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SCREENING LOG
-1/26-2/1, 2004
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I watched LANCELOT DU LAC, THE SHANGHAI GESTURE, CURE, DISHONORED,
THE DEVIL IS A WOMAN, and LA BETE HUMAINE.
3 x Sternberg
in chronological order:
Dishonored (1931)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021800/
Marlene Dietrich is a streetwalker recruited by the Austrian
government and transformed into X-27, super secret agent and
seductress, in this sexy and sumptuous World War I spy movie
that serves as a bizarre kind of feminist anti-James Bond
movie, one that (brilliantly) links war and prostitution as
two major institutions that promote the oppression of women,
and against both of which Dietrich singlehandedly fights by
just being her lackadaisically composed self. She meets her
match in Victor McLaglen as libido incarnate, a cunning Russian
officer who grins constantly as if life were giving him a
perpetual erection -- needless to say he's far more interesting
here than in any number of John Ford movies. He serves as
both adversary and inspiration to Dietrich on her journey
to self-discovery, climaxing in an execution scene whose absurdity
and wild mixing of tones, from campily hilarious to genuinely
heartbreaking, blows the execution scene from PATHS TO GLORY
out of the water. Another Sternberg masterpiece, wholly of
its own design and without precedent or equal. #3 for 1931
between M and FRANKENSTEIN
The Devil is a Woman (1935)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0026276
Dietrich considered this her favorite film because "it was
the film in which I was the most beautiful." I dunno about
that.. it seems that her face, so supple and fresh in THE
BLUE ANGEL and MOROCCO, has hardened into a lacquered, mask-like
countenance by the time we get to her final collaboration
with Sternberg. It makes sense, as her onscreen persona is
no longer the vulnerable ingenue but a commanding goddess,
inscrutable and fearsome in her actions, as she drives a Spanish
officer to obsessive ruin and threatens to do the same to
his lieutenant. Visually the film is rich enough to drown
in, so much so that I found myself resisting it. The tones
of the film are even harder to pin down than his early masterpieces
-- there isn't as much of a sense of singularity in gesture
and phrase, and Dietrich is downright annoying in some parts.
I'll have to revisit this at some point to see if this was
really a step forward or a step back for either her or her
director. #6 for 1935
The Shanghai Gesture (1941)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034175
Probably my least favorite of the ten Sternberg films I've
seen, though it is still characteristically ripe in atmosphere
and setting -- a young and dazzling Gene Tierney plays a good
girl gone bad in a Shanghai casino run by Mother Gin Sling,
who must certainly be the Ultimate Dragon Lady in movie history
(played by Ona Munson, she certainly has the Ultimate Dragon
Lady hairdo, threatening to leap out and devour people at
any moment). Victor Mature plays a doctor of ambiguous sexual
leanings who aids and abets Tierney's demise. I can't say
I'm convinced that this all holds together; some moments strike
me as simply off, though with Sternberg one can never be sure
what is intended as he seems to invent new moods out of thin
air. A sinister sense of fatalism and defeat pervades the
settings. A weird and uncomfortable film, but possibly a visionary
one as well. #5 for 1941 between BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF THE
TODA FAMILY and THE LITTLE FOXES
The rest, in order of preference:
Lancelot du Lac (1974, Robert Bresson) second viewing
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071737
Those like me who are left underwhelmed by the politically
irresponsible and hyperbolically ersatz celebration of glorified
medieval warfare in Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS
trilogy may find a bracing alternative in Bresson's tautly
rhythmic and furiously apocalyptic vision of the last days
of the Knights of the Round Table. Instead of expensive, fanciful
digitized spectacle, Bresson gets his inimitable special effects
from the elements of pure cinema: here the film medium becomes
so concrete and so tactile that you can practically feel it
touching the fingertips of your eyeballs. Rhythmically edited
shots of limbs, bodies and horse's legs set to the music of
clanging armor and frantic hoofbeats -- rarely does an action
adventure movie make one as aware of the innate qualities
of a sound or an image as much as it sweeps the viewer into
the thrall of exciting combat. The Heroic Age of Knighthood
is presented like a big machine in the throes of self-destruction,
each gear and cog examined up close: proud Lancelot wanders
through a kingdom of spiritual malaise like a short-circuiting
robot operating on bug-ridden software, Medieval Chivalry
1.0 (do I sleep with Guinivere because I deeply love her,
or do I forsake her for upholding loyalty to Arthur?) As a
result, the ancient, simple age of Camelot is suddenly riddled
with 21st century moral uncertainty, a heap of blood-gushing
bodies encased in steel. #3 for 1974 between CHINATOWN and
PARADE
Cure (1997, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0123948
The prolific Kurosawa languished for many years in the Japanese
straight-to-video market before being recognized for his chilling
metaphysical thrillers. Koji Yakusho lends his considerable
presence as a cop engaged with a dangerous and oddly charismatic
psychopath who hypnotizes his victims and persuades them to
act on their deepest homicidal impulses. The cop's own dissatisfaction
at having to look after his mentally disabled wife is exposed
under the scrutiny of the psychopath's chilling prescience.
The story treads on territory similar to THE SILENCE OF THE
LAMBS and SEVEN, and is probably more morally invested in
its premise than either -- though that doesn't mean it comes
up with substantially more insight by the end (the story gets
sidelined by backstory and its resolution doesn't really resolve
anything). But in terms of opening doors to some very disturbing
questions about what evil lurks inside each of us, and striking
a genuinely chilling mood, this film is hard to beat.
La B?te humaine (1938, Jean Renoir)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0029957
Solid realist drama starring Jean Gabin as a psychologically
unstable train engineer caught in a love triangle between
a stationmaster and his wife after witnessing the couple commit
murder. Renoir's trademark "everyone has their reasons" humanism
sheds a warm light on the harsh social realities of Emile
Zola's story, though in this case compassion for his characters
isn't quite the same as insight into them. #4 for 1938
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