Made in U.S.A.

Made in U.S.A., 1966

Dir: Jean-Luc Godard

October 16, 2009

This might be Godard's first consciously made political film, yet it's trappings are grounded in the hard-boiled American detective films of the 40s, particularly those involving one of Godard's heroes, Humphrey Bogart. I guess, in the end though, that even it's classic cinema references couldn't save Made in U.S.A. for me. I don't feel like writing long reviews about these Godard films anymore. Or maybe just this one because it was mediocre, borderline bad, unlike Masculine Feminin (1966), which I've decided is pretty good. His attempts at genre (like Alphaville (1965)) come off as stunted to me. It's hard to say that it's homage, because he's thrown the cinema conventions to the dogs at this point, but these just seem inferior to the directors whom Godard so admired. Casting preferred directors and film critics, and naming minor characters "Robert McNamara" and "Richard Nixon" is only amusing to a point. The Maoist platitudes ("I think advertising is a form of fascism.") and philosophic name drops are getting beyond tedious though. The entire long French wordplay scene in the restaurant is completely baffling to me. I'm not a young marxist, nor am I caught up in the political strife of the 60s. When the actors directly address the camera, it's almost like he's giving you instructions. Brecht would be proud, I guess. Either this film has aged really bad, or I really don't give a shit about his political agenda, which sometimes Godard himself seems a little confused about. His narrative and technical experimants are inventive, as always, but stark in it's presentation and completely off-putting. Now, the film is great to look at, and I think that cinematographer Raoul Coutard might be the best thing about this film, with colors popping all over the place. "Anna Karina, private eye" is also nice, if only to look at as she prances, pouts, and shoots bad-guys all around a really weird Atlantic City where everyone speaks French. Jean-Pierre Léaud's silly gangster's death is my favorite part of the film, where Anna asks him, "Do you want to know when you are going to die, or for it to be unexpected (paraphrase)." He replies with the latter, and she goes on to shoot him without warning. The last shot of the film is a long take of Karina in a car with radio journalist Phillipe Labro, who plays himself, of them leaving the city, with the camera on the hood. In regards to Godard's main message, Karina states in their open-ended conversation/thesis summation, "We have years of struggle ahead of us." If Godard's later 60s films keep progressing like this, getting through them is going to be a fucking struggle, and literally take years.

L'eclisse

L'eclisse (The Eclipse), 1962

Dir: Michelangelo Antonioni

October 14, 2009

Antonioni's final film in his "trilogy" takes up stylistically where he left off with La Notte (1961). The post-modern figurehead is at the top of his game here, and it really show. It might be the best one, or I might just be saying that because it is the easiest to follow, or I'm starting to understand what he trying to get at a little bit more. Who knows? It is still a difficult film to watch if only for the stark portrayals of modern people pretending to care about each other, but in the end being really selfish and not giving a shit. I guess all of the Antonioni films that I've seen deal with classic "alienation" issues in new narrative trappings, and the compositions of Antonioni's shot reflect that mood, as well as his dour black-and-white cinematography and the slow pacing. Don't get me wrong, it all looks great, and the pacing is pretty much just a bout right throughout, but you get the idea. It kind of ups the ante of his provocative modernism by being the most radical as well. The "I don't give a shit" attitude of the narrative conventions and the chilling themes of absence and desire make you think about the film long after you're done viewing it.

At the beginning of L'eclisse, Vittoria, a translator (Monica Vitti) from the Roman suburbs is breaking off her engagement to Riccardo (Francisco Rabal). The whole scene sets ups the interactions between people who come across each others path: restless souls and neurotics. Riccardo is a neurotic. He can't understand why Vitorria is breaking it off. He wants to know how he can change. He wants to know if she ever loved him. He wants to be able to call her in a couple of days to see is she's changed her mind. All Vitorria can do is respond, "I don't know," or wonder why people ask so may questions. At points, her face is anguished as she tries to give Riccardo some reason that never amounts to anything, but it's hard to say if she feels truly bad for him or only for herself for getting into this tricky situation. She does this throughout the film, not being able to explain any of her impulses or actions as she drifts along. The only other time that Riccardo is seen again is when he throws rocks at her apartment window a little later and she hides so he can't see her. Then he dejectedly walks away, seemingly disappearing.

Vittoria tries to get some time in with her mother (Lilla Brignone) after this, who is a compulsive money trader, and spends most of her time at the stock market. Here Antonioni has stock-brokers going bonkers trying to make deals and deal with each other. Part of what makes theses scenes so overwhelming and breathtaking is the compositional style of using the edges of the frame and playing off the different sections of the crowed image in relation to one another, with gesticulating arms flailing everywhere as if they might burst through the screen. The mother of course, has very little time for her grown daughter, and asks her every time she sees her, "What are you doing here?" She is viewed by the other people there as generally crazy, and when the market crashes and she joins a mob going to complain about "socialists," the point is well proved with a little humor. Vittoria gets lost a little bit in these scenes, as they are really about Piero (Alain Delon), a young stock-broker who is employed by Vittoria's mother and soon starts a fling with Vittoria.

The relationship doesn't start right away, as their arcs meet each other the first couple of times that Vittoria goes to the market, but they only talk a little bit about the market or her mother. Piero's restlessness is different from Vittoria's in that he is driven; he has a "passion" for the market and money. His restlessness, as Vittoria notes, is that "he can't stay still;" he is a young man with virility. However, unlike in earlier films like L'avventura (1960) or La Notte, Antonioni doesn't seem to view his materialistic lifestyle or restless love life a bad thing; in fact, he shoots them as being some what vibrant, if spastic. Capitalism is a little less corrupt. A new attitude for Antonioni, where things are little less about guilt and compromise and selling-out? I'll have to see more films of his to know for sure. Vittoria is far more sluggish. Her impulses in between the Piero meetings are seen when she dresses up and dances for friends or randomly rides in an airplane to Verona with traveling friends. You're never really sure why she does any of these things. In life, though, you just do those things sometimes. The times when she just stops and looks at the things around her is a good demonstrator of what she's all about. Her face is pensive and wanting, but she never knows exactly what is is she needs.

The relationship really starts almost by accident. Vittoria becomes fascinated by a man who she is told just lost big in the market when it crashes and follows him around for a little bit. She bumps into Piero at a store where he buys her a drink. They form a fragile alliance where Piero wants what all guys want, and where Vittoria seems to blow hot and cold, much to Piero's confusion. The one thing that I didn't pick up until the end was the framing of Vittoria in relation to Piero. It's the exact way one of his former girlfriends is framed in an earlier scene, reminding us of exactly what Piero is all about. The relationship builds to the point where they seem to be in love, wasting time with each other and forgetting about the hustle and bustle of life. They remind each other of a meeting at their preferred spot, a construction site near Vittoria's apartment. After the promise of meeting, the characters are never scene again. It deconstructs to the point where by the end, you know both of them have come to the same conclusion that moving forward with the relationship would be a huge mistake. Maybe that's the really tough thing about watching it. The film begins with the termination of one love affair and ends with the scuttling of another. It seems to be nothing but narrative drift, but of course, that's Antonioni's purpose. Can you ever be satisfied? Trying to date Vittoria would be awful because you can never ever know her.

Watching L'eclisse on a large screen (HFA) really does the film justice for Antonioni's mise-en-scène, whether the focal point happens to be a rotating electric fan at dawn, a car with a corpse being hauled from a river, an illuminated street light at dusk, a couple necking on a sofa, or a crowd of screaming speculators. Even our misrecognition can play a role in the overall dynamics; characters with fleeting resemblances to Piero and Vittoria pass through the intersection where their meeting fails to take place, teasing us with possibilities. What's really hard to describe is the feeling that's left in the pit of your stomach when you are done watching it. If you combine the place of the meeting with the absence, and the mystery and uncertainty that pervades the entire film, what you are left with is the modern world. It's a place where all of us live, and where most stories are designed to protect us from the melancholy ache we are left with from L'eclisse. The entire trilogy is recommended if you like thinking about the way we treat each other as human beings in this modern age.

Killer's Kiss

Killer's Kiss, 1955

Dir: Stanley Kubrick

October 13, 2009

The fact that Kubrick actually wrote the script for this is really bizarre because there are no redeeming qualities in the dialogue, or the acting for that matter. He was only 26 when he directed it, and it looks really great, but it is, without a doubt, truly awful. At 66 minutes long, it's over pretty quick, which is something I guess. Like Fear and Desire (1953), he decided that microphones would mess up his lighting scheme so he decided to post-dub everything in after shooting. You'd like to think that maybe he could pull of something Wellesian in that department, but it's just really bad. Unlike his earlier effort, however, he was at least able to make this visually interesting at points, and the film doesn't have a bleached out feel to it. The grimy black-and-white photography actually helps capture a proper noir mood and the seedy elements of city life that it is trying to convey.

Boxer Davy Gordon (Jaime Smith) is washed-up and after losing a fight, gets involved with dancehall girl (Irene Kane) Gloria who lives in his building. Her sleazy boss Vincent (Frank Silvera) is a gangster who wants to make their relationship more personal. Every single scene that pushes the story forward has awful acting and atrocious writing. The only times where there is actually anything interesting is the intermittent scenes that act as buffers between these scenes, where Kubrick focuses on strange things like dolls or drunk guys in Times Square dancing and playing the harmonica and stealing scarfs. The dramatic noir downfall is not even met at the end, and it had the perfect opportunity to take advantage of it. I was just about to give the ending some respect when it was ruined. Gloria's character becomes barely interesting when the gangsters turn the tables on Davy and beat the crap out of him after he had them up against the wall with a gun. With her champion down, Gloria sweet talks Vincent, saying that she never cared about Davy, having only known him for two days, and that she "doesn't want to die." After some awful voice-over, typical noir narration that tells us about "what happened" between then and now, Davy is back in Penn Station, where the film began, expressing his emotions about Gloria. He heard everything that she said, and decides that he couldn't be with a girl like that and thinks that he will probably never see her again. A decent place to end a noir, if you ask me. Main character is still down, life sucks, sometimes it's just like that. But, no, Gloria comes running into the station right before he is about to leave and they make out, 'cause apparently he can be with a girl like that now. Watch The Killing (1956). It's a far better early Kubrick noir effort.

I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell

I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, 2009

Dir: Bob Gosse

October 6, 2009

Why o' why does every low-brow movie have to have a mushy ending now? It's the same conflict, reformation, redemption formula that all these movies have, with a little hint of the "Oh, this wise-acre might be back up to his old tricks" gag at the end. And it happens at a wedding. Holy fucking shit, that's like the first time that's ever happened. Is there a humongous problem with a guy that treats women like objects and only selfishly uses his friends for his own benefit to be left in his pathetic existence? Just be like, "Hey, I'm a terrible human being. I hope they serve beer in hell. The End." I'm not saying that would make this a good movie, maybe just rustle a few more feathers, because despite all of the un-p.c. jokes, this movies plays by all the rules and it's execution in that is still pretty lame. If Hollywood never comes out of the dark of the economic bust, I'm not quite sure what's going to happen to my love affair with retarded low-brow. All of these movies are the fucking same. I guess I just have to wait for the next season of Eastbound and Down for some quality comedy that is off the wall.

Like I said, this was a not good movie, but it's over the top offensiveness gets enough laughs if you're into that sort of thing. They could have done way more considering the tone that was set, though. If you can laugh at a guy who cares more about having sex with a midget stripper than he does about his friend's wedding or the circumstances that he constantly puts his friends into, then this is the movie for you. Could a better story have saved this movie? I doubt it. There are some funny zingers for sure, but nothing else about this movie is good.

Filming Othello

Filming 'Othello', 1978
Dir: Orson Welles
October 5, 2009

The last "completed" film ever made by Welles, this is basically just him sitting and talking about Othello (1952), the awesome shoe-string budget film that won Cannes. Maybe a bit pompous at times (though at the beginning he claims that he won't be), it's worth watching if you find Welles to be the master of cinema that he is, or if you just like to hear the sound of his voice. You know he clearly loves to hear his. It's really bizarre to think that the last two completed things that he could do were, in a sense, documentaries. It's a really odd coda to a career that should have been so much more. At the end of the film, you get a glimpse of Welles the man and the artist. You see his weariness and his exhaustion. It's deeply sad and profoundly moving.

It's on youtube:

F For Fake

F For Fake, 1974
Dir: Orson Welles
October 5, 2009

"This is a film about trickery and fraud; about lies...almost every kind of story is almost certainly some kind of lie."

I don't think that I can form any kind of higher praise of this film than to say that the entire time I was watching this, besides being spellbound, I felt like I was being deceived. Despite what we find out, and Orson's own admission about lying about the Picasso story, I almost want to say that, like Clifford Irving, he might have just made up everything. The fact that Elmyr de Hory and Clifford Irving were able to hoodwink (or as Welles would say, "use hanky-panky") "experts" in their own specific fields (art and writing) made me think that this might have been Welles' attempt at a cinematic version. At times he does seem inspired by the sheer gall that both men have, and how that might even tie into his own life, especially considering the War of the World episode. The interactions between Irving and de Hory are ridiculous and hilarious, considering that everything that comes out of de Hory's mouth is basically refuted by Irving as bullshit. Is de Hory really trying to get people acknowledge his forgeries at legimate pieces of art considering that no one could ever prove they weren't unless he admitted it, or is he just having more fun?

The film itself is structured in a way that lets you think about what is being offered you, and yet it blows by so quick it makes you feel like you've missed something, or have been tricked. Welles basically invented "MTV" editing for this film, and it comes as no surprise to me that it was force-fed to unsuspecting teens in the future. That fact is that it is very efficient in what it does. It is just another stunning way that Welles found to tell stories, and also dig deeper into the nature of cinema itself. The way the multiple "biographies" are woven together throughout the film, you aren't really ever certain what to believe about what is being said. At points with Oja Kodar, however, I kind of felt like he was just showing off his hot young girlfriend, like he was saying, "Look at this, everyone. Yeah, I know you like to look, but she is mine. All mine." Whatever, Orson. I indulge you with practically everything else, because it's awesome, but this was just too much.

The film, as many note, comes across as a very personal essay from a man that knew a thing or two about "fakery." There is no better place to find a thesis than when he talks about Chartres, the "anonymous" cathedral, which also happens to be the most poignant moment in the film :

"Ours, the scientists keep telling us, is a universe which is disposable. You know it might be just this one anonymous glory of all things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust; to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to what we had it in us to accomplish. Our works in stone, in paint, in print are spared, some of them for a few decades, or a millennium or two, but everything must fall in war or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash: the triumphs and the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life ... we're going to die. 'Be of good heart,' cry the dead artists out of the living past. Our songs will all be silenced – but what of it? Go on singing. Maybe a man's name doesn't matter all that much."

Orson Welles was for quality art, no matter it's creation or creator. It's pretty obvious that throughout his career, he made an abundance of it.

Metropolis

Metropolis, 1927
Dir: Fritz Lang
September 30, 2009

Yeah, yeah. Chalk this one up for another film that I am supposed to have seen that I've only gotten to now. I wish someone would've let me known what I was going to be in for because this is one of the most insane films I have ever seen. That doesn't make it good or bad, in fact I think it is somewhere in the middle, but it's just one big theatrical nut-house.

I'm not even sure where to begin. The modern utopia and "The Club of the Sons;" the oppressed workers and the underground city; the christian metaphors; machine vs. man; it's all so over the place. The story basically is about an ultra-modern city, Metropolis, that is built around the myth of the Tower of Babel, and that leads us to the way the people are divided there: the elite "thinkers" who live above ground and run the city and the "workers" who live below ground and keep the machines functioning. The original idea man and seeming ruler of Metropolis, Joh Federsen (Alfred Abel), has a young, care-free son Feder (Gustav Fröhlich), who suddenly becomes obsessed with a young woman, Maria (Brigitte Helm), who is idolized by the workers for her message of peace and her insistence that someone is coming to end their plight. The film is basically about Feder's need to find Maria, the social problems that surrounds them in the city, and his changing attitudes about the way of life that is accepted in Metropolis.

The film is over-dramatic about everything. The one subdued performance of the bunch was by Abel as the iron-fisted Joh, but he kind of ruined it at the end with his "fall-to-knees-hands-on-head" nonsense. The Thin Man, played by Fritz Rasp, is also intriguing if only because most of his scenes are lost, but also because the few appearances he does have let him carry a subtle menace as Joh's spy. Fröhlich and Helm are both case-in-studies of over-acting, for everything they do has to be overly-gesticulated. I understand the restrictions that silent film places on these sorts of the things, and what this requires the actors to do, but other films do it way better. Direction, of course, is to blame for some of this, and I can find no better part than when the underground city is flooding and there are groping children reaching for Maria, and then Feder comes to rescue her and they have a dramatic make-out session in front of all of the kids while the water continues to flood everywhere.

The contrast of party-going elite with the down-trodden workers of course works in its way, but that explains nothing about mad scientist Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), who is seemingly just thrown in there as a third force in the city. His place in the film is hard to figure out; of course, he creates the machine-man in hopes of getting it to look like his lost love, Hel, who was Joh's wife and Feder's mother. Joh, seeing a way to subvert Maria's actions, tells Rotwang to make it look like Maria. Apart from that, he seems all about modern progression with his Frankenstein laboratory, and yet his medieval house, which is in the middle of Metropolis, has pentagrams and stars all over it. I was trying to figure out how this contrasted to the Christian metaphors and symbols that are seen throughout the film, usually with Maria, or if the contradiction was saying something about Rotwang's nature, but it's hard to say for sure. They have two confrontations, a pretty awesome one in the catacombs deep under the city where the expressionistic lighting and camera work out-do the gross over acting, and then the one at the end, where Maria is chased by a coming-out-of nowhere Rotwang, seemingly driven even more mad by the loss of his new "Hel." Human love over machine coldness? That is probably what is trying to be said, with all the other stuff that comes together at the end, but it's all a little too sappy for me if that's the case. While I would generally say that a character whose moral compass in hard to figure out is awesome, Rotwang is pretty retarded.

It's pretty easy to understand why this was the most expensive silent film that had yet been made, and its epic scale is certainly admirable. It's still really easy to be impressed by the special effects even now, and taken into context it's pretty jaw-dropping. The expressionist lighting, the art-deco art design, and multiple camera tricks show a director who was willing to try new things with the look of his film. While not as visually bold as Murnau, Lang still impressed me with the technical feel of the film. The scene where all the rich dandies are ogling robot Maria as she "dances" for them, juxtaposed with all the quick cuts of close-ups on eyes super-imposed on one another, is really effective, and also really funny, though I'm not sure if it's supposed to be.

As I said, parts of the film are lost, but I'm not really sure if they would make this a great film. I understand the important value the film holds, but I can't really see myself ever really liking it. M (1931) is a way better Lang film, where here he only seems like a German Cecile B. DeMille, and even he had a hard time liking this in his later life. This may be in part for some of the reasons that I give above, and partly because his wife at the time and co-writer Thea von Harbou became an ardent Nazi (which may account for the occult stuff), and they in turn became fascinated with the film (there are obvious parts that would have appealed to them). The stunning technical work is probably the only reason to see this, because under that is just the bare bones of a silly, silly film.

Roman Goes Down

So what happened back then? Well, Polanski offered this girl a Quaalude at a party and she took it. She described everything, even including what the pillbox looked like. She also said that they drank champagne together. After they had gotten into the hot tub, she got out, and repeatedly told him that she wanted to go home. He didn’t take her home, and started performing “cuddliness” (lol, her word in court) on her. She told him to stop. Then they started having intercourse. Again she told him to stop. He asked her if she was on the pill, she said no. And then he decided that he better play it safe and put it in her butt.

I don't know why I never looked it up before, but I had no idea Roman went back door. Real "smart" dude. Just like raping a 13 yr. old at Jack Nicholson's house.

If you watch the documentary that came out recently, you realize there was a lot of other stuff going on (the crazy mom who basically pimped her daughter out, a media-obsessed judge looking to make a name for himself by putting away a big-time director for a long time, ect.). It's true these things happened, and the mother is a garbage-bin of a human being, but he still raped a woman, regardless of her age (which makes it worse).

The one good thing that might come out of this is that after serving his time (if and when he gets extradited) he might be able to work in the US again, but I won't hold my breath. Sometimes you have to separate the man from his art.

"11 would have been better." - Fake Roman Polanski

The Immortal Story

The Immortal Story, 1968
Dir: Orson Welles
September 27, 2009

This is an hour long made for French-TV film by Orson Welles. Yup. Again, I was probably not gonna watch it, but I read a decent review of it and decided that I really should just bang out everything that Welles has done. This is however a film with no real DVD release in the US, so you're gonna have to DL this to see it if you feel intrigued.

The story is about an elderly Mr. Clay (Orson Welles) who lives in 19th century Macao (China), who recalls hearing a story when he was young about another rich elderly man who solicits a sailor to impregnate his wife, decides to make it happen in real life in his old age. Of course, he has no wife, so he has to find a woman to play the part (Jeanne Moreau) and find a sailor (Norman Eshley) with the help of his bookkeeper Levinsky (Roger Coggio). Yeah, this is real. The woman, Ms. Virginie, has a score to settle with Clay, and hopes to make it the last "game" that he ever plays. The melancholy sailor has heard the story too (almost everyone has) and is dubious, though he is down to get "5 guineas."

Everything about the story starts with Mr. Clay's dislike of prophecy and ambiguity, and his need for everything to be "fact." When Levinsky tells him the the story he remembers never took place, that it's just a story that sailors told to entertain one another, he can't believe it. Many have read the corpulent character of Clay as a metaphor for the director himself; seemingly able to control the world around him he ends up as a hollow shell who succumbs to the prophesy he wants to both own and destroy (basically an apocryphal sailor's yarn). Like many of Welles' characters his failure is one of true imagination, unsatisfied by the tales he spins and the facts he commands, Clay attempts to will an immaterial and pointless world into being. Nevertheless, this is amongst the most joyless and least physical of all Welles' performances, his visual presence in the film often limited to the vision of him presiding over events in his high-backed chair. I was slightly dissapointed after his mind-blowing performance in Chimes at Midnight (1965).

The acting seems to take a backseat to Welles' direction, which while still maintaining the feel of a Wells film, is something entirely new in tone and literary interpretation. The film has a surprisingly dreamy quality, beautifully rendered and intricately told, it is a world-weary work preoccupied with the exhaustion of narrative storytelling (sometimes lines are delivered as if they were being read from the short story, and while some of them blew my hair back, like the sailor's ruminations on what must have gone through his father's mind right before he drowned, they seem more literary and less cinematic than I would like), and perhaps even the world itself. It is the most stately and reserved of Welles' films that I've seen, the piano music giving it a feeling and sensibility closer in tone to Kubrick's Barry Lyndon (1975) than The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). I guess it can also be noted that this is Welles' first color film effort. At times the film deploys naturalistic lighting schemes, while at others it is dominated by either bleached-out or deeply hued tones (particularly of burnt orange). As is true of all of Welles' post-synched soundtracks, sound seems to emerge from both inside and outside the world of the film. Thus, the seamless movement from what appears to be voice-over narration to the roughly lip-synched dialogue of a character early in the film is typical of the manner in which the film self-consciously plays with the processes of cinematic storytelling and technique. It can be jarring, but it has a point in the Welles universe.

This really isn't a film. It's a short visual essay that it really hard to describe. By the end, Clay is dead, exhausted by his deed and his inability to perceive any of it. Moreau has helped in Clay's demise, but her bond with the young sailor lasts just one night, and she too seems burdened by her act. The sailor is destined to never have Virginie, left to walk back to the docks in Macao with only the 5 guineas. Levinsky, now master-less, is left to listen to the sound of the seashell that the sailor left, as if it might give him answers. A sincerely sad and elusive statement from a man who may have captured the world if someone had let him, The Immortal Story really got to me at parts, despite its incoherence and short length. But maybe that's part of watching it. You can't really grab it before it fades away.

(There aren't even that many good photos online.)

Masculin féminin

Masulin féminin, 1966
Dir: Jean-Luc Godard
September 25, 2009

Despite the title-cards and the "Godardian" (you know what I mean by now) dialogue, this film really captured the essence of being a young adult. While it is a sort of zeitgeist of 60s France and basically portrays both women and men as generally seen in narrow stereotypes, it seems very reflective of that time of life.

New Wave icon Jean-Pierre Leaud stars as Paul, a young journalist with socialist leanings trying to nail pop singer Madeleine (real life pop-singer Chantal Goya). Ostensibly plot-less, Godard uses Leaud as his own personal mouthpiece, setting up situations in which the dialogue between characters works more like impersonal interviews, subjects ranging on everything from politics and Vietnam to birth control and abortion, often shooting takes of excruciating length for realistic effect. There is a sense of detachment and lack of emotions amongst these young people that really sinks in. Paul doesn't quite know what to do with himself and neither does anyone else or if they do it seems to be some sort of distraction from reality, despite the big ideas they throw around or pretend to be interested in. People do not fully express themselves to one another, shown particularly between Paul and Madeleine, especially when he is at his most passionate to her, but it is only by making a record for her, and not face to face.

This film seems to be almost completely opposite in mood to any other Godard film I've seen, and it left me kind of confused and cold. Even so, after watching it 2 days ago, I've been thinking about it much more than any other Godard film I've seen. It has a lot of the hallmarks of a typical Godard film - jump cuts, romance, wordplay, but somehow, none of it comes across as playful at all. I would say Masculin feminin documents a generation of wandering and directionless boys and girls, which you see everyday, you meet at parties, and even see in yourself. The treatment of the characters alone is confusing enough to make me want to watch it again. I'm not going to write any more, because I'm really on the fence about this film and I'm not really quite sure what else I could say about it now, but it definitely struck a chord with me, and the change in tone leads me to believe that the fun and games is over for Godard.

Man with the Movie Camera

Man with the Movie Camera (Человек с киноаппаратом), 1929
Director: Dziga Vertov
September 23, 2009

Now this is interesting. Made as an free-flowing experimental film, Man with the Movie Camera toys around with the concepts of cinema, while also using new and innovative techniques. Through the use of cinema, and without the aid of title cards and theater attachments (actors, sets, etc.) Dziga Vertov (with a huge assist from his brother as the rather acrobatic cameraman) shows the world that you can communicate through cinema without any sort of story.

What follows is an average day in Soviet Russia. We see beautiful black and white photography of Russian cities and train depots. We see people awaking and rising into the morning sun. We see a marriage and a divorce. We see a child born and death. The editing is slick in juxtaposing these images together, and it doesn't stop there. Soon we begin to bounce around particular jobs, such as coal mining and the police officers who control the traffic lights. It's interesting, since it seems that most of these people are unaware that the camera is present, which is neat because, like in a fictional film, the actors/actresses have to turn a blind eye to the machine that is recording them. However, there are a few scenes in particular (like the woman getting changed) that are obviously staged, but who cares? This movie is a marvel to look at. A clearly added soundtrack is over-the-top nationalist pomposity, but you get it's added effect.

We see fast/slow motion, extreme close-ups, double exposure, and a really cool editing trick that juxtaposes two dutch angles together. Man with the Movie Camera is short, sweet, and full of flashy technical camera work. It also great condensing of early Soviet ideas on cinema (montage, ect.) while pushing the envelope even further in hopes of what would be a truly new (socialist?) type of cinema. If you're interested in film history, documentaries or experimental films, then you should make sure you get the chance to see this.

Chimes at Midnight

Chimes at Midnight (Falstaff), 1965
Dir: Orson Welles
September 22, 2009

When people talk about Orson Welles, they always talk about Citizen Kane (1941). I understand why, and yet, I can't find myself being pulled into it again after seeing it a couple of times now. It's just not really for me. What I can't understand, after seeing this, is how Chimes at Midnight has no US release of any kind, and is not even talked about that much. It's so fucking good. I'm going to say that it's the best thing that Welles ever did.

It's a condensing of 5 different Shakespeare plays (Henry IV pts. 1 + 2, Henry V, Richard II, The Merry Wives of Windsor) that, as the alternate title suggest, focuses on the character of Sir John Falstaff, played by Orson Welles. It's really bizarre watching this right after Macbeth (1948). Where Welles was always a large man, here he is so obese, it's almost sad. The only thing you can possibly find cheerful about his role is that it makes him perfect to play the part. In a way, it is slightly parallel to the story of Welles' career as well, of a fat, jovial "knight" who has the admiration and friendship of the young prince Hal (Kieth Baxter), only to have his heart broken when the now king Henry V spurns their comradeship in favor of royal duties. The acting was a surprise, for as hammy as Welles' productions can be sometimes (especially when he was never really that interested in the story), here it is kept to the bare minimum, well at least as far a Shakespeare production. John Gielgud as a guilty Henry IV is awesome, as any stage vet should be. Baxter is also equally great, moving between the mischievous prankster and the melancholy son who knows that soon the good times must end. As the fiery Henry "Hotspur" Percy, Norman Rodway plays the role with great abandon, just like the character who throws away everything for that one shot at the crown. Like any good Shakespeare production you've seen, there really is no bad acting in this, and seeing as though Welles was so passionate about the project, you really couldn't expect anything less.

As good as everyone else is, Welles really steals every scene he is in. Like any great film, it pulls you this way and that, and Welles is there all the way. From boasting that he should be made either an earl or a duke after presenting the body of Hotspur to Henry IV (who was not killed by Falstaff, but by Prince Hal) or to protesting that at least 8 (or was it 12?) men had accosted him after a robbery (when it had been just been two, Prince Hal and Ned in a prank), Welles is incredibly funny, even with the archaic language. Underneath it all though is that never-ending sadness that comes out from time to time ("There are only three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old..."). His reminisces with Master Shallow about "good times" always bring home the hard fact that despite all the laughs and boasts, Falstaff knows that he is getting old and must die soon. The most poignant moment in the film of course is at Henry V's coronation, when an ecstatic Falstaff bursts through the crowd to cry, "God save you, little one! God save the King!" A sober Henry then claims, "I know thee not, old man." The look on Welles' face is almost unbearable after he hears the rebukes of his young prince, and his equally pathetic boasts afterward that the king was just playing a front for the court are equally hollow and infinitely sad. This scene can be taken into context by watching Kenneth Branagh's Henry V (1989), which has the same scene in flashback mode but, in my opinion, it's not nearly as effective. That movie is nevertheless, upon reflection, hugely influenced by this film.

Of primary interest to film buffs in in regards to the technical aspects, apart from Welles' usual stunning visual poetry, is the climactic Battle of Shrewsbury, in which Prince Harry must ride next to his father and take on his responsibility as the Prince of Wales. The battle is shot in a familiar way that people will recognize today, but only because it has been copied by so many (in particular, Braveheart (1995)). You are taken right into the action, which is earthy and brutal, and by the end, when tired knights are falling over each other in the mud, you understand why. It's a breathless experience. Like modern film battle scenes that employ the same technique, it suffers from some shaky shots that makes what is being shown you hard to make out, but Welles pulls back from time-to-time to focus on some interesting things. This, along with watching the cowardly Falstaff skulk in the trees avoiding battle and making more false boasts ("Give me leave to breathe a while...I have paid Percy; I have made him sore!") combined with all the rolling fog and atmosphere (the low-budget soundtrack is very cheesy, though effective in it's own way) makes for one of the greatest battle sequences ever, hands down.

It never seems Welles' intention to be stodgily “faithful” to the text by eliminating his own voice from the creation. Chimes at Midnight, like Othello (1952), is all about Shakespeare, and all about Welles, simultaneously, whereas Macbeth (1948) was stuck in a world that couldn't really realize either and looked artificial (while still pulling off a great deal). His efforts to render Shakespeare's work in filmic terms is considerably more imaginative than say, an Olivier production, whose attempts at cinema (I don't know if you've seen any), which are generally favored in mainstream canons, seem limited to “I think Shakespeare would have a close-up here,” or the like, but the man was never really a director with a visual eye. A great actor for sure, though, who made some decent films, but you can't really say more than that. Chimes at Midnight is everything those films are not: brutish, earthy, messy, and also fraught with emotion. This has skyrocketed into my favorite films list. Watch this badboy when you can!

Macbeth (1948)

Macbeth, 1948
Dir: Orson Welles
September 20, 2009

I wasn't quite sure if I was going to get to this one (or even be able see to see it), but I downloaded it so I could throw my two cents in and continue on my filling out the Welles filmography. So after going bonkers again in The Lady From Shanghai (1947), Welles was not going to get any funding from a studio. He began trying to find someone who would let him film a Shakespeare adaptation, and eventually got one. He was only given a shoestring budget however, and eventually shot this in 23 days (!!).

I'm not going to go through what Macbeth is all about, since you probably know, but it is of note to know that the (few) people who saw this when it was released were scandalized. Shakespeare buffs were incensed that anyone would have the audacity to change lines, reassign lines to other characters, shave scenes, and even, God forbid, add a character. This stuff is commonplace now, given what it takes to make a visual adaptation of something literary, but the changes that were made is the biggest reason that this was shit on when it was released, and why it's only being rediscovered (and reevaluated) recently.

The first thing that really gets me about this film, is that despite what Welles does with the camera (close-ups, low-angle shot and off/deep focus), it still just feels like a play is being filmed on a stage most of this time. That, and the weird, hulking set is made out of paper mache. The costumes are ridiculous and the Scottish burrs that everyone speaks in only work for a few (the native Scots, and Welles). Jeanette Nolan, a radio actress who got the part of Lady Macbeth, sounds pretty retarded trying to pull it off.

There are also a lot of good things to say about the film, especially the way the Witches were dealt with. At the beginning of the film, they create a clay figurine of Macbeth, which is obviously used to symbolize his rise and ruin. They are kept in shadow, and you never see their faces. Like the rest of the cast, their lines are delivered in typical overblown, Shakespearean splendor. What makes this different is that Welles seems to want the audience to believe that the Witches have been controlling everything since that fateful first meeting with Macbeth and that he had the choice to not mention the prophecy to any one, and just forget it. According to Welles, maybe he didn't. In the end, the film is probably a lesser work. It is still fascinating and effective however, and should probably be sought out if you dig what Welles was all about.

The Trial

The Trial, 1962
Dir: Orson Welles
September 17, 2009

The Trial is an utterly effective experience. It's a really faithful adaptation (barring some up-to-date modernizations and the end), and some critics have noted that it is too faithful. François Truffaut, who felt that Welles was doing “a Kafka” in the same rather cold, reverent spirit with which a theater company might do “a Shakespeare,” was utterly unimpressed where he had been so reverential of Touch of Evil (1958) earlier. I think I agree. Where his Shakespeare films have a very distinct Welles feel, here it's sometimes hard to tell where it's Welles over Kafka in style. However, whatever your feelings about book-to-film adaptations, you can't help but be impressed by Welles' direction, which is awesome, as usual.

If you don't know the story, The Trial is about a man named Josef K (Anthony Perkins) who is arrested by a distant and abstract authority who does not make clear the charges brought against him. In his efforts to redeem his name, he goes to many different bizarre places and deals with many different confounding things, and by the end, even if you haven't read the novel, you know that Josef can't escape the tangled web he's been caught in.

Welles wanted this to be a black comedy, and Perkins plays off of that direction well, for at parts though you might want to laugh at the back-and-forth, circular conversations, you are right there with Josef being utterly baffled and frustrated by an authority that never gives any reasons for what they do or why they chose Josef. Perkins is a rather unorthodox Welles hero, but fitting for this film, and his confusion builds wonderfully through his awkward meetings with judges, women and painters.

Seeing as that many people consider "The Trial" the classic expressionist nightmare, Welles direction does a fantastic job of getting you lost in the maze. He balances long takes and long shots with just as many claustrophobic close-ups and rapid, uneasy cuts, imbuing the story with a feeling of loss, isolation, and perhaps freedom (if you look at it that way), as Josef's murder becomes imminent. The "flogging" scene in a store-room, which is probably the best in the film, feels entirely real and scary, and you, just like Josef, want desperately to get the hell out of there. Welles himself claimed that this was his best film, and as far as direction is concerned, you'd be hard pressed to disagree.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 1927
Dir: F.W. Murnau
September 16, 2009

After reading a very positive review on this site for Sunrise, I got the opportunity to see it last night on big screen at the Harvard Film Archive for free. The seats are pretty clunky and whatnot, but seeing a great film in a theater is really worth it sometimes, especially when its free. I'm not sure why I've never gone there before. It's really great. Having only seen Nosferatu (1922) before this, I am even more interested in Murnau's other stuff now, considering his obvious influences in romantic and impressionistic art.

The story sets up an adulterous farmer (The Man) (George O'Brien) who contemplates killing his young wife (Janet Gaynor) to head for the city with a scheming woman (Margaret Livingston). The amazing black and white photography (not to mention hair color) immediately sets up the wife as "light" lady (with a child) and the woman from the city as the "dark" lady. It's pretty classic fable stuff, and Muranu works it really well. The affair has ruined the lives of The Man and The Wife, who were once happy and prosperous on their farm. In a visually striking and atmospheric scene, The Dark Lady convinces The Man to drown The Wife in order to move with her to the City. The Man easily convinces The Wife to go for a boat ride across the water, as she longs for time with her husband.

The scene on the boat where The Man can't follow through on the plan plays on his inner torment well, just as he wrestled with his demons right after his secret meeting with the Dark Lady. The Man readies himself to throw The Wife overboard. He looks into her eyes and realizes that he can’t do it, however, and the boat reaches the shore. The Wife flees and The Man follows. The pair winds up in the City and a story of redemption, forgiveness, and romance develops.

There are multiple angles with this relatively simple story. For starters, one might be wondering how The Wife ever took The Man back after this attempted murder. The stark forgiveness seems a bit like naiveté, in a way, but so desperate is The Man to have his Wife back that one can’t help but feel for him somewhat. He has made a horrible, terrifying error in judgment and has been swept up in the tide of adulterous lust. The Dark Lady’s spell on him broken, his clarity begs him to change his ways.

What happens in the city is somewhat divergent in tone to the rest of the film, but part of understanding the total gravity of Sunrise is to understand what filmgoers were expecting and what they would have received upon seeing this in the late 20s. This was Murnau's first Hollywood movie, and there was probably some expectation that certain things would be in it from the studio. It's a credit to Murnau that he makes slice-of-life stuff so engaging and funny, and not to mention relevant to the rest of the feature. Drunk pigs (or animals in general) are always funny, too. It's also a little look into Murnau "queer" sensibility (the barbershop scene), who never really made it a secret that he was gay (causing all sorts of crazy rumors when he died in 1931).

The prime focal point of Sunrise is the camerawork and direction. As good as the actors are, and they are tremendous, especially Gaynor, Murnau’s direction is the stuff of legends. The framing of the shots, the use of superimposed images and how they were created in the camera and not in the editing room, and Murnau’s gift for using bits of nature as mood props add up to an seriously impressive not to mention artistic film.

Like Nosferatu, this is a film told with images. A clear mark of a maturing artist is that his form improves, and if you can remember Nosferatu well, you know it is heavily titled. Here, the titles are left to the bare minimum and the images give you all the information you need, especially with the way Murnau and the cinematographers dealt with light. It's interesting to note that while the "rules" of cinema were being written by D.W. Griffith during this period, Murnau and the German Expressionist were already breaking them. If there is any silent film to show someone, this is probably it.