Pitfall July 28, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , 1 comment so far
Pitfall was the debut feature from Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara, newly celebrated by the Criterion Collection in a superb four-disc box set. It’s what one might describe as an art film, less concerned with narrative and tying up loose ends than creating disturbing images that become etched into the viewer’s mind. But what images. Surreal ants carefully picked away from stale sweets by a female candy clerk. The skin of a frog gradually peeled off its body. A man’s spirit rising up from his body after he’s been brutally stabbed. Another man, one who shares a face with the deceased, collapsing out of the water and into a mud-soaked death as a butterfly flitters around him. Throughout, a young boy stands silently watching, captured in one memorable scene staring through a small opening in the wall as he peers at a police officer sexually attacking the candy shop woman, reproduced for the covers of both the Criterion release and an earlier edition put out by the Masters of Cinema series in the UK.
What Teshigahara and his collaborators, notably novelist and screenwriter Kobo Abe, composer Toru Takemitsu, and cinematographer Hiroshi Segawa, give the audience is an unparalleled combination of the political, procedural, supernatural and existential. Unsolved mysteries, enigmatic characters, bitter ghosts, and the problems of postwar Japan add up to a mesmerizing and hypnotic film, even if it may take multiple viewings to wrap your head around. I’ve seen it twice now and feel like there’s half a dozen viewings left before I’ll really grasp everything Teshigahara and co. were striving for. The first time I wasn’t prepared for the meandering plot and its misleading importance. By this I mean that the physical resemblance of the miner and the pit chief initially seemed like a notable development, but further viewing reveals it more as the equivalent of Hitchcock’s MacGuffin.
As I see it, the most important idea coming from the two men’s resemblance rises out of Teshigahara’s interest in identity, a theme later explored in his third feature with Abe, The Face of Another, and highlighted by Criterion’s choice of an embossed fingerprint for their box set cover. From this perspective, it’s mildly fascinating, if under-explored. The main character in Pitfall has his life ended solely because he’s mistaken for someone else, a man of importance in a petty dispute between mining organizations. At least that’s the impression the audience gets from the film. There’s no confirmation and the mysterious assassin, clad completely in white, remains a mythic question mark. Without any inclination of motive or speck of rationale, the audience is left assuming that the murderous man in white was employed to kill his initial victim’s lookalike. The only concrete evidence we have to verify this is an inconclusive piece of paper the killer removes from his victim’s body.
Pitfall is a film that largely requires the viewer to draw his or her own conclusions. We’re never left with any doubt as to Teshigahara’s political leanings (established almost immediately in the opening titles by the shot of a malnourished child’s swollen stomach), but most everything that happens in the film is either unresolved or explained with the vaguest of answers. The wordless child of the stabbed miner initially seems like an innocent, a victim of circumstance. As the film progresses, though, our sympathy wanes and his existence becomes mysterious. His ghost of a father never once laments the now-orphaned boy and we repeatedly see him as a silent observer of crimes. Why does he take the piece of candy from his dead father? Why does the only tear we see him shed come as a result of the death of the man who looks like his father, and not when he watches the ill-fated miner try to retreat from the violent stabbings of the assassin?
The film’s strange ending, showing the child running away from the village where he’s seen four people killed, provides more questions than answers. The young boy survives, along with the immaculately-attired killer, but we’ve seen nothing to make us think this is in any way a hopeful resolution. The assassin, exuding a strange charisma associated with well-dressed men, is undeniably a bad man. Had he killed only the miner, we might reluctantly sympathize with his professionalism, but the unnecessary murder of the candy woman tips the scales in favor of a more sinister characterization. By the end, the only living person who’s seen him and lived to tell was the miner’s young son. As James Quandt intuitively points out on the Criterion disc’s excellent video essay, this doesn’t bode well for the child’s future endeavors. His “escape” can be viewed with the devastating counterpoint that he really has nowhere to retreat and his life, assuming he survives, could just as easily follow the path of the assassin as the miner existence of his father.
Like the boy’s fate, much of the film is open-ended. As I mentioned earlier, we know little about the scooter-riding assassin or his motives, but the entire procedural aspect is mostly left unresolved as well. We see police inspectors in white coats and newspaper reporters investigating the initial murder, but both of these aspects are abandoned, shown little importance in relation to the deaths and ghostly incarnations. The audience knows the culprit of each murder, of course, but we see little resembling an investigation. Perhaps this is another political statement from Teshigahara, that of bureaucratic inefficiency, and it certainly adds to the film’s messy qualities of unresolved plot lines and ambiguous conclusions. Without any sort of closure, spiritual or otherwise, the audience is left just as frustrated as the characters in the film.
That’s not to say the film doesn’t achieve greatness. It does, in spite of its flaws. Teshigahara’s debut succeeds as a haunting entry into a world completely foreign to the great majority of 21st century DVD consumers. Though he directed very few fictional features in his career, the filmmaker made an undeniable impact in world cinema and became the first Japanese director nominated as Best Director at the Academy Awards for Woman in the Dunes, his follow-up to Pitfall. Personally, I find the work of Teshigahara and Shohei Imamura, both disciples of the so-called Japanese New Wave, far more interesting than more popular directors like Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu. Each liked to repeatedly return to the same themes, but I find more appealing and exhilarating ideas in the former two’s films.
- Masters of Cinema R2
- Criterion Collection R1
Criterion’s DVD for Pitfall has an impressively rendered picture (though windowboxed), and noticeably superior even to the MoC release. The image is strikingly clear, with intermittent specks of dirt seemingly on the lens that do nothing to inhibit the image quality. If anything, they make the film feel more real and alive in its lifelike reproduction of the grimy world faced by postwar Japanese miners struggling with conflicts both physical and political. I can’t say I like the overlaps between the two DVD outfits, but I’m glad that one is at least improving on the other. It should be pointed out, as well, that the informative Tony Rayns provides a commentary exclusive to the MoC edition, while the Criterion release, only available in the Teshigahara set, boasts the Quandt video essay. Both include a worthwhile original trailer for the film, creepy and accomplished in and of itself. Because I’m a sucker, I treasure both the MoC and the Criterion, but, if forced to choose, I’d probably pick the latter for its startling improvement in image quality. Teshigahara and Abe’s fourth and final collaboration The Man Without a Map (aka The Ruined Map) remains conspicuously absent on English-language DVD, and would have been a nice addition to the Criterion set
Ace in the Hole on DVD July 23, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1950s, Billy Wilder , 7 comments
In the Criterion Collection’s monthly newsletter, they ask a prominent figure associated with a previously released title to compose a list of ten favorite selections among the Criterion catalog. Even though it was just released this past week, I know for certain that I would choose their Ace in the Hole
At the first chance I had, I devoured every nook and cranny of the two-disc set. I was initially disappointed by the cover art, seemingly too simple and dull. When it was in my hands though, it seemed fittingly in-your-face. No complaints (though I still haven’t warmed to the figure-8 case design Criterion has adopted for double disc sets since their new logo switch last summer). Inside the case, we have a mock newspaper instead of the usual insert booklet, perfectly keeping with the film. Two lengthy essays, by critic Molly Haskell and the director Guy Maddin, make up the contents of the mini-paper and there are even advertisements to re-elect Escadero Sheriff Kretzer and for the rattlesnake hunt that proves crucial to the film’s main character, Charles “Chuck” Tatum, fearlessly embodied by Kirk Douglas.
The DVD transfer is very good, though not immaculate, and has a beautiful contrast. There are brief instances where the picture becomes soft, but certainly nothing distracting or disappointing. For your listening pleasure, Criterion has included a commentary with British film professor Neil Sinyard, co-author of Journey Down Sunset Boulevard: The Films of Billy Wilder. Sinyard has a very relaxed, easygoing voice and he provides a highly informative accompaniment to the picture (probably best heard after seeing the film though, as he does hint at things to come). He comes across as knowledgeable (despite mistakenly referring to Ace co-screenwriter Lesser Samuels as writing No Way Back, instead of the actual title No Way Out, the previous year) without turning the commentary into a dry lecture.
Indeed, there were several items of interest I learned from his commentary, notably that Sunset Blvd. party guest, and famed composer of songs like “Silver Bells” and “Que Sera, Sera,” Jay Livingston was the co-writer of the wry anthem “We’re Comin’ Leo.” Also, Sinyard astutely comments on many of the impressively subtle aspects of Wilder’s film, such as the full circle shots of Tatum at both the beginning and end of the movie in the Albuquerque newspaper office. Plus, he convinced me of the sexual relationship between Tatum and Jan Sterling’s Lorraine Minosa. Despite being a tad disappointed at one or two things omitted from the commentary, such as the failure to point out the possible connotations of the S&M Amusement Corp., overall, I was enthralled. I also appreciated that Sinyard couldn’t resist mentioning William Holden’s quip that Wilder had a “mind full of razorblades.”
Also on the first disc is the film’s original theatrical trailer, even identifying it by the briefly-released preferred title instead of The Big Carnival, which the film came to be known as after Paramount tried a happier, more cheerful alternative name when the first one didn’t attract moviegoers. The second disc of the set contains the bulk of the extra features. First up is film critic Michel Ciment’s hour-long interview documentary from 1980, Portrait of a “60% Perfect Man,” which also features brief comments from Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and Wilder’s writing partner I.A.L. Diamond. It’s fun to watch, if not particularly enlightening until maybe the final segment, but Ciment is an incredibly passive interviewer. Of interest, parts of Wilder’s art collection are shown and we see the director still in possession of an almost manic energy, unable to sit still throughout the interview.
A 1984 interview with Kirk Douglas is here as well, wherein the actor repeatedly compliments Wilder and tellingly expresses his surprise that American audiences didn’t warm to Ace in the Hole while European crowds seemed to enjoy it much more. Douglas sees Tatum as slightly less inhumane than the impression I’d guess most viewers have of the character. Over thirty years after the film’s release, Douglas seemed to have the exact same speaking voice then as he did in 1951. What a virile, fit guy Kirk Douglas has always been. I mentioned this in another entry, but I saw him not too long ago and despite surviving numerous setbacks like a debilitating stroke, a death-defying helicopter accident and reconstructive knee operations, the man remains a titan. His voice is irreparably damaged by the stroke, but his spirit and energy are incredible for someone who’s ninety years of age.
Criterion has also included another Wilder interview, recorded at the American Film Institute in 1986 with George Stevens, Jr. playing silent observer to Wilder riffing on his beginnings in Hollywood, the need for directors who can read, and his thoughts on the studios. Neither of these pieces showcasing the director are as comprehensive as Volker Schlöndorff’s Billy Wilder Speaks, but both still make for welcome inclusions. The Ciment interview does a better job of showing Wilder’s daily routines, as we see him doing everything from yelling at a televised baseball game to opening a cigar while lying in a hammock. An audio interview with co-screenwriter Walter Newman by Rui Nogueira basically continues the Wilder lovefest and confirms the idea that several of the film’s trademark elements came from the director, including the blistering opening sequence of Tatum’s first visit to the Albuquerque Sun-Bulletin.
Finally, we’re rewarded with a welcome afterword from Spike Lee, whose work, believe it or not, owes a significant debt to Wilder. He shows us a framed lobby card of the film, in its The Big Carnival incarnation, autographed by Wilder and Douglas. There’s a funny passage in Cameron Crowe’s Conversations with Wilder, a must for fans of the director, where Wilder mentions that Lee had stopped by his office to have a few things signed and the elder filmmaker was surprised to learn that the man in his office was Spike Lee. Wilder didn’t know what the director looked like, though he had been a fan of his work. In the afterword on the Criterion disc, Lee makes the point that Ace in the Hole shares a prophetic vision of the media circus with Elia Kazan’s A Face in the Crowd.
Upon hearing Lee’s proclamation, I wanted to give him a huge bear hug since I too consider these two films as kindred spirits, among the best the decade had to offer. Though Cameron Crowe (who is thanked in the liner notes, but is conspicuously absent here) owes a substantial debt to Billy Wilder and is obviously a fond admirer of his films, I would nominate Spike Lee as a more likely heir to Wilder’s throne in modern filmmaking. Like Wilder, Lee is unafraid of taking bold steps in his films, even if he doesn’t share the same audience or critical popularity. He acknowledges in the interview the borrowing of Ace in the Hole’s final shot of Tatum collapsing to the floor for Lee’s own Malcolm X, a film which remains one of the key biography films of the past twenty years. Also on the disc is a stills gallery, showing several interesting behind-the-scenes photos of Wilder, Douglas, and Sterling, including what appears to be an actual deck of cards depicting the film’s doomed subject Leo Minosa as the ace of spades. What I wouldn’t give to have such a collectible.
It’s been a long time coming, but finally Ace in the Hole has made its way onto DVD. I’m anxious to see what kind of boost the release will mean for its reputation over the next few decades. Even after 56 years and repeated instances of life imitating art, the film still plays as very, very dark and unrelentingly cynical. Yet, I find myself loving it more on each viewing. I’m over the moon about Criterion stepping up to unleash the film to the masses. Such a high profile release guarantees it much more publicity and provides a greater awareness than if Paramount had simply slapped out a no-frills disc with an ugly cover (think of the atrocity that is the cover for The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek) and a bargain retail price.
Of course, they’ve had the chance to put out their own version for over a decade and haven’t so I’m thrilled Paramount came to their senses and licensed it to Criterion. For a company so used to putting out important, comprehensive editions of great films, Criterion may have outdone themselves here. This was a film completely unavailable on the home video market across the globe, rarely seen on television over the years and even less often under its original title. The quality of the movie and Wilder’s reputation should have warranted something more, but instead year after year went by without a release of any kind from Paramount. Now, finally, we’re rewarded with the Criterion set, a definitive look (though the inclusion of the animated short The Big Story would have been nice) at Wilder’s most daring film. Ace in the Hole, finally rescued.
Happiness Is a Cool Heart July 18, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : General Film , 2 commentsIncreasingly, I’m finding myself drawn to films that seem to lack “happy” elements, characters or endings. I’ve always realized that my sense of humor is dark and my worldview is cynical, but it’s actually writing about the things I watch that’s made me see the distinct pattern here. While it’s comforting to know I’m not alone, that many of the films I like are actually somewhat popular, my misanthropic side argues otherwise. My idea of entertainment is not a static one, constructed by the masses. So, aided with a healthy dose of self-indulgence, I’ll try to explore why I’m fascinated by unhappy cinema.
Aside from horror films, the most obvious area in movies where things usually don’t go too well is film noir. Of course, that’s mostly the point. We watch those films because we want dark themes, shadowy lighting and double crosses. The fascination of noir lies in how different the movies are from others of the same time period. I don’t want to see stuffy melodrama when I watch older movies. I prefer cold women with deadened souls and men too hopeless to resist them. The subversion of the expected is exactly why I find film noir so fascinating. An insurance man doomed by fate to encounter an unhappy wife who cajoles him into murder? Sign me up. A sap who thinks he’s saving a malignant beauty arguing with her con man boyfriend in the pouring rain? It’s the kind of thing that never gets old. These types of films work over and over again. There’s no one to root for because every character is always at fault and that’s exactly why I watch. It’s a self-loathing cynic’s dream!
“Fate, or some mysterious force, can put the finger on you or me for no good reason at all,” Tom Neal’s character in Detour laments near the end of the film. That line in Edgar G. Ulmer’s no-budget classic sums up the appeal of film noir perfectly. Coincidence, fate, or whatever the cause may be, bad things happen to good people and no amount of faith or karmic retribution will eliminate that. We’re all equals in the arena of luck, even if some of us might not choose the exact same paths as Walter Neff or Chris Cross. The usual audience requirement of being able to identify with the protagonist flies out the window, replaced with a voyeuristic curiosity to explore a life most will never know. The characters in these films start out unhappy and end up unhappy. At best they’re cautionary tales, at worst they’re the cinematic equivalent of old country music songs.
Though film noir is the one of the more noteworthy types of unhappy film, it’s far from being alone. A number of more mature, naturalistic westerns were popularized after World War II, first typified by the Anthony Mann-James Stewart films where Stewart is consistently angry and disenchanted. Mann continued without Stewart in Man of the West starring Gary Cooper as a former outlaw trying unsuccessfully to distance himself from a violent past. Those same themes would pop up decades later in Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven where our hero is a man trying to forget his ruthless history as a cold-blooded gunfighter. In between the two films, Sam Peckinpah laid the framework for showing stylized violence in downbeat films populated by unhappy characters.
Peckinpah’s men often struggle with the notion of redemption, whether it’s in their own eyes or the audience’s. In films like The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, and Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, the protagonists attempt to fill a void of unhappiness through accomplishing some redeeming feat. The men we see could easily be described as losers, on the fringe of society, but they’re adamant in accomplishing a goal to set things right, if only in their own minds. This is in contrast to the outcasts found in some other films of the era, such as those by Robert Altman, who instead tended to present his characters as happily getting by while maintaining non-conformist ideals and actions. Many of Peckinpah’s films fit into my neat little cove of unhappiness by giving the audience men who have chosen their own path, usually without apology, and become faced with a challenge that ultimately does nothing to bring happiness to the characters or the audience.
Frequently, these are difficult films to digest. Even a popular filmmaker like Billy Wilder, who’s still considered maybe the most cynical of Hollywood directors, populated many of his comedic films with seemingly unhappy plot points. Though they’re played for laughs and the actors tend to seem more happy than not, Wilder’s comedies can be filled with depressing, even disturbing situations. The Major and the Minor is about a young lady posing as a 12-year-old who tries to woo a military Major in his late thirties. Good luck trying to get that made today. A Foreign Affair, though not entirely a comedy, focuses on a Nazi collaborator’s secret affair with a U.S. army captain and is highlighted by scenes of a bombed-out Berlin. The main characters in Some Like It Hot go on the run from gangsters by posing as women in an all-girls band. The Seven Year Itch, The Apartment and Kiss Me, Stupid center on infidelity and Irma la Douce is about a romance between the title character prostitute and a fired police officer.
All of these are comedies and all have their moments of hilarity, yet each presents a situation of extreme discomfort for its characters. I can’t imagine it’s very easy being happy when you’re fleeing the mob, trying to keep your wife from sleeping with Dean Martin, or realizing your boss is fooling around with the woman you love in your own apartment. Somehow, though, Wilder made us laugh through these situations and prevented the audience from feeling unhappy themselves. Most impressive is that the joy we derive from their unhappiness isn’t a result of emotional manipulation or mean-spirited comeuppance. Wilder comes by his audience satisfaction honestly, through good story and characters. We don’t want these people to be unhappy, and unlike film noir there is usually a sense of hoping things work out positively, but we’re okay with laughing and smiling through their plight.
Prior to Wilder, and aside from some of the harebrained situations found in screwball comedy (a genre that acts as a counterpoint to my love for these “unhappy” films, proving the blood running through my veins is indeed nice and warm), the most successful proponent of sad film comedy in the sound era may have been Charlie Chaplin. Though Chaplin is frequently cited as overly romantic and sentimental, I would argue that he more often presented harsh reminders of how difficult life can be. Prior to talking pictures, he gave us devastating looks at poverty and the superficial nature of love in The Gold Rush and City Lights. Both are very funny, but also quite depressing, especially the latter which contains perhaps the most heartbreaking ending in film history. Then, in Modern Times, the industrial age was savagely critiqued, almost frighteningly so.
Chaplin’s remaining films all have varying degrees of poignant, unhappy looks at the world, told through biting social commentary. The Great Dictator is terrifying if you take into consideration that it was made in 1940, at an extremely uncertain time in our history. His incredibly moving monologue, sometimes cited as being overly preachy, plays to me like a call to arms and a necessary one at that. Chaplin turned Hitler into a buffoon, risking his life and career in the process. By Monsieur Verdoux, he was supremely confident in his comedic handling of another delicate subject matter, this time a serial killing Bluebeard. It’s no surprise that audiences didn’t warm to such a vile character, but the film is a creative triumph, turning a most unhappy subject into a decidedly black comedy.
Chaplin’s final two screen characters are not quite so heartless, but both give viewers little to be happy about. Limelight shows Chaplin as Calvero, an aging and washed-up music hall comedian who struggles to sell tickets or captivate his audience. In many ways, the film is a depressing look at the bygone days of entertainment and the sad futures of forgotten entertainers. Calvero descends from great star to unemployable drunk. Despite the downbeat themes, Limelight works beautifully as a wistful deconstruction of the romantic myth of the entertainment industry. Chaplin’s final starring role, in A King in New York, is less heralded but still effective. As the deposed king of a fictional country, the actor is funny and charming in a film that really looks astonishing today in its straightforward attacks on everything from HUAC collaborators to the insanity of reality television.
These are pointed films unafraid to make strong statements, even if ostensibly taking place within the confines of comedy. Once again, unhappy characters often placed in unhappy situations and not always with neat, satisfying conclusions. Exactly the kind of thing I enjoy. I find it much better than perfect, unrealistic situations or overly dramatic and ridiculous plot contrivances. Frequently, I don’t want happiness in my movies. I don’t want to be merely entertained. A good movie should entertain me, but there’s more than one way of doing it. Provoking thought or anger can be just as entertaining as boy meets girl and they live happily ever after. I think internal tension is more compelling than a flurry of explosions. The good guys don’t have to always win and the guy doesn’t have to get the girl. For me, that’s entertainment (and happiness).
Flags of Our Fathers July 13, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Modern Films, 2000s , 2 comments
Movies that depict the Hollywood version of war rarely interest me. When I learned Clint Eastwood was making a war film called Flags of Our Fathers
As it turns out, I was fooled in a different way. I underestimated Eastwood and his conviction in destroying the mythmaking types of films he had himself popularized in his past life as a movie star. Unforgiven had brilliantly taken apart the western, leaving the genre with little room left to breathe and arguably placing it in creative retirement these last fifteen years. More recently, Mystic River seemed to present the devastating flip side to the vigilante justice made famous by Eastwood’s Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry series. Now, it seems, the trilogy of repenting for earlier violence comes to a close with Eastwood’s twin war films focusing on the Battle of Iwo Jima, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters to Iwo Jima.
The latter received nearly unanimous critical praise when it was released last year, culminating in Oscar nominations for the film and its director and becoming the first Japanese language Best Picture nominee. All of this did little to make me anxious to see the former film, which still seemed like a misfire and maybe even a more standard war film plagued by Eastwood’s sloppy lack of perfectionism. It had all the makings of yet another tribute to the “Greatest Generation,” this time made by someone who was nearly their age. Then, with lowered expectations, I finally watched Flags of Our Fathers and was angered, moved, and frustrated by both the story and the film.
Eastwood and his screenwriters Paul Haggis and William Broyles, Jr. cobbled together two conflicting threads for their film. Based on the book of the same name by James Bradley, son of the character Doc Bradley and portrayed here by Tom McCarthy (also the director of The Station Agent), Eastwood’s film tries to maintain its appeal to veterans and their families by reminding the audience a little too much of the misguided Saving Private Ryan bookends. Both films begin and end with contemporary scenes presumably intended to allow the viewer to recognize that the events in each film took place a “really long time ago.” Why else include the flashback structure, which of course proves maddeningly false in Spielberg’s film, other than as an attempt to avoid a full, difficult to relate to World War II setting.
In Flags of Our Fathers, the messy idea of James Bradley searching for insight into his father’s war trauma serves little purpose. Anyone paying attention to the remainder of the film will easily realize why and to what extent the older Bradley suffered with gruesome memories he didn’t want. The completely uninspired epilogue should have never made the finished film. If the actual James Bradley was seen talking with the real men instead of the emotion-deflating use of actors then maybe the modern-day scenes would have maintained the tone of the rest of the film. Instead, we’re left with McCarthy trying to look thoughtful while typing on a computer. For a film that works largely as a response to nearly every other portrayal of WWII, these final missteps, all returning to the reverence of war myth the rest of the film had been trying to shatter, are absolutely frustrating and inconsistent.
Thankfully, and somewhat surprisingly, most everything else about Flags of Our Fathers is a refreshingly uncompromising account of how three men used a photograph to escape the battlefield before ultimately having the United States government use them as disposable cheerleaders. In short, my expectations had been almost completely wrong. This is a war film with no blinders, one that is fearless in its total assault on the idea of soldiers as heroes. It disintegrates the World War II myth of simple right and wrong, good and evil, in the process correcting the often held assumption that war can somehow be heroic or justified. Instead of “war is hell,” Eastwood’s film implies that war is a business and as such it must be marketed and sold regardless of the truth.
The film reminds us that wars have always been built on lies, with innocents thrown into the machine and discarded at the government’s discretion. Some, like three of the men in the famous photograph at the center of Flags of Our Fathers, escape through horrific deaths. Then there are the others, the ones who survive as the three main characters of the film do, who end up doomed to recreate what they’ve seen and heard through the dreams of years to come. The surviving men in the photograph, Navy Corpsman John Bradley and Marines Ira Hayes and Rene Gagnon, are depicted here as damaged by the celebrity status thrust upon them by a desperate United States government. They struggle with survivor’s guilt, false promises and unwanted fame, respectively, as the din of thanks from a grateful nation falls silent.
Though the stories of all three men are compelling, it’s Hayes, a Pima Indian thrust into the spotlight against his will, who is the film’s tragic figure. An habitual drunk, Ira Hayes was found dead, face down and buried in his own vomit, at the age of 32, less than a decade after the flag raising. While the movie only touches on his experiences, it still manages to paint a complex picture of a man who was cruelly refused service in a restaurant on the same night he was cheered before a football stadium full of people. As Hayes, Adam Beach is perfect, inspiring emotion and compassion for someone who must have been difficult to portray. It’s a heartbreaking performance and the best in the film.
Though Hayes and the other two men are reluctant to accept their status as heroes, Flags of Our Fathers seems to argue, firstly, that they deserve the designation as much as most any other soldier, and, conversely, that war doesn’t make heroes. This second statement is a fascinating proposition, not necessarily new, but mostly unmined by big budget Hollywood war movies. Eastwood and his screenwriters ultimately waver on the idea near the end, returning to the awkward contemporary scenes and using the iconic photograph of the flag raising as the last image after the credits, but the entirety of the main 1945 part of the film argues differently.
Innovative editing caroms between brutal combat scenes full of mistakes and lucky survival and the soldiers’ publicity roles as war bond promoters. This is the reward for “heroes,” misleading the public into thinking the second raising of a flag had any bearing on the outcome of a battle, much less a war, and constant reminders that three of the men in the photograph with them, including one not even receiving any credit, will never see their families again. The horror of war is enough to leave a foul taste in my mouth, but propaganda run amok makes me unsure if I should be sick or in tears. I’ve never been so emotionally invested in a war movie. This must be the least patriotic World War II film Hollywood has ever given us.
The Grifters July 7, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Modern Films, 1990s , 1 comment so far
Seventeen years after its release, The Grifters
The Grifters was based on a novel of the same name by Jim Thompson, who worked with Stanley Kubrick on the screenplays for The Killing and Paths of Glory, had his book The Getaway brought to the screen twice, and is generally adored by readers of pulpy noir-type fiction. Thompson’s story was adapted by Donald Westlake, a well-known writer whose novel The Hunter was the basis for John Boorman’s Point Blank. Having never read the Thompson book, I can’t say how close the film adheres to its source material, but what we see in The Grifters is a lean, well-constructed example of how to perfectly develop three characters while setting into motion an uncomplicated, interesting storyline.
Like many of the great noirs of the ’40s and ’50s, the film is really more successful as a character study than a crime thriller. Through flashbacks and innuendo, the audience learns that Cusack’s Roy and Huston’s Lilly have, let’s say, an unorthodox mother-son relationship and Bening’s Myra has a history of grifting, a con artist term neatly quoted at the onset from the Rodgers and Hart song “The Lady Is a Tramp.” Each character seems constantly vying to be the most cold-hearted of the bunch, with a winner only emerging at the very end. If you love films like this, as I do, it becomes difficult deciding whether you should feel sympathy for any one of them, specifically Cusack’s character who’s positioned as the protagonist.
Roy is a small-time grifter who’s more interested in scamming bartenders out of ten bucks than running a long con. He has a substantial stash of money hidden behind a sad clown painting so we know he must be either frugal and prolific or experienced in bigger scams than he lets on. All signs point to the former, a guy who lives for the take and is unable to turn his back on a mark. When he’s on a train with Myra, he spots some sailors, including a young, balder Jeremy Piven, and locks in on his prey despite little opportunity for escape should the con go bad. You get the feeling that it’s a compulsion for Roy, something he enjoys even if he knows his limits in scale but not frequency.
His mother, Lilly, has been grifting all her life and is tied up with the unlikely named Bobo Justus (Pat Hingle, who’s only one of the several recognizable character actors present). With her looks fading and her platinum hair unable to conceal that she’s now a woman in her forties, Lilly probably sees an ending point to her viability as a crook. Her plan of attack has been to steal money from Bobo and hide the bills in the trunk of her car as she works racetrack schemes. We see that Lilly isn’t terribly bright or particularly brave when faced with Bobo, leaving her future in doubt. Her influence in Roy’s life causes a rift between Myra and him and ultimately brings down all three principal characters. The animal-like survival instinct we see from Lilly (stunningly brought to life by Huston in the finest scene of her career) is a startling reminder that these types of people don’t play nice.
If Lilly is the ice queen maternal figure, then Myra is the calculating mistress of indeterminate motive. Like Roy, the audience can never be sure of Myra’s intentions. We see right away that she’s found the ultimate weakness in man - lust - and is more than willing to exploit it for her own benefit. She’s opportunistic to a fault, conniving and conning with a smile. There’s no way of knowing for sure what she has in store for Roy, or whether the large con she’s mapped out would result in a nice payday for both of them or just her. Ruthless and alluring, Myra is a femme fatale equal to the best in film noir.
All three actors give their characters the perfect blend of callous indifference and seasoned, professional confidence to make for superb performances. I believe Cusack was only 24 years old when the film was shot and he’s a revelation, breaking free once and for all from the constraints of a career mostly spent in teen comedies. Since then, he’s honed a nice reputation frequently playing characters who care too little in films such as Grosse Pointe Blank, High Fidelity and the underrated The Ice Harvest. An Academy Award nomination to match Huston’s and Bening’s would have been a deserved honor for the actor. Still never nominated in his career, Cusack was overlooked in 1990 in favor of Robert De Niro in Awakenings and Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves, among others.
Huston and Bening lost to Kathy Bates in Misery and Whoopi Goldberg for Ghost, respectively. Not my choices, but at least they were nominated. Both actresses give stunningly cruel, multi-dimensional performances. Watching the film recently, I detected a bit of Gloria Grahame, among other notable noir actresses, in the way Bening plays Myra and then I discovered that she actually somewhat patterned her performance after Grahame. It’s perfectly realized, a terrific throwback to what see in older films. I can’t recall a better contemporary example of completely adopting the style and mood of the classic femme fatale than what we see from Bening here. In fact, the entire film is a keenly updated homage to the black-and-white noirs, with added nudity and language but otherwise completely in the same tone.
The versatile director Stephen Frears should bear at least some of the credit for the success of The Grifters. After Martin Scorsese chose to direct Goodfellas instead, though he retained a producing credit and added a brief (unnecessary) opening narration, Frears was chosen following the critical success of Dangerous Liaisons two years earlier. The English director has proven himself adept at several genres, re-teaming with Cusack for High Fidelity and going on to direct fine films like Dirty Pretty Things and last year’s Oscar-nominated The Queen. I’ve seen several of Frears’ films, but I can’t say that I’ve noticed many obvious or consistent threads running throughout his work. Prior to The Grifters, he directed another noteworthy crime film, The Hit, which I’ve not seen but am anxious to view once the rumored release from Criterion surfaces.
The existing R1 special edition DVD of The Grifters is nearly five years old and could use some image clean-up, but remains more than acceptable and affordably priced. A new R2 release in the UK came out in February but I’ve not yet seen any reviews or indication as to whether the transfer is sufficiently better. Both editions seem to share the same special features, including a commentary with Frears, Westlake, Cusack, and Huston and a profile of Jim Thompson. I’d be curious to hear any opinions on the possible variations in image. The film itself is quietly great, maybe even a small masterpiece, and should appeal to those who enjoy spending a couple of hours with rotten-hearted noir characters.