Shame (1968)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Shame (1968) – I. Bergman

The ordering of discs in Criterion’s Bergman blu-ray boxset sees Shame (1968) following Hour of the Wolf (also 1968) and arriving not long after Scenes from a Marriage (1973) and Saraband (2003), all films that feature marital discord.  This really shines a light on the central couple’s relationship during this viewing of Shame, a relationship which also begins to fall apart as the characters played by Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow experience the stresses of a civil war in their country (and locally on their small island).  Unlike these other films, Bergman’s focus here is really on the collateral damage caused by war on innocent third parties (the Vietnam war was going on at the time). He mostly leaves the political dimension aside but shows us the manifestations of war on the lives of those on the island.  Liv Ullmann and Max von Sydow’s characters are forced to act pragmatically as they encounter soldiers from each side of the battle and leaders who seek to exert (and misuse) their power over others.  Soon, Eva and Jan find themselves compromising their own moral beliefs in order to survive.  The film is dark and doesn’t pull its punches.  Despite the main characters being concert musicians, there is no music on the soundtrack – in the special features, Bergman suggests that the film shows a time after music, where music no longer exists.  Indeed, he implies that the arts are another casualty of war, that they can’t solve the problems that result in violence.  If this wasn’t Bergman, you might think that this film was a cry in the dark, hoping that the powers that be were listening – but Bergman is too pessimistic for that to be the case.   

Sorry to Bother You (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Sorry to Bother You (2018) – B. Riley

Black comedy that gets darker and darker (and crazier and crazier) as it proposes some “alternate reality” possibilities for late capitalism (with racial inequality simmering under the surface as a key concern).  Cassius Green (LaKeith Stanfield) is a telemarketer who is seduced by the perks associated with being a “power seller” (a role he attains by using his “white voice” – not just a nod to double consciousness but an actual voiceover by David Cross; Patton Oswalt lends his white voice to another black character).  His financial success causes tension with his girlfriend, Detroit (Tessa Thompson), a local artist who also belongs to an activist group protesting against a new company, “Worry Free”, who offer lifetime contracts (including food and shelter but no other wage) for their employees.  That company is run by Steve Lift (Armie Hammer) who denies that he is dealing in slave labour (but Green soon finds that the power seller deals he seals are utilising Worry Free workers to make big profits for morally corrupt companies).  His friends, also telemarketers (but not power sellers), are soon striking against the company in order to secure a living wage but Green remains a scab, until he stumbles onto a bizarre secret at one of Lift’s parties.  To say more is probably criminal – you should enjoy the surprises this film has to offer on your own.  Boots Riley may be new to directing but he has certainly grabbed the opportunity with gusto – the film is bubbling over with (political) ideas, satire if you will, deep with meaning, but still so very freaky.  Thumbs up!

Wise Blood (1979)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Wise Blood (1979) – J. Huston

I haven’t read Flannery O’Connor’s book (her first, from 1952), which must be quite weird, because this (supposedly faithful) adaptation by director John Huston is also very strange.  It is hard to get a good grasp of the central character, Hazel Motes, who returns from the war (WWI in the novel, but given the 1970s cars on display here, perhaps Vietnam for the movie) and soon takes up preaching an anti-religion (“the Church of Christ without Christ”).  Brad Dourif plays Motes as perpetually antagonized – by almost everyone he meets, but especially by con men posing as preachers (as played by Harry Dean Stanton or Ned Beatty).  Perhaps this has something to do with his (now deceased) grandfather, played by Huston himself, who was also a preacher.  A distant memory has Hazel filling his shoes with rocks as a child, potentially as a punishment for sinning.  Soon, he turns to similar self-punishment as an adult (after a particularly violent act against a false prophet).  But this synopsis may make Motes seem more focused than he appears in the movie – he is purposeful but his goals are unclear (perhaps even to himself?).  An odd subplot involves another young man, new to the city, who wants to help Motes find a “new Jesus” but ends up running around in a gorilla costume.  To be honest, without reading the book, I’m at a loss when trying to discern the deeper themes of the movie (based on O’Connor’s Catholicism, they say).  In the end, Motes is sacrificed but has his spiritual purging led to salvation? Or is Huston criticizing the sort of lunacy that can lead to such an end?  All told, the movie’s resistance to easy understanding makes it that much more compelling – and its dead-end ‘70s’ vibe is always a pleasure (see also Fat City, 1972).

  

Family Life (1971)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Family Life (1971) – K. Loach

This early Ken Loach film (his third – and the one that immediately followed his first big hit, Kes, 1969) shows him continuing in a social realist vein, detailing the often grim lives of the working class in Britain.  In a style that echoes the concurrent documentaries by Frederick Wiseman or the Maysles, we observe interactions between members of a family in a tenement house and sometimes discussing their problems with a psychiatrist.  Wiseman may be the better reference point because Loach holds similar concerns about the amount of control placed on individuals by institutions – in this case, parents/family but also the psychiatric institution and society itself.  The screenplay was by David Mercer from his play, In Two Minds.  Sandy Ratcliff (who died this year, 2019) plays a 19-year-old-girl, living with her domineering parents.  She is clearly a victim of the generation gap and when she falls pregnant to her open-minded boyfriend, her mother forces her to have an abortion.  The resulting depression leads to much conflict at home and eventually her parents put her into a mental institution.  Fortunately, her ward/group is run by a progressive Laingian who clearly believes that parental and societal control are to blame for Janice’s problems; however, soon he is fired by the hospital and she is moved to a new ward and given drugs and shock therapy.  And things only get worse from that point on.  Some consider this film propaganda but despite the nonstop oppressive things that happen to Janice, this is a story that deserves to be told, even though it is over the top (or perhaps especially because it is over the top).  Loach is polemical but still allows us to see the confusion of the parents, themselves the product of a different era and subjected to the same types of control that they now seek to impose.  Obviously, it is a vicious cycle that keeps the working class in their place (in a factory or similar).  You probably want to choose an appropriate time to expose yourself to this one.

  

The Last Waltz (1978)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ 

The Last Waltz (1978) – M. Scorsese

Blues rock isn’t really my thing, so I haven’t watched Scorsese’s film about The Band’s last concert in 1976 until now.  It does come heralded by many others.  So, in watching, I focused on Marty’s directorial choices and the cinematography (by Michael Chapman but with assistance from László Kovács, Vilmos Zsigmond, and others).  The roving cameras are located onstage with the band and a lot of the footage is shot in extreme close-up on the performers (you can see how Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense, 1984, owes a debt to this film).  Scorsese himself was part of the editing team for Woodstock (1970) and his choices here enhance the concert experience (even if we don’t see the audience – we ARE the audience).  Somehow he manages to keep things interesting as each successive guest musician turns up (Ronnie Hawkins, Dr John, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Muddy Waters, The Staples Singers, Eric Clapton, Emmylou Harris, Van Morrison, and of course, Bob Dylan, who often played with The Band).  And it wasn’t long before the passion and joy of the players started to win me over; guitarist Robbie Robertson genially holds things together onstage and everyone contributes to the family feeling.  Interview clips with The Band (featuring Scorsese himself) take us back to a different era, as does the overall conceit of the “Last Waltz” itself, revealing that most of these guys grew up in the 1950s. As punk and disco and new wave broke on the horizon, this must have seemed like a farewell to an era (even if we subsequently discovered that old music and old genres can be renewed by younger bands and also streamed forever).

BlackKKlansman (2018)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

BlackKKlansman (2018) – S. Lee

Spike Lee captures the zeitgeist with this highly entertaining (yet ultimately sobering) tale of a black cop’s investigation of the KKK in the early 1970s (based on a true story).  John David Washington plays Ron Stallworth who joins the Colorado Springs police and, after being asked to go undercover to investigate students radicalised by the Black Panthers, begins his own investigation into the Klan.  The only catch is that he can’t actually meet the Klan members in person (only talking to them on the phone, including to David Duke played by Topher Grace).  Instead, colleague Adam Driver takes on the role of “Ron Stallworth” and goes undercover into the local chapter of “the Organisation”.  In doing so, he is forced to consider his own Jewishness and the fact that he has been “passing” as a WASP, in the same way the black Stallworth has been doing on the phone.  Lee offers a nice discussion of double consciousness here and he also uses the film to offer some very topical discussions of police violence against black victims and the “normalising” of white supremacism.  There are some pointed jabs at Trump when Klan members refer to making America great.  But surprisingly the film, for all its seriousness, is actually fun and even comic.  Lee embellishes the story with some creative directorial choices (e.g. the highlighted faces during Kwame Ture’s speech) and the period detail and music are spot on.  Yet, Lee knows better than to leave viewers feeling that the Klan action (and the comedic bumbling involved) is all in the past – he leaves us with fresh reminders of the continuation (and resurgence) of racism in the present with real and harrowing footage from the Charlottesville, Virginia, march where white supremacists were challenged by protesters and a woman died (along with Trump’s ambivalent response and David Duke’s capitalisation on it).  Highly recommended.

Murmur of the Heart (1971)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Murmur of the Heart (1971) – L. Malle

Awkwardness and uncertainty – and the reactions to it – must be hard to capture onscreen; they happen so much in a person’s head.  But writer and director Louis Malle (and actor Benoît Ferreux) have managed to depict a 15-year-old boy’s emerging sexuality (and the awkwardness and uncertainty that accompany it) without resorting to narration or explicating dialogue scenes.  Instead we see Laurent balanced delicately between the enfolding arms of his young mother (Lea Massari) and the rambunctious and emboldened actions of his older brothers (Fabien Ferreux and Marc Winocourt).  The latter take him to a brothel but play a practical joke on him there.  His mother...well, this film is notorious because of the way it “solves” the problem of the mother’s acceptance of her teen boy’s sexuality.  Of course, you can’t believe it has happened (and this was apparently one of the few elements of the film that was not autobiographical) but as a narrative device, it certainly adds an emphatic and resounding note to the proceedings and goes where no “coming of age” film has gone before (or since?).  The title refers to Laurent’s medical condition after a fever which results in a stay at a health spa, sharing a room with his mother, which allows him to flirt with other girls his age (or perhaps a bit older) and to see how older boys engage with them. But he’s tentative throughout the film’s many episodes and anecdotes– until the very end when, perhaps emboldened by his mother, he exudes confidence.