This & that (Otto & Val)

As a film programmer myself, I am sometimes led by film programs to explore byways of cinema that would not otherwise come to my notice. Two recent examples are a Film Forum (NYC) series on Otto Preminger, and a Turner Classic Movies feature on Val Lewton -- with both I just scratched the surface without surprising any urge to dig deeper.

Preminger is definitely notable for his cussed independence and attraction to controversy, and ultimate ability to work on his own terms, but I do not engage with his directorial sensibility. By reputation his keywords are “objectivity” and “ambiguity” -- which are somewhat at odds with his dominating personality. Certainly his career has enough different stages to attract critics of different stripes. I remember being impressed by Advice and Consent (1963) and The Cardinal (1964) in my teen years, as well as two classics I caught up with on video, Laura (1944) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959). Following Film Forum, I watched a few more on DVD but turned up no strong recommendations, though each is not without interest.

Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) is a noir subject but not in noir style, the shadows are within the characters rather than within the frame. Dana Andrews is a detective with Oedipal rage, who kills a suspect and courts his wife (Gene Tierney, in a typical Preminger pairing in that period), but his behavior is observed dispassionately, so he’s as hard to take sides for or against as Jimmy McNulty on The Wire.

Angel Face (1952) has another Freudian howler in Jean Simmons, as the title character with a maniacal crush on her father, a femme as fatal as they come, who enlists a bemused Robert Mitchum into her schemes -- the supposedly shocking ending seems a foregone conclusion.

The Man with the Golden Arm (1956) was a breakthrough depiction of heroin addiction, but seems old hat now, just a small extension of boundaries from The Lost Weekend. Frank Sinatra is quite good as the junkie card dealer who wants to become a drummer, held back by a scheming shrew of a wife but encouraged by adoring girlfriend Kim Novak (surprisingly believable). So we can leave it that Otto Preminger is a good filmmaker, but not a director I feel compelled to attend to.

And I might say the same about Val Lewton. A generous appreciation of the low-budget producer as auteur is offered in the new documentary, Val Lewton: Man in the Shadows (2007), presented by Martin Scorsese and directed by Kent Jones (with whom I have had a friendly acquaintance). In conjuction with its premiere, TCM programmed a Val Lewton retrospective, which I sampled selectively, and determined that Lewton was indeed more than just a predecessor of b-movie mogul Roger Corman -- he was an estimable artist of limited means. His films may transcend genre and budget but are still limited by it; at this stage of film history, they’re definitely more than a goof but still require a large suspension of belief not to laugh at.

Cat People (1942) is yet another Freudian howler, complete with villainous shrink. Simone Simon is suitably kittenish as the Serbian immigrant with an odd family tree, who fears that if she gives way to passion her feral forebears will manifest in her. Given the crazy premise, the film is surprisingly subtle in its use of suggestion for suspense, and its failure to take sides for or against the characters’ fantasies, except for that really creepy psychiatrist. Like Corman with Scorsese and others, Lewton gave Jacques Tourneur his first chance as director with this film.

He also got Robert Wise started with The Curse of the Cat People (1944), an ingenious twist to the requirement of a sequel after the earlier film’s success. This film almost dispenses with the horror genre altogether, in presenting the fantasy world of a young girl, though the threats seem real enough. To me it ranks with The Night of the Hunter as an evocation of childhood fears. Simone Simon returns as the imaginary friend of the young daughter of her former husband and the woman he has married after the action of the first film. Though the thread is tenuous, the films are connected, but I would definitely recommend this sequel even if you haven’t seen the originial.

Faced with the demand to make a film with zombies, Lewton turned to Charlotte Bronte and remade Jane Eyre in Haiti as I Walked with a Zombie (1943), directed by Tourneur. It’s a film that weaves a visual spell out of simple elements, and doesn’t overstay its welcome at 69 minutes, but still the atmosphere it creates does not linger in the mind, dissipating into airy nonsense.

Lewton’s aspirations are even more on view in The Body Snatcher (1945), which he adapted himself from a story by R.L. Stevenson. Boris Karloff is a “resurrection man,” digging up bodies for medical professor Henry Daniell, and both familiar faces give nuanced performances, with a bit role for Bela Lugosi to give the film genre appeal. But the approach to the unhappy marriage of medical science and ghoulish means is amazingly serious. Director Wise offers a fair evocation of Edinburgh in 1831, and the only low-budget flaw in the film is the inept actor who plays the young doctor in the middle of the action. Otherwise it’s far from a laughable period piece.

The Seventh Victim (1943) wears its literary aspirations on its sleeve, opening with an epigraph from John Donne, and taking place mostly in a building with a restaurant call The Dante. The story anticipates Rosemary’s Baby -- about a fashionable young woman in the clutches of a Manhattanite devil cult -- but first time director Mark Robson is no Roman Polanski. It’s easy to see why some say it’s Lewton’s most personal film, or his masterpiece. But neither the actors nor the film itself have the resources to bring it off, to make sense out of a dense and convoluted story, heavy with dread and ambiguity.

One film I did have to laugh at was Paul Schrader’s remake of Cat People (1982), in which the Freudian subtext is made risibly overt. Nastassja Kinski is again suitably kittenish, and Malcolm McDowell heads a cast that seems amazingly familiar in retrospect, but the film makes no sense at all in its heat and gore -- the horror seen rather than imagined -- yet it retains a strange attraction. So do you laugh at Nastassja in her birthday suit padding like a panther through a forest at night, or do you have some other somatic reaction? Your call.

Mouchette

The ethical and aesthetic credo of Robert Bresson has always struck me as too severe, except when it is sublime. His view of life as a prison transcends itself in two austere masterpieces, A Man Escaped (certainly among my own top 25 films of all time) and The Trial of Joan of Arc, where the imprisonment is literal. There are only metaphorical or metaphysical bars around the Country Priest, the donkey Balthazar, or the peasant girl who is the title character of this film (endearingly, “Little Fly”). Such a careful filmmaker will often make memorable scenes, but overall his approach seems chilly and schematic. He has so little regard for screen acting that he refers to his nonprofessional players as models rather than actors. Bresson may be one of the great directors, but he is also a hazing ritual for a cult of critics -- if you aim to be serious about cinema, you are obliged to immerse yourself in his astringent output. So when the Criterion Collection recently released a pristine print, I had to watch poor Mouchette suffer her fate all over again, one blow after another in a heartless world, as much a beast of burden as Balthazar. And again the ending seemed abrupt and some points along the way unconvincing, so unless one clicks into a transcendental reverie, this Bressonian effort seems thin, starved of life (aside from the justly celebrated carnival scene where Mouchette gets to drive a Dodge ‘Em). On the same theme, I find the Dardennes brothers’ Rosetta more memorable. (1966,dvd, r.) *6+*

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Writer-director Andrew Dominik fails to adapt Ron Hansen’s novel sufficiently, and the result is less than the sum of its parts -- starting with excellent performances by Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck as the title characters and superb cinematography by Roger Deakins (“on loan” from the Coen Brothers) -- and more than the story will bear -- making it rather dozy at close to three hours. The giveaway is a mostly unnecessary narration, which is obvious at times but leaves much of the story confusing and underdeveloped, in need of connection. There’s enough good stuff to keep one watching, and enough aimless scenes and shots to set eyelids closing and head nodding. While offering the pictorial delights of a classic western, the film attempts to offer a meditation on the beginning of celebrity culture, as cult hero Pitt is stalked by fan and assassin Affleck. Each performance is riveting at times, but again the connection is missing. Meanwhile some fine actors are wasted in undeveloped supporting roles, Sam Shepard and Mary Louise Parker among others. The slack self-indulgence of this postmodern Western was highlighted for me since I came to it directly after showing Stagecoach to kick off my John Ford series at the Clark. Ford’s economical storytelling conveyed more than this film’s vaporous aestheticizing in half the time. Though Dominik’s film has its advocates and detractors, a common point of comparison is Terrence Malick, but while I am definitely a fan of his, of this not so much. (2007, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-68.)

Across the Universe

Here’s a bit of heresy -- I liked this appropriation of a Sixties musical icon about as much as I’m Not There. Julie Taymor pours on the showbiz pizzazz and the Boomer nostalgia to transform 30 Beatles songs into a Hair-y chronicle of that defining era. I’m not so in love with the Beatles that I consider it a desecration, but was sufficiently imprinted with their work at an impressionable age that I can call up the words even when I don’t have any idea what they mean -- didn’t then, don’t now. So here the simple-minded transposition of lyric into action struck me as inevitable and yet revelatory. I got some of these songs in a way I never did before. And since all Beatles songs have been covered repeatedly, it didn’t bother me to hear them in other voices. Granted, the Sixties are presented as a series of comic book panels, but I’m invested and imbued enough to have a Pavlovian reaction to depiction of such scenes, unless they’re so badly done as to elicit revulsion. Certainly, plenty of critics were revolted by this psychedelic potpourri, but I bought into it for the duration (which, typically, should have been a quarter-hour less). Evan Rachel Wood is rather bland as the straight blond love interest, but maybe that was Waspishly appropriate. I didn’t care for her brother either, an Ivy League dropout turned Vietnam grunt, but I’d be just as put off if I met the character in the flesh. Luckily, Jim Sturgess is appealing, in a Jake Gyllenhaal manner, as the Liverpudlian shipworker who stows away to NYC and winds up in the East Village crash pad of a Janis Joplin-like singer and her Jimi Hendrix-like guitarist. But the story or characters hardly matter except as a pretext for kinetic visual pyrotechnics. I enjoyed it, but I can’t guarantee that you will. (2007, dvd, n.) *7-* (MC-56.)

On the other hand, Syndromes and a Century (2007, dvd, n.) was acclaimed by some, enough to come in at #4 on the annual Indiewire critics poll, but remained as opaque to me as its title. The Thai filmmaker, Apichatpong Weerasethakul (who helpfully goes by the name of “Joe”) is a darling of the international film festival set, but I can’t get into his work, which is carefully crafted but incomprehensible to me. He has a light and lovely touch, but I have no idea what he’s getting at, even with the clue that it has something to do with how his parents met, as two doctors, with the story told twice from opposing perspectives, once in a country hospital and once in a city. Or something like that. Buddhist or surrealist, it’s all beyond me.

The Wire, R.I.P.

I’ve already had my say on The Wire, and such praise has now become commonplace, so if you haven’t been swayed yet by widespread assertions that it’s the greatest TV series ever, nothing I can add will convince you to give this work the attention it deserves and requires. But now that its mind-bending, heart-rending five-season run is complete, I have to offer a RIP bouquet.

I believe one word says it all about The Wire: “complicity.” It’s all there in the complicated portrait of a city. The complicity of institutions, and their complicity in social woes. The complicity of individuals, following their own interests or codes. The complicity of cops with criminals; the complicity of money and power, business and politics, schools and media. The complicity of actors and characters, which gives the film/novel the feel of reality. The complicity of fact and fiction. The complicity of show and viewer, makers and responders, so evident in impassioned online message boards. The complicity of critics, striving to keep an underwatched show alive by attracting viewers. Complicity is the opposite of conspiracy -- it is the genuine invisible hand that rules everything. We’re all accomplices.

As for a review of the fifth and final season, they’re everywhere -- take your pick. All I have to say is that David Simon, Ed Burns, and all the rest of the writers, cast, and crew remained true to the greatness of their endeavor to the very end -- 60 hours that will live as long as television does. All over America today, people are going back to Episode 1, and the pre-title-sequence demise of “Snot-boogie,” to start all over again. The parallel world of The Wire is complete, and it will last forever in our memories.

P.S. If like me you just can't let go, here's a nice wrap-up of last episode by a group of Salon writers. (You may have to watch a brief ad to get to Salon, but once there you should check out another excellent interview with David Simon.)

State of Play

For those suffering from Wire-withdrawal, this six-hour BBC miniseries delivers a welcome jolt. Also for Michael Clayton fans, disappointed that the best film didn’t win “Best Picture.” Here Paul Abbott has written a superior conspiracy thriller script, and David Yates directs in propulsive style, with editing and music insistent on keeping up the pace. The story hurtles by, as the viewer strains to keep up with its twists and turns. It all starts when a lovely young research assistant for a British energy minister jumps -- or is pushed? -- in front of a train, and we follow a dedicated but unscrupulous band of reporters trying to get to the bottom of a story which seems to have no bottom, just a deeper and deeper cesspool of responsibility. The cast is amazing as an ensemble, whether little-known or quite familiar. Bill Nighy is superb as usual as the managing editor, Kelly Macdonald is reliably excellent as a spunky reporter (with her native Glasgow accent quite a shock after her full Texan in No Country for Old Men), James McAvoy hints at the movie star he would soon become as another of the reporters, Polly Walker overcomes her indelible image as Atia in the HBO miniseries Rome. Less familiar are the two leads -- John Simm as the lead reporter, and David Morrissey as the rising young MP (just what he played as eventual PM Gordon Brown in The Deal). I advise you to watch this series soon for full effect, since Abbott has adapted it for an American remake, which is now being filmed for 2009 release by Kevin Macdonald, with these substitutions: Helen Mirren, Rachel MacAdams, nobody, Robin Wright Penn, Russell Crowe, and Ben Affleck. (2003, dvd, n.) *7+*

The Heart of the Game

Hey, I just saw this great film about a sassy high school student having a baby, and no, it wasn’t Juno. Ward Serrill’s documentary follows the fortunes of Seattle’s Roosevelt Roughriders through seven seasons of girls’ basketball, as a quirky, disheveled tax law professor takes the reins and applies his own hilarious but effective coaching approach to giving the game heart. But the story finds its focus with the arrival of Darnellia, a talented freshman who happens to be black in an overwhelmingly white school. What follows couldn’t be scripted, though it follows the template of every rousing sports story ever told. To say this isn’t quite a Hoop Dreams for girls is merely to say it isn’t one of the greatest films of all time, but still well worth seeking out. The dvd extras flesh out the story, to give it a little more of that epic scope. Like the excellent book In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle, this is, among other virtues, a paean to Title IX. See it. (2005, dvd, n.) *8* (MC-74.)

Ford film series at the Clark

A Wild and Savage Land: John Ford Looks at the American West

In conjunction with the Clark's current exhibition, Remington Looking West, I'll present a program of John Ford films, to suggest how Ford follows in Frederic Remington's footsteps in depicting the majesty and mythos of the Wild West, transferring a shared visual style from canvas to film. All films will be shown by widescreen digital projection in the Clark auditorium on Saturdays at 2:00 p.m.

March 15: Stagecoach. (1939, 100 min.) A mythic success, this film sets the mold for the Western genre, with Ford establishing the characters, themes, and scenes he and others would return to time and again, while making a star of John Wayne. You’ve seen this story dozens of times, but see the original again or for the first time.

March 22: My Darling Clementine. (1946, 97 min.) Ford takes on another myth of the Old West, with Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp in Tombstone, leading up to the gunfight at the OK Corral. With Victor Mature as Doc Holliday and Walter Brennan as the vile patriarch of the Clanton gang, along with Ford’s standard repertory of actors.

March 29: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. (1949, 103 min.) Ford instructed his cinematographer to study Remington’s pictorial style before making his first Western in color. John Wayne is a cavalry officer who longs to retire after Custer’s defeat, but duty calls him to make a final stand against another Indian attack. Victor McLaglen is his trusty sergeant.

April 5: The Searchers. (1956, 119 min.) Ford transcends himself in this searching depiction of John Wayne as an Indian hunter and hater, who travels long and far to find a niece abducted by Indians. But when he finds her, Natalie Wood has been acculturated as a squaw herself, which creates a memorable internal conflict. Viewed by many as the greatest Western of them all.