Top 20 of 2013
I’m always reluctant to post lists for recent years. Even though I consider myself a general film fan, I am mostly a classic film fan. Good films age better with time. Flawed films do not. My top 20 list for 2005, for example, is a lot different today than it would have been in 2005. This list will probably be a lot different in 10 years, partly because films age differently, but also I’ll have opportunities to see more gems that fell under the radar, many of which will probably be international films.
As it turns out, this is an English heavy list. My top four were all late Fall, “awards season” releases, and top pick won Best Picture at the Oscars. Now that’s a rarity. It’s also the subject of one of the first posts I wrote on this site — a historical analysis, and quite different from the posts I write now.
There are some omissions. Gravity missed my list, but that’s not to say that I didn’t appreciate and respect the film. It was one of the most technically impressive films in recent memory. I actually liked it more in the theater, and it dropped a notch when I watched it in 3D at home. It felt more like a roller coaster ride than a film.
Inside Llewyn Davis is one that has grown on me over the short time since I’ve seen it, and now I think it as one of the better American character studies, and an underrated Coen Brothers film (which feels weird saying). It is rumored to come out on Criterion someday, and I would really enjoy revisiting Llewyn’s world, however bleak it might be.
1. 12 Years a Slave
2. Inside Llewyn Davis
3. Captain Phillips
4. Wolf of Wall Street
5. Enemy
6. We Are the Best
7. The Spectacular Now
8. The Great Beauty
9. Computer Chess
10. The Wind Rises
11. Under the Skin
12. The Armstrong Lie
13. Jodorowsky’s Dune
14. The Immigrant
15. Blue is the Warmest Color
16. Ida
17. 20 Feet From Stardom
18. In a World
19. Before Midnight
20. The World’s End
Black Narcissus, 1947, Powell & Pressburger
This post is part of the 1947 Blogathon hosted by Shadows & Satin and Speakeasy.
I was at dinner with friends a few months ago, one of whom happens to be a huge Powell & Pressburger fan. We were sharing thoughts on their 1940s output, pretty much raving about film after film. When we got to Black Narcissus, without thinking I said, “I just love the locations they used.” The thing is, they didn’t use locations, and I knew that. Everything was a set, but for a split second as I reached down into my memory bank about this film, my first image was the castle near a cliff at high Himalayan elevation. My thought was not of the matte paintings or miniatures, but the fantasy that they created.
The remainder of the film notwithstanding, the creation of this world is a marvel. Sure the matte paintings of the mountains in the opening sequence scream matte paintings. As they establish the “location” with a series of shots, it is easy to tell if you look carefully that they are using miniatures, especially viewing with modern eyes. As the film progresses, however, it begins to feel like real India. We get lost in that world, thanks to Michael Powell’s idea to shoot everything in the studio, and Jack Cardiff and Alfred Junge’s monumental work to make Pinewood Studios not only look like the Himalayas, but for it to look magnificent.
I could go on gushing about the sets, the use of color, but the pictures do most of the justice. Under this gorgeous backdrop is a story of isolation, perseverance, self-repression, and at the core, eroticism. Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) is charged with an expedition to open a convent in Mopu, to educate and assist the locals, in challenging, arduous terrain that slowly wears her and her fellow sisters down.
Deborah Kerr has proven repeatedly that she is a tremendous actress. One of her most impressive turns was the triple-role she played in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. In Black Narcissus, she has to play an entirely different type of character, but she pulls it off magnificently. As you see from the above tweet, she was poised and composed most of the time. Her performance shined in the nuances – the brief moments that she let her guard down. When a masculine figure like Mr. Dean makes a suggestive comment, we can see that it registers and she hesitates, but she is aware of her position of leadership and hiding her true feelings.
The flashback.
We see in flashbacks that Sister Clodagh was not always a chaste, innocent servant to religion. At one point, she had a love in her life and a carefree lifestyle doing something just for fun — fishing. During her moments of weakness in Mopu, she longs to return to those halcyon and unobtainable days in her life, lamenting the life of solitude that she has chosen for herself.
Ruth
All of the Sisters face their own challenges, and one of the obstacles that Clodagh faces is dealing with attrition. However, her most notable adversary is Sister Ruth, played to perfection by Kathleen Byron. Ruth is stubborn at times, and highly sensitive at others. While Clodagh is quietly and stoically beginning to crack, Ruth is not just unraveling, but spiraling out of control. She falls the furthest from grace, and the rivalry between the two women makes the final act memorable, but this time I will not spoil the ending. Plus, I’m getting ahead of myself.
When one thinks of a nun movie, erotic is not a word that would come to mind, yet Black Narcissus is stacked with eroticism, which is the undercurrent for how the plot plays out. The world of Mopu is an erotic world. The nuns decide to take in one of the young local Generals (Sabu) for political reasons, and he dresses ornately and wears the titular cologne that he calls “Black Narcissus.” The naming of the scent speaks to the futility of the nun’s cause, and how the idea of civilizing the local “Black” population is a narcissistic exercise under the questionable philosophy of “White Man’s Burden.” Yet, the scent is intoxicating, and the Sisters find themselves attracted to the General’s charms.
Mr. Dean
The most sexualized character is a male, Mister Dean, who serves to mentor the women. He is their western conduit that informs them of the eastern ways, but he is also the most significant threat to their vows. He is a temptation for the women, and just like the constant wind, he slowly weathers down Sisters Clodagh, Ruth, and others. He is introduced wearing shorts and revealing clothing, and he is portrayed by David Farrar as a masculine outdoorsman. In one scene he arrives at their sanctuary not even wearing a shirt. What is the practical benefit of shedding clothing at elevation with the wind constantly blowing?
Ruth admires Dean from a distance, but he interacts with Sister Clodagh regularly. She manages to keep her true feelings close to the chest, but there are many suggestive lines of dialogue, quick glances, tiny fissures in her icy exterior that show she is aware of the temptation. In one early scene she notes that they are to talk business, and Dean responds that, “I don’t suppose you’d want to talk about anything else.” That other, unspeakable subject is of romance, or more specifically eroticism, voicing the prospective attraction they hold for each other. They play games, at times civil, at others hostile. In one scene, Dean sings Christmas Carols while drunk. Clodagh pushes him away, which is in part distancing herself from the threat by telling him “you’re objectionable when you’re sober and abominable when you’re drunk!”
Kanchi
The other sexualized character is Kanchi, played by a young Jean Simmons as her career was beginning. Kanchi is taken in by the convent as a pity project, but she is the antithesis of everything the Sisters represent. She is beautiful, wearing seductive jewelry and clothing, and even does a provocative dance. While the nuns have to keep their eyes aloof, Kanchi overtly presents herself as a sexual object. When the General reveals his cologne, the Sisters have no choice but to ignore the magnetism of the scent, but Kanchi holds nothing back. She savors in the charms of the General, and even though she is low by birth, she does everything in her power to win over the young, vulnerable man.
This sexual tension progresses throughout the first two acts, and it is the third act in which the Sisters, specifically Clodagh and Ruth, are faced with it directly. It is not a sword, gun or any other weapon of war that sets the film toward its thrilling conclusion, but a mere tube of lipstick.
Film Rating: 9/10
Supplements
Commentary 1988 with Michael Powell and Martin Scorsese.
This is a commentary I had already heard, so I did not re-listen/re-watch. I remember it being an excellent commentary, as was their commentary on The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Much of what they discuss is repetitive with the information found on the other features of this disc.
Bernard Tavernier: 2006 Introduction.
This was the first time they had adapted an existing work and not wrote their own screenplay. As Tavernier puts it, they adapted “between the lines” of Rumer Godden’s novel. We learned from The River that she was not satisfied with their adaptation and was careful to make sure Renoir would handle the material to her liking.
The Audacious Adventurer: 2006 Bertrand Tavernier interview.
Marie Maurice brought the book to Powell and Pressburger, and said they should adapt the film and she should play Sister Ruth. At first Powell did not pursue the film because he did not want to adapt other material. After the war, Powell had been tired of war films. Pressburger then remembered the book and talked him into the project, but Maurice did not get the part.
Casting was the next task. Kerr was the first to be suggested, but Powell discounted her because she was too young. Kerr heard this and when they had lunch, she convinced Powell that she was just right for the part. She said that age wouldn’t matter. Jean Simmons caused controversy because Olivier had contracted her to play Ophelia, and he took exception to her playing an erotic Indian. There was some friction between Olivier and Powell as they discussed/debated Simmons.
Jack Cardiff had not been a Director of Photography on a film, but had worked for Technicolor. Powell took a risk in hiring him for his first film, and the rest is history. He won the Oscar for Cinematography and would continue to collaborate with Powell, and had a highly successful career.
Powell decided on shooting everything at Pinewood because they would never be able to match the exteriors in India with shots inside a London studio. Cardiff and Junge had harsh reactions. They creatively looked for solutions, and decided to use miniatures and glass. Lucas and Spielberg have said that the special effects had never been matched.
Profile of Black Narcissus: 2000 making-of documentary.
They have interviews with Jack Cardiff, Kathleen Byron, and many others.
After a series of major successes and the previous year’s A Matter of Life and Death, Powell and Pressburger were at the top of their game. The question was what would they come up with next, which of course resulted in this ambitious project about ex-patriot nuns in the Himalayas.
The entire film had been shot in the British Isles. Not one frame was shot elsewhere. Pinewood became this exotic far away land. Cardiff said that after the film, they had letters saying that people had recognized places they had visited. This he felt reinforced that they had succeeded with the charade.
The tension between Sister Ruth and Mr. Dean was heightened by their off-set relationship. Byron says he had crushes on many women. As she puts it, “we were very close at one time, but it was not for very long.”
Painting with Light: 2000 documentary about Jack Cardiff’s work.
They have a number of interviews, including Martin Scorsese, Hugh Laurie, Cardiff and others.
Cardiff shows the mechanisms in the camera that shows how the color was captured. Scorsese says that films were continually being used for entertainment (as they still are) and Technicolor was used for popular genre films. It added about 25% to the budget
One thing Cardiff did was collected the best technicians around, and had a wonderful art director. It was a tough process and they needed Technicolor consultants on the set at all the time. They had to make sure the colors were right, and even had to dye the shirts to make sure the white did not contrast. The actual colors were bright “Technicolor colors.”
Vermeer was used as a model as to how to portray the light, but as Cardiff puts it, in the Vermeer paintings, the people did not move around. He used the Van Gogh pool hall painting as a model for another scene. Rembrandt was used to inspire other scenes.
Criterion Rating: 9.5/10
Secret Sunshine, 2007, Chang-dong Lee
Secret Sunshine begins as an ordinary character piece, with a widowed mother planting roots in her husband’s hometown as a way to begin fresh. We can tell early on that the bonds between the mother and her son are tight. In the opening scene, when they have a car breakdown, she tells her son that “we’re stuck together.” Most of the early scenes are spent developing the mother character, Shin-ae, and how she is out of her element in the small city of Miryang. She does not fit in with the crowd, and finds that when she tells one person her backstory, the entire town knows her story. Her only friend is her son, and they could not be closer.
We’re stuck together.
Towards the end of the third act, a crime takes place. It is a devastating crime, one that impacts all of the characters and forces the story to take a left turn. When the crime is revealed, it appears momentarily that the film is going to transform from a drama to a thriller or crime procedural. While some procedurals can be well done and have some artistry (Vengeance is Mine for example), I have to applaud the filmmakers for not writing the easier story. It resists falling into the formulaic trappings of the procedural drama. While it does give resolution to the crime, it does not dwell on who did what, how the investigation or trial were carried out, or anything else pertaining to the process. The closest we get is the main character visiting a crime scene. Secret Sunshine deserves credit for not succumbing to the lure of the thriller, and instead focusing on the characters.
Be warned that after this image, I’ll be delving into spoiler territory. Please do not read further unless you have seen the movie or could care less if I give it away.
The pivotal scene is the kidnapping of Shin-ae’s beloved son, Jun, and his subsequent death. As noted above, we do not dwell on finding the killer, but they do find him and put him away. If you pay attention, you can see who it is in the narrative, and there is an emotional payoff in one of the final scenes for those who paid attention to his daughter. All of the details about the crime are for the most part unnecessary aside from that it happened and devastated the mother.
Religion is a major theme, and it intermingles with the title, which also happens to be the Chinese translation of the city’s name. Miring means “secret sunshine.” Religion is introduced early in the film before the kidnapping. When Shin-ae picks up a prescription, the pharmacist gives her a religious pamphlet and encouraged to join the local service. This is where the gossip comes into play, as the pharmacist already knows that she is widowed and a single mother, and makes assumptions about her character from there. Shin-ae actually denies the assumptions and is insulted by them, but through the performance, we learn that the pharmacist was correct. Shin-ae is a traumatically wounded woman.
It is not just religion that is a core theme, but belief in general. The pharmacist tries to convince her to “see the light” on more than one occasion. At first, Shin-ae is a stringent atheist. She does not believe what she cannot see. During one of their discussions, the pharmacist notes that God is within the sun beam that is shining through the store window. Shin-ae walks through it defiantly, noting that there is nothing there.
Jong Chan
An aging, unmarried male named Jong Chan consoles Shin-ae after the tragedy. He meets her in one of the film’s early scenes when her car breaks down, and develops a longing for her. For much of the film, it appears his intentions may be admirable and platonic. When people ask of his sexual intent, he dismisses saying that “It’s nothing like that.” In truth he is simply bashful, yet he watches over Shin-ae as she grieves. You could call this being in the “friendzone,” but there is a chemistry between them – whether it is as friends or partners – she usually welcomes his presence, even if at times she tries to rid herself of him.
Shin-ae changes her mind about religion, or at least decides it is worth a try. Anything is worth trying if it might relieve her suffering. She goes to church and Jong Chan tags along with her. It is over a few scenes that she completes her conversion, but we are meant to infer that this takes place over a long period of time. The film moves through time quickly. Shin-ae finds exactly what she is looking for through religion, and finds what at first appears to be true happiness. She makes friends with the local community, even goes out to Karaoke bars with the girls, and has finally settled into Miryang living. Her transformation is remarkable, and the girls applaud her for getting her life in order after losing her husband and son.
At one point, she decides that she is strong enough to forgive Jun’s killer. She decides to visit him in prison, bring him flowers, and through the power of the Lord, offer forgiveness. Is she doing this for herself or for him? This isn’t clear, but we get an idea after they meet. Rather than living a miserable life in prison, she finds in her son’s killer a well-adjusted man, looking healthy and serene. When she reveals why she is there, he is pleased. He too has found solace in God. He has achieved forgiveness. Shin-ae is shaken. How can God forgive him when it was her that was bereaved? How can God be allowed to forgive someone without the injured party also forgiving? As quickly as Shin-ae became Christian, she just as quickly loses her faith.
If Shin-ae was apathetic towards religion before she lost Jun, she is aggressive toward it after being robbed of her forgiveness. At first she lashes out just because of the unresolved pain she is feeling, part of which she feels religion is to blame. In a particularly intense scene, she begins crying during prayer in a church service. That prayer turns to a guttural wail. She screams out as if she is physically hurting. Even though Jong Chan is still behind her, trying to console her, the fire cannot be put out. She turns further away from the church, finds an outdoor retreat and sabotages the audio equipment to a song with lyrics about how everything is a lie. This plays while the pastor is preaching about God’s plan, but his sermon is drowned out by Shin-ae’s song.
There are some logical problems with certain plot elements. Even though we are led to think that a lot of time has passed, it’s a stretch to believe that Shin-ae could be depressed, then so happy that she cannot contain her wide smile, to depressed again and wanting to leave her life behind. It’s also unlikely that someone would be brave enough to forgive someone who had committed such a heinous act as kidnapping and killing a son. I had trouble believing certain things, yet I was able to mostly get past them. That was thanks to the remarkable performance.
If the lead performance were poor, this film would not have made it out of South Korea, much less made it into the Criterion Collection. The performance is devastating. Do-yeon Jeon is believable in the highs and lows of her character. At times her emotions are so strong that it hardly seems like acting, and this is the case whether the character is feeling grief or elation, although the performance really stands out when she is hurting. The emotional low that Shin-ae falls cannot have been an easy place for the actress to reach, but for the most part, she knocks it out of the park. This is one of those films where the lead performance is so strong that it triumphs over what would otherwise be mediocre material.
Miryang
Finally, this is not a pleasant film. It reminded me of a slightly less harsh version of Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves. Like Bess, Shin-ae has her demons and deep down, has a virtuous side. Both are martyrs. The only difference is Bess’ sacrifice gets her closer to God, whereas Shin-ae could not be further when she decides to leave her life.
Film Rating: 7.5
Supplements
Lee Chang-dong: 2011 interview.
“What is the meaning of ordinary lives?”
This is not a story about an event, but about a place. He chose Miryang because it is an average small town. It was near his home town, but he was always fascinated by the name even at a young age. It is a poetic name. He used many locals for the cast, either theater actors or amateurs.
He did not intend for this to be a religious film, but it is a film about God. Jong Chan could be interpreted as a god-like character or perhaps sent from God to watch over her. He literally does watch over her in many scenes. He is an “earthy” person that could be good for Shin-ae, but she rejects him. The actor did a good job with the local dialect that foreigners will probably miss out on, but that contributes to his “earthiness” (I think he means “down to earth” with this phrase).
He did not direct the Do-yeon Jeon or her emotions much. He wanted her to draw on her experiences, which makes her performance that much more impressive given that it wasn’t directed. She had a tough time on the set because there were painful scenes day after day, so the actress had to suffer. She was at odds with the director, but they made up after the shoot was complete.
On the Set of “Secret Sunshine”:
This is a short, 6-minute film, which basically shows little outtakes from the set. For example it starts with the two leads laughing about wondering how the film will look when it comes out. They are both curious because the style it seems new. They show a montage of misery from Do-yeon Jeon.
“Love makes you a fool” becomes a song because they talk about what a hopeless character Jong Chan he is. She calls him a loveable character. He thinks he is a fool.
Criterion Rating: 7/10
The Merchant of Four Seasons, 1971, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
If you can say one thing about Fassbinder’s films, you can say that he was adept at portraying and processing human feelings. These were usually negative human feelings. For example in The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, he explored vanity and loneliness, whereas in Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, he explored isolation and rejection. There are many other examples, such as Fear of Fear, which is a lesser-known Fassbinder that captures anxiety better than any film I’ve ever seen. With The Merchant of Four Seasons, the emotion that he captures is depression.
I’ll be honest that depression is something I don’t understand. Sure, I’ve had bad days and been down in the dumps. Who hasn’t? I’ve known people that have been depressed, and I’ve had a tough time connecting with them. One friend sent me this cartoon link from Hyperbole and a Half, which helped me understand depression to a certain extent. I can never understand it as well as people like this friend or (likely) Fassbinder experienced it, but a film like The Merchant of Four Seasons gets me closer.
As fair warning, this is a film that requires spoilers to discuss properly. If you haven’t seen the film or are spoiler sensitive, then I would not read this entire post.
The character of Hans is a disappointment to most in his life. When he returns from the military, after finding out that someone else did not make it home, his own mother says, “the best are left behind while people like you come home.” We learn later that his military career ends with a sexual transgression. He then becomes a cart merchant, peddling fruits for a small profit in order to support his wife and daughter. When he isn’t working, he drinks with his friends and does not want to be disturbed. In one pivotal scene, when his wife Irmgard (Irm Hermann) demands that he come home, he throws a chair at her. Later, when questioned, he beats her.
His family scorns him and thinks of him as a disappointment. They shun him after the case of abuse, siding with his wife while he beckons her to come back. The only person in his corner is his sister Anna (Hanna Schygulla), yet she has a minor role and is mostly ignored. When we see the family on screen, they serve the purpose of reminding us how worthless Hans is in their eyes. It’s no wonder that he feels such helpless despair.
Hans suddenly has a heart attack, and is forced to stop drinking and is not allowed any heavy activity. Given his prior anguish, one would think that this would push him further into depression, but the opposite happens. He takes on the role of proprietor, hires a productive employee, and enjoys profits. In a later scene, his family is surprisingly pleased with him. In their eyes and his, he has succeeded as a cart merchant.
Things come tumbling down due to another theme among the primary characters – weakness, especially in terms of their sexual proclivities. Han’s weakness with an admirer is what ruins his military career. In an early scene, he delivers fruit to an woman and is chastised by his jealous wife for spending seven minutes with the woman. We learn later that there is a hint of an affair happening at some point, which possibly happened off-screen during these early scenes. While in the hospital, Irmgard has an affair of her own with a taller, more masculine man. That man coincidentally ends up becoming Hans’ successful salesman. In my opinion, this was too coincidental, but it was a necessary plot development to take Hans further down in his slide.
Irmgard is a confounding character. She rekindles her relationship with Hans, even when he is employing her former, temporary lover. It is in this period that his depression begins to take shape again. Even before he discovers the truth, which comes up after he catches him skimming money from his sales, a strategy in which Irmgard suggested. She is the mystery. Fassbinder usually portrays women as strong and sympathetic characters, but Irmgard makes some baffling decisions. At times she seems to want to undermine Hans, while at others, like in the image above, she is saddened by his downfall.
Hans’ depression reaches such a low that he decides he wants to die. We learn through flashback that this is not the first time he’s reached this low of a feeling. When being whipped by an enemy soldier, he faces certain death, only to be rescued at the last minute by fellow soldiers. Rather than thank them, he asks them, “why didn’t you let me die?”
The final drinking scene is the culmination of the burdensome weight of all those who he has disappointed, including himself. Because of his health condition, he holds the gun that will decide his fate. He commits his suicide with bitterness and no regret. He even dedicates each shot to a certain someone who has wronged him. This is his way of getting back at the world.
Film Rating: 7/10
Supplements
Commentary – Wim Wenders, 2012.
Wenders talks about how it is unusual to comment on a film from a friend and colleague that died 20 years ago. He gives a commentary you would expect from Wenders. He speaks slowly and relaxed. He is not the type to comment or analyze every little scene. Even though I like analytical commentaries, I also like this type because it is more like you are watching the film from a friend.
- Fassbinder did everything himself, including writing, directing, sometimes acting, editing, sometimes producing. Working on so many projects as Fassbinder did required him to be working on the next one while he was finishing the last one. Wenders says that the speed in which he worked would eventually kill Werner.
- Wenders loves film, and he especially loved Hans Hirschmüller so much that he cast him in Alice in the Cities.
- He had such a strong ensemble that he would often cast his major actors in small roles. Hanna Schygulla and Kurt Raab are examples here. Of course Schygulla, in Wenders words, would “become one of the major stars of German cinema.”
- Back then, selling fruit off a cart was a real Bavarian profession. He points out the fact that the people speak with a distinct Bavarian accent, but that does not come across with subtitles.
- Prior to the German New Wave, the most successful German films were either Westerns or softcore porn. This direction into character-based melodramas was a major shift. They learned their craft from American films.
- He talks about the New German Cinema experience. They were not in each other’s way, had nothing in common, different perspectives, different missions. They helped each other, had no envy, shared cast and crew. Fassbinder was way ahead of them. By this time, Wenders had only made two short films. They were not bound by a cultural aesthetic, and never discussed content, style, but more about distribution, projects, etc.
Irm Hermann: 2015 interview.
She had no formal training, but got lucky when she met Fassbinder and he pulled her off of an office desk and put her in front of a camera for The City Tramp. He quit her job for her. Fassbinder was charismatic and started in the theater. She had no training save for how Fassbinder trained her. She didn’t want to do the sex scene, but Fassbinder was discrete and sent everyone out of the room. She is grateful for the film because of the Douglas Sirk-like close-ups. Her and Hirschmüller won German Awards, as did the film. and that was a major deal.
Hans Hirschmüller: 2015 interview.
The role of Hans was written with him in mind. Fassbinder wanted someone down to earth and simple, which was really what he was at the time. He knew the types of merchants that he would play. Fassbinder didn’t tell him anything about the role. He just made him read the script, and asked if he approved.
They did not often do multiple takes. Usually one or two, sometimes three, but very rarely four. Rehearsal is when they would improvise, never during the scene.
It was a tough role for him because he had to face death like he never had in his personal life. He had trouble getting to the position of being helpless. The scenes where he was depressed were the toughest for him.
Eric Rentschler: Interview with film historian and professor at Harvard.
This was the film that put Fassbinder on the map. Reviews were overwhelmingly positive. Some said it was the best film to come out of Germany in years. Fassbinder had been working productively prior to this, but his rise out of Merchant was meteoric. Early films were bleak and resembled neo-noir. You could tell that Fassbinder was a student and fan of film.
Fassbinder is good at showing what character’s are capable of, both good and bead. Irm Hermann is an example of this because she has adultery and is planning on leaving her husband on one occasion, yet adores him in other occasions.
The film was based on his uncle, who had fallen from a high position and ended up as a fruit salesman.
Criterion Rating: 8/10
The Great Beauty, 2013, Paolo Sorrentino
Believe it or not, this was my third time giving The Great Beauty a chance. The first two times I hated it. In fairness, both of my previous two attempts were not during the ideal circumstances. The first time was on Video on Demand before the home release. I didn’t realize the movie was as long as it was, so I had to cram it in during a busy time before the 24-hour rental period expired. It seemed beautifully shot, but overlong and plodding. The second time was when it was on Netflix instant, before the Criterion release and before I knew I’d be undertaking this ambitious project. That time my take was similar, but I watched it when I was tired and felt it was an inferior La Dolce Vita knockoff. My love for Fellini fueled my hate for Sorrentino.
I bought the Criterion because I buy all of the Criterion Blu-Rays, but it was one I planned to save for a rainy day. Maybe I would watch it last. I decided to try again after talking with Mikhail from the Wrong Reel podcast. I respect his opinions and often agree with him (although not always). He said he considered it to be one of his top 20 films of all time. Really? That was a surprising statement. He also would have La Dolce Vita in the same top 20. That was even more surprising, because I know some other Fellini fans who also despise The Great Beauty. Since I had revisited La Dolce Vita since my last attempt at this film, I figured it would at least be an interesting experiment in contrast, but I did not expect my mind to be changed.
My mind was changed.
The beginning of the film is absolutely exhilarating. I thought that on all three viewings, but it especially took hold of me this time. The film begins in daylight and the camera cuts quickly between gorgeous Roman buildings and vistas, intermingled with shots of random people. We see a Japanese tour group, and one of them dies, which introduces two themes that will come back later – tourism and death, and this moment will be subtly recalled at the end of the film. The camera is rarely static, and instead moves quickly, reminding me of Wenders’ Wings of Desire that gives the sequence a constantly flowing feeling.
Daylight abruptly ends and night begins as we are transported to a vibrant party, introducing a contrast that will continue throughout the film – the splendor of Rome during the day versus the wildness and debauchery at night. The camera moves just like it did in the daytime, with the same type of quick cuts. We see random images of participants, a motley crue of characters, some of whom will return later and some we will leave with the party. The party is a way to memorably introduce the main character.
Hello, Jep Gambardella! When we are introduced to Jep (Toni Servillo), he is clearly in his element. He dances to the hypnotic music, has a beaming smile, and soon will randomly French kiss one of the beautiful women. This is his 65th birthday party, and although he has the gray hair, he acts like someone half his age. He is a partier, living for the nightlife without a care in the world. He is affable, casual, fun loving, and we immediately understand why such a huge crowd flocks to his party. He’s the kind of guy people want to know, and even at 65, the kind of guy that people want to be.
I cannot write this without highlighting the similarities between Jep and Marcello from La Dolce Vita. They are both journalists. Marcello wrote for gossip magazines, whereas Jep interviews various figures from performance artists to religious figures. Jep is the more prestigious writer, both presently and in his past, having written a novel (or novella, as it is sometimes referred) forty years ago that sounds to have reached a level of popularity and literary credibility that Marcello was not within sniffing distance. They both are having an aging crisis, although Jep’s has more to do with being close to mortality, whereas Marcello is having a mid-life crisis. They both live for the night. In both films they go to parties and gallivant around Rome at night.
The similarities end there. Marcello is a bitter individual, whereas Jep upbeat, yet cynical about life and society and can be caustic, particularly when he verbally takes down a fellow, hubristic writer. They are both charismatic and well liked, but Marcello is downbeat and soft spoken. Jep has his somber moments, but even when he is questioning his place in life, he still carries himself with composure and is not nearly as aloof as Marcello. It is also worth noting that in both films, the writers encounter a young girl. The one that Marcello meets is fond of him, and does not see his bitterness, whereas we barely even see the one that Jep encounters. She is underground and Jep speaks to her through a sewer grate. She tells Jep that he is nobody.
There are a few other filmic elements and plot points that evoke memories of Fellini, and I was surprised to find in the supplements that the filmmakers were not consciously updating Fellini. I’m not saying they are being disingenuous. Perhaps these similarities were accidental or unconscious, or maybe they are just being coy about their inspiration. Either way, I think it is fair to make comparisons.
Despite these few similarities, many of which are either plot and character broad strokes, and others that are minor details, The Great Beauty deserves to be viewed on its own artistic merit. It makes many prescient statements and observations about modern life and society.
One reoccurring plot point is the art world. Along the way, we meet a few modern performance artists. One of them is a child who hurls paint cans at a canvas while having an emotional episode. One spectator complains at the exploitation, and is told that she makes millions, implying that commerce is the inspiration rather than passion. Another performance artist begins with knife throwing around a woman. At first the worry is for the woman’s well being, and then when she walks away, we see that the knives left an artistic imprint on the wall. This combination of a carnival act and the art world is important, and would be recalled later.
There is one scene where a man discusses with Jep how he will hide a giraffe. This act is not magic or art, but unequivocally a carnival act. He reveals that it is just a trick. Earlier in the film, a performance artist hurls herself at a stone column and smacks into it head first. This is just part of her performance, but is the most memorable as it appears that she has physically harmed herself, drew blood even, and all for art. It is later revealed that she had a buffer that prevented her from harm, so this was just also trick.
Jep sees these artistic demonstrations during his professional or social sphere. When the sun comes out, another form of art is revealed – the architectural beauty of Rome. Some of the film’s “great beauty” is revealed either during sunset when Jep is beginning his nightly adventure, or when the sun has come up after his night has ended. What he sees on his solo journeys is real beauty, real art, and not artifice.
A moment that is striking both for Jep and the viewer is when he encounters another piece of modern art, but he stumbles onto it by accident during one of his daylight strolls. This piece of art is simple, just a number of small snapshots of the same person on different days. It does not sound impressive by description, but the large number of these pictures as a whole reaches a magnitude that makes it a larger, and more distinct artistic statement. This is life and it is beautiful. You could say that the art itself is a trick because it is comprised of numerous little photos, easy to produce individually, but the end result is something special. The difference is that it has no commercial motive and someone like Jep can wander by it without paying anything.
The film touches on a number of other subjects and themes that I could write thousands more words about, such as the nature of death, love, tourism, classism, resistance to aging, religion, and plenty more. On this third viewing, I saw a dense and complicated film that is about various forms of beauty. “The Great Beauty,” however, is just a trick.
Film Rating: 8/10
Supplements
Paolo Sorrentino: 2013 discussion with film scholar Antonio Monda.
Monda talks about meeting Sorrentino when accepted One Man Up for the Tribeca film fest’s first year. Scorsese asks Monda to call him because he was Italian, and it happened to be on April Fools Day so Sorrentino thought it was a joke.
Jep was intentionally supposed to be a likeable and casual figure, who had a cynical outlook on life and the world. They had seen people like that in Italy (particularly Naples) and it was not a tough character to envision. The “medium long” hair was a negotiation. Sorrentino wanted it longer.
They talk about the parallels with La Dolce Vita, and Monda wonders whether the broad stroke similarities were conscious. Sorrentino says they were not conscious. He says the only one that was intentional was filming the Via Veneto today. He says that the other references are unintentional, but perhaps subconscious because of his affection for Fellini.
The film is 137 minutes, which is long, but the first cut was longer. He misses those cut scenes and liked the first cut of the film, which was 190 minutes. He was not made to cut the film, but he did it himself. He thought that a long film would be exhausting, and it would perpetuate the theme (my words) that life is exhausting.
Toni Servillo: 2013 Criterion Collection interview.
This was his fourth film with Sorrentino, and he acknowledges that he owes a debt to the man for making his career. They share many ideas and observations, which made their way into the lead character. Paolo even designed the wardrobe, which was based on a Neapolitan tailor. Paolo wanted his Neapolitan flair to be very evident and clear, and not something he tried to conceal.
One thing I loved about this interview was not the words spoken, but the bookshelf behind him. There were books on Selznick & Hitchcock, Zanuck, and African Film Music. Servillo is not only a participant in film, but also a connoisseur and admirer.
Umberto Contarello: 2013 Criterion Collection interview.
Contarello is the screenwriter that worked with Paolo, and like Monda, met him at a festival. Some of his comments are redundant from the Sorrentino interview because he talks about them working together on a film that did not end up getting made. They developed a rapport during this collaboration.
When he heard about the scope of the project, which was Sorrentino’s accumulated thoughts about Rome, he said thought the project was ambitious, but Contarello also had thoughts on Rome that he could add. So they went to it. They did not intend to write a complex film that was a critique of modern society, so they intentionally added dimensions to Jep from things they liked about writers. “He seems fresh off the boat from Napoli” because of the way he moves around the city, but they portrayed him as if he lived in Rome for years.
They approached Fellini as an archetype on an unconscious level, basically repeating Sorrentino’s remarks. He compares this to The Odyssey, and that basically every film about a journey is inspired by Homer to a certain degree. A film about Rome cannot help but draw from La Dolce Vita
Deleted Scenes:
Maestro Cinema – Jep visits an aging film director in this short scene. The character has made a lot of films that said little of importance, and wants to make a film that says something. The director is the opposite of Jep.
Montage – This is a two-minute collection of deleted scenes. I’m actually glad they did not include the entire long cut, even if the scenes were good (and they do look good), but that would have been too much. Sorrentino was right to cut this film down. That said, one day I would like to see the longer film.
Criterion Rating: 8/10
Cries and Whispers, 1972, Ingmar Bergman
By 1972, Bergman was already established as one of the titans of international art cinema. He had won several awards at Cannes and been nominated for two Academy Awards (he would eventually be nominated for 9, including three for this film). Cries and Whispers is not a film that could be made by anyone. It could not have been made by Ingmar in his younger years. It could be seen as a spiritual sequel to Persona, which was really his first foray intro surrealism and immersive, abstract character exploration. Cries and Whispers does not share many thematic or plot elements with this predecessor, but it does utilize the supernatural and it explores these four characters nearly as deeply as the two (or one?) in Persona.
Another similarity between this and Persona is the visual canvas. Persona was in black and white, but I think of it as starkly black and starkly white, almost to the point where it has the same effect as a color film. Cries and Whispers is a color film, but it is nearly a red and white film. The reds are stark and stunning, while the whites are a contrast, just like the whites were in Persona. The colors are visual motifs as well, as red signifies death, mutilation, and white represents the innocence of a lost and nearly forgotten childhood. Sven Nykvist rightfully won an Oscar for his work, and Bergman and crew deserve praise for creating such a visually remarkable red-and-white world.
The color of red is used most effectively for the scene transitions. At the end of a scene, the image dissolves into a red canvas, which gives it a surreal quality. It is a continual reminder of the central theme of death, as Agnes fights her battle with uterine cancer. Sometimes Bergman freezes in the middle of the dissolve, holding on the blood red screen to give us time to ponder and process the meaning of the scene. These transitions and the slight deviations with each one heightens the impact of the color red. I can think of many movies that have used a single color to dictate the theme, some of which are done well (Kieslowski’s Red for example), but none that used it to this extreme, creating what is basically a red and white film.
Please be warned that from here on our I will be delving into spoiler territory.
Harriet Andersson as Agnes gives the most memorable and challenging performance as she tries to cope with the pain and her imminent, unavoidable death. The anguish on her face is heartbreaking and convincing. Much of her performance is given in grunts and grimaces. She is at her most vocal at the very end of the film, but this is after she has passed and the pain has left her. Only the loneliness and the yearning for comfort remains. She seeks solace from her two sisters, yet receives it only from her housemaid Anna (Kari Sylwan) in an unusual yet effective manner.
The sisters, Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin) are complicated characters, at times polar opposite from each other, yet there is some grey (or red?) area in between. To her sisters, Karin is stoic and stubborn, refusing and being repulsed by intimate contact. Maria is affectionate and compassionate, yet she is unscrupulous, making out with the doctor watching over Agnes. In flashback we see Maria and the doctor having an affair, which results in her husband attempting suicide. Karin also flashes back, but her memory is of fidelity and mutilation. She says “nothing but a web of lies” as she abuses herself with broken glass and then exhibits a grisly scene for her stunned husband.
At Agnes’ funeral, the priest says that they had many talks and her faith was stronger than his. Is this why she is able to come back? This is never explained, but the ensuing revisitation with Anna and the sisters has differing results. Maria, who was affectionate to Agnes in life, rejects her in death. Karin also rejects and hates her resurrected sister. Again, the only character that gives her any comfort is Anna, yet the living relatives treat her with scorn and dismiss her as if she was a piece of trash.
The film can be interpreted a number of ways. It speaks to the intimacy (or lack thereof) of family, and how familial love and companionship is fleeting and unobtainable in later life and especially in death. It speaks to the wickedness of the upper class, and how true camaraderie and goodness comes from those that are not clouded by a privileged upbringing. It also says that personal relationships are ultimately rooted in selfishness. With their husbands and other sisters, the sisters care only for what they receive. The same is true about Agnes, who we learn little about, but she is also selfish for intimacy and companionship. The only true altruistic and benevolent character is Anna. She pledges to care for Agnes in life and in death with no financial recompense. At least Maria, who despite her flaws is the most considerate of the other primary characters, and gives Anna a little something to help. Maybe there is hope for humanity yet.
Film Rating: 8/10
Supplements
Bergman Introduction: 2003 on the Island of Fårö.
This project came about in winter on the island. It was melanchology time for him because he had just been broken up with someone. He was lonely with only a Dachshund to keep him company. He had an image of a room completely in red. He believes that if the image persists, you should keep writing.
Harriet Andersson – 2012 Stockholm interview with Peter Cowie.
This was just like the interview on the Summer with Monika disc, and was probably recorded in the same session. Harriet was again very animated and descriptive. She is a great interview at an older age.
It had been 10 years since she had worked with Ingmar. At first she rejected the part because it was too difficult. He said, “Don’t give me that load of crap,” and she took it.
The castle set was wonderful. They had offices downstairs. The red rooms were the studio on the main floor. The floor above was for make-up and wardrobe. Ingmar had said the red room resembled the inside of the womb. Andresson: “Well he says things.” “He like to make small stories.” She implies that he is telling a tale.
They kept her awake at night and that made her look tired. The death scenes were an imitation of her father, which she witnessed. He had a terrible death. She has trouble watching the film now because of that memory.
On-set Footage Silent color footage with audio commentary from Peter Cowie.
This is the highlight of the disc. They have quite a bit of silent behind the scenes footage that includes the set-up, press conference, actresses on location in and out of the house, the cast and crew being fed, editing of the film, rehearsals, and so forth. It is a wealth of material and Cowie gives numerous factoids on the film just by talking over the images. This was almost as satisfying as a good audio commentary.
They talk a great deal about the playwright Strindberg. He had spent summers at the manor that they used as a boy and took inspiration of Miss Julie from lady of the manor. Bergman had adapted Strindberg plays for stage, but never for film. One interesting point is that Bergman’s films were not very popular in his home country, but his Strinberg plays were exceptionally popular.
Ingmar Bergman Reflections on Life, Death and Love: 1999 television interview with Erland Josephson.
This is another enjoyable interview. They do not talk about the films so much as they do personal lives, loves, relationships, and various other topics. Bergman is surprisingly candid.
They talk about children. They both have quite a few (Bergman has nine). Bergman talks about apologizing to one of his children for being a terrible father, when the son says that he hasn’t been a father at all. They all get together every year at Fårö Island and the children have maintained good relationships. None of his children were planned. “They were all love children.”
The women lasted about 5 years until he found a new one, and then he found Ingrid, and then she died. When she decided to marry him, “all other traffic ceased.” He was truly in love. He is friendly with all the other girls that he was ever with, and many (including Liv and Harriet) became part of his acting stable. Elrand points out that all the bitterness subsides over time. With Ingrid he had a close relationship, and he has reverted to solitude now that she’s gone.
They talk about death and the inevitability, and how Ingmar doesn’t fear it so much but Elrand does. Of course he talks about Ingrid and how he planned to leave Fårö to her, but her passing happened and it crushed him. You can tell that his life was still devastated by it even all those years later.
On Solace: Video Essay from :kogodana:.
This is an interesting essay, unlike most on Criterion discs. It uses images and text well, especially the red title cards with white text.
The concept of the three movements is abstract to a degree, and it is easier to watch than for me to explain it here. Basically he says that there are three movements. The first two movements are flashbacks, while the third is a distillation.
He points out a few insightful observations, such as that Karin’s mutilation is inverse of Agnes’ uterine cancer. The final scene recalls “bodily solace” that Anna gives Agnes in earlier scene, which is the central theme of the movie and the thesis of his essay.
Criterion Rating: 9/10
My Journey to British Blu-Ray
Even though I love my Criterions, I have looked longingly quite often across the pond. The one limitation with US releases is that Criterion is basically the go-to label for prestigious classic films. Sure, others have their moment in the sun, but it isn’t much of a comparison. What’s more is that Criterion and Janus have the rights to so many movies that may never see a release (hence the Eclipse sets and Hulu channel). British labels for instance (Arrow, Artificial Eye, BFI, Masters of Cinema, among others) have a wide array of arthouse films available.
The label that intrigues me the most is Masters of Cinema, which could be called the UK version of Criterion. They coincidentally started me on this journey. We were tweeting about a title that was available through Masters of Cinema, and I tagged them, thinking nothing of it. I casually mentioned that down the road I might get a region-free player, but I wasn’t in a major hurry. Frankly, the idea of a region-free player doesn’t excite me. Fooling with firmware and getting a mediocre player is not something I want to do. Masters of Cinema surprised me by tweeting just to buy a British Blu-Ray player and an adapter. How simple! Why didn’t I think of that?
This was on May 20th.
There were a few obstacles. It was difficult to find an Amazon player that would ship to the United States. I finally settled on this player. It was reasonably priced, had good reviews, and looked to be eligible for US shipping. I put it on my wish list and planned to come back when I was ready, probably sometime over the summer.
I also asked Brian and Ryan from Criterion Cast’s Off the Shelf podcast for their suggestions about the best Region-B releases to try. I told them my plans about buying a British player rather than going Region free, and Ryan stopped me right there. He said that even if a player says it will ship, it might not ship. He (or people he knew) had tried to order players, and they simply would sit there and never ship. He contacted service and nothing happened, so he eventually canceled the order.
When I heard this, I placed the order immediately. It was May 27th and it had an estimated ship time of a couple weeks. Fine by me. A little bit of time passed. I checked, and no movement. It had not been “dispatched” as they say in the UK, whereas most Amazon UK orders dispatch within a day or two, sometimes on the same day. I checked again later, and still nothing. Maybe Ryan was right?
I contacted Amazon customer service and asked them the status. They were quite helpful and apologetic, but they explained that the shipment delay was because it had to ship from a distribution center in another country. It would ship around mid-July. Huh? When I heard this news, I had practically given up. I doubted I would ever see the player. I went on with my life and forgot about it, but I did not cancel the order just in case.
Within a week or so, I received a surprising email. The player had been dispatched and was on the way. It even had a tracking number. Now I got excited. I watched as the player bounced around the UK until it stopped in Surrey. I checked periodically, and again, no movement. I was beginning to think that my expectations were getting the best of me again, and that it would never leave Surrey.
On June 20th, a Sunday of all days, I noticed a suspicious package on my doorstep. It looked big and bulky. What did I order? It was an Amazon box, but it wasn’t the pristine looking boxes that you get from Amazon US. It looked like it had been around the world. Well, it had. The Blu-Ray player had arrived!
That was a major step, but that was not the final step. You cannot plug and play a British piece of equipment. We have different plugs. I needed an adapter of some sort. It also had to be the right voltage because our plugs and their plugs generate different amounts. As I investigated the player, I found that it required 250V. That could be a problem as most standard adapters only support up to roughly 150V.
I was back on the detective trail. At first I searched Amazon and found a number of low cost adapters, but in the questions section, most of them said they would not play laptops or other electronics. The others simply did not have the wattage levels. I tried Amazon UK thinking that there has to be something available there for British travelers visiting the states or elsewhere. Oh, there were plenty there, but the only problem is I could not find a single one that shipped to the United States. Sigh.
Back to the drawing board, I tried Amazon.com again. I aimed at a little higher price point and found some more viable options. I settled on this one because it was advertised as “100% Compatible with US, UK, EU, & AU plug/socket standards!” It said it handled up to 250V.
Knowing that Amazon has a good return policy, I took the plunge. There was no shipping drama. It arrived within two days. I was wary of burning the house down, so I found the largest surge protector in the house, unplugged everything from it, and gave this little baby a try. A white light came on. Success!
I tried it with the TV. We have two, one of which is a little older. That one did not work. It said that it did not have the proper resolution to support the player. Sigh. It seemed that every time something good happened, something bad would follow.
I tried the other TV and was prepared for disappointment. The light turned on; the TV was thinking. All of a sudden the language options showed up. VICTORY! The first disc I tried looked gorgeous.
Success!
So the whole thing set me back about a month and $80, not to mention all the extra discs I’ll be buying in the coming months and years. Was it worth it? Absolutely!
I’ve already bought some British Blu-Rays and more are on the way, so I’ll follow this up later with a post with the beginnings of the collection.
Make Way for Tomorrow, 1937, Leo McCarey
“Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother.”
Aging is a not a sexy topic for Hollywood. Coming of age stories are different. Dealing with the adversity of adulthood is different. There are plenty of those movies, although not nearly as many that are simply about living life as an elderly person. The few that I can think of are exceptional, but few match up to Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow.
Save When You Are Young
The film was very much a part of its time, as the depression was not forgiving for people who aged without preparing for their future. This point is brought up numerous times in the film, such as in the above image. The Coopers suffer because they did not prepre for their future, and furthermore, pride prevents them from asking their children for help until it is too late. Does the fact that they made such vital mistakes regarding their livelihood make them bad people? That’s what this film explores.
To the children, they at first seem like a burden, and the film initially looks at the older couple from the younger perspective. Some of the early comedy comes from the “fish out of water” scenarios with the older couple trying to acclimate to a younger way of life and not exactly getting it. One such example is when a daughter-in-law is teaching the Bridge card game to a class and Mrs. Cooper spectates. She makes comments on people’s hands and slowly meanders around the room, not quite understanding, enjoying the social atmosphere yet being somewhat disruptive. She awkwardly jokes that “with a teacher here in the family, I would never be able to play Hearts.” The crowd nervously laughs in response and the daughter tries to get rid of her.
The tone changes when Mrs. Cooper takes a phone call from her husband. She is hard of hearing, so she speaks loudly enough so that the entire room can hear. They stop playing cards to listen. “Hello, is that you Bark?” she yells loudly. The conversation is both comical and endearing. She talks about the “friends” that are playing cards. As they get further into the conversation, you can tell that “Bark” Cooper is expressing how he missed her. “Oh, well three months isn’t so long,” she says. The entire room looks at Mrs. C, with her back turned to the card players. They react in part with pitying glances, in part with affection. It is the first of many moving scenes.
The children are not portrayed in the most positive light. They clearly love their parents, but they are constantly trying to get rid of them. Whether they are trying to shoo them off to the movies with their granddaughter, sneering at their Jewish companions, or looking for old folks homes, they are not altogether sympathetic. Even though the children are the recipients of the audience’s scorn, the parents are either forgiving or ignorant as to the machinations against them. In yet another moving scene, when a son has just signed the paperwork to put his mother away in a home, she solemnly tells him that he was always her favorite. He gives an emotional hug in response, in part because he knows that she still loves him and feels guilt for what he has just done.
Will you say 99?
The performances of the older folks are pitch perfect. It is worth mentioning that Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi are about 20 years younger than the characters they are playing, but you would not have noticed. Moore as Bark has some of the better material, and he nails it with his slow-drawl, curmudgeonly performance. One of the funniest scenes is that with the young doctor making house calls. His lines about calling the doctor’s dad and not saying the number 99 are among the best. He is a crabby old man, but we’ve all known this type of person and the surliness is part of their charm. We love them because they are uncompromisingly who they are.
The latter third of the film is where it really hits home. This is the type of film that I have a tough time articulating about it’s greatness. It is shot in the classic Hollywood style without being too showy, yet the performances, writing and direction come together to make something truly special. Some people use the term “movie magic” to describe such a film. That’s not a phrase I’m fond of because of the lack of specificity, but I think it is appropriate here. There were a handful of films that on paper should not have been as great as they actually are.
Love knows no age.
The last third of the film is where the “movie magic” is truly cemented. My favorite scenes are when the old couple finally get together and spend a few quiet moments alone. It is one of the few films that, through a few lines of dialogue between characters, can put a smile on your face. McCarey stops short of sentimentality and manipulation. Instead the characters come from a position of honesty and awareness of their situation, that circumstances beyond their control have been keeping them apart. They take solace and refuge in each other’s company, and are not concerned what is happening to the world around them.
I will not spoil the movie and talk about the ending, but I will say that the way it ends does not conform to the Classic Hollywood formula. That is another reason that it is elevated in my opinion. From the very beginning, however farcical the film can be at times, it is rooted in realism and character. Whether we like it or not, that’s how it should end as well.
Film Rating: 9.5/10
Supplements
Tomorrow, Yesterday & Today: An interview with Peter Bogdanavich.
Bogdanavich had dinner with Orson Welles who said “it was the saddest film ever made. It would make a stone cry.” It was one of Welles’ favorites and influenced his own films.
Mockery was considered an “actor’s director.” He got them to loosen up and gave them space to work. Cary Grant is an example of using this space to improve the picture, as he improved some films, like The Awful Truth with improvisation from that freedom. Mockery directed light films, and Make Way For Tomorrow was his darkest movie because of the way the children were portrayed.
The 1930s films for McCarey were the strongest, but his later films did not hold up as well. He was anti-communist, spoke at the HUAC trials, and that did not help him in the industry.
Gary Giddens: 2009 interview with film critic.
1937 was a tough time for McCarey. He had gotten sick on his last film and his dad had recently passed away. Social security had not started, but it was in the works and was a major topic in the news media at the time. Surprisingly there were not many message films about the subject. Make Way For Tomorrow is the only real film from the time in favor of social security, which is surprising coming from McCarey because he was conservative.
McCarey refused to give a happy ending. The studio was nervous and thought it would bomb, but the opposite happened. People loved it. It ultimately lost money and it got him fired, but his reputation was escalated.
Giddens discussed how McCarey was fair to minorities. The maid in the scene is nuanced and gets a good moment in one scene. Max is a Jew and experiences some anti-semitism from Cooper’s daughter, but is portrayed as a benevolent and friendly character. McCarey had a history and a future of being a filmmaker that honored minorities, most notably in Going My Way.
Such a delightful classic film deserved a few more supplements. This is a film that is absolutely a must watch for anyone interested in classic film, but the Criterion Blu-Ray release does not do it justice.
Criterion Rating: 7/10
The End of the Studio System, Part 3
THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
This is the third post of three that is part of the Classic History Project Blogathon hosted by Movies Silently, Silver Screenings, and Once Upon a Screen, and sponsored by Flicker Alley.
Part 1: The Foundation Slips
Part 2: The Beginning of the End
During the 1950s, the film industry crashed precipitously. By 1953, only half as many people were seeing movies in theaters as they were the decade before. By 1957, only 15% of the population went to the movies at least once per week. Meanwhile, the US was in the midst of a post-war economic boom. People had money to go to the theaters. Why didn’t they?
It is too easy and convenient to pinpoint the Paramount Decision of 1948 as the reason for the downfall of the studios. It surely was a catalyst, but there is no single answer. Divorcement was one of many reasons for the downfall of the studio. A lot of people blame television, which is also fair, but again, just one of many reasons for the decline. It was a perfect storm of legislative, technological, and socio-economic changes that drastically reshaped American society, and subsequently, American media.
MIGRATION
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the armed forces returned home to economic prosperity. With improvements in automobiles and extra disposable income, people had the opportunity to move away from the big cities and into the suburbs. Levittown is a famous example of these communities, but there were many like it. The suburban sprawl began rapidly in the 1950s and continued gradually.
Levittown, NY
Another major driver of this migration was the Baby Boom. People were having kids and wanted to live in quieter, more relaxing places to raise them. This was the age of the nuclear family, and people wanted to spend their time raising children or participating in family and group activities.
It was not easy to bring movie theaters to the suburbs. The old movie palaces had been urban spectacles — vast buildings that were usually in the heart of downtown and could hold massive crowds. These theaters attracted people to the city and were the source of the studio profits. As people moved away, these large palaces eventually faltered. It was a challenge to bring movies out to the suburbs because the population was so scattered.
ECONOMIC BOOM
With this new period of prosperity, people wanted to spend their money on more substantive activities than going to the movies. As noted earlier, the movies were seen as low cost and short duration entertainment. People wanted to spend their money and time on memorable adventures rather than fleeting escapes from reality.
This was also the time period where the 5-day work week was becoming the standard. People had their weekends free and wished to spend them on activities such as homemaking, gardening, and sports. With transportation and money to burn, people wanted to see the world on vacations rather than see artifice in the movie theater. Prosperity actually hurt the studios.
TELEVISION
The role of television in the downfall of the cinema is hotly debated. Many consider it to be a direct cause for the studio’s demise, while others see it as more of a symptom of the economic transitions happening in society. Regardless of where experts stands on the topic, television was a factor. It quickly became a popular appliance and allowed people the convenience of consuming media at home rather than going to the theater.
The television boom began in the late 1940s and continued throughout the 1950s. The growth was rapid. By 1960, 87% of the population had a television. Unlike the movies, where people sit in dark rooms, television was a social activity. People would gather together and watch a program at somebody’s house.
The programming on television was passive and light, not as deep and profound as that seen on the silver screen. Much of the programming on television replaced the B films that the studios relied on for small profits. Television also took the pre-movie content away from theaters, such as cartoons, newsreels, and short films.
THEATERS IN THE 1950s
The large movie palaces gradually went away in the 1950s. They were replaced with arthouse cinemas, which would attract a higher brow, more intelligent and sophisticated moviegoer. The demographics for these films were older and more cosmopolitan. Many of these audiences watched films that are discussed here at this blog.
There was a foreign film boom in the late 1940s and 1950s, many of which took hold and became popular in the United States. Among these imports were the post-war Japanese (Kurosawa, Mizoguchi), Italian Neorealism (De Sica, Rossellini, Fellini), French noir (Melville, Clouzot), and later the French New Wave (Godard, Truffaut). Foreign films were not subject to the Hays code and often were provocative with sensual situations. Bitter Rice was a film that was noted for sexual suggestion. The Bergman films of the 1950s also titillated audiences, such as Summer with Monika as an exploitation film. Compared to the American films, the audiences were still small, but these foreign films pushed the boundaries and played a part in removing the Hays Code.
One creative way to get theaters to the suburbs was through drive-in movie theaters. They were relatively easy for exhibitors to open because there was plenty of land available in the suburbs. We think of the drive-in theaters differently than what they were in the 1950s. They were not just for watching movies, but were a hotbed center of activity. Of course there were the movies, but there was also food and other amenities. Some would even offer laundry services. The drive-ins were eventually seen as immoral and degenerate. Kids would use the drive-thrus as a place to discretely bring a date or get into trouble.
The next suburban theater was a bi-product of the advent of the shopping mall. Every mall would eventually have a multi-plex and most still remain today. The reasoning was that the mall would draw consumers, and movies were a way to take a break between shopping.
THE STUDIOS ADAPT: TEENPIC
This may seem incomprehensible, but the studios had not done any major market studies prior to the 1950s. However hubristic it may sound, they did not have to prior to the 1950s. So many people went to the movies that it was almost a waste to track where they came from. Prior to the 1950s, they ignored teenagers because they thought of films as family outings. As the war babies started to reach adolescence in the 1950s, they became a large market with free time and allowances to spend. During this time, Hollywood finally started using modern marketing techniques and determined that teenagers were regularly going to the movies. They subsequently targeted these teenagers with their content.
Even though it was a social picture, Blackboard Jungle was a surprise success. It was also notable for using a rock and roll song, Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock. In 1955, Sam Katzman ushered in teenage rock and roll movies starting with the film version of Rock Around the Clock. This trend continued, and soon Elvis Presley movies gained traction. His debut was in Love Me Tender, which was successful due to his popularity with teenagers. He starred in a total of 33 films, most of which range from bad to mediocre, but they attracted fans. There were plenty of other teen film franchises. Gidget was hugely popular and started a franchise of its own, plus it ushered in the Beach Party film. Teenagers came out in droves to watch these movies.
THE STUDIOS ADAPT: TELEVISION
As already discussed, television began by piggybacking on the radio concept of nationwide “live” content. That carried them for a short while, but soon a more diverse range of content would hit the screens. The studio system is responsible for much of this content.
The independent producer model took hold with television. Major Hollywood players began dipping their toes into television in order to make profits. David O. Selznick came out of retirement to do this very thing. He achieved success with a program called Light’s Diamond Jubilee, which was broadcast on all four networks and seen by 70 million viewers. This was a staggering number for the time period. Other similar jubilees preceded Selznick’s and would follow him. As he was before with film, he became obsessive with the project and this was the final Selznick TV production.
The most notable independent production company was Desilu, founded by Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, and popularized by their hit show I Love Lucy. That was not their only success. They would release The Untouchables, Star Trek and many others. Delis proved that independent producers could become television tycoons.
Eventually all of the major studios would transition to television. As already discussed, Disney was the first to find success with Disneyland and later Walt Disney Presents. After early failures, the studios gained a foothold in this new arena. They still had studio space that was not being used, so they started putting together television programming. Warner Brothers signed a deal with ABC and launched Warner Brothers Presents, which was their first foray into television. They continued their relationship with television, using the same production methods as their old B movies and found success in television. They became known for their westerns like Cheyenne, Maverick and Sugarfoot.
Universal/MCA became the unquestioned leader among studios in television production. Their continued production of B pictures after the Paramount decision helped for a smooth transition from the large to the small screen, and they transplanted many of their successful film franchises to television. They also launched popular shows of their own, such as Leave it to Beaver, Alfred Hitchcock Presents and several others. Today they are a multi-media conglomerate, NBC Universal, that own various entertainment properties.
THE FUTURE STUDIO SYSTEM
As the tumultuous 1950s ended and the 1960s began, the studios had reached a level of comfort and stability. They all continued working in television, using their facilities for new programming, and they continue to be major players in television today.
The independent producer model, as previously discussed with Selznick, became the norm. Professional producers such as Hal Wallis and Robert Evans worked closer alongside the studios and the talent. Evans had previously been head of Paramount until he obtained success with Chinatown in 1974. He then stepped down and worked as an independent producer, yet he continued to produce films for Paramount.
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was the first blockbuster hit, and it revived the studio system to a certain degree. They were still divorced from vertical integration, but they began to focus on large blockbuster releases, a trend that continues today. One could argue that Jaws saved the studios, and ever since they have relied on blockbuster franchises for their core profits.
WHERE ARE WE GOING?
We are now in the digital age, which seems to be another period of transition. Box office revenues are still high, but more and more people are watching movies at home, either through streaming services like Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or Video on Demand. Premium content that used to be found only on the large screen as a film can now be found on cable as an expensive mini-series. Popular shows like Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead would not have a chance twenty years earlier.
Predicting the future is impossible, but sometimes the past informs the future. We could be heading into another transition into the digital change that will change how people consume entertainment in the future. Only time will tell what this will mean for cinema, television, and visual media in general.
SOURCES
- Anderson, Christopher. Hollywood TV: The Studio System in the Fifties.
- Maltby, Richard. Hollywood Cinema.
- Sarris, Andrew. The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968.
- Schatz, Thomas. The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era.
- Staiger, Janet. The Studio System.
- Staggs, Sam. Close-up on Sunset Blvd: Billy Wilder, Norma Desmond, and the Dark Hollywood Dream.
Top 20 of 1936
1936 was a phenomenal year for French film, perhaps among the best ever. There are six French films on my list, all of which are in my top ten. Of course I’ve made it clear that 1930s French film is my favorite era of all time, so this should come as no surprise. There were also three Japanese films, all early pictures from future masters Mizoguchi and Ozu.
Someone noted in our group that this was quite the year for William Powell and Jean Renoir. This is absolutely true for Powell, who not only starred in Best Picture winner The Great Ziegfeld (not on my list), but also starred in what many consider to be among the best screwball comedies of all time, My Man Godfrey. On top of that he reprised his role of Nick alongside Nora in After the Thin Man.
Jean Renoir’s year is seen as fantastic only in retrospect. It was most likely a tough year for the man. My favorite work of his for the year, A Day in the Country, was a frustrating shoot for him and he left before the film was finished. The Crime of Monsieur Lange was successful, but also controversial and leftist. He also participated in La vie est à nous, a leftist propaganda documentary that I have not seen. He was embroiled in the politics of a volatile time.
There are a couple of notable omissions here, some of which will seem sacrilegious to classic film fans. Mr. Deeds Comes to Town is an example of the type of Capra film that does not work for me, unlike It Happened One Night. There are a few other Capra films that’ll be omitted from these lists, although I plan to give Lost Horizon a fair chance for my 1937 list. Another omission is Swing Time. There’s no doubt that Astaire and Rogers were a talented duo, but I’m not as big a fan of their acting, and their style of musical isn’t exactly my tastes. Show Boat and the Lubitsch musicals are my preference.
1. A Day in the Country
2. My Man Godfrey
3. Modern Times
4. The Crime of Monsieur Lange
5. La Belle Equipe
6. Show Boat
7. Story of a Cheat
8. Sabotage
9. Mayerling
10. The Lower Depths
11. Dodsworth
12. The Only Son
13. Secret Agent
14. Redes
15. Sisters of the Gion
16. Osaka Elegy
17. After the Thin Man
18. Fury
19. Libeled Lady
20. The Charge of the Light Brigade
Criterion Close-Up 