Hell in the Pacific May 23, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , 1 comment so far
Marvin. Lee Marvin.
An odd thought, but can you imagine Lee Marvin as James Bond? Ignoring the accent, he would have been incredible, bringing the sadistic and amoral side to Bond that Daniel Craig has adopted in Casino Royale. Marvin is one of those actors that make me question the auteur theory. I normally write about films in the context of the director and/or the screenwriter as most responsible for what’s on screen, but there are a few actors who’ve been able to bring something special to almost every role they’ve played. Marvin’s steely coolness dominates the films he appeared in, making mediocre movies worthwhile and good movies even better. He worked with fine directors, such as Aldrich, Ritchie, Boorman and Siegel among others, but Lee Marvin is the real reason to see Emperor of the North Pole, Prime Cut, Point Blank and The Killers. Even his supporting turns in films like Attack, Ship of Fools and Seven Men from Now are completely memorable and make the viewer anxious for the next time Marvin appears on screen.
The Film Society at Lincoln Center in New York has devoted over two weeks worth of films to Marvin, including those mentioned above, with his widow Pamela Marvin and director John Boorman participating. It’s been a great chance to become reacquainted with one of the most unique and accomplished film presences in movie history. To encourage people to attend instead of popping in their DVDs, the FSLC offered a special series pass for $40 that enabled patrons to see up to 8 films, a significant savings from the regular $11 ticket price. I took advantage of the offer, seeing some things for the first time while revisiting others that I’d seen before on a much smaller screen. Two of my favorites are the two films directed by Boorman, the anamorphic classics Point Blank and Hell in the Pacific, both begging to be seen in a theater. Film Comment, the bimonthly magazine published by the FSLC, also celebrated the retrospective (appropriately titled Lee Marvin: The Coolest Lethal Weapon) with a lengthy article on Marvin, available in its entirety online. (Attached below are my ticket stubs, the program guide, etc. Click to enlarge.)
In Marvin’s second collaboration with Boorman, Hell in the Pacific
The film begins with Mifune already on the island, in full beard. He’s adapted to the stranded existence by setting traps for fish and preserving rainwater. Mifune and the audience see Marvin for the first time together, a thirsty, stubbled face soldier whose life raft has wandered ashore leaving the American in the brush of the jungle. As the film progresses, each character gains the upper hand on the other, but only before losing again. Marvin teases and enrages Mifune, but is then captured and shackled by vine. Upon escape, Marvin gives Mifune the same punishment before realizing that the two men really have no issue with one another. When Marvin reads a military manual instructing soldiers to kill enemies when captured on an island, he’s instead prompted to cut Mifune free. With Marvin’s gesture in defying expectations of war, after Mifune could have previously killed him also, the film quietly reminds us of the human cost of battle. Enemies are more than faceless killing machines, regardless of the language they speak or country they were raised. Sometimes it takes a vacuum, such as the deserted island in Hell in the Pacific, to realize it.
Boorman’s film is an oddity, especially considering its 1968 release. Set during World War II, but like many other military pictures of the time, it’s obviously intended to provoke thoughts of the Vietnam conflict, opposed by both director and actor. The postcard cinematography by the brilliant Conrad Hall makes sure to give the audience a look at the spectacular beauty offered by the Pacific Ocean locale. When the men successfully build a raft and make their way to another piece of land, we see remnants of more tropical paradise, only now bombed out and destroyed by war. It’s certainly not unthinkable to wonder if Boorman intended Western audiences to pause and ask what’s the point of it all. Together Marvin and Mifune set aside their differences and left the island, but when the outside world once again interfered the two men resumed their unintelligible bickering.
Though I think Hell in the Pacific has aged quite well, especially in these days of Cast Away, Survivor, and Lost, the ending found on the DVD release and the theatrical print I saw has not and now seems too sudden, almost comically so. I’m referring to the abrupt explosion that concludes the film, which probably never played very popularly with the audience, but now comes across as ridiculous to boot. Why exactly would a bomb drop on the already obliterated area where Marvin and Mifune are drunkenly quarreling? The only halfway sensible explanation I’ve read was that perhaps their fire had been spotted, but even this seems to suspend reality a little too much for my liking. In fact, John Boorman never approved this ending and it was imposed by the producer after the director had finished the film. The final scene as shot, shown as an alternate ending on the DVD, had been thought up by Marvin and consisted of the two men simply parting ways in anger. Still abrupt but much more appropriate and consistent.
I recently had the chance to ask John Boorman, a very nice man possessing the brio to wear red pants with a green shirt in May, about Hell in the Pacific and what it must have been like to juggle Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune in the Palau Islands. Even now, roughly forty years after the fact, it was obvious that Boorman was still frustrated over shooting the film. (So much so I wish I hadn’t asked actually.) With the idea of maintaining a high degree of authenticity, Boorman had two writers working on the script, an American for Marvin’s character and Rashomon scribe Shinobu Hashimoto on the Mifune part. Hashimoto went off and returned a couple of weeks later with his reworking, wherein Mifune’s character was comedically drawn as a buffoon.
When production began, the actor had erroneously been told this update would be the shooting version and proceeded with his performance in this manner. Even though Boorman never intended to use these alterations, Mifune had been given Hashimoto’s rewrites and was embarassed when the director tried to correct him during filming. The preeminent Japanese actor felt disrespected and publicly humiliated. Relations were never completely mended on the set, though Mifune still kept Boorman from being fired by the studio, and the mostly Japanese crew probably heightened the tension. Even reading Boorman’s words about the ordeal, from a transcript of a conversation between John Hurt and the director (here), one can intuit the lasting hurt he still harbors.
Regardless of the filming process, the final product remains a daringly captivating experience. Marvin, at his leading man peak, once again proved to be an enthralling actor and there’s thankfully little evidence of Hashimoto’s characterization in Mifune’s performance. Viewers familiar with both actors are probably more likely to appreciate and enjoy the film, but it still works far better than conventional wisdom would have you believe. Mostly wordless throughout, Hell in the Pacific instead relies on a compelling story and two extremely charismatic actors giving superb performances. Aside from the ending, this is just about as good a film imaginable about the realistic problems faced by two men who do not share a common language, yet are stuck together alone on an island. Granted that’s a miniscule subgenre, but many of the themes explored here are universally situated in all our lives.
Point Blank May 18, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , add a comment
Click, clack. Click, clack. Click, clack.
Clad in a sharp grey suit, Walker pounds his way down a fluorescent-lit airport hallway. For the entirety of Point Blank
Briefly, the plot involves Walker’s determined pursuit of the $93,000 that was his share in a robbery committed with his wife and his old Navy buddy, Reese. All three went to prison at Alcatraz, but Reese and Walker’s wife escaped, shooting Walker repeatedly and leaving him for dead in his cell. In the beginning of the film, we see Walker swim off the island where Alcatraz is located and, through innovatively fragmented editing, return on a boat tour where he meets a mysterious man (Keenan Wynn) looking to bring down the Organization, a faceless entity of crime where Reese now works. The man gives Walker his wife’s current address, says Reese lives there too, and more dynamic editing takes us to her via the Los Angeles airport. The wife answers questions no one asks and a stoic Walker sets his plan to retrieve his cut of the money in motion.
Though you’ll often hear Point Blank categorized as a noir or a neo-noir, those terms really don’t interest me here. Walker is so far removed from classic noir heroes that I can’t make that connection. Lee Marvin plays him literally like an automaton seemingly without humanlike qualities. On the surface, the film plays out like a noir plot, but it never emits that feeling of doom, dread and the wrong side of fate that exemplifies those kind of films. Instead, Point Blank seems like a dreamy psychedelic peak through the looking glass. The entire film situates itself on the brink of reality, teetering precisely between what may be real and what could be imagined. It does a remarkable job of toeing this line and resists any concrete determinations of whether Walker is dead or alive, lucid or dreaming.
As a result, I (and many, many others) can’t help but wondering if everything we see Walker do after he’s shot by Reese in Alcatraz is actually occurring or if it’s in his mind somehow. I like that Boorman never gives any reason to think Walker isn’t either in some alternate existence or that he really is dreaming it all. Prior to being shot, Walker seems very timid in the flashbacks involving his wife and Reese, much different than the animalistic near-psychotic we see throughout the picture. Towards the end of the film, when Carroll O’Connor is talking to Walker, he appears to again become the unsure, more deliberate person we see in the flashbacks. Yet, there’s never any way for the viewer to definitively know if we’re seeing movie reality or the delirious dreams of a man shot by his co-conspirator. No matter how many times you watch the film, it’s impossible to figure out whether Walker is really taking down the Organization or if it’s an elaborate fantasy.
Furthermore, dreaming or not, is Walker even really still alive? More than one person in the film remarks that they thought he was dead and it’s entirely conceivable to think a man shot and left for dead would struggle to exit Alcatraz, much less swim across the ocean to San Francisco. Then there’s the passing of time between Walker’s escape and our first real-time meeting when he’s on the tourist boat. His hair seems greyer, his personality has calcified, and we’re never told why he’d be taking this boat tour in the first place. If he’s so interested in the money owed him (which is a question in its own right, considering the ending), what’s he been doing since his escape? We’re never told and the mystery of Walker is completely shrouded in uncertainty and question upon question. Trying to determine Walker’s existence can be a maddening exercise in futility, with no right or wrong answer.
Other characters in the film seem to either help Walker for unknown reasons or fear him. Keenan Wynn emerges from the shadows repeatedly, popping up at just the right moment to provide pieces of information and encouragement. Again, though, is this character real or part of Walker’s imagined revenge fantasy? The ending suggests he plays an integral part in the plot, but that’s assuming we’re dealing with reality when we may not be. Angie Dickinson, playing Walker’s ex-sister-in-law, goes to great lengths to provide help, later on attacks him violently, and ultimately is still unable to resist him. If Walker was dreaming the story as a fantasy, every piece fits exactly in place. In Point Blank, it’s possible to question everything from multiple angles and the only answers you’ll find will be rooted somewhere inside your own subjective head. I don’t know if I can recall another film so ambiguous without going over the deep end of belief.
Then again, that’s part of the charm in Point Blank. While it has a straightforward plot that’s fairly easy to follow, involving Walker’s efforts to disrupt the Organization and receive his $93,000, the film also has enough weird, open to interpretation moments to tide over the arthouse crowd. Boorman’s splendid direction, made even more remarkable considering his only previous feature starred the Dave Clark Five, adds layers of headscratching wonders mixed with stand-out colors marked by a palette that changes tones with Marvin’s suits. The DVD commentary, a conversation between Boorman and Steven Soderbergh, particularly made me appreciate the change in color and monochromatic detail prevalent in scenes such as Walker’s visit to his wife when, still wearing the grey suit, he sits on a grey couch with grey pillows in front of a backdrop of grey curtains and walls.
Instead of giving us a typical crime drama revenge story, Boorman turned Point Blank into an existential action film littered with ellipses. Whereas some directors, namely David Lynch, revel in fractured narratives challenging the viewer to put the pieces together, confidently telling the audience that there is an answer and “everything makes perfect sense,” Boorman’s film goes the opposite route. Instead of making sense only after repeatedly watching and deciphering, Point Blank superficially makes sense with little reflection. It’s only after closely examining the editing and, especially, the recurring flashbacks that we’re left in a daze of confusion. Thrillingly, the audience never gets its answer to many of the questions about Walker, as he almost dematerializes in the end. Somehow the film is both open-ended and straightforward, a major accomplishment in simmering late 1960s Hollywood.
A Man Vanishes March 16, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s, Shohei Imamura , add a comment
The fallacy of truth in cinema is as much the main subject of Shohei Imamura’s A Man Vanishes as the investigation into the disappearance of a Japanese businessman that initially appears to be the focal point of the 1967 film. The director, whose films have been the subject of a Brooklyn retrospective the past two weeks, made his initial stab at nonfiction filmmaking with this rarely seen examination of a missing plastics salesman, Tadashi Oshima, who unexpectedly vanished in April 1965 while on a business trip. Oshima left behind a fiancee, Yoshie, and joined the hundreds of Japanese businessmen who dropped out of sight without any obvious motive or warning. Imamura was intrigued by this growing phenomenon, called “Johatsu,” and randomly selected the police file of Oshima as the subject of his filmed case study.
The first three-quarters or so act as a typical, straightforward exploration into why Oshima may have disappeared. We’re introduced to the woman Oshima was to marry, Yoshie Hayakawa, and her sister Sayo, who both play large roles throughout the film. Imamura employs an interviewer (professional actor Shigeru Tsuyuguchi) who travels with the camera crew to speak with friends and family of the missing man, as well as police detectives and Oshima’s boss. We learn that he had been caught embezzling from the company and this is discussed as a potential reason for the disappearance. A past romance and the idea that he may have been unsure about marrying Yoshie are also considered as possibilities. A female shaman (who provides some strikingly eerie moments throughout the film) is consulted in an effort to summon Oshima or otherwise provide some answers to the many questions swirling around the vanished man.
It’s all shown in a very matter-of-fact, documentary style, as though the filmmakers are attempting to get to the bottom of the situation while gathering information that might help them in their pursuit. At first, the camera is almost an afterthought, a necessary evil to drum up interest in Oshima more than a probing, opportunistic distraction. Then we see a group of men in a small room, apparently the filmmakers, discussing the project and the film, not the disappearance or search for Oshima. Their disdain for Yoshie, whom they call “The Rat,” becomes obvious and you can see the slight shift from a film about Oshima and the phenomenon of Japanese men who suddenly disappear to a film about the filming of such a movie. Any hint of objectivity, an idea Imamura almost certainly is arguing as a false concept in documentary filmmaking, has been destroyed.
The film takes a step into near absurdity when the on-screen interviewer questions Yoshie about whether she has fallen in love with him. She replies that she believes she has. It’s a small jolt, bordering on hilarity, as the film up to that point had retained a procedural sincerity when confronting interviewees. Everything I read about the film beforehand made a point to mention the development of Yoshie proclaiming her love for her interviewer, but it’s shown with such nonchalant casualness that it still feels oddly unexpected. The scene has little ramification for the rest of the film and serves only as one piece of evidence that A Man Vanishes is much more ambitious than it initally seems.
The picture above shows an omnipotent Shohei Imamura peering over the shoulder of his interviewer, perfectly illustrating the director’s chosen role as a puppetmaster silently pulling the strings without explicitly inserting himself into the action. Imamura eventually removes the curtain to reveal the utter fictionality of his movie. The two sisters and a fishmonger eyewitness argue over whether Sayo had been Oshima’s companion on a particular occasion and, thus, possibly involved romantically before the teahouse they’re in is revealed to be nothing but a movie set with collapsing walls. The remarkable scene gives the audience a headscratching revelation worthy of any famous magician. Immediately, the viewer’s mind races to figure out what was real and what wasn’t. Imamura himself tells us that what we’ve just seen is fiction based on truth.
The argument continues in the street outside though, as Sayo maintains that she never walked with Oshima despite the fishmonger’s assertions to the contrary. In these, the film’s final moments, repetition and frustration set in, shedding no new light on an already impossible situation. Oshima is gone, probably never to return and possibly dead, and the phenomenon of Johatsu is just as much an enigma now as before the film began. We’ve learned the details of Oshima’s existence prior to the disappearance only through recollections of people who we know as neither trustworthy nor duplicitous. In making an examination into the nature of truth in cinema, Imamura has crafted his own spin on Kurosawa’s Rashomon, but without actors or a script.
The persons interviewed are real people, but the question remains whether they’re playing themselves or being themselves. There’s never any way to know these answers for certain in documentary films and the filmmaker is always free to skew the footage however he wants. The on-camera discussions among the filmmakers in A Man Vanishes remind us that every little filmic choice affects the audience’s perception of these “characters.” It’s essentially impossible for the viewer to be sure that a nonfiction film is ever reflecting truth since the line is constantly blurred between what is real and what is the reality intended for audience consumption.
By giving his audience this insightful experiment, Imamura blends truth with fiction and the perception of reality with the realization that everything we’ve seen is staged, to varying extents. It’s a brilliant and thought-provoking look at film as a medium unable to show unfiltered truth. The director’s patience to produce a 130 minute exercise, where the vast majority of the running time makes the film look like an ordinary missing persons investigation, was a daring thing to do to his audience, who may feel uneasy by the lack of a resolution. While the time spent investigating Oshima’s disappearance is never uninteresting, it’s the reveal near the end that catapults Imamura’s film from a curiosity to an essential.
(Like most of Imamura’s films, A Man Vanishes is unavailable on DVD with English subtitles. An interesting and worthwhile trailer, showcasing the wonderfully spooky score, can be found on YouTube for this fascinating film.)
Pigs and Battleships March 12, 2007
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s, Shohei Imamura , add a comment
Shohei Imamura’s breakthrough film Pigs and Battleships (translated onscreen as Hogs and Warships) is a grimy tale of the underbelly of a Japanese port town under American occupation following World War II. Released in 1961 (though not until the 1980s in the U.S., following the director’s first Palme d’Or win at Cannes for The Ballad of Narayama), the film now appears to be a precursor of things to come from Imamura and his fascination with the criminal lower class of postwar Japan. The four previous efforts from Imamura had been studio assignments and were much less indicative of the style for which the director later became known. With its mixture of anarchic, frenetic plot and dizzying, technical bravado filmmaking, Pigs and Battleships fits perfectly in Imamura’s claim that he liked to make ”messy films.”
The film’s characters are unspectacular and common, noteworthy only for the truthful way Imamura approaches them. Kinta, a young man involved with selling pigs on the black market, stupidly agrees to take the fall for the yakuza in exchange for a significant amount of money. He has also impregnated his girlfriend Haruko, whose family wants her to prostitute herself either literally or in the form of marriage to some American sailor who can provide for her. These are not noble people or even worthy of sympathy in the hands of most filmmakers. Yet, Imamura seems to find comfort in the working class, regardless of how low down the food chain they are, and nearly forces the audience to share his empathy.
By balancing out the careless and greedy villains among both Japanese and American characters, the film seems to be conceding that Kinta and Haruko may be far from perfect but at least they’re harmless by comparison. I see it as sort of a white-collar crime vs. blue-collar crime argument where there’s no real defense for the minor improprieties of the common criminals, but their actions ultimately pale in comparison to the evil doings of military, corporate and organized malfeasance. The bumbling yakuza that Kinta tries to impress and the obnoxious American soldiers who act like overgrown frat boys are the real source of the problems presented in the film. The lower class who’ve developed some ideas of ambition (even if they have to sacrifice an honest living) are merely trying to adapt to the changing climate of Westernization and take advantage of the opportunities given to them, whether it’s working with organized crime or servicing the sailors who are stationed nearby.
Kinta may appear to be a dimwitted kid more interested in the lures of money and promise of Western-type material riches, but is he really the one to blame? Certainly it would be inaccurate to attempt to victimize him or shift the responsibility for the personal choices he makes. Nevertheless, as in many of the director’s films, Imamura somehow paints a heavily flawed character as our protagonist, one who’s comparatively not so bad and whose heart is mostly in the right place. He seems committed to Haruko and supportive of her decision to defy her mother by rejecting a passive, secondary role as wife/whore to an American sailor. While their relationship does appear to be more out of circumstance than genuine love, Kinta and Haruko still share a common bond of experience and hope for a better, more independent future.
It’s with the character of Haruko that any hope to be found among the denizens of Pigs and Battleships must begin and end. The final shots of her literally meeting and passing by the hookers awaiting the incoming ship of sailors is both symbolic and affecting. Her rebellious encounter with a trio of Americans earlier in the film left her ashamed, but also more certain of what she wanted from life. When the opportunity presents itself to either stay where she is, doomed to a fate she doesn’t want, or set out on her own, Haruko displays an empowering self-reliance by choosing the latter. The character is like any number of young women from small towns all over the world - ordinary and average, but not content to spend forever stuck in an endless routine.
That all of this happens within a film usually referred to as a comedy or satire is all the more impressive, showing Imamura’s ability to blend absurdity with a bit of neorealistic poignancy. Though the climactic scene, where unleashed pigs (the animal variety, not the comparatively less innocent humans Imamura draws parallels with throughout the film) wreak havoc in the street, and the overall tone of the film are both laced with obvious elements of farce, Pigs and Battleships arguably defies being identified within any one genre. Just as there are moments of pure comedy, such as a well-placed insurance advertisement billboard, there are also heartbreaking scenes, drained of any humor, that allow the viewer to remember that Imamura wants you to laugh only after you’ve understood the seriousness of what’s at stake.
The film’s overall lively tone veers only a little from the irreverence you’d expect after repeatedly hearing John Phillip Sousa’s ”Stars and Stripes Forever” (part of a wonderfully playful score) in a film where everything American comes with negative connotations. Instead of seeming inconsistent, those forays between the harsh realities of postwar occupation and Kinta’s wild interactions with the yakuza and the hogs breathe life into the film that established Imamura’s unique place in the film world. Wacky adjectives like “madcap” often infect descriptions of Pigs and Battleships, but it’s the searing examination of truth, told with daft sprinkles of humor and the hovering feeling that an audience should laugh to avoid darker emotions like anger or sadness, that really makes the film stick out.
(Pigs and Battleships remains unavailable on DVD in the English speaking world, with an impending release from the Criterion Collection due at some point in the future.)
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.
One, Two, Three June 23, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s, Billy Wilder , add a comment
“Any world that can produce the Taj Mahal, William Shakespeare, and striped toothpaste can’t be all bad.”
So says C.R. MacNamara, as played by James Cagney in Billy Wilder’s wonderful screwball comedy One, Two, Three
The film really picks up when Scarlett, the aforementioned Southern belle daughter of MacNamara’s boss, briefly goes missing just before her parents are to fly in from Atlanta to take her back home. For the previous six weeks she had been sneaking out to East Berlin to see Otto, a staunch anti-capitalist, anti-American communist who planned to take Scarlett to live in Russia. The two had secretly been married. MacNamara quickly devises a plan to win over his boss, in hopes of being named the European head of Coca-Cola in London. That’s where the film really hits its stride and the viewer cannot help but marvel at Cagney’s hilarious and fast-paced performance.
You really can’t say enough about James Cagney’s performance here. While he will always be remembered for the gangster films, where he was usually riveting and added a dimension to the characters that other actors almost never could, Cagney was an extremely versatile performer who was adept in musical and comedic roles as well as drama. In One, Two, Three, he really excels and is able to give full justice to the madcap lunacy found in the screenplay written by Wilder and his frequent collaborator I.A.L. Diamond. It’s difficult to imagine any other actor who could pull off this role half as well as Cagney. On the surface, MacNamara is not a likeable character, but Cagney manages to make him simply gruff and grumpy in a way that the viewer can’t help but like the guy regardless of whether you like what’s he doing, reminiscent of the persona Walter Matthau later would adopt in many films. The rapid-fire delivery Cagney uses to such good effect here is a logical continuation of the style he developed in his gangster roles.
I must admit that Billy Wilder is my favorite director and I think that he made more great films than maybe anyone else, including One, Two, Three. He managed to balance humor and satire as well as any filmmaker whose work I’ve ever seen. He was remarkably versatile and his writing talents were just as impressive.
One final note, the poster art and opening title sequence for One, Two, Three, as well as a number of films such as Anatomy of a Murder and Spartacus, were done by Saul Bass, whose work I also admire greatly. In today’s era where most posters consist of plastering a picture of a movie star’s face against a dark background, making them almost indistinguishable from one another, it’s refreshing to look back at some of what Saul Bass created and appreciate his artistry.
Mamma Roma March 14, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , add a comment
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1962 Italian language film Mamma Roma
It turns out Magnani’s feeling about Ettore being around the girl, as well as his new friends, was prescient. After Ettore is unable to buy Bruna the gold necklace he promised her, he sells some records to a second-hand store owner who offers to buy anything Ettore will sell him in the future, even if it’s stolen. This sets up the tragic ending as Ettore and his friends attempt to steal things from sleeping hospital patients to then sell to the shop owner. The film’s final shot is of Magnani looking out her window, after being prevented from jumping by the crowd that has followed her up, to see the domed basilica presumably of St. Peter’s. Pasolini frequently shows the audience this exact same shot throughout the film. It seems as though Pasolini is saying that despite Mamma Roma’s troubles, the church is unable to help her. This is alluded to earlier as well when Magnani visits a priest to ask him to put in a good word for Ettore with the restaurant owner she eventually blackmails. When the priest says he cannot help her, Magnani then takes matters into her own hands.
Mamma Roma is a tremendous film. This was my introduction to Pasolini and I hope to see more of his work. His politics and death are probably forever entwined with his art but films like this one speak for themselves. Pasolini allows his audience to see several sides of the title character and, while she may not be perfect, it’s obvious she cares deeply about her son and wishes to give him things she was unable to have. It’s also difficult to blame Ettore completely for what happens to him since he is young and anxious to fit in with his new peers in the city. I believe that Pasolini is blaming the two characters’ social circumstances for what happens and he would seem to have a valid point.
The Criterion Collection released a superb edition of Mamma Roma in 2004 that included a documentary on Pasolini, as well as his portion of the anthology film RoGoPaG entitled La ricotta and starring Orson Welles as a filmmaker trying to make a movie about the Passion of Christ. The disc menus and thick booklet are beautiful and this remains one of Criterion’s finer overall packages.
Advise & Consent February 21, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , add a comment
When the discussion of greatest film about American politics comes up, Advise & Consent is almost always on the short list. The 1962 film was made at the height of Kennedy’s short tenure and before the Watergate era cynicism which plagues the nation to this day. In that sense, perhaps Advise & Consent was ahead of its time. The film manages to include a dying president whose vice president initially claims to not want to be president but eventually seems more than ready to step into the oval office. There’s also a young senator who blackmails another based on “youthful indiscretions” with another man. And don’t forget the man at the center of the film, Secretary of State nominee Robert Leffingwell (played with understated decency by Henry Fonda), who happens to have been involved with a Communist organization when he was a young college professor. It’s easy to see how Warner Bros. could justify including the film in its “Controversial Classics Collection
Regardless of controversy, Advise & Consent is a fine film and solid exploration into the behind the scenes of both the dynamics of the Senate and the power battles involved in confirmation hearings. While the film is obviously fictional, it’s difficult not to wonder if there aren’t at least a few ounces of truth in much of what’s going on. As a minor political junkie, I found the film to be riveting in parts and never contrived, even if it was a tad long.
The ensemble cast is mostly quite good, lead by Charles Laughton (in his final film role) as an aging yet still powerful Southern Senator and Walter Pidgeon as the Senate Majority Leader who tries to secure confirmation for Fonda despite Laughton’s personal vendetta against the nominee. Fonda is billed as the star and on the DVD cover, but his screentime is at least third or fourth behind Laughton, Pidgeon and Don Murray as the head of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee who is tragically blackmailed. Fonda still manages to do exactly what his role requires in order for the viewer to understand how the President could be so adamant about having him as his Secretary of State despite several obstacles.
Director Otto Preminger, probably best known for Laura and Anatomy of a Murder, had a knack for making socially relevant and entertaining films. He’s frequently overlooked and perhaps underappreciated by critics. I’ve yet to see several of his films, but all that I have viewed have been enjoyable or better. One could argue that his film legacy has been neglected by critics and Preminger may be slowly becoming more appreciated with the advent of DVD.
Saul Bass once again worked on the great opening title sequence and designed the film’s promotional art. I’ve included an example of one of the posters used.
Advise & Consent is a still powerful film that remains entertaining and enlightening. It features a great ensemble cast and should be commended for showing the evils of both sides of politics without demonizing the participants to the levels of cartoons. I was also impressed with the ending, which resisted any urge to placate the viewer or provide a traditional “happy” ending.
The Face of Another February 16, 2006
Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , add a comment
The British DVD company Eureka! has a specialty label it calls the “Masters of Cinema” Series. They have already built quite a reputation for producing high quality discs with interesting special features and lengthy booklets included with the release. Most of their DVDs are PAL format and will only play on DVD players equipped to handle Region 2 discs. Of course there are numerous DVD players that just require a sequence to be pressed on the remote to unlock region free capabilities, allowing it to play DVDs from all over the world.
Anyway, The Face of Another was released on DVD in 2005 by the Masters of Cinema (or “MoC”, if you will) as spine number 6. Like its American counterpart, the Criterion Collection, MoC likes to use spine numbers to entice collectors to purchase as many of their releases as possible. Sort of like action figures or Happy Meal toys.
The Face of Another is a Japanese film directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara that explores questions of identity, appearance and the confidence we seek from exterior sources. The protagonist in the film was badly burned in a laboratory and must wear bandages to cover his face. He has become embittered and closed off from his wife and society. After he feels rejected romantically from his wife, he grows desperate and seeks a lifelike mask to be made by the doctor who has been treating him. Soon, he sees that the mask has not only affected how others look at him, but also how he perceives himself.
I really cannot speak highly enough of this extraordinary film. I think there’s an obvious comparison to John Frankenheimer’s great Seconds, also from 1966 and starring Rock Hudson. Both films deal with a man who can no longer deal with his physical appearance and attempt to alter how he looks through a medical procedure, with disastrous results. In both films, the man initially thinks he is better off with his new appearance but soon realizes that he has lost a unique part of himself in the process. As bad as things seemed for the characters before the alterations, both men come to the realization that their identities were located in their original incarnations. Unfortunately, neither man can regain the identity he has lost.
In The Face of Another, I also see how the protoganist, played by Tatsuya Nakadai (who would later go on to star in Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha and Ran) struggles with confidence when he is still wearing the bandages on his face in comparison to his increased happiness and sociability once he begins wearing the mask. He is thus allowed to hide behind the mask, as well as a beard the doctor has stuck on his face and a pair of dark sunglasses. He no longer has to worry about others perceiving him as a “monster,” to use the word someone yells at a young woman whose face is scarred on the right side. This builds up his confidence to the point where he feels comfortable flirting with a receptionist at the office of the company he worked at and eventually allows him to try to seduce his wife, who he thinks will not recognize him as being her husband. The man’s folly is in thinking that others only perceive persons based on a face. While his face had been drastically changed since his wife had last seen him, he remained the same person, regardless of how he perceived himself.
“In love, we all try to unmask one another,” his wife tells him. “So I thought we should try to wear masks.” This is an important line. It probably applies not just to love, but to everything we do in the company of others. Almost everyone, if not all of us, fear showing our true selves to everyone else. We call it privacy or many other words. The truth is we lack the confidence to believe anyone could possibly tolerate or love the flaws we see in ourselves.
The Face of Another is an engrossing, fascinating work. For anyone who has ever felt like they were lacking in any way or that they would be better off as someone else, it is essential viewing.
