Ten (or so) recent reviews

Desistfilm, Wedlock House: An Intercourse, Cat's Cradle, Window Water Baby Moving, Mothlight (dir. Stan Brakhage, 1954, 1959, 1959, 1962) -

The four films by Stan Brakhage that are part of the By Brakhage Criterion set that precede Dog Star Man.

Desistfilm - Stan and buddies hanging out, and if at first it feels like a drunken Beat home movie, it starts - via some clever camerawork - to evolve into something slightly more than a first person view of their party. Maybe it doesn't go quite as far as Scorpio Rising and maybe it was never meant to, but it's an influence that makes me think of Kenneth Anger's later film regardless. But it still kinda feels like a home movie with cool shots.

Wedlock House - Stan and Jane moodily lit in kitchen and other rooms, in something I'd call sexually explicit in intent, if not execution. It's not meant merely to arouse though, so maybe not. I guess it more sends out a mood of love and marriage, complete with not too heavy meanings, a lot of light and shadow, some pensive glances, some naughty parts - in short, a quick take on the ups and downs of a young person's marriage.

Cat's Cradle - I can't remember this as much, probably because of the abstraction level. While the previous two are certainly more emotive than plot-driven, this one goes further out. Stan and Jane again, plus two friends. They discuss, they move around the room and the frame. They get intercut with shots of the cat. Sound may also have been an element, though again I'm not drawing it to mind. Not my favorite of the early works.

Window Water Baby Moving - The big famous one - or one of them, anyway. Stan is there to document Jane's experiences (and his own) during the late stages of pregnancy. It gives more measure to her experience and joy though it does not exclude his own happiness and willingness to work through the labor with her. It's a really beautiful thing. I'd say everyone should see this to get a sense of the joy and wonder that's possible with a couple having a child, but I'm sure some people would find that idea in itself polemic.

Mothlight - And abstraction goes to its ultimate point. But even so, there's an intelligence behind the design. If you think of it like a moth, flitting from green grasses to colorful flowers to light and shadow and back, you get a sense of what the film's doing. Drink it in and don't worry about the details like that. And if you choose to view it frame by frame, you'll be treated to some lovely stills. But it really was designed to flow beginning to end and it does. Loverly.

Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom (dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975) -

And here is the absolute opposite of loverly. Hmmm... what to say about this film? Let me tread carefully here, because I've never seen a film as polarizing as this, ever. I've seen it four times now and I think I'm still not quite getting to the heart of the film. I can read a lot about the politics of fascism as it relates to this film and still not think it's necessarily a good idea to watch it as a cautionary tale. Yet I read the reactions of people who think it's vile, worthless garbage with nothing to say and I know they're wrong, because there is absolutely nothing to titillate or excite a viewer here, and those seeking it out simply as an "extreme" experience are bound to be disappointed by its slow pace, its programmatic stretches of dialogue, etc. There just won't be enough shit-eating, tongue-severing and eye-gouging to satisfy them. But the surface of the film - the dialogue, its relentless cruelty, its invariably serious and somber tone - is so difficult to see past to touch the ideas powering it that some viewers may never get there, which is why I don't know how successful it can be considered on its own terms. Coming from whatever side of how one views the atrocities on screen, you may never see past them to Pasolini's intentions to be able to fairly assess them (the intentions). I feel like my fourth time out I'm just starting to be able to watch the film without getting caught up in its powerful visceral draw - it's tough not to - and experience what he's going for. And is it the critique of fascism that everyone says? Yes, I guess so - it only takes a cursory look at the history of Nazi atrocities to see that this shit was not made up and that the brutality on screen is a mere fraction of a fraction of what actually happened to people in WWII. And its relationship to deSade seems nearly as cursory - I haven't read the novel in question, but its main power seems to lie not in any specific imagery deSade sought out, but in the power of his unbroken imagination to run freely over the page, even while incarcerated with the intent of breaking his spirit. No wonder the surrealists enjoyed his writings so much. But how does it translate to this? While I understand that the novel lent a rough structure to the film, the ideas here are all Pasolini. But where his other films take a gritty and realistic tone, there are moments (however few or far between) of levity and even joy to offset the tone, even when he's playing it downbeat. Here it's all grim pessimism - none of the lightness of Arabian Nights or The Hawks and the Sparrows enters into the proceedings to counter the rape, physical and psychological torture, and ultimately murder that you'll bear witness to. To see the crushing reality of what being on the bad side of a fascist state is - again, these are not extremes Pasolini or deSade dreamed up; maybe in the specifics, but not the generalities - there's no more complete vision that I've ever seen. If you're looking for proof that art can go too far, you're sniffing around the wrong place here - the world can go too far and art can hold up a mirror to see it with. If you're looking for the most challengingly difficult film you'll ever see, this may or may not be it, but you'll be going in to it for all the wrong reasons.

The Whole Wide World (dir. Dan Ireland, 1996) -
Listen, I rent tripe sometimes, I admit it. This has a good reputation and co-stars the very handsome Vincent D'Onofrio - the only reason to watch the film. He's good (and handsome) and still isn't able to unburden this film from the concepts it applies to its secondary story of a small town writer (Robert E. Howard) longing for a more bohemian lifestyle than his tight relationship with his sick mother would permit. So his fantasy worlds are externalized on the soundtrack as he acts them out, talks in concepts that begin in capital letters and has an on-and-off relationship with Novelyne Price (played in typically so-so fashion by Renee Zellwegger) - and this constitutes the main story of the film. The basis of a good film is here, based on Price's own account of the pair's relationship, but the central focus on Price (and thus, Zellweger), the overall inability to follow its most interesting character or make its central character more interesting and its tendency to corny old-fashioned-isms makes it just annoying. All I could think was how much better a film this might have been if it were told from Howard's point of view, without the sound effects, the capital letter ideas, and without Zellweger. I'll say this - it's not your typical rom-com, though it's surely Romantic with a capital R, and I still wish they'd done more with it.


The Fall of the House of Usher (dir. Jean Epstein, 1928) -
Of course I wanted to see what Bunuel did on this, but it's really Jean Epstein's film all the way. Poe's story is shifted around a bit to meet his needs and an incestuous vibe radiates from the film that I don't recall from the story (though it's been forever since I read it). Anyway... the visuals are exceptionally striking here - the grand room with almost no furnishings, the painting that's sometimes portrait, sometimes model, and constantly changing regardless, the unrealistic (and I'd say deliberately so) image of the house in the foggy moor, the long hallway full of blowing curtains and leaves; they all go to engender the same kind of doomy atmosphere that Poe created, even if specifics of plot vary between the two versions. But as an adaptation it's quite good, at once honoring the story and making its own vision known. Poe fans ought to be able to overlook the minor story variances in favor of the major success at capturing the dread and horror that Poe sought so often.


Rio Bravo (dir. Howard Hawks, 1959) -
Spectacularly entertaining - so much so, and so well made that I didn't ever stop to think about politics, which fall into a typical "average folks of town vs. rich land/cattle/whatever baron," or to put it more bluntly, the common American theme of capital power and privilege vs. the underclass, represented here by the aged, the young, and sheriff John Wayne, representing the law. But also, interestingly, by Dean Martin (excellent here) who's a recovering alcoholic (from before that term even had any meaning in the public sphere of consciousness), a strong woman in Angie Dickinson, a woman whose past may be tainted but it's not held against her by any of the characters, and a Mexican who works with the Anglos and pays with his life for the transgression. But the siege on the jail where the thoroughly corrupt baron's utterly lawless brother is being held is terrific - a sustained set piece of rising and falling action that Hawks plays masterfully. And the baron himself is a terrific villain in a long line of bad Western characters who pay lip service to the law when it serves them but have no intention of actually following it if it impedes their progress. The more I see this the more I'm convinced it's a masterwork.


Early Spring (dir. Yasujiro Ozu, 1956) -

The only Ozu film I've yet seen that keeps the primary conflict within the same generation. No wait, I guess there's A Story of Floating Weeds too, though there you have a significant story of a father trying (and failing) to get to know the son who isn't aware of the his true paternity. Here a husband and wife fall prey to infidelity and it tears them apart - seemingly none too soon since they spent quite a bit of screen time bickering before it happened and they separate quickly, cleanly, and without too much fuss. Then again, putting the fuss on-screen is never Ozu's modus operandi - he's all about having the big moments happen when you're not looking and then watching the aftermath. The wife understandably heads out and the husband begins to build a new life, made none too easy by the fact that his friends pick on him about the office romance he's engaged in and quickly realizes was a fling (and probably a mistake). If there's one thing I didn't like about this otherwise very cold-eyed look at how to move on from what could be a shattering event, it's that the film seems to push toward the individuals of the marriage dealing with their situation, but in the final act the film reverses all the movement it has made in that direction and reunites the couple, presumably having learnt a lesson. Doesn't seem to jibe with the tone of the rest of the film, but I guess it's just as likely to happen as the path they were following. Anyway, another fine film from Ozu, as usual.

He Walked By Night (dir. Alfred L. Werker, 1948) -
A bit stiff for my tastes though two things really stand out as superb - Richard Basehart's performance as the sociopathic thief/killer and the big chase through the sewers at the end. Basehart is marvelous, predating the modern cold-blooded killers of any film I can think of by at least two decades. Maybe if I give it some thought... But still - his disinterest in how his actions affect others is chilling and his calculating methods point a line right to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, to a way less glamorized Hannibal Lecter (like Brian Cox's Lecter, not Anthony Hopkins's), etc. There's no big flashy neon arrow pointing at him to say "Evil!" he's just ruthless in his pursuit of what he wants. And the sewer chase - terrific, and predating the famous Third Man chase by a year. My friend Josh suggests that Jacques Tourneur (or was it Jules Dassin? Sam Fuller maybe?) actually shot those scenes, and I'd buy that for sure - the visual flair of the climactic ending goes against the flat, documentary-type style of much of the police procedural that leads up to it. Anyway, an interesting and grim bit of noir with a couple touches that set it apart. I guess in that it's like most noirs that have a couple great ideas and then a lot of shadowy shots of L.A. to fill in the requisite moodiness. No sleazy private dick here though, and no femme fatale. Just a chilling sociopath who uses the sewers.

The Earrings of Madame de... (dir. Max Ophuls, 1953) -

The title's not being coy, I swear. OK, maybe it is - a touch of playfulness in a film that starts out light and breezy and slowly piles on complicated social issues until it turns tragic. Madame de... and Count de... seem happily married. They go to all the balls, know all the right people, and hardly speak to each other from their separate bedrooms. Madame de... shops to fulfill herself and flirts mercilessly and meaninglessly at the balls they attend. Count de... keeps a mistress in good standing. Madame de... runs up some debts - or claims to, anyway - and sells off the elaborate diamond earrings that her husband gave her on their wedding day and thus sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the aforementioned tragedy - the earrings themselves don't really lead to them, but they accompany the events. The earrings go from her to jeweler to her husband to his mistress to a lovestruck observer back to Madame de... and to her husband and on and on, each time accumulating a new dimension of meaning as they change hands, signifying something different each round for both giver and receiver. Like Rules of the Game the whole thing seems affected at first and slowly turns into something far greater by the end of the film as more and more connections are made, as the spare dialogue acquires depth relating to previous actions. Am I circling around the same ideas too much here? The film does something similar, but I hate to give away one of the primary pleasures of it, which is watching just how it increases the density of meaning, of emotion as it goes on, and I'd hate to rob anyone of seeing it in action. The camerawork and lighting I have to assume you've already heard about. They're spectacular, equal in fluidity and daring to Welles, to Kalatozov, to anything I've ever seen. Script, acting - all superb, and watching the three central characters play their public roles only to slowly have them dissolve as their private passions overtake their need for appearances is just one more of the joys of this film. I get why people call this one of the greatest (or THE greatest) films of all time and though I'm not yet ready to make that kind of statement (and also not big on those types of hierarchal rankings anyway), I would be more than willing to hear out someone who made such a claim.

Control (dir. Anton Corbjin, 2007) -

More marital infidelity - this time not from a bored couple who maybe ought to think about parting anyway, but from a couple that formed way too young, before they knew what they were doing. I didn't love the film, but I liked it. It hews very closely to the Joy Division/Ian Curtis story and leans heavily on making out Deborah to be a majorly sympathetic character (no surprise since it's taken from her (auto)biography of Ian Curtis and she helped fund the film). And therein lies my main problem. It's rendered nicely in B&W by photographer/video guy Anton Corbijn, but sorta like the first Harry Potter movie he had no room to maneuver with the story, seeing as its primary author was on hand to make sure that the truth (as she saw it) got told. As much license as he got was to also add in relationship details from Annik Honoré's point of view (she claims, for example, that she and Ian never slept together, which may or may not have been true - he did seem like a dedicated guy). And really I doubt Corbijn had much interest in going outside the box, so to speak. He's such a geek for iconic music imagery that he wants to put up on screen the legend that people know, not to challenge anyone's idea of Ian Curtis the person or Joy Division the band (in which case he might not have gotten cooperation or funding from Mrs. Curtis - or anything but a lawsuit from her, for that matter). Whatever - the story that's told is all facts - again, as the authors saw them - banged into a workable screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh and then brought to life by the actors, which is where the film is at its best. Even if we've seen this troubled artist story before, we haven't seen Sam Riley telling it, and he really lives in this character for the duration of the film, especially when he and his film band-mates are given the task of performing Joy Division's material in a better-sounding setting than any JD bootleg you'll be able to lay your hands on. That's good shit. Samantha Morton is also great as Deborah and the rest of the cast each hits their part fine, though nobody else is required to give as much to their role as either of these two. It's pretty good overall, but nothing here breaks up and out of the hero worship that Corbijn is engaged in to make this film a great one.

Kiss Me, Stupid (dir. Billy Wilder, 1964) -
And still more infidelity on parade, this time offered up cheerfully and with a good ultimate purpose - wife and husband both fulfill a fantasy and strengthen their marriage by sleeping with other people. How's that for a charming family comedy? This film gets away with murder, metaphorically speaking. Not only do husband and wife sleep with others and have their marriage not just intact but improved by the experience, on the way from point A to point B we get: tons of very physical humor that borders on the outright sexually provocative (gasp!); even more verbal humor and double entendres that do the same; a known prostitute as our main heroine and a wife who's happy to trade places with her (temporarily of course, but still...); Dean Martin playing a downright unflattering caricature of himself as a sex maniac unable to go one night "without it." And there's surely more I'm forgetting. Oh, like the insanely jealous husband assaulting the 14-year old piano student he's supposed to be teaching and accusing the kid of sleeping with his wife. I mean, this really pushes some heavy buttons for its time. My friend suggested that this film may single-handedly have been responsible for our modern rating system and though I don't think this was tit-for-tat responsible for giving us the "R," it'd be hard to argue that between the image of Dean Martin drinking out of Kim Novak's shoe and then feeling her up and the bawdy dialogue throughout that it provided some heavy ammunition for those who'd push for a more child-restricted theater environment. It's funny, yes, but it a really sly and tense way. Ray Walston's performance is a little on the creepy side and I'm sure it's 100% intentional from Wilder. Script is fantastic - good plotting and great dialogue throughout. Billy Wilder is sure to be someone I obsess about soon (though not like Walston's character, I hope).

Ten recent views (unedited - don't read if you don't like it long)

Diary of the Dead -
Romero's latest is a fine film indeed. Less ambitious than Land of the Dead and perhaps more successful as a consequence, since it hits its targets more fully. Then again, an explanation of the organizational principles of communism via a zombie film has to be a harder thing to put across than a satire on modern mass media. But compare to Redacted (which I liked, don't get me wrong) shows only that it's not so easy to do after all, and both Romero and DePalma have taken a semi-post-modern approach, deconstructing their topic while reveling in it (and Romero taking it a step further to even self-criticize, rather than a broad, blandly liberal condemnation).

Johnny Guitar -
Let me get this straight - a Western from the 50's where women are the primary power holders and movers of all the action? Wow. Color me impressed. And a minimal amount of the requisite gunplay - again mostly attributed to the women involved. Great story, great acting, very progressive film, as deeply feminist as any of Sirk's 50's classics. Crawford's character transcends the male-dominted society around her McCambridge's is bound to their power structure and vilified by both Crawford and the film. Gender studies film classes ought to have this in regular rotation.

Touch the Sound -
Documentary about Evelyn Glennie with Fred Frith often performing in tow (gotta pick up that record they're making throughout the film). Interesting look at her life and her philosophies of music-making. I like seeing how she works her way into other people's music and makes it work, as when she's not totally in synch with the Japanese performers at first but finds a way into their music. It's cool to see (and hear), but I'd still rather hear her music, see her live, etc. The doc on Goldsworthy is more valuable because I can't buy records of his works that do any justice to the deal thing. But this one's still fun.

Charulata -
Satyajit Ray marketed as Bollywood, which ridiculous (the menu screen offers songs as a choice (there's only 1 in the film)) but at least it's getting his films available in the west, so who cares? And this one's a good - maybe great - one in which a man who's been inattentive to his wife in favor of his work senses that he's losing her and makes the dual tragic mistakes of first inviting a (charming and younger) distant cousin to come visit and then asking another friend to take over his business so he can devote time to her. Anyone who's seen the Apu trilogy knows that Ray's work with interpersonal relationships is unparalleled in most of cinema and this is no exception.

Hi, Mom! -
Early Brian DePalma, back when he was known as a filmmaker with radical impulses, and if you've ever doubted it here's where you can learn that people who talk about the underlying subversive tensions of his later films (like me) aren't feeding you a line of bullshit. Bascially, Robert DeNiro plays an amateur filmmaker who thinks he can create a film of some merit based on viewing people's windows and behaviors out of his Greenwich Village apartment and seeks financing from an adult filmmaker. When he fails to produce the right level of prurient interest in his films, he begins working with a radical black arts group staging a play called "Be Black Baby" that aims to expose a middle class white audience to "the experience of being black." Trust me, the idea is taken about as far as you can push it on screen and weaves itself tightly into the themes of watching and voyeurism that pervade DePalma's work. It's almost like this plus Night of the Living Dead form a discussion between DePalma and Romero about race in America (with each offering up other ideas), and Redacted and Diary of the Dead offer up a dialogue about modern media overload. You think dePalma just does Hitchcock ripoffs and bad gangster films? You got a lot to learn, baby.

Melvin and Howard -
Charming Jonathan Demme trifle tells the story of Melvin Dummar, who gives a lift to an injured (and sick?) Howard Hughes and is later remembered in his will to the tune of 156 million dollars. It's nice the way Demme gets inside the actuality of lower-middle class life without seeming like he's slumming and the way Dummar is portrayed (presumably based on Demme's interaction with the real man, who appears in a walk-on). Lemat nails the red-blooded numbskull type perfectly, Robards is a great eccentric Hughes, Mary Steenbergen is great as Dummar's frequently-leaving wife. Overall, a nice little picture, of the kind that gave indie cinema a good name because it had a strange little story it wanted to tell, not because it thought it was so much smarter than mainstream cinema like too much of indie cinema today (and yes, I know Universal released it, but take a guess at what its budget probably was compared to major releases on 1980).

One, Two, Three -
Billy Wilder's strange little 1961 Cold War comedy in which Jimmy Cagney's Coca-Cola man in West Berlin is making inroads into East Berlin and the potential Communist market for his potential promotion to head of European operations. This is of course put into jeopardy by the company man's outrageous 17-year old daughter, a stalwart party member she connects with, and his own marital troubles (such as his ongoing language lessons with his bombshell secretary). A weird mix of patriotic display and cutting comments on consumer society that's kept moving at a quick clip by the kind of writing that makes Hollywood's Golden Age so golden (though this falls outside that era). Basically, it's a perfect little capsule of a moment that keep tongue firmly planted in cheek, doesn't really take sides even when it seem to, and doesn't mind making fun of itself, its stars, or anything else that crosses it (in 1961, jokes about missiles in Cuba were probably funny). Anyway, highly recommended.

Battle Royale -
Talked up so much to me that it was inevitably a disappointment. Onscreen violence ranked high, but as an idea, this didn't hold as much weight as it could - or should - have, which made the psychic violence - the ideas fucking with my head more than the gore I saw - pretty low overall. Tough to get a handle quickly on 42 kids and who you cared about. And even as it moved toward the ending which I felt in my gut was inevitable but thought in my head wouldn't happen (psychic violence woulda been higher if the game had played out as it was supposed to), I found that I didn't really know them or care much who lived or died since it was clearly presented as an outrageous fantasy that neither gave you much cause to side with the adults who made the hideous decision to make these games, or the youth who had to endure them. It's an interesting premise let down by ambition. And I guess if it had been delivered with fewer kids, or more readily focused on fewer of them, or even put across with a bit more flair, I would've liked it more. Or maybe I just didn't get past the hype.

Elephant -
Possibly Van Sant's best film. I wish I'd watched this and then Battle Royale - that film would've made much more sense after viewing this one, which hit me really hard and was what made me come up with the corny "psychic violence" idea because this one would rate about a 10 on that scale and really made me think of how much more a film hits you when it's got something of an ideology behind it rather than just a premise. I don't think it brings much to the discussion of Coumbine-styled violence except Van Sant's own theories about youth, but he's clearly in sympathy with all the kids portrayed here, not just some heroes who helped people, or the killers who gunned down their cruel tormentors. He's pretty in tune with what youth are like, due in large part, probably, to hiring a lot of non-professional actors and letting them improvise along his basic plot. A real heavy one and the best I've seen from him since Drugstore Cowboy.

The Dark Wind -
Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris goes for the very interesting subject of a murder committed on land that used to be jointly shared between the navajo and Hopi people, but is now split, and the case keeps taking Officer Jim Chee (played by Lou Diamond Phillips) back and forth between his own Navajo people, the Hopi, and white FBI agents (and others) who have some part to play in the case, which gets exponentially more complicated as it progresses. Maybe too complicated for a first-time narrative director who's a master of visual form in his own style which allows him a much greater structural control over how a story is told than a dense narrative like this that needs a certain amount of telling onscreen. The problems of this interesting but flawed film might also have something to do with Morris's decision to leave the film due to artistic differences with producer Robert Redford. Or maybe it was that boom mike hanging way down in the frame in a crucial scene late in the film? Anyway, I watched it, I liked a lot of it, but it's got issues.