A Place in the Sun (1951)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

A Place in the Sun (1951) – G. Stevens

Montgomery Clift is like a deer in the headlights when he stumbles into Elizabeth Taylor and her snooty social circle.  You see, he’s from a poor and sheltered background and the luxuries of the idle rich are quite beyond him. At first, he resists, maintaining his working class mentality and wooing dowdy Shelley Winters.  But when Liz (I mean Angela) seeks him out and pursues him (which her parents think is a whim or acting out), he falls hard.  Unfortunately, there’s a problem – he’s gotten Shelley (I mean Alice) in the family way; he’s trapped and won’t be able to secure that place in the sun with Liz.  In this regard, the film might be considered a noir, particularly when Monty (I mean George) foments his plan, consciously or not, to get rid of Alice.  Knowing that the film is based on Dreisser’s An American Tragedy, it seems hard to not read it in terms of class differences – just those words “American” and “Tragedy” in the context of today’s reality make you feel that George/Monty is forever locked out of a world where his dreams can come true and that the American Dream is really a Tragedy because it invites desperation and disappointment.  George Stevens brings his competence and craft to the film (shot in black and white to avoid letting color brighten its story); glamour and charisma emanates from young Liz; and Monty’s method approach is absorbingly thick. I’m debating with myself whether a director with a darker touch who could flip this more firmly into a true film noir would have ruined its mysterious stunned quality or whether Stevens got it exactly right, showing us the fantasy world that only the 1% can attain without raising any doubts that it would be beautiful (for this must be what American Dreamers perceive).    

The Cyclist (1987)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Cyclist (1987) – M. Makhmalbaf

Peculiar tale of an Afghani migrant to Iran who, in order to raise funds for his wife’s emergency hospital stay, agrees to ride a bicycle in a small circle for seven days non-stop.  Of course, this is a circus, especially when extreme bets are placed on the outcome and the opposing forces seek to influence the result – both have teams of doctors attempting to fill Nazim (or breeze, nee Ateh) with either vitamins or Valium.  Director Mohsen Makhmalbaf creates a weird feeling of hyper-reality which might be the result of the woozy Arabic music, the occasionally bright colour scheme (many blues) and the strange and surreal proceedings.  Standing back a bit, it seems that the film could be seen as an allegory for the exploitation of the desperate among us -- perhaps Afghanis in Iran, particularly, but humans more generally.  What won’t they do for money and what sort of sick game might it be for those who are rich and powerful to make sport out of or money as a result of suffering.  Yet, the film never feels preachy or horrible, just strange and rather suspenseful – will Ateh complete the feat or not?

  

Dead Man (1995)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Dead Man (1995) – J. Jarmusch

Immensely satisfying, Dead Man is a masterpiece from independent maverick Jim Jarmusch, an historically accurate rendering of the American West that follows the spiritual journey of Wiliam Blake (Johnny Depp) from life to death. Not _that_ William Blake, of course, but the misperception does allow Jarmusch to quote a lot of Blake’s poetry, delivered sometimes as faux Native American idioms by Gary Farmer, playing Nobody, Blake’s guide on the journey.  For this is really a road movie, terrain that cinematographer Robby Muller has visited before with Wim Wenders (friend and mentor to Jarmusch); his black and white footage of the serene wilderness contrasts with the stark views of the ugly white man’s town of Machine – both are spectacular.  Neil Young’s solo guitar score is haunting, ruminative, evocative, sacred – the film would not have reached such heights without it.  Most road movies are episodic, as the characters meet other players along the road and have adventures of various kinds and Dead Man is no different;  Blake runs afoul of Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, & Jared Harris who might kill him and Alfred Molina who wants to sell Nobody an infected blanket.  The white men are portrayed as flawed and violent here (beginning with Robert Mitchum in his final role), at least as compared to the Native Americans (who are not necessarily idealized).  As Blake/Depp travels half-dying (or already dead) from urban decay through pure natural environs to the sea, I am reminded of James Mason’s spiritual journey in Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out (1947), as an IRA leader who is shot and eventually leaves worldly things.  Mason is followed by the cops but Depp is followed by three bounty hunters who meet various untoward ends, allowing Jarmusch to employ some gallows humor.  And, although the movie does have some idiosyncratic anecdotes and Jarmuschian moments, mainly it is a majestic, poetic, astonishing meditation on the rape of the land and indigenous peoples, transmuted into William Blake’s experience and his writing by fire.  At his point in our history, we may all be dead already.

Coup de Torchon (1981)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Coup de Torchon (1981) – B. Tavernier

Sun-baked neo-noir, based on a novel by Jim Thompson (Pop. 1280), and directed by Bertrand Tavernier who transposed it from the U. S. South to a French colony in western Africa in the 1930s. Philippe Noiret plays the local cop who, at first, seems none too bright, preferring to give in to get along, rarely arresting anyone and letting those in power kick him around (including his wife and her n’er do well brother).  So, when he starts putting his plan for revenge into effect – or maybe he just cracks, it’s hard to tell – this viewer wasn’t quite sure what was happening.  But slowly and surely, the rude and the mighty get offed and Noiret finds himself bedding the young Isabelle Huppert, more or less oblivious to what the town might think.  Perhaps his lazy manner provides the perfect cover because no one seems too troubled by the deaths, perhaps, indeed, he did the town a favour…  In the end, Coup de Torchon is more of a character study and a snapshot of colonialism gone bad than a tightly plotted film noir, but its looseness and indirect approach is definitely part of its appeal.