Tuesday, January 31, 2017
031 - Shadows, 1959, United States. Dir. John Cassavetes.
John Cassavetes was an actor's director.
He created spaces, atmospheres, in which the actors could work, and then allowed them to explore.
He gave them the freedom to develop their characters.
He would improvise together with them and then film what came out of it. Then he would write a script. They would memorize their lines and film it again, while retaining the improvisational freedom they had before. They are now saying written lines but continuing to improvise their emotions and movements.
In the case of Shadows, his first film, he tried it the first way and screened it. The results were poor, so he went back and did it again, the second way. This developed into a technique.
The acting community has a word for this kind of approach. Take the noun workshop and turn it into a verb. To workshop. The actor engages in a process called workshopping. The actors workshop their characters to discover their objectives and relationships. The scene unfolds organically from that.
His wife, Gena Rowlands, called it "the pleasure of discovery."
Cassavetes was a successful actor in Hollywood.
We will see him as an actor in The Killers (1964) and Rosemary's Baby (1968). He also played in films such as The Dirty Dozen (1968) and Two-Minute Warning (1976), among many others.
However, he felt creatively stifled.
The way most movies are made--and it is still this way today--the director sets up the shot according to the lighting and camera angles first. Then he establishes marks that the actor must hit at a given moment. The actor must hit his mark at the given time while making it seem natural and spontaneous.
There is nothing wrong with doing it this way. In fact, it provides greater creative control for the director and precision for the other departments. Great actors hit their marks every day, and they make it seem natural and spontaneous.
However, Cassavetes wanted to explore the possibilities that might arise from reversing the order of priority. Instead of making the actors conform to the positions of the lights and camera, what if he made the lights and camera conform to the positions of the actors?
This meant that he had to create more generic lighting rather than specific lighting. He could not place a catch light in an actress's eyes or a hair light on the outlines of her head. Rather, he had to light the room and then allow the actors to roam about within that space.
This also limited him to using mostly a camera on a tripod in long takes of master shots or else a handheld camera following the actors around.
But it was a way of doing things, and it opened up a new world for actors and filmmakers to follow. The American independent cinema world, and in turn the international independent cinema world, owes a Cassavetes the honor of its gratitude.
In 1956 he was teaching an improvisational acting technique at his school, The Cassavetes-Lane Drama Workshop, and out of that workshop came the film Shadows.
Shadows takes place in New York City during the Beat Generation. It follows three African-American siblings--two brothers and a sister--as they go about their lives. One of the brothers is a jazz singer. The other brother is a jazz trumpeter. The singer, Hugh, is the only dark-skinned member of the family. The other two, Ben and Lelia, are light-skinned enough that strangers do not always know that they are African-American.
This makes a difference in 1959.
The sister dates three different men in the course of the film, two white and one black. One of the white men balks when he discovers that she has a black brother. This is the moment that came out of the improvisation exercise at the workshop.
Shadows fits in the cinema verité tradition. Watching it feels like watching a documentary, or better yet, like watching life happen spontaneously through a hidden camera.
The scenes are mostly ensemble, meaning that multiple people may be talking and moving at the same time, as in real life.
Shadows did not find distribution in the United States, but it got accepted into the Venice Film Festival. And won. It was then brought back to America as an import!
The actors who worked with Cassavetes speak of him in glowing terms. They love him. They talk of him as viewing everyone as a jewel, of being interested in love, and exploring through his filmmaking only love.
In the accompanying documentary, Peter Faulk states, "He was a wild animal, but at the same time the family was central to his universe."
The actress who plays the sister in Shadows, Lelia Goldoni, adds a beautiful story about him.
She says that he told his father he wanted to be an actor.
She asked him, "Did your father fight you about being an actor?" Cassavetes said, No.
His father said, "That's a very noble thing to do. But do you know what kind of responsibility that is? You are going to have to be truthful to each of those character's human natures."
Goldoni concludes, "He listened to his Daddy."
Showing posts with label movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
030 - Sweet Smell of Success, 1957, United States. Dir. Alexander Mackendrick.
Monday, January 30, 2017
030 - Sweet Smell of Success, 1957, United States. Dir. Alexander Mackendrick.
Ah, the sweet smell of success.
Fecal. Squalid. Begrimed.
Those gangsters sure do know how to break people.
Not because you have crossed them. Not because you are competing with them.
But just because you, my sister, are dating someone I do not want you to date.
Or because you, my minion, were supposed to break up my sister's relationship and you did not do it.
How dare you.
I will now destroy you.
Wait.
What did you say?
Gangsters?
These are not gangsters. No, they are not gangsters. He is not a gangster.
He is a writer. A newspaper columnist.
A newspaper columnist?
A newspaper columnist.
The character of J. J. Hunsecker, played by Burt Lancaster, loves his sister, a little too much maybe. So he does not want her to be dating jazz musician Steve Dallas.
Sidney Falco is a press agent. He needs Hunsecker to print items that support Falco's clients and help their careers. So Hunsecker uses this need as leverage to maintain power over Falco.
He demands that Falco break up his sister Susan Hunsecker's relationship to Dallas.
But so far Falco has been unable to do it. In fact, Dallas has now proposed to Susan, and they intend to inform J. J. tomorrow morning at breakfast.
So tonight Falco will run around New York City, from club to club, trying to work things out to save his career.
And he will go without an overcoat to keep from having to tip coat-check girls.
My how times have changed.
He will insinuate himself upon Hunsecker to try to get him to understand Falco's situation.
He will go to another newspaper columnist and try to bribe him with his wife to try to get him to print the items that Hunsecker will not print. That man will call his bluff and tell his own wife the dirt in order to remove the leverage.
He will go to yet a third newspaper columnist to see what that will do.
Falco is desperate.
As the evening progresses, Falco will play everyone to set Dallas up in front of Hunsecker so that Susan herself will leave him. He does a great job of it.
But then Susan will set Falco up so that Hunsecker will think ill of him and crush him.
Everyone depends on each other. Everyone is trying to destroy one another.
The stakes seem so low to us--who is dating whom--but to them the stakes are life and death. It is the politics of high school gossip in the hands of New York social climbers--who aspire to be power brokers.
This is starting to sound like an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story about life in the Jazz Age.
But it is a Clifford Odets screenplay about life in the 1950s.
Some things just seem to come back around.
This film is shot by the great cinematographer James Wong Howe. The lights are light and the darks are dark, and the edges are as sharp as a paper cut.
Howe worked from the 1910s to the 1970s, beating out even Alfred Hitchcock for longevity. He was born in 1899 in Canton (Guangzhou), China, and he grew up in Pasco, Washington. At around 12 he bought a Kodak Brownie camera, and by the time he was 18 he was working for Cecil B. DeMille. He solved the problem of getting blue eyes to register on film, so he became the photographer that all blue-eyed stars would flock to. He would go on to shoot more than 130 movies and win two Oscars. He was the embodiment of the Great American Dream.
Meanwhile, the film was directed by Alexander Mackendrick, whom you know for practically nothing else, except perhaps for The Ladykillers and The Man in the White Suit. In all he directed maybe eight pictures. He is now considered a great director with a sure hand, but Sweet Smell of Success was such a financial disaster that his career faded and he moved into teaching.
What makes this picture sing is the acting and chemistry of Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster. Tony plays the high-strung, fast-talking, nervous-energy, pretty boy for which we already know him, but Burt Lancaster plays against type, restraining all the virile strength of his large athletic body into a bespectacled, buttoned-up time-bomb, slowly ticking and destined to blow.
Odets has given them delicious lines to say, long lines filled with the wit and cunning of a top playwright, which they speak quickly and effortlessly as if seated at the Algonquin.
The film moves at a fast pace and is driven by the look of the city lights and the sound of a hot jazz score.
When you see the name Hunsecker, you may think of the Coen Brothers' 1994 comedy The Hudsucker Proxy. You can look up what influence this film may have had on their film.
This film was produced by Burt Lancaster with Harold Hecht (not Ben) and James Hill, with the unfortunate name Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions. The goal seems to have been to do for newspaper columnist Walter Winchell what Orson Welles did for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and others.
In an age without newspapers, it all now seems so historical to us.
My how times have changed.
030 - Sweet Smell of Success, 1957, United States. Dir. Alexander Mackendrick.
Ah, the sweet smell of success.
Fecal. Squalid. Begrimed.
Those gangsters sure do know how to break people.
Not because you have crossed them. Not because you are competing with them.
But just because you, my sister, are dating someone I do not want you to date.
Or because you, my minion, were supposed to break up my sister's relationship and you did not do it.
How dare you.
I will now destroy you.
Wait.
What did you say?
Gangsters?
These are not gangsters. No, they are not gangsters. He is not a gangster.
He is a writer. A newspaper columnist.
A newspaper columnist?
A newspaper columnist.
The character of J. J. Hunsecker, played by Burt Lancaster, loves his sister, a little too much maybe. So he does not want her to be dating jazz musician Steve Dallas.
Sidney Falco is a press agent. He needs Hunsecker to print items that support Falco's clients and help their careers. So Hunsecker uses this need as leverage to maintain power over Falco.
He demands that Falco break up his sister Susan Hunsecker's relationship to Dallas.
But so far Falco has been unable to do it. In fact, Dallas has now proposed to Susan, and they intend to inform J. J. tomorrow morning at breakfast.
So tonight Falco will run around New York City, from club to club, trying to work things out to save his career.
And he will go without an overcoat to keep from having to tip coat-check girls.
My how times have changed.
He will insinuate himself upon Hunsecker to try to get him to understand Falco's situation.
He will go to another newspaper columnist and try to bribe him with his wife to try to get him to print the items that Hunsecker will not print. That man will call his bluff and tell his own wife the dirt in order to remove the leverage.
He will go to yet a third newspaper columnist to see what that will do.
Falco is desperate.
As the evening progresses, Falco will play everyone to set Dallas up in front of Hunsecker so that Susan herself will leave him. He does a great job of it.
But then Susan will set Falco up so that Hunsecker will think ill of him and crush him.
Everyone depends on each other. Everyone is trying to destroy one another.
The stakes seem so low to us--who is dating whom--but to them the stakes are life and death. It is the politics of high school gossip in the hands of New York social climbers--who aspire to be power brokers.
This is starting to sound like an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story about life in the Jazz Age.
But it is a Clifford Odets screenplay about life in the 1950s.
Some things just seem to come back around.
This film is shot by the great cinematographer James Wong Howe. The lights are light and the darks are dark, and the edges are as sharp as a paper cut.
Howe worked from the 1910s to the 1970s, beating out even Alfred Hitchcock for longevity. He was born in 1899 in Canton (Guangzhou), China, and he grew up in Pasco, Washington. At around 12 he bought a Kodak Brownie camera, and by the time he was 18 he was working for Cecil B. DeMille. He solved the problem of getting blue eyes to register on film, so he became the photographer that all blue-eyed stars would flock to. He would go on to shoot more than 130 movies and win two Oscars. He was the embodiment of the Great American Dream.
Meanwhile, the film was directed by Alexander Mackendrick, whom you know for practically nothing else, except perhaps for The Ladykillers and The Man in the White Suit. In all he directed maybe eight pictures. He is now considered a great director with a sure hand, but Sweet Smell of Success was such a financial disaster that his career faded and he moved into teaching.
What makes this picture sing is the acting and chemistry of Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster. Tony plays the high-strung, fast-talking, nervous-energy, pretty boy for which we already know him, but Burt Lancaster plays against type, restraining all the virile strength of his large athletic body into a bespectacled, buttoned-up time-bomb, slowly ticking and destined to blow.
Odets has given them delicious lines to say, long lines filled with the wit and cunning of a top playwright, which they speak quickly and effortlessly as if seated at the Algonquin.
The film moves at a fast pace and is driven by the look of the city lights and the sound of a hot jazz score.
When you see the name Hunsecker, you may think of the Coen Brothers' 1994 comedy The Hudsucker Proxy. You can look up what influence this film may have had on their film.
This film was produced by Burt Lancaster with Harold Hecht (not Ben) and James Hill, with the unfortunate name Hecht-Hill-Lancaster Productions. The goal seems to have been to do for newspaper columnist Walter Winchell what Orson Welles did for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst and others.
In an age without newspapers, it all now seems so historical to us.
My how times have changed.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
029 - Bigger Than Life, 1956, United States. Dir. Nicholas Ray.
Sunday, January 29, 2017
029 - Bigger Than Life, 1956, United States. Dir. Nicholas Ray.
Filmed in CINEMASCOPE!
Aspect ratio 2:55:1. That means really WIDE. Almost twice as wide as the standard Academy Ratio.
In glorious Color by De Luxe.
These are the specs for BIG PICTURES.
Epics!
The Bridge on the River Kwai. A Farewell to Arms. The Robe. The Egyptian. The Virgin Queen. The Gladiators. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Westerns!
River of No Return. Ride Lonesome. Broken Lance. The Burning Hills. Jubal. The Man from Laramie.
Big Studio Romantic Comedies and Dramas!
Love is a Many-Splendored Thing. Pillow Talk. How to Marry a Millionaire.
Grand Musicals!
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It's Always Fair Weather. Brigadoon. Oklahoma! Silk Stockings. April Love. Carmen Jones. There's No Business Like Show Business.
Action Films and Thrillers!
House of Bamboo. King of the Khyber Rifles. Battle Cry. World Without End. Bad Day at Black Rock.
Intimate Family Dramas About Mental Illness!
Wait.
What?
Intimate family dramas about mental illness. Or more specifically, a small family drama that takes place only inside the schoolroom, the hospital room, and the home, where most of the acting is internal and where the drama focuses on the father's steady decline into psychosis.
You could perform this story as a quiet play on a small stage in a black-box theatre with only 30 seats.
The setting and action are small.
The film is Bigger Than Life.
What a great idea, actually.
Would that more films were made to be presented in such a large format.
After all, this is not television.
This is the movies!
Imagine the emotional impact of a subtle expression in extreme close-up.
Bigger Than Life stars James Mason. You may know him as the bad guy Philip Vandamm, the one who kidnaps Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest, or in a similar kind of role opposite Paul Newman in The Verdict, or as the co-star with Judy Garland in A Star is Born. He also played Captain Nemo in that other CinemaScope picture listed above, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
James Mason is one of those actors whom, once you hear his voice, you want to keep hearing it for a very long time. His voice is made out of maple syrup spiked with bourbon. He does not merely speak. He taps the sap at the sugar shack and drips a slow flow of sweet aromatic maple with a toasted oak aroma, a cereal malt grain, and a brown cinnamon spice.
Thick. Rich. Sweet. And slow.
And what does he say with this rich voice?
He plays schoolteacher Ed Avery, and he begins the film by talking shop, the ordinary daily routine with his colleagues. When he leaves for the day, he goes to his moonlighting job at the cab company. He tells his wife he has a school board meeting. He is ashamed to tell her he works two jobs. He has a spending problem.
The first sign of disease occurs when they have some friends over. He spends time in the kitchen leaning over the refrigerator. He does not feel well. When the evening is over, he complains to his wife that they are dull, all of them, and that they never do anything interesting. Then he falls across the bed.
After being tested at the hospital, he is told that he has a terminal type of inflammation of the arteries and has only months to live. He is prescribed cortisone and suddenly feels great again. He indulges his manic feelings and takes the family out to dinner and on an excessive shopping spree. His own son whispers to his mother that Dad is acting foolishly.
Avery grows dependent on the pills. He begins taking them more frequently than his prescription allows. He reasons that a teacher is a doctor, so he convinces a pharmacist that he is a doctor and begins prescribing more pills for himself.
He grows excessively moodier. He speaks bluntly at the PTA meeting, insulting some of those present and causing them to walk out, while becoming a hero to one parent, who thinks he is the first teacher he has heard to describe things the way they really are.
He begins to push his son, yelling at him, forcing him to practice football during baseball season, and throwing the ball so hard and far that the boy falls and hurts himself in his efforts to catch it, only to be reprimanded all the more.
Avery starts to grow mad, reading the Genesis account of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac as some kind of assignment for himself. He goes so far as to raise a pair of scissors above his son in his son's room before the boy escapes.
The film will end either badly or well.
It is an effort to educate the public on the challenges of mental illness and addiction to prescription drugs. And it is sympathetic. It portrays the family and friends as loving and patient.
Jerry Mathers has a great moment in it. He plays one of the school kids. His character Freddie has painted something that looks angry. Avery asks if it is a thunderstorm. He responds defiantly, "This is a man. He's just mad at his mother!" One year later he was starring on television in Leave It to Beaver.
James Mason wanted very much to make this movie, so when the studios balked he produced it himself. Nicholas Ray directed it, just one year after making Rebel Without a Cause.
029 - Bigger Than Life, 1956, United States. Dir. Nicholas Ray.
Filmed in CINEMASCOPE!
Aspect ratio 2:55:1. That means really WIDE. Almost twice as wide as the standard Academy Ratio.
In glorious Color by De Luxe.
These are the specs for BIG PICTURES.
Epics!
The Bridge on the River Kwai. A Farewell to Arms. The Robe. The Egyptian. The Virgin Queen. The Gladiators. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Westerns!
River of No Return. Ride Lonesome. Broken Lance. The Burning Hills. Jubal. The Man from Laramie.
Big Studio Romantic Comedies and Dramas!
Love is a Many-Splendored Thing. Pillow Talk. How to Marry a Millionaire.
Grand Musicals!
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It's Always Fair Weather. Brigadoon. Oklahoma! Silk Stockings. April Love. Carmen Jones. There's No Business Like Show Business.
Action Films and Thrillers!
House of Bamboo. King of the Khyber Rifles. Battle Cry. World Without End. Bad Day at Black Rock.
Intimate Family Dramas About Mental Illness!
Wait.
What?
Intimate family dramas about mental illness. Or more specifically, a small family drama that takes place only inside the schoolroom, the hospital room, and the home, where most of the acting is internal and where the drama focuses on the father's steady decline into psychosis.
You could perform this story as a quiet play on a small stage in a black-box theatre with only 30 seats.
The setting and action are small.
The film is Bigger Than Life.
What a great idea, actually.
Would that more films were made to be presented in such a large format.
After all, this is not television.
This is the movies!
Imagine the emotional impact of a subtle expression in extreme close-up.
Bigger Than Life stars James Mason. You may know him as the bad guy Philip Vandamm, the one who kidnaps Cary Grant in Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest, or in a similar kind of role opposite Paul Newman in The Verdict, or as the co-star with Judy Garland in A Star is Born. He also played Captain Nemo in that other CinemaScope picture listed above, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
James Mason is one of those actors whom, once you hear his voice, you want to keep hearing it for a very long time. His voice is made out of maple syrup spiked with bourbon. He does not merely speak. He taps the sap at the sugar shack and drips a slow flow of sweet aromatic maple with a toasted oak aroma, a cereal malt grain, and a brown cinnamon spice.
Thick. Rich. Sweet. And slow.
And what does he say with this rich voice?
He plays schoolteacher Ed Avery, and he begins the film by talking shop, the ordinary daily routine with his colleagues. When he leaves for the day, he goes to his moonlighting job at the cab company. He tells his wife he has a school board meeting. He is ashamed to tell her he works two jobs. He has a spending problem.
The first sign of disease occurs when they have some friends over. He spends time in the kitchen leaning over the refrigerator. He does not feel well. When the evening is over, he complains to his wife that they are dull, all of them, and that they never do anything interesting. Then he falls across the bed.
After being tested at the hospital, he is told that he has a terminal type of inflammation of the arteries and has only months to live. He is prescribed cortisone and suddenly feels great again. He indulges his manic feelings and takes the family out to dinner and on an excessive shopping spree. His own son whispers to his mother that Dad is acting foolishly.
Avery grows dependent on the pills. He begins taking them more frequently than his prescription allows. He reasons that a teacher is a doctor, so he convinces a pharmacist that he is a doctor and begins prescribing more pills for himself.
He grows excessively moodier. He speaks bluntly at the PTA meeting, insulting some of those present and causing them to walk out, while becoming a hero to one parent, who thinks he is the first teacher he has heard to describe things the way they really are.
He begins to push his son, yelling at him, forcing him to practice football during baseball season, and throwing the ball so hard and far that the boy falls and hurts himself in his efforts to catch it, only to be reprimanded all the more.
Avery starts to grow mad, reading the Genesis account of Abraham's willingness to sacrifice Isaac as some kind of assignment for himself. He goes so far as to raise a pair of scissors above his son in his son's room before the boy escapes.
The film will end either badly or well.
It is an effort to educate the public on the challenges of mental illness and addiction to prescription drugs. And it is sympathetic. It portrays the family and friends as loving and patient.
Jerry Mathers has a great moment in it. He plays one of the school kids. His character Freddie has painted something that looks angry. Avery asks if it is a thunderstorm. He responds defiantly, "This is a man. He's just mad at his mother!" One year later he was starring on television in Leave It to Beaver.
James Mason wanted very much to make this movie, so when the studios balked he produced it himself. Nicholas Ray directed it, just one year after making Rebel Without a Cause.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
028 - Kiss Me Deadly, 1955, United States; Dir. Robert Aldrich.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
028 - Kiss Me Deadly, 1955, United States. Dir. Robert Aldrich.
A young woman walks down the middle of the highway in the middle of the night.
She is barefoot and wearing only a trenchcoat.
She appears to be in great distress.
A man speeds down the highway in his speedster in the middle of the night.
He is in a hurry and does not wish to be detained.
The woman stands in front of him.
He sees her in his headlights.
She will not budge.
At the last moment, he must swerve to avoid her.
He stops violently on the side of the road in the brush.
She approaches the car.
He is agitated. He does not wish to pick up a strange woman, even one naked under her trenchcoat. He wishes to be left alone.
But he lets her in. And they drive.
Down the long, dark, two-lane highway in the middle of the night.
The credits begin to scroll. From top to bottom. Reversed. Widening as they come down the screen.
Like white signs painted on the road. Growing larger as they approach.
This is film noir.
Dark. Violent. Hard-boiled. Hard-bitten. Cold.
In 1955 two French film critics (Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton) wrote an essay entitled "Towards a Definition of Film Noir." It is one of the few pieces written about film noir, and calling it film noir, while film noir was still being made. Most commentary came afterwards, looking back. So having anything written about it contemporaneously is important.
In their essay they describe the impact of American films that came to France in the summer of 1946. During World War 2 France did not have access to American films, so when the war was over and they received them, it was like a revelation.
Before the war, they knew American films in the vein of William Wyler, John Ford, and Frank Capra. After the war, they saw "a strange and violent tone, tinged with a unique kind of eroticism." It was as if everything had changed overnight.
The critics list the following films that came to them in a 6-week period:
John Huston's The Maltese Falcon
Otto Preminger's Laura
Edward Dmytryk's Murder My Sweet
Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity
Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window
A few months' later, the following films came to them:
Frank Tuttle's This Gun for Hire
Robert Siodmak's The Killer's
Robert Montgomery's The Lady in the Lake
Charles Vidor's Gilda
Howard Hawk's The Big Sleep
"A new 'series' had emerged in the history of film."
Notice that every film they list is by a different director. The films also represent all the studios.
This new phenomenon was so new, so sudden, and so wide-sweeping, that it caught the world by surprise.
And it is still being talked about.
The film noir period lasted for about twenty years, essentially during the 1940s and 1950s, and then it went away.
Every once in awhile someone will make one again, and it will be referred to as neo noir, but as a movement it is contained in this particular time in history. People are still trying to understand it. And people are still watching these movies.
The films in this canon are some of the most exciting, thrilling, tension-filled movies ever made. They deal with the dark side of human nature, but also with nobility, and they are visually, sometimes breathtakingly, beautiful to behold.
This film, Kiss Me Deadly, was directed by Robert Aldrich. Robert Aldrich is known for films such as The Big Knife (1955), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Longest Yard (1974), and The Frisco Kid (1979). In 1956, Aldrich was photographed on set holding a copy of a book in his hands entitled Panorama du Film Noir. That early. He was onto something.
The driver of our car is Mike Hammer, the hero of a series of books written by Mickey Spillane.
Spillane worked in a genre of novels we call hard-boiled detective fiction. Others include the characters Philip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler and Sam Spade by Dashiell Hammett,
These men were tough, no-nonsense, men of action. Women wanted them. Men wanted to be them.
They took the law into their own hands. They operated by their own code. Sometimes they were modern-day knights. Sometimes they were as lost as the criminals they were fighting.
As Mike Hammer drives our mysterious woman, played by a young Cloris Leachman, she tells him that they are after her. Who? They. And they are after something. What? Something. Later we will call it the Whatsit.
She tells him, "If I happen to make it alive, forget me. But if I don't make it, remember me."
What does that mean?
Maybe our poet Christina Roessetti can help us. Remember?
She does not make it.
Someone pulls out in front of them and causes them to crash.
He wakes up tied up somewhere and witnesses them torturing her.
He passes out again. They push the car over a cliff with the two of them in it.
He wakes up in the hospital room.
What happened?
Who are they?
What is the Whatsit?
He thinks it must be something big. He cannot leave it alone. He must get involved.
His police lieutenant friend takes away his detective license and his gun permit. He is not allowed to get involved.
Do you think that will stop him?
Mike sticks his nose where it does not belong.
And he gets into trouble.
And he goes throughout our city to do it.
Our city.
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula.
Los Angeles.
The home of hardboiled detective fiction. The home of crime dramas. The home of the movies. The home of film noir.
If you know the city, then you will have a feast watching this film. It is a practical tour of the town.
Malibu Canyon, Kaiser Hospital, Olive Street, Flower Street, 10401 Wilshire Boulevard, Rampart, Bunker Hill, Doheny, Cahuenga, Angel's Flight (operating!), Figueroa, the Hollywood Athletic Club, Sunset Blvd.
Yes, Sunset Blvd.
Some things just keep coming back.
Again.
And again.
How many girls will he kiss? How many girls will die? How many men will die? Will he himself die?
The plots in these films are often complicated. The characters are often complex. And there are often lots of characters.
They are puzzles to solve. Sometimes they end unsolved.
These are intelligent films for intelligent people. Disguised as B pictures. Cheap thrillers. Pulp fiction.
They tell the truth about the human condition.
Depravity. Evil. Original sin.
There is no one good. No, not one.
And in the end . . .
They entertain.
This one is explosive.
Keep away from the windows.
Someone might blow you a kiss.
028 - Kiss Me Deadly, 1955, United States. Dir. Robert Aldrich.
A young woman walks down the middle of the highway in the middle of the night.
She is barefoot and wearing only a trenchcoat.
She appears to be in great distress.
A man speeds down the highway in his speedster in the middle of the night.
He is in a hurry and does not wish to be detained.
The woman stands in front of him.
He sees her in his headlights.
She will not budge.
At the last moment, he must swerve to avoid her.
He stops violently on the side of the road in the brush.
She approaches the car.
He is agitated. He does not wish to pick up a strange woman, even one naked under her trenchcoat. He wishes to be left alone.
But he lets her in. And they drive.
Down the long, dark, two-lane highway in the middle of the night.
The credits begin to scroll. From top to bottom. Reversed. Widening as they come down the screen.
Like white signs painted on the road. Growing larger as they approach.
This is film noir.
Dark. Violent. Hard-boiled. Hard-bitten. Cold.
In 1955 two French film critics (Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton) wrote an essay entitled "Towards a Definition of Film Noir." It is one of the few pieces written about film noir, and calling it film noir, while film noir was still being made. Most commentary came afterwards, looking back. So having anything written about it contemporaneously is important.
In their essay they describe the impact of American films that came to France in the summer of 1946. During World War 2 France did not have access to American films, so when the war was over and they received them, it was like a revelation.
Before the war, they knew American films in the vein of William Wyler, John Ford, and Frank Capra. After the war, they saw "a strange and violent tone, tinged with a unique kind of eroticism." It was as if everything had changed overnight.
The critics list the following films that came to them in a 6-week period:
John Huston's The Maltese Falcon
Otto Preminger's Laura
Edward Dmytryk's Murder My Sweet
Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity
Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window
A few months' later, the following films came to them:
Frank Tuttle's This Gun for Hire
Robert Siodmak's The Killer's
Robert Montgomery's The Lady in the Lake
Charles Vidor's Gilda
Howard Hawk's The Big Sleep
"A new 'series' had emerged in the history of film."
Notice that every film they list is by a different director. The films also represent all the studios.
This new phenomenon was so new, so sudden, and so wide-sweeping, that it caught the world by surprise.
And it is still being talked about.
The film noir period lasted for about twenty years, essentially during the 1940s and 1950s, and then it went away.
Every once in awhile someone will make one again, and it will be referred to as neo noir, but as a movement it is contained in this particular time in history. People are still trying to understand it. And people are still watching these movies.
The films in this canon are some of the most exciting, thrilling, tension-filled movies ever made. They deal with the dark side of human nature, but also with nobility, and they are visually, sometimes breathtakingly, beautiful to behold.
This film, Kiss Me Deadly, was directed by Robert Aldrich. Robert Aldrich is known for films such as The Big Knife (1955), Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Dirty Dozen (1967), The Longest Yard (1974), and The Frisco Kid (1979). In 1956, Aldrich was photographed on set holding a copy of a book in his hands entitled Panorama du Film Noir. That early. He was onto something.
The driver of our car is Mike Hammer, the hero of a series of books written by Mickey Spillane.
Spillane worked in a genre of novels we call hard-boiled detective fiction. Others include the characters Philip Marlowe by Raymond Chandler and Sam Spade by Dashiell Hammett,
These men were tough, no-nonsense, men of action. Women wanted them. Men wanted to be them.
They took the law into their own hands. They operated by their own code. Sometimes they were modern-day knights. Sometimes they were as lost as the criminals they were fighting.
As Mike Hammer drives our mysterious woman, played by a young Cloris Leachman, she tells him that they are after her. Who? They. And they are after something. What? Something. Later we will call it the Whatsit.
She tells him, "If I happen to make it alive, forget me. But if I don't make it, remember me."
What does that mean?
Maybe our poet Christina Roessetti can help us. Remember?
She does not make it.
Someone pulls out in front of them and causes them to crash.
He wakes up tied up somewhere and witnesses them torturing her.
He passes out again. They push the car over a cliff with the two of them in it.
He wakes up in the hospital room.
What happened?
Who are they?
What is the Whatsit?
He thinks it must be something big. He cannot leave it alone. He must get involved.
His police lieutenant friend takes away his detective license and his gun permit. He is not allowed to get involved.
Do you think that will stop him?
Mike sticks his nose where it does not belong.
And he gets into trouble.
And he goes throughout our city to do it.
Our city.
El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula.
Los Angeles.
The home of hardboiled detective fiction. The home of crime dramas. The home of the movies. The home of film noir.
If you know the city, then you will have a feast watching this film. It is a practical tour of the town.
Malibu Canyon, Kaiser Hospital, Olive Street, Flower Street, 10401 Wilshire Boulevard, Rampart, Bunker Hill, Doheny, Cahuenga, Angel's Flight (operating!), Figueroa, the Hollywood Athletic Club, Sunset Blvd.
Yes, Sunset Blvd.
Some things just keep coming back.
Again.
And again.
How many girls will he kiss? How many girls will die? How many men will die? Will he himself die?
The plots in these films are often complicated. The characters are often complex. And there are often lots of characters.
They are puzzles to solve. Sometimes they end unsolved.
These are intelligent films for intelligent people. Disguised as B pictures. Cheap thrillers. Pulp fiction.
They tell the truth about the human condition.
Depravity. Evil. Original sin.
There is no one good. No, not one.
And in the end . . .
They entertain.
This one is explosive.
Keep away from the windows.
Someone might blow you a kiss.
Friday, January 27, 2017
027 - The Night of the Hunter, 1955, United States; Dir. Charles Laughton.
Friday, January 27, 2017
027 - The Night of the Hunter, 1955, United States. Dir. Charles Laughton.
Most horror movies are not very scary.
The Night of the Hunter is terrifying.
It is also exciting, thrilling, dramatic, beautiful, sweet, nostalgic, soul-stirring, and comforting.
It is a great film.
It is terrifying in that it is not a horror film but a crime thriller, and rather than dealing with creatures and situations that are fantastical and unreal--such as slashers, chainsaw wielders, zombies, vampires, mummies, witches, ghosts, and monsters--it deals with something far more dark and evil--
People.
In this case, a single person, a man who will go to any length--including deception, sacrilege, false marriage, psychological abuse, murder, and going after children--to get what he wants, a false prophet, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Lilian Gish begins the film by warning the children about such a man, as she quotes from the scriptures. She reminds them of three verses in Matthew that she has taught them and then introduces the fourth one:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:18)
King Solomon in all his glory was not as beautiful as the lilies of the field. (Matthew 6:19)
Judge not lest you be judged. (Matthew 7:1)
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-16)
Her warning, from an imaginary heaven to them, as angelic, proves true.
Some children playing hide and seek find the body (we see the legs) of a woman in the steps to the basement.
Meanwhile, Harry Powell is coming, in an old convertible roadster, driving over the countryside, singing a hymn. "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." He wears a hat on his head. He prays, but it is not clear what his relationship to God is. Later, in prison, he will tell a man his religion is one that he and the Lord worked out "betwixt ourselves." It is made up.
He asks God how many has it been. Six? Twelve? He cannot remember. We understand what he is counting. He stops at a burlesque show. He seems agitated by the performer. He speaks to himself. She needs taking care of. We see the letters on his left knuckles: H-A-T-E. The police enter and arrest him for stealing the car he is driving.
Meanwhile, the Harper children are playing in the yard when their father comes home.
"Daddy!" shouts John Harper, played by Bill Chapin in a fantastic performance. We hear love in his voice. He jumps up and runs towards the car. He is happy to see his father. But everything is different forever. His father has robbed a bank and needs somewhere to hide the money before the police arrive and arrest him. He hides the money. He makes the children swear not to tell. The police arrive and he is arrested.
John and his little sister Pearl watch as their father is taken away in handcuffs.
Ben Harper will bunk with Harry Powell in prison. Powell will learn of Harper's family. After Harper is hanged and Powell is released, he will come in the guise of a preacher to insinuate himself into the life of the community and for the rest of the film his only objective will be to do everything it takes to find that money.
He will win over the Spoons, Walt and Icey, as he tells those present at their ice cream parlor the story of good and evil, and we see that the letters on his right knuckles spell L-O-V-E. Icey Spoon is captivated. She demands he come to the upcoming picnic, and she pressures the children's mother, the widowed Willa Harper, to go for Harry Powell.
Willa Harper, played by Shelley Winters, will end up in the car at the bottom of the river.
The children will be on their own.
And their task will be to keep the money hidden and to stay alive.
We will spend the movie cheering for them, wanting to protect them, and adjuring them to run.
What will happen?
Watch this movie to find out.
And sit on the edge of your seat.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
FLAPDOODLE
When I was younger I was looking through the dictionary and came upon the word flapdoodle. I adopted it because I thought it such a great word, and I had never heard it spoken or seen it in print. I began to use it steadily.
Since then I have encountered it exactly once--in this movie.
The Night of the Hunter is the only text, printed or spoken, in which I remember encountering this word.
Evelyn Varden as the delicious Icey Spoon says,
That wasn't love. That was just flapdoodle. Have some fudge, lambs.
And this is shortly after she uses the word shilly-shallying.
Delicious.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
THE PLAYERS
The Night of the Hunter came about due to the talents of an extraordinary group of people. Let us get to know some of them a little better.
JAMES AGEE - Screenwriter
As for language, the screenplay was written by James Agee, the first literary writer I believe we have had in our list of films so far--meaning, a professional journalist, poet, and novelist. Most of the films we have seen have been written by either the director or professional screenwriters. Some were based on novels; others were original screenplays. If you want to check out James Agee, read his novel A Death in the Family. It is one of the great American novels. Agee also wrote the screenplay of The African Queen and the non-fiction work Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
STANLEY CORTEZ - Cinematographer
As for images, this film was shot by cinematographer Stanley Cortez, a prolific cameraman who worked from the 1920s to 1980. Most notably, he lensed Orson Welles' second masterpiece after Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons. The Night of the Hunter contains a mixture of crisp, light exterior shots, including daylight landscapes and deep-black night shots, beautiful underwater shots, and deep-focus, high-contrast film noir interiors. The second unit photography includes sweeping overhead helicopter shots, multiple looks at rivers and rippling water, and looks at animals, such as a frog, a turtle, rabbits, and a tree fox. The film-noir portions, between him and Art Director Hillyard Brown, look incredible. Chiaroscuro lighting and shadows abound.
ROBERT MITCHUM - Harry Powell
Robert Mitchum was a man's man. He played in Westerns, war movies, and films noir. He had a long and steadily successful career, working in a range of styles and periods. He worked from the 1940s to the 1990s. His film noir work alone includes Out of the Past, Crossfire, The Racket, His Kind of Woman, Angel Face, Macao, Where Danger Lives, The Big Steal, Undercurrent, The Locket, Pursued, Thunder Road, Farewell My Lovely, the remake of The Big Sleep, and his most chilling performance, Cape Fear. He was one of the most watchable movie stars we have ever had. If you have an opportunity to watch a Robert Mitchum movie, take it.
LILLIAN GISH - Rachel Cooper
Lillian Gish was The First Lady of American Cinema. She, along with her sister Dorothy, was one of the first movie stars, in the silent films of the 1910s and 1920s. As children they were next-door neighbors of Mary Pickford. Lillian starred in D. W. Griffith's most famous films, including The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, Way Down East, and Orphans of the Storm. She had a long career on the stage, in film, both in silent and talkies, and as a director. She worked through to 1987, in The Whales of August, starring next to Bette Davis, when they were 94 and 89 respectively.
In The Night of the Hunter, Lillian plays Rachel Cooper, a caretaker of orphans who takes in Johnny and Pearl.
CHARLES LAUGHTON - Director
Charles Laughton was a giant of a man. He was a writer, producer, stage director, and an actor's actor. Daniel Day-Lewis credited him as being one of the greatest actors of his generation. He may be best known by filmgoers for playing Quasimodo, the Hunchback in 1939's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was nominated for three Oscars for acting and won for playing Henry VIII.
He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked at the Old Vic, in West End, and on Broadway. He performed roles by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Moliere, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, and Agathie Christie, among others. He was especially known for his meticulous work in creating the character of Galileo for Brecht's Galileo.
As an actor he starred in films from 1929 to 1962. Look at this list of significant roles in significant films--Dr. Moreau in Island of Lost Souls (1932), Emperor Nero in The Sign of the Cross (1932), Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Edward Moulton-Barrett in The Barretts of Whimple Street (1934), Ruggles in The Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Javert in Les Miserables (1935), Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Rembrandt in Rembrandt (1936), Claudius in I, Claudius (1937), Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Sir Canterville and The Ghost in The Canterville Ghost (1944), Captain Kidd in Captain Kidd (1945), Captain Kidd again in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952), King Herod in Salome (1953), Henry Hobson in David Lean's Hobson's Choice (1954), Sir Roberts in Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Gracchus in Spartacus (1960), and Senator Cooley in Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent (1962).
The Night of the Hunter is the only film Charles Laughton directed, and it is one of the great films. Oh, that he had directed more.
027 - The Night of the Hunter, 1955, United States. Dir. Charles Laughton.
Most horror movies are not very scary.
The Night of the Hunter is terrifying.
It is also exciting, thrilling, dramatic, beautiful, sweet, nostalgic, soul-stirring, and comforting.
It is a great film.
It is terrifying in that it is not a horror film but a crime thriller, and rather than dealing with creatures and situations that are fantastical and unreal--such as slashers, chainsaw wielders, zombies, vampires, mummies, witches, ghosts, and monsters--it deals with something far more dark and evil--
People.
In this case, a single person, a man who will go to any length--including deception, sacrilege, false marriage, psychological abuse, murder, and going after children--to get what he wants, a false prophet, a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Lilian Gish begins the film by warning the children about such a man, as she quotes from the scriptures. She reminds them of three verses in Matthew that she has taught them and then introduces the fourth one:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. (Matthew 5:18)
King Solomon in all his glory was not as beautiful as the lilies of the field. (Matthew 6:19)
Judge not lest you be judged. (Matthew 7:1)
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. You shall know them by their fruits. (Matthew 7:15-16)
Her warning, from an imaginary heaven to them, as angelic, proves true.
Some children playing hide and seek find the body (we see the legs) of a woman in the steps to the basement.
Meanwhile, Harry Powell is coming, in an old convertible roadster, driving over the countryside, singing a hymn. "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms." He wears a hat on his head. He prays, but it is not clear what his relationship to God is. Later, in prison, he will tell a man his religion is one that he and the Lord worked out "betwixt ourselves." It is made up.
He asks God how many has it been. Six? Twelve? He cannot remember. We understand what he is counting. He stops at a burlesque show. He seems agitated by the performer. He speaks to himself. She needs taking care of. We see the letters on his left knuckles: H-A-T-E. The police enter and arrest him for stealing the car he is driving.
Meanwhile, the Harper children are playing in the yard when their father comes home.
"Daddy!" shouts John Harper, played by Bill Chapin in a fantastic performance. We hear love in his voice. He jumps up and runs towards the car. He is happy to see his father. But everything is different forever. His father has robbed a bank and needs somewhere to hide the money before the police arrive and arrest him. He hides the money. He makes the children swear not to tell. The police arrive and he is arrested.
John and his little sister Pearl watch as their father is taken away in handcuffs.
Ben Harper will bunk with Harry Powell in prison. Powell will learn of Harper's family. After Harper is hanged and Powell is released, he will come in the guise of a preacher to insinuate himself into the life of the community and for the rest of the film his only objective will be to do everything it takes to find that money.
He will win over the Spoons, Walt and Icey, as he tells those present at their ice cream parlor the story of good and evil, and we see that the letters on his right knuckles spell L-O-V-E. Icey Spoon is captivated. She demands he come to the upcoming picnic, and she pressures the children's mother, the widowed Willa Harper, to go for Harry Powell.
Willa Harper, played by Shelley Winters, will end up in the car at the bottom of the river.
The children will be on their own.
And their task will be to keep the money hidden and to stay alive.
We will spend the movie cheering for them, wanting to protect them, and adjuring them to run.
What will happen?
Watch this movie to find out.
And sit on the edge of your seat.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
FLAPDOODLE
When I was younger I was looking through the dictionary and came upon the word flapdoodle. I adopted it because I thought it such a great word, and I had never heard it spoken or seen it in print. I began to use it steadily.
Since then I have encountered it exactly once--in this movie.
The Night of the Hunter is the only text, printed or spoken, in which I remember encountering this word.
Evelyn Varden as the delicious Icey Spoon says,
That wasn't love. That was just flapdoodle. Have some fudge, lambs.
And this is shortly after she uses the word shilly-shallying.
Delicious.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
THE PLAYERS
The Night of the Hunter came about due to the talents of an extraordinary group of people. Let us get to know some of them a little better.
JAMES AGEE - Screenwriter
As for language, the screenplay was written by James Agee, the first literary writer I believe we have had in our list of films so far--meaning, a professional journalist, poet, and novelist. Most of the films we have seen have been written by either the director or professional screenwriters. Some were based on novels; others were original screenplays. If you want to check out James Agee, read his novel A Death in the Family. It is one of the great American novels. Agee also wrote the screenplay of The African Queen and the non-fiction work Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.
STANLEY CORTEZ - Cinematographer
As for images, this film was shot by cinematographer Stanley Cortez, a prolific cameraman who worked from the 1920s to 1980. Most notably, he lensed Orson Welles' second masterpiece after Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons. The Night of the Hunter contains a mixture of crisp, light exterior shots, including daylight landscapes and deep-black night shots, beautiful underwater shots, and deep-focus, high-contrast film noir interiors. The second unit photography includes sweeping overhead helicopter shots, multiple looks at rivers and rippling water, and looks at animals, such as a frog, a turtle, rabbits, and a tree fox. The film-noir portions, between him and Art Director Hillyard Brown, look incredible. Chiaroscuro lighting and shadows abound.
ROBERT MITCHUM - Harry Powell
Robert Mitchum was a man's man. He played in Westerns, war movies, and films noir. He had a long and steadily successful career, working in a range of styles and periods. He worked from the 1940s to the 1990s. His film noir work alone includes Out of the Past, Crossfire, The Racket, His Kind of Woman, Angel Face, Macao, Where Danger Lives, The Big Steal, Undercurrent, The Locket, Pursued, Thunder Road, Farewell My Lovely, the remake of The Big Sleep, and his most chilling performance, Cape Fear. He was one of the most watchable movie stars we have ever had. If you have an opportunity to watch a Robert Mitchum movie, take it.
LILLIAN GISH - Rachel Cooper
Lillian Gish was The First Lady of American Cinema. She, along with her sister Dorothy, was one of the first movie stars, in the silent films of the 1910s and 1920s. As children they were next-door neighbors of Mary Pickford. Lillian starred in D. W. Griffith's most famous films, including The Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, Broken Blossoms, Way Down East, and Orphans of the Storm. She had a long career on the stage, in film, both in silent and talkies, and as a director. She worked through to 1987, in The Whales of August, starring next to Bette Davis, when they were 94 and 89 respectively.
In The Night of the Hunter, Lillian plays Rachel Cooper, a caretaker of orphans who takes in Johnny and Pearl.
CHARLES LAUGHTON - Director
Charles Laughton was a giant of a man. He was a writer, producer, stage director, and an actor's actor. Daniel Day-Lewis credited him as being one of the greatest actors of his generation. He may be best known by filmgoers for playing Quasimodo, the Hunchback in 1939's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was nominated for three Oscars for acting and won for playing Henry VIII.
He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked at the Old Vic, in West End, and on Broadway. He performed roles by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Moliere, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht, and Agathie Christie, among others. He was especially known for his meticulous work in creating the character of Galileo for Brecht's Galileo.
As an actor he starred in films from 1929 to 1962. Look at this list of significant roles in significant films--Dr. Moreau in Island of Lost Souls (1932), Emperor Nero in The Sign of the Cross (1932), Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Edward Moulton-Barrett in The Barretts of Whimple Street (1934), Ruggles in The Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Javert in Les Miserables (1935), Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Rembrandt in Rembrandt (1936), Claudius in I, Claudius (1937), Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Sir Canterville and The Ghost in The Canterville Ghost (1944), Captain Kidd in Captain Kidd (1945), Captain Kidd again in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952), King Herod in Salome (1953), Henry Hobson in David Lean's Hobson's Choice (1954), Sir Roberts in Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Gracchus in Spartacus (1960), and Senator Cooley in Otto Preminger's Advise and Consent (1962).
The Night of the Hunter is the only film Charles Laughton directed, and it is one of the great films. Oh, that he had directed more.
Thursday, January 26, 2017
026 - Foreign Correspondent, 1940, United States; Dir. Alfred Hitchcock.
Thursday, January 26, 2017
026 - Foreign Correspondent, 1940, United States. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock.
Alfred Hitchcock's film Foreign Correspondent was nominated for six Academy Awards.
But Alfred Hitchcock lost.
To Alfred Hitchcock.
The same year his film Rebecca was nominated for eleven Academy Awards.
And won.
For Best Picture and Best Cinematography--Black & White (George Barnes).
Alfred Hitchcock is the king of cinema, the Master of Suspense. He directed movies from the 1920s to the 1970s.
He began at age 20 in England as a title card designer for silent films. He then worked as an Art Director, Set Decorator, Production Designer, and Assistant Director.
After attempting to direct a failed project at age 22 and directing a short film at 23, he directed his first feature-length film, The Pleasure Garden, at age 25. He made his 54th and last feature, Family Plot, at 76.
Foreign Correspondent was his second film made in the United States. Rebecca was his first. So with his first two films in his new country he was nominated for a combined 17 Academy Awards. You might call that an auspicious beginning.
Hitchcock knows how to tell a story. With the help of his wife, Alma Reville, who co-wrote about 18 of his screenplays, he knows how to create tension and suspense and keep the viewer on the edge of his seat. He knows where to place a camera and how to edit. He uses highly visual set-pieces, highly dramatic musical scores, and finely detailed storyboards. He would say that the film was already made before he started directing it. By then, all he had to do was shoot it.
Foreign Correspondent takes place just before the beginning of World War 2.
Johnny Jones works for the New York Globe. He is sent undercover, as Huntley Haverstock, to England to meet a Dutchman, "Holland's strong man," named Mr. Van Meer and find out what is going on. He is assigned to the British Stephen Fisher to help him. They move on to Holland.
He falls for Fisher's daughter Carol.
He watches as Van Meer is shot on the steps of the building.
It is raining and everyone on both sides of the steps stands beneath black umbrellas. The image reminds us of Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964, and Jacques Tati's Trafic, 1971, which we discussed on January 10. (Here in 1940, this one came first!) The assassin escapes beneath the umbrellas, creating an entertaining visual image.
He chases the assassin and winds up in the car of Scott ffolliott--the man with that delicious last name beginning with two lower-case ffs and with two lls and two tts.
Those familiar with Agathie Christie's novel or play Murder on the Nile may remember the character of Miss Helen ffoliot-ffoulkes (one l, one t, but two names with two lower-case ffs!).
Scott ffolliott is played by the wonderful British character actor George Sanders, who also played in Hitchcock's other movie that year, Rebecca. You may also remember him from his Oscar-winning performance as the venomous Addison DeWitt opposite Bette Davis in All About Eve. Here he will prove to be a loyal comrade of Johnny Jones, aka Huntley Haverstock.
They chase the getaway car to the windmills. It disappears!
He climbs inside a windmill. There are bad guys in there. He has to hide. He could get caught in the giant gears. He finds . . . someone. They climb the stairs. He could get caught!
Fisher hires a body guard for him, a man named Rowley. Rowley is played by Edmund Gwenn. You know him as Kris Kringle from Miracle on 34th Street. He does not wear a white beard here. He looks younger.
They go to the top tower of Westminster Cathedral. Someone falls off.
Scott and Johnny decide to kidnap Carol.
They get on a sea plane. They are shot at. They are shot down. Will they be rescued? Or will they drown?
Foreign Correspondent contains the ingredients that made Hitchcock so great--unforgettable visual set-pieces, tension and suspense, humor, taught writing, and economy of storytelling.
Its star Johnny Jones (Huntley Haverstock) is played by Joel McCrea, whom we will see later in two Preston Sturges films.
And it ends with a call to support the War effort.
Hello, America. Hang on to your lights. They're the only lights left in the world.
026 - Foreign Correspondent, 1940, United States. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock.
Alfred Hitchcock's film Foreign Correspondent was nominated for six Academy Awards.
But Alfred Hitchcock lost.
To Alfred Hitchcock.
The same year his film Rebecca was nominated for eleven Academy Awards.
And won.
For Best Picture and Best Cinematography--Black & White (George Barnes).
Alfred Hitchcock is the king of cinema, the Master of Suspense. He directed movies from the 1920s to the 1970s.
He began at age 20 in England as a title card designer for silent films. He then worked as an Art Director, Set Decorator, Production Designer, and Assistant Director.
After attempting to direct a failed project at age 22 and directing a short film at 23, he directed his first feature-length film, The Pleasure Garden, at age 25. He made his 54th and last feature, Family Plot, at 76.
Foreign Correspondent was his second film made in the United States. Rebecca was his first. So with his first two films in his new country he was nominated for a combined 17 Academy Awards. You might call that an auspicious beginning.
Hitchcock knows how to tell a story. With the help of his wife, Alma Reville, who co-wrote about 18 of his screenplays, he knows how to create tension and suspense and keep the viewer on the edge of his seat. He knows where to place a camera and how to edit. He uses highly visual set-pieces, highly dramatic musical scores, and finely detailed storyboards. He would say that the film was already made before he started directing it. By then, all he had to do was shoot it.
Foreign Correspondent takes place just before the beginning of World War 2.
Johnny Jones works for the New York Globe. He is sent undercover, as Huntley Haverstock, to England to meet a Dutchman, "Holland's strong man," named Mr. Van Meer and find out what is going on. He is assigned to the British Stephen Fisher to help him. They move on to Holland.
He falls for Fisher's daughter Carol.
He watches as Van Meer is shot on the steps of the building.
It is raining and everyone on both sides of the steps stands beneath black umbrellas. The image reminds us of Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, 1964, and Jacques Tati's Trafic, 1971, which we discussed on January 10. (Here in 1940, this one came first!) The assassin escapes beneath the umbrellas, creating an entertaining visual image.
He chases the assassin and winds up in the car of Scott ffolliott--the man with that delicious last name beginning with two lower-case ffs and with two lls and two tts.
Those familiar with Agathie Christie's novel or play Murder on the Nile may remember the character of Miss Helen ffoliot-ffoulkes (one l, one t, but two names with two lower-case ffs!).
Scott ffolliott is played by the wonderful British character actor George Sanders, who also played in Hitchcock's other movie that year, Rebecca. You may also remember him from his Oscar-winning performance as the venomous Addison DeWitt opposite Bette Davis in All About Eve. Here he will prove to be a loyal comrade of Johnny Jones, aka Huntley Haverstock.
They chase the getaway car to the windmills. It disappears!
He climbs inside a windmill. There are bad guys in there. He has to hide. He could get caught in the giant gears. He finds . . . someone. They climb the stairs. He could get caught!
Fisher hires a body guard for him, a man named Rowley. Rowley is played by Edmund Gwenn. You know him as Kris Kringle from Miracle on 34th Street. He does not wear a white beard here. He looks younger.
They go to the top tower of Westminster Cathedral. Someone falls off.
Scott and Johnny decide to kidnap Carol.
They get on a sea plane. They are shot at. They are shot down. Will they be rescued? Or will they drown?
Foreign Correspondent contains the ingredients that made Hitchcock so great--unforgettable visual set-pieces, tension and suspense, humor, taught writing, and economy of storytelling.
Its star Johnny Jones (Huntley Haverstock) is played by Joel McCrea, whom we will see later in two Preston Sturges films.
And it ends with a call to support the War effort.
Hello, America. Hang on to your lights. They're the only lights left in the world.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
025 - City Lights, 1931, United States; Dir. Charles Chaplin.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
025 - City Lights, 1931, United States. Dir. Charles Chaplin.
Watching City Lights is pure joy.
The fact that is so funny is the icing on the cake. Beneath that is a movie that is all heart.
All heart.
The Tramp loves with the purest of love.
He loves a girl with devoted affection.
He loves a friend with honest friendship.
He meets a Blind Girl who sells flowers. Through a series of funny circumstances, she thinks he is a millionaire. He does not realize it. He just loves her.
He meets an alcoholic Eccentric Millionaire. Through a series of funny circumstances, he saves his life. The man treats him as best friends when he is drunk but does not remember him when he is sober.
Meanwhile, The Tramp just keeps loving.
And bumbling.
And seeking the means to provide surgery for the Girl's healing.
In 1931, The Tramp was the most recognized character in the world. Today, he continues to rank alongside Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald as being recognized by the majority of people in nearly every country.
Charlie Chaplin made his name on slapstick and pantomime. He was the king of the movies and had complete independence, owning his own studios. Would that change with the advent of sound?
Sound had now been available for three years, and Chaplin had chosen, on purpose, to make another silent movie--or at least a movie in which there is no talking. It had taken him two years and eight months to complete what had been his most difficult and arduous undertaking. On top of all that, the stock market had crashed.
Chaplin was taking a great risk.
When the movie came out it was an international critical and popular triumph, and it was the height of his career. He had done it again. And it was better than ever.
This movie does actually have sound, just not dialogue. It contains a musical score, which Chaplin wrote himself! And it contains sound affects, such as people talking in nonsensical sounds--which a later generation would recognize in the adult speech of Peanuts--and Chaplin hiccupping in whistles after having gotten a whistle stuck in his throat.
The sight gags abound.
City Lights opens with the unveiling of a new statue to progress and prosperity. The city's elite are present. They remove the sheet. The Tramp is asleep atop the statue, where he has presumably spent the night. The city's elders are shocked. In his polite efforts to come down, he gets his pants hooked on the statue's sword, and he stands and sits in positions that are witty in their imagery.
The Tramp meets the Blind Girl as she is selling flowers. He ducks into a car on one side and ducks out on the other. She hears the car door and believes he is the millionaire exiting the limousine. As he helps her find a dropped flower and realizes she is blind, he falls in love with her. He will seek her out and seek to help her for the rest of the movie.
The Tramp saves the life of the drunk Millionaire. As the Millionaire tries to tie a noose around his own neck, he gets it tied around The Tramp's neck, and The Tramp falls into the water. They will both end up in and out of the water before all is resolved.
The Tramp finds himself in a boxing match, where he uses the referee to block himself from the punches of the real fighter, in a highly choreographed, symmetrical dance of a scene.
The Tramp and the Millionaire attend a party where chairs are pulled out from under people, where he gets thwarted by cigars, eats a streamer as spaghetti, and gets into inadvertent fights over misunderstandings.
Chaplin was willing to do whatever it took to get the shot.
He would spend days on a single moment, weeks on a single scene. It was not indulgent. It was working to a standard. He did it until it was right. And good for us that his judgment was sure.
He used special effects that were ahead of their time, many of which he invented.
He also knew how to edit. He cut a scene from the movie which he had spent a week filming, because it did not fit the story.
When it was finished, he had spent 190 days of filming.
The filmmaking was challenging, but the film looks effortless. It flows steadily and smoothly, and it hits in all the right moments.
City Lights contains one of the greatest lines in the history of film, a line delivered on a card since it was not spoken, a line consisting of a single word.
"You?"
And with that line and the two that follow, a moment is realized that has moved the hearts of generations of people around the world.
Chaplin himself would watch it years later and be amazed, saying that he was not acting in that moment. Something else was going on.
City Lights is a movie of movies. Its emotional impact is why we go to the movies.
It is the definition of movie magic.
025 - City Lights, 1931, United States. Dir. Charles Chaplin.
Watching City Lights is pure joy.
The fact that is so funny is the icing on the cake. Beneath that is a movie that is all heart.
All heart.
The Tramp loves with the purest of love.
He loves a girl with devoted affection.
He loves a friend with honest friendship.
He meets a Blind Girl who sells flowers. Through a series of funny circumstances, she thinks he is a millionaire. He does not realize it. He just loves her.
He meets an alcoholic Eccentric Millionaire. Through a series of funny circumstances, he saves his life. The man treats him as best friends when he is drunk but does not remember him when he is sober.
Meanwhile, The Tramp just keeps loving.
And bumbling.
And seeking the means to provide surgery for the Girl's healing.
In 1931, The Tramp was the most recognized character in the world. Today, he continues to rank alongside Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald as being recognized by the majority of people in nearly every country.
Charlie Chaplin made his name on slapstick and pantomime. He was the king of the movies and had complete independence, owning his own studios. Would that change with the advent of sound?
Sound had now been available for three years, and Chaplin had chosen, on purpose, to make another silent movie--or at least a movie in which there is no talking. It had taken him two years and eight months to complete what had been his most difficult and arduous undertaking. On top of all that, the stock market had crashed.
Chaplin was taking a great risk.
When the movie came out it was an international critical and popular triumph, and it was the height of his career. He had done it again. And it was better than ever.
This movie does actually have sound, just not dialogue. It contains a musical score, which Chaplin wrote himself! And it contains sound affects, such as people talking in nonsensical sounds--which a later generation would recognize in the adult speech of Peanuts--and Chaplin hiccupping in whistles after having gotten a whistle stuck in his throat.
The sight gags abound.
City Lights opens with the unveiling of a new statue to progress and prosperity. The city's elite are present. They remove the sheet. The Tramp is asleep atop the statue, where he has presumably spent the night. The city's elders are shocked. In his polite efforts to come down, he gets his pants hooked on the statue's sword, and he stands and sits in positions that are witty in their imagery.
The Tramp meets the Blind Girl as she is selling flowers. He ducks into a car on one side and ducks out on the other. She hears the car door and believes he is the millionaire exiting the limousine. As he helps her find a dropped flower and realizes she is blind, he falls in love with her. He will seek her out and seek to help her for the rest of the movie.
The Tramp saves the life of the drunk Millionaire. As the Millionaire tries to tie a noose around his own neck, he gets it tied around The Tramp's neck, and The Tramp falls into the water. They will both end up in and out of the water before all is resolved.
The Tramp finds himself in a boxing match, where he uses the referee to block himself from the punches of the real fighter, in a highly choreographed, symmetrical dance of a scene.
The Tramp and the Millionaire attend a party where chairs are pulled out from under people, where he gets thwarted by cigars, eats a streamer as spaghetti, and gets into inadvertent fights over misunderstandings.
Chaplin was willing to do whatever it took to get the shot.
He would spend days on a single moment, weeks on a single scene. It was not indulgent. It was working to a standard. He did it until it was right. And good for us that his judgment was sure.
He used special effects that were ahead of their time, many of which he invented.
He also knew how to edit. He cut a scene from the movie which he had spent a week filming, because it did not fit the story.
When it was finished, he had spent 190 days of filming.
The filmmaking was challenging, but the film looks effortless. It flows steadily and smoothly, and it hits in all the right moments.
City Lights contains one of the greatest lines in the history of film, a line delivered on a card since it was not spoken, a line consisting of a single word.
"You?"
And with that line and the two that follow, a moment is realized that has moved the hearts of generations of people around the world.
Chaplin himself would watch it years later and be amazed, saying that he was not acting in that moment. Something else was going on.
City Lights is a movie of movies. Its emotional impact is why we go to the movies.
It is the definition of movie magic.
Monday, January 23, 2017
023 - The Red Shoes, 1948, United Kingdom; Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger.
Monday, January 23, 2017
023 - The Red Shoes, 1948, United Kingdom. Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger.
The ballet is about to begin.
A restless throng pounds on the balcony door.
"They're going mad, Sir. It's the students."
Someone behind the door shouts, "Down with tyrants!" The doorkeeper says to let them in. They rush up the stairs and out on to the balcony. They look like they are in their 40s, as college students back then did. They are well-dressed for the evening, and they are feisty.
One group has come to see the ballet. Another has come to hear the orchestra. They argue.
The first group shows snobbish favoritism for the lead dancer, Irina Boronskaja. They are incredulous that anyone would come to the ballet without coming specifically for her.
The second group shows patriotic enthusiasm for the composer, Prof. Palmer. He has written the music, Heart of Fire, for tonight's ballet. He is their professor, and they cheer for him.
As the orchestra begins one of the students, Julian Craster, recognizes the music. So do his friends, Ike and Terry, sitting on either side of him. It is his own composition! At first he gives him the benefit of the doubt, but as it continues he realizes that his own professor has stolen and published his work. He gets up and leaves. Terry follows. So does Ike.
This happens.
Lady Neston sits in a theatre box with her niece Victoria Page. She sends a card to Lermontov, in his box, inviting him to an after party. He does not wish to go but is persuaded by Professor Palmer, in the box with him, to attend, as she is a patron of the arts.
After the ballet, Palmer and Lermontov arrive at the party. Lady Neston welcomes them, congratulating Palmer for his composition and showing enthusiasm for Lermontov for his having come. Some men wheel in a piano. Lermontov is bothered. This is a set-up.
Sure enough, Lady Neston explains to him that her niece Vicky will be dancing. He calls it a shock. He asks her, "How would you define ballet?" She begins to answer, "One might call it the poetry of motion. . . . " He interrupts, "One might, but for me it is a great deal more. For me it is a religion. One does not care to see one's religion practiced in an atmosphere like this." He leaves the room.
As the pianist begins playing, Vicky passes through to the other room and approaches the bar, where Lermontov is now ordering a champagne cocktail. She affects an attitude of disdain and also orders a champagne cocktail. He notices her and speaks to her, thinking they will share in their disdain for the party. She has baited him. He tells her that it very nearly was a great deal worse. They were about to witness a horror.
She reveals, "I was that horror."
He is caught. It is too late to apologize but he does anyway. She confronts him and asks why he is not sorry she did not dance. He explains.
"If I accept an invitation to a party, I do not expect to find myself at an audition."
Touché.
But then he asks, "Why do you want to dance?"
She responds, "Why do you want to breathe?"
And with that, she now has his attention.
He says, "Come with me."
Meanwhile, Julian Craster has written a letter to Lermontov introducing himself, explaining that the music of Heart of Fire was his composition. He arrives the next morning at Lermontov's asking for it back. He is embarrassed and does not want Lermontov to read it. Too late. Lermontov has already read it.
Lermontov has him sit at the piano and play. The actor, Julian Goring, is really playing.
Lermontov hires him on the spot to be the new coach for the orchestra. He tells him to destroy the letter and forget about it, stating that "These things mostly happen unintentionally."
Then he observes--
"It is much more disheartening to have to steal than to be stolen from."
That is quite an observation. Read it again. What does it say about talent?
And with that we have set up the film. In the first twenty minutes of a two-and-a-quarter hour story, we have the young dancer and the young composer having met the great impresario and been invited to the next rehearsal.
What we are about to see is a meditation on the price of art.
Martin Scorsese has championed The Red Shoes as one of the great films in cinema history and one of the greatest color films ever made.
Gene Kelly used it to bring ballet into An American in Paris.
It has gone on to influence many artists and filmmakers.
Are you an artist?
Do you want to be one of the great ones?
How badly to you want it?
What price are you willing to pay?
Are there limits?
Are some prices too high?
023 - The Red Shoes, 1948, United Kingdom. Dir. Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger.
The ballet is about to begin.
A restless throng pounds on the balcony door.
"They're going mad, Sir. It's the students."
Someone behind the door shouts, "Down with tyrants!" The doorkeeper says to let them in. They rush up the stairs and out on to the balcony. They look like they are in their 40s, as college students back then did. They are well-dressed for the evening, and they are feisty.
One group has come to see the ballet. Another has come to hear the orchestra. They argue.
The first group shows snobbish favoritism for the lead dancer, Irina Boronskaja. They are incredulous that anyone would come to the ballet without coming specifically for her.
The second group shows patriotic enthusiasm for the composer, Prof. Palmer. He has written the music, Heart of Fire, for tonight's ballet. He is their professor, and they cheer for him.
As the orchestra begins one of the students, Julian Craster, recognizes the music. So do his friends, Ike and Terry, sitting on either side of him. It is his own composition! At first he gives him the benefit of the doubt, but as it continues he realizes that his own professor has stolen and published his work. He gets up and leaves. Terry follows. So does Ike.
This happens.
Lady Neston sits in a theatre box with her niece Victoria Page. She sends a card to Lermontov, in his box, inviting him to an after party. He does not wish to go but is persuaded by Professor Palmer, in the box with him, to attend, as she is a patron of the arts.
After the ballet, Palmer and Lermontov arrive at the party. Lady Neston welcomes them, congratulating Palmer for his composition and showing enthusiasm for Lermontov for his having come. Some men wheel in a piano. Lermontov is bothered. This is a set-up.
Sure enough, Lady Neston explains to him that her niece Vicky will be dancing. He calls it a shock. He asks her, "How would you define ballet?" She begins to answer, "One might call it the poetry of motion. . . . " He interrupts, "One might, but for me it is a great deal more. For me it is a religion. One does not care to see one's religion practiced in an atmosphere like this." He leaves the room.
As the pianist begins playing, Vicky passes through to the other room and approaches the bar, where Lermontov is now ordering a champagne cocktail. She affects an attitude of disdain and also orders a champagne cocktail. He notices her and speaks to her, thinking they will share in their disdain for the party. She has baited him. He tells her that it very nearly was a great deal worse. They were about to witness a horror.
She reveals, "I was that horror."
He is caught. It is too late to apologize but he does anyway. She confronts him and asks why he is not sorry she did not dance. He explains.
"If I accept an invitation to a party, I do not expect to find myself at an audition."
Touché.
But then he asks, "Why do you want to dance?"
She responds, "Why do you want to breathe?"
And with that, she now has his attention.
He says, "Come with me."
Meanwhile, Julian Craster has written a letter to Lermontov introducing himself, explaining that the music of Heart of Fire was his composition. He arrives the next morning at Lermontov's asking for it back. He is embarrassed and does not want Lermontov to read it. Too late. Lermontov has already read it.
Lermontov has him sit at the piano and play. The actor, Julian Goring, is really playing.
Lermontov hires him on the spot to be the new coach for the orchestra. He tells him to destroy the letter and forget about it, stating that "These things mostly happen unintentionally."
Then he observes--
"It is much more disheartening to have to steal than to be stolen from."
That is quite an observation. Read it again. What does it say about talent?
And with that we have set up the film. In the first twenty minutes of a two-and-a-quarter hour story, we have the young dancer and the young composer having met the great impresario and been invited to the next rehearsal.
What we are about to see is a meditation on the price of art.
Martin Scorsese has championed The Red Shoes as one of the great films in cinema history and one of the greatest color films ever made.
Gene Kelly used it to bring ballet into An American in Paris.
It has gone on to influence many artists and filmmakers.
Are you an artist?
Do you want to be one of the great ones?
How badly to you want it?
What price are you willing to pay?
Are there limits?
Are some prices too high?
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