Eyes Without a Face (1960)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Eyes Without a Face (1960) – G. Franju

Exceedingly creepy, even gruesome, film (although with really very little blood and gore) that explores the complicated emotions of a (clearly immoral and possibly mad) doctor (Pierre Brasseur) who is desperately seeking a breakthrough in skin-grafting technology to assist him in a face-transplant for his terribly disfigured twenty-something daughter, Christiane (Edith Scob), whose emotions are also explored. With the help of his nurse-assistant (Alida Valli), herself a recipient of a prior skin-graft (and therefore indebted to him), the doctor kidnaps young women and surgically removes their faces for transplanting to his daughter (a procedure that the donor does not always survive). Between surgeries (which often fail), Christiane wanders the doctor’s mansion in an expressionless white mask, adding a surreal and dreamlike quality to the proceedings. Increasing the anxiety level of viewers (and characters in the film), the doctor keeps a kennel full of dogs for his experiments in the basement whose constant barking provides a soundtrack (when Maurice Jarre’s weird circus-like music isn’t playing).  But soon, the police are closing in and the gig is up … or is it?  With beautiful and stark black and white cinematography by Eugen Schüfftan (who won the Oscar for The Hustler, 1961, the next year), this was the high-water mark for director Georges Franju (although I also recommend his remake of the silent serial Judex, 1963). Guaranteed to unsettle.

L’Avventura (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

L’Avventura (1960) – M. Antonioni

Revisiting Antonioni’s breakthrough masterpiece for the first time in ages, I decided to listen to Gene Youngblood’s audio commentary while watching – it certainly deepened my appreciation of the film.  As you may recall, this is the work that was booed at Cannes, potentially because it sets up audience expectations about a mystery (Anna disappears from an outing by a small group of rich people to a deserted rocky island north of Sicily) that it then never solves (Anna is never found and the plot gradually drifts away from the search). Another reason for the booing may have been Antonioni’s determined break with the traditional film grammar of the time: here we have long shots and empty shots that create ambience (but may have been felt as longueurs by the audience) along with cuts that do not match, awkward close-ups of backs of heads, characters placed meaningfully but unusually in the frame, and so on. These choices serve to focus us on the internal psychology of these characters, which remains unspoken because they themselves can’t express how they feel.  Monica Vitti plays Claudia, a friend of Anna who is from a lower class – she may be the one having the “adventure” as she bears witness to the aimless behaviour of the bourgeoisie. Clearly, she is ambivalent, even as she succumbs to the advances of Anna’s fiancé, Sandro (Gabriele Ferzetti), who is dissatisfied with his life, having stopped pursuing his own architectural career to take on lucrative (but not creative) consulting positions for the idle rich.  According to Youngblood, Sandro pursues women (and sex) as a way to escape from the emptiness this decision has created in his soul. Antonioni places Sandro against many unique and beautiful architectural settings to subtly reinforce his problems. Indeed, the landscape itself (shot beautifully) contributes to the story, from the barren island to the empty places that Vitti and Sandro visit as they wander Italy, presumably searching for Anna but really falling in love (if Sandro is really capable of this) with the love scenes heightened by shots of the environment (as are all emotional moments, which might be punctuated by a look at the raging sea or a windblown tree). All the while, we see Anna’s mixed feelings and her transition (walking through archways) between uncertain and confident selves, going with the flow and actively choosing her fate. In the end, she takes stock of all she sees and feels pity for the plight of those adrift in modern society such as Sandro, those unable to make confident moral decisions. This is not to say that we know what is in her thoughts nor what her future may hold – if anything, Antonioni has left the whole film open to interpretation. For that reason, it rewards multiple careful viewings that expand your mind.

À bout de souffle (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

À bout de souffle (1960) – J.-L. Godard

I just read that the famous “jump cuts” that this film introduced were the result of Godard needing to trim the film’s length but not wanting to remove any scenes.  I don’t think I knew that before – and what a major change to cinema because they don’t even seem novel anymore (60 years later).  Breathless is, of course, one of the major statements of the French Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) along with films by Truffaut, Chabrol, Varda, Resnais, Rohmer, and Rivette, which reinvented the language of cinema for a new generation.  Godard used natural lighting, location shooting, a jazzy score, partially improvised dialogue, a very loose plot, and those jump cuts to create an homage of sorts to the gangster films of his youth.  Jean-Pierre Melville (himself an auteur of the gangster film) has an extended cameo where he pontificates about gender relations.  Indeed, although the film can be seen as a character study of Belmondo’s Michel Poiccard and his actions (pursuing a relationship with Jean Seberg) after impulsively killing a motorcycle cop, it also offers up some philosophizing – however, it is nothing like what Godard would insert into his films in the future (even now as he continues into his 80s).  In fact, À bout de souffle is rather lightweight in the context of the filmmaker’s oeuvre but that also accounts for its wider popular acclaim.  It’s breezy and easy, with a beautiful eye for Paris (courtesy of Raoul Coutard) and a quick jump into the future of film.     

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) -- K. Reisz

Young amoral Albert Finney spinning his wheels and getting up to no good in working class Britain in this hallmark of social realism. (2010 review)

The Naked Island (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Naked Island (1960) – K. Shindô

Wordless but not silent, Kaneto Shindô’s The Naked Island (Hadaka no shima) feels almost like ethnography as it details the (hard) lives of a family of four who live on a small rocky island in the Seto Inland Sea of Southern Japan.  They carry fresh water in large wooden buckets from another island (paddling across the sea in a wooden boat) just to irrigate their crops, which seem to be dying of heatstroke on the exposed cliff face.  No one speaks, they just work; the husband tends to the field while the wife carries the water and the children help to prepare meals (when they are not being ferried to school by the mother).  They take turns having a bath in an old oil drum. There is an almost tactile sensuality to the widescreen images – and the Foley artists seem to be working overtime!  Indeed, it slowly becomes apparent that the sounds have been consciously selected, along with the jaunty (almost Tati-like) musical theme which changes its pace and mood along with the events portrayed.  When the two sons manage to catch a fish, the family heads to the nearest town (jarringly this is a modern film, taking place in 1960 or thereabouts) for an evening out (restaurant, cable car up a mountain). A late tragedy darkens the film’s tone dramatically, almost turning it to horror (a nod toward this director’s later masterworks in that genre: Onibaba, 1964, and Kuroneko, 1968).  Stoically (except for a brief release of tension and pain), the family continues their daily routine (wordlessly).  The result is hypnotic and beautiful, but perplexing in its intentions. Why the constraint of wordlessness? Is this hard, almost Sisyphean life, a metaphor for another fruitless challenge?  Regardless, it works as a pseudo-documentary of a place and lifestyle you’ve never seen before. 

Le Trou (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Le Trou (1960) – J. Becker

Extremely tense rendering of a prison escape – the title translates to “The Hole” and that is exactly the focus of the film.  Taking his cues from Robert Bresson’s Un Condamné à Mort s'est Échappé (A Man Escaped, 1956), Jacques Becker keeps us focused on the action with close attention to the methodical details of the escape – lots of shots of hands battering away at cement in real time.  Well, not exactly hands but a makeshift hammer fashioned from a bed frame -- ingenuity is a hallmark of the effort.  But unlike Bresson, Becker is also interested in camaraderie among men and the events that build or diminish it (it’s not hard to see why Jean-Pierre Melville cherished Le Trou); the nonprofessional actors he selected (including one real escapee from the true story being told) deliver the goods.  Trust is the key element then, and the introduction of a 5^th man to the cell creates tension beyond even that already present in the form of the ever watchful guards and warden; as that fifth man is in jail for betraying his wife, his trustworthiness is already in doubt.  To reveal any more would be churlish, this set-up should be enough to entice you into the absorbingly intense world of Le Trou.  A masterpiece of the genre.

Macario (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Macario (1960) – R. Gavaldón

A fairy tale (possibly from the Brothers Grimm but rewritten by B. Traven of Treasure of the Sierra Madre fame) set in Mexico with poor woodcutter Macario struggling to feed his family and finally vowing not to eat at all until there is enough food so that he can eat a whole turkey himself without sharing.  His sensitive wife steals a turkey from the local rich family and provides it to Macario for lunch.  On his way out to the woods, he is met successively by the Devil, God, and then Death (all looking very human but with enough hints that you know who they are).  Each asks for a bit of the turkey.  Macario rejects the first two and then shares his food with Death who claims not to have eaten for a thousand years.  (The real reason is that Macario thought Death had come for him and he would not have had a chance to eat at all if he didn’t have lunch with the reaper).  As a thank-you, Death gives Macario a flask of water that will heal anyone who is sick, except those who are fated to die on that day.  Death signals this by standing at the head of the bed (can’t be healed) or at the foot of the bed (can be healed) and Macario must be alone in the room with the ill person to see him.  Of course, soon Macario is very rich, receiving money and gifts in exchange for his healing powers.  Eventually this comes to the attention of the Spanish Inquisition (also in power in the New World).  The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar (but lost to Bergman’s The Virgin Spring).  There are many beautiful shots and some scary Day of the Dead figurines that invade Macario’s dreams early on.  Director Gavaldón managed to retain the awe and childlike wonder of the fairy tale with a not entirely clear moral – Macario is a nice guy and thus he is saved from torture and being burned at the stake by his friend Death who comes for him first.  But he occasionally seems a bit too greedy… 

Classe Tous Risques (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Classe Tous Risques (1960) – C. Sautet

It’s like the long drawn-out moody denouement from another film in which Lino Ventura has lived a successful life of crime but which culminated in his escaping from France to live in exile. However, there was no other film! Classe Tous Risques begins abruptly with Ventura seeking to return to Paris after a long exile with his wife and two young kids and a partner.  After stealing money for the road and nearly getting caught, they run into tragedy when they are confronted at the border by customs officials and a shoot-out leaves only Ventura and his two boys (7 and 5) alive.  So, he calls up his old friends in Paris to come get him out of Nice and back home – but they don’t want to know him anymore, now that they are all set up in new profitable lives.  They send a hired hand instead, who turns out to be Belmondo, who turns out to be a good egg.  He helps Ventura to get the kids taken care of and then they turn their minds to revenge.  But Ventura is running out of steam, feeling low, more empty than stoic; Belmondo is full of vigor, falling in love with Sandra Milo, as a counterpoint.  The film follows the usual course of French noir, carefully observing the mechanics of each moment, whether it be a heist or a conference amongst gangsters.  There’s action enough but the mood is sombre.  Melville owned this genre but his great films (except Bob le Flambeur, 1956) all came later.  Perhaps Touchez Pas Au Grisbi (1954) and Rififi (1955) are the best earlier examples.  Still, this hit the spot.

Naked Youth/Cruel Story of Youth (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Naked Youth/Cruel Story of Youth (1960) – N. Oshima

Nagisa Oshima’s second film is a key entry in the Japanese new wave of the 1960’s but is still quite conventional by his later standards.  Miyuki Kuwano plays a motherless high school girl (“Mako”) who comes under the influence of bad boy “Kiyoshi” (played by Yusuke Kawazu) who seems to care little about anything or anyone.  He uses violence to get his way (including with Mako) and sells his body to an older woman for money and favours.  She is hopelessly and helplessly naïve but sees value in rebelling against her father, older sister, and school.  Together, they develop a scam to rob older guys who pick her up on the street but this doesn’t always turn out well.  Most of the time, they are alienated and confused, not caring about the consequences of their actions.  Oshima is purposefully sensational and melodramatic here, commenting explicitly on post-war Japan’s social problems.  But he also uses the widescreen format to create dazzling colour arrangements, bordering on the experimental and he wilfully defies viewer expectations (as in a long scene where Kiyoshi simply eats an apple in giant close-up).  Oshima would take this approach further in the rest of his career but here he sows the seeds of his later rebellion.

  

Black Sunday/The Mask of Satan (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Black Sunday/The Mask of Satan (1960) – M. Bava

Stunningly photographed in black and white and gothic, so gothic, with its remarkable castle and crypt sets, this is Mario Bava’s heralded cult classic.  The English-language version I saw was prepared in Italy with relatively terrible dubbing and perhaps containing more cruelty (if that can be imagined) than the edited American International Pictures version that was widely distributed in the U. S. in the 1960s. After we see a witch and her lover (or brother) executed in Moldavia at the start of the film, we flash forward 200 years to find her descendent (and spitting image) Barbara Steele thrust into horror when the witch is accidentally brought back to life.  Two travelling doctors get ensnared in the action and the younger man becomes our hero (after falling in love with non-witch Barbara).  An orthodox priest translates the text on the ancient icon found in the witch’s tomb and voila, the secret to ending the terror is found.  The images here are so chilling (and worthwhile) that next time I might just watch this with the sound turned off.

  

Rocco and his Brothers (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Rocco and his Brothers (1960) – L. Visconti

Looking for a brighter economic future for her family after her husband dies, Rosaria Parondi moves herself and her five sons to Milan from rural southern Italy.  There, they face difficulties finding and keeping work, some discrimination, and the different social opportunities and temptations of the city.  Director Luchino Visconti begins in neo-realist mode (more or less) but the drama soon shifts into a more literary novelistic style, with tension between the bad son (Renato Salvatori) and the good son (Alain Delon).  Salvatori starts out on a boxing career but soon falls in with the wrong crowd, including a prostitute (Annie Girardot) who leads him further astray into petty crime and debauchery.  Delon keeps his nose clean, gets drafted into the military and returns to find his bad brother abandoned by his fling, kicked out of boxing, and deep in debt – he subsequently seeks to reform the prostitute, becomes a boxing champion himself, and tries to hold his family together.  The other brothers play more minor roles but the escalating melodrama envelops them as well.  Indeed, things get very extreme and take this family drama into much darker territory.  As Rocco (Delon) suggests, it might have been better if they’d stayed put and not moved to Milan at all.  Thus, the film is a lament for the passing of community, family, and tradition in favour of more alienated, individualistic, and industrialized pursuits, although Visconti keeps the story on a small scale. 

  

Late Autumn (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Late Autumn (1960) – Y. Ozu

A wistful and comic tale of three bumbling old men who seek to arrange a marriage for the daughter of a woman they once flirted with, now widowed. Ozu echoes his own Late Spring by placing Setsuko Hara in the role of the widowed parent whose daughter refuses to get married, a role reversal from the earlier film. As always with Ozu, the action (which is to say, conversation) takes place in warm interiors of muted greens and browns (with that one red object in each frame). Comfortable as old shoes.

The Cloud-Capped Star (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Cloud-Capped Star (1960) – R. Ghatak

One of the 1001 films you must see before you die. An intense family drama focused on the older sister who sacrifices her own happiness for a largely ungrateful family, living in poverty. Bleak but with transcendent moments (in both sound and vision). I may have missed some of the political or allegorical subtext apparently related to the partition of Bengal in 1947 (when India became independent and Pakistan was split off). Perhaps Ghatak saw those who were made refugees by the partition making a sacrifice without objecting just as the sister does here?

Peeping Tom (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Peeping Tom (1960) – M. Powell

Essentially Michael Powell’s last film of interest (after decades of work with Emeric Pressburger) – in effect, this film killed his career.  But oh is it bold!  Not unlike Hitchcock’s move to darker (if still playful) material with Psycho, Powell’s film also plays with audience expectations – after all, don’t we expect a serial killer to be unsympathetic?  But Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) seems gentle and shy in his everyday interactions and particularly with his “love interest” Helen (Anna Massey).  Yet, he’s twisted inside, due apparently to some vicious experiments by his biologist father (played by Powell himself, in a brief filmed clip) who wanted to understand reactions to fear in children.  This, too, makes us want to “understand” Mark – who is still creepy due to his tendency to film everything he sees (and his sideline shooting nudie pics).  Powell indicts the moviegoer for his/her voyeuristic tendencies (as does Hitch in Rear Window) – or perhaps he is indicting himself for wanting to control what is being filmed?  Mark imposes himself on reality and films it – but his terrible childhood seems to incline him toward filming women’s reactions to fear, as he kills them.  He then plays the footage back in his own hidden projection room – private snuff films that may or may not arouse him.  No doubt, it’s clear just how volatile and challenging this material would be in 1960 – and it still retains the ability to shock today.

     

Psycho (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Psycho (1960) -- A. Hitchcock

Another one of those movies where it is best to time travel back to the year when the movie opened -- or to a time when you didn't know anything about the movie.  What must it have been like to be shocked by Janet Leigh in her underwear (let alone the shower) and not to know what was coming.  Much has been written about Hitch's total manipulation of the audience, getting them to identify with Leigh -- and then Tony Perkins for a bit, because his mother is so tough on him.  But of course we are then implicated in his messed-up-ness and it is a very serious messed-up-ness.  Robin Wood argues that all of the characters (but principally Leigh and Perkins) feel the weight of the past on the present and this is as good a key to the film as any wackier Freudian notions.  Don't we all walk into "traps of our own making" or are they made for us? Sounds plausible, but Hitch rejects even this, with one or two (or more) random slashes of a knife in a motel bathroom. That's what's really scary.

House of Usher (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

House of Usher (1960) -- R. Corman

Roger Corman uses the Cinemascope screen to great effect in this first entry in his series of Edgar Allen Poe films.  Vincent Price is haunting as the possibly deranged Roderick Usher (see him wince in pain!) and, although the rest of the acting is not up to his level, it is sufficent for the task at hand.  And that task is to create a suitably gothic and creepy atmosphere to set up a gruesome finale, whereby Winthrop's love, Madeline, comes back from the dead (or does she) to wreak her revenge.  Psychedelic dream sequence included with the price of admission.

Hanyo (The Housemaid) (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Hanyo (The Housemaid) (1960) -- K.-Y. Kim

Insane psychodrama from 1960 Korea that sees a music teacher (for women working in a factory) commit adultery with the dimwitted girl he hired as a maid to help his wife (pregnant with their third child).  True to film noir convention, the noose tightens as the maid demands more and more from him.  And then there is the rat poison, which commands a lot of Hitchcockian attention. To make things even more dramatic, an incredibly insistent (and loud) score ramps up the tension and punctuates the action (as does the occasional expressive effect).  The whole thing even gets "postmodern" by the end.  A cracker of a film.

When A Woman Ascends The Stairs (1960)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960) – M. Naruse

Naruse's emotionally draining tale of the struggles of a 30 something bar hostess who longs for something different is somehow still uplifting (in its tribute to resilience). The plot may be melodramatic (and a case in point of women's trials in a male-dominated world) but Hideko Takamine rises above it with dignity, subtlety, and, yes, grace.(The rest of the cast are none too shabby either). The viewer is suspended in time, on the edge of the knife, awaiting Takamine's fortune.