I haven't seen any of Kurosawa's films made during WWII but No Regrets for Our Youth, made just after the war, is an interesting film. We know Kurosawa in this country for The Seven Samurai (1954) and that one-time favorite of college students Rashomon (1950) -- truth is subjective! -- and in one's rush to discard him after one has learned about the sublime and subtle films of Mizoguchi and Ozu it should not be forgotten that he did make a variety of other films.
No Regrets for Our Youth stars Setsuko Hara, who made 67 movies before her seven films with Ozu (I wrote about Tokyo Story in November of last year) in the fifties and sixties and then retired in 1963 at the age of 43; she died last year at the age of 95. She is as lovely in the Kurosawa film as in the better-known Ozu films but has a very different kind of role. Her character joins the university protests against the invasion of Manchuria in 1932 and her father, a professor, is fired. Although she is in love with another protester she wants to be independent and moves from the country to Tokyo to get a job. After three years in Tokyo she finds out that her lover is there and after much hesitation goes to see him and immediately moves in with him. She knows he is involved in some shady dealings but Kurosawa never reveals what they are (though the basis for the character was a Soviet spy), as Hara's lover is arrested and dies in jail under suspicious circumstance. She goes to visit her lover's parents in the country, where they are scorned because of their son, and gradually wins then over, staying to help them with their rice crop.
At the beginning of the film nature is idyllic and to be enjoyed, but after the war it is harsh and needs to be tamed, even the wind in the trees sounds vaguely sinister. Setsuko Hara plays a struggling and hesitant character, unsure of her place until she finds it, at least temporarily, in the rice fields. The replanting of the rice fields that neighbors have destroyed because of the son's crimes becomes a metaphor for the rebuilding, physically and emotionally, of Japan after the war.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Michael Houellebecq's Submission
I'm a sick man...a mean man. There's nothing attractive about me. I think there's something wrong with my liver.... I'm forty now.
--Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (1864)
Generally speaking my body was the seat of various bodily afflictions --headaches, rashes, toothaches, hemorrhoids -- that followed one after another, without interruption and almost never left me in peace -- and I was only forty-four!
---Michael Houellebecq, Submission (2015)
Karl Ove Knausgaard, in his review in The New York Times Book Review, said about Houellebecq that one "cannot be said to be keeping abreast of contemporary literature without reading his work." Even if this is true I would ask why one needs to keep abreast of literature anymore than movies, art or music. Submission is a truly nasty work, both misogynistic and misanthropic, with an academic and satirical veneer. The first person narrator is Francois, whose only "friend" is J.K. Huysman, the nineteenth century "decadent" author. It is 2022 in France and the Muslims have taken over the coalition government. Francois tries to find an intellectual way out, his search echoing Huysman's, who ended up as a Roman Catholic. Francois ends up converting to the Muslim faith in order to get his teaching job back at the Islamic University of Paris-Sorbonne and to be able to have three young wives to cook for him and service him sexually (like Huysman he frequented brothels and never had a lasting relationship with a woman)
The liberal idea is dead in the Europe of 2022 and Europe is returning to empire (the Ottoman and Roman empires are mentioned) and patriarchy. Jobs for women are abolished and education stops at the age of twelve, after which it is trade school. As is often the case in contemporary novels it is difficult to determine to what extent Houellebecq shares the views of his narrator, but there is a rather sympathetic character, Robert Rediger, who settled on Islam as the only "way out of atheist humanism," agreeing with Toynbee that Christianity cannot be revived and the West has committed suicide. Rediger believes that "the summit of human happiness resides in the most absolute submission" (and yes, The Story of O is brought in as an analogy).
--Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground (1864)
Generally speaking my body was the seat of various bodily afflictions --headaches, rashes, toothaches, hemorrhoids -- that followed one after another, without interruption and almost never left me in peace -- and I was only forty-four!
---Michael Houellebecq, Submission (2015)
Karl Ove Knausgaard, in his review in The New York Times Book Review, said about Houellebecq that one "cannot be said to be keeping abreast of contemporary literature without reading his work." Even if this is true I would ask why one needs to keep abreast of literature anymore than movies, art or music. Submission is a truly nasty work, both misogynistic and misanthropic, with an academic and satirical veneer. The first person narrator is Francois, whose only "friend" is J.K. Huysman, the nineteenth century "decadent" author. It is 2022 in France and the Muslims have taken over the coalition government. Francois tries to find an intellectual way out, his search echoing Huysman's, who ended up as a Roman Catholic. Francois ends up converting to the Muslim faith in order to get his teaching job back at the Islamic University of Paris-Sorbonne and to be able to have three young wives to cook for him and service him sexually (like Huysman he frequented brothels and never had a lasting relationship with a woman)
The liberal idea is dead in the Europe of 2022 and Europe is returning to empire (the Ottoman and Roman empires are mentioned) and patriarchy. Jobs for women are abolished and education stops at the age of twelve, after which it is trade school. As is often the case in contemporary novels it is difficult to determine to what extent Houellebecq shares the views of his narrator, but there is a rather sympathetic character, Robert Rediger, who settled on Islam as the only "way out of atheist humanism," agreeing with Toynbee that Christianity cannot be revived and the West has committed suicide. Rediger believes that "the summit of human happiness resides in the most absolute submission" (and yes, The Story of O is brought in as an analogy).
Monday, March 28, 2016
Turner Classic Movies for April 2016
No big surprises this month but a number of excellent films.
April 1 has Mark Sandrich's excellent Rogers/Astaire film Follow the Fleet, songs by Irving Berlin.
On April 2 is John Ford's impressive Mogambo , April 4 had Orson Welles's underrated The Trial and John Huston's meditation on the Western The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.
On April 5 is Zoltan Korda's The Macomber Affair, based on a Hemingway story. Frank Borzage's romantic A Farewell to Arms is on April 6 and a third Hemingway story, Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not is on April 10.
Also on April 5 is Vincente Minnelli's Designing Women, a comedic examination of gender roles, and Raoul Walsh's Captain Horatio Hornblower, about the conflicts between love and work.
On the 7th are four films directed by Ida Lupino, intelligent films with low budgets that Lupino makes the most of. Also on the 7th is Blake Edwards's The Party, with an elegant performance by Peter Sellers.
April 8th has Robert Siodmak's stylish film noir Phantom Lady from a novel by Cornell Woolrich and on the 9th is Buster Keaton's lovely Seven Chances.
On the 10th is Rouben Mamoulian's Queen Christina, with one of the few times Greta Garbo had a good director, and Hitchcock's Lifeboat, which takes place entirely in a lifeboat.
On the 11th are two excellent Westerns, each very different (in case there are any people left who think all Westerns are the same!): Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious and Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo.
On the 13th are a number of musicals by Stanley Donen; my own favorite is the low-key Give a Girl a Break. Also on the 13th are unusual musicals The Blue Angel, directed by Josef Von Sternberg and Young Girls of Rochefort, directed by Jacques Demy.
On the 16th is Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers, a strange and often amusing take on the vampire film
On the 18th are several low-budget horror films produced by Val Lewton for RKO; my favorites of this group are Mark Robson's The Seventh Victim and Jacques Tourneur oneiric I Walked With a Zombie.
On the 19th is Orson Welles's Mr. Arkadin and four films by Fritz Lang, including the Dr. Mabuse films.
On the 21st is Otto Preminger's fascinating The Cardinal and on the 24th are two stylish comedies: Ernst Lubitsch's The Love Parade and Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth.
The 25th has seven films by the great John Ford, including Stagecoach and The Searchers and the 30th has Andre DeToth's economical Passport to Suez and King Vidor's H.M. Pulham, Esq., from a John P. Marquand novel.
April 1 has Mark Sandrich's excellent Rogers/Astaire film Follow the Fleet, songs by Irving Berlin.
On April 2 is John Ford's impressive Mogambo , April 4 had Orson Welles's underrated The Trial and John Huston's meditation on the Western The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.
On April 5 is Zoltan Korda's The Macomber Affair, based on a Hemingway story. Frank Borzage's romantic A Farewell to Arms is on April 6 and a third Hemingway story, Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not is on April 10.
Also on April 5 is Vincente Minnelli's Designing Women, a comedic examination of gender roles, and Raoul Walsh's Captain Horatio Hornblower, about the conflicts between love and work.
On the 7th are four films directed by Ida Lupino, intelligent films with low budgets that Lupino makes the most of. Also on the 7th is Blake Edwards's The Party, with an elegant performance by Peter Sellers.
April 8th has Robert Siodmak's stylish film noir Phantom Lady from a novel by Cornell Woolrich and on the 9th is Buster Keaton's lovely Seven Chances.
On the 10th is Rouben Mamoulian's Queen Christina, with one of the few times Greta Garbo had a good director, and Hitchcock's Lifeboat, which takes place entirely in a lifeboat.
On the 11th are two excellent Westerns, each very different (in case there are any people left who think all Westerns are the same!): Fritz Lang's Rancho Notorious and Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo.
On the 13th are a number of musicals by Stanley Donen; my own favorite is the low-key Give a Girl a Break. Also on the 13th are unusual musicals The Blue Angel, directed by Josef Von Sternberg and Young Girls of Rochefort, directed by Jacques Demy.
On the 16th is Roman Polanski's The Fearless Vampire Killers, a strange and often amusing take on the vampire film
On the 18th are several low-budget horror films produced by Val Lewton for RKO; my favorites of this group are Mark Robson's The Seventh Victim and Jacques Tourneur oneiric I Walked With a Zombie.
On the 19th is Orson Welles's Mr. Arkadin and four films by Fritz Lang, including the Dr. Mabuse films.
On the 21st is Otto Preminger's fascinating The Cardinal and on the 24th are two stylish comedies: Ernst Lubitsch's The Love Parade and Leo McCarey's The Awful Truth.
The 25th has seven films by the great John Ford, including Stagecoach and The Searchers and the 30th has Andre DeToth's economical Passport to Suez and King Vidor's H.M. Pulham, Esq., from a John P. Marquand novel.
Friday, March 25, 2016
Howard Hawks's Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953); Frank Tashlin's Artists and Models (1955)
Of all Hawks's films Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is the one most flawed by discrepancies between Hawks's daring originality and the "safe" conventions of a commercially orientated industry.
--Robin Wood, Howard Hawks (Doubleday, 1968)
The merriment Tashlin derives from sex, missiles, teenagers, espionage, brassieres, corruption and all the lesser problems of our times, reveals a zestful enjoyment of living.
--Ian Cameron, Frank Tashlin (Vineyard Press, 1973).
The Hawks film and the Tashlin film have some interesting things in common, including some of the same actors in minor roles (Steven Geray as a hotel manager in Hawks and a scientist in the Tashlin and, especially, George Winslow as an obnoxious child in both films), choreography for non-dancers and a double wedding at the end. But Hawks's movie did not fully engage Hawks (he had nothing to do with the musical numbers, choregraphed by Jack Cole), while Tashlin's film shows a non-stop inventiveness and a passion for the bright colors of the fifties. I think many modern viewers also have problems with the actors in these films, especially Jerry Lewis in the Tashlin and Marilyn Monroe in the Hawks. Hawks had used Monroe in a small part in Monkey Business (1952) but he seemed to prefer Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; she was more of the strong and independent woman that Hawks liked. Monroe is a misunderstood actress of the fifties, who reminds me of the great African-American actor Stepin Fetchit: both are pretending to be stereotypes of gender (Monroe) or race (Fetchit) in order to use their hidden intelligence to get what they want.
Artists and Models was the first of seven films that Tashlin directed with Lewis (I wrote about The Disorderly Orderly on April 11, 2014 and Rock-A-Bye Baby on Oct. 22, 2015)and in this case one of Lewis's last films with Dean Martin. This film indicates how effective a team Lewis and Martin might have been with good directors, instead of the mediocre directors they had with the penny-pinching producer Hal Wallis (the Lewis/Martin films were always extremely successful commercially). Although there is a relatively small role for Anita Ekberg in Artists and Models (the film starts with Lewis and Martin crawling into her mouth on a billboard!) there is little of the American obsession with large breasts that Tashlin so brilliantly satirized in his films with Jayne Mansfield (The Girl Can't Help It,1956 and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter,1957). Instead Tashlin makes fun of both comic books (a comic book editor insists on more blood, more stranglings and decapitations) and those who criticize comic books (led by the sleazy Art Baker), while his female stars, Shirley MacLaine and Dorothy Malone, are working women struggling in New York.
Tashlin and his cinematographer Daniel Fapp carefully controlled the rich color on this film, Lewis being associated with pastels while the hotter and more passionate Dean Martin is associated with primary colors.
Those who make fun of French critics because of their fondness for Jerry Lewis tend to forget (if they ever knew) that it took French writers to appreciate the visual intelligence of many great American directors, whose films Americans tended to listen to rather than actually look at. Lewis's films --the ones he directed himself -- are full of inventive gags and have a masterly visual style that he largely learned from Tashlin. Perhaps Lewis will be appreciated after he's dead (he just turned 90) in the way that John Wayne is now appreciated, especially for his roles with John Ford and Howard Hawks, as the knowledge of his political positions is fading.
A couple more comments on Gentleman Prefer Blondes and Hawks. When I was much younger I loved Hawks's films for their stoic professionalism, especially in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), the first Hawks film I saw. When I became older, married with children, I found Hawks's attitude a sign of insecurity and a lack of passion and I was much more engaged by the films of John Ford and the importance of family and tradition. But by the time of El Dorado (1966) and Rio Lobo (1970) Hawks was contemplating mortality and willing to face the fact that we all have our weaknesses, no matter how much we are able to maintain a façade of professionalism. And a kind word for Jane Russell, a strong woman whom Hawks should have used more. Howard Hughes treated her like a freak but she had an impressive career nonetheless; my favorite of her movies is Raoul Walsh's The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956), the best of her roles as a strong and independent woman.
--Robin Wood, Howard Hawks (Doubleday, 1968)
The merriment Tashlin derives from sex, missiles, teenagers, espionage, brassieres, corruption and all the lesser problems of our times, reveals a zestful enjoyment of living.
--Ian Cameron, Frank Tashlin (Vineyard Press, 1973).
The Hawks film and the Tashlin film have some interesting things in common, including some of the same actors in minor roles (Steven Geray as a hotel manager in Hawks and a scientist in the Tashlin and, especially, George Winslow as an obnoxious child in both films), choreography for non-dancers and a double wedding at the end. But Hawks's movie did not fully engage Hawks (he had nothing to do with the musical numbers, choregraphed by Jack Cole), while Tashlin's film shows a non-stop inventiveness and a passion for the bright colors of the fifties. I think many modern viewers also have problems with the actors in these films, especially Jerry Lewis in the Tashlin and Marilyn Monroe in the Hawks. Hawks had used Monroe in a small part in Monkey Business (1952) but he seemed to prefer Jane Russell in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes; she was more of the strong and independent woman that Hawks liked. Monroe is a misunderstood actress of the fifties, who reminds me of the great African-American actor Stepin Fetchit: both are pretending to be stereotypes of gender (Monroe) or race (Fetchit) in order to use their hidden intelligence to get what they want.
Artists and Models was the first of seven films that Tashlin directed with Lewis (I wrote about The Disorderly Orderly on April 11, 2014 and Rock-A-Bye Baby on Oct. 22, 2015)and in this case one of Lewis's last films with Dean Martin. This film indicates how effective a team Lewis and Martin might have been with good directors, instead of the mediocre directors they had with the penny-pinching producer Hal Wallis (the Lewis/Martin films were always extremely successful commercially). Although there is a relatively small role for Anita Ekberg in Artists and Models (the film starts with Lewis and Martin crawling into her mouth on a billboard!) there is little of the American obsession with large breasts that Tashlin so brilliantly satirized in his films with Jayne Mansfield (The Girl Can't Help It,1956 and Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter,1957). Instead Tashlin makes fun of both comic books (a comic book editor insists on more blood, more stranglings and decapitations) and those who criticize comic books (led by the sleazy Art Baker), while his female stars, Shirley MacLaine and Dorothy Malone, are working women struggling in New York.
Tashlin and his cinematographer Daniel Fapp carefully controlled the rich color on this film, Lewis being associated with pastels while the hotter and more passionate Dean Martin is associated with primary colors.
Those who make fun of French critics because of their fondness for Jerry Lewis tend to forget (if they ever knew) that it took French writers to appreciate the visual intelligence of many great American directors, whose films Americans tended to listen to rather than actually look at. Lewis's films --the ones he directed himself -- are full of inventive gags and have a masterly visual style that he largely learned from Tashlin. Perhaps Lewis will be appreciated after he's dead (he just turned 90) in the way that John Wayne is now appreciated, especially for his roles with John Ford and Howard Hawks, as the knowledge of his political positions is fading.
A couple more comments on Gentleman Prefer Blondes and Hawks. When I was much younger I loved Hawks's films for their stoic professionalism, especially in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), the first Hawks film I saw. When I became older, married with children, I found Hawks's attitude a sign of insecurity and a lack of passion and I was much more engaged by the films of John Ford and the importance of family and tradition. But by the time of El Dorado (1966) and Rio Lobo (1970) Hawks was contemplating mortality and willing to face the fact that we all have our weaknesses, no matter how much we are able to maintain a façade of professionalism. And a kind word for Jane Russell, a strong woman whom Hawks should have used more. Howard Hughes treated her like a freak but she had an impressive career nonetheless; my favorite of her movies is Raoul Walsh's The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956), the best of her roles as a strong and independent woman.
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Eric Rohmer's Ma Nuit Chez Maud (1968).
In the book that Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol wrote abut Hitchcock in 1957 they said, referring to Hitchcock's form: "Our effort will not have been in vain if we have been able to demonstrate how an entire moral universe has been elaborated on the basis of this form and by its very rigor."
The same thing can be said about Rohmer's films. I remember when I first saw Ma Nuit Chez Maud, in 1969 at the 72nd St. Playhouse, after waiting on line in the rain, and how impressed I was by its austere beauty. A man has decided whom he will marry, though he hasn't met her yet, and spends the night with another woman, mostly talking while they each try to keep the other from seducing them. They argue over everything from Pascal and his wager to who is a Jansenist and who is a Jesuit and what is the relationship between free will and grace. I remember the film as taking place almost entirely at Maud's but when I saw it again on Turner Classic Movies "the night at Maud's" it is only about half of the movie, the rest of it shows the man's courtship of the woman he has loved at first sight.
Rohmer's style of shooting conversation is unusual and effective: he focuses on one of the participants both listening and talking for long periods of time before cutting to the other person. At Maud's this eventually leads to Jean-Louis (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) getting into bed with Maud (Francoise Fabian), where they quickly embrace and as quickly reject each other. The next day Jean-Louis introduces himself to the woman he is going to marry, a fellow Catholic whom he first saw in church, and says good-bye to Maud, who is leaving town. Jean-Louis meets Maud a final time, five years later, when he is with his wife and child. Rohmer's formal examination of what works between a woman and man and the relationship between friendship and love continues with his subsequent "moral tales."
The same thing can be said about Rohmer's films. I remember when I first saw Ma Nuit Chez Maud, in 1969 at the 72nd St. Playhouse, after waiting on line in the rain, and how impressed I was by its austere beauty. A man has decided whom he will marry, though he hasn't met her yet, and spends the night with another woman, mostly talking while they each try to keep the other from seducing them. They argue over everything from Pascal and his wager to who is a Jansenist and who is a Jesuit and what is the relationship between free will and grace. I remember the film as taking place almost entirely at Maud's but when I saw it again on Turner Classic Movies "the night at Maud's" it is only about half of the movie, the rest of it shows the man's courtship of the woman he has loved at first sight.
Rohmer's style of shooting conversation is unusual and effective: he focuses on one of the participants both listening and talking for long periods of time before cutting to the other person. At Maud's this eventually leads to Jean-Louis (played by Jean-Louis Trintignant) getting into bed with Maud (Francoise Fabian), where they quickly embrace and as quickly reject each other. The next day Jean-Louis introduces himself to the woman he is going to marry, a fellow Catholic whom he first saw in church, and says good-bye to Maud, who is leaving town. Jean-Louis meets Maud a final time, five years later, when he is with his wife and child. Rohmer's formal examination of what works between a woman and man and the relationship between friendship and love continues with his subsequent "moral tales."
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Exit Right by Daniel Oppenheimer
The trick, which isn't a trick at all but the basic art of living, is to be grounded in a strong sense of self but attuned to one's inner frictions and fictions. It's to be passionate in one's convictions but also open to the data of experience and the evidence of error.
---Daniel Oppenheimer, Exit Right (Simon and Schuster, 2016)
Oppenheimer's book is intelligent, thoughtful and beautifully written. It follows the political views, as they change, of Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham, Ronald Reagan, Norman Podhoretz, David Horowitz, and Christopher Hitchens. Chambers and Burnham were communists (Burnham was a Trotskyite) who changed views in the thirties, influenced by the Hitler-Stalin pact. Reagan changed views from liberal Democrat to conservative Republican in the fifties when he worked as a speaker for General Electric. Podhoretz and Horowitz changed in the 60's and Hitchens switched sides, to a limited extent, when he supported George Bush on Iraq.
With Whittaker Chambers Oppenheimer quotes extensively from his moving autobiography, Witness (1952). Chambers gave himself over completely to the communist party and when he broke it was because he finally realized he believed in God. Interestingly, Oppenheimer takes for granted that Alger Hiss was indeed a spy, something that is still being contested by a few on the left. James Burnham was an intellectual who studied at Princeton and maintained a college teaching post while writing extensively, in academic journals, about Trotsky's positions, breaking away when Trotsky supported the Hitler-Stalin pact in 1939. Reagan was a New Dealer and union activist who gradually began to believe that in the prosperous fifties neither the New Deal nor unions played any useful role. David Horowitz was a Bay Area radical who supported the Black Panthers until they turned to thuggery and started killing people he knew. Podhoretz was part of the New York intellectual scene until other New York intellectuals turned against him because of the embarrassing naked ambition of Making It. Hitchens was a Nation columnist until he felt compelled to support the war in Iraq and began to be shunned by his fellow leftists.
Oppenheim follows the lives and political views of these six people from childhood to their switch in orientation; only with Hitchens does he mention much of what happened after that switch. My own political journey has taken me from right-wing libertarian to left-wing libertarian to a benign socialist libertarian, supporting single-payer healthcare and free state college tuition. Oppenheimer describes beautifully how personal and political events can change one's views and the different ways we all try to deal with those changes.
---Daniel Oppenheimer, Exit Right (Simon and Schuster, 2016)
Oppenheimer's book is intelligent, thoughtful and beautifully written. It follows the political views, as they change, of Whittaker Chambers, James Burnham, Ronald Reagan, Norman Podhoretz, David Horowitz, and Christopher Hitchens. Chambers and Burnham were communists (Burnham was a Trotskyite) who changed views in the thirties, influenced by the Hitler-Stalin pact. Reagan changed views from liberal Democrat to conservative Republican in the fifties when he worked as a speaker for General Electric. Podhoretz and Horowitz changed in the 60's and Hitchens switched sides, to a limited extent, when he supported George Bush on Iraq.
With Whittaker Chambers Oppenheimer quotes extensively from his moving autobiography, Witness (1952). Chambers gave himself over completely to the communist party and when he broke it was because he finally realized he believed in God. Interestingly, Oppenheimer takes for granted that Alger Hiss was indeed a spy, something that is still being contested by a few on the left. James Burnham was an intellectual who studied at Princeton and maintained a college teaching post while writing extensively, in academic journals, about Trotsky's positions, breaking away when Trotsky supported the Hitler-Stalin pact in 1939. Reagan was a New Dealer and union activist who gradually began to believe that in the prosperous fifties neither the New Deal nor unions played any useful role. David Horowitz was a Bay Area radical who supported the Black Panthers until they turned to thuggery and started killing people he knew. Podhoretz was part of the New York intellectual scene until other New York intellectuals turned against him because of the embarrassing naked ambition of Making It. Hitchens was a Nation columnist until he felt compelled to support the war in Iraq and began to be shunned by his fellow leftists.
Oppenheim follows the lives and political views of these six people from childhood to their switch in orientation; only with Hitchens does he mention much of what happened after that switch. My own political journey has taken me from right-wing libertarian to left-wing libertarian to a benign socialist libertarian, supporting single-payer healthcare and free state college tuition. Oppenheimer describes beautifully how personal and political events can change one's views and the different ways we all try to deal with those changes.
Sunday, March 13, 2016
Two by Ingmar Bergman: Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) and A Lesson in Love (1954)
These films by Bergman have a liveliness and humor not found in many of Bergman's later works. Sawdust and Tinsel is an energetic film about circus performers, a circus often being used as a metaphor for the world (my favorite examples are Frank Capra's Rain or Shine, 1930 and Chaplin's The Circus, 1928). It starts with an image that immediately identifies it as a Bergman film: a line of horse-drawn wagons against the early-morning sky (the period of the film is unclear, though there is a reference to the recent invention of the motorcar). There is even a shot of a windmill to empathize a fatalistic theme of the film: we are tilting at windmills if we think we can escape our fate. The owner of the going-broke circus takes it to the town where his wife --whom he hasn't seen in three years -- lives with their two children. The circus owner wants his wife to take him back, but she is happy with her life, running a small shop, and refuses. He returns to his circus girlfriend who has been visiting her old lover at the theatre, where the head of the theatrical troupe says he produces art, while the circus only produces artifice. The circus owner and his girlfriend return to each other -- they are just too used to sleeping with one another -- and the circus leaves for another town. There are scenes of putting up the circus tent in the pouring rain that emphasize the pain and struggle of trying to maintain a traveling circus but the performers bask in the applause of the audience, applause that makes up for all their sacrifices. There are plenty of symbols, such as a sick bear who the owner shoots (instead of shooting himself) but they do not overwhelm the characters and narrative as they sometimes do in later Bergman films.
A Lesson in Love is labeled in the opening credits as "a comedy for grown-ups," though like most good comedies it is ultimately serious. A gynecologist has given up his mistress and wants his wife back, following her to Copenhagen where she plans to meet her lover. The film is full of flashbacks about how the doctor met his wife (he was best man at her planned wedding to another) and how he met his met his mistress (a patient) and separate lives with each, including a flashback to a birthday party for his father where the extended family goes on a picnic. In this film we are beginning to see the influence of Mozart on Bergman's work, influence that culminated in his lovely film of The Magic Flute (1975). A Lesson in Love is a film where adults eventually come to terms with marriage --after fifteen years -- as being "for life" and find that that can be more liberating than confining. Both these films are, of course, in beautiful black-and-white. Bergman's films, like those of Antonioni and Bresson, did not benefit when he switched to color (presumably for commercial rather than artistic reasons),
A Lesson in Love is labeled in the opening credits as "a comedy for grown-ups," though like most good comedies it is ultimately serious. A gynecologist has given up his mistress and wants his wife back, following her to Copenhagen where she plans to meet her lover. The film is full of flashbacks about how the doctor met his wife (he was best man at her planned wedding to another) and how he met his met his mistress (a patient) and separate lives with each, including a flashback to a birthday party for his father where the extended family goes on a picnic. In this film we are beginning to see the influence of Mozart on Bergman's work, influence that culminated in his lovely film of The Magic Flute (1975). A Lesson in Love is a film where adults eventually come to terms with marriage --after fifteen years -- as being "for life" and find that that can be more liberating than confining. Both these films are, of course, in beautiful black-and-white. Bergman's films, like those of Antonioni and Bresson, did not benefit when he switched to color (presumably for commercial rather than artistic reasons),
Saturday, March 5, 2016
The Whip Hand, 1951, Design and Direction by William Cameron Menzies
The recent series of films by Menzies on Turner Classic Movies has been useful in the never-ending discussion of how a film is made and who is responsible for its artistry (or lack thereof). Menzies was originally a graphic designer who then became a production designer and director of films. James Curtis, in his recent excellent book William Cameron Menzies (Pantheon, 2015), has a detailed analysis of how The Whip Hand was made, starting out as a film about Nazis who were then changed, by studio owner Howard Hughes, to Communists! The cinematographer is Nicholas Musuraca, best known for his beautiful work on Out of the Past (1947), Jacques Tourneur's definitive film noir. Menzies did not have much money to work with but directed an intense and impressive film, shot mostly in close-ups and at night. The film has rather a nightmarish quality, rather like that of "The Twilight Zone," as a man comes to fish in a small Wisconsin town that turns out to devoid of both fish and people, the sinister small town being used by Communists to plan germ warfare. Menzies has been often accused of using his actors primarily as graphic elements, but then the same thing has been said of Von Sternberg, both directors producing gorgeous films that don't necessarily makes sense. This matters more to some people than to others.
Menzies worked on many different films and is probably more effective on films where directors were less interested in visual style; Gone With the Wind, 1939,which had several directors work on it, owes its look mostly to Menzies. His best films, however, were with good directors who worked in harmony with Menzies's design, particularly Alfred Hitchcock (Foreign Correspondent, 1940) and Anthony Mann (Reign of Terror, 1949). The TCM film series and Curtis's book cause one to think more about the collaborative nature of filmmaking. Whether or not a film is the vision primarily of the director it helps if he or she has intelligent collaborators: screenwriters, cinematographers, composers, production designers.
Menzies worked on many different films and is probably more effective on films where directors were less interested in visual style; Gone With the Wind, 1939,which had several directors work on it, owes its look mostly to Menzies. His best films, however, were with good directors who worked in harmony with Menzies's design, particularly Alfred Hitchcock (Foreign Correspondent, 1940) and Anthony Mann (Reign of Terror, 1949). The TCM film series and Curtis's book cause one to think more about the collaborative nature of filmmaking. Whether or not a film is the vision primarily of the director it helps if he or she has intelligent collaborators: screenwriters, cinematographers, composers, production designers.
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