The Piano Teacher November 25, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Modern Films, 2000s , add a comment
Just when I’m ready to dismiss Michael Haneke as a talented trickster more interested in making movies for himself than audiences, I reluctantly give him a second chance and I end up emotionally floored. His 2001 film The Piano Teacher
The woman of the title is Erika Kohut (brilliantly played by Isabelle Huppert), who teaches piano to students in a Vienna conservatory. She is almost abusive in her strict instructions, yet highly regarded for her knowledge and skill at the piano. Her home life is altogether different, where the accomplished instructor is treated like a helpless child by her mother. Every action is challenged with questions from the older woman. Their relationship is both physically and mentally abusive, akin to an unhealthy spousal dynamic more than mother-daughter.
When Erika is asked to perform at a recital, an enthusiastic young man named Walter (Benoît Magimel) is so impressed that he soon seeks a coveted spot as one of her students. The second half of the film shifts the focus to the relationship between these two. Their disturbing and shocking encounters make for an unforgettable and emotionally draining impact on the viewer. I’m not sure I completely buy into Walter’s motivation for his actions, but the vagueness of his and Erika’s backstories avoids spelling out too much information for the viewer which Haneke always seems to carefully resist doing.
While Haneke once again shows his mastery for engrossing audiences often to the point of discomfort, it’s Isabelle Huppert who truly makes the film come alive. Her performance here must be one of the finest in modern cinema. Each look and reaction perfectly expresses which side of the character is being shown at any given time. Erika acts differently depending on her company and Huppert gives her just the right amount of nuance to make it believable without forcing it into caricature. When Erika exposes her deepest secret to Walter, Huppert’s transformation from the hardened disciplinarian to a fragile submissive is stunning.
There’s an overwhelming amount of analysis that can be gleaned from the relatively few minutes the audience spends with Erika. The book apparently delves more into her past and her self-destructive acts. While I’m sure psychoanalysts could expound upon the sexual elements of the film, I’m equally fascinated by Erika’s dichotomous behavior at home and at work. Her inability to stand up to her mother except for physically lashing out at her is contrasted by her rigid teaching methods and low tolerance for outside opinion. Too often in films we see disturbed or emotionally challenged persons portrayed either unbelievably “normal” save for their affliction or too extreme where they seem past the point of no return. In this instance, however, Huppert never betrays Erika’s hidden problems until she’s seduced by the idea of finally finding love. Somehow her struggles seem completely plausible and all the more affecting because of it.
A big thumbs down to Kino for their R1 censored release though. Cutting the film by roughly seven minutes, the American DVD company put out an R-rated release to accompany its unrated version which was the cut the rest of the world had. While consumers certainly have the choice when purchasing the Kino release, large rental chains such as Blockbuster nearly always opt for the rated version and force unsuspecting customers to watch an abridged version when the complete one exists elsewhere. Apparently, the alterations include the blurring of adult video covers, edits to Erika’s peep show visit and the omission of the essential and devastating scene where Erika cuts herself with a razor in the bathroom. Furthermore, Kino has inexcusably failed to provide anamorphic enhancement to their widescreen transfer.
As they say about difficult and challenging films, both intellectually and emotionally, The Piano Teacher is not for everyone. The film itself isn’t disturbing in the vein of psychopaths or violence and it’s not the kind of movie you’ll get thrills from. Still, Haneke has filled it with troubling images and acts that, after investing in these characters’ lives for two hours, become nearly impossible to shake. Even though the main character is rife with problems often deemed abnormal or deviant, Huppert’s performance is so fully realized with humanity that I began to have real sympathy for her. It’s that humanity, something I found missing from Haneke’s other films, that makes The Piano Teacher so heartbreakingly effective.
The Spirit of St. Louis November 15, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1950s, Billy Wilder , add a comment
More than the noble failure it’s often called, The Spirit of St. Louis
It’s obvious and unavoidable that James Stewart is much too old to play Charles Lindbergh here. The pilot was only 25 at the time of his flight while Stewart was about 48 when the movie was filmed. Nevertheless, it’s not a fatal flaw and Stewart’s boyish persona combined with his fine acting make it far less distracting than it could have been. It also helps that Stewart’s slim frame and pilot experience lend the portrayal a certain amount of authenticity other actors probably would have lacked. His presence in nearly every scene required a strong, likeable actor to play Lindbergh and Stewart was therefore a good choice. If it’s true that James Dean was set to play the role before his death then he might have pulled it off, but almost any other actor of the time would have struggled to play the part as well as Stewart did, regardless of age.
I certainly might be biased in my opinion of The Spirit of St. Louis since it was the only pairing of my favorite actor and director, but I don’t think the film is anywhere near as plodding or long-winded as some reviews portray it. Billy Wilder’s creativity shines even in this, his most uncharacteristic work. While Wilder is often described as the quintessential cynical auteur and Stewart as the wholesome star, both men showed plenty of evidence that these labels were much too simplistic. Wilder’s work is often much sweeter than he’s given credit for (”Shut up and deal.”) and Stewart’s post-war roles were as daring as any major Hollywood star, if not more so. Their work together in The Spirit of St. Louis may not be close to either’s best, but it’s still solid entertainment.
Wilder’s insistence on the fly buzzing around Lindbergh’s plane as he travels over North America probably had its origins in the unfilmed scene between Charles Boyer and a cockroach that director Mitchell Leisen omitted from the final version of the Wilder-scripted Hold Back the Dawn. The insect passenger may look a little silly to some, but the monologues that Stewart delivers to the fly are testament to the pilot’s internal nerves leaking out into a one-sided conversation with a bug. That Lindbergh seems more at ease with a companion in the early and tense stages of his flight, an essential for the pilot to remain awake and accomplish his great feat, was surely Wilder’s goal.
For the most part, it doesn’t matter how accurate the portrayal of Lindbergh and the events leading up to his flight are. I don’t think Wilder had in mind that he was making a docudrama or historical document here. Lindbergh’s faults as a man have been much explored elsewhere and there’s certainly nothing in this movie that negatively portrays him. Even though the final cut was apparently not what Wilder had in mind initially and Lindbergh greatly restricted what was to be shown, I don’t think this hurts the film that significantly. The most interesting aspect of the movie is the extraordinary achievement Lindbergh accomplishes, not the pilot’s personal opinions. His outside determination and unblinking stoicism combined with the inner anxiety and fear is certainly an affecting human contrast and probably the only way someone in Lindbergh’s shoes could have handled the enormous pressure and uncertainties he faced.
The movie looks spectacular on the recently released DVD. I noticed only two small aberrations, one involving sharpness for a few seconds and the other being some brief damage most likely from the negative. Otherwise, it looks like a film from twenty years or more after it was made. The colors and cinematography are extraordinary. This is a film that really benefits from a large screen and I have to wonder if its critical reputation would not have been more positive had The Spirit of St. Louis been seen more often in a theatrical setting. Its widescreen composition was certainly intended to be viewed this way and not on a much smaller television screen, especially in the butchered full frame format it has often suffered from on cable television channels.
Like Howard Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings, Wilder’s film, ultimately, is about aviation and the obstacles and dangers faced by the men who had a passion for flying. Lindbergh was an unlikely candidate to pilot the first solo Transatlantic flight, but his determination and confidence in his own abilities made him one of the most famous men in the world in 1927. The Spirit of St. Louis does a nice job of showing Lindbergh’s undying commitment to flying. That the film (as well as Lindbergh’s book) is named after the plane instead of its pilot is instructive, I think, since it’s much more about the flight than the man.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? November 8, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , add a comment
Bette Davis’ eyes and Joan Crawford’s eyebrows only appeared in one movie together. What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
It begins with a prologue first showing “Baby Jane” Hudson as a child vaudeville performer with her sister Blanche looking on, upset at the attention lavished upon Jane. Next we jump to a few years later and Blanche is now a top Hollywood star with Jane riding her coattails to movie roles begrudgingly given to her by the studio to appease Jane. A car wreck ends the prologue and we learn Blanche has been paralyzed, ending her career. After the opening titles, the movie picks up with the story of Jane (played by Davis) serving as caregiver to Blanche (Crawford). Years of this have increased Jane’s unstable nature and she is slowly planning to phase Blanche out completely
Both performances are exceptional with Davis in the meatier role. She certainly takes full advantage of her character’s eccentricities and sometimes I found myself wondering if I was watching something a little too close to her real self. Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson may be the creepiest performance I’ve ever seen. Sure there have been more deranged, psychopathic characters in movie history, but for sheer batshit craziness I think Davis takes the cake (with a dead rat on top). Seeing a woman in her fifties with that atrocious makeup singing and dancing around to a song about her Daddy, the same number we had seen the character perform as a child, is just plain unnerving. She makes Norma Desmond look merely eccentric.
Victor Buono, along with Davis, was nominated for an Academy Award for his impressive performance of a musical accompanist that Jane hires for her perceived comeback. He’s an interesting actor who died fairly young and was never really given the film opportunities his acting talent seemed to have afforded. Like his fellow thespian Burgess Meredith, Buono has become most recognizable as a costumed villain via his work as King Tut on the Batman television show. His performance in Baby Jane, though, is oddly compelling. It foreshadows several similar characters seen on television and in movies where grown men have a contentious relationship with their overbearing mothers.
The DVD featurette on Davis and Crawford was highly informative to a neophyte like myself and almost unbelievable in its discussion of the hatred these two women had for each other. The most entertaining anecdote occurred at the Oscar ceremony where Crawford was not nominated while Davis, of course, was. Crawford had made arrangements to accept the award if Anne Bancroft won for The Miracle Worker, which she did. The scene of Crawford bypassing Davis to accept an award, even though it wasn’t hers, must have been something to see.
Director Robert Aldrich was the primary reason the film initially interested me. His brilliant Kiss Me Deadly is top of the line noir and The Dirty Dozen is great fun with one of the coolest casts in cinematic history. He shows up in the eerie trailer, included on the DVD and also worth mentioning for its non-traditional approach, and in a vintage making-of featurette on the second disc.
After the film’s unexpected success, the idea for a semi-sequel resulted in Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, released two years later. Given her dislike for her co-star, it’s not surprising that Joan Crawford ultimately found a way out of the picture despite initially being cast. When Crawford was deemed too ill to shoot her scenes, Olivia de Havilland was brought in. The film also successfully reunited Baby Jane principals Davis, Buono and Aldrich.
It seems like there are two things frequently mentioned when discussing What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? - it’s described as a horror film and/or as a campy black comedy. I don’t see either as accurate. Scares and laughs seem antithetical to each other (though I realize some films have tried with varied success to accomplish such a dichotomy) and I didn’t react in either way. I found the movie enjoyable for what it was on the screen and was enthralled by Davis’ uncomfortable creepiness. It’s less of a horror movie than a minor suspense thriller. Since I don’t fully understand the joy of camp, I can’t really relate to that interpretation at all. I don’t think it’s necessary to limit the film’s appeal to fans of these categories, though, and I was impressed with how much I liked it after having fairly low expectations. The film may not be perfect, but it’s not like we have ample opportunities to see Bette Davis repeatedly kick a crippled Joan Crawford elsewhere.
All the President’s Men November 5, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1970s , add a comment
Intelligent, engrossing suspense films have always been few and far between in Hollywood. All the President’s Men
The story of the Watergate break-in of the national Democratic headquarters by men later found to have been hired by government officials directly under President Nixon was essentially buried by most media after it happened in 1972. The advantage that Woodward and Bernstein had over other reporters, and probably what ultimately resulted in their breakthrough, was twofold. First, they were situated in Washington, D.C. and therefore had easy access to interview subjects. Second, and maybe most importantly, they were quite low on the totem pole in the newsroom and thus had ample time and opportunity to pursue the story. In the film, Woodward is portrayed as quickly catching on that there’s more to the Watergate burglary than initially meets the eye and Bernstein is shown as eager to break out from his lowly position at the Post. Regardless, the undeniable truth is that the two reporters most likely would never have broke the most damning parts of the story had they been more established newsmen.
Renowned screenwriter William Goldman wrote the script from the book of the same name about these two mostly inexperienced cub reporters who brought down the President of the United States. The plot remains just complicated enough (without being impossible to follow) to make the viewer feel like he’s putting together the pieces of this massive political puzzle of a scandal along with Woodward and Bernstein. “Follow the money,” the enigmatic informant known as Deep Throat (who was finally unmasked as G-man Mark Felt over thirty years after the fact) tells Woodward in one of their clandestine parking garage meetings. This advice leads the two men to various off-the-record interviews that eventually help establish Nixon’s direct knowledge of the break-in, funded by the still humorously named CREEP (which stood for the Committee to Re-Elect the President). Along the way, they’re both discouraged and encouraged by Post editor Ben Bradlee (played by Jason Robards in the first of his two consecutive Oscar-winning performances).
Director Alan J. Pakula made a career out of smart, suspenseful thrillers with All the President’s Men at the very top. His earlier political thriller The Parallax View, starring Warren Beatty, served as somewhat of a warm-up and is a fine, thoughtful slice of 70s paranoia that belongs in a sub-genre of similar works with All the President’s Men and another Redford vehicle, Sydney Pollack’s intriguing Three Days of the Condor. The recent two-disc DVD from Warner Bros. has several interview subjects raving about Pakula’s directing style and actors obviously responded to the freedom he gave them, as evidenced by the three Oscars that actors won for his films (Robards, Jane Fonda for Klute, and Meryl Streep for Sophie’s Choice). Personally, I’m also a fan of Harrison Ford’s work in the Pakula-directed Presumed Innocent, based on Scott Turow’s novel.
Not surprisingly, then, the performances here are top-notch. Redford, who’s never been given his due for the many fine performances he gave in the 70s, was probably never better. He had the disadvantage of playing someone that was at least fairly well known at the time (and who looked nothing like him) and now regarded as the most famous American reporter in modern times, yet his unsure demeanor comes across quite well here. It’s not a terribly juicy part, but Redford does a nice job and Dustin Hoffman, who wasn’t upstaged in anything he was in from this heyday of American filmmaking, is also impressive as well in a non-showy, second banana kind of role.
In addition to Robards’ Academy Award-winning turn, Jane Alexander was also nominated for a small, but effective performance as a key source for the reporters, but lost to Beatrice Straight, who had even less screentime in Network (which, incidentally, is also in Warners’ Controversial Classics, Vol. 2 - The Power of Media
Ultimately, though, All the President’s Men succeeds as a brilliant political thriller infused with little touches of conspiracy paranoia and as a detective story where two young reporters struggle to get to the bottom of the Watergate burglary. Woodward and Bernstein, as portrayed by Redford and Hoffman, are simply looking for the truth, without an axe to grind or any personal agenda to forward. That’s part of why the film works so well, even on repeat viewings, since the audience probably knows the end result of their investigation. The 2-hour plus running time breezes by and the tension rarely subsides. It’s as much a story of their struggle as it is a story of Watergate.
All the President’s Men is the rare film steeped in modern history (it was made in 1976, a mere four years after the burglary which opens the film) that succeeds in providing compelling entertainment despite its well-known story. Too often films are made soon after real life events that feel perfunctory or like an attempt to cash in on public interest. That’s not the case here. This is a fascinating study of two young men that simultaneously works as an important historical snapshot. The DVD does a good job of discussing the film’s impact on investigative journalism, but also makes the depressing point that Woodward and Bernstein most likely would not be able to uncover such a high-profile story today. Power structures and attention spans have vastly changed over the past thirty years, to the point that subpoenas and jail time have mostly quelled the use of secret sources of this magnitude.
The Meadowlands November 1, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Music , add a comment
The Wrens’ The Meadowlands 
It’s been so long
since you’ve heard from me
got a wife and kid
that I never see
and I’m nowhere near
what I dreamed I’d be
I can’t believe
what life has done to me
Those are the lyrics in their entirety of the album’s first track, the brief ”the house that guilt built” (all track titles are in lowercase on the album), and they perfectly set the tone for the remainder of the album. There’s always a tendency to scoff at such “woe-is-me” type lyrics, but this is not the stuff of teenager angst. Part of the album’s charm lies in the raw emotion the band has clearly put into the record. It’s the sound of individuals with their backs against the wall and the adversity they’ve faced has fed their creativity. The second song,”happy,” builds and builds and builds to a rousing celebration of self-pity and hope. It’s a nearly epic beginning, promising, and ultimately delivering, great things.
I find the next song, “she sends kisses,” a little subpar in comparison to the rest of the album and probably listen to it less than any of the other full length tracks. All the themes explored throughout the album are still there, but the keyboard-heavy music is a little too slow to fully win me over, although the lyrics are especially strong and almost painfully intimate.
“this boy is exhausted” is probably the most accessible track found on The Meadowlands. Nevertheless, the subject matter, as with the rest of the album, is challenging and filled with a regret that rings true. It conjures up ideas of what young men are supposed to do after college, when they’ve seemingly got their whole lives ahead of them but actually have no clue what their future should be. It’s a powerful song that shouldn’t be dismissed because of its poppy, upbeat tempo. The first-person difficulties in trying to find success in music at an advanced age are explored with poignancy.
The album’s fifth track “hopeless” is a cathartic and angry tribute to self-pity that will resonate with anyone struggling to figure out what the next step should be in life (which is most of us at one point or another). It centers around a relationship that’s past the point of salvaging and the bitter aftermath of moving on. “faster gun” bristles with a poppy, fast-paced rhythm that, like “this boy is exhausted,” might disguise the fear and despair found in the lyrics, which are nearly indecipherable aside from the title and mostly absent in the otherwise helpful liner notes. In fact, The Meadowlands can be a deceptively upbeat record at times and fails to prepare the listener for the emotional weight found in both the uptempo and the slower songs.
The seventh track, “thirteen grand,” is another fine little ode to the end of a relationship, even if its slow, dreamy pace doesn’t strike me as much as other songs on the album.
“boys, you won’t” is one of my personal favorite tracks on the album. The song starts with a familiar melancholy and evolves into a defiant, hopeful chorus as inspiring as anything on the album. The song’s lyrics, however, also welcome an interpretation of a narrator in denial, who can’t face the reality of a break-up. ”ex-girl collection,” the ninth song, continues the theme of regret that permeates throughout the album. I always come back to the line “she pours herself a ‘don’t ask’ gin” and its strong imagery each time I think of the song. It’s lyrically the strongest track on The Meadowlands and almost painfully personal like reading a stranger’s innermost, unfiltered thoughts. Curiously, the song ends with a televangelist preaching about Jesus.
“per second second” (a physics reference to the acceleration of gravity) is another fast-paced song, but much lighter in tone than the other rockers. The audio is muddled more on this track than most of the album, but the music is raw and the song rewards repeat listens to try and figure out what words the singer is using. It’s a strange one and ends abruptly, leading into the crunchy guitars of “everyone chooses sides,” a great song with opaque lyrics.
The penultimate track “13 months in 6 minutes” revisits the ethereal earlier tracks and actually runs closer to 7 minutes including the outro which sounds like it belongs with a completely different song yet still works. The final song is a short, drunken rendition called ”this is not what you had planned” on piano. It’s mostly a curiosity and probably should be looked at as akin to a hidden track instead of a whole song.
The great thing about The Meadowlands is that, despite its themes of loneliness and uncertainty, it’s not a depressing album. Instead, there’s a great deal of hope to be found amidst the lyrics and music that prevent a sense of wallowing in one’s own unhappiness. Even if there’s a significant amount of angst and sadness wandering around, this isn’t emo, “lock-yourself-in-your-bedroom-and-cry” music. Instead, The Wrens give the listener a much deeper, mature sense of longing for something seemingly out of reach without wanting to quit the journey.
The Meadowlands is probably one of the absolute best records that almost no one has heard (just under 35,000 copies sold). It did receive some acclaim when the internet music site pitchfork gave it a glowing review and placed it quite high on its year-end list of best albums in 2003. If you’re like me, however, and could care less about the sniveling nitwits at that particular website then don’t let their laudatory review turn you off from such a brilliant album. The Wrens’ accomplishments can stand on their own and this record is a masterpiece once you let the music and lyrics meld after a few plays. Some songs, such as “this boy is exhausted” and “faster gun” are poppy enough to appeal after hearing them once or twice, but the whole album really coalesces upon subsequent listens.
I also have to mention how wonderful my one and only experience seeing The Wrens live was and how hesitant I am to see them again for fear of somehow devaluing that performance. I had the good fortune of seeing them in March of 2004 in New York City at a small club that holds roughly 150 people. A then-unknown band named The Arcade Fire opened up the show and they certainly lived up to the reputation they’ve gained since then. Still, however, The Wrens were the star attraction and earned their modest headliner title by giving an energetic, blistering performance that really made the songs on The Meadowlands feel alive and vibrant. I can’t imagine anyone in the crowd who had heard their album feeling less than satisfied, if not mesmerized, by The Wrens’ powerful exhibition.
The Meadowlands is the rare album that breaks the fourth wall and includes songs about the band and its members, even specifically citing members and the band name in the lyrics (with frequent mention of specific towns in New Jersey). It’s probably the only kind of album The Wrens could honestly make at that point in their lives/careers. Spectators on the outside often forget that there are hundreds of bands who never achieve success or financial stability and The Wrens, with The Meadowlands, remind us that dreams are difficult to achieve. This is an album that seeps into your pores. No matter how long I go between listens, each time I hear these songs they affect me and they’re beautiful.