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Criterion: My Darling Clementine
MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, JOHN FORD, 1946
The best genre films are those that touch on deeper themes, and John Ford was an expert at using the Western as a way of examining his present. My Darling Clementine is considered by many to be among the best of his films, and I’ve seen it mentioned as best of the genre. While it maintains many of the genre conventions that are found in his and other films, it is as much a statement about the horrific war that had just completed and Ford had seen, and the relieving peace and prosperity with his return.
Walter Brennan’s Clanton gang begins the film by welcoming Wyatt Earp and pointing him towards Tombstone, which we discover soon enough is just a ruse for them to rustle his cattle and kill one of his brothers in the process. Despite their benevolent first appearance, they are the embodiment of evil and completely merciless. In a later scene, Pa Clanton is unhappy with his sons when they create a ruckus in a saloon. At first we think he is angry because of their behavior, when in reality it is for pulling out their gun and not killing their opponent. This is the nature of the enemy, pure evil, and there is not a redeemable quality within them. This portrayal is not dissimilar to Nazi Germany, and that is probably no coincidence. Ford had seen the evils of total war firsthand.
Ford makes good use of darkness versus light in order to isolate his themes. Most of the beginning takes place at night, and Ford uses light and shadows to frame his shots, similarly to how he did with Gregg Toland on The Grapes of Wrath. When he discovers the misdeeds of his enemy, night is not only dark, but a torrential rain falls. Many of the confrontional scenes take place at night and oftentimes the characters are obscured by shadows and speak openly of death, especially Doc Holliday who is obsessed with the subject and his own mortality. This could again be yet another statement about the horrors of war.
However, the battle between the Clantons is not the only storyline in the film. After establishing Earp’s motivation of revenge and getting him situated as the town Marshall, the title character of Clementine appears on the screen. She is a former paramour of Holliday’s when he was a different person from a different world. She is grace incarnate, and she is out of place in the tumultuous town of Tombstone. With her comes peace and progress. Not long after her arrival, the foundation of a church is laid and later a school will be coming. She is not coincidentally filmed almost exclusively during the daytime, which is lit so brightly that it is the antithesis to the scenes that square off the the Earps versus the Clantons. On top of this, aside from her role as a nurse towards the end of the film, her storyline and the battle with the Clantons does not intersect. When she interacts with Earp, there is almost no sense that anything amiss is happening.
When Clementine is present, things are calm, peaceful. One of my favorite scenes is when Earp spots her getting out of the coach. He is calm yet is obviously stricken by her. Aside from the ending, the daylight scenes are total peace. Earp seems unaffected during these scenes by his feud with the Clantons. In another terrific scene, he does a little balancing trick with a support beam while leaning his chair back, seemingly without a care in the world. In the daytime, Tombstone is a nice, relaxing place to be.
The presence of Clementine is somewhat perplexing, and we cannot really tell what Ford intended. This disc includes two versions, the one cut by Zanuck and the rough cut put together by Ford. The latter is not a director’s cut by any stretch, but it gives a better idea of how this relationship was supposed to play out. The changes that Zanuck made were sometimes slight, like using the score more forcefully in Earp and Clementine scenes. There were other, bolder changes, like the ending that required a re-shoot to give the relationship a more romantic touch. In Ford’s version, the relationship between Clementine and Earp is of mutual, platonic interest, with an ambiguous hint of a possible romance. Earp is reticent to show pursuit because of his friendship with Holliday, and it is almost out of character for a man with his set of values to be so forward in the final scene. The platonic relationship, on the other hand, keeps him from committing between war and peace. He is playing both sides.
The final battle at the OK Corral is a thing of beauty. It is John Ford doing action at his best. He builds to it with the Earp party slowly and deviously approaching, using decoys through the center of town, photographed in gorgeous long shots that show the monolithic structures of Monument Valley in the background. The shoot out is quicker yet more satisfying because of the pacing to get to it, and the dust storm that he uses is another move of cinematic, action genius.
Film Rating: 8/10
Supplements:
Comparison of versions: This was terrific. This is one of the movies, like with The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, where the consensus is that the shorter version is the better version. This lengthy comparison shows many of the key differences between the two, so you really don’t have to watch the longer version to understand it (although I probably will someday). As I noted above, a lot of the changes had to do with the Clementine scenes, and Zanuck also cut some of the light comedy. There were some cuts that I agreed with, and most likely Ford did too, and some I didn’t like as much, like the ending.
Video Essay: Often these are my favorite supplements on a Criterion disc, and this was good, but it was a little short. That said, Tag Gallagher is an often cited, leading western genre scholar, and he shows a lot of things that I might have missed. He touches on the war motif, although I took it a little further in my reading of the film.
Bandit’s Wager: This was a mediocre 1916 short directed by John’s brother Francis that stars Francis in the lead and John in the supporting role. While the film is nothing to write home about, it does give a glimpse of what western elements John would use in his later films.
1963 news report about Tombstone and 1975 report on Monument Valley : I found that I appreciated the historical featurettes the most of supplements. They are short and sweet. They show that Ford’s version of the Earp legend was mostly fiction and not shot anywhere near the real location.. Tombstone has fascinated people because of the legend and has been portrayed in many films before and since Clementine. Monument Valley, on the other hand, was a favorite of Ford’s because it provided the aesthetical beauty of the outdoor shots. Whether it was realistic or not, the location and the legend added to the film.
Audio Commentary: I’ve heard better and I’ve heard worse. Joseph McBride is a John Ford biographer and has worked in the industry. He discusses many of the things that are touched on in the other supplements, such as the historical accuracy, the differences in versions, and the war motif. He also talks about Ford’s methods, how he worked with actors, and how he got along with Zanuck. There were numerous interesting anecdotes even if the commentary wasn’t the most compelling.
Criterion Rating: 9/10
Criterion: La Promesse
LA PROMESSE, LUC DARDENNE AND JEAN-PIERRE DARDENNE, 1996
A friend once told me that once you’ve seen a Dardennes film, you’ve seen them all. He didn’t mean this in a flattering sense, but as an argument against their stature as modern auteurs. I’ve seen enough of their work to see what he means. They clearly have found a comfortable formula, a distinctive style, and a certain amount of predictability. For instance, I correctly predicted what would happen in the final scene about midway through the movie. Just like with the Classical Hollywood theory of “regulated differences,” it is the texture, nuances, and execution that makes their work stand apart.
La Promesse is the first significant example of what would become their filmmaking and thematic style. It is filmed in documentary style, with hand-held cameras, no musical score, and in unflattering, dirty locations. They are more existential filmmakers, highlighting how people live in squalor and by what means they go about trying to survive.
It is set in the industrial Belgian town of Serainge. The lead characters are working class, trying to scrape together a living by exploiting the illegal immigrants into the country. The father, Roger, is the most crooked. He is a terrible father and borderline evil, although even he has enough nuance to keep him from being a completely flat character.
The lead character is his son Igor. He is introduced as a thief and a liar, just like his father, as he blatantly steals an elderly lady’s purse with her pension money, and then tries to help her retrace her steps to find it. He then lies to his boss about going to the restroom, takes the money, and hides the pocketbook by burying it in the backyard. This would foreshadow another illicit burial that would take place later in the film.
The child is the moral center, and for much of the film has few redeeming qualities. His father is responsible for many of his faults, as he is trying to mentor his son to become street smart, savvy, and unscrupulous – basically to become another version of himself. His father is overbearing, sometimes commanding and violent, and Igor rebels by going behind his father’s back and breaking his wishes. He is still not an upstanding citizen, but is a saint compared to his father.
Even though the father is dominant and Igor is subordinate to his whims, he often tries to act as if they are peers. They sing songs together. There is one scene where Roger tries to playfully tickle his son. In his own warped way, he loves his son and is trying to ensure that, like him, his son will be able to play the system to his advantage. He even gives him tattoos and talks to him about sex. Their relationship is not like the traditional father and son. Roger wants them to be more like working peers, yet he still maintains absolute control in the relationship.
The child’s lack of morality is challenged by a dying man’s last words, and his own guilt for doing something that cannot be rationalized as being right, regardless of what his dad says. He feels a kinship with the widow, who is also subordinate and being kept in the dark from the real world. He does not act ethically towards the widow. The opposite is mostly true as he continually lies to keep her from threatening his and his father’s situation, but he gradually takes an interest in their well being which is absolutely wrong according to the values of his father. His father considers immigrants as subhuman.
However predictable, I will not reveal the ending, but I will say that I think they pulled it off perfectly. This is a penetrating character study and I understand why it launched the careers of arguably the top European filmmakers today.
Film Rating: 8/10
Supplements:
Dardenes interview: For Criterion interviews, this was quite well done. A lot of the credit goes to Scott Foundas, who asks terrific questions. The Dardennes prove to be excellent interview subjects as they talk openly about their craft. They value their independence and vision in production above all else, and they say that everything revolves around what they want. This is a type of freedom that is seldom enjoyed by any producer/writer/director team, but it absolutely works.
There are numerous interesting tidbits from the interview, a couple of which I found notable. One is that they said they tend to do about 7-8 takes because the actors grow tired and more spontaneous, and their best work is often the later takes. Bresson felt the same way, although he would do even more takes and would completely break down his actors. The Dardennes stop short of using them as models, but they get the most out of their performance. The fact that they keep a solid stable of actors, unlike Bresson, shows that the actors respond well to their methods. Another interesting thing is that they reject a lot of actor ideas about their character. One in particular is that they don’t allow actors to choose their costumes because that puts them in a comfort zone.
Interviews with Actors: La Promesse was basically the major film debut for both Jérémie Renier and Olivier Gourmet. They describe the process. The audition was more like a job interview, which they clearly passed. They became good friends on the set and Gourmet mentored Renier, which also came out in the Dardennes interview. This helped create the father and son bond as it was portrayed on the screen. They elaborated more on the process, that one scene was short per day and that they shoot chronologically, so that they are able to stick with the character. That makes the performance easier in a sense, but it can also make it evolve differently. It gives them some freedom, which they seem to appreciate.
Criterion Rating: 8.5
Criterion: Sundays and Cybele
SUNDAYS AND CYBELE, SERGE BOURGUIGNON, 1962
One thing I love about Criterion is they manage to balance title releases based on popularity and credibility. Rather than just sticking to top selling auteurs for every release, they’ll often pull a movie out of obscurity and allow it to be rediscovered, even if that means it won’t sell as well as Ford or a Lynch. Sundays and Cybele is hardly obscure, having won international acclaim at the time of its release, including an Oscar win. Yet, for an early 1960s release during the height of the French New Wave, plenty of other films overshadow it. Unlike his contemporaries who enjoyed lengthy, prosperous careers, Serge Bourguignon mostly disappeared into obscurity, his career all but dead by the end of the decade.
Sundays and Cybele is almost the antithesis of a French New Wave film, which may explain why it is such an outlier in the movement. It is slower, more poetic, less spontaneous, and more deliberate. It has more in common with Bresson than Godard, and it dabbles into a darker and less fanciful theme than most would care to engage.
Pierre (Hardy Krüger) is a shell-shocked veteran of the Indochina War, racked with guilt for possibly killing a young girl civilian. He has amnesia and struggles with a return to ordinary life. His former nurse Madeline (Nicole Courcel) becomes his lover and caretaker, yet he his progress with her has limits. It’s through a chance encounter at a train station with Françoise/Cybèle (Patricia Gozzi) that he finds his anchor. She is a 12-year old girl, abandoned at the boarding school, basically an orphan, and he poses as her father to visit her every Sunday. What follows is a friendship and, in a unique way, a romance, yet does not quite reach the level of pedophilia.
The film is visually stunning, thanks to some unconventional shot selections and the camerawork of Henri Decaë (who oddly enough had made his career shooting New Wave films). Most of these shots were visual representation of the disconnection with society and the haziness within Pierre’s persona. For example, there’s one tracking shot that shows the reflection of the street through a vehicle side mirror. As the vehicle climbs a hill, we eventually see Pierre walking, and the shot continues with the driver getting out of the car. There is another excellent shot when Pierre is having lunch with Madeline and her friends, when he gets up and wipes a circle in the fogged up window, where two horse riders are interacting on the other side of a pond. Not only were these shots gorgeously photographed, but they were precisely choreographed. These were but two of many that likely took a lot of thinking and staging, and the execution resulted in a strikingly original looking film.
There are several motifs throughout the film, but the one that impressed me the most was the use of glass, mirrors, and how it interacted with the photography. Glass objects are used as props, and at one point in the lunch scene, the camera takes Pierre’s perspective as he looks at his companions through a wine glass, again showing his distorted worldview with filmic elements.
The relationship between Pierre and Cybele is complicated. He is continually infantilized. Even Cybèle playfully observes that “deep down you’re like a lost child.” She unmistakably loves him in a romantic way, at least as much as she understands of love at her age. His responses are affectionate, yet he stops short of vocally acknowledging her interpretation of their relationship. She is his conduit to his inner self, and he is possessive of her affections, yet is actual intentions are unclear the audience, as they likely are to himself. She daydreams of marrying him when she is 18 and he is 36, which might have happened if the relationship were able to progress. To further complicate matters, he finds himself romantically impotent towards Madeline. Cybèle is the one who fulfills him, while his lover leaves him empty.
Even though this is a gorgeous film with richly drawn characters, it has some storytelling problems getting to the final act. The film plods when Pierre disappears and Madeline recruits Bernard to help find him. The finale is temporally out of synch, as we learn of the outcome before we see it. While that results in an effective scene, with Madeline’s reaction seamlessly cutting to Cybèle’s, it is makes the ending less impactful and somewhat unsatisfying.
Film Rating: 7.5
Supplements:
Serge Bourguignon interview. Much of the time is spent discussing the film and it’s themes, but I thought the most interesting aspect of the interview was hearing him explain why his career ended. He seems to think it was due in large part to the jealousy of the New Wave filmmakers for his American success and the Oscar. It sounds like there were some disagreements, and he acknowledges that some of the problems may have been his own fault.
Patricia Gozzi interview. Her experience is also interesting because she was such a young actress, and this was her first significant role. She also disappeared from acting approximately a decade later, yet she does not give her reasons (I believe it was for marriage). Her relationship with Krüger was a close friendship, and that translated to the screen. I wonder if she grasped the taboo nature of their relationship during the filming. That’s another topic she doesn’t address.
Hardy Krüger interview. Krüger is undoubtedly the most successful of those involved with this project, having gone on to do major American pictures like Hatari, Flight of the Phoenix, and Barry Lyndon. He remembers the production fondly. Even though they initially wanted Steve McQueen in his role he made it his own and was proud of the movie and its success. He was living in Africa at the time of the Oscars, so had to learn of the win via a telegram, but the excitement was not lost on him.
Le sourire: This documentary short won the Palme d’Or and ultimately launched Bourguignon’s theatrical career. It is a 20-minute short about Buddhists in Burma. You can see here how his slower, poetic approach to filmmaking originated. The film displayed the physical beauty of the temples and the people, while conveying their spirituality and purity. Having lived in Thailand when I was younger, this was quite familiar to me. In a way it felt like a trip to the past, so my rating might be a little biased, but I absolutely loved the short.
Criterion Rating: 9/10
Criterion: Macbeth
MACBETH, ROMAN POLANSKI, 1971
This entry will be a little different. I won’t try to establish and discuss the major themes of this work. Scholars, far smarter, more educated, and better read than I, have been exploring Shakespeare for centuries. Plenty of ink has been printed on the subject to Macbeth, and my take having is far from academic having read some of the play in High School and now seen interpretations from Polanski and Kurasawa. Instead I’ll look at this as a unique representation of the bard, and as a large-scale epic, which is truly unique compared to other Shakespeare adaptations.
Polanski’s take is far more accessible than most Shakespeare on film, and has more in common with Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Game of Throne than it does a traditional Olivier Shakespeare adaptation. It is a medieval epic on a grand scale with plenty of action, royal intrigue, brutality, and yes, even nudity (although not what you’d expect). The dialog is directly from Shakespeare, but it is spoken in a different manner. Rather than have the actors digress with poetic speeches, they use much of Shakespeare’s words as voiceover to show their interior dialog and establish their thoughts and motivations. As a result of these slight diversions, the material is more consumable and flows smoothly. It’s more engaging and less perplexing, yet it still isn’t dumbed down for a mainstream audience. It is distinctly Shakespeare, but presented through the lens of a young, trouble director in Polanski.
The elephant in the room is that this was Polanski’s first work after his wife and friend were savagely and brutally murdered by the Manson family a couple of summers ago. Some of the violent choices he made for this movie are curious given what he was dealing with. Some of the departures from the original are to show more violence. There is one scene in particular when a family gets slaughtered in their own home that had to have been inspired by the events of that fateful summer. You have to wonder whether this was a cathartic way of dealing with the tragedy. The one thing we can tell is that there is a personal edge that comes through the brutal telling of the story.
Despite his personal tragedies, this is a period of transition in the career of Polanski. He was already among the top directors at the time, having churned out a number of hits. Some of them were artistic (Repulsion, Cul-de-Sac), while he had also experimented with mainstream genre (Rosemary’s Baby). Macbeth was not only more literary than his previous works, but also his first attempt at an epic. He does quite a bit with a small budget, using elaborate, genuine costumes, glorious sets, and amazing cinematography. We can see here the filmmaker who would eventually make Tess and even The Pianist, many years later.
As a piece of art, Macbeth is up there with the best of the Shakespeare adaptations, and it’s a shame that few director’s (no offense to Branaugh) have been up to the task of putting together such an ambitious and daring treatment of the material since.
Film Rating: 8/10
Supplements:
Toll and Trouble: Making “Macbeth.” This new hour-long documentary touches on a lot of interesting subjects. One of which was how the film got made in the first place. No major studios were interested, so the surprising financier was Playboy. That led to a little bit of pressure and some stigma that would be added to the film, but also made it a little unique. Eventually they gave Roman plenty of artistic freedom. Also featured are Francesca Annis who played Lady Macbeth. She talks frankly about the mood on the set and her thoughts of doing nudity for the production. Martin Shaw talks at length about the project, and speaks about how Jon Finch came to be cast as Macbeth (he met Polanski on a plane), and how good he turned out.
Polanski Meets Macbeth: This documentary shows plenty of behind-the-scenes footage of the production, ranging from directing large scale acting scenes, to seeing how the cast and crew are fed (and hearing the complaints of the people who feed them.) This documentary isn’t enthralling, yet it is neat to see how much footage was captured from the shoot.
Dick Cavett Interview with Kenneth Tynan: This interview was conducted prior to Macbeth’s release, and most of the interview is not about the Polanski project. They discuss it briefly toward the end.
British Television “Acquarius”: Polanski and theater director Peter Coe discuss their Macbeth projects. The former is of course the Polanski epic, while the latter is “Black Macbeth” which couldn’t be anymore different.
Criterion Rating: 8.5/10
Criterion: Opening Night
OPENING NIGHT, JOHN CASSAVETES, 1977
At times while watching Opening Night, it felt like I was watching the ideological sequel to A Woman Under the Influence. Gena Rowlands again plays a woman going out of her mind, only this time it is not her immediate family that suffers, but the production staff of the play of which she is the star. Cassavetes explores her character a little deeper, focusing less on the peripheral characters, and more on her internal breakdown. We see what she sees, mostly from her perspective. She is primarily haunted by an autograph seeker who died outside of a playhouse, and sees images of this dead, young girl as she continues with the production.
It is probably unfair to compare the two movies despite the similarities, because Opening Night is more abstract and deeper in how it approaches its central theme, the aging of a famous actor – something certainly close to home in the real lives of Cassavetes and Rowlands. Age is the subject of the play, and it is overtly part of Rowlands’ hallucinations of this younger girl, who she at first feels sorrow for, which eventually transforms towards resentment. As she descends further into madness, her downfall has less to do with any feelings of guilt towards the girl’s death, and more as a wrath for her representation of youth. The character looks like a younger Rowlands, and as she rejects the script of a play that characterizes her as older, she takes out her wrath on this phantom youthful ideal.
If anything, age was too much of a central theme, and even if it was approached creatively, it was not portrayed with much subtlety. I felt that too much of the lengthy running time was dedicated to exploring this theme, but the message would have been just as clear with a lot less.
With the utmost respect for Cassavetes and his craft, and some people that I regard highly consider this his best work, but I had some problems with Opening Night. Part of this has to do with the heavy-handed treatment of aging. Another part was that I felt the independent nature of a Cassavetes production did some damage to this film. Sometimes answering to a producer can keep someone accountable with their ambition.
Realism went out the window, and I’m not referring to the hallucinations. The plot became unbelievable as the producers of the play continued to abide by someone who they could tell was losing it. I don’t expect they would have kept this person in the lead role and risk disaster during opening night. Or they would have delayed the open until they got the situation under control, resolved, and the star actress became comfortable with the material, which she clearly wasn’t. I also had problems with the final scene with Rowlands and Cassavetes playing off of each other, obviously improvising, and the audience gushing at them. The scene itself was entertaining simply because of the magnetism of two experienced actors. The problem was that the play did seem all over the place, and an actual audience would have trouble enjoying it. A real broadway audience would have problems with this play within a play. The final scene continues for awhile and expresses very little, and I feel the audience would have become impatient.
Film Rating: 5.5/10
Supplements:
Gena Rowlands and Ben Gazzara: There was a similar conversation after The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. It’s enjoyable to hear these two talk to each other and reflect. They discussed how disappointing it was that this movie essentially flopped after Bookie did as well, and that the final scene was mostly improvised.
Al Ruban: This was a short interview yet was one of the more revealing interviews of the entire disc. He said that Cassavetes gave his crew almost carte blanch to work based on their own interpretations of the script. He also revealed that John could be difficult to work with, and during one period of the shoot they ran out of money and had to go on hiatus for two weeks. Ruban had a falling out with Cassavetes and considered walking off, but Gazzara convined him to finish his work.
Criterion Rating: 5/10
Criterion: The Innocents
THE INNOCENTS, JACK CLAYTON, 1961
My first exposure to Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw was as a young teen. It scared the daylights out of me, and I never really forgot it. Jack Clayton also experienced the material as a youngster, and was likely scared just like me, but he could identify with the children in different ways – the sense of loneliness, abandonment, and that is part of the reason the material remained special for him, and eventually he would be responsible for the best visual representation of the novel.
The Innocents is, more than any film I’ve yet seen, the quintessential gothic movie. Of course a lot of that is due to the James source material and Truman Capote’s eerie script, but most of it has to do with the look and feel. It was not just Freddie Francis’ brilliant cinemascope camerawork, but also the clever editing, the mise en scene complete with a distinctly gothic floral motif, the dissolves between shots, and of course the location and the Victorian-style house.
The performance salso deserve some accolades. While Deborah Kerr is the focal point that carries both the plot and the ambiguity, and she is amazing, I was also impressed by the children. It was interesting to hear that much of the ghost-story plot was withheld from them so that it would not impact their performance, so perhaps Clayton deserves just as much credit. Pamela Franklin is brilliant as Flora, in an understated and fragile role, but Martin Stephen’s Miles really stole the show and sold the possibility of what was taking place in the house and/or in Miss Giddens’ head. The scenes where Stephens and Kerr interact directly were particularly exceptional. He played wise beyond his years, and was able to hold his own when discussing and debating the goings on with Miss Giddens. His intelligent, knowing looks made clear that at the very least, he had some behavioral problems, and was at worst possessed by a ghost.
There are two readings of the film, and they were intentionally ambiguous. I cannot continue without spoiling the film, so please stop reading from here if you have not seen it.
The question is whether the ghosts are present or whether they are a figment of Miss Giddens’ imagination. There are plenty of arguments scattered throughout the film, although upon repeated viewings, there does appear to be more evidence of the latter theory. She notices the apparitions before the children, or at least as much as they will admit, and reacts before they are shown on screen. The children continually seem oblivious to what she is observing, and she implants thoughts and feelings into their minds that do not always seem rational.
Another piece of evidence that suggests the ghosts are real is that Giddens sees Miss Jessel at the lake before learning that’s where she committed suicide. Also, as noted, Miles is a clever human being, and the best evidence for the real apparitions is at the very end when he lashes out at Giddens, with the ghostly Peter Quint appearing in the window engaged in laughter at the tirade. Then, as she sees Quint clearly just before the child’s last breath, there is a shot of him with a momentary look of acknowledgement. Had he finally seen the ghost? Was he indeed possessed and this act of exorcism was his undoing? A third theory could also be explored, that Giddens was possessed by Jessel, who wanted her revenge on Quint and achieved it during the final scene. It was brilliant of Clayton to leave this ambiguity intact.
I cannot say enough about the film’s quality, especially the lighting. The highlight for me was the dream sequence about an hour into the film, which consists of a multitude of dissolved sequences, ranging from flocks of pigeons, dancing with the music box, or praying hands like opening and closing of the film. Whether they were real or imaged by Miss Giddens does not take away from their brilliance.
Film Rating: 8.5/10
Supplements:
Audio Commentary: Christopher Frayling, a cultural historian, brings a lot of detail from the Henry James novel, the adapted play of [i]The Innocents[/i] and stories from the set. He also does a good job at pointing out the filmic elements that are used to support the different readings of the film.
Introduction: Frayling again introduces the film by visiting some of the locations of the shoot. The remainder is mostly repeated in the commentary, with a few scant unique details.
John Bailey Interview: Bailey is an accomplished Director of Photography, and he discusses Freddie Francis’ techniques in detail. The technical limitations of the Cinemascope cameras give more appreciation with the final product given what Francis had to work with. He made the absolute most of it, and the film would be completely different with another aspect ratio or a different DP.
Making Of: This is a newly edited series of interviews from 2006 with Freddie Francis, editor Jim Clark, and script supervisor Pamela Mann Francis. These are all interesting in their own right. Francis has the least screen time, but he is mentioned constantly by Clark and Francis. They also credit Capote’s contribution and Clayton’s vision. The interviews are mixed with HD clips from the 4k restoration and are a suitable accompaniment.
Criterion Rating: 9.5/10
Criterion: Eraserhead
ERASERHEAD, DAVID LYNCH, 1977
Some might call David Lynch a weird dude; others would call him a visionary artist. To me, he’s a little of both, and I can take him or leave him. Some of his work leaves me cold, like Lost Highway[, while I consider others to be masterpieces, most notably Mulholland Drive, and also the under appreciated Inland Empire. Eraserhead is somewhere in between. It is something I respect far more than I like, and it represents a starting point for one of the most inventive and creative cinematic minds of the modern era.
One thing that is remarkable is that this film was made at all. That’s one reason why I love these Criterion releases. Every film has a story behind the story, and Criterion teaches as much about the process of getting it to screen as it does the images as art. Eraserhead took a long time to get made, and the project came about as a happy accident when Lynch nearly had a falling out with AFI. They were giving filmmakers a lot of rope, and they pretty much left him alone and did his thing. The final product, to me, is not perfect, but it is of unquestionably high quality, and not something you’d expect from someone who had previously directed a handful of experimental shorts.
The movie itself doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Lynch acknowledges as much and refuses to share his interpretation. I actually really admire that. As anyone who has been in a good English, Film or Art History course can attest, the creator’s original intent has very little to do with how people interpret and understand the film. In some of the marathon discussions in which I’ve participated, we have deconstructed the piece of art far far beyond the creator’s vision or intent, and that’s what makes it beautiful. Something that can be a lot of things for a lot of different people has power, and that’s why a films like Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive can take hold.
It doesn’t take a lot of searching to find popular theories on the Internet. Here’s one. Here’s another. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. You could scour blogs and discussion boards for hours just reading different interpretations. Lynch likened the film to a Rorschach test, implying that the way people interpret the film says more about them.
Aside from enjoying it as a piece of entertainment a few times, I cannot say that I’ve gained much more understanding of it, but I have picked up on several themes and motifs, just like everyone else. The sexual symbolism is overt, with the spermatozoa-like objects (for lack of a better word) popping up on occasion. In one scene Henry finds them all over the bed he is sharing with his girlfriend/wife. Could that be sexual guilty? We don’t know. Fatherhood is another key theme, as embodied by the freaky, mutated baby, that I’d still rather not know what it really was. On this recent viewing, I picked up on some commentary on modernity and technology. This is expressed all throughout the movie, most notably through the constant humming of the machinery. There are other moments where it comes into play, such as when Henry’s girlfriend’s father marvels at the smaller-sized chickens, which he proudly exclaims are new! And of course those chickens foreshadow the eventual baby, so if the message is of modernity, it is interwoven with the pressures of the nuclear family.
For such an independent and low budget film, it is technically brilliant. One element that stands out to me is the sound design — which is often a constant hum. The black-and-white cinematography looks terrific, especially on this Blu-Ray (I had previously seen this on VHS or streaming).
There are a lot of different avenues to take when interpreting the film, and there really is no wrong answer. David Lynch isn’t going to take out his red pen to anyone’s conclusion. He’s just proud that we’re still thinking about it.
Film Rating: 7/10
Supplements:
David Lynch Shorts: The majority of these are from early in Lynch’s career, prior to the release of Eraserhead. Some of them were created concurrently with that project since it took so long. The only exception is his one-minute contribution to Lumière and Company, using the same century-old equipment that the early pioneers of film used.
If Lynch hadn’t become the filmmaker that he is today, these most likely would not have seen the light of day. They are clearly amateur filmmaking, yet they are experimental and show glimpses of what would become his style. That’s not to say they are not good on their own right. For what are essentially student films, these are high quality. These were part of the reason AFI favored him and gave him freedom to make a feature.
And yes, as you might expect from Lynch, the shorts are weird. The Amputee has a double amputee transcribing a letter while her wounds are being tended to by a nurse. The Grandmother is about a bed-wetting child who grows some sort of object on his bed that births his an old lady. This was the longest and best of the shorts. Most of them mix crude animation with live action, which gives them an added surrealism. All of the shorts are worth watching, especially for Lynch fans.
Documentaries and Interviews: The remainder of the supplements are arranged by the year in which they were released, with no explanation. You just click the year and see what happens, which is a very Lynchian format. These were all interesting in their own right. I enjoyed the interview from the set that was conducted after the release about the time the film was achieving cult status off as a midnight movie. Lynch was frank about his methods, but silent about his meanings. That’s a silence he would keep throughout his entire career. There was another documentary that was basically Lynch talking into a microphone about the process. This one was the least interesting, even if he gave the most information. I particularly enjoyed the most recent documentary, which features some of the actors and crew members, which most likely was recorded just for this release.
Criterion Rating: 8/10
Criterion: All That Jazz, 1979
ALL THAT JAZZ, BOB FOSSE, 1979
What separates All That Jazz from most musicals, is the level of honesty and authenticity. The musical numbers are all ways of expressing reality in an entertaining and artistic fashion, whether they are about the process and mechanics of putting together a Broadway music, or about one’s own mortality. Fosse’s mostly-autobiographical tale brings us into his world, the theatrical and directorial world, and uses that as a means to another world. More on that latter world in a moment.
The theater world is the one that Fosse knows the best, and he portrays it as a true insider. It begins with the cattle call, an arduous and brutal ordeal. The sequence goes on for a long time, nearly in a documentary style with clever editing to show the magnitude of performances that take place. George Benson’s version of “On Broadway” plays, reminding us what the stakes are. One of the dancers says he’s willing to change his given name (Autumn) if he gets the job. A job in a Gideon (or Fosse) production could make a career.
There are other theater sequences that are particularly effective. This was my third viewing, and one that struck me this time was the audition sequence with Victoria, who Joe had recently taken as a lover. Some may think that entitles her to special treatment, yet she gets none. She lacks in the talent department, so Joe pushes and pushes her away from mediocrity. You can see the pain on her face with every new attempt, and you sympathize when she thinks about quitting. This probably happens all the time in the theater world. She doesn’t quit and after a number of repetitions and being drenched in sweat, she gets the nod of modest acknowledgement. Gideon says that a take is better, and a sense of relief passes through her exhausted face. It was a nice character moment, performed well by the actress.
The other music pieces are part of Joe’s world. The adult-themed airplane number is performed as a dress rehearsal for the producers, but it takes a life of its own. It shows the director’s brilliance, but also his bravado. He’s not afraid to push the envelope, and the number is a reflection of how he lives – sex, drugs, and smoking. Another musical number is performed by his girlfriend and daughter, and is a great way of developing the character relationships in an entertaining and touching manner.
The other dance numbers were also part of Joe’s world, but not the same world. This world is just as open and honest, maybe more so, and they again show how Joe/Bob will go to depths that most filmmakers won’t.
Be warned, the remainder of this summary is going to be full of spoilers. This movie cannot really be discussed without referencing the ending.
Even though the dance numbers are entertaining and even fun, they are a contrast with the harsh reality of what Joe is facing. This is shown in graphic detail during the heart surgery, where they show the medical procedure happen – something I had never seen prior to this movie, and never expected to see.
That takes the movie to a different level. While in the hospital, Joe has a musical hallucination, which talks about how much he has done wrong, how he has failed. His decisions have led him to this point, with a fractured marriage, a stressful career, and literally, a breaking heart.
The final scene is pure brilliance. It is Joe saying goodbye to the world, including his professional peers, his family, even his enemies. The lyrics “Bye bye life. Bye bye bappiness. “ are dark, morbid, yet they are celebrational. “I think I’m going to die. Bye bye my life, goodbye.” Even though the movie clearly is leading up to the finality of Joe’s life, the harsh, abrupt ending is still shocking. It is still bold. It is still amazing. Even though the prior ten minutes were full of smiles and festivity, the stark reality is that you will be zipped up into a body bag.
Phenomenal movie. I’ve long called it my favorite musical ever, and that was cemented with yet another viewing.
Film Rating: 9.5/10
Supplements:
There are a ton of supplements, so I’ll give an abbreviated survey here.
Commentaries: There is one full commentary with Alan Heim, the editor, and Roy Scheider, the lead actor. Even with the shorter duration, Scheider’s is the more interesting, as is to be expected. Heim’s is good too, but there is already a featurette about the editing on the disc that is more effective. One thing that’s surprising from both commentaries is about Fosse’s take on the autobiographical details. It seems that he minimized the fact that it was based on his own experiences, yet they were undeniably him. Heim points out that the address on the medications was Fosse’s address, and he would refer to the lead character as “you” when addressing Fosse, which the director didn’t like.
Ann Reinking and Erzsebet Foldi: The actresses that played the girlfriend and daughter have a good rapport as they reminisce about their experience. The young actress had no idea of the scale of the movie when she was doing it, and it was something hearing her talk about seeing people lined up around the block.
TV Appearances: There are three of these; one with Fosse and Agnes de Mille, and the other two with Fosse solo. It’s weird seeing Gene Shalit doing an interview. I’m not a fan, but Fosse makes for an interesting subject.
Featurettes: There are several. My favorite was on the editing, which sort of negated Heim’s commentary. There were others about the music, on-set footage, and even one on the making of George Benson’s “On Broadway.”
Documentary: This is short by Criterion standards, but long considering everything else on the disc. It is roughly thirty minutes and has several interviews with people involved with the production, including Sandahl Bergman, who was flown in just three days before her scene and had to learn a complicated dance routine.
Between the quality of the movie, restoration, and the extensive features, this is so far the best Criterion release of the year.
Criterion Rating: 10/10
Criterion: The Essential Jacques Demy
THE ESSENTIAL JACQUES DEMY, 2014
This is the first completed box set for this blog, although there should be another one following pretty closely behind. This was a good one to start with. Going in, I had limited exposure to Demy, and wasn’t a huge fan of what I saw. Even though this set only includes the ‘Essential’ titles, it’s the best representation of his work, and with the shorts included, I felt that I had seen the development and evolution of style.
Even though I wouldn’t call any of his films masterpieces, I closed this set having a lot more respect for his craft. He went to places that other filmmakers wouldn’t go, and did some things that were truly original. I really like that his film universe had some connectivity, with reoccurring characters, motifs, and references to other films in the mise-en-scene. This would not be as easy to pick up if you watched the films individually over a longer span of time.
There are a couple of titles omitted that I wanted to see, especially Model Shop. My expectations are not high, but it seems to fit into the Demy universe since it is a sequel to Lola. Since the Demy family was so involved in this project, I am hopeful that Criterion will work on some of these other titles as standalone releases. On that note, I’m praying for an upgrade of Varda’s 4-films. The fact that this set was so comprehensive and she was heavily involved, I’d say it is a strong possibility.
Aside from Lola, the restorations were all impressive. Many of the discs had a short restoration supplement, and it was neat to see them remove blemishes as they found them. Lola’s restoration was poor, but I know that they had problems getting a workable master print. Since it was his debut feature film and it set the stage for so much of his later work, it had to be included regardless of the quality.
As for my impression of Demy, as mentioned, it improved. Musicals are my blind spot, but I found myself enjoying The Umbrellas of Cherbourg far more on this new visit, and I appreciated The Young Girls of Rochefort. As I progressed further into the set, I found myself appreciating Lola and Bay of Angels a little more, and will enjoy revisiting them at a later date. Donkey Skin was disappointing. While Une chambre en ville didn’t measure up to it’s stylistic sister, it was surprisingly effective, and it was refreshing to see Demy push beyond the boundaries he set for himself.
There were no commentaries on any discs. While that was disappointing, the vast number of supplements almost made up for it. I appreciated the two Varda documentaries a great deal. In fact, her The World of Jacques Demy is my favorite film of the entire set. I missed a lot of the critical examinations on the earlier discs, but was pleased to view James Quandt’s A-Z evaluation. His essay and Varda’s documentary were on the final disc, and that punctuated the set extremely well.
Here are all of the films:
Lola
Bay of Angels
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
The Young Girls of Rochefort
Donkey Skin
Une chambre en ville
Box Set Rating: 8.5
Criterion: Une chambre en ville
UNE CHAMBRE EN VILLE, JACQUES DEMY, 1982
After an opening strikers versus police scene that seems yanked from the Les Miserablés play (it wasn’t), the camera cranes up to an overlooking room with a baroness looking down at the commotion. After the conflict dies down, the baroness speaks with her boarder, who happens to be one of the strikers.
Strike that. She doesn’t speak, she sings, and he sings back. The wallpaper is a blood red, which matches her outfit. Immediately this scene recalls The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It may be unfair to compare the two films, but Demy clearly intended to use the same style to tell this new story, and there are parallels with both films, albeit with a far different tone. Every line is sung, wardrobes and sets have matching colors, and so on.
As a musical, Une Chambre is no comparison to Umbrellas. The missing ingredient is Michel Legrand. I’m not sure why his collaboration with Demy didn’t continue, possibly because of the time commitment as he was a busy man at the time. Either way, his presence is sorely missed in this format. Michel Colombier is the replacement, and while he has put together a decent career scoring films, the only other thing he has in common with Legrand is the first name. His music in this film is uninspired and the sung dialogue doesn’t fit into the narrative as snugly as Umbrellas. Without Legrand, I wish they would have chose to let the actors speak rather than sing (or lip-synch). The intensely dramatic script could have made for a much better acting vehicle. Alas, that is not Demy’s style.
From the first ten minutes as the two characters sing the exposition to each other, I was prepared to dislike this film. It was immediately clear that it was trying to be another Umbrellas, and it was also clear that this was anything but. It took some time to introduce the characters and get the narrative rolling, but eventually I found myself taken in. While the music was lacking, everything else was vintage Demy. The costumes, set design and wallpaper did compare respectfully with Umbrellas. I particularly liked the scene with Edith and Guilbaud in his room, with the earthy colors of yellow and brown. These are colors that aren’t bright or flamboyant enough for Umbrellas, but they fit better with the darker story in Une Chambre.
Speaking of dark, when I reviewed Umbrellas, I mentioned how the ending was bittersweet, yet it manages to leave us on a high note. Aside from that, it is bright and bubbly despite being about a romance interrupted by the Algerian War. Une Chambre has a similarly dour premise, with a romance happening at the same time as a 1955 worker’s strike, but this is not bubble gum and butterflies. We know that when Edith and her husband Edmond first fight and the result is domestic violence. Later when Edmond confronts Edith’s mother, the baroness, he threatens to kill both Edith and her lover, if his suspicions of adultery are correct. Edith wears a fur overcoat with nothing underneath and she is bold enough to share the mystery underneath, which is an act far too seedy for the characters of Umbrellas, or any other Demy film for that matter.
I will not spoil how this plays out because it is worth watching. I’ll just say that it lives up to the dark foreshadowing. Compared with Umbrellas, Une Chambre has more grisly violence, stark sexuality, and the characters are not nearly as likeable, but the payoff is daring and not something you would expect from Demy’s universe.
Film Rating: 6.5
Supplements:
There are a handful of supplements on this disc, such as a retrospective and a couple of interviews, but I’m going to ignore those and focus on the two big ones, which happen to be the best supplements in the entire box set.
The World of Jacques Demy: Agnes Varda is an excellent documentarian, but none of her works is nearly as personal as this one. Created within years of her husband’s death, this is a retrospective and love letter of his entire body of work, including all of the inclusions in this set and other notable films like Model Shop and his final film, Three Seats for the 26th. It features Varda and family to a certain degree, but the most powerful sequences are three young girls who are simply fans of Demy. One of them reads a lovely letter she wrote to the director, thanking him for giving her life beauty and inspiration. The others felt the same, and they shared personal stories of how they grew up to Demy, how much they adored him and his work, and how they were left empty with his loss. Neither Varda nor any of his two children talk about his death, but they don’t have to. These three girls say enough.
Jacques Demy, A to Z: Film Critic James Quandt narrates this Criterion-produced visual essay about Demy’s body of work. He uses the alphabet to track Demy’s career, talking about the people who inspired him, motifs in his work, characters, and especially his family. With the letter B, he mentions Robert Bresson. Quandt also did the excellent commentary for Bresson’s Pickpocket, so he knows what he’s talking about. My first reaction when I saw Bresson’s name was that the two filmmakers have little in common with each other. Bresson is austerity while Demy is an eruption of style. Yet, Quandt still demonstrates a number of similarities that I had missed. Many of the male characters in Demy’s world are quiet, austere and understated, especially in his first two black and white films. Quandt parallels these characters with Bresson’s Michel and shows certain Demy scenes that were directly inspired by Bresson scenes. Near the end we get V for Varda, which is the most fitting. Oddly enough, they never worked together and they convey distinctly different styes and tones, but they complement each other and are forever intertwined. Finally, we have Varda and the Demy family to thank for putting this box set together and letting us experience Demy through their eyes.
On the strength of these two supplements, this is the best disc in the entire box set. Also note that The Young Girls of Rochefort is included in the DVD version.
Criterion Rating: 9/10
Criterion Close-Up 