Wednesday, January 31, 2018
396 - Broadcast News, United States, 1987. Dir. James L. Brooks.
James L. Brooks began his career as a copywriter for CBS News. Then he became a news writer. While there, he moonlighted writing scripts for documentaries.
Eventually he was laid off from his job when CBS News downsized.
He co-created The Mary Tyler Moore show in 1970, about a woman who worked in the news room of a local television news station in Minneapolis.
He co-created Lou Grant in 1977, about a man who worked as the city editor of a local newspaper in Los Angeles.
James L. Brooks likes the news.
So when his first film Terms of Endearment (1983) became a smashing critical and popular success, he turned to the news for his follow-up.
And he wrote about life in the newsroom, about people who live for the high-pressure world of meeting tough deadlines on time with excellence, their quest for love along the way, and what happens to them when they are laid off due to downsizing.
He spent a year doing research and hanging out with news people in newsrooms, and he spent a year writing the script.
He brought his trademark sense of reality to the project, and newspeople ever since have thanked him. So have film fans.
Both Albert Brooks and Holly Hunter trained in drama at Carnegie Mellon. William Hurt trained at Juilliard.
Broadcast News is a film for adults. About real-world issues and real-life circumstances. It is dramatic, comedic, nuanced, and honest.
It takes unexpected turns and ends unexpectedly.
It captures a time that no longer exists.
And it is filled with plenty of love.
It is a film worth watching.
Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
395 - Lost in America, United States, 1985. Dir. Albert Brooks.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
395 - Lost in America, United States, 1985. Dir. Albert Brooks.
My legs are asleep. Let's live here.
David Howard is making a life decision based on a momentary condition. He is driving an RV. He and his wife Linda have quit their jobs in Los Angeles. (At least she quit her job. He got fired.) They have cashed in their life savings--their "nest egg"--to buy the RV and drive across America to find themselves.
They have already had adventures and challenges in Las Vegas and at Hoover Dam, and now they are pulling into Safford, Arizona.
Imagine making your new home in a place because your legs fell asleep.
David and Linda are of a generation that watched Easy Rider (1969). They grew up on a concept called "dropping out." And they romanticized it. For them it meant freeing themselves of the restrictions of being responsible. They are both responsible--corporate employees--and they feel trapped by it.
Indeed, when the movie begins they have just bought a new house; they are about to buy a new Mercedes; and David is anticipating the promotion to Senior Vice President for which he has been working the past eight years.
But things happen that cause them to go another direction, and this road trip ensues.
Maybe along the way they will find themselves.
Albert Brooks began as a comedian on television. Then he did stand-up in clubs. Then he made short films for Saturday Night Live. Then he made movies. Here he is writer, director, and star of a film that is part road movie, part analysis of the American dream, and straight comedy.
Julie Haggerty stands as both his partner and foil as the Howards come to terms with the reality underlying a fantasy they have long nurtured. Maybe dropping out is not all that it was cracked up to be.
Fellow comic director Garry Marshall does a strong turn as the Casino Manager, and fellow comic director James L. Brooks appears as an extra at the party.
Albert Brooks peppers the film with real people playing real people.
Now imagine a film in which the American dream is critiqued but its opposite, which is in fact another kind of American dream, is critiqued more.
That while one kind of choice--staying home and climbing the corporate ladder--may result in one's feeling trapped and limited, another kind of choice--forsaking all responsibility and living freely for the moment--may result in an even greater entrapment.
And imagine a film in which the sight of a Mercedes-Benz and the longing it induces can act as a moralizing and ennobling force.
Albert Brooks can pull this off.
395 - Lost in America, United States, 1985. Dir. Albert Brooks.
My legs are asleep. Let's live here.
David Howard is making a life decision based on a momentary condition. He is driving an RV. He and his wife Linda have quit their jobs in Los Angeles. (At least she quit her job. He got fired.) They have cashed in their life savings--their "nest egg"--to buy the RV and drive across America to find themselves.
They have already had adventures and challenges in Las Vegas and at Hoover Dam, and now they are pulling into Safford, Arizona.
Imagine making your new home in a place because your legs fell asleep.
David and Linda are of a generation that watched Easy Rider (1969). They grew up on a concept called "dropping out." And they romanticized it. For them it meant freeing themselves of the restrictions of being responsible. They are both responsible--corporate employees--and they feel trapped by it.
Indeed, when the movie begins they have just bought a new house; they are about to buy a new Mercedes; and David is anticipating the promotion to Senior Vice President for which he has been working the past eight years.
But things happen that cause them to go another direction, and this road trip ensues.
Maybe along the way they will find themselves.
Albert Brooks began as a comedian on television. Then he did stand-up in clubs. Then he made short films for Saturday Night Live. Then he made movies. Here he is writer, director, and star of a film that is part road movie, part analysis of the American dream, and straight comedy.
Julie Haggerty stands as both his partner and foil as the Howards come to terms with the reality underlying a fantasy they have long nurtured. Maybe dropping out is not all that it was cracked up to be.
Fellow comic director Garry Marshall does a strong turn as the Casino Manager, and fellow comic director James L. Brooks appears as an extra at the party.
Albert Brooks peppers the film with real people playing real people.
Now imagine a film in which the American dream is critiqued but its opposite, which is in fact another kind of American dream, is critiqued more.
That while one kind of choice--staying home and climbing the corporate ladder--may result in one's feeling trapped and limited, another kind of choice--forsaking all responsibility and living freely for the moment--may result in an even greater entrapment.
And imagine a film in which the sight of a Mercedes-Benz and the longing it induces can act as a moralizing and ennobling force.
Albert Brooks can pull this off.
Monday, January 29, 2018
394 - Dead Man, United States, 1995. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
Monday, January 29, 2018
394 - Dead Man, United States, 1995. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
William Blake is a Wanted man.
Nobody quotes his poetry.
Nobody helps him. Nurses him. Mends him.
Nobody stands beside him and guides him.
Nobody protects him.
And ultimately, Nobody sends him home in his final canoe. To the place from which he has come.
No, not Cleveland.
But back to the place where all the spirits come from, and where all the spirits return.
William Blake begins as an accountant.
But Mr. Dickinson in Machine has given his job away. Or at least his associate John Scholfield has given it away.
So William Blake insists on speaking with Mr. Dickinson.
That is a mistake.
John Dickinson, played by seventy-eight-year old, long-white-haired legend Robert Mitchum, speaks to a towering stuffed bear in his office beneath a painted portrait of himself.
Then he speaks to William Blake while holding a rifle to his face.
William Blake concedes the point. He gives up his claim to the job for which he spent his life-savings to travel to Machine.
He does not know what he will do.
He exits the building.
He runs into a girl selling paper flowers. Literally runs into her. Knocks her into the street. Into the mud.
Note that her name is Thel. Between the well-known and frequently assigned works The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Songs of Innocence and Experience, the real Blake wrote The Book of Thel.
She takes him home.
And that is when his real trouble begins.
And where what happens happens. That causes him to be a Wanted man.
William Blake nearly dies more than half a dozen times.
Thank goodness for Nobody.
Dead Man is Jim Jarmusch's most philosophical and complex movie we have seen so far.
It takes place in the 19th-century and asks questions about the ways people of disparate cultures and points of view navigate life on the frontier.
It is literate and symbolic and evocative.
And may be its own kind of America a Prophecy.
394 - Dead Man, United States, 1995. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
William Blake is a Wanted man.
Nobody quotes his poetry.
Nobody helps him. Nurses him. Mends him.
Nobody stands beside him and guides him.
Nobody protects him.
And ultimately, Nobody sends him home in his final canoe. To the place from which he has come.
No, not Cleveland.
But back to the place where all the spirits come from, and where all the spirits return.
William Blake begins as an accountant.
But Mr. Dickinson in Machine has given his job away. Or at least his associate John Scholfield has given it away.
So William Blake insists on speaking with Mr. Dickinson.
That is a mistake.
John Dickinson, played by seventy-eight-year old, long-white-haired legend Robert Mitchum, speaks to a towering stuffed bear in his office beneath a painted portrait of himself.
Then he speaks to William Blake while holding a rifle to his face.
William Blake concedes the point. He gives up his claim to the job for which he spent his life-savings to travel to Machine.
He does not know what he will do.
He exits the building.
He runs into a girl selling paper flowers. Literally runs into her. Knocks her into the street. Into the mud.
Note that her name is Thel. Between the well-known and frequently assigned works The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Songs of Innocence and Experience, the real Blake wrote The Book of Thel.
She takes him home.
And that is when his real trouble begins.
And where what happens happens. That causes him to be a Wanted man.
William Blake nearly dies more than half a dozen times.
Thank goodness for Nobody.
Dead Man is Jim Jarmusch's most philosophical and complex movie we have seen so far.
It takes place in the 19th-century and asks questions about the ways people of disparate cultures and points of view navigate life on the frontier.
It is literate and symbolic and evocative.
And may be its own kind of America a Prophecy.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
393 - Night On Earth, United States, 1991. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
393 - Night On Earth, United States, 1991. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
Let us visit Earth. In one night. Tonight.
We travel to space, approaching the globe. We reach the globe. It is a globe.
It rotates counter-clockwise as we caress its surface in the opposite direction.
We watch cities as they go by, so close as to not see countries, let alone continents.
Somewhere in here is our next city.
There it is. . . .
Remember the time clocks in old newsrooms? They had one set to different world cities in different time zones. If you watched The Mary Tyler Moore Show, then you saw them there.
Here we have five clocks representing five cities in five time zones. They are
Los Angeles. New York. Paris. Rome. Helsinki.
The three on the right are set to around ten minutes after four. The two on the left are set to other times, including other minutes.
They are not synchronized. Perhaps they are set to the local time in which we join their stories.
Time to join.
We zoom in on Los Angeles.
A young Wynona Ryder is driving a taxicab.
Fun word. It is a compound word composed of two synonyms, and it is itself synonymous with the synonyms. Taxi. Cab. Taxicab. They all mean the same. The last one is not considered redundant.
How many other words are like that?
She is carrying members of a rock band.
Meanwhile, Gena Rowlands has gotten off a plane and is waiting for her luggage at luggage claim. She is on her cell phone. A flip phone. This is 1991. Pretty impressive, actually. Ryder is now at a pay phone.
Rowlands--let us call her Victoria Snelling--is a Casting Director talking to a Producer. She keeps sending him great actresses and he keeps balking. He wants them younger. Less experienced. Yet strong. In fact, make her 18. No experience. With the nerves of a paratrooper.
This is not going to be easy.
Ryder--we will call her Corky--is talking to her boss about her cab. She is complaining. She had to pull the plugs herself this afternoon. You had better tell Gonzalez go get his act together or I will have to be your mechanic myself.
That is what she really wants.
To be a mechanic.
Corky loves cars. And she loves what she does. She has worked to get this job as a taxi driver, and she enjoys it. She is good at it. She is not shy, and she can talk to people. She does need to sit on a phone book to make her taller, but that is a good place to keep it anyway. In case a rider may need it.
Such as Victoria, for example.
Corky takes Victoria from the airport to her home in Beverly Hills. Turn right on Beverly Court. Then follow the hill up Beverly Circle. Please.
They get along just fine. Victoria does borrow the phone book, and she makes an important phone call to her producer. Corky turns on some music. Not on the car stereo but from a cassette tape in the boom box in the front passenger seat.
Could that phrase count? Cassette. Tape. Cassette Tape. All mean the same. Cassette is an adjective modifying tape, but it has become its own noun.
(Do you suddenly feel as though you can hear Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno saying these words in The Soft Shoe Silhouette on The Electric Company? Taxi. Cab. Taxicab. / Cassette. Tape. Cassette Tape.)
Victoria cannot hear her phone conversation due to the music playing from the boom box. They work it out. Victoria asks Corky for things or offers her advice, and Corky calls her "Mom" in jest.
The cab ride takes a route that an Angelino would not take, in order for the movie to pass certain landmarks. For example, they pass The Great Western Forum in Inglewood. Moving east to west across the front of it. And though the airport is never identified, one might presume it was supposed to be LAX. Not that it looks like it. On the commentary, they state it was in Long Beach, as the bigger airports were unavailable due to the terror threat levels at the time.
The women bond. Victoria has an idea. It works out differently from expected.
Then we go to the four other cities.
Compilation films often do not do well at the box office. In this case it is essentially a compilation of five short films all revolving around the concept of the taxi, a driver, and at least one passenger. But the film itself is fun. It is enjoyable to watch. And it is enjoyable to try to imagine all these things happening in the same evening in different parts of the world.
There are also things that link them.
From Los Angeles to New York, we have the family theme.
From New York to Paris, we have the you-cannot-drive theme.
From Paris to Rome, we have the you-cannot-see theme.
From Rome to Helsinki, we have the passenger passing out in the back seat theme.
These are minor, subtle connections, and there are several others.
The film is pure Jarmusch.
Relaxed. Offbeat. Deadpan. Insightful. Clever.
Now let us travel.
Taxi!
393 - Night On Earth, United States, 1991. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
Let us visit Earth. In one night. Tonight.
We travel to space, approaching the globe. We reach the globe. It is a globe.
It rotates counter-clockwise as we caress its surface in the opposite direction.
We watch cities as they go by, so close as to not see countries, let alone continents.
Somewhere in here is our next city.
There it is. . . .
Remember the time clocks in old newsrooms? They had one set to different world cities in different time zones. If you watched The Mary Tyler Moore Show, then you saw them there.
Here we have five clocks representing five cities in five time zones. They are
Los Angeles. New York. Paris. Rome. Helsinki.
The three on the right are set to around ten minutes after four. The two on the left are set to other times, including other minutes.
They are not synchronized. Perhaps they are set to the local time in which we join their stories.
Time to join.
We zoom in on Los Angeles.
A young Wynona Ryder is driving a taxicab.
Fun word. It is a compound word composed of two synonyms, and it is itself synonymous with the synonyms. Taxi. Cab. Taxicab. They all mean the same. The last one is not considered redundant.
How many other words are like that?
She is carrying members of a rock band.
Meanwhile, Gena Rowlands has gotten off a plane and is waiting for her luggage at luggage claim. She is on her cell phone. A flip phone. This is 1991. Pretty impressive, actually. Ryder is now at a pay phone.
Rowlands--let us call her Victoria Snelling--is a Casting Director talking to a Producer. She keeps sending him great actresses and he keeps balking. He wants them younger. Less experienced. Yet strong. In fact, make her 18. No experience. With the nerves of a paratrooper.
This is not going to be easy.
Ryder--we will call her Corky--is talking to her boss about her cab. She is complaining. She had to pull the plugs herself this afternoon. You had better tell Gonzalez go get his act together or I will have to be your mechanic myself.
That is what she really wants.
To be a mechanic.
Corky loves cars. And she loves what she does. She has worked to get this job as a taxi driver, and she enjoys it. She is good at it. She is not shy, and she can talk to people. She does need to sit on a phone book to make her taller, but that is a good place to keep it anyway. In case a rider may need it.
Such as Victoria, for example.
Corky takes Victoria from the airport to her home in Beverly Hills. Turn right on Beverly Court. Then follow the hill up Beverly Circle. Please.
They get along just fine. Victoria does borrow the phone book, and she makes an important phone call to her producer. Corky turns on some music. Not on the car stereo but from a cassette tape in the boom box in the front passenger seat.
Could that phrase count? Cassette. Tape. Cassette Tape. All mean the same. Cassette is an adjective modifying tape, but it has become its own noun.
(Do you suddenly feel as though you can hear Morgan Freeman and Rita Moreno saying these words in The Soft Shoe Silhouette on The Electric Company? Taxi. Cab. Taxicab. / Cassette. Tape. Cassette Tape.)
Victoria cannot hear her phone conversation due to the music playing from the boom box. They work it out. Victoria asks Corky for things or offers her advice, and Corky calls her "Mom" in jest.
The cab ride takes a route that an Angelino would not take, in order for the movie to pass certain landmarks. For example, they pass The Great Western Forum in Inglewood. Moving east to west across the front of it. And though the airport is never identified, one might presume it was supposed to be LAX. Not that it looks like it. On the commentary, they state it was in Long Beach, as the bigger airports were unavailable due to the terror threat levels at the time.
The women bond. Victoria has an idea. It works out differently from expected.
Then we go to the four other cities.
Compilation films often do not do well at the box office. In this case it is essentially a compilation of five short films all revolving around the concept of the taxi, a driver, and at least one passenger. But the film itself is fun. It is enjoyable to watch. And it is enjoyable to try to imagine all these things happening in the same evening in different parts of the world.
There are also things that link them.
From Los Angeles to New York, we have the family theme.
From New York to Paris, we have the you-cannot-drive theme.
From Paris to Rome, we have the you-cannot-see theme.
From Rome to Helsinki, we have the passenger passing out in the back seat theme.
These are minor, subtle connections, and there are several others.
The film is pure Jarmusch.
Relaxed. Offbeat. Deadpan. Insightful. Clever.
Now let us travel.
Taxi!
Saturday, January 27, 2018
392 - Down By Law, United States, 1986. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
Saturday, January 27, 2018
392 - Down By Law, United States, 1986. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
Did you hear the one about the D.J., the pimp, and the Italian?
It goes like this.
A D.J. and a pimp walk into a jail cell. The warden says, "You're guilty." The D.J. says, "I was set up." The pimp says, "I was set up." The warden says, "Oh, yeah. Well, here's an Italian to keep you company."
The Italian says, "I ham a good egg."
Because Roberto has watched American prison escape movies, he knows how to escape.
Jarmusch cleverly does not show us how. We just cut to their run through the swamps. And then the movie gets really fun.
Cinematographer Robby Muller with his black-and-white photography makes good use of the landscape to give you the feeling that they are in the middle of nowhere miles away from nowhere.
Roberto is played by Roberto Benigni, most known for his Oscar-winning film with his Oscar-winning performance, Life is Beautiful (1999). But he had acted in and directed several movies in Italy before then. He was still unknown in America when Jim Jarmusch began working with him in his own films.
Nicoletta Braschi plays Nicoletta in this film, and it was here where Benigni met her, whom he later married and cast in all his movies. They have since made around six films together.
The men get lost.
And they become archetypal.
Walt Whitman. Robert Frost. Mark Twain.
Italian and American fugitives quoting American writers.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler . . .
Wait. What if you could be two travelers? Then you can travel both.
Look, man. Don't matter to me. You go whichever way you want, right?
Then I'll go the other way.
That sums up Jim Jarmusch.
He has gone the other way.
392 - Down By Law, United States, 1986. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
Did you hear the one about the D.J., the pimp, and the Italian?
It goes like this.
A D.J. and a pimp walk into a jail cell. The warden says, "You're guilty." The D.J. says, "I was set up." The pimp says, "I was set up." The warden says, "Oh, yeah. Well, here's an Italian to keep you company."
The Italian says, "I ham a good egg."
Ta! Ta! Ta!
Then the Italian tells his story. He was playing cards. He was cheating. They caught him cheating. They chased him into the billiards room. A man threw a ball at him. "You throw a ball against me, I throw a ball against you, no?" So he threw a ball back. The 8-Ball. He hits the very big man. First stroke. Dead. On the ground.
It was the Italian in the Billiards Room with the 8-Ball. I win!
He blackballed him.
Ta! Tum! Ta!
Zack and Jack and Roberto are stuck in this small cell. If their notches on the wall are accurate, they have been here 187 days. But how did they get here?
For that we must go back to the beginning.
The film is composed of three acts: the streets of New Orleans, Orleans Parish Prison, and the swamps. We follow Zack's and Jack's stories in the first section, where we are also introduced to Roberto.
Zack is played by singer-songwriter Tom Waits, who also provides the songs for the film.
Hey, little bird, fly away home.
Your house is on fire; your children are alone.
The film opens with "Jockey Full of Bourbon" playing as we car-dolly down the streets of New Orleans. The urban streets. The rural streets. Streets with history. Streets with character. We pause twice to meet our protagonists and their women, and then return to the driving shots--moving right to left, then left to right, and then right to left again.
Zack is with Laurette, played by a young Ellen Barkin. She is tired of how he treats her, and tired of how he keeps losing jobs at radio stations. He is talented, and he has worked at big stations in New York, Detroit, and Baltimore. But he keeps getting into arguments with his station managers and he keeps losing jobs. He has just lost a job here in New Orleans. She calls him "stubborn and stupid."
Jack is played by musician and Jarmusch staple John Lurie. Lurie founded the jazz group The Lounge Lizards with his brother Evan. He later founded the John Lurie National Orchestra. He now paints and continues to compose.
Jack is with his girl Bobbie. He prides himself on how he takes care of his girl, but she mocks and accuses him of not taking care of her.
The men are each set up in interesting ways.
Back in the jail cell, Roberto speaks little English. He has a spiral-ring flip-pad on which he has written some phrases to help him.
"If looks can kill, I am a dead man."
"Not enough room to swing a cat."
"I have the hicc-outs."
His phrases do not help him very much.
Roberto draws a window on the wall.
He asks, "Do you say in English, 'I look hout the window,' or do you say in English, 'I look hat the window"?
Jack explains, "Well, in this case, Bob, I'm afraid you gotta say, 'I look at the window.'"
Because Roberto has watched American prison escape movies, he knows how to escape.
Jarmusch cleverly does not show us how. We just cut to their run through the swamps. And then the movie gets really fun.
Cinematographer Robby Muller with his black-and-white photography makes good use of the landscape to give you the feeling that they are in the middle of nowhere miles away from nowhere.
Roberto is played by Roberto Benigni, most known for his Oscar-winning film with his Oscar-winning performance, Life is Beautiful (1999). But he had acted in and directed several movies in Italy before then. He was still unknown in America when Jim Jarmusch began working with him in his own films.
Nicoletta Braschi plays Nicoletta in this film, and it was here where Benigni met her, whom he later married and cast in all his movies. They have since made around six films together.
The men get lost.
And they become archetypal.
Walt Whitman. Robert Frost. Mark Twain.
Italian and American fugitives quoting American writers.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler . . .
Wait. What if you could be two travelers? Then you can travel both.
Look, man. Don't matter to me. You go whichever way you want, right?
Then I'll go the other way.
That sums up Jim Jarmusch.
He has gone the other way.
Friday, January 26, 2018
391 - Stranger Than Paradise, United States, 1984. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
Friday, January 26, 2018
391 - Stranger Than Paradise, United States, 1984. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
The New World - New York
One Year Later - Cleveland
Paradise - Florida
Willie is an American. He is an American because he chooses to be. He live in New York. He speaks English only. He goes by Willie.
Willie is from Hungary. And his cousin Eva is coming to visit. Stopping by his place in New York on her way to Aunt Lotte's in Cleveland.
There is not much to do. They may be in New York, but they sit around the apartment. He introduces her to TV dinners, Chesterfield cigarettes, and professional football. He demands that she speak English only.
He buys her a dress. She does not like it. When he is not looking she throws it away.
She meets his friend Eddie.
After ten days Eva moves to Cleveland to stay with Aunt Lotte.
One year later Willie and Eddie win $600 by cheating at poker. They go to Cleveland to see Eva. They spend time with Aunt Lotte. They find Eva at the hot dog stand. They go to the movies. They go out on the frozen lake.
Then they go to Florida. The cold, white, windy beach looks about the same as the lake in Cleveland.
The men leave her behind to bet at the dog races. She takes a walk on the beach. Then the horse races. She takes another walk. Their fortunes change once, twice, three times, four times.
Someone leaves. Someone stays.
Jim Jarmusch made this film over four years beginning with leftover film stock given to him by Wim Wenders. He had studied with Nicholas Ray at film school, and it was while with Ray that he met Wenders. As with many independent films, he made a short film first and then developed it into a feature. He filmed in black and white in long single takes with the camera on a tripod. Little cutting. No coverage. Everything in master shots.
Every scene a single take.
It is appropriate that Willie and Eddie play poker, because they are more stonefaced than Buster Keaton.
Or even a member of Mount Rushmore.
At Cannes that year Wim Wenders won the Palme d'Or for Paris, Texas while Jim Jarmusch won the Camera d'Or for Stranger than Paradise.
It launched his career.
Thank you, Wim Wenders.
Thank you, established filmmakers for helping newer filmmakers get their start.
391 - Stranger Than Paradise, United States, 1984. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
The New World - New York
One Year Later - Cleveland
Paradise - Florida
Willie is an American. He is an American because he chooses to be. He live in New York. He speaks English only. He goes by Willie.
Willie is from Hungary. And his cousin Eva is coming to visit. Stopping by his place in New York on her way to Aunt Lotte's in Cleveland.
There is not much to do. They may be in New York, but they sit around the apartment. He introduces her to TV dinners, Chesterfield cigarettes, and professional football. He demands that she speak English only.
He buys her a dress. She does not like it. When he is not looking she throws it away.
She meets his friend Eddie.
After ten days Eva moves to Cleveland to stay with Aunt Lotte.
One year later Willie and Eddie win $600 by cheating at poker. They go to Cleveland to see Eva. They spend time with Aunt Lotte. They find Eva at the hot dog stand. They go to the movies. They go out on the frozen lake.
Then they go to Florida. The cold, white, windy beach looks about the same as the lake in Cleveland.
The men leave her behind to bet at the dog races. She takes a walk on the beach. Then the horse races. She takes another walk. Their fortunes change once, twice, three times, four times.
Someone leaves. Someone stays.
Jim Jarmusch made this film over four years beginning with leftover film stock given to him by Wim Wenders. He had studied with Nicholas Ray at film school, and it was while with Ray that he met Wenders. As with many independent films, he made a short film first and then developed it into a feature. He filmed in black and white in long single takes with the camera on a tripod. Little cutting. No coverage. Everything in master shots.
Every scene a single take.
It is appropriate that Willie and Eddie play poker, because they are more stonefaced than Buster Keaton.
Or even a member of Mount Rushmore.
At Cannes that year Wim Wenders won the Palme d'Or for Paris, Texas while Jim Jarmusch won the Camera d'Or for Stranger than Paradise.
It launched his career.
Thank you, Wim Wenders.
Thank you, established filmmakers for helping newer filmmakers get their start.
Thursday, January 25, 2018
390 - Permanent Vacation, United States, 1980. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
390 - Permanent Vacation, United States, 1980. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
I know that when I get the feeling the drift is gonna take me.
So says Aloysious Christopher Parker. Played by Christopher Parker. In Jim Jarmusch's NYU student film. (He would leave without graduating.)
We saw Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989) nearly a year ago. This one came out nearly a decade before that one.
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/02/042-mystery-train-1989-united-states.html
Aloysious goes by Allie.
He spraypaints his name on the walls of buildings.
Allie
Total
Blamblam!
He sprays, but his heart is not in it.
He walks the debris-covered streets.
He talks in voice over as we see a montage of interiors. Spaces from jail cells to living rooms, apartments to mansions.
He tells his story.
When he arrives at his apartment his girlfriend Leila is waiting for him. Leila played by Leila Gastil.
She sits in a chair of the mostly empty loft, looking out the window. A mattress lies on the floor.
She asks him where he has been. He says walking. He cannot seem to sleep at night.
He puts on some jazz music. Bebop. Not Charlie Parker but "Up There in Orbit" by Earl Bostic. He dances. She ignores him. He dances to the whole song.
They live with layers of silence between them. They have as much chemistry as two cardboard boxes sitting on a barren concrete floor.
He sits reading at the table. Les Chants de Maldoror by Le Compte de Lautreamont. A French poet from Uruguay who published two works before dying at 24, and who had a strong influence on Surrealists.
She makes herself a cup of coffee. He reads to her. Then he says, "I'm tired of this book. You can have it."
"Everyone is alone. That's why I just drift, you know. People think it's crazy. But it's better to think you're not alone when you're drifting, even though you are."
Then he goes drifting.
Everyone he encounters seems to be insane. He does not judge them. He befriends them. But they cannot understand him.
The first is a homeless man living in an abandoned building, thinking he is fighting in Vietnam. He hears enemy fighters overhead. He looks like he is played by one of Jarmusch's youthful, healthy college friends.
The second is Allie's mother. He visits her at the asylum. She is silent. Her roommate laughs incessantly. He identifies himself. She denies he is her son. The nurse sends him out to give her medication.
The third is a woman in a slip on a stoop shouting in Spanish, her lipstick smeared on her face. He tries to talk to her but she gestures him away.
He walks with a yo-yo. He goes to see a movie. The Savage Innocents. Nicholas Ray. 1960. Anthony Quinn.
The fourth is a girl at the concession counter. She is reading. He buys popcorn. He asks about the movie. She tells him they eat maggots in it.
The fifth is a man in the movie theater lobby talking about the Doppler effect. The Doppler Effect is the name of his joke. It is really a long story. A really long story.
The sixth is a man playing the saxophone. Played by John Lurie. Who played Slater in Paris, Texas. And who will go on to work with Jim Jarmusch in at least three more films. Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Down By Law (1986), and Mystery Train (1989), which we saw last year. He works in films as both actor and composer, and he is the composer on this film.
He asks Allie what he would like to hear. Allie says, "I don't care as long as it's vibrating bugged-out sound."
He plays some vibrating bugged-out sound. Or what sounds like the beginning of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which then detours into improvisation. Allie listens and then walks off. He sleeps on a roof. The next morning he mumbles to himself as dogs bark.
The seventh is quite frankly Allie himself when he wakes up on the roof. He sits on the parapet. Looks over. Will he jump?
Later he smokes while leaning against a postal box. When a young woman pulls up and asks him to drop her letter in for her, he refuses. When she gets out of the car to mail it, he gets in and drives off.
He sells the car for $800.
He returns to his apartment. Leila is out. He packs.
He is getting the feeling. The drift is going to take him.
He leaves a note.
He gets on a boat.
He meets a young man from Paris. They talk.
He gets on another boat.
He talks to us.
"I don't want a job or a house or taxes, although I wouldn't mind a car. . . .
Let's just say I'm a certain kind of tourist. A tourist that's on a permanent vacation."
And off he goes.
Permanent Vacation is a student film. And it shows. It has sound problems. Bad acting. A thin script with overwrought earnest philosophizing. If you are looking for a night of popcorn and Milk Duds, then this movie is not for you. If you are looking for a thoughtful art house film, then this movie is also not for you.
But if you are a Jarmusch fan and want to see him early at work, then have a go. Permanent Vacation carries within it the seeds that would develop into Jim Jarmusch's ever-nomadic independent style.
Do you get the drift?
390 - Permanent Vacation, United States, 1980. Dir. Jim Jarmusch.
I know that when I get the feeling the drift is gonna take me.
So says Aloysious Christopher Parker. Played by Christopher Parker. In Jim Jarmusch's NYU student film. (He would leave without graduating.)
We saw Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train (1989) nearly a year ago. This one came out nearly a decade before that one.
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/02/042-mystery-train-1989-united-states.html
Aloysious goes by Allie.
He spraypaints his name on the walls of buildings.
Allie
Total
Blamblam!
He sprays, but his heart is not in it.
He walks the debris-covered streets.
He talks in voice over as we see a montage of interiors. Spaces from jail cells to living rooms, apartments to mansions.
He tells us if he ever has a son he will name him Charles Christopher Parker. Like Charlie Parker. He likes jazz.
When he arrives at his apartment his girlfriend Leila is waiting for him. Leila played by Leila Gastil.
She sits in a chair of the mostly empty loft, looking out the window. A mattress lies on the floor.
She asks him where he has been. He says walking. He cannot seem to sleep at night.
He puts on some jazz music. Bebop. Not Charlie Parker but "Up There in Orbit" by Earl Bostic. He dances. She ignores him. He dances to the whole song.
They live with layers of silence between them. They have as much chemistry as two cardboard boxes sitting on a barren concrete floor.
He sits reading at the table. Les Chants de Maldoror by Le Compte de Lautreamont. A French poet from Uruguay who published two works before dying at 24, and who had a strong influence on Surrealists.
She makes herself a cup of coffee. He reads to her. Then he says, "I'm tired of this book. You can have it."
"Everyone is alone. That's why I just drift, you know. People think it's crazy. But it's better to think you're not alone when you're drifting, even though you are."
Then he goes drifting.
Everyone he encounters seems to be insane. He does not judge them. He befriends them. But they cannot understand him.
The first is a homeless man living in an abandoned building, thinking he is fighting in Vietnam. He hears enemy fighters overhead. He looks like he is played by one of Jarmusch's youthful, healthy college friends.
The second is Allie's mother. He visits her at the asylum. She is silent. Her roommate laughs incessantly. He identifies himself. She denies he is her son. The nurse sends him out to give her medication.
The third is a woman in a slip on a stoop shouting in Spanish, her lipstick smeared on her face. He tries to talk to her but she gestures him away.
He walks with a yo-yo. He goes to see a movie. The Savage Innocents. Nicholas Ray. 1960. Anthony Quinn.
The fourth is a girl at the concession counter. She is reading. He buys popcorn. He asks about the movie. She tells him they eat maggots in it.
The fifth is a man in the movie theater lobby talking about the Doppler effect. The Doppler Effect is the name of his joke. It is really a long story. A really long story.
The sixth is a man playing the saxophone. Played by John Lurie. Who played Slater in Paris, Texas. And who will go on to work with Jim Jarmusch in at least three more films. Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Down By Law (1986), and Mystery Train (1989), which we saw last year. He works in films as both actor and composer, and he is the composer on this film.
He asks Allie what he would like to hear. Allie says, "I don't care as long as it's vibrating bugged-out sound."
He plays some vibrating bugged-out sound. Or what sounds like the beginning of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," which then detours into improvisation. Allie listens and then walks off. He sleeps on a roof. The next morning he mumbles to himself as dogs bark.
The seventh is quite frankly Allie himself when he wakes up on the roof. He sits on the parapet. Looks over. Will he jump?
Later he smokes while leaning against a postal box. When a young woman pulls up and asks him to drop her letter in for her, he refuses. When she gets out of the car to mail it, he gets in and drives off.
He sells the car for $800.
He returns to his apartment. Leila is out. He packs.
He is getting the feeling. The drift is going to take him.
He leaves a note.
He gets on a boat.
He meets a young man from Paris. They talk.
He gets on another boat.
He talks to us.
"I don't want a job or a house or taxes, although I wouldn't mind a car. . . .
Let's just say I'm a certain kind of tourist. A tourist that's on a permanent vacation."
And off he goes.
Permanent Vacation is a student film. And it shows. It has sound problems. Bad acting. A thin script with overwrought earnest philosophizing. If you are looking for a night of popcorn and Milk Duds, then this movie is not for you. If you are looking for a thoughtful art house film, then this movie is also not for you.
But if you are a Jarmusch fan and want to see him early at work, then have a go. Permanent Vacation carries within it the seeds that would develop into Jim Jarmusch's ever-nomadic independent style.
Do you get the drift?
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
389 - Buena Vista Social Club, Germany/United States, 1999. Dir. Wim Wenders.
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
389 - Buena Vista Social Club, Germany/United States, 1999. Dir. Wim Wenders.
Ibrahim Ferrer sings about the lily. The white lily.
But we will get to that in a moment.
Right now Tula's bedroom is on fire.
Somebody call Compay to come put it out.
But Compay started it.
Not with a match but with his soul. With his rhythm. With his fingers on a guitar.
Compay Segundo is 90 years old. He has five children and he tells us he is working on his sixth. He is dressed to the nines. A tall man in a tall suit. And he looks like a million dollars. He says women, flowers, and romance are lovely. He looks as though he knows what he is talking about. As though he has ignited things before.
No wonder Tula's bedroom is on fire.
The song is "El Cuarto de Tula," and in the lyrics Tula's bedroom catches on fire because she forgot to blow out the candle before falling asleep. But the double meaning is also there. Everyone in the neighborhood wants to come extinguish the fire. Everyone loves Tula. She has started fires in all of them.
German director Wim Wenders is taking us on a tour through Cuba. He is introducing us to the members of the Buena Vista Social Club. A band named after a real club that existed in Buenavista, Havana, and that was hopping in the 1940s.
These musicians were alive in the 1940s. Some of them were alive in the 1910s. And they were forging new music. New styles. New sounds.
Fifty years later they have been forgotten. A piano player without a piano. A singer working odd jobs to make ends meet.
National treasures discarded by the wayside.
Until Nick Gold organizes a project. And Ry Cooder produces a record. And Juan de Marcos Gonzalez directs the band.
The album, Buena Vista Social Club, came out in 1996. And it sparked a sensation. People all around the world had to get a copy.
Then in 1998 our man Wim Wenders followed them around. And left us this beautiful legacy. As each member of the band tells his story. And we watch them play. In Havana. In Amsterdam. At Carnegie Hall.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Create new forms of music and wait fifty years for the public to rediscover you.
Ibrahim Ferrer's voice is as smooth as silk.
Ruben Gonzalez's piano is a tiramisu. Or in this case maybe a dulce de leche.
Ruben Gonzalez plays so high up the piano scale he needs more piano. The audience in Carnegie Hall claps. They appreciate him. He is 80 and still playing like that. Compay Segundo is 90 and still playing like that. Ibrahim is in his 70s and still singing like that. It is incredible.
This is a special moment.
They too would weep for my sorrow
Hush
For they are sleeping
The spikenards and the lilies
I don't want them to know
Of my sorrows
For it they see me weeping
They will die.
Yet despite the sorrow, there is hope for the lily. Because the lily is loved. Loved more than she may ever know.
One can feel the tenderness and sensitivity in these great artists. They have lived it.
During the song the film segues back and forth between the studio in Havana and the concert in Amsterdam, the two pros singing, backed by the band.
Wenders spends time with each of the musicians. He shows them in the studio. He shows them in the streets. He shows them in concert. At some point during the film each player gets a solo. And each gets to tell his story.
Ibrahim picked up a staff when his mother died. He still carries it. He has been carrying his staff for 58 years.
"I love all the streets of Havana. I could shoot there forever. I could shoot day and night. Wherever you go, each street is another adventure. Havana just looks so incredible." - Wim Wenders.
All these great Cuban players, who forged new sounds in music in the 1940s, have been brought together again in 1998.
The producers caught them just in time, as by now, twenty years later, so many of them have passed away. In some cases they got to enjoy another decade of success and prosperity. A fitting ending to a long life of art and struggle.
For this we owe Nick Gold and Ry Cooder and Juan de Marcos and Wim Wenders our gratitude.
Thank you, Gentlemen.
Thank you.
* * * * *
The Players
Octavio Calderon, Joachim Cooder, Ry Cooder, Angel Terry Domech, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ibrahim Ferrer Jr., Manuel Galban, Roberto Garcia, Hugo Garzon, Carlos Gonzalez, Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, Ruben Gonzalez, Pio Leyva, Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal, Eliades Ochoa, Gilberto "Papi" Oviedo, Alejandro Pichardo, Yanko Pichardo, Omara Portuondo, Jesus "Aguaje" Ramos, Salvador Repilado, Jose Antonio Rodriguez, Compay Segundo, Benito Suarez, Barbarito Torres, Amadito Valdes, Alberto "Virgilio" Valdes, Lazaro Villa.
389 - Buena Vista Social Club, Germany/United States, 1999. Dir. Wim Wenders.
Ibrahim Ferrer sings about the lily. The white lily.
But we will get to that in a moment.
Right now Tula's bedroom is on fire.
Somebody call Compay to come put it out.
But Compay started it.
Not with a match but with his soul. With his rhythm. With his fingers on a guitar.
Compay Segundo is 90 years old. He has five children and he tells us he is working on his sixth. He is dressed to the nines. A tall man in a tall suit. And he looks like a million dollars. He says women, flowers, and romance are lovely. He looks as though he knows what he is talking about. As though he has ignited things before.
No wonder Tula's bedroom is on fire.
The song is "El Cuarto de Tula," and in the lyrics Tula's bedroom catches on fire because she forgot to blow out the candle before falling asleep. But the double meaning is also there. Everyone in the neighborhood wants to come extinguish the fire. Everyone loves Tula. She has started fires in all of them.
German director Wim Wenders is taking us on a tour through Cuba. He is introducing us to the members of the Buena Vista Social Club. A band named after a real club that existed in Buenavista, Havana, and that was hopping in the 1940s.
These musicians were alive in the 1940s. Some of them were alive in the 1910s. And they were forging new music. New styles. New sounds.
Fifty years later they have been forgotten. A piano player without a piano. A singer working odd jobs to make ends meet.
National treasures discarded by the wayside.
Until Nick Gold organizes a project. And Ry Cooder produces a record. And Juan de Marcos Gonzalez directs the band.
The album, Buena Vista Social Club, came out in 1996. And it sparked a sensation. People all around the world had to get a copy.
Then in 1998 our man Wim Wenders followed them around. And left us this beautiful legacy. As each member of the band tells his story. And we watch them play. In Havana. In Amsterdam. At Carnegie Hall.
How do you get to Carnegie Hall?
Create new forms of music and wait fifty years for the public to rediscover you.
Ibrahim Ferrer's voice is as smooth as silk.
Ruben Gonzalez's piano is a tiramisu. Or in this case maybe a dulce de leche.
Ruben Gonzalez plays so high up the piano scale he needs more piano. The audience in Carnegie Hall claps. They appreciate him. He is 80 and still playing like that. Compay Segundo is 90 and still playing like that. Ibrahim is in his 70s and still singing like that. It is incredible.
This is a special moment.
A super group. Blending together as if they had been playing together their whole lives.
Septuagenarians, octogenarians, and nonagenarians playing with the facility of youth. Supple. Smooth. Dexterous.
And having a great time.
After a brief meeting with photographer Alfredo Korda, the film begins with Wenders following Compay Segundo around the neighborhoods of Buenavista looking for the social club.
Compay is famous. Everyone in the neighborhood knows him. And he delights in his fame. He tells two older men his recipe for the perfect cure for a hangover. Black cocoquetta soup. Chicken consomme. Fried chicken neck tossed in garlic.
Anyone who eats that will have no aches and pains.
So says Compay. Try it and let me know how it works.
Compay asks the residents, "Where is the Buena Vista Social Club?" Everyone knows exactly where it is. Everyone has a different story to tell about it. Everyone gives him different directions. In the end they never find it. Wenders says they started to wonder if it ever existed. But at least they had a great day.
Back in Cuba Ibrahim Ferrar and Omara Portuondo sing a duet as if they were lifelong lovers. Sweet. Plaintive. Mournful. Their microphones face each other and the camera moves in circles around them. She is looking up at him with her eyes full of life. Full of love. He is singing from the depths of his soul but with a lightness of touch that walks on water.
The spikenards and the roses
The white lilies
And my soul
So very sad and sorrowful
It wants to hide from the flowers.
Its bitter pain
I don't want the flowers to know
Wenders says they came back later to record a solo album with Ibrahim. "I was completely taken away by his persona and his character and his gentleness. He's an unbelievable man."
If they knew how I'm sufferingSeptuagenarians, octogenarians, and nonagenarians playing with the facility of youth. Supple. Smooth. Dexterous.
And having a great time.
After a brief meeting with photographer Alfredo Korda, the film begins with Wenders following Compay Segundo around the neighborhoods of Buenavista looking for the social club.
Compay is famous. Everyone in the neighborhood knows him. And he delights in his fame. He tells two older men his recipe for the perfect cure for a hangover. Black cocoquetta soup. Chicken consomme. Fried chicken neck tossed in garlic.
Anyone who eats that will have no aches and pains.
So says Compay. Try it and let me know how it works.
Compay asks the residents, "Where is the Buena Vista Social Club?" Everyone knows exactly where it is. Everyone has a different story to tell about it. Everyone gives him different directions. In the end they never find it. Wenders says they started to wonder if it ever existed. But at least they had a great day.
When the band goes to Amsterdam it is the first time they play together as a band in front of an audience. The reception is spectacular. People give them standing ovations throughout the show. The musicians are blown away. They have never experienced anything like it.
Back in Cuba Ibrahim Ferrar and Omara Portuondo sing a duet as if they were lifelong lovers. Sweet. Plaintive. Mournful. Their microphones face each other and the camera moves in circles around them. She is looking up at him with her eyes full of life. Full of love. He is singing from the depths of his soul but with a lightness of touch that walks on water.
The spikenards and the roses
The white lilies
And my soul
So very sad and sorrowful
It wants to hide from the flowers.
Its bitter pain
I don't want the flowers to know
Ibrahim has just come off the street. Thirty minutes ago he was shining someone's shoes. Paying his bills. Now he is in the studio recording a marvel. Something that will be loved throughout history.
Wenders says they came back later to record a solo album with Ibrahim. "I was completely taken away by his persona and his character and his gentleness. He's an unbelievable man."
They too would weep for my sorrow
Hush
For they are sleeping
The spikenards and the lilies
I don't want them to know
Of my sorrows
For it they see me weeping
They will die.
Yet despite the sorrow, there is hope for the lily. Because the lily is loved. Loved more than she may ever know.
One can feel the tenderness and sensitivity in these great artists. They have lived it.
During the song the film segues back and forth between the studio in Havana and the concert in Amsterdam, the two pros singing, backed by the band.
Wenders spends time with each of the musicians. He shows them in the studio. He shows them in the streets. He shows them in concert. At some point during the film each player gets a solo. And each gets to tell his story.
Ibrahim picked up a staff when his mother died. He still carries it. He has been carrying his staff for 58 years.
"I love all the streets of Havana. I could shoot there forever. I could shoot day and night. Wherever you go, each street is another adventure. Havana just looks so incredible." - Wim Wenders.
All these great Cuban players, who forged new sounds in music in the 1940s, have been brought together again in 1998.
The producers caught them just in time, as by now, twenty years later, so many of them have passed away. In some cases they got to enjoy another decade of success and prosperity. A fitting ending to a long life of art and struggle.
For this we owe Nick Gold and Ry Cooder and Juan de Marcos and Wim Wenders our gratitude.
Thank you, Gentlemen.
Thank you.
* * * * *
The Players
Octavio Calderon, Joachim Cooder, Ry Cooder, Angel Terry Domech, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ibrahim Ferrer Jr., Manuel Galban, Roberto Garcia, Hugo Garzon, Carlos Gonzalez, Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, Ruben Gonzalez, Pio Leyva, Manuel "Puntillita" Licea, Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal, Eliades Ochoa, Gilberto "Papi" Oviedo, Alejandro Pichardo, Yanko Pichardo, Omara Portuondo, Jesus "Aguaje" Ramos, Salvador Repilado, Jose Antonio Rodriguez, Compay Segundo, Benito Suarez, Barbarito Torres, Amadito Valdes, Alberto "Virgilio" Valdes, Lazaro Villa.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
388 - Wings of Desire, West Germany/France, 1987. Dir. Wim Wenders.
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
388 - Wings of Desire, West Germany/France, 1987. Dir. Wim Wenders.
For He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. - Psalm 91:11.
Damiel is an angel assigned to Berlin.
He keeps a diary. He pays particular attention to the children. He writes down what life is like for them. How they are different from adults. Closer to Heaven.
In fact, children can see Damiel. Adults cannot. When children look up and see him on the spire of a tall building, they smile. They know.
Damiel watches over people with compassion. Loving them. Protecting them. Comforting them.
They still have free will. When a man decides to jump off a building to commit suicide, Damiel cannot stop him. But Damiel is there. Consoling. In the case of another suicidal man, on the train platform, he is more successful.
Sometimes the people listen to the still small voice. Sometimes, even when they do not, Damiel is able to help them somehow anyway.
Cassiel is Damiel's partner. The two of them work together.
A woman rides in an ambulance on the way to Delivery. Damiel and Cassiel ride with her. They listen to her heart as she speaks to her baby. They listen to her husband's heart as he speaks to his wife.
A prostitute stands on the side of the road, trying to make a living. Damiel and Cassiel stand by her. Available.
A man feels rejected by his wife. Damiel and Cassiel are there for him. Assuaging.
A woman works as a trapeze artist in the circus. Damiel . . . well, Damiel falls in love with her.
Can he do that?
Has it ever happened before?
Damiel and Cassiel, like all angels, have been here since the beginning of time. Since before Berlin was a city. Before the birth of man.
They have worked this spot throughout all of human history. Imagine how many generations of people they have seen.
How could these feelings now suddenly arise inside of him?
Damiel tells Cassiel that he would like to know what it means to be human.
To see color. To feel with the skin. To feel with the heart. To drink coffee. To love. To bleed.
Marion, the trapeze artist, trains as Damiel watches her. Sitting invisibly on his perch. Her trainer is guiding her to imagine she is an angel. Imagine your wings. Imagine your weightlessness. Imagine that you can fly.
And as he watches, Damiel imagines that he is human. Imagines his weightfulness. Imagines that he can walk. Imagines that he can feel the dirt between his toes.
Peter Falk is Peter Falk. He is coming to Berlin to make a movie. The kids know him as Columbo. He talks about how important wardrobe is. He mentions that Columbo did not wear a hat, and that he wore his own coat.
And somehow when Damiel stops by a food stand, where Peter Falk is waiting in line to order, Peter can sense his presence. Peter does not see him but he knows that he is there. He talks to him. He talks to him confidently. Comfortably.
Perhaps we will find out why. And how.
Remember Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bete (1946). We watched it last year. Wim Wenders has brought on board its cinematographer, Henri Alekan--forty-one years later!--to give Wings of Desire its mysterious, dreamlike, otherwordly look.
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/01/003-la-belle-et-la-bete-beauty-and.html
Henri Alekan was born in 1909. He started working in 1931. He worked steadily for 62 years until 1993. He died in 2001.
The camera moves effortlessly on a gimbal from room to room, reminding us of Max Ophuls.
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/04/091-la-ronde-1950-france-dir-max-ophuls.html
It is as if the apartments of Rear Window (1954) were made three-dimensional. Or in this case, as seen through the eyes of the angels, four-dimensional.
This is a film about seeing. About watching through eyes of love. Eyes of grace.
Some call it a city symphony to Berlin. Made a couple years before the Wall fell. It is silent and filled with dialogue. It is black and white yet gives way to color. And when it is black and white, it feels more like silver. The film comforts just as the angels do.
It transcends theology. One allows it its fiction. It is not a statement about the nature of real angels or their capacities or desires. Indeed, the real Heaven is where the explosion of the senses takes place, as we are now in the shadowlands, seeing through a glass darkly.
But this film absolutely affirms the beauty and eternal value of man. The only creature made in the image of God. The only creature given freedom, will power. The only creature granted salvation, redemption, the Gospel, the Holy Spirit.
Which things the angels desire to look into.
Watch this movie. And then see if you can identify a film in which humans are portrayed as being so loved.
388 - Wings of Desire, West Germany/France, 1987. Dir. Wim Wenders.
For He shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways. - Psalm 91:11.
Damiel is an angel assigned to Berlin.
He keeps a diary. He pays particular attention to the children. He writes down what life is like for them. How they are different from adults. Closer to Heaven.
In fact, children can see Damiel. Adults cannot. When children look up and see him on the spire of a tall building, they smile. They know.
Damiel watches over people with compassion. Loving them. Protecting them. Comforting them.
They still have free will. When a man decides to jump off a building to commit suicide, Damiel cannot stop him. But Damiel is there. Consoling. In the case of another suicidal man, on the train platform, he is more successful.
Sometimes the people listen to the still small voice. Sometimes, even when they do not, Damiel is able to help them somehow anyway.
Cassiel is Damiel's partner. The two of them work together.
A woman rides in an ambulance on the way to Delivery. Damiel and Cassiel ride with her. They listen to her heart as she speaks to her baby. They listen to her husband's heart as he speaks to his wife.
A prostitute stands on the side of the road, trying to make a living. Damiel and Cassiel stand by her. Available.
A man feels rejected by his wife. Damiel and Cassiel are there for him. Assuaging.
A woman works as a trapeze artist in the circus. Damiel . . . well, Damiel falls in love with her.
Can he do that?
Has it ever happened before?
Damiel and Cassiel, like all angels, have been here since the beginning of time. Since before Berlin was a city. Before the birth of man.
They have worked this spot throughout all of human history. Imagine how many generations of people they have seen.
How could these feelings now suddenly arise inside of him?
Damiel tells Cassiel that he would like to know what it means to be human.
To see color. To feel with the skin. To feel with the heart. To drink coffee. To love. To bleed.
Marion, the trapeze artist, trains as Damiel watches her. Sitting invisibly on his perch. Her trainer is guiding her to imagine she is an angel. Imagine your wings. Imagine your weightlessness. Imagine that you can fly.
And as he watches, Damiel imagines that he is human. Imagines his weightfulness. Imagines that he can walk. Imagines that he can feel the dirt between his toes.
Peter Falk is Peter Falk. He is coming to Berlin to make a movie. The kids know him as Columbo. He talks about how important wardrobe is. He mentions that Columbo did not wear a hat, and that he wore his own coat.
And somehow when Damiel stops by a food stand, where Peter Falk is waiting in line to order, Peter can sense his presence. Peter does not see him but he knows that he is there. He talks to him. He talks to him confidently. Comfortably.
Perhaps we will find out why. And how.
Remember Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bete (1946). We watched it last year. Wim Wenders has brought on board its cinematographer, Henri Alekan--forty-one years later!--to give Wings of Desire its mysterious, dreamlike, otherwordly look.
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/01/003-la-belle-et-la-bete-beauty-and.html
Henri Alekan was born in 1909. He started working in 1931. He worked steadily for 62 years until 1993. He died in 2001.
The camera moves effortlessly on a gimbal from room to room, reminding us of Max Ophuls.
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/04/091-la-ronde-1950-france-dir-max-ophuls.html
It is as if the apartments of Rear Window (1954) were made three-dimensional. Or in this case, as seen through the eyes of the angels, four-dimensional.
This is a film about seeing. About watching through eyes of love. Eyes of grace.
Some call it a city symphony to Berlin. Made a couple years before the Wall fell. It is silent and filled with dialogue. It is black and white yet gives way to color. And when it is black and white, it feels more like silver. The film comforts just as the angels do.
It transcends theology. One allows it its fiction. It is not a statement about the nature of real angels or their capacities or desires. Indeed, the real Heaven is where the explosion of the senses takes place, as we are now in the shadowlands, seeing through a glass darkly.
But this film absolutely affirms the beauty and eternal value of man. The only creature made in the image of God. The only creature given freedom, will power. The only creature granted salvation, redemption, the Gospel, the Holy Spirit.
Which things the angels desire to look into.
Watch this movie. And then see if you can identify a film in which humans are portrayed as being so loved.
Monday, January 22, 2018
387 - Paris, Texas, West Germany/France, 1984. Dir. Wim Wenders.
Monday, January 22, 2018
387 - Paris, Texas, West Germany/France, 1984. Dir. Wim Wenders.
Who knew that looking for your mother could be such an adventure?
Especially if you are doing it with your father and the two of you are bonding.
Hunter rides alongside his father Travis in the 1959 Ford Ranchero. A pickup cab and bed placed on a station wagon chassis. The original flat truck. The one that the Chevrolet El Camino copied.
They are driving through the streets and freeways of Houston, looking for the red 1980 Chevy Chevette. Hunter saw her at the bank. He radioed his dad on the walkie talkie. Travis was asleep in the Ranchero. Would he wake up in time?
Now there are two red Chevys on the freeway. Which one is she in? Which one should they follow when they split up at the exit?
Paris, Texas is a sprawling, mostly silent, small-cast epic that follows the wanderings of a lonely man. Through the desert. To the service station. The hospital. The railroad tracks. From West Texas to Los Angeles to South Texas.
Who is this man?
Where does he come from?
How did he get here?
Can he speak?
Can he remember?
Whatever happened to his family? If he has a family.
It reveals itself slowly through expansive shots of open spaces. In the cinematography of Robby Muller. A European cameraman with a resume of European directors. Barbet Schroeder. Bela Tarr. Raoul Ruiz. Frans Weisz. Michelangelo Antonioni. Roberto Benigni. Lars Von Trier. Wim Wenders. Jim Jarmusch.
(Jim Jarmusch is American, but he has a European last name, so there you have it.)
The film is underscored by the score of Ry Cooder.
It was written by Sam Shepard.
And adapted by L.M. Kit Carson.
It is a German and French co-production made by a German filmmaker that feels all-American.
It features Nastassja Kinski in a heartfelt performance.
And Hunter Carson as the open-hearted Hunter Henderson.
And it belongs to Harry Dean Stanton.
387 - Paris, Texas, West Germany/France, 1984. Dir. Wim Wenders.
Who knew that looking for your mother could be such an adventure?
Especially if you are doing it with your father and the two of you are bonding.
Hunter rides alongside his father Travis in the 1959 Ford Ranchero. A pickup cab and bed placed on a station wagon chassis. The original flat truck. The one that the Chevrolet El Camino copied.
They are driving through the streets and freeways of Houston, looking for the red 1980 Chevy Chevette. Hunter saw her at the bank. He radioed his dad on the walkie talkie. Travis was asleep in the Ranchero. Would he wake up in time?
Now there are two red Chevys on the freeway. Which one is she in? Which one should they follow when they split up at the exit?
Paris, Texas is a sprawling, mostly silent, small-cast epic that follows the wanderings of a lonely man. Through the desert. To the service station. The hospital. The railroad tracks. From West Texas to Los Angeles to South Texas.
Who is this man?
Where does he come from?
How did he get here?
Can he speak?
Can he remember?
Whatever happened to his family? If he has a family.
It reveals itself slowly through expansive shots of open spaces. In the cinematography of Robby Muller. A European cameraman with a resume of European directors. Barbet Schroeder. Bela Tarr. Raoul Ruiz. Frans Weisz. Michelangelo Antonioni. Roberto Benigni. Lars Von Trier. Wim Wenders. Jim Jarmusch.
(Jim Jarmusch is American, but he has a European last name, so there you have it.)
The film is underscored by the score of Ry Cooder.
It was written by Sam Shepard.
And adapted by L.M. Kit Carson.
It is a German and French co-production made by a German filmmaker that feels all-American.
It features Nastassja Kinski in a heartfelt performance.
And Hunter Carson as the open-hearted Hunter Henderson.
And it belongs to Harry Dean Stanton.
Sunday, January 21, 2018
386 - Burden of Dreams, United States, 1982. Dir. Les Blank.
Sunday, January 21, 2018
386 - Burden of Dreams, United States, 1982. Dir. Les Blank.
What if Ahab filmed Moby Dick?
If I abandon this project, I would be a man without dreams. - Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog is standing in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. It is two thousand miles that way to the exit, fifteen hundred miles that way, fifteen hundred miles that way, and five hundred miles that way. We know because he is pointing and showing us.
And yet somehow in the middle of this jungle he is filming a movie.
He flies in people and equipment from Miami to regional airports. Then he flies them by small plane to cow pastures. Then he puts them on boats and brings them upriver.
Then the problems begin.
His star, Jason Robards, gets sick, is sent home, and is forbidden by his doctors to return.
His co-star, Mick Jagger, leaves as well, as he now must go on tour.
He recasts the lead role with his go-to man Klaus Kinski, who has already starred in three films with him. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Woyzeck (1979), and Nosferatu the Vampire (1979).
He writes out the co-star role.
Then the Indian tribal war starts.
They move more than a thousand miles to a new location.
The region experiences the least rainfall in recorded history. The riverbank is down. The one boat gets stuck on a sand bar.
The natives are living in close quarters. They have one soccer ball, and it has a hole in it. They have nothing to do. Some of them start fooling around. Herzog is advised to hire a woman to keep them occupied.
And now he must pull the other boat over the mountain, using ropes, pulleys, and a large bulldozer that slips in the mud. He is burning through 150 gallons of fuel a day. His engineer quits.
Will this movie ever get made?
Les Blank is one of the great documentary filmmakers. And this documentary film is itself a great film. It is more than mere BTS footage, more than a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a movie. It is itself a movie.
It showcases the drama of a man with a singular vision, and the focus and the willpower to carry it through to completion regardless of the obstacles that stand in the way.
It is the story of the human will.
What if Ahab filmed Moby Dick?
"I live my life, or I end my life, with this project."
With Werner Herzog, you feel as though he is.
* * * * *
My belief is all these dreams are yours as well. And the only distinction between me and you is that I can articulate them. And that is what poetry or painting or literature or filmmaking is all about. It's as simple as that. And I make films because I have not learned anything else. And I know I can do it to a certain degree. And it is my duty, because this might be the inner chronicle of what we are. And we have to articulate ourselves. Otherwise we would be cows in the field.
386 - Burden of Dreams, United States, 1982. Dir. Les Blank.
What if Ahab filmed Moby Dick?
If I abandon this project, I would be a man without dreams. - Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog is standing in the middle of the Amazon rainforest. It is two thousand miles that way to the exit, fifteen hundred miles that way, fifteen hundred miles that way, and five hundred miles that way. We know because he is pointing and showing us.
And yet somehow in the middle of this jungle he is filming a movie.
He flies in people and equipment from Miami to regional airports. Then he flies them by small plane to cow pastures. Then he puts them on boats and brings them upriver.
Then the problems begin.
His star, Jason Robards, gets sick, is sent home, and is forbidden by his doctors to return.
His co-star, Mick Jagger, leaves as well, as he now must go on tour.
He recasts the lead role with his go-to man Klaus Kinski, who has already starred in three films with him. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Woyzeck (1979), and Nosferatu the Vampire (1979).
He writes out the co-star role.
Then the Indian tribal war starts.
They move more than a thousand miles to a new location.
The region experiences the least rainfall in recorded history. The riverbank is down. The one boat gets stuck on a sand bar.
The natives are living in close quarters. They have one soccer ball, and it has a hole in it. They have nothing to do. Some of them start fooling around. Herzog is advised to hire a woman to keep them occupied.
And now he must pull the other boat over the mountain, using ropes, pulleys, and a large bulldozer that slips in the mud. He is burning through 150 gallons of fuel a day. His engineer quits.
Will this movie ever get made?
Les Blank is one of the great documentary filmmakers. And this documentary film is itself a great film. It is more than mere BTS footage, more than a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a movie. It is itself a movie.
It showcases the drama of a man with a singular vision, and the focus and the willpower to carry it through to completion regardless of the obstacles that stand in the way.
It is the story of the human will.
What if Ahab filmed Moby Dick?
"I live my life, or I end my life, with this project."
* * * * *
My belief is all these dreams are yours as well. And the only distinction between me and you is that I can articulate them. And that is what poetry or painting or literature or filmmaking is all about. It's as simple as that. And I make films because I have not learned anything else. And I know I can do it to a certain degree. And it is my duty, because this might be the inner chronicle of what we are. And we have to articulate ourselves. Otherwise we would be cows in the field.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
385 - Rumble Fish, United States, 1983. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola.
Saturday, January 20, 2018
385 - Rumble Fish, United States, 1983. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola.
The fish would not fight if they were in the river. If they had room to live.
The Motorcycle Boy is explaining his theory to Officer Patterson. As they confront one another in the pet shop.
The fish are Siamese fighting fish. Commonly known as Betta fish. The Betta males are alpha males. They fight. They rumble. They kill each other. They are rumble fish.
Like the street gangs here in Tulsa.
Officer Patterson does not trust The Motorcycle Boy and has been pursuing him for some time.
He tells him, "Someone ought to get you off the streets."
The Motorcycle Boy replies, "Someone ought to put the fish in the river."
Maybe the boys would not fight if they had room to live.
The Motorcycle Boy is Rusty James' older brother. Rusty James looks up to him. Idolizes him. He was the leader of the gang. He always knew what to do. And he was cool.
But The Motorcycle Boy called a truce and disappeared. They have not seen him for two months. So when Midget tells Rusty James that gang rival Biff Wilcox wants to rumble, Rusty James says bring it on. His friends Smokey, B.J., and Steve will be there, though they are more hesitant than he is. But Rusty James is taking on the mantle of his big brother. He will be confident. He will not let them down.
Rusty James takes time to swing by his girlfriend Patty's house beforehand for a little dalliance. Then he shows up to take care of business. He wins the rumble but gets gashed in the side by a glass shard when he looks up to see that his big brother has arrived. The Motorcycle Boy comes to his rescue by dispatching his bike into Biff, sending him soaring into the air.
The brothers are united, and they spend the next night roaming the streets of Tulsa, philosophizing about life and trying not to get killed. They run into their alcoholic father in the bar. He is happy to see them, and they chat, but then the boys go back out on their own.
The Motorcycle Boy is old now. 21 years old. He is color blind and has grown hard of hearing. He has started to think more abstractly, even incoherently, and he is pursuing peace.
He went to California during his two-month absence, and he found their mother. She had left their father and run off with a movie producer.
The Motorcycle Boy did not quite make it to the ocean when he was in California, but he observes that the Arkansas River goes all the way to the ocean (via the Mississippi), and he implores Rusty James to leave this life behind him, to take The Motorcycle Boy's motorcycle and follow the river. If he does so, he will make it to the ocean and be free.
By now they have spent the night going from open-air concert to dance party to Benny's Billiards to a back alley--where Rusty James has been killed and floated above his body and come back to life--and they are returning to the pet store for one final showdown.
All the world of the film appears in sharp black and white, except for the fish. The fish are bright red and blue.
Michael Smuin from the San Francisco Ballet choreographed the rumble sequences, giving them a balletic style.
Stewart Copeland, drummer of The Police, composed the soundtrack, creating his own looped layers of percussive sound. The clicking and ticking of clocks and heartbeats and typewriters and car horns and pile drivers. And of course drums.
Time is a funny thing.
Tom Waits as Benny, the owner of Benny's Billiards, delivers a monologue on time.
"Time is a very peculiar item. You see, when you're young, you're a kid, you've got time. You've got nothing but time. Throw away a couple of years here, a couple of years there, it doesn't matter, you know? The older you get, you say, 'Jesus, how much I got? I got thirty-five summers left.' Think about it. Thirty-five summers."
From the moment Lawrence Fishburne as Midget informs Matt Dillon as Rusty James that Biff Wilcox is looking for him, Rusty James' clock starts ticking.
Rusty James is running out of time. He is living on Tulsa time.
And the film is filled with ticking clocks to remind us. It has more clocks than Flavor Flav. It's clockin'.
Francic Ford Coppola has been balancing Hollywood movies with art house cinema throughout his career, going back to the 1960s.
Hollywood - Finian's Rainbow, 1968, Warner Bros., Fred Astaire
Art House - The Rain People, 1969, American Zoetrope, James Caan
Hollywood - The Godfather, 1972, Paramount, Marlon Brando
Art House - The Conversation, 1974, The Directors Company, Gene Hackman
Here he does it again with two S.E. Hinton young-adult novels filmed back to back in Tulsa.
Hollywood - The Outsiders, 1983, Zoetrope Studios/Warner Bros., high gloss, full color
Art House - Rumble Fish, 1983, Zoetrope Studios/Universal, black and white, expressionistic
And as with The Outsiders, he brings in an ensemble cast of strong actors. Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Dennis Hopper, Diana Scarwid, Vincent Spano, Nicolas Cage, Chris Penn, Laurence Fishburne, William Smith, Michael Higgins, Glenn Withrow, Tom Waits, Sofia Coppola (Domino!).
They wrote the script on their Sundays off while filming The Outsiders. They storyboarded the film. They drew it with an electronic chalk board. They filmed it on video with the actors in front of blue screen. They painted shadows on walls and buildings. They created a human rotisserie for Rusty James to fly and be turned on. They filmed color fish through clear water and rear projected black and white footage.
This film is poetic, expressionistic, mythological, existential, balletic, personal, and beautiful.
He dedicates it to August Coppola, his own big brother.
How great that Francis Ford Coppola started by responding to a group of students who wrote to him and asked him to make a movie of their favorite book, The Outsiders. Then while making it he asked S.E. Hinton what else she had. And he understood her novel Rumble Fish when he read it. According to her, he was one of the few who did.
This is Francis Ford Coppola's "art film for teenagers."
It is his art film for everyone.
* * * * *
And neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother crazy. He's merely miscast in a play. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to be able to do anything he wants to do and finding nothing that he wants to do. - Dennis Hopper as Father.
We were all working for someone who demanded innovation. - Stewart Copeland of Francis Ford Copppola.
385 - Rumble Fish, United States, 1983. Dir. Francis Ford Coppola.
The fish would not fight if they were in the river. If they had room to live.
The Motorcycle Boy is explaining his theory to Officer Patterson. As they confront one another in the pet shop.
The fish are Siamese fighting fish. Commonly known as Betta fish. The Betta males are alpha males. They fight. They rumble. They kill each other. They are rumble fish.
Like the street gangs here in Tulsa.
Officer Patterson does not trust The Motorcycle Boy and has been pursuing him for some time.
He tells him, "Someone ought to get you off the streets."
The Motorcycle Boy replies, "Someone ought to put the fish in the river."
Maybe the boys would not fight if they had room to live.
The Motorcycle Boy is Rusty James' older brother. Rusty James looks up to him. Idolizes him. He was the leader of the gang. He always knew what to do. And he was cool.
But The Motorcycle Boy called a truce and disappeared. They have not seen him for two months. So when Midget tells Rusty James that gang rival Biff Wilcox wants to rumble, Rusty James says bring it on. His friends Smokey, B.J., and Steve will be there, though they are more hesitant than he is. But Rusty James is taking on the mantle of his big brother. He will be confident. He will not let them down.
Rusty James takes time to swing by his girlfriend Patty's house beforehand for a little dalliance. Then he shows up to take care of business. He wins the rumble but gets gashed in the side by a glass shard when he looks up to see that his big brother has arrived. The Motorcycle Boy comes to his rescue by dispatching his bike into Biff, sending him soaring into the air.
The brothers are united, and they spend the next night roaming the streets of Tulsa, philosophizing about life and trying not to get killed. They run into their alcoholic father in the bar. He is happy to see them, and they chat, but then the boys go back out on their own.
The Motorcycle Boy is old now. 21 years old. He is color blind and has grown hard of hearing. He has started to think more abstractly, even incoherently, and he is pursuing peace.
He went to California during his two-month absence, and he found their mother. She had left their father and run off with a movie producer.
The Motorcycle Boy did not quite make it to the ocean when he was in California, but he observes that the Arkansas River goes all the way to the ocean (via the Mississippi), and he implores Rusty James to leave this life behind him, to take The Motorcycle Boy's motorcycle and follow the river. If he does so, he will make it to the ocean and be free.
By now they have spent the night going from open-air concert to dance party to Benny's Billiards to a back alley--where Rusty James has been killed and floated above his body and come back to life--and they are returning to the pet store for one final showdown.
All the world of the film appears in sharp black and white, except for the fish. The fish are bright red and blue.
Michael Smuin from the San Francisco Ballet choreographed the rumble sequences, giving them a balletic style.
Stewart Copeland, drummer of The Police, composed the soundtrack, creating his own looped layers of percussive sound. The clicking and ticking of clocks and heartbeats and typewriters and car horns and pile drivers. And of course drums.
Time is a funny thing.
Tom Waits as Benny, the owner of Benny's Billiards, delivers a monologue on time.
"Time is a very peculiar item. You see, when you're young, you're a kid, you've got time. You've got nothing but time. Throw away a couple of years here, a couple of years there, it doesn't matter, you know? The older you get, you say, 'Jesus, how much I got? I got thirty-five summers left.' Think about it. Thirty-five summers."
From the moment Lawrence Fishburne as Midget informs Matt Dillon as Rusty James that Biff Wilcox is looking for him, Rusty James' clock starts ticking.
Rusty James is running out of time. He is living on Tulsa time.
And the film is filled with ticking clocks to remind us. It has more clocks than Flavor Flav. It's clockin'.
Francic Ford Coppola has been balancing Hollywood movies with art house cinema throughout his career, going back to the 1960s.
Hollywood - Finian's Rainbow, 1968, Warner Bros., Fred Astaire
Art House - The Rain People, 1969, American Zoetrope, James Caan
Hollywood - The Godfather, 1972, Paramount, Marlon Brando
Art House - The Conversation, 1974, The Directors Company, Gene Hackman
Here he does it again with two S.E. Hinton young-adult novels filmed back to back in Tulsa.
Hollywood - The Outsiders, 1983, Zoetrope Studios/Warner Bros., high gloss, full color
Art House - Rumble Fish, 1983, Zoetrope Studios/Universal, black and white, expressionistic
And as with The Outsiders, he brings in an ensemble cast of strong actors. Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Dennis Hopper, Diana Scarwid, Vincent Spano, Nicolas Cage, Chris Penn, Laurence Fishburne, William Smith, Michael Higgins, Glenn Withrow, Tom Waits, Sofia Coppola (Domino!).
They wrote the script on their Sundays off while filming The Outsiders. They storyboarded the film. They drew it with an electronic chalk board. They filmed it on video with the actors in front of blue screen. They painted shadows on walls and buildings. They created a human rotisserie for Rusty James to fly and be turned on. They filmed color fish through clear water and rear projected black and white footage.
This film is poetic, expressionistic, mythological, existential, balletic, personal, and beautiful.
He dedicates it to August Coppola, his own big brother.
How great that Francis Ford Coppola started by responding to a group of students who wrote to him and asked him to make a movie of their favorite book, The Outsiders. Then while making it he asked S.E. Hinton what else she had. And he understood her novel Rumble Fish when he read it. According to her, he was one of the few who did.
This is Francis Ford Coppola's "art film for teenagers."
It is his art film for everyone.
* * * * *
And neither, contrary to popular belief, is your brother crazy. He's merely miscast in a play. He was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to be able to do anything he wants to do and finding nothing that he wants to do. - Dennis Hopper as Father.
We were all working for someone who demanded innovation. - Stewart Copeland of Francis Ford Copppola.
Friday, January 19, 2018
384 - Thief, United States, 1981. Dir. Michael Mann.
Friday, January 18, 2018
384 - Thief, United States, 1981. Dir. Michael Mann.
Frank keeps a collage on a postcard in his pocket at all times. He made the collage in prison by cutting out pictures from magazines and pasting them onto the postcard. Everything on that postcard represents the life he wanted when he got out. He was in from age 20 to age 31.
Now he is out.
Frank owns a bar and a car dealership, and he does well. He wears expensive clothes, drives whatever new car he wants--usually a Cadillac--and eats at great restaurants. He takes his postcard out of his pocket and checks it. How is he doing? How many items does he have? How many does he still need to acquire?
You may call this a Vision Board. To him it is a life line. It gave him a reason to live.
Frank likes this girl who works at one of the restaurants. Her name is Jessie. He wants to marry her but does not know if he should tell her about his past. And what he really does for a living now. His friend and guide Okla, who is in prison for life, tells him to tell her the truth. Always tell the truth. If she accepts, then you have a life companion. If not, then she is not for you.
Frank tells Jessie the truth.
He is a thief. The bar and the car dealership, as successful as they are, are fronts for his night life, which is to heist uncut diamonds from bank vaults. And he is very good at it.
The film begins with one of his heists. Then it sets up for the big one. The last one. The one that is going to set him up with her for life. He has always worked freelance. But one of his clients was murdered when coming to bring him his money. By being dropped off a building. Job hazard.
So when he goes to collect he meets his fence. The powerful man behind it all. A kind of godfather. Who wants to take care of him. A man with horsehead bookends on his mantle.
Frank is played by James Caan, after all. So of course his godfather fence would have horsehead bookends on his mantle.
And have similar feelings as another godfather James Caan once knew in another life.
But this is not Sonny Corleone. This is Frank. And that is not Don Vito. It is Leo. Played by Robert Prosky. The man with the ubiquitous face from so many films. Like Christine (1983). The Natural (1984). Broadcast News (1987). Green Card (1990). Hoffa (1992). Rudy (1993). Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) (of course). The latest incarnation of Mircale on 34th Street (1994). The Sarlet Letter (1995). Dead Man Walking (1995).
Robert Prosky was 51 when he appeared in this, his first speaking role in a film.
There is still time for you.
Michael Mann knows how to make a heist film. One day Criterion will have his masterpiece Heat (1995) in their collection. The one that brought Robert De Niro and Al Pacino together. And probably the Hannibal Lector movie that some fans like the best, Manhunter (1986). But meanwhile, check out this film, which was his first too, as a director. He crafts with the precision of an engineer. He plots with the tension of a crime novelist. He films with the luster of a starry night. We are in Chicago. And we drive under the L. You might think of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (1971). Or The Blues Brothers (1980). But this one is quite different.
Frank is a rat in a maze. And the streets of Chicago are enclosed. The night is the roof on the maze. And the lights shine down on the streets and on the hood of his car.
James Caan can carry a movie. His Frank is smart and clearheaded and decisive and strong.
Will he make it out? Some police want to get him. Some want to get their share. Some thieves want to cross him. Some think he has crossed them. Leo, of course, wants to own him.
The smartest one wins.
Who is the smartest?
384 - Thief, United States, 1981. Dir. Michael Mann.
Frank keeps a collage on a postcard in his pocket at all times. He made the collage in prison by cutting out pictures from magazines and pasting them onto the postcard. Everything on that postcard represents the life he wanted when he got out. He was in from age 20 to age 31.
Now he is out.
Frank owns a bar and a car dealership, and he does well. He wears expensive clothes, drives whatever new car he wants--usually a Cadillac--and eats at great restaurants. He takes his postcard out of his pocket and checks it. How is he doing? How many items does he have? How many does he still need to acquire?
You may call this a Vision Board. To him it is a life line. It gave him a reason to live.
Frank likes this girl who works at one of the restaurants. Her name is Jessie. He wants to marry her but does not know if he should tell her about his past. And what he really does for a living now. His friend and guide Okla, who is in prison for life, tells him to tell her the truth. Always tell the truth. If she accepts, then you have a life companion. If not, then she is not for you.
Frank tells Jessie the truth.
He is a thief. The bar and the car dealership, as successful as they are, are fronts for his night life, which is to heist uncut diamonds from bank vaults. And he is very good at it.
The film begins with one of his heists. Then it sets up for the big one. The last one. The one that is going to set him up with her for life. He has always worked freelance. But one of his clients was murdered when coming to bring him his money. By being dropped off a building. Job hazard.
So when he goes to collect he meets his fence. The powerful man behind it all. A kind of godfather. Who wants to take care of him. A man with horsehead bookends on his mantle.
Frank is played by James Caan, after all. So of course his godfather fence would have horsehead bookends on his mantle.
And have similar feelings as another godfather James Caan once knew in another life.
But this is not Sonny Corleone. This is Frank. And that is not Don Vito. It is Leo. Played by Robert Prosky. The man with the ubiquitous face from so many films. Like Christine (1983). The Natural (1984). Broadcast News (1987). Green Card (1990). Hoffa (1992). Rudy (1993). Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) (of course). The latest incarnation of Mircale on 34th Street (1994). The Sarlet Letter (1995). Dead Man Walking (1995).
Robert Prosky was 51 when he appeared in this, his first speaking role in a film.
There is still time for you.
Michael Mann knows how to make a heist film. One day Criterion will have his masterpiece Heat (1995) in their collection. The one that brought Robert De Niro and Al Pacino together. And probably the Hannibal Lector movie that some fans like the best, Manhunter (1986). But meanwhile, check out this film, which was his first too, as a director. He crafts with the precision of an engineer. He plots with the tension of a crime novelist. He films with the luster of a starry night. We are in Chicago. And we drive under the L. You might think of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (1971). Or The Blues Brothers (1980). But this one is quite different.
Frank is a rat in a maze. And the streets of Chicago are enclosed. The night is the roof on the maze. And the lights shine down on the streets and on the hood of his car.
James Caan can carry a movie. His Frank is smart and clearheaded and decisive and strong.
Will he make it out? Some police want to get him. Some want to get their share. Some thieves want to cross him. Some think he has crossed them. Leo, of course, wants to own him.
The smartest one wins.
Who is the smartest?
Thursday, January 18, 2018
383 - Heaven's Gate, United States, 1980. Dir. Michael Cimino.
Thursday, January 18, 2018
383 - Heaven's Gate, United States, 1980. Dir. Michael Cimino.
Skating. A moral and exhilarating experience.
So says the sign above the door at the Heaven's Gate skating rink, owned by John L. Bridges, played by Jeff Bridges.
The good people of Sweetwater, Wyoming, agree with him.
When the young Skating Violinist, John DeCory (played by David Mansfield), plays his fiddle while skating around the rink, they fill the place to capacity.
And everybody skates. And everybody dances.
Young John is backed by his band, comprising real musicians Cleve Dupin, Jerry McGee (accordion), Stephen Bruton (guitar), Sean Hopper (bass) (from Huey Lewis and the News), Norton Buffalo (harmonica and scrub board), and T Bone Burnett (drums).
David Mansfield was a teenager when Bob Dylan invited him on the Rolling Thunder Revue Tour, and Mansfield stayed with Dylan for three years. T Bone Burnett was also on that tour, and the two of them added Steven Soles to form The Alpha Band. Mansfield was 22 when hired to compose the soundtrack for Heaven's Gate while also playing the role of John DeCory, the Skating Violinist.
The music has a Cajun feel and uses lots of stringed instruments. Like the mandolin. And the mandocello.
The town's Marshal, Jim Averill (Kris Kristofferson), is at the skating dance with his girlfriend Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert). Ella is French Canadian, from Quebec, so she speaks with a French accent. (Isabelle Huppert is French, from France.)
After the skating is over and everyone leaves, including proprietor Bridges, who gets motion sickness from skating, the band plays on and Jim and Ella have a private dance.
These are the moments of grace in Johnson County, just before the Johnson County War begins.
A range war. A fight over property and cattle rights. An effort by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association--led by Frank Canton (Sam Waterston) and supported by Jim's friend Nathan D. Champion (Christopher Walken) while tolerated by his Harvard classmate William "Billy" Irvine (John Hurt)--to rid the County of its European immigrants, mostly Slavic and German.
The cattlemen are squeezing out the immigrants and the immigrants are starving. They in turn have resorted to stealing in order to survive. Once they do, the cattlemen now have the law on their side and they can press charges. Or in their case, take the law into their own hands.
Billy was the valedictorian of the Harvard graduating class of 1870, and as class orator he gave an inebriated counter speech to The Reverend Doctor (Joseph Cotten). Twenty years later he lives in Johnson County and is a member of the Association. He runs into his old pal Jim in Casper when Averill is moving from St. Louis to Sweetwater. They are thrilled to run into each other again.
Billy sits in on the meeting where Frank Canton proposes a death list. A death list with 125 names on it. 125 names of European immigrants. Whom they intend to kill. Outright. Claiming legal justification. For cattle rustling. Billy is horrified. He stands up and protests. No one sides with him. Canton puts it to a vote. All vote Yes. Irvine leaves. He goes upstairs in the private clubhouse. Averill is playing pool alone. Canton kicked Averill out of the club in the past and has the legal right to have him arrested for trespassing. Even though Averill is the Marshall. These men know how to work the law. Billy informs Jim of what they intend to do. Jim goes downstairs and confronts the men. Canton threatens him. Averill walks out after punching Canton to the floor.
Jim loves Ella but he is concerned about her. He tells her a war is coming, and he asks her to leave. He intuits that they are going to come after her. Ella is a businesswoman. She runs the brothel, and she keeps her books balanced to the penny. But her clients sometimes pay with cows instead of cash. Cows that the Association deems to be stolen. Making her an accessory. Probably qualifying her for the death list.
Ella loves Jim and does not understand him. If he loves her, why is he asking her to leave? Why would they not stay together? He wants her to leave because he loves her. Because he wants her to be safe. And not killed. And because he has a duty to stay behind and protect the town. He can come and join her later, when everything settles down. Everything he does is motivated by love. But he does not articulate it in a way that she can understand it. They are stuck.
Meanwhile, Nathan cares for her too. He comes to her. She makes him pay. Jim is the only one ever who does not pay. She loves Jim. Nathan, however, suddenly proposes to her. At least he starts the proposal. She responds to it. And he falls asleep. But she heard him. Now what to do? The man she loves is asking her to leave, and the man who is fighting against her people has just proposed to her.
Days of Heaven
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/02/039-days-of-heaven-1978-united-states.html
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/12/362-mccabe-mrs-miller-united-states.html
Heaven's Gate was filmed in Panavision, in Technicolor, in a wide aspect ratio of 2.40:1, and printed on a blow-up 70mm print from the 35mm negative, with 6-track audio.
It is rich in color, deliberate in pacing, expansive in scope, precise in detail, thoughtful in message, nuanced in characterization, and effective in dramatic impact.
It is the singular vision of a determined artist.
383 - Heaven's Gate, United States, 1980. Dir. Michael Cimino.
Skating. A moral and exhilarating experience.
So says the sign above the door at the Heaven's Gate skating rink, owned by John L. Bridges, played by Jeff Bridges.
The good people of Sweetwater, Wyoming, agree with him.
When the young Skating Violinist, John DeCory (played by David Mansfield), plays his fiddle while skating around the rink, they fill the place to capacity.
And everybody skates. And everybody dances.
Young John is backed by his band, comprising real musicians Cleve Dupin, Jerry McGee (accordion), Stephen Bruton (guitar), Sean Hopper (bass) (from Huey Lewis and the News), Norton Buffalo (harmonica and scrub board), and T Bone Burnett (drums).
David Mansfield was a teenager when Bob Dylan invited him on the Rolling Thunder Revue Tour, and Mansfield stayed with Dylan for three years. T Bone Burnett was also on that tour, and the two of them added Steven Soles to form The Alpha Band. Mansfield was 22 when hired to compose the soundtrack for Heaven's Gate while also playing the role of John DeCory, the Skating Violinist.
The music has a Cajun feel and uses lots of stringed instruments. Like the mandolin. And the mandocello.
The town's Marshal, Jim Averill (Kris Kristofferson), is at the skating dance with his girlfriend Ella Watson (Isabelle Huppert). Ella is French Canadian, from Quebec, so she speaks with a French accent. (Isabelle Huppert is French, from France.)
After the skating is over and everyone leaves, including proprietor Bridges, who gets motion sickness from skating, the band plays on and Jim and Ella have a private dance.
These are the moments of grace in Johnson County, just before the Johnson County War begins.
A range war. A fight over property and cattle rights. An effort by the Wyoming Stock Growers Association--led by Frank Canton (Sam Waterston) and supported by Jim's friend Nathan D. Champion (Christopher Walken) while tolerated by his Harvard classmate William "Billy" Irvine (John Hurt)--to rid the County of its European immigrants, mostly Slavic and German.
The cattlemen are squeezing out the immigrants and the immigrants are starving. They in turn have resorted to stealing in order to survive. Once they do, the cattlemen now have the law on their side and they can press charges. Or in their case, take the law into their own hands.
Billy was the valedictorian of the Harvard graduating class of 1870, and as class orator he gave an inebriated counter speech to The Reverend Doctor (Joseph Cotten). Twenty years later he lives in Johnson County and is a member of the Association. He runs into his old pal Jim in Casper when Averill is moving from St. Louis to Sweetwater. They are thrilled to run into each other again.
Billy sits in on the meeting where Frank Canton proposes a death list. A death list with 125 names on it. 125 names of European immigrants. Whom they intend to kill. Outright. Claiming legal justification. For cattle rustling. Billy is horrified. He stands up and protests. No one sides with him. Canton puts it to a vote. All vote Yes. Irvine leaves. He goes upstairs in the private clubhouse. Averill is playing pool alone. Canton kicked Averill out of the club in the past and has the legal right to have him arrested for trespassing. Even though Averill is the Marshall. These men know how to work the law. Billy informs Jim of what they intend to do. Jim goes downstairs and confronts the men. Canton threatens him. Averill walks out after punching Canton to the floor.
Jim loves Ella but he is concerned about her. He tells her a war is coming, and he asks her to leave. He intuits that they are going to come after her. Ella is a businesswoman. She runs the brothel, and she keeps her books balanced to the penny. But her clients sometimes pay with cows instead of cash. Cows that the Association deems to be stolen. Making her an accessory. Probably qualifying her for the death list.
Ella loves Jim and does not understand him. If he loves her, why is he asking her to leave? Why would they not stay together? He wants her to leave because he loves her. Because he wants her to be safe. And not killed. And because he has a duty to stay behind and protect the town. He can come and join her later, when everything settles down. Everything he does is motivated by love. But he does not articulate it in a way that she can understand it. They are stuck.
Meanwhile, Nathan cares for her too. He comes to her. She makes him pay. Jim is the only one ever who does not pay. She loves Jim. Nathan, however, suddenly proposes to her. At least he starts the proposal. She responds to it. And he falls asleep. But she heard him. Now what to do? The man she loves is asking her to leave, and the man who is fighting against her people has just proposed to her.
The Heaven's Gate skating rink does not stay moral and exhilarating for long.
The people begin to meet there.
What is going on?
Tensions mount.
They are being attacked. A war is coming. They must do something.
Averill is able to get a copy of the death list from Canton. The first thing he does is check for Ella's name. He confirms it. Her name is on there. He goes to the skating rink. He addresses the townsfolk. He reads them the names on the list. It is practically all of them.
Something happens to make Nathan realize how bad Canton is. And that he has been fighting for the wrong side.
The war comes.
And blood is shed.
And good wins. And bad wins. And nobody wins.
Well, money wins.
Heaven's Gate is a sweeping epic drama of the American West. It was lensed by Vilmos Zsigmond, whom we just watched and discussed yesterday with Bette Midler in The Rose (1979). He made this movie immediately after that one.
The Rose
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2018/01/382-rose-united-states-1979-dir-mark.html
The Rose
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2018/01/382-rose-united-states-1979-dir-mark.html
While watching Heaven's Gate, you may think of Terrence Malick's Day's of Heaven (1978) and Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971) for their epically sweeping views of 19th century Americana, and indeed Zsigmond worked as the DP on McCabe and Mrs. Miller as well. (Consider that both involve a man moving into a small, new Western town and getting involved with the local madame.) He also worked with Michael Cimino on The Deer Hunter (1978), for which he was nominated for an Oscar for Best Cinematography. He would work with The Rose's Mark Rydell again on The River (1984), and he won the Oscar for Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1978). He started working in 1953 and kept working until he passed away two years ago. His last film, The Bombing, starring Bruce Willis, is scheduled to be released this year.
Days of Heaven
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/02/039-days-of-heaven-1978-united-states.html
McCabe and Mrs. Miller
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/12/362-mccabe-mrs-miller-united-states.html
Heaven's Gate was filmed in Panavision, in Technicolor, in a wide aspect ratio of 2.40:1, and printed on a blow-up 70mm print from the 35mm negative, with 6-track audio.
It is rich in color, deliberate in pacing, expansive in scope, precise in detail, thoughtful in message, nuanced in characterization, and effective in dramatic impact.
It is the singular vision of a determined artist.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
382 - The Rose, United States, 1979. Dir. Mark Rydell.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
382 - The Rose, United States, 1979. Dir. Mark Rydell.
I can sum up this movie in one letter.
M.
No, I do not mean the M that stands for Morder! Which is translated as murderer. And is the title of one of the great classic crime thrillers of all time, Fritz Lang's M (1933).
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/02/043-m-1931-germany-dir-ftiz-lang.html
No, I mean M as in The Divine Miss M.
Bette Midler.
Bette Midler, the force of nature without whom why would you bother to make this film?
And yet not any version of Bette Midler that you may know.
This film is not about popular love ballads ("Wind Beneath My Wings," "From a Distance"); it is not about Broadway showtunes (Gypsy, "Everything's Coming Up Roses," Hello Dolly, "Hello Dolly"); and it is not about American standards (Andrews Sisters, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," Rosemary Clooney, "Slow Boat to China").
(By the way, a few days ago Bette Midler finished one of her greatest runs on Broadway, in Hello Dolly, a performance to standing-room-only sellout crowds, which won her another Tony (giving her Tonys 43 years apart), and which grossed more than any other show after Hamilton. https://www.billboard.com/video/2017-tony-awards-bette-midler-acceptance-speech-7825799)
This film is about rock. And Bette Midler rocks.
Bette Midler was named for Bette Davis, even though they pronounce their names differently.
And do not think that she is one of those singers who traded her fame for roles in the movies. No, Bette Midler is an actress. She trained in drama. She studied theater in school and got her start in Off-Off Broadway. She starred on Broadway opposite Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof, taking over the role of Tzeitel from Joanna Merlin, who originated it. Then she starred in a rock opera. Not Godspell. Not Jesus Christ, Superstar. But another one. Salvation.
So she already had strong acting chops and rock chops by the time she made this film. She also already owned a Grammy, a Tony, and an Emmy, and this role would get her nominated for an Oscar.
This is the kind of film where it appears that you can just turn on the camera and let the performer perform. But that is the opposite of what happened.
Director Mark Rydell crafted the film with passion and precision.
When you see a black limousine drive around on a tarmac and a big private four-prop airplane approach is from the other side, both parking against a painted stone pastel wall, you can see the hand of a craftsman intentionally at work.
And when towards the end you see a helicopter fly in the star to the stadium, you see how hard the director and editor worked to earn this moment of brilliant dramatic irony--the fans believing the helicopter to be the ultimate expression of privilege and glamour, the audience realizing it was the only way to get the troubled singer to the concert.
Rydell originally went to 20th Century Fox and insisted that Bette Midler be the star. But they were unfamiliar with her and demanded that he cast a movie star and dub the voice. After all, that is how things were done.
For example--
Have you ever heard of Marni Nixon? She is the person who really sang the songs for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. When you watch those movies, it is Marni Nixon's voice you hear singing and not the actresses. If you know the flap about Julie Andrews not getting the role in My Fair Lady when she originated it on Broadway, you can understand why folks were so angry and gave her the Oscar for Mary Poppins without even nominating Audrey Hepburn for an Oscar for My Fair Lady. Julie Andrews would have done her own singing! But in Hepburn's defense, she wanted Andrews to get the role and was told that Andrews would not even if Hepburn turned it down. So Hepburn worked diligently to prepare the music and was not told until later that her voice would be dubbed. When she found out, she walked off the set. Only to return later and apologize. So Audrey Hepburn had little to do with how all of that transpired.
But that is how it was done. You do not let an actress sing, and you certainly do not let her sing live. So Mark Rydell left the project.
A few years later, the project was still sitting on the shelf. A few directors came and left, and by now 20th Century Fox knew who Bette Midler was. So they brought Mark Rydell back and let him cast her.
He put together a band consisting of the finest musicians he could find, and they spent three months on a stage creating an act, an album, and a touring show. By the time they filmed the movie it was a real band.
Then he brought on board the legendary cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond.
Zsigmond would be tasked with gelling windows of skyscrapers to look out in the background, and lighting entire theaters for concert footage so that the camera can point in any direction, including the stage, the audience, and into the stage lights.
Nothing was prerecorded in a sound studio. Everything was recorded live in real time, singer, musicians, audience, audio and visual.
They used nine film cameras at the concerts so that they could capture every angle. When Zsigmond put out the word that he needed camera operators, he did not just get camera operators. He got full-on cinematographers, some of the finest in the world.
Consider this list. Bobby Byrne. Conrad L. Hall. Jan Kiesser. Laszlo Kovacs. Steve Lydecker. Michael D. Margulies. David Myers. Owen Roizman. Haskell Wexler.
Can you imagine that? All those cinematographers working together to film one concert? That has got to be unique in the history of film.
Conrad Hall was nominated for 10 Oscars and won 3, for Road to Perdition (2003), American Beauty (2000), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1970).
Haskell Wexler was nominated for 5 Oscars and won 2, for Bound for Glory (1977) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1967).
Rydell brought in six THOUSAND extras to fill the theater, and he told them not to act excited about Bette Midler unless she made them excited. The onus was on her to move the crowd.
She did.
She performed a song. She spoke to the audience. She performed again.
Bruce Vilanch wrote her speech, and Toni Basil did her choreography. And she delivers both as if she is making them up spontaneously, as if they are coming from the depths of the earth.
From the moment she steps on stage she ignites the building. She is told not to say something and she immediately addresses the crowd and says it. She turns them on. She moves like a rock star, engaging the lead guitarist, engaging individuals, engaging the crowd. When she gets to her second song, "When a Man Loves a Woman," Rydell wisely leaves the camera in a close-up so that we can see her speaking from the depths, addressing what she just spoke about, and delivering the performance of a lifetime. Everything is really happening. Nothing is added later.
Rose's success has created for herself a kind of prison. She is beholden to her manager Rudge and the twenty-nine other people who work for her. She is responsible for their livelihoods. She is beholden to the demands of the critics, to the aggressiveness of the press, and to the expectations of the fans. Yet she is physically exhausted and emotionally drained. She longs to take a break and get some rest.
Immediately after the concert her complaint is demonstrated when she is whisked away in a helicopter without even being allowed to change clothes. She is flown from New York City to Long Island to the infield of a racecar track where a country band had performed earlier in the evening. There she meets the great Billy Ray, played by the great Harry Dean Stanton. She enters like a tornado, as she always does, and flirts with a band member before meeting Billy Ray. She adores him. She honors him. She has always loved his music, and she recorded one of his songs on her recent album and played it tonight.
He does not share her sentiments. She believed she was brought here to look at other songs in his catalog and discuss recording them. However, he does not approve of her. He looks down on her, sees her as loose, believes that she does not understand his music, and resents her flirting with the young man who turns out to be his son. Billy Ray scolds her. Humiliates her. Asks her never to play his music again. She leaves devastated. And what is going on inside Bette Midler is real.
Why did her manager not stand up for her? Why did he not defend her? He defends himself. Tells her how much he believes in her. Why did he not say that to Billy Ray? Why did he let Billy Ray treat her like that?
In her despondency she runs into a waiting limousine, which turns out to be waiting for Billy Ray, and throws cash at the chauffeur until he is willing to take her instead. They embark on an adventure. He is already a fan. She wants him to love her.
When they go to a diner and are rejected for being hippies it is hard to understand in 2018. The film was made in 1979 and set in 1969. They are somewhere driving back from Long Island to Manhattan, and there is a diner where the hostility against hippies is so great that not one person in the diner accepts her. Was there great hostility between Long Island and Manhattan back then? Was there that great a hostility against hippies? To the extent that not only does no one appreciate her music or her celebrity, but also no one approves of her right to eat in peace as a human being?
It is not even clear to me that she is a hippie. She is wearing jeans and a flowy top. She looks like a regular person.
Nevertheless, the film shows both her struggles and triumphs as a rock star who is loved deeply in some circles and rejected in others. She is loved by the drag queens and loved by her fans. She is used by her entourage and rejected by members of the public. She wants to be loved by her hometown, to go home and give a great concert where the people who knew her growing up can see what she has become. And she wants to be loved by a man. A faithful man.
And here is where Bette Midler grabs the hearts of the viewers and sums up the human condition. She may as well have a sign on her body that reads, "Somebody love me!"
As the film progresses to where we expect it to go, Rydell brilliantly has her first step up on stage and sing a ballad the lyrics of which express precisely what she is going through at this moment. She is at her low point. Her people do not even know if she can perform. They want to take her to the hospital. But she grabs the mic, draws energy from the audience, and delivers again.
And in this moment, she gets what she needs. All these people love her. All these people love her.
When the movie ended the way I expected, I first wished they had come up with something else. Then I discovered that it was inspired by real life. By a real person.
Janis Joplin.
And Paul Rothchild was there for both. Rothchild produced Janis Joplin and he produced this movie's music and soundtrack. Janis Joplin was Pearl and Bette Midler was The Rose, and Rothchild produced both albums.
Bette Midler plays every color on the palette. She lives a life in a day, a dozen lives in one lifetime. And has the energy of ten thousand suns.
Then there is that quiet phone call from the phone booth to her parents.
In the end she is the lost and lonely little girl.
Who wants to be loved.
This is one of the finest performances I have seen.
382 - The Rose, United States, 1979. Dir. Mark Rydell.
I can sum up this movie in one letter.
M.
No, I do not mean the M that stands for Morder! Which is translated as murderer. And is the title of one of the great classic crime thrillers of all time, Fritz Lang's M (1933).
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/02/043-m-1931-germany-dir-ftiz-lang.html
No, I mean M as in The Divine Miss M.
Bette Midler.
Bette Midler, the force of nature without whom why would you bother to make this film?
And yet not any version of Bette Midler that you may know.
This film is not about popular love ballads ("Wind Beneath My Wings," "From a Distance"); it is not about Broadway showtunes (Gypsy, "Everything's Coming Up Roses," Hello Dolly, "Hello Dolly"); and it is not about American standards (Andrews Sisters, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," Rosemary Clooney, "Slow Boat to China").
(By the way, a few days ago Bette Midler finished one of her greatest runs on Broadway, in Hello Dolly, a performance to standing-room-only sellout crowds, which won her another Tony (giving her Tonys 43 years apart), and which grossed more than any other show after Hamilton. https://www.billboard.com/video/2017-tony-awards-bette-midler-acceptance-speech-7825799)
This film is about rock. And Bette Midler rocks.
Bette Midler was named for Bette Davis, even though they pronounce their names differently.
And do not think that she is one of those singers who traded her fame for roles in the movies. No, Bette Midler is an actress. She trained in drama. She studied theater in school and got her start in Off-Off Broadway. She starred on Broadway opposite Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof, taking over the role of Tzeitel from Joanna Merlin, who originated it. Then she starred in a rock opera. Not Godspell. Not Jesus Christ, Superstar. But another one. Salvation.
So she already had strong acting chops and rock chops by the time she made this film. She also already owned a Grammy, a Tony, and an Emmy, and this role would get her nominated for an Oscar.
This is the kind of film where it appears that you can just turn on the camera and let the performer perform. But that is the opposite of what happened.
Director Mark Rydell crafted the film with passion and precision.
When you see a black limousine drive around on a tarmac and a big private four-prop airplane approach is from the other side, both parking against a painted stone pastel wall, you can see the hand of a craftsman intentionally at work.
And when towards the end you see a helicopter fly in the star to the stadium, you see how hard the director and editor worked to earn this moment of brilliant dramatic irony--the fans believing the helicopter to be the ultimate expression of privilege and glamour, the audience realizing it was the only way to get the troubled singer to the concert.
Rydell originally went to 20th Century Fox and insisted that Bette Midler be the star. But they were unfamiliar with her and demanded that he cast a movie star and dub the voice. After all, that is how things were done.
For example--
Have you ever heard of Marni Nixon? She is the person who really sang the songs for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady. When you watch those movies, it is Marni Nixon's voice you hear singing and not the actresses. If you know the flap about Julie Andrews not getting the role in My Fair Lady when she originated it on Broadway, you can understand why folks were so angry and gave her the Oscar for Mary Poppins without even nominating Audrey Hepburn for an Oscar for My Fair Lady. Julie Andrews would have done her own singing! But in Hepburn's defense, she wanted Andrews to get the role and was told that Andrews would not even if Hepburn turned it down. So Hepburn worked diligently to prepare the music and was not told until later that her voice would be dubbed. When she found out, she walked off the set. Only to return later and apologize. So Audrey Hepburn had little to do with how all of that transpired.
But that is how it was done. You do not let an actress sing, and you certainly do not let her sing live. So Mark Rydell left the project.
A few years later, the project was still sitting on the shelf. A few directors came and left, and by now 20th Century Fox knew who Bette Midler was. So they brought Mark Rydell back and let him cast her.
He put together a band consisting of the finest musicians he could find, and they spent three months on a stage creating an act, an album, and a touring show. By the time they filmed the movie it was a real band.
Then he brought on board the legendary cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond.
Zsigmond would be tasked with gelling windows of skyscrapers to look out in the background, and lighting entire theaters for concert footage so that the camera can point in any direction, including the stage, the audience, and into the stage lights.
Nothing was prerecorded in a sound studio. Everything was recorded live in real time, singer, musicians, audience, audio and visual.
They used nine film cameras at the concerts so that they could capture every angle. When Zsigmond put out the word that he needed camera operators, he did not just get camera operators. He got full-on cinematographers, some of the finest in the world.
Consider this list. Bobby Byrne. Conrad L. Hall. Jan Kiesser. Laszlo Kovacs. Steve Lydecker. Michael D. Margulies. David Myers. Owen Roizman. Haskell Wexler.
Can you imagine that? All those cinematographers working together to film one concert? That has got to be unique in the history of film.
Conrad Hall was nominated for 10 Oscars and won 3, for Road to Perdition (2003), American Beauty (2000), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1970).
Haskell Wexler was nominated for 5 Oscars and won 2, for Bound for Glory (1977) and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1967).
Rydell brought in six THOUSAND extras to fill the theater, and he told them not to act excited about Bette Midler unless she made them excited. The onus was on her to move the crowd.
She did.
She performed a song. She spoke to the audience. She performed again.
Bruce Vilanch wrote her speech, and Toni Basil did her choreography. And she delivers both as if she is making them up spontaneously, as if they are coming from the depths of the earth.
From the moment she steps on stage she ignites the building. She is told not to say something and she immediately addresses the crowd and says it. She turns them on. She moves like a rock star, engaging the lead guitarist, engaging individuals, engaging the crowd. When she gets to her second song, "When a Man Loves a Woman," Rydell wisely leaves the camera in a close-up so that we can see her speaking from the depths, addressing what she just spoke about, and delivering the performance of a lifetime. Everything is really happening. Nothing is added later.
Rose's success has created for herself a kind of prison. She is beholden to her manager Rudge and the twenty-nine other people who work for her. She is responsible for their livelihoods. She is beholden to the demands of the critics, to the aggressiveness of the press, and to the expectations of the fans. Yet she is physically exhausted and emotionally drained. She longs to take a break and get some rest.
Immediately after the concert her complaint is demonstrated when she is whisked away in a helicopter without even being allowed to change clothes. She is flown from New York City to Long Island to the infield of a racecar track where a country band had performed earlier in the evening. There she meets the great Billy Ray, played by the great Harry Dean Stanton. She enters like a tornado, as she always does, and flirts with a band member before meeting Billy Ray. She adores him. She honors him. She has always loved his music, and she recorded one of his songs on her recent album and played it tonight.
He does not share her sentiments. She believed she was brought here to look at other songs in his catalog and discuss recording them. However, he does not approve of her. He looks down on her, sees her as loose, believes that she does not understand his music, and resents her flirting with the young man who turns out to be his son. Billy Ray scolds her. Humiliates her. Asks her never to play his music again. She leaves devastated. And what is going on inside Bette Midler is real.
Why did her manager not stand up for her? Why did he not defend her? He defends himself. Tells her how much he believes in her. Why did he not say that to Billy Ray? Why did he let Billy Ray treat her like that?
In her despondency she runs into a waiting limousine, which turns out to be waiting for Billy Ray, and throws cash at the chauffeur until he is willing to take her instead. They embark on an adventure. He is already a fan. She wants him to love her.
When they go to a diner and are rejected for being hippies it is hard to understand in 2018. The film was made in 1979 and set in 1969. They are somewhere driving back from Long Island to Manhattan, and there is a diner where the hostility against hippies is so great that not one person in the diner accepts her. Was there great hostility between Long Island and Manhattan back then? Was there that great a hostility against hippies? To the extent that not only does no one appreciate her music or her celebrity, but also no one approves of her right to eat in peace as a human being?
It is not even clear to me that she is a hippie. She is wearing jeans and a flowy top. She looks like a regular person.
Nevertheless, the film shows both her struggles and triumphs as a rock star who is loved deeply in some circles and rejected in others. She is loved by the drag queens and loved by her fans. She is used by her entourage and rejected by members of the public. She wants to be loved by her hometown, to go home and give a great concert where the people who knew her growing up can see what she has become. And she wants to be loved by a man. A faithful man.
And here is where Bette Midler grabs the hearts of the viewers and sums up the human condition. She may as well have a sign on her body that reads, "Somebody love me!"
As the film progresses to where we expect it to go, Rydell brilliantly has her first step up on stage and sing a ballad the lyrics of which express precisely what she is going through at this moment. She is at her low point. Her people do not even know if she can perform. They want to take her to the hospital. But she grabs the mic, draws energy from the audience, and delivers again.
And in this moment, she gets what she needs. All these people love her. All these people love her.
When the movie ended the way I expected, I first wished they had come up with something else. Then I discovered that it was inspired by real life. By a real person.
Janis Joplin.
And Paul Rothchild was there for both. Rothchild produced Janis Joplin and he produced this movie's music and soundtrack. Janis Joplin was Pearl and Bette Midler was The Rose, and Rothchild produced both albums.
Bette Midler plays every color on the palette. She lives a life in a day, a dozen lives in one lifetime. And has the energy of ten thousand suns.
Then there is that quiet phone call from the phone booth to her parents.
In the end she is the lost and lonely little girl.
Who wants to be loved.
This is one of the finest performances I have seen.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
381 - The Fisher King, United States, 1991. Dir. Terry Gilliam.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
381 - The Fisher King, United States, 1991. Dir. Terry Gilliam.
I love you, and I think you're the greatest thing since spice racks.
That may not look like the most romantic line ever written, but when Robin Williams as Parry says it to Amanda Plummer as Lydia, it is the most wonderful thing a guarded, brokenhearted girl could ever hope to hear.
Lydia works as a cubicle accountant at a publishing firm, and the homeless widower Parry has been watching her from afar and loving her.
She does not know that. She is cynical. Jaded. She has been hurt before. And she does not wish to be again. She does not trust.
They have gone on their date at the behest of their new friends, Jack and Anne, and after an extremely awkward opening, they hit it off grandly at dinner.
Now he is walking her home.
And she is getting pretty nervous.
She informs him, "You don't have to say nice things to me. It's a little old-fashioned considering what we are about to do."
He asks her, "What are we about to do?"
And she explains, "You're walking me home. And you'll probably want to come upstairs for some coffee. And we'll probably have a drink and talk and get to know each other better. Get comfortable. You'll sleep over. And in the morning you'll awake and you'll be distant. And you won't be able to stay for breakfast. Maybe just a cup of coffee. Then we'll exchange phone numbers. And you'll leave. And never call. I'll get to work and I'll feel so good for the first hour. And then, ever so slowly, I'll turn into a piece of dirt."
She sums it up. This is what happens. She knows this is what happens because it has happened to her. It is better not to get your heart involved.
But Parry is different. He loved his wife. She died in a restaurant shooting. He was knocked comatose. When he came to, he forgot that he was Henry Sagan, college teacher at Hunter College. He knew himself as Parry. He heard voices. He was in search of the Holy Grail. (Some billionaire has it in his library on Fifth Avenue. If only Parry can get inside.) And every time Parry starts to return to reality in his mind, a Red Knight guarding the portal comes forward to stop him.
Yet whatever Parry has lost in memory function, he has retained in heart. In spades. He rescued Jack Lucas from suicide and murder in the same night. When others give him money, he gives it to others. And he has been following Lydia now on her morning commute for quite some time--not as a stalker, but as a guardian angel.
When she got off the train at Grand Central Station, she entered the Terminal and he saw her. And the music started and all the crowd suddenly fell in love. They paired up and began to dance a waltz. Not Johann Strauss II's The Blue Danube, as was originally planned, but a waltz composed by the film's composer, George Fenton, so that it would build to a crescendo at just the right moment. It is a lovely piece of filmmaking, and it demonstrates the love in Parry's heart as only cinema can.
So when he tells her he loves her and compares her to spice racks, she believes him. And her heart melts. He says, "I'd be knocked out if I could have that first kiss. And I won't be distant. I'll come back in the morning, and I'll call you if you let me."
O what a date. O what a night.
She goes inside, and he goes on his way.
Then he remembers he forgot to get her phone number.
And the Red Knight reappears. And blocks the threshold. Parry begs him. "Please let me have this. Let me have it!"
And you can feel Robin Williams speaking on behalf of every human who has ever lived. Who has ever longed. Who has ever prayed.
Please.
This movie stars Jeff Bridges. Robin Williams is the supporting character. And yet in the Oscar campaign he was submitted and nominated for Best Actor, as the lead. And you watch, as he plays the perfect foil to Bridges' misanthropic narcissist Jack Lucas, amazed by the great love in his heart. And you think of all the performances you have seen Robin Williams give. And you wonder if maybe he was not quite acting. That maybe Robin Williams' own heart was that large. And that full of love.
Terry Gilliam referred to both him and Amanda Plummer as being filled with tremendous vulnerabilities. And covering them with their madcap humor. We can see that.
And when Jack Lucas sits by Parry's hospital bed as Parry lies in a catatonic state, you remember when it was the other way around, when Robin Williams was the doctor, Dr. Malcolm Sayer, attending to Robert De Niro's Leonard Lowe, when Lowe lay in a catatonic state, in Penny Marshall's drama from the year before, 1990's Awakenings.
And when Jack Lucas contributes to the suicide of Edwin Malnick. And Parry rescues Jack Lucas from his own suicide. And Jack Lucas saves Langdon Carmichael from his suicide. You wonder who could have rescued Robin Williams. If only someone could have. If only someone could
Terry Gilliam never lets up on telling the truth about the human condition. Sometimes that makes his films harder to watch. Sometimes it makes him come across as a cynic.
But the first step to finding salvation is understanding Original Sin. That we are all in this together. We are all born into it. Ugly. Broken. Guilty. We need a Savior who is outside ourselves, because we cannot find it on our own. No one is better than anyone else. Everyone is evil.
Jeff Bridges is fantastic in this film. As he always is. He is an actor's actor. And he carries the story on his broad, strong shoulders.
Amanda Plummer hits the right balance of vulnerable and tough as Lydia. You know her as Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction (1994), and as Rose Michaels in So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993). She had appeared with Robin Williams nine years before in The World According to Garp (1982).
Mercedes Ruehl plays Anne. A woman who loves Jack Lucas even at his lowest. She stands by him when he loses his penthouse Manhattan apartment and moves in with her above the video rental store. While Parry knows how to love but has lost his love, Jack does not know how to love. And he needs Parry, and Anne, to show him.
In 1987, Nicolas Cage told Cher, "I'm in love with you," and she slapped him. "Snap out of it!" And won the Oscar.
In 1991, Jeff Bridges tells Mercedes Ruehl, "I think, I realize, I love you," and she slaps him. "You love me, huh? You son of a b****!" And wins the Oscar.
Maybe there is something to this. Wanna win an Oscar? Have a man tell you he loves you and then slap him.
This film begins harshly. Coldly. Cruelly. And yet it is full of heart throughout and ends surprisingly.
Terry Gilliam tells us he broke all three of his filmmaking rules when he made it. 1) He directed a script written by someone else. 2) He worked with a major studio. 3) He filmed it in America.
It is also the first film he made completely devoid of any Monty Python personnel.
The budget is smaller. It is more disciplined.
And frankly, it is better for it. It is still very much a Terry Gilliam film, but it is aided by the input of others, beginning with Richard LaGavenese's strong script.
Gilliam should break his rules again.
(He will with Twelve Monkeys (1995) and The Brothers Grimm (2005).)
381 - The Fisher King, United States, 1991. Dir. Terry Gilliam.
I love you, and I think you're the greatest thing since spice racks.
That may not look like the most romantic line ever written, but when Robin Williams as Parry says it to Amanda Plummer as Lydia, it is the most wonderful thing a guarded, brokenhearted girl could ever hope to hear.
Lydia works as a cubicle accountant at a publishing firm, and the homeless widower Parry has been watching her from afar and loving her.
She does not know that. She is cynical. Jaded. She has been hurt before. And she does not wish to be again. She does not trust.
They have gone on their date at the behest of their new friends, Jack and Anne, and after an extremely awkward opening, they hit it off grandly at dinner.
Now he is walking her home.
And she is getting pretty nervous.
She informs him, "You don't have to say nice things to me. It's a little old-fashioned considering what we are about to do."
He asks her, "What are we about to do?"
And she explains, "You're walking me home. And you'll probably want to come upstairs for some coffee. And we'll probably have a drink and talk and get to know each other better. Get comfortable. You'll sleep over. And in the morning you'll awake and you'll be distant. And you won't be able to stay for breakfast. Maybe just a cup of coffee. Then we'll exchange phone numbers. And you'll leave. And never call. I'll get to work and I'll feel so good for the first hour. And then, ever so slowly, I'll turn into a piece of dirt."
She sums it up. This is what happens. She knows this is what happens because it has happened to her. It is better not to get your heart involved.
But Parry is different. He loved his wife. She died in a restaurant shooting. He was knocked comatose. When he came to, he forgot that he was Henry Sagan, college teacher at Hunter College. He knew himself as Parry. He heard voices. He was in search of the Holy Grail. (Some billionaire has it in his library on Fifth Avenue. If only Parry can get inside.) And every time Parry starts to return to reality in his mind, a Red Knight guarding the portal comes forward to stop him.
Yet whatever Parry has lost in memory function, he has retained in heart. In spades. He rescued Jack Lucas from suicide and murder in the same night. When others give him money, he gives it to others. And he has been following Lydia now on her morning commute for quite some time--not as a stalker, but as a guardian angel.
When she got off the train at Grand Central Station, she entered the Terminal and he saw her. And the music started and all the crowd suddenly fell in love. They paired up and began to dance a waltz. Not Johann Strauss II's The Blue Danube, as was originally planned, but a waltz composed by the film's composer, George Fenton, so that it would build to a crescendo at just the right moment. It is a lovely piece of filmmaking, and it demonstrates the love in Parry's heart as only cinema can.
So when he tells her he loves her and compares her to spice racks, she believes him. And her heart melts. He says, "I'd be knocked out if I could have that first kiss. And I won't be distant. I'll come back in the morning, and I'll call you if you let me."
O what a date. O what a night.
She goes inside, and he goes on his way.
Then he remembers he forgot to get her phone number.
And the Red Knight reappears. And blocks the threshold. Parry begs him. "Please let me have this. Let me have it!"
And you can feel Robin Williams speaking on behalf of every human who has ever lived. Who has ever longed. Who has ever prayed.
Please.
This movie stars Jeff Bridges. Robin Williams is the supporting character. And yet in the Oscar campaign he was submitted and nominated for Best Actor, as the lead. And you watch, as he plays the perfect foil to Bridges' misanthropic narcissist Jack Lucas, amazed by the great love in his heart. And you think of all the performances you have seen Robin Williams give. And you wonder if maybe he was not quite acting. That maybe Robin Williams' own heart was that large. And that full of love.
Terry Gilliam referred to both him and Amanda Plummer as being filled with tremendous vulnerabilities. And covering them with their madcap humor. We can see that.
And when Jack Lucas sits by Parry's hospital bed as Parry lies in a catatonic state, you remember when it was the other way around, when Robin Williams was the doctor, Dr. Malcolm Sayer, attending to Robert De Niro's Leonard Lowe, when Lowe lay in a catatonic state, in Penny Marshall's drama from the year before, 1990's Awakenings.
And when Jack Lucas contributes to the suicide of Edwin Malnick. And Parry rescues Jack Lucas from his own suicide. And Jack Lucas saves Langdon Carmichael from his suicide. You wonder who could have rescued Robin Williams. If only someone could have. If only someone could
Terry Gilliam never lets up on telling the truth about the human condition. Sometimes that makes his films harder to watch. Sometimes it makes him come across as a cynic.
But the first step to finding salvation is understanding Original Sin. That we are all in this together. We are all born into it. Ugly. Broken. Guilty. We need a Savior who is outside ourselves, because we cannot find it on our own. No one is better than anyone else. Everyone is evil.
Jeff Bridges is fantastic in this film. As he always is. He is an actor's actor. And he carries the story on his broad, strong shoulders.
Amanda Plummer hits the right balance of vulnerable and tough as Lydia. You know her as Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction (1994), and as Rose Michaels in So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993). She had appeared with Robin Williams nine years before in The World According to Garp (1982).
Mercedes Ruehl plays Anne. A woman who loves Jack Lucas even at his lowest. She stands by him when he loses his penthouse Manhattan apartment and moves in with her above the video rental store. While Parry knows how to love but has lost his love, Jack does not know how to love. And he needs Parry, and Anne, to show him.
In 1987, Nicolas Cage told Cher, "I'm in love with you," and she slapped him. "Snap out of it!" And won the Oscar.
In 1991, Jeff Bridges tells Mercedes Ruehl, "I think, I realize, I love you," and she slaps him. "You love me, huh? You son of a b****!" And wins the Oscar.
Maybe there is something to this. Wanna win an Oscar? Have a man tell you he loves you and then slap him.
This film begins harshly. Coldly. Cruelly. And yet it is full of heart throughout and ends surprisingly.
Terry Gilliam tells us he broke all three of his filmmaking rules when he made it. 1) He directed a script written by someone else. 2) He worked with a major studio. 3) He filmed it in America.
It is also the first film he made completely devoid of any Monty Python personnel.
The budget is smaller. It is more disciplined.
And frankly, it is better for it. It is still very much a Terry Gilliam film, but it is aided by the input of others, beginning with Richard LaGavenese's strong script.
Gilliam should break his rules again.
(He will with Twelve Monkeys (1995) and The Brothers Grimm (2005).)
Monday, January 15, 2018
380 - Brazil, United Kingdom, 1985. Dir. Terry Gilliam.
Monday, January 15, 2018
380 - Brazil, United Kingdom, 1985. Dir. Terry Gilliam.
Central Services. We do the work. You do the pleasure.
Dr. Mabuse. Metropolis. Nineteen Eight-Four. The Time Machine. La Jetee. Alphaville. Fahrenheit 451. A Clockwork Orange. The Omega Man. Soylent Green. World on a Wire. Zardoz. Logan's Run. Mad Max. Brave New World. Blade Runner. Videodrome. The Terminator.
Aquarela do Brasil. Brazilian Watercolor. Samba. 1939. Ary Barroso. Joao Gilberto. Walt Disney. Eddy Duchin. Aloysio de Oliveira. Geoff Muldaur.
Paperwork. Paperwork. Ducts. Ducts. Ducts.
Dystopia.
Steampunk.
Satire.
Central Services. Ministry of Information. Central Banking. Information Retrieval. Deputy Minister. Department of Works. Information Adjustments. 579B-Block 19, 27B16, DZI015, Jeremiah, Ere I Am J.H., The Ghost in the Machine, Information Dispersal, Information Transit
Jack and Jill. Tuttle and Buttle.
Sam Lowry works a humdrum job in a totalitarian regime overrun by incompetent bureaucrats. He has dreams of a beautiful woman floating in silk inside a cage as he an angel with Icarus wings flies up to rescue her, never quite able to reach her.
His mother wants him to be more ambitious. His mother with the rubber facelift.
The Ministry never makes an error. Except when they do. They mistake Buttle for Tuttle, break into his home, kidnap him, torture him, and kill him. Oops. His wife grieves.
Sam Lowry decides to deliver Buttle's refund check to his widow.
Sam is promoted to Information Retrieval. Which means torture. He takes advantage of his new position to find that woman he has been dreaming about. He finds her.
And they all live happily ever after!
Or, maybe, actually, they do not.
Maybe it is all in his head.
Maybe he has finally lost it.
Lost her.
Lost everything.
At least he has the chair.
And the song.
As twilight beams the sky above
Recalling thrills of our love
There's one thing I'm certain of
Return I will
To old Brazil.
380 - Brazil, United Kingdom, 1985. Dir. Terry Gilliam.
Central Services. We do the work. You do the pleasure.
Dr. Mabuse. Metropolis. Nineteen Eight-Four. The Time Machine. La Jetee. Alphaville. Fahrenheit 451. A Clockwork Orange. The Omega Man. Soylent Green. World on a Wire. Zardoz. Logan's Run. Mad Max. Brave New World. Blade Runner. Videodrome. The Terminator.
Aquarela do Brasil. Brazilian Watercolor. Samba. 1939. Ary Barroso. Joao Gilberto. Walt Disney. Eddy Duchin. Aloysio de Oliveira. Geoff Muldaur.
Paperwork. Paperwork. Ducts. Ducts. Ducts.
Dystopia.
Steampunk.
Satire.
Jack and Jill. Tuttle and Buttle.
Sam Lowry works a humdrum job in a totalitarian regime overrun by incompetent bureaucrats. He has dreams of a beautiful woman floating in silk inside a cage as he an angel with Icarus wings flies up to rescue her, never quite able to reach her.
His mother wants him to be more ambitious. His mother with the rubber facelift.
The Ministry never makes an error. Except when they do. They mistake Buttle for Tuttle, break into his home, kidnap him, torture him, and kill him. Oops. His wife grieves.
Sam Lowry decides to deliver Buttle's refund check to his widow.
Sam is promoted to Information Retrieval. Which means torture. He takes advantage of his new position to find that woman he has been dreaming about. He finds her.
And they all live happily ever after!
Or, maybe, actually, they do not.
Maybe it is all in his head.
Maybe he has finally lost it.
Lost her.
Lost everything.
At least he has the chair.
And the song.
As twilight beams the sky above
Recalling thrills of our love
There's one thing I'm certain of
Return I will
To old Brazil.
As twilight beams the sky above Recalling thrills of our love There's one thing I'm certain of Return I will To old Brazil Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=brazil
As twilight beams the sky above Recalling thrills of our loveAs twi There's one thing I'm certain of Return I will To old BrazilAs twilight beams the sky aboveRecalling thrills of our love There's one thing I'm certain of Return I will To old Brazil Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=brazilRead more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=brazil
As twilight beams the sky above Recalling thrills of our love There's one thing I'm certain of Return I will
To old Brazil Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=brazil
Sunday, January 14, 2018
379 - Time Bandits, United Kingdom, 1981. Dir. Terry Gilliam.
Sunday, January 14, 2018
379 - Time Bandits, United Kingdom, 1981. Dir. Terry Gilliam.
Kevin's father and mother sit on plastic-covered living room furniture. She, on a couch. He, in a chair. They each hold an open magazine. Hers, spread open. His, folded back. He looks down at his magazine, vaguely aware that other people inhabit the room. He is dressed in a sweat suit, with his collared shirt showing beneath it. As if he came home and changed into his comfortable, casual evening wear without first removing his work shirt.
She sits in a hot pink knee-length dress and pink house slippers, as if she almost got dressed to go out for the day but never did.
She watches the television intently.
The television plays a commercial. The Moderna Wonder Major All-Automatic Convenience Centerette. New technology. Convenience. Something to keep up with. It "gives you all the time in the world to do the things you really want to do."
She fingers her necklace and plays with the back of her hair. A sadness permeates her expression. A dullness. If only they had a kitchen like that. If only they had all the time in the world to do the things they really wanted to do.
Why does she feel this way? Because the commercial has told her to. Conditioned her. Thousands of hours of conditioning over many years.
"An infrared freezer/oven complex that can make you a meal from packet to plate in fifteen and a half seconds."
She responds as if in defense. "The Morrisons have got one that can do that in eight seconds."
Kevin's father looks up. "Oh?" He has heard someone say something. Comparisons with others. Envy. She explains it. "Block of ice to beef bourguignon in eight seconds."
The ridiculousness of the statement--the fact that it is not merely the speed but also the transmogrification of chemical elements, from ice to meat--takes us out of the moment and reminds us we are watching an over-the-top parody. It diminishes its power. The director compromises his message for the sake of being silly.
The power of the message lies in the irony of time.
The commercial promises that the product gives you all the time in the world to do the things you really want to do.
But Kevin's parents are already in possession of all the time in the world. They are not lacking in time. They have nothing but time. They may already do the things they really want to do. They simply have not chosen to use their time. They have not exercised their will power to overcome inertia and do the things they really want do.
Or,
They might actually be doing exactly what they want to do. Sitting like zombies mindlessly wasting their lives. They have nothing to do. They are empty and bored. And at the end of the day, this is a choice they have made.
No one is present with one another. No one sees or hears the other. They are all together alone.
Kevin sits on a bar stool reading history. The Big Book of Greek Heroes. He is engaged.
"Dad, did you know The Ancient Greek warriors had to learn 44 different ways of unarmed combat?"
Kevin's father joins his mother in covetous defensiveness.
"Well, at least we've got a two-speed hedge cutter."
Kevin expounds with enthusiasm.
"They were trying to kill people 26 different ways with their bare hands, Dad."
Kevin's father's watch starts beeping. An alarm. This is 1981. It is an obvious display of front-line technology.
"Bedtime for you, Kevin. It's nine o'clock."
Yet Kevin continues, engrossed in his reading.
"And this king Agamemnon, he once fought . . ."
So his mother reinforces his father's instructions.
"Go on, Dear. Your father said."
Kevin relents as if this is routine. "Oh, all right."
A missed opportunity to connect with one's father. A father who is too distracted to notice his son. One of the greatest achings in the human soul.
She continues to stare at the television as a game show comes on. "The man you all love to like, Kenny Lange." On a show called Your Money or Your Life. And they act like they mean it!
Kevin goes to bed, where his imagination will thrive with his reading while his parents extend their vapid evening.
One could argue that Kevin's parents are not really different from him. All three of them are lost in their own worlds and unengaged with the environment around them. The parents are caught up in their own imaginations--Kevin's Mother with her TV shows, Kevin's father with his magazine--but there is a difference. The parents are passive, lifeless, stuck. Their choices are dulling their minds. Kevin is active, alive, and engaged with what he is doing. His choice is making his mind sharper. He is also reaching out beyond himself, to his father, and trying to have a relationship with him. To share. Kevin's father seems content to sit alone.
We first saw this scene a little over a year ago, near the beginning of our Film Blog, when we watched the Jacques Tati film, Mon Oncle (1958), another film that addresses this condition, and one made 23 years earlier.
Take a moment to click on this link and read that blog. It is worth your time.
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/01/008-mon-oncle-1958-france-dir-jacques.html
In his bedroom, Kevin reads.
His father shouts from the other room. Turn that light off. Kevin lies. It is off. But he obeys. He puts the book away and turns off the light.
Then the movie begins.
A knight on a horse bursts into the room. It comes out of the armoire. Or what those British folks call a "wardrobe." C. S. Lewis fleshed out this idea with his novel The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where Lucy leads the other children into the wardrobe and into the magical land of Narnia.
But Kevin's imagination is so overflowing with excitement that he does not need to enter the armoire. The magical world explodes out of it and comes to him.
The knight on the horse rides into the room. Brandishing his sword. He turns and kicks and stirs up dust. And breaks the light fixture. Then he leaps Kevin's bed and breaks out of the wall. He gallops down a tree-lined wood. Outside Kevin's room is now a medieval land. Kevin gets up and checks his other wall. Pin-ups of pictures and drawings. One of them is a drawing of the scene Kevin just witness outside his wall. The tree-lined wood with the knight and horse.
The next evening Kevin begs his parents to let him go to bed early. He cannot wait to see what happens next! But since parents just don't understand, they make him stay up and allow time for his food to go down. They watched the next night's episode of Your Money or Your Life, which gets more cynically gruesome, as Kevin sneaks off to bed with a flashlight hidden under his jacket.
He lies in bed and looks around the dark room with his flashlight. What might it be this night? One of the drawings on the wall? One of the toys on the floor? His toy robot moves. Shuffles. Makes noises. Blinks.
Kevin is not disappointed. Suddenly from out of the armoire emerges a group of six dwarves. (Yes, I have thought about that plural. Tolkien, 1937, dwarves. Disney, 1938, dwarfs. The latter proper. The former trending. I chose the future.) They are about to take Kevin on an incredible journey through history.
One of them is Kenny Baker. The other is Jack Purvis. They had been working together since the 1960s and had a comedy musical act called The Minitones. They both appeared in the Star Wars franchise, as well as Lionel Jeffries' Wombling Free (1978), Jim Henson's Labyrinth (1986), Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa (1986), and Ron Howard's Willow (1988).
The dwarves take Kevin with them, and off they go on their adventures through time and locations.
Using their map.
Changing history.
379 - Time Bandits, United Kingdom, 1981. Dir. Terry Gilliam.
Kevin's father and mother sit on plastic-covered living room furniture. She, on a couch. He, in a chair. They each hold an open magazine. Hers, spread open. His, folded back. He looks down at his magazine, vaguely aware that other people inhabit the room. He is dressed in a sweat suit, with his collared shirt showing beneath it. As if he came home and changed into his comfortable, casual evening wear without first removing his work shirt.
She sits in a hot pink knee-length dress and pink house slippers, as if she almost got dressed to go out for the day but never did.
She watches the television intently.
The television plays a commercial. The Moderna Wonder Major All-Automatic Convenience Centerette. New technology. Convenience. Something to keep up with. It "gives you all the time in the world to do the things you really want to do."
She fingers her necklace and plays with the back of her hair. A sadness permeates her expression. A dullness. If only they had a kitchen like that. If only they had all the time in the world to do the things they really wanted to do.
Why does she feel this way? Because the commercial has told her to. Conditioned her. Thousands of hours of conditioning over many years.
"An infrared freezer/oven complex that can make you a meal from packet to plate in fifteen and a half seconds."
She responds as if in defense. "The Morrisons have got one that can do that in eight seconds."
Kevin's father looks up. "Oh?" He has heard someone say something. Comparisons with others. Envy. She explains it. "Block of ice to beef bourguignon in eight seconds."
The ridiculousness of the statement--the fact that it is not merely the speed but also the transmogrification of chemical elements, from ice to meat--takes us out of the moment and reminds us we are watching an over-the-top parody. It diminishes its power. The director compromises his message for the sake of being silly.
The power of the message lies in the irony of time.
The commercial promises that the product gives you all the time in the world to do the things you really want to do.
But Kevin's parents are already in possession of all the time in the world. They are not lacking in time. They have nothing but time. They may already do the things they really want to do. They simply have not chosen to use their time. They have not exercised their will power to overcome inertia and do the things they really want do.
Or,
They might actually be doing exactly what they want to do. Sitting like zombies mindlessly wasting their lives. They have nothing to do. They are empty and bored. And at the end of the day, this is a choice they have made.
No one is present with one another. No one sees or hears the other. They are all together alone.
Kevin sits on a bar stool reading history. The Big Book of Greek Heroes. He is engaged.
"Dad, did you know The Ancient Greek warriors had to learn 44 different ways of unarmed combat?"
Kevin's father joins his mother in covetous defensiveness.
"Well, at least we've got a two-speed hedge cutter."
Kevin expounds with enthusiasm.
"They were trying to kill people 26 different ways with their bare hands, Dad."
Kevin's father's watch starts beeping. An alarm. This is 1981. It is an obvious display of front-line technology.
"Bedtime for you, Kevin. It's nine o'clock."
Yet Kevin continues, engrossed in his reading.
"And this king Agamemnon, he once fought . . ."
So his mother reinforces his father's instructions.
"Go on, Dear. Your father said."
Kevin relents as if this is routine. "Oh, all right."
A missed opportunity to connect with one's father. A father who is too distracted to notice his son. One of the greatest achings in the human soul.
Kevin goes to bed, where his imagination will thrive with his reading while his parents extend their vapid evening.
One could argue that Kevin's parents are not really different from him. All three of them are lost in their own worlds and unengaged with the environment around them. The parents are caught up in their own imaginations--Kevin's Mother with her TV shows, Kevin's father with his magazine--but there is a difference. The parents are passive, lifeless, stuck. Their choices are dulling their minds. Kevin is active, alive, and engaged with what he is doing. His choice is making his mind sharper. He is also reaching out beyond himself, to his father, and trying to have a relationship with him. To share. Kevin's father seems content to sit alone.
We first saw this scene a little over a year ago, near the beginning of our Film Blog, when we watched the Jacques Tati film, Mon Oncle (1958), another film that addresses this condition, and one made 23 years earlier.
Take a moment to click on this link and read that blog. It is worth your time.
http://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/01/008-mon-oncle-1958-france-dir-jacques.html
In his bedroom, Kevin reads.
His father shouts from the other room. Turn that light off. Kevin lies. It is off. But he obeys. He puts the book away and turns off the light.
Then the movie begins.
A knight on a horse bursts into the room. It comes out of the armoire. Or what those British folks call a "wardrobe." C. S. Lewis fleshed out this idea with his novel The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, where Lucy leads the other children into the wardrobe and into the magical land of Narnia.
But Kevin's imagination is so overflowing with excitement that he does not need to enter the armoire. The magical world explodes out of it and comes to him.
The knight on the horse rides into the room. Brandishing his sword. He turns and kicks and stirs up dust. And breaks the light fixture. Then he leaps Kevin's bed and breaks out of the wall. He gallops down a tree-lined wood. Outside Kevin's room is now a medieval land. Kevin gets up and checks his other wall. Pin-ups of pictures and drawings. One of them is a drawing of the scene Kevin just witness outside his wall. The tree-lined wood with the knight and horse.
The next evening Kevin begs his parents to let him go to bed early. He cannot wait to see what happens next! But since parents just don't understand, they make him stay up and allow time for his food to go down. They watched the next night's episode of Your Money or Your Life, which gets more cynically gruesome, as Kevin sneaks off to bed with a flashlight hidden under his jacket.
He lies in bed and looks around the dark room with his flashlight. What might it be this night? One of the drawings on the wall? One of the toys on the floor? His toy robot moves. Shuffles. Makes noises. Blinks.
Kevin is not disappointed. Suddenly from out of the armoire emerges a group of six dwarves. (Yes, I have thought about that plural. Tolkien, 1937, dwarves. Disney, 1938, dwarfs. The latter proper. The former trending. I chose the future.) They are about to take Kevin on an incredible journey through history.
One of them is Kenny Baker. The other is Jack Purvis. They had been working together since the 1960s and had a comedy musical act called The Minitones. They both appeared in the Star Wars franchise, as well as Lionel Jeffries' Wombling Free (1978), Jim Henson's Labyrinth (1986), Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa (1986), and Ron Howard's Willow (1988).
The dwarves take Kevin with them, and off they go on their adventures through time and locations.
Using their map.
Changing history.
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