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Das Fidele Gefängnis
The Fighter
La fille sur le pont
The Firemen’s Ball
A Fistful of Dollars
Flame and Citron
La Fleur du Mal
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Das Fidele Gefängnis 1917 Ernst Lubitsch (Germany) 3.0 Kitty Dewall as pretty, very forgiving wife, Harry Liedtke as wayward husband who doesn’t suffer major circumstances, Emil Jannings as somewhat annoying hammy drunken jailer. Four-reeler (46 minutes) based on Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus.” Husband likes to party, wife is suspicious, she goes to party with mask, husband heavy flirts with her, and she unmasks him when he returns home the next morning. Merry, “lustige” atmosphere – everyone is expected to have a good time, and we don’t worry too much about infidelities: wife goes to party alone with mask on; the maid is saucy and flirtatious, and mimics the behavior of her betters; when husband is discovered, the couple kisses and makes up and there are no repercussions (one supposes he will be back to doing the same thing when he gets the chance). Although set in wartime Berlin, there is no mention of war, no sight of a military uniform, no clicking of heels, etc.; a completely civilian upper class society, perhaps a manifestation of Lubitsch’s Jewishness, perhaps escapist fare served to the German public to forget the hardships of the war. Well photographed and appropriately paced on mostly indoor sets. A number of set comic pieces, such as the card-playing in jail with stumbling Jannings who kisses men on the mouth, or the two men fighting so much over a cab that the driver gives up and drives on, or the two lovers at the end high jacking a rich man’s cab for themselves. Acting style is demonstrative and expressive, always expressing happiness and pleasure, at the worst humorous befuddlement. One “Lubitsch Touch” – wife, who can’t find her husband, phones the police at her husband’s desk; camera then pans down and … discovers the husband in a drunken sleep under the desk.


The Fighter 2010 David O. Russell 4.0 Mark Wahlberg as quiet, decent, loyal Micky Ward, who thinks he might want a shot at the welterweight world crown; Christian Bale in AA performance as his manic, antic, nervous, gauntly skinny, crack-addled younger brother, Dicky, who was once a boxer himself (he claims that he once knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard); Melissa Leo (AA) as rather detestable mother of the Ward brood – energetic, foul-mouthed, ferociously possessive of her sons, bouffant hairdo and very tight skirts and pants, smoking like a chimney; Amy Adams successfully adapting her mainstream sweet personality to a tough-talking bartender broad in a fading industrial town; Jack McGee as the sweet and sensible father of Micky – he regularly stands up to Leo to defend the future of his son Micky. Terrific boxing movie set in depressed Lowell, Massachusetts in the early 1990s: sagging storefronts, crack houses, weeds in the front yard, too many young people with not enough to do, hard, bitter, although humorous personalities cracking jokes in the bar or on the street corner. Micky has boxing talent, but not a great future so long as he is managed and trained by his mother and brother, both of whom are ambiguous about whether they are promoting his career or just making sure that he never succeeds where his brother didn’t (Leo clearly prefers Dicky over Micky). One story line follows the fortunes of the clownish, crack-addled Bale, who spends some time in the local jail when he tries to raise money by posing as a cop; when he emerges clean of drugs, he is transformed (somewhat mysteriously) into a positive force for his brother. Another is a love story between Wahlberg and Adams, who sees Micky’s potential, fights with an iron will to free him from the tutelage of his mother and siblings, and plays an important role in his final rise to the top. Her moments of confrontation with Leo and her daughters are classic, crowd-pleasing in-your-face profane defiance. The central narrative is of course Micky’s Rocky-like rise against great odds to defeat a brutal Scottish (?) boxer in London for the welterweight title. Somehow the narrative reconciles all opposing forces – Leo and the family on one side and Adams and Micky’s supporters on the other – to help Micky find his confidence again and to enable his triumph. The film is compelling from start to finish: the viewer is drawn in by affection for Micky as played by the quiet but deep Wahlberg, amusement at Dicky’s unpredictable behavior and admiration for Bale’s impactful performance, outrage at the ferocious dominating energy of Leo backed up by her chorus of seven daughter harpies, etc. The boxing matches are gripping; since Wahlberg actually knows how to box, his punches and moves are realistic and convincing. The film stays within the broad outlines of the rags-to-riches boxing genre, but it enriches the genre by placing it in a fresh context of working class culture and family conflict.


La fille sur le pont 1999 Patrice Leconte (France) 3.0 Daniel Auteuil as circus knife thrower who rescues Paradis from suicide on the bridge of the Seine and makes her his cible in his act; Vanessa Paradis as sexually promiscuous girl who allows herself to be taken under Auteuil’s wing. Felliniesque romantic drama with a fatalistic feel that makes us think it is moving toward tragedy, but surprises us pleasingly with a happy, romantic ending. Auteuil claims that he wants the beautiful Paradis only as an assistant and through most of the film he acts as her father figure protecting her against destructive relationships, but he inexorably falls in love with her; the two of them develop a metaphoric sexual relationship when he throws knives at her while she trembles with (obviously sexual) pleasure; he experiences something similar when he uses the telepathic relationship between them to guide her toward winning big at the gambling tables in Monte Carlo and San Remo; and after they separate (she falls for yet another glamorous looking young man), Auteuil wanders disconsolately through Athens and Istanbul, where on the verge of committing suicide himself, Paradis suddenly appears and the two are reunited, one assumes in eternal happiness; Paradis has used the telepathic connection, which apparently is indissoluble, to come to Auteuil’s aid and to save him with the same words that he saved her with in the beginning of the film. Film is photographed in exquisite black and white (recalling the films of Carné and Renoir?). It seems to owe a lot to the fantasy style of Fellini – the circus setting, the happy music, the circus performers (the contortionist, the dwarf, etc.). Film can be off-putting with its self-conscious artiness and fancy camerawork, but it comes together resoundingly at the end as a moving romantic drama: Leconte seems really to think that human destiny is made bearable only through a romantic union of two souls.


The Firemen’s Ball 1967 Milos Forman (Czech) 3.0 A great variety of adult male players and quite a few young unmarried women participating in the “beauty contest”; all appeared to be non-professionals, although one cannot be sure. Droll, more or less plotless film about goings-on at a firemen’s ball held in Communist ruled Czechoslovakia in the mid-60s. The film has virtually no individualized characters and almost no plot development from beginning to end: you start with planning for the ball, you have the well-attended ball briefly interrupted by a fire next door, and then the conclusion in which all the participants have left. The focus is on the amusingly bumbling and incompetent activities of the Entertainment Committee organized by the local firemen’s league. Practically nothing goes right: they burn up the cloth mural as they are trying to put it up (they can’t figure out how to use the fire extinguished!); they grouse, complain and fight over details as they try to organize a beauty contest with local girls attending the ball; the beauty contest is a disaster – the girls are unattractive and clueless, and the attempt to get them on stage for voting engenders chaos in the hall; they fight the next door fire by trying to shovel snow onto it (the whole building is destroyed) – they are successful in rescuing the single occupant; all of the raffle prizes lined up for display on a table are stolen by people attending the ball – an obvious commentary on the prevalence of stealing in this particular Communist workers’ paradise. The parallel between the Entertainment Committee and the Politburo of Czechoslovakia’s Communist Party is obvious; it is apparent that the filmmakers do not fear repression and arrest, since the country’s rulers are presented as incompetent objects of ridicule rather than something to be afraid of. At one point, one of the Committee members shouts that he doesn’t care about honesty, but only about the reputation of the Firemen’s League (i.e., the Politburo). Film makes the viewer a bit uneasy, since it seems to have contempt for the provincials who act in the film: Czechs seem clueless, overweight, slow to understand, and impossibly provincial – the beauty contest, for example, seems a boring parody of a real version that you might see in Hollywood or Cannes; the film does not have an altogether affectionate view of its subjects. Film builds momentum after a hesitant beginning; a frequent source of chuckles; but it would be more engaging for the audience with principal characters and a real plot line. Academy Award for Best Foreign Film.


A Fistful of Dollars 1966 Sergio Leone (Italy) 3.0 Clint Eastwood. The first of the spaghetti westerns by Leone and the first collaboration with Ennio Morricone. Based on ‘Yojimbo’ by Kurosawa (1962?). Main interest is the quirky, colorful score by Morricone, used by Leone throughout as characterization (the downward figure in the flute, e.g.). Pretty good western, extremely violent (how many dead bodies?). No serious themes. Eastwood is guy with decent instincts, but he kills absolutely without compunction. Loner who belongs to no one, and rides out of town by self at end of movie. Women absolutely peripheral to movie. Plot has several surprises; you never quite know what is going on inside the head of Joe. Eastwood as icon – taciturn, wry, cool stare, poncho, small cigar burning in mouth. Movie very poorly dubbed! Film score by Morricone, however, is piquant.


Flags of Our Fathers 2006 Clint Eastwood 3.5 Ryan Philippe as the sensitive, quiet, and rather introverted Doc Bradley, the Navy corpsmen (medic) with the soldiers, who returns after the war to be a successful undertaker; Jesse Bradford as the extroverted, handsome and very youthful looking Marine, who marries, then divorces, his sweetheart, and spends the rest of his life as a janitor; Adam Beach as conflicted Indian victim of racist remarks and actions, becomes an alcoholic and dies early of “exposure” in a horse corral. Wonderfully sensitive, sad, and moving film about the cost of war. Film begins quietly as we are introduced rather haphazardly to the main characters, but it comes back to the main story so that we become attached to them. Film has three focuses: a rather thin focus on Doc’s relationship with his father, which (as in the book upon which the film is based) the narrative link of the film; the three survivors of the famous flag raising who are being trotted around the country to rally flagging war enthusiasm and sell enough war bonds (they were successful -- $36 billion); and then their reminiscences of the operations on Iwo Jima. The film does not give a linear treatment of the battle but dips back to the battle in bits and pieces according to the reminiscences and memories of the survivors (it does give a clear account of the famous flagpole raising sequence). The battle sequences are grizzly and unsparing: mangled bodies – mostly Americans but also Japanese – and a gripping sense of how bullets and shells cut your life off haphazardly and without warning – it makes little sense why one person survives and not another; battle scenes filmed in Iceland in barren, craggy locations with little color in the images. The film seems to have some hostility against the home front – the way the men are exploited to raise money for the government; the most egregious tactic was the construction of a papier maché model of Suribachi in Soldier Field for a war bond rally (but after all the politicians weren’t using them for their political purposes, but to advance and finish off the war effort – unlike Bush!). Film includes a moving postscript about the postwar lives of the three survivors – the two sad lives, and the story of “Doc”, who would never talk about what happened to his son (who wrote the book upon which the film was based). What resonates is the suffering and arbitrary deaths of the soldiers, which are particularly pathetic because of the fresh youth and good looks of all the actors. Eastwood strikes just the right tone between sentimentality and distance – sensitively reserved. I have a feeling the movie might have been improved by removing the Doc and his Dad flashback story, and cutting some scenes. The film stands out with its honest portrayal of the price the soldiers pay for war.


Flame and Citron 2008 Ole Christian Madsen (Denmark) 4.0 Thure Lindhardt handsome, charismatic and very Nordic with long red hair as Flame, ruthless Danish resistance assassin who develops unexpected qualms about his job; Mads Mikkelson dark-haired, scruffy with crumpled fedora hat as Citron, who is family man with initial reservations about assassinations; Stine Stengard as Resistance courier who may have ties with both sides; Peter Mygind as Winther, wealthy Resistance leader who may or may not be a double agent for the Germans; Christian Berkel as the sometimes sympathetic Gestapo chief in Denmark. Unsentimental, hard-hitting, action-packed film about Danish Resistance assassins during the German occupation of Denmark, 1940-45; Flame and Citron had been active in the Finnish War against the Russians, and they naturally fall into a violent Resistance role against the Germans, even toward the beginning when the Germans are treating the Danes nicely and many Danes still have cordial relationships with the occupiers. Flame and Citron work for Winther, who presents himself as working for the British and sends them off on missions to assassinate Danish collaborators; at first he wants them to leave the Germans alone. The killings are done at close range and with great brutality – shots through the head that leave brains and blood all over the walls and furniture behind the victim; one wonders why the victims don’t catch on and take measures to protect themselves. The film also observes their romantic lives. Citron is married with a child, but he is a completely absent father, although fond of his daughter; Flame is a loner, who however falls in love with Stengard, which appears to get him into trouble because of her ambiguous loyalties. The two men’s personalities are distinct: Flame begins a ruthless killer assassinating collaborators without compunction (although one time he covers a female victim’s eyes before he shoots her in the head), but then he develops hesitations that lead him inexplicably to spare two important German targets, Gilbert and Hoffmann; Citron is Flame’s driver and at first cannot pull the trigger, but with great hesitation and emotion he learns to do so. In the final shootout in the Charlotten Palace he pulls an arsenal out of a chest at the foot of his bed and takes down at least a dozen German soldiers before he confronts the remaining soldiers and then raises his pistol arm to invite execution. At the end Flame poisons himself rather than be captured by the Germans. The political situation among the Resisters is extremely confusing: one never knows which information is reliable, who somebody is working for – the British, the Americans, the Communists, the Germans (double agents)? The prime example is Winther, whose behavior is very suspicious, but the narrative never decides whether he is a German agent. The filming is exquisite: deep, dark, rich, shadowed colors set picturesquely in the Danish countryside; intense, eloquent close-ups of the principals. The film is expertly paced and edited to provide maximum suspense and absorbing, exciting action. A very unsentimental look at the business of resistance – lots of blood, dirty work, necessary ignoring of morality, never sure whether you are working for the right people and killing the right villains, whether the people you work with or love are loyal to you or will betray you. A film to remember.


The Flame of New Orleans 1941 René Clair 3.0 Marlene Dietrich extremely glamorous, competent comedienne but deprived of her mysterious hauteur, Bruce Cabot callow and uninteresting (although with his wise guy, macho toothy grin recalling a bargain basement Clark Gable) as her blue collar suiter, Roland Young English and humorous as the cluelessly fey rich banker courting Dietrich, Theresa Harris beautiful and competent as ever as Dietrich’s resourceful maid and confidante, Andy Devine annoying as one of Cabot’s simple slapsticky sailors, Anne Revere as forbidding cousin of Young, Laura Hope Crews her usual dotty old aunt who is hard of hearing, Franklin Pangborn as man about town, Mischa Auer pretty hilarious as womanizing adventurer from St. Petersburg. Intermittently amusing romantic comedy by René Clair in his American career. His use of Dietrich is generally dull – what could the master of wit and sparkle do with the essentially static icon of von Sternberg? And in any case the romantic lead – Cabot – is flat and boring. Clair however shines through fairly often. The motif of the wedding dress floating in the Mississippi at the beginning, and then flashing back all the way through the story to have it thrown out of the honeymoon barge at the end; another motif of fainting – begins with Dietrich fainting in the opera performance (wonderful movie camera and editing in the beginning scene while a Donizetti duet is sung on stage) to draw the attention of banker Young; in the party scene she is identified by her tendency to faint (after it is predicted, she faints at the end of the scene), and to save herself from marrying Young, she faints midway through her wedding then to be whisked to romantic bliss by the sailors attending the ceremony. The most sparkling moment is the party scene in the middle (3606-4430) beginning with Auer’s arrival as Zolotov with Pangborn at the party (Auer eyeing all the girls), Dietrich singing the mock folk song “Blush of May” to the guests, the camera following the travel of the rumor about Dietrich from whisper to whisper until it reaches the ear of the distraught Young, Auer trying to wriggle out of Young’s challenge to a duel (it is against his religion), then Auer’s escape after a business with the wrong top hat. The escalating complications toward the end are unconvincing (Dietrich disguising herself as a sort of twin sister slut). The final wedding scene is quite amusing as we return to the fainting and the floating wedding dress motifs. Beautifully produced; has potential as a masterpiece, but doesn’t make it over the top.


Flesh and the Devil 1927 Clarence Brown 3.0 Greta Garbo in her breakout role as sincere, heartfelt femme fatale, John Gilbert as her lover, Lors Hanson as Gilbert's childhood bosom buddy who marries Greta instead of Gilbert leading to enormous tension. Rather long silent romantic melodrama about extremely loyal and affectionate childhood friends – Gilbert and Larson – who have the misfortune of falling in love with the same woman. Takes place in upper class circles sometime between 1900 and 1930 in Bavaria, thus fitting the 1920s romantic cliché of steamy stories situated in Europe to make them more acceptable to American audiences. All the romantic leads are dashing and handsome/beautiful. The black and white film is beautifully restored with only a few bad sections; the original symphonic score (composed for TCM by a young composer) is memorable and effective in the tradition of great 30s and 40s Hollywood film scores. Film is directed in successful commercial fashion with imaginative decors (often the beneficiaries of special effects), lingering romantic close-ups, somewhat soft focus shots of the principals, melodramatic scenes (e.g., of duels when the duelists disappear beyond the sides of the frame, smoke billows, and we don't know who was killed until later) and sentimental. Most of the scenes with Garbo are memorable: her smoldering looks at Gilbert from the carriage after her arrival at the train station, their tryst in the heavily shadowed garden, where their faces are lit by Gilbert’s match (no, she doesn’t really want a cigarette) and she takes most of the initiative in the passionate kiss. Characterization of deep male friendship between Gilbert and Larson is sentimental and rather touching; it is the energy that drives the story to the end – both men are racked by guilt and unhappiness because they are betraying one another with Garbo. Garbo is young-looking and very beautiful in her wispy way – many close-ups of her looking at us with her smoldering eyes from beneath her wrap-around 20s hat. She is a slave to love – there is no way she can give up Gilbert even though her marriage to Larson and her sympathy for him gives her every reason to do so; but then she also is racked by guilt at her betrayal of one of the men she loves. Film has moral foundation – the pastor who warns Gilbert to give up Garbo, and then thunders at them from the Lutheran pulpit (quoting the Old Testament's condemnation of David) for their immorality. Film ends tragically with the two men meeting for a duel on the Île de l'Amitié, Garbo falling to her death through the melting ice while rushing to prevent them from fighting, and the men being reprieved by a mysterious impulse they felt simultaneously (apparently the voice of God as previously expressed through the pastor). (An alternative ending that has Garbo saved from drowning at the last minute by the men was never used.) Although film has genuine tragic feeling at the end, overall impact is a romantic vehicle for the two great MGM stars.


La Fleur du Mal 2003 Claude Chabrol (France) 3.0 Suzanne Flon as Tante Line, Nathalie Baye as Anne, Melanie Doutey as Michelle, Benoit Magimel, Bernard Le Coq. Latter day Chabrol film again skewering the haute bourgeoisie for its pretensions (including Le Coq’s sneering at American culture), hypocrisies, hiding dark secrets, capability for cruelty. About family that has been intermarrying for six generations! whose grandfather was a Jew-hater collaborator during Vichy regime, two of four parents died in 1981, and the two remaining spouses (Le Coq and Baye) then married one another. Now the two step siblings (really cousins?) love one another, and get it on at the vacation house with full approval of practically everyone. Le Coq is true bourgeois creep hated by practically everyone in the family; he resents Anne’s political ambitions (constant sottovoce insults), but who chases after available single women while his wife campaigns; when he tries to rape Michelle at end, she kills him with a lamp (!), but Line decides to take blame as revenge against him and as somehow righting the terrible wrong she committed when she killed her father (parricide!) for his connivance in the death of her brother Francois. The death and the guilt of Michele is previewed in first steadycammed sequence of camera entering the house and gliding up the stairs (later replicated by Line and Michele painfully dragging Gerard’s body up the stairs) and discovering the body. Chabrol truly despises the French bourgeoisie, since he can’t seem to stop making movies about their faults! Film script slowly reveals the awful past of the family through family revelations, especially Tante Line, who has spontaneous flashbacks (making clear that she suffers from guilt). Style rather minimalist – logical and spare development of present and past background – but cinematography is beautiful color, lyrical outdoor shots (again I think in Bretagne and near the ocean) and interior shots of perfectly appointed small chateau. Cameos of Anne visiting disgruntled public housing denizens are very amusing – a satire on electoral politics on either side of the Atlantic. Line’s explanation of why she wants to take blame for Gerard’s mother is quite vague….