by the large frame of Montand. She's no less captivating in "Let's Make Love" then she is in "Gentlemen Marry Blondes" when she descends an artificial staircase buttressed by two other leggy actresses who can't for a moment take our gaze away from Marilyn.
Nevertheless, the film feels awkward and slow, with a jolting, herky-jerky movement from from one scene to the next. Part of the unease is due to the feminist responses--some, like Gloria Steinem's, in book-length form--that attempt to portray Marilyn as a victim, created and manipulated by the machinery and machinations of a patriarchal Hollywood system. No matter than the autonomous energy and power that Marilyn radiates in every scene give the lie to the notion that she was used and abused as a puppet responding to the strings of her male masters. There was only one Marilyn--whether seen as the essence of glamour and sexiness--or the big screen's brightest female comedienne.
It's Marilyn who has power over us, demanding and commanding our gaze, more than any of her "handlers" had control of her. But her talent is based on far more than looks and choreography. The sound of her voice is at one moment "breathy" and the next (especially during her singing) full of ringing overtones, like the 1000 bells that Frank Capra attributed to the speaking voice of Jean Arthur. So enough of the feminist criticisms of this film for enacting the "entrapment" of Marilyn that she was alleged to experience off-screen. Her free spirit resists containment, despite the many attempts of academic minds to wrap their book covers around it.
The failures of the film are not the fault of Montand, who can't help it if his large physical size accompanied by undeniable talent, charm and grace, are simply not "right" for the part he's been asked to play. Of the male co-stars originally proposed for the role--Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Rock Hudson--Stewart is the one for whom the only objection might be his age. An extraordinary (if underrated) actor--with unlimited range--by 1960 Stewart was no longer George Bailey (from "It's a Wonderful Life") or even Scottie (from "Vertigo"). But the major problem with the film is it's sheer scale. The producers seemed so enamored of the period's technology--super-Cinemascope plus high-fidelity, multi-track film--that neglected more important elements like story, character development and a film score.
On my television screen, the blown-up images threaten to crop out Tony Randall's image in every scene. Like the story, Hollywood's cutting-edge technology creates images that are to simply overblown, or inflated, to create any "suspension of disbelief" experienced by the viewer. Even the length of the project--2 hours--is twice, maybe 4 times, the time needed to tell and "sell" this one-idea story, which could have easily been done in a 30-minute sit-com.
Nevertheless, all of the reported off-screen problems-- with writers, directors, stars, labor strikes, make-up artists and costume designers--would have meant nothing to anybody--if the picture and been an instant commercial success. Advice: don't read anything more about this movie. Instead, just watch the film. Or just watch Marilyn.
(Addendum: Today the words "make love" have acquired a much more specific meaning--practically a euphemism for "the act itself"--than was the case in 1960. Up until 1968 "making love" referred to nothing more than cuddling and kissing. So lighten up and enjoy the vital, unique talent of the screen's inimitable siren, Marilyn.)
Nevertheless, the film feels awkward and slow, with a jolting, herky-jerky movement from from one scene to the next. Part of the unease is due to the feminist responses--some, like Gloria Steinem's, in book-length form--that attempt to portray Marilyn as a victim, created and manipulated by the machinery and machinations of a patriarchal Hollywood system. No matter than the autonomous energy and power that Marilyn radiates in every scene give the lie to the notion that she was used and abused as a puppet responding to the strings of her male masters. There was only one Marilyn--whether seen as the essence of glamour and sexiness--or the big screen's brightest female comedienne.
It's Marilyn who has power over us, demanding and commanding our gaze, more than any of her "handlers" had control of her. But her talent is based on far more than looks and choreography. The sound of her voice is at one moment "breathy" and the next (especially during her singing) full of ringing overtones, like the 1000 bells that Frank Capra attributed to the speaking voice of Jean Arthur. So enough of the feminist criticisms of this film for enacting the "entrapment" of Marilyn that she was alleged to experience off-screen. Her free spirit resists containment, despite the many attempts of academic minds to wrap their book covers around it.
The failures of the film are not the fault of Montand, who can't help it if his large physical size accompanied by undeniable talent, charm and grace, are simply not "right" for the part he's been asked to play. Of the male co-stars originally proposed for the role--Gregory Peck, Gary Cooper, James Stewart, Cary Grant, Rock Hudson--Stewart is the one for whom the only objection might be his age. An extraordinary (if underrated) actor--with unlimited range--by 1960 Stewart was no longer George Bailey (from "It's a Wonderful Life") or even Scottie (from "Vertigo"). But the major problem with the film is it's sheer scale. The producers seemed so enamored of the period's technology--super-Cinemascope plus high-fidelity, multi-track film--that neglected more important elements like story, character development and a film score.
On my television screen, the blown-up images threaten to crop out Tony Randall's image in every scene. Like the story, Hollywood's cutting-edge technology creates images that are to simply overblown, or inflated, to create any "suspension of disbelief" experienced by the viewer. Even the length of the project--2 hours--is twice, maybe 4 times, the time needed to tell and "sell" this one-idea story, which could have easily been done in a 30-minute sit-com.
Nevertheless, all of the reported off-screen problems-- with writers, directors, stars, labor strikes, make-up artists and costume designers--would have meant nothing to anybody--if the picture and been an instant commercial success. Advice: don't read anything more about this movie. Instead, just watch the film. Or just watch Marilyn.
(Addendum: Today the words "make love" have acquired a much more specific meaning--practically a euphemism for "the act itself"--than was the case in 1960. Up until 1968 "making love" referred to nothing more than cuddling and kissing. So lighten up and enjoy the vital, unique talent of the screen's inimitable siren, Marilyn.)
Rage in Heaven
(1941)
One quick fix away from becoming a good movie
19 December 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Christopher Isherwood, one of the leading authors and Marxist-influenced critics of the 1930s, served as primary scriptwriter of a film that he viewed as Marxist allegory. The character of the paranoid, clinically homicidal Robert Montgomery symbolizes the deformity that a capitalist system inflicts upon human potential. Just as the greed-driven lust for wealth deprives human beings of the capacity to love, enforcing a view of all human beings as rivals in a self-obsessed quest for wealth, Montgomery's character is a study in the congenital madness that perverts human potential into pathological narcissism (a condition that inevitably affects the falsely "populist" leaders of a society).
The movie would have worked if the roles of the two leads had been switched. Sanders has the dominating physical presence to be spoiled child-man one instant, aristocratic but generous and dignified boss the next--in other words, Sanders would have been totally convincing in the role that, for whatever reason, was beyond Robert Montgomery.
As for Montgomery, he was sufficiently good-looking to play the wronged victim who is exonerated and rewarded with the previously misplaced love of Ingrid Bergman.
The movie would have worked if the roles of the two leads had been switched. Sanders has the dominating physical presence to be spoiled child-man one instant, aristocratic but generous and dignified boss the next--in other words, Sanders would have been totally convincing in the role that, for whatever reason, was beyond Robert Montgomery.
As for Montgomery, he was sufficiently good-looking to play the wronged victim who is exonerated and rewarded with the previously misplaced love of Ingrid Bergman.
Mr. Church
(2016)
Close to a perfect melodrama (PC litmus-testers and music-insensitive viewers, look elsewhere)
17 July 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Yes, this exquisite melodrama places Eddie Murphy in a role of loving service ("Godliness," in Christian theology of grace) while grounding him as an individual with his own problems in finding love. Everything is "right" about the film--not a wasted, poorly lit or purposeless shot. Like the Billie Holiday song about loneliness that it references, the film is that perfectly constructed jazz solo that plays itself out once, awakening buried emotions and eliciting tears of joy. What we experience is the love from a parent or caring friend and a desire to reciprocate it--a momentary solace at discovering our commonly shared humanity.
Yes, the film is sentimental and manipulative. It knows the emotions it's after and the audience it's targeting. But it's not the sappy or unearned emotion of a formulaic "Patch Adams." Early in "Mr. Church" I became aware that I hadn't seen cinematography like this until the stunning close-ups of food, books and characters made me realize how inadequate most films--including television dramas-- are at engaging our senses and our interest without car wrecks, assassinations, bloody bodies and ample sex. "Mr. Church" uses a screen play that any literate adult with a memory will relate to in the first five minutes. If you grew up with a loving mother or with books that are classics or with adults who sacrificed for you--or with loved ones who died, you will respond to this film.
As subjective, thinking beings we can experience "deep thoughts" and invent marvelous new things, but we can't be anyone else but ourselves--a necessarily lonely state, lightened by our awareness of others we have known, present and past. That's the only saving grace that any of us--rich or poor, black or white, straight or gay, famous or ineligible for Wikipedia, born in the USA or somewhere else--can hope for at the moment of our last glimpse of the dying light.
Yes, the film is sentimental and manipulative. It knows the emotions it's after and the audience it's targeting. But it's not the sappy or unearned emotion of a formulaic "Patch Adams." Early in "Mr. Church" I became aware that I hadn't seen cinematography like this until the stunning close-ups of food, books and characters made me realize how inadequate most films--including television dramas-- are at engaging our senses and our interest without car wrecks, assassinations, bloody bodies and ample sex. "Mr. Church" uses a screen play that any literate adult with a memory will relate to in the first five minutes. If you grew up with a loving mother or with books that are classics or with adults who sacrificed for you--or with loved ones who died, you will respond to this film.
As subjective, thinking beings we can experience "deep thoughts" and invent marvelous new things, but we can't be anyone else but ourselves--a necessarily lonely state, lightened by our awareness of others we have known, present and past. That's the only saving grace that any of us--rich or poor, black or white, straight or gay, famous or ineligible for Wikipedia, born in the USA or somewhere else--can hope for at the moment of our last glimpse of the dying light.
Pee-wee's Big Holiday
(2016)
Indescribably satisfying sequel that surpasses previous "Pee-Wee" adventures
27 March 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Pee Wee's Big Adventure had its share of charming, memorable scenes, frequently putting me inside of the child's mind. It was a movie going further than Orson Welles' own masterworks to demonstrate the great auteur's definition of film as "a ribbon of dreams." Pee Wee never strains to achieve a willing suspension of disbelief: he puts us in that state effortlessly and without apology, allowing us to see the movie-making process from conception through implementation through the final effect--which is not a semblance of reality or an imitation of life. Instead, the show is what it is: a movie less like the movies we remember than about the total belief we recall having in the films we loved as children--movies we trusted to renew our imaginary connections every Saturday afternoon.
Any limitations in the previous Pee Wee films are forgiven with the arrival of "Pee Wee's Big Holiday." Even some 20 years after "Adventure," "Holiday" retains the weird, nerd-like, indeterminate child character of the earlier Pee Wee--all of the same wonder, fears, habits, obsessions. But there's a difference: this is a wiser, more educable, more sympathetic Pee Wee who has stepped out of the world of innocence to acquire enough adulthood to make us take his character more seriously, even measuring it against our own "growing." And that difference is due not so much to the persona of Pee Wee, who remains little changed, though how he's reflecting, albeit in the most subtle ways, the maturity and adult awareness of a changed Paul Reubens.
The framework is classic: the hero's journey, or the Jungian archetype celebrated by Joseph Campbell and taught in virtually all screenplay classes. Not that Reubens is bound to each detail of the plan, but though Pee Wee remains largely "passive," his adventures produce, besides the Rube Goldberg opening and numerous gags and allusions to the movies (specific and general--for example, the early '30's movie starring Kate Hepburn as an aviator who breaks an altitude record ("Christopher Strong") as well as the B movies about glamorous women in prisons (here it's pillow fights that replace more harmful weapons).
But there's a difference. Pee Wee has made a pledge to his friend Joe--a very real "manly man" who's having a birthday party to which he invites Pee Wee. As strong as the hero's 20-year endeavor in the original "Odyssey" of Homer, Pee Wee is determined to make it to the Big Apple {NYC} in time to attend the party. Along the way there are numerous "learning" or "teaching" moments which are impossible not to see as semi-autobiographical, an explanation on the part of Paul Reubens himself that simultaneously justifies the meaning of his life, the life of his character, and above all the life of the imagination.
The end need not be specifically addressed (I know--no spoilers) except that, as in the original archetype, the darkest night precedes the dawn. Pee Wee's (and Reubens') redemption is at once an action of grace and of a certain amount of painful commitment on the protagonist's part. And as the archetype demands, the hero's circle is completed when he returns to his rural community of Fairview, not a sadder but a wiser person, having had a relationship that is lasting and real. In the process, Pee Wee's miniature world is exposed: it's the microcosm of the bigger world.
Thus, Pee Wee teaches his friend Joe the value of miniaturizing a world as vast and overwhelming as NYC itself, by placing in perspective and gaining ownership of this vast space. And Pee Wee's friend, Joe, gives to Pee wee access to a greater world than that of his child's imagination. NYC is not Fairview's opposite but its projection--in terms of the narrative goal and its much bigger, real life scale. Each world is "indexed" to the other, and the negotiation between the two worlds is required for living life with a balance between artifice and reality, small and great, child and man.
But it's Paul Reubens who has come of age--and without sacrificing any of the qualities that originally endeared us to his creation. Pee Wee is still a child-man, but he's grown: we can now gain our first glimpses of "the child that is father of the man." Living, growing, learning--like the movies, it all requires an understanding of "scale."
Any limitations in the previous Pee Wee films are forgiven with the arrival of "Pee Wee's Big Holiday." Even some 20 years after "Adventure," "Holiday" retains the weird, nerd-like, indeterminate child character of the earlier Pee Wee--all of the same wonder, fears, habits, obsessions. But there's a difference: this is a wiser, more educable, more sympathetic Pee Wee who has stepped out of the world of innocence to acquire enough adulthood to make us take his character more seriously, even measuring it against our own "growing." And that difference is due not so much to the persona of Pee Wee, who remains little changed, though how he's reflecting, albeit in the most subtle ways, the maturity and adult awareness of a changed Paul Reubens.
The framework is classic: the hero's journey, or the Jungian archetype celebrated by Joseph Campbell and taught in virtually all screenplay classes. Not that Reubens is bound to each detail of the plan, but though Pee Wee remains largely "passive," his adventures produce, besides the Rube Goldberg opening and numerous gags and allusions to the movies (specific and general--for example, the early '30's movie starring Kate Hepburn as an aviator who breaks an altitude record ("Christopher Strong") as well as the B movies about glamorous women in prisons (here it's pillow fights that replace more harmful weapons).
But there's a difference. Pee Wee has made a pledge to his friend Joe--a very real "manly man" who's having a birthday party to which he invites Pee Wee. As strong as the hero's 20-year endeavor in the original "Odyssey" of Homer, Pee Wee is determined to make it to the Big Apple {NYC} in time to attend the party. Along the way there are numerous "learning" or "teaching" moments which are impossible not to see as semi-autobiographical, an explanation on the part of Paul Reubens himself that simultaneously justifies the meaning of his life, the life of his character, and above all the life of the imagination.
The end need not be specifically addressed (I know--no spoilers) except that, as in the original archetype, the darkest night precedes the dawn. Pee Wee's (and Reubens') redemption is at once an action of grace and of a certain amount of painful commitment on the protagonist's part. And as the archetype demands, the hero's circle is completed when he returns to his rural community of Fairview, not a sadder but a wiser person, having had a relationship that is lasting and real. In the process, Pee Wee's miniature world is exposed: it's the microcosm of the bigger world.
Thus, Pee Wee teaches his friend Joe the value of miniaturizing a world as vast and overwhelming as NYC itself, by placing in perspective and gaining ownership of this vast space. And Pee Wee's friend, Joe, gives to Pee wee access to a greater world than that of his child's imagination. NYC is not Fairview's opposite but its projection--in terms of the narrative goal and its much bigger, real life scale. Each world is "indexed" to the other, and the negotiation between the two worlds is required for living life with a balance between artifice and reality, small and great, child and man.
But it's Paul Reubens who has come of age--and without sacrificing any of the qualities that originally endeared us to his creation. Pee Wee is still a child-man, but he's grown: we can now gain our first glimpses of "the child that is father of the man." Living, growing, learning--like the movies, it all requires an understanding of "scale."
Vertigo
(1958)
"Citizen Kane's main rival
25 February 2016
"Vertigo" is Hitchcock's most resonant, inexhaustible, resonant film. The plot is no more relevant that the libretto of the best opera. It's the combined "music" created by the cinematography, directing, acting, and Bernard Hermann's score that makes "Vertigo" the screen's equivalent of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde." There's no more spinte-tingling moment in all of cinema than Judy's transformation into Madeleine as seen through the eyes of the screen's most talented, versatile, intense, believable actor, James Stewart . No moment affirms the power of eat cinema to exert a suspension of disbelief rivaling, as Coleridge would maintain, the Almighty Creator's.
Inspector George Gently
(2007–2017)
As good as it gets -- for viewers who normally prefer Shakespeare to TV drama
12 December 2015
Warning: Spoilers
I've just finished Series 6 (2014), after thinking each prior season couldn't be topped. "Blue for Bluebird" cuts so deeply in a viewer's psyche, that anyone who is a child of a parent or parent of a child can't afford to pass it up. I'm at once John Bacchus' Cordelia to Gently's Lear and Bachus's Lear toward his own Cordelia. I'm done with all American series--NCIS, Law and Order, Bones, Criminal Minds--all of it pretentious, exploitive, escapist. The formulas soon becoming numbing--people viewing screens (that never require rebooting); scenes always ending with the central character rushing off (as if he had more important things to do); ghoulish fixation on dead bodies and body parts; hot babes and cool hunks for the groupies; repetitious lightweight musical scores. But "George Gently" rises above even its British rivals--Hustle, Morse, Endeavor. It's the importance of every detail, the willingness to have everything in place for a microsecond shot of ordinary citizens in their harsh environments; the characters of Gently and Bacchus and their relationship over time (we witness it through physical as well as emotional changes). Initially Inglespy is an overachieving kid who seems in over his head; Martin Shaw is a placid, stone-like, solid investigator. By the time of the last episode of Season 6 (a masterpiece of writing), Shaw has emerged as a actor of unsurpassed believability, the heart and soul of a production that rarely veers from its driving theme and purpose: the dissection of the thin line that separates love from hate, evil and irremediable pain and suffering. This series would be unthinkable on the big American networks (even PBS). I couldn't recommend it more highly-- from production values, to casting and acting, to the edification of the viewer's mind and soul.
Outrage
(1950)
Still of vital importance to cinematic and cultural representations of rape in modern society.
29 October 2014
The didacticism and sheer sweetness (a function of film score as well as script and direction) of the cinematic action following the deft direction of a traumatic rape scene will strike many of today's viewers as dated. But upon closer inspection "Outrage" is subtle where least expected--both in terms of its understandings of rape and its expression of a feminine point of view in cinema.
Lupino will not allow a male finance's hasty and almost violent insistence on marriage immediately following the rape of the protagonist (played by Mala Powers) to become separated in the victim's--and by extension the viewer's--mind from the central theme, and plot-motivating device, of rape itself. The villainy of rape cannot be solved by the seemingly heroic gesture of the male, whose "sacrifice" places as much emphasis on the woman's exceptional circumstances as do the violation committed by the rapist. Such attempts to deny the reality of rape simply serve to ensure its persistence. The attempt to erase part of victim's past is another way of treating her as less than human.
The scene in which Powers' character hits an overly aggressive playboy with a wrench lacks the semblance of realism because Lupino shoots it from the point of view of the victim whose action in the present is dictated by the emotions triggered by her remembrance of the past. It's doubtful that any male director would have captured the scene in such non-violent, non-realistic detail and yet enabled us to see the action for what it is--an attempt by the character to erase the impression that the initial criminal act has left on her emotion-mental being.
Some modern viewers will no doubt accuse Lupino of being overly idealistic in portraying the rapist less as a criminal than himself the victim of an illness--one that would be curable, moreover, in a more socially aware and progressive culture. Unfortunately, the sheer logistics of psychological treatment leading to cures of those guilty of such heinous criminal acts will make Lupino's sentiments seem hopelessly naive to today's viewers. But is that sufficient reason to fault the director for acknowledging the gender divide as a two-way street?
Aside: Notice the scene in which the empowering new male friend is shown playing the piano from a camera POV just opposite his hands. In a subsequent scene, the piano is shown placed against the wall, which would make such a shot impossible.
As first I couldn't help but marvel at the similarity of a heavy detective to Hal March, host of the the highly popular "60,000 Question," prior to its exposure. Looking at the credits will reveal that it IS Hal March (the loss of 15-20 pounds obviously didn't hurt his career as much as the downfall of the popular quiz show).
Lupino will not allow a male finance's hasty and almost violent insistence on marriage immediately following the rape of the protagonist (played by Mala Powers) to become separated in the victim's--and by extension the viewer's--mind from the central theme, and plot-motivating device, of rape itself. The villainy of rape cannot be solved by the seemingly heroic gesture of the male, whose "sacrifice" places as much emphasis on the woman's exceptional circumstances as do the violation committed by the rapist. Such attempts to deny the reality of rape simply serve to ensure its persistence. The attempt to erase part of victim's past is another way of treating her as less than human.
The scene in which Powers' character hits an overly aggressive playboy with a wrench lacks the semblance of realism because Lupino shoots it from the point of view of the victim whose action in the present is dictated by the emotions triggered by her remembrance of the past. It's doubtful that any male director would have captured the scene in such non-violent, non-realistic detail and yet enabled us to see the action for what it is--an attempt by the character to erase the impression that the initial criminal act has left on her emotion-mental being.
Some modern viewers will no doubt accuse Lupino of being overly idealistic in portraying the rapist less as a criminal than himself the victim of an illness--one that would be curable, moreover, in a more socially aware and progressive culture. Unfortunately, the sheer logistics of psychological treatment leading to cures of those guilty of such heinous criminal acts will make Lupino's sentiments seem hopelessly naive to today's viewers. But is that sufficient reason to fault the director for acknowledging the gender divide as a two-way street?
Aside: Notice the scene in which the empowering new male friend is shown playing the piano from a camera POV just opposite his hands. In a subsequent scene, the piano is shown placed against the wall, which would make such a shot impossible.
As first I couldn't help but marvel at the similarity of a heavy detective to Hal March, host of the the highly popular "60,000 Question," prior to its exposure. Looking at the credits will reveal that it IS Hal March (the loss of 15-20 pounds obviously didn't hurt his career as much as the downfall of the popular quiz show).
No Country for Old Men
(2007)
A Giant Leap from "Fargo" to Kierkegaard, Sartre and Camus
30 April 2012
The title comes from the opening line of W. B. Yeats' famous poem "Sailing to Byzantium," in which the aging narrator wishes to exchange his hard life in Ireland ("no country for old men") for an imaginary aesthetic existence in ancient Byzantium. But neither the novelist (Cormac McCarthy) nor the Coen brothers are promising any sort of deliverance through art or any other imagined alternative to mortal existence. This isn't a story for elitist intellectuals and interpreters of Yeats' frequently arcane visions. On the other hand, it's not a story for those those film-goers who insist on a traditional "movie bad guy" and simply cannot, or refuse to, see the universal and very personal meanings represented by the characters, all of whom--from Barden's unstoppable killer to Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff--mirror our deepest desires, fears, and insecurities. Although not a movie serving up the escape and closure expected by traditional theater audiences, it nevertheless has the power to grip and engage the viewer like few other films. And like a Flannery O'Connor short story, its dark humor and violence ultimately lodge in personal consciousness (I frankly was hanging on to my seat with white knuckles to the very end, before leaving the theater "sadder but wiser" for the experience).
The story is the Coen brothers' "bait" to get the viewer to think about non-trivial matters. After all, it's only we humans who are blessed with "self-consciousness"-- with the capacity to think about our individual "identities," and even about our own life and death. The key to putting together all that the spectator has experienced comes with the appearance of Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff in the final scene of the movie. He says that he's quitting as sheriff. He had expected "God to somehow come into his life" but is now too fully aware that God (much less he himself) is over-matched. The film's nemesis is a merciless "executioner" with less conscience than The Terminator and sufficient inscrutability to make even Woody Harrelson's perceptive diagnosis of him (as a psychopathic killer with principles, albeit devoid of "morality") inadequate. We, like the sheriff, are now faced with the inescapability of our own mortality and with re-visioning our past life in light of this disturbing reality.
Josh Brolin appears to be the sympathetic "hero." he has a John Wayne-like rugged individualism, a knack for survival, and commands instant respect from those around him once they learn of his service in "Nam"--but that won't cut it in the relentless, fatalistic, chancy determinism that, in the Coen Brothers' view of modern existence, controls our lives. Brolin's conscience requires him to return to the scene of a crime with water for the survivor of a drug deal gone terribly bad, yet he can dismiss his wife's concerns for her mother and he can be distracted by a female sunbather.
Brolin's wife suddenly becomes a central figure, but only briefly. She at least has no illusions about getting a lucky roll of the dice. Her fate, like that of all mortals, is preordained, and she refuses to play the Executioner's coin-flip game, representing mortality more accurately: "It's not me or the coin that decides what happens to me. It's you." But in this circular question about free will and the meaning of life, Bardem answers her back: "You're wrong. That's how I got here." It's a game of chance, and there isn't even an authentic card dealer. But its through Bardem's mysterious (and deadly) character that the movie destroys all of our illusions and ultimately goes after the worst of the deadly sins--pride, hubris, taking upon ourselves what belongs only to God. When will we learn? Why can't we?
And therein lies the film's admission of Aristotle's "fatal flaw" and along with it a small ray of light. Human agency has a role after all. Brolin did make a mistake and had the arrogance to think he could get away with his theft of the drug money intended for someone else. And for a moment, he let carnal desire distract him from the real threat. Moreover, he took his own life more seriously than that of his wife or mother- in-law, selfishly assuming that the Executioner was interested "only" in him.
The last two scenes practically "require" interpretation. The Executioner (vulnerable himself, but a better survivor than Harrelson or Brolin) walks away. Behind him he leaves the seeds of greed (and of fatal pride) in a young boy who took money in exchange for what began as a Good Samaritan act. The recovered Executioner now ambles off into a typical American neighborhood (like that in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet"). What's next on his agenda? The viewer can only speculate, even as the film cuts to Jones' sheriff relating a dream about meeting his father (who did not die an old man), and then says: "I woke up."
That awakening is what this movie is all about. The screen goes black waiting for the spectator's inner light to come on. It's time to wake up--perhaps now more than ever. There may be a future, but there will be no lottery tickets--even to those who win them. It's we who must act to make the best of that mortally-defined fateful span of existence that lies before us. We can't know if our efforts will bear positive fruit, but we can know that "good" isn't simply going to happen by wishing and waiting for it. And we can also know that our prideful moments can only bring more misery. And if we don't know this now, the storyteller seems to be saying, we most certainly will when we're older.
Finally, the film's setting must be taken seriously. It repeatedly points to a vacuum, a void, a land laid waste by the same human beings it once nurtured and empowered. Everyone wants answers. We have the power to find them, but only if we're not too complacent or proud to search for them.
The story is the Coen brothers' "bait" to get the viewer to think about non-trivial matters. After all, it's only we humans who are blessed with "self-consciousness"-- with the capacity to think about our individual "identities," and even about our own life and death. The key to putting together all that the spectator has experienced comes with the appearance of Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff in the final scene of the movie. He says that he's quitting as sheriff. He had expected "God to somehow come into his life" but is now too fully aware that God (much less he himself) is over-matched. The film's nemesis is a merciless "executioner" with less conscience than The Terminator and sufficient inscrutability to make even Woody Harrelson's perceptive diagnosis of him (as a psychopathic killer with principles, albeit devoid of "morality") inadequate. We, like the sheriff, are now faced with the inescapability of our own mortality and with re-visioning our past life in light of this disturbing reality.
Josh Brolin appears to be the sympathetic "hero." he has a John Wayne-like rugged individualism, a knack for survival, and commands instant respect from those around him once they learn of his service in "Nam"--but that won't cut it in the relentless, fatalistic, chancy determinism that, in the Coen Brothers' view of modern existence, controls our lives. Brolin's conscience requires him to return to the scene of a crime with water for the survivor of a drug deal gone terribly bad, yet he can dismiss his wife's concerns for her mother and he can be distracted by a female sunbather.
Brolin's wife suddenly becomes a central figure, but only briefly. She at least has no illusions about getting a lucky roll of the dice. Her fate, like that of all mortals, is preordained, and she refuses to play the Executioner's coin-flip game, representing mortality more accurately: "It's not me or the coin that decides what happens to me. It's you." But in this circular question about free will and the meaning of life, Bardem answers her back: "You're wrong. That's how I got here." It's a game of chance, and there isn't even an authentic card dealer. But its through Bardem's mysterious (and deadly) character that the movie destroys all of our illusions and ultimately goes after the worst of the deadly sins--pride, hubris, taking upon ourselves what belongs only to God. When will we learn? Why can't we?
And therein lies the film's admission of Aristotle's "fatal flaw" and along with it a small ray of light. Human agency has a role after all. Brolin did make a mistake and had the arrogance to think he could get away with his theft of the drug money intended for someone else. And for a moment, he let carnal desire distract him from the real threat. Moreover, he took his own life more seriously than that of his wife or mother- in-law, selfishly assuming that the Executioner was interested "only" in him.
The last two scenes practically "require" interpretation. The Executioner (vulnerable himself, but a better survivor than Harrelson or Brolin) walks away. Behind him he leaves the seeds of greed (and of fatal pride) in a young boy who took money in exchange for what began as a Good Samaritan act. The recovered Executioner now ambles off into a typical American neighborhood (like that in David Lynch's "Blue Velvet"). What's next on his agenda? The viewer can only speculate, even as the film cuts to Jones' sheriff relating a dream about meeting his father (who did not die an old man), and then says: "I woke up."
That awakening is what this movie is all about. The screen goes black waiting for the spectator's inner light to come on. It's time to wake up--perhaps now more than ever. There may be a future, but there will be no lottery tickets--even to those who win them. It's we who must act to make the best of that mortally-defined fateful span of existence that lies before us. We can't know if our efforts will bear positive fruit, but we can know that "good" isn't simply going to happen by wishing and waiting for it. And we can also know that our prideful moments can only bring more misery. And if we don't know this now, the storyteller seems to be saying, we most certainly will when we're older.
Finally, the film's setting must be taken seriously. It repeatedly points to a vacuum, a void, a land laid waste by the same human beings it once nurtured and empowered. Everyone wants answers. We have the power to find them, but only if we're not too complacent or proud to search for them.
Ranks with the several best episodes best far.
22 April 2012
Warning: Spoilers
Warning: The following review unavoidably alludes to story elements involving Pete Campbell while underscoring the remarkable unity of the episode as a result of scriptwriting, acting and, perhaps above all, John Slattery's direction. Ultimately, the spectator is enabled to feel both strongly "about" and "with" Pete, thanks to filmmaking that is as fluid and subjective as it objective and cinematic. The non-contextual specifics of the review will make little sense to the reader who has not already seen the episode.
Both thematically and formally this is one of the most layered and complex yet satisfying episodes to date. If John Slattery was responsible for a lion's share of choreographing the set scenes and managing the editing as well as the scripting (both the plotting and the numerous humorous one-liners--the asides about "guns and varmints" resonating with the 2012 Republican Presidential debates or Bertram Cooper's "It's medieval" doing the same for viewers of "Pulp Fiction"), he hit this one out of the park. Viewers may differ about which of many emotions emerges as the dominant one--howls of laughter ("I had Lane," Roger says after the altercation); scenes of gratifying vindication (when our favorite villain gets what he deserves); disturbing self-recognition as the camera unveils that same villain's internal conflict- -a newly married man's discovery of the disparity between his actual age and his pubescent sexual identity.
If women do not appear to have a central role in this episode, their voice, though marginalized, registers strength, dignity and composure. They serve as a foil to Pete's adolescent, regressive obsessions; they collaborate with greater efficiency and effectiveness than their male counterparts; Joan's calm and deliberative administrations leave Lane looking no less childish and confused than the conceited, immature overreacher he has just vanquished.
Unifying the entire episode is the face of Pete Campbell: framed in patronizing smugness one moment; in the pose of an insecure, tentative coward the next; then, a bloodied and humiliated, scapegoating bully; then a voyeuristic and fantasizing adulterer; finally, a soundly defeated putative Romeo and Rocky, undone in the first role by a bulked-up high school youth and in the second by a bespectacled awkward Brit who had been the object of his patronizing smugness.
The camera and lighting allow us to see Pete on the outside and from the inside. It films Pete's face from every angle, even cutting from Pete's face to Pete's face (!). And just when we come to see Pete as a "grimy pimp" (Lane's description) and applauding his humiliation, we simultaneously come to feel sympathy toward his character. We see him as a tormented overreacher suddenly confronted with a sexual identify that is 15 years behind his actual age.
The episode ranges from broad comedy to smaller yet significant moments, such as Don's wife refusing the order to cancel dinner at Pete's and redirecting Don's assignment to the person who gave it (a harbinger of the imminent war not just between the sexes but the generations).
"Mad Men" continues to be remarkable in its generating excitement without the usual formulaic, sensational television plotting. And its one of the few shows where the camera stays STILL long enough for the viewer to actually see something worth looking at! This may be the closest television drama has come to realizing the strengths that Andre Bazin, in "What Is Cinema," found in the singular "realism" of American filmmaking. (it's NOT a series of disorienting shock edits endlessly enticing viewers with the same stories and shots that can be found on the pages of "The National Enquirer.')
Both thematically and formally this is one of the most layered and complex yet satisfying episodes to date. If John Slattery was responsible for a lion's share of choreographing the set scenes and managing the editing as well as the scripting (both the plotting and the numerous humorous one-liners--the asides about "guns and varmints" resonating with the 2012 Republican Presidential debates or Bertram Cooper's "It's medieval" doing the same for viewers of "Pulp Fiction"), he hit this one out of the park. Viewers may differ about which of many emotions emerges as the dominant one--howls of laughter ("I had Lane," Roger says after the altercation); scenes of gratifying vindication (when our favorite villain gets what he deserves); disturbing self-recognition as the camera unveils that same villain's internal conflict- -a newly married man's discovery of the disparity between his actual age and his pubescent sexual identity.
If women do not appear to have a central role in this episode, their voice, though marginalized, registers strength, dignity and composure. They serve as a foil to Pete's adolescent, regressive obsessions; they collaborate with greater efficiency and effectiveness than their male counterparts; Joan's calm and deliberative administrations leave Lane looking no less childish and confused than the conceited, immature overreacher he has just vanquished.
Unifying the entire episode is the face of Pete Campbell: framed in patronizing smugness one moment; in the pose of an insecure, tentative coward the next; then, a bloodied and humiliated, scapegoating bully; then a voyeuristic and fantasizing adulterer; finally, a soundly defeated putative Romeo and Rocky, undone in the first role by a bulked-up high school youth and in the second by a bespectacled awkward Brit who had been the object of his patronizing smugness.
The camera and lighting allow us to see Pete on the outside and from the inside. It films Pete's face from every angle, even cutting from Pete's face to Pete's face (!). And just when we come to see Pete as a "grimy pimp" (Lane's description) and applauding his humiliation, we simultaneously come to feel sympathy toward his character. We see him as a tormented overreacher suddenly confronted with a sexual identify that is 15 years behind his actual age.
The episode ranges from broad comedy to smaller yet significant moments, such as Don's wife refusing the order to cancel dinner at Pete's and redirecting Don's assignment to the person who gave it (a harbinger of the imminent war not just between the sexes but the generations).
"Mad Men" continues to be remarkable in its generating excitement without the usual formulaic, sensational television plotting. And its one of the few shows where the camera stays STILL long enough for the viewer to actually see something worth looking at! This may be the closest television drama has come to realizing the strengths that Andre Bazin, in "What Is Cinema," found in the singular "realism" of American filmmaking. (it's NOT a series of disorienting shock edits endlessly enticing viewers with the same stories and shots that can be found on the pages of "The National Enquirer.')
True Grit
(2010)
The Coens remain as gritty as ever
21 March 2012
The latest "True Grit" is a worthy film, possibly even a great one. But it's time for a closer assessment of this film as well as the larger matter of movie remakes, which are popular with producers primarily because of a "guaranteed" box office draw. In taking on the remake of "True Grit" the Coen Brothers might be expected to adhere, albeit it with creative flare, to the original story. A radical make- over would seem especially ill-suited to this film for a number of reasons. Perhaps above all, the original's Dukish screen icon and "Rhinestone Cowboy" co-star, Glen Campbell, are sufficiently ensconced in public memory to make a barely recognizable "True Grit" seem disrespectful if not offensive. Doing a remake of "True Grit" that is more a display of originality than a sincere adaptation would strike critics and public alike as intellectually and artistically dishonest.
At the same time, if the goal was faithful adherence to the original, there are far safer bets than the Coen Brothers. The history of these filmmakers includes the off-beat black comedy "Fargo" and, more recently, "That Is No Country for Old Men," a film closer to the existential, thought-provoking cinema of Ingmar Bergman than to conventional Hollywood entertainment. Moreover, the original "True Grit" had certain elements that by today's standards might be considered sentimental, formulaic, or Disney-esque--i.e. "dated," out-of-step with a new millennium along with its impatient and jaded consumers in a post-modern, digitalized mediascape. Just wait, I told myself, until the Coens bring "True Grit" into the hip-hop age. Among today's directors the Coen Brothers, moreover, have established the expectation of making films that are "off-beat," unconventional, utterly unique. As a result, I was prepared for a wholesale remodeling, a barely recognizable approximation, of the original movie, which attained semi-classic stature primarily because it was Duke's last hurrah.
By now it should be apparent to avid, inclusive screen-goers that John Wayne is the most outsized, bigger-than-life screen persona in the history of cinema, so comfortable in his own skin that he makes us uncomfortable in ours. To suggest Wayne's mythic proportions the Coen Brothers film Jeff Bridges' in drunken moves verging on overacting while employing their cameras to make Bridges' Rooster Cogburn almost as outrageous as his legendary predecessor but at the same time more believable, down-to-earth, and humorous (reminiscent at times of Shakespeare's Falstaff).
The signature of a genuine auteur, as Andre Bazin and his followers argued, is not a film director who has complete control of his project along with the liberties of expressing himself as he chooses. Alfred Hitchock was their hero because he left his personal stamp on each of his films in spite of the commercial, profit-making priority expected of him in each instance. There's a trademark tone, a consistency, a thematic purpose, or worldview, that "gives away" a Hitchcock film even to the viewer unfamiliar with the director going in.
And here's where the COEN BROTHERS have excelled. Rather than play a bold new hand, they've stayed within the rules and, in spite of long odds, achieved a cinematic triumph that is consonant with the themes of their quirkier, less formulaic films. In the beginning of this new version, the voice- over declaims that as mortal beings we are all beholden to our past actions, each of which will have consequences from which we can't hide. In the end there is no freedom from offenses against society, nature or God; there is no escape because we are all accountable beings: mortality in itself is at once beautiful, unforgiving and deadly. Despite our wishes to the contrary, as Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff reminds us at the end of "That Is No Country," there is no ultimate justice, no "deus ex machine" that will, at a climactic moment in our lives, rescue us from the final encounter against which as mortals we may choose to wear blinders and cower in fear; or exit courageously, singing in our chains and raging against the dying of the light.
In the original "True Grit," spectators had, prior to attending the film or shortly afterward, knowledge that the film was elegy as much as saga. Wayne's mythic character would not spare him from the cancer he was already fighting. It was in fact our knowledge of that "human flaw" that made the title "True Grit" stand not simply for the "exceptional" man but the "universal" one. Much as we hate to admit it, all of us in search of a dramatic rescue or, seeking escapist entertainment in movies, must confront the fact of our mortal existence. Better it be with eyes open and a healthy appreciation of life's bounties than the whimper of a cowardly lion. For some, there may be the consolations offered by religion, but neither the original story nor the Coen brothers' movie goes there. The church, to the extent that it is even visible in a Coen Brothers' movie, is presented as ineffectual, deluded and hypocritical.
In its place of salvation lying outside the camera lens is an unflinching representation of the only life that the camera along with human consciousness can know. If it's not enough, it's more than most filmmakers have been able to offer. The Coen Brothers reveal what will be required of each of us at the conclusion of life's journey: the truest grit of all.
At the same time, if the goal was faithful adherence to the original, there are far safer bets than the Coen Brothers. The history of these filmmakers includes the off-beat black comedy "Fargo" and, more recently, "That Is No Country for Old Men," a film closer to the existential, thought-provoking cinema of Ingmar Bergman than to conventional Hollywood entertainment. Moreover, the original "True Grit" had certain elements that by today's standards might be considered sentimental, formulaic, or Disney-esque--i.e. "dated," out-of-step with a new millennium along with its impatient and jaded consumers in a post-modern, digitalized mediascape. Just wait, I told myself, until the Coens bring "True Grit" into the hip-hop age. Among today's directors the Coen Brothers, moreover, have established the expectation of making films that are "off-beat," unconventional, utterly unique. As a result, I was prepared for a wholesale remodeling, a barely recognizable approximation, of the original movie, which attained semi-classic stature primarily because it was Duke's last hurrah.
By now it should be apparent to avid, inclusive screen-goers that John Wayne is the most outsized, bigger-than-life screen persona in the history of cinema, so comfortable in his own skin that he makes us uncomfortable in ours. To suggest Wayne's mythic proportions the Coen Brothers film Jeff Bridges' in drunken moves verging on overacting while employing their cameras to make Bridges' Rooster Cogburn almost as outrageous as his legendary predecessor but at the same time more believable, down-to-earth, and humorous (reminiscent at times of Shakespeare's Falstaff).
The signature of a genuine auteur, as Andre Bazin and his followers argued, is not a film director who has complete control of his project along with the liberties of expressing himself as he chooses. Alfred Hitchock was their hero because he left his personal stamp on each of his films in spite of the commercial, profit-making priority expected of him in each instance. There's a trademark tone, a consistency, a thematic purpose, or worldview, that "gives away" a Hitchcock film even to the viewer unfamiliar with the director going in.
And here's where the COEN BROTHERS have excelled. Rather than play a bold new hand, they've stayed within the rules and, in spite of long odds, achieved a cinematic triumph that is consonant with the themes of their quirkier, less formulaic films. In the beginning of this new version, the voice- over declaims that as mortal beings we are all beholden to our past actions, each of which will have consequences from which we can't hide. In the end there is no freedom from offenses against society, nature or God; there is no escape because we are all accountable beings: mortality in itself is at once beautiful, unforgiving and deadly. Despite our wishes to the contrary, as Tommy Lee Jones' sheriff reminds us at the end of "That Is No Country," there is no ultimate justice, no "deus ex machine" that will, at a climactic moment in our lives, rescue us from the final encounter against which as mortals we may choose to wear blinders and cower in fear; or exit courageously, singing in our chains and raging against the dying of the light.
In the original "True Grit," spectators had, prior to attending the film or shortly afterward, knowledge that the film was elegy as much as saga. Wayne's mythic character would not spare him from the cancer he was already fighting. It was in fact our knowledge of that "human flaw" that made the title "True Grit" stand not simply for the "exceptional" man but the "universal" one. Much as we hate to admit it, all of us in search of a dramatic rescue or, seeking escapist entertainment in movies, must confront the fact of our mortal existence. Better it be with eyes open and a healthy appreciation of life's bounties than the whimper of a cowardly lion. For some, there may be the consolations offered by religion, but neither the original story nor the Coen brothers' movie goes there. The church, to the extent that it is even visible in a Coen Brothers' movie, is presented as ineffectual, deluded and hypocritical.
In its place of salvation lying outside the camera lens is an unflinching representation of the only life that the camera along with human consciousness can know. If it's not enough, it's more than most filmmakers have been able to offer. The Coen Brothers reveal what will be required of each of us at the conclusion of life's journey: the truest grit of all.
Article 99
(1992)
Memorable for being so unmemorable
8 January 2012
We were out with new colleagues looking for a movie to go to after dinner. Our search took us from Wisconsin into Illinois, where "Article 99" appeared to be the most promising offering in a mall multiplex in the Waukegan area. The film was stunningly unmoving, unaffecting, unmemorable--the night such a complete waste that I simply had to bring back the title to confirm a long repressed memory (it was only the recollection of Kiefer Sutherland's credit that produced the title).
There are a lot of possibilities with a film like this, which apparently attempts to be "socially relevant" humor or, as other reviewers have put it, a film with an important message. I don't buy the notion that great art--Shakespeare's plays or Faulkner's fiction--succeeds because of any "message," and the same pretty much goes for mere "entertainment." But whether realizing Welles' description of film as a "ribbon of dreams" or Godard's as "truth 24 frames per second," a film can make us participants in its storyline, situations, and conflicts while fulfilling the most important goal of art--i.e. to present an imitation of life that reveals us to ourselves-- and even imparting a sort of "message" (though I prefer Joycean "epiphany"), but we hear too many messages. The purpose of art is to make them unnecessary by giving us the "knowledge" to see for, and about, ourselves. "Article 99" succeeded in none of the foregoing areas. A film with as noteworthy a similar precedent as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" simply left us numb, indifferent and apathetic, quickly flying out our memories.
If a lesson is to be learned from viewing a movie such as this (and it's important to watch bad movies to know what a good movie is, or bad Altman films to know what a good Altman film is), it's that the setting matters little if the director's vision and approach or the screenplay's storyline doesn't "make" it matter. And in this film--apparently intent upon exposing the futility of practices occurring in a V.A. hospital--setting is everything. But the setting is cramped, collapsed, squeezed so tightly by an over-burdened script implemented by unimaginative, propaganda-grade direction that neither the audience nor the actors have any space to breathe in let alone become involved with the actions of the story.
Contrast this over-controlled environment, this anal, sterile, feeble imitation of life in a V.A. hospital with Robert Altman's "controlled extemporaneousness," or imaginative vision, that gave us a completely open, vibrant and real, alternately funny, sad, and awe-inspiring, complex and unforgettable movie about a place that is also the title of the film--"Nashville." Not only are we taken on an unforgettable journey through a diverse city but we come to know and empathize with no fewer than 24 characters who are working out their destinies in the city that even now serves as a microcosm of American mass popular culture, representing all those seeking fame and fortune, celebrity and success. Ultimately, perhaps because in every viewer there's a hidden desire to be significant, to be "star" (if only in the eyes of his or her creator), we learn something about ourselves, emerging sadder but wiser for the experience. At such a moment, you also begin to see why some of us would rather read Shakespeare than Stephen King (or, after seeing "Nashville," have no patience with an Altman "dud" like "Ready to Wear," a satire of the fashion world that by the mere choice of subject is inextricably weighed down by the director's failure of vision).
There are a lot of possibilities with a film like this, which apparently attempts to be "socially relevant" humor or, as other reviewers have put it, a film with an important message. I don't buy the notion that great art--Shakespeare's plays or Faulkner's fiction--succeeds because of any "message," and the same pretty much goes for mere "entertainment." But whether realizing Welles' description of film as a "ribbon of dreams" or Godard's as "truth 24 frames per second," a film can make us participants in its storyline, situations, and conflicts while fulfilling the most important goal of art--i.e. to present an imitation of life that reveals us to ourselves-- and even imparting a sort of "message" (though I prefer Joycean "epiphany"), but we hear too many messages. The purpose of art is to make them unnecessary by giving us the "knowledge" to see for, and about, ourselves. "Article 99" succeeded in none of the foregoing areas. A film with as noteworthy a similar precedent as "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" simply left us numb, indifferent and apathetic, quickly flying out our memories.
If a lesson is to be learned from viewing a movie such as this (and it's important to watch bad movies to know what a good movie is, or bad Altman films to know what a good Altman film is), it's that the setting matters little if the director's vision and approach or the screenplay's storyline doesn't "make" it matter. And in this film--apparently intent upon exposing the futility of practices occurring in a V.A. hospital--setting is everything. But the setting is cramped, collapsed, squeezed so tightly by an over-burdened script implemented by unimaginative, propaganda-grade direction that neither the audience nor the actors have any space to breathe in let alone become involved with the actions of the story.
Contrast this over-controlled environment, this anal, sterile, feeble imitation of life in a V.A. hospital with Robert Altman's "controlled extemporaneousness," or imaginative vision, that gave us a completely open, vibrant and real, alternately funny, sad, and awe-inspiring, complex and unforgettable movie about a place that is also the title of the film--"Nashville." Not only are we taken on an unforgettable journey through a diverse city but we come to know and empathize with no fewer than 24 characters who are working out their destinies in the city that even now serves as a microcosm of American mass popular culture, representing all those seeking fame and fortune, celebrity and success. Ultimately, perhaps because in every viewer there's a hidden desire to be significant, to be "star" (if only in the eyes of his or her creator), we learn something about ourselves, emerging sadder but wiser for the experience. At such a moment, you also begin to see why some of us would rather read Shakespeare than Stephen King (or, after seeing "Nashville," have no patience with an Altman "dud" like "Ready to Wear," a satire of the fashion world that by the mere choice of subject is inextricably weighed down by the director's failure of vision).
The Departed
(2006)
DiCaprio finally comes of age under a worthy father.
25 May 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I've seen the film only once, which is not quite enough to catch some crucial details about the father at the beginning. But the film is essentially a frantic gangster send-up like "Goodfellas" plus Hamlet with a theological twist: it's the search for identity and for the father, which are essentially the same thing. It's also a film in which DiCaprio is no longer seen as a mere teenager or, recalling Spielberg's leaden caper film, where Sheen is more caricature than believable character.
There's a scene in the film between DiCaprio and Nicholson during which I was conscious for the first time that the former could hold his own--as a mature, believable, adult actor--and with the very best of them. And what a crucial scene that turns out to be. In this modern-day "Hamlet" tale about a young man's desperate search for identity, he gains it--threefold-- and just at the moment we're convinced he's lost everything. In the film's last incredibly tense, head-spinning moments, we learn that 1. DiCaprio rather than Matt Damon is the trusted "son" of the mafia father figure played by Nicholson (Damon's character rejects outright the sentimental notion of being a "son" to Nicholson); 2. we are assured that DiCapio's identity is not lost when Mark Wahlberg's character, as a surrogate for Martin Sheen's character which, in turn, is a surrogate father to DiCaprio's, shows up to dispose of the impostor; 3.finally, the deal is triply "clinched" at our realization that the father of the baby being borne by Madolyn is not Damon's but DiCaprio's.
The line from "Hamlet" that's recited is "Readiness is all." But life, Scorsese, seems to be saying, is far more unpredictable and ludicrous, far more messy than this: none of us is ever ready (Nicholson's line to the effect that "we're all dying" suggests as much), and DiCaprio's character seems the least ready of all. Yet in the midst of all the violence and bloodshed, and despite all the lunacy and confusion, justice and clarity win out after all. This is, in many respects, the film befitting a mature, or "senior," director, who is moreover a man of faith. Unlike Coppola's fascination with the "humanness" of mafia families, Scorsese seems more interested in the "humanity" of these unsaintly, fallen prodigals who come to symbolize us all: they represent the universal human condition in all its absurdity and hope for redemption. For Scorsese they, no less than all of us, must not be consigned outright to the circle of the eternally damned. Even in their twisted, misguided, and confused relations, fathers and sons manage to find one another, mothers produce the sons by the fathers they truly love, the identity that is at once so elusive and questionable emerges after all--there's no question about its being a human identity and there's even a possibility that it retains much that is holy, emanating from a supreme father who ultimately pilots this ship of violent fools to a peaceful end.
There's a scene in the film between DiCaprio and Nicholson during which I was conscious for the first time that the former could hold his own--as a mature, believable, adult actor--and with the very best of them. And what a crucial scene that turns out to be. In this modern-day "Hamlet" tale about a young man's desperate search for identity, he gains it--threefold-- and just at the moment we're convinced he's lost everything. In the film's last incredibly tense, head-spinning moments, we learn that 1. DiCaprio rather than Matt Damon is the trusted "son" of the mafia father figure played by Nicholson (Damon's character rejects outright the sentimental notion of being a "son" to Nicholson); 2. we are assured that DiCapio's identity is not lost when Mark Wahlberg's character, as a surrogate for Martin Sheen's character which, in turn, is a surrogate father to DiCaprio's, shows up to dispose of the impostor; 3.finally, the deal is triply "clinched" at our realization that the father of the baby being borne by Madolyn is not Damon's but DiCaprio's.
The line from "Hamlet" that's recited is "Readiness is all." But life, Scorsese, seems to be saying, is far more unpredictable and ludicrous, far more messy than this: none of us is ever ready (Nicholson's line to the effect that "we're all dying" suggests as much), and DiCaprio's character seems the least ready of all. Yet in the midst of all the violence and bloodshed, and despite all the lunacy and confusion, justice and clarity win out after all. This is, in many respects, the film befitting a mature, or "senior," director, who is moreover a man of faith. Unlike Coppola's fascination with the "humanness" of mafia families, Scorsese seems more interested in the "humanity" of these unsaintly, fallen prodigals who come to symbolize us all: they represent the universal human condition in all its absurdity and hope for redemption. For Scorsese they, no less than all of us, must not be consigned outright to the circle of the eternally damned. Even in their twisted, misguided, and confused relations, fathers and sons manage to find one another, mothers produce the sons by the fathers they truly love, the identity that is at once so elusive and questionable emerges after all--there's no question about its being a human identity and there's even a possibility that it retains much that is holy, emanating from a supreme father who ultimately pilots this ship of violent fools to a peaceful end.
The Benny Goodman Story
(1956)
Honor the Centennial of the King of Swing
6 April 2009
Warning: Spoilers
He was born in the spring of 1909, and beginning with his first hit recording, "Moon Glow" in 1934, he routinely scored a dozen top-ten hits on a yearly basis. Some regard his title, "The King of Swing," as insulting to the African-American tradition that became America's indigenous art form, jazz. It's true that Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Chick Webb, and Fletcher Henderson probably deserved the title, but Benny Goodman was also deserving, and moreover an admirable, seminal representative of the historical period that became known as the "Swing Era." Moreover, in his 1938 Carnegie Hall concert he broke both the "cultural" barrier that insisted on privileging classical European music over "vulgar" American popular forms as well as the color barrier that made it unusual, unlikely, and often impossible for white and black musicians to play on the same stage. Benny was a great musician, as in command of a classical repertory as of jazz, but he was also an ambassador and an example, making the public aware of the music of Billie Holiday (he also introduced Peggy Lee), Lester Young, Lionel Hampton, Teddy Wilson, and the beauties of a music that was a sophisticated American music as well as a highly swinging one.
Forget the plot of this adequate but conventional love story. You'll have to look long and hard to find a movie with this much great American music. And give some thought to the revolution that began in the 1950s and changed the American landscape in the 1960s after the "British invasion." Goodman looked like a boring banker. He wore suits and ties--and he played clarinet! How could he have been adopted by a primarily young generation as a hero if not major pop star? Steve Allen is a bit better looking (and far more clever and articulate) than Goodman, but he won't explain the revolution that made hair, guitars and grubby jeans more worthy of our time, attention, and money, tons of it, than a genteel adult like Goodman. Benny instead introduced us to a guitarist who was black, wore suits, and became known as the "Father of the Jazz guitar," Charlie Christian. Benny Goodman was about sophistication, civility, and competence--and that's exactly what you get, and in abundance, from the musically hip Steve Allen.
Thanks to this movie, I developed a lifelong love of jazz. I'm still swinging, and I'm still left puzzled by the sounds of distorted guitars, of groups that can't perform without vocals, and of drummers who are clueless about the subtle, airborne groove of a 4/4 walking bass, a tight hi-hat, and a shimmering ride cymbal. And I still fail to grasp the entertainment value of performers who wear torn jeans, earrings and tattoos while commanding tens of thousands for a single performance. If you can't hear music unless the beat sounds like an amplified, mechanical drill hammer, you probably won't like this movie.
Forget the plot of this adequate but conventional love story. You'll have to look long and hard to find a movie with this much great American music. And give some thought to the revolution that began in the 1950s and changed the American landscape in the 1960s after the "British invasion." Goodman looked like a boring banker. He wore suits and ties--and he played clarinet! How could he have been adopted by a primarily young generation as a hero if not major pop star? Steve Allen is a bit better looking (and far more clever and articulate) than Goodman, but he won't explain the revolution that made hair, guitars and grubby jeans more worthy of our time, attention, and money, tons of it, than a genteel adult like Goodman. Benny instead introduced us to a guitarist who was black, wore suits, and became known as the "Father of the Jazz guitar," Charlie Christian. Benny Goodman was about sophistication, civility, and competence--and that's exactly what you get, and in abundance, from the musically hip Steve Allen.
Thanks to this movie, I developed a lifelong love of jazz. I'm still swinging, and I'm still left puzzled by the sounds of distorted guitars, of groups that can't perform without vocals, and of drummers who are clueless about the subtle, airborne groove of a 4/4 walking bass, a tight hi-hat, and a shimmering ride cymbal. And I still fail to grasp the entertainment value of performers who wear torn jeans, earrings and tattoos while commanding tens of thousands for a single performance. If you can't hear music unless the beat sounds like an amplified, mechanical drill hammer, you probably won't like this movie.
There Will Be Blood
(2007)
Renews hope that film can hold its own with a great Faulkner novel.
23 March 2009
Warning: Spoilers
The acting, the settings, the cinematography, the uncompromising editing (rejecting the familiar shot/reverse shot relay in favor of long takes), the spectacular scene of a fiery oil strike (recalling the air strike in "Apocalypse Now"), the nuanced richness of the film score, the Olympian performance of Day-Lewis (perhaps only Orson Welles' Kane compares) require that anyone who is the least bit serious about film make this experience a top priority.
But the end of this disturbing spectacle doesn't produce the catharsis of either a "Citizen Kane" (whose protagonist has at least an intimation of the truth, i.e. Rosebud) or an "Oedipus Rex" (whose protagonist not only eventually acquires self-knowledge but acts on it), and for that reason I'm withholding a star. Films that are ultimately the most powerful and enduring are those that put the verisimilitude of "everyday life" first and foremost, leaving the deeper allegorical implications to those who choose to pursue them.
At the half-way point, the film takes a surrealistic turn, and more than likely many spectators who have begun this lengthy film (with Lewis dominating every shot and scene save one) will tune out. It's even more likely that most casual spectators will, at the end of this seemingly out-of-control scenario, simply breathe a sigh of relief that it's over and dismiss the whole business as wild and wacky, crazy stuff.
But now that I've seen the film, it's become rooted in consciousness much like a Faulkner novel, in which a single character (named Compson or Sutpen) comes to represent an entire culture, from its idealistic, heroic and noble beginnings to its delusional and narcissistic, pathetic and decadent end (Faulkner's thunderous "Absalom! Absalom!" is the modern prototype). You will see no blood in this film. That would require a character capable of forgiving and being forgiven, of loving and being loved, of being not merely the sole god of his universe (who abandons his son, after denying that he's even begotten him) but the lamb, willing to sacrifice himself for others and able to function as a member of a human family whose bonds are not merely the artificial ones based on greed, radical individualism, and unrelenting competitiveness. Instead, we are left with the certainty that the ambition and arrogance we have witnessed can only beget more needless destruction of human life. In that sense, there indeed will be blood.
Yes, the movie is especially relevant to our present political-economic situation (toward the end of the film a character makes reference to a bad "economy"--and the year is 1927, 2 years before 1929--or, if you prefer, 2009). But it hits even deeper and closer to home than the culture surrounding us. It doesn't require a lot of soul-searching to see the protagonist as a symbol, or magnified reflection, of one's own selfish journey in life. The discovery is more than a little disturbing, exposing the wounds of ethnic pride, family insularity and, above all, the constant denial and prideful isolation practiced by the willful self. Nonetheless, the film ultimately fails to achieve the delicate balance between "pity and fear" that Aristotle required of great tragedy. Daniel Day-Lewis's character is obviously fatally flawed if not hubris personified (the other part of the Aristotelian definition), and that's a pity of immense proportions--but no more.
Later: This is a film that continues to play out long after the final scene. If there's a hint of redemptive blood in the story, it's not in the protagonist but his son. The early shots of him as a baby are sufficient proof to this viewer that Daniel Plainview is (despite his final disclaimer that he took the child merely to promote sales) the boy's father and that the son is not a mere innocent claimed by the father as a sales gimmick. The spectator's "reward" occurs when, for a fractional moment at the end, we see the "deaf-mute" son respond to his father's voice. That moment tells us that the son has deliberately chosen an indirect, defensive route of communicating with a non-communicative father, wisely (as it turns out) hedging his bets should the father prove adamant and unyielding in his bloodless inhumanity. The son, not the father, has seen to the completion of the "Abraham-Isaac" story, an archetypal drama that offers hope for a future in which the son, rather than repeat the sins of the father, acquires an identity of his own.
But the end of this disturbing spectacle doesn't produce the catharsis of either a "Citizen Kane" (whose protagonist has at least an intimation of the truth, i.e. Rosebud) or an "Oedipus Rex" (whose protagonist not only eventually acquires self-knowledge but acts on it), and for that reason I'm withholding a star. Films that are ultimately the most powerful and enduring are those that put the verisimilitude of "everyday life" first and foremost, leaving the deeper allegorical implications to those who choose to pursue them.
At the half-way point, the film takes a surrealistic turn, and more than likely many spectators who have begun this lengthy film (with Lewis dominating every shot and scene save one) will tune out. It's even more likely that most casual spectators will, at the end of this seemingly out-of-control scenario, simply breathe a sigh of relief that it's over and dismiss the whole business as wild and wacky, crazy stuff.
But now that I've seen the film, it's become rooted in consciousness much like a Faulkner novel, in which a single character (named Compson or Sutpen) comes to represent an entire culture, from its idealistic, heroic and noble beginnings to its delusional and narcissistic, pathetic and decadent end (Faulkner's thunderous "Absalom! Absalom!" is the modern prototype). You will see no blood in this film. That would require a character capable of forgiving and being forgiven, of loving and being loved, of being not merely the sole god of his universe (who abandons his son, after denying that he's even begotten him) but the lamb, willing to sacrifice himself for others and able to function as a member of a human family whose bonds are not merely the artificial ones based on greed, radical individualism, and unrelenting competitiveness. Instead, we are left with the certainty that the ambition and arrogance we have witnessed can only beget more needless destruction of human life. In that sense, there indeed will be blood.
Yes, the movie is especially relevant to our present political-economic situation (toward the end of the film a character makes reference to a bad "economy"--and the year is 1927, 2 years before 1929--or, if you prefer, 2009). But it hits even deeper and closer to home than the culture surrounding us. It doesn't require a lot of soul-searching to see the protagonist as a symbol, or magnified reflection, of one's own selfish journey in life. The discovery is more than a little disturbing, exposing the wounds of ethnic pride, family insularity and, above all, the constant denial and prideful isolation practiced by the willful self. Nonetheless, the film ultimately fails to achieve the delicate balance between "pity and fear" that Aristotle required of great tragedy. Daniel Day-Lewis's character is obviously fatally flawed if not hubris personified (the other part of the Aristotelian definition), and that's a pity of immense proportions--but no more.
Later: This is a film that continues to play out long after the final scene. If there's a hint of redemptive blood in the story, it's not in the protagonist but his son. The early shots of him as a baby are sufficient proof to this viewer that Daniel Plainview is (despite his final disclaimer that he took the child merely to promote sales) the boy's father and that the son is not a mere innocent claimed by the father as a sales gimmick. The spectator's "reward" occurs when, for a fractional moment at the end, we see the "deaf-mute" son respond to his father's voice. That moment tells us that the son has deliberately chosen an indirect, defensive route of communicating with a non-communicative father, wisely (as it turns out) hedging his bets should the father prove adamant and unyielding in his bloodless inhumanity. The son, not the father, has seen to the completion of the "Abraham-Isaac" story, an archetypal drama that offers hope for a future in which the son, rather than repeat the sins of the father, acquires an identity of his own.
Transsiberian
(2008)
Brilliant film-making for the first half, and one performance of a lifetime
14 March 2009
Warning: Spoilers
The plot is relatively thin, but at its heart is the familiar Hitchock pattern of the quest from innocence to knowledge, the narrative of a well-intentioned protagonist gradually implicated and entrapped in a minefield of lies and deceptions. Think "North By Northwest," "Psycho," "Strangers on a Train," even Jimmy Stewart's restless eye and probing camera in "Rear Window.") After that one big mistake, the big lie, "you can go forward," as the inspector (Ben Kingsley) reminds the film's protagonist and us, but "there's no going back." Then he adds: "Can a good girl become a killer?" Of course the answer is "Yes," especially if her innocence is already "tainted" by memories of past desire, fueled by a thirst for adventure, and stimulated by the voyeuristic curiosity that is the mark of any good photographer (which Hitchock's films assure we all become during the course of second-guessing his camera's next move).
Director Brad Anderson moves his camera a lot more than Hitchcock, though it's Emily Mortimer's camera and her uses of it that interest us most. She, and to a lesser extent Eduard Noriega, exude sufficient resonance to carry a film that's long on atmosphere and scenery and short on plot complications. Much like the indelible impact of the shower scene in the middle of "Psycho," the film's culmination occurs midway, before Ben Kingsley as the inspector even appears. The mixture of sex and violence, snow and blood, along with colorful frescoes from an icy Russian Orthodox cathedral, produce a thrilling, purely cinematic moment that's bound to live in our memories more securely than it will as images in Emily's camera. (The "credibility" of this moment is problematic only when viewers fail to consider the out-sized vanity and lust of the Noriega character, who is too in love with himself for the danger of a girl with a stick to make a serious impression on his consciousness, let alone his person.)
During the last half the film degenerates into more ordinary, banally sensational thriller fare, though the score, indebted to Bernard Herrmann, along with some cynical but satisfying twists in the plot make matters worth while, if anticlimactic.
Harrelson convincingly plays a straight-arrow Christian fundamentalist (20 years younger than the actor's actual age!), and Kingsley implies more depth and complexity than the script gives him. But for the most part, both actors are wasted in their roles (though their characters acquire wisdom thanks to the influence of the extraordinary Emily Mortimer). Kate Mara is appropriately Gothic-looking, a face that expresses little, instead permitting the viewer to read just about anything into it (important to the final scene).
The film's soundtrack includes hit tunes from the '70s (by the Fifth Dimension, Captain and Tenille) that add to the atmosphere of the grotesque in latter-day Russia. It's questionable whether the movie is ultimately the better for it, but it should be noted that, contrary to Hitchcock's films, this one marks the death of the "male gaze." Thanks to the performance of Mortimer, there's absolutely no doubt in the spectator's mind about its empowered, thoroughly compelling possessor.
Director Brad Anderson moves his camera a lot more than Hitchcock, though it's Emily Mortimer's camera and her uses of it that interest us most. She, and to a lesser extent Eduard Noriega, exude sufficient resonance to carry a film that's long on atmosphere and scenery and short on plot complications. Much like the indelible impact of the shower scene in the middle of "Psycho," the film's culmination occurs midway, before Ben Kingsley as the inspector even appears. The mixture of sex and violence, snow and blood, along with colorful frescoes from an icy Russian Orthodox cathedral, produce a thrilling, purely cinematic moment that's bound to live in our memories more securely than it will as images in Emily's camera. (The "credibility" of this moment is problematic only when viewers fail to consider the out-sized vanity and lust of the Noriega character, who is too in love with himself for the danger of a girl with a stick to make a serious impression on his consciousness, let alone his person.)
During the last half the film degenerates into more ordinary, banally sensational thriller fare, though the score, indebted to Bernard Herrmann, along with some cynical but satisfying twists in the plot make matters worth while, if anticlimactic.
Harrelson convincingly plays a straight-arrow Christian fundamentalist (20 years younger than the actor's actual age!), and Kingsley implies more depth and complexity than the script gives him. But for the most part, both actors are wasted in their roles (though their characters acquire wisdom thanks to the influence of the extraordinary Emily Mortimer). Kate Mara is appropriately Gothic-looking, a face that expresses little, instead permitting the viewer to read just about anything into it (important to the final scene).
The film's soundtrack includes hit tunes from the '70s (by the Fifth Dimension, Captain and Tenille) that add to the atmosphere of the grotesque in latter-day Russia. It's questionable whether the movie is ultimately the better for it, but it should be noted that, contrary to Hitchcock's films, this one marks the death of the "male gaze." Thanks to the performance of Mortimer, there's absolutely no doubt in the spectator's mind about its empowered, thoroughly compelling possessor.
De-Lovely
(2004)
Some wasted opportunities.
23 March 2008
At one point Jay Cocks' script borders on the self-congratulatory when Cole and Linda are shown viewing the earlier biopic starring Cary Grant with obvious displeasure. This remake, of course, is going to tell it like it is, and indeed the script of "De-Lovely" strains to account for the (frequently) flawed face of artistic genius. Linda tells Cole that his music stems from his talent, not his behavior, whereas Cole tries to explain that it's all part of the same inseparable package: without the excesses, the disloyalties, the self-indulgences he wouldn't be who he is, he wouldn't be arguably America's greatest songwriter. In the end, "De-Lovely" is self-descriptive: not a pretty picture--more Asbury Park than Granada, to paraphrase a Porter lyric.
Perhaps today's audiences need more proof that he really was a great songwriter. Or given the moral correctness of our times, perhaps audiences are incapable of empathizing with those given to self-indulgences. Or they may think they know all too well "the wages of sin." Or perhaps the acting of Kline and Judd overwhelms the script's good intentions. They, indeed, come across as two people who, as each understands, ask too much of one another. He gives her gifts, love, sporadic devotion; she gives him gifts, his vanity (i.e., useless legs), and undying devotion. In the end, and in the still of the night, Linda's devotion cuts through the darkness--a flickering memory but all that Cole has left before the screen goes black.
We believe the characters, their relationship, and their deep if tenuous loving relationship--perhaps too much. The film becomes a frequently luminous and tuneful soap opera about a main character who is more pathetic than tragic, about a self-destructive songwriter who self-destructs for obvious reasons, but in a deliberate, slow, very sad and depressing manner. Orson Welles had in essence a similar character and plot framework in "Citizen Kane," but he also had the directing "style" (which above all should be foremost in anything related to Cole Porter's music and life) and a "motivator" to make Kane's willful and self-ignorant destruction a mutually shared obsession, inviting us at every moment to become adventurer-detectives searching for the clues that will lead us to "Rosebud."
By contrast, "De-Lovely" wallows in pain and misery for the last 30 minutes, insulting us with a momentary deus ex machina ("Blow, Gabriel, Blow") that not even the characters seem to believe and then attempting to rescue everything with that flickering, potentially powerful, image that is the film's final moment. Too little, too late--and too soon, moreover, after we've endured the spectacle of our subject reduced to a pay-for-play "John," a victim of blackmail (triply so, because Linda is included, as is their relationship and mutual trust). The soundtrack plays "Love for Sale," but what we witness is a love that's far more than "slightly soiled."
The project needed to be rethought. Most of today's viewers are totally unsympathetic with the private lives of artists (one would think the writers would pay attention to politics) and, for that matter, unfamiliar with Porter's songs. The film would have done a great service had it opened viewers' hearts and minds to the "obsessions" (an apt term used in the film) of others, the personal mind-images and different objects of desire that motivate the passions of the artist in ways that move us all. (What's the gain in portraying Monty Wooley as a pimp? ) Or it would have done an equal service had it launched a whole new wave of interest in the music of Cole Porter. Sadly, it fails there, too, for reasons too numerous to mention. (As a musician, I have no answers for the film's complete re-harmonization of "Begin the Beguine." Was this an historically accurate albeit early, inferior attempt by Porter to write the song?)
This is a movie/DVD that few people will care too watch more than once. If you count yourself in that number, and if you're wondering why someone would bother to make a movie about Cole Porter, pick up any recording by Sinatra and Nelson Riddle with "I've Got You Under My Skin" ("Songs for Swinging Lovers" is a good start) or "Night and Day." If you tire of either song (virtually impossible), try the inspired, absolutely scintillating version of "In the Still of the Night" on the first disc of the recent "Sinatra-Vegas" box. And if that's not enough, there's plenty more from the same source, or from Ella Fitzgerald on the "Cole Porter Songbook." Or listen to Mabel Mercer explaining how it (in Porter songs, love is frequently an "it" or "thing") was "Just One of Those Things," or to Dinah Washington actually selling it on "Love for Sale," or to any singer who imparts to these timeless, immortal songs the life that is theirs, allowing them to become the magnificent obsessions that deserve to belong to yet another generation of listeners.
Perhaps today's audiences need more proof that he really was a great songwriter. Or given the moral correctness of our times, perhaps audiences are incapable of empathizing with those given to self-indulgences. Or they may think they know all too well "the wages of sin." Or perhaps the acting of Kline and Judd overwhelms the script's good intentions. They, indeed, come across as two people who, as each understands, ask too much of one another. He gives her gifts, love, sporadic devotion; she gives him gifts, his vanity (i.e., useless legs), and undying devotion. In the end, and in the still of the night, Linda's devotion cuts through the darkness--a flickering memory but all that Cole has left before the screen goes black.
We believe the characters, their relationship, and their deep if tenuous loving relationship--perhaps too much. The film becomes a frequently luminous and tuneful soap opera about a main character who is more pathetic than tragic, about a self-destructive songwriter who self-destructs for obvious reasons, but in a deliberate, slow, very sad and depressing manner. Orson Welles had in essence a similar character and plot framework in "Citizen Kane," but he also had the directing "style" (which above all should be foremost in anything related to Cole Porter's music and life) and a "motivator" to make Kane's willful and self-ignorant destruction a mutually shared obsession, inviting us at every moment to become adventurer-detectives searching for the clues that will lead us to "Rosebud."
By contrast, "De-Lovely" wallows in pain and misery for the last 30 minutes, insulting us with a momentary deus ex machina ("Blow, Gabriel, Blow") that not even the characters seem to believe and then attempting to rescue everything with that flickering, potentially powerful, image that is the film's final moment. Too little, too late--and too soon, moreover, after we've endured the spectacle of our subject reduced to a pay-for-play "John," a victim of blackmail (triply so, because Linda is included, as is their relationship and mutual trust). The soundtrack plays "Love for Sale," but what we witness is a love that's far more than "slightly soiled."
The project needed to be rethought. Most of today's viewers are totally unsympathetic with the private lives of artists (one would think the writers would pay attention to politics) and, for that matter, unfamiliar with Porter's songs. The film would have done a great service had it opened viewers' hearts and minds to the "obsessions" (an apt term used in the film) of others, the personal mind-images and different objects of desire that motivate the passions of the artist in ways that move us all. (What's the gain in portraying Monty Wooley as a pimp? ) Or it would have done an equal service had it launched a whole new wave of interest in the music of Cole Porter. Sadly, it fails there, too, for reasons too numerous to mention. (As a musician, I have no answers for the film's complete re-harmonization of "Begin the Beguine." Was this an historically accurate albeit early, inferior attempt by Porter to write the song?)
This is a movie/DVD that few people will care too watch more than once. If you count yourself in that number, and if you're wondering why someone would bother to make a movie about Cole Porter, pick up any recording by Sinatra and Nelson Riddle with "I've Got You Under My Skin" ("Songs for Swinging Lovers" is a good start) or "Night and Day." If you tire of either song (virtually impossible), try the inspired, absolutely scintillating version of "In the Still of the Night" on the first disc of the recent "Sinatra-Vegas" box. And if that's not enough, there's plenty more from the same source, or from Ella Fitzgerald on the "Cole Porter Songbook." Or listen to Mabel Mercer explaining how it (in Porter songs, love is frequently an "it" or "thing") was "Just One of Those Things," or to Dinah Washington actually selling it on "Love for Sale," or to any singer who imparts to these timeless, immortal songs the life that is theirs, allowing them to become the magnificent obsessions that deserve to belong to yet another generation of listeners.
Carousel
(1956)
Great musical, passable flick (and George Bailey still resonates more than Billy Bigelow)
3 June 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Of the quintessential Rodgers-Hammerstein musicals, this one comes in just behind Oklahoma, South Pacific, and the King and I. From a jazz musician's viewpoint, it offers fewer enticing songs than anything by Rodgers & Hart and most of the collaborations with Hammerstein as well. Yet in the context of the times, a song such as "You'll Never Walk Alone" helped heal, provide consolation and hope to the ones who were left behind after the war. "If I Loved You" is certainly a gorgeous melody and sensitive lyric, but the highlight, at least for any expectant father, has got to be "Soliloquy." (Listen to Sinatra's unsurpassed, timeless reading of this one as well as "You'll Never Walk Alone" on "The Concert Sinatra".)
Sinatra's instincts were right in backing out of this movie, which is the most wooden, flat, artificial and leaden of all the filmed adaptations of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals (it makes "Sound of Music" look like "Citizen Kane"). It's simply not good movie-making-- partly because the filmmakers got carried away with the technology, thinking that bright colors and a wider Cinemascope image, requiring two final takes of each scene (the reason Sinatra split), would be "realism" enough for the public.
That's one reason this film, contrary to another reviewer's evaluation, can't compare with Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life." But he also misses the point about George Bailey. True, he's not the bum that Billy Bigelow is. But he's become so self-righteous about his "indispensability" to his community that he commits suicide all because of the loss of a mere thousand bucks. (In the movie version of "Carousel" Billy falls on his knife accidentally after the stick-up goes awry.) Billy comes back as an angel to provide comfort, hope, and encouragement, "earning his wings" by doing well by his daughter. But George Bailey has earned too many wings--in fact, his good deeds and his savior complex are his problem. The wingless angel Clarence is sent on a mission to Bedford Falls to restore to George Bailey his humanity, with all its flaws and failings. Compared to Carousel, it's a darker, more profound story about tragic pride (even archetypal, given its parallels with Sophocles' Oedipus Rex), and ultimately it's more cathartic and life affirming, since it conveys faith in a world not overrun by Mr. Potters: ordinary people do have the capacity to be unselfish and forgiving. This is not to cast aspersions on the deeply felt sentiments of the Rodgers and Hammerstein masterpiece. It's just unfortunate that Carousel was not filmed in the 1940s by a creative, inspired giant like Frank Capra.
Sinatra's instincts were right in backing out of this movie, which is the most wooden, flat, artificial and leaden of all the filmed adaptations of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals (it makes "Sound of Music" look like "Citizen Kane"). It's simply not good movie-making-- partly because the filmmakers got carried away with the technology, thinking that bright colors and a wider Cinemascope image, requiring two final takes of each scene (the reason Sinatra split), would be "realism" enough for the public.
That's one reason this film, contrary to another reviewer's evaluation, can't compare with Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life." But he also misses the point about George Bailey. True, he's not the bum that Billy Bigelow is. But he's become so self-righteous about his "indispensability" to his community that he commits suicide all because of the loss of a mere thousand bucks. (In the movie version of "Carousel" Billy falls on his knife accidentally after the stick-up goes awry.) Billy comes back as an angel to provide comfort, hope, and encouragement, "earning his wings" by doing well by his daughter. But George Bailey has earned too many wings--in fact, his good deeds and his savior complex are his problem. The wingless angel Clarence is sent on a mission to Bedford Falls to restore to George Bailey his humanity, with all its flaws and failings. Compared to Carousel, it's a darker, more profound story about tragic pride (even archetypal, given its parallels with Sophocles' Oedipus Rex), and ultimately it's more cathartic and life affirming, since it conveys faith in a world not overrun by Mr. Potters: ordinary people do have the capacity to be unselfish and forgiving. This is not to cast aspersions on the deeply felt sentiments of the Rodgers and Hammerstein masterpiece. It's just unfortunate that Carousel was not filmed in the 1940s by a creative, inspired giant like Frank Capra.
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