My Fellini period was decades ago, in the 1990s; so
revisiting Nights of Cabiria felt almost like seeing a new film. Yet, Fellini’s early style, mixing (Italian) neo-realism
with something more personal, poetic, episodic, remained familiar. This film
belongs to Giulietta Masina (Fellini’s wife and muse) who plays Cabiria, a
downtrodden prostitute with an indomitable spirit (she won the Best Actress
award at Cannes for this performance). The arc of the film follows Cabiria
(full circle?) from our first glimpse of her being pushed into a river (nearly
drowning) by a seedy paramour only after her purse, through a series of
encounters where we see other sides of her, sometimes disparaged but often her
(not clichéd but perfectly acted) heart of gold shows through and invites
warmer treatment, eventually from a gentle accountant (François Périer) who
promises to take her away from the life. Emotions follow this same arc: bitter,
melancholy, playful, amazed, despondent, resilient. Fellini started as a
screenwriter and his talent shines here. The sets and locations, from squalor (older
prostitutes living in caves) to astounding luxury (the film star’s mansion), allow
Masina to act as the viewer’s emissary to unknown worlds, adding empathy and
identification. Is she looking for true
love? Well, so are we. After this, Fellini
moved onto the decadence of La Dolce Vita.
Kurosawa filmed
his version of MacBeth as a horror movie, shrouded in fog, with Toshiro Mifune
haunted by his own demons – as well as a Japanese-styled evil spirit who offers
the prophecy that leads both Washizu/MacBeth and Miki/Banquo (Minoru Chiaki) to
their doom. Transferring the Scottish play to Shogun-era Japan works well, even
if (or especially because) Kurosawa’s rendering is more visual than verbal. The
quickly-cut shots of the leads galloping through the woods around the castle
are splendid and reminiscent of similar shots in Seven Samurai, whereas the scenes
with armies riding and marching in procession foreshadow Ran’s grander tapestry.
As in Ran, the horror here is personal, drawn from Shakespeare’s insight into
human weakness and, although the famous lines are absent, the twisted effects
of the lust for power are just as palpable in the fates of Washizu and Lady Washizu
(Isuzu Yamada). Dark and noirish but oh so Japanese in its flavour.
It
had been a long time since I watched The Seventh Seal – decades, for sure. So, I approached it with fresh eyes (and with
a recent history of Bergman watching, due to the Criterion boxset I received
for my birthday in 2018 – thanks Mom!).
The opening scenes are truly stunning – Max von Sydow on the rocky beach
with the sun setting, confronted by Death (Bengt Ekerot) and challenging him to
a chess match (to delay the inevitable). But then we are back on the return
journey (from the Crusades) as von Sydow’s knight (Antonius Block) and his
squire (Jöns, played sublimely by Gunnar Björnstrand) return to civilisation
(as it is in the 14th century).
There, they encounter a small troupe of actors (Bibi Andersson and Nils
Poppe, chief among them) and decide to travel together back to Block’s home
where his wife may or may not be waiting.
However, Death follows them each step of the way, ready to play his next
move. All the while, Bergman questions
God’s existence, our faith in deities, and the cruelty of existence (Death is
busy because of the Plague). Block is
clearly tormented but his pain is eased when he encounters the happy actors’
troupe, suggesting again that it is human relationships that are the way to
salvation (as opposed to the ascetic sacrifice and self-flagellation suggested
by other religious supplicants in the film).
Bergman claims that he used this film to come to terms with his fear of
Death and given the support from various churches for the message here, it
could be assumed that an afterlife has been confirmed (and the dancers
following Death at the end are happily on their way to it). However, Death himself
proclaims not to know and perhaps another reading of the film is a more
existential one – that we need to make the best of the time we have here,
treasuring the moments we share with others and taking responsibility for our
(moral) actions, rather than pursuing pointless quests in the name of God.
With a wicked script from Clifford Odets
and Ernest Lehman (working separately), this is one of the bitterest of all
noirs with a completely lacerating view of human nature. Tony Curtis is Sidney Falco, a press agent taking
money from clients seeking to get their names into notorious columnist J. J.
Hunsecker’s copy; he’ll do anything to suck up to Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster)
and he isn’t against betraying those who put their trust in him. You would feel pity for him but he’s a snake
with no moral compass. Lancaster may be
worse, lording it over New York City, using his power to humiliate (in print or
in person), seemingly without any concern for human feelings or dignity. He claims to have his younger sister’s welfare
at heart but the plot shows him to be using Falco to break up her relationship
with an up-and-coming jazz guitarist (and Falco goes along with it, perhaps
feigning dismay). They almost push her
to suicide. As dark as it is, the film snap,
crackles, and pops with incredible lines (“I’d hate to take a bite out of you
-- you’re a cookie full of arsenic!”, “You’ve got more twists than a barrel of
pretzels!”, “That’s fish four days old – I won’t buy it!” and so on). There’s also a jazz score from Elmer Bernstein
and incredible NYC at night cinematography from James Wong Howe. It is worth the trip but you can’t help
leaving with a bitter taste in your mouth from how weak, self-interested, and
mean we humans can be.
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.
The film somehow feels like a blend
between a Kirk Douglas personal project (with its leftist anti-war sentiment
and crusading role for Kirk) and a Kubrick film (with its intensely
art-directed shots and set-ups). It also switches between grubby WWI trenches
where soldiers get shell-shocked and the posh Versailles-like palace where the
generals talk. The plot takes the form
of a classic morality play (and could have been scripted for the stage, except
for the graphic realism on the battlefield) but, unlike in those works that
feature heavy moral choices that create extreme tension, the right way to act
is clear here. The generals are wrong in
their decisions to: a) order the regiment
to leave the trenches to try to take an impossible-to-take German position; b) hold
a court-martial to try three “randomly selected” men for cowardice in the face
of the enemy; c) offer no mercy when the pre-ordained verdict is death. Kirk is both the commanding officer
immediately beneath the most unfair general and the self-appointed defense
attorney for the men. He fights in vain
against a wayward and biased system that shines a light on just how absurd and
brutal warfare is (especially in that it allows some to pursue selfish
aggrandizement at the expense of others).
One could argue that the absurdity has even been magnified and increased
in these days of drone-attacks and high-tech combat. Bottom line:
war is sickening.
Robert Bresson's
exacting drama of a French Resistance fighter planning his escape from a POW
prison. Lots of shots of hands (and feet) doing things embody the tale, but the
theme is all about spiritual liberation.
One of my favourite films and one that I
can watch annually (at Halloween) without it losing any of its fun. Director Jacques Tourneur was a graduate of
the Val Lewton School of Horror film-making, where low budgets necessitated a
greater use of shadowy implication rather than explicit or graphic horror (see
Cat People or I Walked with a Zombie).
Of course, fast forward to the late 1950s and producer interference
forced Tourneur to actually show the Demon (which apparently he did not want to
do) – but it makes no difference because the rest of the film is so successful
in its spookiness. The plot sees Dana
Andrews (who was making his mark as an ambiguous “hero” in late Fritz Lang
films at the same time) as a sceptical scientific psychologist attending a
conference in England (cue Stonehenge) with the aim of debunking the leader of
a “devil cult” (played magnificently by Niall MacGinnis). In the process,
Andrews gets a curse placed on him, giving him just 3 days “time allowed”
before the demon is to strike. Andrews
starts to slowly lose his grip, but is it the psychological pressure or an
actual supernatural haunting that is bringing him to the edge? Along the way, we see a séance, hypnotism to
regress someone back to the “night of the demon” (the original British title of
the film), a mysterious windstorm at a Halloween party for kids (complete with
scary clown), and of course the demon itself.
To cap it all off, there is actual suspense, as we wonder whether
Andrews can escape the curse, while the clock ticks down his time allowed.
That nagging feeling that I’d seen this before didn’t show up until very
near the end of Witness for the Prosecution and I can’t genuinely be sure that
it wasn’t because Billy Wilder purposefully tipped his hand about the final
plot twists yet to come. You see, this
is one of those famous films that you are not supposed to talk about – but, you
see, I’d forgotten that and probably you should too. Charles Laughton is a famous barrister who
has just suffered a heart attack but is lured back to the courtroom to defend
Tyrone Power (in his last film role) who is accused of murder and confronting a
damning amount of circumstantial evidence. Marlene Dietrich plays his wife – the witness
for the prosecution – who throws a monkey-wrench into the defense. Laughton, Power, and Dietrich play to their
strengths and the result is nothing less than gripping. Even if you may have seen it before.
Who would make a movie
like this other than Antonioni? Yet,
even having seen most of his later features, I wasn't prepared for the
encroaching inevitability of the plot's finale.
Steve Cochran (American noir star) plays a guy whose longtime companion
(Alida Valli) suddenly up and leaves him.
So, he takes his 5 year old daughter on the road with him, across the barren
wintry fields of the Po Valley. He
occasionally shacks up with the women he meets, who often have their own
problems that he doesn't want to take on.
He's lost, sad, unsure of what he's looking for, unable to commit to
anything (a job, a relationship), and unable to return to the past. Antonioni's
early film is stark but beautiful in many ways with strong echoes of Visconti's
Ossessione (and other neo-realist films) but this director is unable to escape
the gravitational pull of the alienation that would later dominate his oeuvre.
Perfect Sunday
afternoon fare. Glenn Ford turns on the charm as a notorious villain caught by
a bunch of bumbling Western types led by struggling farmer Van Heflin. The
gimmick is that Heflin will get the $200 he needs to bring water to his land if
he can escort Ford to the train station (going to Yuma) without losing him or
getting killed by his 12-man gang. Good gimmick and keeps the film ticking away
at a tense pace. (I'm not interested in the Russell Crowe remake).
Randolph Scott is as
stoic and cool a customer as ever got crossed by bad guys in the West. From a
story by Elmore Leonard and directed by Budd Boetticher, Scott keeps his moral
center when he happens into a robbery/kidnapping even as others turn yellow. He
manages to bring Maureen O'Sullivan out of her shell too. Shot in some
amazing rocky terrain (also used in Seven Men From Now, I think) and full of
good performances.
