Updated 3/23
I missed several of these films from this period the first time through, but it isn't worth making a whole new post. I extended the range back to July of 2013. I would have started driving back and forth to Los Angeles in September of 2013.
Collected Criterion Movie Reviews: July-Dec 2013
By October of 2013 I was already driving up to spends weekends in Los Angeles, and I had less time to watch Criterion Collection movies at home in San Diego. Most of the available movies were foreign- lots of Japanese films from the 1950's and 1960s, and lots of Italian films from the 1950's.
Published 5/23/13
The Naked Kiss (1964)
d. Samuel Fuller
Criterion Collection #18
Wow so the Criterion Collection on Hulu Plus is really showing me how g-d- ignorant I am about film as an art form. Really though I blame the distribution system for movies, which is not well adapted to the internet age. I guess before last night I might have been able to identify Samuel Fuller as a film maker but I'd never seen one of his films and wouldn't be able to name any. Fuller made B-movies but with a certain panache and identifiable stlyle that led to his identification as an auteur by French film critics in the 60s. His peak is generally regarded to be the two Fuller movies that are part of the Criterion Collection: The Naked Kiss and Shock Corridor.
The Naked Kiss is a weird wacky combination of noir and melodrama with a healthy side order of pedophilia. The pedophilia angle is what gives The Naked Kiss, which is, prior to the emergence of the pedophilia angle, a standard issue prostitute with a heart of gold type narrative.
Aspects of The Naked Kiss which stand out to a casual viewer are the cinemtography by Stanley Cortez (who shot the Magnificent Ambersons for Orson Welles) and the lead performance from Constance Garnett as Kelly, who comes across as as a uniquely "Fuller-esque" heroine.
Published 7/5/13
d. Roger Vadim
1956
Criterion Collection #77
It's funny how films and novels are both treated with the same level of respect by critics because, let's face it, any moron can watch a movie- even a really hard to understand movie- whereas that same person is roughly one thousand times less likely to read a 400 page 19th century novel. There's just no comparison. Really, you should watch a movie twice through to give it something close to the same weight as a novel.
And God Created Woman is the first Criterion Collection title where it's a performance that drives the release. Here, it is Brigitte Bardot as the scandalous orphan Juliette. This film was a smash international hit and introduced Bardot to a global audience (although it was her 33rd film.) Truly, it is one of the most eye popping performances by an actress you are ever likely to see. And to think that this film was released in 1956. YOWZA. She must have blown minds in the USA.
One reason that And God Created Woman is NOT in the Criterion Collection is director Roger Vadim. He is strictly a one hit wonder from the perspective of the Criterion Collection- he has zero other films in the Collection- Barabrella, anyone? No? Not sure what happened with him. He sounds like a monster according to the accompanying Criterion Collection critical essay by Chuck Stephens.
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| Magda Vášáryová plays Marketa in Marketa Lazarova. |
Published 8/28/13
Marketa Lazarová (1967)
d. František Vlácil
Criterion Collection #661
Criterion Collection edition released June 18th, 2013
In Portland the week Marketa Lazarová was released by the Criterion Collection (fathers day), I went to the Art Museum and perused their events circular. I was surprised to see that the film division was featuring films from the Czech republic. Prior to reading that circular, I was arguably unaware that such a thing as "Czech film" even existed. Sure, I might have been able to identify Milos Forman as a Czech film film maker, but beyond that? No way.
Independent of learning about the existence of Czech cinema from a random circular at the Portland Art Museum, I've actually begun to watch the films on Criterion Collection Hulu Plus. First there was Closely Watched Trains, which is a kind of Czech take on a 400 Blows style French new wave coming of age film. Now there is Marketa Lazarová which is as different from Closely Watched Trains as Andrei Rublev is from When Cranes Fly (Woop Woop Russian Cinema Reference!)
Marketa Lazarová is a sprawling medieval epic, a kind of Czech cowboys-and-indians saga set in the early Middle Ages before Christianity had really taken the Western Slavs by the throat. The conflict in Marketa Lazarová is between Pagan Czech Robber Barons and the German backed King (represented by his envoy, Captain Beer.)
There is a ton of back story to this film- it's adapted from a Novel written by Vladislav Vančura, a Czech author who is interesting in his own right as a main mover in the Czech modernist art world. The Novel is a most peculiar beast, a kind of modern take on Epic literature with a wry sense of self awareness. Apparently, the source material is humorous/sardonic, but that sense of humor is lacking from the film, which comes across as very straight.
In addition to the voluminous back story, Marketa Lazarova has technical aspects that lend it an otherworldly field beyond the strangeness that a medieval Czech epic about a conflict between Pagans and Christians naturally evokes. For one thing, the vocals are both dubbed and echoed- something I've never seen in a film before. The characters practically speak with reverb. A strange, strange creative choice but hard to say it doesn't work. The whole movie is a gd magical experience. I would consider buying the DVD itself if I owned a blu ray DVD player which I don't.
Published 9/18/13
Weekend (1967)
d. Jean Luc Godard: 12 titles in the Criterion Collection
Criterion Collection #635
I want to be careful about talking shit about how unwatchable Jean Luc Godard's films are until I've actually watched a few. I've seen Breathless, Alphaville, this one. I also watched The Virgin Mary in college, although that is not a Criterion Collection title. You can't talk about Godard without discussing what Gary Indiana, in the essay that is featured on the Criterion Collection product page for Weekend, calls Godards penchant for "trying the patience of his audience."
INDEED. How is one to discuss Godard-especially Godard after the mid 1960s, without discussing his disdain for the bourgeois conventions of film grammar, plot, strory-telling, emotional identification or really anything that makes people LIKE, as suppose, to despise, a specific work. As Indiana says, the key to understanding Godard's mindset in Weekend and subsequent films is to understand the influence of Brecht on Godard:
The technique of Weekend, however, comes from Brecht. The film excludes any emotional identification with its protagonists. They have no inner lives. Corinne’s only emotional moment occurs when her Hermès pocketbook is incinerated in a head-on collision. Moreover, she and Roland are conscious of being characters in a movie. Weekend’s fistfights, shootings, stabbings, and highway carnage don’t simulate violence so much as transmit an idea of violence. The bloodshed is so deliberately fake that a scene where a real pig has its throat cut comes as a powerful shock. (Gary Indiana essay on Weekend)Brecthian distancing techniques seem key to understanding the Art House/Experimental cinema of Europe in the 1950s and 1960s. Call it experimental theater if you will, the theater of the absurd, the theater of cruelty, what you will.
We're not so far removed from the academic post-modernism of the last few decades, and from that perspective Godard is like a patron saint, but personally, I think film that purposely eschews emotion in favor of lengthy Marxist diatribes (of which there are many in Weekend) are kind of missing the point of film. Maybe it's because I've never, ever met a single person in my whole life who could confidently look me in the eye and say, "Yes, I like watching the experimental films of Godard- Weekend, Virgin Mary, all of it- love how he refuses to abide by the conventions of film grammar and story telling."
If someone said that to me I would be all, "Shyeaaahhh right." I mean no way. I can see where you'd watch Weekend for a class, or because it is in the Criterion Collection, or because you love the French New Wave, but I can't see anyone sitting down and watching this movie for fun- which is something I tried to do several years ago- and failed to do.
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| Alec Guinness plays Gully Jimson in The Horses Mouth (1958) d. Ronald Neame |
Published 9/27/13
The Horses Mouth (1958)
d. Ronald Neame
Criterion Collection #154
The Horses Mouth is a comedy about washed up painter Gilley Jimson, played by Alec Guinness, who has lived past his prime. In the first scene Jimson is being released from jail after serving a sentence for making harassing phone calls to the gentleman who owns all his early works. First thing he does is of course resume said threatening phone calls. The plot largely concerns Jimson figuring out a way to squat in a wealthy collector's apartment and create an indelible masterpiece on the wall of their flat., followed by a kind of coda where he creates an epic painting on the wall of a soon to-be-demolished Church.
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| One of the Gully Jimson paintings from the film. |
Jimson is obviously a character who was very close to Alec Guinness's' heart: Guinness wrote the screen play and it is hard to miss the obvious passion he brings to the role, raspy voice and all of it. The script is based on the on the novel of the same name by Joyce Cary- Criterion Collection calls the novel a classic but I'd never heard of the novel or the author.
At times it seems like the Criterion Collection is just an endless exploratory journey, the artistic equivalent of having some kind of warp drive that would allow you to hop from planet to planet instantaneously. Almost every day I am humbled by just how little I know about the world of literature after 23 years of formal education and actually being interested in the subject both in and out of school for roughly the same amount of time.
There is just so much out there it is easy to get overwhelmed on a day-to-day basis. I know I say this quite often but I could have easily lived my entire life without seeing or hearing about or discussing or being aware of the existence of The Horses Mouth, but it was a fine way to pass a couple hours, and it is worth checking out particular for the Anglophiles out there, and of course it is a much watch for those dedicated to British comedies from the 50s and 60s. Anyone? No? Ok.
I Married a Witch (1942)
d.Rene Clair
Criterion Collection #676
Criterion Collection edition released October 8th, 2013
New release woop woop. I Married a Witch is obviously given Criterion Collection status because it was directed by Rene Clair and stars Veronica Lake and is a screwball comedy about a family of witches and isn't that enough, dammit? It is hardly the best film of Rene Clair's career. Veronica Lake is better known for a half dozen other roles, but still... the combination of the two with the supernatural theme; not to mention a 75 minute run time.... It's... easy to see why you would pick this film for Criterion Collection treatment.
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| Veronica Lake |
Still, I Married a Witch is not a canonical type picture, but it does have Veronica Lake in it, and it is directed by Rene Clair. Veronica Lake has a fairly spectacular Hollywood flame out story attached that makes her a kind of Hollywood Actresses' Hollywood Actress. Plus, she has the film noir roles with Alan Ladd. And she is a total babe. It's not a must buy, but you should probably at least watch it. Veronica Lake plays a witch. That should be enough.
The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu (2011)
d. Andrei Ujică
Streaming on Netflix
Assembled entirely out of "official" state footage, The Autobiography of Nicolae Ceausescu is a totally unique approach towards its subject, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. I keep waiting for 20th century Eastern European Communist Dictatorships to become "hot" but maybe I am putting too much on the trend-industrial complex to expect a real revival.
The only moments in the film that are anything less then officially scripted Communist Part propaganda are the beginning and the end, both of which show parts of the hastily thrown together "trial" that immediately preceded Ceausescu and his wife being shot. In these scenes, Ceausescu and his wife look like they are being "tried" in a high school class room. Both look elderly, feeble and disheveled. This disconcerting scene segues into the funeral for Ceausescu's predecessor,
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. Ceausescu met Gehorghiu-Dej in a Fascist prison camp during World War II, where they were roommates.
d. Lüfti Ö. Akad
World Cinema Foundation
Available on Hulu Plus Criterion Collection Channel
And sometimes I watch a Turkish cowboys and indians type movie from 1966 that aren't actually in the Criterion Collection because I'm like "How many Turkish films can be on the Criterion Collection channel but not actually in the Criterion Collection proper?" The answer is, "This movie." It is OK though because this is actually a really interesting movie about life on the Turkish....Iraqi? Syrian? It says "south east Turkey" on the World Cinema Foundation product page.
I dunno it's cool. The World Cinema Foundation page says this film inaugurated the era of New Turkish Cinema and it is clear that there is some influence of, what else, French New Wave. It reminded me of a Pepe Le Moko. The story revolves around a group of rough neck smugglers who try to do good but are "pulled back into it" in familiar fashion. The performances are raw and edgy, and the actors are dirty. It's very real, until you get to the climatic gun battle, at which point The Law of the Border turns into a shoot em up western.
The restoration back story for The Law of the Border is pretty interesting. Supposedly all copies of the film were "seized and destroyed" in the 1980 Turkish coup d'etat. I can see why they did it. The film is pretty sympathetic to the smuggler/anti-hero characters. I guess you would call it subversive if you were a Turkish General.
The Life of Oharu (1952)
d. Kenzo Mizoguchi
Criterion Collection #664
Criterion Collection released July 9th, 2013
Another classic Japanese film from the 1950s, another total bummer night. The Life of Oharu is about the fall and fall of a 16th century Japanese courtesan/prostitute. The director is Kenzo Mizoguchi, a contemporary of Kurosawa in the great Japanese art house break out period of the early 1950s. Mizoguchi's next film, Ugetsu (1953) won at the Venice film festival. Unlike Kurosawa, Mizoguchi was in the twilight of his career in the post-war period. His filmography reveals dozens of films from the 20s all the way through and during World War II. During the 1920s, he was averaging over five titles a year.
The Life of Oharu, in addition to being a player in the growth of the international audience for Japanese film, was also what the film maker considered his finest work. If Kurosawa rose to prominence by combining Japanese traits with insights garnered from Western films, Mizoguchi is an example of a more purely "Japanese" film sensibility.
There are none of the quick cuts or innovative framing techniques of 50s Kurosawa. Instead there are tons of very long takes and a mastery of what is called 'mise en scene': the design elements of film production. Telling a story that takes place in the 16th century, Mizoguchi convincingly depicts that era down to the details on the human carried carriages that were used for elite travel during the period.
Even knowing how well The Life of Oharu went over with the international film crowd, and taking into account its positive attribute; The Life of Oharu is what I would call a tough watch. Black and white, slow paced editing, two hours plus run time, and utterly depressing subject matter with little or no redemption at the end. Mizoguchi obviously sympathizes with poor Oharu, but his sympathy doesn't earn her much within the film. The Life of Oharu has no rise, just a steady fall from beginning to end.
Hopscotch (1980) d. Ronald Neame (10/12/13)
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| Walter Matthau as a dapper CIA agent in Hopsctoch (1980) d. Ronald Neame |
Movie Review
Hopscotch (1980)
d. Ronald Neame
Criterion Collection #163
There are two main categories of films in the Criterion Collection. The first category is are the "fun" movies and the second category are the "serious" movies. The first category includes many of the "cult classics" and then some of the foreign films, the second category contains most of the documentaries and many more of the foreign films. Hopscotch, a clever, witty spy thriller with overtones of the Edward Snowden affair, is firmly in the former category- as fun as the Criterion Collection can get.
Hopsctoch is yet another fine example of why watching the Criterion Collection is such a useful investment of time. A film I probably never would have even heard of, let alone watched, becomes a diverting way to pass a couple hours in the early evening, and provides plenty of food for thought about the way the world has changed in the generation since Hopscotch was released.
Walter Matthau, here at this best, plays Kendig, a top CIA operative who is put out to pasture by his Nixonian boss Myerson (Ned Beatty.) He decides to retaliate by writing a tell-all memoir, and then eludes capture in spectacular fashion. He is assisted in his escapade by the wealthy and beautiful divorce Isobel, played by Glenda Jackson and of course a young Sam Waterson would have to part of such a film.
Neame also directed the Criterion Collection title The Horses Mouth(1958), and both titles share winning actors in the title role. Matthau, so often cast as a nebbish, is a dapper sophisticated super spy in Hopsctoch and you can see that he enjoys every minute of the performance. Hopsctoch is, above all, fun to watch and there is no point during the run time where I was bored or scratching at the walls to get out. That is how I know that I'm watching a "fun" Criterion Collection title vs. a "serious" Criterion Collection title: During the serious films I'm often in sheer agony and need to take breaks or watch the film in half hour to hour blocks
Ratcatcher (1999) d. Lynne Ramsay (10/4/13)
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| James with the neighborhood "slut" Maragret Anne in Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher (1999) |
Movie Review
Ratcatcher (1999)
d. Lynne Ramsay
Criterion Collection #162
When a film is "set during the national garbage strike in Scotland during the 1970s" you have a good idea of what you are in for. Like Scotland isn't filthy enough without a national garbage strike. Ratcatcher is a coming of age picture about a young Scottish lad- James (William Eadie) who accidentally kills one of his neighbors during the first five minutes in a muddy canal during the first five minutes of the film. It is, as they say, downhill from there, but Ramsay brings a strong narrative and visual approach to the utterly depressing material, making Ratcatcher a distinctive and memorable film about life in Scotland during the mid 1970s.
There are so many scenes of children playing in garbage that this image becomes the the signature of Ratcatcher. You've got a scene where a couple of ruffians extract an entire dog corpse from a trash bag and wave it around, you've got a little girl sitting in a pile of trash bags as one would sit on a thrown, and of course, you've got the handling of rats, dead and alive, as one would expect from the title.
Ramsay doesn't flinch from depicted the grim reality confronting young James. The simple fact that James kills another child in the first five minutes disorients the viewer, taking James out of the category of helpless observer of his unfortunate surroundings and more into the category of willing participant in the filth and degradation surrounding him.
There isn't much of a plot to speak of. The most plot-like story element is the "relationship" between James and Maragret Anne, a promiscuous older girl who takes a fancy to James even as she is relentlessly bullied into having sex(?) with a gang of neighborhood teens. Besides the heaps of uncollected rubbish (as they say in the UK) the fetid canal serves as a visual and narrative focus. Just looking at that canal was enough to make my skin crawl, and it is hard not to flinch when you see characters from the film immerse themselves in the filthy water.
The ending of Ratcatcher mixes a happy scene of James' family moving into a much sought after suburban home with James jumping into the canal in what looks to be a suicide attempt. Ramsay leaves it unclear as to which represents the "reality" but my money is on the suicide. Ratcatcher very much reminded me of Harmony Korine's Gummo. Gummo was released two years before Ratcatcher, but if you like one you will appreciate the other.
Double Suicide (1969) d. Masahiro Shinoda (10/7/13)
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| At least Double Suicide has some tits. |
Movie Review
Double Suicide (1969)
d. Masahiro Shinoda
Criterion Collectin #104
Not sure what it is about Japanese cinema but it is rapidly becoming my least favorite sub part of the Criterion Collection. I like Seijun Suzuki and can obviously appreciate the majesty of Kurosawa, but other then the Suzuki films I don't actually like watching any of them. It's just a chore. Double Suicide is the worst of the bunch thus far. Double Suicide is a take on a classic Bunraku puppet play, where a man goes ga ga over a courtesan in feudal Japan. Unable to be together in life, they chose to be together.... in death. So yeah, it's another movie where you are waiting for the main characters to die at the end. Oh is this it? Do they die here? Oh maybe it's now? No. Now?
It's also not one of those films where afterwards you are like, "Oh I can't wait to till person X about this movie, I bet they will really like it." I don't know a single person in the entire universe who would make it through a half hour of Double Suicide. I can only surmise that it included in the Criterion Collection because it as free to acquire, or perhaps because the director uses "Brechtian distancing techniques" in the form of black garbed "puppeteers" who follow the (human) characters around and even intervene in the action at time. Me, I found it tedious. Not recommended!
Days of Wrath (1943) d. Carl Th. Dreyer (10/9/13)
Movie Review
Days of Wrath (1943)
d. Carl Th. Dreyer
Criterion Collection #125
Boy, this movie has EVERYTHING if your definition of everything includes 17th century Danish fashion, witch burning and step mother/step son sex. From a movie shot in 1943 in Denmark, under Nazi occupation, no less. Truly a testament to what a skilled film maker can accomplish under strained circumstances, although I have to imagine the Danes were pretty mellow about being occupied by the Nazis. In fact, even though I knew this was a Danish film the language sounded so close to German and/or Dutch that I was unable to distinguish a difference, even though I was listening to one. I guess I was expecting something more along the lines of Swedish.
It turns out I actually dig Northern European/German cinema- I'm loving Ingmar Bergman, I love this guy Dreyer and I look forward to watching films from this part of the world. Days of Wrath is as emotionally intense as any movie I've seen, the fact that it came out of the 1940s makes it all the more remarkable. Also remarkable is the fact that anyone can now watch this movie streaming on Hulu Plus. I can't imagine there were more then a half dozen viewings of the old 16 MM pre DVD print in America in the last 50 years- if that many.
The accompanying essay on the Criterion Collection page for Days of Wrath makes some interesting points regarding the novel style of camera work that Dreyer employed- I must confess that my eye was not sophisticated to catch it but after reading the article and taking another look I see what author Jonathan Rosenbaum is pointing out about his use of tracks to create a disorienting effect.
Also Dreyer really nails the period part of this period piece- you get a sense of how witch burning was simply a fact of life in the day. Personally, my image of witch burning always involved tying a woman to a stake in he middle of a pile of wood and then setting fire to the wood, but here, in what I assume is a more historically accurate depiction of actual witch burning methodology, they start the bon fire, then tie the witch to a ladder, then hoist up the ladder and tip it into the fire, so that with falls face first into the flames. Also, they have a children's choir singing about burning the witch as they burn they witch, which- even if you are opposed to witch burning- is an undeniably classy touch.
The Hidden Fortress (1958) d. Akira Kurosawa (10/11/13)
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| Princess Yuki in Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress is the direct and obvious inspiration for Princess Leia in Star Wars, no matter what George Lucas may think. |
Movie Review
The Hidden Fortress (1958)
d. Akira Kurosawa
Criterion Collection #116
Man I don't know what it is about Kurosawa but I suffer through every single one of his films. It took me 4 days to get through The Hidden Fortress, which is an action film, mind you.
The highlight of the Hulu Plus streaming version of this film is that they include what can only be described as a priceless interview with George Lucas, who borrowed significantly from The Hidden Fortress when he was writing a little movie called Star Wars. To his credit, he cops to it...sort of. After first saying that The Hidden Fortress is his "fourth favorite" Kurosawa film, he admits that he was "inspired" by the two peasants who form the narrative focus of The Hidden Fortress (They were turned into Droids for Star Wars.) He's less forthcoming about the relationship between Kurosawa's Priness Yuki and his own Princesss Leia. At one point he says that Leia is a more active, adventurous character and that this represents a huge difference between Leia and Yuki but he must have been high when he said that because Yuki is like a spitting image of Princess Leia.
The story of The Hidden Fortress: A General must escort his Princess behind enemy lines to get her home after her army loses is a battle, has obvious similarities with the plot of Star Wars, even if Lucas is able to sanguinely state that there are really only 32 plots in existence, so of course movies resemble one another.
Keep telling yourself that George. It is cool that he did the interview though, I'm sure a lot of Artists would be reticient to praise a work that they directly lifted from to make their own breakthrough hit. Obviously though, he got away with it, because how many people actually saw The Hidden Fortress before the video/DVD era. Lucas flat out states that the only reason he saw it was because he was enrolled in film school.
Ordet (1955) d. Carl Th. Dreyer (10/14/13)
Movie Reviews
Ordet (1955)
d. Carl Th. Dreyer
Criterion Collection #126
It's funny, but because I'm a criminal defense lawyer I can't watch television shows about crime. I think I'm in much the same situation now with music, I don't actually relax by listening to music- don't even own a stereo actually. I listen to music when I drive and when I run, and occasionally at the office, but I'm not kicking back with a brewski and putting on the latest LP on my turntable. I think that's why I'm so into movies and novels right now, it helps me think about art without having to worry about the business issue that creep into any pure attempt to appreciate music as art. So I'll often think about music or art while watching movies or reading novels- I find it to be a really useful exercise to focus on good examples of the art form, rather then filling my mind with useless garbage- which I don't mind- or didn't mind.
Ordet is yet another good example of a movie I would never have seen without the COMBINATION of Criterion Collection and Hulu Plus but I'm telling you I am FEELING the Northern European cinema of Germany, Denmark and Sweden. I've liked every single one I've come across, and I feel like the Denmark/Sweden access is the opposite of the Japanese films: I shouldn't like them but I do. Maybe because they are so g-d somber, and death obsessed, and because a Danish filmmaker working in 1955 can drop a casual Soren Kierkegaard reference into a film set in rural Denmark in 1925. As one does.
There is no way to describe Ordet that makes it sound appealing- I think it's so funny when I read other Criterion Collection focused blogs and they have these lengthy plot descriptions or in depth analysis of the film makers- um HELLO- the Criterion Collection itself does that for every single film. If you're going to write about the Criterion Collection the focus needs to be on the COLLECTION not the individual films- they are just little pieces of this grand canonization of film that is truly unmatched- certainly in terms of the international scope of it.
But man I LOVED Ordet- and I really dig Dreyer- he makes me want to go to Denmark: between current bands like Iceage and The Ravonettes, the history of existentialism, the movies- all of it Ordet has a crazy ass ending that really gives the feature some oomph- which it needs because the plot elements are: A wealthy farmer, religious faith, a difficult child birth and a son who thinks he is Jesus Christ. Did I mention is set in rural Denmark in 1925? But it all comes together and the end left my jaw on the floor. And I watched the entire film in delight.
Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (1956) d. Hiroshi Inagaki (10/16/13)
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| Toshiro Mifune |
Movie Review
Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (1956)
d. Hiroshi Inagaki
Criterion Collection #16
I am relieved to have completed my viewing of Hiroshi Inagaki's Samurai trilogy because it was the biggest remaining gap in the first 20 Criterion Collection titles. Only two titles in the first 20 remain unseen: Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom and A Night To Remember. I may end up buying Salo because let me tell you: you can not rent that shit on Amazon streaming video. A Night To Remember is available on streaming video so I'll probably knock that out. It's about... the Titanic and it was released in 1957? Looking forward to it. I've also decided to go back and rewatch some of the classics that I haven't seen in some time: 400 Blows (on cassette during college in the film library?), The Seventh Seal (Netflix on disc?), maybe Sid & Nancy. I'm not sure I'm going to watch Sid & Nancy again.
In the thundering conclusion to the Samurai trilogy, famed Samurai Musashi Miyamoto continues his wanderings, and eventually gets around to killing his main rival, Kojiro Sasaki, during a...you guessed it; island duel. In between he kinda saves a village from bandits, actually he fails to save the village but helps the villagers drive off the bandits. He finally agrees to marry Otsu and Otsu's rival Akemi betrays him and then dies. It is, as they say, a rollicking good time, and I have to admit that for this episode I was emotionally invested in Miyamoto, even though the title gave me a pretty good idea about where the plot was headed.
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| Koji Tsurata as Kojiro Sasaki |
Toshiro Mifune is again iconic as Musashi Miyamoto, and the third film really shows off Koji Tsurata as the rival samurai Kojiro Sasaki. I wouldn't say that the Samurai trilogy whetted my appetite for more Samurai movies, and oh by the way Hulu Plus has a shit ton, and not all of them are Criterion Collection titles either; but I do feel like I have a deeper appreciation for this chapter in cinema history.
There aren't really any contemporary Samurai films (The last Samurai?) so it's not the same situation as with Kung Fu films. Why did the Samurai movie go extinct? A question for another day I suppose.
Ballad of A Soldier (1959) d.Grigori Chukhrai (10/21/13)
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| Zhanna Prokhorenko plays the love interest Shura in Ballad of a Soldier, the 1959 Russian film directed by Grigori Chukhrai |
Movie Review
Ballad of A Soldier (1959)
d.Grigori Chukhrai
Criterion Collection #148
Can we talk for a second about the other blogs that are also watching the Criterion Collection in a comprehensive fashion? Criterion Reflections is doing it chronologically. He's been at it since 2009 and he writes ridiculously comprehensive reviews that I can barely get through myself. Here's his intro for this movie, Ballad of A Soldier- a 1959 Russian film about a soldier coming home for a brief leave during World War II to see his beloved Mother:
Ok so this is just the first paragraph:
Ballad of a Soldier is a pleasantly accessible and emotionally powerful meditation on the effects of war on a society's common folk that probably earns its status as an "important classic and contemporary film" (i.e. part of the Criterion Collection) as much for the circumstances of its original release and historic significance as for it's cinematic achievements. It's a handsome production, skillfully rendered and performed with impeccable sincerity by a very photogenic cast - even the rough-hewn peasants, tragic victims and a small number of unsympathetic characters, presented to us as examples of weakness and faltering integrity, have a noble glow to them. A few scenes show technical prowess, most memorably an early overhead shot of tanks pursuing a running soldier that flips upside down as the action passes directly underneath the camera, and a dreamy montage reverie later in the film in which two would-be lovers, now parted by circumstance and ever-increasing miles, speak tenderly to each other in their own thoughts words of affection that they never dared speak to each other. But these effects, as moving and genteel as they unquestionably are, might not in themselves have won the enduring respect and admiration that they have if the film itself hadn't emerged at a particularly critical time - the late 1950s "thaw" in Soviet media censorship and US-USSR relations that took place after the passing of Stalin but before the Cold War ramped up again in the early 1960s with the construction of the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the entry of the USA into the Vietnamese conflict. (Criterion Reflections)
Russia, historically speaking, has cemented themselves as a stark contradiction to the American film style. Whether it be the prolific Man With A Movie camera, or the entirety of Eisenstein's ouevre, narrative dissonance and non-linear editing are their thing, so when I approached Ballad of a Solider, I assumed these would be traits of the film, however, within only moments of viewing the clearly melodramatic film, I was baffled to find its clearly American composition. Between long reaction shots, use of music to emphasize emotion and the focus of redemption within the narrative, Ballad of A Soldier is not entirely Russian in its composition. Now that by no means makes this a terrible piece of cinema, in fact, it is quite great and clocking it at just under ninety minutes, the film is accessible and earnest. Furthermore, the films is neither a clear condemnation of war efforts, nor is it set out in praising the validity of warfare. The narrative of Grigoriy Chukhray's film, which he both wrote and directed, is as the title suggests about a soldier and is certainly a ballad at that, considering its lyrical nature. It focuses on one character and his vision of a slowly eroding nation, one that evolves from foolish youthful ignorance to adult disillusionment. If it were not for films like Forbidden Games and Ivan's Childhood, I would define this as one of the greatest coming of age tales ever composed, but mind you if I ever were to make a list of the top ten, it would certainly make the list. (Cinemalacrum)
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| Alain Delon |
Movie Review
Purple Noon (1960)
d René Clément
Criterion Collection #637
Presently drifting through the Criterion Collection, like a leaf in the wind, without plan or scheme. Front to back, back to front, by year, country or director- I have a vague inkling that I'm going to tackle every Ingmar Bergman film but I find the prospect exhausting. Purple Noon is at this point best known as a prior adaption of the Matt Damon starring The Talented Mr. Ripley, which is the actual title to the Patricia Highsmith novel that both films are based upon. If you've seen The Talented Mr. Ripley, you know what is up with Purple Noon. With the recent American version so widely known, Purple Noon is mostly notable for the luscious mise en scene of Southern Italy and Rome, and the performance of Alain Delon as Ripley. Even as a straight man it is hard not to be impressed with the physical attractiveness of a young Alain Delon (or an old Alain Delon for that matter.)
I believe I've seen Purple Noon at least three times by now. I'll probably watch it again a couple times before I die. True crime classic.
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| French actress Arletty plays Dominque, minion of the Devil, in Les visiteurs du soir d. Marcel Carne |
Les visiteure du soir
(1942)
d. Marcel Carné
Criterion Collection #626
It must be a bittersweet moment when you get a New York Times obituary but said obituary says that you "outlived your time." Such is the case for french director Marcel Carné, the top director in pre and post World War II France. Carné was public enemy number one for the critics of the French New Wave, and he suffered a reversal in artistic fortune that has essentially lasted until today. Perhaps that is only because the precepts of the French New Wave became so popular with serious film fans that they also imbued the sort of temporal prejudice that led those critics to trash the poetic realism of Carné.
Les visiteurs du soir was filmed during World War II, in occupied France. The Tarantino film Inglorious Basterds gives a fairly accurate representation of the level of control and interest that the Nazi's had in the French Movie business. They had their own studio, they censored content, and of course all Jewish film makers were taken away to the gas chambers and murdered. Carné continued to work but financed Les visiteurs du soir himself, perhaps an important distinction separating him from outright Nazi collaborators.
Les visiteurs du soir is about two minions of the Devil, disguised as minstrels, who arrive at a castle in the Middle Ages during the preliminaries prior to a noble wedding. The mission of these minstrels is roughly explained as "seduce and destroy;" and that is what they do, seducing the bride, the groom and the groom's father. AND THEN the Devil shows up.
Les visiteurs du soir most reminded me of the medieval-set films of Ingmar Bergman (The Virgin Spring for one.) Although the setting is unabashedly historical, the morality and story is anything but, with sly nods to what would come to be known as "existentialism" and a frolicsome Devil who seems to caper with delight in every scene.
Touki bouki (1973)
d. Djibril Diop Mambéty
Criterion Collection #685
From Martin Scorcese's World Cinema Foundation
Criterion Collection edition released December 10th, 2013
Criterion Collection is partnering with Martin Scorcese's World Cinema Foundation to release a bunch of restored films from all over the world. It seems to me like a vital project, and I'm excited that Criterion/WCF have chosen to make many of these releases available on the Criterion Collection Hulu Plus channel.
Touki bouki is billed on the original release art as "An African Road Movie" though it's kinda Bonnie n Clyde type situation, depicting Mory (guy) and Anta (girl) as they commit a series of petty crimes in order to pay for passage to Paris. It's obvious from jump street as to why this film would be picked for restoration/rerelease. Filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty had obviously seen his share of French New Wave, and these techniques, including non narrative documentary footage, surrealism and fantasy shot as reality, coupled with the African locations, combine to give Touki bouki the feel of revelation. Even these New Wave influenced techniques pale in comparison to Mambety's decision to open the film with the slaughter of a bull- and then to continue that motif, showing also the slaughter of a goat. Thus, if you are the squeamish sort who frowns at the thought of a film opening with a five minute shot of a bull having it's neck cut wide open and the blood draining out onto the killing room floor, you will not make it past the first five minutes of Touki bouki.
Young Törless (1966)
d. Volker Schlöndorff
Criterion Collection #279
I gave this movie review a book review "time slot" (Thursday 5:30 AM) for two reasons. First, I'm not done with the Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. Second, The Confusions of Young Torless is ALSO a title from the 1001 Books collection of Novels, and I've previously reviewed the book, on May 22nd of 2012.
Young Törless is an enduring classic for reasons beyond the execution of the film itself. Volker Schlöndorff is a lesser known (compared to Werner Herzog and Fassbinder) figure in the world of New German Cinema, but I believe an argument can be made (and is made by the film maker himself in the 20 minute feature that accompanies the streaming version on Hulu Plus.) Schlöndorff actually went to school in France and worked in the French film industry as a second director/assistant director. According to his own words, he was motivated to return to Germany and introduce some of the energy created by the French New Wave to German Cinema. The result of this was New German Cinema, though Schlondorff admits that upon his arrival/return to the German film industry Werner Herzog was already there, though only a director of "short documentaries."
Besides the seminal role Young Torless plays in New German Film, there is Schlondorff's awareness of the horrors of Nazi Germany, and his attempt to make a German language film which addresses that horror. Although the book was written well in advance of World War I, let alone World War II, it clearly shares some foreshadowing of certain aesthetic aspects of Nazi rule, particularly the gleeful, sadistic perpetration of violence on the bodies of the excluded.
In Törless, the young thief Basini is subjected to all sorts of physical, mental and sexual abuse at the hands of Beineburg and Reitling, while Torless passively watches from the sidelines. Schlondorff draws a clear line between the passivity of European intellectuals during the rise of Nazism and the passivity of Törless in the face of such gross, deplorable abuse.
The relationship of the main characters of Torless to sex and sexuality is a topic for another blog post, but clearly tracks with the repressed homosexual overtones familiar to anyone with a passing knowledge of English "Public" (private) school life in the same time period. Musil's frank depiction of this abuse is simply without peer in contemporary English literary culture.
Finally, there is the increased importance of the author of the source material, Robert Musil. His "big novel" the uncompleted the Man Without Qualities, has experienced a revival within this decade. This revival was no doubt spurred by the 1996 reissue of the novel with a new translation by Sophie Wilkins and a "textual overall" of the uncompleted work.
If you look at a Google Ngram of "Robert Musil" in English language books, you can see a steep ascent, but not until 1960. Musil suffered through a half century of English language obscurity, but when Scholodorff made his version of Young Torless Musil was in the midst of his first dramatic uptake in the English language. Other then a brief decline in the first part of the 70s, Musil has been gaining in popularity ever since his initial cultural break out at the beginning of the 60s.
Highly recommend this one.
The Prostitute in Japanese Cinema
Double Suicide (1969) d. Masahiro Shinoda
The Life of Oharu (1952) d. Kenzo Mizoguchi
Gate of Flesh (1964) d. Seijun Suzuki
You can't work with Artists and ignore the metaphor of Artist as prostitute in terms of their relationship with the larger cultural-industrial complex. It is a well trodden Artistic theme since before culture WAS an industry, via the Romantic movement. In Western Art frank depictions of the economic causes of prostitution are few and far between. Instead, the emphasis up until today tends to be a religious/moral analysis often explicitly made in reference to Christian literature.
However Japanese cinema, while often dealing with the feelings of personal shame experienced by prostitutes, lacks the Christian reference point that permeates Western Art, and allows Japanese films to more explicitly deal with the economic roots that lay behind most acts of prostitution. This in turn allows the viewer to think about the larger idea of prostitution as a metaphor for the relationship that most have with economic necessity. In other words, we all trade valuable part of ourselves in exchange for the economic necessities of existence, and compromising a personal code of values is often unavoidable.
The economics of prostitution are in full display in Double Suicide, where the plot revolves around the attempt by the star-crossed male love to "free" the Prostitute by buying her. In this film, his rivals are economically favored men who also want to buy the Prostitute in an effort to buy her love. The title and ending of the film suggests a deeply fatalistic philosophy and the story itself clearly takes the stand that "resistance is futile."
The Life of Oharu is closer to a Western style morality play, with a main character who declines and declines in a way that would be intimately familiar to any semi-literate Englishman of the 18th century via the widely disseminated prints of William Hogarth. Oharu is, again, a tragic figure, but stripped of the prissy moral judgment of Christianity her plight takes on a more universal feel. Removing moral judgment from the equation allows the Viewer a closer level of sympathy with the prostitute, and again helps to draw out the ways in which we all compromise ourselves to survive: The prostitute as universal symbol of humanity.
Gate of Flesh differs from The Life of Oharu and Double Suicide because it is a contemporary tale set in the aftermath of World War II, but the economic imperative behind the main group of prostitutes is made impossible to ignore. They even have their own "code of conduct" which requires ALWAYS getting paid for sex, much in the same way we have the Pimp code of conduct in contemporary Western culture. These prostitutes are moral agents, which is somewhat unexpected since Gate of Flesh in most other ways is what we call an "exploitation film" in terms of using brutality and sensationalism to excite the (limited) Audience.
I feel like this frank depiction of the economic/universal qualities of prositution- and as a mirroring artistic theme- is still limited in the West, and the non-Western sources are a fertile place to find inspiration for fresh ways with developing "The Market Makes Whores of Us All" as a viable artistic theme.
Redes (1936)
d. Emilio Gómez Muriel and Fred Zinnemann
World Cinema Foundation
Criterion Collection #686
Criterion Collection/World Cinema Foundation edition available December 10th, 2013
I'm sure I've mentioned the two main categories of Criterion Collection titles: movies that are actually watchable/fun and movies that are boring and "important." Different people may break movies down among those categories different ways. For example, I would the work of Carl Th. Dreyer in the for former category, and I'm sure many people would put them in the later. I can barely make it through Japanese films from the 50s and 60s, and Italian Neorealism give me a desperate feeling in my soul, like I'm trapped in a boring film class and can't out, and I'm sure there are people who love both those types of films.
Redes, however, is incontestably a film of historical significance, rather then a fun romp. Shot by a multi-national crew and released in 1936, Redes is a very early attempt at documentary style realism, shot with non-professional actors and with a very distinctive (for 1936) visual attitude. The press release for the Criterion Collection edition calls it a "precursor to Italian Neo Realism" but it seems more likely that Italian Neo Realism was created under similar conditions and with similar influence.
The good news is that Redes clocks in at barely an hour, so if you are in the mood for 30s Mexican film about the plight of fisherman in Baja California... check it out.
One release note that is worth considering: None of these World Cinema Foundations come with extras- just the (restored) film.
Gate of Flesh (1964)
d. Seijun Suzuki
Criterion Collection #298
OK I'm out of book reviews- damn you The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy- no one told me it was really 3 books! So I'm going to fill the gaps with more Criterion Collection reviews because those are easy to churn out. At times it feels like half of the Criterion Collection is Bergman films and the other half are Japanese films. At least Gate of Flesh is by Seijun Suzuki, the left field bizarro b movie Auteur of legend. Suzuki has 7 Criterion Collection titles under his belt.
Gate of Flesh is set in deolate, post apocalyptic World War II Tokyo, where a gang of scrappy, color coded prostitutes shacks up with a scummy ex-Japanese soldier. The soldier is played by Suzuki stalwart/Chipmunk cheeked champion, Joe Shishido. Everything about Suzuki's film making feels fresh a half century later. Although Gate of Flesh is clearly what Americans of the same time would call an "exploitation picture" the quality is unmistakable. As is... the weirdness, endemic to all Suzuki films, and the brutality, which also appears to be common in Suzuki pictures.
Dry Summer (1964) d. Metsin Erksan (11/20/13)
Movie Review
Dry Summer (1964)
d. Metsin Erksan
Criterion Collection #688
Criterion Collection/World Cinema Foundation DVD released December 10th, 2013.
This movie has 17 likes on Facebook via the Criterion Collection? According to the listing, Dry Summer won the "Golden Berar" award at something called the "Berlin Film Festival" which strikes me as being the rough equivalent of the Toronto Film Festival in terms of market making impact. I frankly question the Audience for this picture, and that is speaking as someone who watched it himself.
That being said, I can see why the Criterion Collection/World Cinema Foundation calls Dry Summer a "benchmark" of Turkish cinema even though I have only seen one other Turkish film, also released by the World Cinema Foundation (and streamed on Hulu Plus on the Criterion Collection channel though NOT an official Criterion Collection release.)
That other film, The Law of the Border was more or less a Cowboys and Indians story. This film is more like a Turkish version of a Balzac or Hugo novel- 19th century French realism. The story revolves around two brothers and the wife of one of the brothers (the younger.) The older brother is the villain of the piece. The older brother hatches a plan to dam up the spring on their property which angers the local villagers at the bottom of the hill. Litigation ensues, and then murder. The younger brother goes to prison after being convicted of the equivalent of manslaughter and then the older brother convinces the wife that the younger brother was killed in prison. Younger brother shows up, murders older brother.
I am summarizing the plot because I'm sure nobody reading this gives a shit or will watch Dry Summer. The theme of scarce resources and changes among traditional cultures appears to run consistently through the first batch of World Cinema Foundation films being released by the Criterion Collection:
Redes: Mexican film about the plight of fishermen in Mexico.
A River Called Titas: Bangladeshi film about the plight of fishermen in Bangladesh.
Dry Summer: Turkish film about the conflict over water in Turkey.
The Law of The Border: Turkish film about plight of tribesmen in south east Turkey.
That is what you call an artistic theme. The World Cinema Foundation is clearly concerned with realistic portrayals of traditional cultures in flux. The two remaining films, The Housemaid from Korea and Trances from Morocco break the theme but there you have it.
Trances (1981)
d. Ahmed El Maânouni
Criterion Collection #689
Criterion Collection/World Cinema Foundation edition released December 10th, 2013
With two films from Turkey and this film from Morocco, the wider Islamic world is well represented in the batch of World Cinema films being released by Criterion Collection in a collected set on December 10th, 2013. Trances is about popular Moroccan musicians Nass El Ghiwane. What is amazing about this film is that it's a documentary about popular music in an Islamic/Arabic country- the only other film of that sort I can remember seeing is a Vice documentary about Heavy Metal in Iraq and Syria, but this is obviously several classes up from that.
You can be forgiven if you have never heard of Nass El Ghiwane. They don't have a rerelease going, there is no Pitchfork coverage of them. That may actually change after this movie comes out, but maybe not, since it has been streaming on Hulu Plus for a minute and only 4 people like it on Facebook.
Trances has a ton of performance footage, some random shots of Morocco, discussions between band members about stuff and like a love story or something between the main guy and this hot Moroccan chick. It's pretty uh.... non-Muslim. I'm sorry but the Muslim world has such a bad rap when it comes to art and modern artistic culture that it's almost stunning to learn a band like Nass El Ghiwane actually exists.
Through A Glass Darkly (1961)
d. Ingmar Bergman
Criterion Collection #209
Part of A Film Trilogy by Ingmar Bergman (four discs) Criterion Collection #208
There is A LOT of Bergman to work through within the Criterion Collection. The three of the four films I've watched thus far, The Seventh Seal(1957), Cries and Whispers (1972)& Persona (1966)are big hits, but I dig all of his movies. I haven't really dug into the non-hits but I am most eager. I believe that you can divide Bergman into three main periods: His films of the 50s are what you might call his "expressionistic" period, with ponderous medieval settings and heavy use of allegory. In the 60s he made a transition to more "realistic" film making, with heavy use of natural lighting and plots that were typically contemporary. And then in the 70s there was a late shift into more "modern" looks- using color and more graphic sexual material.
So through A Glass Darkly is from the beginning of that second period, and it has a theme that resonates with other Bergman sixties films like Persona. Through A Glass Darkly was part of a trilogy of films Bergman made between 1961 and 1963. Through A Glass Darkly was the first film, followed by Winter Light (1962) and The Silence(1963). Although none of Bergman is what you would call "light" all three films from this period are very "heavy" and did poorly at the box office, according to the interview with Bergman biographer/film scholar Peter Matthews, because they broke with audience expectations.
Personally, I found Through A Glass Darkly, with it's theme of Artists cannibalizing their loved ones for material particularly appetizing because I actually spend a good amount of time thinking about the relationship of the Artist to his/her environment and how that impacts the resulting art. In Through A Glass Darkly, Bergman seems to be copping to the fact that such a process is inevitable, and to a certain extent, simply unforgivable. There is no redemption at the end of Through A Glass Darkly, only sadness.
The Magician (1958) d. Ingmar Bergman (11/29/13)
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| Max Von Sydow as Vogler the magician |
Movie Review
The Magician (1958)
d. Ingmar Bergman
Criterion Collection #537
I was intrigued by The Magician because the included visual essay by Bergman scholar Peter Cowie identified the relationship between Artist and Audience, specifically the hatred of Bergman for his critics, as a primary theme motivating the film. Bergman's relationship with critics/Audience was formed during his decade long turn at the helm of the Malmo Civic Theater, where he directed plays. Apparently, he wasn't appreciated quite enough and he took the lack of appreciation to heart.
It's common to think of great Artists as having a quality that places them above such concerns, but that is a disingenuous fraud, and I'm always interested when Artists confront that relationship in their art. That being said, The Magician is a bit of what I would call a "parlor drama" filled with characters in old timey costumes standing around inside and talking. This isn't Bergman's best look, and all of his top line classics have a substantial outdoor component that is missing from The Magician.
The Magician is also an unusual Bergman film because it has a bona fide happy ending, with The Magician be summoned to perform for the King of Sweden to the shock of all.
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| Literally a one eyed monster, The Atomic Submarine creature couldn't be a bigger phallic symbol |
Movie Review
The Atomic Submarine (1959)
d. Spencer G. Bennet
Criterion Collection #366
Part of Monsters & Madmen Boxed Set
Criterion Collection #364
There are some Criterion Collection titles where you kind of scratch your head and think, "OK, I guess you know what you're doing, Criterion Collection. Then you read the critical essay and your like, "Ummmm...ok, not so sure about this title, but I trust you." Then you watch the film and your like, "Ummmmmm... maybe you guys are wrong about this one?"
I'm not saying The Atomic Submarine doesn't deserve Criterion Collections status. One of the primary goals of the Criterion Collection seems to be to bring obscure movies wider recognition, and a host of these films are found within the B-Movie genre pictures of the 1950s and 1960s. Generally speaking, Criterion Collection picks weirder, lesser known films.
So I can see where The Atomic Submarine fits in but it isn't that weird, and it isn't that fun. It's no Carnival of Souls, to name a similar type of film with the Criterion Collection universe. I will admit that the creepy one eyed alien that lives at the center of an alien ship the military insists on calling "the cyclops" did give me the phallic symbol giggles, and the acting is classic b movie bad acting, which is itself an art form at this point, independent of "good" acting (see 80s indie films by John Waters and the Eating Raoul guy.)
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| Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate. Tate was murdered by the Manson Family. |
Movie Review
Knife in the Water (1962)
d. Roman Polanski
Criterion Collection #215
Another movie review getting run on a book review day because the Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy is actually a hellacious monster. I am done with one out of three volumes after a week of dogged, determined reading- including multiple e reading devices (computer, two phones, kindle) and reading in Court instead of playing Candy Crush, but it is just a terrible slog.
Knife in the Water is Polanski's first feature film, made while he was still in Poland (Knife in the Water is actually in Polish.) His talent, ambition and technical are all fully on display. I'm not familiar with his career path to know how quickly he moved West, but even a casual viewer can tell that they are in the presence of an Auteur level talent.
Considering that the movie features only three actors and is almost entirely set on a small boat, Polanski runs through a cavalcade of differently framed shots that often feature multiple focii points in a manner that would have been considered sophisticated at a Hollywood level. The story of Knife in the Water, about a couple that randomly decides to take a hitchhiker for an over night trip out on... the Baltic Sea? Is packed with tension and humor. His portrait of the troubled marriage of the two lead characters is concise and insightful. At 93 minutes, the film clips along with Hollywood level pacing and editing and you barely have a moment to be distracted.
I'm a huge fan of Polanski- child sex abuse or no child sex abuse- and at the same time I understand why American doesn't want him here. I think it's a loss, and that what he did was forgivable, especially at the time and place when/where it happened. Polanski's Chinatown is probably my favorite movie of all time. The fact that a Polish filmmaker made the greatest California Noir and did it in the 70s is quite an accomplishment, and his other films aren't bad either.
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| Harriet Andersson stares frankly at the camera in Bergman's Summer with Monika (1953) This film pre-figured French New Wave and anticipated many of the techniques used by those film makers. |
Movie Review
Summer with Monika (1953)
d. Ingmar Bergman
Criterion Collection #614
Bergman didn't really have an international hit before The Seventh Seal in 1957. Distribution for the films prior to that The Seventh Seal was uneven. For example, in the New York Times article that I'm not linking to because of the NYT pay wall, the writer notes that in 1953, Summer with Monika was purchased for an American run by a distributor who emphasized the film in terms of its sexual explicitness. It was shown in the pre-art house grindhouse circuit, and largely ignored by the American critical Audience.
However the reception in France was different, and Summer with Monika would later be cited by the Auteurs of the French New Wave as a primary influence in terms of the kind of filmed intimacy they sought in their early films. The same New York Times article points out that Summer with Monika is a more well developed version of his 1951 film, Summer Interlude. I would second that observation, especially since I watched Summer Interlude two months ago and still have it in mind.
It is hard not to fall in love with a young Harriet Andersson playing Monika. Summer with Monika about a young, working class couple who fall into and out of love within the hour and a half run time of the film. The calm, steady camera work emphasizes Andersson's natural beauty at the same time her character displays personality traits that are anything but beautiful. The contrast is a quintessentially Bergman-esque theme.
The last third of Summer with Monika is the familiar "hell is other (married) people" thesis that Bergman explores so successfully in his more mature work.
Movie Review
Sawdust and Tinsel (1953)
d. Ingmar Bergman
Criterion Collection #412
Understanding the career of Ingmar Bergman requires understanding his initial "break out" from the European film scene into the American/UK markets. Ingmar Bergman started directing films in the 1940s. By the time The Seventh Seal was released, February 16th, 1957, he had been making films for a decade. As this Google Ngram showing the popularity of Bergman in the English language clearly demonstrates, 1957-1958 was a break out year for him in terms of audience size:
You can see that between 1950 and 1960, Berman experience a 500% rise in popularity. The release of back-to-back masterpieces: The Seventh Seal in February AND Wild Strawberries at Christmas in the same year, clearly led to a dramatic uptake among English language movie fans. This rise in popularity continued until 1975, when Bergman reached his peak, likely as a result of Bergman influenced American film makers (Woody Allen, most notably) reaching their peak.
Thus, whatever one may think of Bergman's pre 1957 out put, it's important to recognize that any appreciation is essentially in the nature of a revival. Films like Summer with Monika and Sawdust and Tinsel were, at best, novelties, and did not have the break out quality of The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. What you see in these earlier filims is a working-out of what was to become the Bergman signature style of combining dry humor with trenchant meditations on subjects like death and loneliness.
In Sawdust and Tinsel, the story is a more conventional melodrama, though with obvious Bergman signature like an explicit acknolwedgement of human sexuality as well as actress Harriet Andersson playing her lusty peasant girl character to the hilt.
Wise Blood (1979)
d. John Houston
Criterion Collection #470
Yeah I mean I've lived my whole life and I just found out that "Southern Gothic" is a literary genre, that Flannery O'Connor is emblematic of the Southern Gothic literary genre, that Wise Blood was Flannery O'Connor's first novel and that it was published in 1956, and that this film version- WHICH IS AMAZING- was made by John Houston in 1979, and set in the 1970s. I watched Wise Blood simply because it is on my Hulu Plus quesue and close to the bottom- and is an actual Criterion Collection title vs. those Eclipse titles they try to pawn off as legit Criterion Collection titles.
Wise Blood is like a constituent element of what we would today call "Lynchian" though it also dove-tails with contemporary film makers like Harmony Korine, as well as the American independent films of the 60s and 70s. That Lynchian aspect is emphasized by the sepulchral presence of Harry Dean Stanton as a "blind" preacher. All of the performances are creepy and distinctly "southern" in tone. Presumably, Houston made a conscious choice to transport the late 50s time of the book to a late 70s reality.
If you are a fan of the Jarmusch/Lynch/Van Sant wing of the Indie Film Museum- don't miss Wise Blood- it is a MUST.
Ashes and Diamonds (1958)
d. Andrzej Wajda
Criterion Collection #285
Why not post a movie review on Christmas? It's not like I'm actually writing this post the night before Christmas. Ashes and Diamonds is a pretty cool Polish picture about the aftermath of World War II in Poland, when the Polish resistance continued to resist against the new Soviet backed Communist regime by assassinating officials and so forth. Bear in mind that this movie came out in 1958, while Poland was (obviously) a Communist state.
The main character, Maciek Chelmicki, played by Zbigniew Cybulski is a disillusioned veteran of the resistance, called upon to do "one last job" by assassinating sympathetic government official who has recently returned from war time exile in Russia. The job goes wrong initially, leading to two unnecessary deaths, and Chelmicki is forced to skulk around the Hotel where the target is staying for a local banquet honoring the local Mayor, who is on the verge of becoming a minister.
While he waits for his moment, he woos the comely barmaid Krystyna, who shows him enough for him to decide that he is tired of the fighting life.... but first... he must finish this one last job. Other than Cybulski's iconic turn as Chelmicki: A cool anti-hero with all the charm of a James Dean or Steven McQueen, Ashes and Diamonds is fairly unremarkable save for the fact that it is a Polish film from 1958 operating at a high level of "Hollywood" style professionalism.
Ashes and Diamonds is not particularly riveting, particularly during the courtship sequences, but it is overall a work of high caliber and certainly an unexpected surprise. The films from Eastern Europe/Soviet Union may be the biggest delight for me out of the entire collection.
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