Monday, January 30, 2017
030 - Sweet Smell of Success, 1957, United States. Dir. Alexander Mackendrick.
Ah, the sweet smell of success.
Fecal. Squalid. Begrimed.
Those gangsters sure do know how to break people.
Not because you have crossed them. Not because you are competing with them.
But just because you, my sister, are dating someone I do not want you to date.
Or because you, my minion, were supposed to break up my sister's relationship and you did not do it.
How dare you.
I will now destroy you.
Wait.
What did you say?
Gangsters?
These are not gangsters. No, they are not gangsters. He is not a gangster.
He is a writer. A newspaper columnist.
A newspaper columnist?
A newspaper columnist.
The character of J. J. Hunsecker, played by Burt Lancaster, loves his sister, a little too much maybe. So he does not want her to be dating jazz musician Steve Dallas.
Sidney Falco is a press agent. He needs Hunsecker to print items that support Falco's clients and help their careers. So Hunsecker uses this need as leverage to maintain power over Falco.
He demands that Falco break up his sister Susan Hunsecker's relationship to Dallas.
But so far Falco has been unable to do it. In fact, Dallas has now proposed to Susan, and they intend to inform J. J. tomorrow morning at breakfast.
So tonight Falco will run around New York City, from club to club, trying to work things out to save his career.
And he will go without an overcoat to keep from having to tip coat-check girls.
My how times have changed.
He will insinuate himself upon Hunsecker to try to get him to understand Falco's situation.
He will go to another newspaper columnist and try to bribe him with his wife to try to get him to print the items that Hunsecker will not print. That man will call his bluff and tell his own wife the dirt in order to remove the leverage.
He will go to yet a third newspaper columnist to see what that will do.
Falco is desperate.
As the evening progresses, Falco will play everyone to set Dallas up in front of Hunsecker so that Susan herself will leave him. He does a great job of it.
But then Susan will set Falco up so that Hunsecker will think ill of him and crush him.
Everyone depends on each other. Everyone is trying to destroy one another.
The stakes seem so low to us--who is dating whom--but to them the stakes are life and death. It is the politics of high school gossip in the hands of New York social climbers--who aspire to be power brokers.
This is starting to sound like an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story about life in the Jazz Age.
But it is a Clifford Odets screenplay about life in the 1950s.
Some things just seem to come back around.
This film is shot by the great cinematographer James Wong Howe. The lights are light and the darks are dark, and the edges are as sharp as a paper cut.
Howe worked from the 1910s to the 1970s, beating out even Alfred Hitchcock for longevity. He was born in 1899 in Canton (Guangzhou), China, and he grew up in Pasco, Washington. At around 12 he bought a Kodak Brownie camera, and by the time he was 18 he was working for Cecil B. DeMille. He solved the problem of getting blue eyes to register on film, so he became the photographer that all blue-eyed stars would flock to. He would go on to shoot more than 130 movies and win two Oscars. He was the embodiment of the Great American Dream.
Meanwhile, the film was directed by Alexander Mackendrick, whom you know for practically nothing else, except perhaps for The Ladykillers and The Man in the White Suit. In all he directed maybe eight pictures. He is now considered a great director with a sure hand, but Sweet Smell of Success was such a financial disaster that his career faded and he moved into teaching.
What makes this picture sing is the acting and chemistry of Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster. Tony plays the high-strung, fast-talking, nervous-energy, pretty boy for which we already know him, but Burt Lancaster plays against type, restraining all the virile strength of his large athletic body into a bespectacled, buttoned-up time-bomb, slowly ticking and destined to blow.
Odets has given them delicious lines to say, long lines filled with the wit and cunning of a top playwright, which they speak quickly and effortlessly as if seated at the Algonquin.
The film moves at a fast pace and is driven by the look of the city lights and the sound of a hot jazz score.
When you see the name Hunsecker, you may think of the Coen Brothers' 1994 comedy The Hudsucker Proxy. You can look up what influence this film may have had on their film.
This film was produced by Burt Lancaster with Harold Hecht (not Ben) and James Hill, with the unfortunate name Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions. The goal seems to have been to do for newspaper columnist Walter Winchell what Orson Welles did for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and others.
In an age without newspapers, it all now seems so historical to us.
My how times have changed.
Showing posts with label romance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label romance. Show all posts
Monday, January 30, 2017
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
025 - City Lights, 1931, United States; Dir. Charles Chaplin.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
025 - City Lights, 1931, United States. Dir. Charles Chaplin.
Watching City Lights is pure joy.
The fact that is so funny is the icing on the cake. Beneath that is a movie that is all heart.
All heart.
The Tramp loves with the purest of love.
He loves a girl with devoted affection.
He loves a friend with honest friendship.
He meets a Blind Girl who sells flowers. Through a series of funny circumstances, she thinks he is a millionaire. He does not realize it. He just loves her.
He meets an alcoholic Eccentric Millionaire. Through a series of funny circumstances, he saves his life. The man treats him as best friends when he is drunk but does not remember him when he is sober.
Meanwhile, The Tramp just keeps loving.
And bumbling.
And seeking the means to provide surgery for the Girl's healing.
In 1931, The Tramp was the most recognized character in the world. Today, he continues to rank alongside Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald as being recognized by the majority of people in nearly every country.
Charlie Chaplin made his name on slapstick and pantomime. He was the king of the movies and had complete independence, owning his own studios. Would that change with the advent of sound?
Sound had now been available for three years, and Chaplin had chosen, on purpose, to make another silent movie--or at least a movie in which there is no talking. It had taken him two years and eight months to complete what had been his most difficult and arduous undertaking. On top of all that, the stock market had crashed.
Chaplin was taking a great risk.
When the movie came out it was an international critical and popular triumph, and it was the height of his career. He had done it again. And it was better than ever.
This movie does actually have sound, just not dialogue. It contains a musical score, which Chaplin wrote himself! And it contains sound affects, such as people talking in nonsensical sounds--which a later generation would recognize in the adult speech of Peanuts--and Chaplin hiccupping in whistles after having gotten a whistle stuck in his throat.
The sight gags abound.
City Lights opens with the unveiling of a new statue to progress and prosperity. The city's elite are present. They remove the sheet. The Tramp is asleep atop the statue, where he has presumably spent the night. The city's elders are shocked. In his polite efforts to come down, he gets his pants hooked on the statue's sword, and he stands and sits in positions that are witty in their imagery.
The Tramp meets the Blind Girl as she is selling flowers. He ducks into a car on one side and ducks out on the other. She hears the car door and believes he is the millionaire exiting the limousine. As he helps her find a dropped flower and realizes she is blind, he falls in love with her. He will seek her out and seek to help her for the rest of the movie.
The Tramp saves the life of the drunk Millionaire. As the Millionaire tries to tie a noose around his own neck, he gets it tied around The Tramp's neck, and The Tramp falls into the water. They will both end up in and out of the water before all is resolved.
The Tramp finds himself in a boxing match, where he uses the referee to block himself from the punches of the real fighter, in a highly choreographed, symmetrical dance of a scene.
The Tramp and the Millionaire attend a party where chairs are pulled out from under people, where he gets thwarted by cigars, eats a streamer as spaghetti, and gets into inadvertent fights over misunderstandings.
Chaplin was willing to do whatever it took to get the shot.
He would spend days on a single moment, weeks on a single scene. It was not indulgent. It was working to a standard. He did it until it was right. And good for us that his judgment was sure.
He used special effects that were ahead of their time, many of which he invented.
He also knew how to edit. He cut a scene from the movie which he had spent a week filming, because it did not fit the story.
When it was finished, he had spent 190 days of filming.
The filmmaking was challenging, but the film looks effortless. It flows steadily and smoothly, and it hits in all the right moments.
City Lights contains one of the greatest lines in the history of film, a line delivered on a card since it was not spoken, a line consisting of a single word.
"You?"
And with that line and the two that follow, a moment is realized that has moved the hearts of generations of people around the world.
Chaplin himself would watch it years later and be amazed, saying that he was not acting in that moment. Something else was going on.
City Lights is a movie of movies. Its emotional impact is why we go to the movies.
It is the definition of movie magic.
025 - City Lights, 1931, United States. Dir. Charles Chaplin.
Watching City Lights is pure joy.
The fact that is so funny is the icing on the cake. Beneath that is a movie that is all heart.
All heart.
The Tramp loves with the purest of love.
He loves a girl with devoted affection.
He loves a friend with honest friendship.
He meets a Blind Girl who sells flowers. Through a series of funny circumstances, she thinks he is a millionaire. He does not realize it. He just loves her.
He meets an alcoholic Eccentric Millionaire. Through a series of funny circumstances, he saves his life. The man treats him as best friends when he is drunk but does not remember him when he is sober.
Meanwhile, The Tramp just keeps loving.
And bumbling.
And seeking the means to provide surgery for the Girl's healing.
In 1931, The Tramp was the most recognized character in the world. Today, he continues to rank alongside Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald as being recognized by the majority of people in nearly every country.
Charlie Chaplin made his name on slapstick and pantomime. He was the king of the movies and had complete independence, owning his own studios. Would that change with the advent of sound?
Sound had now been available for three years, and Chaplin had chosen, on purpose, to make another silent movie--or at least a movie in which there is no talking. It had taken him two years and eight months to complete what had been his most difficult and arduous undertaking. On top of all that, the stock market had crashed.
Chaplin was taking a great risk.
When the movie came out it was an international critical and popular triumph, and it was the height of his career. He had done it again. And it was better than ever.
This movie does actually have sound, just not dialogue. It contains a musical score, which Chaplin wrote himself! And it contains sound affects, such as people talking in nonsensical sounds--which a later generation would recognize in the adult speech of Peanuts--and Chaplin hiccupping in whistles after having gotten a whistle stuck in his throat.
The sight gags abound.
City Lights opens with the unveiling of a new statue to progress and prosperity. The city's elite are present. They remove the sheet. The Tramp is asleep atop the statue, where he has presumably spent the night. The city's elders are shocked. In his polite efforts to come down, he gets his pants hooked on the statue's sword, and he stands and sits in positions that are witty in their imagery.
The Tramp meets the Blind Girl as she is selling flowers. He ducks into a car on one side and ducks out on the other. She hears the car door and believes he is the millionaire exiting the limousine. As he helps her find a dropped flower and realizes she is blind, he falls in love with her. He will seek her out and seek to help her for the rest of the movie.
The Tramp saves the life of the drunk Millionaire. As the Millionaire tries to tie a noose around his own neck, he gets it tied around The Tramp's neck, and The Tramp falls into the water. They will both end up in and out of the water before all is resolved.
The Tramp finds himself in a boxing match, where he uses the referee to block himself from the punches of the real fighter, in a highly choreographed, symmetrical dance of a scene.
The Tramp and the Millionaire attend a party where chairs are pulled out from under people, where he gets thwarted by cigars, eats a streamer as spaghetti, and gets into inadvertent fights over misunderstandings.
Chaplin was willing to do whatever it took to get the shot.
He would spend days on a single moment, weeks on a single scene. It was not indulgent. It was working to a standard. He did it until it was right. And good for us that his judgment was sure.
He used special effects that were ahead of their time, many of which he invented.
He also knew how to edit. He cut a scene from the movie which he had spent a week filming, because it did not fit the story.
When it was finished, he had spent 190 days of filming.
The filmmaking was challenging, but the film looks effortless. It flows steadily and smoothly, and it hits in all the right moments.
City Lights contains one of the greatest lines in the history of film, a line delivered on a card since it was not spoken, a line consisting of a single word.
"You?"
And with that line and the two that follow, a moment is realized that has moved the hearts of generations of people around the world.
Chaplin himself would watch it years later and be amazed, saying that he was not acting in that moment. Something else was going on.
City Lights is a movie of movies. Its emotional impact is why we go to the movies.
It is the definition of movie magic.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
024 - Repulsion, 1965, United Kingdom; Dir. Roman Polanski.
Tuesday, January 24, 2017
024 - Repulsion, 1965, United Kingdom. Dir. Roman Polanski.
We are watching a British film made by Polish director, spoken in English.
So why does it feel at times as though we are watching a French film made in the early days of the New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) influenced by Godard or Truffaut?
It was released in 1965. The New Wave came on the scene in 1959 and 1960, when Polanski was acting and making shorts in film school. Perhaps he felt their influence then. By now Truffaut has directed five features, and Godard has directed at least eight. His film Band of Outsiders came out a year earlier, in 1964, and surely its fragrance is still in the air throughout Europe. Their influence on Polanski seems inevitable. It is something we can look up, so at some point let us do so.
At least four elements in Repulsion lead us to think this way. 1) It features scenes of young people walking the streets of the city to a score of jazz music. 2) It stars Catherine Deneuve. 3) It deals frankly with human sexuality and its effects on the psyche. 4) It experiments with technique.
Catherine Deneuve is not an actress who was strictly associated with the Nouvelle Vague, as Anna Karina or Jean Seberg might have been. In fact, she worked more with mainstream filmmakers such as Jacques Demy. But she had just made The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers, a joint film between Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol, and she would later make at least two films for Francois Truffaut: Mississippi Mermaid and The Last Metro (which we have seen). But here, she fits the look and the essence.
She looks young here. When we saw her in The Last Metro, she was around 37--and looked amazing! She made Repulsion at around age 21.
Nevertheless, this is not a Nouvelle Vague movie. It is a British film made by a Polish director.
There are specific shots that give it away. Whenever we see establishing shots or insert shots of buildings or landmarks of the city, they are carefully crafted and well composed. They reveal the style of someone who went to film school and who is more technically proficient and less haphazardly intuitive in his camera placement.
Roman Polanski is one of our great directors. He made Chinatown, one of the finest films ever made, and Rosemary's Baby, one of the great horror films. He has made literary films, such as Macbeth, Tess (from Tess of the d'Urbervilles), and Oliver Twist. He has made thrillers, such as Frantic, The Ninth Gate, and The Ghost Writer. And he made The Pianist, that sweeping, haunting film about surviving the Holocaust, which put Adrien Brody on the map, winning him the Oscar, winning Polanski an Oscar, and winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood an Oscar.
The Pianist won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, BAFTA Awards in England for Best Film and Best Direction, seven Cesars in France, including Best Picture, eight Eagles in Poland, including Best Picture, the Japanese Academy for Best Foreign Film, the Czech Lion for Best Foreign Film, the Sant Jordi Awrd in Spain, the David di Donatello Award in Italy for Best Foreign Film, the European Film Award for Cinematographer, the Golden Globe in Italy, the Goya Award, the Harry Award, and many film society, critic, and festival awards.
The Pianist was personal for Polanski.
He is Jewish. His family lived in Krakow. His parents took him to the cinema before the War, but then the War came, and they were sent to the Krakow Ghetto. Roman was expelled from school at age five and not allowed back in school for six years. His mother was taken to Auschwitz and killed. He watched his father marched away to another camp. His father would survive the war, but it would be years before Roman would see him again. Roman fled the Ghetto, changed his name, and was raised as a Catholic by a Catholic family.
After the War, Polanski attended film school--the same school as Krzysztof Kieslowski, director of the Three Colors movies that we watched last week--and he received accolades for his work there.
Repulsion is his second feature film. His first is Knife in the Water, which we will see later.
Repulsion is about a woman who begins repressed and progressively moves in the direction of a mental break.
Carol, from Brussels, lives with her sister Helen in London. Colin is pursuing her, while Michael is dating Helen.
Carol recoils from men. She rebuffs Colin, forgets about their dates, responds to him emptily and with glazed eyes. She cringes when hearing Michael and Helen making love through the apartment walls, and she reacts against his being in her bathroom in the morning.
Carol works at a spa, giving manicures and supporting estheticians. She begins to daydream, starts to miss work, and eventually cuts a woman's finger while daydreaming in a botched manicure.
Helen and Michael will go on a vacation, leaving Carol on her own, which proves not to be good for her.
Carol progressively breaks down.
She experiences hallucinations. She stops going to work. She cuts the cord to the telephone. She irons a shirt with an unplugged iron. She stays in her nightgown anyway.
Colin comes over to find out what is going on.
She . . . does something about it.
The landlord comes over one last time to collect the delinquent rent.
She does nothing.
He tries to take advantage of her.
She does something.
When Michael and Helen return home, they discover an apartment different from the one they left. The neighbors get involved.
Watch the film to find out what happens.
Repulsion is an accomplished film. It feels accurate in its portrayal of a growing psychosis. I would like to know what mental health professionals think about it. Is it as accurate as it seems?
Catherine Deneuve plays against type--at least as we know her so far--not as the confident, beautiful blonde, but, as a pathologically inward person. In The Last Metro we saw her as a strong woman, the wife of a great artist, co-owner of a successful theatre, an established actress, a community leader. In Repulsion we see her as a tormented girl, emotionally repressed, psychologically troubled, locked in a downward spiral. Deneuve is committed to her performance. She exhibits the range of a great actress.
In the final shot of the film, Polanski has cinematographer Gilbert Taylor move the camera in a brilliantly choreographed shot down and around the room across the various objects that have been strewn in the process of the film.
We land on a family photograph. It shows a man, a girl, and a woman. The girl is glaring at the man, staring at him with a look of contempt. We zoom in on her.
The look in her eyes reveals the source of her troubles.
024 - Repulsion, 1965, United Kingdom. Dir. Roman Polanski.
We are watching a British film made by Polish director, spoken in English.
So why does it feel at times as though we are watching a French film made in the early days of the New Wave (Nouvelle Vague) influenced by Godard or Truffaut?
It was released in 1965. The New Wave came on the scene in 1959 and 1960, when Polanski was acting and making shorts in film school. Perhaps he felt their influence then. By now Truffaut has directed five features, and Godard has directed at least eight. His film Band of Outsiders came out a year earlier, in 1964, and surely its fragrance is still in the air throughout Europe. Their influence on Polanski seems inevitable. It is something we can look up, so at some point let us do so.
At least four elements in Repulsion lead us to think this way. 1) It features scenes of young people walking the streets of the city to a score of jazz music. 2) It stars Catherine Deneuve. 3) It deals frankly with human sexuality and its effects on the psyche. 4) It experiments with technique.
Catherine Deneuve is not an actress who was strictly associated with the Nouvelle Vague, as Anna Karina or Jean Seberg might have been. In fact, she worked more with mainstream filmmakers such as Jacques Demy. But she had just made The World's Most Beautiful Swindlers, a joint film between Jean-Luc Godard and Claude Chabrol, and she would later make at least two films for Francois Truffaut: Mississippi Mermaid and The Last Metro (which we have seen). But here, she fits the look and the essence.
She looks young here. When we saw her in The Last Metro, she was around 37--and looked amazing! She made Repulsion at around age 21.
Nevertheless, this is not a Nouvelle Vague movie. It is a British film made by a Polish director.
There are specific shots that give it away. Whenever we see establishing shots or insert shots of buildings or landmarks of the city, they are carefully crafted and well composed. They reveal the style of someone who went to film school and who is more technically proficient and less haphazardly intuitive in his camera placement.
Roman Polanski is one of our great directors. He made Chinatown, one of the finest films ever made, and Rosemary's Baby, one of the great horror films. He has made literary films, such as Macbeth, Tess (from Tess of the d'Urbervilles), and Oliver Twist. He has made thrillers, such as Frantic, The Ninth Gate, and The Ghost Writer. And he made The Pianist, that sweeping, haunting film about surviving the Holocaust, which put Adrien Brody on the map, winning him the Oscar, winning Polanski an Oscar, and winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood an Oscar.
The Pianist won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, BAFTA Awards in England for Best Film and Best Direction, seven Cesars in France, including Best Picture, eight Eagles in Poland, including Best Picture, the Japanese Academy for Best Foreign Film, the Czech Lion for Best Foreign Film, the Sant Jordi Awrd in Spain, the David di Donatello Award in Italy for Best Foreign Film, the European Film Award for Cinematographer, the Golden Globe in Italy, the Goya Award, the Harry Award, and many film society, critic, and festival awards.
The Pianist was personal for Polanski.
He is Jewish. His family lived in Krakow. His parents took him to the cinema before the War, but then the War came, and they were sent to the Krakow Ghetto. Roman was expelled from school at age five and not allowed back in school for six years. His mother was taken to Auschwitz and killed. He watched his father marched away to another camp. His father would survive the war, but it would be years before Roman would see him again. Roman fled the Ghetto, changed his name, and was raised as a Catholic by a Catholic family.
After the War, Polanski attended film school--the same school as Krzysztof Kieslowski, director of the Three Colors movies that we watched last week--and he received accolades for his work there.
Repulsion is his second feature film. His first is Knife in the Water, which we will see later.
Repulsion is about a woman who begins repressed and progressively moves in the direction of a mental break.
Carol, from Brussels, lives with her sister Helen in London. Colin is pursuing her, while Michael is dating Helen.
Carol recoils from men. She rebuffs Colin, forgets about their dates, responds to him emptily and with glazed eyes. She cringes when hearing Michael and Helen making love through the apartment walls, and she reacts against his being in her bathroom in the morning.
Carol works at a spa, giving manicures and supporting estheticians. She begins to daydream, starts to miss work, and eventually cuts a woman's finger while daydreaming in a botched manicure.
Helen and Michael will go on a vacation, leaving Carol on her own, which proves not to be good for her.
Carol progressively breaks down.
She experiences hallucinations. She stops going to work. She cuts the cord to the telephone. She irons a shirt with an unplugged iron. She stays in her nightgown anyway.
Colin comes over to find out what is going on.
She . . . does something about it.
The landlord comes over one last time to collect the delinquent rent.
She does nothing.
He tries to take advantage of her.
She does something.
When Michael and Helen return home, they discover an apartment different from the one they left. The neighbors get involved.
Watch the film to find out what happens.
Repulsion is an accomplished film. It feels accurate in its portrayal of a growing psychosis. I would like to know what mental health professionals think about it. Is it as accurate as it seems?
Catherine Deneuve plays against type--at least as we know her so far--not as the confident, beautiful blonde, but, as a pathologically inward person. In The Last Metro we saw her as a strong woman, the wife of a great artist, co-owner of a successful theatre, an established actress, a community leader. In Repulsion we see her as a tormented girl, emotionally repressed, psychologically troubled, locked in a downward spiral. Deneuve is committed to her performance. She exhibits the range of a great actress.
In the final shot of the film, Polanski has cinematographer Gilbert Taylor move the camera in a brilliantly choreographed shot down and around the room across the various objects that have been strewn in the process of the film.
We land on a family photograph. It shows a man, a girl, and a woman. The girl is glaring at the man, staring at him with a look of contempt. We zoom in on her.
The look in her eyes reveals the source of her troubles.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
022 - Chungking Express, 1994, Hong Kong; Dir. Wong Kar-wai.
Sunday, January 22, 2017
022 - Chungking Express, 1994. Dir. Wong Kar-wai.
Yesterday, with Tokyo Story, we saw a movie where the camera sat on a tripod and never moved.
Today, with Chungking Express, we are watching a movie where the camera is handheld and never stops moving.
Kar-Wai Wong is one of so many directors who began as a writer. He wrote at least fifteen screenplays for other directors before directing himself. Once he began writing and directing, he never looked back. This is his third film to direct.
The title refers to two locations: The Chungking Mansions, which is an indoor mall filled with family-owned shops and restaurants, and The Midnight Express, which is a family-owned lunch counter where much of the action occurs.
The film is broken into two stories, each involving a lovelorn police officer who pines over the loss of a girlfriend.
What do you do after a breakup?
The first police officer is He Qiwu, Badge Number 223. He has had a breakup with a girl named May. They broke up on April Fool's Day, so he considers the break-up a joke. He will go for 30 days waiting and looking for her, and then on his birthday, on May 1, he will try to move on.
He Qiwu cannot move on.
He thinks about May constantly. He has an answering service, and he calls them constantly to see if May has left him a message. He has a pager, and he checks it constantly to see if May has called. He calls May's family. He calls her friends, to check on her and to let them know that he is available if she needs anything.
He Qiwu buys a can of pineapple a day with an expiration date of that day--because May liked pineapple. When he has thirty cans of pineapple, then he will know that it is over. He has to scour convenience stores throughout the area to find a can with such a late date, because the stores keep restocking fresher cans. The clerks wonder about him.
He Qiwu takes up jogging. He believes that if he sweats out the water in his body, he will cry less. When he finds that a woman is running a race, he is incredulous. Why would you run if you are not trying to sweat the tears out of you?
Meanwhile, a woman has been installed in the Chungking Mansions to move a large stash of drugs for a drug lord. She wears a trenchcoat, a blonde wig, and sunglasses, indoors and at night. She speaks English. She is tough.
She hires an inexperienced Indian family to carry the drugs. She tailors clothes for them. It appears to be the first time they have ever worn a suit. She hides drugs in the shoe heels, teddy bear, boom box, and baby bump.
The family betrays her.
They take the money. They take the drugs. They disappear.
She searches the stores and stalls for information. One man says he does not know, so she takes his daughter. She buys the girl ice cream, lots of ice cream, from another store, while calling him and demanding ransom. He caves. He gets his daughter. She tells us, in voice-over--all the characters speak to us in voice-over--that "some men might sacrifice their own kid for money, but he wasn't one of them."
The film begins with He Qiwu on the job, as a police officer. He is chasing a man with a brown paper bag on his head. (We Americans are thinking, "It's the Unknown Comic!") He brushes past the woman in the wig and sunglasses.
He tells us he brushed past her .01 cm away, and that 57 hours later he will fall in love with her.
On his birthday, May has not called. He eats all thirty cans of pineapple. He goes running in the rain. He decides to find someone else.
So he calls old friends. Lulu is asleep. He has awakened her. Sorry.
The next one has been married five years. Oh, you mean we haven't spoken in over five years? She has two children. Sorry.
We went to fourth grade together. You remember? You don't? It doesn't matter.
It is a humorous moment that evokes sympathy.
What have you done when you were desperate and lonely?
You may laugh at his behavior because it is familiar to you, and you ache with his loneliness.
He goes to a bar. The woman with the wig and sunglasses goes to the bar. He tries to pick her up. She rebuffs him.
Watch to see what happens next.
The other story stars the great Asian actor Tony Leung. He plays Badge Number 633. He frequents The Midnight Express, and orders coffee. A girl named Faye works there, cousin to the boss, and she plays The Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin'" loudly and non-stop.
The cop is dating a flight attendant. They play games together. They make innuendo involving flight terms. She leaves him.
She puts a letter and his keys in an envelope and leaves it with The Midnight Express, asking them to pass it on to him.
Have you ever had someone return your keys?
It hurts.
It hurts Cop Number 633.
The Cop does not read the letter. He does not collect it. The boss steams open the envelope. He reads the letter. Faye reads the letter. She takes the keys.
This could get complicated.
Watch to see what happens next.
Chungking Express stands out for its style.
People in the background move faster than the main characters, or in slow motion. The camera races down hallways, pans across rooms, looks up and down in rapid pace, and cuts quickly. We look through doorways, windows, around corners. The action may take place in one-third of the screen. The rest may be a wall, or other people, or a blur. Montages abound.
Music is important. A classic jukebox stands prominently in The Chungking Mansions, with CDs rotating in mesmerizing fashion. An old-school boom box sits behind the counter at The Midnight Express. Cop 633 plays CDs in his apartment.
Words are important. Wong's background as a writer is evident. The voice-overs are poetic. The two men are romantic. He Qiwu speaks poetically about expiration dates. Cop 633 talks to physical objects in his apartment. They handle their jobs with professionalism, but their hearts are aching.
When Wong gives interviews, he does not refer to other filmmakers so much as he refers to writers and literature.
Which is not to say that this movie feels like some kind of literary adaptation. It feels like an action movie, like a film of its time, like contemporary independent world cinema. It feels like youth. Indeed, Quentin Tarantino fell in love with it and picked it up for distribution in America.
If you want to check your messages, the password is "Love You for 10,000 Years."
022 - Chungking Express, 1994. Dir. Wong Kar-wai.
Yesterday, with Tokyo Story, we saw a movie where the camera sat on a tripod and never moved.
Today, with Chungking Express, we are watching a movie where the camera is handheld and never stops moving.
Kar-Wai Wong is one of so many directors who began as a writer. He wrote at least fifteen screenplays for other directors before directing himself. Once he began writing and directing, he never looked back. This is his third film to direct.
The title refers to two locations: The Chungking Mansions, which is an indoor mall filled with family-owned shops and restaurants, and The Midnight Express, which is a family-owned lunch counter where much of the action occurs.
The film is broken into two stories, each involving a lovelorn police officer who pines over the loss of a girlfriend.
What do you do after a breakup?
The first police officer is He Qiwu, Badge Number 223. He has had a breakup with a girl named May. They broke up on April Fool's Day, so he considers the break-up a joke. He will go for 30 days waiting and looking for her, and then on his birthday, on May 1, he will try to move on.
He Qiwu cannot move on.
He thinks about May constantly. He has an answering service, and he calls them constantly to see if May has left him a message. He has a pager, and he checks it constantly to see if May has called. He calls May's family. He calls her friends, to check on her and to let them know that he is available if she needs anything.
He Qiwu buys a can of pineapple a day with an expiration date of that day--because May liked pineapple. When he has thirty cans of pineapple, then he will know that it is over. He has to scour convenience stores throughout the area to find a can with such a late date, because the stores keep restocking fresher cans. The clerks wonder about him.
He Qiwu takes up jogging. He believes that if he sweats out the water in his body, he will cry less. When he finds that a woman is running a race, he is incredulous. Why would you run if you are not trying to sweat the tears out of you?
Meanwhile, a woman has been installed in the Chungking Mansions to move a large stash of drugs for a drug lord. She wears a trenchcoat, a blonde wig, and sunglasses, indoors and at night. She speaks English. She is tough.
She hires an inexperienced Indian family to carry the drugs. She tailors clothes for them. It appears to be the first time they have ever worn a suit. She hides drugs in the shoe heels, teddy bear, boom box, and baby bump.
The family betrays her.
They take the money. They take the drugs. They disappear.
She searches the stores and stalls for information. One man says he does not know, so she takes his daughter. She buys the girl ice cream, lots of ice cream, from another store, while calling him and demanding ransom. He caves. He gets his daughter. She tells us, in voice-over--all the characters speak to us in voice-over--that "some men might sacrifice their own kid for money, but he wasn't one of them."
The film begins with He Qiwu on the job, as a police officer. He is chasing a man with a brown paper bag on his head. (We Americans are thinking, "It's the Unknown Comic!") He brushes past the woman in the wig and sunglasses.
He tells us he brushed past her .01 cm away, and that 57 hours later he will fall in love with her.
On his birthday, May has not called. He eats all thirty cans of pineapple. He goes running in the rain. He decides to find someone else.
So he calls old friends. Lulu is asleep. He has awakened her. Sorry.
The next one has been married five years. Oh, you mean we haven't spoken in over five years? She has two children. Sorry.
We went to fourth grade together. You remember? You don't? It doesn't matter.
It is a humorous moment that evokes sympathy.
What have you done when you were desperate and lonely?
You may laugh at his behavior because it is familiar to you, and you ache with his loneliness.
He goes to a bar. The woman with the wig and sunglasses goes to the bar. He tries to pick her up. She rebuffs him.
Watch to see what happens next.
The other story stars the great Asian actor Tony Leung. He plays Badge Number 633. He frequents The Midnight Express, and orders coffee. A girl named Faye works there, cousin to the boss, and she plays The Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin'" loudly and non-stop.
The cop is dating a flight attendant. They play games together. They make innuendo involving flight terms. She leaves him.
She puts a letter and his keys in an envelope and leaves it with The Midnight Express, asking them to pass it on to him.
Have you ever had someone return your keys?
It hurts.
It hurts Cop Number 633.
The Cop does not read the letter. He does not collect it. The boss steams open the envelope. He reads the letter. Faye reads the letter. She takes the keys.
This could get complicated.
Watch to see what happens next.
Chungking Express stands out for its style.
People in the background move faster than the main characters, or in slow motion. The camera races down hallways, pans across rooms, looks up and down in rapid pace, and cuts quickly. We look through doorways, windows, around corners. The action may take place in one-third of the screen. The rest may be a wall, or other people, or a blur. Montages abound.
Music is important. A classic jukebox stands prominently in The Chungking Mansions, with CDs rotating in mesmerizing fashion. An old-school boom box sits behind the counter at The Midnight Express. Cop 633 plays CDs in his apartment.
Words are important. Wong's background as a writer is evident. The voice-overs are poetic. The two men are romantic. He Qiwu speaks poetically about expiration dates. Cop 633 talks to physical objects in his apartment. They handle their jobs with professionalism, but their hearts are aching.
When Wong gives interviews, he does not refer to other filmmakers so much as he refers to writers and literature.
Which is not to say that this movie feels like some kind of literary adaptation. It feels like an action movie, like a film of its time, like contemporary independent world cinema. It feels like youth. Indeed, Quentin Tarantino fell in love with it and picked it up for distribution in America.
If you want to check your messages, the password is "Love You for 10,000 Years."
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