tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80734220014812310562024-03-19T03:12:52.125-07:00Classic Films RevisitedNothing is more American than the cinema and nothing is more cinematic than the classic films of yesteryear.SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-31427835506252225252016-03-27T10:08:00.003-07:002016-04-07T01:44:59.696-07:00The Delightful Little Moneymaker<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih_rpJMCKANGpxV3fk9xy3sZO6jiEkv1fWr9q1k2KlzWQphS_MOGfhaIqxKmVA4IqTxwdIE6hD1U5fPbPuX1sWcLQ3NqelKc_oINBRPg-ANP7wgcpnwmfIqyWiNF60QK2BtTNEDO5NVg/s1600/Dial_M_For_Murder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEih_rpJMCKANGpxV3fk9xy3sZO6jiEkv1fWr9q1k2KlzWQphS_MOGfhaIqxKmVA4IqTxwdIE6hD1U5fPbPuX1sWcLQ3NqelKc_oINBRPg-ANP7wgcpnwmfIqyWiNF60QK2BtTNEDO5NVg/s320/Dial_M_For_Murder.jpg" width="209" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Most murders are solved.</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The murder in 1954’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dial M for Murder</i> is no different.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;">By the film’s end, the audience has seen everything
that happened, so the joy in this crime thriller is in arriving at the
pre-destined conclusion intact. Along the way, there are a few bumps and
hiccups and there is quite a bit of genuine tension, but the end product is
about the crime and its results and if the film is saying anything here it is
that there is no such thing as a perfect crime, even the complicated one
concocted by Ray Milland’s desperately verbose husband in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dial M for Murder</i>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHkQpVJmPwVnjq2saGJyjETkZFBYSt69kCnqn1uWsgYH1_zFcMpTqhlu5ci4dTMnsjwWka2Wx5Y8TsT_566Ry2SvdSokKWUXgSLPCIHOi5CO2lnPXAKmIuA8WEJNbVDF2JdpIFPxJ1PQ/s1600/dial_m_for_murder-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHkQpVJmPwVnjq2saGJyjETkZFBYSt69kCnqn1uWsgYH1_zFcMpTqhlu5ci4dTMnsjwWka2Wx5Y8TsT_566Ry2SvdSokKWUXgSLPCIHOi5CO2lnPXAKmIuA8WEJNbVDF2JdpIFPxJ1PQ/s1600/dial_m_for_murder-02.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;">It is no secret Hitchcock disliked this film. He
admitted to Francois Trufault that he made <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dial
M for Murder</i> because it was simple and safe and he knew it would make bags
of money he needed to finance other, more interesting films. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dial M for Murder</i> was already a
successful stage play when Hitchcock latched onto it and transferred it to the
cinema. The degree to which that transition works is a large part of why this
film remains enjoyable. Hitchcock said he resisted the temptation make the play
“more cinematic,” opting instead to leave it virtually as it is on stage. Accordingly,
virtually all of the film’s action occurs in one room.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2vPh8X9mLjD7IPVJ6BbgZfYaNxt3tvoAim_3bmkjZLkmjDYjAuU7sDxjB5vJa_ZpQVb33CZ8DnsPM-zCodLn0Do8wX0uHJnYjRCp4DArcx2-SRfCfS_pWqQB2W0diw3HFz9RFJ2DerA/s1600/Annex+-+Kelly%252C+Grace+%2528Dial+M+For+Murder%2529_NRFPT_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2vPh8X9mLjD7IPVJ6BbgZfYaNxt3tvoAim_3bmkjZLkmjDYjAuU7sDxjB5vJa_ZpQVb33CZ8DnsPM-zCodLn0Do8wX0uHJnYjRCp4DArcx2-SRfCfS_pWqQB2W0diw3HFz9RFJ2DerA/s320/Annex+-+Kelly%252C+Grace+%2528Dial+M+For+Murder%2529_NRFPT_03.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">A few other things here keep us interested here, but chief
among them would be Milland’s excellent performance as the kind of cultured
villain who would turn up again in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">North
by Northwest</i>. The other would be Grace Kelly, who simply is Grace Kelly. She
made just three films with Hitchcock, this being the first, but she is just as
good here as she is in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rear Window</i> or
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Catch a Thief</i>, even if she has
much less to do here because she is largely the unaware victim of her husband’s
complicated machinations.</span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The other notable twist, preserved from the stage play
I presume, is the decision to stick with the conniving husband as the film’s protagonist.
This twist puts the audience in the odd position of seeing the film’s events
almost entirely from the perspective of the culprit – not the victim. Thus, we
know more than Kelly does about what is happening and the drama of the film
becomes whether Kelly can figure out what the audience already knows, and in doing
so, save herself from first death and then prison.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSb42f7Y1rixhxLXBuXMtULV6vNa3p6YMxQuzM6pVjN9sN0hQz4qwJlxprOH_TywWjVVcnFVqvfsU50bwHxB4WtLP4LZqcGBVhc2EpTa8GwwffzrrwehvsLW4FYCwmFl5MGiYcd9VLTw/s1600/dialmformurderoriginal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSb42f7Y1rixhxLXBuXMtULV6vNa3p6YMxQuzM6pVjN9sN0hQz4qwJlxprOH_TywWjVVcnFVqvfsU50bwHxB4WtLP4LZqcGBVhc2EpTa8GwwffzrrwehvsLW4FYCwmFl5MGiYcd9VLTw/s320/dialmformurderoriginal.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The film’s further success is down to the dialogue,
which Trufault particularly liked. Put simply, this movie is a “talkie” and you
have to listen to the dialogue very closely to keep track of the plot and
attuned to who knows what, when. Very few films work this way anymore and
perhaps more should. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dial M for Murder</i>
races by at almost breakneck speed and lurches the audience into caring –
almost rooting – for the criminal before forcing moviegoers into Kelly’s corner
near the end of the picture. And all of this largely through words and acting. A simple, fun moneymaker that stands up to
multiple viewings largely on account of how fun it is to watch these people
talk to, at and around one another.</span>
</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-80239042533839143922015-12-22T05:31:00.001-08:002016-01-03T09:22:15.838-08:00Roads Not Taken<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">One
is never wrong if they call <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i>
the greatest American film of all time.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh23DocMDYQVsdc2VjBkJtAieU8HskwbWgz2rV04t7BSbVuUkoWzza3eIWceiV1sqTr_TO6UvshFIOOm4iNZJ8PV3oK6-6hIlZRIQwoqSTCdSPlG8Yv_T3AEOMP7Kz2GKqU0J6N4VkXsQ/s1600/citizen-kane2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh23DocMDYQVsdc2VjBkJtAieU8HskwbWgz2rV04t7BSbVuUkoWzza3eIWceiV1sqTr_TO6UvshFIOOm4iNZJ8PV3oK6-6hIlZRIQwoqSTCdSPlG8Yv_T3AEOMP7Kz2GKqU0J6N4VkXsQ/s320/citizen-kane2.jpg" width="216" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Unfortunately,
this safety net has in fact come to work against the film in recent years. Many
people coming to the film for the first time are so overburdened with
expectations concerning the picture’s sizeable reputation that their first
viewing inevitably leaves them both disappointed and rather curious what all
the fuss was about to begin with. Others resist labeling <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i> ‘the greatest’ for other, more obvious motivations:
They want to be different and buck the convention wisdom. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">Neither
condition applies to me.</span></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I
first encountered <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i> in a
high school film class and I found its perspective, wherein a newspaper
reporter interviews several characters about Kane and the narrative of the
picture leaps between time periods in an almost disjointed fashion, completely
enthralling. For me, the richness of the film’s themes, its technical
achievements and its overall artistic vision have not dulled with time, either.
This is quite simply the greatest American film ever made, no matter what
criteria one is asked to consider, and it will remain such, I believe for
eternity.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgINbBL3FE_IamJBUkpZx8I-x2RuGjS8oUMD_lQ23ZEw9ICgRlUzTrQpdLs4gH5o0n7AtTBfT_LQewKcX2KxewVVxuTBrgckRn43QZep2nIhSE5cYZPYCmwZjG6ThC9RSnMbhUJfsppbA/s1600/citizen_kane-screening.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgINbBL3FE_IamJBUkpZx8I-x2RuGjS8oUMD_lQ23ZEw9ICgRlUzTrQpdLs4gH5o0n7AtTBfT_LQewKcX2KxewVVxuTBrgckRn43QZep2nIhSE5cYZPYCmwZjG6ThC9RSnMbhUJfsppbA/s320/citizen_kane-screening.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Indeed,
there are so many angles one can come at when discussing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i>—a testament, I believe, to its greatness—that one
almost does not know where to begin. There are its many technical achievements,
in which set design, costuming and makeup reached hitherto unforeseen heights
in film. There is the cinematography. Never before had light and shadow been
used so effectively, actors positioned in such crucial ways and cameras positioned
in such strange and wonderful places (Orson Welles famously cut the floor out
of some sets to shoot up and at his actors from their feet to make them appear
larger than life). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">However,
the construction of the film’s narrative and the underlying themes that
narrative contains are where I believe <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen
Kane</i> is at its greatest.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8E4Zk-Z-ptIx8Hjze1kpoCp6eZA7UI3riHG3oVz4OZqqu1RaelQVN02ZTBGPBWxpARjKT1fdmz3veRk6XDkG6XNIV40dLkKP-l1RfJ5VnoLR1j1C98HVFjXQJNcbdkJgJGxiG40oOug/s1600/citizen-kane-1941-tou-01-g.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8E4Zk-Z-ptIx8Hjze1kpoCp6eZA7UI3riHG3oVz4OZqqu1RaelQVN02ZTBGPBWxpARjKT1fdmz3veRk6XDkG6XNIV40dLkKP-l1RfJ5VnoLR1j1C98HVFjXQJNcbdkJgJGxiG40oOug/s320/citizen-kane-1941-tou-01-g.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Orson
Welles, a man who needs no real introduction to contemporary readers, for
better and worse—mostly worse, if you know anything about Welles—was at the
height of his powers when he made <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen
Kane </i>and the choices he makes as a storyteller are inspired. I have no
evidence Wells read William Faulkner or James Joyce, but the notion the
conventional narrative underwent a serious revision in the 1930s and 40s should
be apparent to even the most casual reader of American and world literature
from that time period.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Furthermore,
Welles in his infamous “War of the Worlds” broadcast had already demonstrated
during the 1930s that he had a penchant for turning the conventional narrative
on its head through the innovative use of established mediums.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">His
application of this in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i>
is clear in that he takes the traditional film noir narrative of a mystery in
need of solving (in this case about Kane’s last words), fatalism and trust and
betrayal and enlarges the genre to tackle nothing less than the entirety of the
American dream and what it means to gain and lose things (people, power, love,
adoration, hate and prestige). In a film so about narrative, it is telling we
never hear from Kane himself. Rather, he is a corpse from the very first frame
of the film and instead we hear from those who knew him at his best and his
worst, as the narrative leaps here and there and provides sharp and soft shards
of a man’s life, who by his own account could have been a great man, but was
not.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-i53pk7udLqtt5itvN-Gv8o9rSP2_-FkdOeWEX7_t0rJnWucyGwB7PX4pUNgRYahj2Ru65wlSGL67RUxQibkDDUrX4B2stvOHmFOSckg4nPFrjhE8rYie35zXPkaq72LgnAx-vsR53w/s1600/Citizen-Kane-FEATURED1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="232" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-i53pk7udLqtt5itvN-Gv8o9rSP2_-FkdOeWEX7_t0rJnWucyGwB7PX4pUNgRYahj2Ru65wlSGL67RUxQibkDDUrX4B2stvOHmFOSckg4nPFrjhE8rYie35zXPkaq72LgnAx-vsR53w/s320/Citizen-Kane-FEATURED1.png" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">And
yet, for all the cinematic bells and whistles (and what a movie this is JUST to
watch, even on mute), for all its tricks of camera and flashes of brilliance,
this is at its heart a film about people and their failure to interact with
another, to love one another and to live to meaningful lives. All of the
characters in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i> are
haunted ghosts, empty reflections of a former “greatness” that when peeled away
turns out to be far more prosaic and ordinary than we first believed. Kane’s
longtime sidekick still remembers a nameless woman he never spoke to but
glimpsed on a New York pier, Kane’s best friend just wanted to write an honest
review of Kane’s wife because he could not remember how to do anything honest. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKz6tjMx0xtdLB83WZ9E0DFNJhwBSEM1-MzszAcN66OY4jonp9dfaPbYV5QRG82WmF6Tp7dWJ_9048n5wsuUS6N0DsKIw7ZRke0YWt_xZc-qY6UXLLKHbKC6k61FH0L2vhUYQ4odLcLA/s1600/citizen-kane1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKz6tjMx0xtdLB83WZ9E0DFNJhwBSEM1-MzszAcN66OY4jonp9dfaPbYV5QRG82WmF6Tp7dWJ_9048n5wsuUS6N0DsKIw7ZRke0YWt_xZc-qY6UXLLKHbKC6k61FH0L2vhUYQ4odLcLA/s320/citizen-kane1.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">These
are small, simple acts (or non-acts) and yet they all had more impact than Kane’s
failed gubernatorial bid or the Second World War on all of those involved. That
is because in the end, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane</i>
is about the roads not taken or the decisions made or not made and what each of
those moment renders in the years that follow. What is a life but the fragments
of where it touched other people? Kane’s physic interior can be guessed at, but
never known. What can be known, both by him and all the other characters, is the
decisions they all made and how those decisions created their lives and
formed them into the people they became. Thus, Kane’s “Rosebud” was a sleigh
ride never taken, a life of complete ordinariness in Colorado wilds that was
never possible after his mother sent him East with his millions.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2xH6J1i0wMB2MBymeHfvBFb5Hbv5RkxjFgt_Du9SMhqBsbzZZmV6M5rzy05warl2bnBAxx-G8iQgJ6A4eBDFKgPgWvKtY0ICPSb65TsB7Nk-tA0DY8PP8FBeZyi1QIe6ey5joD1MCOQ/s1600/citizen_kane_rosebud.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2xH6J1i0wMB2MBymeHfvBFb5Hbv5RkxjFgt_Du9SMhqBsbzZZmV6M5rzy05warl2bnBAxx-G8iQgJ6A4eBDFKgPgWvKtY0ICPSb65TsB7Nk-tA0DY8PP8FBeZyi1QIe6ey5joD1MCOQ/s320/citizen_kane_rosebud.png" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">That
he seemed willing to trade all the subsequent moments, all the subsequent
decisions and outcomes for a chance at that lost life is the tragic nostalgia at the heart
of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Citizen Kane’s</i> power as a film.
For who among us believes <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">every </i>path
we chose was the correct one? That all of those roads not taken were
truly unworthy of exploration?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></div>
SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-20170640728300473472015-03-30T10:40:00.001-07:002015-03-30T11:31:49.710-07:00Glamour, Unapologetically<div style="text-align: justify;">
Films do not come more luxuriant than 1955’s <i>To Catch a Thief.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin7wAsUUiLe_S_8Jvf9zt6V4cqUStmD5VCtEqr1dh9Mx2kxWues4dQ_Rd8AsTsgW38QGjDoP1RHcIdov5E0K6bULHbyOIGBUo5zypZozea2NVbjOK-tzraVE_R6T45ZR1QNIhdNi9ZMQ/s1600/unnamed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEin7wAsUUiLe_S_8Jvf9zt6V4cqUStmD5VCtEqr1dh9Mx2kxWues4dQ_Rd8AsTsgW38QGjDoP1RHcIdov5E0K6bULHbyOIGBUo5zypZozea2NVbjOK-tzraVE_R6T45ZR1QNIhdNi9ZMQ/s1600/unnamed.jpg" height="320" width="210" /></a></div>
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Flush with splendid vistas from the French Riviera, lavish hotel interiors populated with beautiful people and a plot that revolves around priceless jewels and culminates in a costume party, the film as it unfolds almost literally bubbles and sparkles like a cool glass of champagne. Even so, I cannot help but imagine that part of the film’s success is the result of an unintentional contrast brought about by time. In this I mean that if filmed today, such an endeavor as <i>To Catch a Thief</i> would likely come across as opulent and irritating, but under the astute and tasteful direction of Alfred Hitchcock the original retains a unique charm, despite its almost paper-thin plot and rather predictable resolution, that many other films hunger for but more often than not fail to achieve.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEdyX6gfOoJekl1tDbbNM12jW1Ant11aKj6QTllxoFJP37qUXmD2XfaJvZIbJDeA36cTR6ueT9xlo9ZfPiQOhAOUgYqNgXW9xl8LhTwbowGAacNRVPOzcfP_t3aEXP8twrb3-m38Qyg/s1600/Bild_1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYEdyX6gfOoJekl1tDbbNM12jW1Ant11aKj6QTllxoFJP37qUXmD2XfaJvZIbJDeA36cTR6ueT9xlo9ZfPiQOhAOUgYqNgXW9xl8LhTwbowGAacNRVPOzcfP_t3aEXP8twrb3-m38Qyg/s1600/Bild_1.png" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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The critical difference, I suppose, is glamour and how we understand it and what it meant --- both then and now --- and how Hitchcock was able to harness the glamour of an exotic location and two Hollywood legends in such a pleasing manner. In the case of the former, I doubt the Riviera has ever filmed poorly, but at the same time, I do not think Hitchcock made his choice by happenstance, either. Rather, I believe he chose the sunny coast of South France because it was about as far away as possible, in aesthetic terms, as the soundstages that represented the courtyards and alleyways of 1954’s Rear Window, the masterpiece of film that Hitchcock made just prior to <i>To Catch a Thief.</i></div>
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Indeed, <i>To Catch a Thief</i> is something of an ethereal twin to <i>Rear Window</i>, if you ask me. (The bright, shiny side of <i>Rear Window</i>'s dark half of the coin?) Consider, both films essentially track a courtship between an action-oriented, somewhat roguish leading-man and a leading lady -- played on both occasions by Grace Kelly -- who is refined, erudite and wealthy. In both cases, the female is attracted to the man, in part, precisely because of his circumspect employment (freelance photographer in <i>Rear Window</i>, former cat-burglar in <i>To Catch a Thief</i>). To further the comparison, in <i>Rear Window</i> we see grubby alleyways and the confined, interior courtyard of an apartment building, whereas in <i>To Catch a Thief </i>we are outdoors for the vast majority of the movie, swimming in the ocean, riding in open-top cars or moving dangerously across rooftops. If Hitchcock, a man ever prone to boredom, wanted to make a film almost the polar opposite of <i>Rear Window</i>, he did a decent job in selecting this lighthearted romp.</div>
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That is not to say the Hitchcock touch is absent from this film. Indeed, a good many of the traits are on display here and part of the reason why the film works so well is that it remains in the hands of master craftsmen. Had another director, paired with another set of stars, made this picture, it simply would not have worked as well. In this sense, the fact that Hitchcock himself abandoned the deeply psychological themes of 1954’s <i>Rear Window</i> and settled on proverbial cinematic, champagne bubbles cannot be held against him if we simply adjust our expectations and allow ourselves to relish the results onscreen.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtnKExBEiaUI7Q_s2YjRTRS7ZHC8tzT-L3r0s8NjvnFKT_YBOIIfzhGAVEYHHQEKZ7vWz1t-nmIDLTLA7KyJhFaA-GujeoUIq7OQo6tO8zIZg_tLZzE-M4lhFk6VMWbhL1pTxPcUto6g/s1600/Catch-a-Thief.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtnKExBEiaUI7Q_s2YjRTRS7ZHC8tzT-L3r0s8NjvnFKT_YBOIIfzhGAVEYHHQEKZ7vWz1t-nmIDLTLA7KyJhFaA-GujeoUIq7OQo6tO8zIZg_tLZzE-M4lhFk6VMWbhL1pTxPcUto6g/s1600/Catch-a-Thief.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is a majestic picture, with much to look at and enjoy, not the least of which is Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. It would be difficult under any circumstances to dislike the two and almost impossible here, where they shine together with real chemistry and purpose. That both are beautiful, charming people is even more obvious in their placement together (I always though James Stewart a bit to parochial for Kelly in<i> Rear Window</i>, whereas Grant seemingly was born in a tuxedo.) The absent power of yesterday's stars is again affirmed, in that if you try to imagine Grant and Kelly's counterparts today making such a film, you simply cannot imagine it being worth watching.<br />
<br />
The death of old Hollywood at the hands of tabloids has made the modern day greats less mysterious, in that we know too much about them, and consequently more annoying. If you cannot catch my meaning hunt down the famous bit where Grant during a television interview quips something along the lines that everyone wants to be Cary Grant even Cary Grant wants to be Cary Grant. Back then, the persona and the person were inseparable and that only adds to the fireworks, which in this case, Hitchcock took pains to physically depict on the screen.</div>
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As is the case in <i>North by Northwest</i>, Grant is almost entirely a passenger to the plot here and he simply reacts wherever he is thrown. Although Hitchcock utilized this method in quite a few of his films because it put the audience and the protagonist on equal footing, I have always felt Grant seemed the master of the method, perhaps because he made so many comedies, such <i>Arsenic and Old Lace</i>, that required such physical, reactionary acting. Here, he is accused of returning to his former thieving ways and decides the only way to clear his name is by "catching" the thief himself, a feat he almost literally achieves when he grabs hold of the cat burglar on the rooftop of a swanky French villa that has just hosted an equally swanky party.</div>
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Of course the real "thief" being "caught" is Grant himself and the person doing the catching is Ms. Kelly, who for the second Hitchcock outing in a row will essentially snag the unmarried, action-oriented bachelor through a combination of glamour, flirtation and mystery. There is then some interesting dissection in the film about feminine virtue, which often appears in Hitchcock’s films with leading actresses of the blond persuasion. That is, Kelly throughout presents herself as graceful and strongly effeminate. Although she is not virginal, she is virtuous. In contrast, the film's true antagonist --- in both the crime and the courting --- is Brigitte Auber's young Frenchwoman, who clearly is not virtuous. Her sexuality, unlike Grace Kelly's, is flouted openly, and therefore is presented as tawdry and insincere. Although Auber's character clearly has some feelings for Grant, it is also apparent she is willing to manipulate him and sacrifice him for herself. The opposite of this, Grace Kelly is honest and supportive, even as she too nudges Grant towards an idea he himself might not have thought of: Marriage.</div>
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The results, as I have said, are sumptuous and fun. If this is a "weak" effort of Hitchcock's it can only be thought of as so given the enormity of the man's stronger pictures. The plot twists here are fairly appreciable before they arrive and the thieving itself a rather flimsy and far-fetched excuse for some excellent diversions. Lest we forget, this is courtship on cinema, and as such, the majesty of an allegory feels appropriate. That Hitchcock still chose crime and mystery as the vehicle for his romantic comedy certainly says a great deal about him, but it also works so well here in all of its finery that I doubt viewers complained too loudly.</div>
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SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-48657362455712796392014-10-26T15:33:00.001-07:002014-10-26T15:39:34.343-07:00Humankind as Murderer<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: justify;">Audiences
remain divided on 1981’s </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: justify;">The Shining</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; text-align: justify;">.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiIo5l1KT7ZDvXvFjvaGHthnYShaOmvyOHcbq_zkkyum69iMhPCP-Jj_H-iKdv66WM7aTIUUzGQahzTivtf9HOM1suRHmt_W9YESkujfqfabepDGwLyRB9EyDQ1zFutqZ9QVG5EQ0Thg/s1600/The_Shining_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiIo5l1KT7ZDvXvFjvaGHthnYShaOmvyOHcbq_zkkyum69iMhPCP-Jj_H-iKdv66WM7aTIUUzGQahzTivtf9HOM1suRHmt_W9YESkujfqfabepDGwLyRB9EyDQ1zFutqZ9QVG5EQ0Thg/s1600/The_Shining_poster.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Despite
cementing a place in our shared cultural memory, people are still uncertain about
what to make of director Stanley Kubrick’s venture into genre filmmaking. Is </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Shining</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> a masterpiece of horror? A
glorified art house film? A sly homage to gothic affectations? Or a mixed-up
and muddled dud? Engage the most cursory search and you can find all three of
these positions being defended vociferously in print and digital material.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxAMMjUC5qd9SklSUW078s25Nd_RFzT_2fMynaI-A-QRPYD2tixaYK2Qkulc6QxgefLgkDgCYpgdRYiB80hduzCvEhri_TChOJ8ykVsrrCm2HoNHZb76UtZw9y3_lFM3DHAF1RSbm-eg/s1600/shining.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxAMMjUC5qd9SklSUW078s25Nd_RFzT_2fMynaI-A-QRPYD2tixaYK2Qkulc6QxgefLgkDgCYpgdRYiB80hduzCvEhri_TChOJ8ykVsrrCm2HoNHZb76UtZw9y3_lFM3DHAF1RSbm-eg/s1600/shining.jpg" height="224" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Trapped in his own head...</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Part
of the room for such debate stems from the film itself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">Kubrick,
fresh off the less-than-spectacular <i>Barry Lyndon</i> (which also divides critics), famously
waded through piles of contemporary novels in search of a new film project
before—and this, oddly in my opinion—settling on a popular novel by Stephen King
that is essentially a page-turner of a haunted house story. Kubrick jettisoned
much of the King novel, keeping only the setting and the bare fundamentals of
the plot. The result is a complicated horror film that attempts to depict some
frightening realities about humankind that King never addressed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1juNne71IjgrxYDvUQzG1JlAbFEoAQsXkXUyRICa6zMOQwo6vWg85ETu23A6oIZ8VN8w4lEIJ9G24zDBs8uNpGlGRD2gFJhfzBeauOBUFhMUmojCVtRyVQL2m5RYymEqdFYdbqnbFYw/s1600/SteadicamDanny.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1juNne71IjgrxYDvUQzG1JlAbFEoAQsXkXUyRICa6zMOQwo6vWg85ETu23A6oIZ8VN8w4lEIJ9G24zDBs8uNpGlGRD2gFJhfzBeauOBUFhMUmojCVtRyVQL2m5RYymEqdFYdbqnbFYw/s1600/SteadicamDanny.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">Kubrick invented the steadi-cam specifically for the film.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Specifically,
by following the devolutionary arc of Jack Nicholson’s character from a flawed—and
potentially abusive and alcoholic—husband and father to an outright murderer,
Kubrick is trying to tell us that ultimately humanity is a violent species of
animal that is quite capable of killing others of its own kind. Furthermore, if
we consider that the family unit is the basic unit of society and society—or civilization
writ large—is that which separates humanity from other animals, then the true
horror of what Kubrick is showing us becomes even more clear, because by
depicting a man who turns against his own family and attempts to murder it,
Kubrick is giving his audience the ultimate depiction of how humanity’s dark
tendencies can become unhinged and turned inward.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9krYtSG5ypdSpTff6BLIxBzjXVakTMOGTlK7aEbTH1jqr9Nz3I_7LVaqICZW0XpBU52G_3pQziWP28z3zCv1h8E2VAmEky1RwjQ4PHZ4peBnTye9lUKoTzzWRmR8n7TUwzccgnIoIKA/s1600/blood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9krYtSG5ypdSpTff6BLIxBzjXVakTMOGTlK7aEbTH1jqr9Nz3I_7LVaqICZW0XpBU52G_3pQziWP28z3zCv1h8E2VAmEky1RwjQ4PHZ4peBnTye9lUKoTzzWRmR8n7TUwzccgnIoIKA/s1600/blood.jpg" height="241" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">In avoiding King’s plot of a haunted house, Kubrick
instead gives us haunted people, and a palpable theme throughout the film is
that we are all standing on the shoulders of violence, so to speak, and that
the evil done by other humans in days past somehow lingers and taints the
present. As I have suggested, this is vastly different from the King novel. Whereas
King viewed Nicholson’s character as being victimized by the external and
supernatural forces of the haunted hotel, Kubrick clearly believes the evil
Nicholson brought with him to the hotel is his own. In other words,
Nicholson needed a space in which to go mad and act out his demons. The
Overlook Hotel provides him with one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";">However, at the same time, we cannot not say the hotel in the film is not in some way “evil” or “haunted” and
therein lies the problem with reaching for an overarching analysis to describe
the film.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqMkX2icP05JA_xSMYWTiUtgmOOU5hO1ohqmMfK2G9mv99bB80fSqwbZr1lirr3R_r2-iJmoaLc6Tv27eKgPvf6WuscSdiJk15UHak5T5wVeEf9J1nhXzqse7w7kIWkXH5ZBCyR21mRw/s1600/the-shining-PDVD_004.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqMkX2icP05JA_xSMYWTiUtgmOOU5hO1ohqmMfK2G9mv99bB80fSqwbZr1lirr3R_r2-iJmoaLc6Tv27eKgPvf6WuscSdiJk15UHak5T5wVeEf9J1nhXzqse7w7kIWkXH5ZBCyR21mRw/s1600/the-shining-PDVD_004.jpeg" height="180" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The blood of past deeds?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">In
interviews given around the time </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The
Shining</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> was in production, Kubrick discusses ESP and psychic abilities in
terms that clearly demonstrate that he believes in such powers and intended his
audience to take them seriously in the film. At the same time, the “spirit” of
the hotel and its ability to manipulate reality and communicate with the living
is also “real,” in that Danny, with his psychic abilities, is not the only one
who sees the gallons of blood gushing from the elevator. His mother sees it,
too. Thus, we have to conclude that Overlook is in fact “haunted” in some way
(all three characters experience it), and this haunting helps Nicholson slip
further into the madness that always lurked within him. Keeping the hotel as a
psychic force outside the characters with a will of its own also signals that
Kubrick wanted </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Shining</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> to
function as a film within the horror genre and we can therefore safely say that
this is a gothic picture in the gothic tradition, albeit one with a heavy focus
on the psychological.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDp5s4FF5nmVffixj4v1ewqCHeVsP3gfJkVPBC8Aom5tczy2JBxC5ZMY1PAn-PY1kHE82RumOhceGgmxpf1ZEXWQbb-FDYytuYIZS_-R9OihWAtd48KhqEXVFtfb8H5Ae6JQLYGK6Vuw/s1600/ShiningShelleyMes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDp5s4FF5nmVffixj4v1ewqCHeVsP3gfJkVPBC8Aom5tczy2JBxC5ZMY1PAn-PY1kHE82RumOhceGgmxpf1ZEXWQbb-FDYytuYIZS_-R9OihWAtd48KhqEXVFtfb8H5Ae6JQLYGK6Vuw/s1600/ShiningShelleyMes.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I
believe the film would have been better served if Kubrick had finished
jettisoning King’s plot and gone more with his own instincts (I.E. – That the
protagonist’s psychopathology is entirely internal and the place his ‘breakdown’
occurs inconsequential). However, Kubrick did not do this, and we are thus left
to contend with the fact the film is partially haunted and partially psychological,
an interesting duality in and of itself, but one which I believe has confused
both audiences and critics for years. Maybe Kubrick could not make up his mind,
maybe he wanted both? We cannot know. It is, however, worth reflecting that
duality and partiality are referenced numerous times in the film through the
use of mirrors, double images and codes, such as the famous, backwards REDRUM.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUKSNgiGfDVj06snSOtMnIQ1TRrJJMcDtfR4SC81mBkb-vj7ZU5_HtPNain-vqw7f7V4mwgDAMmMVaa-KgCuuPnX6Jd2c2uQMM1zBJ01G9VBD7PVhJ9yZ4xb_1-97OiP9fOG65L3n8yw/s1600/the_shining_2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUKSNgiGfDVj06snSOtMnIQ1TRrJJMcDtfR4SC81mBkb-vj7ZU5_HtPNain-vqw7f7V4mwgDAMmMVaa-KgCuuPnX6Jd2c2uQMM1zBJ01G9VBD7PVhJ9yZ4xb_1-97OiP9fOG65L3n8yw/s1600/the_shining_2.png" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">King
famously hated </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Shining</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and said
that what was wrong with it is that it was made by a man who thinks too much
and feels too little (film critic Pauline Kael feels this way about all of
Kubrick’s efforts in cinema). The charge that Kubrick’s work can come across as
cold and being more interested in aesthetics than emotions is not an easy one
to deny. Writing about </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Shining</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">,
Kael said Kubrick’s characters are dead on the screen, and what should be a family
drama and homage to gothic horror instead becomes a rather robotic metaphysical
examination of the timelessness of evil.</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">
</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">I think she comes closes to grasping what is happening in </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Shining</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> but misses its essential
point: Jack cannot resist himself or the Overlook Hotel, but his wife and his
son can and do, and therein lies hope—and some would say, the foundation for
the entirety of civilization.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkW1P-gq-UNTXzWlvcfXe7kkQ_ccbX_d1uiDyWkIGFIZhxps33z_nk_HGq6ts5aleXlr0gGO8bqwud2uMeNWD_X-bh0GP5bCiVtmPANf4d-2ZdkgE6cO0aCMbxfet9oD0oUcKtsTDQRw/s1600/Stanley+Kubrick+directs+Jack+Nicholson++(The%2BShining).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkW1P-gq-UNTXzWlvcfXe7kkQ_ccbX_d1uiDyWkIGFIZhxps33z_nk_HGq6ts5aleXlr0gGO8bqwud2uMeNWD_X-bh0GP5bCiVtmPANf4d-2ZdkgE6cO0aCMbxfet9oD0oUcKtsTDQRw/s1600/Stanley+Kubrick+directs+Jack+Nicholson++(The%2BShining).jpg" height="226" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The "unfeeling" director made a film chronicling his disgust </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">with humanity's murderous tendency.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">Exactly
why Jack is different—that is, why he falls prey to the inner murderer all of
us have—and why the others, such as Danny or his mother or the cook, who also
has “The Shining,” do not is the important question raised by the film. Kubrick
himself seems uncertain of the answer, but he does—rather grudgingly, I think—believe
that murder in and of itself is one of the most </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">human</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> actions of them all, because it has been with us from the beginning
of our existence and will be until the end of our days. But unfeeling? No, I
cannot see that. In </span><i style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Shining</i><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif;"> what Kubrick
has given us is the grimmest portrait of murder possible, one that he leaves
little doubt about its ultimate ugliness.</span></div>
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SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-38308912981259091382014-07-20T15:03:00.001-07:002014-07-20T19:29:00.477-07:00The Greatest Irony<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
George Lucas’s 1977 <i>Star Wars</i> is a great many things.</div>
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A childish romp, a sophisticated homage
to Hollywood’s long-forgotten serials – Flash Gordon, Buck Rodgers and the like
– and a secular fantasy for the United States, one whose easily discernible vision
of good versus evil rendered it easy fodder for defense department planners and
journalists alike to utilize the film’s name as a moniker for
America’s nascent Space Defense Initiative in the 1980s.</div>
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<i>Star Wars </i>also cleverly cast aside the somber,
post-studio system cynicism that dominated Hollywood and film in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, and hearkened
back to the swashbuckling films of Errol Flynn, to the long, purposeful stride of larger-than-life John Wayne and to a time when the moviegoer,
regardless of age, could watch a fun, thigh-slapper of film and come away from
it with the simple enthusiasm of a child just returned from his first circus. As a result, it became one of the most successful films of all-time. Then, it became something more than a film...</div>
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When it was released, <i>Star Wars</i> was the independent film of independent films. It had no opening credits, but a strange scroll, for which Lucas was chastised by Hollywood's famous guilds, it had little known actors and an almost paint-by-numbers story. Then there was, as we all know, an
endless array of <i>Star Wars</i>
merchandise, most of which initially came about partly to help Lucas fund and re-coop the expense
of making the film itself, but then stuck around and continues to stick around. Indeed, the film franchise would eventually be sold in 2013 for more than $4 Billion to Disney, largely on account of said merchandise and the potential for more of it. (As a famous aside: Alec Guinness became quite a rich man by
foolishly – or so he thought at the time – agreeing to take a cut of the
merchandise sales in lieu of his usual fee for acting).</div>
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All of the above is a long way of
saying that we are all living in the post-<i>Star
Wars</i> world, and that whether we like it or not, there is no going back to what came before. <i>Star Wars</i>
helped finish off what little was left of the Old Hollywood, which had begun to
fall apart in the mid-1960s with the collapse of the studio system, and
subsequently helped usher in the New Hollywood of corporations, high finance
and marketing. Summer blockbusters, an explosion of science
fiction, toy tie-ins and – this more than anything else – a new reliance on advanced
special effects, which up to this point in Hollywood’s history had largely been
limited because they were not strong enough to carry a picture (actors and scripts
did that), are all part of the cinematic world <i>Star Wars</i> created. </div>
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That Lucas intended none of the above is
relevant only if we choose to remember how radical a film <i>Star Wars</i> actually was when it was released and how uncertain its
place in the American cinema would have been absent Lucas’s compelling vision
and his drive to completely fashion an independent film out of the best pieces
of myth, iconography, religion and popular culture. Put simply, <i>Star Wars</i> is the most important movie of
the past 35 or so years, though I doubt anyone now or then, including Lucas
himself, would say so if asked.</div>
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Part of the reason for this stems
from the fact that outside of its obvious commercial success with audiences, <i>Star Wars</i> has enjoyed little critical
fanfare.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcuWwObWY0B_0re6_lhjlRqon6pNLwlwnR5bdoas9YBhsB_kh7WW7Xp6pgXniF64FAMWUWfXOZOb-pc-KochiT5y9vDDk5vngx1Q-hYfxsC-AE5qZtFHVRIihlkhC_TY7T5LPVK1amPA/s1600/anewhopebdcap1_original.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcuWwObWY0B_0re6_lhjlRqon6pNLwlwnR5bdoas9YBhsB_kh7WW7Xp6pgXniF64FAMWUWfXOZOb-pc-KochiT5y9vDDk5vngx1Q-hYfxsC-AE5qZtFHVRIihlkhC_TY7T5LPVK1amPA/s1600/anewhopebdcap1_original.jpg" height="135" width="320" /></a></div>
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Film writer Thomas Schatz
dismissed <i>Star Wars</i> as “remarkably
superficial”; Robin Wood called it “intellectually undemanding.” Little has
changed since these initial pronouncements. Indeed, the arrival of
the tortured and overwrought prequels has, if anything, only confirmed the view
of many outside the usual fan-base that <i>Star
Wars</i> is shallow eye-candy that relies on action and special effects to
overcome wooden actors, dull plots and intellectually undemanding themes. Lucas’s
aforementioned heavy borrowing to generate the grist of <i>Star Wars</i> material has not helped him on this account, either. </div>
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There
are, as my own eyes show me, entire shots lifted from brilliant films, such as <i>The Searchers</i> and <i>Lawrence of Arabia</i>, and from lesser efforts, such as <i>633 Squadron</i>. There is also the matter
of the cantina scene ripped straight from a Western, a character named Han Solo
who is the interstellar incarnate of Humphrey Bogart in <i>Casablanca</i> and the film’s two climaxes, the first of which is
essentially a sword-fight, shot almost frame-for-frame like a Kurosawa scene, with
the second portraying an attack on a space station that plays out in similar
fashion to <i>The Dam Busters</i>.</div>
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This is not to say Lucas is not
an original, for as I have already suggested, <i>Star Wars</i> was indeed a radical film when it was made, a fact that
is lost in time and the film’s subsequent success. Nobody, and this includes
most of the cast and crew, understood what Lucas was after in <i>Star Wars</i> and when
the first cut of the film was completed, the studio heads were terrified to release
it. Talking Robots? A Princess? A villain dressed all in black armor?
Spaceships? A furry and howling sidekick? It was all quite out there back then
and all something no one knew how to classify...</div>
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The other major piece of
radicalism in <i>Star Wars</i> is its
inherent conservatism, which is also another of its ironies. Lucas chose to
make an epic science fiction film that was fantastically different from Stanley
Kubrick’s <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i> or
Franklin J. Schnaffner’s <i>The Planet of
the Apes</i>, the other two high-budget science fiction films that garnered
mainstream attention. Lucas intentionally eschewed Kubrick’s cold intellectualism
and Schnaffer’s hip political sensibility and chose instead to make a movie
that recalled myths from Ancient Troy to King Arthur. At its heart, <i>Star Wars</i> is a hero quest, with a protagonist
who is chosen by destiny (Luke) and guided by an old sage (Obi-Wan Kenobi) to
first confront and then overcome evil (Darth Vader and the Empire). Lucas set
his film to a soaring John Williams score that echoes Wagner and created
powerful visual contrasts – the colorless Vader and Storm Troopers and the rag-tag
Rebels in their orange jump suits – that ensured audiences saw and felt the
difference between good and evil on the screen as much as they understood it.
Add the equally simple and powerful themes of maturation, of leaving home, of finding
and sacrificing for one’s friends of committing one’s self to something outside
the self and you have a palpable mixture of emotion that should have assuaged
some of the concerns studio executives felt about the film’s content.</div>
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At the same time, it has become impossible to
separate Lucas the filmmaker from Lucas the businessman and entrepreneur, a
fact even his close friends acknowledged by the early 1980s, when
the Lucas Empire had become large enough that many began to
openly question the man’s priorities. Francis Ford Coppola, John Milieus and
Stephen Spielberg, all of whom were Lucas’s contemporaries at film school at
the University of Southern California, all speak highly of Lucas and his
talent, both then and now. Coppola, who made at least three of the greatest American films in the
latter half of the 20<span style="font-size: x-small;">th</span> century, has even called Lucas “one of the
most talented directors of that time," but like the others, there is a limit to what he will stomach from his old friend's various conversions.</div>
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For example, Coppola has said <i>Star Wars</i> does not show one-tenth of what Lucas is capable of as
artist. Lucas, Coppola believes, chose the “industrial marketing complex" instead of art. This is a creative collapse that Lucas himself occasionally
acknowledged back in the 1980s, when his empire was much smaller than it is
today and he was still uncertain of its ultimate direction. <i>Star Wars</i>, he once griped in between installments, “took over his
life,” and in doing so, he became precisely what he hated when he struck out on
his own as an independent filmmaker: A corporate CEO. “What I was trying to do
was stay independent,” he said in 2005, when it was clear he had given up on this
desire. “I’m not happy with the fact corporations have taken over the film
industry. But now I find myself the head of a corporation. So there’s a certain
irony there.”</div>
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Indeed, there is Mr. Lucas.</div>
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I would venture farther that such
a moment of self-awareness, which now have become almost unheard of as
Lucas more and more speaks like the media-savvy fight promoter, is even more ironic
when one realizes that the corporate takeover Lucas appears troubled by occurred
precisely because of the great commercial success of <i>Star Wars</i>. That is, in order to capitalize the increasingly expensive
special effects moviegoers demanded after becoming accustomed to adventures
like <i>Star Wars</i>, it became necessary
for filmmakers to secure tremendous amounts of funding. In most cases the
necessary amounts could only be had through the kind of merchandising Lucas
pioneered, which more and more was reliant upon corporate partnerships and a
new sort of Hollywood money-man who cared not a whit for the artistic value of
their financial ventures. Return on investment, and not just return, but
staggering <i>Star Wars</i>-like levels of return
became the new expected norm.</div>
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For all his aloofness and lack of
acknowledgement for what he hath wrought, Lucas remains something of a
sympathetic character, if for nothing else than for the sensation one has in
reading some of his comments that at one time Lucas genuinely believed he would
make other films after the <i>Star Wars</i> trilogy
concluded and that those films would be more in line with his earlier, more
expressive work. Instead, as we are all well aware, Lucas went on to help
invent Indiana Jones, yet another fantastically successful amalgamation of Old
Hollywood tropes, and tinkered and then re-tinkered with his original three <i>Star Wars</i> films. Lucas then found – or more
likely, invented – reasons to make three additional <i>Star Wars</i> films, none of which approached his initial effort in
terms of impact or quality, though all made their creator staggering
amounts of money. </div>
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With each new <i>Star Wars</i> film, with each new scene of
perfectly sculpted Computer-Generated-Imagery (CGI), which is to say with each new
piece of rubbery unreality that a director who once boasted of hating actors has been able to utilize, we are one step farther away from
the magic of Hollywood’s Golden Age and one more step within contemporary
Hollywood’s age of visually shallow wonder, for it impossible to imagine
nowadays a major film without the kind of staggering budget and without the kind
of staggering effects <i>Star Wars</i> requires to capture its audience. (This is especially the case with the prequels, bereft of emotion as they are. Would there be any reason to watch them at all if they were not visually stunning? Lucas has indeed rid himself of actors in those films). And while some of this might be good for the child in all of us, I cannot help but feel
like something else has been sacrificed, something that George Lucas of 1977
might have appreciated about classic film, which he borrowed from so successfully. It is a shame then, that he is both the
creator and the destroyer of worlds he loves and that we all must both thank him for all the joy his 1977 vision has given to us even as we all suffer from what that vision so crudely discarded and replaced.</div>
SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-57211551879466965122014-05-18T16:27:00.002-07:002014-05-18T16:27:21.064-07:00The Greatest Nonsense of All<div class="MsoNormal">
What can I say about one of my favorite films of all time?</div>
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I once compelled my three best
friends to accompany me to AFI’s opulent theater just outside the nation’s
capital so I could see <i>North by Northwest</i>
on the big screen. Neither the wonderful setting – all classic film lovers
should go there – nor the film disappointed.</div>
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Alfred Hitchcock made better
pictures, with greater depth and a more detailed examination of the human
condition, for sure, but none of those Herculean efforts comes even remotely
close to this outing in terms of sheer cinematic enjoyment. Put simply, this
movie is like candy or whatever other guilty pleasure you enjoy: You know it is
ridiculous and you probably should not be eating it, but you savor every bite
because of its inherent wonderfulness.</div>
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The plot of Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece,
which does not stand much scrutiny, revolves around a rather juvenile case of
mistaken identity that eventually leads to attempted murder and some grand
chases that all eventually have something to do with international espionage. Cary
Grant, whose smarmy turn as the smug Madison Avenue advertising man has rightly
attracted adoration, famously quipped to Hitchcock that the film had a terrible
script and he could not make heads or tails of it. Hitchcock told Grant he was
unconsciously repeating his character’s lines. I leave it to the audiences to
determine who is more right, but there is a sort of uncontrolled zaniness in how film rushes – almost madly – from one scene to another,
until, in perhaps the film’s most famous sequence, everything slows and there
is nothing but silence and the drone of an airplane for several agonizingly
long minutes.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEfdGIF20DHujN1BZWSZphhNG7hoYeJFbLtELvsavbojmvlZxebnm68iutDtJPDNCTeuC9eAaruMwDghH4b0rE0oVeeYGIDT4nj4uN5p4UX8iC72vNwBOgz606Z_ZIQdBJPsfvNWzb7g/s1600/north-by-northwest1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEfdGIF20DHujN1BZWSZphhNG7hoYeJFbLtELvsavbojmvlZxebnm68iutDtJPDNCTeuC9eAaruMwDghH4b0rE0oVeeYGIDT4nj4uN5p4UX8iC72vNwBOgz606Z_ZIQdBJPsfvNWzb7g/s1600/north-by-northwest1.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The crop duster chasing Grant
might not have aged well – the crash, in particular, looks and feels a little
silly – but the scene’s inherent power remains. After being hurled through the
plot, Grant is finally dangled a respite that hints at some sort of resolution
to his case of mistaken identity, only to be attacked and propelled back into
the fray yet again. However, to assert the whole movie, like this scene itself,
is completely bewildering would be a mistake. The fields surrounding Grant in
the iconic scene are intentionally as grid-like as the title sequence, signifying
that there is a deliberate pattern to the film, one in which almost every line is carefully
constructed to edge the plot along in its general direction, which is,
geographically speaking, Northwest.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
At the same time, Hitchcock himself said he
practiced “absurdity quite religious” when interview by Francois Truffaut, and this is never more on display than it is in this film. From almost the film’s opening scene, when Grant tells us that “<span class="line">In
the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only expedient
exaggeration," the film motors along, with barely a care as to how realistic its various parts are functioning. But at the heart of all its madness, as I have already suggested, there is indeed order, as many of the scenes themselves show us. The library Grant is accosted in is immaculate. Later, the wilderness he encounters his lover in is equally as ordered. From chaos, comes a kind of order, Hitchcock is showing us. And thus, his film works and it becomes believable after it has stewed in its own irreverence. </span></div>
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<span class="line"><br /></span></div>
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<span class="line"></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><img height="180" src="http://classiq.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/eva-marie-saints-costumes-in-north-by-northwest-e1337013926968.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Man and a woman in an ordered wilderness...<br /><span style="text-align: justify;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">In addition to a reference to Grant’s travels, the title is a nod to a line in Hamlet’s rant about his own insanity, insanity that of course was concocted to shield his true motives. And herein lies another clue, as it increasingly becomes obvious everyone in the film is not what they seem. Grant is a dilettante forced to play a spy, whereas Eva Marie Saint is spy forced to play a dilettante in order to get closer to James Mason, the film’s excellent and cunning villain. Mason himself also plays several roles. He is the host of a party in a home he does not own and a culture vulture buying precious art not out of any sense of refinement, but to enable his espionage transactions. That a love between Grant and Saint emerges at the end of all this deception and role-playing is surely not a plot-twist inserted to please audiences? I rather think it's another of Hitchcock's wry commentaries on life. </span></div>
</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-size: 13.333333969116211px;"><br /></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcgKpCAGghwhbGTxqeu88P8yYqvuIoqF0zPpDIKvzNTqXunvLyKZxRHfhLlj4On-kQHdKrOAieQCOO9FM4TImphtgiKDhNxxU7xILxMy6r1GERwsKMRCJqRWQjjLkw-WnCBZ6S4n0M3g/s1600/eva-marie-saint-and-north-by-northwest-gallery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcgKpCAGghwhbGTxqeu88P8yYqvuIoqF0zPpDIKvzNTqXunvLyKZxRHfhLlj4On-kQHdKrOAieQCOO9FM4TImphtgiKDhNxxU7xILxMy6r1GERwsKMRCJqRWQjjLkw-WnCBZ6S4n0M3g/s1600/eva-marie-saint-and-north-by-northwest-gallery.jpg" height="193" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Along the way, there is a great
deal of fun. Grant is pitch-perfect throughout and Saint manages to be both sensual
and smart at the same time. Indeed, the knows more than our hero does for much of the picture and outmaneuvers him on her way to marrying him, a theme later repeated by Hitchcock in <i>Rear Window</i>. The scene between the two on the train to Chicago
is also an amazing exemplar of how the scripts of yesterday were forced to dance
around sex with flirtation and suggestion, both of which seem preferable to
where movies have sunk to today. </div>
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<span class="line"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="line">At the same time, it is also
interesting to note precisely how close the film is to a Bond movie. There is a
cultured villain (Mason), the scenes on train reminiscent of <i>From Russia with Love</i> and the showdown
on Mount Rushmore feels like a Bond ending, though perhaps one with less gusto.</span></div>
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<span class="line"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img height="193" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-exiI_E48ymI/Ueq1lTuwh3I/AAAAAAAABh0/ppJ7GYU7PKw/s320/NBN_Vandamm_James+Mason.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The cultured villain</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
No matter, a
foot hardly is put wrong in this effort. The acting, direction and general
melee of a picture all conspire together to create great enjoyment, none of
which I think has abated today. The theater I saw the film in was packed and
had people of all ages. From the comments I gathered after, the film was
thoroughly enjoyed by all, no matter how much of it was sheer and utter cinematic
nonsense…</div>
SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-16420336502846799122014-03-15T15:19:00.000-07:002014-03-15T15:19:35.131-07:00Mistakes of Their Own<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJV0cfWQcOSVUjdet4y9QHAdOv21Sa6bZw5EhyphenhyphenruW8qhh2KIbe_qSZ_nR7NT4VxUCMDQE8J1fU96KZfqDf0otWXdYNfBTa3TJXTusdWWMFKZ0DOAzITTo1Zk-OXgTj6m4WoKxdDP8WTw/s1600/936full-the-graduate-poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJV0cfWQcOSVUjdet4y9QHAdOv21Sa6bZw5EhyphenhyphenruW8qhh2KIbe_qSZ_nR7NT4VxUCMDQE8J1fU96KZfqDf0otWXdYNfBTa3TJXTusdWWMFKZ0DOAzITTo1Zk-OXgTj6m4WoKxdDP8WTw/s1600/936full-the-graduate-poster.jpg" height="320" width="214" /></a></div>
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<i style="text-align: justify;"><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="text-align: justify;">The Graduate</i><span style="text-align: justify;"> is more than a classic film.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It is a piece of Americana that has
penetrated the nation’s collective consciousness through multiple forms of media
to the point that it is now essentially known and ubiquitous.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There is the image of Dustin Hoffman, for example, somewhat cocky and somewhat confused, with his hands thrust in pockets, staring at the outstretched and stocking-clad calve and foot of co-star Anne Bancroft. Surely, this is one of the cinema’s most enduring images of the last century?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGENoxA0pQwhrAVUqE9OA0pmQJOQ4fb36N3E8-rtYhpZ2MZAo02wwA1ak_KdWGRqVBm3hYtnG1IuuCzo5ZxMedFrul8rbWESaeXJFL573uQOp5_yeLlmErJqjoswfs8tNz2paFeKak_A/s1600/Graduate_1967_560702.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGENoxA0pQwhrAVUqE9OA0pmQJOQ4fb36N3E8-rtYhpZ2MZAo02wwA1ak_KdWGRqVBm3hYtnG1IuuCzo5ZxMedFrul8rbWESaeXJFL573uQOp5_yeLlmErJqjoswfs8tNz2paFeKak_A/s1600/Graduate_1967_560702.jpg" height="197" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And while adultery no longer
shocks America, that image retains the power – and the moral price of caving
into that power – of raw sexuality and naked titillation. There is also the
Simon and Garfunkle acoustic soundtrack that includes “Mrs. Robinson,” a folksy
pop tune whose exuberance masks the sadness documented in lyrics that pine for
a lost American age represented by famed baseball slugger Joe DiMaggio. And
there is, of course, the film itself. It has been parodied, held up as a siren
song for a generation, and even more recently, returned for reexamination as a
stage play for a whole new age-group and audience.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0q4Vi3BOK_jO2_Y4sAX_n_jrE3NWFo89vXO7DnCCaeXUmMvok7RvYDTrMql7d6EZPFHgQXrrcqRNmj0VB7JMe3cAz21Cc5aQLg9duNIhde81Nmx0VHsaqlYj5tUGXC-t9YzCuJ7yVQw/s1600/The+Graduate+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0q4Vi3BOK_jO2_Y4sAX_n_jrE3NWFo89vXO7DnCCaeXUmMvok7RvYDTrMql7d6EZPFHgQXrrcqRNmj0VB7JMe3cAz21Cc5aQLg9duNIhde81Nmx0VHsaqlYj5tUGXC-t9YzCuJ7yVQw/s1600/The+Graduate+3.jpg" height="123" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Timelessness? I think that is an
apt word, but a curious one nonetheless, to apply to a film that debuted in
1967 and was immediately embraced as a kind of <i>zeitgeist</i> for the disaffected American
youth who looking back saw nothing but the rather grim – but economically successful
– 1950s and looking ahead the growing shadow of Vietnam, fractured race
relations, urban upheaval and gradual restructuring of the United State’s
post-World War Two order. Or perhaps that is all too academic? The undeniable
power in this film, I believe, is the confusion that sits at its core. That is,
Dustin Hoffman is an educated, somewhat well-to-do young man, but he is
seemingly passionate about nothing and has no idea what to do with himself or
with his life, a set of ennui-ridden attributes that have afflicted American
youth from 1967 up until the present day.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpxQrtBGFKBh3h-DTo__BGARhTw2_z4gxp3OeYtzoLh89PNzhtXOuJBibgKYbB3dvK5B-Axluu5FxI9z5xAYGmFANUxfs7Dhoee29u8J7KcfD7KEKf1VT8i2WIpV-U8AnU0i6UkYrZ8A/s1600/the-graduate-plastics.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpxQrtBGFKBh3h-DTo__BGARhTw2_z4gxp3OeYtzoLh89PNzhtXOuJBibgKYbB3dvK5B-Axluu5FxI9z5xAYGmFANUxfs7Dhoee29u8J7KcfD7KEKf1VT8i2WIpV-U8AnU0i6UkYrZ8A/s1600/the-graduate-plastics.jpg" height="176" width="320" /></a></div>
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</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
If the Greatest Generation
vanquished fascism and put America at the top of the world economic heap, what,
if anything was left for their offspring to do? Enjoy the world as inheritors?
That world, as shown here, is one of afternoon booze and cocktails, peopled
with a seedy and curiously amoral set of characters who speak of investments in
plastics as if the welfare of the Republic depended on such mundane commerce. It
is a curiously hip and Left-wing view, in that it accepts Marx’s theories about
the estrangement of wage laborers as fact and correspondingly presents the most
successful of America’s capitalists – as surely Hoffman’s odd parents and their
ilk are meant to represent – as dreadfully dull, or, in the case of Mrs.
Robinson, mildly socio-pathic and disturbed by the lack of real substance in
their lives.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaUn-ggk8YLwSK4StT-OvM1fLfHXcU20UbYzGGc0V3j_CzEUZXHtvxZCa0WpQLLlrrLVeTgJv4SeE3xy3M3CLu9U97_jko4SLQYmN3tGrzdWOVyRovZZ2m-Ppa7vuTl_AuG4zj2YF38Q/s1600/the_graduate-6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaUn-ggk8YLwSK4StT-OvM1fLfHXcU20UbYzGGc0V3j_CzEUZXHtvxZCa0WpQLLlrrLVeTgJv4SeE3xy3M3CLu9U97_jko4SLQYmN3tGrzdWOVyRovZZ2m-Ppa7vuTl_AuG4zj2YF38Q/s1600/the_graduate-6.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Ennui, of course, is nothing new.
And the chronicling of the “quiet, desperate lives” all Americans supposedly
live has been a standard trope of both novels and films for at least the past
100 years. What separates The Graduate from this pack is its focus on youth,
something that perhaps had not occurred in popular culture up until the 1960s.
Hoffman is in the prime of his life. There is, the film shows us, still time
for him to avoid becoming his parents. It is this possibility, this thematic
fork in the road, which I believe keeps the film fresh well into another
century: All youth wants to both emulate and reject their parents, regardless
of time period, and Hoffman’s character is no different.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhucXNd0-AwnEDAJspRbdXURVGad1rNHcCvfOYJoeW_by-kHmqeYUpcTTTZWz7hcyw5vEo50Yy8GBgl7-2r-Gbvsn9Es5MHuZ_f69Dljq0QZLGI8yFGEiydtLudzclgkPP6NKCLpEUcpQ/s1600/Graduate4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhucXNd0-AwnEDAJspRbdXURVGad1rNHcCvfOYJoeW_by-kHmqeYUpcTTTZWz7hcyw5vEo50Yy8GBgl7-2r-Gbvsn9Es5MHuZ_f69Dljq0QZLGI8yFGEiydtLudzclgkPP6NKCLpEUcpQ/s1600/Graduate4.jpg" height="211" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Hoffman debases himself with Mrs.
Robinson in a kind of bizarre emulation, but at the same time, he uses his
defilement – and hers, one must say – as a catalyst to muster the courage to
try to break out of the world of easy living and fancy cars that she and his
parents wished to bequeath him and his generation. The ultimate irony is that
Hoffman eventually settles on the idea of marriage – or at least, some kind of “elopement”
– with Mrs. Robinson’s daughter as his ticket to independence. This is
interesting in that marriage is the ultimate conservative social institution, but
in the world of The Graduate marriage too is presented as shambolic in 1967
(and this well before the country’s divorce rate really skyrocketed).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The final scene of the film, which has been the source of
much debate and parody, is deeply moving.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In a matter of seconds, the Hoffman
and Elaine’s expression seems to shift from joy, to contentment to a sad sort
of resignation. I have never been able to pin down the source of the last
emotion, but I suspect it is something more than the adrenaline dying down in
their veins. I suspect what they realize is that they have made a choice by
fleeing together, and what is more, this is the first real <i>adult</i> choice they have ever made. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2iI22Ta_g9Ye4dxEeT49PysD8lV_VT2-PfXXJDxy-e9O04lFq_hEIlbsDVzIkEKduKzdnKr-ZuvE9wgvH8P8k06yrruKS7qFimyWwyypWPH-YkHae08QLST55nbSYz9btk3ZlKH7TAQ/s1600/graduate1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2iI22Ta_g9Ye4dxEeT49PysD8lV_VT2-PfXXJDxy-e9O04lFq_hEIlbsDVzIkEKduKzdnKr-ZuvE9wgvH8P8k06yrruKS7qFimyWwyypWPH-YkHae08QLST55nbSYz9btk3ZlKH7TAQ/s1600/graduate1.jpg" height="135" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
They are, in other words, not
children anymore, and for the first times in their lives, they have exercised
their free will and acted outside the wishes and inducements of their parents
and their school friends. They have decided to eschew the mistakes their
parents made and to run away to make some of their own. That is liberating,
hence their initial glee. But gradually, their expressions change, because they realize, almost immediately, that their first “mistake” is the
elopement itself. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Not because the elopement is morally wrong or against the wishes
of their parents or of society writ large, but because it is wrong for <i>them</i>, as free-thinking and independent
adults. Their rebellion, in other words, is torpedoed at almost the exact
moment it began by the very act that sets them free and on their way. What is
brilliantly left unknown is how or whether they can recover from this act in
time to stave off <i>becoming</i> their
parents...I leave it to you to decide, but if you need evidence of what these Baby Boomers became, there is plenty around you in contemporary America.</div>
SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-75333290394868809882014-02-24T19:54:00.000-08:002014-02-24T19:54:10.962-08:00The Dreariness of Sanctity<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">How does one film <i>The Great Gatsby</i>?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">With a great deal of care and reverence, I suppose. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH8c6FujxPudUQGRShyphenhyphenIJk9zXqmzc-NbDcHI8squyY45uidhwO6Tn939XnnKOo-yJAPk9C-lqcYw2BJnSRzJEvF-_0RLIs7Ni8MR0tVzf0LQfKiO1V16MLE34F-MYF4VphNY2EYwJcTA/s1600/Great_gatsby_74.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH8c6FujxPudUQGRShyphenhyphenIJk9zXqmzc-NbDcHI8squyY45uidhwO6Tn939XnnKOo-yJAPk9C-lqcYw2BJnSRzJEvF-_0RLIs7Ni8MR0tVzf0LQfKiO1V16MLE34F-MYF4VphNY2EYwJcTA/s1600/Great_gatsby_74.jpg" height="320" width="211" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Certainly, the Jack Clayton 1974 version – Hollywood’s third
attempt to depict arguably the greatest American novel ever written – is
filmmaking with the sort of attention to detail and seriousness usually
reserved for a religious ritual.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">And yes, like most actual religious functions, this effort is
far too somber and particular to ever really entertain or convey anything like
sentiment. Adaptation is never an easy art to pull off, of course, and the old
adage that great books make lousy movies and lousy books make great movies is
never truer than it is here. Standout performances from Robert Redford and Mia
Farrow, both of whom seemed born to play Gatsby and Daisy, cannot save what one
critic quipped is a film “as lifeless as a body that’s been too long at the
bottom of a swimming pool.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">The strangeness of the failure is even more acute when one
realizes that both Francis Ford Coppola and Vladimir Nabakov – the latter no
slouch at writing novels – worked on the screenplay, a screenplay which on the
page, probably sang with passion. The scenes themselves, especially that first
grandiose party at Gatsby’s waterfront abode, also look spectacular enough to
get the heart pounding and the head hoping that what we are about to see will
equal the power and the pitfalls of the novel. But sadly the aesthetics and the
integrity of the plot are all that is on offer here. The movie just does not
hum along the way the book does and scenes that are meant to be emotional,
especially the tragic ones, play out flat and boring, as if conveyed by the
robotics of rote memorization.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2uWEiKmJPv_k7WA2mcWcHcKTAGku1bj9yXMRB3NgZeB9Y5tGzguznaFs7v-u-kv5675T1TGYRc3qwfXLF9igep6EvbUHsS0BoDStM56G9Etddhe8S-gIPXwVeiTGd-slUvsbjG2MHcA/s1600/thegreatgatsby-2012-film.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2uWEiKmJPv_k7WA2mcWcHcKTAGku1bj9yXMRB3NgZeB9Y5tGzguznaFs7v-u-kv5675T1TGYRc3qwfXLF9igep6EvbUHsS0BoDStM56G9Etddhe8S-gIPXwVeiTGd-slUvsbjG2MHcA/s1600/thegreatgatsby-2012-film.jpg" height="320" width="270" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">That the book is far more complicated and less clean than
filmmakers and high school English teachers think no doubt also plays havoc on
this adaptation. For what is Fitzgerald after in the novel? Many would say it
is about money not being everything, an oblique reference to Fitzgerald’s “the
rich are not like you and me” quote, which is so often taken out of context as
to entirely lose its meaning. Certainly, Redford, with his shirts from Turbell
& Asher and his French champagne and fake Oxford degree is not like his
contemporaries, something both the novel and the film make clear once he is
dead and there is almost no one at his funeral, save Nick Carraway. But is the
book – and therefore, the film adaptation here – really so simple? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Certainly, I
did not think so the second time I read the novel, nor the third.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Rather than bore my handful of readers with literary
analysis, I will simply offer the following. Gatsby and Nick’s intertwined
searches for the self are entirely that: Searches for the self. Gatsby
attempted to remake himself because he never knew who he was in the first place
and was not sure what he wanted to become. This is the glory and the
rootlessness of egalitarian America, where you are not what your parents were
and are not confined by where you came from (unlike Europe, for example). You
must then </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">invent</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> yourself – and this
can take a lifetime, and even longer still, and the worst part of it is, you
may never reach a satisfactory result. Certainly, Gatsby did not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Gatsby chooses Tom and Daisy’s crude and boorish model of
success as his lamppost because he wanted Daisy to be his and not Tom’s. What
he really wants is a past that he could not recapture and a future based on an
alternate past that never unfolded. He does not learn that you are not entirely
what others think of you. Worse, if you do not know yourself, truly know
yourself, then no party can ever be <i>big </i>enough,
no lie <i>convincing</i> enough. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMomDXVFo7gga4GdBUlS-AbqN_RdrPIywznvuM51AwkeKswj7dLTQJBPxBZrZw8lN-_khK6afAFio3JbcnNkmeplHtMoE8UaXQMhd6JLLlpL62sPA-N8aV9EByoOnN8JwJnRRYb-obdQ/s1600/nick-carraway-sam-waterston-the-great-gatsby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMomDXVFo7gga4GdBUlS-AbqN_RdrPIywznvuM51AwkeKswj7dLTQJBPxBZrZw8lN-_khK6afAFio3JbcnNkmeplHtMoE8UaXQMhd6JLLlpL62sPA-N8aV9EByoOnN8JwJnRRYb-obdQ/s1600/nick-carraway-sam-waterston-the-great-gatsby.jpg" height="190" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Gatsby is a muddled, shook-up man who likely knows less about
himself at the end than he did at the beginning. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Only Nick grows, but even he is paralyzed by
his own uncertainty about his own identity to do or say much throughout the
plot’s events, which is precisely why he is a great narrator, but near-awful
protagonist. He cannot break away from Tom and Daisy until it is too late and
he cannot help save Gatsby from himself. The plot itself is about a great many
things, wealth, discovery, the American dream, the hollowness of that dream,
relationships, love, nostalgia, maturation, lost innocence. I could go on,
because it is all there, and what we are dealing with is decisively deadly in
the way a tight Shakespearean tragedy is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;">Funny thing about the old Bard, he does not film well,
either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6NME2W5ob_ULo3wOLoOoMXZcROkq4-gI2V9D4peEA8sIntGzJXzKd_FtCWqQtAKcK6MMfuhjORRQE0YBrS7r_xR2ttwEg30U4FZSUNoBEsgsR1dxoBwuwj2JZBi6ghnJa81Kv51nykw/s1600/robert-redford-as-the-great-gatsby.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6NME2W5ob_ULo3wOLoOoMXZcROkq4-gI2V9D4peEA8sIntGzJXzKd_FtCWqQtAKcK6MMfuhjORRQE0YBrS7r_xR2ttwEg30U4FZSUNoBEsgsR1dxoBwuwj2JZBi6ghnJa81Kv51nykw/s1600/robert-redford-as-the-great-gatsby.jpg" height="212" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">My suspicion is these texts matter too much to the people who
found some or all of the richness in them and that this affinity prevents these
adaptors from the level of interpretation and confinement necessary for two and
half hours of film. In that sense, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
Great Gatsby</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">, is a beautiful but mediocre film, one that becomes interesting
only when we watch it for what it is not. In other words, no matter how earnest
the acolyte, he or she cannot conjure up the same magic as the prophet who
inspired them, and in the case of this film, what we have is a rather
unintentional examination of failing to achieve the sort of legitimate
greatness the title character himself vainly sought in the pages of a
century-old novel.</span></div>
SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-10827191868316499282014-02-23T18:39:00.000-08:002014-02-23T18:42:49.141-08:00“We’re Not Little Men”<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Sean Connery and Michael Caine
could do just about anything on film and it would be interesting to watch.
Titans of a very different sort, both infuse any picture they are in with the
intense gravity that accompanies their commanding presence. In 1975’s <i>The Man Who Would be King</i>, both romp
through the exoticism of the East in a film based on a Rudyard Kipling short
story about two swindlers intent on conning an entire nation into letting them
take over as rulers.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCrlCyc4SoKs2nen7HY3Ho3pM2eoA3zOvwbX_lN_M5zzQWQo9K5mO8IgknZnYGaCWZ3VMuH8pIVNtrRIZV09ZYvCSHesc6w_T8wTTm9Go_zZOdk2-fYKFhqosKOgykjdSmtE-80lUjHQ/s1600/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCrlCyc4SoKs2nen7HY3Ho3pM2eoA3zOvwbX_lN_M5zzQWQo9K5mO8IgknZnYGaCWZ3VMuH8pIVNtrRIZV09ZYvCSHesc6w_T8wTTm9Go_zZOdk2-fYKFhqosKOgykjdSmtE-80lUjHQ/s1600/images.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="text-align: justify;">Often labeled, erroneously I
think, as rip-roaring piece of criticism about empire, this is a film in which
a pair of larger-than-life stars explore the notions of ego and ultimately end
up celebrating it. How is that for British irony? Along the way, honor (amongst
thieves and otherwise), greed and the corrupting influence of power are also
explored, but in the film’s final few frames, Caine, haunted and clearly mad,
remains both proud and passionate about what he and Connery achieved through
self-motivation and their own guile.</span><br />
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<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU7swoo68kJFjgcMPkZu4-2Zx4EYqQjlNbTVFw2-r_CTvTPM2lXMpzIOfpKhHaLlDKXaonpKNp5BOHW_sL7vuY9hR-Ym651QxfkVf78OVr5G0PYeP4IlIomVI5fD68_xhDRZyb0BHiOQ/s1600/The-Man-Who-Would-Be-King-Screencaps-michael-caine-5399632-560-310.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU7swoo68kJFjgcMPkZu4-2Zx4EYqQjlNbTVFw2-r_CTvTPM2lXMpzIOfpKhHaLlDKXaonpKNp5BOHW_sL7vuY9hR-Ym651QxfkVf78OVr5G0PYeP4IlIomVI5fD68_xhDRZyb0BHiOQ/s1600/The-Man-Who-Would-Be-King-Screencaps-michael-caine-5399632-560-310.jpg" height="176" width="320" /></a></div>
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That the two men who perhaps more
than any other actors who symbolize British masculinity are cast back to the 19<sup>th</sup>
century to play rakes and conmen is a genius bit of casting that reveals
precisely where the film plans to take the audience: Away from safe and academic topics and toward
the dark recesses of what can drive men to questionable acts. Early on in the
film, for example, Caine unleashes a powerful invective against the British
bureaucracy in India. It is an impassioned speech, but not a word of it is
accurate. What Caine and his companion are suffering from is far more
generalized, in that it is not red tape they bristle at, but the very law and
order that is inherent in civilization. The pair are, in other words, two of Sigmund
Freud’s bored “discontents,” chafing from the proscription of the boundless
desires their rather large egos have created.</div>
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In other sense, these men are
also adventurers, and as such, their sense of scale dwarfs the ordinary man’s.
They want to leave India and head beyond Afghanistan and Hindu Kush because men
of their ambition need “space.” Or as Connery puts it “We’re not little men.” To
ease their abrasions, the two devise a wild scheme, wherein they will help a
feudal king in Kafiristan overcome his enemies, then depose the king and assume
his authority themselves. To aid in their proposal, the pair acquire 20 British
rifles and a cache of ammunition, and off they set.</div>
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As I have suggested, these are
men of appetite, large appetite. And there is something to admire in the way
they go about trying to satiate themselves, but there is also something shallow
and sad about it, neither of which was lost on Kipling. Connery and Caine’s ambitions
often manifest in incredibly prosaic ways. What Connery wants, for example,
more than anything else is to be received by the Queen of England as an equal
and then made a member of the Order of the Garter, which contradictorily, would
again make him a servant of Her Britannic Majesty. This is a commoner’s, boyish
dream – and Kipling meant for us to recognize it as such and chuckle at it.</div>
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At about the same time the events
in this film take place, Lord Acton famously proclaimed “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power
corrupts absolutely.” There is nothing terribly new in the supposition
that power is a corrupting agent, but the power itself is not really the
corruptor. It is the ego that sought the power in the first place. The triumph of
Caine and Connery that follows is thus a testament not to a cravenness for
power, but to their vision and audacity.</div>
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Of course such bold ambition
place in the service of self-serving needs cannot be allowed to stand as
successful in either literature or film. And thus, the fall comes to Caine and
Connery as it does to all misguided and ignoble protagonists. Having installed
themselves as rulers and begin pilfering the riches of Kafiristan, Connery
cannot resist actually ruling, and ruling as a God no less. Caine attempts to
bring his friend back to reality, but to no avail. Connery has truly been
ultimately corrupted by the grandiosity of their heist.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUfIJM0MaFTixV6D3JAXtXghJib3-5cYAq8O19lnSZqDSshbxkNUOG7grJDd0CsrNwRDnvEsuibXsQK_qgJFxEoc0Job0iqlwKKndrU_rDCEGoCmwnBUjuk9MfypaMAcsP8NQJFPwAVA/s1600/2518.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUfIJM0MaFTixV6D3JAXtXghJib3-5cYAq8O19lnSZqDSshbxkNUOG7grJDd0CsrNwRDnvEsuibXsQK_qgJFxEoc0Job0iqlwKKndrU_rDCEGoCmwnBUjuk9MfypaMAcsP8NQJFPwAVA/s1600/2518.gif" /></a></div>
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The even more incredible irony at
work here is the fact that if Connery had kept to the contract – an obvious
metaphor for Western temperance – he and Caine devised and minded the part
about leaving the native women alone, he would have been able to fulfill their
plan (IE -- Loot the riches and flee back over the Hindu Kush). Here, man’s
inability to live inhumanly as a God is personified in Connery’s inability to
forget Roxanne’s beauty, but more than that, he wants a wife, a family and a
child – all of which are very unlike deity-like desires, something the priests
quickly call attention to. If there is any ultimate conclusion, it is that audacious
swindlers who concoct almighty swindles are still swindlers. They just have
larger imaginations than their small-time counterparts. In the end, the goal of
both is the same, overturn the traditional order by taking something from
someone else to satisfy the rather childish parts of the ego. (Another irony is
that wanting to marry and begin a family is the most adult ambition Connery displays
throughout the film and it is ultimately his undoing.)</div>
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This is not to say Connery and
Caine are petty. Their oversized appetite saves them from that fate. </div>
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When, for example, they are
facing what they believe is certain death early in the film, Caine and Connery
are buoyantly resigned to ending their time on Earth, knowing full well that
they have lived life in a way few other men have for no other reason than they
had the guts to do it. “How many men have been where we’ve been and seen what we’ve
seen?” Caine asks. “Bloody few,” Connery pipes back.</div>
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Indeed, these are not little men,
and we should celebrate them for that. Although the tale is ultimately
cautionary, it remains something of a paean to ego. The tragedy as I see it is
not that Caine and Connery had these personalities, it is that they were not
able to discover anything in their Victorian world that they believed their
considerable energies should be dedicated toward. They had, in essence, nothing
but themselves and their own desires. Which is the same as almost having
nothing.</div>
SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-81339613564719354772013-12-11T13:16:00.002-08:002013-12-11T13:17:31.144-08:00Power, Perversion and PurposeWhere do we begin with Mr. Bond?<br />
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The success of his film franchise – some 23 movies in all – and his status as a cultural icon – one imagines people in the Amazonian rain forest know about the character’s choice of cocktail – is unmatched by anything in the history of cinema. People cheered when the lights went down in the theater where I saw the most recent Bond picture and the frustration about the financial troubles that delayed <i>Skyfall</i> in advance of its release were legendarily frustrating among devotees.<br />
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Exactly why the exploits of an officer in the British intelligence service, known as MI-6, should hold such sway over the popular imagination – and this is in not just Great Britain, not just the cousins in the United States or even the English-speaking countries, but of the entire world – begs examination. I propose the success of Bond is visceral (the films are a feast of effects and beautiful to behold), psychological (Bond does what we all secretly wish we could) and philosophical (Bond is a kind of Platonic Guardian of Western Civilization, whose wines and other products he clearly values and enjoys).<br />
<br />
<b>The Nature of Bond </b><br />
In one novel, Bond is described as “certainly good-looking . . . Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way. That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold.” Add to that the word “ruthless”.<br />
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The literary Bond has a facial scar. He fought in the Second World War, can throw knives. He drinks too much, not because it is fashionable, but more because he has no real friends and the loneliness must be filled somehow. He clearly relishes killing, both the build-up, which is often described in sexual terms by Fleming, and the act itself. But the killing takes its toll on him and the spent feelings – again, of an almost sexual vein – pay him back at unexpected moments, so he smokes more, drinks more, or tries to find solace in a round of cards or a drive in the country. These things alleviate his inner demons temporarily, but the only real cure is glimpsed in <i>Thunderball,</i> which opens with burnt-out James Bond recuperating in a health spa. What Bond needs more of is more of the job, more killing, and so he goes looking for it at the spa and finds both. Only then is he "cured" and re-animated.<br />
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The literary Bond then is an aesthete, something which unfortunately comes across as humor or snobbery in the films. The literary Bond enjoys the finer things because he does not often like people and the people around him either tend to need killing by him or end up being killed by others. Bond in the novels is closed off to others and he is almost pathologically non-communicative in the books, most of which contain pages upon pages without spoke dialogue, the action being all in Bond's head. He clearly views himself as a distinct being, separated from others by the secrecy incumbent in his job as well as the fact that he is a killer who operates in an artificial – perhaps self-made – world that is beyond everyday Good and Evil.<br />
<br />
One philosophy professor writes that Bond is incarnate of a "He Who Eats Meat Wins" mentality, a walking incarnate of the masculine ego's successful overreach into the stratosphere (Bond is many things, but he is not a failure). According to this line of thinking, which I believe is right, Bond has a strong appetite because he is concerned about life and death in way other people are not. Bond could die at any moment, just like the people he himself dispatches. So there is a voracious Epicurean in Bond. Life, which does not hold much meaning to him, is easily extinguished. So he takes pleasure when and where he can...<br />
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This Bond does not quite exist on the screen.<br />
<br />
The film Bond is the “man every other man wants to be" and "the man every woman wants to sleep with,” as one film critic quipped. On screen, the internal fretting in Fleming’s novels, along with the depictions of doubt and personal regrets, are almost entirely jettisoned. The Fleming anti-hero is thus reborn as a hero, and his uncomfortable flaws and coping mechanisms – that is, his drinking, his nearly sociopathic womanizing and his clear enjoyment of killing – are either softened into punch lines or made positive attributes that denote glamour. It is an interesting transition and one that I believe is critical to the franchise's success. Here, too, I must emphasize that much of the ugliness and raw power of Bond the human being is absent in the films. Ego is often discussed in the film, as Bond's will to act, but in a cinematic context the ego is essentially criticized. In Casino Royale, for example, we have a Bond who must learn humility, and does. On screen, in place of a man who is almost sheer action, we have Bond the civil servant, a man Dr. No calls a "stupid little policeman," which in essence, is correct. Bond therefore is a kind of Horatio Nelson, in that he is somewhat obscene and grandiose, for sure, but still well within society’s bounds of acceptable behavior, and we as an audience are willing to forgive him his trespasses for a handful of equally compelling reasons.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSsaIZm7RnnVDWJu6qphlEFUlg0jbxQ7lpTWL1CXVGvIx0qjmrvhjdUzB4Q5OWkTk6ZlG45Dfn6bJas0boMmNHslioOSfXFkHmW_wB5ZoRqE0xgPexX3LFxgBEZbtU3ViNkjF4ickQrA/s1600/diamonds-are-forever-bond-chokes-woman-with-bra_786_poster.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSsaIZm7RnnVDWJu6qphlEFUlg0jbxQ7lpTWL1CXVGvIx0qjmrvhjdUzB4Q5OWkTk6ZlG45Dfn6bJas0boMmNHslioOSfXFkHmW_wB5ZoRqE0xgPexX3LFxgBEZbtU3ViNkjF4ickQrA/s320/diamonds-are-forever-bond-chokes-woman-with-bra_786_poster.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bond strangles a woman. Pure Fleming moment.</td></tr>
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<b>Bond as Escapism </b><br />
The first reason for Bond's cinematic success is simple. The aforementioned film critic's quip was right. On some level, we – and I mean more the men than the women here – do want to be James Bond (I leave it to the women to chime in on whether they want to sleep with a man like Bond). Or rather, we want to want the things he wants, the fancy cars, dangerous women and good champagne, and we enjoy vicariously participating in his over-sized pursuit of them. We also note Bond's confidence, his acumen and his style and again view these as positive worthy of striving toward. On a puerile level, who doesn't want to be handsome, successful and living an exciting life?<br />
<br />
So in this sense, Bond thrills with his wish-fulfillment. Bond films are not documentary or anything like reality, rather they are escapist fantasies, laced with healthy doses of hyperbolic action and over-the-top situations. Bond is never shown filling out paperwork, filing receipts or being forced to grab a lukewarm cup of tea in the MI-6 cafeteria. He literally springs from one luxurious meal to another, from one fine hotel to another, and of course, from one unobtainable – at least to mere mortals – woman to another.<br />
<br />
Bond does this, and we get to watch him do it, because he is essentially a creature driven almost completely by his id, which is defined as "the part of the mind containing ... wants, desires, and impulses, particularly our sexual and aggressive drives. The id operates according to the pleasure principle, the psychic force that motivates the tendency to seek immediate gratification of any impulse." Most people do not get to indulge their id as much as Bond, because we have duties and responsibilities and social norms we must pay attention to in complicated social settings. Although Bond is far from brutish, his restriction of his id and its impulses is far more limited than in most people.<br />
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This is a complicated way of saying, Bond lives in the moment and likes to have fun. And often, there are no consequences – or at least not normal consequences – attached to his actions. We would go to jail, for example, if we killed people. But Bond has his famous license to kill. Which leads me to... <br />
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<b>Sex and Death </b><br />
Make no mistake, Bond films are all existential struggles – isn't the fate of the entire world always at stake in them? – and the films all intentionally make a direct correlation between sex – a creative act – and destruction. If you do not believe me, go back and re-watch the infamous title sequences from the 1960s when completely naked women frolic around the silhouettes of firearms. What is going on there is much more than a crude metaphor for pistol. For on each of his missions, Bond stares death in the face and the plot hatched by the supervillain often involves the kind of negation death is itself. Consider that in <i>On Her Majesty's Secret Service</i>, Bloefeld utilized a gaggle of nubile young women to do what? To carry a plague that would sterilize plants and animals around the world. To, in other words, negate the creative act symbolized by their sexuality – and the sex Bond has with them – with death.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A penis-shaped laser tries to cut Bond's penis off. A metaphor you could not create on your own. But Fleming did.</td></tr>
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That the sex in Bond film's has little or no consequences only furthers the notion that on some level what Bond is at war during the films lies within himself or with existence in more general terms. How many of Bond's sexual conquests are subsequently murdered? There are no awkward morning afters in Bond's world, no talk of promises and commitments. Women are unabashedly objectified and presented as tokens of Bond's dangerous lifestyle (or were until recent films). Just as he gets a great car, he gets great women. Nobody is saying this kind of fetishism is admirable (see Pygmalion), but the desire for this does exist somewhere within us all, just as the desire to murder and be a creature of assured violence exists within us all.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The reward?</td></tr>
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Of course, along the way Bond is giving up meaningful relationships, of the possibility of, say, raising children, of having a safe and secure life. And in compensation he receives cars, slavish women, fine caviar, etc. This was Achilles choice and it is Bond's choice. It is not one many of us would make, but there is something primal and attractive about nonetheless, which both Fleming and the filmmakers understand, even if in the case of the latter it is by accident. Bond's brutal life is presented as a glorious procession in order both to tantalize us with the forbidden as well as demonstrate how satisfying and reckless the forbidden might be.<br />
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Personally, I am not sure which Bond I like best – the novel or the film version – but I am certain which Bond sells. This is another way of saying that I am certain that if more of Fleming’s Bond made it onto the screen, we would not be talking about a film franchise here of 50 years. Films are spectacles and audiences go to them for bedazzlement. They also go for affirmation. Bond gives audiences both. A Bond film is not a Bond film without almost hyperbolic action sequences (indeed, at one point the action became ridiculous in both the Roger Moore and Peirce Brosnan years). A Bond film is also not a Bond Film without what I will call Bond’s accouterments. By this I mean Bond the aesthete is transformed into a kind of showman for cars, watches, finely tailored suits and complicated drink orders, because these are all luxuries that people want and want to see. After 50 years, Bond and his preferences are now inseparable. The aesthetic eccentricity from the novels has been remade as “classiness” in an age that otherwise rejects such things. <br />
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<b>Bond as Civil Servant</b><br />
If Bond is a creature of id, confronting death and his own personal demons in a way we find entertaining, what ultimately makes him a hero? It boils down to this. As we know, the id "knows no judgements of value: no good and evil, no morality." The id seeks only the discharge of satisfaction (think sex and guns again). And if this is all there is to James Bond, he would appear as the kind of monsters he confronts in his adventures. That he is not a monster is ultimately because Bond's desires are channeled toward the greater good. That is, the filmmakers shrewdly choose to emphasize the purpose of Bond’s existence at the expense of the power and perversion inherent in his character. The Bond in the films is a "hero" precisely because he is working to protect innocents. He is a Platonic Guardian in the purest of forms, because he is an elected elite who endures great hardship and is therefore granted great license and reward so that the Republic will continue to stand.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">For Queen and Country</td></tr>
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If Bond on-screen did not believe in the goodness of his country and his role in the stewardship of democratically-elected governments, then he would be nothing more than thrill-seeker, cashing in on his job's status to acquire and do things not available to others. But he is not. He is motivated entirely by a noble cause (the defense of freedom), unlike his adversaries. Bond's villains, while sharing much of Bond's will to act and over-sized appetites, are perverted creatures in large part because they do not have Bond's redeeming dedication to service. Fleming was careful to ensure all of his supervillains, for nothing else could stand in the way of a superhero but a supervillain, are both mentally and physically perverted creatures.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Disfigured and without restraint.</td></tr>
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Dr. No is a prime example. A cultured and intelligent man, his mind is nonetheless twisted by feelings of rebuke and he harbors an overwhelming desire for revenge that his distorted his entire reality (notice how surreal the Bond villain lairs always are). At the same time, he is a ghost of a human being, with little or no normal emotions and missing hands. In this sense, the Bond villains are evil doppelgangers of Bond, who indeed in <i>The Man with the Golden Gun</i> is openly exposed to this very obvious metaphor when Scaramanga presses Bond to admit how much he enjoys killing and therefore how similar the hitman (Scaramanga) is to the intelligence officer (Bond). Bond, of course, refuses the comparison, but it should provoke audiences to thinking a bit more about the man they have chosen to elevate for half a century. He is, if nothing else, complicated and what he represents about the society that produced him and continues to revel in his exploits is no less complicated...<br />
<br />
<b>The Best Bonds</b><br />
Everyone has a list, of course. On this one, I have avoided what I will call the contemporary Bonds and tried to stick to what I consider the “classic” era of Bonds:<br />
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1. <i>Goldfinger</i> (1964): Of all the Bond Films, this ranks top. It is, quite simply, all that a Bond film should be and it is the last Bond film in which the character of Bond himself is not swallowed by the scope of the action or subject to using increasingly ridiculous gadgetry (which thankfully <i>Skyfall </i>jettisoned). The now-established Bond tropes are all introduced here, but they are not distracting yet: We have a wronged woman seeking revenge, a sports car with gadgetry and another maniacal, cultured and somewhat charming villain (Dr. No was not charming), assisted by a bizarre henchmen (Odd Job) who kills people in a fantastic way. There is something important at stake (Fort Knox), but for Bond the battle is more personal, as it would become again when Daniel Craig took up the role. For Bond in this film, it is about beating Goldfinger at his own game rather than “saving the day.” There is also the small matter of the quintessential Bond song, sung here by Shirley Bassey. It was never surpassed, though her sophomore effort in <i>Diamonds are Forever</i> comes pretty damn close.<br />
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2. <i>From Russia with Love</i> (1963): Probably the most traditional espionage film in the series, in that this is a real spy film, with a plot that involves a code machine and a honey trap, both classic Cold War espionage devices that have real-world corollaries. The scenes in Istanbul and the chase at the film's conclusion both still stand up, even if the deranged women with the shoe in her knife does not. The opening scene is also a classic, and no doubt worked better on the original audience, who did not know there would be 20 or so more films.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDxHqwt9NW-fzTwLb36HFHqRJWquIpmwZyEBDpDBDJ5pRanctPo0OANV6vqlSlZb3u9Nuk0Y0ClcWXU31BVcsnfxLjUzh6mhhKGMPNZYRzDoZsIrxaqRA0Mn-ARamUmdXYRvYX2lCIfQ/s1600/OHMSS_Diana-Rigg-George-Lazenby-wedding-car_publicity-image_shoot-1.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDxHqwt9NW-fzTwLb36HFHqRJWquIpmwZyEBDpDBDJ5pRanctPo0OANV6vqlSlZb3u9Nuk0Y0ClcWXU31BVcsnfxLjUzh6mhhKGMPNZYRzDoZsIrxaqRA0Mn-ARamUmdXYRvYX2lCIfQ/s320/OHMSS_Diana-Rigg-George-Lazenby-wedding-car_publicity-image_shoot-1.jpg" /></a></div>
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3. <i>On Her Majesty’s Secret Service</i> (1969): George Lazenby as Bond continues to divide, but leaving aside his uneven performance, this efforts soars with emotion as Bond meets his match in Diana Rigg’s character, falls in love and actually marries. Along the way, there are two great chases in the snow and some real emotional depth to what is clearly the most faithful adaptation of a Fleming novel. The pattern of the woman in this film being the equal of Bond became commonplace in later efforts, but it never worked as well it as does here. When Rigg skates up to help bail Bond out of trouble when he is at the skating rink, he is actually scared and out of ideas, something that does not happen anywhere else, I believe. It would have been interesting to see the filmmakers continue the thread begun in the last scene of this film with a revenge picture as a sequel, but instead we got Connery back in the rather glib <i>Diamonds Are Forever</i>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90UVwNRlgAkQgN1vsGuR5VL-DP43hVBWvS13dvob8ODNzwIVkRtH73hmHvy1FRgPt4T3gC7AnO7ZmZOQ7ImmTSRpKCp5Bv7X3a0i7yoawDofNVXJtV6Xk8p3r4YWdC4NsB3lZccUofg/s1600/ThunderballArtwork-1.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi90UVwNRlgAkQgN1vsGuR5VL-DP43hVBWvS13dvob8ODNzwIVkRtH73hmHvy1FRgPt4T3gC7AnO7ZmZOQ7ImmTSRpKCp5Bv7X3a0i7yoawDofNVXJtV6Xk8p3r4YWdC4NsB3lZccUofg/s320/ThunderballArtwork-1.jpg" /></a></div>
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4. <i>Thunderball</i> (1965): Sure, the underwater scenes are somewhat slow, but the rest of the film races along and Bond on several occasions faces real jeopardy. Connery is at the top of his game here, too. He is suave, provocative and full of a carefully calculated wit. The role does not bore him yet and the filmmakers are still giving him interesting things to do in his scenes that are not cliched. The outdoor shots work well, we get a great Casino scene and a villain who is creepy in a subtle and refined way. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBze9wCkFnRMjpGegktrIeITszBIgk1XZMS4V5GjvebltgGvurfSPhuHedU5xped6jvtHbcuhJ529N9WJsQDrre-9V2JOxMqPYStvGjh2J4CaSKezpQNypBH5jDJ4nmz5tLLDEukK3Gw/s1600/spy-who-loved-me-07.jpg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBze9wCkFnRMjpGegktrIeITszBIgk1XZMS4V5GjvebltgGvurfSPhuHedU5xped6jvtHbcuhJ529N9WJsQDrre-9V2JOxMqPYStvGjh2J4CaSKezpQNypBH5jDJ4nmz5tLLDEukK3Gw/s320/spy-who-loved-me-07.jpg" /></a></div>
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5. <i>The Spy Who Loved Me</i> (1977): Surely, the best of the Roger Moore offerings? There is no real silliness in the film, aside from Jaws (who is no more or less preposterous than Odd Job) and the soundtrack’s disco-music accompaniment. Barbara Bach is amongst the best Bond girls to look at and more than a match for Moore’s casual approach to … well, everything really (does this man even run in action scenes?). The plot involves an underwater lair, stolen submarines, détente and an arch villain who wants to cleanse the world by destroying it. In case you are not following, this is essentially a remake of You Only Live Twice with a few updates. No matter, because it works. There are some good effects, some real moments of tension, excellent sets (designed in part by Stanley Kubrick) and a great conflict between Bach and Moore.SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-84523745596437165642013-11-23T14:56:00.002-08:002013-11-23T15:02:48.115-08:00The Absent Catalyst<div style="text-align: justify;">
As far as first efforts go, one can hardly argue with Alfred Hitchcock's initial stateside film.</div>
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A dark and Gothic tale that clearly borders on the film noir, 1940's <i>Rebecca</i> would later be eclipsed by the great auteur's other, more richly imagined Hollywood efforts, but in terms of sheer craft and complexity, I rate this film as highly as any of Hitchcock's others. The only film from the great director that ever nabbed an Academy Award for best picture, <i>Rebecca</i> soars on the back of a remarkably tight script -- no scene or line of dialogue seems wasted here -- excellent cinematography and a pair of perfectly understated performances by Sir Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine.</div>
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I confess I have not read the novel on which the film is based, but it would be difficult to imagine how it could equal the film's subtle portrayal of wickedness and possession, given that in certain scenes, Hitchcock paints the proverbial thousand words with merely the position of a shadow, the movement of the actors or the tone in which they speak. Atmosphere is everything in this film, and how could it not be? This is, after all, a film in which the title character who is the driver of the entire film's events is not even alive. Yes, you heard me correctly. Not even alive.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5biSEMiokOnyoGvqsSjRANJlwtQ_dC0mkb6Fxuo-jxvJ5npOksSVNrC1CjaNmvbN4UU_e7RCm4axSSdxLG6Yh9gbQNZEnnYN8iok6wRK8OKLo-JpM6w6sG40MtEyqSht5I7Bc12lx4A/s1600/Rebeccaf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5biSEMiokOnyoGvqsSjRANJlwtQ_dC0mkb6Fxuo-jxvJ5npOksSVNrC1CjaNmvbN4UU_e7RCm4axSSdxLG6Yh9gbQNZEnnYN8iok6wRK8OKLo-JpM6w6sG40MtEyqSht5I7Bc12lx4A/s320/Rebeccaf.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Nonetheless, "Rebecca," who is Olivier's deceased wife, has a power and allure whose attraction has outlived her death. Indeed, the film itself makes it clear that the hand of the dead can rest on the shoulders of the living, no matter how much the living wish it were otherwise. In Rebecca's case, the power stems almost entirely from perversion. Though she was known as a beautiful and successful socialite, Rebecca's inner self was dark, manipulative and cruel. Not only did she torment her husband, but the film makes it clear she toyed with several other lovers, to say nothing of people in general. Her chief ally in this comes in the form of Judith Anderson, who is not only the housekeeper on Olivier's estate, but also Rebecca's sole confidant. Anderson clearly enjoyed the games Rebecca played, and in her absence, she has devolved into a kind of priestess who worships at the memory of her former master.</div>
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Accordingly, Anderson is forever dressed in black. She is rarely shown walking, and in most scenes moves about the frame more like an apparition or wraith than a human. Her devotion to Rebecca is clearly suggested as homosexual, but in a completely unrealized sense. Instead of love, we have co-dependency base on shared sociopathic tendencies that delighted in the manipulation and destruction of others. Rebecca -- the extroverted half -- needed an audience for her twisted triumphs, Anderson -- the introverted half -- needed a idol to follow and give her life meaning. </div>
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Such devotion, of course sets Anderson against Fontaine, Olivier's new wife. But more than that, Anderson is against Olivier, the last person to see Rebecca alive and the person whom Anderson correctly suspects of having something to do with Rebecca's death. Olivier, too, is hiding something and suffering from Rebecca's legacy. To free himself from Rebecca's trap he must both admit to himself what kind of person Rebecca was and acknowledge his role in first not stopping her and then in crudely confronting her and having an unwitting hand in her death (Olivier also believes he murdered an unborn child).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju2dvDtk2rC_fLn8JaF7uFa3Gi5iRGM4dr30-IBE_ccwNdRAiBkA1Tsy6K5CiHgjYSfGHw3gNKoCyhBMVPmE-gO_j2FrclJbbp5bid5cfp0AKCrIiONpEBCqSBkC4y8pIIZy-qNoDKsQ/s1600/027-rebecca-theredlist.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju2dvDtk2rC_fLn8JaF7uFa3Gi5iRGM4dr30-IBE_ccwNdRAiBkA1Tsy6K5CiHgjYSfGHw3gNKoCyhBMVPmE-gO_j2FrclJbbp5bid5cfp0AKCrIiONpEBCqSBkC4y8pIIZy-qNoDKsQ/s320/027-rebecca-theredlist.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Fontaine, who arrives in Manderley with no understanding of the forces already at work there, must discover, along with the audience, who everyone is and what their role in the tragedy of Rebecca was. The interesting part of this is that every character has a piece of who Rebecca was, none of them have the whole. All of the characters are reluctant to share what they know and what they learn with one another, believing (correctly, as it turns out) that the whole of what they might assemble might not be something to linger in front of. And in fact when the pieces are finally put together for the audience to see, something frightening and wicked does appear.</div>
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Rebecca most certainly was a villain, but like most villains, she did not have to kill or behave crudely herself because there were plenty of people willing to either help her (Anderson) or abstain from stopping her until it was too late (Olivier). Manderley itself is haunted by the evil done there, and to show this Hitchcock brilliantly shoots the interior as if there is always water dancing on the walls, a direct reference to Rebecca's watery grave offshore, and to the fact that everyone remains waterlogged by what she left behind. Olivier and Fontaine must perpetuate the lies in order to seal their own marriage. Manderley itself cannot be saved and it burns to cleanse away what happened there (fire being the opposite of water). </div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">This would seem a neat ending to a haunting were it not for all the unanswered questions Hitchcock has asked in the course of the film's narrative. Specifically, although it seems Olivier and Fontaine had ended the "curse," if we can call it that, and made it as a couple (and mustn't all couples excise their pasts before truly bonding for life?) there remains the thorny issues of trust and truth. Specifically, <i>Rebecca</i> challenges its audiences to ask </span><span style="text-align: justify;">whether people ever truly know each other and can trust one another? </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzXutnJHj9EXULqLVpQVpyYersOv1Al-_v7wDbiAjb7FbttHZ7DhG0LCXfkiT0RqXmy3pJtNkG5nZt4TCo0Pof1FmGi8YvMMHWHc30cxj_tjaZbGKljusUgBl_9gR-5Lv49zGHfkDVEw/s1600/rebecca.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzXutnJHj9EXULqLVpQVpyYersOv1Al-_v7wDbiAjb7FbttHZ7DhG0LCXfkiT0RqXmy3pJtNkG5nZt4TCo0Pof1FmGi8YvMMHWHc30cxj_tjaZbGKljusUgBl_9gR-5Lv49zGHfkDVEw/s320/rebecca.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Hithcock, ever the puppet master, would return to this topic with some success in <i>Suspicion</i>. And both in this film and that one, he seems to be asserting the negative. That what we see of another person is but a gesture or a presentation (like a film) and all the while the realness of a person, if we can call it that, is their consciousness, something we can never truly know no matter how much time we spend with them or how many conversations of souls laid bare we have. Nobody in the film knew Rebecca, either. They had pieces of her and assembled they became something like the whole, but it was not quite the whole. Nobody, for example, could say why Rebecca did what she did or why they allowed themselves to fall under her power. Such questions are ultimately unanswerable, and such endings to films are truly what make them great.</div>
SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-46925612768695078742013-11-11T08:12:00.000-08:002013-11-23T13:53:20.317-08:00Not Dark Enough<div class="MsoNormal">
Strange waters these.</div>
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I am quite the
Humphrey Bogart devotee, as my profile of him on this site suggests. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj57SmYecPbKW4dlPL8J8JpHEwYRRkn2Z9SGsvTMMYGaT8pz_Cp5sajQXzu5ngtk0-ST7R_JnNuElf_W7fZreu73iXiaqWdqeMs1EGEwP1NR61KL6ENFjFb-u4ZufCO4BliTGUzK0wdbA/s1600/Bigsleep2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj57SmYecPbKW4dlPL8J8JpHEwYRRkn2Z9SGsvTMMYGaT8pz_Cp5sajQXzu5ngtk0-ST7R_JnNuElf_W7fZreu73iXiaqWdqeMs1EGEwP1NR61KL6ENFjFb-u4ZufCO4BliTGUzK0wdbA/s1600/Bigsleep2.JPG" /></a></div>
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And so I find
myself wandering in unfamiliar territory when I make the claim that I do not
believe Bogart works well as Raymond Chandler’s infamous shamus in 1945’s <i>The Big Sleep</i>, a film that also suffers
from far too much subtlety and not enough naked awfulness (more on the latter
below). In most cases, I would defend Hollywood’s by-gone penchant for leaving
the crude unsaid and for suggesting rather than showing, largely because we
have far too much of the opposite these days, but in the case of <i>The Big Sleep</i>, the production code at the
time simply did not allow for the grit and grime and human frailty of Chandler’s
pre-war Los Angeles to appear on-screen.</div>
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And Bogart,
painful as it is for me to write, is part of the problem.</div>
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Certainly, he
is great in the other film noir detective classic – <i>The Maltese Falcon</i>. </div>
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In that film, Bogart
shines as Sam Spade, but that is largely because Sam Spade has no human
weaknesses, is on a mission of righteous revenge. Bogart also essentially plays
him as Bogart. But Phillip Marlow, Chandler’s know-it-all private dick? As a
tremendous fan of a writer I consider much more than a mystery hack, I can
honestly say there is a tragic grandeur to Marlow that Bogart just cannot
capture. Bogart is too sure of himself, too clean and too self-righteous for
Marlow, a man whom Chandler writes as a kind of fallen angel, a once-righteous
being that is now chock full of cynicism to shield himself from more
disappointment, more failure.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1G2UyDTiD-XvdQa8Ks0h5bGt_x3O3hzOZhP2dvJQd-XdJ9eKQixdLq-PAmqOxOd3qgHAb-s_owHfqjqRzTAdRDC-i_Ymv-N7gedLQbiug6i2hQDhy6cIJ4G90Ypz9vl7cN2bHQs937A/s1600/noir0609latimes1957poss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1G2UyDTiD-XvdQa8Ks0h5bGt_x3O3hzOZhP2dvJQd-XdJ9eKQixdLq-PAmqOxOd3qgHAb-s_owHfqjqRzTAdRDC-i_Ymv-N7gedLQbiug6i2hQDhy6cIJ4G90Ypz9vl7cN2bHQs937A/s320/noir0609latimes1957poss.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Marlow on the
page is a grubby human who makes a grubby living, but he infuses what is an
otherwise parasitic and not-so-honest way of living with a kind of noble
grandeur by adhering to a strict and unspoken code that raises him above his
clients and their short-term interests driven by greed or sex. Bogart, on the
other hand, is noble in <i>The Big Sleep</i>,
but he has none of Marlow’s ugliness, none of his self-awareness about his
character’s ugliness, and consequently, he delivers lines intended to convey
pained self-understanding – no doubt gained through previous unspeakable awful
events – with such deadpan earnestness that the dialogue comes across a series
of clever quips instead of moments of carefully crafted, naked confession.</div>
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Perhaps this failure
has to do with the Howard Hawks’ impressive but flawed production.</div>
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Faithfulness
is often a virtue, but in this case, the film tries to follow so many of the
novel’s permutations – of which there are many – that the result is dizzyingly
confusing onscreen (it all works much better on the page). Indeed, two endings
of the film were cut, both of which are available on the DVD, because audiences
in 1945 were uncertain exactly what the hell happened in Hawks’ first attempt
at a resolution. So he tried again. I could follow events well enough, but then
I have read the novel and had that as a primer. Woe to the filmgoer who
approaches the story here cold.</div>
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<br /></div>
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This is not to
say the good guys are not obvious and the bad even more so. </div>
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Lauren Bacall
simmers here in one of her three onscreen appearances with Bogart as the more
responsible, if somewhat still less than honest, daughter of Bogart’s client.
Bacall arches her eyebrows in all the right places and she absolutely purrs all
the right lines at just the right moment with just the right amount of
licentiousness.</div>
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<br />
Martha Vickers’
sucking her thumb and batting her eyes as she attempts to lure men to their
doom or find a new thrill is much more disturbing and much closer to the mark
laid down by the novel. Her portrayal of the little girl all grown up in all
the wrong ways is both frightening and positively scandalous. And why the
filmmakers went this dark in this one portion of the movie and remained vanilla
elsewhere mystifies. She is, at one point, quite clearly drugged, raped and
photographed for blackmail purposes. As if this is not enough, Vickers makes it
clear her character actually enjoyed the defilement.</div>
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The relatives
around Vickers, Bacall included, is far cleaner than Chandler’s dark vision of
a noble family that has been dragged down by the ugliness of their environment
and the awfulness of their individual obsessions. Part of this, I suspect,
stems from the filmmakers needing to make Bacall a legitimate love interest for
Bogart. Hence, she cannot be <i>that</i> bad
and must have some redeemable qualities, despite being dangerous and very
obviously a femme fatale of sorts. The problem is this waters down Vickers performance
– to say nothing of the rest of the rogues gallery on display here – and makes
her actions appear almost alien. Context is important and the disjointedness apparent
in the film goes well beyond its uneven handling of its characters. For
example, it is even more difficult for the audience to find a context for the
plot’s sheer awfulness, given that the L.A. we see here looks like what it is:
The L.A. of glittering movie sets. Chandler’s vision of the city is something
more sinister, and is perhaps lost to history after a fashion. That is, Los
Angeles now has 70 years of crime and riots to chip away at its glamour and
nobody today would be shocked that the events in <i>The Big Sleep</i> could occur there. But Chandler was writing about
pre-War California, when it was the land of bright promise and sunshine and
people migrated there for the climate and new job opportunities – not to fester
in an overregulated, traffic-sodden economy built on an odd combination of
Hollywood, the music industry and street crime. Like a more contemporary
director, David Lynch, Chandler was peeling back the normalness – to say
nothing of the downright positivism that sunny California built itself selling
– and showing his audience that private eyes like Marlow needed to exist in the
otherwise beautiful climate out West, because people were secretly running
drugs, having covert affairs and constantly trying to rob their fellow
Californians.</div>
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Amongst this,
Marlow navigates the city’s hellish underbelly in an almost monastic way. Sure,
he smokes constantly, is probably an alcoholic and his way of making a living
could be considered somewhat dubious, but given the characters around him, the
ones his job forces him to deal with, he is simple, pure and perhaps even holy.
Indeed, Marlow never overcharges, never switches side or falls for a femme
fatale, the latter of which the movie ignores (there has to be a love interest,
right?). Thus, The Big Sleep’s biggest disappointment is that this Marlow is
not present on the screen. Bogart’s Marlow is not better than his fellow
characters, he is simply smarter and less driven to vice. I do not think
Chandler is interested in this kind of relativistic judgment. Hard and ugly judgments
are more his thing. And make no mistake, this is not an ugly film. The times
just would not allow it and the actors, in most cases, just did not have that
kind of depravity in them.</div>
SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-88430820981347350292013-08-04T11:37:00.002-07:002013-08-04T11:46:22.985-07:00Revenge without Responsibility<div class="MsoNormal">
First, a confession.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I grew up watching Disney’s 1954
film <i>20,000 Leagues Under the Sea</i> on
a video cassette – do people still remember those? – and I must have replayed the
film a couple of dozen times. I was, in other words, something of a fan, though
it would take me years to realize I had a proclivity to drift toward sea
stories and even longer to realize why this was. (It is because they are, as
one critic writing about Patrick O’Brian’s series of novels wrote, likely the
only genre in which all of the great themes – man vs. man, man vs. himself and
man vs. nature – can occur in one story).</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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Returning to old ground smacks of
nostalgia, and more times than not, the journeys end very different than we
imagine when we begin them. I have wanted to watch <i>20,000 Leagues </i>again for years, but I never seemed to get around to
it, and part of my distraction, I suppose, was intentional, in that I was in no
great hurry to ruin my memories of what up until that point could be a considered
a “childhood favorite” of mine. Is there
not some part of us all that wants the integrity of Santa Claus to remain just
as it was before we learned the truth and it fled forever? Fortunately, in this
case, the cinematic return ended well: <i>20,000
Leagues </i>remains a solid sea story, one with interesting characters and more
than enough ideas to keep an adult entertained.</div>
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As for the special effects?</div>
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<br /></div>
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Well, they have not aged poorly.
Indeed, I suspect they have aged much better than many of the insipid, CGI-infused
creations we are currently subjected to at the theater. I suspect the effects
matter less in something like <i>20,000
Leagues </i>because the characters matters more, and when Kirk Douglas faces
off against the giant squid in the sequence forever enshrined in the Disney
theme park ride, we care about him and James Mason’s Captain Nemo a great deal
more than do about whether the tentacles of the beast flail realistically
enough. If you want a touchstone for a comparison to see what I mean, try and
recall how unimpressive the similar sequence is in the Johnny Depp <i>Pirates</i> series. One cannot imagine that scene,
that film – indeed, that film series – firing the imaginations of young
children five years from now, let alone sixty years from now, as the above-mentioned
depiction from Jules Verne’s timeless novel has. </div>
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<br /></div>
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However, the fiber that holds
this film together all these year later is the matter in between the sea
monsters and underwater sequences. As I already suggested, the performances of
Douglas and Mason, to say nothing of Peter Lorre and the lesser known Peter
Lukas, are something to behold. Between the four, the audience is afforded
glimpses at human archetypes as the group wrestles with the mysterious Captain
Nemo’s competing shades of subtle brilliance and melancholic revenge.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The backstory, which should be
familiar to all, is Nemo’s rage towards unnamed nations that ship arms that
fueled what passes in the film as a loose kind of economic imperialisms. The
details of Nemo’s angst are never made fully clear, but this lack of filling in
the blank works in the film’s favor. Free from political commentary, Nemo and
his lust for revenge that take center stage, while Douglas, Lorre and Lukas
look on and puzzle over what to make of it with their very different levels of
intelligence, personalities and ideological inclinations (or lack thereof in
the case of Lorre – a coward – and Douglas – a brave but politically
unconcerned sailor).</div>
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At odds with the violence, Nemo
and his crew live in almost complete harmony with sea, taking what they want
from it in food and supplies, as they cruise across the world – largely under
the waves – in Nemo’s own monster, a metal-clad submarine that is virtually
unstoppable in the age of wood and sail. The Nautilus only rises to replenish
supplies or whenever it must become the embodiment of Nemo’s rage and plunge
headlong into a ship, sinking it by opening up its timbers upon contact. There
is something demented and childish in this. One man’s nightmare of revenge is
visited on the world through an instrument he uses to literal bash against
things until they are no more. How different is this than the senseless child,
who full of anger, will repeatedly hit his head against something? Not much.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Like many Mason characters, Nemo (Latin
for “no one”) is classy and cultured. He has an extensive library, an
impressive mind and a first-rate accent. But as the movie makes plain, his
revenge ensnares the guilty and the innocent alike. The ship Nemo sinks with
Douglas and company aboard was sent to discover Nemo and stop the killing, not
carry war materials to abuse an unnamed population, and it is unlikely that
Lorre and Lukas are the first civilians blameless in the wars Nemo believes he
is stopping that end up in the water because the Nautilus encountered their
vessel and sunk it with no remorse for the bodies left in the water.</div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
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What we have here then is revenge
without responsibility, an oddity when one considers Nemo is railing against
men who fund and arm wars without accepting responsibility the havoc and death
they cause. It is possible, I suppose, that Nemo began nobly, but that his rage
eventually consumed him and he ceased to be selective about whom he lashed out
against in his submarine. In the Verne novel, Nemo is far more sinister and
obviously mad. That he is not in the film is likely on account that this is,
above all else, an adventure picture for children and sheer amounts of
dastardliness can only be depicted so much.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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The comparisons to Ahab here are
easy to reach for, but viewing it from our perch some 60 odd years later I
propose that we can indulge in the reality that this film appeared amid the
height of the Cold War, an age in which atomic submarines began plumbing the
depths of the world’s oceans, playing a game of cat-and-mouse not unlike what
is on-screen here. Indeed, within a few years of the film’s release, those same
submarines grew larger and started carrying a cargo of nuclear weapons that are
far deadlier than anything Nemo imagined and real submarine named <i>U.S.S. Nautilus</i> sailed under the North
Pole to prove a submarine could slip close enough to annihilate the Soviet
Union if called upon to do so. The world, as they say, was never the same.<br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
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We glimpse some of this in Nemo’s
decision to scuttle his submarine at the end of the picture. Nemo does so
because humanity is not yet ready for the technology he unleashed in his
machine (it is suggested his submarine is in fact nuclear-powered). This, the
film’s almost solitary political pronouncement, could not have been lost on
discerning audiences in the cold winter of the mid-1950s. What we are to make
of this today, I am not sure. That the verdict on humanity is still out? That
such machines should be only in the hands of capable people? Or that
responsibility has shown itself, in some form, in the fact that we have not
succumb to baser emotions and annihilated one another, even though we now have
the means to do so? I suppose we each all have our answers, but at the same
time I am fairly confident that we can all agree with one of the film’s other
messages: That power in the hands of the irresponsible tends to destroy
everything in its path – and then, eventually, the irresponsible destroy
themselves.</div>
SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-81748633531459396792012-07-10T19:59:00.003-07:002012-07-11T19:25:32.404-07:00Truly Exceptional<div style="text-align: justify;">
In honor of America’s birthday last week, I have cobbled together a mini-tribute of three film classics that I believe say something about the nature of American Exceptionalism. Not much in vogue these days, the concept of the United States as a “city on a hill,” driven by very different impulse than its European brethren was first suggested by John Winthrop as he and his pilgrims bobbed off the coast of what would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The phrase itself would come later from Alexis de Tocqueville, who described the United States as "exceptional" in 1831. As I have already suggested, it is not terribly politic to talk in such terms anymore, but the idea itself, and indeed the smaller, component ideas that makeup the larger concept, are alive and well in classic film ... if you know where to look.</div>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
High Noon (1952)</h3>
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The quintessential “new sheriff
in town” film, only Gary Cooper is the regular sheriff (not the new one), and
in this case, his refusal to kowtow to a gang of bandits and leave town is what
drives home the film’s larger points about what good men do – or at least
should do – when they encounter evil. The metaphor here is not hard
to find, and in retrospect, it can be stretched in a number of ways it probably was
not intended, but which in my opinion only make the film greater and a more
powerful presentation of American values. When threatened with the return of an
infamous gang Cooper once locked up, the townspeople refuse to form a posse
with him and face down the brutes. Instead, they want Cooper to leave town,
thinking that with him gone, they can make a separate peace with the bullies
through talk and concessions. Cooper knows otherwise and says as much, but
nobody listens. So he decides to stay and take on the gang
himself. The essence of the “strong,
silent type” that is in much less supply these days, he faces the gang for the sake of
honor, but more than that, he does it for the sake of order, realizing that
laws do not mean anything if they are enforced only when it is easy and
convenient. What is that? A Cold War parable you say? You bet. Cooper is
America, standing up to the Soviet Union and all the tin pot dictators of the
world, while the rest of the community of nations prevaricate and argue for
understanding, deal-cutting and anything other than confrontation (hey, it is
safer, right?). The scene where Cooper confronts the townspeople in Church and
they blame <i>him</i> for the fact that bad people want to do terrible things is
particular poignant and has obvious real world corollaries. In the end, America (Cooper) stands on its own, doing the ugly duty that
must be done, because no one else has the stomach for it.<o:p></o:p><br />
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Davy Crockett (1955)</h3>
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A film impossible for
red-blooded youngsters to dislike, this beloved Disney classic might present a
surface-level view of history, but its enduring personification of America’s
frontier spirit more than matches this undertaking's deliberate shortcomings.
Fess Parker became a boyhood legend, thanks to this movie and its accompanying
television program, and 1950s America briefly went coon-skin cap crazy, as boys
everywhere took to the woods with wooden rifles to domesticate their own stretch
of wilderness in suburban America. At its heart an adventure film, Parker
nonetheless manages to embody the boldness that drove America west. At the same
time, Parker’s Crockett moves from a scout who helped Andrew Jackson hunt down
rogue Indians to a Congressman who passionately defends Indian rights and
excoriates the increasingly ridiculous treaties his former commander foists
upon the defeated tribes. The more cynical might call this revisionism, but the
real Crockett did indeed break with Jackson and he essentially moved to Texas
in response to his disgust with American policy. He famously died at the Alamo,
defending the defenseless in spite of incredibly long odds. Accordingly,
Crockett embodies the individual at war with federalism, and as such, is
something of a Jeffersonian idealist-come-folk hero.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR4uGwgfTDh95vWIiTbbgZBL9TehdigSzhIKn0Wvk7dS91kqVqVcJXTo-RSeAABIacbF9eJa4VAKNpbaJASPpldexA71fBtWfwcYoq3WixacO6Yh24FH1kf7Mi_vuVnIn8r20H6DdBLQ/s1600/The_Right_Stuff-front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="243" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiR4uGwgfTDh95vWIiTbbgZBL9TehdigSzhIKn0Wvk7dS91kqVqVcJXTo-RSeAABIacbF9eJa4VAKNpbaJASPpldexA71fBtWfwcYoq3WixacO6Yh24FH1kf7Mi_vuVnIn8r20H6DdBLQ/s320/The_Right_Stuff-front.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<h3 style="text-align: center;">
The Right Stuff (1983)</h3>
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One of my favorite films of
all-time, this part-Western, part fictionalized documentary captures not only
the essence of American can-do entrepreneurship, but also something profound
about the very nature of what it means to be human and to seek achievement for
achievement’s sake. Ego plays a great role in both, and there is plenty in this
film, in terms of America’s Mercury Astronauts, six of whom eventually blasted
into space during the early 1960s in the now-defunct but once much remarked
upon space race against the Soviets. Each of the astronauts is a competitive, egoist but each also serves something greater. The reasons American went to space are complex, but the results are not. Leaving the planet and exploring the near solar-system is a historic achievement not just for the nation but for all mankind, a point this film captures in between its depiction of patriotism and shared-sacrifice. However, at an even deeper, more primal level, we have the story of Chuck Yeager, the man who was not an astronaut. Yeager's incredible spirit, his unquenchable desire to go faster or higher is the brutal embodiment of the basic impulse that drives all human endeavors, and I cannot think of another film that captures this quite so well. Meanwhile, as a nation, America achieves as a whole in this film because it believes it is great and that it should achieve. If that's not exceptionalism, I don't know what is... <o:p></o:p></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-90769071600981185702012-07-02T16:56:00.005-07:002012-07-02T17:10:26.502-07:00The Unbreakable Shell<div style="text-align: justify;">
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John Wayne does three things well.</div>
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He talks with a languid toughness that manages to sound both intimidating and wise at the same time and whenever he struts across the screen as a soldier or cowboy he comes across as completely legitimate, despite the painful obviousness in many of his performances.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9NBzH8COy-1ZCKLEoo6o3O8tJIF0v2WTHoqtRjliOtDX4Nm4zNDiepiCVDkesS7xM2qod7-keTVtX_5daQxdWa59kAym9ixd7e6wdlLpq-woFsaHE66F42Ihpd4BAI_JNbtvLhlVTA/s1600/iwosand8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgD9NBzH8COy-1ZCKLEoo6o3O8tJIF0v2WTHoqtRjliOtDX4Nm4zNDiepiCVDkesS7xM2qod7-keTVtX_5daQxdWa59kAym9ixd7e6wdlLpq-woFsaHE66F42Ihpd4BAI_JNbtvLhlVTA/s320/iwosand8.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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In 1949’s Sands of Iwo Jima, Wayne puts his best boot forward – and collected an Oscar nomination in the process – when he offers up equal doses of stoicism and sympathy in his now-legendary role as the no-nonsense Marine Sergeant Stryker. It is not an exaggeration to say that the very stereotype of the hard-as-nails drill instructor originates with Wayne and this performance. It is also not an exaggeration to assert Wayne being Wayne in this film is precisely what saves an effort that otherwise would be a profound piece of propaganda celebrating the legend of the Marine Corps.<br />
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Because as I said, this is not altogether incredible stuff.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3_w3VxTm1q9Ts8Wfbg1sqeDFqVTBa8XKsjccsXMWKfXXKx3U_muoBCx_Dl7ndmLfZKzQOTsUzaihEzn93MbypyakzN65EIhjP7kqnJUvQFS28QJhyphenhyphenFNRVk1bOwZ4hOW1uL6HO-X-s_A/s1600/Sands_of_Iwo_Jima_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3_w3VxTm1q9Ts8Wfbg1sqeDFqVTBa8XKsjccsXMWKfXXKx3U_muoBCx_Dl7ndmLfZKzQOTsUzaihEzn93MbypyakzN65EIhjP7kqnJUvQFS28QJhyphenhyphenFNRVk1bOwZ4hOW1uL6HO-X-s_A/s320/Sands_of_Iwo_Jima_poster.jpg" width="207" /></a></div>
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There is a kind of paint-by-numbers with these World War Two epics: The platoon or company is always the center of our attention and it is typically comprised of souls with immediately identifiable accents and at least one personality trait that enables the viewer to remember something unique about that character when he is spotted among the rest of the cast. Part of this is economy, because nobody needs a film with a dozen developed characters, and part of it is filmmakers giving the audience what they expect from the genre (see Saving Private Ryan). Sands of Iwo Jima may be decades old and made within living memory of the actual event, but quite a lot of World War Two films had already appeared by 1949, many of them with Wayne in them, and Hollywood knew what people wanted. More complicated war films, with less obvious tracks, would not come until America began to grapple with how to depict the Vietnam conflict on the screen.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigqEnK6XscRter6GMKdR33vFzrlQ8Ep9zCE291mxAK_-JQbWlTeohYkqi4xVIvRvCA0EJlX5WkrbXhz_OMvq5cGNQvbJWHLuJ2u2d_P2UsQraP3rmQr8WGCUCR5K4qavwIBPGH297Kng/s1600/WW2_Iwo_Jima_flag_raising.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigqEnK6XscRter6GMKdR33vFzrlQ8Ep9zCE291mxAK_-JQbWlTeohYkqi4xVIvRvCA0EJlX5WkrbXhz_OMvq5cGNQvbJWHLuJ2u2d_P2UsQraP3rmQr8WGCUCR5K4qavwIBPGH297Kng/s320/WW2_Iwo_Jima_flag_raising.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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In the case of this film, the American triumph on the tiny island of Iwo Jima signified by the iconic flag-raising ceremony on the summit of Mt. Suribachi was known to virtually every American. The photograph, taken by Joe Rosenthal, had not only graced magazine covers and posters, it had also been used extensively as propaganda piece to raise war bonds (see Flags of My Father). The decision to graft a challenging, if somewhat one-dimensional and episodic plot, on top of a film building to an inevitable event therefore deserves some credit. Stryker could have been more boorish and more boring, and in the hands of a lesser actor he might have been.</div>
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Wayne makes him believable and he does not with his bark but with the pained scowl he gets whenever he is confronted by another’s failure to perform or on the occasions when the awfulness of failure attempts to impose itself on his life and the fate of his men. There is a telling scene when Wayne encounters a baby belonging to Julie Bishop after a brief romance in her home. The father is gone, either dead or disinterested, and Wayne is painfully reminded of his own estrangement from his child, and haunted by the possibility that he too may one day leave a woman without a man and a child without a father, should he fall combat.</div>
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The scene plays well on Wayne’s running confrontation with John Agar, the arrogant, college-educated son of an officer under whom Wayne served. Agar is the smart-aleck recruit who presents his sergeant with a problem. This would feel stale and prosaic were the father/son motif not the foundation of the turmoil. Wayne watched an officer he loved as a father die, and now the son of that officer is under his care. What is he to do? The answer is make certain the son is ready.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjWF0vE29XQt7TitQ_H4XGCZVn1Q8L3cXcwkbTUjNOuNfFud1P3HVOwLwLXCrs3DwbTsg8IqQ4D2EutDz6jTOGIB5Zjjs79XyddocnjHNI8DcM7NdUGihyc7k3SiV6a2Bmt_QXuFO6ag/s1600/37mm_Gun_fires_against_cave_positions_at_Iwo_Jima.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjWF0vE29XQt7TitQ_H4XGCZVn1Q8L3cXcwkbTUjNOuNfFud1P3HVOwLwLXCrs3DwbTsg8IqQ4D2EutDz6jTOGIB5Zjjs79XyddocnjHNI8DcM7NdUGihyc7k3SiV6a2Bmt_QXuFO6ag/s320/37mm_Gun_fires_against_cave_positions_at_Iwo_Jima.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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On the American side, the battle of Iwo Jim claimed upwards of 6,000 men and 19,000 casualties, including the lives of most of the men in the famous flag-raising photograph. All but 200 or so of the 20,000 Japanese soldiers on the island died in combat. The latter of the two statistics speaks to what manner of battle the American Marine faced on the island – the enemy, almost literally, was willing to fight to the last man, and nearly did so. America's triumph should be viewed in martial terms that take into account those horrific numbers, but also in the more human tones painted in this film. When Wayne, rather inevitably, falls, his men find a letter on him addressed to his estranged son, saying all the things he wanted to say but could not find the strength to do so while he was alive. It is a cliched moment perhaps, but it still makes the audience feel nonetheless. Here is a tireless warrior, a man among men who trained other men to do great things. And here, laid bare, in a letter he knew could only be posted after he died, is his soul. He was unbreakable as a Marine, but even Marines are people, too.</div>
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<br /></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-48886325117839042372012-04-30T21:00:00.004-07:002012-04-30T21:04:58.646-07:00The Greatest Little Steamboat in the WorldIt does not get much better than this ... for classic films fans.<br />
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<i>The African Queen</i>, the dingy, rundown hooting and smoke-spouting little boat from the 1951 classic starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn has been refurbished and put back on the water -- where it belongs. One wonders who the audience will be ... or not so much. After all, Suzanne and Lance Holmquist, the couple who found and refurbished the boat do live in Florida, a location likely to attract an older, more appreciative crowd for what is surely an iconic piece of film history and Americana. Found in a Florida marina (see this <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/30/showbiz/african-queen-bogart/index.html"><span style="color: yellow;">news story</span></a>), the boat looks better than ever and hopefully has a few more memories left to make... </div>
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<img alt="The "African Queen" is a 100-year-old steam boat famed for its role in the 1951 movie of the same name." height="225" src="http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/assets/120430080705-african-queen-1-horizontal-gallery.jpg" width="400" />
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See also my <a href="http://www.classicfilmsrevisited.blogspot.com/2010/12/together-they-are-better-people.html"><span style="color: yellow;">review</span></a> of the film.<br />
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<br /></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-54712687735456927472011-12-05T18:29:00.000-08:002011-12-12T15:34:56.786-08:00The End of Something?<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">Hollywood’s fascination with the ancient world makes cinematic sense.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Films are comprised of a great many elements, but above all else, they are visual journeys to a proscribed reality representing a time and place different from our own. Even a contemporary film about contemporary times is artificial in the sense that any narrative structure, by definition, is a representation of reality – not reality itself. Along these lines, it is not surprising filmmakers love costumes and settings that allow them to dabble in world-making, and if one is going to whisk the audience away to somewhere else, why not some other time? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">But even these points cannot truly account for the spate of sword and sandal films that erupted in the wake of D. W. Griffth’s </span><i style="line-height: 18px;">Intolerance</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"> and continued to land on the screen for almost 60-plus years (longer if we include Ridley Scott’s </span><i style="line-height: 18px;">Gladiator</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"> and HBO’s </span><i style="line-height: 18px;">Rome</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><img height="257" src="http://www.gildasattic.com/image414.gif" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="320" /></span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Ancient Babylon, from <i>Intolerance</i>.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">What else is at work, I suspect, is an attraction to grandeur and momentousness, both of which are tough to spot in one’s own contemporary existence, where and when we tend to remain unimpressed with ourselves – or at the very least, accustomed to our own achievements and challenges. Thus, chariot races become infinitely more visually compelling than moon-landings.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqZIc5wjcSkPu0vDsLfoUcJsUjaWmgzKb0NYHEV97crnQu673iXY0g2LzmvlmrY1MxzTlOdsLqu7oicenzVgO9aLAWS88yoo-CpC3Y8I9U8YFY4oLCBbbU23tZPqU2Xi2rrl3ZN5B18Q/s1600/Fall_of_roman_empire_%25281964%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="251" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqZIc5wjcSkPu0vDsLfoUcJsUjaWmgzKb0NYHEV97crnQu673iXY0g2LzmvlmrY1MxzTlOdsLqu7oicenzVgO9aLAWS88yoo-CpC3Y8I9U8YFY4oLCBbbU23tZPqU2Xi2rrl3ZN5B18Q/s320/Fall_of_roman_empire_%25281964%2529.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Griffith called his aforementioned effort “colossal spectacle,” and the same description certainly applies to 1964’s </span><i style="line-height: 18px;">The Fall of a Roman Empire</i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">, a film that attempts in about three hours to surmise what Edward Gibbon chronicled in several volumes of words. And while it is true this film fails to capture the scope and notoriety of the collapse of one of history’s greatest political systems, it must also be said director Anthony Mann’s attempt sputters along in a rather magnificent fashion. All $20 million of the budget is clearly visible in the picture’s astounding costumes and sets and there are extras galore in the battle scenes. Whatever else it succeeds or fails to achieve, one cannot argue the filmmakers here failed to pay enough time and attention to all things that look, feel or smell Roman.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><img src="http://pursuingholiness.com/wp-content/uploads/13602_fall_of_the_roman_empire_screen_5.jpg" /></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">The opening scenes in the wilds of Germania are particularly well done. Indeed, anyone who smitten with the supposed incredibleness of CGI-animation should return to this film and these scenes and gander at the Roman Fort, perched on the edge of the Empire. Most of the set was probably created through a combination of mat-paintings, miniatures and balsa wood, but it looks stunning on film when the vassals of Marcus Aurelius parade in front of him to pay homage. The rest of the film is equally impressive, too. I read where a total of 55-acres of outdoor sets were constructed, and frankly, I will take this passé extravagance over the computer-spun realities inflicted on us today. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;">Even more impressive is how this film, which is openly bent on grandness, also takes the time to get unimportant details correct. I was pleasantly surprised, for example, to see a lictor standing behind Commodus with his axe of bundled sticks (this is called a <i>fasces</i> in Latin). I doubt many people notice that, but if you are attempting to get it right, actually doing so requires such diligence and care.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeukFucHVpcYqWF0bmMBm03CVdSxJoRhBBSlHlkOBlVmafK4lmclpEqsoJwzHMfgjGEpKynOJzdyjCCkiGy883BLvFUKj1yuh4iIu1wbrI6Wu9wYrofxOTpRrYlnsWB7vA-RddSIIxRg/s1600/Fall_Roman_Empire_1964_505.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeukFucHVpcYqWF0bmMBm03CVdSxJoRhBBSlHlkOBlVmafK4lmclpEqsoJwzHMfgjGEpKynOJzdyjCCkiGy883BLvFUKj1yuh4iIu1wbrI6Wu9wYrofxOTpRrYlnsWB7vA-RddSIIxRg/s320/Fall_Roman_Empire_1964_505.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">If the same attitude was applied to casting, this film might have been more than it is. Two of the critical roles Mann picked absolutely correctly. Alec Guinness is perfect as the wise and moody as Aurelius, the thinking man’s emperor, while Christopher Plummer is delightfully wicked and snide as Commodus, the pompous fool whose inability to impress his father leads to a demented quest for personal glory that eventually threatens the entire Roman way of life. The acting problems begin with Sophia Loren’s barely palatable turn as Lucilla – Aurelius’s daughter – and goes from bad to worse with Stephen Boyd, whose wooden portrayal of a Roman general comes damn close to derailing the audience’s ability to enjoy the film.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><o:p>What saves the effort is the big ideas wrestled with on the screen. The story, which should be familiar to all, involves a potent mixture of war, intrigue, the attempt by a great man to secure his legacy and his fear of dying and having his life stand for nothing (a timeless concern that haunts us all). Aurelius is only on screen the first hour, but it is his conflict that drives the action here and his alone. The rest of the players are simply reacting to conundrums the great philosopher plays out in his head, while an empire and unknowing mass of people swirl in the whirlwind of unrealized thought and deed that he leaves behind (great men are often agents of chaos, whether they intend it or not).</o:p></span><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><o:p><img height="276" src="http://snarkerati.com/movie-news/files/2010/04/gladiator.jpg" width="320" /></o:p></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">I have mentioned <i>Gladiator</i>, the film by Ridley Scott, and it goes without saying that I will have to mention it again, for that film borrowed so heavily from Mann's effort that it might not have existed without it (entire scenes and subplots are lifted, literally in total). </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><i>Gladiator</i> is a good film, and certainly more enjoyable than this effort, but what it added in entertainment, it lost in ideas. Plunging the audience into the sands of the arena might titillate, but it</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"> does not intrigue. What exactly was Rome? And why was it so worth fighting and dying for? <i>Gladiator</i> plays at answering those questions, but ends up pursuing an empty notion of revenge with not much else at stake, w</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">hereas </span><i style="line-height: 18px;">The Fall of the Roman Empire </i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">powerfully explores what is lost when Rome falls (honor, citizenship, a chance to live in relative safety and free from harm). </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">That Rome's grandeur is seemingly pulled down by one man is completely inaccurate, historically speaking (Rome flourished well after the 180 AD-ish time period depicted in the film and went on being Rome until at least 476 AD), but it is compelling nonetheless. Plummer's Commodus is manic and desperate, but he is also not his father's son (and he knows this) and he lashes out at the world more from an inability to find a place in it than from in sort of feverish spite. At the same time, Sophie Loren is forced to oppose her brother in order to try to save her father's legacy. </span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"> That she winds up as corrupt as Commodus even as she strives for noble purposes is a testament to the film's disturbing message about the collapse of social cohesion. Stephen Boyd attempts to remain true to himself and true to Rome, but in the end, he witnesses his army and its commanders bought off with gold, and the citizens of Rome drunk on the improvised glory of Commodus and his new and idolatrous cult of personality. </span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">For Boyd it is a frightening moment, one in which he truly becomes a son of Aurelius, for like the departed emperor, his life's work is made meaningless by the whims of a populist mob who has lost all sense of self. For the audience living in uncertain times, both then and now, it is strikes a chord of warning. When a society forgets its pride, when it ceases to defend itself and work toward greater ends, then it truly loses its way and its worth. The penultimate scene, wherein the throne of the empire is auctioned off to the highest bidder, shows how much and how little the title has become, thanks to collective social abrogation Commodus and his reign of terror gave voice to.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 115%;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">In film-making terms, the real tragedy of <i>The Fall of the Roman Empire</i> is the demise of the type of storytelling it employs and the subsequent absence of ideas it wants to wrestle with. Epics today are back in fashion and many of them are no more compelling than their empty-headed predecessors, thanks I am afraid, to the resounding thud of Mann's Herculean effort made at the box office. And yet, s</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">omewhere between the high-mindedness of Mann and the brute force of Scott, there is a great film about a great empire to be made. Unfortunately, I doubt anyone has the courage to attempt it. It would be too difficult to get your arms around and too confusing to today's studio heads and audiences. Therefore, in lieu of better efforts not-to-come, seek out this original and marvel in what it manages to do very right.</span></span></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-44395816239650623252011-11-11T07:49:00.000-08:002011-11-11T07:51:26.001-08:00Dangerous Ideology<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">No doubt there are plenty of people who watch 1962’s <i>The Manchurian Candidate</i> today and come away thinking it little more than a period-piece, or a kind of curiosity that chronicles an opaque form of paranoia from the Cold War that seems as alien to them as the once-held belief in the divine right of kings.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-0EpMjcmmbjiSLKxNviyty_oeaR7n44nRVzViRI-duUUK0gs4E5ixMWrTxWBco0Zsq_Tq5Pe9X-VIOQMld7GBcIiBZet8GW1917fJYLKD4IFGHPCjxaY82ZieXGxPGwUTUgh9pTyvgQ/s1600/the-manchurian-candidate-movie-poster-1020205340.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-0EpMjcmmbjiSLKxNviyty_oeaR7n44nRVzViRI-duUUK0gs4E5ixMWrTxWBco0Zsq_Tq5Pe9X-VIOQMld7GBcIiBZet8GW1917fJYLKD4IFGHPCjxaY82ZieXGxPGwUTUgh9pTyvgQ/s320/the-manchurian-candidate-movie-poster-1020205340.jpg" width="216" /></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">However, dismissing John Frankenheimer’s calculated adaptation of Richard Condon’s novel on such grounds is a mistake. For starters, I can think of few other films where the imitation of life is as brilliantly warped and overdone – and at the same time as strangely accurate – as this one. That is, we know now that the Soviet Union and its ill-begotten allies really did believe they could brainwash people in political reeducation camps, a plot point that would seem to be cooked up by a kooky screenwriter. We also know the Central Intelligence Agency experimented on methods to both control minds and resist the mind control efforts of their enemies (the infamous MKULTRA project that included a certain compound that later gained famed as LSD). Conspricacy-laced political thrillers that have just a touch of truth may be common fair these days, but in 1962 – when the majority of Americans still trusted their government – the genre was just beginning to find its own feet.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
All of which is a roundabout way of saying that <i>The Manchurian Candidate</i> is avante garde filmmaking masquerading as a boorish crowdpleaser (and in doing so, mimicking one of its lead characters quite intentionally). The end-result is a film that may chronicle the dark and often difficult to discern Cold Way conflict better than any other effort, minus Stanley Kubrick’s <i>Dr. Strangelove</i>. Only, unlike Kubrick’s dark and wickedly cynical slice of satire, Frankenheimer plays it straight and serious. Audiences today might snicker at the lengths the Chinese government undertake in the film to train and condition an assassin capable of propelling their candidate to office, but the kernel of truth within what is obviously hyperbole and artistic license is worth mentioning.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8IDeP6j88lyRhq2hQlHKORo79ctSof51UUtnRL_nDY1SpFckmY_gyRnJz2m8yxBx3Q7p8o6AGZ1IfaroYPgV1570HBfdmcrP58V0xEj4grcY1wRSpO1wgk8qOd631o6VFEHHdtqEXBg/s1600/14rosenberg.enlarge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8IDeP6j88lyRhq2hQlHKORo79ctSof51UUtnRL_nDY1SpFckmY_gyRnJz2m8yxBx3Q7p8o6AGZ1IfaroYPgV1570HBfdmcrP58V0xEj4grcY1wRSpO1wgk8qOd631o6VFEHHdtqEXBg/s320/14rosenberg.enlarge.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Rosenburgs -- Guilty as Hell</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">There is little doubt today, thanks to FOIA disclosures and solid historical work by scholars such as Christopher Andrew, that the Soviet Union possessed agents who had thoroughly penetrated the U.S. government in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Indeed, the Soviet espionage apparatus stole what could be viewed as the ultimate secret – and in doing so, reshaped the balance of power in the entire world – when agents affiliated with the infamous Rosenburg couple ferreted out the knowledge needed build an atomic bomb. And if you can steal the power of the sun, how hard could it be to try to shape an election?</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLTlhJ12mX9XgjOQQlkoT7MmVB8_q2kKytMGdUAEHUmBMlSbvV4kmdEWSdQn1LkX2wBkWp5HKRIZQwhzCan09fKFS-qyVhs-UQzr3IpDLZHFdaG1viLSiShsFLB-WTrh68-vDL0EEXtg/s1600/screen_image_397697.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLTlhJ12mX9XgjOQQlkoT7MmVB8_q2kKytMGdUAEHUmBMlSbvV4kmdEWSdQn1LkX2wBkWp5HKRIZQwhzCan09fKFS-qyVhs-UQzr3IpDLZHFdaG1viLSiShsFLB-WTrh68-vDL0EEXtg/s320/screen_image_397697.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The infamous "garden party" with the old ladies<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Not for nothing is there a line of dialogue about the Senator Iselin character being more dangerous to America than the Soviets themselves. Harry Truman said almost exactly the same thing about Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy and his public attacks on the U.S. government, a historical realism definitely reenacted by the Iselin’s character’s drunken, nonsensical allegations throughout the film about the loyalty of his fellow represenatives. The only problem is that Iselin – like the odious McCarthy before him – is correct. There is something wrong with the American government in The Manchurian Candidate, just as there was in the real life American government in the early 1950s (Chambers, Hiss, Rosenburgs et al were all very, very guilty – despite the intellectual cartwheels that attempt to prove otherwise). Condon’s brilliance is take Truman’s statement of disgust and make it into the ultimate nightmare scenario: What if McCarthy was actually an agent of influence, and in being one, campaigning in the open against traitors like himself in order to avoid discovery?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></div></td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">These are the kind of visceral historical thrills the film produces, but there are others. Besides all the politics and the espionage there is a fundmentally human story, burgeoned by a pair of powerful performances. Angela Lansbury’s portrayal of Mrs. Iselin is a bone-chilling reincarnation of Shakespeare’s twisted Lady MacBeth. She is at once perfect and unsettling, outdoing the Scottish noblewoman, in that she uses and manipulates both her amenable husband and her recalcitrant son. She is all ideology and narcissism, and perhaps the most disturbing part of her portrayal is the realization that partisans such as her, partisans willing to sacrifice everything – family included – to further their aims, are real and remain among us.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></o:p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrHfxBvPBpQQFnF1XL8YpAJei6Qm5l8NmdHTdRCttu7nb3Jez6xNmEZku7rH_8qQhcsj4IRtTnYRk7z7fhyphenhyphenZns6KCyD2KbRCNSjjDRo47pxVlteGIyh05JUg5KF8ETApmScjd6tlIAZw/s1600/manchuria1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrHfxBvPBpQQFnF1XL8YpAJei6Qm5l8NmdHTdRCttu7nb3Jez6xNmEZku7rH_8qQhcsj4IRtTnYRk7z7fhyphenhyphenZns6KCyD2KbRCNSjjDRo47pxVlteGIyh05JUg5KF8ETApmScjd6tlIAZw/s320/manchuria1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><o:p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Laurence Harvey’s performance as Raymond, her distinctly unlovable son and prodigal son is the film’s other standout – not Frank Sinatra’s turn as the Army Major haunted by what happened in Korea. Harvey is the picture of frustration, the boy whose overly doting mother never allowed him to become a man. When he finds love, she wrecks it. When he finds fame and success, she capitalizes on it for herself. Throughout, he wrestles with great demons, unsure of how and when to act (like another Shakespeare character). With his father dead and Sen. Iselin living in his father’s house, there is an Oedipal striving in Harvey and his outbursts. His love interest is attractive enough, but one cannot help but feel his attraction for her only grew when he learned she is the daughter of his step-father’s fiercest political rival. Becoming involved with her, means he is screwing his step-father and his mother at the same time.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2EuOlgLrjZY2-vB3Fr998QHdf898hWhXWMrgTlk-93TRaIHlJOZhzeQid2OhGMqiF5-4Ms1f8or7jiLoaWFI-mTd3pk3r-KrF_gveAxuqDz0iuS5oxta4BhssNt1c99ihc44Z1CX_cQ/s1600/manchuriancandidate-41.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2EuOlgLrjZY2-vB3Fr998QHdf898hWhXWMrgTlk-93TRaIHlJOZhzeQid2OhGMqiF5-4Ms1f8or7jiLoaWFI-mTd3pk3r-KrF_gveAxuqDz0iuS5oxta4BhssNt1c99ihc44Z1CX_cQ/s320/manchuriancandidate-41.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">However, the film saves its ultimate irony and its ultimate revenge until the end. By killing his parents, Harvey becomes a real hero in place of the phony one he has been throughout the film. The irony is that it took an act of familial betrayal to get him there. “Poor Raymond,” Sinatra says, summing up a man whose entire life seems to have been burned away by the powerful flame of Lansbury’s insatiable ideology. In this, the film seems to be saying that the most dangerous people are the ones who have nothing but their principles to lose and nothing but the revolution to strive for. A person’s politics and patriotism are one thing – suborning both to some imaginary cause something else entirely. This was the inherent danger of the Cold War and its Marxist idealists. Like the religious fanatics plaguing the world today, they seemed to have no earthly cares. Ideology was everything . . . and I can think of nothing more dangerous. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-25921986854578945982011-08-22T18:44:00.000-07:002011-08-22T18:46:52.345-07:00Difficult to Dislike<div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"></div><div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Like climatic battles between two titanic empires, romantic comedies are damn near run things that fail or succeed by the scantest of margins. Miscalculate the levity, make a poor casting choice or choose an inappropriate setting and any effort in this genre can easily become ridiculous, sappy, unfunny – or worst of all, irritating.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXv3vvGnP2CtHLK-DgO7qZRD6jOyXlS0vTs2Y6vn0rfMsQpS5wzVFFLV9_idE91gRgbkph5-7H_dv-vRnTxbuWf7FXSBYTwc3WtDyb00l1htb9uERsAxJLPajIly9PEVzdDjIJEm8Exw/s1600/Charade_movieposter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOlHo5FqS7PbW0__OJJvNZLyloveQUrvbXNz41D1gjqRHvLcgPasUMBbTL4yTXAXhK89C3eHIfW7sXG4OTt0z7jWhM_qX9K2v8-5ioiXa52A2Savg-wOJ-qtogwuJkfnfHp4VWkmFUFw/s320/charade.jpg" width="228" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Thankfully, the convergence of skill and craftsmanship behind <i>Charade</i> make it almost impossible to dislike. The 1963 film boasts a talented cast led by Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, a delightful score and a spy game stratagem that unfolds with exactly the right mixture of playful shenanigans and baited-breath. There is nothing approaching greatness in this movie, but whoever goes looking for greatness in romantic comedies is bound to be disappointed. Fun, formatted with typical cleverness, is more what we are after – and we get to have quite a lot of fun in this semi-serious romp of a picture.</span></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Unfortunately, I suppose some of the tongue-in-cheek that makes <i>Charade</i> such a hoot is lost on the contemporary viewer. Released at virtually the height of the Cold War, a time when both the local cinema and the living room television are alive with spy stories, <i>Charade’s</i> not-so-hidden agenda is levity in the face of overwhelming dread. That director Stanley Donen succeeds so well in satirizing the easily recognizable tropes of the spy genre and the thriller is a testament to precisely how well he understands both. Labeled the “best” Hitchcock film never made by Hitchcock, <i>Charade’s</i> audience is continually asked to follow a film that looks and feels like the great British master’s work right up until the punch lines materialize and burst whatever self-important bubbles were forming.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnmEL9gaqXTzDaiTyoUtSvHuF-FM7aR2MnecEYQWVR_sVES2V4Y87-mvzvTkaRmJHrL7ErNC9UAASOuvPzHeD7-7KmA3G-9M1S8t9r1kNXls41F_4jdVPVFfcUJSAgeEfgfrpo_nuvZQ/s1600/176782971_c0e964d2a4_o.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnmEL9gaqXTzDaiTyoUtSvHuF-FM7aR2MnecEYQWVR_sVES2V4Y87-mvzvTkaRmJHrL7ErNC9UAASOuvPzHeD7-7KmA3G-9M1S8t9r1kNXls41F_4jdVPVFfcUJSAgeEfgfrpo_nuvZQ/s320/176782971_c0e964d2a4_o.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Parade of Fools.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Joel and Ethan Coen achieved something close to this in 2008’s <i>Burn After Reading</i>, but the Coen duet do not have Donen’s appreciation for the musical rhythms of humor. Donen, the director of the seminal <i>Singin’ in the Rain, </i>knows more about moving humans around the set, and as a result, set-pieces such as the funeral scene in which Hepburn watches in amazement as a parade of oddball characters parade before her eyes unfold with a dizzying feeling of frolic almost completely devoid in the Coen satire.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjlZO09TWxrYGRgluFDuurVtNVZaB2LCrheAn0_MeJvJVOJ_hUk113cmW0GrsFYzUPiuj_Tutz2gI_OC83IL0SkwxOrmJg1nKEYHm-shJ4lhvLryi4Ti42ZhKTMxW6zzy53b9-bZp9Zg/s1600/charade_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjlZO09TWxrYGRgluFDuurVtNVZaB2LCrheAn0_MeJvJVOJ_hUk113cmW0GrsFYzUPiuj_Tutz2gI_OC83IL0SkwxOrmJg1nKEYHm-shJ4lhvLryi4Ti42ZhKTMxW6zzy53b9-bZp9Zg/s320/charade_3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hitchcock-ian?</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Elsewhere, the mood remains far too light, the plot far too much what-you-see-is-what-you-get for it ever to really be mistaken for Hitchcock, but even so, there are certainly some Hitchcock-ian flourishes on display. Chief among them, of course, is the fact that the plot revolves around the innocent bystander (Hepburn) who unwillingly becomes immersed in a complicated espionage plot – a setup Hitchcock utilized several different times, each to great effect. The other touch that made me think of Hitch comes when Grant faces down one of the film’s villains on the roof of the hotel where much of the principle action occurs. Part <i>Rear Window</i>, part <i>North by Northwest</i>, the scene unfolds in a wonderful series of lattice-like shadows cast by a neon sign. The roof’s gradual slope to death-by-falling is both obvious and suspenseful at the same time, and the choreography leading up to the inevitable is staged as masterfully as anything Hitchcock did. Other moments, such as the opening at the ski resort, are funnier when viewed from the historical aftermath of the numerous snow scenes in the James Bond franchise we have all loved and endured for more than four decades. And I doubt there is anything more perfect than the gun pointed at Hepburn in the film’s opening few shots.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZgXH2RdTOgB-8zmE2-qQt5xrdvHd3trx2Bl6HWY3s5Il-qOO30zZO-t24O3slM_8urOHBWN2b-h47cQa0D5ECnAhpKDvyNfhrQrLi5hkwcEeGaSXGS2UfQz8a5ceKcs4v2Eo1AXOmxg/s1600/charade_12.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZgXH2RdTOgB-8zmE2-qQt5xrdvHd3trx2Bl6HWY3s5Il-qOO30zZO-t24O3slM_8urOHBWN2b-h47cQa0D5ECnAhpKDvyNfhrQrLi5hkwcEeGaSXGS2UfQz8a5ceKcs4v2Eo1AXOmxg/s320/charade_12.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Always ephemeral.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The timely murder of Hepburn’s husband saves her from agonizing about divorcing him in favor of Grant (who she meets at aforementioned ski resort). The death also launches the film’s action, as we quickly learn the husband was involved in some kind of espionage or criminality plot. What follows is a largely a comedy of errors, in which Hepburn muddles and giggles her way through several acts of spying and a few attempts on her life. Through it all, Grant is conveniently at her side, dashing and indecipherable until virtually the last frame of the film, when his true nature is finally revealed. Even more interestingly, the film takes great pains to chide Grant for being far too old for the petite and always elfin Ms. Hepburn. Grant, who turned the lead in <i>Roman Holiday </i>several<i> </i>years earlier precisely because of the age difference between the two, supposedly insisted the script contain the jokes – and they work precisely because one of Grant’s strengths has always been self-depreciation. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuNqHbVsewyj7hPC2EaE6pOZAYr_v_tPEotS-VfS9irFsWK17zx7guPXa3rkbqjHpnnf7VaaScZlo16RoSz-AfaY0V3GtVD55cYtDiaEaXXaTatd0J5wvhGkhGjdQZWmHTwU7Su8N7Hw/s1600/charade_21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuNqHbVsewyj7hPC2EaE6pOZAYr_v_tPEotS-VfS9irFsWK17zx7guPXa3rkbqjHpnnf7VaaScZlo16RoSz-AfaY0V3GtVD55cYtDiaEaXXaTatd0J5wvhGkhGjdQZWmHTwU7Su8N7Hw/s320/charade_21.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Everyone involved probably made better pictures, but as a B-side to the rest of their careers, this is not too far off in sheer quality. I enjoyed this film for what it is and throughout felt a twinge of nostalgia and sadness, largely because contemporary attempts to recreate the chemistry that works so well in <i>Charade </i>now seems beyond Hollywood. The occasional moments of slowness – the script, I think, could have been tightened 15 minutes – does not detract from the final product’s overall punch. This is a fun movie, made by skilled people who know how to entertain audiences.</span></span></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-58652479754414932092011-08-06T21:51:00.000-07:002011-08-06T22:02:16.533-07:00Duty Amongst Desolation<div style="font-family: inherit;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDEXN8Ak6WBBHEOJH9hedJmwp6eg9l7FaJg9afosLmDmqwvl-VacMt06HNnt-kVFe5Tk1HRe0wbtHFxcyjNwEOZ4-XCFhD0QDLjGtM3ZE5-ES-3_pKLGtAEYXcNJK1vGS5WGQcSOxfA/s1600/fortapache.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijDEXN8Ak6WBBHEOJH9hedJmwp6eg9l7FaJg9afosLmDmqwvl-VacMt06HNnt-kVFe5Tk1HRe0wbtHFxcyjNwEOZ4-XCFhD0QDLjGtM3ZE5-ES-3_pKLGtAEYXcNJK1vGS5WGQcSOxfA/s400/fortapache.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alone with duty...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-size: small;">The trio of films John Wayne made with legendary director John Ford about the U.S. Calvary in the late 19 th century’s Indian Wars are an odd mix. Unofficially, the three pictures are lumped together as Ford’s “Calvary Trilogy,” but there is little continuity between the individual offerings beyond the setting and the general themes the plots grapple with.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Indeed, watching them back-to-back can confuse. Ford utilizes the same stable of actors in all three efforts, only he inexplicably changes the character’s names and sometimes shifts their roles. For example, in one film a Ben Johnson is a sergeant and a trusted scout, while in another he is a fresh recruit with a penchant for fast riding. So while Johnson’s horsemanship remains constant, his role in the plot is considerably different. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">But trying to reason why Ford recycled plots and shifted actors is wasting energy that is much better spent on what shines through all three efforts. These films are unabashedly patriotic, but they stop well short of jingoism. They are apolitical in the sense that the messiness of what the Indian Wars represent – especially to more contemporary audiences – is never specifically addressed. What is left when all the other ingredients have been boiled away is the complicated essence of masculine duty – a topic not many movies can claim to tackle, especially nowadays when masculinity is almost held in contempt. And Wayne, the quintessential male American archetype, with his wide-legged walk and his languid drawl, is the perfect actor to explore this concept.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd3qqZdz0Ihl4xvfCE_yK3LT-FPNYzH-aEODn5-Kx0FBFYl3zYaIefQB8A8pLcsfsplv6NLFARhx6WrJR36kQM-lDneRNWkN7W8T9l4AWVs7QWnQnZhJoxvjgPuqBJgJAA1lvQzhE2fA/s1600/l_40369_c6f4addf.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd3qqZdz0Ihl4xvfCE_yK3LT-FPNYzH-aEODn5-Kx0FBFYl3zYaIefQB8A8pLcsfsplv6NLFARhx6WrJR36kQM-lDneRNWkN7W8T9l4AWVs7QWnQnZhJoxvjgPuqBJgJAA1lvQzhE2fA/s320/l_40369_c6f4addf.jpg" width="226" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">In <i>Fort Apache</i>, the first of the three films, Wayne portrays a highly respected combat commander forced to serve under a vain and mildly unscrupulous martinet, played with excellent aplomb by Henry Fonda. The critical conflict is the clash of wills between Wayne and Fonda. Will the former follow the orders of the latter – or will he rebel and lash out? Made long before the 1960s counterculture refashioned American virtue so that shirking authority became a noble enterprise, Wayne spends most of this picture biting his tongue and saluting. The only time he lashes out is when Fonda accuses him of being a coward. A man must accept professional abuse, no matter how misguided, but he is not restrained from responding to a personal attack on his character.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">The film’s best moments have nothing to do with the Wayne/Fonda conflict at all. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">More specifically, a great deal of this film unfolds like a novel of manners, in that we are shown how the society of the Calvary functions and what is and what is not permitted. Our main vehicle for this is the courtship of Fonda’s daughter by a young lieutenant whose family background is most decidedly lower class (the courter’s father is the trilogy’s ubiquitous and loveable drunken sergeant). The scene in which Fonda must, in his own eyes, humiliate himself by dancing with the boy’s mother is racked with visual tension that recalls the sensations produced by Edith Warton’s best prose.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggtkEZ5Yuy40hFnai8em3h2f3boTO5YY3dmkeuXk_aY4V1rV4zkmXup0GvzHUUnIVilepV3IehLxsKztJ-w-fFG4QF4wQ1fei6WN1u6L57l-xi0FT_J8zz_sN18wLL1X8fpcF2FkdS2g/s1600/ftapache1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggtkEZ5Yuy40hFnai8em3h2f3boTO5YY3dmkeuXk_aY4V1rV4zkmXup0GvzHUUnIVilepV3IehLxsKztJ-w-fFG4QF4wQ1fei6WN1u6L57l-xi0FT_J8zz_sN18wLL1X8fpcF2FkdS2g/s320/ftapache1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A movie of manners.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Fonda’s eventual comeuppance occurs via the inevitable sting of battle. Like Custer, Fonda underestimates his enemy and refuses to listen to his subordinates around him. The result is equally disastrous as what happened in real life at the Little Bighorn, only in Ford’s film the one saving grace seems to Wayne’s fidelity to his commander – despite his commander’s obvious stupidity. There is something of the “The Charge of the Light Brigade” in all of this, but unlike Tennyson's poem, Ford is not interested in the sacrifice the men who died in vain made. Instead, Wayne’s decision to continue serve – no matter what the cost – is what stands out. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Some rather un-Ford like cynicism even creeps into the end of the picture when Wayne chooses not to refute a newspaperman’s virtual deification of Fonda’s foolishness. Wayne remains focused on his service, and in this regard, seems to operate under the presumption that the truth will not ultimately enable his attempt to fulfill his duty. This is a dangerous maxim to put forward, of course, but in Ford’s hands, it feels more thought-provoking than the “my country right or wrong” phrase that found new life as America descended into Vietnam.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOsFW5uS_Jk1XQo8nOJCYtBrTeSBqhwG8D1gdFEPeGRkdHztjD6hcmoUUK8PbUtxAo-5EQkpDCksn6MeYefKuibDpKKMH52eFtDxWLz0v-u2LoTNIGoV1QUEPi-s2OHq6J5YW8ZbWVtA/s1600/Poster+-+She+Wore+a+Yellow+Ribbon_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOsFW5uS_Jk1XQo8nOJCYtBrTeSBqhwG8D1gdFEPeGRkdHztjD6hcmoUUK8PbUtxAo-5EQkpDCksn6MeYefKuibDpKKMH52eFtDxWLz0v-u2LoTNIGoV1QUEPi-s2OHq6J5YW8ZbWVtA/s320/Poster+-+She+Wore+a+Yellow+Ribbon_01.jpg" width="207" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The nuance and characterization that made <i>Fort Apache</i> so interesting are largely absent in <i>She Wore a Yellow Ribbon</i>, Ford’s second cavalry film. The only one of the three shot in color, this film jettisons the Fonda character and then largely repeats the same plot without him. The main difference is that Wayne is virtually in command this time and he is tested not by another officer, but by events beyond his control (an Indian uprising). Charged with being the guardian for this desolate outpost of civilization, Wayne’s duty is to protect his troop and the White settlers who depend on them for their very existence. However, at the same time, Wayne knows being officer and gentleman means more than just being following orders, and with this in mind, he attempts to fulfill his duty, satisfy his morals and deal as fairly as possible with the Indian aggressors. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Wayne cleverly avoids an all-out war with the Indians by stealing their horses – itself ironic, given the Old West stereotype that Indians are horse thieves. What Ford wants his audience to understand is that the warrior who finds a way not to fight is every bit as glamorous as the one who charges to certain death. In this sense, the end of <i>She Wore a Yellow Ribbon</i> intentionally unfolds in exactly the opposite fashion of <i>Fort Apache’s</i> ill-fated climax. And unlike Fonda, who is one dimensional and stubborn, Wayne is presented as the complete officer. His solution to the Indian threat protects the American interests he oversees and avoids bloodshed at the same time. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj_Z0FBjppZnQFFQHa3Dy_cw2dMMRy4dDSrJPPjpTU_7xz_WK8DJKXwKHa2UIcKtVX-qMUpLFNBU0vBjEzxemsbZzYwqTBiR1zfYrT2nebhRWgK2XGbdJ8KMEQPNXW2IVYLcmp4bSJUA/s1600/vlcsnap-338131.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj_Z0FBjppZnQFFQHa3Dy_cw2dMMRy4dDSrJPPjpTU_7xz_WK8DJKXwKHa2UIcKtVX-qMUpLFNBU0vBjEzxemsbZzYwqTBiR1zfYrT2nebhRWgK2XGbdJ8KMEQPNXW2IVYLcmp4bSJUA/s320/vlcsnap-338131.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">This near-perfect ending matches nicely with the film’s booming Technicolor vistas, but it somehow feels less tangible than the ugly truths we were forced to swallow in <i>Fort Apache’s</i> dénouement. Perhaps, having experience cynicism in the trilogy’s first outing, I was unprepared for Ford’s return to his more typical brand of optimism? </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4mq_tvAq-Em46OdsbntAJTRxBDGOAuPjAJin60858RlgEAB7gXXoAruUswU5Xw61ICzFvm714aO0LjudXUNpmWx4zHwkfW7lmoyQpi8coqWh5cPKJyd-muT0FEd6v0G0_ehwHowxm0Q/s1600/RioGrandePoster3Baja.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4mq_tvAq-Em46OdsbntAJTRxBDGOAuPjAJin60858RlgEAB7gXXoAruUswU5Xw61ICzFvm714aO0LjudXUNpmWx4zHwkfW7lmoyQpi8coqWh5cPKJyd-muT0FEd6v0G0_ehwHowxm0Q/s320/RioGrandePoster3Baja.JPG" width="214" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i>Rio Grande</i>, the third and final film, is hailed by some as Ford’s not-so-subtle comment on the Korean War. Personally, I think that is something of a stretch. However, this is the only film in which the Indians are presented in evil terms. Wayne also makes what he ultimately judges as mistakes, only to erase his errors – in reality, judgment calls based on incomplete information – with a triumphant charge into an Indian camp. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Along the way, there is great deal of singing and some of the novel of manners approach explored with such success in <i>Fort Apache</i> returns in the form of Wayne courting Maureen O’Hare, who plays his sassy and ready-for-divorce Southern wife. Wayne’s and O’Hare’s son is also present in the cavalry troop, with Wayne blustering he will not display even an ounce of special treatment toward his offspring. Unfortunately, for all the attempted fireworks, the estranged couple’s interplay never goes anywhere, and as delightful as O’Hare is, we end up feeling like she is there simply because the plot calls for it. Wayne’s son fails to torment him as much as he could, either.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcPWS3-xERctc2v-6RjhwEZRT6Xt5OZBTdwTLxegD9e2VUzB5nzom9g2-oJ7yqQ5_B9_Wp9ZcViSFPnjsJcY42GgZ9pyOt9i98T1hVcVFX45DdjrVQxWOYN05i_M1tp7Lb4uIXs0taNQ/s1600/e7_1_b_953_1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcPWS3-xERctc2v-6RjhwEZRT6Xt5OZBTdwTLxegD9e2VUzB5nzom9g2-oJ7yqQ5_B9_Wp9ZcViSFPnjsJcY42GgZ9pyOt9i98T1hVcVFX45DdjrVQxWOYN05i_M1tp7Lb4uIXs0taNQ/s320/e7_1_b_953_1.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wayne & Ford on set.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-size: small;">As I already suggested, unlike the previous two films, where the Calvary blunders into a battle it need not fight or avoids unwanted bloodshed through Wayne’s clever plan to steal horses, <i>Rio Grande</i> sees the U.S. soldiers engaged in a moral battle against Indians who have lapsed into cross-border banditry and inexplicably decided to kidnap white children. In the finale, Wayne and his men ride into a village and assault a bevy of Indian warriors who are literally staggeringly drunk on firewater. The children are recovered, the Indians vanquished and back at the Post, O’Hare is suddenly smitten with her wounded husband. All is well that ends well, I suppose, but there is not much drama in what happens here, and given the heights of previous offerings, <i>Rio Bravo</i> ranks as the trilogy’s biggest disappointment. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">That Ford clearly decided to make less complicated films after <i>Fort Apache</i> should not surprise. The entire reason he made the trilogy in the first place was to generate enough cash for his studio so he could make <i>The Quiet Man</i>. Accordingly, there is some truth in the argument that this trilogy is formulaic and designed to sell tickets. But to dismiss these films as nothing more than a means to an end would be a massive mistake.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJv_zRJiogEuCZRqTk0-iyDy32LlBkSi98CLg7hjxfYQpuDvJWYeWh6A75s5mZHcny4SniXn3fAaFY5OvZO5TeO3p5HU6MdgTR3_NvyFaGSQeVY2KY4UrtQk8hErA5U5_bEtuVUSNJqw/s1600/utah-monument-valley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJv_zRJiogEuCZRqTk0-iyDy32LlBkSi98CLg7hjxfYQpuDvJWYeWh6A75s5mZHcny4SniXn3fAaFY5OvZO5TeO3p5HU6MdgTR3_NvyFaGSQeVY2KY4UrtQk8hErA5U5_bEtuVUSNJqw/s320/utah-monument-valley.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Monument Valley</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-size: small;">For starters, we owe Ford a debt of gratitude for dragging the Western out of the Hollywood back-lots and allowing it to breath in the open American air. Monument Valley, where all three films are shot, is a wondrously cinematic, full of barbaric rock formations and dramatic desolation. Without the valley’s austerity, Ford’s clinical exploration of masculinity would fail to impress as much as it does and the sheer danger of the land America’s pioneers were forced to contend with would remain a mystery to filmgoers. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The actual notion of masculine duty itself has also probably never been given a more thorough treatment than it has in these three pictures, either. By setting politics completely aside and taking his audiences back to a time and place that most have forgot, Ford successfully illustrates the notions of service and heroism. These were men on the edge of the world, and regardless what history would say about them today, they were serving an ideal and safeguarding a way of life in incredibly dangerous and inhospitable places. Being reminded of such service from time to time cannot be a bad thing… </span></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-67734822994322429032011-07-23T17:24:00.000-07:002011-07-23T21:16:09.504-07:00Call Them Irresponsible<div style="font-family: inherit;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</i> is a lightning-strike film.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">I say this because without the electrified chemistry between leads Paul Newman and Robert Redford the picture would not have succeeded at the box office, nor would we remember it today as a classic example of Americana. Irreverent, rambunctious and largely devoted to a commonplace, jocular and mutually debasing form of male friendship – call it “buddy-ism,” if you will – the movie is a failure in everything other than the intangibles associated with its unique and irrepressible tone.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijExco9l_SteixukDigAQpbkNT4W4CxBXW2CdqUP8qCllg5i2KF6Bges6lUyxYx7EbRqc7eQCt1gFTyo-S3II5tQpt1rvLSIoTytTHZ7giZ-bXk40TmKKpWUt0e9LQY5BXy1jJEsJJ_A/s1600/Butch_sundance_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijExco9l_SteixukDigAQpbkNT4W4CxBXW2CdqUP8qCllg5i2KF6Bges6lUyxYx7EbRqc7eQCt1gFTyo-S3II5tQpt1rvLSIoTytTHZ7giZ-bXk40TmKKpWUt0e9LQY5BXy1jJEsJJ_A/s320/Butch_sundance_poster.jpg" width="214" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">This judgment might seem harsh, until one scratches the surface of what is ultimately a very superficial film. I mean, for starters, it is not much of a Western. Or at least, we can think of several better Westerns from the same time period without much effort. Sergio Leone’s <i>Once Upon a Time in the West</i>, to name just one titan, is released less than 365 days before <i>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. </i>Sam Peckinpah’s <i>The Wild Bunch</i> is released the exact same year. In the case of the Leone outing, the plot is intricate and bloody journey through the American West and the triumphs and tragedies of the nation’s Manifest Destiny. Peckinpah’s similarly impressive effort is violent ode to the impossibility of outrunning the emerging tropes of change. In stark contrast, <i>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</i> is essentially a light-hearted “chase” movie, in which Newman and Redford offer up some entertaining banter as they run and run and run… </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Odd interludes – and here I am thinking precisely of Newman’s bicycle jaunt with the always appreciated Katharine Ross – and the enjoyable – if somewhat out of place – Burt Bacharach soundtrack attempt to fill the ample space left by the over-simple plot, but even these cannot rescue what I believe is a clever work of whimsy. Not bold enough to be a Western, not quite funny enough to be a comedy, <i>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid </i>defies definition and simply exists. None of which changes the undeniable fact the film was a runaway success when it debuted in 1969 and has since been preserved as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by no less an authority than the U.S. Library of Congress. However, I would argue these accolades say more about the American filmgoer than they do about the film itself. Accordingly, the key to understand the success of this picture lies in understanding what it represented for the audiences who embraced it.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB28B7YG80tTwvppl-NOF3af64o9fxjTimsRqGw5dWgJdjkQMBuXxb8P9AEfM5OlFvpxhuqF_t8xRP7PrmA4DAFMMAYLkneCJb0qrGohAhP7tzzzHKBELO8xIi-E8t1RxhOO-sTdd4kg/s1600/paul_newman07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB28B7YG80tTwvppl-NOF3af64o9fxjTimsRqGw5dWgJdjkQMBuXxb8P9AEfM5OlFvpxhuqF_t8xRP7PrmA4DAFMMAYLkneCJb0qrGohAhP7tzzzHKBELO8xIi-E8t1RxhOO-sTdd4kg/s320/paul_newman07.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Put simply, this film connected with people in 1969 similar to the way <i>The Graduate</i> did a few years prior. The reason both films resonated has to do with what many crudely like to call “counter-culture,” a vulgar and largely inaccurate catch-all which I will now attempt to rhetorically distance myself from, even as I unavoidably rely on what the term means to most readers. Released during a time when very serious men in crew-cuts landed on the moon and some other very serious men in crew-cuts continued to fight an escalating battle in Vietnam, Butch and Sundance – like Dustin Hoffman’s character before them – are distinctly confused and unserious in their enterprises. It is this lack of focus, this distinct uncertainty about life and one’s place in it that makes all three characters immediately accessible to moviegoers in the late 1960s – and today.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Something about Butch and Sundance’s attitude toward life feels right, given the serious of everything going on around their characters and the corresponding seriousness that accompanies the individual audience member whenever they view the picture. Unfortunately, there is little else to hold onto in the film other than this “feeling,” however vague it may be. Logically speaking, the film is a mess and the careful viewer can never really figure out what is happening, let alone take away any coherent purpose or message from the film’s events.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">To hard back to another 60s classic, one which I have already reviewed, <i>Bonnie and Clyde</i> is a fascinating exploration of the links between sex and violence and how the display of physical power can equal titillation and ultimately satisfaction. The crimes committed in that film serve as the window through which the audience assesses the titular characters bizarre – and largely sexless – relationship. Something like this is occurring in <i>Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid</i>, but the metaphor is much less focused and much more difficult to discern. Butch and Sundance are friends, but what that means in the context of a film in which neither man seems to care about much of anything is the enigma behind the “feeling” we get from their warm camaraderie. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9VOTprsMhdjJ9wt8GDdNMES9idj1H5f3WRxT3TUCpjCcy33Ausgsif4YoB3L5nZ6FPLOUgg0Ckj-xNWjXogj7UWJWIXJ01ExFcAN2DZNuWIsqiWQt_KF4tHQSHthyxHU3s6PSCv-eHw/s1600/ButchEtta3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="143" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9VOTprsMhdjJ9wt8GDdNMES9idj1H5f3WRxT3TUCpjCcy33Ausgsif4YoB3L5nZ6FPLOUgg0Ckj-xNWjXogj7UWJWIXJ01ExFcAN2DZNuWIsqiWQt_KF4tHQSHthyxHU3s6PSCv-eHw/s320/ButchEtta3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Butch is presented as the thinker, Sundance as the man of action. What holds the two opposites together is their mutual disdain for work and their liking of an easy and carefree life of robbery. Neither fancy attachments of any sort, though both seem attached to each other, even if they would never admit it. Their treatment of Katharine Ross is particularly revealing. On the face of things, she is Sundance’s girlfriend, but she just as easily could be Butch’s – and the impression we are left to gather from this is that the romantic relationship is accidental and Sundance probably would not mind if she suddenly started sleeping with his partner. As the film winds down, Ross announces she is leaving the two men because, ominously, she fears they will meet a bad end. Neither raises the slightest objection to her departure and her Sybil-like warning is equally shrugged off by the two men.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">This casual carelessness extends to nearly every other facet of the men’s lives. Both regularly lose nearly all the money they make in their robbery and neither seems to have any inclination toward a higher principle. They stop short of villainy because they are not killers – in one of the film’s pivotal scenes, Butch proclaims he has never killed anyone – and they go out of their way, Robin Hood-like not to harm anyone they come across in their life of crime (quite the opposite of Bonnie and Clyde). This is meant to demonstrate their carefree and friendly attitude, but by end of the film, both have killed a great many people and they have shifted from robbing the ill-gotten fortunes of railway barons to stealing the meager fruit of the Bolivian peasantry’s hard labor. This hardly seems winsome. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">Unlike <i>The Graduate</i>, in which Hoffman’s character becomes somewhat self-aware and rejects the booze-soaked world of his parents, Butch and Sundance remain oblivious to their inherit shallowness and they seem no wiser at the end than they were in the beginning. Indeed, the ill-fated decision to go to Bolivia is undertaken because the country is something so utterly foreign as to be mythical to the two men. As an audience, what we are witnessing here are the dreams of children – not mature men, who care or understand that everything positive in the world is built on responsibility, sacrifice and integrity. When the pair charge from their hiding place at the film’s conclusion, we are meant to see their off-screen destruction by a hail of bullets as the inevitable and tragic end of iconoclasts. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk6KUegvdav5igoXa0wNYB7dhOSTL-rtK9_jtL6H5jNorApzMhqb630sa06cquyHCoOoGNKfmDlnB_PrNp8IRxs7HzvnNmU0qvzEvuca5rVL2tJ4IaMIirKuM1Odcmp7ilZObY23CNoQ/s1600/butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kid-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk6KUegvdav5igoXa0wNYB7dhOSTL-rtK9_jtL6H5jNorApzMhqb630sa06cquyHCoOoGNKfmDlnB_PrNp8IRxs7HzvnNmU0qvzEvuca5rVL2tJ4IaMIirKuM1Odcmp7ilZObY23CNoQ/s320/butch-cassidy-and-the-sundance-kid-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: inherit; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">The only problem is the moment feels as empty and haphazard as the rest of the film. Butch and Sundance die because the law finally caught up with them, not because their “way of life” became anachronistic or their social deviance – robbery and murder – was no longer tolerated. Charming as the pair are, they lived like brigands and died like brigands. Period. Exactly what we are supposed to take away from their lives, beyond some crude combination of the 60s’ nebulous “fight the power” and “go your own way” motifs, is never clear. But make no mistake, this is a picture whose star power is bright enough to hide these flaws, hence its unchallenged status. </span></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-60353625368581081282011-06-24T11:31:00.000-07:002011-06-27T07:20:41.716-07:00Mr. Leading Man<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF2LeG_-mx-tll-dtVhvJTXEfCbN-btIF3iPwtprqqsIdXUO0uW-Vb9qhuTrLs1cg4tjQRsIu88hlZphXzi8K7BZx18tvEBL3t5KW5h4PNDrs28mXalWsbKi0WiITI9umpyRpM4tYazQ/s1600/CaryGrantSuit1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF2LeG_-mx-tll-dtVhvJTXEfCbN-btIF3iPwtprqqsIdXUO0uW-Vb9qhuTrLs1cg4tjQRsIu88hlZphXzi8K7BZx18tvEBL3t5KW5h4PNDrs28mXalWsbKi0WiITI9umpyRpM4tYazQ/s320/CaryGrantSuit1.jpg" width="310" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is hard to know where to begin with Cary Grant.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It seems obvious the Bristol-born Englishman should be the subject of this site’s second actor profile, but finding the right words to describe the precise constellation of his career is challenging. Born </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Archibald Alexander Leach in 1904,</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Grant went to Hollywood in 1931 where he first broke into films as a kind of rubber-man actor, one whose limbs and face could be invisibly tugged by directors intent on physically punishing the lead in their film in order to provoke howls of laughter from audiences. He was wacky in the vein of Charlie Chaplin, with impeccable physical timing and an uncanny ability to simultaneously make the absurd less ridiculous and more funny. </span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif-2OOPdKnqZRQHlkG3OihZHwTp3teuw_38y9_7NnMaykXL9lY0YIRLVjCrU8Mp8YXG5FeAN4OSyZ2pZEogLnD5zhzNUTMU3BFWaOChsmHuF111arBodc2p_ElS1jYIhYb0-LClOEHnw/s1600/arsenic-and-old-lace.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="214" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif-2OOPdKnqZRQHlkG3OihZHwTp3teuw_38y9_7NnMaykXL9lY0YIRLVjCrU8Mp8YXG5FeAN4OSyZ2pZEogLnD5zhzNUTMU3BFWaOChsmHuF111arBodc2p_ElS1jYIhYb0-LClOEHnw/s320/arsenic-and-old-lace.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Grant, the physical comedian</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Although his two outings with Mae West – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">She Done Him Wrong</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I’m No Angel</i> – are probably where his star burst into being, I am partial to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arsenic and Old Lace</i>, which I<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>view as something of a finale to Grant’s early comedic period (although by 1944 he had already played the dark and ultimately indecipherable antagonist in Alfred Hitchcock’s highly underrated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Suspicion</i>). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arsenic and Old Lace’s </i>preposterous plot allows Grant enough space to showcase his full array of talent. Mortimer Brewster’s character could be stodgy, but Grant’s incredible ability to amuse and charm ensures that Brewster is always accessible and never aloof from the audience. That Grant continued to play similar elites for much of his career and never come across as snobby or unapproachable is a testament to the delicacy of his performances and his ability to connect with moviegoers, regardless what the plot demanded from him.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Anyone doubting the skill and depth of this achievement should consider the ease with which we accept Cary Grant as Cary Grant. What I mean by this is that a </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">great deal of acting is about making the effort of the performance appear effortlessness – and nobody does this like Grant, an actor who disappears into his on-screen persona so deeply and convincingly that separating the two is difficult.</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became that person,” Grant said. “Or he became me. Or we met at some point.”</span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thus, his famous attempt at self-effacing humor – </span><span lang="EN" style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN;">“Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant” – is much more than just a joke. It is a revelation that Grant was pretending to be Cary Grant and the acting reached such a point that nobody knew the difference anymore, himself included.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Regardless of method, Grant eventually became Hollywood’s perfect leading man, capable of playing the lead in a romantic comedy or the protagonist of an action-packed thriller. Whatever the script called for, Grant’s cool and capable demeanor and his stylized delivery fit the bill. Critics said James Bond is a character every man wants to be and every woman wants to be with, but the same could be said of Grant by the time he reached the height of his fame in the 1950s. Perhaps this is why he was briefly considered to portray Bond in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dr. No</i>? </span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh53_YsFNRqh0jwYK8lIuMGLQg5u_ljPU0a4H06dP6-7ltIBsxUsFX8kupWteomlulfXYaf2wIEMUaaQxOKTTmQDnIxzv3NNKvdC9HpLT5f9_dpn-cLahgVbOh6jXhXTo14YSuQAfPMLw/s1600/cary-grant-james-bond.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh53_YsFNRqh0jwYK8lIuMGLQg5u_ljPU0a4H06dP6-7ltIBsxUsFX8kupWteomlulfXYaf2wIEMUaaQxOKTTmQDnIxzv3NNKvdC9HpLT5f9_dpn-cLahgVbOh6jXhXTo14YSuQAfPMLw/s320/cary-grant-james-bond.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Personally, I doubt Grant could have pulled of the cruelty called for in playing the famous British spy, but he comes damn close to something like it in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Notorious</i>, an incredibly underrated film where he casually pits Ingrid Bergman against her husband. In addition to being a great spy film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Notorious</i> showcases a facet of Grant’s acting – specifically, his ability to play darker roles – that most directors unfortunately chose not to pursue (Hitchcock being the solitary exception). In this sense, the claim that Grant traded introspection for affability is accurate. Throughout his career, his roles never allow him to reveal even the slightest amount of indecisiveness or insecurity. Indeed, Grant maintains his masculine poise even in the films where the plot revolves around his character being caught up in stratagems beyond his knowledge or control (see <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">North by Northwest</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Arsenic and Old Lace</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Catch a Thief</i>).</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtRlJ32UajPlz2h5kbhPgEWw9IU1Tc5pySZbTeoHZPrNW-SlengA6XoDBBFP0y5EIkChaWWlEwE7qEeyJyNSaesKyOB7a8xhaDoGXQ_TdCbF6-Ainf8VLkVkI9CjNrKLWkNTuPbQxzGw/s1600/CaryGrantSuit3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtRlJ32UajPlz2h5kbhPgEWw9IU1Tc5pySZbTeoHZPrNW-SlengA6XoDBBFP0y5EIkChaWWlEwE7qEeyJyNSaesKyOB7a8xhaDoGXQ_TdCbF6-Ainf8VLkVkI9CjNrKLWkNTuPbQxzGw/s320/CaryGrantSuit3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the run, Grant still seems in control.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tall, dark and handsome in every way the phrase is meant to be understood, Grant cut a lean figure in his slightly-baggy suits. His perfect hair and well-manicured appearance walked right up to the line of the dandy-ness, but never quite crossed it. Personality plays a large part in separating him from Hollywood’s insufferable beauties. For all his looks and charm, Grant never took himself seriously – either in life or on the screen. His aforementioned willingness to engage in the absurd and poke fun at himself is precisely why we like him so much. It is impossible, for example, to imagine Humphrey Bogart climbing into a shower with a suit on and washing himself with soap to amuse Audrey Hepburn the way Grant does in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Charade</i>. Bogart is too stoic, too straightforward. In contrast, Grant is lighthearted and never too serious, even when gun is pointed at him and his life appears to be on the line.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8xt5DTRIywoc8RZkAqIZ8HAHIEipWkEkYSH_ZXu9Nnukd-3bcb7KGWgabiXsNoF6kOcpNWTjCsxeY7gag5-XCSBR71dUCzCgI4SLRZy90Cnq_uaz3j8KWTMnMzIF2Ay1PdxD2C0EY0w/s1600/CaryGrant2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" i$="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8xt5DTRIywoc8RZkAqIZ8HAHIEipWkEkYSH_ZXu9Nnukd-3bcb7KGWgabiXsNoF6kOcpNWTjCsxeY7gag5-XCSBR71dUCzCgI4SLRZy90Cnq_uaz3j8KWTMnMzIF2Ay1PdxD2C0EY0w/s320/CaryGrant2.jpg" width="250" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Forever classic</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Like a lot of other great actors, Grant missed out on winning an Oscar through the competitive process, so the Academy gave him an honorary award in 1970. The notion that Grant could have died unrecognized by film’s most-esteemed critical body boggles the mind. Among all the epitaphs written about him, I propose to add the following honorary title: Mr. Leading Man. Whatever the script, whatever its location and plot and action, there was a time when a producer could pick up the phone and secure the services of Cary Grant, and in doing so, know that one the most important roles in his film was in the best of all hands.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Key Performances:</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">North by Northwest</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Arsenic and Old Lace</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Notorious</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Bringing up Baby</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Philadelphia Story</span></i></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-8559009321209292132011-06-14T10:39:00.000-07:002011-06-14T10:45:54.682-07:00Winds of Fate<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">I can understand why John Huston decided to make a movie in which Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart’s powerful personalities are confined to smallish, overcrowded rooms. There is dramatic combustibility in such a tactic. Unable to bully or maneuver their way out of scenes, each man in 1948’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Key Largo</i> is forced to deal with the other. The fact that neither gains the upper hand over the other – that is, prior to the film’s climax – is entirely the point on display here. Trapped in a hotel together, forced to wait out a terrific hurricane that rages just outside the building’s fragile windows, Huston intentionally restricts this pair of hyper-masculine, action-oriented men in order to teach them both a lesson in humility and to remind them that a person’s ability to control their own fate is limited.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrMxM034jEGr96Fq3i6OS9cW6NLpKwwuqZmYeZn_nHQED5Q_eeQvuXxbJcvQ6EwX_9qlA0HnI__d9q-ZZngrTdvoYA2HYeBzrgS2ufg7My4CkFmaPAnk9Xbdeq0Abl4norrWOMx_KLw/s1600/Key_largo432.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHrMxM034jEGr96Fq3i6OS9cW6NLpKwwuqZmYeZn_nHQED5Q_eeQvuXxbJcvQ6EwX_9qlA0HnI__d9q-ZZngrTdvoYA2HYeBzrgS2ufg7My4CkFmaPAnk9Xbdeq0Abl4norrWOMx_KLw/s320/Key_largo432.jpg" t8="true" width="218" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Thanks to his guns and his gang, it initially seems like Robinson is completely in control of the film’s plot, but once the hurricane arrives, all bets are off – and Robinson, who is suddenly equally as powerless as the others, knows it. The rotten weather cages the armed and the unarmed alike. Bogart seems to understand this when he growls, “You don't like it, do you (Robinson), the storm? Show it your gun, why don't you? If it doesn't stop, shoot it.”</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Of course, Robinson cannot shoot the weather any more than he can plug the people trapped in the hotel with him (he needs all of them for something). The fact the cruel and well-armed gangster is fairly powerless – or has his power limited by things entirely beyond his control – is pivot on which the entire film swings. As for the storm, it is the ultimate illustration of humanity’s powerlessness. It arrives randomly and wreaks equally random destruction – and not just on the hotel buildings.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7nPHSF_eZUGEeLlvrSEpYfLBQaNScdqqnoM1Emo7H-fe6CEDnfjw8qm138ioFfJF1tzOz0Pw4eDk81vV2euNH0Qa-8zcPB6N6zoluQdKOomK0J7HyzbHdSUqzE6o1Zec7yNOgnR9nRQ/s1600/normal_KeyLargoLathering%2528low%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7nPHSF_eZUGEeLlvrSEpYfLBQaNScdqqnoM1Emo7H-fe6CEDnfjw8qm138ioFfJF1tzOz0Pw4eDk81vV2euNH0Qa-8zcPB6N6zoluQdKOomK0J7HyzbHdSUqzE6o1Zec7yNOgnR9nRQ/s320/normal_KeyLargoLathering%2528low%2529.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Robinson as the smug gangster.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Tertiary characters in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Key Largo</i> do not fare well and their fates are meted out with almost the same sense of randomness that powers the storm’s creation. Consider, the fate of the two Seminole Indians, enticed to turn themselves in after escaping from prison. They come to the hotel because Lionel Barrymore’s character tells them he will make certain the local authorities deal fairly with them. Both Indians are framed by Robinson for a murder they did not commit and are subsequently gunned down by the local sheriff. The other characters blame the deaths on Robinson’s trickery, which obviously plays an important role. However, Robinson would not even be at the hotel were it not for Key Largo’s geographic location – off the coast of Florida –and the storm that prevents his departure. Thus, an unforeseen confluence of seemingly random events plays a critical role in the fate of the two men.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Of all the characters, Bogart’s cynical war-veteran seems to understand more than most that even matters of life and death are largely chance. Though it is never fully explained, the film strongly suggests that Bogart survived the hard-fighting at Monte Casino and Lauren Bacall’s husband did not through the exercise of sheer luck. This is partly why Bogart rejects the war hero mantle, is willing to ascribe it to the dead husband and arrives at the hotel tired and world weary. For him, Key Largo is literally the end of the road, a way to escape his listless post-war existence on the mainland and to try to start fresh. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">His trajectory runs him smack into Robinson, another character interested in a fresh start. Only Robinson is trying to get back to the mainland after being kicked out of America because of his involvement in organized crime during the depression. On opposite sides of the law and on opposite paths, the two men can only glare at one another as they simmer and slowly come to an unhappy boil in the close confines of the hotel. The firecracker interactions between these two titans of studio cinema are a large part of what makes an otherwise straightforward film dramatic and irresistibly interesting.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HkMOVkOJ9dbJuIuMkse8gWXkQWW8YDKPCwh2tbGnlnwV639T7otKCLQduvH3KbeTi8izZavhudBSdYox3NvebEzJaVfjH7vHVfPgkzgyQAAHvKE86kUY4Z0Eu2SP_YLaEEuu46Msow/s1600/09200largo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HkMOVkOJ9dbJuIuMkse8gWXkQWW8YDKPCwh2tbGnlnwV639T7otKCLQduvH3KbeTi8izZavhudBSdYox3NvebEzJaVfjH7vHVfPgkzgyQAAHvKE86kUY4Z0Eu2SP_YLaEEuu46Msow/s320/09200largo.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A pair of tough guys...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is also the fourth and final film Bogart and Bacall made together. In critical terms, it is the second-best after <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Big Sleep</i>. However, in terms of chemistry between the famous husband and wife team, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Key Largo</i> is the weakest of the four. Bacall is oddly silent for most of this film. What little acting she is called on to do, she does with her eyes – most of which is quite good, but her plain-Jane routine is a terrible waste of the sultry sexuality we saw in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To Have and Have Not</i>, and we cannot help but feel like any actress could have played this rather uninteresting role.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja2AQJpbmNMtlAwCcyRB8Ltl8FwvdhCmuwpatItBE_ho90AZFcsPFAguqwQM3dbKaxMzA_Z6ccNWlMsbD7Ijh1DUOPiy9j3XySWJ2oxxKGvhpBjKwWJQ4JLMxZmzpdgvr3IDlr4FwcfA/s1600/key-largo-movie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja2AQJpbmNMtlAwCcyRB8Ltl8FwvdhCmuwpatItBE_ho90AZFcsPFAguqwQM3dbKaxMzA_Z6ccNWlMsbD7Ijh1DUOPiy9j3XySWJ2oxxKGvhpBjKwWJQ4JLMxZmzpdgvr3IDlr4FwcfA/s320/key-largo-movie.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The husband and wife, not sparkling together.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Robinson’s one-time glamorous girlfriend (played by Claire Trevor) is far more exciting. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Trevor’s character was a big deal during the days of prohibition – talented, beautiful, famous and highly sought after. But a life on the run with Robinson has reduced her to a nervous alcoholic, with passable good looks and a shaky voice that is forever scared of its own sound, lest it upset her endlessly irritable partner. When Robinson forces her to sing for some whiskey, she absentmindedly lapses into “Moanin’ Low,” a sad tune whose lyrics describe a woman trapped in an abusive relationship. She begins the song full of gusto, but as the meaning of the words penetrate her addled mind, her performance falls apart under the weight of the realization she is singing about herself. It is terrible moment, portrayed with incredible power by Trevor, who won as Oscar for this performance.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnJhzNptcxwLOpPyXleYxGnF04VUA6FsMpyZjos-dr5Z727BMCmoqyAR0pYsy8VzPPqDDYDBvthNKE-a7NoAWd7kKQyDMAQIW0nK-gfstXNqlTbeBvfatJWcwam79yBD57UWEpolz9Gg/s1600/11867586_gal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnJhzNptcxwLOpPyXleYxGnF04VUA6FsMpyZjos-dr5Z727BMCmoqyAR0pYsy8VzPPqDDYDBvthNKE-a7NoAWd7kKQyDMAQIW0nK-gfstXNqlTbeBvfatJWcwam79yBD57UWEpolz9Gg/s320/11867586_gal.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Trevor belts it out.</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Trevor is also noteworthy here because she is the only other character than Bogart who is changed by the film’s plot. Backed into a corner and repeatedly reminded of his inability to alter his situation, Bogart frets and fumes and eventually decides that a man has to take advantage of whatever crumbs of opportunity come his way and fight to clear his own path as best he can. In doing so, he seemingly rejects the attractive logic of pragmatism and offers up that humanity’s destiny should be shaped by more than the sum of any equation: “When your head says one thing and your whole life says another, your head always loses,” he concludes. Trevor agrees, and for the first time in what must be a long time, she begins to push back against Robinson and work within her own opportunities to shape the outcomes of her fate.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">All does not end well for everyone in this tale that no one seems in control of, but by pushing back, a few of these characters learn how to resist the winds of fate as much as possible. Huston's overall message seems to be that life is random, tough and unfair, a set of circumstances that makes the "pushing" all the more important. Bogart says he fought the war to rid the world of men like Robinson's character. At the end of the movie, Bogey is still fighting, and his decision to do so is invigorating. In between, the powerlessness experienced by everyone in the hotel is palpable and humbling, and the randomness of events is terrifying. We cannot control everything, the hurricane seems to be saying with every rattle of the windows, but a person should be ready to act in the moments when they can control some small thing...</span></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-69767859062015215112011-06-06T08:07:00.000-07:002011-06-06T09:54:59.005-07:00Classic Date Night?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Why not?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I say forget paying in excess of $10 and then digging even deeper into your pocket for popcorn and candy and soda. Avoid the packs of boisterous teens, bleeping and chatting on cell phones as they snort and surge in restless herds around the contemporary cinema and the gluttonous shopping malls that tend to abut them. If you want to do dinner and a movie with that special someone, I urge you to go out to eat or prepare something nice at one of your home’s, then settle down on a sofa together for a classic movie. It will be cheaper and more rewarding. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">In terms of quality, I can assure you, whichever classic film you watch will operate on a mental plain far beyond today's contemporary romantic comedies. The classic will eschew ribald humor, avoid obvious puns and leave a touch of mystery to sexuality and romantic encounters – through what the film does not say or does not show – that is both charming and refreshing. Couples actually had to court and communicate in classic movies because they could not make eyes across an ill-lit dance club, leave together after too many cocktails, peel their clothes off and “hook up” on screen (see <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Knocked Up et al</i>).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">However, I admit it can be difficult to know where to start if you want to do a Classic Date Night. Some people – amazingly and oddly enough – do not like classic films. Others adore classic films and either love or hate certain actors and actresses. And finding films that please both men and women is difficult no matter what era of movies we are talking about. So to help with all this, I offer up five films that are a perfect for any date-night scenario. These are classic crowd-pleasers that everyone should love, regardless of age and relationship status…</span></div> <br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgadD6N_iDZJmiHcY0cLyTGwsHr60TnerCBVld4B2W95vcBdC-7Enbg5wuqOkrGQgQX25eBiLKtf8Eu8CX2ILE8dJeVa4AxX5LXAN7fDeXBgnlv4aujFjMS7bPaEn9LbmDtnN0oiZciHg/s1600/CasablancaKus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgadD6N_iDZJmiHcY0cLyTGwsHr60TnerCBVld4B2W95vcBdC-7Enbg5wuqOkrGQgQX25eBiLKtf8Eu8CX2ILE8dJeVa4AxX5LXAN7fDeXBgnlv4aujFjMS7bPaEn9LbmDtnN0oiZciHg/s320/CasablancaKus.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">They will always have Paris...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">1. <em>Casablanca</em></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Still my favorite film and one that I believe is impossible to dislike. Humphrey Bogart is perfect as the savvy nightclub owner trying to escape from his past and Ingrid Bergman gives a delicately poised performance as the woman unwittingly at the center of a love triangle. Rooted in an incredible setting – Morocco in the early days of World War Two – and chock full of snappy dialogue and complicated moral conundrums, this is a film of many genres. Espionage, politics, war, adventure, romance and comedy – it is all in the film’s perfect screenplay, which is why every generation continues to rediscover this gem. Guys will enjoy this film because of Bogart – he is cynical, cool and forever one step ahead of everyone else – and the wartime setting that forces people in the film to make important decisions about what they stand for and what they are willing to sacrifice. The ladies will appreciate Bogey, too, but they also will swoon for the film’s romanticism and the notion of a joyful but tragic love affair that is hostage to a particular time and place. See immediately if you have not already done so. If you have, watch it again with a partner. As a shared experience, few movies can match it...</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSpD6waUa5DLDBSHKWnYmiV7D2fmiqft_OGeSJGp2ZNuIfwMDRMJZeouyAxVJgLvBaOTsFx89aN5NO2yaHzy5imkBDaX3GzL75im-Ue8wnxItRmFRLEfZFHgDg9ZV2ZhMJglOuxDcJTw/s1600/sabrina.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSpD6waUa5DLDBSHKWnYmiV7D2fmiqft_OGeSJGp2ZNuIfwMDRMJZeouyAxVJgLvBaOTsFx89aN5NO2yaHzy5imkBDaX3GzL75im-Ue8wnxItRmFRLEfZFHgDg9ZV2ZhMJglOuxDcJTw/s320/sabrina.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stuck in the middle...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">2.<em> Sabrina</em></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sometimes derided as a rather formulaic re-imaging of Cinderella, in which the servant girl falls in love with master of the manor, this film surpasses the limitations of its script thanks to the acumen of the actors involved and the skill with which they play off one another. Juxtaposition is, of course, a critical element of comedy, and it has never worked better on the screen than it does in the love triangle depicted here between Audrey Hepburn, William Holden and Humphrey Bogart. The contrast between Hepburn’s smooth femininity and Bogart’s chapped masculinity works particular well, and as an audience, we completely believe these opposites ultimately attract. Guys will like this film because Bogart and Holden are both great and there is a very real examination of a man’s commitment to his family and the unfortunate tension between pursuing happiness in one’s private life and being successful in business. Ladies will enjoy Hepburn because she is Hepburn. The maturation of a young and immature girl who slavishly pursues the wrong man into a confident woman who chooses to be courted by the right kind of man also hits home. Sumptuously filmed, the movie leaves both sexes with the positive message that love is perhaps the only invigorating force capable of provoking radical positive changes within a person stuck in a rut.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxoQqrHxs-paPwtsHZ8i3UjAZAzNyCM6D8vRpvjBICFnOEI8o4XGSp_Wdiy6jE6KP2iY3XnRZ36hkS53wMfwLc2sYEBzoUJwaMbDy6boEVSJyhb6LDswxcfWaBSezp6WwP6YhyodK2sg/s1600/certains_l_aiment_chaud_some_like_it_hot_1959_reference.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxoQqrHxs-paPwtsHZ8i3UjAZAzNyCM6D8vRpvjBICFnOEI8o4XGSp_Wdiy6jE6KP2iY3XnRZ36hkS53wMfwLc2sYEBzoUJwaMbDy6boEVSJyhb6LDswxcfWaBSezp6WwP6YhyodK2sg/s320/certains_l_aiment_chaud_some_like_it_hot_1959_reference.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Two gals gabbing, only one isn't a gal...</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">3. <em>Some Like it Hot</em></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A truly scandalous film for its day, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Some Like it Hot</i> is a bizarre comedy of errors that chronicles how a pair of friends and musicians –Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon – must disguise themselves as women in order to avoid being killed by powerful mobsters. Curtis and Lemmon excel as oddly paired friends who are barely able to keep up their disguise once they encounter a certain Marilyn Monroe. The hilarity that ensues when costume changes and forever-shifting stories are called upon to keep the cross-dressing ruse alive verges on wacky, but remains entertaining without drifting into hyperbole. And Curtis doing an intentionally stiff and obvious Cary Grant impression is particularly funny. That everyone in this film is confused about what they want and being misled about who the other characters truly are says something both sweet and ironic about the gamesmanship involved in courting. What – if anything – the film ultimately says about sexuality, I leave for others to decide. Guys will enjoy Monroe. She is sultry and sensationally lurid throughout – and her dresses barely contain her considerable body (has any other actress ever had her sexual presence?). Guys will also enjoy the film’s great humor and the witty repartee between Curtis and Lemmon. Ladies will enjoy Monroe’s unintentional humor and the film’s rollercoaster examination of just how far a man will go to flirt with a pretty woman. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHb1VsUaB2PRt89QG3ZXUBzccLSA-K4hG7SIqenpMa_R0oKNP-tVzWMgP8whmJgRramjPPfDv5WkSMzqDA1-_D6h1oRCc_TkXTGy3niQDUTVU_2LCIduGGlgNeE2VLwC8DQ23tXWFDUw/s1600/Rear-Window_Grace-Kelly_green-suit_white-halterneck_bmp-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHb1VsUaB2PRt89QG3ZXUBzccLSA-K4hG7SIqenpMa_R0oKNP-tVzWMgP8whmJgRramjPPfDv5WkSMzqDA1-_D6h1oRCc_TkXTGy3niQDUTVU_2LCIduGGlgNeE2VLwC8DQ23tXWFDUw/s320/Rear-Window_Grace-Kelly_green-suit_white-halterneck_bmp-1.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kelly convinces Stewart to pay attention</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><strong>4.</strong> <strong><em>Rear Window</em></strong></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Most Alfred Hitchcock films make for great date movies, but this effort just beats out <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">North by Northwest</i> to top them all. I chose this because the mystery involving whether a man killed his wife is absolutely enthralling and watching it with someone else and dissecting the scenes is incredibly fun. More to the romantic point, this film – despite all of its loftier themes and tropes – is about a how a pair of opposites – Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly – work as a couple. In trying to unravel the picture’s mystery, the audience is afforded an incredibly intimate portrait of two people on the brink of marriage. That only one of them wants to get hitched and neither of the two realizes they are already verbally jousting like an old married couple is one of the film’s great charms. Guys will enjoy this movie because its plot addresses the notion of voyeurism – in particular, the male penchant for looking – and it forces the audience to consider what is normal and what is moral. The ladies will enjoy how Kelly floats almost ethereally across the screen in her scenes and how the film deals with nearly every aspect of love through the various depictions of the apartment complex’s residents. Both sexes will appreciate how cinematic the movie is, with its wonderful dialogue, its incredible set-pieces and the odd but ultimately tender take on courtship.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5UCcoZLUT_AfzROgAOLw11A0VbzOvwAXYGvqheTU7nOVSv1wTqruGDJjel4mX0ygq_994zbWzKjjBEcXXAua8abhyhKSL73_DgkCas6Pc88LJ3ce2cjvYYpXQf1s4jak9Bg5-xc7mqA/s1600/%252734+-+fave+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5UCcoZLUT_AfzROgAOLw11A0VbzOvwAXYGvqheTU7nOVSv1wTqruGDJjel4mX0ygq_994zbWzKjjBEcXXAua8abhyhKSL73_DgkCas6Pc88LJ3ce2cjvYYpXQf1s4jak9Bg5-xc7mqA/s320/%252734+-+fave+3.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tender mercies</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">5.<em> It Happened One Night</em></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">This might be the hardest sell. For starters, it is difficult to find. For seconds, it has all the appearances of being the kind of old movie contemporary audiences avoid (it looks hokey, old and filmed with dubious quality). However, anyone who passes on this film is truly missing out. I first saw this in college in a film class and I can safely say the entire audience of 20-somethings was delighted. Since then, everyone I have shown the film to has responded with similar glee. It is, quite simply, a wonderful picture, full of warmth and charm. Clark Gable’s cynical newsman melts when he encounters naïve heiress Claudette Colbert. The guys will like this picture because Gable is masculine, believable and funny. The girls will enjoy Colbert’s emotional adventure: She runs away from a proscribed and boring existence, has an once-in-a-lifetime trip on the road and falls in love. Everything that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Roman Holiday</i> is, it owes to this film. Not to be missed.</span></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8073422001481231056.post-26196492433789810512011-06-01T06:25:00.000-07:002011-06-01T06:30:20.763-07:00Everybody Wants Something<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">With a title like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Asphalt Jungle</i>, little is left to the imagination in terms of what this 1950 film noir is ultimately trying to convey. And if you had any doubts, they are quickly erased during this tour of America’s post-war urban landscape, in which the unnamed city is portrayed as a seedy and dangerous place, populated by a criminal element that operates well beyond established norms.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwmmPDbLOuWL6miEqDg6o6gf5UwhAzYKGGo7NCw_L4RJRfq11Cc0b93gb8olGzdbPOY0sOugrgX49EB5ekE5OthYryyAl8_-No50uif5WaItW5XBuuPosvyBcp-cu-lpJvPiq9tfa9jg/s1600/The_Asphalt_Jungle_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwmmPDbLOuWL6miEqDg6o6gf5UwhAzYKGGo7NCw_L4RJRfq11Cc0b93gb8olGzdbPOY0sOugrgX49EB5ekE5OthYryyAl8_-No50uif5WaItW5XBuuPosvyBcp-cu-lpJvPiq9tfa9jg/s320/The_Asphalt_Jungle_poster.jpg" t8="true" width="213" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Within the city’s criminal community, social Darwinism functions in a kind of kill or be killed, rob or be robbed, fleece or be fleeced fashion. A person is allowed to keep as much or as little as they can hold onto. This sort of movie can very quickly devolve into cliché, so thankfully John Huston and Ben Maddow’s screenplay is clever enough to realize that crimes have motives and the criminals who commit illegal acts usually want something beyond the loot (IE – their behavior and crimes are a means to an end, not ends in and of themselves).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Each of the characters in this picture are presented as deeply complex people, all of whom are angling to get something. In some cases, the aims are nobler than others. Sterling Hayden is driven – almost single-mindedly – by the urge to secure enough money to repurchase his family’s lost horse farm back in Kentucky. He willingly joins in the film’s robbery plot, confident it will land him the cash he needs to turn his dream into reality. Sam Jaffe, the man who masterminds the caper, is much less idealistic: “One way or another, we all work for our vices,” he quips at one point.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the case of Louis Calhern’s character, his vice saunters onto screen in the form of a certain Marilyn Monroe. Much is made of Monroe’s appearance here, but little of the unique combination of glamour, titillation and humor that would later translate into a white hot presence on screen is apparent in this outing. She is simply the “other woman” in a movie that devotes a great deal of time and energy to asking a pretty typical film noir question: Why do men make bad choices?</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1h9BdayXAI79tfyEpylqTPk0DxwkSyq6Zd_EfLKSez7DsYpm2kIIxzJhYlgdWq_8E-LXSr-eOOenahK22WryWAXx3ch9mFENSh8dvwW9BZ_-Jb05i98x8lyWK3nW-4pBh5lVQJ4bz2A/s1600/Annex%252520-%252520Monroe%252C%252520Marilyn%252520%2528Asphalt%252520Jungle%252C%252520The%2529_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1h9BdayXAI79tfyEpylqTPk0DxwkSyq6Zd_EfLKSez7DsYpm2kIIxzJhYlgdWq_8E-LXSr-eOOenahK22WryWAXx3ch9mFENSh8dvwW9BZ_-Jb05i98x8lyWK3nW-4pBh5lVQJ4bz2A/s320/Annex%252520-%252520Monroe%252C%252520Marilyn%252520%2528Asphalt%252520Jungle%252C%252520The%2529_01.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">An early glimpse at a star</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">In the end, the answer boils down to the original metaphor. That is, like the creatures of the actual jungle, the civilized men living in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Asphalt Jungle’s</i> metropolitan city often operate under the twin impulses of self-interest and self-preservation. To continue following this metaphor, the complicated web of allegiances and desires that forces the characters together and drives the plot are an emotional ecosystem that functions in similar fashion to the food chain in the wild. Bookies, crooked lawyers, policeman and blond bombshells – they all have a role to play in the concrete state of nature explored in this picture, and much of that role depends on how other people play their equally important parts.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLLxq3rZUcO5_ZvsjFFg21-36hRXOUkuNK_OiP9bVTdpbh2FwcVaV24HeK1_xaRRXj5SAOORMXOocRKhOaTGsPXFYg_zbV3zfFd-b2dhoHCbGq5Ren8m-P_En9ek6ZWcVlOAhLhwA9XA/s1600/vlcsnap-1157240.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLLxq3rZUcO5_ZvsjFFg21-36hRXOUkuNK_OiP9bVTdpbh2FwcVaV24HeK1_xaRRXj5SAOORMXOocRKhOaTGsPXFYg_zbV3zfFd-b2dhoHCbGq5Ren8m-P_En9ek6ZWcVlOAhLhwA9XA/s320/vlcsnap-1157240.png" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In it together, for their own reasons</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Faced with the rotten fruit of this reality, the city’s Police Commissioner offers this piece of lofty rhetoric to the audience: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: white; font-family: "Arial", "sans-serif"; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="background-color: black;">“</span><span style="background-color: black;">People are being cheated, robbed, murdered, raped. And that goes on 24 hours a day, every day in the year. And that's not exceptional, that's usual. It's the same in every city in the modern world. But suppose we had no police force, good or bad. Suppose we had... just silence. Nobody to listen, nobody to answer. The battle's finished. The jungle wins. The predatory beasts take over.”</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">There is a sense of desperation in these words that feels right, but ultimately I believe the film’s central heist is a vehicle to explore how the state of nature described by the commissioner is ultimately amoral and random (like a society of animals in a real jungle). After all, the police do nothing to foil robbery or prevent its execution (the institution of the police itself is depicted as corrupt and self-interested). The cops merely stumble across the crime by accident – the random discharge of a gun alerts them – and then swoop in to try to clean up the mess after it has already been made. In this sense, they are little more than janitors who sweep away the proverbial mess that occurs when a lion encounters an antelope, and the difference between the jungle of vines and trees and the jungle made of concrete boils down to the fact that the latter cares about appearances – some would say the illusion of order – while the former unconsciously embraces the chaos and untidiness of existence.</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpe1poNWTQlc_P-o-PQvFpt1iQgtoLz0Tji_HMilmjtRMUIwUGG3GfU3AI6NU8G9RDj-nx0W3Hc-IJXAoIxxbeSzsnheTGQ5ctgqeFqMqCmWnHs6ERbNB3WBOBrLav7BArBbChwgYlAQ/s1600/asphalt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpe1poNWTQlc_P-o-PQvFpt1iQgtoLz0Tji_HMilmjtRMUIwUGG3GfU3AI6NU8G9RDj-nx0W3Hc-IJXAoIxxbeSzsnheTGQ5ctgqeFqMqCmWnHs6ERbNB3WBOBrLav7BArBbChwgYlAQ/s320/asphalt.jpg" t8="true" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dead within sight of his dream</td></tr>
</tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", "serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">This is not Huston’s best film – not by a long shot. However, what we have here is classic – in the sense it inspired a host of other films and television programs – and compelling. The plight of the film’s intertwined fates is intricate and interesting, and the ultimate futility the picture’s final scene leaves audiences with is both profound and disturbing. The world is ugly and chaotic, the movie seems to say, and the ardent are damned along with the capricious. The metaphor of the jungle might be somewhat clumsily used in the picture, but it feels right nonetheless.</span></div>SKWhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07814314684339927580noreply@blogger.com2