Advise and Consent (1962)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Advise and Consent (1962) – O. Preminger

Otto Preminger’s look at machinations in the US Senate is full of tension and intrigue, as Charles Laughton’s crusty southern senator seeks to sink the confirmation of Henry Fonda as Secretary of State.  Fonda’s character has been nominated by the possibly dying president (Franchot Tone) and his friend, the Senate Majority Leader (an excellent Walter Pidgeon), must work to get the votes lined up.  When the confirmation moves to a subcommittee chaired by Utah Senator Brig Anderson (Don Murray), Laughton finds a witness (Burgess Meredith) to testify that Fonda once belonged to a communist discussion group.  Meanwhile, another Senator (George Grizzard) has his own axe to grind when he isn’t made the subcommittee chair.  Peter Lawford, Lou Ayres, Will Geer, and Gene Tierney round out the starry cast.  To tell more would probably be criminal – the screenplay based on Allen Drury’s novel has a lot of twists and turns.  Of course, there are clear links to real US politics – particularly the red-baiting tactics of Joe McCarthy; to that end, it is worth noting that Preminger selected Burgess Meredith and Will Geer for the cast because they had been blacklisted themselves.  As always, Preminger seeks to break some taboos with his film – and again that particular plot twist is drawn from an actual event in US politics.  This was Laughton’s last film and he goes out with a nicely observed caricature. 

Seven Days in May (1964)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Seven Days in May (1964) – J. Frankenheimer

Released in 1964, but taking place in the near future when a liberal US president (Fredric March) has just signed a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Soviet Union.  His approval ratings sink to 29% and he is confronted by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General James Mattoon Scott (Burt Lancaster), who believes that peace can only be attained through a strong nuclear arsenal as a deterrent.  The US election is still close to two years away, but the fiery Lancaster is giving populist/nationalist speeches and openly trashing the President; conservative TV commentators and some senators support him.  Kirk Douglas plays his loyal assistant, Colonel Jiggs Casey, who begins to suspect that Gen. Scott plans a military overthrow of the government – on the upcoming Sunday (only 4 or 5 days away).  Thus, begins a very tense thriller with clues and evidence gradually uncovered by Casey and the President’s team (played by Martin Balsam and Edmond O’Brien, among other recognisable actors).  Ava Gardner plays Scott’s ex-girlfriend who may have dirt to dish.  Will the crisis be averted?  Director John Frankenheimer (in his follow-up to masterpiece The Manchurian Candidate, 1962) keeps things moving and the actors work their magic.  An entertaining political thriller (notwithstanding its inevitable reminders about the current unfortunate state of American affairs).

Summer with Monika (1953)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Summer with Monika (1953) – I. Bergman

This was Ingmar Bergman’s first big international hit, primarily due to a nude scene by Harriet Andersson which led to the film being recut and distributed as exploitation fare in the US.  Although very tame by modern standards, the story of teenagers who escape their dreary lives to an island in the Swedish archipelago until she falls pregnant and they need to return to reality, was something not seen on American screens due to earlier censorship rules.  Bergman takes the simple plot and adds a lot of sensuality, not just via Andersson but through inserted shots of nature and the elements (credit due to cinematographer Gunnar Fischer).  He offers just enough background to his characters to allow a psychological reading of their personalities and decisions.  Monika (Andersson) is the neglected eldest daughter to an alcoholic father and a mother who has a number of little ones to look after and Harry (Lars Ekborg) is the only son to an ailing father (his mother passed away long ago).  As such, she is selfish and craves attention whereas he is more controlled and overly responsible.  She sparks the decision to flee the city to the islands which leads him to abruptly quit his job (which was already being affected by his being drawn into her orbit), but he is the one who knows when it is time to return to find a career to support her and the child to come.  Of course, this is at the end of the summer.  Thus, the escape to the island can be seen as a fantasy, an idyll quite separate from the otherwise grim real world marked by poverty and hard work -- another “summer interlude” (to reference the title of an earlier film). In the end, Monika herself may be a fantasy for Harry, a specific memory to hold onto that will haunt him far into the future. Bergman’s developing vision of life seems to involve darkness punctuated by isolated and fleeting moments of happiness (which we allow to linger with inevitable mixed feelings).

Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954) – J. Becker

This film just gets better and better as you age.  Jean Gabin was 50 when he played the world-weary gangster ready to retire after the big heist – retirement might be a few years away for me but it isn’t hard to identify with Gabin here.  Director Jacques Becker (assistant to Renoir in the ‘30s) defies the clichés to show us the gangsters in their downtime, between the action sequences.  Max (Gabin) and his partner Riton (René Dary) are viewed like an old married couple, overly familiar, aware of each other’s flaws, neglectful at times but affectionate deep down.  There’s a funny scene where they hide out at a secret apartment that Max uses when the heat is on (or in this case when rival gangster Angelo, played by Lina Ventura, is looking to work them over to find the “grisbi” or loot); we see them eating, brushing their teeth, getting ready for bed – it’s all quite domestic.  Riton is being scolded for having told his girl (a young Jeanne Moreau, playing a dancer) about the heist and thereby letting Ventura (now her new beau) in on it.  Nevertheless, he can’t help himself from doing the wrong thing and contacting her again – leading to even more trouble when he is captured.  Gabin plays Max as stoically as you can (and none of the tough guys here is expressive), but you can tell he is over it all – he just wants to wrap up this last job and live the elegant good life.  Instead, he is drawn back in, having to play the role of fixer yet again – until it all turns to shit, as it always does in this sort of film.  Becker shoots the Paris streets with a travelling camera and they look great in black and white – but the overall feel is steady and measured, even in the penultimate action scene (the one moment of violence in the film).  I listened to critic Adrian Martin’s audio commentary this time and I highly recommend it and (of course) the film.

Summer Interlude (1951)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Summer Interlude (1951) – I. Bergman

Maj-Britt Nilsson stars as Marie, a star ballet dancer, who receives a package that unsettles her on the eve of opening night of a major performance.  When a power outage causes dress rehearsal to be called off, she takes the opportunity to take a ferry to a nearby island where a flashback ensues.  We see her younger and happier, beginning a summer romance with Henrik (Birger Malmsten), a rather sullen young man whose parents are divorced and who lives with an elderly and mean aunt.  The cinematography here, by Gunnar Fischer, is gorgeous and the feeling of summer (its radiance and peacefulness) shines through.  The young lovers spend an idyllic couple of months on the island where he lives and she is staying with her creepy lecherous Uncle Erland and sad neglected Aunt Elisabeth.  As in other Ingmar Bergman films of this period, the dialogue is fresh and frank, talking of sex but also about death, god, relationships, culture, and the future.  As the summer ends, we learn why Marie has become lonely and bitter in the future, despite her career success.  As we dip in and out of the flashback, Marie meets Uncle Erland on the island, now both much older and we learn about the mysterious package and its import.  After she returns to Stockholm (presumably), we see her with her new boyfriend, struggling to commit to him – a legacy of those earlier days – but there may be hope for the future.  Nilsson’s performance her is very strong – her joy is infectious in the early days and her sadness later is palpable.  Bergman’s investigation of memory as an island that we visit that can haunt our present is a compelling metaphor.  Recommended.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) – M. McDonagh

Eccentric characters and an unusual unpredictable storyline do elevate films; the predictable Hollywood film has grown tiresome.  In Martin McDonagh’s Oscar-winning tragicomedy, we are treated to some very peculiar events in a fictional Missouri town, populated by extreme people (played by superstar actors).  The tone is comic but the content is dark, very dark – perhaps this allows us to face it more easily?  Frances McDormand plays a woman whose daughter was raped and murdered and who seeks to push the police to solve the case by putting up billboards to humiliate them.  Woody Harrelson is the police chief who is dying of cancer and stymied by the case.  Sam Rockwell is the not-too-bright but racist and hot-headed officer who butts heads with McDormand.  An assortment of excellent supporting players fill out the cast.  Each of the central figures follows an arc that shows some personal growth – and we are asked to contemplate how grief (and impending death) affect people.  McDormand and Rockwell show us some reactions.  Wittily, Harrelson attempts to foresee how others will react to his own death.  Although we may not get the ending that we hoped for (a good thing, perhaps), the film as a whole is refreshingly blunt (led all the way by McDormand’s brash portrayal) and a setting/cast that could easily spin-off a quirky miniseries. We want to see more of this town and its denizens.

  

Lady Macbeth (2016)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Lady Macbeth (2016) – W. Oldroyd

Adapted from a 19^th century Russian novel and not from Shakespeare (but definitely with overtones from that tragedy), this is really a showcase for Florence Pugh who, at age 20, dominates the proceedings.  Pugh plays a young woman who marries (or is purchased) into a wealthy family in the north of England in the 1860s – she clearly has a wilful streak but her husband disdains her and seeks to keep her locked up inside (when she would rather run free on the moors).  Her stern father-in-law runs the house and both servants and family are treated with contempt.  When these men are called away, Katherine (Pugh) asserts herself, including beginning a passionate affair with a groomsman (Cosmo Jarvis).  As gossip begins to spread, Katherine takes increasingly decisive actions to preserve the illicit relationship.  As directed by William Oldroyd (in his first feature), this is a rather stately affair, with beautiful period setting and furnishing – but punctuated with moments of passion and violence (disturbingly so).  At first, Katherine appears to be a representation of the empowered woman – refusing to yield to the heavy-handed authority of the patriarchy – but as the film progresses and her actions become more ruthless, it is harder to sympathise with her.  Is there a political point being made here? It is hard to know.  (Inter-racial relationships are also highlighted – so both race and gender are under the microscope). Regardless of its sociological themes, the film is absorbing, a bit Shakespearean, not too long, and Florence Pugh is great.

Wild Strawberries (1957)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Wild Strawberries (1957) – I. Bergman

Having seen Wild Strawberries many times before, I decided to watch the new blu-ray version with film critic Peter Cowie’s audio commentary turned on. I don’t know that it offered many more insights or facts beyond what I already knew – and it may have impacted on my appreciation of the film this time (too distracting).  That said, Wild Strawberries is still undoubtedly a masterpiece from film titan Ingmar Bergman.  His regular troupe of actors is here: Ingrid Thulin, Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand, Naima Wifstrand – but the lead role goes to Victor Sjöström, then 79-years-old and a fabled film director and star actor in his own right (known most famously for The Phantom Carriage, 1921, He Who Gets Slapped, 1924, and The Wind, 1928).  Sjöström plays Isak Borg (note the initials), a retired professor of medicine who will travel from Stockholm to Lund over the course of the film (a 14 hour car journey) in order to receive an honorary degree.  The journey becomes a psychic exploration of Borg’s past and principally his relationships with women; it seems that his has been a lonely existence, possibly due to his own cold selfish nature, which may in turn be a result of his relations with his parents (an autobiographical note from Bergman himself).  This subtext is told primarily through dream sequences that offer some glimpses of reality as it may have been and some nightmarish eruptions of anxiety filled with symbolism (clocks with no hands) and a foreboding sense of imminent death.  We see fond reveries of his first crush, Sara (Bibi Andersson), in the wild strawberry patch – and then we later see her in a frightening scene where she holds a mirror up to Borg to show him his flaws (surely not something that really happened).  Sara is also mirrored by her modern day doppelganger, a modern young Sara who Borg and his daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) pick up hitchhiking with two male travelling companions on their way to Italy.  While Marianne gives Borg a piece of her mind (informing him how his own son hates him for the way he has been treated), the new young Sara gives Borg a chance to amend his ways, soften his personality, and reflect on his own behaviour. Marianne and her estranged husband (Borg’s son; Gunnar Björnstrand) have fought over whether to have children (he thinks that it is cruel to bring anyone into this terrible world – an existential truism for Bergman, perhaps) but by the end of the film, they will reconcile and Borg’s own anxieties will have calmed.  Yet overall, the film seems ambivalent toward life and relationships – Bergman sees them as affording both great torment and the opportunity for beautiful communion.  Each generation passes along its successes and failures to the next one – yet there is still hope that one can escape this determinism, if perhaps only on our deathbeds!  A rich and provocative film that would reward closer study.

Isle of Dogs (2017)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Isle of Dogs (2017) – W. Anderson

Director Wes Anderson’s latest film is a stop-motion animated curiosity taking place in a miniature version of future Japan (capital city, Megasaki).  Taking inspiration from the Rankin-Bass Christmas specials (e.g. Rudolph), this is a fun (but grown-up) adventure, telling how a dog-hating mayor evicts all canines to “Trash Island” where they are left to die, suffering from dog-flu and snout-fever and all manner of other ailments.  It is Anderson’s renowned attention to whimsical detail that sees his characters perpetually sneezing throughout the film – but of course, that’s just one small example.  Although the dogs speak in English, most of the other characters speak in Japanese, only occasionally translated (by a variety of interpreters or electronic translating machines).  The human hero of the tale, a 12-year-old boy named Atari (voiced by Koyu Rankin), flies a small junior aircraft to Trash Island to find his former pet bodyguard, Spots (voiced by Liev Schreiber).  He is assisted by four former pet dogs (voiced by Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Jeff Goldblum, and Bill Murray) and a stray (voiced by Bryan Cranston).  They have quite the adventure.  A teenaged human exchange student (voiced by Greta Gerwig) also helps by fighting the corrupt government and exposing an evil conspiracy.  Along the way, Anderson enjoys spoofing and/or paying homage to Japanese culture.  There is probably too much to look at or to take in for just one sitting. The music is less song based than in other Anderson features – for example, some of the music is apparently drawn from Seven Samurai (1954) -- but there is also the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s “I Won’t Hurt You” (which certainly fits with what we know of Anderson’s musical taste).  Harvey Keitel, Scarlett Johansson, Yoko Ono, and F. Murray Abraham also lend their vocal talents, along with an array of Japanese actors.  As with Anderson’s other output, you really need to be on his wavelength to appreciate this – and I was (and have been).  So, if you have liked his other films, you won’t be disappointed with this one.  I found it silly but highly enjoyable.   

  

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) – I. Bergman

The Ingmar Bergman boxset from Criterion is “curated” so that the films are presented not in chronological order but thematically.  Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), Bergman’s first big success, was selected for “Opening Night” on the first disc.  Bergman himself provides a brief introduction (circa 2003) and (afterward) there is a discussion of the film by critic Peter Cowie and writer/Bergman friend Jörn Donner. I probably watched the film 25 years ago and I did not remember it at all.  At the start, I worried that I would be lost as we are quickly introduced to a number of characters in Sweden circa 1901:  Fredrik Egerman, a lawyer (played by Gunnar Björnstrand, a regular member of Bergman’s troupe), his teenage bride, Anne (Ulla Jacobsson), his teenage son, Henrik (Björn Bjelfvenstam, and their saucy teenage maid Petra (Harriet Andersson).  Next, we are informed that Fredrik’s ex-lover Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck) is starring in a local theatrical production and Fredrik and Anne attend, instantly arousing Anne’s jealousy -- and we find out that Anne is still a virgin when Fredrik solicits Desiree’s advice is helping him to secure Anne’s interest in sex.  Because, yes, this is a sex comedy (in the French tradition?).  Following this, we swiftly learn that Henrik is interested in both Petra and Anne, Anne is probably interested in Henrik not Fredrik, Desiree is still interested in Fredrik but is mistress to Count Malcolm (Jarl Kulle) who is insanely jealous and violent.   When Desiree gets her aged mother to invite the entire cast to her country estate for the weekend, she and Malcolm’s wife Charlotte (Margit Carlqvist) hatch a plan to have every person end up with the right partner.  Along the way, we see the king’s secret moving bed, a game of Russian Roulette, and a romp in the hay by Petra and a lusty groom.  In fact, the film has both darkness (suicide, Russian Roulette) and light (witty repartee, lusty antics) which is fitting for the midsummer’s sunlit night in Scandinavia, when passions run high and we learn of the three smiles of the title.  As shot by Gunnar Fischer, Bergman’s main cinematographer of this era, the film looks beautiful in B&W, with the final dappled light of early morning at the film’s close signalling that all’s well that ends well.  A tour de force.

Late Spring (1949)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Late Spring (1949) – Y. Ozu

One of the first films by Yasujiro Ozu that I saw and a key masterwork that contains some of his central themes, favourite actors, and hallmark techniques.  Ozu often named his later films for the seasons, equating them to periods in our lives – so late spring represents aging youth.  It comes with a heightened sense that time is passing and may be running out for those who need to move on to life’s next stage. Indeed, the plot focuses on the relationship between adult daughter Noriko (Setsuko Hara) and her widowed father (Chishû Ryû); she tends to him as a wife would and feels that he couldn’t get along without her. A busybody aunt (Haruko Sugimura) thinks it is time for Noriko to get married.  Of course, the father, a kindly sort, might actually be better off if Noriko didn’t marry but he too sees the wisdom in helping her to start her own family.  Although there is a potential suitor, things don’t work out and Noriko is urged to accept an arranged marriage – she only resists until she discovers that her father, too, is being encouraged to remarry.  As in other Ozu films, the family relationships are witnessed and commented upon by others; in this case, the father’s professor friend, recently remarried, and Noriko’s high-school friend, recently divorced.  They offer glimpses of what might be (the trials of single women, the possibility of new older partnerships), encouraging Noriko forward.  Setsuko Hara’s acting is exquisite – we feel (but do not actually see) her strong emotions as she resists losing her strong connection to her dad.  As always, Ozu punctuates the scenes in his films with quiet moments, shots that contain no people (still lives), often an empty room before someone enters but just as frequently a geometrically perfect outdoor shot.  In Late Spring, Ozu also offers a glimpse of numerous Japanese traditions – a tea ceremony, several temples of Kyoto, Noh drama.  Critic David Bordwell suggests that Ozu was intimating to the U.S. Occupation forces that Japanese traditions can sit side-by-side a new liberal modernism that features independent women and softspoken men– but a political reading of the film seems less rewarding than a transcendental existential one.  Observing the relationships here – and across Ozu’s body of work, where the same themes reoccur with subtle variations – cannot help but lead one to introspect about one’s own life and relationships, even if the culture on display here is very different from one’s own. Ozu succeeds by honing in on the socioemotional challenges we all face, heightened all the more because his characters tend to suppress their feelings. If you have never watched an Ozu film, this would be a perfect place to begin.