Le Samourai (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Le Samourai (1967) – J.-P. Melville

Jean-Pierre Melville is one of my favourite directors – his films typically combine elements of film noir (gangsters, heists) with the technique of Robert Bresson (an existential focus on process) and an obsessive commitment to particular colour palettes. I have seen Le Samourai, starring Alain Delon as a lone wolf hitman, countless times, having once owned it on VHS.  However, only last night (after watching it again and reading an interview with Melville), did I think that the movie had another more mystical reading than the standard surface understanding. More specifically, I had never thought that the pianiste, Cathy Rosier, who witnesses Jef Costello (Delon) executing his contract (a club owner) might actually be Death herself.  One remembers that Melville worked with Cocteau early on (Les Enfants Terrible, 1950) and was perhaps influenced by the latter’s Orpheus (also 1950) in which Death is also personified. In any event, to reconceptualize Jef as infatuated with his own death rather than the piano player is almost to see a different film (and one where the ending is somewhat even more satisfying). Of course, the straightforward reading of the film still works too, with Jef compromised when he is seen by witnesses and confused when his no-longer-airtight alibi still holds up (his pursuit of Cathy to understand why she didn’t dob him in and their subsequent triste is the alternate explanation for his final act).  As with most Melville films, there is great pleasure here in following Jef’s methodical actions as he comes to terms with his situation, fleeing the police (led by crafty Commissaire François Périer) and contending with his double-crossing employers. Delon remains cool throughout.  A masterpiece.

Point Blank (1967)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Point Blank (1967) – J. Boorman

I like the idea that Lee Marvin’s Walker may actually be an angry ghost, haunting those who have absconded with his $93K (and his wife and his life). As directed by John Boorman, the film is fractured, using jump cuts, flashbacks, and a variety of cinematic effects (à la the French New Wave) to chart Marvin’s unstoppable march (in sharp suits with a .44 magnum) on his former partner (John Vernon as Reece) and the corporate “Organization” leaders who he owed money to.  But first things first, the film opens at Alcatraz where Walker and Reece have just made a big score (ripping off who?) – Reece and Walker’s wife Lynne double cross Walker and Reece shoots him leaving him for dead.  One theory about the film is that he actually is dead (hence, a ghost), another has the events of the film represent a dying man’s final thoughts, a fantasy, a dream.  Either of these theories helps to explain the dream like quality of some of the film’s images and Marvin’s impenetrable/invulnerable nature – really, this is one of his toughest tough guy roles. In order to finally get to Reece, Walker uses his sister-in-law Angie Dickinson as bait; she initially resists him but then gives in, including to his amorous inclinations. Not that Marvin shows any emotions, even when he finally succeeds at getting his money (back at Alcatraz) from head bad guy Caroll O’Connor (yes, Archie Bunker).  He simply fades away, having wreaked his final retribution.  

 

Le Samourai (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Le Samourai (1967) – J.-P. Melville

Is this the perfect distillation of Jean-Pierre Melville’s style (and, more indirectly, his themes about honour among thieves)? Alain Delon plays the solitary hitman who lives alone in a very grey room with only a brownish-grey bird in a cage for company. Paris is also grey and rainy and the synth soundtrack by François de Roubaix captures the melancholy mood. We see him carefully carry out a hit on a nightclub owner – as usual for Melville (and also Bresson) the action is depicted very methodically.  Delon has painstakingly prepared an alibi, so when he is inevitably picked up by the cops led by the persistent Commissaire (François Périer), they have to let him go.  It helps that the witnesses who saw him, including the club’s pianist (Cathy Rosier), all lie and say they don’t recognise him. (But Delon as Jef Costello does not know why). Still the police won’t give up and tail him around Paris. There are a few twists and turns that I won’t spoil – but they aren’t the kind that reduces the pleasure of the film once you know them. Melville’s style (as the maestro of French film noir) is endlessly immersive and rewarding. (This film also directly inspired John Woo’s The Killer, 1989). A masterpiece of the genre.  

The Firemen’s Ball (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Firemen’s Ball (1967) – M. Forman

You don’t have to be an overly sensitive Communist official to grasp the gist of Milos Forman’s comedy or to see its body blows hit the target.  The leaders of the local fire brigade organise an annual ball that is a showcase for all the failings of Iron Curtain communism.  The committee running things can’t agree on anything. For example, they plan to present a gift to their aging former leader (portrayed as completely out-of-it) and to hold a beauty contest to find someone to award it to him, but every member of the committee has a different view.  The parents are shown as either sucking up to the committee or avoiding them completely. The girls themselves are vulnerable and exploited (one strips while the others flee to hide in the bathroom).  A table of raffle prizes is slowly depleted before the raffle is even held, with the committee at pains to argue that they themselves are not stealing, despite it being obvious that their family members are guilty.  In the end, even the present for the leader has gone missing.  When a real fire breaks out at a nearby house, of course, the firefighters are unable to stop it being completely demolished and they offer only verbal support to the victim who has lost his house.  Fifty years later, this could be seen as “merely” a ridiculous rollicking comedy (successful on its own merits) but just before the Prague Spring you can see how its acute not-very-veiled criticism is a prelude to the brutal crackdown by the Soviets (and Forman’s escape to the USA to ultimately direct One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and other hits).  Brave and lacerating.

Samurai Rebellion (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Samurai Rebellion (1967) – M. Kobayashi

Set in the early 18^th century (Edo era), Kobayashi’s taut and elegant tragedy tells of a conflict between a vassal samurai (Toshiro Mifune) and his lord (and the institutional bureaucracy around that lord).  It is a tale of injustice met with resistance, showing that resistance is empowering.  The plot is carefully laid out:  a member of the lord’s escort (Mifune) seeks a bride for his eldest son and the lord, dissatisfied with his key mistress (who has borne him a second son), decides that Mifune’s son must marry his mistress (a punishment for her).  Mifune attempts to refuse but his son yields.  Later, when the lord’s eldest son dies of illness, the lord wishes to recall his former mistress (mother of his heir) who is now happily married to Mifune’s son.  This is the final straw for Mifune who has lived in a loveless marriage himself and sees that his son has found the familial joy that was denied to him.  Samurai rebellion!  Kobayashi uses the widescreen to maximum advantage, trapping the characters in geometric designs formed from the formal structures and settings of old Japan.  The black and white images are carefully balanced (or imbalanced) for a special sort of pictorial pleasure.  Yet the film feels sparse and the tension builds gradually but ever so distinctly, as with the turn of a screw, until final violence breaks out in true chambara style (there is a subplot featuring Mifune’s friendship with Tatsuya Nakadai that allows a final duel, necessary for the genre). The ending is realistically downbeat – can the powerless ever really overcome the forces against them?  But Mifune’s efforts are heralded; he never felt so alive as when fighting for justice. A classic with a deeper resonance/relevance.   

The Red and the White (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Red and the White (1967) – M. Jancsó

We never get to know the characters by name and it is often difficult to discern who is a Bolshevik (Red) and who is loyal to the Tsar (White).  This is Jancsó’s point.  War crimes are committed by those in power on either side.  The film is largely episodic but the characters that we follow in each episode soon die.  So, this makes war seem futile and tragic.  The use of long shots in sprawling landscapes further emphasizes the trivial importance of each life.  Yet, the movie can just flow over you and in 87 minutes it is over.  Vaguely, the role of Hungarians in the conflict (they supported the Communists) can be noted – but their contribution is even more trivial and they are often told that they are irrelevant and should leave.  Since this is Jancsó’s putative national affiliation, the pointlessness of it all is that much greater.

  

Dragon Inn (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Dragon Inn (1967) – K. Hu

King Hu’s films from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, including Come Drink with Me, A Touch of Zen, and Dragon Inn, are really among the finest martial arts films I’ve seen.  Here in Dragon Inn, the magnificent vistas that provide a backdrop for the action lend the film an epic quality that brings it close to the Western in tone.  Of course, no one fought with swords or wore such brightly colored costumes in the Old West, so things are much more over the top here.  Admittedly, there is a cast of thousands and it might be difficult to keep track of who is who but the plot is straightforward:  the bad guys led by the Emperor’s Eunuch are out to kill a disgraced/executed general’s kids but the kids are protected by a ragtag band of good guys.  If you can hold onto this strand of plot, then it is all leaping, fighting, poisoned wine, daggers thrown from a distance, flaming arrows, flying on wires for a quick scratch to the face, and then the final four-on-one battle which ends with a head lopped off.  Marvelous.

Marketa Lazarova (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

Marketa Lazarova (1967) – F. Vlacil

Whoever said that life in the Middle Ages was nasty, brutish, and short could have been thinking of Marketa Lazarova.  Director Frantisek Vlacil evokes the same dank world as Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev with the kind of stunning black and white cinematography favoured by Bergman or Bela Tarr.  Evoking these masters is not out of line, given that the film was voted the best Czech movie of all time. Two neighbouring families take to waylaying travellers as they journey past their land, but when one gang accidentally attacks the King’s men, trouble unfolds.  The families (Christian and pagan respectively) are set upon by the Captain of the King’s troops and also have cause to fight each other -- until all or most are dead.  Marketa Lazarova herself is abducted from her family on the eve of becoming a nun, finding a more difficult fate in store for her. The plot here (though discernible) is less the point than the creation of the context through the piling on of episodes and anecdotes and even symbols (one suspects).  Enthralling throughout its necessarily epic length.

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

In the Heat of the Night (1967) – N. Jewison

Potentially a great deal more audacious in 1967 than now when racism may be less overt than shown here (it has only gone undercover, sadly).  Sidney Poitier plays Virgil Tibbs, a Philadelphia homicide detective who gets stranded in Sparta, MS, after being apprehended as a murder suspect (racism) and then asked to help out (but not really – racism again).  Rod Steiger plays the new Chief who has to overcome his own redneck impulses while trying to stifle the racist tendencies of his force and the local townspeople.  Of course, Poitier solves the crime (despite being misled at one point by his own tendency to suspect rich white racists); however, this isn’t really the focus of the film (i.e., I’m not sure the facts of the case lead easily to the real killer).  Nevertheless, the political points made here are still well worth it (try if you wish to substitute a Muslim cop into the Poitier role and see how it plays out in your head).  Norman Jewison does an OK job directing, although some elements feel a bit schematic and the score by Quincy Jones is dated (sound and use). But you can always rely on Warren Oates!

Scattered Clouds (Two in Shadow) (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Scattered Clouds (Two in Shadow) (1967) – M. Naruse

Mikio Naruse’s last feature (and one of the few I remember being in colour) is a mature work that stabs its characters deeply with the dagger of death in the first 20 minutes and then never lets them recover.  Yumiko has everything: her husband has just been promoted in his government job and they are moving to Washington DC and about to have their first child.  When he is suddenly struck down and killed by a driver in an out-of-control car, she finds her life shattered.  Her in-laws essentially disown her and she struggles to make ends meet.  Although exonerated from wrongdoing (the car had a flat tire), the driver of the car (Mishima-san) sends her small amounts of money as compensation.  When he is transferred from Tokyo as punishment for his “crime”, he finds himself in her hometown where she has also returned to live with her sister-in-law (also a widow).  Of course, Yumiko and Mishima keep running into each other, which brings pain and then possibly love.  But to contemplate such a relationship also means to contemplate the cruel fate that brought them together – thus everything here is pain, pain, pain.  After setting up the situation quickly, Naruse allows the relationship to develop slowly with many carefully observed moments (and his usual attention to money and the tensions it brings), dwelling on the characters’ suffering and cruelly snatching away any hope.

David Holzman’s Diary (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

David Holzman’s Diary (1967) – J. McBride

Like a shot in the arm, this pseudo-cinema-verite experimental film from director Jim McBride is exhilerating and refreshing about the possibilities of the form.  The set-up is this:  David Holzman is confused about his life’s meaning and decides to record everything on film (not video, this is 1967) so he can rewatch it and work things out.  However, his girlfriend Penny is not so keen on this process.  Tackling all sorts of themes but primarily voyeurism (as you might suspect) and laced with a sly sense of humor, McBride and stand-in Kit Carson show us New York City life and some real characters.  For me, having been born in NYC in 1967, there’s an added relevance, but for all cinema devotees, it is great to see the various experiments with sound and vision (including a montage of every shot on a TV screen during one evening – with Star Trek prominent) and the various pokes in the eye that McBride offers up as he weaves together fiction and reality and experimentation (hello Kiarostami!).

The One-Armed Swordsman (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ 

The One-Armed Swordsman (1967) – C. Chang

Classic Shaw Brothers wuxia melodrama in Shawscope widescreen from 1967.  Perhaps I’m being a tiny bit generous in my rating because this is no patch on King Hu’s films from the same time period (A Touch of Zen, Come Drink with Me).  However, I was still drawn in by Jimmy Wang Yu’s portrayal of the young man adopted by the master of a famous sword-fighting school who accidentally has his arm sliced off by the master’s daughter.  Of course, he trains himself back up to fighting strength and bests the bad guys with just his left arm.  The expected romance with the arm-slicing daughter does not come off, however.  With the flavour and feel of those 1950s widescreen westerns and some beautiful color cinematography (especially that fake RED blood) and fantastic Shaw Brothers sets and costumes, this is a winner.

Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Quatermass and the Pit (1967) – R. W. Baker

Heady blend of science fiction and horror from Nigel Kneale (screenwriter) courtesy of Hammer films (after a run as a BBC TV series).   A treasured VHS tape now replaced by blu-ray looks a lot better but art direction and top notch special effects were never the focus of this flick.  Instead, the superb plot links a possible spaceship dug up at a tube station being renovated with tales of Satan and malevolent ghosts across the centuries, suggesting a possible influence on human mob behaviour, suggestibility, and even evil itself. Prof. Quatermass conflicts with the military who think the spaceship is an unexploded bomb and won’t listen to the possibility of genetic experimentation (prophetic for 1967). Lots of echoes of these themes in other later films and in culture itself.

Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1967) -- J.-L. Godard

Is there no one today doing anything as radical as what Jean-Luc Godard did in the Sixties who is still attracting the critical (and popular?) attention that he did?  Two or Three Things is a transitional film for JLG, moving him from his more narrative features to the pure dialectical essay film.  This halfway point may represent his most intellectually stimulating period, merging beauty and design and a partial narrative (a wife engages in prostitution to supplement the family budget) with a fervor for critical sociological theories about language, meaning, ways of seeing and thinking. And of course, class, consumerism, Vietnam, and French politics. Fascinating, but I need the annotated version.

Le Samourai (1967)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Le Samourai (1967) – J.-P. Melville

Watching this again (and again), especially after seeing many of Melville's other great films (Le Doulos, Le Deuxieme Souffle, Army in the Shadows, Bob Le Flambeur) suggests how different Le Samourai is, despite its surface similarities. Here, we have a lone protagonist, very inscrutable, rather than the interconnected gang or family locked into the inevitable mechanics of the plot. Here, the final action comes with a big question mark over it -- perhaps his sense of honour leads him to save La Pianiste? But we never quite know whether she is complicit in all that has gone down. To compare this to Bresson is not understating things (although it makes understatement prominent) -- the essence of cool, in detail, in colour, in theme.