With today’s eyes this version of the Battle of Thermopylae serves only ‘Sword and Sandal’ genre enthusiasts (although this one was Greek-made with Hollywood involvement) and curiosity seekers interested in the origins of Frank Miller’s cult graphic novel 300 and by association the monumentally successful Zach Snyder film. Otherwise it’s a dull historical actioner from start to finish.
Showing posts with label Epic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Epic. Show all posts
Thursday, 6 March 2014
Wednesday, 12 June 2013
Cleopatra
'Cleopatra', notable for being the most expensive movie ever made, the subject of heavily-consumed gossip fodder, and it’s place as one of biggest Hollywood ‘flops’ of its time, carries a lot of baggage. But unlike the glorious rediscovery and new appreciation of Michael Cimino's equally-loaded 'Heaven’s Gate', 'Cleopatra' never surmounts its expectations as a bloated and creatively bland sword and sandal picture.
Monday, 3 December 2012
Lawrence of Arabia
Its excellence in spectacle cinema notwithstanding, as long as the Middle East is in conflict, Lawrence of Arabia will be a relevant and timeless film. As Arab states battle against their Israel neighbours today, David Lean's lauded and legendary epic follows the plight of the Arabs in the days of WWI through the eyes of T.E. Lawrence, the eccentric British officer who sought to unite the separate Arab tribes of the region against Turkish oppressors, sometimes in the name of the British King, sometimes in the name of his egotistical ambitions.
Lawrence of Arabia (1962) dir. David Lean
Starring: Peter O'Toole, Omar Sharif, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Quayle, Alec Guinness
By Alan Bacchus
While there isn't a single female in the film — it's three hours and 42 minutes of masculinity — the romantic feeling is strong. A romance of the windswept Middle Eastern deserts, the spiritual connection to the rigors of the untamed environment and the exotic culture of the Arabic peoples. Cinematographer Freddie Young's unrivalled 70mm photography translates marvelously to high definition Blu-ray. Each shot is so rich, detailed and classically precise that, at times, it looks as if we're viewing a Jacques-Louis David Neoclassical painting.
As cinematically epic as the visuals are, the marvel of the film is Lean's ability to create intimacy within his broad canvas. Peter O'Toole's iconic performance as Lawrence is still as marvellous, delightful and mysterious as ever. It's hard to imagine anyone else's striking blonde hair or piercing blue eyes on the screen. Lean elegantly weaves in the political narrative with Lawrence's ascendance as a military officer. Like his Arab compatriot, Lawrence is inextricably linked by the independent, vagabond lifestyle. Lawrence never fits in anywhere; he's uncomfortable in the starched British officer's uniform and is never fully accepted wearing the Arab attire given to him by the people he's trying to save. O'Toole's off-kilter performance is lyrical, poetic and, at times, grating and abrasive.
Some of the most memorable visual moments in the film are the smallest: the introduction of Omar Sharif, emerging from a mirage, is always discussed. However, a smaller but equally significant moment is Lawrence's decision to take Aqaba, the port city protected by massive Turkish guns. The decisive moment is visualized by two Arab minions who accidentally hit him in the back with a rock. For days they had been sitting in agonizing contemplation of how to turn the tide of war. The seemingly insignificant and accidental action becomes the plan to cross the un-crossable desert and attack Aqaba from behind. The pay-off is one of the greatest sequences and shots in cinema history. The Aqaba attack sequence is brilliantly choreographed with thousands of extras and horses in real time and space, mixing intense on-the-ground close-ups with awe-inspiring wide shots from the hillside. It's capped off with a superlative long take of the camera panning over the army of horses running through the Aqaba village, ending on those heavy artillery guns looking out towards the sea.
Still, as much as the film is beloved, some issues remain. Despite the casting of Omar Sharif, we still have to endure Brits and Americans, such as Sir Alec Guinness, Anthony Quinn and Jose Ferrer, playing Arabs and Turks with fake noses and dark face. And it's impossible not to feel the lack of narrative momentum after the intermission — there's no doubt the film's best moments are in the first half.
The Sony Blu-ray comes in two options: a massive box set and a cheaper but still impressive two-disc set. The smaller edition contains two new featurettes for the HD release: a comprehensive discussion with Peter O'Toole reflecting on the film and his creative collaborators, and an interactive featurette that incorporates tidbits of production and historical information into the film. Archived featurettes range from documentaries dating back to the '60s and '70s, material from its restoration in the early '90s and material created for its DVD release in the '00s.
This review first appeared on Exclaim.ca
Thursday, 24 March 2011
The Ten Commandments
Starring: Charlton Heston, Yul Bynner, Edward G. Robinson, Anne Baxter, John Derek
***
By Alan Bacchus
Is there any point in 'critiquing' this film, since it's already permanently inked into pop culture and cinema history? After all, like It's a Wonderful Life is to Christmas, The Ten Commandments is to Easter/Passover. It would be easy to completely dismiss this film as a terribly dated, overly preachy and simplistic treatment of the Moses story, which, to fresh eyes, it might seem. Watching all three-and-a-half hours of it straight, it's hard to avoid squirming in my seat, checking my iPhone and finding other things to pass the time in between the slow parts. And yet there is something special and magical about this film that renders it relevant in today's overly stimulated post-modern cultural landscape.
The story, which has been the foundation of archetypal storytelling for centuries, is told with a clear, unclouded simplicity. Sometimes we desire our characters to tell it to us straight. And this is what we get from Cecil B. DeMille's second crack at this story (the first being his silent film from 1926). Before we even get to the story and after a bit of Elmer Bernstein's grand score in the overture, the head of Paramount Studios introduces the film to tell us about the importance of the picture and the source texts used to create the narrative. Already we're intrigued and on the edge of our seats. Then we're shown the early events in Moses' life, including The Pharaoh's decree to murder the newborn children of every Jewish household in order to kill the prophesized 'saviour' of the Jews from living. We see Moses being put in the basket by his mother and being found and taken in by Egyptian royalty.
The most interesting part of the film is the chapter of Moses' life in which he was the 'Prince of Egypt' engaged in a heated rivalry with his brother Rameses (Yul Brynner) to be the heir to the Pharaoh's throne. We know Moses will be the saviour of the Jews and so his actions as the enemy of his own people are wonderfully intriguing and filled with all kinds of internal conflict and subtext. Ok, sure the subtext is hit squarely on our heads with little to confuse us, but the drama of, say, Moses saving his mother from being crushed by the giant rock being driven by the autocratic Egyptian slave driver is highly dramatic and resonant. The same goes for Moses' conversion back to Judaism, forgoing his place in royalty for his birthright home as a Jew. The internal conflict is not lost on us, and as dramatized by DeMille, Heston, et al, we can feel all the archetypal significance of this decision.
Where the film loses momentum is during the events after Moses' conversion when he seems to instantly become a deified hero channelling the word of the Lord. As such, Moses becomes castrated and devoid of any significant internal conflict or flavour. The events in the second half of the picture simply recount the roll call of Biblical events we expect to see: the ten plagues, Passover, the Exodus from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea and the proclamation of the Ten Commandments atop Mount Sinai. By the end, the dialogue sounds like pure scripture lifted directly from the Bible and preached to us like a sermon.
But it's in this latter half where we get the spectacle of Cecil B. DeMille, the legendary cinematic showman—light on character but heavy on spectacle. DeMille was in his 70s when he made The Ten Commandments and sadly the film looks 20 years out of date. DeMille's insistence on strict studio-created locations, both interior and exterior, can't compete with the film's epic contemporaries. We can look past the theatrical staging of the dialogue scenes, especially the wooden 'period' dialogue (something no one, not even Kubrick, could crack), but the action scenes and moments of grandeur are ineffectually aided by rudimentary blue screen work. Of course, we have to remember it was 1956, and this film was one of the first to use this kind of compositing, which differed from the in-camera use of rear projection. But here the optical process work is so distractingly garish, it's hard to forgive.
That said, the parting of the Red Sea sequence is still a thrilling set piece built up and teased to us with great skill by DeMille. The ominous grey cloud cover that envelopes the land before Moses channels the power of God and parts the waters is the best special effect in the film.
On Blu-ray, we also get an added sense of scope not present in non-theatrical presentations of the film. It's impossible not to be mesmerized by the bold colours that pop out at us, the crisp sound of Elmer Bernstein's score and the restored 5.1 HD sound restoration.
The Ten Commandments is available on Blu-ray from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment.
Saturday, 19 March 2011
King of Kings
Starring: Jeffrey Hunter, Siobhán McKenna, Robert Ryan
**1/2
By Alan Bacchus
It’s almost Spring, which means March Madness of course, but it also means another kind of March madness of sorts – biblical movies! With Lent, Mardi Gras, Easter and other significant Christian holidays coming up, we’ll start to see all the familiar religious epics again. A bunch of them will be re-released on Blu-ray. I love these pictures, even though most of them are not very good. And I’m not anything remotely close to religious; hell, I’m not even baptized, but I do love my biblical epics.
First up is King of Kings starring Jeffrey Hunter as Jesus. As I mentioned, I love these movies, but I particularly love Samuel Bronston films. Mr. Bronston was one of the great independent international producers working in Europe but with Hollywood talent. Unfortunately, he fell into bankruptcy and eventually financial fraud. But before that, he produced two of my favourite spectacle films – El Cid and Fall of the Roman Empire. However, the film that helped birth both of those pictures was the success of 1961’s King of Kings.
Unfortunately, it’s not Bronston’s finest hour (or should I say three hours), but it contains all the corny and demonstrative pomp and circumstance common to this brand of historical epic. It has widescreen expansive shots featuring thousands of extras populating the huge canvas, sharp and colourful 70mm photography that pops so beautifully on Blu-ray and a rousing inspiring score by Bronston’s preferred composer Miklós Rózsa.
The opening 20 minutes or so is terrific, a lengthy bit of exposition narrated by Orson Welles describing the historical background of Rome and its relationship to Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Then the film settles down into the expected scenes starting with Jesus' birth in the stable, his early adulthood and 40-day/40-night fast in the desert, his Baptism, his miracles, his entry into Jerusalem, his incarceration, his trial, and his eventual crucifixion and ressurection.
Unfortunately, Bronston and director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without a Cause) seem utterly frightful of painting Jesus in any other light than complete deification, so much so that Hunter rarely has to act or express any emotions. He floats around the movie impervious to any conflict from his enemies. This is in stark contrast to say, Willem Dafoe’s Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ.
Most of the life in the film comes from the people around Jesus who are affected by his presence, particularly the Apostle Judas, Barabbas and John the Baptist. The Romans are given equal, if not more, screen time then Jesus and his followers. It results in the usual 'Roman-speak' and the political jabbing we saw in every Roman film before it. Oddly, Barabbas, who I believe does little in the actual story of Jesus, is expanded into a significant character who organized the Jews against the Romans. It’s perhaps the only resonant aspect of the story, which comments upon imperialism and the Western occupation of other 'third world' countries.
Despite the success of the film, King of Kings is Bronston’s weakest and least rousing spectacle film, an adequate re-creation of the bible for puritan interests only.
King of Kings is available Blu-ray from Warner Home Entertainment.
Monday, 23 August 2010
Hamlet
Starring: Kenneth Branagh, Kate Winslet, Derek Jacobi, Julie Christie
****
by Alan Bacchus
One of my most cherished cinema experiences is the 70mm special presentation of “Hamlet” in 1996 at Toronto's now-defunct Eglinton cinema. It was the first film exclusively-shot and projected in 70mm since Ron Howard’s “Far and Away”. It was a dying form of cinema and the “Hamlet” experience will likely be the last (we haven't had a 70mm since then). On the big screen, properly screened with a 70mm print, and in the wonderful gothic-style cinema it was a majestic experience.
Now Kenneth Brangh's "Hamlet" gets its long overdue Blu-Ray release for the first time. And though the small screen is never the best venue for a big film such as this, it’s still a wonderful movie and one of the best filmed adaptations of Shakespeare.
Shakespearian language is always a tough nut to crack, and though I've studied the play, seen multiple versions of the movie, and seen it on stage I still only retain about a quarter of the dialogue. Some characters speak more elaborately than others but it's Hamlet, the most psychological of the characters, who is the most complex. His metaphors, puns, similies and other witty jargon is almost incomprehensible. But Branagh is sure to use body language and voice emotion to convey the meaning of his words visually. At times, during his soliquies Branagh overacts, expounding loud, boisterous shouting, then seguing into quiet careful whispers. When performing this with no one around it can look like bad acting, but it's in service of making the film understandable and it works.
“Hamlet” is Shakespeare’s longest and densest play. And Branagh’s “Hamlet” is the first version to film the full, unedited text of the play. This resulted in a film with a 4-hour running time, one of the longest English-language Hollywood films of all time. But the full-text, 4 hour, 70mm aspects are not just gimmicks, Branagh delivers a truly epic film bigger than any filmed version of Hamlet.
Branagh sets his version in a bright and colourful late 19th century Russian-inspired estate – perhaps inspired by “Nicholas and Alexandra”. It seems to be a conscious choice to escape the usual dark and echoey medieval confines of most other Hamlet renditions. Branagh is aided by Alex Thomson's lush 70mm photography. Take a closer look at the shallowness of the depth of field. Branagh has remarked that on some closeups, depending on the camera angle, he often had to choose which eye to hold focus on - note: 'depth of field' refers to how much of a shot is in focus. The longer the lens length, the less depth of field, but also the bigger the format the less depth of field. This combined with the bulky 70mm camera can make shooting more time consuming, but for Branagh and Thomson the result was some amazing and sumptuous images. And with the extensive steadycam work involved someone must have developed severe back problems.
In making a full-text, 4-hour version Branagh has given us an 'epic' which the play was meant to be. The key addition is the inclusion of the Fortinbras subplot - the Norwegian counterpart to Hamlet who invades Denmark. The famous sword-play showdown is intercut with Fortinbras' massive army attacking the castle. For the first time we get to see how the melodramatic actions and events of Elisonor resulted in not just tragic death of a family but about the loss of kingdom and country. Enjoy.
Hamlet is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video
Thursday, 19 August 2010
Centurion - Toronto After Dark Film Festival (2010)
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Dominic West and Olga Kurylenko
**
By Greg Klymkiw
Neil Marshall is one terrific director, and he comes to every film he makes with the pedigree of being an editor - in fact, two of his directorial efforts, Dog Soldiers and Doomsday were edited by himself. Sadly, it is the editing that fails his latest picture Centurion.
Marshall's brawny screenplay, loosely based on a historical record that is itself a bit murky, focuses on imagining what might have happened to an entire Roman Legion in what is now Great Britain in the early part of the first millennium. It's a solid, simple script that should have yielded a much better picture.
It tells the story of a brave centurion, Quintus Dias (Michael Fassbender) who promises his superior, General Titus Virilus (Dominic West) that he will lead a small group of Roman soldiers to safety after the entire legion has been savagely decimated in a guerrilla-styled offensive perpetrated by the merciless Picts. The rest of the movie is one long chase scene punctuated by dollops of vicious fighting. Leading the Picts is the sumptuous near perfection that is Olga Kurylenko as Etain, a warrior goddess who had her tongue cut out by the Romans when she was a child.
Kurylenko is quickly becoming one of my favourite actresses. Not only is she mind-blowingly gorgeous, the camera loves her like nothing else and I appreciate the diversity of roles she takes on. She could be an action star on the level of her Ukrainian compatriot Milla Jovovich (and probably even bigger), but if she plays her cards right, she also has the stuff to take on more roles in non-genre pieces and still deliver bigtime. In Centurion, she conveys a wide range of emotions even though, and perhaps especially because, she is forced to present her character without the benefit of dialogue. She conveys everything through action.
Speaking of "action" (in the Jerry Bruckheimer sense of the word), with a picture like Centurion, how the action scenes play out is virtually the whole shooting match. Unfortunately, much of the film feels as if it were edited with a series of multiple rapid golf club swings and slices. The first 20 minutes of battle and exposition is so choppily cut, that it's almost hard to believe the film comes from such a precise craftsman as Marshall. One only has to recall the superb craft in Marshall's The Descent where the cutting was measured for maximum impact. Even worse in Centurion, is how the relatively easy-to-follow setup is rendered utterly confusing and takes far too much effort to piece together while watching the movie. (This takes some doing considering how simple it all really is.)
It's obvious Marshall had more than enough coverage to allow for a cutting style that could hang back a bit, yet the movie's story and set pieces are foisted upon us using the currently fashionable quick cutting. Where this annoying cutting hurts the most is in the action scenes. For all of the great fight choreography and Marshall's exceptional eye, it's pretty much all for naught. The only sequence that packs a wallop the way it should is when the handful of centurions are on the run from Kurylenko and her bloodthirsty Pict warriors. The sequence works because Marshall's compositions are exquisite and the less frenetic cutting style allows the action to play out in ways that are both emotional and rooted squarely in narrative.
I detest this wham-bam-thank-you-mam style of cutting because it has little regard for how a cut can not only move things forward, but, in fact, disregards the fact that a cut is in and of itself - inherently dramatic. The cutting here has little drama - just noise and fury. One of the few directors who knows how to make this kind of cutting work is the extraordinary Paul Greengrass with his Bourne pictures, Bloody Sunday, United 93 and his latest thriller Green Zone. But with his pictures, they are designed from the get-go to be cut in this fashion and you can even tell that he knows exactly where his herky jerky shots are going and how they'll cut together. Alas, when the cutting style is employed in such a haphazard, all-over-the-place fashion as in Centurion, one fells that its makers are trying too hard - the , effect is visceral, but seldom works in service to the narrative.
The photography, production design and performances are all fine, and Marshall's distinctive approach to onscreen violence remains as vivid and original as ever. Unfortunately, the cutting - aimed at the ADHD-challenged not only sucks the life out of everything that could have worked beautifully, but in fact, for all the whizbang slicing and dicing, the picture becomes exhausting and as such, is often borderline boring. This is the sort of cutting one expects to see in a J.J. Abrams or Christopher "One Idea" Nolan effort - filmmakers who are not really born filmakers and make movies anyway in spite of having no idea how to make them.
In spite of all this, I remain a steadfast champion of Neil Marshall (hell, I'm probably one of the few people who genuinely likes Doomsday - a really fun ode to the George Miller Mad Max pictures) and I very much look forward to his next picture with considerable anticipation.
I just hope it will be better than Centurion.
The full schedule for the Toronto After Dark Film Festival can be found HERE
Sunday, 4 July 2010
Gangs of New York
Gangs of New York (2008) dir. Martin Scorsese
Starring: Leonardo Di Caprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, Liam Neeson
***1/2
By Alan Bacchus
“Gangs of New York” divided audiences in 2002. It received 10 Oscar nominations in most of the major categories. Some critics called the film the Best of the Year. Many, like myself, knowing the storied history of this ‘dream project’ for Scorsese, had high expectations and were disappointed with the result.
Seeing it in 2002 I really wanted to love the film, but couldn’t find anything beyond Day-Lewis’ remarkable performance to cling onto. The Blu-Ray release a couple years ago gave me a new appreciation of the film. After a five-year break “Gangs of New York” has improved greatly and could be considered one of the best films of that year.
"Gangs" opens with a pulsating introduction to the “Dead Rabbits” gang. Liam Neeson, an Irish Priest is preparing to go to battle. His little son, follows him around, watching him gather all his troops and warriors. Their battle tools are unsophisticated – knives, axes, hammers and other bludgeoning objects. As they walk through a series of underground fire-lit caves we still aren’t even sure when or where they are. Is it the Middle Ages? It’s only until after the camera pulls out from the bloody battleground do we realize its Manhattan in 1846.
The opening is backstory to the film when takes place 16 years after this famous battle which finds the priest’s son Amsterdam (Leonardo Di Caprio) returning home to find the killer of his father, the infamous Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis). Revenge doesn’t come easy though. Bill has become a de facto gang leader of the community, and with a new alliance with the city’s de facto politic leader, Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall (Jim Broadbent) he is now an untouchable.
The title is a bit of a misnomer. The film isn’t so much about gangs as it is about the city of New York. “Gangs” does what the best epic films do, weigh equally the big story with the small story.
The smaller story is about the evolving relationship of Bill the Butcher and Amsterdam Valone. Daniel Day-Lewis is still phenomenal as Bill. Day-Lewis’ casting and performance in “There Will Be Blood” is clearly influenced by his work in “Gangs of New York”. Day-Lewis is so good it came as a detriment to my first experience with the film. His exaggerated mannerisms chew the scenery and suck all the attention of every scene onto him. Lost in shuffle is a fine performance from Leonardo Di Caprio, who channels Hamlet-like qualities with his character’s indecisiveness. Like the Danish prince, Amsterdam wants to make a statement with Bill’s death. He says, “When you kill a king, you don't stab him in the dark. You kill him where the entire court can watch him die.” And so when Amsterdam becomes one of Bill's disciplines he finds himself admiring his enemy, complicating even further his indecision, and blurring the line between hero and villain.
The ‘bigger’ story is equally fascinating. During the Civil War, when the country was divided between North and South, New York was on its own – not neutral, but autonomous – like a separate colony with the country. And even within the city, everyone was autonomous – which is where the ‘gangs’ in the title comes from. Like the country itself, New York was constantly at war. So "Gangs" is also about the birth of New York and it's relationship with the rest of the country.
The finale, which takes place during the famous draft riots, is a great piece of writing – a scene which brings together the big story and the small story. Just as Amsterdam is about to face off with Bill, the riot starts and the federal police fight back. Amsterdam gets his revenge, but he’s alone with the man, without the fanfare he once foresaw. Bill the Butcher, one of the great villains in screen history dies with honour, neither a hero, nor a villain. Enjoy.
"Gangs of New York" is now available on Blu-Ray from Buena Vista Home Entertainment
Here’s Day-Lewis’ phenomenal dialog scene with Di Caprio:
Thursday, 1 July 2010
The Claim
Starring: Peter Mullan, Sarah Polley, Mila Jovovich, Wes Bentley, Julian Richings, Natasha Kinski
****
By Alan Bacchus
Refashioning Thomas Hardy’s novel The Mayor of Casterbridge for the post gold rush Sierra Nevadas along with a not-so-disguised influence from Robert Altman’s snowy western classic McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Michael Winterbottom created an emotional powerhouse of a film, full of brooding drama about greed, gold and deep-rooted Catholic guilt.
It’s also Winterbottom’s most beautiful film he’s shot – a classical and elegant style much different than his street realism fly-on-the-wall films such as A Might Heart or 24 Hour Party People, and on second viewing on the big screen this week at my latest Canadian Cinema in Revue screening (plug plug), it resonates as one of beautiful films of the decade (hell, yeah I said it).
Sarah Polley plays a naive waif Hope Burn who comes to the town of Kingdom Come with her TB-inflicted mother Elena (Natasha Kinski) to meet a long lost ‘relative’ Daniel Dillon (Peter Mullan). But unbeknownst to her, he’s actually her real father. Dillon runs the town like a king and hordes a stash of gold in his bank. Flashbacks recounts and reveals how Dillon’s sold his wife and baby for the deed to the land and thus his ticket to wealth. So much wealth and nothing to spend it on, but when he meets Hope for the first time, instantly a wave of guilt fuels a new zest for life and need for redemption.
At the same time, an ambitious young railroad engineer Dalglish (Wes Bentley) comes into town to survey the surrounding lands, which will ultimate cause the town to move thus nullifying everything Dillon built up in his life.
Winterbottom doubles Alberta’s Rockies for California’s Sierra Nevadas to magnificent effect. In every exterior frame he maximizes the awesomeness of the engulfing mountains, sharp darting evergreen trees which dot the background and the omnipresent snow which gusts around constantly. Remember, it was the year 2000 and CGI was a rarity, so everything in the film is real. Though CGI is able to come very close to achieving the real thing, our minds can sense fakery. And so in The Claim, when we see a young Dillon and Elena climb a mountain in a blustery snow storm the realism on the screen allows the emotions of these scenes to hit us harder.
Winterbottom crafts a number of astounding set pieces which remind us of the grandiose aspirations of David Lean, Sergio Leone and Werner Herzog. The finale, which has Dillon setting all the buildings of his town on fire is a sight to behold, not because Winterbottom actually burned down his entire set, but because it compliments Dillon’s emotional state and completes the atonement for his egregious sins against his family. There’s also the house moving scene, wherein Dillon, at his most ambitious like Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo, wills the impossible into being, steering a team of men who literally pull his house to Elena as a gift of his rekindled love. It’s also an impossible romantic moment which seals Dillon’s last courtship of his ex-wife.
And the three of four surveying scenes taking us into the Albertan and Colorado valleys of where Dalglish charts the new path of the railroad, are no less spectacular. The last of which features a trip on a vintage 19th century railroad through a curving corridor of stunning beauty.
The Claim resonates beyond the mere beauty of what’s put on the screen. Michael Nyman’s masterpiece of a score send the film into the stratosphere, going way over the top in the tradition of the classic Morricone scores composed for Sergio Leone. The moral complexities of Dillon’s journey is the stuff of great storytelling – though credit is due here to Thomas Hardy, Winterbottom’s brings it all to bear with a power only great filmmakers could do.
The pulse of the film beats all the way to the final frames. The last shot, a stunner, sums up the all consuming power of wealth which so easily corrupts the feeble minds of men.
In a new era of epic filmmaking where elements like snow, fire, background actors are ‘enhanced’ with computers, The Claim feels like a throwback epic, and perhaps the last of its kind.
Sunday, 13 June 2010
How The West Was Won
How The West Was Won (1962) dir. Henry Hathaway, John Ford, George Marshall
Starring: Carroll Baker, Walter Brennan, Lee J. Cobb, Andy Devine, Henry Fonda, Carolyn Jones, Karl Malden, Raymond Massey, Agnes Moorehead, Harry Morgan, Gregory Peck, George Peppard, Robert Preston, Debbie Reynolds, Thelma Ritter, James Stewart, Russ Tamblyn, Eli Wallach, John Wayne, Richard Widmark and narrated by Spencer Tracy
***
By Greg Klymkiw
Cinerama was one of the more insane technological advancements in motion pictures during the 50s to keep butts in theatre seats rather than said butts complacently sinking into comfy living room couches in front of the idiot box.
In its original form, though, Cinerama sounds pretty spectacular.
To make the picture, three 70mm cameras were strapped together with one shutter capturing the images. Eventually, the finished project would be screened in a specially built picture palace where the images were projected by three projectors onto a massive curved screen with a 146-degree viewing field. The screen itself was a series of intricately woven cloth strips while the seven track sound was apparently a spectacular precursor to the various permutations of Dolby Digital, etc.
Most of the movies made in Cinerama were of the travelogue variety (not unlike the majority of IMAX productions), but there were two dramatic feature films made in this fashion - the most spectacular and artistically successful being the rip-roaring epic western adventure entitled "How The West Was Won".
Sadly, I never had an opportunity to see a real Cinerama presentation of anything.
However, the Cinerama corporation created a "fake" form of the process, which frankly, seemed pretty spectacular to my young eyes - especially since the first movie I saw in the "fake" format was "2001: A Space Odyssey" which unspooled at the National General Cinema chain's mighty Grant Park Cinerama in the burbs of Winnipeg. This theatre was an odd duck since between long-run screenings of blockbusters it also featured strange pornographic filler titles like the X-rated "Alice in Wonderland", "The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio" or ribald British sex comedies like "Adventures of a Taxi Driver" with Barry Evans. Eventually, this fabulous cinema was acquired by the Cineplex Corporation and carved into a bland multiplex.
In any event, the "fake" Cinerama kicked butt, but in retrospect, I still think I would have given anything to see one of the original Cinerama productions in a venue specifically designed for the original Cinerama process.
As for "How the West Was Won", my first (and subsequent) big screen helpings were in a 3000-seat picture palace with a flat screen and an optically enhanced 70mm print projected on to it.
Given the rousing, non-stop western action the picture delivered, I was more than enamoured with the results as a youngster. Sadly, many venues featured anamorphic 35mm screenings that must have paled miserably in comparison to the real thing and/or the 70mm screenings. The image is so wide and sprawling that it would have been impossible to even make out the individual characters since in the 35mm format, everyone would have looked like dots against the big scenery.
This, of course, was a problem with subsequent home viewings. Over the years I saw the film on Beta, VHS, Laserdisc and DVD and they all paled in comparison to the big screen 70mm version I'd seen as a kid. That said, the movie was as rollicking as ever - not the most sophisticated western one would ever hope to see, but still rather interesting in terms of its story structure.
Based on a series of Life Magazine photo journals about the gradual migration to and domination of the American west, the movie follows the adventures of the same family through several segments entitled "The Rivers", "The Plains", "The Civil War", "The Railroad" and "The Outlaws". In fairly hefty roles were Jimmy Stewart, Henry Fonda, Richard Widmark, Debbie Reynolds, and George Peppard, whilst the tale was narrated rather portentiously by Spencer Tracy.
Stewart plays a mountain man who falls for Debbie Reynolds's little sister and after some spectacular action sequences including a log raft gone amuck on the rapids and a violent encounter with an evil band of thieves led by Walter Brennan (mustering up his nuttiness from "The Westerner" where he played the psychotic Judge Roy Bean), drawling Jimmy settles down to a life of domesticity on a ranch. Reynolds becomes a famed dance hall singer who falls for the shady, slippery, but charming Gregory Peck, an unrepentant conman and riverboat gambler. Stewart and wife eventually sire George Peppard. Civil War strikes. Stewart perishes in battle, whilst Peppard considers deserting until he is faced with a situation where he not only becomes a hero, but stays on with the army.
After the war, Peppard becomes responsible for protecting the railroads from the Indians. He is more sympathetic to the plight of the Indians and with the help of Stewart's old mountain man buddy Henry Fonda, attempts to broker a deal between the evil railroad builder Richard Widmark and the Indians.
Peppard eventually leaves the army and becomes a law man. He is renewed with his aunt, Debbie Reynolds, marries and eventually settles for a peaceful life on a ranch Reynolds owns. Peace doesn't come easy, however, and he must first settle a score with an evil outlaw played by Eli Wallach.
Once justice is dispensed, all settle down to enjoy the prosperity and splendour of the American West.
Yee-haa!!!
The picture is as cliche-ridden as they come, but in spite of this, the action scenes are truly stunning and it's a lot of fun watching the huge all-star cast wander ever-westward across America. Even using three credited directors and a few uncredited helmsmen, doesn't detract from the movie's overall entertainment value.
And luckily, at home, on a high definition television with the marvels of Blu-Ray, one is finally able to experience a reasonable facsimile of what the original Cinerama must have been like. An excellent restoration of the picture elements coupled with a bonus disc in the box set that has been manipulated anamorphically with a very cool curved image, makes this a must-see for technophiles and/or western fanatics. Called a "smilebox", instead of a letterbox, it will probably never truly convey the majesty of the original Cinerama, but it gives you a terrific taste of what it must have been like and I urge everyone to take a gander at the picture in this format first.
"How The West Was Won" is available in a magnificent special edition released by Warner Home Entertainment" packed with tons of extra features and two versions of the film - one flat letterboxed version and the aforementioned smilebox version.
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Doctor Zhivago
Starring: Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Alec Guinness, Rod Steiger, Tom Courtney
****
By Alan Bacchus
It’s probably unfashionable to love Doctor Zhivago but there’s no need to deny one’s passions. David Lean’s superlative epic wasn’t the first sprawling love story set against the grandeur of history and war, but along with Gone With the Wind, Doctor Zhivago arguably is what every filmmaker hopes to achieve for their own period romances. From Titanic, Australia, Pearl Harbor and on and on, Doctor Zhivago is the benchmark these films are trying to measure up to.
David Lean had spent most of his directorial career on more smaller studio productions, but with the success of Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) his cinematic canvas got larger and larger. Next came Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and then Doctor Zhivago (1965). His 1970 epic Ryan Daughter was a failure, but for the previous three, it’s a remarkable trio of films.
As per Boris Pasternak’s novel, Doctor Zhivago charts the illicit romance of a married doctor/poet, Yuri and a gorgeous but emotionally damaged temptress Lara. Lean begins at the end of the story with Zhivago’s Communist brother (Alec Guinness) who operates a giant water dam questioning a young girl about her mother, presumably Lara. Flashing back to before the Russian Revolution we see Lara (Christie) wrestle between a relationship with her Revolutionary boyfriend Pasha (Courtney) and an affair with father’s business partner Komarovsky (Steiger). After a suicide attempt, Doctor Yuri (Omar Sharif) tends to Lara thus, their first meeting.
Yuri, himself, is married and with a child, and it isn’t until years later while a medic in WWI does he formally meet up with Lara who is a nurse on the front lines. Romance now strikes amid the horror of battle, a romance which blooms into the full blown affair which will emcompass the rest of the film. Pasternak and Lean both overcome the hurdle of having their main character generate sympathy despite being an adulterer and abandoning his family.
It’s in these contradictions where Doctor Zhivago triumphs. The complexities of the Yuri’s inner pain rarely come out, instead the tumultuous and violent historical background is the expression of his feelings. In the middle act when Yuri is at his most unlikeable, a man so lustful of Lara, he can’t help but lie to his wife and leave his family alone in their rural home to visit and thus make love to his mistress. Lara, who also recognizes their wrongdoings, also comes off as sympathetic.
Perhaps even more so with Zhivago than in Kwai or Lawrence, Lean manages to put as much attention on the details as the big picture scope. In fact, if anything the spectacle of history is put farther into the background than either of his other epics. Unlike the other two pictures, most of Zhivago is spent indoors, protected from the coldness of the Russian winter. Take for instance the interiors of the Moscow scenes. Lara’s apartment is dimly lit and claustrophobic even, and rarely does Lean go outside the confines of these locations. And when he does, Lean dramatically contrasts this intimacy with awe inspiring scenes, a sharp contrast which enhances the spectacle. The best example is Lean’s reveal of the worker’s revolt which engulfs the streets of Moscow on the night of the Lara’s dramatic breakdown – the emotional fury and anger of people who stand off against the army mirroring Lara’s internal trauma.
Lean’s background as an editor serves him well, he constantly uses abrupt transitions to take us in an out of the flashbacks and compressing time in unorthodox ways. His compositions are masterful from his expansive wideshots to the detailed close-ups, his control of every detail is mindboggling. And Maurice Jarre’s elegant score – his ‘Lara’s Theme', then a legitimate pop music hit – becomes the blanket of tone and emotional feeling which ties everything together.
Call me a softy, but I get chills even as I write this...
‘Doctor Zhivago’ is available on Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video
Monday, 10 May 2010
El Cid
Starring: Charlton Heston, Sophia Loren
***1/2
By Alan Bacchus
“El Cid” was made at the height of the epic-period in Hollywood. In the early 60’s with the increasing popularity of TV Hollywood endeavoured to make bigger and longer movies to get audiences out of their homes and back into the theatres for an experience they couldn’t get on the small screen (hmm, things haven’t changed much since then). This caused a trend in making giant, expensive, lengthy blockbusters, with huge casts, huge running times, with widescreen photography. This golden age lasted approximately from 1956 – 1964 and saw the annual smut of epics that included “Ben Hur”, “Spartacus”, Lawrence of Arabia”, “King of Kings”, “Around the World in 80 Days” and “Cleopatra” - some were great, some were mediocre and of course, many were bad. One of the best and under appreciated was “El Cid” – a non Hollywood film – financed and produced entirely with European money by super-producer Samuel Bronston.
In medieval Spain 1000+AD Spain is under constant conflict with the aggressive Moors – the Muslim Africans– both living in Spain and those across the Atlantic. Charlton Heston plays Rodrigo Diaz, one of Spain’s great knights. Diaz falls out of favour of Ferdinand’s royal court when he frees a group of captured Moors. But Diaz’s kindness and civility with the Moors creates a groundswell of support for the exiled warrior, and from the eyes of people Diaz becomes ‘El Cid’ (the Lord). Diaz redeems himself with the royals and leads the patriotic charge against the oncoming Moor Army from the south.
Diaz is the typical hero – inadvertently drawn into conflict and battle, but resolute in his commitment to his people and country. Much of the conflict is between his fiancé/wife (Sophia Loren), who wishes to live a humble life with Diaz. But the genre demands a hero who goes from ordinary man to legend to martyr and finally to myth. Diaz moves through all these stages and finishes the film with a rousing send off worthy of any of the aforementioned battle epics.
Nothing frustrates me more than an epic that extends its running time with uninteresting sword & sandal dialogue cooped up in studio interior scenes. The wideangle frame constantly craves the big scale and big spectacle. “Spartacus” and “Ben Hur” often suffer from this. But “El Cid” rarely stays in the same location and rarely stays indoors. For most of the time Heston is outside on his horse against deep vistas of expansive lands.
It’s refreshing to watch tangible productive value on the screen, as opposed to post-production CGI which is now a cost-effective way of tricking us. Mann stages a dozen major set pieces featuring hundred, if not thousands, of extras. The attack on Valencia occurs on a long stretch of beach against the backdrop of the Mediterranean Sea and a grand castle on a hilltop in the background. There’s no doubting the castle, the water, the horses and the warriors are all real and no amount of CGI will ever replace the real thing. Another glorious scene is Diaz’s dramatic joust to the death set against another magnificent medieval castle. “El Cid” isn’t without its banal dialogue scenes, but it’s kept to the bare minimum to push the story through to the set pieces, which drives the story.
On the downside, I don’t know if it’s the cinematography or the DVD transfer but the film looks aged – too aged and dated for a 70mm film. This era of colour photography often had problems with contrasty imaging and lack of depth and detailing. “El Cid” is big and has fine composition, but it never looks beautiful, as say, “Lawrence of Arabia”, which was made one year later.
It’s fitting the new DVD box set is as big as the movie. Alliance Films' 3-DVD set looks impressive on my DVD shelf. The sand-textured box, which matches well my “Lawrence of Arabia” set, contains two books, authentically recreated original production notes and a graphic novel (comic strip in those days) version of the film. Also included is a well-written essay from Martin Scorsese and a set of ‘lobby’ cards (what do you with these DVD lobby cards, anyway?)
You'll be doing yourself a disservice if you get caught up in the political correctness or try to find parallels to today's global political climate. Don't judge the filmmakers on who they chose to be the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys'. "El Cid" is not to be over-intellectualized - just watch the film.
“El Cid 3-Disc Set” is available on DVD from Alliance Films.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
The Guns of Navarone
Starring: Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn, David Niven, Anthony Quayle, Stanley Baker, James Darren, Irene Pappas
***1/2
By Alan Bacchus
Arguably the 60’s wasn’t Hollywood’s greatest decade. Other than a handful of benchmarks (ie. ‘The Graduate’, ‘The Wild Bunch’, ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, ‘Easy Rider’), to generalize, much of the decade was mired in unmemorable and forgettable post-studio system films. What did flourish during the period was the epic picture (‘Lawrence of Arabia’, ‘The Great Escape’, ‘Ben Hur’). While David Lean was winning awards and acclaim for his big movies, perhaps second to him, and much lesser well known is the career rise of fellow Briton J. Lee Thompson.
Throughout the late 50’s Thompson helmed a number of British action/adventure films, featuring expansive and spectacular outdoor locations, specifically ‘Ice Cold in Alex’ (1959) and ‘Northwest Frontier’ (1959). His workmanlike efficiency and calm British demeanour made him popular with his actors, perhaps the equivalent of a Clint Eastwood of today.
No film was more popular in his filmography than ‘The Guns of Navarone’, one of the original ‘men on a mission’ war films of the 60’s/70’s which would greatly influence Quentin Tarantino’s revision of the genre in ‘Inglourious Basterds’.
Based on the Alistair Maclean adventure novel, Thompson and producer Carl (‘Bridge on the River Kwai’) Foreman spared little expense in adapting it for maximum entertainment value. Gregory Peck’s commanding presence anchors the picture as Capt Keith Mallory, a rock climber turned solider recruited by the British to assemble a team of men to travel to the remote island of Navarone in the Aegean Sea, scale a giant rock face and destroy a pair of gigantic Nazis artillery guns which overlooks and protects the region. His team includes Capt. Major Roy Franklin (Anthony Quayle, a ubiquitous figure in these films), Mallory’s rival climber Andrea Stavros (Anthony Quinn), a demolitions expert (David Niven), a Greek revolutionary, and two tough guy heavies for muscle.
As the team travels from British ground zero in Keros, Greece to Navarone, they find themselves engaged in a number of thrilling set pieces of high stake jeopardy – disguised as Greek fisherman they confront and fight off a suspecting Nazi patrol boat; they make it through a violent sea storm (a scene rendered with complete cinematic intensity and believability); a daring cliff face climb which tests Mallory and Stavros' trust between each other, and in addition to a number of other tense confrontations, the grand finale at the ‘guns of Navarone.’
Thompson/Foreman’s use of the exotic and stupendously beautiful Mediterranean locations is one of the film’s great legacies. So much so, the filmmakers gave the people of Greece a large and dedicated acknowledgement of thanks at the head of the picture. Thompson’s skills at composition and attentiveness to scale and production design creates a strong sense of ‘bigness’. Even when the men are just talking quietly near a rock or in a cave, the masculine bravado and wartime heroism compliments his full-bodied direction.
If anything, Thompson’s reliance on then-trendy ‘day-for-night’ cinematography results in a muddied and rather visually-dull third act. The penetration into the fortress housing the guns feels easy compared to other scenes of jeopardy throughout the rest of the picture. But Production designer Geoffrey Drake’s two massive phallic canons which stick out into the Aegean Sea do not disappoint, a formidable and worthy final opponent for these men on a mission.
‘The Guns of Navarone’ would end 1961 as the highest grossing film of the year and receive seven Oscar nominations include Best Picture and Best Director. The year after, J. Lee Thompson would direct ‘Cape Fear’ with Peck again, and number of other big action pictures in including my colleague Greg Klymkiw’s favourite ‘Taras Bulba’. By the 1980’s though, he would become a talented hack churning out Charles Bronson films before becoming fully obsolete. But what a remarkable career for a man most filmgoers have never even heard of.
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Starring: Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortonsen, Ian McKellan, Sean Astin, Christopher Lee, Cate Blanchet, Hugo Weaving, Liv Tyler
***
By Alan Bacchus
The experience of watching the entire ‘Lord of the Rings’ saga is one of supreme admiration, 3 x 3hrs overloaded with every possible emotion, so many wondrous creatures and lands, so many sweeping epic landscapes trying really hard to take our breath away.
Everything to do with the film points to it as a phenomenal achievement. The challenge of adapting the dense Tolkien material for the big screen, making it visual and not literary and rendering it palatable to both Tolkienites and lay audiences is miraculous. The cinematic achievements made these films the high bar of technical cinema of its day –special effects which used a mixture of modern CGI and old fashioned in camera sleight of hand is clever and near seamless (though less so now). The consistency of tone, pace, and visual design over these three films which from pre-production of the first film to post of the last film spanned 5 years is remarkable. Hell, shooting three movie back-to-back-to-back was unheard of.
So why am I left unmoved by any of these pictures?
For good and bad Peter Jackson and his team, for sake of satisfying the broadest possible audience has given everybody a little of everything they want to see, he and so will inevitably alienate and dissatisfy some.
As for the first film, to bring people into the world of Tolkien, FOTR is by far the most baroque of the three. It doesn’t long to introduce the world and the characters. The opening sequence tells us of the forging of a number of rings for the purpose of keeping order in the world (though it’s consciously oblique with the details of exactly how rings can do this). We’re then told of the ONE ring forged in ‘secret' to rule all other rings. Again, the physics/mechanics or even logic of this statement we’re not supposed to question. And so this becomes literature’s, and now cinema’s, biggest ever maguffin, the impetus to send us on Jackson’s epic journey.
The opening moments in the Hobbit Shire introducing Bilbo Baggins passing the ring off to Frodo are perhaps the best moments in the entire series. Ian Holm’s frightful and twitchy performance realizes a huge backstory of pain and suffering by the ring (a backstory which, of course, will be fleshed out by Guillermo Del Toro’s version of ‘The Hobbit”). In fact, the entire first half of Fellowship is spectacular. The horse riding ringwraiths, who resemble the evil ghosts in ‘The Frighteners’, is the scariest creatures in the whole series, but whom we unfortunately rarely get to see in the latter half of the first and rest of the other two films. Weighting the film down is the lengthy Galadriel forest sequence which is full of visual CG wonder, and foreshadowing but a slow uneventful section which adds to the running time.
The second half shows the Fellowship united and fighting off the beasts in the Mines of Moria and the Orcs on the hillside in the film’s climax, and the eventual demise of Boromir who succumbs to the lure of the ring. On first viewing I questioned the lack of scope in the final battle, but after seeing the escalation of action in the second and third films, Jackson’s instinct not to blow his wad early was a good one. In hindsight the contained forest battle to end FOTR is perhaps the best action sequence in series. Free of the grossly exaggerated CG multiplication of huge armies which now looks so awfully unreal, the use of real creatures and actors with real make-up makes the fight that much more violent and intense.
Looking back, Wood and Astin make a good team as the Hobbit leaders mixing drama and humour well. Unfortunately Billy Boyd is a Jar-Jar worthy waste of space, and most of the time excruciating to watch. Dominic Monaghan is barely noticeable which is probably a good thing (as an actor, he would be challenged much more in 'Lost'). Orlando Bloom’s silent but stoic presence is also barely noticeable, but when he’s fighting and launching arrows with speed and accuracy at the Orcs during the action sequence there's no one better. John Rhys-Davies is disguised well as a 3 foot dwarf, but the camera tricks required to make the tall actor into a short character prevents us from seeing the character fight in all his full glory. His tight close-ups thus have to be used over and over again to avoid recognizing the size differences and thus becomes a visual handicap.
Perhaps the most irksome quality of this film and much of the trilogy as a whole is Jackson’s inability (at least to this viewer) to make me believe in the emotions of his characters. In ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ in particular Jackson's emotional histrionics are hit so hard he’s forcing us to feel his characters’ pain harder than he needs to. Just look how hard Jackson wrings out the tears shed by the death of Gandalf. After the magnificent Mines of Moria sequence which has the Grey Wizard sacrificing himself against the impressive Balrog monster, Jackson lingers heavily on the Hobbits excruciating pain, and in slow motion and with Howard Shore’s melodramatic swooning. We get this same feeling during Samwise Gamgee’s fitful attempt to chase down Frodo who has floated away in a boat. Frodo’s dramatic rescue of Sam feels like Jackson again not trusting the investment we have already made in the characters and pulling too hard for emotion where force is not required.
Then again even as I write this it feels odd to critique so finely a film, which as mentioned I admire so much. But then again we can’t just settle to admire a film. To be moved by a film is to have the amalgam of its scenes, sequences, characters, music, special effects and combine to be greater than the sum of its parts. There’s so much in ‘Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring’ that in fits and starts the moments of greatness, but as a whole, it’s just an admirable film.
The entire “Lord of the Rings” saga is now available on Blu-Ray from Alliance Films in Canada. Look out for more extensive examination of the new Blu-Ray set in the subsequent analysis of the next two films later this week. As for the question of the 'Extened Edition', while I enjoyed watching the near three and a half hour version for curiosity sake, the theatrical edition is still my preferred version to watch. Thankfully the Blu-Ray set contains all the comprehensive special features which appeared on the Extended Edition DVDs released back in the day.
Wednesday, 31 March 2010
Ran
Starring: Tatsuya Nakadai, Akira Terao, Jinpachi Nezu, Daisuke Ryû, Mieko Harada
***1/2
By Alan Bacchus
The 1980’s were kind to Mr. Kurosawa, the legendary cinema master who by 1985, was nothing short of a living legend. After a tepid decade of the 70’s with a couple of odd, though no less interesting features, ‘Dodes'ka-den’, and ‘Dersu Uzala’, Kurosawa returned to his genre of choice, with two astounding epic Samurai films which effectively tied a neat bow to his illustrious career (his 90's non-Samurai films notwithstanding).
The first was 'Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior', a beautiful and powerful film with an endearing humanist core, and second is 'Ran' – perhaps his most brutal and cynical film. Loosely based on ‘King Lear’, Ran is the third film in Kurosawa’s filmography which adapted Shakespeare to feudal Japan. At the outset we meet elder warlord Hidetora Ichimonji (Tatsuya Nakadai) who announces he’s giving up control of his empire to his three sons, Taro, Jiro, and Saburo, but with a distinct hierarchy – Taro, the eldest receiving the presitgious first castle and Jiro and Saburo the lesser of the three castles and in essence subordination to Taro. This gesture, which for Ichimonji is meant as a gesture of goodwill, is met with conflict and argument by all. And it doesn’t take long for the brothers to wage war against each other for ultimate power.
The result is Kurosawa’s bloodiest and most violent film, a deep penetrating brutality which digs deeper than mere flesh and blood but actions and choices of his main characters which demolishes the sacredness of family.
As a 'Jidaigeki' film - a Japanese genre refering to the distinct melodramatic dramatic style of Japanese period films - there’s a distinct heightened theatricality to the performances, which for Japanese newbies, might be a little oft-putting. Even I find it difficult to get into many of these films, but like the works of Shakespeare, which are even more daunting to penetrate, Kurosawa’s theme are universal and identifiable. Like the tragedy of his main influence, 'King Lear' , 'Ran' lasers in on the effect of a life of greed on its main character and the dues he's forced to pay at the end of his life.
In the first half of the picture we sympathize with Ichimonji, whom we feel unjustly suffers the pain of his mutinous and greedy sons. But as Ichimonji’s journey progresses we discover the actions of his sons against him represent a shake of bad karma against his own despotic ways. Specifically, the blind character of Tsurumaru, who gives the fleeing Ichimonji shelter, only to discover Ichimonji, himself, was responsible for gauging his eyes out and rendering him blind. And the character of Lady Kaede, who at first comes off as the conniving and manipulative Lady Macbeth of the film, by the end reveals a lifetime of shame at the hands of Ichimonji who destroyed her family’s kingdom and made her marry his son, as a form of brutal subjugating punishment.
At 160mins, ‘Ran’ is no easy task to get through, especially if you have other distractions at home watch a DVD. Many of the scenes linger on and on longer than traditional Hollywood fare – the opening scene which contains the inciting incident could have cut out after 3 or 4 mins, instead Kurosawa stays with the scene for 10-12more mins.
But it's only two scenes in particular which elevate this picture to cinematic high art. The first is the phenomenal midpoint assault on Ichimonji’s castle – a scene of uncompromising brutally, with buckets of bright red blood, comparable to Sam Peckinpah’s carnage in 'The Wild Bunch', but executed with the grace and elegance of a Bergman film. As the armies of soldiers pound each other with swords, arrows and guns, Kurosawa takes out the sound, except for the music for a powerful sublime visual and aural effect.
The final battle scene features some of Kurosawa’s finest compositions, showing his best epic chops, comparable to David Lean’s late career work. Kurosawa uses the engulfing effect of the mountains and landscape to punish his characters and rendering their insatiable actions of greed petty and small. In the end, none of the characters get off scott free, a self-destruction of monumental proportions. And the awesome final shot, featuring the blind and innocent Tsurumaru wandering hopelessly on the edge of massive cliff reinforces this cynicism.
'Ran' is now available on Blu-Ray as part of the Criterion-comparable 'Studio Canal Collection' and via Maple Pictures in Canada. The Blu-Ray transfer is good, though not astounding, but is the ideal way, other than the theatre, to experience Kurosawa's awesome imagery.
Friday, 26 February 2010
2012
Starring: John Cusack, Amanda Peet, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Thandie Newton, Woody Harrelson
*1/2
By Alan Bacchus
You don’t go into a Roland Emmerich films expecting Steven Spielberg, you expect an adequate knock off with, hopefully, enough explosions and worldly destruction, to placate the shameless repetition.
...before I continue...to add some context, I actually liked ‘Stargate’ and ‘Independence Day’, was indifferent to ‘The Patriot’ and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, and ‘Godzilla’ and ’10,000 BC’ were unbearably awful and two of the worst pictures I’ve ever seen...
With these low expectations, miraculously ‘2012’ still manages to be even more awful than expected and will join 'Godzilla' and '10,000 BC' as part three of his trilogy of awfulness.
Roland Emmerich, this time at the helm of his own script shamelessly remakes Stargate, ID4, Godzilla and The Day After Tomorrow with different actors and with different world monuments destroyed. His opening scenes are the same: somewhere in some remote part of the world, some lowly schmuck discovers a small detail which reveals the coming of a cataclysmic event in the near future. In this case, it’s a scientist in India who finds the liquid at the earth’s core is boiling which means the world is heating up and ripe for a massive series of apocalyptic disasters.
Meanwhile, another schmuck, a lonely everyman from the U.S., with relationship problems, either stumbles upon this evidence or has his own evidence to corroborate said disaster and fights to a) convince his estranged family to believe in him and b) overcome his own personality deficiencies to save the world from disaster.
In 2012, Emmerich uses John Cusack, in place of Jeff Goldblum, James Spader or Matthew Broderick and uses the random shifting of techtonic plates to be his ‘Godzilla/Alien/extreme weather force of nature antagonist. His baddies are the usual crop of idiotic governments suits who can’t see the field from the trees.
The film is anchored by a number of narrow escapes from worldly destruction scenes. In every case John Cusack finds himself either outrunning massive earthquakes and tectonic plate displacements via car, or piloting a plane off a runway, being torn apart by said tectonic plate shifting. And so Cusack and his group of innocents hop from one famous landmark to another escaping in the nick of time.
The third act is even more awful throwing us into a series of calamities and narrow escapes aboard a Noah’s Ark-like ship built to withstand the flooding and sail away the remainder of the world’s human and animal population to safety.
Two and a half hours later the film ends. Save yourself some time and just watch the trailer.
2012 is available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Tuesday, 19 January 2010
Spartacus
Starring: Kirk Douglas, Lawrence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Jean Simmons, Tony Curtis, Charles Laughton
***½
By Alan Bacchus
Sure ‘Spartacus’ is not a ‘Stanley Kubrick’ picture. It has none of his usual visual hallmarks, hell there’s nary a wideangle tracking shot anywhere in the picture. But ‘Spartacus’ represents a great achievement for the great director man nonetheless, one of the benchmarks of his career, and arguably one of his best pictures.
The story behind the making of the picture is well known, the vehicle for Kirk Douglas, serving as star and executive producer of the legendary story of the Roman slave who rose up against the his tyrannical captors, united his fellow slaves and fought against the powerful Roman army. The first director Anthony Mann, a fine director in his own right, displeased Douglas for his ‘lack of scope’ and thus was fired a week into principal photography. Douglas, having established a good working relationship with Stanley Kubrick on ‘Paths of Glory’, hired Kubrick, then 30 years old, to step in and direct the picture.
Thinking back, the idea of Stanley Kubrick as a hired gun, parachuted into a studio picture and working completely under the auspices of is ridiculous. And indeed Kubrick famously quarrelled with Douglas and didn’t get to have the full command and final cut of his film. But it was a learning experience and since then Kubrick famously worked independently, outside Hollywood, as his own producer and always with complete control of the film.
So what would have Kubrick changed of ‘Spartacus’ if he had control? Apparently some gory battle scenes were cut out. I’d also wager he would have plunked much of Alex North’s music. Despite the acclaim, it’s hit and miss score. In the great montage scenes and the aggressive fight and battle sequence, North provides a rousing rhythmic build up, while in the love scenes, hammers home a whiney overwrought tenderness. Of course Kubrick doing tender romance has never been his strong suit - in fact, he’s never tried it since - and so it makes for the weakest elements of the film.
The best personalities exist on the Roman side of the field. Peter Ustinov is loveable as the foppish slave trader and gladiatorial trainer, especiall his banter with crass and cruel Charles Laughton. And Lawrence Olivier relishes his ambiguously gay legion commander role converting all that homosexuality into typical evilness - as is customary in Hollywood.
As for the heroes, Kirk Douglas plays Spartacus with such godlike deification, and lacking any edge, flaws or internal conflict. Same with Jean Simmons as the devoted wife, Varinia, as mentioned a role softened like melted butter by Alex North’s syrupy leitmotif. Even Tony Curtis who plays the former slave whose skills only include juggling and singing songs is monotone and dull throughout. And so in the final act without action we only have these personalities to drive the picture to its finale. Instead it sputters to a mere whimper.
Such is the trap of many of these epics, especially the ones which present its money shot at the end of the second act. The best moments in the third act include the heroic ‘I am Spartacus’ scene and the heroic fight between Antoninus and Spartacus wherein, the ‘winner’ gets crucified! I still have trouble trying to figure out the motivations in that scene.
So the final act is a stinker. The previous two and a half hours provide some of the most rousing sword and sandal entertainment ever produced in the Hollywood. The entire opening gladiator camp sequence is a truly magnificently extended sequence. The gladiatorial training, led by the gruff-voiced Marcellus (Charles McGraw), shows the fuel for Spartacus’s anger and inhuman barbarism of the Romans. Though, it’s Woody Strode, as the silent Ethiopian who wants to keep to himself and eventually heroically sacrifices his life for Spartacus who steals everyone’s scenes. He’s arguably, the most ‘Kubrick’ of any of the characters.
And of course, when it comes to the climatic confrontation between the Gracchus’ army and Spartacus’ there’s few if any battle scenes hyped up and delivered with more cinematic awesomeness. And to think it was all conceived and choreographed by a 30 year Hollywood outsider with only two comparatively smaller features under his belt. To have and disown a film like this on one’s resume is one of the great anomalous asterixes in Hollywood history.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Gone With the Wind
Starring: Vivien Leigh, Clark Gable, Hattie McDaniel, Leslie Howard, Olivia De Havilland
****
By Alan Bacchus
The event picture of all time gets everything it’s due from Warner Bros’ pimped out Blu-Ray box set. It’s been 70 years and most of us weren’t around during the making of this picture, but there’s enough documentation about the film’s far-reaching production history, as well as David O Selznick’s own egotistical wants and desires to render GWTW the undisputed biggest, most hyped, and greatest-ever film event. Its grandeur, spectacle and pop culturally zeitgeist significance is still a marvel and remains largely untouched in the annals of cinema history.
Just go to box office mojo and sort the biggest box office films of all time by inflation adjusted numbers and you’ll see GWTW is still the highest grossing movie of all time ($1.4 billion). All the greater achievement knowing producer David O. Selznick concertedly sought to make the biggest and greatest picture of all time.
Selznick’s adaptation of Margaret Mitchell’s book created a cinematic template for sweeping romantic epics, that is pitting the individual conflicts of its characters amongst in the context of far-reaching and monumental historical conflicts.
Mitchell’s hero is a naïve young southern Belle, Scarlett O’Hara. As a young girl from a well off, but self-made Irish immigrant father, she’s only seen the spoils of the Old South living on an expansive and romantic cotton plantation called ‘Tara’. It doesn’t take long for the story to send O’Hara’s blissful life into despair when her one love in the world, Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard), announces an engagement to Scarlett’s cousin Melanie (Olivia De Havilland). Scarlett whines and pouts and decides to hastily marry local dweeb Charles Hamilton on a whim and move to Atlanta. Meanwhile Scarlett continually crosses paths and flirts with dashing Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) – a charming southern gentleman, aristocrat and career-bachelor.
When the Civil War arrives Scarlett’s decadent lifestyle comes to a violent end. Hamilton is killed in battle and the city of Atlanta is burnt to the ground by the invading Yankees. Scarlett retreats to her beloved Tara only to realize that it too has been decimated by war. And so, at her lowest moment Scarlett shouts to the world and to us, the audience, ‘if I have to lie, steal, cheat or kill. As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.’ Indeed Scarlett adapts to the new realities of the Old South, picks herself up, becomes an independent entrepreneur and rebuilds Tara. She even resorts to marrying Rhett Butler in order to reclaim her status and wealth. Unfortunately with her forlorn love for Ashley Wilkes still kindling her relationship with Butler becomes poisoned resulting in tragedy as dramatic as the war she overcame.
Under the pen of screenwriter Sidney Howard and ultimately under Selznick’s watchful eye the character of Scarlett O’Hara is never trumped by the pyrotechnics and spectacle. Over the nearly 4 hours running time, Scarlett’s motivations and goals always remain consistent. And after all the obstacles put in front of her she emerges with a remarkably precise and clearly defined character arc with as much dramatic gravitas as any character ever put to screen.
Structurally, the emotional place of her character is visualized succinctly by one shot repeated three times throughout the picture – the definitive image of the film, the sundrenched landscape vista showing framing Scarlett underneath a tree with the Tara estate in the background. In the opening, Scarlett, young and naïve, is with her father being told of the intrinsic value of land; at the midpoint, when Scarlett has returned to her home destitute and penniless, underneath the same tree, though now leafless and naked, she loudly proclaims her desire to ‘never starve again’; and then in the end after her child has died and Rhett has left her she retreats to Tara, her only true unconditional form of love – her home.
In between these benchmarks, a number of memorable characters and set pieces elevate the material to Hollywood entertainment of the highest order. Of course, Gable as Rhett Butler is iconic, a role cast by the demand of the people at the time. His elusive charm and bad boy enigma is a guide for all on-screen rebels. Hattie McDaniel, the first black person to win an Oscar, is so supremely lovable as Scarlett’s loyal housemaid.
Under the producer-driven studio machine, Selznick achieves ‘epicness’ with a number of astonishing set pieces aided by the great William Cameron Menzies phenomenal production design; The ballroom dance sequence is of course a revered classic, but set up with great tension when Rhett controversially announces to the crowd he wants to take Scarlett’s hand in the dance; the tragedy of the Civil War is visualized in one magnificent epic shot when the camera, following Scarlett, pulls back to reveal the railyard littered with dead soldiers; the burning of Atlanta sequence uses the best matte photography effects, and the final emotional moments between Rhett and Scarlett at her fog hazed doorway oozes melodrama.
Gone With the Wind is a rare case where its desire for ‘grandeur’ trickles down successfully through every aspect of production. From Selznick’s mad need for wanton audacity, the obscene four-hour running time, Max Steiner's memorable score, the film’s massive production elements, even down to Scarlett O’Hara’s character grand character arc, the film continually leaps over the audiences’ high expectations, which with much room to spare.
Even the Warner Bros 70th Anniversary Blu-Ray box-set is gargantuan enough for Selznick’s approval. The set contains, the film in stunning High Definition detail, a hardcover production art book, authentic personal memos from Selznick, even that early 1990’s 6-hour television documentary on the history of the MGM Studio, ‘When the Lion Roared’
Thursday, 5 November 2009
Anna Karenina - 2009 Version
Starring: Tatyana Drubich, Oleg Yankovskiy and Yaroslav Boyko
**1/2
By Greg Klymkiw
Hailed as one of the great novels of all-time, Lev Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina” has been adapted into so many film and television versions, one wonders if we will ever get the ultimate cinematic rendering of this great story. It has not happened yet, and this new Russian mini-series, which makes its North American premiere this weekend in Toronto at the Kino/Art Film Festival, is blessed with sumptuous production design and excellent performances, but is ultimately, at its best, not much more than watchable.
This oft-told tale of tragic romance, infidelity and social commentary is, on the page, an extremely complex work, yet when one boils it down to its essentials, Tolstoy hung the layers of the world he created on a very solid and simple narrative coat rack and delivered a subtle stylistic use of language to create the feeling of a steam engine hurtling its characters in steady forward motion with all the requisite jostles, twists, turns and abrupt, though always temporary stops.
The simple love triangle involves Anna, the title character (played beautifully in this version by Tatyana Drubich) and how she escapes a loveless marriage to the bureaucrat Aleksei (Oleg Yankovskiy) when she meets and begins a passionate, scandalous affair with the dashing Count Vronsky (Yaroslav Boyko – definitely dashing, supremely charming and a most excellent choice for this role). A brief reconciliation with her husband eventually gives way to a return to the Count and the two lovers are ostracized by the society they both were once an integral part of. Anna, fearing the Count is unfaithful to her, eventually, and in despair, hurtles herself in front of an oncoming train.
That, in a nutshell, is the narrative coat hanger and after seeing many film and television adaptations of the novel, I am inclined to think that the best attempts to render the story visually are the ones where the filmmakers do not stray too far from the simplicity of Tolstoy’s dramatic story structure and leave the dense novelistic complexities aside. To date, my favourite versions of this tale remain David O. Selznick’s production of the Clarence Brown-directed film starring Greta Garbo and Alexander Korda’s production of the Julien Duvivier-directed rendering that stars Vivien Leigh.
Oddly enough, it is the two Russian versions I’ve seen that I like least. The 1967 Mosfilm production of “Anna Karenina” is not without merit, especially with its elephantine 70mm treatment, but it feels like a half-epic; not long enough to flesh out the aspects of the novel usually left out of the film adaptations and long enough to be tedious. This might have a lot to do with the disjointedness of the film and the fact that it’s caught in the horrible middle of including too much and not enough.
This, of course, does not seem to be the problem with Solovyov’s TV mini-series version. In many ways, it might actually be the ultimate version in terms of remaining as faithful to the events of Tolstoy’s novel. And though it is well made and is endowed with an adherence to the text, there is something lacking in the medium it presents itself in. With an episodic structure that features numerous fades-to-black and fades-up-from-black for what appear to be outs and ins around commercial breaks, it lacks the kind of bigger-than-life sweep one wants from the story. While the production seems perfectly serviceable for television consumption, it just does not have what it takes to raise itself to the stylistic heights of either Brown or Duvivier’s versions which both have the stylistic, very theatrical (big-screen) and expressionistic flourishes of cinema.
It is interesting that late in life Tolstoy lamented the fact that he had yet to find a medium of artistic expression that would be ideal for what he really wanted to do. I always find this lament so strange given his ground-breaking literary achievements, but it is a fact that he did indeed feel this way and even dabbled with using the stage to create a multi-dimensional rendering of his prose. Alas, he found that the proscenium was also too constricting. When he finally realized that the medium of film was just what the doctor ordered for presenting stories in a truly multi-dimensional platform, he was in his final years and the medium was still at its earliest stages.
I look back at most of the film and television adaptations of Tolstoy’s work, including this new version of "Anna Karenina", and it is with a considerable degree of wistfulness that I dream and wonder what magic Lev Tolstoy might have wrought if God had given us another century of this great artist to ply his trade as an auteur of cinema.
For more information on Toronto's KinoArt Festival Nov 5-8) visit: www.kinoartfestival.com
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