The Greatest Muttonchops in History

Film: Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

My intent was to post this last night, but Blogger was down. And then I had to work all day, so I'm just getting to it now.

It makes a certain amount of sense to me to view silent films and talkies not just as different sorts of film, but as entirely different art forms. The two are extremely different and have different conventions. What works in a silent movie comes off as melodramatic or maudlin in a talkie film. Silents are designed for that sort of melodrama, while there is a much greater possibility for subtlety with talkies. There are different nuances. I don’t mean to say that silent films are simple or simplistic; they aren’t. They’re different, though, and judging them by the standards of talking pictures is more than a touch unfair.

Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh, although the literal translation is The Last Man) may well be in one respect the greatest thing to come from the mind of F.W. Murnau, and that’s really saying something, considering the films Murnau put together. What makes this film so interesting is that it tells a complete story, start to finish and does so with an absolute minimum of intertitles. In fact, in terms of traditional intertitles, there is only one, and it comes near the end. Otherwise, the only actual text is a letter and a newspaper.

The story concerns a hotel doorman (Emil Jannings), who has worked at a grand hotel as a doorman for most of his adult life. However, he is now old, bent, and overweight, and is no longer able to perform the job as he once did. Rather than being pitched into the street, his years of dedicated service are rewarded—he’s given a different job. Instead of working as a doorman, he will instead be the washroom attendant.

Rather than being grateful for his continued employment, the unnamed doorman has his entire world shattered. Evidently, his entire definition of himself came from the fact that not only was he a high-profile doorman, he was a doorman at a very prestigious hotel. Cut off from that job, he freezes, unable to comprehend his life without his shiny uniform. And he plots. He sees his old uniform hanging in a locked cupboard. He steals the key, and at his first opportunity, he steals back his hat and coat.

Immediately following this theft, the former doorman is brought into what appears to be a wedding party, and is introduced to everyone there as the hotel doorman. In short, he hides his demotion from as many people as he can to maintain his dignity, since he defined himself entirely through his job. Of course, nothing can be this simple. It is discovered that he is in fact not the hotel doorman but a washroom attendant, and he is ridiculed by everyone who knows him.

So let’s stop right there for a second. This is where I have trouble with this story. The old dude has worked at the hotel for evidently his entire adult life and no one has ever seen him as the doorman? Not a single person of his acquaintance has ever walked past the hotel when he was standing out front? Do they assume that he’s spent the last 40 years lying to them? I can’t say that I’ve seen every single person I know at his or her place of work, but I imagine that someone I know has. The fact that no one has ever seen our hero actually working until after he loses his prestigious job defies imagination.

We also need to discuss the ending , if only because of its native improbability. But hey, chances are that you haven’t seen this, so I’ll tuck it under a spoiler.

*** OPENING THE SPOILER DOOR ***

In the one intertitle we actually get in this film, we are told that the author of the film has taken pity on our poor hero and given him a massive amount of money. This allows the Jannings character to quit his horrible washroom attendant job and get served at the hotel he used to be forced to work at, specifically because a wealthy man dies in his washroom, and the man’s will stipulates that his vast inheritance goes essentially to the person who he is with when he dies. Silly.

*** WASHING UP THE SPOILER ***

There are some fun things in this film. The old hotel doorman gets completely hammered at the wedding, and we get a highly entertaining dream sequence following this in which he is capable of lifting the heaviest of his patrons’ packages with one hand. He then demonstrates his strength by hurling these packages into the air and catching them, to the thunderous applause of everyone else in the hotel. What sells this as a drunken dream, though, is the fact that the entire thing is completely out of focus. Equally entertaining is his drunken ramble the following morning.

What’s more impressive is how much Murnau was able to do without giving us speech. Almost the entire film is told in silent movie pantomime, and the acting has to tell the story, because we are not given anything else to help us. This, if nothing else, shows the incredible skill with which Murnau could wield a camera—storytelling without any dialogue of any sort is quite impressive.

And yet ultimately, even Murnau himself commented that the film was ridiculous on its face. Washroom attendants made a better salary than doormen did, which meant that in a very real way, this devastating loss of identity and self came with a promotion and a pay raise.

Really, that’s my objection to this entire film. It’s ultimately quite silly, as are the reactions of every single person in the film to every part of the film. Okay, so the old man was a doorman and is now humiliated by being a washroom attendant—so the common reaction is for everyone to point and laugh and ridicule him? My experience in things like this is that most people would probably shrug and figure he was either trying to make himself look better, or that something had happened. It’s not like there’d suddenly be jokes circulating through my town about the bathroom dude who wants to open doors for people. And this really is what it’s like. Once the people from the wedding discover that he is a lowly washroom attendant, it’s just painful minute after painful minute and scene after scene of the poor old dude getting sand kicked in his face. In fact, the bat-faced woman who discovers the reality gives such an evil laugh and look that it’s like the Wicked Witch of the West contemplating the death of Dorothy. Jeez. And, after he’s found out, his next customer acts like not getting washroom service is like being castrated. Really, who takes anything this seriously?

It should also be noted that in this film, Emil Jannings has some of the most impressive facial hair ever filmed. Seriously, it has its own area code.

Why to watch Der Letzte Mann: A story you can follow without reading.
Why not to watch: The story is pretty silly and stupid.

Waiting for Godard

Film: A Bout de Souffle (Breathless)
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

Let’s get this out of the way right away: my mother knew Jean Seberg. I don’t mean that she once met her—Mom knew her. Before she was cast in Otto Preminger’s Saint Joan Jean Seberg was just an ordinary Iowa girl attending the University of Iowa. She and my mother pledged the same sorority and were evidently consecutive alphabetically (Mom’s maiden name was Skidmore). There’s quite a bit more to the story than that, but it’s enough for this blog (if you want the full story, send your browser here: Finding Jean).

Saint Joan tanked, and Seberg’s next couple of films didn’t do a lot better. It wasn’t until Jean-Luc Godard cast her in A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) that she got any respect from the critics. As it turns out, A Bout de Souffle was not just her breakthrough film, but also that of Godard and of her co-star Jean-Paul Belmondo. This film put all three on the map.

The story is a simple one, almost a film noir. Michel (Belmondo) is a car thief. He earns his living by stealing cars and driving them to Paris where he sells them off. While driving his current prize from Marseilles, he’s spotted by the police. Michel avoids the police by turning off the main road, but one motorcycle cop tails him. To avoid capture, Michel shoots the cop and flees.

Back in Paris, Michel encounters Patricia (Seberg), an American who makes her living selling the New York Herald Tribune even though she really wants to be a reporter. She and Michel know each other, and Michel decides that he likes her. Plus, he needs a place to hide out from the police, and Patricia’s hotel room seems like a good spot to stay. He’d really like to go to Rome as a way out of France and away from the manhunt, and he’d really like her to go with him.

And so he stays with her, depending on both her kindness and her relative ambivalence about committing to anything with him—even straight up sex. The sex between them has happened in the past—she claims to be pregnant with his child. He also admits to her what he does for money, or at least some of what he does for money, and tells her that running away to Rome is his chance to get away from the pressures on him. Patricia is tempted, but also is wracked by the guilt of harboring a fugitive, and must decide whether or not to run away with Michel or turn him in. And that’s really it.

A Bout de Souffle is considered one of the great films of the French New Wave. The main reason for this is Godard’s invention of the jump cut. According to the story, his original edit of the film was too long. Rather than cut entire scenes, he cut bits and pieces from scenes, giving a number of the sequences a disjointed, jumpy feel while still maintaining the overall integrity of the scene. We’re a little more used the concept of the jump cut today, of course, but this was a revelation. It gives the film, which is now more than 50 years old, a particularly modern feel.

Another modern element of the film is the frankness of the discussion about sex. It’s not treated as a taboo subject, but discussed openly. Michel at one point asks Patricia how many men she’s slept with and openly propositions her on the street and comments on her lack of bra. It’s almost overdone. Michel talks about sex incessantly to the point where it’s almost embarrassing. And yet, we see nothing—the actual sex is implied. Michel and Patricia lie in bed and both disappear under the covers, and then she gets up wearing his shirt. For a film that’s so blatantly sexual in its content, it’s remarkably prudish in some ways.

Knowing that, at least in familial legend, Jean Seberg was nearly my mother, it’s mildly uncomfortable seeing her in sexual situations. And yet I can also easily see why my father had been infatuated with her when seeing her on the University of Iowa campus. She’s hardly a stunning beauty, but there is an elfin quality to her. She’s perky and cute if not glamorous. She also speaks French with a terrible American accent. My own French is pretty bad, but I could tell that her pronunciation of many words and phrases was distinctly American.

Belmondo seems to spend the entire film smoking. I don’t know if there is a single scene in which he doesn’t have a cigarette dangling from his lips. I can’t tell if this adds to his overall cool or detracts from it. Even in the scenes in which he doesn’t appear, such as the press conference Patricia attends with a novelist named Parvulesco (Jean-Pierre Melville), I like to imagine him dragging on his constant smoke.

A Bout de Souffle does little to advance the world of cinema in terms of plot. It’s influence is felt instead on the very language of cinema, adding new weapons in the repertoire of filmmakers. For a film with such a small story with surprisingly few twists and turns, it is remarkably watchable, and holds up very well.

Why to watch A Bout de Souffle: Godard’s coming out party.
Why not to watch: All of the men wear really short neckties. It looks really strange.

History Lesson

Film: Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on middlin’-sized living room television and on laptop.

While I have nothing other than my own experiences to base this on, I’d guess that no single event in human history is better documented in film—both fiction and non-fiction—than World War II. There’s a metric ton of films out there on the years between 1939 and 1945, particularly for those years in which the U.S. was involved. There are also many films covering the pre-war years and the years of the aftermath. All of them tend to look at the war in nationalistic terms, which is to be expected. Perhaps none does so as completely and as menacingly as Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will).

Triumph des Willens, of course, is one of the most notorious films ever created. The film was created specifically as a propaganda piece for the Third Reich at the behest of Hitler himself, who gave Riefenstahl free reign over where she could go and what she could film. The result is one of the seminal pieces of propaganda ever made. Triumph des Willens is a graduate-level class on stirring the emotions and engendering nationalistic pride.

This is almost a pure film. There is no real story here, but there wasn’t a story intended. The goal of the film is to depict as purely as possible the glories of the Third Reich—columns of blonde, marching youth, good-natured athletic competition, thousands of smiling faces…and of course thousands of cheering people offering the familiar “heil” gesture.

Keep in mind that I watched Shoah recently, which certainly clouds any remote chance I may have had at objectivity. As the camera pans over the faces of the men who controlled Germany in the mid-1930s, it is nearly impossible to repress a well-deserved shudder. Seeing the faces of people like Goering and Himmler, shown here larger than life and as heroic figures when the reality is known is nausea-inducing. It’s worth noting that the correct German pronunciation of the last word of the title is a homophone of the English “villains,” a piece of linguistic truth—this film truly depicts the triumph of villains at the height of their power.

That reality is difficult to get past. It ironically is a feat of will to look past the reality of a film celebrating human monsters at the height of their temporal reign, before their plans and actions made the very name of their political party synonymous with evil. The natural reaction is to look at these men and immediately think of the evil that they wrought. Half an hour or so into the film, when a parade of men stand at a microphone and address the throng below, the most natural thought is be instantly repelled. At least that was my thought throughout the film—it was impossible to not see this without an accompanying cloud of tangible evil. Let’s get that out there now. If you are not a skinhead, this film trumpets ideals that you find repugnant. This will well up periodically throughout the film like bile rising in your throat.

So there’s that.

It would be easy to stop there, but if that was all there is in this film, then it wouldn’t be a part of The List. It’s unpleasant to look at something that touts so great an evil and find something in it beyond a desire to sick up. And here’s what it is: Triumph des Willens is perhaps the purest piece of propaganda ever created. There is nothing in this film that does not further preach its constant ideal of German significance, German superiority, German will, and German dominance. The film is all spectacle and bombast, but bombast with a purpose. Placed into context historically, Germany was in the throes of a terrible economic depression. It was forced to pay off massive debts it couldn’t afford. Its military had been stripped bare, leaving the country essentially defenseless and surrounded by historical and hereditary enemies. This sort of spectacle and bombast was the sort of tonic that many a German wanted, and it is designed to give them exactly what they want to feel good about their nationality again.

This is a kingmaking film—Hitler is shown throughout as more than a man. Often he is filmed from below, giving him a commanding presence over the proceedings occurring in Nuremburg, and always to massive throngs of deliriously adoring German folk. We just as frequently get close-ups of young, attractive Germans, almost always blonde, standing straight and tall, looking like Teutonic gods. Imagine the effect this would have had on a proud people suddenly downtrodden, looking through the windows at the rest of Europe.

Triumph des Willens is a masterpiece of propaganda, and all the more horrible because of it. That it was used to help solidify one of the greatest evils in the world only makes its power all the more terrible.

It is only through a lens of history that the underlying horror of this film becomes evident. It is precisely because we know the horror and terror created by Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, Goering, and the rest that the power of the propaganda here becomes so awful. Seeing row upon row of people giving a unified Nazi salute is terrifying.

But there is still power in the images shown here. It is not surprising the George Lucas used parts of this film as inspiration for the medal ceremony at the end of Star Wars. That more than anything shows the weight of history here. Riefenstahl shows this and we recoil because we know what evil she is actually depicting. Lucas shows us the same thing and we cheer. That’s a sobering thought on the deep psychological power propaganda has over all of us. It should be.

Praising this film puts one in the odd position of saying nice things about Nazi propaganda. Speaking only ill of this film puts one in the odd position of denigrating an important historical document and experiment in human psychology. Triumph des Willens is thus a lose-lose proposition. I can't speak well of it, lest I associate myself unfavorably with it. I can't speak only ill of it and ignore its undeniable significance. In that respect, it reminds me of Birth of a Nation.

Why to watch Triumph des Willens: True history as it was made.
Why not to watch: You will never encounter more concentrated evil in one film.

Lycanthropy and Sex

Film: Cat People
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

Movies that were produced by Val Lewton have particular things in common. Most of them deal with the strange or the creepy. Many would be classified as horror films. And none of them really have a huge scare factor. They remind me quite a bit like long episodes of The Twilight Zone. None of them is so Rod Serling-y as Cat People.

Irena Dubrovna (Simone Simon) is a Serbian who has moved to the States. While practicing drawing at the zoo, specifically around the panther cage, she encounters a man named Oliver Reed (Kent Smith). The two hit it off and retire to her nearby apartment where they get a little better acquainted (and not like that). What catches Oliver’s eye is a statue of the Serbian King John. Irena tells him of the story of her village. They had been ruled by invaders for years, and the village had turned to evil and Satanic worship. King John killed most of the evil peasants, but those who were the most evil, according to Irena, hid. These people had the power to turn into great cats when their passions became aroused.

The pair go through a very quick courtship and are married, but the marriage is unconsummated because Irena is convinced that she bears the curse of her village. Any intense emotion, any intense physical contact—like sex---will turn her into a panther and she’ll rip him apart. In fact, she won’t even kiss him.

Eventually, they decide that it’s time for Irena to get some psychiatric help. On the advice of Oliver’s office mate Alice (Jane Randolph), she sees Doctor Louis Judd (Tom Conway). She’s disturbed by the visit, and even more disturbed by the fact that Alice knows about the problem. She starts avoiding her psychiatric visits, and continues to avoid physical contact with Oliver. Things start to get complicated on a couple of fronts. First, Alice expresses her true feelings for Oliver. Second, Oliver (I imagine thanks to the lack of sex) is starting to have second thoughts about the marriage. Third, and most critically, Dr. Judd seems to have developed an unhealthy obsession with Irena, seeming to think that sexing her up might be the way to cure her.

Make no mistakes here--Cat People is all about sex, even if it’s never explicitly spoken out loud. It’s also about intimacy and fear of the same. Were I the type to expound on the deep-seating meanings of films (and I am sometimes), I might suggest that this film is in its way horribly misogynist, attributing this sort of terrible otherworldly and demonic power to women when it comes to sex. And maybe that does underlie the story here, but that doesn’t really matter to me that much.

Where this movie really works is in its atmosphere. Like many a truly great horror movie, we see almost nothing. Everything scary and shocking is implied, done with shadow and sound instead of showing us what we think is happening. For instance, one evening Oliver goes back to work, and through a series of events has a cup of coffee with Alice at a local eatery. Irena sees them together, and then follows Alice home. Part way through the walk home, Alice notices that she is being stalked, like prey. All we get are some moving bushes. Just after this, some sheep in the nearby zoo are slaughtered. The footprints leading away start as the prints of a large cat, and then turn into a woman’s shoes…and we pan up to Irena.

There are several scenes like this one, the most famous being in the swimming pool of Alice’s apartment building. As each of these scenes plays out, it becomes more and more evident that Irena’s delusion isn’t really a delusion at all, and that her curse is a real one.

While Cat People has a few good jump scares, this isn’t really a scary movie. It’s much more a thriller than anything else. This is par for the course with a Lewton-produced film like this one. Lewton’s films never really went for the gore or for the shock. His goal seemed always to be to get the audience to think, and through thinking realize a much greater level of horror than a simple scare or gross out.

Cat People achieves this. It’s rightfully considered the best picture Lewton was attached to, and for very good reason. It also happens to be his first, so his career started off with quite a bang.

But Lewton only produced this film; he didn’t direct it. Jacques Tourneur was the man behind the camera for this film, and it is directed beautifully. In each scene we see exactly enough to know exactly what Tourneur wants us to know. This is a film that would not be improved in color—black and white suits it perfectly, and might even improve it.

Simone Simon is quite charming. She plays a great deal of this film as a damsel in real distress over what she thinks (and evidently is really experiencing) is a terrible curse upon her. However, when the moments call for it, such as in the swimming pool scene, she plays the role with a touch of glee and a larger touch of menace. There’s something truly wicked about Irena, and Simon seems to really delight in that aspect of the character.

All in all, this is a classic for a reason. Avoid the not-as-good remake unless the story really intrigues you.

Why to watch Cat People: Old style creepiness.
Why not to watch: Fewer scares than you might want.

Revenge is Best Served Disturbing

Film: Oldeuboi (Oldboy)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on middlin’-sized living room television.

I’ve never read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books. There’s a reason for this—it’s because everyone I know who has read them has told me how great they are. At this point, there is no way possible for them to be as good as I expect them to be. They can’t possible live up to how great everyone tells me they are. And so, rather than be disappointed in them, I’ve chosen (at least for now) not to read them.

Oldeuboi (Oldboy) is like this. Everyone has told me how incredible this movie is. At this point, it can’t just be good. It’s got to be nitro-burning funny car, second coming of Jesus good for it to come close to the expectations I’ve been told to have for it. It has to be all the sushi I’ve ever wanted to eat and someone else is paying good. And you know what’s that good? Nothing.

Oldeuboi starts with Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik), who is drunk off his ass and being held in police custody. It is his daughter’s birthday, and he has a present for her. He’s bailed out by his friend No Joo-hwan (Ji Dae-han), and he calls his daughter from a pay phone. Joo-hwan speaks to her as well, but when he turns around, Dae-su is gone.

Dae-su has been captured by someone and is locked in a hotel room. He’s kept there for 15 years as some sort of punishment, and fed only fried dumplings the entire time. He keeps himself sane with television and by shadowboxing as well as punching the wall to toughen up his fists. He also works on escaping, digging his way through the brick wall to freedom. Before he can get out, though, he is released. He finds himself on the top of a building (presumably in Seoul) in a new suit. Shortly thereafter, he’s handed a cell phone and a wallet full of money.

Dae-su has been out of the world for a decade and a half, and he’s a fugitive to boot, since his wife was murdered around the time of his disappearance, making him the lead suspect. All he wants is to discover who locked him up and why, and then have his revenge on that person or persons. When he confronts the man at about the midpoint of the film, he’s told that he has just five days to discover exactly who his tormentor is, and why he was locked away for so long.

What happens in five days? Well, if Dae-su discovers everything, his tormentor (named Lee Woo-jin [Yu Ji-tae]) will kill himself. If he doesn’t, he’ll kill Mi-do (Kang Hye-jeong), a young female sushi chef who has fallen in with Dae-su.

So what we have here is a pretty non-standard revenge story, but make no mistake, this is a revenge story fore to aft. The sell here, the reason that people get all filmgeek about this movie is not the plot, although it is inventive for where it goes, and also disturbing. The sell here is a few absolutely key scenes.

1) Upon his release, Dae-su stands on a rooftop with a man preparing to commit suicide. Dae-su saves the man and tells him his story, then walks away before the suicide can tell his story. As Dae-su walks out of the building below, the man’s body lands on a car in one of the most darkly comic moments I’ve seen in a long time.

2) Dae-su enters the sushi restaurant where Mi-do is the chef. He asks her for something still alive. She places a live octopus in front of him and tells him she will prepare it for him, but he picks it up and eats the damn thing while it’s still alive. The tentacles keep wriggling while he bites down and they curl around his face while he’s chewing.

3) Dae-su confronts one of his captors and ties him down to a chair. Dae-su then pulls out the man’s teeth with a claw hammer until he gives information.

4) After the teeth incident, Dae-su attempts to leave, and is confronted by a hallway full of goons. What follows is an incredible fight sequence that looks like a single take. This might be one of the most realistic fight sequences I’ve seen. Combatants swing at each other, then stop and take a breather, just as real people would in such a situation. It goes on forever, and is brutal.

There are others, but they’d need a spoiler tag, and I’m just not up for that here.

Oldeuboi, despite moments of black comic brilliance and some great action sequences, is really a very disturbing movie on a lot of levels. As particular details start to come to light, the film tracks further and further into weird, then creepy, then disturbing, and then full-on nauseating. Particular scenes become horrifying when viewed again with the ending in mind, which is no doubt precisely what Park Chan-wook had in mind here.

Is it good? It is. Was I disappointed? I had to be after all of the build-up. Oldeuboi doesn’t meet or exceed the massive amount of hype it gets, but I need to remind myself that this isn’t the fault of the movie. Brace yourself for an unusual action film, one in which the action treads closer to realism, but the plot is straight out of a nightmare. It’s good, perhaps even great, but it’s not everything I was lead to believe.

Why to watch Oldeuboi: An action movie and a revenge movie that doesn’t conform to the clichés.
Why not to watch: Wiggly tentacles.

Heart of Gold, Head of Tin

Film: Le Notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria)
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on middlin’-sized living room television.

In any group of experts and wannabee-experts, someone will dislike any given classic. I learned this as an undergraduate English major. Name any canonical author or book, and there’s someone who hates it. Shakespeare’s classic Othello was once summed up along the lines of “wives should mind their hand linens.” Haters gotta hate. I’m not immune to this. There are parts of The Canon that I dislike and don’t want anything to do with. The only way I survived reading Emily Dickinson’s poetry was the realization that almost everything she did was in ballad form, and could thus be sung to the Gilligan’s Island theme or “House of the Rising Sun.”

When it comes to directors, I can hang with anyone, but I’m pretty ambivalent on Fellini. That feels like saying I’ve watched too much Hitchcock or that Kubrick doesn’t do anything for me. Fellini sits on a high pedestal when it comes to film geek wankery, but so far, I’ve come away unimpressed. Amarcord was interesting to a point, but essentially little more than cotton candy, and Satyricon was flat out weird and made me uncomfortable in spots. So I watched Le Notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria) more to say that I’d done it than with any sort of expectation or joy.

Le Notti di Cabiria is the story of a prostitute named Maria Ceccarelli (Giulietta Masina), nicknamed “Cabiria.” She is a prostitute who works the streets of Rome. Despite what she does to make a buck, Cabiria is remarkably naïve. It’s almost painful to see how easily she is duped by those around her. In the opening sequence, she stands on the bank of a river with her boyfriend. When she least expects it, he pushes her into the river and runs away with her purse. Unfortunately, Cabiria can’t swim, and has to be rescued by some people who simply happened to be there.

While a true naïve, Cabiria is also aggressively proud of herself for owning her own house. She uses this fact to differentiate herself from the other prostitutes on and nearby the street corner. It’s not much of a house, of course, but it is a house. At times it seems like Cabiria has little else. Nothing good seems to happen to her. Her dunking in the river is really just the start. And yet, soon enough, Cabiria is willing to look at the world through rose-colored glasses once again.

We follow Cabiria around, see her petty jealousies and feuds, and then witness her pulled up on stage by a magician and hypnotist. While mesmerized, she is told that a young man named Oscar is there, and that he loves her and wishes to marry her. She’s eventually awoken from the trance to the jeers and cheers of the audience. Cabiria is proud, and hates being laughed at, so she sulks backstage until the people in the audience have left. But one man, Oscar D’Onofrio (Francois Perier) claims to have been touched by her innocence, and a romance blooms.

But, you should know where this is going. Nothing good happens to Cabiria. Everything that might possibly make her happy will come back and bite her. Oscar is not a nice guy, after all.

In that sense, Le Notti di Cabiria is a tragedy, but it’s impossible to call this film a real tragedy. The reason is that while Cabiria reacts in extreme ways to what happens to her, nothing does much more than temporarily set her mood back. After each terrible knock, each crushing disappointment, she is back to her old self, cheerful and looking on the world as something special to be enjoyed rather than a terrible, crushing prison. She is that rare naïve person who remains naïve regardless of the terrible things that happen to her.

There is something beautiful here. It’s not the film, and it’s not Giulietta Masina, but it is the attitude of Cabiria. There is something really beautiful about an attitude that continues to believe in the goodness of people and the joy of life moments after taking yet another kick to the face.

Masina is an odd looking woman. There are times when she looks waifish and elfin, and other times when she looks terribly old. She has a face that is impossible to place in years. Could by 25, could be 45. The reality was just about dead middle of those two extremes.

Did I like this movie? I’m not sure. I like this movie’s attitude. I found it uplifting and life-affirming. But I’m still not sold on Fellini.

Why to watch Le Notti di Cabiria: Our heroine has a true heart of gold.
Why not to watch: She also has a head made of tin and spun wire.

Church

Film: La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

We should get a couple of things straight right off the top here. I consider myself a non-theist, which is a baby step away from agnostic. I don’t go to church regularly, or at all. I don’t believe in the power of prayer, I don’t believe in a higher power that intercedes for people, and I don’t believe in the normal Christian version of the afterlife (good or bad). I’ve toyed around with a variety of religious beliefs in the past, and find that if I had to pick one, I’d probably go primarily with Buddhism despite my liberal Christian upbringing. I’m also of the opinion that religion—not faith, mind you, but religion—has been responsible for the vast majority of evil done in this world historically and today as well.

I wanted that clear from the beginning, because The Passion of Joan of Arc is the closest thing I’ve had to a religious experience in well over a year. I’m not saying this is a positive or a negative, but something that is simply true. This is not a happy church service; it’s much more akin to dealing with the Inquisition or the Salem witch trials, but it’s still a church service.

This film was based on the transcripts of the actual trial of Jeanne d’Arc. Every line that she “speaks” (or at least every line attributed to her in the intertitles) comes from the transcript of the trial. And speak she does, as do the men who are questioning her. In fact, it appears initially that there is little to this film beyond the heads of Jeanne (Maria Falconetti) and her accusers. Dreyer evidently spent a huge sum on the sets, and then basically filmed faces, letting those sets go to waste.

I wouldn’t call this film plotless, but the plot that exists is pretty obvious and the resolution is known to anyone who knows even a touch of history. The film covers only her trial for heresy during which she is accused of being misled by Satan, and of being from Satan himself. Joan (I’ll stick with the English translation of her name) states that she believes she is inspired by God instead. She is tortured and threatened with burning at the stake, and she recants her position and officially claims that she has been misled. Then she decides that this was a mistake—she really was inspired by God, and she is killed horribly.

However, this is not a history lesson. It’s a passion play, and the correlation with the traditional passion play of Christ is intentional. Joan is mocked, abused, tortured, and then killed, all the while protesting her innocence and her inspiration from God.

For being essentially a simple story simply told, there is a lot going on here. Dreyer’s focus on the faces of the characters is a huge change from the typical silent film. None of the players wears any makeup, allowing their emotions to truly show through and giving these intensely close shots a greater sense of realism. What we see is a true dichotomy. Joan stands alone, face raised to her accusers (and also to the heavens) in simple, unadorned beauty. The accusers scowl down at her, and to a man, they are ferociously ugly—balding, warty, creased old men. The blocking here gives the impression that Joan stands below them, highlighting her powerlessness as well as their temporal power over her. But don’t kid yourself; Joan’s looking up at them also allows her to continuously look up to God, and this is no doubt intentional, or at least a happy side effect of her accusers standing above her.

The film absolutely belongs to Falconetti, who gives one of the greatest performances ever filmed. Her face incredibly expressive, shifting from horror to terror to sublime ecstasy at a moment’s notice. Despite her moments of rapture, there is not a moment in which she is filmed that she is also not in anguish of some type. This film is not about her redemption or her eventual elevation to Catholic sainthood, but about her martyrdom, and it pulls very few punches. Joan is in constant torment, and it is overwhelming at times. Falconetti is plainly beautiful, which is partly her own physical beauty and very much the emotional content of her performance. It is the fact that she plays these beliefs so strongly that gives her both the presence and the beauty she displays here.

Dreyer never developed a definitive soundtrack for this film, and so it is frequently shown with no music or sound. Fortunately, there is available a version with a soundtrack called “Voices of Light,” which was developed specifically for the film. The soundtrack is glorious, particularly so if you are a fan of liturgical music. It greatly enhances the film experience.

Once again, as with many films, I can’t say that I enjoyed watching this, but I am very glad that I did. I may not be a religious person, or even in favor of most religious thought, but this is a religious experience I am happy to have undergone. Perhaps the most telling thing I can say about it is that I don’t think it would be improved with speech. It’s exactly right the way it is.

Why to watch La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc: One of the greatest filmed performances in the 100+ years of film.
Why not to watch: You’ll walk away from this drained.