Wanda (1970)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Wanda (1970) – B. Loden

Intense character study written, starring, and directed by Barbara Loden, her only film.  With no music and shot in that cinema verité documentary style (familiar from the Maysles Brothers) it is easy to think that what you are watching is “real”.  Wanda (Loden) is something of a lost soul (declaring “I’m no good” at one point), wandering (get it?) aimlessly throughout the picture, not seeking out trouble but not avoiding it when it finds her, just trying to get by, it seems.  The film opens in a poor PA mining community with Wanda accepting a divorce from her husband and willingly giving up custody of her two children.  Then we see here move from beer to beer, scrounging money where she can, sleeping with guys who help her out.  She doesn’t say much and perhaps has not much to say.  When she stumbles into a robbery in a bar, she follows the stick-up man to a motel and stays with him even though he is cruel to her.  Perhaps out of loneliness she doesn’t leave when he plans a bank robbery.  When that’s over, she moves on, aimlessly.  An interview I saw with Loden reveals that she felt that Wanda knows “what she doesn’t want” but isn’t sure what she does want.  Most descriptions of the film refer to it as feminist, perhaps because Wanda rejects the expected role for women at the time (mother and housewife) but finds that society offers no other opportunities. 

Midnight (1939)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Midnight (1939) – M. Leisen

I thought I had thoroughly mined the screwball comedy genre (popular in the ‘30s & ‘40s) but I had missed this prime example, directed by Mitchell Leisen but written by Charles Bracket and Billy Wilder (all responsible for other screwballs with other partners).  Claudette Colbert (herself no stranger to the genre) plays a broke chorus girl just arrived in Paris (after losing all her dough in Monte Carlo) who allows a sympathetic taxi driver (Don Ameche) to drive her around from nightclub to nightclub looking for a job.  No luck, but there are sparks between them – nevertheless she flees, winding up in a posh society piano recital (hosted by Hedda Hopper!) where she catches the eye of John Barrymore and ends up playing bridge with his wife (Mary Astor), the man trying to seduce her (Francis Lederer), and another friend.  To avoid being thrown out of the event, she claims to be the Baroness Czerny (taking the taxi driver’s surname off the top of her head).  Soon, she finds herself employed by Barrymore to continue playing the Baroness in order to divert Lederer’s attention away from Astor – but when Ameche (the real Czerny) shows up, chaos ensues.  As it always does in screwball comedy.  Somehow too each film in this genre challenges us to guess who ends up married/not married or divorced/not divorced – and Midnight offers as complex a conclusion as any.  

  

The Mother and the Whore (1973)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Mother and the Whore (1973) – J. Eustache

This film, a sort of epilogue to (or elegy for) the Nouvelle Vague, captures that feeling in your twenties when you are finding your way, establishing relationships under heightened uncertainty, not just about the rules of relationships but about yourself and your values and goals.  In its typically French fashion, the film is all talk – often fascinating talk that reveals character (or character flaws), shot with actors speaking directly to the camera. At the start (of its 3 ½ hour length), the main talker is Alexandre, played by New Wave stalwart Jean-Pierre Léaud who we know so well from his work with Truffaut (from The 400 Blows onward).  Although he is our main point of identification, we are likely meant to be ambivalent about him, since he is clearly setting out to cheat on his live-in girlfriend, Marie (Bernadette LaFont; her flat, not his) with another woman he notices at an outdoor café/pub, Veronika (Françoise Lebrun).  He is a charming talker but selfish and narcissistic, even while he aims to be totally honest with both women (if not always with himself – there is a lot of bad faith on display here). As the film progresses, we get to see more about Marie’s perspective (angry, hurt, jealous) and especially that of Veronika who starts to have monologues of her own by the film’s end -- and she is quite willing to offer her graphic views on sexual matters, laced with a lot of profanity.  Indeed, the film is shocking in this respect, calling to mind the films of Andy Warhol or John Waters that know no boundaries.  Although not pornographic, the film does not shy away from presenting the ménage à trois as it appears, struggles, and collapses, with all the heightened emotions that you would expect. Given its time period (and the title), it isn’t too difficult to ascertain that the film has something to say about “women’s liberation” and is questioning Alexandre’s (and society’s) attitudes toward women and their role.  To its credit, it sees women as free to make their own decisions about life and especially sex; however, I also got the sense that director Jean Eustache (who wrote every word) may yearn for simpler times (or have empathy for those who do) when gender roles were clearer. The end result is nothing less than completely absorbing and intense (if dated) – viewers be prepared!

The Fire Within (1963)

 

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Fire Within (1963) – L. Malle

Apparently, director Louis Malle identified so much with Alain Leroy, the protagonist of Pierre Drieu La Rochelle’s novel, that he even dressed actor Maurice Ronet in his own clothes.  Malle was reportedly insecure about his ability (despite several awards and commercial successes, including Les Amants, 1958), and saw glimpses of himself in the character who feels at a dead-end at age 30 after a (short) lifetime spent indulging himself with nightlife and women and especially alcohol.  When we meet Alain he has been living at a clinic in Versailles, separated from his American wife (still in New York) and his friends (all in Paris); he is introspective and unwilling to leave despite having been detoxed and “cured”.  After sleeping with his wife’s visiting go-between, Lydia, he restlessly decides that he should kill himself – but first, he makes one last trip to Paris to say goodbye.  His encounters with his old friends prove rather unsatisfying:  they have either matured into adulthood (with wife, kids, career) or they remain as they were but seem distant or foolish.  Anyone who has struggled with depression can see Alain’s troubled self-loathing in Ronet’s eyes and in the way he alternately lashes out at others and wallows in his public shame (feeling he is seen as a burnt out degenerate). It’s an impressively complex and sad performance.  However, the film, despite Alain’s downward trajectory, occasionally offers reasons for living. Alain’s friends profess their love and try to convince him that he has things to contribute. The film itself, with its beautiful B&W cinematography (by Ghislain Cloquet) and its thoughtful piano score (by Erik Satie), often stops to observe Paris, its people, and Alain’s immediate surroundings.  This sensual experience reminds us of those little pleasures that the mindful existentialist can focus on to keep angst at bay.  However, it is not enough for Alain.

 

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

 

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) – J. & E. Coen 

One of the Coen Brothers’ most accessible films that rises on the strength of its rootsy Depression-era setting and especially music (the soundtrack went platinum).  Ironic, I suppose, because the film takes its title from the film that director Joel McCrea wants to make (in Sullivan’s Travels, 1941) when he decides to give up commercial filmmaking to make something more serious (i.e., about the struggles of the common man).  But I guess that theme is somewhere buried in there along with the Coens’ usual assortment of oddities, anecdotes, references, and jokes!  This time, the plot is also held together by its links to Homer’s The Odyssey and the homeward journey of its hero (and/or to The Wizard of Oz and its similar trek). George Clooney, Tim Blake Nelson, and John Turturro play three convicts who break loose from a chain gang and then aim to head to George Clooney’s home to get their hands on the proceeds from a bank robbery that he has hidden there, before the TVA floods the whole place.  Along the way, they meet various characters who may echo Homer – John Goodman as a one-eyed Bible Salesman, for example – and a variety of time-period relevant events (a KKK rally, for example).  They are always followed by a demonic sheriff in mirror shades. They meet gangster George BabyFace Nelson (Michael Badalucco). They also meet Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King) who may or may not have sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for guitar-playing prowess – which brings us back to the music.  At one point in their journey, the boys stumble into a Sun Records styled recording studio and radio station where they fortuitously record a version of “Man of Constant Sorrow” which becomes an unlikely hit for their pseudonym The Soggy Bottom Boys (a plot device that returns later to salvage, well, everything). Clooney didn’t do his own singing but apart from that his presence here was really a revelation (back in 2000) – he is truly funny as the fast-talking but ridiculous Ulysses Everett McGill (that name!).  Nelson and Turturro are no slouches either and the whole thing ambles along so amiably with its rollicking and wistful accompaniment that it leaves you with a warm feeling that seems rarely the Coens’ goal. I’m glad I revisited it.      

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019) – Q. Tarantino

As with all of QT’s films, this one is extremely problematic in so many ways.  I hesitated to give it 4 stars (relegating it to my better film blog rather than to the annex) but I was impressed by the performances offered by Brad Pitt (as an out-of-work stunt man) and Leonardo DiCaprio (as a fading second-string star).  Tarantino’s efforts to recreate the past, in this case 1969 in Hollywood, are as always unparalleled.  Being old myself, I appreciated the nostalgia for the analogue world (and TV Guide!) even if the events depicted – encompassing the lead-up to the Manson murders – happened before I can remember.  I didn’t much care for the past two Tarantino films (Hateful Eight, Django Unchained) but Once Upon a Time has less in common with them and harkens back a bit more to the pacing and rhythms of Jackie Brown (1997), which is one of his best.  While watching, I had mixed feelings about the long scenes (in an already long film) of Pitt driving around or DiCaprio acting in TV westerns but I have to admit that they do establish the characters, the setting, and the tone. The Spahn ranch episode is especially creepy.  Of course, QT is working around the edges in every scene, filling the soundtrack with period music and radio DJs, decorating the set with period props and furniture, getting every detail right (kudos to his art department).  There are a lot of references and in-jokes, to be sure. However, Once Upon a Time does have grander objectives than just reproducing the past – Tarantino wants to say something about Hollywood’s loss of innocence as a result of the Manson murders (as well as various implicit and explicit side comments about Roman Polanski, Sharon Tate, Bruce Lee, and the industry).  Everything builds to the murders and viewers are naturally in dread as the date nears – DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton actually lives next door to the murder house on Cielo Drive. I won’t spoil the movie but it should come as no surprise that Tarantino revels in the depiction of terrible violence. He seems to be using the film to lash out at “hippies” and the way the counter-culture overwhelmed and perhaps destroyed the film and TV days of old – or perhaps this is just assuming that he identifies with Pitt and DiCaprio’s characters who belong to that older world. If he does, then the film might be a sort of fantasy wish fulfilment for him.  But a lot of viewers won’t want to go through the ordeal of the final scenes even if the denouement grants QT’s wish.   

Police Story 3: Supercop (1992)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

Police Story 3: Supercop (1992) – S. Tong

The special thing about Jackie Chan is that he does his own stunts – not just fighting but extreme stunts, which probably hit their peak in this second sequel to his action comedy hit Police Story (1985).  The plot is really incidental to the stunts – Jackie is a cop going undercover in mainland China to capture a drug kingpin.  Michelle Yeoh is the Chinese Interpol agent who joins him (and also does her own amazing stunts).  What little comedy there is here (as compared to the earlier Police Story or Project A films) centers on Jackie’s boastful “supercop” persona and on his relationship with May (Maggie Cheung) who catches him in compromising situations (that are not what they seem).  In some ways, Jackie is a little older, a little duller – but the stunts more than make up for this, involving trains, helicopters, cars, motorbikes, motorboats etc.  There’s also a good deal of ultraviolence, courtesy of drug dealers with automatic weapons and explosives.  So, more of an action film and less shenanigans than in the past.  I saw this on the big screen in 1993 (not the later dubbed version with a new musical soundtrack) and was pretty wowed.