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September 26th 2008 08:09
As you may have noticed by this time, I tend to like old films - and films that are quintessentially dramas. To expand on that last thought just a tad, I tend also to shy away from science fiction films - even though few genres lend themselves as easily to powerful moral and sociological insights. the reason for my reluctance to watch them is actually a very simple one: I had the grave misfortune of watching a few too many porous ones while growing up in a small town where it seemed like the only thing on television was old Star Wars and Star Trek "flicks". Nonetheless, in spite of my reservations, there is one sci-fi flick that easily ranks among my top-10 list all-time: 2001, A Space Odyssey.
The strength of the film, in my view, are the many lengthy silences that create a creeping feeling suspense as the movie wends its way inexorably towards the denouement. Probably the greatest "silence" in the whole film occurs when Keir Dullea's character, David Bowman, systematically unplugs HAL after the latter has, with frightening nonchalance, killed off Bowman's crew-mates. In this scene, and throughout the film, Dullea's ability to portray Bowman as a remarkably level-headed and composed individual makes the final act of violence - no matter how well-deserved - somehow mildly shocking and out of character.
Rarely is a scene in any motion picture "perfect"; in fact, perfection is basically unattainable in any cinematic endeavour - though the greatest films do approach perfection in their own ways. Nonetheless, the scene wherein Bowman unplugs HAL - with its heavy breathing, its suffocating silence and its relentless yet methodical rhythm - is the very embodiment of perfection because of the manner in which it ties together so many themes in the film: here, you have the primitive man of the opening moments of the film revisited in the grim figure of David Bowman; here, you have the machine - the artifical creation of man that threatens to supplant its creator (if only on this one ill-fated vessel) - acting more human than the voiceless character of Bowman; and, finally, you a feminine presence injected into an environment that is noticeably lacking in femininity of any kind because the scene almost feels like a rape scene with HAL playing the part of the frightened female and Bowman - who has nonetheless every reason imaginable for being outraged - playing the part of the offending male.
If you ever get a chance to watch Kubrick's masterpiece, do not let the opportunity pass, for this scene is the quintessence of the terror that runs through the film.
September 14th 2008 05:38
hi everyone; its been a while.
As most of us can attest, there are times when life gets in the way and writing is the last thing on one's mind. Happily, tonight is not one of those times. From now on, I hope to be writing at least once a week, so stay tuned. As one final point, expect to see more and more of my writing in the travel section of orble.com: I've received plenty of emails in the past about travel destinations and what to look for when traveling abroad, so I think I may share with you guys a few of my own personal suggestions. Now, with all that out of the way....
A few days go, while I had a bit of precious time to myself, I happened to watch "Hud," a 1963 film starring Paul Newman that is, I think, Newman's greatest triumph as an actor; at a minimum, it is certainly Newman's most memorable character portrayal.
The strength of Newman's portrayal is his ability to make an entirely loathsome man tolerable, even likeable - for a while. Newman's character is alternately charming, glib, funny and impulsive in the film's opening half; although there are signs of a deeper metaphysical emptiness (Hud is carrying on an affair with a married woman, after all) Newman's skill as an actor is such that we don't realize until it is too late that Hud is really a sociopath - albeit an initially appealing one.
The bloom comes off the rose when Homer urges his father to quickly sell his herd of cattle after it becomes evident that the bunch of them have foot in mouth disease and cannot be saved. Needless to say, the instance when Hud first broaches this idea to his father is chilling insofar as the former's almost cheerful cynicism up to this point is now suddenly replaced by a malignant streak that would eagerly destroy another rancher in exchange for some easy money. The magic of Newman's performance is that Hud has, until now, simply seemed like any other cowboy who cannot grow up: a good old boy who has his failings but ultimately causes difficulty chiefly for himself. After the scene where Hud tries to impress upon Homer the validity of his unscrupulous designs, the audience can never again make the mistake of thinking that Hud has anything other than a dirt-encrusted soul.
Another dramatic scene occurs when Hud attempts to rape the Bannon's attractive middle-aged housekeeper, Alma (played by Patricia Neal). Until that fateful moment, Hud's flirtations have been almost playful, fatuous; it is only now that the audience realizes, in retrospect, that Hud was really a sexual sociopath waiting for the right moment to strike. The explosiveness of this scene, and Newman's ability to convey the depths of Hud's startling selfishness, makes it one of the climaxes of the film. In fact, it - along with the scene in which Hud tries to convince his father that selling the cattle quickly without full disclosure - re-casts everything Newman's character has said up to that time: all of the little things - like Hud reminiscing to Lonnie about his deceased brother periodically leaving money lying around for Hud to grab - now take on a new tone because the main character has suddenly taken on a new tone.
After I finished watching this film, the one thing that kept re-emerging time and again is just how under-rated Paul Newman is as an actor: he is rarely recognized as one of the great cinematic thespians of his time, but his collective body of work surely ranks with anything any one of his peers has accumulated.
And "Hud" remains, arguably, his greatest performance of all.
So, what do you guys think?
As a student of history and, especially, as a student of the Second World War, I must admit that any film talking about the disastrous 6 years from 1939 to 1945 is going to capture my attention; in my view, WWII is the most consequential event of modern times. Not surprisingly, I have watched dozens of films, read dozens of books, and scoured scores of scholarly articles in an effort to learn all I can about a period in history that brought down empires, destroyed nations and millions of lives, and plumbed the depths of human depravity in ways that no other single event in recorded time did before or has done since. And yet, of all the films I have watched, the one that still scares me the most is Alain Resnais' Night and Fog.
the first thing that jumps out at you is the immediacy of the film: that opening scene in which the camera guides the audience's eyes over the seemingly-bucolic remnants of a Nazi concentration camp brings one face to face - in living colour - with the human equivalent of hell; it is among the eeriest introductory scenes I have seen in any film, anywhere, anytime and it is made doubly horrifying because of the suffocating quiet that envelops everything and because of one's own understanding that scarcely a decade has passed since this one spot was an open-air charnel house borne out of the worst perversions of Nazi ideology.
Beyond that, the score is unsettling in its own way. In various parts, Hanns Eisler's music is "bouncy," almost un-serious; this is certainly true in the opening third of the film when Eisler's score contrasts discordantly with the grim Nazi rallies and (at least in the initial stages) with the even more grim rounding-up of the Jews (and others) for their inevitable murder. It is almost as if Eisler has taken his cue from Hannah Arendt and wants to underscore the "banality of evil" that makes ordinary men and women - men and women who might, in their normal lives before the war, be the sort of people you would want to have as neighbours, colleagues and friends - give themselves over to a monstrous bureaucracy that commits monstrous acts.
Finally, there are the images: the bunks where men and women lie stacked like cord-wood; the filthy latrines where starving, half-dead prisoners were forced to do their business, all dignity stripped from them; the naked prisoners forced to endure hours of roll-call; the execution place (hidden from view, of course); the funereal insides of the gas chambers; and, by no means least of all, there are the stark images of the unlucky survivors of Nazi experiments - castrations, mutilations and all the rest - who have been treated worse than guinea pigs. But the image that stays with me most of all are the manifold images of the bodies of the dead: there is no need to describe them in detail here, but the scenes are so gruesome, so inimitable in their casual display of horror, so graphic, that they leave an indelible impression upon the mind of the viewer.
In the end, Alain Resnais' film is not a bravura work of art in the sense of creating something anew; rather, it is so haunting because Resnais had to do no creating at all. Instead, all he had to do - all any of us have to do - is simply show what seemingly sane human beings did to other human beings for six long years (longer, really, if one includes the events of the 1930s that pre-dated the official beginning of the war). For anyone who watches Night and Fog, the images - particularly the ones accompanied only by silence - are more unforgettable than any images you will find in any Hollywood horror flick.
In this film, truth creates its own enduring cinematic art.
I guess most film buffs by now are familiar with the almost-universal contempt - most would call it antipathy - thoughtful critics have for Meir Zarchi's spectacularly violent flick, "I Spit on Your Grave (Day of the Woman)". Frankly, I must admit that the film made me squirm, too, when I saw it the first time: sexual violence when shown in such a grim, unadorned and exhaustive way is going to make most people recoil. And, yet, while I agree with those who consider Zarchi's film to be exploitative and vulgar, I dislike it not because it exploits women (I guess it does in its way) but because of what it says about men.
think about it for a minute: not a single male figure in the film has any redeeming quality at all. Without exception, they are poorly-groomed, dim-witted (one of them is even mildly-retarded) sexual sociopaths; they - or at least Matthew - don't even have the courage to put Camille Keaton's character (Jennifer Hills) out of her misery after they have collectively brutalized her for what seems like (and is) an interminable period of time. Beyond that, the script does not allow for any intrepid and decent local male citizenry to come to the defence of the hapless victim and it is Jennifer Hills who must ultimately act as her own judge and jury. No matter how you slice it, Zarchi created a film which shows men as the worst sort of feminists see them: leering, salacious, cruel, cowardly and stupid beasts who cannot restrain their own darker impulses
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I recently had the pleasure of re-watching Citizen Kane after having not seen the film in several years. Right away, the thing that struck me most was the cinematography - not the characters, not the script (which remains undiminished after all these years) and not even Orson Welles, whose bravura performance as Charles Foster Kane established him as a screen actor of surpassing range and surprising depth. As much as I admire Welles - possibly the most versatile talent ever in Hollywood - I keep finding myself asking the same question after revisiting his magnum opus: was Citizen Kane great because of Welles' direction, because of the writing of Mankiewicz and Welles - or because the film simply looked better on-screen than any film seen up to that time?
Just think about it for a moment: what is it about Citizen Kane that stamps it as, definitively, the Greatest American Film? The script is good - but is it qualitatively better than, say, the script penned by Mario Puzo in the Godfather? The acting of Kane is very good (that much is true) but is it better than the stunning performance of Robert De Niro, Joe Peschi and others in Raging Bull? To expand on that last point, can it actually be shown that Welles was better in this role than De Niro, Jimmy Stewart, Brando and others were in their greatest roles? When you get right down to it, Citizen Kane differentiates itself from any other film in American history because it is technically the greatest - the most path-breaking - visual production ever to air in American theatres
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hey there
glad to see you; I'll be chatting with you soon!
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