Le Jour se Leve (Daybreak)

One of the peaks of pre-war French cinema, this collaboration between director Marcel Carne and writer Jacques Prevert makes a bookend with the supreme Les Enfants du Paradis at the end of the war. The quintessence of “poetic realism,” the film exudes a gloom that seems prescient, as good man Jean Gabin is subverted by the evil seducer Jules Berry into murder and suicide. Set design and music weave a spell that enhances superior performances all round, including Arletty and Jacqueline Laurent who round out the self-destructive foursome. The film is told in flashback as Gabin holes up in his garret under police siege after shooting Berry, and we learn why he was driven to that desperate act. He and Laurent are orphans who discover each other when she wanders by mistake, while trying to deliver flowers, into the shop where he works at sandblasting machine parts. They fall sweetly in love, but consummation is prevented by the machinations of vile dog-trainer Berry, whose assistant Arletty winds up with Gabin on the rebound. Though revolving around simplistic dualities, the film spins a complex web of evocation. (1939, IFC/T, r.) *7+*

Three Times

Hou Hsiao-Hsien assembles three vignettes of the same two actors in the Taiwan of 1966, 1911, and 2005. The first is sweet and light, scored to “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and other period ballads: a conscript meets a pretty pool hall attendent, writes her letters, but when he returns on leave she has moved, and he has to track her through several towns till they meet again, have dinner, and as they stand at a bus stop, their hands touch and then clasp. That episode is almost wordless, and the second is silent, in keeping with its era, with musical acccompaniment and dialogue on intertitles, set in a sumptuously visualized brothel, where a courtesan hopes to be saved by a young journalist who visits periodically but is preoccupied with freeing Taiwan from Japanese occupation -- when she gets a letter from him oh so hopefully, it only contains impersonal political news. Modern day Taipei is quite a jolt -- all motorscooters, neon, electronics. The couple, this time an epileptic, bisexual pop singer and a hunky photographer, communicate mostly through text messaging and sex, with no slow build to a quiet moment of real feeling, so the story is less satisfying in itself, though it does follow through the parallels between stories that give the whole weight. Hou is a little-seen critical darling, worth seeing but not a must-see, and this seems to be a representative anthology. (2005, dvd, n.) *6* (MC-80.)

The Golden Coach

Anything but a showman myself, I am naturally resistant to the “theater is life: life is theater” theme, so I am not the best judge of this Renoir film, nicely restored as part of Criterion’s “Stage and Spectacle” set of dvds. My absolute favorite director, Francois Truffaut, went so far as to call his production company Le Carrosse d’Or, and another favorite, Martin Scorsese, was responsible for its resurrection, so I suppose I must be missing something in this film. Set in 18th century Peru, and scored to Vivaldi, it depicts the arrival of a commedia del’arte troupe to bring “culture” to a colonial backwater. The color cinematography by nephew Claude Renoir is beautiful to be sure, and there is Jean Renoir’s usual deep-focus swirl of action, both owing something to the patriarchal painter. Anna Magnani is a force of nature but oddly cast as the Columbine all men fall for, and the men tend to be one-dimensional at best -- viceroy Duncan Lamont is the most plausible even though his improvident gift to her of the eponymous trapping of power is not believable for a minute, and the bullfighter and the soldier are stick figures. Magnani is convincing in her just-learned English, but not so some of the other actors in this international production shot in Rome and also released in Italian and French. It’s indicative of the film’s unreality that Spanish has nothing to do with it. Still, if you are willing to follow Renoir through the proscenium arch into this world of theatricality, you will be enchanted. (1953, dvd, r.) *7*

Kicking and Screaming

From the lighter side of the Criterion Collection comes the first DVD of Noah Baumbach’s first film, and in light of the success of his third, The Squid and the Whale, it seems worthwhile to revisit his maiden effort, from fresh out of Vassar. Indeed, the original title of his script, Fifth Year, better sums up the subject, as a motley group of just-graduated guys warily edge up on getting a life. It’s all funny and true in a slackerish sort of way, but doesn’t add up to all that much. Josh Hamilton and Olivia D’Abo are effective as the maybe-or-not couple who met in creative writing class, but the scene-stealers are the always tart and funny Christopher Eigenman and the mug-faced Carlos Jacott, with indie fixtures Eric Stoltz and Parker Posey contributing cute cameos. Anyway, this film shows a lot of promise, on which Baumbach has already started to deliver -- definitely a young writer-director to watch. (1995, dvd, r.) *6*

Ugetsu

I won’t presume to rate this acclaimed masterwork from Kenji Mizoguchi, but I am looking forward to seeing more of his work, if the Criterion Collection brings other films to DVD. He might join Kurosawa and Ozu in my pantheon of directors, but I will need to see Utamaro, Oharu, Sansho, and others to know. Whatever films of his I saw decades ago did not particularly register on me, and I’m not even sure whether I’ve seen Ugetsu before. Certainly it is strange and misty enough to have disappeared from my mind like an unremembered dream. A ghost fable set during 16th century feudal wars, the film follows two peasants motivated by the disruption of war to go on foolish quests that their wives ultimately pay for. One is a potter who drifts into the clutches of a mysterious noblewoman; the other is a wannabe samurai who finds a success he didn’t bargain for. One viewing was not sufficient to break down my own predilection for realism, or to enter into such an alien mindset, but there is certainly moviemaking magic at work here, in pictorial design, startling camera moves, a quality of light and atmosphere that keeps the film balanced on the edge of dream and wakefulness. Reading afterwards I found out, for example, that Mizoguchi directed the soldiers to move like animals, which explains the nonnaturalism that bothered me in the rape and pillage scenes (though I bought into that same direction in Malick’s New World) -- better to look at them as something like the winged monkeys of Oz rather than the samurai of Kurosawa. The acting style as a whole requires some getting used to; it’s also helpful to see the film as a Japanese scroll, to explain transitions that are otherwise inexplicable. So I would recommend this only to the most adventurous viewers, despite its ranking in critics’ polls of the best all time This and Rashomon initiated an international vogue for Japanese film after postwar reconstruction. (1953, dvd.)

Two recent pieces of Hollywood product

If all you expect from movies is an hour and a half of entertainment that doesn’t insult your intelligence, here are two plausible alternatives from the past year. I yoke them together because they hardly warrant comment on their own, and because of a coincidence of ratings. Each got a rather high Metacritic score of 71, and I would give both a grudging *6-* after thinking *5+* at first.

I’m not a Wes Craven maven -- have not seen Scream or anything that followed or preceded -- but he is obviously a practiced hand at cinematic scare tactics, and Red Eye is quite a successful genre exercise, moving the traditional woman in jeopardy from a haunted house to the “friendly” skies. Rachel McAdams is more than all right as the cheerleader/field hockey player turned efficient hotel executive, who meets Cillian Murphy on the eponymous late flight into Miami. Murphy successfully negotiates the transition from teasingly romantic to seriously menacing, though the film itself is less satisfying as it transitions from promising character study to standard chase-&-stalk. Still, Craven knows how to make you jump when he says jump, and he fills in just enough atmosphere and detail to keep you watching.

Thank You for Smoking is a satire on spin, not too bland but not too biting either -- call it filtered. Aaron Eckhart is perfect for the charming scoundrel role of a PR professional for the cigarette industry, and receives effective support from Rob Lowe as a Hollywood agent, William Macy as an anti-smoking Senator from Vermont, and among others, Maria Bello as a fellow lobbyist from the “Mod Squad,” the “merchants of death” representing alcohol and guns as well as tobacco. Writer/director Jason Reitman (son of the Ivan of Ghostbusters, etc.) veers toward the middle of the road in adapting the novel of Christopher Buckley (son of William F.), making Eckhart a good divorced dad who explains to his son the moral flexibility and argumentative success of his career. But frankly you can get most of the effective jokes from the trailer, and the film itself does not fill them out or deepen the characterizations. The implicit libertarian critique of camps on both left and right is diluted enough to offend no one, but not to engage anyone particularly. A mild amusement, with barely a buzz and no aftertaste.

Must Love Dogs

Now I know this is a piece of cheese, but it went down smoothly for me, so it must be cream cheese. I mean, how bad could it be with Diane Lane and John Cusack, two of the most appealing actors working today? And there is fine supporting work from Christopher Plummer, Stockard Channing, Dermot Mulroney and Elizabeth Perkins. Sure it’s a sitcommy confection from writer-director Gary David Goldberg, but there were some funny lines and the actors were amusing company for a brisk hour and a half. Two lovelorn thirtysomethings meet through an internet dating service, experience frustrations, but wind up with each other. This is an unpretentious trifle that delivers on its modest aspirations, so it’s odd for me to give it the same rating as Scorsese’s altogether more impassioned production, but to me they’re each films that are worth seeing, as long as you know what you are getting in for, but I am neither supportive or dismissive of either. (2005, HBO/T, n.) *6* (MC-46.)

The Departed

This is a prestige package from top to bottom, but it strikes me as indicative of what’s wrong with movies today that this should be Scorsese’s most successful film to date (and correspondingly makes The Wire shine more brightly as an example of what can actually be done with the crime genre.) I simply cannot agree with those who see this as Marty’s return to form after Gangs of New York and The Aviator, both of which were more substantial to me, particularly the latter. Like Spike Lee’s Inside Man, this is a relentlessly twisty thriller script with a bunch of high-profile actors attached, but it is not a film trying to say anything true about anything significant. People complain a little about Jack Nicholson’s Joker-like turn as the Boston mob boss, but I considered it more amusing than the brains that repeatedly splattered the walls. Leonardo DiCaprio is well-equipped to agonize over his role as a police mole in mob activities, and Matt Damon maintains the necessary surface to function as a mob mole in police activities. Alec Baldwin, Mark Wahlberg, and Martin Sheen all offer flavorful performances as law enforcement officials, but Vera What’s-her-name? just holds her place as the insultingly preposterous female love interest. The whole thing is smoothly made and satisfyingly kinetic, but utterly inconsequential. (2006, theater, n.) *6* (MC-88.)

Boudu Saved From Drowning

Jean Renoir built this film around the performance of Michel Simon, and therein lies the problem for me. Though much praised, Simon’s performance strikes me less as Chaplinesque and more as sub-Jerry Lewis. Some may see an anarchic proto-hippie to root for in his overthrow of bourgeois values, but I see spastic play-acting. Though reputedly subverted from its stage play antecedent, the film remains stagey despite the depth and fluidity of Renoir’s camerawork. Again the realism of visualization clashes with the artifice of story and performance. There are great street scenes and park settings of Paris in the 30s, and I for one ought to have been engaged with the character of the bookseller who rescues Boudu, but the whole remains inert for me. This is a period curiosity that lets in a lot of ambient reality around and behind the clownish carryings-on -- an interesting specimen but no enduring classic. (1932, dvd, r.) *6-*

La Bete Humaine

Jean Renoir says he took on this job of directing because he and Jean Gabin wanted to play with trains, and certainly that is the best aspect of this film. The celebrated opening sequence reminded me of the great British documentary Night Mail, in its meticulous depiction of Gabin actually driving a locomotive from Paris to Le Havre. He was the big star, and Renoir the hired hand in this instance, and the film was a relative hit for a director who would always have trouble getting his own films made, despite his exalted status in retrospect. Though at an early age he knew the novelist as a friend of his painter father, Renoir is not a very logical choice to adapt Zola. While both might be considered realists, Renoir’s humanism (for lack of a better word) is not conducive to Zola’s determinism, so the film does not make much sense. It definitely has the flavor of the railroad milieu, but the characters are all unconvincing in their behavior and the story has inexplicable gaps. It’s amusing to read reviews in various film guides, because they all get details of plot wrong, and I think the film is to blame for that. Some praise Gabin’s acting, but I found it uncharacteristically opaque and wooden (he looks the part “behind the wheel,” however.) Simone Simon is piquant but hardly a vamp, or a proto-noir femme fatale, as her character is sometimes described. Despite the engaging train footage, this film is more period piece than still-living drama. (1938, dvd, n.) *6-*

Some worthy documentaries

I harbor a slight resentment of Ken Burns and his ilk for narrowing the popular perception of the documentary form to the archival visuals/talking-head format of the schoolmarm. (Nothing like the profound distaste I have for Michael Moore and his ilk, for reducing documentary to egomaniacal agitprop.) To me the documentary aesthetic (“creative treatment of actuality” in Grierson’s seminal formulation) is the essence of the art of film, and not just for lengthy lessons in arcana. And yet, in subject and style Burns’ films are irresistable. I’ve just finished watching his Unforgivable Blackness (2004, dvd, n.), and if you think four hours is too long to spend in the company of a black boxer from a century ago, or that James Earl Jones in The Great White Hope told you all you need to know about Jack Johnson -- well then, you’d be wrong. This film is both informative and moving, a strong and fitting subject for the oh-so-smooth Ken Burns treatment. Johnson emerges as an emblematic figure of the Jim Crow era (I first mistyped “error” but that’s correct after all.) He’s hardly a hero of civil rights, and yet is a telling example of civil wrongs. To me boxing is a deplorable sport, but it’s hard to deny its elemental symbolism has made for a long string of significant films, both documentary and dramatic.

In the same vein, if not at the same level, I was satisfied by two other PBS docs. The 4-dvd set of Chicago: City of the Century filled in a lot of the backstory of the city I would live in, if I lived in a city. It traced the 60 years between its origins as a swampland outpost and the Columbian Expostion of 1892, beginning with idea of a canal between Lake Michigan and a tributary of the Mississippi, through the city’s development as a rail hub with attendant industries (“wheat stacker, hog butcher” etc.), the conflicts between merchant princes and immigrant labor, and the eventual supremacy of machine politics. A supplement on “Chicago by ‘L’: Touring the Neighborhoods” took me out of the Loop where most of my own visits to the city remain. Various re-enactments were sketchy but well-visualized, and yet still supported my general argument against such in historical documentaries.

For Marie Antoinette, the visual record was much richer, and kept me watching when I channel-surfed past it. She was a precursor to Princess Di as media celebrity, and from official portraits to scurrilous caricatures her story offered plenty of visual interest, to go with the inherent drama of revolution. With this and several books coming out in anticipation of Sofia Coppola’s film, Marie Antoinette is a media icon all over again.

While each of these documentaries are worth watching if you have an interest in the subject, I have two to recommend whether you think you’re interested or not. HBO just broadcast Mr. Conservative: Goldwater on Goldwater, which turned out to be a timely and surprisingly moving retrospect on the man I once loved to hate, but now view wistfully as an honorable public figure, since the conservative movement he spearheaded has gone so far wrong, in ways he never did and never would countenance. Goldwater’s granddaughter is not an apologist for his politics, but shows how they were rooted in an integrity one has to be nostalgic for. She has lots of great family footage to go with public media coverage, and interviews a wide range of folks, from family to Hillary, about the man’s personality and importance. Libertarian yet collegial, with an honest and coherent point of view, Barry Goldwater is a politician one can only wish were on the scene today.

Like you, I have absolutely no taste for heavy metal music, but I am interested in the documentarians Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (Paradise Lost I & II, etc.), so I took the trouble to sit through Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. (2004, dvd, n.) (MC-74.) I’m no proponent of direct cinema based on celebrity access, and lament for example Barbara Kopple’s devolution from Harlan County USA to Wild Man Blues, but Berlinger and Sinofsky got themselves on to something when they were asked by Metallica -- whose music was an important aspect of their earlier films about some teenage headbangers accused of child murder -- to do the Let It Be thing with their attempt to regroup for a new album after two decades as the top metal band in the world. Along with the filmmakers, the band hired a group dynamics coach who had been psychological consultant to sports teams. Still, they made for a highly disfunctional family and it took more than two years of sturm und drang for the “St. Anger” album to be produced, and the film follows the process with rather astounding intimacy. This is more psychodrama than concert film, you see more conflict and tantrums than musical composition in the recording studio, but the whole brew is quite intriguing. Two and a half hours is a little long to spend in the company of these guys, but I found it interesting the whole way, though I wasn’t tempted to go on to the second disk’s worth of deleted scenes.