Month 31 Status Report

I got a part of what I wanted accomplished in July. I still managed to fall short of my goal of knocking off 25 films from The List (I got 24), but I'm pretty satisfied. Of those 24 films, six qualify as "hard to find" films, which is a decent ratio. There are still too many of those, and I need to concentrate on them more, but one in four is good enough to get me where I want to be.

August? Keep on keepin' on. I'm still pushing to knock out at least two of the longer remaining films per month, concentrating on the earliest films left, and otherwise looking to watch some rare ones as much as possible. Will I hit 25 films? I sure hope so.

Timing is Everything

Film: Rope
Format: VHS from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on big ol’ television.

I like Hitchcock in general, although there’s a lot of his filmography I haven’t seen yet. Still, in many ways he was a one-trick pony. He liked a particular type of story, and with a few exceptions, he made that same story over and over. Other directors of the era were far more versatile in what they produced, but Hitchcock produced Hitchcock films. I’m happy to call him a genius, but in general, you know what you’re going to get with Hitch.

Rope is a film created more or less to explore camera trickery. The film unfolds like a one-act play (and was in fact based on a stage play). The plot is pure Hitchcock. Here’s the elevator pitch—two men kill a former classmate for intellectual thrills, then hide the body in a trunk and serve dinner off it to the friends and family of the victim. There, in fewer than 30 words, is the essence of Hitchcock’s high concept film, a simple story simply told.

The End of an Era

Film: Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.

Evidently, I’m on something of a Visconti kick at the moment, having watched two of his films in less than a week. Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) is one that I’ve put off for a while; finding it in a local library this time marks the second or third time I’ve had the film in my possession. I determined to watch it this time, and did. It’s longer than other Visconti films I’ve seen, but doesn’t specifically feel longer. It’s a good 40 minutes longer than Ossessione but feels about the same length. This is probably more because I knew where Ossessione was going from the start, and had no such prior knowledge of Il Gattopardo.

It feels very different from other Visconti films. For one thing, it’s in luxurious color instead of the stark black-and-white I’m used to from him. Second, and more significantly, we are no longer enmeshed in the plots and desires of the common people. It’s almost as if Visconti decided to walk away from neo-realism not at a saunter but at a full gallop, running so far away from the common man that he ended up mired in the Italian aristocracy of 100 years previous. There are no sparse meals or hungry children here; instead, it’s all sumptuous banquets, balls, and a heaping dose of war and political intrigue.

I'm Still Not a Colin Farrell Fan

Film: In Bruges
Format: DVD from Hanover Township Library through interlibrary loan on kick-ass portable DVD player.

What profession gets more films made about it than any other? Soldiers, probably, but I’m betting that assassins rank in the top ten or the top five. There’s something about a film audience that loves a ruthless killer. There’s something about a film audience that loves a killer with a heart of gold even more. Assassins make great characters when the screenwriter and director have the basic common sense to make them human characters.

This brings us to In Bruges, a film I wanted to see during its theatrical release and like 99% of all films, missed. I finally got around to watching it, and I’m suitably impressed with it. It’s hard to call it a take on a particular genre. It’s not really an action film despite a couple of action sequences and a decent body count. It’s not truly a film noir, although it certainly references noir in some aspects. It’s not a buddy film despite being about a pair of buddies. It’s also not really a comedy even though there are plenty of really funny moments in it.

That Postman Keeps on Ringing

Film: Ossessione
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

It’s strange how we remember films. I know intellectually that Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione came a couple of years before The Postman Always Rings Twice, but it doesn’t change the fact that I saw the latter first. There’s a real sense going through this film that I’d already seen it. It’s not shot-for-shot the same, but the two films are similar enough (and are based on the same book) that this film filled me with a definite sense of déjà vu.

If you’ve seen The Postman Always Rings Twice, you’ve seen this film, and vice versa. There are some significant differences, but the basic idea is identical with only the names different. A drifter named Gino (Massimo Girotti) floats into town and winds up and a sort of gas station/restaurant/general store run by a man named Bragana (Juan de Landa). Bragana is a middle-aged man and decidedly fat, so it comes as a surprise when we encounter his young and attractive wife, Giovanna (Clara Calamai). There’s an immediate attraction between Gino and Giovanna.

At a Gallop

Film: Dao Ma Zei (The Horse Thief)
Format: DVD from Knox College Library through interlibrary loan on kick-ass portable DVD player.

It’s not too difficult to suggest that one of the main problems with the religious lives of most Americans is that it happens on Sunday for an hour or two and is then pretty much ignored. One of the attractions to more Eastern religions is that such belief systems tend to be all-encompassing; they pervade all aspects of life. Religion becomes less something like a job, but something that is eternally present. I’m oversimplifying, of course, and I’m certain there are those who will take exception to what I’ve just said. However, it’s one of the reasons I dabbled in more Eastern thought for a number of years. It felt like it was more about adopting life and daily tasks to the necessities of belief rather than making time in our lives for something external.

However, this incorporation of belief into virtually everything puts me at a loss for a film like Dao Ma Zei (The Horse Thief). This is a beautifully made film, make no mistake. It is also entirely enmeshed in Tibetan Buddhism, which means that a great deal of what is almost certainly filled with meaning and symbol washes over me without comprehension. I simply don’t understand why particular things are important or meaningful, because I am not a Tibetan Buddhist, or a Buddhist of any stripe. Asking me to would be like asking someone who has talked to a couple of Christian missionaries to find the Christ symbolism in a work of art. It’s just not going to happen, and it’s going to frustrate everyone.

Beating, Yes. Devil, Not so Much

Film: Beat the Devil
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop.

Film noir wasn’t known as film noir until after the style was no longer in vogue. There had to be a sense of it, though, because John Huston managed to parody the style with Beat the Devil. This was a film that was not warmly received when it was originally released, but that has grown in stature over time. It’s become quite the classic, and has a cast that backs up that sort of evalutation.

We have a trio of criminals looking to exploit the mineral wealth of Africa. Specifically, they are looking to get their mitts on uranium deposits, since those deposits are essential for the production of both atomic energy and atomic weaponry. These men represent the varying fading powers of Europe. Specifically, there is the British Peterson (Robert Morley), the German-by-way-of-Chile O’Hara (Peter Lorre), and the Italian Ravello (Marco Tulli, who is perhaps the most angular human being to ever exist). They are joined by the fascist and Hitler-boosting Major Jack Ross (Ivor Barnard).