Nate hood on the Criterion Collection Blu-ray box set of 3 Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg

Before his name became synonymous with Marlene Dietrich, Josef von Sternberg was just another filmmaker toiling away in the early days of the Hollywood studio system. After doing journeyman work as an assistant director throughout the late 1910s and helming modest directorial efforts of his own in the mid 1920s, he found a niche at Paramount studios where his uniquely European blend of dreamlike expressionism and sexually-charged melodrama made him one of the most distinctive voices in late silent cinema. Three of his greatest triumphs were released by the Criterion Collection in a 2010 boxset: watershed gangster melodrama Underworld (1927), tragic historical psychodrama The Last Command (1928), and moody chiaroscuro romance The Docks of New York (1928). Now, nine years later, Criterion is re-releasing the boxset with new Blu-ray transfers, priming the pump for a new generation of filmgoers and collectors to rediscover and experience one of the true giants of silent cinema at the height of his powers. True to form, Criterion hasn’t skimped out on the special features, more than living up to its early reputation in the 1980s as being “a film school in a box”: the set boasts six scores for the three films, two supplemental video essays, a Swedish television interview with Sternberg himself, and a massive insert booklet stuffed with original writings on the trilogy alongside other goodies like a lengthy excerpt from his autobiography Fun in a Chinese Laundry.

Though maybe not the most popular or well known of the three films, Underworld has a legitimate claim to being the most influential, as it’s credited with codifying and popularizing many of the visual tropes and themes we now associate with gangster cinema. Adapted from a story by legendary Hollywood scribe Ben Hecht—whose Oscar-winning story treatment is included in the essay booklet—Sternberg nixed the screenplay’s original hard-boiled grittiness in favor of a more lyrical romanticism underscored by an honor-bound machismo that’d been prevalent even in the earliest proto-gangster films like D. W. Griffith’s The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912). The film tells the story of a love triangle between gangster kingpin “Bull” Weed (George Bancroft), his girlfriend “Feathers” McCoy (Evelyn Brent), and his best friend “Rolls Royce” Wensel (Clive Brook), a lawyer-turned-alcoholic he pulled out of the gutter and helped reform. The actual romance storyline feels rushed and almost secondary to the film’s central themes of brotherhood and loyalty, both of which are tested in the third act when Rolls is forced to choose between running off with Feathers or risking his life to rescue Bull from a gun battle with the police after escaping from prison. The film is a marvel to look at, juxtaposing an almost Lubitschian obsession with mannered, manicured surfaces—these gangsters live in smartly furnished city apartments, patron lavish jewelry shops, and attend ticket tape balls where they wear suits, dance, and vote for beauty contests—and a chilling eye for expressionist shadows and darkness. Nowhere are these two tendencies better blended than in a late scene where an on-the-lam Bull feeds a helpless kitten a few drops of milk from his finger while in hiding. It’s a moment that’d make Jean Renoir green with envy. Also of note is the aforementioned gun battle which manages to excite even by today’s standards thanks to its excellent use of montage.

The boxset’s second film, The Last Command, isn’t just the best film of the trilogy in this humble writer’s opinion, it’s also one of the last true masterpieces of the silent cinema medium before it was usurped by sound. (It was released in January 1928, just a few months prior to Bryan Foy’s Lights of New York, the first all-talking full-length film.) It’s also overshadowed somewhat by its reputation as the only surviving American film starring Emil Jannings, one of the greatest performers of the silent era who nevertheless became persona non grata following World War Two thanks to his enthusiastic involvement in the Nazi cinema industry. If it helps, modern audiences can be assured that at the very least the Jannings seen here hadn’t yet become one of Hitler’s faithful. In any case, his performance here equals any he ever gave, even his career-defining turns in F. W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (1924) and Sternberg’s later The Blue Angel (1930). Here he plays Sergius Alexander, cousin of the executed Russian Czar and former commander of his armies. After failing to stop the revolutionaries, Sergius fled to America where—in a post-modern twist—he gets a job in Hollywood playing himself in a role directed by Leo Andreyev (William Powell), the very Bolshevik who overthrew him.

The film’s crown jewel is the lengthy middle section comprised of a flashback to the revolution where Sternberg’s trademark expressionism transformed the revolt into a nightmare complete with ghoulish crowd scenes, shocking carnage, and Sergius’s acutely sadistic public humiliation. It’s here where the film’s central themes of pageantry and performance fully coalesce. Indeed, it’s not the tenacity of the revolutionaries that ultimately wins the day, it’s the Czar’s foolish insistence on staging an unnecessary offensive for his viewing pleasure that gives the Bolsheviks the opportunity to turn the tide of the war. By playing at war instead of actually fighting one, the Czar doomed himself, Sergius, and Russia. This thematic preoccupation with performance comes full circle at the end where Sergius has a mental breakdown, hallucinates he’s reliving an imaginary final battle, and dies while onset Andreyev’s film. Only the film’s Hollywood-mandated conservatism in depicting the Bolsheviks as rabid monsters and the Royalists as righteous, benevolent depots tempers its greatness as it results in a politically confused climax where Andreyev the Bolshevik eulogizes Sergius the Czarist as a “great man” who “truly loves Russia” despite being surely responsible for countless untold pogroms and purges.

The final film, The Docks of New York, is the most famous of the three and the most blatant triumph of form over function, of style over substance. The film is a love story whose machinations are as ham-fisted and blunt as those in Underworld: a brusque tramp steamer sailor named Bill (played by a returning George Bancroft) falls in love with a suicidal prostitute named Mae (Betty Compson) after saving her from drowning. The two commiserate on their equally desperate and destitute lives, their extensive sexual pasts, and their loneliness before deciding to get married the same night they meet at the saloon near where Bill’s ship is anchored. In the meantime Mae fights off the advances of Bill’s tyrannical superior Andy (Mitchell Lewis), finally shooting him in an act of self-defense. From here the film deteriorates via forced melodrama—one of Mae’s fellow prostitutes takes the blame for the killing (and gets promptly forgotten by the film), Bill ships out only to change his mind at the last minute and return, and Mae swears to wait for him to complete a 60-day jail sentence for an unrelated crime. In any case, the film provides some of the most alluring and hypnotic surfaces of Sternberg’s entire oeuvre, whether it be solemn figures scuttling through pea soup fog or a solemn wedding taking place in the middle of a drunken Dionysian revel. The story may be weak, but the images—oh, the images—are as powerful and unforgettable as ever.

Underworld (1927)

Underworld is said to be the first of the “modern” gangster films. It is the film that all the films for the next two decades copied or stole from. It’s said to have been the first film to force theaters to stay open 24 hours to meet the demand of audiences. It’s also one hell of a movie.

The film is the story of a crook named Bull Weed. A big time gangster who robs banks on his own, he’s strong enough to bend a silver dollar in half with his bare hands. He has a sweet spot for feathers, his lovely lady. He also has a soft spot for those down on life befriending a down out fellow he nick names Rolls Royce.  Bull cleans up Rolls and sets him up in his old hideout as the keeper to a secret escape route. Trouble rears its head as Feathers and Rolls begin to circle each other. They remain apart, but Bull is jealous. However Rolls and Feathers don't have much to worry about because Bull's rage ends up directed at a rival gang leader who tries to rape Feathers. Its a rage that will spiral everything to tragedy

Watching the film 90 years on for the first time it’s odd how familiar the film is. I’ve seen variations of this before because this is where it all started. The quintessential crime film it’s easy to see how the film was pillaged for decades after (the City is Yours sign here is echoed in DePalma’s Scarface with the one about the world). Not paying attention to the credits I was shocked at how much it seemed like a Ben Hecht script and I wasn’t surprised to see it came from a story he had written. Actually if you read lips you’ll see the lines of dialog spoken on screen sounds like Hecht dialog. The lines are so good I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t used in sound films years later.

What amazes me at how much the film doesn’t feel like a silent film. Other than the occasional shot the whole film feels as though it belongs from five or ten years later. I think the reason it stayed with audiences wasn’t because of the genre simply because it doesn’t feel old. Even today, despite some classic movie conventions, this is a film that moves and behaves like a modern film. There is a nice grayness to the characters that keep things nicely shaded.

Evelyn Brent performance as Feathers is stunning. There is a strength of character that is beyond the script. You feel the miles on her.  It as glorious bit of acting as I've ever seen.

Larry Semon is amazing in a character role. Semon, an actor director best known as a comic (and director and star of the 1925 Wizard of Oz) shines as one of Bull's henchmen. While the role most assuredly has comic elements to it it is still light years away from Semon's other films. There is a wormy sense of menace that makes you wary of him. Watching it one has to wonder whether how would have not had the break down in his health that killed if had had managed to take more roles in other people's films.

This is a great film. Its so good that when the film was done I started the DVD over again. This is not a classic of silent cinema but a classic and influential film for all cinema.

I can't recommend this film enough. This is definitely worth seeing especially i you can get the Criterion Von Sternberg DVD set which two scores for the film plus a 40 minute making of, not to mention two other films (Last Command and Docks of New York)

Brighter Summers Day starts 3/11 at BAM and is being released by Criterion at the end of the month

I have been pushing this film for years. Largely lost in the US for the last 25 years the film spent the first 20 years of its existence not playing here. After a stint on the festival circuit it fell off the face of the earth. This despite its director Edward Yang being a cinema darling. It wasn't until around  the time I started Unseen that the film started to come out of the wilderness. When the piece that follows originally ran the film was actually getting a week long run at Lincoln Center. Five years later the film is getting a brief run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music before Criterion releases the film on DVD and Bluray at the end of the month.

If you've never seen this four hour nostalgia trip you should. Its an amazing achievement that sucks you in and pulls you along. Its a film that you get lost in. Its also a film that improves with each viewing which is why the home video release is so cool, you can keep going back to it.

If you've never seen it you should and if you have seen it see it again.

Here now is my original review from 2011

I was going to review this film as part of Unseen’s week of films in honor of Chinese New Year (which is being edited by our own Mr C) in January however the fact that the film has at last secured a US distributor after two decades and will soon be playing theaters in the US has made me move up the review two months.

And yes that is correct, the film has been out for 20 years and never had an official US release. Yes it’s played the festival circuit and yes it plays an occasional revival house (it played both Lincoln Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music in the last year) but it’s not had a real release.

Actually despite being hailed as one of the best films ever to come out of Taiwan (or for some, one of the best films ever. Period.) the film is damn near impossible to see. I have a copy that I got years ago from Video Search of Miami. It was made from a VCD that has since gone out of print and is also the source of what someone posted to You Tube. As far as I know there hasn’t been a DVD release or at least one in English.

I suspect that the film's four hour running time had something to do with no one wanting to release the film. I mean who would want to see a four hour film set in Taiwan in the early 1960's… unless you want to see a great film… and who wants to see a great film?

Actually I think the film’s complexity scared many distributors. This is a film that is very much rooted in a specific time and a place. It seems, at least on its face, to be a too complicated film for anyone other than a Chinese audience. However the themes and ideas it contemplates actually reach a much wider audience of people across the globe.

The film deals with the strife that was felt by the Mainland Chinese who moved to Taiwan after the communist take over. The families were uprooted in any number of ways. The parents, their lives very much connected to the past, are forced to deal with the new life in Taiwan. While it’s a Chinese island there was a cultural clash between those who already lived the island and these new people who are now trying to set down permanent roots. Complicating matters, and the focus of the film, are the conflicts of the kids who are adrift between this new world of their family, their friends and this new home, not to mention the outside world coming in through the radio and elsewhere. How the conflicts affect the various characters is the film.

The film is based in part on the what happened to director Edward Yang’s own family when they moved from Shanghai as well as the first juvenile murder case in Taiwan’s history. It is at it’s heart, a very moving story.

For me seeing the film on a big screen with no distractions is the way to go. I had this film for months before I finally managed to see it from start to finish for the first time. The trouble for me was that this is a big story with well over a hundred characters and a historical back story I wasn't familiar with (and thought I should know). It seemed to be a slightly alien viewing experience because I was reading too much into the wrong things , I was looking at the surroundings and not the people. It seemed off and I had to struggle to get into it. I was committing one of the worst sins a viewer can commit and that is not taking a film at face value and trusting it to lead me where I had to go. All I needed to do was just sit there and just watch the film.

To be honest the real problem was that the first five or six times I sat down in my living room to see the film I had to stop because of phone calls or things happening in the house. When I’d go back and try and pick up the film I found I was slightly lost and was replaying portions of the film again to get back up to speed. It frustrated me and it wasn’t until I finally made it from start to finish in one sitting that the film stopped being anything other than a real joy.

I say this not because I want to scare you, I say it because I want you to give yourself over to it. I want you to go and see the film and sit in the theater and just watch it without interruption.(No cellphones) If you can get through that first viewing with your full attention the film will open and up and be richly rewarding…

…actually if you can get about 70 minutes into the film you’ll find it suddenly clicks. Its at that point everything makes sense and you’ll want to go where ever Yang takes you.

I'm sorry I haven't been more detailed in the telling of the plot, but the best way to see the film is to just see it. Trying to simply explain what the film is about and how it unfolds is to kind of sell the film short; besides there is 4 hours of story here. There is simply more to the film than I can hope to tell you in a few sentences.

Do yourself a favor and see this film. It's been rightly hailed as one of the best films you've never seen, and its true. Thanks to a recently signed distribution deal that's going to change and people will finally get to see this wonderful film that has been hidden for so long.

The film's release is one of high points of the film year.

The Rock (1996)

I'm still puzzled as to why this film is on Criterion, but I'm easily confused. Personally I think ARMAGEDDON makes more sense than this one.

Michael Bay's THE ROCK has Nick Cage teaming up with a bunch of Navy Seals to break into Alcatraz (the ROck of the title) in order to stop Ed Harris and his team of rogue soldiers who are threatening to shoot nerve gas into San Francsico if  the US govenment doesn't pay them millions.  Since stealth is required the good guys forcibly recruit Sean Connery who is the only man to have escaped from the prison. COnnery is a prsioner who doesn't exist- having stolen all of J Edgar Hoovers files.

No it makes no sense.

It is a great deal of mindless fun. It's gunfights and macho posturing as Cage and Connery bond in the tunnels under Alcatraz. It all looks good even if none of it makes any sense. Its films like this that gave Michael Bay his reputation as being a mindless director.

Bread and circuses baby, bread and circuses.

watching the film for the first time in probably a decade I was struck by a couple of things. First  was how formulaic it is.  How many times do we get the outside brought along because he's the only one who rises to the occasion after a mishap kills the entire force and he must go on alone (or nearly alone)? Watching it I kept thinking of EXECUTIVE ACTION with Kurt Russell and the great flip where Steven Segal dies.

The other thing that hit me was how the need for literal thrill rides filled the films of the 1990's. I mean you have these set pieces in all these films where you could build them into an amusement park ride- look at the Indiana Jones films or Jurassic Park or here where we get a chase on carts under the island. Here as in most films of the day the chases look cool but serve no real purposes. What are they doing on those creaky carts anyway?

Don't get me wrong its a fun film- but its very dated because of its story structure and uber mindlessness.

If you've never seen it give it a shot.  If you have and it's been a while try it again- seeing it after some of the TRANSFORMER films you realize its not that bad after all.

Battle of Algiers (1966) New York Jewish Film Festival

Banned off and on since it's release by a variety of governments The Battle of Algiers is one of the great treasures of cinema that you'll end up watching over and over again simply because its a great thriller.  That the New York Jewish Film Festival is running it as part of their War Against War sidebar is a treat since it's a chance to see the film on the big screen the way it should be seen.

The film is the story of the Algerian uprising  in the late 1950's that eventually led to the countries freedom from France. the focuses on a group of freedom fighters over the course of several years.

I don't know how much I should say abut the film.  I don't know how much needs to be said. For me the film is just a great thriller/war film.The fact that the film pissed off the French and is feared by some people in various governments who see it as a blueprint for revolution only adds to the films mystique.

Actually I think the key point about the film is that it really is a good film. Its a film that once you see it, once you get past all of the  pretentious bullshit about the film being a classic... being one of the greatest films of all time... basically once you kick the pedestal out from under it you realize that its a good film. Its actually one of the few films on the supposed all time great films that I'd just put it on for the hell of it. I watch it because I want to munch popcorn while watching a ripping good yarn not because I want a "great" film.

If you've never seen it go see it

If you've only seen it on the small screen go see it big

If you've seen it big go see it again

This film kicks butt

For tickets and more information go to the film's festival page.

Burmese Harp (1956)

One of the first films I wanted to right up for Unseen was Kon Ichikawa‘s Harp of Burma or The Burmese Harp. Despite numerous efforts to do so I never have. The problem for me is that the film is so powerful and so moving to me that I can’t find the words. To me the humanity in the film is so powerful that it obliterates any of the flaws of the film (it’s a tad too mannered at times).

The film is set at the close of the Second World War in the Pacific. As the Japanese rally and try to make sense of what is going on one of their number will keep their spirits up by playing the harp. When the hostilities finally end, the men are placed into a camp by the Allies. However word of the end of the war hasn’t reached all the Japanese positions so they ask the prisoners if one would go into one of the strongholds and try to talk the men into surrendering. A man named Mizushima goes.The meeting doesn’t go well, he isn’t believed and the men think he is a traitor and they elect to fight to the last man. The end comes sooner then they think when the shelling resumes everyone is is killed. Everyone that is except Mizushima, who staggers out into the jungle. Not sure of what to do or where to go he wanders the countryside horrified that the bodies of his fellow comrades have been left to rot and decay where they were killed. Deciding he cannot allow this to be he decides to bury all of the dead where ever he finds them.

Almost five years on at Unseen I still don’t have the words. This film floors me each and every time I see it. And every time I see it I try to explain why it moves me so but I can’t find the words. What I always stumble on is how the film is a near perfect antiwar film, and how it is a touching memorial for those who died. It’s not just Japanese who died but anyone who died. We will remember. We will return you to a place of dignity despite the indignities of war and of your death. This is the return of humanity after the inhumanity of war.

I am beyond words. This film places me to somewhere that is all emotion and nothing else.

I don’t know what to say beyond just see it other than to say this is on my list of the greatest films ever made.

Fires on the Plain (1959)

Spiritual opposite of director Kon Ichikawa‘s Burmese Harp, (see the review tomorrow)this is a slice of hell and man’s ultimate inhumanity. A black as night existential comedy/social commentary/horror film this is going to disturb many.

Set in the final days of the war the Japanese soldiers left on Leyte are truly on their own. There is no food, no ammo, nothing. They are left to march through the jungle toward some regrouping point that they never seem to reach. The men have been pushed past their limits and are now so broken as to be ghost of their former themselves. They will do anything to survive even if it means cannibalism.

Bleak doesn’t begin to describe it.

I read somewhere, maybe it was in the Criterion notes that the film is based on a Christian novel of hope and redemption, which had all the hope, redemption and Christian notions removed. This is mankind at his most animal…and worse.

And yet for all the horror the film is funny. The situations are of course dire, but the sheer ridiculousness of it all manages to produce some groaning laughter. You feel bad, but at the same time you still laugh.

I still haven’t worked out what it all means or if the film is supposed to be a dire warning as to where we’re going or if we’re just fucked. I’ll have to find the strength to see this film a few more times. Though to be perfectly honest this is a film that is intellectually a killer, but is so emotionally black you really can’t like it only admire it.

If you want to see what war will reduce us all to see this film.

(After I had programmed this I discovered for this spot that Fire on the Plains is screening on January 19 at Lincoln center as part of the New York Jewish Film Festival’s side bar called The War Against War. I highlyy recommend seeing this film and pretty much all the films at NYJFF  For more information on the screening and tickets go here.)

On Further Review: Do the Right Thing (1989)

A day in the life of a neighborhood in Bed Stuy New York on one of the hottest days of the year, focused around a pizza parlor, its Italian owner, his sons, and the African Americans that live in the neighborhood and work in the restaurant.

This film has always vexed me. I love say 90% of the film. Up until the riot the film is a glorious calling card for Spike Lee and what he can do cinematically. Its full of all the Spike Lee-isms that have actually entered into our cultural consciousness. Things like his gliding shots are regularly riffed on by other filmmakers and made fun of by Saturday Night Live. It has great dialog, great characters and a wonderful sense of life. It’s an on target examination of relationships within a depressed neighborhood.

The problem for me is that there is a point late in the film, where a fed up Mookie (played by Spike Lee) walks over to the Pizza place , picks up a trash can and throws it through the front window. Intellectually the moment makes sense, it’s Mookie’s breaking point for all the BS his bosses have put him through, but at the same time emotionally its fake. I’ve seen the film any number of times and that single act cuts the legs out from under the film for me. The problem is that the act, within the context of the film, makes no sense. What triggers it really? Seriously give me an answer emotionally why it’s right. I don’t know if you can. I’ve had numerous people try to argue for it to make sense , but I’m not convinced. The problem is Mookie is an outsider and observer for so much of the film, that when he finally does something it just doesn’t feel right. For me it’s as if Lee needed it to happen, and it should happen, but Lee couldn’t get an emotional correct "reason" for doing it and then just did it anyway.

Of course the film ends on a totally BS note with Mookie and his boss making up. Really? I can’t see that happening since who would have their life’s work and livelihood destroyed and then turn to the person who did it and say it’s okay. I’m a forgiving guy but I’d at the very least call the cops on him, and at the worst put a pipe to the side of his head.

It doesn’t ring true.

As I said the film is 90% perfect. It only punks out in the end.

Trying to make sense of Che (2008)

My anecdotal story concerning Che is from the New York Film Festival. The year it played was the year that it wasn’t at Alice Tully Hall and all of the screenings were at the Ziegfeld. My friend Lou and I were chomping at the bit to go see the film but by the time we were ordering tickets we found that the only seats available were in the front row all the way to the left. Not wanting to sit up close and to the left for over four hours we passed…only to go home and find the film was playing on VOD on cable. Curling up the couch we plopped down and watched it.

I know the reaction to Che was largely mixed. Some people loved it, some people hated it. The only thing that anyone agreed on was that Benecito Del Toro deserved at least an Oscar nomination. The film barely played theaters (as two separate films) and made no money becoming something of a legendary flop. The flopping didn’t stop Criterion from putting out a huge deluxe set which is really cool and which I still haven’t gone all the way through.

The film, or is it films?, is something daunting. A four hour and five minute look at Che Guevara at two points in time. The first probably at the height of his celebrity and the other is at the end of his life when he is once more in the bush and being hunted. The two parts can be seen as two separate films (as I said they were released as two separate films) since the aspect ratio and cinematic style for both films is completely different. However you really can’t see just one film and really get the whole story. Actually I don’t think you get a complete story even from the two parts but I’ll come back to that. The two films kind of act as an echo to each other with themes and ideas crossing back and forth between the two parts.

How exactly they fit together isn’t exactly clear or easily explained, and I think this is what has kept the film in the fringes. Yes the film has a big name director in Steven Soderbergh and a big star in Del Toro, but the film isn’t easy- it tells not so much the life of Che, but it simply illustrates two key moments in his life. And on top of everything else this is a four plus hour film from an American director that’s in Spanish. American audiences may be willing to watch foreign films in another language but they are prejudiced against an American film being that way.

I’ve seen Che more than a couple of times and to be honest I’m not sure what I make of it. It’s a frequently gripping film that for all its flaws haunts me. What is exactly that Soderbergh wants me to feel.? Yes I know I could listen to his commentary but at the same time films must stand on their own. We shouldn’t have to have them explained to us. We shouldn’t need cheat sheets.

On the other hand if you just watch the films in close proximity they get your brain going. You begin to think about them and how they fit together and you become more engaged than if you just sit and watch the films and had it all explained to.  If you feel tht a great film engages you you on a bigger level than just having it wash over you then this is a film for you.

recommended.

Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Five Easy Pieces is one of the few classics of the late 60’s and early 70’s that lived up to all the hype I had heard about it. Growing up, the film was always held out to be not only a great film but also the moment where Nicholson became Nicholson the great actor something that was cemented with Carnal Knowledge the next year. I saw Carnal Knowledge early into my obsession with film, and several times since then, but its never amount to much for me. Perhaps you had to live through what it was showing. Five Easy Pieces on the other hand was like watching lightning flash around in a bottle.

The plot of the film has Jack Nicholson working in the oil fields. When he gets word that his father is ill he returns home to his wealthy family with his girlfriend in tow. Sparks fly as the two worlds collide.

While Nicholson is a revelation, the film would never have worked if the script by Carole Eastman (Adrien Joyce) and based on a story by her and director Bob Rafaelson wasn't so good. Say what you will there doesn't seem to be any false note or anything artificial any of the dialog or in the trajectory of the plot. I mention the plot because many small films at the time would take a sudden and unexpected tragic turn as if out of left field. Here the tragedy  and discomfort is earned and almost to be expected from the first.

The big scene that everyone always talks about is the one in the diner where Nicholson simply wants toast and the waitress gives him hell about it since it's not on the menu. To be certain it's a big showy sequence but at the same time it doesn't do justice to any of the other moments in the film. Yea it's Jack being Jack, but it wouldn't play as well if all the other scenes weren't so real and so carefully modulated, Without the rest of the film the explosion of rage would never have worked in context.

I like Five Easy Pieces a great deal. To me it's the best of the mini golden age of American film that ran from say Bonnie and Clyde to The Godfather. This Golden Age was the flowering of a number of great filmmakers, Rafaelson, Mike Nichols, Coppola, Hopper, Altman and others. These guys and girls changed movies in the 70's and 80's. The problem is that as shattering as many of their films at the time were, many don't hold up quite as well any more. Four star  films are now three star ones. Probably the worst of the bunch now is Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider which has dated. Five Easy Pieces hasn't dated. Yes, the film is very much of the time it was made, but the underlying family and personal discord is still very real. This crap is still happening and people are still doing the same things now.

If you've never seen Five Easy Pieces you should. Forget who's in it forget that it's 40 plus years old and just see it because it's a damn good film.

Eraserhead

A dream of Dark and disturbing things

David Lynch says that no one has ever said that they see Eraserhead as he says it. That surprised many people but its been said for years that where people went to films like Rocky Horror to be with likeminded people, people went to see Eraserhead to be alone with their own private hell.

I don’t pretend to know what the film means. I’m not going to even guess, not because I’ll be wrong, more that I’ll be as right as anyone else. Eraserhead is a movie that is whatever you say it is.

I’m sure we all agree it’s dark and disturbing but I don’t know beyond that. I remember going to see it At the East Meadow Multiplex in the early 1980’s. I dropped by brother and his friends at a different theater showing Rocky Horror and I went down the road to see Lynch’s nightmare. The theater was a third to half full, most people sitting alone. The film was like watching someone eles nightmare. And it left me kind of staring into space. I went only once, all future viewings were on home video, once with my mom and dad.

To be honest the best way to see the film is as big as possible in a room as dark as possible. The dark world that Lynch creates needs to bleed off the screen to the world around you. This is a world just in the shadows… it needs to be connected to them. Also try and keep the comments to a minimum- you have to react to the film and not the comments of friends and family. If you’ve never seen the film big and in the dark, you’ve never seen it nor experienced it’s raw power

As for those of you who have never seen it…why the hell not? This is as influencial a film as they come. It’s a film that is a real cinematic experience- it forces you to react, to ponder and engage in ways that 99% of other filmsnever do.

Is it a good film? No idea but it’s a cinematic trip that everyone should experience at least once.

Peeping Tom (1960)

The argument between many film people is which is the better film Hitchcock’s Psycho or Michael Powell's Peeping Tom? Both films came out in the same year and both films altered the way the people who saw them see horror/thrillers. Clearly Psycho is the more seen of the two films but Peeping Tom has it’s champions

Full disclosure I am not a fan of Peeping Tom’s director Micael Powell. I don’t like the feel of pretty much every one of his films. I will go so far as to add that I hate The Red Shoes. Frankly I don’t get Powell’s films. I keep returning to them and keep being underwhelmed.

I am probably most mixed about Peeping Tom. The story of a twisted individual warped by his childhood and an now killing women so he can film their terror as an experiment is messed up. Carl Boehm‘s Mark Lewis is a severely disturbed individual, in many ways worse than Norman Bates. I love that the film puts you into his warped headspace, but at the same time it’s so out there that the reaction is to retreat and instantly turn away from it. Unless you want to be messed up or doing an academic paper you generally don’t watch Peeping Tom a second time.

I don’t watch Peeping Tom except when intrigued by a piece I read on it. I don’t want to go there.

It’s a feeling that’s shared by many people. Including the studio who produced it who kind of shuttled it away from sight and walked away from Powell since they couldn’t believe such a nice man made such a sick film.

Taking a hard look at the film I’m left to ponder if the film didn’t fall out of favor, if it didn’t become a minor cause celeb in some quarters and if it wasn’t hard to see (I know it was difficult to see for years because few TV stations ever ran it, nor did many revival theaters) would the film have garnered the acclaim?

I don’t know. I do think it is a good film, I do think on some level the disease the film creates in the viewed as a sign of greatness, but I don’t know if its all great. The psychology seems a bit pat. Sure I’m looking back after 54 years, but Mark Lewis really isn’t that far removed from most cinematic nut jobs.

The Rossellini Historical Films

The historical films of Roberto Rossellini are an acquired taste, you are going to be either enraptured or driven mad by them. Criterion released THE TAKING OF POWER BY LOUIS XIV as a stand-alone feature and then released three more AGE OF MEDICI, CARTISEUS and BLAISE PASCAL,as an Eclipse box set (and there are several more in the series).

The short version of the story behind the films was that Rossellini, the great neo realist, decided that we should be making films to educate people and that the best way to do this was to make realistic films about the great minds and great events of history. He then went on to make a series of films on various people and subjects. Interest was lukewarm at best. He tried to spice things up by making AGE OF THE MEDICI in English with the hope that the subject matter and his name would interest PBS, but they passed on the film, which was then dubbed into Italian

This is one of those times where I’m not sure why I’m writing the film up. I mean it’s not a new release of part of festival coverage so I don’t have to post this, but at the same time it is a Criterion release and it is our month of Criterion. Also I’ve read some rapturous reviews of some of the films.

Personally I’m non-plused about the films. Its not the films are bad, they’re not, its just that they are so realistic, so slice of life that they are kind of dull. While I give Rossellini credit for trusting his audience to figure out who some people are, you have to kind of take away a few points when we are left a drift with no context. Who exactly are these people? Watching TAKING OF POWER... I was kind of enjoying the courtly discussions until I realized I had no idea who anyone was. It’s the same feeling I got with some of the other films in the Eclipse set, who are these people and why are they important. I’m willing to meet you half way, but this requires a bit of effort to really get out of it what Rossellini wants you to get out of it.

Actually the series of films kind of reminds me of Tom Stoppard’s Coast of Utopia plays which form a 9 hour epic drama involving Russian Philosophers in the mid-19th century. The problem is that unless you know who the actors are playing and what they are “famous” for the plays mean nothing Characters aren’t often addressed by their names so you have to use your Playbill and even then unless you know who the obscure people are you'll be going WTF. It’s a lot of people wandering around an Russian country house for 9 hours talking about petty stuff just like life. Critics were enraptured, the audiences were confused. I was annoyed

The Rosellini films are like that to various degrees. Some are clear as to whats going on, others you have to hunt around to find something.

Is it worth it? Beats the snot out of me. It’s a “you’re on your own” call.

Armageddon (1998)

An asteroid is coming to earth and no one except Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck can stop it.

Michael Bay’s blockbuster strangely got the Criterion treatment (as did his film the Rock) which confused the hell out of cineastes everywhere. God love Criterion for their weird turns.

Armageddon, the more upbeat of the end of the world films that filled the summer of 1998 is a lot of fun. The other film, Deep Impact, might be dramatically better but was depressing as all hell since it ends with the world ending. No one I know wanted to see it for that reason, and those that did didn’t want to see it a second time. That wasn’t the case with Bay’s film which follows the tropes and cliches of the disaster movie genre with wild abandon. It was completely engineered to be please and it does.

I hear you groaning. I hear a lot of you groaning about this film. First it was that it existed and then it was because it was put out by Criterion. Now its that I’m bringing it up again.

Oh yea groan all you want this clunky collection of stock characters out to save the world is a great deal of fun. Is it high art? Oh hell no. its just manly men going into pace while real women wait on earth for the manly men to come home. It big and loud and pure turn your brain off spectacle. On that level it’s a great deal of fun.

You’ll notice my saying it’s a fun a lot because that’s what it is. That’s where it begins and ends. If you don’t like it lump it and go watch some pained Bergman film again.

On the other hand if you want a popcorn movie you can both enjoy for itself and make fun of Armageddon fits the bill.

Le Million (1931)

Rene Clair's groundbreaking musical. If you want to see where songs first drove a story this is the place. This is the story of a starving young artist who finds he's won the lottery just as his creditors come calling. Unfortunately his ticket is in his coat, which is in his girlfriends apartment and has been given to an on the run convict who then... oh but that would be telling.

This is a light and frothy story where much of the dialog is sung (most people think this didn't happen until Oklahoma or Andrew Lloyd Webber). Its the sort of movie that they don't make any more, and rarely did when they did. Its sound a film from the early days that plays like a movie from five or six years later. Clair moves his camera around in ways that not even Busby Berkeley was doing (though to be honest comparing the two film makers is unfair since Berkeley was doing essentially stage bound dance numbers and Clair was moving the camera through "the real world"). Its an amazing little movie. and its a charming movie that will just make you smile. Its just a fluffy piece of enjoyment.

I'm sorry I can't say more. Its just a nice little movie and thats really all you need to know.

X From Outer Space (1967)

I would wonder what X FROM OUTER SPACE is doing coming from Criterion, but its not really Criterion, instead it’s from their Eclipse line and their When Horror Came to Shochiku set.

The plot of the film has aliens from space coming to earth in the form of spores and running amuck in Japan when they start to grow exponentially. A means has to be found to stop them.

I grew up on this film as a kid, watching it on the 430 movie and the various monster programs that played in the New York area. I never really remembered much about the film other than the weird looking monsters with the odd antennae.

Looking back at the film for the first time in a long time I find its an okay film. While not the best Giant Monster film, it’s not the worst either. The highlights clearly are the destructions scenes which are nicely not the same old same old that you got from Toho and the Godzilla films.

As middle of the road as I am about the film I have several friends who love this film. They love that it’s a standalone and that there is nothing else like it…or was a standalone until about in 2008 a belated and intentional comedic sequel came out that had the X creature taking on the G8 conference that film from MONSTER X STRIKES BACK didn’t work for me and despite a great cast that included Takashi Kitano, it just fell flat

Long Good Friday

The Long Good Friday is notable for being the place where the world first noticed Bob Hoskins. This was the place where Hoskins stepped out of the shadows and stepped front and center in to the spot light on the world stage. Yea, Hoskins had been around for years prior to this but was the point where he stopped being that guy and became himself.

The film has Hoskins as a mob boss trying to gain respectability by brokering a real estate deal with some rich Americans. Just as the deal is starting to be finalized some of his men are killed and someone blows up his mother in her car. Hoskins wants revenge, but he has no idea who is behind the acts. However as Hoskins goes through his search for answers he finds his grip on the situation spinning away from him. Things are not what they seem, reasons are not what he expected and his methods end up doing more harm than good.

My overriding memory of the film was seeing it when the film came out during one of the then occasional extended family movie nights and having everyone complaining about the difficulty of understanding the accents. This was a British film where everyone really spoke with their regional accents. I had no real problems, except with Robbie Coltrane, who’s dialog still eludes me)

Beyond the discussion of accents the film stands out for a couple of reasons, first as I said it was the moment where I noticed Hoskins. But it was also the moment, coupled with Excalibur where I noticed Helen Mirren. It was here that I was smitten and she became an object of lust.

The film also stands out as the point where I began to notice the gritty British crime films of the 70’s and the 80’s. There was something about these neatly dressed guys running around the run down England of Thatcher that stuck with me. Of course the film is a kind of allegory on English politics at the time but it wasn’t until later that I noticed the commentary.

Ultimately though this is a damn good thriller. It stands out because what is going on isn’t what you expect people aren’t doing the same old things, there is much more going on- and world beyond the gangsters that comes to bite them on the ass. Whe you see The Long Good Friday, which you should, you’re in no danger of seeing the same old thing.

I like this film a great deal and while I haven’t seen it in ages, It still holds a warm place in my heart.

If yo want something that isn’t your typical crime film see this film.

SECONDS

Seconds unnerves me.

I should probably end the review there because that’s all I really can say about the film, but it doesn’t do the film justice.

Seconds truly unnerves me is probably a better statement. Actually I should add that I never ever want to see it again.

I first heard about John Frankenhiemer’s back in my video store days. We had one customer who was constantly looking for the most obscure, most off the wall films from around the world you ever heard of. He was looking for lost , misplaced and unknown films from around the world. The video store I worked at had eight or so stores and the stock was exchanged between stores so Mr Chapas had us bringing 12 to 15 films a week from other stores, he also had us making calls to see if we could find the films he wanted on VHS tape from our distributors. . If you want to know where by desire to find films came from its from Mr Chapas, who every weekend would take home stacks of films and devour them. Once started waxing poetic about the films I started to take home whatever he had brought to our store.

One of the films that Chapas waxed poetic about was Seconds. The film he assured me was so disturbing that not only did it bomb at the box office, despite starring Rock Hudson, it ended up buried by the studio who refused to ever rerelease it. I never really expected to see it, but one day the film showed up late at night on some out of town cable station. Needless to say I taped it, as did everyone else who had heard the stories about this weird little film.

The plot of the film has John Randolph becoming bored with his life. He desperately wants to get out but doesn’t know how. He’s put in touch with the Seconds corporation. For a fee they will give him a new life with a new look, all he has to do is follow a few simple rules…Randolph jumps at the chance and after a brief procedure he wakes up looking like Rock Hudson. Despite things be great for a while Hudson begins to regret his new life and begins to ponder making another change…but that isn’t allowed.

I hate to say this but I, who loves horror films and disturbing stories, really doesn’t like this film. Its not because it’s bad, rather because the film creates a head space so dark I don’t want to do there. I mean that I don’t want to be there and I’ve only sporadically seen the film again after that first viewing simply to see if the film doesn’t give me the screaming yags. I don’t know what it is that disturbs me, I suppose it’s being set in a world a half step off from our own that does it. I can so see this happening…

I hate the way this film makes me feel which is why it’s a must see for anyone who wants their mind and emotions played with. It’s a truly great film and I never want to see it again Criterion edition or no.

Island of Lost Souls (193-)

What can you say that the film was banned in England for about 40 years doesn’t? If that isn’t a ringing endorsement I don’t know what is.

The dark brooding Island of Lost Souls has been twisting minds for generations. Its also one of the best horror films of the 10.. of to hell with it, its one of the best horror films ever.

Based on HG Wells The Island of Dr Moreau, Lost Souls has a shipwreck survivor arriving on Moreau’s island and encountering the weird beasts that the good doctor has been making in his lab. Of course it all goes wrong soon after. Yea you know the story, its been ripped off and riffed any number of times (there are at least 2 official big screen remakes and probably two hundred unofficial ones) but this is the grand daddy, this is the one that kicks you in the ass and hangs with you.

The film works for any number reasons, the great cast (Charles Laughton and Bela Lugosi), the intelligent script and of course the dark brooding cinematography. Say what you want about the films many pleasures chief amongst them is the dark look of the film. It looks more like a half remembered dream or a nightmare partly revealed in the edges of the darkness. The look seems to be something that we should not be seeing. It warms its way back into the psyche and sits there an pollutes your thoughts for days.

The film is so disturbing it was the last straw for the British authorities who banned the film and then effectively banned horror films by the creation of the horror certificate. They were not going to have those sort of nightmares inflicted on its populous. The result was horror film production around the world, and particularly the US was curtailed since there simply was no market for horror.

Od course time marched on the real world horrors out paced cinemas with the result horror films came back in vogue-though Lost Souls remainded banned at least in England.

I love this movie. Its creepy as all hell and is a must see, especially in Criterions remaster.

On Further Review:The Red Circle (1970)

The Red Circle eludes me.

Several years ago I had been told about this great film The Red Circle about several crooks involved in a heist and the cops who pursued them. It was in the opinion of many one of, if not the best crime film ever made. It was a must see film. The trouble was it was damn near impossible to see in the US, it was like several of its directors films neglected in the US.

In the days before the internet finding a film from overseas could be a real struggle. You’d have to luck into finding it, or scour magazines for collectors who might have an ad or try and talk someone into putting you in contact with a friend of a friend…. It was a hassle and a half. Occasionally you’d luck onto a place like the now defunct Video Search of Miami which had movies from all over the globe. When you’d find a place like that it would open up your horizons wider than you ever thought possible.

It was through Video Search that I obtained a copy of The Red Circle. They came up with a copy a couple of months before the film hit theaters in a restored rerelease. I ordered the copy and as I am prone to do, I sat on the copy for a while. I then pulled the film out one day and started watching it. An hour in I was loving the film so much I stopped it. I knew I was going to be interrupted before the end and I didn’t want to do that so I stopped it, figuring I would go back to it in a day or so with a big box of popcorn and no chance of being interrupted.

Months passed. The theatrical release came…and went. Criterion announced it’s release, and somewhere close to when Criterion putting out it’s special edition came out I grabbed my Video Search DVD, got some popcorn and soda, popped the disc into the DVD player and settled into the film.

A glorious hour passed and I was in heaven…

…and then it all went wrong. This wonderfully crafted crime film of police and criminal cat and mouse devolved into a weird macho tale where characters started to do things because they were men and that’s what men do. It ceased in my eyes to make a great deal of sense. Why did they go through with everything when they knew it was going to end badly? It made no sense to me.  Somewhere in the final hour the film was lost to me.

How could people call this a great film when the plot kind of goes off the rails ? I don't know.

The question of why people regard the film as great has eluded me on the three or four screenings I've had of the film. Yes it looks great, yes it wonderfully acted, but the plot makes no real sense, people don't do the things they do here except in things with literary pretensions.

Don’t get me wrong it’s not a bad film, it’s just not the greatest crime film.

Is it worth seeing? Absolutely, if nothing else the first half of this film is as close to a perfect crime film as you can find. Its just that the second half isn't what it should be. Perhaps if the first half wasn't as good as it is i would have liked it more.

Worth trying, just keep the expectations reined in