The Cinema Snob

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

2007-09-20T08:49:00.000-05:00

From his very first works, Steven Spielberg displayed an almost preternatural gift for film making and specifically the machinations of suspense and special effects, a skill that movie audiences responded to in droves. But the massive success of such early films as Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) - which helped congeal the blockbuster mentality of modern Hollywood - in some ways hurt Spielberg's reputation. Craving respect, he knew his movies would always be dismissed as merely popular entertainment and technical exercises.

Spielberg nonetheless tried to broaden his range with such mature experiments as The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987), but it wasn't until the harrowing Holocaust film Schindler's List (1993) that he finally made a movie that satisfied both critics ant the public. With the exception of his two Jurassic Park films (1993, 1997), Spielberg has remained more or less in serious mode ever since.

Saving Private Ryan introduced something new to the director's vocabulary: A visceral, violent intensity. Spielberg had dealt with violence before, of course, but typically it was either cartoonish or carefully moderated (and then milked) as a dramatic beat punctuating moments of maximum horror. The opening battle sequence of Saving Private Ryan, however, is absolutely relentless. No sooner have American boats lands on the beaches of Normandy, than young men are mowed down by incessant bursts of machine-gun fire, the bullets piercing their useless helmets with a sickening "ping." And it doesn't stop there. Soldiers are blown to bits. Body parts fly through the air and litter the ground. The sea turns a squeamish blood red. The camera lurches wildly, the desaturated film stock the color of death. The "new" Spielberg takes no prisoners.

Admittedly, the Spielberg of old can't always resist falling back on unabashed sentimentality. A pair of flimsy bookends start and end on purely manipulative notes, and Spielberg encourages his composer of choice John Williams to indulge in his worst hamstring-tugging tendencies. More uncomfortably, the same techniques Spielberg uses to depict the horrors of the war in his truly awe-inspiring opening battle scene he later enlists to propel the more traditional good-versus-evil conflict of the conclusion.

But the familiar good guy/bad guy dichotomy actually twists the antiwar message into something more challenging. War is hell, Spielberg acknowledges, except when you're winning, since victory is ultimately what accords the right to dictate the rules of morality. Saving Private Ryan contains just enough darkness lurking in the fog of war to stave off accusations it supports blind patriotism. Looking over thousands of graves, a soldier asks of his wife, "Was I a good man?" That's a more ambiguous way of asking not just "was it worth it?" but "was it justified?" These are questions that no doubt haunt all those left standing when shooting stops, surveying the death and destruction around them wrought for even the noblest of purposes.

Quote of the Day - Captain Miller - "He better be worth it. He better go home and cure a disease, or invent a longer-lasting light bulb."

Tomorrow: E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

2007-09-18T15:13:00.000-05:00

A homage to rather than a spoof of the Saturday matinee serials of the 1930s, Raiders of the Lost Ark brought producer George Lucas (hot from Star Wars) together with director Steven Spielberg, for a movie combining excitement, special effects, and adventure, all played with a wry sense of humor.

Harrison Ford, in the role that suited him best in all of his career, stars as Indiana Jones. a tweed-wearing professor of archeology by day, who spends the rest of his time scouring the globe for treasures and artifacts - like the Lost Ark of the Covenant (the gold chest in which Moses supposedly stored the stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments). Unfortunately, the Nazis are after it too, having heard that an army who carried the Ark before it is indestructible.

With his trademark fedora, bullwhip, and rumpled clothes, Indy outruns a speeding boulder in a booby-trapped cavern, escapes from a pit of snakes, dodges sinister bandits in an African market, and hangs underneath a moving truck in a nail-biting chase through the desert. These are only some of the movie's impressive set pieces. Our dashing hero is no Superman,though, getting beaten and bashed up at every turn.
Raiders works on many levels, not only thanks to Ford's superb performance and Spielberg's skill at piling on the action and excitement, but also because Lawrence Kasdan (working from an outline by Lucas) delivers a script that is more than just an old-fashioned adventure. His hero is a complicated, less-than-perfect guy who walks the fine line between being a thief of priceless artifacts and protector of them. The villains - especially Indy's archaeological rival, Belloch, (Paul Freeman) - aren't really that much different from our hero, except in motivation (greed as opposed to historic preservation). The heroine, Marion (Karen Allen) isn't your archetypal girl-in-distress either, but a physically capable woman who (most of the time) can rescue herself and doesn't need the hero at all.

A perfect package of adventure, humor, effects, escapism, and terrific performances that has often been imitated (but never equaled) in films like The Mummy (1999), Raiders has been followed by two fun sequels and a third on its way next summer.

Quote of the Day - Indiana Jones - "Snakes...why did it have to be snakes?"

Tomorrow: Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

2007-09-18T09:06:00.000-05:00

A terrific sci-fi mystery in which an Everyman's search for its meaning climaxes thrillingly in first contact with extraterrestrials, Close Encounters experience. there are rescue, redemption, and affirmation of an incorporates themes that recur throughout director Steven Spielberg's work. There are his staple characters (the individual on a quest, the sympathetic mother, the lost boy, the untrustworthy authorities), and a tranfsormingindividuals worth. Take away the spectacular special effects sound-and-light show, and what remains is a compassionate human story of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances.

Richard Dreyfuss's appealing Roy Neary is Joe Six-Pack having an epiphany. When his UFO encounter is dismissed he becomes obsessed with discovering what his experience means, alienating his family in the process. The only person who understands is Melinda Dillon's Jillian Guiler, driven by her own search for her son (Cary Guffey), who was taken in a terrifying visitation at her home. Eventually it becomes clear that they are among the "implantees" privileged with a shared connection. Paralleled with these intimate experiences of frustration and fear of the unknown, of courage and joy in confronting it (and finding something wonderful in the childlike aliens), are the globe-trotting efforts of Fracois Truffaut's Claude Lacombe, head of the scientific project to investigate and respond to alien contact.

Close Encounters shows all the sensibilities of the suburban Baby Boomer nurtured on Disney and 1950s sci-fi, and was indeed an adult, professional rethink of Spielberg's adolescent, homemade epic, Firelight. While E.T. may be more revealing of his psyche, Close Encounters is a definitive Spielberg film both in style and substance. It is also one he can't leave alone, reediting it into 1980's Special Edition and 1997's Collector's Edition.

Released close to his friend George Lucas's Star Wars, Close Encounters was another instantly iconic event film. The five-tone greeting-language musical motif by John Williams and the mashed potato mountain both directly entered pop culture, and the collective gasp of awe at the mothership coming over the mountain serves as yet another testimonial to Spielberg's gift for wonder.

Quote of the Day - Roy Neary - "You can't fool us by agreeing with us."

Tomorrow: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

The Color Purple (1985)

2007-09-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

Intent on dispelling his reputation strictly as a creator of popular youthful fantasies, Steven Spielberg chose Alice Walker's story of an impoverished rural black community in the early 20th-century American South as his vehicle for dramatic affirmation. Oddly enough, Spielberg's established skills as a director both help and hinder the project, as his knack for wry humor and glossy technical prowess fits uneasily with the material, which he toned down from Walker's novel.

But even if he bit off more than he could chew, The Color Purple still proved Spielberg's willingness to take risks. He gets strong performances out of Oprah Winfrey and Danny Glover, but in particualr Spielberg's instincts once again proved invaluable in the casting of then relatively unknown Whoopi Goldberg. Her Celie rarely speaks but is full of emotion, relayed through Goldberg's impressive performance that does more well-timed wide smile than most actors do with showy monologue. Spielberg too often falls back on sentimentality, but promising glimmers of the director graduate to more mature works like Empire of the Sun (1987) and Schindler's List (1991) are there to be studied.

Quote of the Day - Shug - "You sho is ugly."

Tomorrow: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Director #6 - Steven Spielberg

2007-09-17T10:35:00.000-05:00

The most commercially successful filmmaker in Hollywood history, Steven Spielberg was born December 18, 1946, in Cincinnati, OH. A lifelong cinema buff, he began directing his first short movies while still a child, later studying film at California State University and winning notice for his 1969 short feature Amblin'. He first made his mark in television, directing Joan Crawford in the pilot for Rod Serling's Night Gallery and working on episodes of Columbo and Marcus Welby, M.D. Spielberg's first feature-length effort, 1971's Duel, a taut thriller starring Dennis Weaver, was widely acclaimed as one of the best movies ever made for television. The film proved so successful on the small screen, in fact, that it later was the recipient of theatrical distribution throughout Europe, where it proved to be a major box-office hit.

Spielberg permanently graduated to feature films with 1974's The Sugarland Express, but it was his next effort, Jaws, which truly cemented his reputation as a rising star. The most successful film of 1975, this tale of a man-eating Great White shark was widely recognized as the picture which established the summer months as the film industry's most lucrative period of the year, heralding a move toward big-budget blockbusters which culminated two years later with his friend George Lucas' Star Wars. Spielberg's follow-up, 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind, was another staggering success, employing state-of-the-art special effects to document its story of contact with alien life.

With the 1979 slapstick-war comedy 1941, Spielberg made his first major misstep, as the star-studded picture performed miserably at the box office. However, he swiftly regained his footing with 1980's Raiders of the Lost Ark, a homage to the serial cliffhangers of yesteryear. Produced by Lucas, the film was one of the biggest hits of the decade, later launching a pair of sequels as well as a short-lived television series. However, it was Spielberg's next effort which truly asserted his position as the era's most popular filmmaker: 1982's E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, the touching tale of a boy who befriends an alien, was hailed upon release as an instant classic, ultimately becoming one of the most commercially successful movies of all time.

After 1984's Raiders of the Lost Ark sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg went against type to direct The Color Purple, an adaptation of Alice Walker's much-honored novel exploring the lives and struggles of a group of African-American women during the Depression years. The film went on to gross over $100 million at the box office, later securing 11 Academy Award nominations. On Oscar night, however, it won nothing, a shut-out widely attributed to industry resentment over Spielberg's staggering success. A 1987 dramatization of J.G. Ballard's novel Empire of the Sun was his next picture, and was one of his few box-office disappointments. A similar fate met the sentimental Always, a remake of the wartime weeper A Guy Named Joe, but Spielberg returned to form with 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

With 1991's 60-million-dollar production of Hook, Spielberg again fell victim to negative reviews and lackluster box-office returns, but in 1993 he returned with a vengeance with Jurassic Park, a special-effects extravaganza which ranked among the most aggressively marketed films of all time. The result was a global blockbuster of mammoth proportion, with receipts coming in at over one billion dollars. That same year, he released Schindler's List, an epic docudrama set during the Holocaust. Again, a number of Oscar nominations were forthcoming, but this time Spielberg was rewarded for his accomplishments -- the picture won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director honors.

As befitting his role as a major Hollywood player, Spielberg and his company, Amblin Entertainment, also produced a number of highly successful features, including 1982's Poltergeist, 1985's Back to the Future, and 1988's groundbreaking Who Framed Roger Rabbit? He also diversified into television, beginning in 1985 with the anthology series Amazing Stories and later supervising the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures and the underwater adventure Seaquest DSV. However, in the wake of Schindler's List, Spielberg's status as a power broker grew exponentially with the formation of Dreamworks SKG, a production company he headed along with former Disney chief Jeffrey Katzenberg and music mogul David Geffen; consequently, Spielberg spent much of the mid-'90s behind the scenes, serving as executive producer on films such as Twister (1996), Men in Black (1997), and two 1998 films, Deep Impact and The Mask of Zorro. He returned to the director's chair with the 1997 smash The Lost World, the inevitable sequel to Jurassic Park. The same year, he was rewarded with several Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Amistad, a slavery epic for which he served as both director and producer. Whatever disappointment Spielberg may have felt over not actually winning any of the above awards was most likely mollified the following year with Saving Private Ryan. The World War II epic, which Spielberg both directed and produced, won international acclaim, garnering a staggering 11 Academy Award nominations. Eventually winning five, including Best Director, Best Cinematography (for Janusz Kaminski), and Best Editing (for Michael Kahn), the film lost out to Shakespeare in Love for Best Picture, a slight that was the subject of a heated feud between Dreamworks and Miramax, the company behind Shakespeare. Ryan did win a Golden Globe for Best Picture (in the Drama category), as well a Best Director nod for Spielberg.

After taking the helm for a short documentary chronicling American history for the milleninial New Years Eve celebration broadcast, Spielberg took another shot at summer blockbuster success with the sci-fi drama A.I.. Featuing Oscar nominated child actor Haley Joel Osment in the role of a robot boy who longs to be human, and adapted from an original idea from Stanley Kubrick, the high-concept film recieved a decidedly mixed reception at the box office. Though critics and audiences seemed intrigued by the ideas presented in the film and the collaboration between Kubrick and Spielberg, its unconventional pacing and execution ultimately prevented the polarizing film from becoming the classic that it may have had it been ever slightly more accessible. The following year, however, would find Spielberg once again coming out on top with two remarkably upbeat chase films. Adapted from a short story by revered science fiction author Phillip K. Dick and starring Tom Cruise as a the head of an elite "pre-crime division" of police officers who use a trio of psychics to predicts criminals' crimes so that they can be arrested before they have a chance to commit them, Minority Report proved an exhilarating sci-fi action epic that left audiences hungering for more. Arguably even more high concept that A.I. and undoubtedly better paced and executed, the film fared remarkably well among the heated summer box office competition. Hitting with a powerful one-two punch a mere six-months later, Spielberg's fast-paced crime adventure Catch Me If You Can adapted the real life exploits of legendary con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr. to the big screen to the delight of audiences hungering for an entertaining and lightweight holiday release. With heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio starring as Abagnale and Tom Hanks as the FBI agent who remains tirelessly on the trail of the elusive scammer, the film, combined with the success of Minority Report, swiftly proved that it would be some time before Spielberg gave up his reigns as a master blockbuster filmmaker.

2004 saw Spielberg team with Hanks yet again, this time for the lighthearted comedy The Terminal. Also starring Catherine Zeta Jones, the film centered on a man without a country who takes up residence in an American airport. The following year found the director diving back into the big-budget sci-fi genre with War of the Worlds. Starring Tom Cruise, the ambitious film was adapted from H.G. Wells classic alien-invasion novel of the same name. After this Hollywood juggernaut, Spielberg cinematically visited his Jewish heritage for the first time since Schindler's List with 2005's critically acclaimed Munich. Beginning with the 1972 Munich Olympics at which 11 Israeli athletes were kidnapped and later murdered by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September, the film follows the small group of Mossad agents recruited to track down and assassinate those responsible. Praised for its sensitive and painful portrayal of ordinary men grappling with their new lives as killers, Munich earned Spielberg a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination, reminding audiences and critics alike of the filmmaker's ability to go far beyond the realm of simple adventure and fantasy.

In 2006 he produced Clint Eastwood's two films about WWII, Flags of Our Fathers, about the American soldiers at Iwo Jima, and Red Sun, Black Sand, which takes a look at what life was like for men in the Japanese military.

The Big Sleep (1946)

2007-09-17T10:12:00.000-05:00

Supposedly when director Howard Hawks asked Raymond Chandler to explain the numerous double crosses, twists and surprises revealed throughout the book, The Big Sleep, the writer famously and honestly replied, "I have no idea." That isn't to say that their presence in the book is just arbitrary confusion. Rather, Chandler's notoriously muddled "whodunit" merely complicates and already complicated tale of Los Angeles corruption, further tainting a nearly endless list of secondary characters.

It should therefore come as no surprise that Hawks gently shifted the focus of his adaptation from sleuthing to the the sleuth, in his case Humphrey Bogart as hard-boiled private investigator Phillip Marlowe. Taking advantage of the success of the 1944 film To Have and Have Not, Hawks reunited Bogart with Lauren Bacall and played up their palpable chemistry. When they're on the screen together, the detective story fades to the background. Hawks exploited that sexual tension, adding extra scenes with the two actors and stressing the innuendo-laced dialogue, particularly racy in light of the era's production code.

And what of the whodunit? Thankfully, the central investigation, confusing though it may be, is still a joy to watch. Marlowe acts as out Virgil-like guide as he descends into Hollywood's darkest and dirtiest corners, unraveling a murder/blackmail plot that involves pornographers, nymphomaniacs, and a bevy of hired hoods who barely have time to reveal more plot points before getting plugged.

The Big Sleep is a reference to death, and indeed death pervades the movie. This is a film noir masterpiece missing several standard film noir tenets. There are numerous femme fatales, but but no flashbacks; chiaroscuro lighting, but no voiceover. More important, Bogart's Marlowe seems not lost in a world of lies and deception but utterly confident and in control at all times. He's a droll antihero, cool in the face of cruelty, unfazed in the face of wanton sleaze, and always appreciative of a pretty face.

Quote of the Day - Marlowe - "You know what he'll do when he comes back? Beat my teeth out, then kick me in the stomach for mumbling."

Tomorrow: Director #6 - Steven Spielberg; The Color Purple (1985)

Rio Bravo (1959)

2007-09-17T09:57:00.000-05:00

Fred Zinnemann's High Noon (1952) famously depicted one man's courageous stand against adversity in the name of law. Howard Hawk's Rio Bravo, a response of sorts to High Noon, concerns another brave stand in the name of law, but this time small Texas tow sheriff John T. Chance (John Wayne) isn't alone. He's aided by the local drunk (Dean Martin), a gun-slinging young singing cowboy (Ricky Nelson), and a crippled old deputy nicknamed Stumpy (Walter Brennan). Together they must fend off a band of desperadoes who have laid siege to the town, intent on springing the villain's brother from jail.

Hawks was always one of Hollywood's most reliable and versatile directors, but after Gentleman Prefer Blonds (1953) he left America for a disappointing stint in Europe. Rio Bravo marked a rousing return to America and to form, with Hawks offering a genre-smashing collision of everything he know best. There's a musical number - with Martin and Nelson in the film, how could there not be? - moments of comedy, a touch of romance, thanks to stranded traveler Angie Dickinson, and plenty of action, all unified by yet another casually iconic Wayne performance as the pragmatic hero bound by sense of duty.

The siege-scenario Hawks sets up - a motley crew of mismatched characters holed up in one place for a last stand - has become a genre-film standby, borrowed repeatedly by such Hawks worshippers as John Carpenter and George Romero. Both recognized how the limited setting of Rio Bravo could be applied to their low budget films. The Hawks touch is that the siege itself isn't important as the interaction of the characters under siege. By sticking them all together in one place, Hawks has fun letting them play off of one another, revealing colorful little character traits as they fight back insurmountable odds. Coming not long after John Ford's eulogy to the Western with his haunting The Searchers (1956), Rio Bravo also stands as one of the last of its kind, an old-fashioned and fun romp of a Western where the line between good and bad guys couldn't be more clear.

Quote of the Day - John T. Chance - "You want that gun, pick it up. I wish you would."

Tomorrow: The Big Sleep (1946)

Red River (1948)

2007-09-14T08:07:00.001-05:00

A Western remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), this is a considerably deeper film than its source, presenting the Bligh/Christian relationship in terms of a father-son conflict. Star John Wayne is interestingly matched by Hawks against Montgomery Clift.

After a long prologue set during the aftermath of an 1851 Indian attack, in which we see how Tom Dunson (Wayne) and orphaned Matthew Garth (Clift) combine their herds to form a cattle empire, we pick up at the Red River D in a post-Civil War economic depression. Leading a cattle drive up into the Missouri, the inflexible Dunson becomes more and more tyrannical, prompting Matt to rebel and steer the herd West by a safer route to Abilene. Dunson admires the kid's guts, but nevertheless swears to track him down and shoot him dead, leading to one of the most emotional climaxes in the genre as the men who love each other face off among milling cattle in Abilene streets.

Hawks, the great film chronicler of macho pursuits, here stages the definitive cow opera, putting all other cattle drive Westerns in the shade, with beautiful, lyrical, exciting sequences of stampeding, rough weather, cowboying, and Indian skirmishes. The leads are at their best, with Wayne astonishingly matching Clift for subtlety, and you get sterling support from Walter Brennan as the toothless coot, John Ireland as the lanky gunslinger and Joanne Dru as a pioneer gal who can take an arrow in the shoulder without hardly flinching. Through known for his Westerns, Hawks made surprisingly few films in the genre. This seems like an affectionate tribute to John Ford, mixed in with a certain I-can-do-that-too attitude, as Hawks casts several members of peer's stock company: Harry Carey Senior and Junior, Hank Worden, even Wayne himself. Hawks uses Fordian approach to the dangerous splendors of the Western landscape along with a Ford-like folk song-based score from Dimitri Tiomkin.

Quote of the Day - Thomas Dunson - "We brought nothing into this world and it's certain we can carry nothing out."

Tomorrow: Rio Bravo (1959)

Sergeant York (1941)

2007-09-13T09:22:00.001-05:00

Howard Hawk's Sergeant York celebrates the good fight of World War I just as the United States was preparing for World WarII. A bellicose subtext is everywhere apparent, yet it is easily assimilated into the moral framework of the film's eponymous lead.

Alvin York, as characterized by Gary Cooper, speaks with a down-home slang, the country bumpkin. His transformation from a spirited Tennessee farmer into a Christian Pacifist and finally into a doughboy hero celebrates an array of Hollywood conventions, including sacred mothers and fair-minded leaders. hackneyed? Yes. But this gem's importance rests in making Cooper a star, if not also for fairly depicting trench warfare only a few months before Pearl Harbor.

That no greater context for World War I is offered here is precisely the point. Sergeant York is narrowly concerned with courage and sacrifice. Anything more would undermine its portrait positing the defense of freedom as an ultimate goal. Simultaneously loving Biblical virtue and skilled gunplay, the movie revels in camaraderie, chaste romance, and dueling fisticuffs. In short, it's a Hawksian world here perfectly transposed into a biopic long on small-town values and short on violent conflict that made the real-life Alvin York famous.

Quote of the Day - Alvin - "What we done in France we had to do. And some as done it, didn't come back. And that kind of thing ain't for buying and selling."

Tomorrow: Red River (1948)

Bringing Up Baby (1938)

2007-09-12T06:50:00.001-05:00

Bringing Up Baby, the definitive screwball comedy, was the first film Howard Hawks made in a six-picture contract with RKO in 1937. Unpromisingly based on a short story about a young couple and their tamed leopard, the shoot went forty days over schedule and over budget. It earned so little upon release in 1938 that Hawks was fired from RKO and Katherine Hepburn had to buy herself out of her own contract. Ahead of its time, its amazing breakneck pace and disarmingly witty dialogue set new standards for such comedies thereafter.

At his whimsical best, Cary Grant is Dr. David Huxley, a handsome and easily distracted paleontologist who spends his days piercing together a brontosaurus skeleton while he is taken apart by his henpecking fiancee. With one more bone to go before the four-year museum project will be complete, Huxley manages to bumble an important meeting on the golf course with a wealthy potential patron. There, Huxley meets Susan Vance (Hepburn). As beautiful and scatterbrained as he is, she steal his golf ball. After that, Huxley's world never snaps back into place. Trying anything to keep him from marrying another girl, Vance uses Baby, the house-trained leopard sent to her by her brother in South America, as a worthy Huxley diversion. By the time the family dog buries Huxley's precious dinosaur bone, the couple are headed to jail.

The laughs in Bringing Up Baby are real, almost completely disguising its deft analyses of 1930s-style gender expectations, sex, and marriage. So suspicious was the censor of the script's deeper and possibly sexual meanings that Huxley's quest to find his "lost bone" was queried as a reference to lost masculinity. The scene where Huxley dons Vance's feathery feminine bathrobe didn't dissuade that notion, containing as it does one of the first popular appearance of the word "gay" being used to mean something than "extremely happy." The critics may have hated it, the audiences may have stayed away, and Oscar didn't smile upon it at the time, but Bringing Up Baby has had the last laugh on all its detractors. It remains one of the true masterpieces of celluloid wit.

Quote of the Day - David Huxley - "Now it isn't that I don't like you, Susan, because, after all, in moments of quiet, I'm strangely drawn toward you, but - well, there haven't been any quiet moments."

Tomorrow: Sergeant York (1941)

Scarface (1932)

2007-09-11T04:56:00.001-05:00

Introducing one of cinema's history's most notorious, Machiavellian monsters in the perverted Horatio Alger myth that lies at the heart of every gangster film, Scarface stands as the peak of its genre. And it's a telling sign that Brian DePalm's 1983 version of the film, despite all the accolades accorded it, does nothing to diminish the power of Howard Hawk's original. On the contrary, like Shakespeare at his best, the film's seductive combination of fascination and revulsion with its corrupted protagonist and his equally corrupted world makes up the very fabric of the drama.

Completed before Hollywood's conservative Production Code became more rigidly enforced in 1934, Ben Hecht's screenplay uses the Al Capone legend as source material to shoe Prohibition-era Chicago as a modern Sodom and Gomorrah. Amorality is rampant: Cops are brutal and on the take, journalists are cynical muckrakers. In contrast, the Capone-like protagonist Tony "Scarface" Camonte (Paul Muni) is at least frank in his greedy quest for power and the almighty dollar.

The ultimate irony of Scarface is that everything goes well as long as Tony treats his killing spree as purely business. The moment his emotions come into play, he's doomed. Much can be made of the strange twist in the plot when Tony starts losing control because of his violent jealousy concerning the love affair between his sister Cesca (Ann Dvorak) and his best friend Guino Rinaldo (George Raft). This could stem from incestuous feelings for his sister, or indicate a repressed homosexual bond with his friend. Hawks effectively underlines Tony's road to ruin with heavy symbolism, achieved via expressive lighting and street signs. The gangster is initially seen as a Nosferatu-like silhouette on the wall as he commits murder. At the end, his final showdown is marked by cross-shaped shadows and his dead body lying in the gutter under a travel sign that reads, ironically, "The world is yours."

Quote of the Day - Tony Camonte - "Listen, Little Boy, in this business there's only one law you gotta follow to keep out of trouble: Do it first, do it yourself, and keep on doing it."

Tomorrow: Bringing Up Baby (1938)

His Girl Friday (1940)

2007-09-10T06:08:00.001-05:00

Ben Hecht's and Charles MacArthur's classic newspaper play The Front Page had been filmed successfully before and would be again after this sparkling version, scripted by Hecht and Charles Lederer. But astute and witty director Howard Hawks delights in the simple twist that was a stroke of genius - turning ace reporter Hildy Johnson into a woman. Voila, His Girl Friday became the fastest-talking battle of the sexes in the history of romantic screwball comedy.

Scintillating Rosalind Russell is the wisecracking star reporter her editor and ex-husband (Cary Grant) can't lose in the middle of a hot murder story. When she announces that she's quitting to marry meek square (Ralph Bellamy), Walter's incredulity and dismay launch him into conniving overdrive. As wily Walter calculates, Hildy can't resist a last big story and is shortly up to her absurd hat in a jailhouse break and corruption expose. Grant and Russell engage in dizzying verbal play of machine-gun speed in a plot that reaches farcical heights, with a great ensemble of gum-chewing, smoke-wreathed, poker-playing hacks as their cynical chorus. Theatrical and stylish His Girl Friday is unrivaled for comic timing and snappy repartee.

Quote of the Day-
Walter Burns "There's been a lamp burning in the window for ya, honey... here."
Hildy Johnson "Oh, I jumped out that window a long time ago."

Tomorrow: Scarface (1932)

Director #5 - Howard Hawks

2007-09-10T06:07:00.001-05:00

Howard Hawks was perhaps the greatest director of American genre films. He made films in almost every American genre, and his films could well serve as among the very best examples and artistic embodiments of the type: gangster, private eye, western, screwball comedy, newspaper reporter, prison picture, science fiction, musical, racecar drivers, and pilots. Into each of his narratives Hawks infused his particular themes, motifs, and techniques.

Born in Goshen, Indiana on May 30, 1896, Hawks migrated with his family to southern California when the movies did. He attended Pasadena High School from 1908 until 1913. Hawks went on to Exeter Academy in New Hampshire from 1914 until 1916. He spent his formative years working on films, learning to fly, and studying mechanical engineering at Cornell University. During vacations, he worked in the property department of Famous Players-Lasky in Hollywood. After graduating from college in 1917, Hawks served in the U.S. Army Air Corps until 1919. Following his discharge from the army, he worked as a designer in an airplane factory until 1922.

Hawks began his career in films as an editor, writer, and assistant director. He was put in charge of the story department at Paramount in 1924 and signed as director for Fox in 1925. Hawks directed his first feature film, Road to Glory in 1926. His initial work in silent films as a writer and producer would serve him well in his later years as a director, when he would produce and, if not write, then control the writing of his films as well. Although Hawks' work has been consistently discussed as exemplary of the Hollywood studio style, Hawks himself did not work for a single studio on a long-term contract. Instead, he was an independent producer who sold his projects to every Hollywood studio.

Whatever the genre of a Hawks film, it bore traits that made it unmistakably a Hawks film. The narrative was always elegantly and symmetrically structured and patterned. This quality was a sign of Hawks' sharp sense of storytelling as well as his sensible efforts to work closely with very talented writers: Ben Hecht, William Faulkner, and Jules Furthman being the most notable among them. Hawks' films were devoted to characters who were professionals with fervent vocational commitments. The men in Hawks' films were good at what they did, whether flying the mail, driving race cars, driving cattle, or reporting the news. These vocational commitments were usually fulfilled by the union of two apparently opposite physical types, who were spiritually one.

In some cases, they represented the union of the harder, tougher, older male and a softer, younger, prettier male (John Wayne and Montgomery Clift in Red River, Wayne and Ricky Nelson in Rio Bravo). At other times, they united a sharp, tough male and an equally sharp, tough female (Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday, Bogart and Bacall in To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, John Barrymore and Carole Lombard in Twentieth Century). This spiritual alliance of physical opposites revealed Hawks' unwillingness to accept the cultural stereotype that those who are able to accomplish difficult tasks are those who appear able to accomplish them.

This tension between appearance and ability, surface and essence in Hawks' films led to several other themes and techniques. Characters talk very tersely in Hawks' films, refusing to put their thoughts and feelings into explicit speeches that would either sentimentalize or vulgarize those internal abstractions. Instead, Hawks' characters reveal their feelings through their actions, not by what they say. Hawks deflects his portrayal of the inner life from explicit speeches to symbolic physical objects--concrete visual images of things that convey the intentions of the person who handles, uses, or controls the piece of physical matter. One of those physical objects--the coin which George Raft nervously flips in Scarface--has become a mythic icon of American culture itself, symbolic of American gangsters and American gangster movies (and used as such in both Singin' in the Rain and Some Like It Hot). Another of Hawks' favorite actions, the lighting of cigarettes, became his subtextual way of showing who cares about whom without recourse to dialogue.

Consistent with his narratives, Hawks' visual style was one of dead-pan understatement, never proclaiming its trickiness or brilliance but effortlessly communicating the values of the stories and the characters. Hawks was a master of point-of-view, knowledgeable about which camera perspective would precisely convey the necessary psychological and moral information. That point of view could either confine us to the perceptions of a single character (Marlowe in The Big Sleep), ally us with the more vital of two competing life styles (with the vitality of Oscar Jaffe in Twentieth Century, Susan Vance in Bringing Up Baby, Walter Burns in His Girl Friday), or withdraw to a scientific detachment that allows the viewer to weigh the paradoxes and ironies of a love battle between two equals (between the two army partners in I Was a Male War Bride, the husband and wife in Monkey Business, or the older and younger cowboy in Red River). Hawks' films are also masterful in their atmospheric lighting; the hanging electric or kerosene lamp that dangles into the top of a Hawks frame became almost as much his signature as the lighting of cigarettes.

Hawks' view of character in film narrative was that actor and character were inseparable. As a result, his films used a lot of improvisation. He allowed actors to add, interpret, or alter lines as they wished, rather than force them to stick to the script. This trait not only led to the energetic spontaneity of many Hawks films, but also contributed to the creation or shaping of the human archetypes that several stars came to represent in our culture. John Barrymore, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, and Cary Grant all refined or established their essential personae under Hawks' direction, while many actors who would become stars were either discovered by Hawks or given their first chance to play a major role in one of his films. Among Hawks' most important discoveries were Paul Muni, George Raft, Carole Lombard, Angie Dickinson, Montgomery Clift, and his Galatea, Lauren Bacall.

Although Hawks continued to make films until he was almost seventy-five, there is disagreement about the artistic energy and cinematic value of the films made after 1950. For some, Hawks' artistic decline in the 1950s and 1960s was both a symptom and an effect of the overall decline of the movie industry and the studio system itself. For others, Hawks' later films--slower, longer, less energetically brilliant than his studio-era films--were more probing and personal explorations of the themes and genres he had charted for the three previous decades.

Hawks was married three times, each marriage ending in divorce. His second marriage to Nancy Raye Gross produced one daughter. His third marriage to Mary (Dee) Hartford produced two sons and two daughters. Hawks died in Palm Springs, California on December 26, 1977.

Cries and Whispers (1972)

2007-09-09T08:34:00.001-05:00

One of Ingmar Bergman's most exquisitely executed achievements, Cries and Whispers begins with early-morning shots of a country estate, Sevn Nykvist's camerawork capturing the play of sunlight through trees and mist to ravishing effect. By the time we have entered the house itself, where antique clocks tick inexorably on as a woman is awakened from her slumbers by the agony of cancer consuming her within, it's clear we are witnessing a filmmaker at the peak of his artistry, so assured and seemingly effortless are the measured rhythms of his editing, the placement of the camera, and the telling use of sound and color. Indeed, it is perhaps the color that sticks most vividly in the mind after a viewing of this autumnal masterpiece. The rich red so unnaturally predominant both in the furnishings and on the walls of most of the mansion's rooms, in sharp contrast to the graceful white gowns favored by the four women whose lives we glimpse within.

Bergman explained that he'd imagined the human soul to be this shade of red; certainly, its brooding prescence intensifies his study of death and its influence on the living. The four women are the mansion's dying owner (Harriet Andersson), her devoted maid (Kari Sylwan), and the two sisters (Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullman) who have come to tend to her during her final days. The former is emotionally and physically reticent thanks in part to a loveless marriage, the latter at least is superficially warmer but given to flightiness and insecurity. As the sisters and maid try first to comfort the sick woman and then to come to terms with her death, Bergman providesa a glimpse into the inner life of each, tracing their fears, furstrations, anxieties, and regrets by means of memories and, at least for the maid, nightmarish fantasy. Such is his dramatic expertise that he blends the stuff of horror movies - vampirish kisses, the nightmarish prospect of a corpse returning to life - with chamber drama evicative of Anton Checkhov or August Strindberg, and makes it not only coherent and compelling but immeadiately recognizable as part of his own artistic universe. He's helped in this, of course, bu extraordiary performances by all actresses he'd worked with for many years, but then what a gift to them with his screenplay.

Quote of the Day - Anna - "And I feel profoundly grateful to my life, which gives me so much."

Tomorrow: Director #5 - Howard Hawks; His Girl Friday (1940)

Persona (1966)

2007-09-08T07:32:00.001-05:00

As with other prominent examples of 1960s European art-cinema narration, much of the critical discussion of Ingmar Bergman's Persona has portrayed it as obscure and beyond words. True, the director wants his film to be a visual poem, and he composed the famous opening credit sequence to underline this. However, even in this dense, associative montage, most of the images are recognizable as references to familiar Bergman motifs: The Spider-God (spider), the Christian legacy (crucifixion, lamb to slaughter), art/illusion as construction (the films' title, details of a film projector, the film-within-the-film), the cold womb (a morgue interior with the young boy reaching toward a cold and distant "mom"). This sequence functions as a prelude summing up Bergman's artistic profile, as if he wished to take stock and then clear the slate for a fresh artistic start. Indeed, the whole film can be seen as a journey to an existential and aesthetic dead end, one where identity, meaning, and language finally collapse, destroying Bergman's art itself as the film strip stops in its track, melts, and breaks before starting again.

Superficially the plot of Persona is constructed as a variation of a female power game. Initially, the stronger of the two women in the film appears to be psychiatric nurse Alma (Bibi Andersson), especially because she appears certain of herself and does all of the talking - thus taking control over her silent counterpart. But faded with this enigmatic patient, famous actress Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullman), in an isolated summer cottage on a remote island, Alma' own seemingly stable, down-to-earth world-view begins to crumble. Her therapeutic talks turn into confessions of her own hidden secrets and desires. Gradually she is stripped of her own persona, the mask of lies and self-deceptions that makes up her identity and provides her life with a sense of meaning.

Persona's climax comes in the famous scene when the two women sit opposite each other dressed in identical black clothes. Alma begins to talk about Elisabet's rejection of motherhood and marriage, but soon finds herself talking about her own doubts concerning family life she previously envisioned with naive enthusiasm. Realizing this, she struggles to regain control with new words of certainty, but even her construction of language breaks down and she can only utter incoherent phrases. It is at this point that Bergman uses optical effect of fusing the women's faces into one haunting image, a horrific vision of identity in a total state of decomposition.

The film logically ends with Alma doing the only thing she can to reconstruct her life and sense of self: She returns to to the ordinary world that defines her and rejects Elisabet as the Other. In their final scene together we are back at the hospital from the opening scenes of the drama. Alma, now back in her old uniform and persona, forces Elisabet to repeat the word "nothing." Cut back to the boy at the morgue - Elisabet's unwanted child? Alma's aborted fetus? - and then the projector stops. Darkness.

Deep, huh?

Quote of the Day - Mr. Vogler - "The important thing is the effort, not what we achieve."

Tomorrow: Cries and Whispers (1972)

The Seventh Seal (1957)

2007-09-07T07:44:00.001-05:00

The image of a black-robed, white-faced Death (Bengt Ekerot) playing chess on a beach with a weary, questioning crusader (Max Von Sydow) is as deeply ingrained in the collective memory of moviegoers as King Kong atop the Empire State Building, Humphrey Bogart spurning Ingrid Bergman at the airport, Janet Leigh stabbed in the shower, or the Imperial Cruiser passing over the camera. This one scene from the Swedish art house release The Seventh Seal epitomizes the momentousness, the excitement, and the impact new types of cinema had a t a point when Hollywood certainties were in recession: How else to explain the parodies or references that recur in films as varied as Roger Corman's Masque of Red Death (1964), Woody Allen's Love and Death (1975), John McTiernan's Last Action Hero (1993), and Peter Hewitt's Bill& Ted's Bogus Journey(1991), in the last of which Death plays Twister?

This scene has been spoofed frequently and it's a shame that it has come to represent the whole film in popular imagination. There's an unfair sense that writer-director Ingmar Bergman was being overly solemn, setting out to make something that could stand as an archetype of seriousness or artiness. Actually, The Seventh Seal, although rooted in the big themes of Bergman's great period, is a very playful, frequently comic picture, a medieval fable influenced by Bergman's enthusiasm for the samurai movies of Akira Kurosawa and as concerned with celebrating simple pleasures as indicting complicated torments.

Antonious Block (Sydow), returning after ten years on a bloody crusade that started by a con man who now makes a living robbing corpses, feels that his faith in God is a disease that mankind should root out. With his squire (Gunnar Bjornstrand), as much a debating partner as sidekick, Block encounters death in the form of a plaque-ridden corpse before he meets the literal Grim Reaper. The game of chess played throughout the film between Death and the knight is not merely for the crusader's life but for his feelings about God, religion and humanity. In the end, hope comes from an alternative holy family - a jolly juggler (Nils Popper), his earthy sensual wife (Gunnel Lindblom), and their lively, innocent toddler - who Block saves from the plague by willingly joining the dance of death that claims more venal, corrupted characters.

The knight, who is constantly tormented by curiosities about God and the void, represents one side of Bergman and the simple showman gently upbraided by his practical wife another, seeking redemption through honest entertainment , and appalled when his innocent show is upstaged by the horrible, Church-approved spectacle of a crowd of penitents being lashed and tortured. Bergman is always angry and saddened by human evils, especially when sanctioned by supposed religion, but the film also celebrated physical and spiritual love, communal artistic expression, food and drink, and the natural beauty.

Quote of the Day - Death - "Nothing escapes me. No one escapes me.

Tomorrow: Persona (1966)

Fanny and Alexander (1982)

2007-09-06T08:52:00.001-05:00

Swedish director Ingmar Bergman's large body of work is so distinctive that is frequently spoofed by comedians as well as imitated and cited by lesser filmmakers. Showing the deeper, darker side of the human spirit without flinching or resorting to melodrama, Bergman's dreamy, allegorical films present life as it is rather that how we wish it would be.

Announced as the director's penultimate film, the autobiographical tale of Fanny and Alexander came as a jolt to fans of his brooding earlier films. Written by Bergman, and featuring many of Bergman's talented, seasoned actors, including Erland Josephson, Harriet Andersson, and GunnarBjornstrand, Fanny and Alexander is considered his most accessible movie - it won four of its six Academy Award nominations, including Best Foreign Language Film.

The long part-autobiography spans an important and stormy year in the life of a brother and sister (Pernilla Allwin and Bertill Guve) born into an aristocratic family in turn-of the century Sweden. Filmed with energy unseen in previous Bergman productions, the story is part Dickensian drama, part mystical fairy tale. Beginning at a luxurious family Christmas told form the boy's point of view, it switches to their miserable life after the death of the children's much-loved theater-owning father. By then, the usual Bermanesque sense of foreboding has descended on the story, settling on life during the deeply unfortunate and terrifying remarriage of their mother to an awful bishop - Jan Malmsjo in a suitably hateful role.

Fanny and Alexander's length and languorous, careful pace may put modern action viewers off, but Bergman's famous cinematographer Sven Myvist use lustrous lighting to make each frame a delight. The entire film has a dreamy sense of the unreal, a relief during its more tragic moments. Bergman, ever the master, wisely structures the tale to have its most horrific and most satisfying moment just when the story demands resolution. By then the viewer is left breathless and waiting for good times to return. Despite his life's work analyzing the frightening world of the living, Bergman here allows his audience some comfort - albeit with certain philosophical provisions.

Quote of the Day - Alexander - "If there is a god, then he's a shit, and I'd like to kick him in the butt."

Tomorrow: The Seventh Seal (1957)

Wild Strawberries (1957)

2007-09-05T08:51:00.001-05:00

Arguably the warmest of Ingmar Bergman's masterpieces, Wild Strawberries charts the geographical and spiritual odyssey traveled by the elderly Professor Isak Borg - his name in Swedish more or less means "icy fortress"- (played by Victor Sjostrom). Borg drives, in the company of his daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin), from Stockholm to the University of Lund to receive an honorary degree. En route he gives a ride to three young hitchhikers - including the vivacious Sara (Bibi Andersson), who in name and nature reminds him of the love of his life - and a middle aged couple. He visits his now ancient mother, before finally trying to have a heart-to-heart talk with his son, Evald (Gunnar Bjornstrand), a cynical misanthrope whom Marianne has been planning to leave. The conversation Borg has with Evald is crucial, not only because it might save his son's marriage but because it shows the professor's journey has brought him a degree of self-knowledge. He has become properly aware not only of his mortality but of his own emotional reticence - inherited from his parents, consolidated by life's disappointments and his immersion in work. He has almost unwittingly passed it on, like a virus, to Evald.

The strength of Bergman's account of this day in the life- or, rather, a life of a day, the long day's journey brings back all manner of telling memories - is the assured manner in which he combines objective and subjective realities of Borg's life. The inner and external details progressively throw more light upon the man. It is not only his dreams and memories that illuminate our understanding of him but also his various encounters and conversations. Marianne, although tactful and affectionate, is comparatively explicit in alluding to Borg's failings. Sara reminds him of his more passionate youth. The arguing couple call to mind both his own grouchiness and the future Marianne may face with Evald.

Borg's redemptive acquisition of self-knowledge affects those around him too, and the miracle of Wild Strawberries is that Bergman never inflects this conclusion with sentimentality. Blessed with a radiant yet courageously uningratiating performance by Sjostrom in this remarkable, much-imitated film, Wild Strawberries has an emotional honesty entirely in keeping the voyage undergone by its protagonist.

Quote of the Day -Isak Borg "Honorary Doctor! They might as well appoint me Honorary Idiot."

Tomorrow: Fanny And Alexander (1982)

Shame (1968)

2007-09-04T08:55:00.001-05:00

Of the films that Ingmar Bergman made in the mid-to-late 1960s with Max Von Sydow and Liv Ullman on his beloved island of Faro, Shame is perhaps the greatest. Not that Bergman was too happy with it. He felt the script was uneven, resulting in a poor first half and a better second half. He also felt that he had perhaps taken on too much in attempting to depict war. Such an assessment seems far too harsh. This study of the devastating effects of war on a couple is one of the most persuasive accounts of a relationship transformed by forces over which it has little or no control. Bergman may not have had Hollywood's resources on hand to stage spectacular destruction and carnage, but he more than compensated for such material constraints with boldness, assurance, and conviction of his drama and the acuity of psychological, emotional and social insights.

Ullman and Von Sydow play a couple, their love flawed by weakness and complacency but able to sustain itself. But when the war they have managed more or less to ignore finally turns up on their doorstep, it forces them to look at themselves, each other, and their relationship with a new, cruel honesty. The violence, death, and betrayals around them are both arbitrary and terrifying, but perhaps no more so than these more intimate and, indeed, more shocking revelations. All par for the course, perhaps, in Bergman's corrosive chamber dramas. But here they are lent added force by the wider context of a world in conflagration. Sven Nykvist's typically magnificent black-and-white cinematography, eloquent in its close-ups of faces as in its shots of trundling tanks, burning trees, and scarred landscapes, and the performances do ample justice to Bergman's magisterial conception. The two leads are memorable in the justly famous scene of a last, brief moment of sunny domestic happiness just before the conflict arrives on their farm. But also is Gunnar Bjornstrand, as a well-connected friend who helps them out, only to abuse his privilege later on. Grim, hauntingly beautiful, and still, of course, scarily relevant.

Tomorrow: Wild Strawberries (1957)

Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

2007-09-03T08:28:00.000-05:00

The first film in what later became known as Bergman's chamber-trilogy on the silence of God. Through a Glass Darkly begins somewhat misleadingly with four people - Karin (Harriet Andersson), her husband Martin (Max Von Sydow), her father David (Gunnar Bjonstrand) and her teenage brother Minus (Lars Passgard) - emerging from the sea, as if out of nowhere, in pearls of laughter suggestive of happiness and a sense of togetherness. They are on holiday and as the sun sets the mood is one of relaxed enjoyment. Only gradually do we learn of the despair, doubts, and divisions within the family, as the film advances inexoribly toward its dark conclusion, exactly one day later.

In that time, Karin will learn that the mental illness she believed she was getting over has been found to be incurable; Martin will discover that all he feels for her cannot prevent her hallucinations; David will confess that he has tended to put his work before his family, and that for all his efforts he cannot change; Minus, already in teenage trumoil, will be sucked in by Karin's spiraling madness; and she, hoping God will show himself and help them in their need, breaks down with He reveals his cold, stony face as that of a spider. This terrifying scene (we don't see hte spider, only her distraught reaction to His imagine visitation) constitutes both the dramatic climax and the logical thematic conclusion of immaculately wrought drama virtually unmatched even by Bergman's other films for its sheer intensity.

Through a Glass Darkly, with its handful of characters, isolated setting, brief time span, and uncluttered visuals, allows nothing to dillute the force of its emotional and philosophical thrust. No wonder Bergman saw it as the first if his films that paved the way to his masterpiece, Persona (1966).
Quote of the Day - Karin - "It is horrible to see your own confusion and understand it."

Tomorrow: Shame (1968)

Director #4 - Ingmar Bergman

2007-09-03T08:27:00.000-05:00

Universally regarded as one of the great masters of modern cinema, Bergman has often concerned himself with spiritual and psychological conflicts. His work has evolved in distinct stages over four decades, while his visual style-intense, intimate, complex-has explored the vicissitudes of passion with a mesmerizing cinematic rhetoric. His prolific output tends to return to and elaborate on recurrent images, subjects and techniques. Like the Baroque composers, Bergman works on a small scale, finding invention in theme and variation. Bergman works primarily in the chamber cinema genre, although there are exceptions, such as the journey narrative of Wild Strawberries (1957) and the family epic of Fanny and Alexander (1983). Chamber cinema encloses space and time, permitting the director to focus on mise-en-scène and to pay careful attention to metaphoric detail and visual rhythm.

Perhaps his most expressive technique is his use of the facial close-up. For Bergman, the face, along with the hand, allows the camera to reveal the inner aspects of human emotion. His fascination with the female face can be seen most strikingly in Persona (1966) and Cries and Whispers (1972). In his autobiography, Bergman claimed that he was always trying to generate his mother's face; hence, a psychological and aesthetic need are realized in this cinematic signature.

Of the early period, Wild Strawberries stands out for its narrative invention in a fluid manipulation of flashbacks, reveries and dream sequences. Its penetrating psychological investigation of the closing of the life cycle established Bergman's preoccupation with the relationship between desire, loss, guilt, compassion, restitution and celebration. Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), more allegorical than Wild Strawberries, is likewise designed around a journey motif of existential crisis. In contrast, the Mozartian Smiles of a Summer Night(1955) displays Bergman's romantic, comic sensibility. The early period concludes with two symbolic works, The Seventh Seal (1957) and The Virgin Spring (1959), both set in the Middle Ages. The extreme long shot in The Seventh Seal of Death leading the peasants in silhouette across the horizon now forms part of the iconography of modern cinema.

The second stage of Bergman's cinematic evolution shifts to the chamber style. Intense spiritual and psychological themes are explored in the "Silence" trilogy (Through a Glass Darkly, 1961, Winter Light, 1962, The Silence, 1963), and in The Shame (1968), Hour of the Wolf (1968) and The Passion of Anna (1969), three films all set on the island of Faro. With its dialectical editing and expressive compositions, The Silence is considered one of Bergman's most artfully structured films. The Passion of Anna, with its innovative application of red motifs, marked Bergman's first use of color photography.

Between these two trilogies came Persona, a work many critics consider Bergman's masterpiece. Persona shares a similar look and ambience with the Faro trilogy, and has direct links with The Silence in its focus on the antagonistic relationship between two women. Yet, with its distinctly avant-garde style and rhythm, it stands apart from any other of Bergman's films. Ostensibly concerned with identity crisis and the role reversal of a nurse and her mentally ill patient, the subtext of the film explores the nature of the cinematic apparatus itself. The narrative is framed by opening and closing shots of a film strip, projector and light, which lead into and out of the figure of a young boy. With his directorial hand, the boy conjures up a gigantic close-up of the female face. In a now celebrated sequence, the two faces of the female protagonists dissolve into one. (The figure of the precocious, magical child, previously seen in The Silence, would later reappear in the autobiographical Fanny and Alexander, 1983.) Sadomasochistic behavior, along with problems of role reversal and denied maternity, form the tortured core of both Persona and Cries and Whispers, the masterwork of the late period. In contrast to the spare decor, sharp black and white photography and disjunctive editing of Persona and Cries and Whispers is a 19th-century Gothic period-piece featuring rich colors, draped, theatrical decor and muted dissolve editing. The film revolves around three sisters, one of whom, Agnes, is dying, and their maid, Anna. Bergman evokes religious iconography, with each of the three sisters representing various theological concepts. The dying Agnes, set in cruciform position, returns as a resurrected savior/prophet. The exquisite Pietà/birth shot of Agnes and the Maid, as well as the revolutionary dissolve red-outs, are highlights in this brutal and beautiful film.

Even the minor films of Bergman's later period, such as Face to Face (1976), Autumn Sonata (1978) and From the Life of the Marionettes (1980) continue to explore and refine recurrent themes and techniques. In the underrated The Touch (1971), Bergman examines the theme of marriage, with an inventive subtext of the Persephone myth, in a visually expansive way that distinguishes it from the more conventional Scenes From a Marriage (1973). The cycle of Bergman's work appropriately concludes with Fanny and Alexander, an epic of family romance, touched with elements of fairy tale, horror and ghost story. All the preoccupations of Bergman's extraordinary career flow through the imagery, action and stylization of the film.

Continuing his exploration of family relationships, Bergman drew inspiration from the marriage of his own parents to write the autobiographical screenplay for The Best Intentions (1992), which Bergman entrusted to director Bille August after announcing his retirement from filmmaking. As an artist, Bergman pays homage to music and theater in general, to Bach, Mozart and Strindberg in particular. His work seems a synthesis of the internalized Swedish sensibility and harsh Scandinavian landscape, yet he speaks to a universal vision of human passion. Although apparently not influenced by other filmmakers, with the possible exception of Carl Dreyer, Bergman himself has had a wide-ranging influence on a generation of filmmakers. A unique and powerful presence, his genius has made an extraordinary contribution to the art of the cinema.

Dr. Strangelove: Or, How I Learned to Stopped Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)

2007-09-02T08:42:00.001-05:00

"Gentleman, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!" Dr. Strangelove is a brilliant black comedy that works as political satire, suspense farce, and a cautionary tale of technology running away with us. When a fanatical U.S. general launches a nuclear attack on the U.S.S.R. the President has his hands full recalling bombers and calming Russians while contending with his advisers and a twisted scientist. The thriller plot came from a serious novel by RAF Officer Peter George, published in the United States as Red Alert and in the Unite Kingdom as Two Hours to Doom. Kubrick loved it but thought people were so overwhelmed by the threat of annihilation that they were in denial, apathetic to nuclear documentary or drama. So he would surprise audiences into reacting to the real prospect of global extermination with outrageously funny and provocative cartoon tactics.

Kubrick and co writer Terry Southern created a cast of grotesques whose absurd fixations, by their incongruity, play up the realism against which they are set. The information about a doomsday device is factual, as are the Strategic Air command operations and the B-52 crew's procedures. The computers that take the situation beyond human intervention have only become more capable.

There are just three locations, each experiencing failure to communicate. At Burpelson Air Force Base, maniacal General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden), obsessed with bodily fluids and commie conspiracy, circumvents Fail-Safe protocol and orders a bomber wing to nuke the "Russkies," taking appalled RAF officer Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers) captive. Aboard the B-52, dogged Major T.J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens) and his crew (including James Earl Jones in his debut) suffer radio failure and are oblivious to frantic efforts to recall them. In the War Room at the Pentagon - an awesome set - President Merkin Muffley (Sellers), rampant General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott), Soviet Ambassador de Sadesky (Peter Bull) and demented Dr. Strangelove (Sellers again) are gather in a futile attempt to stop Armageddon.

Sellers's sidesplitting three performances are legend but the entire ensemble gives a masterclass in exaggerated, perfectly timed posturing. Two images are unforgettable - Kong astride the H-Bomb, yee-hawing all the way down, and demented Dr. Strangelove, unable to stop his mechanical arm from flying into a Nazi salute and throttling himself. Every viewing is a reminder the film is stuffed with hilarious dialogue, and President Muffley on the hot line to Moscow breaking it to the Soviet Premier remains a classic monologue. Kubrick would return to the potential menace of computer dependency in 2001: A Space Odyssey, to institutional and political violence in A Clockwork Orange, and to the savage, surreal madness of war in Full Metal Jacket. But he never made us laugh this much in any other film.

Quote of the Day - President Merkin Muffley - "Hello?... Uh... Hello D- uh hello Dmitri? Listen uh uh I can't hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?... Oh-ho, that's much better... yeah... huh... yes... Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri... Clear and plain and coming through fine... I'm coming through fine, too, eh?... Good, then... well, then, as you say, we're both coming through fine... Good... Well, it's good that you're fine and... and I'm fine... I agree with you, it's great to be fine... a-ha-ha-ha-ha... Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the Bomb... The *Bomb*, Dmitri... The *hydrogen* bomb!... Well now, what happened is... ahm... one of our base commanders, he had a sort of... well, he went a little funny in the head... you know... just a little... funny. And, ah... he went and did a silly thing... Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes... to attack your country... Ah... Well, let me finish, Dmitri... Let me finish, Dmitri... Well listen, how do you think I feel about it?... Can you *imagine* how I feel about it, Dmitri?... Why do you think I'm calling you? Just to say hello?... *Of course* I like to speak to you!... *Of course* I like to say hello!... Not now, but anytime, Dmitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened... It's a *friendly* call. Of course it's a friendly call... Listen, if it wasn't friendly... you probably wouldn't have even got it... They will *not* reach their targets for at least another hour... I am... I am positive, Dmitri... Listen, I've been all over this with your ambassador. It is not a trick... Well, I'll tell you. We'd like to give your air staff a complete run-down on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes... Yes! I mean i-i-i-if we're unable to recall the planes, then... I'd say that, ah... well, ah... we're just gonna have to help you destroy them, Dmitri... I know they're our boys... All right, well listen now. Who should we call?... *Who* should we call, Dmitri? The... wha-whe, the People... you, sorry, you faded away there... The People's Central Air Defense Headquarters... Where is that, Dmitri?... In Omsk... Right... Yes... Oh, you'll call them first, will you?... Uh-huh... Listen, do you happen to have the phone number on you, Dmitri?... Whe-ah, what? I see, just ask for Omsk information... Ah-ah-eh-uhm-hm... I'm sorry, too, Dmitri... I'm very sorry... *All right*, you're sorrier than I am, but I am as sorry as well... I am as sorry as you are, Dmitri! Don't say that you're more sorry than I am, because I'm capable of being just as sorry as you are... So we're both sorry, all right?... All right."

Tomorrow: Director #4 - Ingmar Bergman; Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

2007-08-31T09:11:00.001-05:00

Stanley Kubrick's most controversial film, a social sci-fi fable made in 1971, was withdrawn in the United Kingdom by the director himself for nearly 30 years despite its initial, phenomenally successful but heavily criticized release. It resurfaced, enveloped in mystique, not long after his death. A Clockwork Orange is still electrifying, a bold translation into cinematic terms of the dystopian Anthony Burgess novel that was itself published to a mixture of acclaim and notoriety in 1959 and was long believed unfilmable.

Delinquent but clever, smart-aleck youth Alex De Large (Malcolm McDowell) gets his kicks from pornography, Beethoven, and leading a bowler-hatted white overall-clad gang of "Droogs" on hectic vivid rampages of "ultra-violence" in which they speak a distinctive argot, a hybrid of Russian and London Cockney rhyming slang. The most disturbing scene in the first, twenty minute section of the film is one that comes back to haunt Alex when he is helpless. After breaking into a futuristic luxury home, they cripple the husband (Patrick Magee) and his wife while Alex bellows "Singin' in the Rain," aiming vicious blows of his boots to the rhythm of the song. Although it is interesting that the rape looms large in memories as particularly nasty, Kubrick cuts away from the women's ordeal just as Alex finishes cutting away her skin-tight red jumpsuit. Another thrill seeking outing culminates in Alex bashing in a woman's brains with a giant phallic sculpture, the crime for which he is eventually apprehended.

But the institutionalized brutality that ensues in Alex's punishment and his "rehabilitation" into a craven, boot-licking victim is just as scary as the Droogs' misdeeds. See a way out of prison, Alex cockily volunteers for a politically showcased, experimental aversion therapy and is subjected to dire behaviorist "cure" - strapped down, his eyes clamped wide open - that suppresses his violent tendencies but also robs him of his essential humanity. Stripped of his capacity to commit evil, he is an enfeebled individual. Back in the world, he doesn't enjoy his "freedom." Betrayed by former thug-comrades, who, ironically, have become policemen, he ultimately gets a hilariously unnerving comeuppance in an encounter with one of his damaged victims (Patrick Magee).

Kubrick's arresting vision of the not-too-distant future is amusingly dated in some details (vinyl records, Alex's IBM typewriter), and the violence for which it was so castigated on its release is discreet by contemporary visceral standards. But the picture of aimless louts alleviating their boredom in mindless viciousness is chillingly topical. Sensationally stylish and often startlingly funny, with a great soundtrack, A Clockwork Orange still packs far more punch than its many blatantly derivative descendants.

Quote of the Day -Alex - "That was a real kick and good for laughs and lashings of the old ultraviolence."

Tomorrow - 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

2007-08-30T09:07:00.001-05:00

In Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, the major battle scene depicts an engagement that the narrator tells us did not make the history books, "though it was memorable enough for those who took part." When he came to make a movie about Vietnam, a little after the various angst-ridden and fantastical takes by Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now) and Oliver Stone (Platoon) had established an acid/napalm-haze cinematic vocabulary for the war, Kubrick built on this approach. Full Metal Jacket presents a grunt-level world in which all officers, commissioned or not, are ridiculous but deadly alien beings (even heroic Marines of so many Take the High Ground-type pictures are nicknamed kids without a clue of where they are or what they're taking.

Based on The Short-Timers, an autobiographical novel by Gustav Hasford, Full Metal Jacket is ruthless, comic, horrific, and affecting in equal measure, depicting areas of the war rarely glimpsed in movies. A long opening act is set entirely on Parris Island, the induction-and-training center. After a montage in which long-haired young men are shorn to become bald drones, the film is commandeered by the astonishing R. Lee Ermey as drill sergeant Hartman, whose obscene, inventive, relentless abuse against all recruits is designed to breakdown the "maggots" totally before they can be rebuilt into killing machines. In a lecture, Hartman takes pride in the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald and Charles Whitman learned to shoot in the Marines. The horrible irony of this sequence- which closely parallels the gladiator training regime in Sparticus - is that the logical payoff is the transformation of pudgy foul-up (Vincent d'Onofrio) into one Kubrick's grotesque ape-men, with a primal glare that echos the droogs of A Clockwork Orange and Jack Torrance of The Shining. The first thing the new-made Marine does is murder his tormentor-creator and kill himself.

After this, the Vietnam sequences are almost a relief, as Private Joker (Matthew Modine), a journalist, unbends a little only to be confronted with even more demented individuals - when asked how he can kill women and children, a helicopter gunner gives a technical answer ("It's easy, don't lead them so much"), while a colonel remarks, "Son, all I've ever asked of my marines is that they obey my orders as they would the word of God." The climax is a skirmish during a battle in the rubble of Hue City, in which Joker's platoon encounter a female Vietcong sniper. Nobody wins the encounter, and the Marines troop off into the night singing the Mickey Mouse Club Marching Song. Only Kubrick would dare tweak Disney like this.

Quote of the Day - Hartman - "I bet you're the kind of guy that would fuck a guy in the ass and not even have the goddamned common courtesy to give him a reacharound."

Tomorrow: A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Sparticus (1960)

2007-08-29T08:40:00.000-05:00

The epic's first director, Anthony Mann, was fired by star Kirk Douglas not long after shooting began, although some early scenes he shot in the desert remain in the final film. It feel to a pre-2001: A Space Odyssey Stanley Kubrick to bring Howard Fast's tale of a slave revolt in Ancient Rome to life, and he rose to the task brilliantly, mixing scenes of the power struggle in the senate with ones of brotherhood between the slaves.

Spartacus (Douglas) is the slave at the center of the action, who inspires many like him to rise up against their oppressors, including young Antoninus (Tony Curtis), a favorite of Roman Marcus Crassus (Laurence Olivier) who is none too pleased when his pretty boy goes AWOL. When the film was restored three decades after it was made, a bath scene explaining more of the relationship between master and slave, cut in 1960 because of its homosexual references, was edited in, with Anthony Hopkins rerecording the late Olivier's lost dialogue.

Kubrick stages the slave revolt and battle sequences brilliantly, but the biggest surprise from the director not known for his emotional scenes is the way he films the final, heart-wrenching moments as Spartacus's love Varinia (Jean Simmons) holds up their child for him to see as he dies, crucified alongside the men who followed him. Superb.

Quote of the day - Antoninus - "I am Spartacus!"

Tomorrow: Full Metal Jacket (1987)