"The fact is that I practice absurdity quite religiously." Alfred Hitchcock
"The most appealing aspect of that sequence with the plane is that it's totally gratuitous." Francois Truffaut
Hitchcock by Francois Truffaut (Simon and Shuster,1967)
"Hitchcock's sense of the precariousness of all human order has never been more beautifully expressed."
Hitchcock's Films by Robin Wood (A.S. Barnes & Co.,1965)
"The tone of this film may be light; the moral undercurrents are dark."
The Art of Alfred Hitchcock by Donald Spoto (Hopkinson and Blake,1976)
Hitchcock's reputation is always changing but he is still one of the few directors that most people can name. Film Forum has started its useful series of the complete Hitchcock with North by Northwest, which some see as the summing up of his spy films and some see it as the beginning of a decline. There are still many who don't like Hitchcock's films because they are manipulative, misogynistic, misanthropic. I find him to be a brilliant stylist who does not appeal particularly to women; his films are full of male fantasies but they are often undercut. In North by Northwest, for instance, Cary Grant gets on a train and is seated in a dining car with Eva Marie Saint, a seductive fantasy who flirts intensely with this man she has just met -- of course she is working for the bad guys. The exteriors and location shots in the film are beautifully done but if the film is marred by anything it is the cheesy studio interiors and the numerous TV actors (Robert Shayne, Edward Platt, et al.) who demonstrate Hitchcock's involvement with his TV show, which ran from 1955 to 1965 and which made him a household name. His TV show wonderfully ridiculed the required happy ending of the time; many of us who watched it as kids found it quite subversive and seductive. Certainly the very dark Psycho, which came out the year after North by Northwest, used the TV techniques with great success, but it is questionable whether the effect on Hitchcock's other later films was a good one (though they may have helped to keep him working by keeping his budgets relatively low). It remains a question whether the use of back projection (even in the plane sequence) and stand-ins (nobody walks like Cary Grant!) irritated audiences of the time or even do so today.
The print Film Forum showed was DCP (digital cinema package), now gradually taking over for 35 mm. I found this film, in color, a more successful restoration than the print they showed of Citizen Kane, which lacked the warmth and shading of the original 35 mm. This may simply be the (slight) price we have to pay to keep these films available; it is certainly preferable to 16 mm.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Snow in the Movies
With all the snow we've had this winter I have been asked about my favorite uses of snow in movies. Here is a very subjective list.
John Ford's The Searchers (1957). Often in Westerns snow is hostile, something to overcome. As Ethan Edwards and Martin Pawley search for Debbie, captured by Indians, they come across a massacre of Indians by U.S. troops in the snow, as the Indians have had to seek shelter in forts because the buffalo are being killed off. While the snow falls on Martin and Ethan they have to turn back and Ethan, more determined than ever, says it means nothing: "We'll find her, as sure as the turning o' the earth."
William Wellman's Track of the Cat (1954). During the winter, with the land covered by snow, a mountain lion is killing people and cattle. The search for the mountain lion takes place in a bleak, black-and-white universe beautifully filmed in color.
Anthony Mann's The Far Country (1954). Mann was particularly adept at natural exteriors, as settlers battle the snow and ice in Alaska.
Raoul Walsh's Northern Pursuit (1943). A Canadian Mountie looks for Nazis in the snow.
King Vidor's War and Peace (1956). The horror of the snow and cold of the Russian winter
does in Napoleon in this intelligent filming of the Tolstoy novel.
Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents (1961) shows how hard it is for Inuits to adapt to modern customs. Should be seen in connection with Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922), a contrived documentary dealing with similar situations.
D. W. Griffith's Way Down East (1922) in which Lillian Gish is banished in the snow for her moral failings and becomes adrift on an ice floe.
Andre De Toth's Day of the Outlaw (1959), a beautiful Western in which a snowed-in town is held hostage.
Howard Hawks's The Thing (1951) in which an alien lands in the Arctic.
Samuel Fuller's Fixed Bayonets (1951): the Korean War in the snow and ice; an unusual example of a war film in the snow; Roger Corman's Ski Troop Attack (1960) is another.
Then there are romantic films, musicals, and comedies, where snow is usually more benign, often signifying reconciliation, especially at Christmas.
Vincente Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), where Judy Garland sings, ironically, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" as her sister destroys snowmen, angry that the family is moving from St. Louis.
Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940), where misunderstandings are cleared up in the snow in time for Christmas.
Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush (1925), effective scenes of snow isolating people from each other and their feelings.
Jacques Demy's Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), in which separated lovers, now married to others, meet briefly in the snow.
Fran Borzage's The Mortal Storm (1940), in which snow is a means of escape from the Nazis but also means death.
Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1956), in which a couple are reunited because of an accident in the snow.
Leo McCarey's An Affair to Remember: Two lovers are reunited during a snowy Christmas after missing their meeting at the top of the Empire State Building.
Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1940), in which a snow globe at death becomes a child playing in the snow with his sled.
And then there are those films that end with snow falling, usually as a symbol of fatalism and moving on. This includes the Jacques Demy film mentioned above as well as John Huston's The Dead (1987) and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Climates (2006).
John Ford's The Searchers (1957). Often in Westerns snow is hostile, something to overcome. As Ethan Edwards and Martin Pawley search for Debbie, captured by Indians, they come across a massacre of Indians by U.S. troops in the snow, as the Indians have had to seek shelter in forts because the buffalo are being killed off. While the snow falls on Martin and Ethan they have to turn back and Ethan, more determined than ever, says it means nothing: "We'll find her, as sure as the turning o' the earth."
William Wellman's Track of the Cat (1954). During the winter, with the land covered by snow, a mountain lion is killing people and cattle. The search for the mountain lion takes place in a bleak, black-and-white universe beautifully filmed in color.
Anthony Mann's The Far Country (1954). Mann was particularly adept at natural exteriors, as settlers battle the snow and ice in Alaska.
Raoul Walsh's Northern Pursuit (1943). A Canadian Mountie looks for Nazis in the snow.
King Vidor's War and Peace (1956). The horror of the snow and cold of the Russian winter
does in Napoleon in this intelligent filming of the Tolstoy novel.
Nicholas Ray's The Savage Innocents (1961) shows how hard it is for Inuits to adapt to modern customs. Should be seen in connection with Robert Flaherty's Nanook of the North (1922), a contrived documentary dealing with similar situations.
D. W. Griffith's Way Down East (1922) in which Lillian Gish is banished in the snow for her moral failings and becomes adrift on an ice floe.
Andre De Toth's Day of the Outlaw (1959), a beautiful Western in which a snowed-in town is held hostage.
Howard Hawks's The Thing (1951) in which an alien lands in the Arctic.
Samuel Fuller's Fixed Bayonets (1951): the Korean War in the snow and ice; an unusual example of a war film in the snow; Roger Corman's Ski Troop Attack (1960) is another.
Then there are romantic films, musicals, and comedies, where snow is usually more benign, often signifying reconciliation, especially at Christmas.
Vincente Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), where Judy Garland sings, ironically, "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" as her sister destroys snowmen, angry that the family is moving from St. Louis.
Ernst Lubitsch's The Shop Around the Corner (1940), where misunderstandings are cleared up in the snow in time for Christmas.
Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush (1925), effective scenes of snow isolating people from each other and their feelings.
Jacques Demy's Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), in which separated lovers, now married to others, meet briefly in the snow.
Fran Borzage's The Mortal Storm (1940), in which snow is a means of escape from the Nazis but also means death.
Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows (1956), in which a couple are reunited because of an accident in the snow.
Leo McCarey's An Affair to Remember: Two lovers are reunited during a snowy Christmas after missing their meeting at the top of the Empire State Building.
Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1940), in which a snow globe at death becomes a child playing in the snow with his sled.
And then there are those films that end with snow falling, usually as a symbol of fatalism and moving on. This includes the Jacques Demy film mentioned above as well as John Huston's The Dead (1987) and Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Climates (2006).
Monday, February 10, 2014
Margaret Drabble's The Sea Lady
I read Margaret Drabble's novels in the 70's but had read nothing more recent until I came across April Bernard's piece in the Feb. 6 New York Review of Books, which encouraged me to seek out The Sea Lady (Harcourt, Inc., 2006), a marvelous book about remembering and growing old
The Public Orator pauses here, relieved that at last both of the principals have recognized the necessary shape of the plot. It is a story of convergence, but it is not yet clear whether the story will end in recognition, reconciliation, refusal or rejection. The Orator does not know the end of the story but has come to see, defiantly ageing though those two be, enfeebled by age though they be, rash and cowardly though they be, over-reaching, over-extending, over-ambitious, over-weening and intermittently defeated though they be, they may yet, even at this late stage in the game, find in themselves enough strength to push on toward their own resolution. (p.219).
This insertion of a narrator of this sort is more common in the 18th C. than it is today; this is also true of the complex sentence structure, one of the many things I like about Drabble. I also like that she trusts the intelligence of her readers and is not afraid to use words such as solecism, annealing, verdigris, and feels comfortable quoting Freud, Plato, Wordsworth and Blake. The "two" mentioned are Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark, who knew each other in childhood, were briefly married in adulthood and are now meeting in old age, both having complex stories somewhat defined by the decades in which they have lived.
The book reminds me of Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea (1978), a book very different in style but with some themes in common with The Sea Lady, especially the role the sea can play in one's memory.
The Public Orator pauses here, relieved that at last both of the principals have recognized the necessary shape of the plot. It is a story of convergence, but it is not yet clear whether the story will end in recognition, reconciliation, refusal or rejection. The Orator does not know the end of the story but has come to see, defiantly ageing though those two be, enfeebled by age though they be, rash and cowardly though they be, over-reaching, over-extending, over-ambitious, over-weening and intermittently defeated though they be, they may yet, even at this late stage in the game, find in themselves enough strength to push on toward their own resolution. (p.219).
This insertion of a narrator of this sort is more common in the 18th C. than it is today; this is also true of the complex sentence structure, one of the many things I like about Drabble. I also like that she trusts the intelligence of her readers and is not afraid to use words such as solecism, annealing, verdigris, and feels comfortable quoting Freud, Plato, Wordsworth and Blake. The "two" mentioned are Ailsa Kelman and Humphrey Clark, who knew each other in childhood, were briefly married in adulthood and are now meeting in old age, both having complex stories somewhat defined by the decades in which they have lived.
The book reminds me of Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea (1978), a book very different in style but with some themes in common with The Sea Lady, especially the role the sea can play in one's memory.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Turner Classic Movies in February
Turner's "31 Days of Oscar" gives one a chance to take a break. There are certainly some good movies included among the bloated epics, since Turner intelligently includes some nominees as well as some winners, but they are mostly well-known and often shown. I would recommend, especially to those who have never seen them:
Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent, Lifeboat and North by Northwest.
Ford's The Long Voyage Home, Mogambo, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and the moving and beautiful How Green Was My Valley.
Preston Sturges's The Great McGinty, Hail the Conquering Hero, The Lady Eve
Minnelli's melodrama Some Came Running and his comedy Father of the Bride
Sirk's Imitation of Life
Blake Edwards's Days of Wine and Roses
Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm and Anatomy of a Murder
Lubitsch's The Love Parade (1929, an impressive early use of sound).
Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis, two contrasting styles of the musical
McCarey's The Awful Truth and Going My Way, two insightful comedies.
Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent, Lifeboat and North by Northwest.
Ford's The Long Voyage Home, Mogambo, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and the moving and beautiful How Green Was My Valley.
Preston Sturges's The Great McGinty, Hail the Conquering Hero, The Lady Eve
Minnelli's melodrama Some Came Running and his comedy Father of the Bride
Sirk's Imitation of Life
Blake Edwards's Days of Wine and Roses
Preminger's The Man with the Golden Arm and Anatomy of a Murder
Lubitsch's The Love Parade (1929, an impressive early use of sound).
Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and Minnelli's Meet Me in St. Louis, two contrasting styles of the musical
McCarey's The Awful Truth and Going My Way, two insightful comedies.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
My Darling Clementine
Thank goodness for Film Forum; where else in this day of the DVD can one see films as they were meant to be seen, on the large screen in pristine prints? MoMA , the Lincoln Center Film Society and BAM do show some good films, but their schedules of mostly evening showings are not always compatible with taking care of children. In any case, thank you Film Forum for bringing us a beautifully restored print of John Ford's My Darling Clementine. One sometimes has a tendency to dismiss this film because of Ford's comment that it was mainly for children. And it is considerably less ambivalent about character than most of Ford's glorious Westerns and yes, the women are the Madonna and the Whore. But it does help to compare it to Allan Dwan's Frontier Marshall (1939) of which this is something of a remake. Dwan's film is good, workmanlike prose; Ford's film is poetry -- the poetry of the landscape (beautifully shot by Joseph MacDonald); of human movement, especially of Henry Fonda, as he balances on his chair, as he walks slowly with Clementine to the church while "Shall We Gather at the River" plays, as he dances (there's always a dance in Ford's films); and the good and bad poetry of civilization, where the scent of after-shave is beginning to replace that of the desert flower and order is replacing anarchy.
The Cat in the Hat
The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss (Random House, 1957), which we read to our two-year-old almost every day, is a delight.
1. A wonderful fantasy: two children are alone on a "cold, cold, wet day" and the Cat in the Hat drops by to do some wonderful, impossible tricks and even cleans up before he leaves and mother comes home.
2. Psychological complexity. The Cat obviously represents the id, while the superego is played, in the absence of the mother, by the fish (a natural antagonist of the Cat), who says, "He should not be here when your mother is out." The Cat brings two companions in anarchy, Thing Two and Thing One, who even fly kites in the house.
3. Delightful characters. The Cat is obviously in the great American tradition of the charming con man while the fish plays, quite charmingly, the guardian of order. Sally and her brother stand by, both of them enjoying the chaos until their mother is on her way home, at which time they have to capture Thing One and Thing Two and send the Cat on his way, though he quickly comes back to clean everything up.
4. Complex relationship between text and illustrations. The pictures and the words are in a constantly fluctuating relationship, often combined on the same page, and there is a constant sense of movement conveyed by the way the protagonists are viewed. There are even somewhat subtle visual touches that indicate this is a fantasy of the children, e.g., Sally's hair ribbon and the Cat's bowtie are a visual match.
When the mother returns things are just as she left them, the children having spent the day at home sharing a fantasy of anarchy. The book itself is an impressive and playful poem that exists on multiple levels, probably one of the reasons some children never get tired of it. Even for Dr. Seuss it is unusual in its complex narrative and endlessly playful illustrations.
1. A wonderful fantasy: two children are alone on a "cold, cold, wet day" and the Cat in the Hat drops by to do some wonderful, impossible tricks and even cleans up before he leaves and mother comes home.
2. Psychological complexity. The Cat obviously represents the id, while the superego is played, in the absence of the mother, by the fish (a natural antagonist of the Cat), who says, "He should not be here when your mother is out." The Cat brings two companions in anarchy, Thing Two and Thing One, who even fly kites in the house.
3. Delightful characters. The Cat is obviously in the great American tradition of the charming con man while the fish plays, quite charmingly, the guardian of order. Sally and her brother stand by, both of them enjoying the chaos until their mother is on her way home, at which time they have to capture Thing One and Thing Two and send the Cat on his way, though he quickly comes back to clean everything up.
4. Complex relationship between text and illustrations. The pictures and the words are in a constantly fluctuating relationship, often combined on the same page, and there is a constant sense of movement conveyed by the way the protagonists are viewed. There are even somewhat subtle visual touches that indicate this is a fantasy of the children, e.g., Sally's hair ribbon and the Cat's bowtie are a visual match.
When the mother returns things are just as she left them, the children having spent the day at home sharing a fantasy of anarchy. The book itself is an impressive and playful poem that exists on multiple levels, probably one of the reasons some children never get tired of it. Even for Dr. Seuss it is unusual in its complex narrative and endlessly playful illustrations.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Jewels
For all of you who have been asking about where the ballet in this blog is I want to mention Jewels, Balanchine's ballet that I saw yesterday at the New York City Ballet (I will also have more to say about baseball when the season starts).
Jewels was originally done for the NYC Ballet in 1967 and is considered the only full-length abstract ballet (that means no plot!). This is enough to keep many people away but also to attract those of us who love Balanchine's ability to tell a story in a non-literal way. All three parts indeed have "stories" of a sort, but stories that are subtle and implied and complex. Diamonds and Rubies are the most popular of the three ballets because they are the most theatrical and the most similar to other Balanchine works. But Emeralds is the only Balanchine done to Faure music, except the late small-scale Ballade done for Merrill Ashley. Diamonds is structured like other Tschikovsky/Balanchine ballets, with quite a rousing climax, and Rubies is similar in structure to other Stravinsky ballets, especially Danses Concertantes, with elements of Stravinsky Violin Concerto. But Emeralds is almost all andante, slow and even meditative. It seems to take place in a forest glade, with hunters and perhaps fairies and there is an unusual emphasis on port-de-bras; the most beautiful and moving part is the end, a coda (added in 1977) where the four women leave the three men along on the stage, as they slowly kneel and raise their arms.
Jewels was originally done for the NYC Ballet in 1967 and is considered the only full-length abstract ballet (that means no plot!). This is enough to keep many people away but also to attract those of us who love Balanchine's ability to tell a story in a non-literal way. All three parts indeed have "stories" of a sort, but stories that are subtle and implied and complex. Diamonds and Rubies are the most popular of the three ballets because they are the most theatrical and the most similar to other Balanchine works. But Emeralds is the only Balanchine done to Faure music, except the late small-scale Ballade done for Merrill Ashley. Diamonds is structured like other Tschikovsky/Balanchine ballets, with quite a rousing climax, and Rubies is similar in structure to other Stravinsky ballets, especially Danses Concertantes, with elements of Stravinsky Violin Concerto. But Emeralds is almost all andante, slow and even meditative. It seems to take place in a forest glade, with hunters and perhaps fairies and there is an unusual emphasis on port-de-bras; the most beautiful and moving part is the end, a coda (added in 1977) where the four women leave the three men along on the stage, as they slowly kneel and raise their arms.
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