(7/22/00)
It's an "old house" thriller done up with very lavish production values. (It's a David O. Selznick production.) It's mostly set in a sumptuous mansion and is photographed with shadows on the walls all over the place.
It's about a serial killer who picks on females with some physical disability. The heroine, Dorothy McGuire, has lost her voice. She waits on an old woman who constantly tells her to get out of the house as quickly as possible. She has to deal not only with fear of the killer, but also with the shame of being a burden.
After the opening scene at the hotel where a girl is killed the film is set almost exclusively inside an elegant mansion which gives the film a claustrophobic atmosphere.
I liked it very much how the characters one by one go away--or get drunk--or get locked in the basement--leaving the heroine more and more alone until her final confrontation with the killer. I think the best scene was, after she realizes who the killer is, the constable pays a visit and she can't call to him because she can't use her voice.
This film deals with hostilities lurking beneath the surface of normal life. The family is full of hostility and a doctor in the town is jealous of another young doctor who is just getting established.
Elsa Lanchester was delightful as the housekeeper who thinks she is so clever in stealing a bottle of brandy from the basement by letting the candle go out and dropping it on the floor. Actually, the killer allowed her to steal the brandy and get drunk, just as he hid the ether so that the handyman would have to leave to get some more.
What is really sad is that the old woman thought all along that it was her own son who was the killer, when it was really his half-brother. I was not entirely sure if the old woman died at the climax, though it seemed pretty likely.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
The Whie Sheik (Lo sceicco bianco). 1952. Directed by Federico Fellini.
(7/22/00)
Fellini's first film as solo director is a delightful comedy which sustains its pace from start to finish. I found it more immediately enjoyable than 8-1/2. It's really a fun picture.
A young couple come to Rome for their honeymoon. The wife sneaks off for what she believes will be a very short meeting with her hero from the fumetti (photographed comic strips)--the Whit Sheik. However, circumstances dictate that her absence is not so brief and she is swept away by circumstances and finds herself going out on location. And no way to communicate with her husband who had scheduled a day with important relatives (his uncle works in the Vatican). During the day the White Sheik reveals himself to be a sham and the poor girl, disillusioned, realizes that her husband is really her White Sheik as they are finally reunited--just in time to head in for an audience with the pope.
They are like two babes in the woods. The film keeps switching from the wife's adventures to the husband's desperate attempts to keep the relatives from finding out what has happened.
One delightful moment is when the Sheik, who has managed to get the wife out in a boat with him, tries to seduce her. He tells her a ridiculous story about how he really loved another woman, but his wife put a spell on him. Subsequently confronted by the Sheik's irate wife, the young bride tells her off, repeating the story. She completely believes it.
The Sheik's wife is a wonderful portrait (or caricature) of a dominating Italian matriarch. Giulietta Masina is also wonderful in that brief scene where the husband meets the prostitute Cabiria. That's a bizarre scene in which Cabiria gets a man to sort of breathe fire.
A couple of moments which I remember fondly from seeing this film in the past didn't quite have the same impact: the Sheik's first appearance on a swing mounted high up between two trees and the scene where the bride attempts to drown herself in a canal or something. She does it with all the expected Italian melodrama and then the water only comes up around her ankles.
Fellini's first film as solo director is a delightful comedy which sustains its pace from start to finish. I found it more immediately enjoyable than 8-1/2. It's really a fun picture.
A young couple come to Rome for their honeymoon. The wife sneaks off for what she believes will be a very short meeting with her hero from the fumetti (photographed comic strips)--the Whit Sheik. However, circumstances dictate that her absence is not so brief and she is swept away by circumstances and finds herself going out on location. And no way to communicate with her husband who had scheduled a day with important relatives (his uncle works in the Vatican). During the day the White Sheik reveals himself to be a sham and the poor girl, disillusioned, realizes that her husband is really her White Sheik as they are finally reunited--just in time to head in for an audience with the pope.
They are like two babes in the woods. The film keeps switching from the wife's adventures to the husband's desperate attempts to keep the relatives from finding out what has happened.
One delightful moment is when the Sheik, who has managed to get the wife out in a boat with him, tries to seduce her. He tells her a ridiculous story about how he really loved another woman, but his wife put a spell on him. Subsequently confronted by the Sheik's irate wife, the young bride tells her off, repeating the story. She completely believes it.
The Sheik's wife is a wonderful portrait (or caricature) of a dominating Italian matriarch. Giulietta Masina is also wonderful in that brief scene where the husband meets the prostitute Cabiria. That's a bizarre scene in which Cabiria gets a man to sort of breathe fire.
A couple of moments which I remember fondly from seeing this film in the past didn't quite have the same impact: the Sheik's first appearance on a swing mounted high up between two trees and the scene where the bride attempts to drown herself in a canal or something. She does it with all the expected Italian melodrama and then the water only comes up around her ankles.
Lust for Life. 1956. Directed by Vincent Minelli.
(7/15/00)
It is impossible to form any real opinion about this film as it was shown in a print which was completely red. (There were actually a few spots of yellow, but not enough to warrant mention.) It was also difficult to hear and I couldn't get into it.
I suspect that a lush MGM production doesn't seem right for a film about Vincent van Gogh. That might be snobbish or elitist or something of that nature, but I do think that there is something jarring about this misfit, scorned throughout his life, being given the big Hollywood treatment.
I thought Kirk Douglas was mannered in his performance, but that might be because I found watching the film with no color to be irritating.
It was certainly a pleasure to see van Gogh painting his famous canvases. I particularly liked seeing "The Night Cafe" brought to life. And also the postman, Joseph Roulin, whose portrait is one of MoMA's treasures.
I was moved by the first part of the film where van Gogh goes to minister to the miners. He has nothing to say to them, but is willing to live with them and learn how to help them. This is true Christian love, but then his superiors come and claim that he is embarrassing their society by his behavior. Pure hypocrisy.
Anthony Quinn's portrayal of Gauguin was the best thing in the film for me. The scene when he arrives to live with van Gogh is wonderfully played. Van Gogh is dying for the presence of a "kindred spirit." Gauguin is his great hope, but turns out to be a great disappointment.
After the episode with Gauguin the film seems to go downhill. I have a feeling that the filmmakers rushed through the rest of van Gogh's story. The episode with Dr. Gachet was unsatisfying. I don't think that van Gogh's insanity or his seizures were satisfactorily explained.
I am not familiar with van Gogh's biography and I was left wondering what might have happened if he hadn't shot himself and had been able to stick it out for another ten years. I think he would have found more appreciation and more sales as those ten years passed. Would that appreciation have made his life more livable? I don't know.
I really believe that this film would have been a totally different experience if I had been able to see it in full color and with better sound.
It is impossible to form any real opinion about this film as it was shown in a print which was completely red. (There were actually a few spots of yellow, but not enough to warrant mention.) It was also difficult to hear and I couldn't get into it.
I suspect that a lush MGM production doesn't seem right for a film about Vincent van Gogh. That might be snobbish or elitist or something of that nature, but I do think that there is something jarring about this misfit, scorned throughout his life, being given the big Hollywood treatment.
I thought Kirk Douglas was mannered in his performance, but that might be because I found watching the film with no color to be irritating.
It was certainly a pleasure to see van Gogh painting his famous canvases. I particularly liked seeing "The Night Cafe" brought to life. And also the postman, Joseph Roulin, whose portrait is one of MoMA's treasures.
I was moved by the first part of the film where van Gogh goes to minister to the miners. He has nothing to say to them, but is willing to live with them and learn how to help them. This is true Christian love, but then his superiors come and claim that he is embarrassing their society by his behavior. Pure hypocrisy.
Anthony Quinn's portrayal of Gauguin was the best thing in the film for me. The scene when he arrives to live with van Gogh is wonderfully played. Van Gogh is dying for the presence of a "kindred spirit." Gauguin is his great hope, but turns out to be a great disappointment.
After the episode with Gauguin the film seems to go downhill. I have a feeling that the filmmakers rushed through the rest of van Gogh's story. The episode with Dr. Gachet was unsatisfying. I don't think that van Gogh's insanity or his seizures were satisfactorily explained.
I am not familiar with van Gogh's biography and I was left wondering what might have happened if he hadn't shot himself and had been able to stick it out for another ten years. I think he would have found more appreciation and more sales as those ten years passed. Would that appreciation have made his life more livable? I don't know.
I really believe that this film would have been a totally different experience if I had been able to see it in full color and with better sound.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The Garden of Allah. 1936. Directed by Richard Boleslawski.
(7/3/00)
This David O. Selznick production is a feast for the eyes. It is an early example of three-strip Technicolor and made very good use of it. It is mostly set in North Africa--Morocco and the desert. I was reminded that Morocco attracted painters like Matisse and Delacroix. There are beautiful scenes of caravans silhouetted against sunsets. And Marlene Dietrich wears such beautiful clothes.
The film has a very literate script. This is a highbrow production all the way. It is about a monl who flees the monastery and goes out into the real world. He falls in love with a woman and marries her, but is unhappy because he feels guilty. His terrible secret is finally brought to light and the man and the woman agree that they must give up their happiness and he must return to the monastery.
Charles Boyer is wonderful as the troubled man. He's especially affecting in an early scene where he goes to a club where an erotic entertainer dances for him. He guiltily looks away and then he doesn't realize that he is supposed to give her money. And he is so awkward and inexperienced in his courtship of Dietrich.
Marlene Dietrich seems as remote as a ststue some of the time. Especially in the early scenes at the convent. But she does come to life in places. C. Aubrey Smith is wonderful as the priest and it is nice to see Basil Rathbone around, though I'm not sure exactly who he was supposed to be in the story.
I didn't like the ending in which both characters give up their happiness. It just seems like this poor man was conned into monastic life before he really knew the score. But someone told me that the ending was necessitated by the Hayes office and that the way it was supposed to end showed them both happy and contented, especially the monk who had gone out and experienced the world and was satisfied. And moreover, they had a child.
I found it interesting that Dietrich is restless in the cosmopolitan centers of Europe and is advised to go out into the desert. Supposedly she is advised to go there to get away from the distraction of cities. But Morocco seems as much of a distracting place as Paris or London would be. And I also found it a little questionable that such a religious woman would want to have her future divined by a fortuneteller. The church disapproves of that in uncertain terms.
This David O. Selznick production is a feast for the eyes. It is an early example of three-strip Technicolor and made very good use of it. It is mostly set in North Africa--Morocco and the desert. I was reminded that Morocco attracted painters like Matisse and Delacroix. There are beautiful scenes of caravans silhouetted against sunsets. And Marlene Dietrich wears such beautiful clothes.
The film has a very literate script. This is a highbrow production all the way. It is about a monl who flees the monastery and goes out into the real world. He falls in love with a woman and marries her, but is unhappy because he feels guilty. His terrible secret is finally brought to light and the man and the woman agree that they must give up their happiness and he must return to the monastery.
Charles Boyer is wonderful as the troubled man. He's especially affecting in an early scene where he goes to a club where an erotic entertainer dances for him. He guiltily looks away and then he doesn't realize that he is supposed to give her money. And he is so awkward and inexperienced in his courtship of Dietrich.
Marlene Dietrich seems as remote as a ststue some of the time. Especially in the early scenes at the convent. But she does come to life in places. C. Aubrey Smith is wonderful as the priest and it is nice to see Basil Rathbone around, though I'm not sure exactly who he was supposed to be in the story.
I didn't like the ending in which both characters give up their happiness. It just seems like this poor man was conned into monastic life before he really knew the score. But someone told me that the ending was necessitated by the Hayes office and that the way it was supposed to end showed them both happy and contented, especially the monk who had gone out and experienced the world and was satisfied. And moreover, they had a child.
I found it interesting that Dietrich is restless in the cosmopolitan centers of Europe and is advised to go out into the desert. Supposedly she is advised to go there to get away from the distraction of cities. But Morocco seems as much of a distracting place as Paris or London would be. And I also found it a little questionable that such a religious woman would want to have her future divined by a fortuneteller. The church disapproves of that in uncertain terms.
Red Desert (Deserto rosso). 1964. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni.
(7/3/00)
Antonioni's work frankly looks pretentious today. At least this one does. He is famous for being "enigmatic," but that seems to be a nice word for coy. He gives you the impression that his film is about something important and has a meaning, but he's not telling you what. That's how a viewing of Red Desert felt this time around. It could be that my eyes hurt, that I just felt so out of it generally and that I don't have patience anymore. Or that I just don't know how to read a film like this--don't know what to look for.
All that said, I must say that the film held my interest for long stretches. It was pretty absorbing for the most part. I was impressed with the color cinematography. It is, for the most part, quite subdued in its impression of a stark, industrialized landscape. It is supposed to be a mirror of the main character's subjective states. So there is at least one scene where there is bright green grass and a whole seqence where the main character tells her son a story about a girl who lived in a kind of island paradise, which is full of bright, richly saturated color.
But why do we have this story about the young, tanned girl who swims around this beautiful blue water? What purpose does it serve? Just to show how drab the landscape the characters inhabit really is? I don't know.
The main character in the film is named Giuliana. When we first see her she is out with her small son. She asks a worker (or a striking worker) if he will sell her his half-eaten sandwhich. This tells us that she is obviously a disturbed woman. We later see her acting "disturbed"--cringing and doing other odd things. But she seems normal at other times.
She wants to open a shop in town. Her husband disapproves of this, especially since she isn't quite sure of what she wants to sell. When she is in the rooms that she plans to make into this shop she seems like a normal person. When she is talking to a workman who is above her in some sort of a structure she seems like a normal person. Giuliana seems to want to be a part of the world, be really involved with it. She seems to be trapped in a stagnating existence.
There is a mining engineer named Corrado to whom Giuliana is attracted. Her son becomes paralyzed--or so it seems. Then Giuliana sees him walking. She then goes to Corrado's hotel room and makes love with him. I interpret this to indicate that her son was faking the paralysis and thus betrayed her. Her infidelity was a reaction to this betrayal.
There are a lot of ships in this film. We see them constantly and in the story Giuliana tells her son about the girl that lived in a kind of paradise this girl swims out towards a ship with no people on it. (Made me think of the Flying Dutchman.) The ship then turns and sails off. I think it went back the way it came. Giuliana goes to a ship at night and meets a strange sailor who keeps saying, "I love you." He says it in English which makes me think that the words were devoid of meaning.
Why all these images of ships? My best guess is that the ships represent a desire to go somewhere, to move on. They represent a spiritual mobility as well as a physical one.
When Giuliana went to Corrado's hotel room, I was surprised at how patient he was with this woman who was starting to sound pretty tiresome. Later, she tells him that he hadn't helped her, either.
I don't know what to think of a scene in which several couples get together in a shack and seem about to embark on an orgy. The film cuts away in a familiar manner, suggesting that they really do have the orgy, but I can't think of any reason why Antonioni would allude to that Hollywood custom and he certainly could have shown us something if he had wished to. Giuliana later remarks that this egg (?) that she had consumed really did make her want to make love and in context that made me think that they did not.
After she has the encounter with Corrado the walls in his hotel room supposedly change from white to pink. I missed that.
At the end of the film Giuliana's son asks her if birds don't get poisoned flying through the smoke from the smokestacks. She answers that they have learned to go around it. Now, this obviously refers to her life and the need to adapt to the conditions she lives in. But we don't (or I didn't) see this policy being carried out in her own life. I don't see anything to indicate that she is learning to cope more effectively with the circumstances of her life. (Well, maybe that she asserts herself by having a sexual encounter which she initiates, but that is certainly arguable.) Maybe it is that she has an insight which will be reflected in her behavior in the future. Once again, I don't know.
It is hard to even remember what happens in Red Desert. It sort of lulls you into a state and you participate, but at the end you find you don't remember the details very clearly. A lot of it went by me without me understanding it. But I certainly didn't find it as inaccessible as Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend. I do wish that I could get deeper into this one.
Antonioni's work frankly looks pretentious today. At least this one does. He is famous for being "enigmatic," but that seems to be a nice word for coy. He gives you the impression that his film is about something important and has a meaning, but he's not telling you what. That's how a viewing of Red Desert felt this time around. It could be that my eyes hurt, that I just felt so out of it generally and that I don't have patience anymore. Or that I just don't know how to read a film like this--don't know what to look for.
All that said, I must say that the film held my interest for long stretches. It was pretty absorbing for the most part. I was impressed with the color cinematography. It is, for the most part, quite subdued in its impression of a stark, industrialized landscape. It is supposed to be a mirror of the main character's subjective states. So there is at least one scene where there is bright green grass and a whole seqence where the main character tells her son a story about a girl who lived in a kind of island paradise, which is full of bright, richly saturated color.
But why do we have this story about the young, tanned girl who swims around this beautiful blue water? What purpose does it serve? Just to show how drab the landscape the characters inhabit really is? I don't know.
The main character in the film is named Giuliana. When we first see her she is out with her small son. She asks a worker (or a striking worker) if he will sell her his half-eaten sandwhich. This tells us that she is obviously a disturbed woman. We later see her acting "disturbed"--cringing and doing other odd things. But she seems normal at other times.
She wants to open a shop in town. Her husband disapproves of this, especially since she isn't quite sure of what she wants to sell. When she is in the rooms that she plans to make into this shop she seems like a normal person. When she is talking to a workman who is above her in some sort of a structure she seems like a normal person. Giuliana seems to want to be a part of the world, be really involved with it. She seems to be trapped in a stagnating existence.
There is a mining engineer named Corrado to whom Giuliana is attracted. Her son becomes paralyzed--or so it seems. Then Giuliana sees him walking. She then goes to Corrado's hotel room and makes love with him. I interpret this to indicate that her son was faking the paralysis and thus betrayed her. Her infidelity was a reaction to this betrayal.
There are a lot of ships in this film. We see them constantly and in the story Giuliana tells her son about the girl that lived in a kind of paradise this girl swims out towards a ship with no people on it. (Made me think of the Flying Dutchman.) The ship then turns and sails off. I think it went back the way it came. Giuliana goes to a ship at night and meets a strange sailor who keeps saying, "I love you." He says it in English which makes me think that the words were devoid of meaning.
Why all these images of ships? My best guess is that the ships represent a desire to go somewhere, to move on. They represent a spiritual mobility as well as a physical one.
When Giuliana went to Corrado's hotel room, I was surprised at how patient he was with this woman who was starting to sound pretty tiresome. Later, she tells him that he hadn't helped her, either.
I don't know what to think of a scene in which several couples get together in a shack and seem about to embark on an orgy. The film cuts away in a familiar manner, suggesting that they really do have the orgy, but I can't think of any reason why Antonioni would allude to that Hollywood custom and he certainly could have shown us something if he had wished to. Giuliana later remarks that this egg (?) that she had consumed really did make her want to make love and in context that made me think that they did not.
After she has the encounter with Corrado the walls in his hotel room supposedly change from white to pink. I missed that.
At the end of the film Giuliana's son asks her if birds don't get poisoned flying through the smoke from the smokestacks. She answers that they have learned to go around it. Now, this obviously refers to her life and the need to adapt to the conditions she lives in. But we don't (or I didn't) see this policy being carried out in her own life. I don't see anything to indicate that she is learning to cope more effectively with the circumstances of her life. (Well, maybe that she asserts herself by having a sexual encounter which she initiates, but that is certainly arguable.) Maybe it is that she has an insight which will be reflected in her behavior in the future. Once again, I don't know.
It is hard to even remember what happens in Red Desert. It sort of lulls you into a state and you participate, but at the end you find you don't remember the details very clearly. A lot of it went by me without me understanding it. But I certainly didn't find it as inaccessible as Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend. I do wish that I could get deeper into this one.
8-1/2. 1963. Directed by Federico Fellini.
(6/30/00)
Around 1963 8-1/2 was considered the epitome of the "art film." I wasn't in the mood for it--or perhaps I wasn't prepared--but it took me a very long time to get interested in it. And when I did get interested it only came alive for me in fits and starts.
It's about a movie director who seems to not be interested in the film he is to make. It is about his fantasies. It is very difficult to tell where real life leaves off and the fantasies commence. He is trapped with a lot of people he cannot relate to--or so it seems. People arte always mking demands on him. At the end he decides to give up and not make the film after all and the film ends with a fantasy of unity and acceptance in which he joins in a dance with the others.
I found the director's interaction with his wife interesting. She phones him and has him invite her to come to where he is working. This seems to be her wish, yet she accuses him of always being the one who pursues her. I couldn't figure out if he was actually unfaithful, but there is a strong sense of marital strife.
There is some wonderful stuff about the Catholic Church, especially a scene with a cardinal in a steam bath--a shrivelled-up little man who nonetheless wields power. Fellini really shows up the power and arrogance of the church.
There is a great memory or fantasy about the protagonist as a child, going with his friends to visit the prostitute Sagharina and paying her a few coins to dance the rhumba. The fat Sagharina is a wonderful figure, one who reappears elsewhere in the film.
There is a very memorable scene where the director has a fantasy about lording it over some women who constitute a kind of harem and cater to his every whim. But as they get old they are banished to the upstairs. This fantasy contrasts vividly with the reality of nagging, demanding women that he has to put up with.
Towards the end there is a scene where the director has to look at screen tests of people who want to play the parts of some of the figures from his life. That was an interesting scene and it pointed up thye fact that what he wanted to make was really about his own life.
Then there was an interesting unfinished set for a spaceship or something. Whatever it was, it didn't seem to fit in with the serious (or pretentious) nature of the film he aspired to make. It is at this set that the director appears, dogged by everyone, at a sort of press conference at which he announces that he is not going to make the picture. That is a very intense scene.
I didn't get very far with 8-1/2. I really didn't connect with it to any extent. And I didn't find Marcello Mastroianni so interesting, either. Perhaps another time.
Around 1963 8-1/2 was considered the epitome of the "art film." I wasn't in the mood for it--or perhaps I wasn't prepared--but it took me a very long time to get interested in it. And when I did get interested it only came alive for me in fits and starts.
It's about a movie director who seems to not be interested in the film he is to make. It is about his fantasies. It is very difficult to tell where real life leaves off and the fantasies commence. He is trapped with a lot of people he cannot relate to--or so it seems. People arte always mking demands on him. At the end he decides to give up and not make the film after all and the film ends with a fantasy of unity and acceptance in which he joins in a dance with the others.
I found the director's interaction with his wife interesting. She phones him and has him invite her to come to where he is working. This seems to be her wish, yet she accuses him of always being the one who pursues her. I couldn't figure out if he was actually unfaithful, but there is a strong sense of marital strife.
There is some wonderful stuff about the Catholic Church, especially a scene with a cardinal in a steam bath--a shrivelled-up little man who nonetheless wields power. Fellini really shows up the power and arrogance of the church.
There is a great memory or fantasy about the protagonist as a child, going with his friends to visit the prostitute Sagharina and paying her a few coins to dance the rhumba. The fat Sagharina is a wonderful figure, one who reappears elsewhere in the film.
There is a very memorable scene where the director has a fantasy about lording it over some women who constitute a kind of harem and cater to his every whim. But as they get old they are banished to the upstairs. This fantasy contrasts vividly with the reality of nagging, demanding women that he has to put up with.
Towards the end there is a scene where the director has to look at screen tests of people who want to play the parts of some of the figures from his life. That was an interesting scene and it pointed up thye fact that what he wanted to make was really about his own life.
Then there was an interesting unfinished set for a spaceship or something. Whatever it was, it didn't seem to fit in with the serious (or pretentious) nature of the film he aspired to make. It is at this set that the director appears, dogged by everyone, at a sort of press conference at which he announces that he is not going to make the picture. That is a very intense scene.
I didn't get very far with 8-1/2. I really didn't connect with it to any extent. And I didn't find Marcello Mastroianni so interesting, either. Perhaps another time.
The Smiling Lieutenant. 1931. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
(6/22/00)
This was another film I saw at a disadvantage. In this case it was an English-language film with Danish subtitles. That wasn't so much a problem by itself, but there were shots of written material in the film--a bill, newspaper headlines, letters--and these were translated into Danish.
It's a Viennese operetta with next to no songs. Maurice Chevalier sings a song about life in the army at the beginning and end of the film. He is in his pajamas and looks completely ridiculous. Throughout the rest of the picture he is his usual beguiling self.
The smiling lieutenant wins the heart of a pretty violinist. While appearing with other officers as the King and Princess of Flausenthum drive by he smiles and winks at his beloved. The princess thinks he has winked at her and wants him reprimanded for the insult.
The lieutenant is called on the carpet. He cannot tell the truth because to the military his behavior is inexcusable. He attempts to flatter the princess, telling her how beautiful and enchanting she is and that he forgot himself. The next thing he knows he is engaged to her. And it is fun seeing this smooth operator hoisted on his own petard.
Lubitsch has aimed his barbs squarely at pretension and pettiness. The whole business of the insult is much ado about nothing. The Flausenthum royalty seems to be just looking for things to take offense at.
And Chevalier is roped into a marriage with Miriam Hopkins as the princess. But he has no intention of consummating it. My heart went out to the princess because even with all her faults she did not knowingly force this man into marriage against his will. She doesn't deserve to be humiliated. And I like the father, too, who comes into the bedroom to comfort his daughter with a game of checkers.
Chevalier comes off as mean-spirited in tjhese scenes. His crankiness is understandable if not completely justified. He doesn't like the sausage (?) offered to him at breakfast the next morning and is really unpleasant about it.
But his mood changes when his beloved Franzi shows up. He appears to have an affair with her and his whole disposition changes as he enjoys "stepping out," looking even more dashing than usual in a straw hat. But the princess is no fool and figures out what is going on. She has Franzi brought to her.
The finale is surprising and frankly disturbing. Perhaps Lubitsch hits a little too close to home here. Franzi and the princess take to each other and Franzi shows her how to remake herself so as to capture her husband's interest. The violinist gives up the man she loved who is delighted to be married to the princess now that she has adopted a sexy new style.
It is a very un-romantic ending, to say the least. "Love" seems to be nothing more than a response to wearing the right kind of underwear and playing the right kind of music on the piano. And smoking cigarettes. Love is just a response to external factors. This is kind of similar to Ross Jeffries' claims ("There's no such thing as love--love is merely a state which can be installed.") At any rate, it is strange and provocative to see an ending like this in a Hollywood movie of 1931.
I was very much impressed with the elegant decor. It is certainly a stylish-looking film..
This was another film I saw at a disadvantage. In this case it was an English-language film with Danish subtitles. That wasn't so much a problem by itself, but there were shots of written material in the film--a bill, newspaper headlines, letters--and these were translated into Danish.
It's a Viennese operetta with next to no songs. Maurice Chevalier sings a song about life in the army at the beginning and end of the film. He is in his pajamas and looks completely ridiculous. Throughout the rest of the picture he is his usual beguiling self.
The smiling lieutenant wins the heart of a pretty violinist. While appearing with other officers as the King and Princess of Flausenthum drive by he smiles and winks at his beloved. The princess thinks he has winked at her and wants him reprimanded for the insult.
The lieutenant is called on the carpet. He cannot tell the truth because to the military his behavior is inexcusable. He attempts to flatter the princess, telling her how beautiful and enchanting she is and that he forgot himself. The next thing he knows he is engaged to her. And it is fun seeing this smooth operator hoisted on his own petard.
Lubitsch has aimed his barbs squarely at pretension and pettiness. The whole business of the insult is much ado about nothing. The Flausenthum royalty seems to be just looking for things to take offense at.
And Chevalier is roped into a marriage with Miriam Hopkins as the princess. But he has no intention of consummating it. My heart went out to the princess because even with all her faults she did not knowingly force this man into marriage against his will. She doesn't deserve to be humiliated. And I like the father, too, who comes into the bedroom to comfort his daughter with a game of checkers.
Chevalier comes off as mean-spirited in tjhese scenes. His crankiness is understandable if not completely justified. He doesn't like the sausage (?) offered to him at breakfast the next morning and is really unpleasant about it.
But his mood changes when his beloved Franzi shows up. He appears to have an affair with her and his whole disposition changes as he enjoys "stepping out," looking even more dashing than usual in a straw hat. But the princess is no fool and figures out what is going on. She has Franzi brought to her.
The finale is surprising and frankly disturbing. Perhaps Lubitsch hits a little too close to home here. Franzi and the princess take to each other and Franzi shows her how to remake herself so as to capture her husband's interest. The violinist gives up the man she loved who is delighted to be married to the princess now that she has adopted a sexy new style.
It is a very un-romantic ending, to say the least. "Love" seems to be nothing more than a response to wearing the right kind of underwear and playing the right kind of music on the piano. And smoking cigarettes. Love is just a response to external factors. This is kind of similar to Ross Jeffries' claims ("There's no such thing as love--love is merely a state which can be installed.") At any rate, it is strange and provocative to see an ending like this in a Hollywood movie of 1931.
I was very much impressed with the elegant decor. It is certainly a stylish-looking film..
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Love Parade. 1929. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
(6/20/00)
"All the world loves a lover." I think that's how the saying goes and that's how things go in Lubitsch's The Love Parade. Maurice Chevalier plays a shameless rascal who is to be chastised by the queen. She reads a report of his scandalous adventures, excuses herself and runs to put on some makeup to make herself more attractive.
Lubitsch's first film with sound is a delight, chock full of wit and verve. It opens in Paris where Chevalier's jealous lover threatens him with a gun. When her husband appears she shoots herself and collapses on the floor. The husband picks it up and shoots Chevalier--but nothing happens. It is a fake gun and the wife is still very much alive. Chevalier shrugs and places it in a drawer full of (presumably all fake) guns.
Chevalier and Jeannette MacDonald play marvelously together. Their scenes together are delightful. Less so are the scenes between his valet and her maid. Their footage becomes tiresome. But Chevalier and MacDonald are stars and there is chemistry between them.
And Chevalier is not a Frenchman! He sure sounds like one, but he is from a country called Sylvania. He explains to someone how he got his French accent and Lubitsch films part of the scene from outside the window. We don't hear it all, but are returned for the punch line.
MacDonald is the queen of Sylvania. Her ministers want her to marry, but she doesn't want to. And with good reason, as we find out when she does marry Chevalier. The husband is merely a consort with nothing to do all day. This creates a conflict which Chevalier (and Lubitsch) resolve with wit and style.
The consort is supposed to accompany the queen to the opera and look happy. A big loan to the country rides on this. He refuses, but then does show up. But MacDonals needs him so he actually holds the power and can annoy the hell out of her by watching a pretty ballerina through binoculars.
By the end of the film Chevalier has turned the tables on her and replayed a scene they did before where she has to punish him for his scandalous behavior. They tame each other.
The musical score is servicable, nothing more. It's an enjoyable romp with a couple of dull stretches--but it might have been that my eyes were hurting and I didn't enjoy it all as much as I would have otherwise.
"All the world loves a lover." I think that's how the saying goes and that's how things go in Lubitsch's The Love Parade. Maurice Chevalier plays a shameless rascal who is to be chastised by the queen. She reads a report of his scandalous adventures, excuses herself and runs to put on some makeup to make herself more attractive.
Lubitsch's first film with sound is a delight, chock full of wit and verve. It opens in Paris where Chevalier's jealous lover threatens him with a gun. When her husband appears she shoots herself and collapses on the floor. The husband picks it up and shoots Chevalier--but nothing happens. It is a fake gun and the wife is still very much alive. Chevalier shrugs and places it in a drawer full of (presumably all fake) guns.
Chevalier and Jeannette MacDonald play marvelously together. Their scenes together are delightful. Less so are the scenes between his valet and her maid. Their footage becomes tiresome. But Chevalier and MacDonald are stars and there is chemistry between them.
And Chevalier is not a Frenchman! He sure sounds like one, but he is from a country called Sylvania. He explains to someone how he got his French accent and Lubitsch films part of the scene from outside the window. We don't hear it all, but are returned for the punch line.
MacDonald is the queen of Sylvania. Her ministers want her to marry, but she doesn't want to. And with good reason, as we find out when she does marry Chevalier. The husband is merely a consort with nothing to do all day. This creates a conflict which Chevalier (and Lubitsch) resolve with wit and style.
The consort is supposed to accompany the queen to the opera and look happy. A big loan to the country rides on this. He refuses, but then does show up. But MacDonals needs him so he actually holds the power and can annoy the hell out of her by watching a pretty ballerina through binoculars.
By the end of the film Chevalier has turned the tables on her and replayed a scene they did before where she has to punish him for his scandalous behavior. They tame each other.
The musical score is servicable, nothing more. It's an enjoyable romp with a couple of dull stretches--but it might have been that my eyes were hurting and I didn't enjoy it all as much as I would have otherwise.
Madchen in Uniform. 1931. Directed by Leontine Sagan.
(6/20/00)
The uniforms look like prison uniforms. (they have stripes.) It is a German boarding school for girls run by a Prussian headmistress who believes that hunger is good for the girls--builds character. The girls are not allowed to send letters to people on the outside unless they have been approved. Letter-writing in general is frowned upon.
Into this environment comes Manuela, a 14-year-old girl whose mother is dead. (I'm not sure of the exact details of her family situation.) She is high-strung and starved for affection and develops a crush on an attractive female teacher who has treated her with compassion. Now, this is perfectly normal as far as I can see. But I suppose it must have been quite shocking to see such an attachment played out on a movie screen in the early 1930s--even in Europe. But I don't think that this girl is a lesbian and I don't think it would have happened if there had been boys around.
Fraulein von Bernburg, the teacher, is another matter. Before we see her we hear about her and we hear that other girls have developed crushes on her. And in one scene we see her kiss a girl on the mouth, which I suspect is a little bit beyond the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Fraulein von Berburg could indeed be a lesbian. I might even suspect that she is a sexual predator except that she always seems a compassionate and responsible person.
Herthe Thiele shines as Manuela. She is incandescent as the emotionally-startved 14-year-old. She looks particularly lovely dressed as a boy in a school performance of Schiller's Don Carlos. And she carries off the climactic scenes beautifully.
When the girls put on a play for the other students and invited guests someone spikes the punch. Under the influence--and also in the excitement that naturally follows a school performance--she makes a speech in which she acknowledges her feelings for Fraulein von Benburg and also the gift of a chemise. And--of course!--the powers that be overreact. And Manuela becomes so upset that she nearly commits suicide by jumping from the top of a long stairwell, but she is rescued by her peers.
Discipline is a very important thing to learn when one is young. So it is not necessarily a bad thing that the school is strict and I am not so quick to think of Frau Oberin, the principal or headmistress, as a villain. She wants to build strong, disciplined women and that's not necessarily a bad intent. However, the spartan rations and what amounts to a gag order suggest a repressive atmosphere. Above all, Frau Oberin doesn't seem to have the perspective to handle a crisis--or to keep a trivial incident from becoming one. She just doesn't have the understanding to cope with the needs of adolescent girls. The one who does has to resign.
It wasn't Manuela's fault that someone spiked the punch and got her drunk.
Frau Oberin cuts an impressive figure, stalking the halls with her cane. Her assistant, Fraulein von Kester, is an obsequeous toady. I liked it that the climactic scene on the stairwell was anticipated by several shots of it earlier in the film.
The uniforms look like prison uniforms. (they have stripes.) It is a German boarding school for girls run by a Prussian headmistress who believes that hunger is good for the girls--builds character. The girls are not allowed to send letters to people on the outside unless they have been approved. Letter-writing in general is frowned upon.
Into this environment comes Manuela, a 14-year-old girl whose mother is dead. (I'm not sure of the exact details of her family situation.) She is high-strung and starved for affection and develops a crush on an attractive female teacher who has treated her with compassion. Now, this is perfectly normal as far as I can see. But I suppose it must have been quite shocking to see such an attachment played out on a movie screen in the early 1930s--even in Europe. But I don't think that this girl is a lesbian and I don't think it would have happened if there had been boys around.
Fraulein von Bernburg, the teacher, is another matter. Before we see her we hear about her and we hear that other girls have developed crushes on her. And in one scene we see her kiss a girl on the mouth, which I suspect is a little bit beyond the boundaries of acceptable behavior. Fraulein von Berburg could indeed be a lesbian. I might even suspect that she is a sexual predator except that she always seems a compassionate and responsible person.
Herthe Thiele shines as Manuela. She is incandescent as the emotionally-startved 14-year-old. She looks particularly lovely dressed as a boy in a school performance of Schiller's Don Carlos. And she carries off the climactic scenes beautifully.
When the girls put on a play for the other students and invited guests someone spikes the punch. Under the influence--and also in the excitement that naturally follows a school performance--she makes a speech in which she acknowledges her feelings for Fraulein von Benburg and also the gift of a chemise. And--of course!--the powers that be overreact. And Manuela becomes so upset that she nearly commits suicide by jumping from the top of a long stairwell, but she is rescued by her peers.
Discipline is a very important thing to learn when one is young. So it is not necessarily a bad thing that the school is strict and I am not so quick to think of Frau Oberin, the principal or headmistress, as a villain. She wants to build strong, disciplined women and that's not necessarily a bad intent. However, the spartan rations and what amounts to a gag order suggest a repressive atmosphere. Above all, Frau Oberin doesn't seem to have the perspective to handle a crisis--or to keep a trivial incident from becoming one. She just doesn't have the understanding to cope with the needs of adolescent girls. The one who does has to resign.
It wasn't Manuela's fault that someone spiked the punch and got her drunk.
Frau Oberin cuts an impressive figure, stalking the halls with her cane. Her assistant, Fraulein von Kester, is an obsequeous toady. I liked it that the climactic scene on the stairwell was anticipated by several shots of it earlier in the film.
King Kong. 1933. Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper.
(6/18/00)
This is the first time I have ever seen King Kong in a theatrical setting--the way it was meant to be seen. It is a film that certainly seems to be symbolic. It practically cries out for interpretation. What is this tale really all about?
It starts out with the written words of a proverb about how the beast looked at beauty and would fight no more and was from that moment on as one dead. This proverb could be real or fictitious, but it tells us from the outset that the encounter with beauty is a dangerous one. And then we meet Carl Denham, a showman who wants to take a young woman out to an uncharted island inhabited by a giant creature and make a film on the subject of "beauty and the beast." Why? Why is this subject of such interest to him?
On the voyage he warns Jack, a tough sailor man, how guys go soft when they get taken with women--and that is exactly what happens. When Jack decides he loves Ann he starts gushing all over her like a kid.
Then Denham uses Ann as bait to capture and shackle the beast. It almost doesn't work for Kong breaks loose. But he is brought down by airplanes and Denham declaims, "It was beauty killed the beast" in a way that suggests the he finds some pleasure, some satisfaction in this. Again, the question is, "Why?"
Denham himself is not soft. He pursues his goal with single-minded determination. He uses people to get what he wants. Some of them die. I find it particularly disturbing that he enlists Ann in this project without making it clear to her how dangerous it is and that she is risking her life. And he shows absolutely no sexual interest in her. Denham is determined to protect himself from the fate that befalls Kong.
The movie crew travels to an island. There is a native village which is cut off from the rest of the island by a huge wall. Beyond that wall are monsters--mostly of the prehistoric variety. It is easy to see the part of the island beyond the wall as the subconscious. In there are primordial forces that man must protect himself from.
When Denham and his crew venture beyond the wall I had a strong feeling that they had no business going in tere. They are invaders and totally outmatched except for one thing--their weapons. They only prevail through technology and it is by technology that Kong is defeated.
Ann is retrieved from danger beyond the wall and Denham announces his plan to use her as bait to capture Kong. And then something fascinating happens--Kong breaks through the wall. It is an image of the barriers that protect us from our unconscious demons being broken down. But he breaks through only to be captured.
Kong is captured and brought to New York City where he breaks through his chains and runs amok. The very act of bringing him there seems a desecration or violation. This monster from a primitive land certainly seems frightening climbing the buildings of New York and he certainly does a lot of damage. But he is helpless, he is trapped against airplanes armed with guns.
Kong seems a terrible monster, but he has been brought there against his will. He didn't decide on his own to come and go on a rampage in the streets of New York. He is confused and bewildered. Perhaps by rendering Kong helpless and destroying him Car Denham hoped to destroy the beast within his own subconscious.
That ape sure has personality and that is one of the things that makes this film a classic. Kong is an animated character, but he is very vividly realized. He is tender with Ann and ready and able to protect his treasure from those other creatures that would seize it. He is--in his way--loving and appreciative and it is sad to hear Ann's screams, warranted though they are. Kong is full of love and tenderness towards Ann, but all he is--and all he ever can be--is a monster. It is doubtful whether she will ever be aware of that tender feeling. Neither Ann nor Jack nor Denham ever really "see" Kong.
Photographically, the film has a very old-fashioned look to it. I am not sure if that describes it accurately. It has, at least, a distinctive visual quality. And it takes a long time building to the entrance of Kong. That is very effective. The special effects, meticulous as they are, do not persuade me. It is obvious that these are mechanical creatures. I can't imagine how audiences in 1933 reacted to them.
Nonetheless, the film has really gripping moments. One is when a man on a tree branch is eaten (or attacked) by a prehistoric monster. Another is when Kong crushes humans underfoot as if they were ants or small insects. But what really got to me the most was the native girl who was slated to be the bride of Kong. We see her in the midst of a native ceremony and she looks so terrified and helpless.
On the other hand, I wasn't particularly grabbed by the moment when Kong undresses Ann. At least, not this time around. And all that stuff in the jungle with the animated monsters didn't interest me that much. The climax on the Empire State Building was interesting to watch, but I knew it well enough so that I wasn't involved. But I do acknowledge that it was a hightly imaginative scene and a striking image of the primordial in conflictwith civilization.
This is the first time I have ever seen King Kong in a theatrical setting--the way it was meant to be seen. It is a film that certainly seems to be symbolic. It practically cries out for interpretation. What is this tale really all about?
It starts out with the written words of a proverb about how the beast looked at beauty and would fight no more and was from that moment on as one dead. This proverb could be real or fictitious, but it tells us from the outset that the encounter with beauty is a dangerous one. And then we meet Carl Denham, a showman who wants to take a young woman out to an uncharted island inhabited by a giant creature and make a film on the subject of "beauty and the beast." Why? Why is this subject of such interest to him?
On the voyage he warns Jack, a tough sailor man, how guys go soft when they get taken with women--and that is exactly what happens. When Jack decides he loves Ann he starts gushing all over her like a kid.
Then Denham uses Ann as bait to capture and shackle the beast. It almost doesn't work for Kong breaks loose. But he is brought down by airplanes and Denham declaims, "It was beauty killed the beast" in a way that suggests the he finds some pleasure, some satisfaction in this. Again, the question is, "Why?"
Denham himself is not soft. He pursues his goal with single-minded determination. He uses people to get what he wants. Some of them die. I find it particularly disturbing that he enlists Ann in this project without making it clear to her how dangerous it is and that she is risking her life. And he shows absolutely no sexual interest in her. Denham is determined to protect himself from the fate that befalls Kong.
The movie crew travels to an island. There is a native village which is cut off from the rest of the island by a huge wall. Beyond that wall are monsters--mostly of the prehistoric variety. It is easy to see the part of the island beyond the wall as the subconscious. In there are primordial forces that man must protect himself from.
When Denham and his crew venture beyond the wall I had a strong feeling that they had no business going in tere. They are invaders and totally outmatched except for one thing--their weapons. They only prevail through technology and it is by technology that Kong is defeated.
Ann is retrieved from danger beyond the wall and Denham announces his plan to use her as bait to capture Kong. And then something fascinating happens--Kong breaks through the wall. It is an image of the barriers that protect us from our unconscious demons being broken down. But he breaks through only to be captured.
Kong is captured and brought to New York City where he breaks through his chains and runs amok. The very act of bringing him there seems a desecration or violation. This monster from a primitive land certainly seems frightening climbing the buildings of New York and he certainly does a lot of damage. But he is helpless, he is trapped against airplanes armed with guns.
Kong seems a terrible monster, but he has been brought there against his will. He didn't decide on his own to come and go on a rampage in the streets of New York. He is confused and bewildered. Perhaps by rendering Kong helpless and destroying him Car Denham hoped to destroy the beast within his own subconscious.
That ape sure has personality and that is one of the things that makes this film a classic. Kong is an animated character, but he is very vividly realized. He is tender with Ann and ready and able to protect his treasure from those other creatures that would seize it. He is--in his way--loving and appreciative and it is sad to hear Ann's screams, warranted though they are. Kong is full of love and tenderness towards Ann, but all he is--and all he ever can be--is a monster. It is doubtful whether she will ever be aware of that tender feeling. Neither Ann nor Jack nor Denham ever really "see" Kong.
Photographically, the film has a very old-fashioned look to it. I am not sure if that describes it accurately. It has, at least, a distinctive visual quality. And it takes a long time building to the entrance of Kong. That is very effective. The special effects, meticulous as they are, do not persuade me. It is obvious that these are mechanical creatures. I can't imagine how audiences in 1933 reacted to them.
Nonetheless, the film has really gripping moments. One is when a man on a tree branch is eaten (or attacked) by a prehistoric monster. Another is when Kong crushes humans underfoot as if they were ants or small insects. But what really got to me the most was the native girl who was slated to be the bride of Kong. We see her in the midst of a native ceremony and she looks so terrified and helpless.
On the other hand, I wasn't particularly grabbed by the moment when Kong undresses Ann. At least, not this time around. And all that stuff in the jungle with the animated monsters didn't interest me that much. The climax on the Empire State Building was interesting to watch, but I knew it well enough so that I wasn't involved. But I do acknowledge that it was a hightly imaginative scene and a striking image of the primordial in conflictwith civilization.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Hitlerjunge Quex. 1933. Directed by Hans Steinhoff.
(6/13/00)
This film was shown without subtitles. During the first part of it explanatory intertitles were inserted explaining the propaganda techniques involved and also explaining some of the story. These titles constantly interrupted the film, although they did provide information that made following it somewhat easier.
This film is a curio, interesting mainly for the fact that it is a Nazi propaganda film and that the study of it can shed some light on how ther German people were brainwashed. As a film it didn't look very interesting although it did come alive somewhat as it got going. It is really difficult to have anything to say about it when it was shown without subtitles.
The film is about a boy named Heini who has to choose between the Communists and the Nazis. The Communists definitely had the sexier girls. In fact, I think that the sexy Communist girl Geida was the best thing in the movie.
The Communists were more interested in food and sex and generally seemed more fun than the Nazis. But the Nazis did offer pagentry and uniforms and, I suppose, a sense of power. But it was hard for me to understand Heini's allegiance to the Nazis.
His interest in Nazism causes a rift between Heini and his family. There is one memorable moment when Heini's father forces him to sing the "Internazione," a patriotic song. Or mouth the words while the father sings. There is an interesting shot when we see Heini's lips moving but hear his father's voice.
Things between Heini and his family become really bad. His mother tries to kill both him and herself withgas. She only succeeds in killing herself. Heini is somehow rescued and wakes up in the hospital. Not knowing that his mother is dead, he is greeted by his new Nazi comrades who give him the great gift of his own uniform.
The father didn't make much of an impression on me in the film until one scene where he talks with Heini and looks so sad and pathetic. The father comes to visit Heini in the hospital at the time that a Nazi leader comes. There is a vivid contrast between the two characters. The Nazi leader is dynamic and confident, the father is passive and unsure of himself. The two men have a discussion in which the Nazi obviously outshines the other.
The Communists intend to break up a Nazi meeting with violence. There is an interesting shot of them gathering in the street, preparing to strike. There is also an interesting scene where Heini is sent to get two glasses of beer. He meets the Communist leader on the way back who talks to and delays the unwilling lad. The two glasses of beer, in constant danger of being spilled, add an interesting note of visual tension to the scene.
There seems to be a battle over distributing handbills and the Communists chase Heini to the fairground where they kill him. The fairground seems to be associated with the Communists. His death takes place offscreen--I think we hear him scream or something--but it is very abrupt and doesn't have much impact. It didn't have much impact on me, anyway.
It didn't strike me as a particularly interesting movie. The characters and situations didn't engage my interest to any extent, nor was there more than mild visual interest. The film is nevertheless of interest as an historical artifact and I would welcome the chance to see it in a print with subtitles and without the inserted intertitles, much as I would like to understand the propaganda content.
This film was shown without subtitles. During the first part of it explanatory intertitles were inserted explaining the propaganda techniques involved and also explaining some of the story. These titles constantly interrupted the film, although they did provide information that made following it somewhat easier.
This film is a curio, interesting mainly for the fact that it is a Nazi propaganda film and that the study of it can shed some light on how ther German people were brainwashed. As a film it didn't look very interesting although it did come alive somewhat as it got going. It is really difficult to have anything to say about it when it was shown without subtitles.
The film is about a boy named Heini who has to choose between the Communists and the Nazis. The Communists definitely had the sexier girls. In fact, I think that the sexy Communist girl Geida was the best thing in the movie.
The Communists were more interested in food and sex and generally seemed more fun than the Nazis. But the Nazis did offer pagentry and uniforms and, I suppose, a sense of power. But it was hard for me to understand Heini's allegiance to the Nazis.
His interest in Nazism causes a rift between Heini and his family. There is one memorable moment when Heini's father forces him to sing the "Internazione," a patriotic song. Or mouth the words while the father sings. There is an interesting shot when we see Heini's lips moving but hear his father's voice.
Things between Heini and his family become really bad. His mother tries to kill both him and herself withgas. She only succeeds in killing herself. Heini is somehow rescued and wakes up in the hospital. Not knowing that his mother is dead, he is greeted by his new Nazi comrades who give him the great gift of his own uniform.
The father didn't make much of an impression on me in the film until one scene where he talks with Heini and looks so sad and pathetic. The father comes to visit Heini in the hospital at the time that a Nazi leader comes. There is a vivid contrast between the two characters. The Nazi leader is dynamic and confident, the father is passive and unsure of himself. The two men have a discussion in which the Nazi obviously outshines the other.
The Communists intend to break up a Nazi meeting with violence. There is an interesting shot of them gathering in the street, preparing to strike. There is also an interesting scene where Heini is sent to get two glasses of beer. He meets the Communist leader on the way back who talks to and delays the unwilling lad. The two glasses of beer, in constant danger of being spilled, add an interesting note of visual tension to the scene.
There seems to be a battle over distributing handbills and the Communists chase Heini to the fairground where they kill him. The fairground seems to be associated with the Communists. His death takes place offscreen--I think we hear him scream or something--but it is very abrupt and doesn't have much impact. It didn't have much impact on me, anyway.
It didn't strike me as a particularly interesting movie. The characters and situations didn't engage my interest to any extent, nor was there more than mild visual interest. The film is nevertheless of interest as an historical artifact and I would welcome the chance to see it in a print with subtitles and without the inserted intertitles, much as I would like to understand the propaganda content.
Friday, February 12, 2010
The Man I Killed. 1932. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
(6/8/00-6/13/00)
Alida Walsh used to rave about this movie. She called it one of the greatest anti-war pictures ever made. Finally seeing it after all these years I have to agree that it is undeniably a classic. In fact, my immediate feeling is that it makes the rest of Lubitsch's work look trivial, though I suspect that is merely the enthusiasm of the moment.
It is a film about the effect of war on the people who endure it. A young man has killed another man in the trenches. He can't get over his guilt and a visit to a priest doesn't help much. By chance he has learned the name and address of the man he killed and decides to go and ask his family for forgiveness. Through a fluke (that he was seen putting flowers on the dead man's grave) he is mistaken for a friend of the dead man and the mother, the father and the man's fiancee take him to their hearts and he can't bring himself to tell them the truth. The fiancee comes to love him and he decides that the only thing he can do is leave. He admits the horrible truth to the fiancee who persuades him to remain for the sake of the parents of the man he killed, but to never reveal the truth to them.
This is a truly painful movie to watch. It is brightened with touches of humor, but it is played out in a series of wonderful moments. It is definitely the work of a master.
The film begins with a powerful condemnation of war. (I first saw this included in a compilation of "great editing sequences.") It is a year after the signing of the armistice that ended World War I. They are celebrating the event in Paris with a lot of festivity. And suddenly we are watching a parade from behind a man with one leg. A cannon goes off in celebration and we cut to a hospital where a man sits up in bed and screams at the sound of the cannon.
And then we are in church. And we see old men decked out in regalia. It is the old who are celebrating.
The mass ends and we meet the young man Paul. He approaches a priest to confess murder. But as it turns out the "murder" was killing a German soldier in the trenches--an event which haunts him terribly. The priest is uncomfortable and has very little solace to offer him. He tells the young man that there is no need to feel guilty--he was only doing his duty.
The priest is well-intentioned, but there is really no answer that he can give Paul. Organized religion is part of the establishment and basically must support the idea that killing in battle is all right, is actually one's "duty." The problem that Paul is grappling with is a purely personal one and the answer is not going to be found in any institution. It is something that he can only work out for himself.
The visit to the priest is not a total waste, however, as Paul does find a possible solution. Through a fluke he has come to know the identity of the man he killed--Walter Holderlin--and his family's address. And so he decides to go to them to ask forgiveness. (This same situation is replayed in Oliver Stone's Platoon. Times change but the problems humans face remain consistent.)
In Germany, Walter's father, Dr. Holderlin, is a kindly old man except that he carries this hatred for the French. There is a wonderfully poignant scene in the cemetery where Walter's mother visits her son's grave and gets into a conversation with another bereaved mother. She mentions how the other woman's son used to come to the Holderlins's house when the mother was baking and that he loved her cinnamon cakes. The other woman asks her for the recipe and when she hears that it took two cups of sugar she remarks that she only used one. That was why he preferred Frau Holderlin's cinnamon cakes. But next time . . . She breaks off, remembering that there will not be a next time. It is a very moving scene, full of loss.
Paul eventually shows up at the house. Dr. Holderlin mistakes him for a patient and starts taking down the basic facts about him. Upon learning he is French, he orders him out of his house. He shows Paul the picture of his dead son, remarking that to him all Frenchmen are the murderers of his son.
Just at that moment Elsa appears. Elsa is the housekeeper and was engaged to Walter. She has seen Paul putting flowers on Walter's grave and, believing that he was Walter's friend, goes to get the mother. Paul doesn't have the heart to correct this impression and Dr. Holderlin begins to melt, moved by the thought that a Frenchman would be putting flowers on his son's grave.
Paul hangs around. And his presence has a healing effect. The Holderlins start to come out of their deep state of grief. And Elsa starts to fall in love with him. There is an amusing scene of neighbors eavesdropping on Elsa and Paul. It is just the right touch of comic relief.
The response to Paul's presence around the neighborhood is not altogether favorable--and understandably so. I was reminded of how low Germany sunk at the end of World War I. And so it was just natural that Paul should be resented as well as the Holderlin family which welcomes him.
And the tension climaxes in one great moment. Dr. Holderlin goes to have a beer with his friends. He offers to buy a round for everybody and one by one his friends decline--some with just their silence. And Holderlin makes a speech about what he has learned. He feels responsibility for his own son's death because he hated the French and supported the war. And he feels sorrow for the French families which have also suffered losses. He says something like, "When there was a battle and we killed their sons we celebrated and drank beer. And when they were victorious and killed our sons they celebrated and drank wine." It really is a beautiful, profound moment and Lionel Barrymore had the authority to truly give it meaning. Holderlin has learned the stupidity of the hatreds that give rise to war. And this is all due to Paul's presence. Paul has helped this man see the light.
Paul decides that he has to go. And it is a problem for him because he can't go without hurting those who have opened their hearts to him. And he can't reveal to them the real reason for his presence there. He tries to say goodbye to Elsa, but she is very insistent that he explain why he is leaving. And she takes out Walter-s last letter and reads it to him--having no idea that he had read it before, that he had even completed the signature on it. When she becomes so choked he completes the reading of the letter from memory. And finally reveals his terrible secret.
He leaves her and goes out to say goodbye to the Holderlins. Elsa follows and stops him. She tells Frau Holderlin that Paul had really come to tell them that the war is over and that he has decided to stay. Frau Holderlin is so happy and goes to get her husband. Elsa tells Paul that he has brought these people the first relief, the first happiness they have known since their son was killed. He must stay for them, but they must never know that he is the man that killed their son. Dr. Holderlin comes in and tenderly embraces the Frenchman. And then he gets him Walter's violin to play and the Holderlins settle back to happily listen to Paul playing it. It is an ending both painful and beautiful.
Elsa is very right that they must never know the truth. There is no way that the Holderlins could have dealt with that knowledge. And this is the opportunity for Paul to atone for his deed, to clear his conscience. What he really is being called upon to do is put others' needs before his own.
The Holderlins' love of Paul is not misplaced. He really is the good man that they think he is. He came to ask forgiveness, but he brought blessings into their lives. He is a man who assumes full responsibility for his actions and does not try to rationalize them.
But there is another way of looking at this acceptance of responsibility. Neither Paul nor Dr. Holderlin ever seem to wake up to the fact that they have been duped into accepting World War I. Paul isn't entirely to blame for Walter's death in a moral sense. He was a pawn--as was Dr. Holderlin--as were so many others. And that is something that needs to be recognized if wars are to end.
The Man I Killed isn't just an anti-war film. It is also a film about letting go of things and it is a film about thinking for oneself. Both Paul and Dr. Holderlin come to conclusions different from those accepted by their peers. They awaken, their consciousness is raised--and that separates them from those around them.
Elsa is a wonderful character in the final moments. Nancy Carroll's speech didn't have the ring of Lionel Barrymore's big speech, but it was an effective moment. She, too, experiences growth and has something to teach as well. It's horrible what's revealed to her, but she is still able to accept Paul's remorse, see the benefits that he has brought--and go on. I really liked the fact thatalthough Paul has to keep his secret he has someone to share it with. That makes such a difference. Elsa implicitly agrees to help shoulder his burden, to help carry his cross.
What the film doesn't tell us is whether Elsa and Paul will be able to get together romantically. The ending is ambiguous in that respect, although I have no doubt that many moviegoers took it for granted that they got together. But it is one thing to forgive the man who killed your fiance; it is quite another to love him. Yet, Elsa does exhibit a willingness to let go of the past. But I still wonder.
It is sad to look at this film from the perspective of later years and know what was going to happen to Germany over the next several decades. I feel sad when I think of what the next twenty years was going to be like for Paul and Elsa. And I hope that Paul's atonement eventually released him from the guilt that tortured him. He was a good man and he deserved a happy life.
Alida Walsh used to rave about this movie. She called it one of the greatest anti-war pictures ever made. Finally seeing it after all these years I have to agree that it is undeniably a classic. In fact, my immediate feeling is that it makes the rest of Lubitsch's work look trivial, though I suspect that is merely the enthusiasm of the moment.
It is a film about the effect of war on the people who endure it. A young man has killed another man in the trenches. He can't get over his guilt and a visit to a priest doesn't help much. By chance he has learned the name and address of the man he killed and decides to go and ask his family for forgiveness. Through a fluke (that he was seen putting flowers on the dead man's grave) he is mistaken for a friend of the dead man and the mother, the father and the man's fiancee take him to their hearts and he can't bring himself to tell them the truth. The fiancee comes to love him and he decides that the only thing he can do is leave. He admits the horrible truth to the fiancee who persuades him to remain for the sake of the parents of the man he killed, but to never reveal the truth to them.
This is a truly painful movie to watch. It is brightened with touches of humor, but it is played out in a series of wonderful moments. It is definitely the work of a master.
The film begins with a powerful condemnation of war. (I first saw this included in a compilation of "great editing sequences.") It is a year after the signing of the armistice that ended World War I. They are celebrating the event in Paris with a lot of festivity. And suddenly we are watching a parade from behind a man with one leg. A cannon goes off in celebration and we cut to a hospital where a man sits up in bed and screams at the sound of the cannon.
And then we are in church. And we see old men decked out in regalia. It is the old who are celebrating.
The mass ends and we meet the young man Paul. He approaches a priest to confess murder. But as it turns out the "murder" was killing a German soldier in the trenches--an event which haunts him terribly. The priest is uncomfortable and has very little solace to offer him. He tells the young man that there is no need to feel guilty--he was only doing his duty.
The priest is well-intentioned, but there is really no answer that he can give Paul. Organized religion is part of the establishment and basically must support the idea that killing in battle is all right, is actually one's "duty." The problem that Paul is grappling with is a purely personal one and the answer is not going to be found in any institution. It is something that he can only work out for himself.
The visit to the priest is not a total waste, however, as Paul does find a possible solution. Through a fluke he has come to know the identity of the man he killed--Walter Holderlin--and his family's address. And so he decides to go to them to ask forgiveness. (This same situation is replayed in Oliver Stone's Platoon. Times change but the problems humans face remain consistent.)
In Germany, Walter's father, Dr. Holderlin, is a kindly old man except that he carries this hatred for the French. There is a wonderfully poignant scene in the cemetery where Walter's mother visits her son's grave and gets into a conversation with another bereaved mother. She mentions how the other woman's son used to come to the Holderlins's house when the mother was baking and that he loved her cinnamon cakes. The other woman asks her for the recipe and when she hears that it took two cups of sugar she remarks that she only used one. That was why he preferred Frau Holderlin's cinnamon cakes. But next time . . . She breaks off, remembering that there will not be a next time. It is a very moving scene, full of loss.
Paul eventually shows up at the house. Dr. Holderlin mistakes him for a patient and starts taking down the basic facts about him. Upon learning he is French, he orders him out of his house. He shows Paul the picture of his dead son, remarking that to him all Frenchmen are the murderers of his son.
Just at that moment Elsa appears. Elsa is the housekeeper and was engaged to Walter. She has seen Paul putting flowers on Walter's grave and, believing that he was Walter's friend, goes to get the mother. Paul doesn't have the heart to correct this impression and Dr. Holderlin begins to melt, moved by the thought that a Frenchman would be putting flowers on his son's grave.
Paul hangs around. And his presence has a healing effect. The Holderlins start to come out of their deep state of grief. And Elsa starts to fall in love with him. There is an amusing scene of neighbors eavesdropping on Elsa and Paul. It is just the right touch of comic relief.
The response to Paul's presence around the neighborhood is not altogether favorable--and understandably so. I was reminded of how low Germany sunk at the end of World War I. And so it was just natural that Paul should be resented as well as the Holderlin family which welcomes him.
And the tension climaxes in one great moment. Dr. Holderlin goes to have a beer with his friends. He offers to buy a round for everybody and one by one his friends decline--some with just their silence. And Holderlin makes a speech about what he has learned. He feels responsibility for his own son's death because he hated the French and supported the war. And he feels sorrow for the French families which have also suffered losses. He says something like, "When there was a battle and we killed their sons we celebrated and drank beer. And when they were victorious and killed our sons they celebrated and drank wine." It really is a beautiful, profound moment and Lionel Barrymore had the authority to truly give it meaning. Holderlin has learned the stupidity of the hatreds that give rise to war. And this is all due to Paul's presence. Paul has helped this man see the light.
Paul decides that he has to go. And it is a problem for him because he can't go without hurting those who have opened their hearts to him. And he can't reveal to them the real reason for his presence there. He tries to say goodbye to Elsa, but she is very insistent that he explain why he is leaving. And she takes out Walter-s last letter and reads it to him--having no idea that he had read it before, that he had even completed the signature on it. When she becomes so choked he completes the reading of the letter from memory. And finally reveals his terrible secret.
He leaves her and goes out to say goodbye to the Holderlins. Elsa follows and stops him. She tells Frau Holderlin that Paul had really come to tell them that the war is over and that he has decided to stay. Frau Holderlin is so happy and goes to get her husband. Elsa tells Paul that he has brought these people the first relief, the first happiness they have known since their son was killed. He must stay for them, but they must never know that he is the man that killed their son. Dr. Holderlin comes in and tenderly embraces the Frenchman. And then he gets him Walter's violin to play and the Holderlins settle back to happily listen to Paul playing it. It is an ending both painful and beautiful.
Elsa is very right that they must never know the truth. There is no way that the Holderlins could have dealt with that knowledge. And this is the opportunity for Paul to atone for his deed, to clear his conscience. What he really is being called upon to do is put others' needs before his own.
The Holderlins' love of Paul is not misplaced. He really is the good man that they think he is. He came to ask forgiveness, but he brought blessings into their lives. He is a man who assumes full responsibility for his actions and does not try to rationalize them.
But there is another way of looking at this acceptance of responsibility. Neither Paul nor Dr. Holderlin ever seem to wake up to the fact that they have been duped into accepting World War I. Paul isn't entirely to blame for Walter's death in a moral sense. He was a pawn--as was Dr. Holderlin--as were so many others. And that is something that needs to be recognized if wars are to end.
The Man I Killed isn't just an anti-war film. It is also a film about letting go of things and it is a film about thinking for oneself. Both Paul and Dr. Holderlin come to conclusions different from those accepted by their peers. They awaken, their consciousness is raised--and that separates them from those around them.
Elsa is a wonderful character in the final moments. Nancy Carroll's speech didn't have the ring of Lionel Barrymore's big speech, but it was an effective moment. She, too, experiences growth and has something to teach as well. It's horrible what's revealed to her, but she is still able to accept Paul's remorse, see the benefits that he has brought--and go on. I really liked the fact thatalthough Paul has to keep his secret he has someone to share it with. That makes such a difference. Elsa implicitly agrees to help shoulder his burden, to help carry his cross.
What the film doesn't tell us is whether Elsa and Paul will be able to get together romantically. The ending is ambiguous in that respect, although I have no doubt that many moviegoers took it for granted that they got together. But it is one thing to forgive the man who killed your fiance; it is quite another to love him. Yet, Elsa does exhibit a willingness to let go of the past. But I still wonder.
It is sad to look at this film from the perspective of later years and know what was going to happen to Germany over the next several decades. I feel sad when I think of what the next twenty years was going to be like for Paul and Elsa. And I hope that Paul's atonement eventually released him from the guilt that tortured him. He was a good man and he deserved a happy life.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
(The) Sex Garage. 1972. Directed by Fred Halsted.
(6/6/00)
[Note: This was hown in a very bad preservation print. It was in black-and-white and I am fairly sure that the film was originally in color.]
This is a really strange film. It begins with a scene of a woman giving a mann a blowjob in a car in a garage. And this is supposed to be a gay porn film.
Anyway, this male-female oral sex is performed to some really upbeat music. But then we are introduced to another scene, that of a man jerking offin a shower. The music for this scene is Bach's "Joy of Man's Desiring." The film cuts back and forth between the two sequences with very abrupt shifts in the sound. Sometimes there is inserted a very brief cut from one sequence, its accompanying music being a very short, jarring interruption. For me personally these jarring shifts take me out of the scenes and out of any involvement with their sexual content.
The upbeat music is replaced in places with those exaggerated sucking sounds which were so familiar in oral sex scenes during the 1970s. Then we see the heterosexual couple on the floor, man on top, and I believe we hear a lot of heavy breathing at that point. And then a man drives up in a car and the womkan runs away. And that is the only good look that we get at her. The fact that we hadn't really seen her body up till that point is another factor that kept us from getting sexually involved. Why? Why does Halsted do it that way?
Or perhaps other people respond differently.
In a regular heterosexual film the man in the car would have been the woman's husband. But there is a twist here and it is that he starts having sexual activity with the man that was involved, not the woman. Perhaps the heterosexual encounter is Fred Halsted rejecting the simple categorization of straight and gay.
We see shots of a motorcycle riding the roads and the two men are joined by a third, a biker type who brought to my mind associations with Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising. He seems somewhat sinister and I believe that he is wearing leather. They become a threesome. The sex is rough with one man's head being forced into a toilet bowl by another man's foot. One man dons black briefs and one inserts his penis into an orifice on the motorcycle. All of this is played out to the sound of electronic music.
As one man reaches climax the electronic music fades and we share the sense of release. We then hear his heavy breathing.
I find that I don't remember much of the details of the sexual activity. This might have been because I was turned off by the shabbiness of the print or it might be that I just couldn't get that interested in it. Or it could be that my eyes were tired and my attention span exhausted after L.A. Plays Itself.
[Note: This was hown in a very bad preservation print. It was in black-and-white and I am fairly sure that the film was originally in color.]
This is a really strange film. It begins with a scene of a woman giving a mann a blowjob in a car in a garage. And this is supposed to be a gay porn film.
Anyway, this male-female oral sex is performed to some really upbeat music. But then we are introduced to another scene, that of a man jerking offin a shower. The music for this scene is Bach's "Joy of Man's Desiring." The film cuts back and forth between the two sequences with very abrupt shifts in the sound. Sometimes there is inserted a very brief cut from one sequence, its accompanying music being a very short, jarring interruption. For me personally these jarring shifts take me out of the scenes and out of any involvement with their sexual content.
The upbeat music is replaced in places with those exaggerated sucking sounds which were so familiar in oral sex scenes during the 1970s. Then we see the heterosexual couple on the floor, man on top, and I believe we hear a lot of heavy breathing at that point. And then a man drives up in a car and the womkan runs away. And that is the only good look that we get at her. The fact that we hadn't really seen her body up till that point is another factor that kept us from getting sexually involved. Why? Why does Halsted do it that way?
Or perhaps other people respond differently.
In a regular heterosexual film the man in the car would have been the woman's husband. But there is a twist here and it is that he starts having sexual activity with the man that was involved, not the woman. Perhaps the heterosexual encounter is Fred Halsted rejecting the simple categorization of straight and gay.
We see shots of a motorcycle riding the roads and the two men are joined by a third, a biker type who brought to my mind associations with Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising. He seems somewhat sinister and I believe that he is wearing leather. They become a threesome. The sex is rough with one man's head being forced into a toilet bowl by another man's foot. One man dons black briefs and one inserts his penis into an orifice on the motorcycle. All of this is played out to the sound of electronic music.
As one man reaches climax the electronic music fades and we share the sense of release. We then hear his heavy breathing.
I find that I don't remember much of the details of the sexual activity. This might have been because I was turned off by the shabbiness of the print or it might be that I just couldn't get that interested in it. Or it could be that my eyes were tired and my attention span exhausted after L.A. Plays Itself.
L.A. Plays Itself. 1972. Directed by Fred Halsted.
(6/5/00-6/6/00)
If it weren't for the hard-core sex this film could have made it as a respectalble art film--or avant-garde film. It is beautifully photographed and quite sophisticated in its editing. But of course it goes beyond the limits of what was acceptable in avant-garde films, even at that permissive time. Experimental or "underground" films certainly had explicit sexual content, but there were limits, there were boundaries. I have a hunch that L.A. Plays Itself went beyond what would have been accepted by the people who patronized that form ofr cinema.
It begins in the country, with scenes of nature. And it goes on that way for a long time with shots of mountains, flowers, insects. It is a very leisurely opening. Yes, this is a film that was going to be marketed to the porn trade, but there is no rush to get down to business.
We finally see a young man and then another. I think they are around rocks or a stream--something like that. One approaches the other, they start talking and then there is an offer of giving head. And then we see them coupling while we hear soothing classical music on the soundtrack. There is an Edenic quality to this part of the film--the two men are in harmony with nature, their lovemaking is just another rhythm of nature.
Sometimes there are shots superimposed on the sex--shots of insects and flowers, etc. And then a scene of a bulldozer is superimposed which gives it a more aggressive quality. This is the beginning of a transition to a man-made world and eventually to Los Angeles.
We are then shown scenes of Los Angeles, interspersed with footage of all-male S/M encounters. There is also a scene of a man masturbating which is intercut with shots in which the camera rapidly zooms (or moves) in and out. It all seems to have been edited together in a spirit of free-association. What seems to tie a lot of it together is a sort of story which is told through off-screen voices on the soundtrack. One voice is that of a young homosexual who has come to L.A. from Texas. The other is that of a more experienced young man who offers him advice and friendship.
The experienced one warns the Texan to stay clear of some guys who are cruising the streets. He remarks that they seem all right and the other one mentions that they have dirty pants to which he replies that some guys like dirty pants. The experienced guy offers to help him get some work to which the young Texan admits that he needs the money, since he only has two dollars.
One interesting thing about this dialogue is that some of it is repeated. I don't know why. On the whole the visuals, the dialogue and music all flow together in a sort of flood of sights and sounds that the viewer can sort of flow along with. The film is not made up of scenes with characters who interact in a way that the mind can seize upon. This flowing quality is hypnotic--you can lose yourself in it.
When the young man talks about helping the other to get work, get some easy money, prostitution is obviously a possibility. Does he become a participant in the S/M scene that we see? Or are the two participants the two young men we hear on the soundtrack? Such a connjection is perhaps implied, but we are never told it explicitly.
We see a young man crawling up stairs and licking another man's boot. He is whipped with black straps in a way that probably isn't really painful. We see a man bound with ropes, with a collar, thrashing about on the floor. I actually forget how explicit the sex was in these scenes. The accompanying music is more aggressive than the soothing classical music of the country scenes.
The camera shows a newspaper with a headline about a kidnap victim. I think it mentions bondage or something that associates it with the S/M scenes we have been watching. Part of the headline is obscured by something lying on top of it. And later there is another newspaper headline about some cult killing. There is a definite association of the city with violence.
In addition to the newspaper headlines there are shots of pages of comic books and other drawings. There are shots of signs in the outdoor scenes. The film has a kind of pop-art feel. Halsted definitely wants to capture and evoke the environment.
The film ends with the insertion of a man's hand, then fist into another man's anus. This certainly made me feel uneasy as I would assume it did a lot of other people. It is an uncomfortable thing to watch. And I think that Fred Halsted was deliberately hitting people's boundaries, pressing on their limits. Perhaps the S/M scenes also did this, although it is hard to say as I don't know the feelings of the audience that this film was intended for.
The free-association quality of the editing puts those scenes at a distance. The viewer might be stimulated by those sights, but he is never allowed in. Does that make them safer to watch? I don't know.
L.A. Plays Itself is a highly personal film as well as one that evokes its time and culture. In some ways it is a puzzling film. It wasn't one of the most riveting experiences of my filmgoing life, but it's more than just an artifact.
If it weren't for the hard-core sex this film could have made it as a respectalble art film--or avant-garde film. It is beautifully photographed and quite sophisticated in its editing. But of course it goes beyond the limits of what was acceptable in avant-garde films, even at that permissive time. Experimental or "underground" films certainly had explicit sexual content, but there were limits, there were boundaries. I have a hunch that L.A. Plays Itself went beyond what would have been accepted by the people who patronized that form ofr cinema.
It begins in the country, with scenes of nature. And it goes on that way for a long time with shots of mountains, flowers, insects. It is a very leisurely opening. Yes, this is a film that was going to be marketed to the porn trade, but there is no rush to get down to business.
We finally see a young man and then another. I think they are around rocks or a stream--something like that. One approaches the other, they start talking and then there is an offer of giving head. And then we see them coupling while we hear soothing classical music on the soundtrack. There is an Edenic quality to this part of the film--the two men are in harmony with nature, their lovemaking is just another rhythm of nature.
Sometimes there are shots superimposed on the sex--shots of insects and flowers, etc. And then a scene of a bulldozer is superimposed which gives it a more aggressive quality. This is the beginning of a transition to a man-made world and eventually to Los Angeles.
We are then shown scenes of Los Angeles, interspersed with footage of all-male S/M encounters. There is also a scene of a man masturbating which is intercut with shots in which the camera rapidly zooms (or moves) in and out. It all seems to have been edited together in a spirit of free-association. What seems to tie a lot of it together is a sort of story which is told through off-screen voices on the soundtrack. One voice is that of a young homosexual who has come to L.A. from Texas. The other is that of a more experienced young man who offers him advice and friendship.
The experienced one warns the Texan to stay clear of some guys who are cruising the streets. He remarks that they seem all right and the other one mentions that they have dirty pants to which he replies that some guys like dirty pants. The experienced guy offers to help him get some work to which the young Texan admits that he needs the money, since he only has two dollars.
One interesting thing about this dialogue is that some of it is repeated. I don't know why. On the whole the visuals, the dialogue and music all flow together in a sort of flood of sights and sounds that the viewer can sort of flow along with. The film is not made up of scenes with characters who interact in a way that the mind can seize upon. This flowing quality is hypnotic--you can lose yourself in it.
When the young man talks about helping the other to get work, get some easy money, prostitution is obviously a possibility. Does he become a participant in the S/M scene that we see? Or are the two participants the two young men we hear on the soundtrack? Such a connjection is perhaps implied, but we are never told it explicitly.
We see a young man crawling up stairs and licking another man's boot. He is whipped with black straps in a way that probably isn't really painful. We see a man bound with ropes, with a collar, thrashing about on the floor. I actually forget how explicit the sex was in these scenes. The accompanying music is more aggressive than the soothing classical music of the country scenes.
The camera shows a newspaper with a headline about a kidnap victim. I think it mentions bondage or something that associates it with the S/M scenes we have been watching. Part of the headline is obscured by something lying on top of it. And later there is another newspaper headline about some cult killing. There is a definite association of the city with violence.
In addition to the newspaper headlines there are shots of pages of comic books and other drawings. There are shots of signs in the outdoor scenes. The film has a kind of pop-art feel. Halsted definitely wants to capture and evoke the environment.
The film ends with the insertion of a man's hand, then fist into another man's anus. This certainly made me feel uneasy as I would assume it did a lot of other people. It is an uncomfortable thing to watch. And I think that Fred Halsted was deliberately hitting people's boundaries, pressing on their limits. Perhaps the S/M scenes also did this, although it is hard to say as I don't know the feelings of the audience that this film was intended for.
The free-association quality of the editing puts those scenes at a distance. The viewer might be stimulated by those sights, but he is never allowed in. Does that make them safer to watch? I don't know.
L.A. Plays Itself is a highly personal film as well as one that evokes its time and culture. In some ways it is a puzzling film. It wasn't one of the most riveting experiences of my filmgoing life, but it's more than just an artifact.
1860 (I mille di Garibaldi). 1933. Directed by Alessandro Blasetti.
(6/4/00)
I found this film tedious and hard-to-follow. I think that it was designed for an audience that was familiar with the historical background. A lot of information is conveyed through an offscreen narrator and it is just too much to absorb.
One thing that puts me at a disadvantage with films such as this is that I just can't get interested in battle scenes. I can't concentrate on them. They just don't interest me. 1860 climaxes with a battle and the rest of the picture has to do with the events leading up to the battle. So it was pretty much lost on me.
The film does have a qauint, picturesque quality. Most of it was beautifully photographed outdoors. It has something of the feel of an old historical painting. But it is devoid of any interesting characters. Even the hero who goes to bring word to Garibaldi isn't very interesting.
Do we ever get to see Garibaldi? I'm not sure. When Garibaldi decides to go to Sicily there is someone who might be him, but I wasn't sure. There is a pan later on which seems to be from Garibaldi's eyes. It would certainly be a disappointment if we didn't even get to see the hero, but if he was there he had such little presence that I didn't notice him.
There are a couple of somewhat interesting scenes, such as when the hero arrives at Garibaldi's headquarters and hears that he isn't planning to go to Sicily. And then when he learns that he is. Amidst all that there is an interesting pan around a room that has been evacuated. And I enjoyed the scene where the hero meets his contact and they do a bit like recognition codes in spy movies. "I think I know your mother." Person looks down. "I think I know your father." Person looks up. "My name is ..."
A few interesting moments, but that isn't very much. This film is mainly memorable for its period costumes photographed in outdoor locations. I really couldn't get into it.
I found this film tedious and hard-to-follow. I think that it was designed for an audience that was familiar with the historical background. A lot of information is conveyed through an offscreen narrator and it is just too much to absorb.
One thing that puts me at a disadvantage with films such as this is that I just can't get interested in battle scenes. I can't concentrate on them. They just don't interest me. 1860 climaxes with a battle and the rest of the picture has to do with the events leading up to the battle. So it was pretty much lost on me.
The film does have a qauint, picturesque quality. Most of it was beautifully photographed outdoors. It has something of the feel of an old historical painting. But it is devoid of any interesting characters. Even the hero who goes to bring word to Garibaldi isn't very interesting.
Do we ever get to see Garibaldi? I'm not sure. When Garibaldi decides to go to Sicily there is someone who might be him, but I wasn't sure. There is a pan later on which seems to be from Garibaldi's eyes. It would certainly be a disappointment if we didn't even get to see the hero, but if he was there he had such little presence that I didn't notice him.
There are a couple of somewhat interesting scenes, such as when the hero arrives at Garibaldi's headquarters and hears that he isn't planning to go to Sicily. And then when he learns that he is. Amidst all that there is an interesting pan around a room that has been evacuated. And I enjoyed the scene where the hero meets his contact and they do a bit like recognition codes in spy movies. "I think I know your mother." Person looks down. "I think I know your father." Person looks up. "My name is ..."
A few interesting moments, but that isn't very much. This film is mainly memorable for its period costumes photographed in outdoor locations. I really couldn't get into it.
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