Well, this is a disaster... Not only did we have to split the Saturday double-feature between two days again, but Blogspot has just now changed up their blogging tools. Until I can get the hang of the new format (or re-access the old one), everything will take a little longer. Or the posts will be a little shorter.
Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) won the 2012 Sight & Sound poll, but this time is for a couple of other classic-era classics.
Stella: Intelligence! Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence.
Rather than exploring the unknown, I slipped into a bit more of the comfort zone. Rear Window is probably my usual go-to for "best Hitchcock," but I don’t pretend to be an expert. It's been awhile... while I remember Jeff being grouchy within his situation, I had forgotten how much a jerk he was to Princess Grace. C'mon, Jimmy, this isn't like you! But the movie firmly establishes his wanderlust and total frustration with being confined - to a wheelchair, in his apartment, within a relationship.
I always get the feeling how difficult the whole production must have been to pull off, constrained to one interior and one vantage point to the exterior tenement complex and courtyard (the titular window). And I always come away impressed with how well we know who is who and where and why. The movie's had such a huge influence and been borrowed from so often that it can be difficult to put it back into the 1954 context, but definitely an all-timer.
Roger O. Thornhill: In the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only expedient exaggeration.
North by Northwest goes in the opposite direction, taking us on a cross-country romp from New York City to South Dakota. Cary Grant's wry banter, Eva Marie Saint's ambiguous motives, James Mason suaving it up, and an ice-cold Martin Landau. The whole United Nations part works great, and ends up with the endlessly comical front-page photo being snapped. There seems be some kind of symmetry with the cafeteria killing towards the end. Maybe.
The action sequences are good for the time, but the dialogue holds up best after 50+ years. A lot of funny stuff throughout - the flirtatious sparring in the dining car, Thornhill's indignation at being a target for murder, the auction house escape, the concluding shot in the film. Sometimes underrated, but not so much by the Sight & Sound poll.
Here we have a double-feature of silent horrors from the dawn of cinema. Both are German and from the early-'20s, but quite different from each other in reality. I don't think I'll get into any political readings, but it would be remiss not to mention that Germany had been very very recently defeated in The Great War. Not sure how the war experience might play into either film, but I'm sure there's some of that in there...
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari) dir. Robert Wiene. 1920, Germany. Sight & Sound 2012: Critics' #127 / Directors' #132 Roger Ebert's Great Movies Public Domain download/stream from Archive.org BFI DVD from Amazon [tons of value options too] Watch via Netflix / YouTube (free) / Amazon Instant / iTunes
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari trailer (1964)
I'm no expert on German Expressionism, but Caligari's got plenty of unique style. I am up on my Fritz Lang Metropolis (1927, S&S #36), but that was sleek and majestic by comparison. These radical angles and patterns are more disorienting and claustrophobic.
"The prophecy of the Somnambulist!"
So, how do you grade on a curve? I'm pretty sure the acting and production values wouldn't fly anymore. Maybe one day, I'll get more used to silent-era acting, as I eventually did with pre-naturalistic acting. Regardless of the budget, the set design was fantastic. Obviously stagey, but the art mountain backdrop, surreal cityscapes and rooftops, all interiors, the mountain pass, the way depths and heights of field are handled... Super-impressive!
Although the plot has some corny aspects, give it some credit. It moves fast and stays intriguing, and in several cases avoids (predates) some annoying clichés. When the main character's romantic rival is killed, you can wonder for awile whether maybe he did it - but then we move on! When some random thug is caught using the killing spree for cover, he admits to attempted murder but swears he didn't do the others. Fine, we've got crimes to solve! When told their respected colleague is an evil genius, the doctors investigate these ravings rather than wasting a bunch of scenes ignoring the warnings until more are dead. I'm not saying a good movie has to get it done in 70 minutes, but this month has definitely seen some unnecessary 160+ minute bloat.
Whoa! I just read that Cesare would play Nazi Major Strasser in Casablanca 20 years later (1942).
Might get a little random here. The value DVD wouldn't work in my player, and I'm sure there's a wide range of quality for various products and versions (public domain). Ended up watching the streaming version on Netflix, which was fine. Some 1996 restoration with new music, not sure which - seems like there might have been two. As I was watching, I started wondering about the color tinting used throughout (yellow for daylight, blue for night & shadows, lavender for the lady's home)... I couldn't tell if that was original or modern post-production, and if the latter, was it 'colorization' or based on the original presentation style? That link discusses various "tinted nitrate prints from film archives," and it seems like there are interpretations and choices to be made. So not original tinting, but added based on film research - good.
The end sections of the film might not be quite as awesome, but there's some interesting stuff. An early flashback (apparently not the first ever), the insane text hallucinations ("Du musst Caligari werden!" / "You have to become Caligari!"), a reference to 1703 (216 years, flash-forward to Vargtimmen!)... and a twist ending of sorts. Would have been interesting if the angular architecture had been dropped during the coda, along with the Caligari face. Still, great enough that I'm actually going to seek out a better restoration / version, and pick up a DVD that will actually play.
O yeah, I thought I'd seen Caligari before, but now I'm thinking not. I'm positive I've seen the next one - though long ago in the mists of time.
The public-domain value DVD travails continue. This one would play. But a few minutes in, I realized the credits and subtitles were talking about Bram Stoker, Dracula, Jonathon and Nina Harker. Beyond getting names wrong, one thing I do know about Nosferatu is that Murnau was sued by Bram Stoker's widow to prevent use of the novel's details. So the characters' names were changed, and the plot remained basically the same. Out with the DVD - back to Netflix!
Count Orlok: I am going to buy the house... the beautiful house opposite yours...
Netflix has a version with music by the Silent Orchestra - I did not like it, at all. Very distracting almost the entire time, so that might color my impressions. Anyway, the Plague is a big mystery, and Renfield's (I mean Knock) got a letter with some crazypants writing and kindergarten drawings, there's a were-hyena, and I keep hissing "Nosssferatuuu!" like the grandpa in George Romero's Martin (1976). Catbus super-carriage warp-speed is awesome!
Max Schreck is justifiably famous for this role - he's terrific too! Lots of good moments, but the pacing doesn't stand up. Everything to do with the ship's passage is good, like the coffin-pult riser. Maybe one too many stop-motion tricks but most are quality, like the hearse getaway. Quite a bit of neat cinematography, like the river rafting and good ol' cemetery beach - but none of the stylistic overdose that was Caligari.
Actually most of my notes are positive, except for the inordinate amount of text on the title cards (at least in this version). The sight of Count Orlok carrying his coffin around... what was it, Weisburg? Man, if you're worried about Plague, maybe nab the guy carting around a coffin full of gravedirt and rats!! The mob chase scene is probably fairly influential, and Orlok's shadow creeping is very effective.
Good stuff overall. Once I sort the right Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, I might look for a more Astral version of Nosferatu - no Stoker, best music, and whatever can be done about the title card font(s) and/or overload.
Plenty of Ingmar around the Sight & Sound poll, but I'm heading in another direction now. Into the horror...
This was the originally scheduled date and movie, but I almost didn't pull it off. Wasn't streaming when I made plans, I never ordered it, and never did find a dvd locally. But over the weekend, I learned about the "Can I Stream.It?" app [free for both Apple & Android]. Gave it a whirl - and sure enough, film's now on Netflix streaming!
Hour of the Wolf (Vargtimmen) dir. Ingmar Bergman. 1968, Sweden. Sight & Sound 2012: Critics' #447 / Directors' #44 Roger Ebert's movie review DVD from Amazon Streamed via Netflix!
Hour of the Wolf trailer (1968) [just noticed that video is ***Not Safe For Work***]
Lindhorst: I examine souls and turn them inside out.
I thought I was being sooo clever... picking his only 'horror' movie for Ingmar Bergman. Maybe I'm stretching the meaning of words, it's more of a David Lynch-type psychological Gothic fantasia - right around the time of George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968) too. Also, I later found that maybe not even his 'only' horror, depending on The Serpent's Egg (1977). Anyway, that's what I thought: so clever. Even made a point of it in the intro up there (prepped in late August). Then after watching the movie, I checked BFI again last night because I'd learned how to identify sub-#250/#100 rankings and votes. But wait! This was actually the S&S Directors' #44 film. #44!!
And not expecting an '80s slasher movie, it was everything I wanted. I haven't seen many, but this is definitely a Bergman film - Liv Ullmann! Max von Sydow! The existential abyss, and lotsa philosophical soliloquies while staring offscreen!! The creepy sound design and von Sydow's intensity (along with Ullman's pregnant vulnerability) set you on edge right away. The artist dreams of malignant creatures, then the other islanders start appearing. Bergman horror Tarot: the Old Crone, the Elegant Baron, the Foul Temptress, the Soul Curator, the Puppet Master, The Diary, The Island.
Early on, Liv says that Max doesn't enjoy making friends and likes her because she doesn't talk much. (The characters have names, but they'll always be Ullmann and von Sydow to me.) So of course they're soon invited to an insane party of freaks who push too close and chatter incessantly. It all keeps ratcheting up - the oddball puppetry, the liquor, the scandalous secrets, the social anxiety, the mystery painting... Eventually they're back home, and von Sydow's throwing lit matches around on the floor. Like being cooped up in a hotel room with a raving tweaker, and the paranoia is contagious.
Everything doesn't get better. Startling revelations are greeted with a Breathless-level of detachment. Accusations fly, the gift of a pistol doesn't help so much. I think time broke down, with people climbing the walls, people tearing at their own faces, La Veronica is laid out like Jesse James on ice, von Sydow may or may not have worn a kimono. I'm not sure what happened myself - I think there was a man in the woods, with the head of a bird, or maybe it was a mask...
I'm fairly certain that his only film I'd seen before was The Seventh Seal (1957, S&S #93). Although this is obviously 'minor' Bergman (or maybe not), it has inspired me to make a push into his more serious canon in the near future. So good job, Vargtimmen!
The Assassination of Jesse James by... trailer (2007)
Jesse James: Can't figure it out. Do you want to be like me, or do you want to be me?
I think this might be the most character-study type of film I've covered so far - not surprising as the title includes the two main characters' full names. So there's a lot of development and plot, but also lyrical flights of fancy. As in all arty Westerns, illiterate yokels wander the line between colorful idiom and Shakespearean eloquence. I will give the film credit for successfully pulling off some story maneuvers in the "Too Stupid To Lie Well" vein - frequently a killer. I think someone claimed to practice haruspexy, and I'm not talking about high-society Charley's soothsayers.
The other quote I considered spotlighting (1 each) was when Bob piped up at the burial to help out with The Beatitudes. Not to brag, but I saw it coming a mile away - still, nicely done.
Some interesting stylistic choices - we return to dark interiors, but these are high-contrast B&W rather than murky brown. Exteriors sometime come framed in hazy edges, kind of like looking through old thick wavy pane glass. Jesse's snake-handling bit was quite saturated. I always tend to question the need for a Narrator voice-over, but I'd have to rewatch before I decide if I can see any better options. And on first viewing, the last third tended to drag a little, with a number of acceptable endings strung together.
But the violence was good, and the kid was a surprisingly good pistol shot. Top-notch cast and cameos. Nick Cave showed up, plus Zooey D. in Creede, CO. O yeah, Cave & Ellis did the soundtrack! Very nice, and I think I've forgotten to mention several OST's so far...
Was a little surprised not to see this anywhere on the Sight & Sound poll, but I guess Nashville (1975, S&S #73) sucks up all the voting. Either that or Popeye (1980)!
Again... this fell below #250/#100, so I've inserted the appropriate rankings below - as I have with the missing ones in previous posts.
This being the American frontier, we get an opportunity to see beautiful movie stars down in the muck and grime of some Pac-NW undeveloped mining town, but I was really pleased to see the names Duvall (she), Devane and Carradine (and Leo. Cohen!). After the introductions, lots of dense but subdued conversations in dimly-lit interiors lulled me into a cozy dream. I think I might have actually nodded off a little bit during the early scenes.
McCabe: I got poetry in me!
McCabe's a lone gambler maybe gunman - plays poker, not euchre with some partner. He dismissively turns away other interested parties. But when Mrs. Miller (two consecutive brothel madams) emphatically explains his rank incompetence at running a decent whorehouse, he hilariously has no good comeback. He's no better at math than at telling his terrible frog jokes... nice fur coat though! One of the hypotheses speculated about is that the girls might turn to religion out of boredom. And religion in the town of Presbyterian Church does conspire to threaten him, just not exactly as expected though.
Kind of like an inverted Bonnie & Clyde (1967), with Beatty here as the sidekick - behind the scenes at least. And in this case, the degenerate gambler/whore turn to 'legitimate' business - rather than two 'upstanding' citizens turning to crime. The company men are so clean and professional, which only makes them that much more menacing (but apparently not to McCabe). As usual, Mrs. Miller sees the situation with the clearer eye, while he plays close-to-the-vest and bluffs away. Until the cards run out...
The end brings a crescendo of violence, new exotic locations, excessive 'special' effects, a steampunk fire brigade, and the new ambiguity. What'd I see? Some Tree of Life, a bit of The Shining, maybe even a little Mulholland Dr.... Do we know for sure? Not me.
Another one not appearing on this Sight & Sound poll results, although it apparently did receive vote(s).
Actually... I've now figured out how to identify sub-#250/#100 rankings and will be retro-fitting some earlier posts.
Fitzcarraldo dir. Werner Herzog. 1982, Germany. Sight & Sound 2012: Critics' #558 / Directors' #224 Roger Ebert's Great Movies DVD from Amazon Watch via Hulu-Plus / Amazon Instant / iTunes
Fitzcarraldo trailer (1982)
Inspired by a true(-ish) story (or event), Klaus Kinski plays a white-suited doofus hell-bent on building a grand opera house for his rubber plantation shantytown in the middle of the Peruvian jungle. Once again typecast as the obsessive monomaniac, whose previous doomed project was a Trans-Andean Railroad. Also with Claudia Cardinale as the saucy bordello madam, Molly! Interesting that both of these characters appear Irish - "Fitzcarraldo" definitely is, since he is in reality Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald.
I was immediately struck by the many apparent similarities or homages to previous epic mission films. I scheduled it following Apocalypse Now based on this expectation: the madman on a jungle river (as with Herzog's Aguirre, S&S #90), doing things his own way, his "ideas, methods... unsound." And that previous movie did provide ample food for thought. "Zap 'em with your [phonograph], man!" and "Out there with these natives, it must be a temptation to be [a white god in a sacred vessel]"... and one I already knew - the parallel production catastrophes and resulting documentaries. Hearts of Darkness (1991) for Coppola, Burden of Dreams (1982) for Herzog.
You can also find a bit of David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, with the main character being able to work with the dangerous natives only because he's such an oddball, and the two Jivaro urchins who attach themselves (here to the drunken Huerequeque). And there are others. Along with the White God and the Drunken Cook, you could almost create a Tarot deck out of the iconic types on display: the Famous Singer, the Rubber Baron, the Fancy Whore, the Sweaty Host, the Blind Captain, the Head Hunter, the Cholo Mechanic, The River, The Jungle, The Opera House...
I was surprised to learn that the treacherous ship transport was actually not even to build the opera house directly, but for a supporting hare-brained scheme to hopefully raise funds towards the central insane idea. So, doubly mad. Quite a few expectations upended, to tell the truth - the events didn't really proceed as much like I'd thought. This was not Aguirre: The Wrath of Redux... not so much cruelty or fatality, much more logistics.
Moving back from the present-ish day, these were originally slated as a Saturday double-feature of decade-defining conflicts. But the other weekend plans & films ended up splitting them between Saturday and Sunday. Doubling up on the post anyway due to theme and catching up with the pace.
"Don't Worry, Be Happy" was a number one jam. Damn if I say it, you can slap me right here. - Public Enemy
Each film begins with a taboo-breaking popular song of the contemporary youth culture, mixed with helicopter sound effects. Apocalypse Now with The Doors’ psychedelic Oedipal murder ballad "The End," Do The Right Thing with Public Enemy's cracker-baiting "Fight The Power." Spike Lee adds some jazzy horns (horny jazz?) and Rosie Perez gettin' down, while Coppola features napalm strikes and Martin Sheen doing the liquor-fueled martial arts of self-destruction.
One other random, surely meaningless parallel I noticed was that when Pino explains to Vito about the untrustworthiness of all the Blacks, he warns that as soon as he lets down his guard (Boom!), he'll get a spear in the back. Which certainly happens to a character in Apocalypse, although the cultural implications are quite different there.
While not the dream-like experience of Mulholland Dr., there are still some ambiguous questions of identity and interpretation. Is Buggin' Out just a "righteous Black man" standing up in the face of injustice, or is he more of a troublemaker who escalates minor situations beyond reason? To what extent can the community (and Mookie) trust Sal's intentions - racially, and with respect to Jade? Where does Radio Raheem ultimately side on the Love-Hate conflict? What does it mean for a White Brooklyn native to gentrify Bed-Stuy while wearing a Bird jersey and scuffing other people's sneakers?
I remember at the time a number of critics fretting about what the movie was likely to incite in audiences, and quite a few going overboard to counter those fears - basically calling the film harmless. But I do think it is an angry movie, and not exactly in the late-'80s hip-hop way of either Public Enemy or NWA. Just so many confrontations: interracial, intergenerational, between couples, siblings, in-laws, bosses & workers, residents & outsiders, and obviously between cops & civilians.
Capt. Willard: If that's how Kilgore fought the war, I began to wonder what they really had against Kurtz.
The first time I saw Apocalypse Now was in high school, on a daytime double-feature with The Right Stuff (1983) at the River Oaks Theatre. That would have been 1986 or 1987. Pretty much blew me away, as I exited the darkened cinema into the blinding light of a world I would never again look upon the same. Then I remember hearing in college the theory that Lance (LBJ) was the Butthole Surfer - he drops acid, he's in "the asshole of the world," and he's a surfer.
As I understand military operations, you get your mission, you do your mission, you complete the mission (or fail). Maybe that's the way it's always worked for Capt. Willard before - but here, everything about the mission gradually frays at the edges, until the entire mission itself is just a huge confused mess. Much like Willard himself, and Vietnam itself, and with clear parallels to the making of the film as well.
So many great scenes and moments: "Terminate... with extreme prejudice." "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." "Charlie don't surf!" "You're an errand boy, sent by grocery clerks, to collect a bill." Hopper quoting Brando quoting T.S. Eliot... "That’s dialectic physics." Actually, basically anything said by either Robert Duvall or Dennis Hopper is likely a keeper on some level.
The inside jokes, like Harrison Ford as "Lucas" - two years after Star Wars. Otherwise not really a funny scene at all, pretty intense actually. A lot of these are semi-obvious, I'm just not confident I can express my experience with this movie very well - so it gets scrambled. But even after so many viewings, there’s always something new to find. I had never before noticed that R. Lee Ermey played one of the huey pilots in the Flight of the Valkyries attack, and honestly just had it pointed out to me on this viewing.
