Othello Meets Winchester '73

Film: Madame de… (The Earrings of Madame de…)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

There are plenty of movie tropes that I don’t fully understand. One of these is the romance between two people who are each married to the wrong person. It’s not simple infidelity; it doesn’t surprise me that movies go back to that particular well time and time again. No, it’s actual full-blown romance between people two people married to others that I don’t understand. Movies are full of this story. Brief Encounter is nothing but this, and Now, Voyager certainly touches on this as well, and these are merely two examples in a list of at least dozens. These days, often the characters are merely engaged or involved with the wrong person when the right one comes along, but the trope lives on. A very good example of this is Madame de…, more commonly known in the U.S. as The Earrings of Madame de…

In many ways, Madame de… is a variation on Othello, substituting earrings for a handkerchief and attempted infidelity for assumed transgression. In movie terms, this is a posh, society version of Winchester ‘73 with a pair of earrings as the focus instead of a rifle.

Madame Louise de… (Danielle Darrieux), whose last name is never mentioned, has debts she needs to pay off and would prefer her husband not know. Looking through her jewelry and expensive clothing, she determines that the best course of action is to sell her heart-shaped diamond earrings back to the jeweler from whom they were purchased. Normally, this would not be noteworthy except that the earrings in question were given to here as a wedding present by her husband, General Andre de… (Charles Boyer).

To cover the sale, Louise pretends to lose the earrings at the opera, causing her husband to involve the police; he believes them stolen and would like them returned. The jeweler brings them back to the general, who buys them again and gives them to his mistress, who is leaving for Constantinople. Once there, she promptly loses the earrings at the roulette wheel. Placed in a jeweler’s window, they are purchased by Baron Fabrizio Donati (Italian director Vittorio de Sica) and brought back to France.

And it is here that the only-in-a-movie coincidences begin. Donati meets Louise, since she is the wife of Andre. The two immediately become involved with each other, evidently with the full knowledge of the general, since he warns Donati about the flirtatiousness of his wife. The two find themselves running in the same circles and in a very interesting montage, we see them dancing together at various functions commenting on how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other.

Naturally, he gives her her own earrings as a gift, and since they have come from him this time, now Louise loves them and will not give them up. She conspires again, this time to “find” them in one of her drawers, not knowing that her husband had already purchased them a second time and given them away.

We go through several more permutations of this before the end of the film, the same jeweler getting them back a few more times and both successfully and unsuccessfully attempting to sell them back to the general. What’s interesting here is how the earrings have changed as a symbol. Where at the start of the film they were the easiest thing for Louise to part with, they become something worth sacrificing everything for by film end simply because of who gave them to her. Initially a symbol of her relatively loveless marriage, they become a symbol of her eternal dedication to Donati.

There are some interesting things going on in this film. While it is unquestionably a romance at its core, initially I almost classified it as a comedy. There’s certainly many comedic elements to the film, particularly in the first act when the general buys the earrings back from the jeweler and believes he has curtailed the entire problem and his wife’s potential embarrassment by sending them out of the country.

I’m also fascinated by the openness of the marriages. It’s as if the rule for infidelity is that it’s fine as long as no attention is specifically called to it. Both Louise and her husband have evidently a series of lovers, infatuations, and romances. All of this is seen as a matter of course and not a problem provided that each partner doesn’t have specific knowledge of the other party. The minute the general realizes that Donati is making time with his wife, the kid gloves come off and things become serious. It’s an odd moral code.

I also really like Vittorio de Sica in this film. I like it when people best known as directors take major roles in films directed by other people. It’s a chance for them to put into practice the advice they give their charges when directing, and I often find their performances interesting. Like Preminger in Stalag 17 or von Stroheim and de Mille in Sunset Blvd., de Sica turns in a credible performance here, one worthy of being taken seriously.

It’s a good story, if one that I have a difficult time wrapping my mind around in places. The coincidences are too big and the trope has become so standard that I can’t help but find some of the film rather predictable. I like the injection of humor, though; it adds a sense of reality to something that could have otherwise been very dry and serious. More importantly, Ophuls used his camera like no one before him, from great close-ups to his montage scenes and camera use to suggest motion and urgency, this is a film with true credentials.

Why to watch Madame de…: An intense romance told with surprising realism.
Why not to watch: Dickensian-level coincidences cut into that surprising realism.

Upon a Pale Horse

Film: Korkarlen (The Phantom Carriage)
Format: Internet video on laptop.

There’s something special about a ghost story. There’s no way to tell if spook tales are the earliest form of storytelling, but it wouldn’t shock me if they were. Human beings like to find meaning and cause for events, and many of us—particularly in the days before the scientific method—determine anything unexplainable as coming from supernatural sources. Ghost stories are a part of every culture. It does not surprise me that several of the earliest films on this list are ventures into the world beyond this one.

Korkarlen (The Phantom Carriage, and not “George Carlin” as I’ve been calling it in my own head) is a morality tale of death and redemption, punishment and penance. On top of that, it’s also one of the earliest forays into filmed special effects—particularly double exposures and ghostly images overlaid one on the other.

We begin on New Year’s Eve with Edit (Astrid Holm), a young woman who has spent her life working with the Salvation Army. Edit is dying of “galloping consumption” and demands to see David Holm before her time is up. This causes some consternation amongst those attending her, but a friend goes out dutifully to find Holm and bring him back. We also meet Holm (director Victor Sjostrom), a dissolute drunkard.

Holm tells us of a legend he learned from his friend Georges (Tore Svennberg) the previous year. According to Georges, whomever is the last person to die in a given year becomes the servant of Death for the following year, driving around the ghostly carriage of the title and collecting the souls of all those who have passed until the year is up and a new servant takes the last servant’s place. Naturally, Georges dies on the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, which according to the tale means that he will become the new driver of Death.

Since this is a film, we can expect things to happen according to the necessary plot. Holm himself is killed at the stroke of midnight on this New Year’s Eve and discovers that Georges’s tale was the truth. In fact, it is Georges who comes for him. The bulk of the film from this point forward is a sort of Swedish version of “A Christmas Carol” as we learn of the dissolution that Holm has fallen into and the pain and misery he caused to those around him, particularly his wife and children, who he has abandoned.

Like all silent films, Korkarlen requires the correct mindset to view properly. It would be simple to see the equivalent of the strings and pass this off as amateurish. But that doesn’t give the film, or Sjostrom, their proper due. This is an inventive tale and an inventive film for a number of reasons. One that I was particularly taken with is the way that the story unfolds. Many a silent film slams its viewers over the head with exposition in the opening minutes, pounding the poor viewer with title card after title card so that the audience can be sure of the story.

Not so here. While we learn of the tale of Death’s carriage early on, we know virtually nothing about Holm and his story, or his connection to Sister Edit until much later in the film. Instead, we must learn of these connections as we go long, discovering the meaning of Edit’s desire to see this wretched man once the film is half over. It requires its viewer to stay attentive to the entire narrative, because each piece becomes important to the understanding of everything.

Like all silent film, Korkarlen is stylized and contains the sort of melodrama that only a silent film can manufacture. And yet, for all its otherworldly trappings and potential for wild overacting, the film is actually quite understated.

It’s also pretty coherent and efficient in its storytelling. We discover the story of Holm when Georges comes for his spirit. We see Holm with his family. We see Holm with his family enjoying a picnic. We then see Holm, Georges, and another drunk sitting in the same spot having an alcohol-infused party. Holm drags everyone around him into depravity and desperation, something effectively demonstrated with almost no title cards in a relatively short sequence.

It’s not a perfect film, of course. While the montage in the middle that explains the life and decline of Holm is quite effective, at other times, the film goes too long between titles and shows us little but people standing around looking at each other. It’s one of those conventions of silent film that didn’t carry over much into the talkie era, and it makes this difficult to take in places.

Why to watch Korkarlen: Surprisingly effective horror elements from a film that is so rudimentary by modern standards.
Why not to watch: So many umlauts in the Swedish titles.

Holy Crap, I'm White!

Film: Superfly
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.

A film like Superfly (or if you prefer, Super Fly) brings up a number of interesting questions. One of the reasons the film is worth watching is because of the questions it raises. I’m certain that most viewers are looking for something different than I am here and will have a different set of questions than I do. But here goes:

Is this the greatest film soundtrack ever recorded? I think it may well be. Plenty of films have a great song or two, and fans of musicals will no doubt tout their favorites, but for my money, the Superfly soundtrack is the closest thing to perfection I’ve ever heard. It suits the mood of the film as if Curtis Mayfield had written the script as well as the music; it’s so in tune that it feels to have come from a single mind. It’s also a soundtrack that, like Shaft before it, attempted successfully to latch onto a particular musical subculture. It would be a great soundtrack with those two facts. What puts it in the elite, though, is that the songs truly kick ass on their own. Curtis Mayfield was a bona fide genius. This film, entertaining as it is, would be half as good without the soundtrack.

Does it glorify drugs and drug culture? Perhaps it does. I can see that interpretation of it. Certainly our main character, Priest (Ron O’Neal) lives a lifestyle that would be the envy of any number of 1970s ghetto residents and not a small number of suburban residents as well. The man is smooth. He dresses in a unique and arresting fashion, drives a sweet pimped-out Caddy, has two girlfriends (one white--think about that in terms of 1972!), and carries a huge bankroll with him everywhere he goes. As his friend and business partner Eddie (Carl Lee) comments, “8-track stereo, color T.V. in every room, and can snort a half a piece of dope every day? That's the American Dream...” For many people, particularly those living in rat traps on government assistance, no other dream seemed possible or worth attaining.

After saying all that, can you justify the opinion that it doesn’t glorify drugs and drug culture? Yes, I can. Because the entire plot of the film is Priest’s desire to get out of the business. He’s a hustler, and he’s always been a hustler. He’s told that he doesn’t have the stomach to be a pimp (and he doesn’t) and pushing drugs is all he knows. But he tells his girlfriend Gloria (Sheila Frazier) that he wants out. He doesn’t know what he will do, or what he can do, but with one last score and a fistful of cash, at least he’ll have options. What he really wants is freedom from the life.

Is it racist against Caucasians? It may be, but I think if it is, it’s a symptom of the times in which it was made. The Civil Rights era was ending (or ended) and not enough had changed. If there was anger against the white community as a whole, it was understandable even it if makes this intensely white guy uncomfortable at times. Hey, I turned 5 the year this film was released. I wasn’t oppressing anyone, Priest.

Is it racist against African-Americans? Again, it may be, and if it is, I think it’s unintentional. There are a few lines that I don’t believe are intended as racism and probably didn’t read as racism in the early 1970s, but do now. When Priest tells someone that he has hired killers—white ones—the implication is that black killers might not be as good, or might be stoned or wired up, or perhaps simply incompetent. The idea that the only way for a black man to make it in the world is as a hustler of one thing or another is certainly a product of its time as well—although it would not surprise me to learn that many people still feel the same way. What was real in 1972 comes across as caricature in 2011, so if this racism exists, it exists merely as an artifact of the inherent racism of the time in which the film was made.

Who is central to this story? The easy answer is Priest himself, and almost every scene features Priest at its center. However, the most telling and interesting comments come not from Priest but from the characters around him. It is through his connection Scatter (Julius Harris) that Priest discovers that The Man will never let him leave the life—The Man exists to keep the brother down, and lets him up only long enough to turn a profit on him. It is through Eddie that we learn the true moral heart of the story—for some, this is the American dream, and that hustling is the only game The Man lets a brother play. From Gloria, Priest learns that he doesn’t need money to live away from the life, a truth he will not accept. From Fat Freddy (Charles McGregor) he learns that every man has a breaking point and that when there is money on the line, no one can be trusted.

Is this the most important blaxploitation film ever made? Good question. It certainly ranks in the top several--Shaft, Boyz N the Hood, and Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song sit in that same constellation.

Is it any good? Yes, yes it is. The fashion comes off as mildly amusing these days, but even though lapels have shrunk and men no longer wear floor-length coats and fedoras, there is a groove to these characters that is unmistakable. The story still plays, albeit with more racist overtones and undercurrent than a similar film might have today. And, of course, it does have that unmistakable soundtrack that became the sound of an entire generation. There’s a reason that the soundtrack made more money than the film.

Do yourself a favor and watch this. Do yourself another favor, too. Even if you don’t watch this right away, go right now to Pandora or Grooveshark (or even YouTube) and hunt up the Curtis Mayfield tracks like the title song, “Freddie’s Dead” and “Pusherman.” If you can’t groove on these tracks, this experience might be lost on you.

Why to watch Superfly: A powerful cast, a timeless story, and the funkiest bass lines ever laid down ("Freddie's Dead" will rock your world).
Why not to watch: You’re even whiter than I am (and that would be difficult).

Eventually, the Title Makes Sense

Film: Celine et Julie Vont en Bateau (Celine and Julie Go Boating)
Format: VHS tapes from the John C. Murphey Memorial Library through WorldCat interlibrary loan on big ol’ television.

First a note of thanks: my local public library refuses to get DVDs and VHS tapes through WorldCat. Oh, they’ll do interlibrary loan from places in the network, but they will not go outside the network for DVDs and tapes. This means that of all the libraries I use, the only one that will get such films for me is the school I work at. Cynthia, my librarian, is made of equal parts rock and roll and awesome, and she’s agreed to start bringing in some difficult-to-find films for me. However, Cynthia’s numbers are important to me—she needs to have more checked out from her library than she brings in, so I make sure I check out at least half a dozen things every quarter. The last thing I want to do is damage her numbers. But, this means that some of the more obscure films are now within my grasp.

The first of these—I chose it because it was one of the longest I couldn’t find—is Celine et Julie Vont en Bateau (Celine and Julie Go Boating). This film is obscure in multiple ways; it’s not only difficult to find, it’s a bit difficult to grasp. It is at times surrealist and at other times it dips heavily into magical realism in the telling of its narrative.

Naturally, our two stars are Celine (Juliet Berto), a stage magician and Julie (Dominique Labourier), who works in a library. Julie is tall, red-haired, and attractive in a 1970s way while Celine is shorter, dark, and much more classically beautiful. I say this only because it actually isn’t always easy to tell them apart. The frequently play each other’s roles, each substituting for the other, and both playing the same role in one sense.

Yeah, I know that’s a bit confusing, so I’ll try to explain this more closely. At the start of the film, the two women do not know each other. Celine is running through a park dropping items and is spotted by Julie. Julie gives chase, and the two act as if they know each other, but it’s evident that they don’t. However, this doesn’t prevent Celine from moving into Julie’s apartment within the first half hour.

What we learn is that both of the women have a connection with a strange old mansion in a relatively deserted part of Paris. It appears that the two of them in turn take the role of a nursemaid for a young girl named Madlyn (Nathalie Asnar) on her birthday. Also in the house is the girl’s father Olivier (Barbet Schroeder) and two women who are competing for his attentions—Sophie (Marie-France Pisier) and Camille (Bulle Ogier). During the course of this day, Madlyn is killed. Soon after, whomever has spent the day as the nursemaid is ejected from the house, dazed, with no memory, and with a hard candy in her mouth.

Celine and Julie determine that the candies that they leave with every day are the key to their memories of what happens in the house, and by slowly sucking on the candies, they can relive at least parts of the day that they experienced. It appears that the same day repeats endlessly, because they have the exact same memories. The more they remember, the more they can predict what will happen next, and the two begin to include their own changes into the “script” of the house, altering the unfolding drama. This culminates when the two of them both manage to get into the house on the same day.

The idea is a great one. Essentially, Celine and Julie are the authors of their own story, making it up as they go along, changing it to the way they want it to be until they discover the ending that they can both live with. At several times, as mentioned above, the two take each other’s place in the real world just as they inhabit the same role within the house. Celine pretends to be Julie with one of Julie’s old boyfriends, breaking up with him. Julie takes Celine’s place on stage and destroys her act on a different night. These problems don’t seem to bother either of them, but are taken in stride and ignored.

As for the rest, a spoiler is required.

*** WHERE’S THE BOAT? ***

A few important things become evident in the telling here, but not until the very end, and it is this final shot that makes the film what it is. Celine and Julie do eventually get on a boat, because they manage to rescue Madlyn from her daily death. While on the boat, they see the other three from the house, still unchanging and unchanged, but without the girl they have rescued. They have gotten the story to the conclusion they have wanted.

However, the film ends with Julie running through the park dropping her items and Celine chasing her, their roles from the film’s opening reversed—just as they have been reversed throughout the entire film. So, will they live through the same process again? I think they will. In a meta-moment, it occurred to me that just as the people in the house live the same story over and over again, so do Celine and Julie. And they do—should I watch the film again, the same things will happen again. The characters are trapped in their reality just as firmly as their images are captured on film. Neat, huh?

*** OH, THERE’S THE BOAT ***

There are some pretty nice editing moves here. As the two constantly flash back to their memories in the house, some nifty editing switches them in and out of the nursemaid character. Julie starts a scene as the nursemaid and turns into Celine after a cut and then back again after another. What’s surprising here is not that it happens, but that it happens so seamlessly and without much in the way of jarring.

Celine et Julie Vont en Bateau is a queer duck of a film. It’s also too long. It’d like to take a good 45 minutes out of its running time because a lot of what goes on outside the house seems needless. I’d really like for this film to be a lot more joyous than it is. For something that exists in such a magical world, it shouldn’t be so darn drab.

I suppose I enjoyed this movie, but I think I really need to watch it again to fully grok it.

Why to watch Celine et Julie Vont en Bateau: Oddly endearing and endearingly odd.
Why not to watch: It can lose 25% of its running time.

Keep Your (Wig) Powder Dry

Film: Dangerous Liaisons
Format: DVD from personal collection on kick-ass portable DVD player.

I imagine that for an actor, a period piece is a lot of fun, depending on the period. It might be entertaining for a day or two to run around in a loincloth, but that would get pretty old pretty fast. However, something taking place during the Victorian Era, perhaps…or in France before the Revolution? The costumes look like they might be a problem at times, but it still looks like it would be fun. There are few more lavish period pieces than Stephen Frears’s Dangerous Liaisons, and few better.

As with many a great story, what’s going on here is actually quite simple. A French noblewoman named Marquise Isabelle de Merteuil (Glenn Close) wishes to be revenged on a former lover who left her—the first time any lover has dared do that to her. When this lover departed, he left with the mistress of Vicomte Sebastien de Valmont (John Malkovich), the one-time lover and sort of friend of the Marquise. This former lover of hers has settled on a woman to be his wife, Cecile de Volanges (Uma Thurman), both for her beauty and for her chastity—guaranteed by her convent education. The Marquise wishes Valmont to seduce the girl and spoil her for her wedding night.

But Valmont initially refuses. He has a reputation as the greatest rake in France, and this conquest would be too easy. He has set his sights on Madame de Tourvel (Michelle Pfeiffer), a woman noted for her purity, religious fervor, and happiness of her marriage. His goal is to make her betray everything she holds dear, enjoying her fall into the betrayal of her beloved husband. The Marquise is intrigued by this and promises a night of sexual passion to Valmont if he can offer written proof in de Tourvel’s own hand that he has seduced her successfully.

The Marquise and Valmont are our two main characters, and they spend the bulk of the film exercising their appetites for virtually all of the seven deadly sins. Only gluttony seems to sit out, and with a little thought, that one can probably be added to the mix. Certainly the two bear no slight without furious and overwhelming anger and revenge; they lust after everything and everyone they see; they spend money on whims; are part of the idle rich nobility; envy anyone else garnering attention for anything; and exhibit a pride unlike any seen on a movie screen. These are not nice people.

While Valmont schemes to win the heart of Madame de Tourvel by any means possible, the Marquise works to get anyone into the sack with Cecile, including a poor music teacher named Danceny (Keanu Reaves). Ultimately, pretty much everybody goes to bed with everyone else, betrayal abounds, and lives are wrecked on the shores of pride, arrogance, and sexual passion.

I admit it sounds pretty lame, but it really isn’t. The intrigues are convoluted and vicious. Better, despite the fact that the women wear umpteen layers of clothing and the men wear powdered wigs and lace cuffs, this movie brings the sexy. There is something undeniably erotic and tawdry about someone using one lover as a desk to write a letter to another lover.

One of the best scenes is the opening one. We see our two main characters getting dressed and prepared for their day. Both of them require an army of servants to powder them, squeeze them, primp them, dust, daub, tuck, fold, and otherwise spindle them into what was the fashion of the day in pre-Revolution Paris. It’s a great scene for a couple of reasons. On the one hand, it’s a fantastic introduction into the era. It also serves to show us precisely how much pretense these characters put on—nothing about them is what it seems and everything is hidden under layers of falsehood.

Our two main characters are in many ways the only ones who are important. The others could really be played by almost anyone. Cecile needs only to be young and pretty, and Uma Thurman does a credible job here. Her mother (Swoosie Kurtz) needs only to be outraged by everything she sees, and she’s good at it. De Tourvel needs only be innocuous and pretty—two things Michelle Pfeiffer can pull off. The only person I think is miscast is Keanu Reaves, but I think that about Keanu Reaves in everything except The Matrix and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. This is Close’s and Malkovich’s movie, as it should be. Malkovich’s performance is nuanced and tremendous, and I think it may well be the single greatest acting role and performance of Glenn Close’s very storied career.

I watched this film for the first time years ago and remembered that I thought it was good. This second viewing a couple of decades later has shown me that I underestimated it. This movie is more than good—it’s one of the best of its kind. For the men in my reading audience, don’t shy away from this one. Watch this with someone special. It’s lurid and tawdry, and might well excite a few passions, which is reward of its own. Even if it doesn’t my guess is you’ll enjoy the intrigues and the plots exhibited here, even if it does mean seeing John Malkovich’s bare ass.

This film is actually a remake--I'm curious to see the original.

Why to watch Dangerous Liaisons: The prettiest piece of evil you’ll ever see.
Why not to watch: John Malkovich’s naked ass.

Hangin' With Mr. Cooper

Film: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

You can see a Frank Capra ending the minute the film starts. That’s the way of Frank Capra movies. He made the same movie over and over, changing a few things here and there—names, places—but at their core, Capra had one story. The story he tells in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is essentially the same story he tells in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life and many of his other films.

It helps that it’s a good story. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is the tale of a good-hearted, naïve man suddenly gifted with great power and afflicted by great trials, the template for Capra’s later film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. The characters here serve as templates for that one—the naïve, the hard-hearted woman, the hangers-on, the people who wish to exploit the naïve for criminal (or political) gain, etc.

But I’ve jumped ahead, haven’t I? Someday I’ll learn.

Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper) inherits $20 million upon the death of his uncle, making him suddenly one of the richest men in the country (and remember, this is during the Great Depression). He moves to New York where he meets nothing but conniving people intent on separating him from as much of his fortune as they can.

The first of these is Mr. Cedar (Douglass Dumbrille), his uncle’s lawyer. Cedar wants power of attorney over the fortune, because he’s got a $500,000 hole in his own books to cover. Also on the trail of Deeds is Louise “Babe” Bennett (Jean Arthur), a crack newspaper reporter bent on getting as much of a story from Deeds as she can in exchange for a raise and a month’s paid vacation.

Babe discovers that Deeds has a thing for damsels in distress, so she fakes being in need and is quickly scooped up by Deeds. As he tries to cheer her up (he is a nice guy and a naïve, after all), he gets in a couple of fist fights with some drunken authors who want to make fun of him, and then goes on his own drunken bender. All of this is grist for Babe’s mill, who quickly dubs him The Cinderella Man, making him the laughing stock of New York despite his extremely deep pockets. In fact, he has only two friends, Babe and Cobb (Lionel Stander), and Babe really isn’t his friend.

Eventually, Deeds wises up and realizes that everyone is out to get him, and that the money is at the heart of the problem. Confronted by a destitute farmer, Deeds concocts a plan to use his fortune to buy a huge parcel of land and divvy it out to men who need it, allowing them to farm the land themselves, thus becoming productive members of society. Other relatives of the dead uncle, snubbed benefactors, and Cedar react badly to this and try to have Deeds committed, because anyone willing to give up that much money must be crazy. Of course, by this time, Babe has come around. This all leads to the big courtroom scene at the end, a scene that takes the final act, and essentially the last quarter of the film.

Like I said at the start, there’s no mystery to this film except for those who have never seen a classic Hollywood film or are very young and naïve themselves. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town doesn’t have a single surprise for anyone with any sort of movie watching history. I say this not as a criticism of the film, but merely as a fact to be stated—where this film is going to end up is pretty obvious from the start.

And that’s okay. In a world filled with anti-heroes and people I don’t enjoy spending a couple of minutes watching, let alone a couple of hours, seeing a genuinely nice guy on the screen is pretty refreshing. Okay, Deeds is sort of a ridiculous ideal and has just enough quirkiness to make him a movie character, but it’s all to the good here. It’s a sweet film, heartfelt and cute. Deeds is a nice enough guy, and Cooper plays him well. He’d be a fun guy to go have a beer with.

A story like this naturally gets remade time and time again. The two most recent examples that I know of are The Hudsucker Proxy and Mr. Deeds, which was a pretty straight remake. I really like Hudsucker, in part because of the actors in it and in part because it’s a Coen vehicle. It’s a smart remake, but it really is a remake in almost every way, up to and including the hard-bitten female reporter who once won the Pulitzer. As for Mr. Deeds, it’s best handled in a spoiler:

*** $20,000,000.00! ***

In the Capra original, Deeds takes the money he has inherited and helps out a few thousand people who really need the help. It’s a ridiculous gesture, but heartwarming and sweet. Sure, it smacks of classic Hollywood sap, but it plays nicely on the screen, even if the courtroom scene gets ridiculous with everyone laughing at everything Deeds says. By contrast, in the Adam Sandler remake, he allows someone else to take over the company he inherits, walks away with a cool billion, and buys everyone in his old home town a Corvette. Instead of the milk of human kindness, we get greed and conspicuous consumption. It’s proof that somewhere along the way, a large part of the movie industry stopped trying to pretend it had a soul.

*** BANKRUPT! ***

In what should generally be a theme for anyone serious about movies, it’s always a good idea to stick with the original. It’s sappy and ends up being essentially as naïve and Deeds himself, but sometimes it’s okay to end watching a film with a little smile and a little faith in humanity.

Why to watch Mr. Deeds Goes to Town: It’s a heartwarming tale from the Golden Age of Hollywood.
Why not to watch: The ending is visible from 100 miles off.

Emphasis on the Last Syllable

Film: L’Annee Derniere a Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

[Author’s note: For slightly more than 14 months, I have kept this blog rated PG-13. I have toned down my normally obscene self and kept the swearing to a minimum. I knew that someday I would come across a film that pulled my naturally profane nature to the surface. I didn’t know when it would happen; I only knew it would. Well, today I discovered the film that brought me at least temporarily out of my swearing shell.]


Years ago, my brother Tom had a book called “The 50 Worst Films of All Time.” Naturally, a book like that was going to be wrong on virtually every count; there are certainly at least 50 films worse than every film included in that book (proof? It didn’t include Manos: The Hands of Fate). But it was a fun book to flip through. Imagine my surprise to see at least four films from that book on The List: Zabriskie Point, Ivan the Terrible, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and today’s entry, L’Annee Derniere a Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad).

This is the first of these films that appear as both must-see and wretchedly bad that I have encountered thus far. Since its initial opening, Marienbad has received a number of positive reviews. It has a divided reaction from its viewing public. There are those who find it filled with meaning and great possibility (Roger Ebert, for one), and those who find it to be 95 minutes of smelling its own exhaust and applauding itself. I was curious to see which camp I’d fall into.

Well, now I know.

Marienbad is not the worst movie I have ever seen. It probably doesn’t rank in the bottom 100 of films I have seen in my lifetime, and that’s even if I don’t include what I watched on Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is, though, the most pretentious, filled with itself, navel-gazing piece of shit I have ever encountered. This movie is so filled with its own artistic pretense that it farts Picassos in waltz time.

Here’s what you get: we have three main characters and a bunch of other people wearing fancy clothes and standing around like J.C. Penney mannequins. Our first character is A (Delphine Seyrig, who pissed me off last year by starring in Jeanne Dielmann). A is nothing more than an attractive, sometimes mobile thing to hang slinky dresses and feathery dressing gowns on. She’s in a gigantic hotel with M (Sacha Pitoeff), her skull-faced maybe-husband. While they are supposed to be relaxing, what they really do is go to an occasional show, stand around, and stare at things. Also at the hotel is X (Giorgio Albertazzi), who claims to have had a passionate affair with A the previous year. It might have been at Marienbad. Or it might not have happened. Or something. Anyway, he spends the whole movie trying to convince her that they are madly in love with each other. She has no memory of this, because evidently in addition to being someone who moves exclusively in slow motion, she’s also a fucking amnesiac.

That might actually be interesting if the film had done anything with it. Instead, virtually the entire film consists of three things. First, X walks down the endless corridors and hallways of the giant, Cleveland-sized hotel and narrates it. When I say he narrates, what I mean is that he says the same thing over and over about corridors and empty rooms and walls and more corridors and rooms and doors and statues and people and things and air and fucking molecules and Jell-o pudding pops and fruit bats and…

Sorry. He doesn’t talk about fruit bats or Jell-o. Or air molecules.

Second, X talks to A in the second person, telling her all about what they did the previous year at another giant hotel with big fuckin’ statues that are possibly the same statues at this hotel or maybe not because maybe it never happened, and she certainly doesn’t have any memory of it. Regardless, he tells her all about her room there in great detail, and what she wore, and what they talked about (mostly the statues), and everything else. When he gets done with one of these monologues, she usually says that she doesn’t remember and that she’d like him to leave her alone, which he never does. Also during these scenes, we frequently change locations between sentences, and almost as frequently change times of day. Night time, day time, night time, lunch time, morning, night. These time changes do not appear to matter to the flow of the conversation.

Third, X and M play Nim. M always wins. Always.

That’s it. There’s 95 minutes of people standing next to each other, looking in opposite directions, and not moving while one of them talks about what they may have done or not done together or alone at a similar hotel that might have been this one or was possibly Marienbad when they were or weren’t there the year before.

Fuck!

I hated this film with the sort of passion I typically reserve for televangelists, people who interrupt constantly, and those motherfuckers who don’t use their turn signals. I want to punch everyone involved with this film. I want to punch this film in the celluloid equivalent of its uterus and/or testicles. I want to gender-neutralize it so that it cannot procreate and fill the world with its incomprehensible little art babies. It makes me feel like the narrator in Fight Club when he says he wanted to kill every panda that wouldn’t fuck to save its species. I want to let the original negatives rot and I want to film this happening, because that will be more interesting than this film.

I don’t mind art films. I genuinely don’t. Sometimes, they’re a lot of fun or at least have something interesting to say. This film was as fun and interesting as picking lint from my asscrack. Fuck this movie, fuck the people in it, and fuck Alain Resnais. I hold this film specifically responsible for why Americans think French people are snooty bastards and for why the French think Americans are incestuous, brainless primate sphincters.

50 Worst Films of All Time? Probably not. 50 Films I’d Like to Throat Punch and then Watch Drown in its Own Vomit? Top of the list, baby. Top of the list.

Why to watch L’Annee Derniere a Marienbad: With so many possible interpretations, it’s like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book.
Why not to watch: The adventure sucks.