A Star is Born (1954)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

A Star is Born (1954) – G. Cukor

Rather gruelling at 3 hours long and due to the subject matter: an alcoholic movie star (James Mason) on his way down meets and grooms a young singer (Judy Garland) to become a new star of Hollywood musicals. Of course, this is a remake of the famous 1937 version starring Frederic March and Janet Gaynor – the earlier script won an Oscar and there are strong echoes of it here, even if the story has been transposed into a musical.  Mason is professional and feels authentic (brutally touching in his helpless self-loathing) even as Garland seems vulnerable and always on the verge of seeing herself in the Mason role. She glues us to the screen with her dramatic and emotional singing style, even though some of the songs are a bit boring.   Cut from 180 minutes to 154 after its initial release, most of the missing footage was found and replaced in a restoration, although some scenes are replaced by stills. Some “real” and compelling moments here where you can see through the varnish into the souls of the characters (if not the actors) but these moments are strewn throughout the film’s length, many coming at the end.

Rosetta (1999)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Rosetta (1999) – J.-P. & L. Dardenne

This is a portrait of a teenager who has taken on far too much responsibility (because of an alcoholic mother and missing father) at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder in French-speaking Belgium.  It’s shot in the Dardennes’ unique style, which involves a handheld camera held very close to the protagonist.  This creates a certain amount of suspense and/or anxiety – you can’t see a lot of the context or even the people immediately surrounding Rosetta in some shots. Because Rosetta is tough, often running, fighting, stressing, the close camera on her back brings the viewer along for a hyper-kinetic visceral ride.  The viewer is also placed in a morally compromised position – you want to identify with Rosetta, particularly because you have sympathy for her plight, but she doesn’t always act nicely or morally.  Perhaps this is explicable psychologically, or perhaps not.  The film is open to interpretation – this gives it greater impact.  I wonder, though, how many films the Dardennes can make in this vein – truly there are some great ones, but watching this early outing, I can see that there is some later retread.

Paris Belongs to Us (1961)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Paris Belongs to Us (1961) – J. Rivette

Rivette’s contribution to the New Wave took longer to put together (filming stretched over two years) and is more opaque than the more famous films of Truffaut, Godard, and Chabrol. It is also darker, more portentous and full of mystery, as well as being a first showing of the kinds of themes that Rivette would return to in his 12 hour epic Out 1.  A powerful conspiracy (fascist, nationalist, related to HUAC?) is threatening the characters who know about it, including two expatriate Americans. A Spanish guitarist commits suicide – or does he? A young girl gets involved in the intrigue through her older brother, becomes infatuated with a theatre director who feels overwhelmed by events, and seeks a missing tape of guitar music to assist his production of Pericles.  However, all (or some) of this may be a fiction. Paris looks bohemian and seedy and makes you wish you were there, despite the (real or imagined) danger.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) – A. Hitchcock

One of Hitch’s early British hits, with Peter Lorre as the charismatic villain.  Unlike his 1950s remake (which starred Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day), the central couple here, played by Leslie Banks and Edna Best, don’t quite distinguish themselves.  But Hitch has always been about plot mechanics and the building of suspense rather than about characterization anyway and the plot here moves rather dynamically from an early murder to the finding and following of clues to the climactic foiled assassination and subsequent shoot-out.  Hitch’s wry humour is in evidence and Edna Best gets the final word (being an ace trap shooter, after all), unlike Doris Day. As Hitch put it to Truffaut, consider this the work of a talented amateur and the remake to be the work of a professional.  Still great though.

The Human Condition III: A Soldier’s Prayer (1961)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Human Condition III: A Soldier’s Prayer (1961) – M. Kobayashi

At the end of the second film, Kaji’s battalion has been decimated by Soviet tanks and he and a tiny handful of other soldiers remain alive but unwilling to rejoin the army. Kaji leads them toward South Manchuria (where he hopes his wife Michiko is still alive and waiting) and along the way they pick up a ragtag band of other refugees. They wander aimlessly through the forest and some die of starvation.  Kaji is like a man possessed and his original humanism is overwhelmed by a desire to survive and to re-join Michiko, leading him to strike first when Soviet soldiers and hostile Chinese peasants get in their way. Ultimately, they are captured and, ironically, Kaji ends up in a POW labor camp not all that different from the one he managed in the first film of the trilogy. Despite their socialist orientation, the Soviets use similar inhumane tactics, further dispiriting Kaji. Regaining his humanist impulse, he tries to stand up for his rights and those of his fellow prisoners. However, when this fails, he takes justice into his own hands and then attempts to flee to Michiko through the harsh Manchurian winter.  It doesn’t end well.  So, as the trilogy closes (9 hours later), I find myself reeling from its bitter look at humankind. Even those of us most noble and sincerely interested in the welfare of others can be beaten down by war, by man’s inhumanity to man, by the callousness of those in power to those beneath them or different from them. Failure to live up to ideals, even when few others try, can lead to discouragement, self-loathing, alienation, and death. Kaji’s trials provide Kobayashi with a microcosm that stands in for larger existential issues that face us all. The human condition may be one in which it proves difficult to avoid self-defeating compromises and accompanying angst. But we’ve got to try.

The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Human Condition II: Road to Eternity (1959) – M. Kobayashi

At the end of the first film in the trilogy, Kaji is betrayed by his superior at the work camp in Manchuria (after seeking humane treatment of the Chinese POW laborers) and called up for military duty despite his guaranteed exemption. This second film (Parts 3 and 4) shows his experiences in the army, first in boot camp, where he and the other recruits are kicked around by the veterans, and then as the leader of a new group of recruits who end up at the front line attacked by the advancing Soviet troops.  Kaji’s idealism begins to crumble as he is routinely beat up, even as he sees another soldier commit suicide to escape the inhumane treatment; this change is hastened when he is assigned to a regiment led by an old friend, who refuses to buck the system. However scarred by experience, Kaji remains deep down a humanist -- but the film speaks to the power of terrible situations to engender opportunities for terrible behaviours. Engrossing (and apparently based on director Masaki Kobayashi’s own wartime experiences as well as the book by Jumpei Gomikawa).

The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1958)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Human Condition I: No Greater Love (1958) – M. Kobayashi

Whoa – heavy. The first three hours (and two parts) of Kobayashi’s 10-hour epic tell the story of Kaji (Tatsuya Nakadai), a pacifist and humanist working for a mining company in Manchuria when it has been taken over by Japan during WWII.  The film pulls no punches – although Kaji is noble and earnest and holds positive values, many of the other Japanese leaders (and particularly the military regime) are depicted as heartless and cruel. When 600 prisoners of war are transferred to the mine, things get very tense. Kaji champions their human rights but he is up against a wall – the film becomes morally very complex, showing the trap that Kaji finds himself in and the compromises he makes. Nevertheless, there does seem to be one clear moral “right answer” – it is the human condition that this choice is so difficult to implement. Truly, hell is other people. (Of course, the legacy of Japan’s invasion of China lives on in politics today, more than 60 years later.) Six hours more to go…

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

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The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) – M. Ritt

Exceedingly grey picture, both visually and in tone.  Richard Burton is Leamas who has been running Britain’s East German operations, until his primary double agent/defector is killed and he is called in by Control.  Therein lies the seed of a new plot, to oust the enemy agent who killed the defector, with Burton asked to pretend he has been called on the carpet, demoted, and as a result embittered enough to defect himself.  He gives a tired hangdog performance.  Claire Bloom gets dragged into things as his love interest, who is flirting with communism in a youthful idealistic way.  The plot seems straightforward but it is not and we learn, unsurprisingly, the wicked lengths to which spy agencies will go to achieve their ends. A slow burner.