304 - Stagecoach, United States, 1939. Dir. John Ford.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

304 - Stagecoach, United States, 1939.  Dir. John Ford.

Welcome to Tonto.

The Stagecoach has arrived.

Next stops: Dry Fork, Apache Wells, Lee's Ferry, and Lordsburg.

All aboard.

Nine people will board the Stagecoach.  Two on top and seven inside.  Together they will form a microcosm of the West, of the new nation, of the incubating civilization.  With people pairing up, symbolizing the stretches of the strata of society.

Buck the driver.  Played by Andy Devine.  With his classic screechy voice.  He knows the trails like Mark Twain knows the river in Life on the Mississippi.  Every town.  Every turn.  Every trail.  Every tumbleweed.  And he knows his horses as if they were his own children--six of them switching out at every stop--calling them all by name.  Blackie!  Belle!  Bess!

The Sheriff Marshal Curley Wilcox.  Played by George Bancroft.  He pairs up with Buck by literally riding shotgun.  He joins the journey when he hears the Ringo Kid may be out there.  The Kid has recently escaped from the pen.  He went in at 17.  Curley knows his family.

Mrs. Lucy Mallory.  Louise Platt from Broadway.  Upper crust.  A lady.  She is determined to get to her husband.  And she will do it at any cost.  Despite the threat of the Apache.  Despite the dangers of the drive itself.  Even despite the presence of that . . . other woman, Dallas.  If she can survive her, she can survive anything.  We do not yet know fully what drives Lucy, but it is similar to that of Lena Grove in William Faulkner's Light in August.

Hatfield.  Played by John Carradine.  The gambler.  Not properly a gentleman.  But one that aspires to be and behaves as one.  He pairs up with Lucy by becoming her protector.  He is refreshed to be in the presence of a lady, and we learn later that he once served with her father.

Samuel Peacock.  Played by Donald Meek.  The whiskey salesman.  From Kansas City, Kansas.  Not Missouri.  Husband and father of five.  Yet effeminate.  And meek.  He wishes to avoid the journey, but the doctor makes him come.  After all, he is carrying a case of whiskey.  He puts on a deerstalker hat like Sherlock Holmes.

Doc Josiah Boone.  Played by Thomas Mitchell.  An actor's actor.  He played in everything during this period.  He played in Stageoach, Only Angels Have Wings, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and Gone with the Wind IN THIS YEAR ALONE!  He won the Academy Award for this role.  For Best Supporting Actor.  He is the doctor and has a classical education.  He quotes Shakespeare when he is run out of the town.  But he is a drunk.  He pairs up with Peacock--whom he constantly calls Haycock--to get his hands, and his mouth, on that whiskey.

Dallas.  Claire Trevor from B movies.  The working woman.  She too is run out of town.  The ladies of society do not want her around.  Doc Boone pairs up with her as they walk to the Stagecoach to Ford's favorite hymn, "Shall We Gather at the River."  The Ringo Kid will pair up with her later when he joins the group.  He will look past her status.  He will include her.  He will honor her.  He will love her.

Ellsworth Gatewood.  The banker.  Burton Churchill.  The odd man out.  The one character who does not pair up with another.  One might think that Ford overplays his stereotype here, that his merely being a banker somehow makes him automatically greedy and thereby automatically unlikable.  Too bad.

The Ringo Kid.  His name is Henry.  He tells us.  Played by John Wayne in a starmaking turn.  By casting John Wayne, John Ford elevates Wayne to star status in A pictures, and with Stagecoach he elevates Westerns to A pictures.  Ringo is good-natured, good-hearted, and honest.  He sits on the floor of the Stagecoach with his back to the side door.  He befriends Dallas.  He helps them all survive.  Yet he may be going to his doom.  He is going to Lordsburg to get revenge on Luke Plummer, who killed his father and brother.  The only thing is Luke is not alone.  He has his own brothers with him, Hank and Ike, and they are waiting for him.  What exactly do you call a duel that is not between two people?  It is three on one.  It is not even a quartet.  It is a trio versus a solo.  Ringo has all the odds against him.

John Ford had John Wayne study Harry Carey to develop his character as Ringo Kid.  Carey had starred in Ford's first feature, Straight Shooting (1918), and worked in many Westerns.  His son, Harry Carey, Jr., would also play in many Ford films, and would work often with Wayne.

Some seem to assume that John Wayne was always swaggering, always putting on, trying to be macho, trying to show off.  But that is not an accurate description of his acting style.  If you watch enough John Wayne movies, you will see that he plays a wide range of disparate characters and that he is relaxed and natural in his own skin.  His character here is polite and charming, open to friendship, and one of the gang.  His acceptance of Dallas breaks through class snobbishness and his love for her transforms her as well as those around them.  He ennobles the others.  He is an ensemble player in an ensemble play, and he happily plays his role.

It is in this picture that John Ford introduces the world to Monument Valley.  

This film is not a road movie.  It is a dirt road movie.

The nine mismatched people in their cramped quarters will become a family as they travel the dangerous trails.  They will live together, fight together, eat together, survive together.  And sometimes die together.

Orson Welles famously stated that he watched Stagecoach more than forty times before and while making his masterpiece Citizen Kane at the age of twenty-five.

When asked to name his favorite directors, Welles stated, "I prefer the old masters.  John Ford.  John Ford.  And John Ford."

John Ford made many kinds of movies.  Not just Westerns.  In fact, Stagecoach was his first Western in more than a decade.  By the time he made Stagecoach he was a twenty-year veteran of film.  And his best work was yet to come.

He filmed people.  He filmed horses.  He created living towns filled with action.  He filmed daily life.  He filmed the earth.  He showcased the American landscape.  He showed light.  He showed architecture.  He told stories.  He framed his camera.  He moved his camera.  He demonstrated the importance of the gaze.

Ford is often called a poet.  He was a working man's director.  He showed up for work and he did his job.

And his films stand the test of time.

303 - Young Mr. Lincoln, United States, 1939. Dir. John Ford.

Monday, October 30, 2017

303 - Young Mr. Lincoln, United States, 1939.  Dir. John Ford.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Young Abraham Lincoln is talking to a lynch mob.  And he singles out Jeremiah Carter.  There's not a finer, more decent, God-fearing man in Springfield than Jeremiah Carter.  So says Mr. Lincoln.

He points out that when Mr. Carter goes home he will probably pick up a book and read those words.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.

Yet Mr. Carter is standing here, with all the others, trying to break down the Sangamon County Jail with a battering ram.  A tree trunk.  Trying to get to the Clay boys--Matt and Adam--who have just been accused and arrested for murder.  For the murder of Scrub White.

Scrub had been trying to come on to Matt's wife while at the Independence Day celebration.  Matt defended her honor.  Mrs. Clay, their mother, stepped in and asked Scrub to leave them alone.  They avoided a confrontation for awhile, but later in the night Scrub confronted Matt and started a fight.  They were fighting bare-handed, but Scrub started throwing rocks.  Then he pulled a gun.  Adam tried to help Matt wrestle the gun from Scrub.  One of them got Scrub in the heart with his knife.  The two brothers were trying to avoid a confrontation with a man who wanted nothing but trouble.  When pulled into it, they fought fairly.  He did not.  He attempted to kill them.  They responded in self-defense.  We saw it.  Mrs. Clay saw it.  But the townspeople did not see it.

And it only took a few moments for their emotions to spiral together into a tornado of impulsive and unsubstantiated mob justice.

You know. the kind  You may have recently indulged in it yourself on social media.

Regardless of your affiliations.

If you are honest with yourself.

One of the town locals has brought his rope, and he would feel let down if they went to all this trouble and did not get to have a hanging.

But Mr. Lincoln has stepped in the way, stood directly in the path of the log, and he is using his penchant for downhome reasoning to get through to them.

He announces that he is the boys' lawyer and he is not very good, so the town will probably get their hanging anyway.

But since he is just starting his law practice he needs them to give him a chance to get some experience.  If they remove his clients now, he will never have the opportunity to try his hand at defending them.

Furthermore, if they give them their day in court they can enjoy the fun of the legal show in addition to the fun of the hanging.

Yes, he uses the word fun.

Just before quoting scripture.

And he cuts them to the quick.

The townsmen drop their log and disperse.

Mrs. Clay looks on with teary-eyed amazement.

This man has just saved her sons' lives.

He stands framed alone in the doorway after the townsmen leave, and in that moment we realize we are watching a John Ford movie.

Doorways.

Frames.

Ford was warming up this motif for The Searchers (1956), which came seventeen years later.

Lincoln will stand in another doorway at the end of the film, after the trial is over and the crowds are calling for him to step out and see them.

Lincoln says he is just a jackleg lawyer.  Who keeps his office in his hat.  From a family that never amounted to a hill of beans.  And he can't dance.

But it turns out he can argue a case.

And he will in fact pull a miracle out of his hat.  Not a rabbit but an almanac.

And what is cited as a Biographical Drama turns out to be something else.

A Courtroom Drama.

With as much tension and surprise as Witness for the Prosecution (1957) or A Few Good Men (1992).

DO NOT read anything about this movie before watching it.

It is too satisfying to be ruined by an idiotic spoiler.

The film provides opportunities for some outstanding character actors to do their thing.  Donald Meek plays the prosecutor, John Felder.  Spencer Charters plays the Judge.  Ward Bond has a great role as one of the witnesses, J. Palmer Cass.  Our Gang's Dickie Moore plays Adam Clay as a boy.  And a young Milburn Stone from Gunsmoke plays a dashing Stephen A. Douglas.

Henry Fonda looks fantastic as Abraham Lincoln.

And mighty tall.  (He was only 6'1" but wore special boots.)

"We seem to lose our heads in times like this.

We do things together that we'd be mighty ashamed to do by ourselves."

"Law.  That's the rights of persons and the rights of things.

Wrongs are violations of those rights."

302 - The Scarlet Empress, United States, 1934. Dir. Joseph von Sternberg.

Sunday, October 29, 2017

302 - The Scarlet Empress, United States, 1934.  Dir. Joseph von Sternberg.

Your husband doesn't mean a thing to you.
He does!  I'll always be faithful to him.
Don't be absurd.  Those ideas are old-fashioned.  This is the eighteenth century.

This is the conversation between Count Alexei and Sophia Frederica, the new wife of the Grand Duke Peter.

Peter is a half-wit, ugly and ridiculous.  He plays with toys.  Sophia's marriage to him was arranged by their mothers, both with world-historical ambitions--hers for her daughter to become an Empress, his for a daughter-in-law to provide Russia with a male heir.

The Empress Elizabeth has sent Alexei to retrieve Sophia from Germany for her son.  While at Sophia's home, he has described Peter as being the tallest, most handsome, most skillful, and most sought-after man in all of Russia.  He gets her hopes up.  She will be grossly disappointed.  Later he admits he did this to get her to come.  If he had told her the truth, she would have never left Germany.

However, as she stands here, now unhappily married, we do not quite believe her.  She allowed Alexei himself to woo and kiss her as they travelled back to Russia, and one has the impression she still harbors feelings for Alexei.

Yet she is about to discover that Alexei is also in a relationship with her mother-in-law the Empress.  Apparently, he really does hold to new-fashioned eighteenth-century ideas.

Her maid explains to her that everyone in the Russian court has secret affairs, and that she herself should consider it.  And despite her protests, the viewer may anticipate what is to come.

The Empress is putting pressure on Sophia to have a child, and she demands that it be a boy.  The Empress brought Sophia here to have an heir and she expects her to give her one.

It seems incongruous to Sophia that it will be with Peter her husband--not only are they mutually odious to one another, but he has his own mistress also--the Countess Elizabeth, "Lizzie," who intends to eliminate Sophia as soon as the Empress Elizabeth dies.  Apparently, the maid was right.  Everyone in the court is having affairs, even the half-wits.

And now that Sophia knows Alexei is having late-night conjugal visits with the Empress, it will certainly not be with him.  She has no intentions of sharing a lover with her mother-in-law.

So how will she possibly provide the Empire with an heir?

Well, maybe she will run into a soldier at night.  When she sneaks out of the palace.  To retrieve a locket she has just thrown out.  In anger.  A locket Alexei gave her.

And maybe in her anger she will give herself to this unknown soldier.

And give Russia its heir.


When Sophia was a child (played by Marlene Dietrich's real daughter, Maria Riva), she told her mother, "I don't want to be a queen, mother.  I want to be a toe dancer."

Her mother raised her on stories of Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible, with details of torture involving nude women turning on water-wheel racks and being burned at the stake, and with men swinging upside down inside of giant bells, their heads functioning as the clappers.  Her own doctor moonlights as a hangman, and the child Sophia asks if she might become a hangman one day.

Well, she never will become a ballerina.  And now that she has had a son, she embraces her destiny.

As the Empress Elizabeth is dying, the Countess Elizabeth makes it clear to Sophia that Peter will get rid of her and make the Countess his new Queen.  But Sophia is too savvy for that.  After having had her first soldier, she has gone on to earn the favor the entire Russian army, and the army conspires with her to eliminate Peter, now Peter III.

When the Empress dies, Sophia rides a white stallion with the army to take her place, as her special friend Captain Orloff eliminates Peter for her.

And the young Sophia launches her career.

As Catherine the Great.


Josef von Sternberg was an expressive director.  He was born in Austria, got an early start in Hollywood, returned to Germany to direct its first talking feature, and returned to Hollywood to cement his reputation for his visually and moodily striking style.  And for being a Svengali.

It some ways it seems his life's work was to make Marlene Dietrich look beautiful on film.  He directed Dietrich in seven pictures, and he poured his cinematic artistry into her close-ups.  Her eyes.  Her face.  Her hair.  Her clothing.  And the lighting and shadows that embraced her.  Everything else in the film seemed to exist to support her.

And yet he does not allow her very much room to be still or seductive.  Or thoughtful or calculating.  He has her prancing about in ridiculous over-the-top frenzy.

Then there are those hundreds of gargoyles he had fabricated.

The sets are some of the most cluttered one has ever seen.  The viewer is not sure whether he is watching a film about eighteenth-century Russia or an episode of Hoarders.  When the film did not break even at the box office, they could have recouped their costs by having an estate sale.  It is a wonder the actors were even able to walk on the floor rather than crawling across the tops of the furniture.

Many people have found this movie strange.

Historical accuracy is of no concern.

Neither are love, romance, intrigue, or power.

But Gothic production design is.  And expressionistic lighting.

And there remains something mesmerizing about it.

Like ordering cheap food from a world-class chef.

Or kitsch from a Renaissance painter.

You feel as if you are in one of the world's great museums.

Looking at the half-baked doodles of a genius.

301 - It Happened One Night, United States, 1934. Dir. Frank Capra.

Saturday, October 28, 2017

301 - It Happened One Night, United States, 1934.  Dir. Frank Capra.

Frank Capra casually picked up a Cosmopolitan magazine while waiting in the lobby of a doctor's office or barbershop, and he read an article, "Night Bus," about a rich heiress who fled the restraints of her family.

He went to his boss at Columbia and asked them to buy the story.  His boss agreed and they did.  At the time Columbia was a Poverty Row studio.  It did not have the resources or the prestige of an MGM, Warner Bros., or Paramount.  But the previous year it had received its first Academy nominations with Capra's picture Lady for a Day, so studio chief Harry Cohn was hungry for more, and Frank Capra had some clout.

Frank Capra was a workman's director who had been in the industry a little over a decade.  He was not widely known in America.  He had not yet made any of the classics for which he would later be known.  His credits included titles such as Long Pants (1927), For the Love of Mike (1927), and Say It With Sables (1928).

Are those films in your rotation?  I did not think so.

OK, to be fair, he had also made Platinum Blonde (1931), American Madness (1932), The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1932), and Lady for a Day (1933).  If you are a film buff, you may be familiar with those titles.  However, I suspect the majority of my readers have never heard of any of them.

Capra went looking for a leading lady.  He approached Myrna Loy, Margaret Sullivan, Miriam Hopkins, and Loretta Young.  All of them turned it down.  He approached Robert Montgomery to play the leading man.  He too turned it down.

Claudette Colbert was not too thrilled about this project either.  She had worked with Capra on that great hit I mentioned above, For the Love of Mike, and it was a colossal flop.  It was now six years later, and she was a Paramount star.  She was none too excited about being loaned out to a Poverty Row studio for another failure.  Furthermore, she only had a four-week availability window before her vacation at Sun Valley, and she intended to make her vacation.  So she quoted her weekly rate to Capra and then demanded double.  This would get rid of him.  He reported it to Cohn, and Cohn said yes.  The Poverty Row studio was willing to pay double the rate of a major studio to get one of their stars for a month.  As we said, Harry Cohn was hungry.

Meanwhile, Clark Gable was with MGM.  Of course.  Louis B. Mayer was more than willing to loan him out to Columbia.  He had to pay him his weekly rate anyway, and Gable had nothing on his calendar, so Mayer might as well get something in return for it.

Now Frank Capra was in a bind, a bind for which he willing sign up.  He had to make a motion picture in four weeks.  Four weeks!

That sounds like independent movie making today, using digital cameras.  But this was a Hollywood studio in the early 1930s.  How would they pull it off?

Capra went on location.

Sound had started to influence film technology in such a way that directors could go out more on location.  Cameras were lighter and more portable.  Rather than building sets on a sound stage, a director could go on location to save time and money.

Capra did build a couple of sets.  He built a set of the bus, which could be jostled, and with process screens out the windows.  And he built a set of a motor court, which he reused for each of the places the couple would stop during the film.

Claudette Colbert did her duty without pleasure.  She was looking forward to that vacation, and she was not thrilled with the conditions under which she was expected to work.  When it was over she told her friends that she had just made the worst movie of her career.

At least it was over.

She could move on.

Then the movie was released.  People went to see it.  They returned with their friends.  They too returned and they too brought their friends.  It spread across America like wildfire.

By the time the Academy Awards came around it became the first movie in history to win all five major awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress.  This would not happen again for 41 more years, until One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.  When they opened the envelopes they began to read the Winner and the audience finished the title for them.

The movie made so much money that it alone propelled Columbia Pictures from being a Poverty Row studio to being a major.

The chemistry between Gable and Colbert is extraordinary.  They are both strong and both vulnerable in their respective ways, and their characters genuinely love one another.

It Happened One Night happens over several nights and a few days, and when you watch it, it may happen for you.

300 - Design for Living, United States, 1933. Dir. Ernst Lubitsch.

Friday, October 27, 2017

300 - Design for Living, United States, 1933.  Dir. Ernst Lubitsch.

Welcome to Bohemia.

This is no ordinary love triangle.

It is an out-in-the-open three-way relationship between a woman and two men.

All three Americans.  Living in France.

And it all begins on a train, as the men are sleeping and the woman enters the car, gazes upon them, and begins to draw their portraits.  While smiling.

She is a commercial artist, a work for hire, named Gilda (pronounced "Jilda"), and she is infectiously good-natured.  She seems to love life, love what she does, love people, and really love these two men, even while they are sleeping.

The two men are Tom and George.  Thomas B. Chambers and George Curtis.  Two starving-artist roommates, the one a playwright, the other a painter.

When they awaken, she is asleep, so they help themselves to look through her portfolio.  With each turned page they see Napoleon in a lesser degree of dress (He is her caricature for underwear ads), which ends not with what they expect but with the portrait of themselves.

They look up.  She is awake and smiling at them.  They speak French to her, or try to, and she tries back, each party thinking the other is French, until finally she declares, "Oh, nuts!" and they realize that she too is an ex-pat.  After standing to attention and humming the "Star-Spangled Banner," they speak to her with relief in American English.

And each takes a turn trying to woo her without the other one's knowing it.

Another man enters to block both of them.  Max Plunkett.  He is neither Miss Farrell's husband nor her fiance.  He is her devoted friend, guide, counselor, and protector.  Or as Chambers puts it, "In other words, Mr. Plunkett, you never got to first base."

Plunkett accidentally agrees with him before stopping to overlook the insult.

Chambers will use Plunkett's words in the play he is writing, Good Night Bassington, whose plot oddly begins to resemble what is currently happening to them.

Gilda (remember, "Jilda") spends a day with Chambers and a day with Curtis, and Plunkett fails to talk any of the three of them out of it.

In fact, Gilda herself comes to their apartment and lays it all out in the open.  She has had the same thing happen to her that happens to men.  Men are allowed to love more than one woman at a time.  She loves two men.  She intends to follow through with both of them.

She proposes to stay with them and be platonic.  She calls it a "gentleman's agreement."  The three of them will be roommates, and she will oversee their artistic development.  She will be tough on them and demand that they improve.  She does.  They do.

But one might imagine this relational arrangement hangs in a delicate balance difficult to sustain.

Gilda gets Chambers his first produced opening in London.  He will become a hit and he will have to move there.  While he is away, Curtis and Gilda are left to consummate their side of the love triangle.

But he too will become successful and he will be gone when Chambers comes back to visit.

What is a woman to do?

Gilda will figure it out.  And it might not be what one expects.

Design for Living was based on a recent Noel Coward play of the same name.  He wrote it for the Lunts--Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne--and himself.  They had met just over a decade earlier when they were all broke, and he promised them that one day he would write a play in which they could act together.  Now they were all stars.  He wrote it.  They starred in it.  It was a success.

Meanwhile, Ernst Lubitsch, known for his unconventional libidinal comedies, chose to adapt this play from a famous playwright rather than his usual choice of an obscure one.  He was not able to get his usual screen collaborator, so he teamed up with Ben Hecht, now known as one of the most prolific and successful screenwriters in history.  (Look him up.)  Hecht kept almost none of Coward's original dialogue, but he himself was a great writer and his choices may have improved the story in its transition from stage to screen.

The movie stars the tall Gary Cooper (6'3") as George Curtis, the average-height Fredric March (5'10") (then more famous) as Thomas B. Chambers, and the short Miriam Hopkins (5'2") as Gilda Farrell, and their height differences occasionally play into sight gags.

The film is playful throughout, with hopeful wit and joy of life.  As for its plausibility, we will let you decide whether you are willing to suspend your disbelief.

Gilda makes a gentleman's agreement.

But then, as she reminds us, she is not a gentleman.


*                              *                              *                              *                              *

Welcome to Bohemia, Sir.

Oh, now, don't let's be delicate, Mr. Plunkett.  Let's be crude and objectionable, both of us.  One of the greatest handicaps to civilization, and I may say to progress, is the fact that people speak with ribbons on their tongues.

Delicacy, as the philosophers point out, is the banana peel under the feet of truth.

Immorality may be fun, but it isn't fun enough to take the place of 100% virtue and three square meals a day.

Mr. Curtis, what is your annual income, in round figures?
In round figures?  Zero.
May I ask what you live on?
Nothing.  I survive by miracles.

Yesterday it's Tom?  Yes.
Today it's George?  Yes.

Hoodlums.  Artistic bums.  Both of 'em put together aren't worth a dime.

You've been nice.
I've been marvelous.
No, just nice.

Gilda, I've been your friend for five years.
And I want you to remain my friend for the next 50 years, so please shut up.

Max, have you ever been in love?
This is no time to answer that!

Have you ever felt your brain catch fire, and a curious, dreadful thing go right through your body, down, down to your very toes, and leave you with your ears ringing?
That's abnormal.

I haven't got a clean shirt to my name.
Clean shirt?  What's up, a romance?
I'm not talking about pajamas.  I'm talking about a clean shirt.
I don't want to go around looking like a rag picker.

So he caught you with Gilda.
It's a lie!  He didn't catch me.

Let's behave like civilized people.
It's quite apparent that you behaved in this matter as a rather common, ordinary rat.

I've been listening to these half-witted dramas of yours for 11 years.
And I've grown cockeyed looking at those Humpty-Dumpty pictures of yours.
And we should give up all this on account of some girl we met on a train?
Third class!
No woman's worth it.
We ignore her 50-50.

A thing happened to me that usually happens to men.  You see, a man can meet two, three, or even four women and fall in love with all of them and then by a process of interesting elimination he's able to decide which one he prefers.

But a woman must decide purely on instinct, guesswork, if she wants to be considered nice.  Oh, it's quite all right for her to try on a hundred hats before she picks one out, but--

Which chapeau do you want, Madam?
Both.

Well, boys, it's the only thing we can do.  Let's forget sex.

I think both you boys have a great deal of talent, but too much ego.  You spend one day working and a whole month bragging.

Gentlemen, there are going to be a few changes.  I'm going to jump up and down on your ego.  I'm going to criticize your work with a baseball bat.  I'm going to tell you every day how bad your stuff is until you get something good, and if it's good, I'm going to tell you it's rotten till you get something better.

I'm going to be a Mother of the Arts.

No sex.

It's a gentleman's agreement.

You should know, my dear, that I hate stupidity masquerading as criticism.

You're ruining me.  You're ruining my work.  You're just being cheap and malicious.

Why don't you go out to a movie or something.  Tarzan is playing at the Adelphia Theatre.

You can't change love by shaking hands with somebody.

We're unreal, the three of us, trying to play jokes on nature.

This is real.  [He kisses her.]  A million times more honest than all the art in the wold.

It's true we have a gentleman's agreement, but unfortunately I am no gentleman. - Gilda

Well, pals, you'll be interested to know that all London is agog with my wit and charm.

The three of us--Athos, Porthos, and Mademoiselle d'Artagnon.

Good Night Bassington now in its 10th month.

Hello, you old vampire, you!
You hooligan!
You Benedict Arnold!
You--shall we be seated?

Conscience bothering you?
No.
Confused?
Very much so.

Well, that's one way of meeting the situation.  Shipping clerk comes home, finds missus with boarder.  He breaks dishes.  It's pure burlesque.

Then there's another way.  Intelligent artist returns unexpectedly, finds treacherous friends.  Both discuss the pros and cons of the situation in grown-up dialogue.  High-class comedy, enjoyed by everybody.

And there's a third way.  I'll kick your teeth out, tear your head off, and beat some decency into you!
Cheap melodrama.  Very dull.

Don't ever bow to double chins.  Stay an artist.  That's important.  In fact, the most important thing.

Here, you rattlesnake.

Two slightly used artists in the ashcan.

Do you love me?
People should never ask that question on their wedding night.  It's either too late or too early.

All the way from China.  Hello.  Tom and George.

This is no time for remembering.  It would have been much more tactful of them to forget.

Are you expected?
No, not exactly expected. / Anticipated, hoped for, and dreamed about.

Inspector Knox.  Sergeant O'Toole.  Headquarters.

Now, listen, Plunkett, Incorporated!  You go down to those customers of yours and give them a sales talk.  Sell them anything you want but not me.  I'm fed up with underwear, cement, linoleum!

I'm sick of being a trademark married to a slogan!

I guarantee you, you'll be considered the biggest martyr in the history of cement.

The number of sacred cows gaily demolished by the film--premarital virginity, fidelity, monogamy, marriage, and finally, the one article of even bohemian faith, the exclusive one-to-one love relationship--is staggering. - Molly Haskell.

299 - Island of Lost Souls, United States, 1932. Dir. Erle C. Kenton.

Thursday, October 26, 2017

299 - Island of Lost Souls, United States, 1932.  Dir. Erle C. Kenton.

The natives are restless.

They are restless tonight.

They are more than usually restless tonight.

So says Dr. Moreau.

The natives are animals transforming into people, and Dr. Moreau is the mad, er, great scientist responsible for the transforming.

He began his experiments in London but had to move to the island when a creature formerly known as a dog escaped and terrorized the city.

Now he conducts his experiments in isolation.  On the island.  An island without a name.  An island not on the chart.  He is off the charts!  "It's Dr. Moreau's island, and it stinks all over the South Seas."

Dr. Moreau performs his experiments without anesthetics, on creatures who are fully awake.  They feel everything.  Therefore, they refer to his operating room as the House of Pain.

If you grew up listening to Van Halen and know their song "House of Pain," then you now know where that song idea came from.

Edward Parker is listed as one of the passengers missing from the S.S. Lady Vain.  He wires his fiancee, Miss Ruth Thomas, at the Continental Hotel, that he will arrive in Apia on the sixth, by way of the S.S. Covena.  Too bad the captain of the Covena, Captain Davies, a drunk, does not want him.  He tosses him over into the smaller boat as soon as the clients disembark to go to the island.

Parker will not arrive in Apia on the sixth.  He will be on the island.

Location:  Latitude 15 South, Longitude 170 West.

When Dr. Moreau finds Parker on his island, he gets an idea.  He has this panther he has been transforming into a woman.

Lota.

She is afraid of Dr. Moreau and his assistant Montgomery, because they rule by fear.  But perhaps she will not be afraid of Parker, an outsider, a new man.  Perhaps he will engage her heart.  Perhaps she will develop feelings for him.  Perhaps she will fall in love.

If only she did not still have those claws that dig into his back when she hugs him.

H. G. Wells wrote the 1896 novel on which this movie is based.  He wrote during the fin de siecle, when science and science fiction were the rage, when novelists and their readers were contemplating the ethics of man creating man.

You may know these titles:

The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898).

In all Wells wrote more than 50 novels.

This film may may have been directed by the least-known director we have seen so far this year: Erle C. Kenton.  Ever heard of him?

It stars as Dr. Moreau that most fascinating person, Charles Laughton.

Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939).  The director of The Night of the Hunter (1955).  We talked about him more in our blog of that film.

When Parker does not arrive in Apia on the sixth, Ruth Thomas takes Skipper Davies to the U.S. Consul to complain.

Davies asserts that he dropped Parker off at port.  He says that is all that is required of him.

The U.S. Consul has something to say about that.  If he finds any irregularities, he will revoke Davies' license.

He sends another sailor, Donahue, with Ruth Thomas to find Parker.

Which means everyone will converge on the island.

Something is going to go down.

And it might not be good.

When a group of creatures with the instincts and the strength of animals, who have new powers of thought and free will, come together in anger, well . . .

Let us just say that the doctor does not wish to become the patient.

The film was remade in 1977 starring Burt Lancaster, Michael York, Nigel Davenport, Richard Basehart, and Barbara Carrera, and again in 1996, by John Frankenheimer, starring Marlon Brando, Val Kilmer, David Thewlis, and Fairuza Balk.

We recommend you do not go out into the jungle.

The natives are restless tonight.


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Parker - Those animals, they talk.
Moreau - That was my first great achievement.  Articulate speech controlled by the brain.

Do you know what it means to feel like God?

An animal with a woman's emotions, a woman's heartbreak, a woman's suffering.  Why, that's criminal.

I could have overlooked those others.  I could have shown you that much consideration.  But not now.

Are you leaving?  I think you'd better sit down and make yourself comfortable.

I imagined Edward in some terrible place, but this is charming.

There's no twilight in the Tropics.  Night falls like a curtain.

298 - King of Kings, United States, 1927. Dir. Cecil B. DeMille.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

298 - King of Kings, United States, 1927.  Dir. Cecil B. DeMille.

In the film It's a Wonderful Life, young George Bailey--played beautifully by Robert J. Anderson--works at the local drugstore.  He is a proud new member of the National Geographic Society and dreams of travelling the world.  Young Mary Hatch, in competition with the neighbor girl Violet, leans over the counter and whispers in his ear, "George Bailey, I'll love you till the day I die."  George has lost the hearing in that ear from having saved his younger brother's life in the ice, so he does not hear her.  But she keeps her promise.

George is called into the back room by Mr. Gower.  Mr. Gower sends him to deliver some medicine to a customer.  But George sees that Mr. Gower has made a mistake.  He has put poison in the bottle rather than the medicine that was required.  If George delivers the bottle as told, the customer will probably die.  He tries to tell Mr. Gower, but Mr. Gower does not listen.  He forces George out of the room.  George goes to ask his father what to do but his father is too busy.  When he returns Mr. Gower is upset that the medicine was not delivered.  It escalates.  He strikes George.  Finally, George is able to explain it to Mr. Gower.  He has seen the telegram sitting on the counter that delivered news to Mr. Gower that morning that his son had been killed in the War.  Mr. Gower is hurting.  Grieving.  George understands.  He makes things better.

Many people have seen this extraordinary performance.  Many people watch this film again every year.  If you want to know something about film, that is not a bad idea.  It is one of the great American films.  Some people thoughtlessly call it sentimental, but it is by no means sentimental.  It is hard, dark, desperate, and brutally honest.  It portrays a man's seething rage over the way his life has turned out, a life of frustrating defeat, of one bad turn after another, the curse of living that drives him to attempt suicide.  And then, a little perspective.  In the battle between good and evil, as films go, it comes pretty close to truth.

The role of Mr. Gower was played by H. B. Warner, a prolific actor and a Frank Capra staple.  He also played in the Capra films Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Lost Horizon (1937) (his performance nominated for an Academy Award), You Can't Take It With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and Here Comes the Groom (1951).

If you know the film It's a Wonderful Life, imagine seeing Mr. Gower.  Standing there in his pharmacy.  Drunk with grief.  Angry.  Hurting.  Striking young George.  Shocked to learn that he has nearly killed a woman.

Now--

Imagine looking into the deeply loving eyes of Jesus the Christ.

Played nearly twenty years before.

By H. B. Warner.

The same actor who played Mr. Gower.

In the Cecil B. DeMille epic.

The King of Kings.

By the time he played Jesus, Warner had been acting in film for 27 years.  By the time he played Mr. Gower, he had been acting in film for 46 years.  He would act in film for another ten years.  And finish his career with Cecil B. DeMille again.

As Aminadab.

In The Ten Commandments (1956).

But now--

The King of Kings.

Orson Welles believed his entrance in The Third Man (1949) to be one of the greatest entrances in the history of film.  Talk about a dead man for an hour.  Build him up.  Make him a legend.  Then surprise us.  Show us a shadow.  Show us his feet.  And finally, show us his face.

Consider too this entrance.  First Mary Magdalene.  Living the high life in the court.  With her pet leopard.  Riding her carriage driven by zebras.  Then talk about a new man.  Build him up.  Describe his unusual powers.  She looks for Judas.  She is jealous.  It turns out he is with this man.  She goes to see him.  Goes to see the crowds.  Goes to see the masses who have gone to see him.  And we look through the eyes of a little blind girl.

The girl knows what she wants.  She wants to see Jesus.  She knows it more than anything she has ever known.  And she is going to get it.  We leave Mary Magdalene as we pick up with the girl.  And follow her.  As she follows Him.  Finally, she arrives.  She passes through the crowds.  She makes it to the place where He is.  But we do not see Him.  We see her.  We see her wanting to see Him.

Then we go into her eyes.  Her Point of View.  A POV shot.  But her Point of View is darkness.  Her Point of Darkness.  A POD shot.  Suddenly, the light appears.  The unblinding light.  The sight light.  And she can see.  And we can see.  And we, as she, can see Him.

Standing.

With His eyes of love.

Cecil B. DeMille uses spectacular special effects throughout this film.  One of them is to make Jesus' face and body glow.  He seems to have a real halo surrounding him.  Real light around his head.  And his body itself seems to be itself a light, seems to glow from within.  If Alfred Hitchcock accomplished something by placing a light inside a glass of milk in Notorious (1946), imagine what Cecil B. DeMille accomplished by seeming to place a light inside a human being.

More special effects come with the eclipse and earthquake during the Crucifixion, the rending of the Temple Veil, and the double exposure of Jesus' casting out of seven demons from Mary Magdalene.

Colorwise the film is the inverse of The Wizard of Oz (1939).  The Wizard of Oz begins and ends in black and white and places the middle fantasy in color.  The King of Kings places the middle in black and white with the beginning and ending in two-strip Technicolor.  Two-strip Technicolor in 1927.

On Wednesday, May 18, 1927, The King of Kings became the first film ever shown at the newly opened Grauman's Chinese Theater.  More than 50,000 people showed up.

The Temple of Jerusalem set built on the Pathe lot in Culver City was later used as the gates of King Kong (1933), later as The Garden of Allah (1936), and was later still set on fire for the burning of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind (1939).

The timeline of the biblical story is moved around a bit--the devil tempts Jesus during the Triumphal Entry (Palm Sunday) rather than at the beginning of his ministry--and elements are made up for dramatic purposes--such as Mary Magdalene's being involved with Judas Iscariot before either of them finds Christ.

When Jesus stops the accusers from punishing the Woman Caught in Adultery, DeMille has him write their own sins in the sand.  He writes in Hebrew and then it is cinematically translated into English.  Thief.  Murderer.  Adulterer.  Each man drops his rock, his face racked with shame.

The sign above his head is likewise written in Hebrew and cinematically translated into English.  The King of the Jews.

The title cards show direct quotations from the Bible with their references given at the bottom.

With this film Cecil B. DeMille has given us a story.  The most important story.  The greatest story.  Ever told.

With the answer to Man's deepest need depicted in the Messiah hanging on the cross, being raised to life again, and ascending into Heaven.

The greatest expression of love embodied by Jesus the Christ.  Hanging on the cross.

The title card reads, "Truly--This Man was the son of God!"

With every human soul balancing on its response to that statement.



Now about those zebras . . .

297 - Limelight, United States, 1952. Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

297 - Limelight, United States, 1952.  Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Calvero is a washed-up clown.

He was great in his day, one of the best that ever was, but now his name is poison to producers.  His agent has just spent six months convincing them to put him on a bill at a local music hall.

They are doing HIM a favor.  Now if he could just change his name maybe people will show up.

How did it come to this?

At one time Charlie Chaplin himself was the most famous entertainer in the world.  Not one of the most famous.  The most famous.

Whom do you think might be the most world-famous character today?  Mickey Mouse?  Ronald McDonald?  Now imagine Chaplin's Little Tramp character being more universally known than that.  He was.

And yet his last film, yesterday's Monsieur Verdoux (1947), was a flop.  His first ever.  People stayed away in droves.

So he knew a little bit about what he was talking about.

When we first see Calvero, he is drunk.  And even the neighborhood kids pick on him.  The neighborhood kids played by Chaplin's own children.

But something wonderful happens to him.  The kind of thing that can transform a person's life.

He stumbles into a situation where someone needs him, and he reaches out beyond himself to help another human being.  He stops thinking about his own problems, and he starts thinking about someone else.

And love awakens within him.

Not romance.  Not giddy feelings.  Not the desire to be loved.

But love.

Self-sacrifice.  Giving.  Patience.  Kindness.  Longsuffering.  Keeping no record of wrongs.  Commitment.  Dedication.  Steadfastness.

That kind of love.

A girl in his apartment building tries to kill herself.  She swallows something.  She opens the oven and closes the windows and blocks the gaps under the doors.

When he finds her she is passed out.  He revives her.  He gets someone to call the doctor.  He helps her to his room.  He helps her to heal.

And when he discovers that she is a dancer, this great performer takes her under his wings and nurtures her back to life, back to health, back to confidence, and back to performing again.

He himself still performs.

On stage.

To an empty audience.

And at first he takes her with him.

And they perform together.

On stage.

To an empty audience.

But one day, as it is bound to happen, the people come.

There will be struggles.

There will be heartaches.

But in the end there just might be triumph.

And he loves her so much that he is even willing to let her go.

To a younger man who is more suited to her.

Even when she loves him and him alone.

How will that turn out?

Something extraordinary happens in this film.

When Calvero returns to the stage, he comes with his Partner.

And his Partner, Charlie Chaplin's partner, is none other than Joseph Frank Keaton.

That's Buster Keaton to you.

The Great Stone Face.

The man who, together with Chaplin, invented the movies.

And possibly the only real rival Chaplin had ever known.

The two legends.  In their twilight.  Returning to the limelight.  Together.

We get to see them backstage before the show.

Putting on their make-up and hair.

Transforming before our very eyes.

And then coming out on stage and looking unlike anything we have ever seen in them before.

When you think of great films about performers--The Red Shoes (1947), Black Swan (2010), etc. (You finish the list)--think of Limelight (1952).  It belongs.

Claire Bloom, who plays Terry the dancer, the girl Calvero loves, was just getting started in real life.  And Chaplin launched her career.  And at the young age of 86 she is still acting today.

You may know her from The King's Speech (2010).  Or Mighty Aphrodite (1995).  Or The Age of Innocence (1993).  Or Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989).  Or Clash of the Titans (1981).  Or Islands in the Stream (1977).  Or A Doll's House (1973).  Or The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965).  Or Look Back in Anger (1959).  Or Richard III (1955).  And so much in between.

As Terry looks into the eyes of Neville, the younger man, the man to whom Calvero yields (played by Chaplin's own son Sydney Earl Chaplin!), she explains why she will always love Calvero.

"It's his soul.  His sweetness.  His sadness.

Nothing could ever separate me from that."

296 - Monsieur Verdoux, United States, 1947. Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Monday, October 23, 2017

296 - Monsieur Verdoux, United States, 1947.  Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Before the Coen Brothers made famous use of a wood chipper in their 1996 masterpiece Fargo, they made use of an incinerator in their 1984 debut Blood Simple.

And before the Coen Brothers used an incinerator in Blood Simple, Charlie Chaplin used an incinerator in his 1947 talkie Monsieur Verdoux.

An incinerator.  Oooh. . . . What is producing that black smoke?

If you have only seen Charlie Chaplin as The Little Tramp in silent films, then this film will be a revelation for you.  And potentially a delightful one.

Chaplin plays a character, a regular person.  He speaks.  He walks.  He behaves.  Like real people really do.  He is not a clown.

As you watch you wish he had made more talking pictures, and you wish he had allowed others to write for him and direct him as well.

From the beginning, when Orson Welles' name is evoked below Charles Chaplin's, as the originator of the story, the viewer is entranced.  Really?  Charlie Chaplin made a movie from an Orson Welles story idea?  How exciting!  And one can imagine the dramatic possibilities from the Orson Welles idea.

As the film progresses, however, one wishes Welles had directed the film.  Chaplin remains one of the great physical comedians of all time, and his acting in Monsieur Verdoux is solid.  But he is not a highly technical director.  The film wanders a bit.  And one can see missed opportunities.  The viewer can only imagine what Welles' use of lighting, camera angles, and editing would have done for the dramatic tension of this film.  Nevertheless, we are still in the hands of one of the greats.

The film begins as a cheerful crime drama, told through the words of the dead narrator.  As Sunset Blvd. would do three years later.  As American Beauty would do four decades later.  And we are told from the beginning what his profession will be.  The former banker who lost his job in the great stock market crash has entered a new profession.  He seduces women to marry them, murder them, and take their money.  And he is doing well for himself in the midst of the Great Depression.  It is only business, after all, and Verdoux is good at it.  This is Chaplin at his most bitingly satirical.

The film opens with a chamber drama, and it focuses on the petty arguments of a family so annoyingly quarrelsome that the viewer is immediately prepared to take sides with Verdoux over their newly missing sister.

The family travels to France to seek help from the authorities, and in their stupidity they have even burned their only picture featuring their brother-in-law's appearance.  No problem, they claim.  They will know him when they see him.  Foreshadowing.

Meanwhile, Verdoux is already at work removing the evidence of his last job, their sister, and making arrangements to sell the house and clear out.  When his next potential buyer arrives, he attempts to make her his next subject, and she will play prominently later on.

Verdoux is a fascinating character.  He seems genuinely to love his wife and son and motivated to provide for them.  He is cultured, with a head for business and chemistry and a heart for moonrises and poetry.  He is able to sweep women off their feet, and he is able to manage multiple marriages in multiple cities.

We watch as he pursues them. 

And we see how his heart is affected when he picks up a homeless girl, recently released from jail, and overplays his hand, causing her to believe he is a man of great kindness and goodness.

The narrative goes at a decent clip but occasionally gets bogged down with meandering plotlines and distracted political philosophy.

The less you know about the latter, the more you will enjoy the film.

The more you know about the latter, both in the message of the film and in the contemporaneous personal and political affairs of its filmmaker, the less enthusiastic you will be.

Crime dramas, capers, thrillers, and films noir tend to work best as self-contained stories, with the focus on the moral quandaries of the specific individuals involved.  They are less effective as grand social statements.

Yes, this film is also a social satire, but good luck making a womanizing serial killer the moral voice against an entire society that has just worked its way out of a great depression, restored hope, and fought and defeated one of the greatest evils the world has ever known, all in the name of some muddled abstract theory.

The girl he once helped has returned in the end and has offered to help him in return.

He should have accepted her offer.

295 - The Great Dictator, United States, 1940. Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Sunday, October 22, 2017

295 - The Great Dictator, United States, 1940.  Dir. Charles Chaplin.

CHAPLIN TALKS!

Wait.  Didn't Garbo talk ten years before?

It is 1940, and Chaplin is speaking in a movie for the first time.  Garbo spoke for the first time in Anna Christie, which came out in 1930.

Even that was seven years after The Jazz Singer claimed to be the first talkie in 1923.

Using a technology technically available since 1900.

So many silent film stars lost their careers when sound came to the movies.

A few made the transition.

But how many continued to make silents?  And flourished?

One.

Charlie Chaplin made most of his silent masterpieces after the use of sound was available to him.

And the public kept coming.

He probably could have continued to do so.

But now he has retired The Little Tramp character and has made a talking comedy.  Starring in two roles.

As Hynkel, the Dictator of Tomania.

And as a Jewish Barber.

Yes, Hynkel is patterned after Adolf Hitler.  It is a parody.  And Chaplin already has the toothbrush mustache!  People have in fact speculated as to whether Hitler took his mustache from Chaplin early in his career as a way to make himself more popular.  However, there is no evidence to suggest it.  The current suggestion is that Hitler was ordered to trim his mustache during World War 1 in order for his gas mask to fit on him.  (Yet if that were the case, would it not have been more widespread?)

Chaplin is making this parody in 1940, which today seems quite prescient.  Yet he stated later that he would not have done so had he known the extent of the atrocities which the great dictator was committing.

The film stands between the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup (1933) and Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be (1942).

It was well received in countries where it was allowed to play, and it made a difference in helping to save lives.

After the War it was better understood how courageous Chaplin had been.

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--Spoiler--

Because the dictator and the barber look identical to one another, the plot will build up to a role reversal in which the dictator will ultimately be sent to a concentration camp and the barber will be asked to give a speech to a large audience, adjuring them to pursue democracy

294 - Modern Times, United States, 1936. Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Saturday, October 21, 2017

294 - Modern Times, United States, 1936.  Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Modern Times, or How the Little Tramp Tried to Keep a Job.

Factory worker.  Protest leader.  Ship builder.  Night watchman.  Factory worker.  Waiter.  Cabaret singer.

Football player playing ball with a roast duck.

If only he can keep up with the times.  The modern times.

The Factory.

The sheep traipse through the corral gate.

The people funnel into the workplace.

A Factory Worker works on an assembly line.  He holds a wrench in each hand.  Turns left.  Loosens pairs of nuts on steel plates as they pass.  The next man hammers the right bolt post; the next man hammers the left bolt post.  The belt takes the bolts with the nuts on the steel plates into a hole through a series of gears.

The plates move past with time to do the task.

As long as you do not have to scratch your armpit.

Or swat a bee on your nose.

The man's body jerks with the jolting lurch of a clutch slip on a manual shift, with the steady tock of a ticking clock, with heartbeat rhythm of a full-body hiccough.

He spasms into the restroom.  Before he can smoke or wash his hands his boss appears on a wall-size projection and orders him back to work.

He falls onto the conveyor belt and passes through the gears.

They reverse it and pull him back.

He has become a machine.  His wrench-hands loosen everything he sees.  The buttons on a woman's dress.  A hot bowl of soup.  A fire hydrant.

Finally, he is fired.

The Protest Parade.

He walks into the street.

A flag falls from a fleeing flatbed.

He picks it up and tries to return it.  A protest parade ambles up behind him.  The police arrive.  He is taken for the leader.  He is taken, as the leader.

He spends the night in jail.

Upon his release he sits next to a woman and his stomach growls.

Ship Builder.

He knocks the wrong plank and launches the half-built ship into the water, where it will sink.  He knows he is sunk.  He walks away before they fire him.

The Gamine.

He runs into a girl.  A street urchin.  Wild-eyed and hungry.  Or rather, she runs into him.  As she is running from the police.  Having just stolen a loaf of bread.

He gallantly claims he stole it.  To go to jail in her place.  The officer begins to take him.  But the witness insists.  It was she and not he.  The officer takes her and not him.

He wants to join her, so he orders a great meal for which he cannot pay and is thrown in the paddy wagon with her.  They fall out and dream of a life to come.  Apples picked in an open window.  A cow giving milk in the kitchen door.  Grapes hanging for the taking.

Back to reality.

Night Watchman.

He and she spend the night in a department store.  They eat cake.

He roller skates blindfolded to the edge of the open floor below with a missing railing.

She enjoys the luxuries of a mink coat and a great bed.

The burglars come.  They order him to stand still.  He is on skates.  He cannot stand still.

Big Bill is one of the burglars.  He is his old workmate from the workplace.  The factory.  They drink champagne.

The next morning they find him in Women's Apparel under a pile of fabrics.

Back to jail.

Back out again.

The Shack.

The Gamine takes him to their new home.  A shack on the wharf.  They try to set up home.  It falls apart on them.

No problem.  The factories are open again.

Factory.

He returns to his old job.  It will not work out.  This time he runs his boss through the gears.

Waiter.

He carries roast duck and a bottle of wine on a tray above his head and tries to traverse the dancers on the dance floor.

Cabaret Singer.

He loses his lines and sings in an ad libbed language.  The manager wants to keep him on but the detectives come for her.

No matter what happens he always keeps his spirits up.  Tomorrow he will succeed.  They will make it.  He will have a job.  They will have a home.  They will be OK.

They walk off into the sunset.

They walk off in silhouette.

Silhouette in sunset.

The sunset silhouette.

293 - The Gold Rush, United States, 1925. Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Friday, October 20, 2017

293 - The Gold Rush, United States, 1925.  Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Six hundred men walk a line through the Chilkoot Pass.

In search of gold.

The Lone Prospector makes his way alone through a lone precipice.

Followed by a black bear.

He finds a sign marking Jim Sourdough, a man lost below in a pile of snow.

The blizzard blows.

The Lone Prospector takes shelter in a lone cabin.  Not knowing it belongs to a wanted man.  Black Larsen.  Violent.  And dangerous.

Larsen returns.  And demands The Prospector leave.

The Prospector tries.

But Nature does not let him.

Larsen opens the door.  The winds blow through.  The Prospector walks against the wind.  And cannot leave the room.  It blows him back.  He walks as if on a treadmill.

The back door opens and blows him out.  He crawls back.

Big Jim McKay makes a Lucky Strike.  Stands on a mountain of gold.  But loses his tent to the storm.  And makes his way to Larsen's cabin.

Big Jim and Black Larsen struggle over a rifle.  The Lone Prospector tries to evade.  But everywhere he runs the rifle follows.  Finally, the last bullet fires.  The Lone Prospector thinks he is hit.  But Black Larsen lies moaning on the floor.

Alive.

The three men are hungry.

Starving.

The Lone Prospector eats a candle from the lantern.  He adds salt.

Big Jim says one must brave the storm.  They will draw cards.  The low man goes.  Big Jim draws the King of Clubs.  The Lone Prospector draws a three.  He gets ready to go.  Black Larsen draws a two.  He goes.  The Lone Prospector is blown by the wind out the back door.

Two men huddle in a pup tent.  In search of Black Larsen.  He appears.  Pulls a revolver.  They pull theirs.  He wins.  Gets them both.

The Lone Prospector cooks his shoe.  Serves it to Big Jim.  Give him the sole.  Keeps the top.  Big Jim switches.  The Lone Prospector eats his sole.  Big Jim eats the top.

Black Larsen finds Big Jim's claim.  Stakes it.  Takes it.

The Lone Prospector and Big Jim wait at the cabin,  Big Jim looks at him.  Sees him as a great big chicken.  Salivates.  Laughs.

The Lone Prospector hides the knife in the bed.

Big Jim chases him with the rifle.

Then sees that it is he.  And gives up the rifle.

Then chases him anyway.  With an axe.  The Lone Prospector defends himself with the rifle.

The situation is dire.

They go their separate ways.

Big Jim is overtaken by Black Larsen.  Larsen knocks him out with a shovel.  Then loses his life to a cliff break.

Meanwhile, in town.  The newly built village.  The outpost.

Jack, the ladies' man.

Georgia, the lady.

Georgia takes pictures at Elizaroff Photos.

The Monte Carlo Dance Hall.

She shows her pictures.

Jack bothers her.

The Lone Prospector enters.  The Stranger.  Sees Georgia.  Love at first sight.

The people dance.

He watches.  His foot wrapped like a shipped package.

He sneaks a shot from a waiter's tray.  Overhears her.  Picks up her picture left torn on the floor.  Watches her avoid Jack's machinations.

Becomes her dancing partner to help her escape.

And so begins the love story.

The Tramp falls in love.

But will she notice him?

Can he win her heart?

Can he find his next meal?

Charlie Chaplin filmed what he had seen in real life.

Six hundred men in a long line trying to find their fortune.

He brought in 600 men by train to the Chilkoot Pass.  And filmed them for two weeks.

He built a 250,000-foot replica of the Pass on his personal studio lot to shoot the rest of the film.

The freezing Alaskan cold in the burning Californian sun.

Men had really eaten their shoes.

And they had really eaten each other.

And Chaplin knew how to turn tragedy into comedy.

And capture what it meant most to be human.

The Tramp, as always, has a big heart.

He longs for food.

He longs for love.

And we cheer for him.

To get a bite to eat.

And to get the girl.

As men rush for gold.

As in their midst walks a man.

With a heart of gold.

292 - The Kid, United States, 1921. Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

292 - The Kid, United States, 1921.  Dir. Charles Chaplin.

Charlie Chaplin is the filmmaker of love.

Consider the silent slapstick comedians of his day--Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, Fatty Arbuckle, Harry Langdon, Charlie Chase, Ben Turpin, Stan Laurel, and the Keystone Cops.

They are known for physical comedy.  Sight gags.  Elaborately orchestrated set pieces.  Dangerous stunts.  Chase scenes.

So is Charlie Chaplin.  In fact, in most cases even more so.

But who else wears his heart on his sleeve the way Chaplin does?  Who else longs so deeply for people to be together and not be alone?  Who else is so openly and unashamedly Romantic?

Frank Capra?  Woody Allen?  Nora Ephron?  Richard Linklater?

It is a short list.

And can he do it without falling into sentimentalism?  Meaning unearned emotion.  We shall see.

The Kid is Charlie Chaplin's first feature film.  Made in 1921.  When he was under contract to First National to make eight two-reelers for a million dollars.  This is his fifth film under that contract.  He made it six reels rather than two.

One might say he waxed creative.

Jackie Coogan plays The Kid.  Jackie Coogan is the child actor for whom Coogan Accounts are named, the bank accounts now required for child actors to protect their assets from money-spending parents.  At least a portion of their assets.

Charlie Chaplin plays the Tramp.  And the writer, the producer, the director, the editor, and the composer.  Before Orson Welles, he was the filmmaker who did it all.

Do you remember where you were when Jermaine Jackson sang the song "Smile" at his brother Michael Jackson's funeral?

Did you remember that "Smile" was written and composed by Charlie Chaplin?

The Kid begins with a woman leaving a charity hospital.  She is alone with a baby.  The father has abandoned her.  She is distraught and forlorn.  She goes to a park and sits on a bench trying to decide what to do.

Title card:  The Woman.  Whose sin was motherhood.

Insert:  Christ carrying the cross.

What other silent slapstick comedians began their films this way?  Christ carrying the cross.  The Woman carrying her baby.  Suffering.  Sacrifice.  Selflessness.

In her despair she places the baby in a rich man's car.  In front of a mansion.  With a note.

"Please love and care for this orphan child."

This note will drive the story.  Twice.

But the car owner does not return to the car.  Car thieves do.  And when they find the baby in the back seat, they abandon it in a rundown part of town.

Enter the Tramp.  He finds the baby.  He tries to return it to the rightful mother.  Or any mother.  While a cop looks on.

He succeeds in getting rid of the baby only to have it come back to him.

And in a moment of harsh realism, he considers placing it in the gutter drain.  He opens the grate and looks inside.

Then he finds the note.  And reads it.  And the note turns the plot for the first time.

"Please love and care for this orphan child."

He makes a choice.  He says Yes.  He turns his heart outward, away from himself and towards another human being.  He opens his heart to love.  He cares for someone else.

He becomes a father.

Five years later the Tramp and the Kid have their adventures together, trying to survive, trying to avoid the cops, trying to make ends meet.

Meanwhile, the Woman has become a great stage actress.  And she has fame.  And money.  If only she had a child.

If only she had her child.

Will fate step in?

What do you think?

Maybe that note will come into play a second time.

Chaplin returns to his spiritual themes several times during the film.

At one point the woman intervenes in a brawl and demands the men stop and make up.  She states, "Remember, if he smites you on one cheek, offer him the other."

Chaplin also inserts a dream sequence where he and the Kid are angels in a world of angels.  Then the devil comes and introduces temptation and follows it up with jealousy.  The Tramp will have to learn how to fight the devil.

Jackie Coogan had a natural affinity for acting with Chaplin and Chaplin enjoyed working with Coogan.

Have you ever heard the old "rule" that says, "Never work with animals or children"?  It was a direct quotation from W. C. Fields.  People have come to treat it as a universal law.

Well, Charlie Chaplin never heard of it.  He said the opposite.

In his autobiography Chaplin stated, "They say babies and dogs are the best actors in movies."

He felt this way because their hearts were open and pure, and they were willing to do whatever was asked of them without hesitation or baggage.

So there you have two opposing concepts.  Which one will you believe?  Fields?  Or Chaplin?  People tend to quote Fields.  But Chaplin had a different concept and it produced different--and better--results.  Chose the concept that produces better results.

If you have never seen a Charlie Chaplin movie, choose to do so.  Then watch all of them.  You will become a lifelong fan.  He is everything that made the movies the movies.  The magic.  The dreams.  The hope.  The wonder.  The laughter.  The pathos.  The heartache.  The joy.

And the next time you hear someone criticize a Hollywood ending for being a happy ending, look him in the eye and ask, "What's wrong with that?"

In the world of theatre, and film, there are two masks.  One is smiling.  One is frowning.  They are not all frowning.

Some of them smile.

Some of them smile after they frown.

Some of them smile because they have frowned.

291 - Speedy, United States, 1928. Dir. Ted Wilde.

Wednesday, October 18, 2017

291 - Speedy, United States, 1928.  Dir. Ted Wilde.

Harold Swift loves his life.  He loves baseball.  He loves his girl.  He loves his job.

That is, if he can keep his job.

He jerks soda at the soda fountain.  He does tricks.  Spins glasses.  Flips the telephone receiver.  Creates the Yankees-White Sox box score using doughnuts and pretzels so that the cooks in the kitchen can keep up with the game.

But the boss needs him to run an errand.  Take flowers to the wife of a customer to square with her for his being up all night.

If Speedy does not deliver the flowers within ten minutes he will be fired.

Speedy is up to the task.  Speedy is Swift's nickname.  To let you know that he is fast.  In case the name Swift does not communicate it to you.

Like the great satirical writer Jonathan Speedy Swift.

Or the pop singer Taylor Speedy Swift.

Speedy rushes to the street.  Goes to hail a taxi.  But sees the box score display at a sporting goods store.  Men are gathered around it.  He cannot see.  He has to get an update on the game.  He climbs atop a car.  Sits on the roof.  Sees the box score.  Someone gets in the car.  Shuts the door on the flowers.  Speedy jumps down.  The car drives off.  Takes the buds with it.  Leaves him with the stems.  He buys a paper.  Opens to the classifieds.  Looks for a new job.

Speedy's girlfriend is Jane.  Jane Dillon.  She lives with her grand-daddy.  Pop Dillon.  Pop drives a horse-drawn trolley.  The last one in New York City.  Some men want to buy it.  Mergers and Acquisitions.  Consolidate the rail business to create one strong local railway.  No more mom and pop trolley stops.

A man comes to call.  W. S. Wilton.  Vice President.  N. Y. Inter-City R. R. Co.  He wants to buy Pop's business.  Shut him down.  He asks Pop's price.  Pop writes 10,000 on the back of Wilton's business card.  Speedy sees a headline.  "Merger of Street Railways Planned."  Sees that the plan "cannot succeed unless small franchises are bought up."

Pop gives the card to Speedy to give to Wilton.  Speedy drops it on the floor.  He bends down.  Adds a single stroke to the numeral one.  Changes 10,000 to 70,000.

Wilton is insulted.

"Why, this price is ridiculous for an old contraption like yours."

He walks out.  Threatens to force Pop out.

It is Saturday.

Monday Speedy will look for a new job.  But first, on Sunday he will take Jane to Coney Island.

Sunday.

Speedy takes Jane to Coney Island.

For the next twenty minutes we go on a romp with them as mayhem besets their escapades.

Monday.

Speedy finds a new job.  As a taxi driver.

For the next twenty minutes we go on an adventure with him as mayhem besets his first day.

We will spend half of that time with Babe Ruth, in a star cameo, as Speedy's first fare after a day of thwarted attempts.

At the end of which Speedy loses his job.

But in the process of hiding in a phone booth he overhears Mr. Wilton in the next booth over.  Wilton is making plans to have a gang run off Pop so that he cannot run his trolley in a twenty-four hour period.  If he does not run at least once every twenty-four hours, they can shut him down.

Speedy concocts a plan.  He will save Pop.

At night a group of men use Pop's car for drinking and gambling.  He assembles them to be his first-string defense.  They are motivated.  They do not wish to lose their gambling car.

Tuesday.

Speedy drives the trolley in place of Pop.  Wilton's gang boards.  Speedy calls out the password.  The gambling men assemble.  They fight the gang.

For the next ten minutes we follow the fight as mayhem besets the horse-drawn trolley car.

The gang is thwarted.  But Wilton is undeterred.  His men steal the horse and car and hide it in a hidden lot.

Twenty-two hours pass.

Only two hours are left.

How will they find the horse and trolley?

How will they make another run in time?

How will they keep from going out of business and losing their investment?

Pop is despondent.

Jane cannot console him.

Speedy is flummoxed.

What will they do?

Speedy is Harold Lloyd's final silent feature film.

It is not the classic that Safety Last! is.

But it is funny.

Watch it with a 10-cent Coney Island from Coney Island.  And a 10-cent watermelon on ice.

Follow it with a 10-cent malted milkshake.

With a cherry on top.

290 - Safety Last!, United States, 1923. Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor.

Tuesday, October 17, 2017

290 - Safety Last!, United States, 1923.  Dir. Fred C. Newmeyer & Sam Taylor.

The Boy, Harold, is behind bars.

He looks forlorn.

A noose hangs behind him.

His girlfriend and her mother stand looking through the bars, saying Goodbye.

We understand that these are his final moments before his hanging.

But then . . .

The ladies walk around the bars, through a gate, and onto his side of the platform.

We cut to a turnaround shot.

We are on a railway platform.

The bars are the gate to the platform.

The noose is a holding ring for a catcher pouch on a railway mail crane.  The train goes by and a worker grabs the holding ring.

The Boy is not about to be hanged!  He is about to catch a train.

He says Goodbye to The Girl, his girlfriend.

We are in Great Bend, 250 miles east of Leasburg, 165 miles west of Gainesville--fictional towns in a generic swath of Middle America.

As The Boy hugs and kisses The Girl, the train begins to move.  He must hurry!

He picks up his suitcase and runs.  No.  It is not his suitcase.  It is a baby in a carrier!

The mother runs after him.  They switch items.  He steps aboard the train.  No.  It is not the train.  It is the back of an ice wagon!

He is going on the wrong fork in the road.  He gets off and runs to the train.

And we get on with him for a great ride.

Now in the big city, Harold shows his roommate Limpy Bill the lavalier he has just bought his girlfriend.  Bill goes to put on a record but the phonograph is missing.  Harold has pawned it for the lavalier.  Oops.

He has to impress her.  She put pressure on him back at the station.  He needs to show her he is successful in order for her to come to the city and marry him.  If he could pawn the rest of Bill's records, he could purchase the chain to go with the lavalier.

Bill grabs the rest of his records and holds them tightly.

The rent is past due.  The landlady is coming.  They can hear her put her key in the door.  They hide in overcoats on pegs, pretending to be the overcoats!

She enters.  She does not catch them.

The story will unfold and the gags will continue, one after the next after the next.

It will culminate in a twenty-minute climb up the outside of a 12-story department store building, featuring one of the most famous images in the history of motion pictures--

Harold Lloyd's hanging from the minute hand of the clock near the top of the building.

But there are more challenges than just that clock.  So many more.

A police officer, a drunk man, secretaries, a mocker, peanuts, pigeons, a net, painters, a 2x4 plank, an untied rope, a dog, a wide ledge above, an opening window, a mouse, a photographer and male model with a gun, a spinning weather vane, and swinging upside down from another rope.

Will he make it up safely?

Will he win the money and win the girl?  Or will he fall?  All that distance.  To the pavement below.

Nearly a hundred years later, Safety Last! remains one of the funniest films ever made.

And without CGI, green or blue screen, split projectors, rear projection, plates with matte paintings, or glass shots, the film was made the way films were made back then:  Harold Lloyd and his stunt double, Harvey Parry, both put themselves into real danger doing real climbing.

For wide shots, Harvey Parry really climbed the building, with a harness.

For all other shots, Harold Lloyd did the climbing.

They built facades on scaffolding on the rooves of real buildings so that as Harold Lloyd climbed, the audience could see the real streets below.

And Harold, a great dancer, really stumbled on the ledges and could have really fallen--up to twenty feet to the mattresses on the roof below him, or even off the roof and all the way down.  They performed a test with a mannequin, which did land on the mattresses and did bounce and go over the roof to the street below.

Lloyd wore rubber tightrope walker shoes.

And he wore a prosthetic on his right hand to fill out his fingers.

He was missing the index finger and thumb of his right hand, having lost them in an earlier movie accident.

Yet he was a 300 bowler with that hand, using a specially designed bowling ball.

And here he does real high wall climbing with eight fingers.

This is a film that can be watched two ways.

As a comedy.

And as a how-to on filmmaking.  Not just the stunts but also the gags.

As a bonus it is a documentary of the times--of Culver City and Los Angeles in the early 20s.

We have seen Safety Last! nearly a dozen times.

It never fails to pay off.

It is one of the great classics.

289 - Nanook of the North, United States, 1922. Dir. Robert Flaherty.

Monday, October 16, 2017

289 - Nanook of the North, United States, 1922.  Dir. Robert Flaherty.

A Story of Life and Love in the Actual Arctic.

Hopewell Sound, Northern Ungava.

"Nearly as large as England, yet occupied by less than three hundred souls."

"Here live the most cheerful people in all the world--the fearless, lovable, happy-go-lucky Eskimo."

Chief of the Itivimuits.

A great hunter.

Famous throughout all Ungava.

Nanook, The Bear.

The ice sits in clumps on the undulating water.

Nanook paddles his canoe, a kayak--the kayak's being an invention of the Inuit--with one man in a hole inside a watertight covering, his feet hidden, a child lying supine on top.

His son.

Allee.

Nanook emerges from the cockpit.

Another person emerges from inside the hole.

Nyla.

His wife.

How did she get in there?  How did she fit in there?

Then, the baby.

Rainbow.

Then another!

Cunayou.

His other wife.

Then . . .

Comock.

The dog!

IMDb calls it a cat, but it looks like a dog, and later the film shows a group of them and calls them Huskies.  They are dogs.

How did all those people fit inside that canoe?

Here we are in the Arctic Ocean doing a sight gag for a Vaudeville routine.

The Eskimo depend on moss.  They use it for fuel.

The deer depend on moss.  They use it for food.

The Eskimo hunt the deer.  Without it they cannot survive.

They cover their canoes in sealskin.  And walrus.

They go to the trading post.  The Big Igloo.

This year Nanook has hunted fox, seal, walrus, and seven great polar bears, all of which he defeated in "hand to hand encounters" with his harpoon.

They bring the skins to the trading post.

He barters for knives and beads and colored candy.

The trader shows them the gramophone.

He plays a record.  They listen.

The children eat sea biscuits and lard.

Allee overeats and then takes caster oil.

Nanook fishes.

He walks on an ice floe.  Finds a spot.  Sits on a mat of thatched sticks.  Lowers a line at the end of his harpoon.  No bait.  Lures.  Two pieces of ivory.  He jigs the line.  Lures the fish.  Kills the big ones with his teeth.

The score follows the rhythm of his jigging.

He wields a tool like a curved trident, shaped at the tip to surround the fish and hold it to the ice as he lops off its head.  He loads more than a dozen large onto his kayak.

A fellow fisherman lies on top, straddling the salmon, getting a ride to shore.

The salmon migrate.  There are days when none are to be found.  Someone spots a walrus.  A herd of walruses.  A pod.  A huddle.  An ugly.  The men go to hunt them.

The two-ton mammals.  The Tigers of the North.

They catch one.  Kill it immediately.  Process it.  Eat its meat.  Bring back the remains.

Nanook builds an igloo.

He licks his knife, made of walrus ivory.  He cuts the snow.  Makes bricks.

The children slide down the hill, using their bodies as sleds.  Then they use a sled.

The bricks are taller than Nanook's waist.  He works swiftly, cuts deftly.

Nyla and Cunayou chink the the cracks, seal the gaps, stop the wind.

The baby sleeps in Nyla's hood.  On her neck.

The puppy rides in Cunayou's hood.  On her neck.

"Complete within the hour."

Nanook looks out the door hole and smiles.  Laughs for the camera.

He has built another igloo, a smaller one.  For the puppies.

He cuts an ice brick from the frozen lake.  He opens a hole in the igloo and installs the ice brick, creating a window.  To reflect the light.  To direct the light.  Inside.

The family enters.  With their bear- and deerskin robes.  Their stone lamp.  Their stone pots.

He teaches his son to shoot a bow and arrow.  He shoots at bear sculptures Nanook has carved from snow.

The family cooks inside the igloo.  They build a fire but must keep the overall temperature below freezing to keep the walls from melting.

They sleep, undressed but warm, under the skins inside the packed snow walls.

They next day they hunt seal.

Nanook pulls hard on the taught line.  The seal pulls back, through the tiny hole.  Back and forth.  Who will win?  Nanook calls for help from the men.  Together they win.

The winds come hard.  The family moves.  Takes shelter in an abandoned igloo.  Takes cover.  Huddles together.  Keeps warm.

The dogs sit quietly in the icy cold, their furs covered in white.

The family sleeps.

The snows drift.  Make banks.  The dogs wait.  Finally sleep.

They will start again tomorrow.

Tia Mak.

The End.

Flaherty had filmed up here seven years before, in 1914 and 15, but he lost his film when his cigarette fell onto the nitrate negative and burned up all the film.

So he spent four years raising funds to come again.

And he came again.

Two years later Nanook died in a snowstorm.

But he is captured here.

Forever.

288 - Paddle to the Sea, Canada, 1966. Dir. William Mason.

Sunday, October 16, 2017

288 - Paddle to the Sea, Canada, 1966.  Dir. William Mason.

A little boy carves an Indian in a canoe out of a single piece of wood.

The boy lives in a cabin in Ontario, on Lake Nipigon.

He melts some iron and pours it into a groove in the bottom to make it bottom heavy, so that it will sit upright in the water.

He paints it with fine brushes.

He paints a note on the bottom.

"I am Paddle to the Sea

Please put me back in the water"

When he finises he places it upright in the snow on the side of the hill.

And leaves it.

When the Spring comes and the snow softens, the boat, called "Paddle," slides down the side of the hill.

Into the lake.  Down the river.  Down to the sea.

Paddle traverses a path that can be mapped.  From Lake Nipigon to Lake Superior to Lake Michigan to Lake Huron to Lake Erie, over Niagara Falls, to Lake Ontario, down the Saint Lawrence River, out into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, into the Atlantic Ocean.

Paddle encounters a beaver and a beaver dam, a saw mill, a fishing pole, boys, a dog, giant ships, falls, including Niagara Falls, river animals, a forest fire, and other challenges along the way.  There are times when it seems as though Paddle will not make it.

Holling C. Holling published the children's book Paddle to the Sea in 1941.  It won the Caldicott Award for children's books.

Bill Mason made the film 25 years later.

He spent four years raising the funding and two years filming.  He traveled more than twenty-two thousand miles.

Paddle to the Sea was nominated for an Academy Award.

287 - Following, United Kingdom, 1998. Dir. Christopher Nolan.

Saturday, October 14, 2017

287 - Following, United Kingdom, 1998.  Dir. Christopher Nolan.

You may have heard of Christopher Nolan.

Here are some directing credits.:

Dunkirk, 2017
Interstellar, 2014
The Dark Knight Rises, 2012
Inception, 2010
The Dark Knight, 2008
The Prestige, 2006
Batman Begins, 2005
Insomnia, 2002
Memento, 2000
Following, 1998

In fewer than twenty years he went from being a self-taught independent filmmaker to one of the most admired, imitated, and sought after directors in the world.

Along the way he achieved that most notable of honors: the one where aspiring twenty-something males claim filmmaker street cred--and hope your powers rub off on them--by referring to you by your last name.

Nolan.

And he achieved this acclaim through a process understood by so few that it remains a mystery to many who wish to make their mark on the world.  If only someone could crack the code.  If only someone could figure out how to get there.  Christopher Nolan figured it out.  Here is the secret:

Work.

He started making films when he was young, and he states that there was never a time in his life when he was not making them.  Yes, he went to school.  Yes, he worked.  So he made movies in his spare time, at nights and on weekends.  He used whatever tools he had at his disposal.  A Super-8 camera.  Video.  Eventually 16mm.

He started making a feature film and realized he was over his head.  He did not have the resources--the knowledge, the skills, the technology, the money.  And that feature was never finished.

You may remember another director we wrote about recently who could not finish his first feature film: Alfred Hitchcock.

And like Hitch, Nolan did not quit but tried again.  He made some short films, and he used them as a training ground for learning the skills he needed.

He saw Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi in 1992 and Kevin Smith's Clerks in 1994, and he pointed them out to his friends.  Look.  People in America are making movies with no money, and they are getting distribution, and we are going to see them at the theaters like real movies. We could do that here in England.

So Nolan, it is estimated, spent $6,000 over the course of a year.  He chose to film in black and white because he did not have any lights.  He scouted locations that were abandoned or easily accessible.  He wrote scenes where two people are standing or sitting and having a conversation.  He chose a hammer as a weapon rather than guns.  He planned every shot ahead of time so that he would not have to shoot coverage.  He rehearsed his actors to the point where they could get it in one or two takes.  He filmed next to windows to use natural lighting.  He made his movie under 70 minutes long.  He filmed using a hand-held camera so that he would not need a crane or jib or rig or dolly or track or even a tripod.  He held the camera himself.

Whenever they were waiting for more money to come in or for the lab to develop what negatives they had, he worked on writing his next script.

When the film was finished he placed it in festivals.

The rest is history.

Making a movie is the hardest thing in the world if you consider the obstacles.

It is the easiest thing in the world if you want to do it badly enough.

I am in a position where somebody asks me every week how to become an actor or a writer or a filmmaker.  And I am happy to help them.

The majority never do it.  They do not listen.  Or they listen for a time and then quit.

Because they do not want it badly enough.

They are not willing to do what it takes to get there.

Which is to wake up the next day and work.
And wake up the next day and work.

They wake up the next day and do something else.

The great screenwriting teacher Jeffrey Gordon cracked the code when he said, "The secret to writing is writing."

That sums it up.

Nike trademarked the secret which was already being spoken by athletes around the world long before they came along.  Just do it.  And in doing so they sold millions of pairs of shoes to people who never will.

Nolan shows his awareness of this distinction here in his first film, as he makes his protagonist, The Young Man, a person who calls himself a writer.

Yet Cobb, the man whom he mistakenly follows more than once, who becomes his mentor, calls him out.  When they are in the Young Man's apartment, and Cobb presumably does not know it is his, Cobb points out the typewriter and other artifacts and states emphatically, This person is not a writer.  This person is someone who wants to be a writer.

The Young Man flinches, shrivels, knowing deep down that Cobb is speaking the truth.

The Young Man is a wannabe.

And when the twists come in this time-out-of-order tale, the wannabe writer proves to be the perfect person for the task at hand.

Meanwhile, Nolan did not wannabe a wannabe.

He did not want to be a writer.  He was one.

He wrote.

He filmed.

He finished.

The rest is history.


Who's next?