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SCREENING LOG
- 3/17-3/23, 2003
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I felt my reviews have fallen into a bit of a rut and would
like to give them a good shake-up by trying a different approach.
I think I'm going to write in sketch-like sentences this week
just to see what I happen to care about.
I watched THE CHECHAHCOS, MOTHER KUSTERS GOES TO HEAVEN,
SECRET DEFENSE, FULLTIME KILLER, FURY, FRANKENSTEIN, BEAUTY
AND THE BEAST, BIGGER THAN LIFE and JAPON. In order of preference:
Frankenstein (1931, James Whale)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0021884
- noticed that there was this alternating rhythm between
light and dark (lifted from NOSFERATU?), Frankenstein's castle
vs. the village, but I think it would have worked better to
just keep things dark. Maybe it was too much for audiences
then to maintain the intensity without reprieve, but I found
the scenes with Frankenstein's family not nearly as interesting
as those with the Monster. The payoff -- Monster entering
the fiancee's house -- isn't enough either (though I loved
the Monster's whiplash snarl when he sees his master's fiancee).
- but there was so much more to treasure: the lab, every
single scene with the Monster, idiotic Fritz, the girl by
the lake and the flower petals, the mob scene (borrowed from
METROPOLIS but still very effective). How we end up identifying
with the Monster is truly an amazing accomplishment, I think
it's without precedent in the horror/monster genre.
- Karloff -- what more needs to be said. Colin Clive on
the other hand I found histrionic -- his unintentional campiness
belongs in BRIDE better.
- This movie is pretty much immortal... it plays a lot "straighter"
than BRIDE and delivers plenty on that level. I just find
BRIDE to be more sophisticated.
Fury (1936, Fritz Lang)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0027652
- This film had me totally in its clutches. Lang confidently,
masterfully sets up his scenario, waiting patiently for the
audience to fall into his snare, and BAM! the walls close
in. The scene where the mob storms the jail house is simply
masterful -- it is so full of human ugliness and ignorance,
the same that I see on the news today. I didn't like the ending,
nor did I like much of the courtroom histrionics, where Lang's
intentions become more transparent. But I think this film,
in its examination of moral righteousness and outrage, the
madness of popular sentiment and revenge mentality, is entirely
relevant to the times we live in.
- Tracy's performance is a knockout -- he goes from a victim
of horrific injustice to a horrifyingly vengeful monster,
something you would never see in movies these days. It's fascinating
how much of the film requires him to do nothing but lay low
and watch what happens, which is also untypical of the Hollywood
hero -- but his do-nothingness shifts from being a Job-like
victim of an absent God, to becoming a vengeful God himself.
- I see Akira Kurosawa using many plays from the Fritz Lang
playbook (and really, come to think of it, what is HIGH AND
LOW but an inferior remake of M?) - masterful use of suspense
to control the audience's thoughts through their emotions,
use of strident caricature to mock types of people, sudden
shifts in story and tone, and plaintive moralizing and pleas
for justice. I'm not sure why I seem to like Lang more than
Kurosawa -- part of it could be sentiment for the less well-regarded
between equals. I probably like Kurosawa's films more on the
whole, but Lang as an artist intrigues me more because I know
less about him and he seems like a tremendous influence based
on what I've seen.
Bigger than Life (1956, Nicholas Ray)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0049010
James Mason... ON DRUGS! I had no idea that cortisone could
lead to psychosis. Can't say that all of this worked for me,
but there were many moments that were simply stunning. Ray's
direction can be so delicate at times, the difference between
him and other social message movies is that he puts the characters
in front of the message, so that we understand them as complex
human beings first and as social symbols much later. Mason,
his wife (Barbara Rush - though she seems a little too good
to be true), his son (Christopher Olsen) and family friend
Walter Matthau (already looking 60 at age 36) all register
as unique individuals, and the situations, the dialogues,
the feelings, they're not nearly as cookie-cutter as what
you find in the more generic kind of socially redeeming fare
that end up with the Oscars. I don't know if I really bought
the happy ending, because two-thirds of the way through the
film has opened up some deep wounds that I find near-impossible
to close, all having to do with the infinite dissatisfactions
of middle-class life - Mason's rage and frustration with his
own picket-fence inconsequence is astounding; his quiet desperation
builds and explodes into a Willy Loman gone psycho.
Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0073424
Having seen four Fassbinder movies at this point, it's interesting
to see how they each fit into an overall worldview that is
unmistakably unique, and part of the fun is seeing the same
actors in Fassbinder's troupe playing different parts from
movie to movie, often switching from the lead in one to a
mere cameo in another. Poor Mother Kusters' husband dies after
murdering his boss' son in a factory - Mother K (played by
the wonderful Brigitte Mira, she IS the soul of Fassbinder)
tries to find the reasons and ends up being a spokeswoman
for Communists. Fassbinder's social observations are astute
as always, if a bit clinical, which is very strange since
he deals with melodramatic material. Though given that one
of the themes of this movie is how the media preys on human
tragedy to provide entertainment for the masses, one can't
help but think that Fassbinder is being mindful of his own
yearning to turn the suffering of innocents into his own aesthetic
fodder. But his embrace of this woman's life is sincere, insisting
on the dignity of her simple-minded understanding of the world
despite the explicit or implicit condescension of nearly every
one around her. A remarkable film told with remarkable skill;
the ending alone convinces me of that.
The Chechahcos (1924, Lewis H. Moomaw)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0014770
The story is above-average Griffithian family saga set in
the Alaskan frontier; the characters are all well-played and
the story has a lusty verve to its pacing... but boy as a
production this beats all. The images of small human figures
making their way among large white stretches of wilderness
is simply breathtaking. Reminds me of what I loved about ATANARJUAT:
THE FAST RUNNER: the setting itself is the source of so much
drama.
Beauty and the Beast (1946, Jean Cocteau)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0038348
ItÕs really something about the spirit of this film that
transcends whatever flaws you can point out. For me the chief
flaw was the acting; I found the performances too broad and
oddly impersonal to be moving - when the most compellingly
human performance is played by a guy buried in fur it kind
of tells you something. But maybe directing actors wasn't
Cocteau's strong suit, and besides he has a certain whimsy,
a delight in the magic of the camera and what it captures
that is inimitable. I thought the sets were beautiful in a
haunting hand-made way. This ain't no DAMES DU BOIS DE BOULOGNE,
but what it lacks in narrative precision, thematic depth and
human pathos it makes up for in technical innovation and a
celebration of child-like wonder.
Secret Defense (1998, Jacques Rivette)
- more paranoid role-play from Rivette, but this time his
story is as linear as I've ever seen, aside from JOAN THE
MAID. Scientist gets involved in an intrigue with a man that
may have been responsible for her fatherÕs death. I understand
that, as usual with Rivette, the story harkens to theatrical
tradition (this time it's Elektra), as well as film tradition
(Hitchcock a la VERTIGO). Makes me wish I was more familiar
with dramaturgy. The story itself builds steam over time (a
long timeÉ Rivette's insistence on capturing real time moments
can be as taxing as they are commendable, and here with the
extended shots outside of train windows it borders on deadly.)
But the payoff is worth the trip Š it has a real tragic force,
but Rivette's distant camera puts us at an ambivalent distance
(and this guy is supposed to hate Kubrick?)
- Sandrine Bonnaire: can this actress do wrong? I donÕt
know if I can buy into her role as a scientist but doesn't
make her any less watchable Š she is so cagey, you can read
the intelligence in her eyes and share her delight in playing
her part.
- I love Rivette's films, especially CELINE AND JULIE but
they can be a chore at times Š it usually takes a while for
me to work up to them, to feel a part of their world, but
once that happens it's a delight. But I canÕt help thinking
of what Rivette said about Kiarostami in summarizing my own
thoughts on Rivette: "His work is always very beautiful
but the pleasure of discovery is now over. I wish that he
would get out of his own universe for a while. I'd like to
see something a little more surprising from him, which would
really be welcome...God, what a meddler I am!" Needless
to say, surprise and discovery are in the eye the beholder.
Fulltime Killer (2001, Johnny To, Wai Ka-Fai)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0286635
- Fin de siecle hitman movie that shows that the Hong Kong
genre developed by Tsui Hark and John Woo is pretty much spent.
Three quarters of the film are references to other films:
LE SAMOURAI, LEON, POINT BREAK, FALLEN ANGELS, you name it,
it's got it. The characters even stop frequently to say that
this moment reminds them of that movie. It's a movie that,
like BRANDED TO KILL, wears its creative exhaustion on its
sleeve, such that it actually becomes an endearing quality
-- like listening to a storyteller whose creative machinery
is running on vapors. There's a big blowout climactic shootout
at the end inside a fireworks factory, which is something
I've never seen before and I'm surprised I haven't, so what
do you know.
Japon (2002, Carlos Reygadas)
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0322824
- A man goes to the Mexican countryside to kill himself
but ends up doing a lot of wandering and loitering and finally
sleeps with the 82-year old woman who gives him shelter. Tarkovsky
and Wenders go Mexican (at least those are the two influences
cited by the director -- though I was thinking a dash of Kiarostami,
a tablespoon of late period Angelopoulos and an ounce of HAROLD
AND MAUDE). In any case I was bored silly -- it all had a
self-important tone to it that reminded me of why I didn't
go for Tarkovsky's NOSTALGIA. The film tries hard to offer
compelling images but a lot of it plays like stuff I've seen
before and I didn't get the sense that much new was being
done with it. I don't think the music of Avro Part should
be used in a soundtrack -- it's too overwhelming.
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