Despite numerous other documentaries on the subject, as a masterwork of craft and technique, Alain Renais’ landmark Night and Fog still evokes the mind-boggling obscenity of the Holocaust with maximum impact. Renais forces us to witness the horror and digest those horrible images which, once seen, never leave one’s mind. While the breadth of Claude Lanzmann’s work is missing from Night and Fog, Renais’ vision in documenting the Holocaust is close to being the first and final word on the subject.
Showing posts with label 1950's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1950's. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 July 2016
Monday, 4 August 2014
Pickpocket
The Bresson brand of neo-realism is perhaps exemplified best with this unconventional character study of a Parisian thief desperately in need to self-fulfillment. Remarkably Bresson's seemingly simple approach uncluttered by the elements of traditional cinematic narrative allows the master filmmaker to create as much uncompromising tension as anything in Alfred Hitchcocks's filmography.
Tuesday, 29 April 2014
Riot in Cell Block 11
Cinematic tough guy Don Siegel first exemplified himself as a director with vision with this razor sharp prison thriller, at once as a first-rate claustrophobic thriller but also as a critique of the inhumane conditions in US prison system at the time.
Monday, 30 September 2013
The Fly
It’s easy to see why David Cronenberg was interested in remaking this semi-classic picture. Under the guise of a b-movie James Clavell’s screenplay from George Langelaan’s story of a scientist who turns himself into a half-man/half-fly is remarkably poignant and emotionally-affecting atomic age cautionary tale of science-gone-wrong.
Tuesday, 11 June 2013
Jubal
Delmar Daves’ (3:10 to Yuma) uncomplicated western soap opera has taken the fancy of the Criterion Collection resulting in a visually spectacular high-def transfer, though underwhelming in special features. Despite some ovepraise in the Criterion notes, Daves’ very loose Othello story set fits the western genre well. Shakespeare’s themes such a male loyalty, codes of honour and betrayal are transplanted successfully to the story of a wandering cowboy caught in the power struggle between a naïve cattle rancher and his devious ranchhand looking to seize his wealth.
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
A Man Escaped
Robert Bresson fetishizes the minute details of a French man’s escape from a Nazi prison during WWII, assembled together with clockwork like efficiency and rigor. A benchmark in the procedural genre, A Man Escaped exemplifies the enemcumbered and remarkably focused cinematic style of Robert Bresson.
Monday, 1 April 2013
Sansho the Baliff
The monumentally powerful Japanese ‘jidai-geki’ classic which explores passionately the lifelong journey of a son and daughter of an exiled feudal governer from a life of privalege to slavery and finally salvation is realized by Japanese master Kenji Mizoguchi with immense emotional power and mythological thematic resonance.
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
The Ballad of Narayama
A brilliant hybrid of stage theatricality and bold colour anamorphic photography elevate this strange Japanese folk legend of a woman who desperately desires to die honourably in the hallowed heights of a mysterious mountain into a haunting and powerful artifact of Japanese cinema’s golden age.
Friday, 25 January 2013
Peter Pan
Arguably the worst of the Disney features up until that point, part of the general trend of decreasing returns since the pre-War Golden Age of Animation. Disney’s Peter Pan opens with a deservedy ‘magical’ touch Walt was known for but gradually devolves intp a looney toon-style comedy and rather shameful stereotypical depictions of First Nation peoples.
Friday, 2 November 2012
12 Angry Men
Perhaps the ultimate chamber drama, the celebrated story of a jury of 12 men presiding over a homicide trial, for good and bad, is as much a sociopolitical touchstone film as it is a damn good entertaining yarn. It's a courtroom drama full of clever twists and turns, heated dialogue and showcase acting.
12 Angry Men (1957) dir. Sidney Lumet
Starring: Henry Fonda, Lee J. Cobb, Martin Balsalm, E.G. Marshall, Jack Klugman
By Alan Bacchus
The 1950s was a unique decade in cinema, and 12 Angry Men exemplifies many of the hallmarks of this era in Hollywood. It comes in the post-war era of cinema, a new age influenced by the increasing political activism of the period as much as the need for escapism. As such, there arose the ‘issue’ film, something rare in Hollywood’s Golden Age, a film in which sociopolitical themes were as important as the story itself. While important in the context of the betterment of the world, it also meant often heavy-handed proselytizing and statement-making.
For instance, the films of Stanley Kramer, who made The Defiant Ones, Inherit the Wind and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, were perhaps the models for this new movement. In 12 Angry Men, Henry Fonda, the unnamed central character and the man who is initially the lone proponent of the not-guilty verdict and eventually sways the whole jury his way, exemplifies the theme of social justice, racial harmony and democratization of everyone’s voice within a populace.
At times it all comes out with such aggressive force we have to roll our eyes. The character played by Lee J. Cobb, for instance, brow beats us as the clear antagonizing force to Fonda. His bull-headed prejudice against youth and somewhat less obvious racial bigotry are engrossed by Cobb’s over-the-top performance. However, we’re meant to sympathize with him because of his fractured relationship with his estranged son.
The '50s also saw the influence of television against the big-screen medium. This was Sidney Lumet’s first film, handpicked by producer Fonda based on the strength of his television work. Lumet’s direction is flawless, as he remarkably choreographs his actors and camera to create a visual dynamic mise-en-scene and visual design out of a small undecorated space. Lumet’s wide-angle lenses and crisp black and white photography look as impressive now as they did then.
Fonda’s performance as the social conscience of the picture fits in naturally with his career-long support of the underprivileged and downtrodden in society, complementing his work on John Ford’s films The Grapes of Wrath and Young Mr. Lincoln, as well as the socially conscious classics The Ox-Bow Incident and Mister Roberts.
What holds up best is the script adapted by Reginald Rose from his own stage play. The narrative is a near-perfect construction which surmounts its own clever concept. Rose expertly lays out the criminal case in the dialogue exchanges among the jury and the twists and turns of the story as each character rethinks each key item of evidence or testimony. The personal backstories of the characters, which are as important as the conflict in the present, while heady and forthright at times, are also expertly woven into the fabric of the fascinating, thrilling and clever criminal investigation.
***½
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
The Killing
Like most of Kubrick’s films, 'The Killing' is absolutely impervious to time. While the film is one of his most ‘conventional’ films, it is remarkable for his forward-thinking narrative structure, showing the mechanics of a crime from multiple points of view in different spaces of time. Jim Thompson’s hard-boiled dialogue and Kubrick’s youthful cinematic flare with the camera still pulsate with a different kind of energy than the more formal and stolid works he’s most known for.
The Killing (1956) dir. Stanley Kubrick
Starring: Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, Jay C. Flippen, Timothy Carey
By Alan Bacchus
There’s a strong sense of aggression in this picture. Starting with the score by George Fried, a loud and almost angry music cue opens the picture and helps to create momentum for the film as it snowballs throughout. There’s also the supremely imposing figure of Johnny Clay (Hayden), the ring leader of the racetrack heist who speaks with a larger-than-life deep voice, oozing confidence. Clay’s barely even a movie character, but more a caricature of someone like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and the Hollywood crimesters of the past.
We don’t care that Clay exhibits no other emotions other than his devotion to the job and supporting his dutiful wife. We may just be meant to identify with the affable George Petty (Cook Jr.), who is manipulated by his overbearing wife, Sherry (Windsor). But even then, his characterization as the ‘patsy’ is written to the extreme, an indulgence of Kubrick’s which doesn't really fit into his body of work, but within the rules of the crime/noir genre it is completely acceptable.
While most of the visual hallmarks we associate with Stanley Kubrick were birthed in his next film, Paths of Glory, we can see some stylish commonalities incorporated here. The omniscient voiceover, which tells us exactly what we see going on in front of us, is featured again in Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon. And while the information presented seems unnecessary to help us understand the story, Kubrick uses the narration to convey a distinctly documentary-like realism to the film. Kubrick’s staunch adherence to real location flavour and almost consciously un-cinematic newsreel-like imagery of the racetrack adds to the unique procedural qualities.
There’s also the mask used by Clay during the heist, a recurring visual motif used so dramatically in Alex Delarge’s home invasion in A Clockwork Orange, as well as during the costume party flashback in The Shining and the infamous sex party in Eyes Wide Shut.
Rashomon was Kubrick’s cited influence in this regard, but as applied to the stone cold film noir/American heist genre it resembles little of Kurosawa’s rigorous technique. While the idea of showing a heist from the different perspectives of the participants often doubling back on each other was clearly in Lionel White’s original source novel (titled Clean Break), it was Kubrick’s confidence as a filmmaker which made it work for cinema, thus influencing later filmmakers such as Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh and Atom Egoyan, who regularly use this approach.
Kubrick may have also looked to Europe for this influence in tone. We can’t help but see the connection to the cool, emotionless fetish for details in the great crime films of Jules Dassin (Rififi), Robert Bresson (Pickpocket) and Jacques Becker (Le Trou). It’s no surprise because these three films are some of the best heist/escape pictures of all time, with The Killing lining up proudly beside or arguably even above them.
****
The Killing is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Monday, 15 October 2012
Cinderella
While the spark of the Golden Age Animation was lost somewhere in the WWII years, 'Cinderella' still resonates as a marvellous example of classical Disney animation, a style and tone absolutely non-existent in today's animated films - a purity to its subject matter devoid of self-acknowledgement and no post-modern cinematic or pop-culture references whatsoever.
Cinderella (1950) dir. Clyde Geronimo, Wilfred Jackson, Hamilton Luske
Voices by: Ilene Woods, Eleanor Audley, Verna Felton, Rhoda Williams, James MacDonald
By Alan Bacchus
History could define four specific phases of Disney classical animation: the pre-war Golden Age of Animation (1937 to 1942), which included Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and Bambi; the post-WWII films, from Cinderella (1950) to The Aristocats (1970); the post-Walt period of films conceived after his death, from Robin Hood (1973) to Oliver and Company (1988); and finally, the studio resurgence under the Jeffrey Katzenberg regime ― the pre-Pixar period, from The Little Mermaid (1989) to The Lion King (1994).
The Golden Age of Animation is still the height of Disney's artistic endeavours, a monumental creative output that put the "magic" in "the Magic Kingdom." Arguably there were lesser returns post-WWII; it took eight years after Bambi for Walt Disney to produce his next full-fledged animated feature, Cinderella, a return to the bread-and-butter subject matter. It's the well-known fairy tale about a downtrodden step-child of an abusive mother, who, with the help of the magical creatures of the land and a fairy godmother, usurp the destinies of her evil step-sisters to capture the heart of the handsome prince.
Uncle Walt always preferred the collaborative method of animation, assigning sequences to different animators, the effect of which made each film feel like a series of sequenced set pieces. In Cinderella this feeling remains. Of the memorable standalone scenes there's the action-oriented interactions of Lucifer the evil cat and the helpful mice; the dressmaking sequence, where the magical animals of the kingdom work together to craft the dress for Cinderella to wear to the ball; and, of course, the fairy godmother's transformation of Cinderella in preparation for the ball, including the memorable "Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo" song.
Cinderella features some of the most striking visual compositions of any of the Disney features; it was the most baroque of the Disney films up until then. The step-mother's castle is wonderfully Roman-esque. Inspired by the Neuschwanstein Castle of Bavaria, it became the most iconic of the Disney brand imagery. Disney uses this elegant but imposing extravagance throughout the film ― look for the expressive use of long shadows and other haunting noir and Gothic imagery to create the film's unique, brooding, Germanic feeling.
The special features of the Disney Diamond Collection include an alternative opening scene, a look back at the real-life inspiration for the memorable fairy godmother character, a more comprehensive making-of featurette and a short film based on a new CGI animated feature Tangled. It's a curious addition that shows the dramatic difference of animation styles between 1950 and today.
This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca
Friday, 12 October 2012
Dial M for Murder
Murder was never more fun and exciting for Alfred Hitchcock than in 'Dial M for Murder', a delightful chamber-piece murder mystery of sorts, now restored in its original 3D state, with those old fashioned red/blue style glasses (though modernized slightly for more comfort). Though the trauma of poor Margot Wallace (Kelly) going through an attempted murder is cause for a brief pause for reflection, Hitchcock keeps the mood light and gamely, treating murder like an intellectual chess match.
Dial M for Murder (1953) dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, Robert Cummings, Anthony Dawson, John Williams
By Alan Bacchus
Historically Dial M always seems to have gotten the short shrift compared to Hitchcock's later and more revered pictures, such as Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho. Dial M certainly demands less of its audience than the psychologically intricacies of other films, but it more than makes up for its psychological shortage by being one of Hitchcock's most focused and thus entertaining films.
Hitch confidently has us rooting for the charming but devious Tony Wendice (Milland), a former tennis pro, long since retired but married to the well-off socialite Margot Wendice. Tony’s back story is lightly touched upon, but upon closer examination it reveals his disdain for his wife and his personal insecurities, which have driven him to the point of first degree murder. On the surface it’s Margot’s infidelity with an American writer, Mark Halliday (Cummings), but we can’t help but postulate this scheme as a long con. Perhaps Tony quietly ignored Margot on purpose, which caused her to seek the company of another man, thus indirectly giving Tony permission in his own mind to plan a murder.
Tony’s plan and alibi are impressively elaborate. At first he sets up a former school mate of his, Anthony Swann, a man with a checkered past, with the ability and experience for killing but also naïve enough to be the fall guy if need be. This is all spelled out in one long carefully written and performed dialogue scene between Ray Milland and Anthony Dawson, Tony’s persuasion of Swann being utterly diabolical, nasty and Faustian in its manipulation.
With the plan set and details planned out and expounded to Swann, Hitchcock sets off the Rube Goldberg chain of events, with the audience placed as spectators to Tony’s game of murder. Hitch, of course, throws in a wicked twist when Margot survives the death, causing Tony to improvise a new plan. Hitchcock’s direction of Milland is precise. Every glance and gesture in the fallout of the attempted murder is carefully shot. Milland’s thought process and reaction to every detail of evidence oozes tension and suspense. Here Hitchcock is in full command of his audience: as Tony scrambles to put together a new plan, we desperately want him to get away with it!
Enter the fanciful police chief Inspector Hubbard (Williams), who has a different kind of disaffecting charm masquerading as ice cold intelligence. Hubbard’s dissection of the murder is as quietly surgical as Tony’s scheme. And in between the polite and polished game of mental chess between the Brits is the American mystery writer Halliday, who as a typical American is delightfully bullish with his methods. He backs into Tony’s alibi and accidentally unravels the case.
Stylistically, the film is controlled in the usual Hitchcock fashion. Hitch, like he did with Rope and Lifeboat, voluntarily sequesters himself into one location, the Wendice apartment, finding innumerable ways to shoot the same space over and over again without the feeling of staleness. Most of the film is shot with traditional coverage, thus enhancing the effect of his unusual dramatics angles, specifically his use of the high-angle shot when relaying the geographical details of the plans.
If anything, the 3D effect is underwhelming. For years watching the film in 2D I wondered how Hitch’s use of the seemingly omnipresent table lamp seen in the foreground of many of the shots would look in 3D. Sadly it’s minimal. But the greatest effect is the expansion of the depth of the space/set back into the screen. Thus, instead of objects jumping out at the audience, Hitch's 3D pushes them back into the screen. But this is now the modus operandi of today’s 3D filmmakers, once again proving Alfred Hitchcock’s position way ahead of the curve.
****
Friday, 17 August 2012
The Seven Year Itch
Boasting Marilyn Monroe’s signature image with her standing over the subway grating on the street allowing the rush of wind to run up her skirt, 'The Seven Year Itch' is buoyed by Monroe’s oozing sexuality. Looking back over the years, the film is stagey and overly dependent on Tom Ewell’s miscasting as a loyal husband tempted by the allure of Monroe. Though a tad dated, it's Monroe who continues to dazzle us so many years later.
The Seven Year Itch (1955) dir. Billy Wilder
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Tom Ewell, Evelyn Keyes
By Alan Bacchus
We’re in Billy Wilder territory here, a coy sexual comedy constantly riding the edge of moral acceptability by the then-ancient Hayes code. Richard Sherman (Ewell) is saying goodbye to his wife and son, who vacation upstate in the summer. Left on his own, he waxes on about his own virility and his peers’ falling victim to the flirtations of women when on their own. For Sherman, he’s at the seven year point of his marriage, the seven year itch, thus the period when the allure of the opposite sex is most tempting.
And along comes Marilyn Monroe, the occupant of the apartment upstairs, who arrives like gang busters, hot and sweaty on the hottest day of the summer. Sherman has air conditioning and the girl doesn’t. And so begins the comedic courtship with Sherman desperately trying to stave off Monroe’s indirect but arousing sexual advances.
Watching Ewell’s uncharismatic fumbling, we can’t help but wonder why Jack Lemmon wasn't in this film. Tom Ewell was cast because of his performance on Broadway from where this film originated. In fact, as featured on the DVD, Walter Matthau auditioned for the part. Sadly we’re left with Ewell, mostly inert and dull.
It’s an extremely difficult part. Richard Sherman dominates the film, much of it with him alone on the screen imagining his relationship with Monroe and much of it literally talking to himself in soliloquy. Where a stage production could get away with this omniscient inner voice, the sight of Ewell expounding at length on his thoughts and actions in the first person is at times excruciating.
The film sizzles when Ms. Monroe is present. She admirably plays up her image as a sextress, playing Sherman’s neighbour as a dim blonde unaware of her magnetic effect on men. Monroe fits the skin of this character as well as her eye-popping, form-fitting outfits. And there are a number of them, from the white flowing sundress in the subway scene to the randy jungle-pattern dress in Sherman’s early fantasy sequence, Wilder maximizes Monroe’s presence.
Famously, Monroe was a difficult performer on set. Her marriage with Joe DiMaggio, who was present on set, disrupted a number of suggestive scenes. And her periods of depression helped billow production costs and the schedule beyond the original budget. But these effects are invisible to the final result, one of the iconic Monroe films, a landmark in the era of the Great American sex comedies of the '50s and '60s.
***
The Seven Year Itch is available on Blu-ray in the Forever Marilyn Collection from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
Friday, 10 August 2012
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Howard Hawks’ screwball comedy is a man-hunting classic featuring Marilyn Monroe as a shameless gold-digger on a cruise with her showgirl partner, Dorothy (Jane Russell), a horny brunette who prefers her men athletic and viral. As part of Fox’s Marilyn Collection on Blu-ray, Hawks’ superlative Technicolor production is an eye-popping musical delight.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) dir. Howard Hawks
Starring: Marilyn Monroe, Jane Russell, Charles Coburn, Elliot Reid, Tommy Noonan
By Alan Bacchus
After getting engaged to Gus, a rich but meek and shy nave, Lorelei and Dorothy have to travel to Europe to meet and appease Gus's controlling father. Unbeknownst to them, Gus's father has hired Ernie Malone, a private detective, to spy on them. While on the cruise, Lorelei becomes distracted by an elderly but wealthy diamond tycoon, Piggy Beekman, which Malone catches on camera. Enter Dorothy, Lorelei’s watchful protector, who uses her sexual allure to retrieve the disparaging photos. Complicating matters is Dorothy actually falling for Malone, just one of the many complications in Charles Lederer’s delirious screwball plotting.
Marilyn Monroe is at her most luscious, desirable and awkwardly hilarious. As the ditzy blonde sexpot, she is in fine form. Her cutesy voice can break glass, but her voice occasionally falters into a regular woman’s voice, hinting at some vulnerability beneath her persona. Jane Russell is no slouch for sex appeal either. Though I didn’t keep track, both Monroe and Russell seem to change outfits in almost every scene. At the very least, from a fashion standpoint the film predates the Sex and the City effect of setting fashion trends.
Hawks’ musical sequences are crafted to perfection. The opening number, ‘The Wrong Side of the Tracks’, essentially establishes the backstory. Lorelei and Dorothy, who had their hearts broken by men, leave the small town for fame and fortune in New York only to discover that men are the same everywhere. Thus, we establish a pair of career gals. Over the course of the film they fall in and out of love, but they never relinquish their control and independence in their lives.
Russell offers strong support, but the film is clearly written around Monroe. Dorothy’s confident and authoritarian attitude is a terrific contrast to Lorelei’s wondering eyes. Russell gets one solo musical number featuring a dance around a couple dozen shirtless and vain men bathing in the swimming pool, a sequence which coyly speaks to Dorothy’s libidinous desires and empowers her with sexual control.
The most famous sequence comes in the third act. ‘Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend’ is iconic in its imagery of Monroe dressed in bright pink against a red background being carried around by tuxedo-clad men and singing about her penchant for diamonds. Jack Cole’s choreography is expertly executed by Monroe, arguably solidifying her as the most desirable celebrity in the world at the time. It’s less of a traditional dance sequence, but something Busby Berkeley might have designed, a sequence masterfully designed and composed to worship Ms. Monroe.
***½
The glorious high definition transfer of the picture also deserves worship. The 20th Century Fox box set features other Monroe classics 'How to Marry a Millionaire', 'River of No Return', 'There’s No Business Like Show Business', 'The Misfits' and 'Some Like It Hot'.
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Summer With Monika
Perhaps the most influential film of Bergman’s early work, the one often cited as launching his international career, and certainly one of Woody Allen’s favourite films from the director he famously idolizes. The liberal and frank attitudes toward sex, nudity and its association with violence gained some notoriety in the day, but it's the enthralling dramatic arc of its rebellious lovers-on-the-run characters that resonates so strongly with today’s eyes.
Summer with Monika (1953) dir. Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Harriet Andersson, Lars Ekborg
By Alan Bacchus
Like Bergman’s previous Summer Interlude, we’re back in the Swedish archipelago summer vacation spot charting the course of a romantic adventure, which starts out as freewheeling love but devolves when reality crushes their naive dreams of romantic grandeur. While this is Swedish bleakness at its best, it's not the art house alienating kind like much of his mid- and late-career works.
Bergman begins with one of the quickest courtships in cinema history. Harry and Monika are underachieving teenagers, working dead-end jobs with no career prospects. They happen to sit near each other at a local café. It takes no longer than a minute of conversation before Monika asks Harry to run away with him. Monika is escaping her drunken father, who beats her at night, and the sexist ogling of her chauvinist male co-workers. As for Harry, he has a feeling of not fitting in, being ridiculed for dating the town 'slut' and an overall emasculation from his peers. This kind of teenager trauma bonds the two causing them to run away like Bonnie and Clyde.
It’s the start of a long emotional and adventurous journey, which takes them to the Swedish countryside, living an idealistic life off the grid and away from the evils of society. We see Monika and Harry frolicking in the nude, making love whenever they want and living a free life. Eventually, food runs out causing Monika to steal some at a rib roast – a wonderful scene not unlike Jean Valjean stealing his loaf of bread. Bergman has Monika stealing the meat from another vacationing family and running off into the woods eating it like a rabid starving animal. This scene dramatically begins the downfall of the couple. And when Monika gets pregnant they’re forced to move back to the city and assimilate back into the world they so greatly rebelled against.
There’s a strong influence on Terrence Malick’s Badlands and Days of Heaven in this film. They share the lovers-on-the-run theme for sure, but also the dreamy romantic idealistic view of life with a strong emphasis on nature, landscape and an untainted environment.
The flashes of nudity, tongue-kissing and frank references to sex are impossible to ignore. It helped make the film and Bergman a cause-celebre in the day. The film might also have some notoriety for having one of the worst fight scenes ever. It's the culmination of a territorial battle with a neighbouring camper. After catching his rival trashing Harry's boat, the two engage in a ridiculous slapping fight, which looks more like two dolphins flippering each other than violent fisticuffs.
Bergman take his characters to task in the third act by bringing them back to the city, which wonderfully bookends the opening act. New conflicts arise as they try to keep their new family together. Monika's dilemma is visualized with an amazing shot that breaks the fourth wall (a great Bergman moment). The scene involves Monika in a conversation with Harry in a cafe, at the end of which she turns toward the camera and stares right into it. It's not so much a gaze into the audience, but rather the effect of watching Monika looking into a mirror at herself as she contemplates her new life as a mother and adult. It's a shot nothing short of greatness and the mark of a new cinema master.
****
Summer With Monika is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Tuesday, 5 June 2012
Summer Interlude
Wow, just when I thought I knew Ingmar Bergman, the master of Swedish cinema known for often impenetrable art house elegies on life and death, the rediscovery of 'Summer Interlude', an early masterwork from 1951, shows us a youthful energy and remarkably taut pacing not present in his more formal and refined works. The story of a professional ballerina looking back on a romantic summer has the brooding rigorousness of 'Black Swan' and the melodramatic pulpy brilliance of 'Mildred Pierce'.
Summer Interlude (1951) dir. Ingmar Bergman
Starring: Maj-Britt Nilsson, Birger Malmsten, Alf Kjellin, Georg Funkquist
Tragic and beguiling, Summer Interlude is definitely Swedish and all Bergman. Yet his remarkably accessible storytelling methods could have easily been mistaken for a populist Hollywood production.
In the present, Maria (Maj-Britt Nilsson) is a famous ballerina rehearsing for Swan Lake, exhausted from the rigors of the play and the backbreaking demands of her director. When she receives a mysterious package containing on old diary, she's brought back to one of the few moments in her life when work didn't dominate, a brief 'interlude' of pure unbridled passion, a romantic free spirit broken by a sudden tragic ending.
Summer Interlude fits in with a number of Bergman films from the '50s, including Summer With Monika and Wild Strawberries, which use the Swedish summer vacation as their backdrop. It's not an arbitrary period either as, unlike North American society, summer vacation in Sweden means a two-month break during which citizens free themselves from the shackles of everyday life for the pastoral serenity of the country.
Maria's vacation takes place in a stunning rocky archipelago, and while frolicking in her bikini she meets her romantic partner, Henrik, an idealistic student entranced by Maria's gracefulness and beauty. Their time together is blissful until Maria's devotion to her dance interrupts their impenetrable bond. Bergman intercuts Maria's solemn recollections strolling through the people and places of her past with these dreamy flashbacks of romance. It's a devious narrative arc, taking us from the highs of summer passion to gradually disintegrating their relationship when they eventually come to terms with the fact that their careers will prevent them from going any further than a summer tryst to a tragic conclusion that continues to haunt Maria in the present.
These emotional layers are masterfully controlled by Bergman. If you ever had preconceptions of him as a solemn filmmaker with a methodical style just watch the energy of his mise-en-scene - his compositions and camera movement and the choreography of his actors within the frame. The present day sequences in the ballet are choreographed with remarkable energy. His camerawork is fresh and as lively as the Hollywood studio master of this style, Michael Curtiz (Casablanca). Of course, Bergman was famously influenced by his family's career in the theatre, and so his visualization of this world is strong and dynamic.
With the use of Swan Lake and the attention paid to the half-dozen dance sequences, the intensity of which contrasts with the serenity of Maria's summer interlude, I can't help but be reminded of Darren Aronofsky's use of the same material in Black Swan.
Other stylistic flourishes which draw attention to Bergman as director and auteur include the use of long dissolves moving us elegantly between time frames, but in a way that's more than functional, bringing us into the introspective regret of the lead character. There's even a headscratching animated sequence, hand drawn stick figures that come to life on a record listened to by Henrik and Maria.
The emotional journey and the pulpy and passionate treatment of this kind of tragic love story at best showcases Bergman's tremendous cinematic arsenal and power over the medium, even at a young age. He's a true cinema master who can beguile us with intellectual dissertations such as The Seventh Seal and Persona but also titillate us with romance and Hitchcockian mystery like Summer Interlude.
****
Summer Interlude is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Wednesday, 9 May 2012
A Streetcar Named Desire
Starring: Marlon Brando, Vivien Leigh, Karl Malden, Kim Hunter
By Alan Bacchus
As an exercise in research, I read some of the original reviews for A Streetcar Named Desire, both the 1951 film and the original Broadway play. Surprisingly, very little was made of Marlon Brando, then brand new to both Broadway and Hollywood. Brando's role as Stanley Kowalski, of course, is now almost universally recognized as ground zero for the dramatic shift away from the classical Hollywood studio form of acting to the immersive method style. And yet the original Variety review is surprisingly understated in their praise, writing, "Marlon Brando, at times, captures strongly the brutality of the young Pole, but occasionally he performs unevenly in a portrayal marked by frequent garbling of his dialog." And in the original New York Times stage review, Brando barely gets a mention, "…the rest of the acting is also of very high quality indeed. Marlon Brando as the quick-tempered, scornful, violent mechanic." These statements, with today's eyes, read as hilariously gross understatements.
Today it's impossible not to watch Kazan's film adaptation of Streetcar without centring on Brando; he's so dominant. And, honestly, its illustrious place in cinema notwithstanding, other than Brando, the film is plainly modest and stagey. Tennessee Williams' brooding, loquacious dialogue, read with singsong lyricism by Oscar-winner Vivien Leigh, always feels written and performed, never naturalistic, as intended by the method.
"The method", of course, refers to the way in which actors inhabit their characters, working from the inside out to bring their emotions and experiences to the outside. Here, it's not just Brando but the performances of Kim Hunter and Karl Malden as well. But this was also a time when actors took themselves very seriously, and much of the film feels heavy and weighed down by the lumbering devotion to Williams' words.
All except for Brando, who appears to be transported from another dimension into this film. He's so good, so magnetic ― a dynamo. Stanley Kowalski here is less a creation of Williams then an expression of Brando, his personality commanding the screen. His outward appearance is a thing to behold, boldly showing off a kind of musculature we never saw in leading men, nimbly moving around the set with ease, eyes wandering around the space, his hands, fingers and feet constantly in motion. "Actor's business" it's called: little gestures to hypnotize us to Stanley Kowalski's magnetism.
It was the ideal showcase for Brando; it wasn't his first role, but the one best suited to launch him. The creation of Stanley Kowalski was synonymous with the creation of Brando the star ― elusive and enigmatic. And so anyone trying to analyze Streetcar always goes back to Brando.
As expected, the Warner Blu-ray is beautifully packaged with featurettes on the influence of Brando, as well as his treasured screen test, in which he performs a scene from a then un-produced A Rebel Without a Cause! Other features have been cherry-picked from the DVD special edition, including Richard Schickel's documentary on Kazan, a commentary track featuring Schickel, Maldon, Rudy Behlmer and Jeff Young, and unmemorable minute fractions of outtakes unseen in the final film.
This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca
Thursday, 5 April 2012
A Night to Remember
Starring: Kenneth More, Michael Goodliffe, Frank Lawton, Richard Leech, David McCallum
****
By Alan Bacchus
Timed with the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, not to mention the 3D version of James Cameron’s Titanic, is The Criterion Collection edition of the glorious version of the Titanic story. This is a must-see picture, a little-discussed epic masterpiece astonishing in its production value and moving emotional power.
The James Cameron version is no doubt a massive spectacle, which, however corny at times, delivers the drama of the event on every level. The same can be said of Roy Ward Baker’s British film, made 40 years earlier. Cameron has never been shy to borrow, cheat or steal from films of the past. Terminator successfully reworked some of the time travel cleverness of Chris Marker’s La Jetee. His Aliens film, though not cinematically linked, certainly has a reverent use of Robert A. Heinlein story elements. And True Lies definitely gave credit to the 1991 French film, La Totale!
There’s no doubt Cameron took influence from Baker’s film, resorting to blatant theft in numerous scenes that are choreographed and shot exactly the same as Baker’s. This, of course, is the sincerest form of flattery.
Baker begins his film by introducing a number of his characters kissing their loved ones goodbye before their short-lived journey aboard the famed ill-fated boat. It doesn’t take long before we’re on the boat sailing off into the Atlantic. Baker expertly introduces a number of characters, many of which are the familiar roles from other Titanic adaptations - Edward Smith, the ship’s captain; William Murdoch, the first officer; Bruce Ismay, the White Star Line Chairman; Thomas Andrews, the ship builder; and Charles Lightoller (More), the second officer. The latter two serve as the de facto ‘heroes’ of the film, who fight the hardest to save the crew.
Baker hits all the well established events that lead up to the sinking, including the sighting of the iceberg, the response of the neighbouring ships, the Carpathia and the California, the quick acknowledgement of the engineer and the captain of the fate of the ship, the shamefully inadequate evacuation procedures of the crew and the frightening wait for rescue in the icy Atlantic waters after the sinking.
He expertly lays out all these events with procedural-like efficiency. They’re so good and effective, many of Baker’s scenes are carbon copied into Cameron’s. Like Cameron’s, the production design of the ship’s interior and exterior is impeccably recreated, and the use of a scale ship model in a studio water tank lends the same kind of invisible authenticity. Cameron directly lifts the scene when the band, dutifully playing through all the chaos of the evacuation, splits up to go their separate ways then is coaxed back together when one of the violinists stays to play on by himself.
Before Cameron, Baker plotted out a mutiny of sorts by the Irish steerage passengers, who break through the barred-in doors despite the protests of the ineffectual and naive crew members. The final moments for Andrews, the engineer who goes down with the ship but not before he takes the time to adjust the clock as a testament to his calm heroic demeanour, are as poignant as Cameron’s. And lastly, the disgraceful departure of White Star Line Chairman Bruce Ismay is duplicated shot-for-shot by Cameron with Ismay shamefully stepping into a lifeboat, witnessed by the judgemental eyes of the second officer. In both versions it becomes a touchstone moment for the cowardice of Ismay and the tragic irony of the whole affair.
What is certainly missing from Baker’s film is a love story, though not at the sacrifice of the tragic and deeply emotional individual stories of heroism and tragedy from the point of the varied crew members. The central through line in A Night to Remember is the scathing theme of class hierarchy and the stubbornness of the arrogant rich folks who believed the ship couldn’t sink. The tragically ironic story for the ages is made into a spectacle for the ages.
A Night to Remember is available on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.
Monday, 12 March 2012
North West Frontier
Starring: Kenneth More, Lauren Bacall, Herbert Lom
****
By Alan Bacchus
If you haven't brushed up on your history or geography, the title of this film might suggest a western, perhaps set in the snowcapped Rockies. In fact, North West Frontier refers to the contentious Muslim province of India, now Pakistan, once ruled by the British during their colonization of the country. It's a fresh environment for what turns out to be an underappreciated rediscovery, a near masterpiece of classic action cinema.
It's the turn of the century and the palace of a six-year-old Hindu Maharaja has just been overrun by a group of Moslem rebels. With his coterie of caretakers, British officer Captain Scott (Kenneth More) leads the survivors on a journey to a secure military base on a ramshackle locomotive engine. For fans of action and epic cinema, how can you not be intrigued by a story that takes place entirely on a train armed with a rotating automatic machine gun and people on the run from an army of horseback riding, gun-toting rebels set in India?
Before he hacked out all those atrocious Charles Bronson pictures in the '80s, J. Lee Thompson, a prolific director of action/thrillers such as Guns of Navarone and Cape Fear, shows the inspiration of youth in 1959. He shoots the majority of the film on an actual train through the real landscape of India. Perhaps influenced by the on-location realism of David Lean's Bridge on the River Kwai, Thompson's cinemascope action is unencumbered by stagy process shots or studio fakery — an integrity and authenticity that is not lost on today's eyes.
Tagging along with Scott and the young prince are a number of warm and conflicting characters that make the non-action scenes more than tolerable. Lauren Bacall is a commanding presence, not to mention stunning, as the free-spirited American widow who, when not protecting the boy, quarrels with Scott about the differences between Americans and the British. The smarmy Dutch journalist, Van Laydan, played with wonderful Peter Lorre-esque creepiness by Herbert Lom, is the unknown traitor within the group. It's not all imperialist heroism though, as the affable train engineer, Gupta, emerges as a courageous hero.
But it's the razor-sharp action and focused plotting that keeps this film on the rails. Politics are kept to a minimum (Thompson never leaves his heroes), and the train never (or rarely) stops moving. In fact, when the train does stop, the quiet stillness makes for a handful of scenes of remarkable Hitchcock-worthy tension. Like other recent MGM releases, it's a no frills, menu-less release. No matter, we don't need Peter Bogdanovich analyzing this one; we should just be happy to have this minor cinematic revelation on DVD.
This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca
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