Gsc films e-m the Eagle
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СодержаниеHigh Sierra High Society Hilary and Jackie La historia official A History of Violence History of the World, Part I The Hitchhiker |
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High Sierra 1941 Raoul Walsh (wr. John Huston) 3.5 Humphrey Bogart, Ida Lupino, Arthur Kennedy, Joan Leslie, Henry Travers. Famous movie about Indian farm boy outlaw Bogart (Roy Earle) pardoned from prison in order to pull off one more job in LA (?) area? Strongest part of movie is scenery – Eastern Sierra outside Mt. Whitney, around the fishing lodge where crooks are waiting for the job to come down, but especially the finale: chase up the Mt. Whitney Road with towering spires in the background, and then the stand-off on the flanks of the Sierra – all in crisply restored black and white print. Much of the middle part of the movie is devoted to establishing Bogart’s decency, particularly in his kind almost avuncular courtship of teenager (Leslie), and then emerging relationship with Marie (Lupino). He is a good fellow, who just wants to pull off one more job so he can settle down (although unfortunately Leslie rejects him); he is kind to animals (the dog that attaches himself to him, and obviously is intended to signify that Bogart is fated to destruction); and he struggles to establish peace and decency in his little gang. Improbable that hard-boiled, experienced criminal like Roy would put up with Lupino, the two incompetent, ill-tempered confederates, and even the dog accompanying him on the resort heist! Finale is pretty convincing and dramatic. Bogart brought out of hiding by his friend/nemesis dog, and is then shot dead by sharpshooter. Lupino emotes convincingly, and appears really to be in love with Roy. After Roy is dead, script declares him to be “crashed out” and “free.” Not religious, but Malrauxian: life is heroic struggle; adversity threatens to crush us; the only sure solution is to escape, to die, preferably with heroism. Gangster style picture that ends more as a Western. Walsh remakes in 1948 as ‘White Heat’ with Cagney on top of the gas tank.
High Society 1955 Charles Walters 3.0 All-Star Cast! Grace Kelly as society girl ice queen who has to learn to loosen up; Bing Crosby miscast (30 years older than Kelly!) as her ex-husband who is still interested in her; Frank Sinatra as Spy magazine reporter sent to cover Kelly’s wedding to a society guy – Sinatra is supposed to have chemistry with…; Celeste Holm as Sinatra’s photographer – almost rivals Kelly’s glamour; Louis Armstrong as himself to provide a jazz accompaniment to the goings on; Louis Calhern in smaller role as Kelly’s uncle. Landmark movie – last film of Kelly before she tripped off to Monaco; Crosby and Sinatra together in a film for the only time; opportunity to watch Satchmo in Technicolor; one of the last scores of Cole Porter. Very mediocre film except for the celebrity cast and the music. The plot is based on the ‘Philadelphia Story’, but it lacks the zaniness and good humor of the 1940 movie. Much of the cast seems to be just going through the motions. Sinatra and Holm hold our interest, although their decision to marry at the end is unconvincing – they have no chemistry! Crosby is his usual avuncular self (and he is supposed to be an ardent lover?); and Kelly, although classically beautiful, does not cut it as a screwball comedienne – her “darling” routines at the beginning of the film are stiff and unconvincing; her “melting” scenes toward the end with Sinatra (!) and then Crosby however are memorable. The score is perhaps not Porter’s best, but even in substandard numbers such as “You’re Sensational” (Sinatra) it is fun to listen to Porter’s lyrics. On the other hand, there are excellent numbers; The famous ballad “True Love” sung by Crosby to Kelly in his yacht; the outstanding Crosby-Sinatra duet “Well Did You Evah” is amusing, lively, and well-acted; the evocative Crosby number with Armstrong and his orchestra – “Jazz, Jazz, Jazz”; and the equally amusing and lively Sinatra-Holm duet around the fancy dinner table “Do you want to be a Millionaire?” The film works much better as a musical and a fashion show than as a comedy; just amusing rather than biting or satirical.
High Tide 1987 Gillian Anderson (Australia) 3.5 Judy Davis as Lilly, Jan Adele as Bet, her mother in law, and Claudia Karvan as Lilly’s daughter Allie. Marvelous “woman’s” film about drifting, irresponsible back-up dancer who encounters her long-lost daughter in small Australian town; the issues become – what exactly happened (Lilly’s adored surfer husband died and she then left her baby daughter with his mother); will Allie go off with her mother; will Bet accept it; will her mother rise to the occasion? Set among poor people living in trailer parks, driving ice cream trucks, working in fish factories in a port town in New South Wales -- lots of old cars (Lilly has a Valiant), utilitarian buildings, amateur showbiz productions in ugly social halls, but beautiful shots of the shore and the beach (recalling sunny days in Washington state); a lot of road shots since the characters tend to have shallow roots, especially Lilly. Acting of three main characters is exceptional: Lilly is the rather lost, even alcoholic mom with a guilty conscience but who has the courage to reconnect with her daughter and renew her responsibility; Bet is a very large, fun-loving older woman (she has a boyfriend and a one-night stand with a country western singer), full of anger toward Lilly, but who has given her life to her granddaughter but then has to accept her departure; Allie, very engaging surfing 14-year-old (film begins with her kissing her ‘boyfriend’ innocently behind a building) who loves her grandmother but drawn irresistibly to her mother. Film has a wonderful tone of mixing serious (melo-) drama with comic scenes. Two beautiful traveling shots: one leaves dejected grandmother in fish factory, tracks backwards through parking lot, and then onto open road with traffic lines passing (departure); the other when we are not sure whether mother will rejoin her daughter in a restaurant or drive off and leave her, and the camera tracks forward through the restaurant to the back of Allie’s head and then shows us Lilly putting her hands over her daughter’s eyes – she stayed!
Hilary and Jackie 1998 Anand Tucker (Britain) 3.5 Emily Watson as cello prodigy Jacqueline du Pre who died of multiple sclerosis at 42; Rachel Griffiths as her overshadowed younger sister Hilary, who co-wrote the memoir upon which the film is based; James Frain as a somewhat miscast Argentine pianist Daniel Barenboim. Gripping and harrowing film about the life of cello prodigy Jacqueline from beginnings to success and fame to a terrible progressive decline from multiple sclerosis; the film focuses on the costs of being the gifted artist – is insanity the price one pays? But it also focuses on the love-rivalry relationship between Jacqueline and her sister who plays the flute, but decides to give up her career when she is outshone by Jackie. Jackie is a cello genius, demanding and egocentric to the point of psychotic. She plays her instrument with great abandon, head and body swaying completely absorbed by the expressive experience; but she sometimes hates her cello and imagines that it is talking back to her and criticizing her during her nights alone; when she senses that MS will end her career, she appears at sister Hilary’s farm and demands that Hilary allow her to have sex with her husband. Hilary had married her true love (“he makes me feel special”) one thinks mainly because she wanted to escape the artistic dominance of her sister and the hostility of her flute teacher (who can’t stand the way she bobs and weaves when she plays). She is passive and “co-dependent” to her sister, and has great difficulty refusing her anything she wants, including the body of her husband – painful home movies show Jackie playacting wife for Hilary’s husband and mother to her children. Film records honestly (with somewhat gory detail) Jackie’s physical decline and death because of multiple sclerosis; Barenboim remains faithful, but is not present when she dies. Film is interestingly organized into three movements: the first with the two sisters bonded in eternal love – their gambol singing a nursery rhyme on a beautiful beach is memorable; then the middle section with the first part from Hilary’s point of view including the business between Jackie and Hilary’s husband and a second part that goes back and shows what happens to Jackie (the beginning of her disease) before her breakdown; and then her decline and death. Film is very gripping evoking the tragedy of human life with love violated by death, and perhaps the price that “extraordinary” people must pay for their fame. The direction is occasionally over the top – the camera circling too enthusiastically the playing musicians, strange sound effects and rapid cutting to depict Jackie’s deterioration. Riveting, sad, shocking film.
L'histoire d'Adèle H. 1975 France: François Truffaut 2.5 Isabelle Adjani as Adele H., the daughter of the famous Victor Hugo, in stony Halifax, Nova Scotia, in search of her betrothed; Bruce Robinson as Lt. Pinson of the British Army, too callow and impassive to be the heartless seducer he is pictured as; Sylvia Marriott as the kindly landlady who takes Adele in; a host of forgettable, mostly English speaking actors. Slow-moving, often frustrating historical film following Adele in her persistent, hopeless attempt to get a British army officer to give up his independence and marry her; most of the Adele’s pursuit takes place in a claustrophobic Halifax, where a surprising number of people speak pretty good French; the last short act takes place in Barbados (actually filmed in Dakar). Adjani, the only actor in the film worth watching, begins radiantly beautiful with her marble-like face framed by severe, pent up hair and dressed in the voluminous clothes of the 1850s; by the end of the hour and a half she is wandering through the streets of Georgetown in a filthy torn gown and her hair flowing dirty over her shoulders. We observe her change from a woman inexorably following her passion to one mentally disturbed, muttering to herself and not sure who she is. She tries all sorts of tricks to maintain her connection to the lieutenant: accost him whenever she can, visit the father of the lieutenant’s intended bride to persuade him to break off the engagement, send a prostitute to comfort him, consult a magician about the possibility of using his power to force the lieutenant to fall back in love with her (falls through after consuming ten minutes of the viewer’s time), follow him to Barbados with the money her loving father sent her for her passage back home. Through much of the film the viewer enjoys the beauty and the acting prowess of Adjani, who ably represents the young woman’s steely determination and then her descent into self-neglect and madness. The film however suffers from a thoroughly predictable linear plot with very little suspense, since there is never any possibility that the distracted Pinson will return to his former conquest; Adele just keeps trying until she finally goes insane; she is then taken charge of by a kindly Barbados woman who returns her to her father, and, as narrated in the obsessive Truffaut-style, Adele lives the rest of her long life a recluse in France writing about her experience (used as the basis for this film). What could have been a tribute to noble romantic passion – the favorite French subject of ‘amour fou’ – ends more or less with a whimper.
La historia official 1985 Luis Puenzo (Aregentina) 3.0 Norma Aleandro as high school profesora in 1983 who has an adopted five-year-old daughter (thus adopted during the military dictatorship) whom she loves with a passion; Hector Alterio as her husband, a prosperous businessman in Buenos Aires who has intimate connections with the generals, etc. who ran the military government and who consorts with suspicious-acting Americans. The best movie on the effects of the military terror on Argentina. Instead of focusing on the sufferings of the “desaparecidos”, the film focuses on a couple who have profited from the terror, since it gradually emerges that the child comes from a student couple who had been executed. The film follows Aleandro’s obsession with finding out the truth, even though it is against her interest; she eventually meets (an annoying) woman who thinks that she is the grandmother, and the two have several scenes together. The film is not always plot focused – much of it focuses on revealing the character and the lifestyles of the principals. The drama centers on the effect of Aleandro’s obsession on her and her husband and on their relationship, which becomes increasingly tense (he understandably wants her to leave well enough alone), until he beats her up, and after embracing him, she walks out the door. The film always holds one’s interests, although it degenerates somewhat into soap opera melodrama toward the end. It is however engrossing and makes vivid the effects of the dictatorship on Argentine bourgeois society.
Historias intimas 2002 Argentina: Carlos Sorín 3.5 Javier Lombardo as virtually only professional actor, the rest of the roles played by amateurs in unaffected, natural style. Marvelous small movie about three unrelated characters who journey from the Patagonian village of Fitz Roy to San Julián: the poor girl is overjoyed at the prospect of winning a food processor (even though she doesn’t have electricity in her house); the lonely traveling salesman talks constantly as he prepares a gift for a young woman customer he has fallen for; and the principal character, an old man – almost blind and sometimes lapsing into trances – leaves in search of his dog, Mala Cara, who had “left him” three years before. The stories are distinct, but delicately interwoven. They are followed with a lot of gentle humor and modest observations. The poor woman is trusting, simple, quiet and very shy; the bond between her and her baby is touching. The lonely salesman is a loquacious mystifier trying to sell slimming plasters made in Sweden, but he is genuinely excited about the prospect of winning the young woman’s hand; he takes a birthday cake in the shape of a soccer ball for his beloved’s son, but he has a housewife on the way turn it into a turtle when he suddenly becomes convinced that the woman’s daughter is a girl. The old man reveals to a new friend that Mala Cara had left him because he had hit him with a car and then left him in the road; he thus feels very guilty. All the endings are upbeat with gentle twists. The poor girl trades her useless food processor for a tacky make-up kit (it is packaged in the shape of a turtle!) and looks at it cluelessly in the bus on her way back to Fitz Roy; the salesman finds that his proposed mate is available, and although he is too shy and clumsy to take advantage, she encourages him and we know he will return; the old man finds a dog he insists is Mala Cara (he almost certainly is not), and he returns with him on the same bus as the poor girl, his conscience now at rest. Beautiful photography with a lot of poetic shots of the long blacktop stretching across the expansive Patagonia steppe. The characters are all sweet, humble, unassuming people, who spontaneously help out their fellows in need. The viewer is upset when the film ends after only an hour and a half. A realist film with an affecting touch of poetry. It is a tribute to the soul of the Argentine people.
A History of Violence 2005 David Cronenberg 4.0 Viggo Mortensen in excellent performance as ex-mobster Tom Stall (former name Joey), who before movie begins has found a new life (redemption) in small town America with family, but then his past catches up with him, Mario Bello also in excellent performance as his thin, sexy wife who must face into who he really is, Ed Harris in great role as vicious, scarred mobster enemy who catches up with Viggo, William Hurst also in hard-hitting role as humorous yet vicious brother who invites Joey (Viggo) back to Philadelphia and tries to have him killed. Outstanding movie on the role of violence in American culture. Although appearing to be pacific small-town diner operator, Mortensen turns out to be a ferocious killer himself: he reveals his skills unexpectedly when confronted by two pathological killers in his diner; then he (with the help of his son) kills all three mobsters trying to take him back to Philadelphia; then five more men when his brother tries to kill him in Hurst’s mansion in Philadelphia – ten men all told, and without much help! The proneness to violence also begins to spread to loved ones, as Viggo’s son, Zach, beats the shit out of a high school bully who has been picking on him, insults his father verbally, gets hit by his father, and then kills Ed Harris trying to kill his dad. The social and cultural environment is perfect – small town America where everybody knows everybody, and everyone smiles and helps their neighbor; in the beginning, the seemingly perfect family, two parents together, two kids, one boy and one girl, spouses obviously happy together – wife “kidnaps” Viggo and seduces him with cheerleader costume; they obviously adore one another. But there is no escaping violence – first when the two killers roll into town by chance, and then Mortensen’s past rising up to pull him back to his mobster roots when he is recognized because of the notoriety of his action. The point appears to be that we are all complicit in the violence. The killings are staged so that they are exciting and satisfying. We are delighted that Tom defends himself and his family so well, that his killing prowess is over the top; the viewer enjoys the killings; they are staged with all the accouterments of violent action movies – thumping sound effects, mangled faces and hands, slowly spreading pools of blood, and always in self defense. After his return from the hecatomb at his brother’s house, Tom approaches the dinner table in Indiana where his three family members are seated eating: in eloquent scene in which not a word is spoken, Cronenberg cuts from face to face showing that the family is accepting him back – they also are complicit: the little girl brings a place setting for her dad, Zach passes him the meat loaf, and Maria Bello looks at him silently and acceptingly with a tear in her eye; fade out. Perhaps only misstep was rape scene on steps toward end of movie; Tom seems to think that having forcible sex with his wife would somehow reestablish their tie, but this additional manifestation of violence seems only to alienate her further – for the time being.
History of the World, Part I 1981 Mel Brooks 2.0 Mel Brooks appearing (unfortunately if you don’t go for the extreme ham) in several of the sketches; various cameos from Sid Caesar, Dom Deluise, Madeline Kahn (severely underused), Cloris Leachman, Harvey Korman, etc. Series of unrelated comic sketches that include: parody of the ape scene from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’; a caveman sequence that focuses on the invention of art; an Old Testament scene that focuses on Moses descent from Mt. Sinai with the tablets of the 15, oops, 10 commandments; a long Roman sequence that has a highly stupid plot, but which ends with a clever send-up of the Last Supper; an over-the-top Hollywood musical number making fun of the Spanish Inquisition; an interminable French Revolutiobn sequence whose only virtue is the display of female breasts; a final sequel teaser that includes Hitler doing figure skating. Most of the comedy is sophomoric, offensive, and stupid: lots of anachronism jokes focusing on commercial practices that would never occur in Roman times and especially on transferring contemporary Jewish personalities and situations to ancient times; myriad potty jokes and sex jokes; the spectacular bad-taste musical number about the Inquisition that attempts to recreate the magic of the ’Springtime for Hitler’ number but which fails for lack of musical inspiration. Some of the sketches evoke a chuckle, or even a laugh: the ‘2001’ sequence has the apes discovering masturbation; Moses originally appears with 15 commandments, but when he drops and breaks them, he admits that he has only 10; Brooks bursts into the room where Jesus and the Apostles are celebrating the Last Supper, and then Leonardo da Vinci shows up to paint a group portrait, which is presented as an amusing replica of the real painting; King Louis (Brooks) and a courtier play a game of chess in which the pieces arfe full size figures dressed in ridiculous costumes and the move commands are shouted by megaphone. Hard to sit through.
The Hitchhiker 1953 Ida Lupino 2.0 William Talmon in a gutsy performance dominates the film with his deformed face as a sociopathic killer murdering drivers who pick him up as a hitchhiker; Edmond O'Brien as a middle class guy on a fishing trip picked up by Talmon – he whines quite a bit since he is afraid of dying (gutsy script!); Frank Lovejoy as O'Brien's quieter, more courageous fellow who speaks decent Mexican and advises O'Brien to get a hold on himself and be patient. Seriously overrated 'film noir' that is neither very film noir nor a very good drama. Low budget film (only 70 minutes long and so many shots of the old Plymouth winding through the rocky hills of Northern Baja California) that carried us through parts of Mexico to a port on the Sea of Cortez where the kidnapper Talmon wants to take a ferry to Guaymas; he is captured bloodlessly in the port by the Mexican police and then returned to the USA where he is executed. Film is not very noir: although shot largely in the dark, the pools of light and shadow are missing; there is no female character, much less a credible femme fatale; there is no narration by the doomed male protagonist. It is more a pseudo-real life crime claustrophic drama with a limited number of characters – three, one of them holding the other two at gunpoint – in a confined space – the inside of the dusty, beat up old Plymouth. The final confrontation is something of an anti-climax rather amateurishly filmed (the gun barrel emerging stealthily between two boards!). Some good turns from the script, and a memorable performance by Talmon.
Hollywoodland 2006 Allen Coulter 3.0 Ben Affleck as George Reeves (doesn’t look like him) who is unhappy with his TV Superman role and who subsists largely on his relationship with Eddie Mannix’s wife; Adrien Brody as present-day private eye who is somehow determined to get to the bottom of Reeves’ death – he doesn’t think it was a suicide; Diane Lane in ultimate elegant 50s getups as wife of Mannix (MGM exec) who with the support of her husband takes Affleck as a lover; Bob Hoskins in his element with the lowlife Mannix (Hoskins’ hoodish American accent is excellent), who is however completely devoted to his wife, come what may; Robin Tunney fetching as the sexy, dark-haired fiancée of Reeves. An LA private eye flick in the grand tradition. Focuses on Hollywood movie culture with behind-the-scenes machinations by studio bosses (Mannix) to cover up problems with their employees, very glamorous Hollywood women in the latest 50s fashions, sensational scenes in the chicest clubs like Cori’s (?), focus on a struggling actor who just can’t get the break he wants in the heartless Hollywood milieu. Affleck interesting as the reasonably talented actor who doesn’t get the roles he thinks he deserves. Lane is noteworthy as the older woman who likes sex and men, and latches almost hysterically on to Affleck, and is furious when he takes up with Tunney. Brody seems rather miscast as an LA gumshoe – he looks Jewish and European – but we follow his investigation and his troubles with interest. Film has a dual time line: one of Brody’s involvement in the investigation, his feeding of information to the press, his hypotheses about what happened, etc.; the other of Reeves career shortly before his death – his disillusion, his affair with Lane, his landing of the Superman role (wearing blue underpants), his torrid passion for the gold digger played by Tunney, etc. Film switches back and forth between the two timelines, often with no cue from the present one (in most movies the previous timeline is usually a flashback initiated in the mind of the principal character in the first timeline); the switches include reenactments of three possible scenarios that occur in the mind of Brody. The mystery is never completely solved, but life just goes on for Brody. Film is well done and entertaining, but it needs a stronger focus. The viewer is led into an increasingly intimate identification between Brody and the dead Affleck, but somehow the effect remains diffused.