Month 45 Status Report

Ah, September, you cruel bitch.

I took out 29 films in September, but ended up further away from the end than when the month started. That's because of the massive update to The List that happened a few weeks ago. I currently stand at 47 films left to review, which makes the end of November completely within the realm of possibility. That's pretty cool, since it's fewer films in October and November than I typically try to do. My standard goal in any month is 25.

What this means is that a secondary goal of mine, reviewing all 86 of the Best Picture winners in Oscar history, is within reach by the end of the year. I have only nine left--technically only eight, since one of those is already written and waiting for when I don't have a chance to put up a new review. That film may well go up tonight, because I probably won't get a new one done today.

So far, the new additions have been a mixed bag. Of the 47 left, 28 are new additions, so we'll see how those go soon enough. I feel a little guilty about focusing solely on the new films.

Like a Fish Out of Water

Film: Cristo si e Fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped at Eboli); Local Hero
Format: DVD from NetFlix (Eboli and from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library (Local Hero) on laptop.

I knew in the first couple of minutes of Cristo si e Fermato a Eboli (Christ Stopped at Eboli) that this was going to be one of those films that I struggled with. It wasn’t specifically going to be an incredibly difficult watch per se, but I knew that when it came to writing about it that I was going to have a very difficult time. This is a film to point to as an example of one in which the majority of the action is internal. It’s a series of conversations more or less, and I’m being generous when I say that the majority of those conversations are dense and pretty turgid.

And that’s the issue with this film. Not much happens. Rather than having a plot summary, it has a plot sentence or two. Carlo Levi (Gian Maria Volonte) is a writer and artist, but also has a medical degree. He is arrested by Mussolini’s forces in the mid-1930s, and is exiled to a remote Italian backwater. He finds the people there to have been overlooked in almost every advance made in the last few centuries and decides to start practicing medicine to help the people as much as he can. That’s pretty much it, and this film runs almost 150 minutes.

War Begins at Home

Film: Mrs. Miniver
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on laptop.

William Wyler, the director of Mrs. Miniver, grew to hate the film that won him a Best Picture Oscar. The reason is because William Wyler was a badass. In 1943, he went to London and worked on films, including documentaries about flight crews. He even flew missions with them and spent time inside a ball turret. The reason he came to disapprove of his most critically-acclaimed film is that he realized exactly how far from reality his film truly was. Seeing just how threadbare and deprived London had become due to the war and the Blitz, Mrs. Miniver simply didn’t go far enough.

Regardless of its detachment from the real horror of wartime England and rationing, Churchill loved Mrs. Miniver and said it was propaganda worth 100 ships. As it happens, I’m reading a book called Citizens of London about Americans in London during the Blitz and after. A day or two ago, I reached the section about Hollywood in London, which is more or less what inspired me to watch Mrs. Miniver now. Having read the first dozen chapters or so and seeing the incredible privation that London and England actually experienced, it’s difficult to rationalize the nice clothing and perfect hair and full refrigerator with what actually happened. Then again, that’s about the only thing with which I have a problem here.

Dreaming a Dream

Film: Les Miserables
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

I wasn’t sure about the fate of Les Miserables when contemplating the new additions for the latest version of The List. I figured it had a middling chance. On the one hand, it’s a modern musical, and The List loves modern musicals. On the other hand, despite its Best Picture nomination and the win for Anne Hathaway, everything I heard about it was pretty mixed. Some people loved it and others found it ridiculous, except for some performances. I suppose it got points for having the actors actually singing their parts live. Anyway, here it is, and as the longest film remaining, it’s time to put it behind me.

It’s worth noting that I’ve seen Les Miserables live on stage in Chicago. I say that to to stress that the version I saw live wasn’t like a high school production or amateur theater. It was good, I suppose, but musical theater genuinely doesn’t move me too much. It would be too much to say I hate it, but I’m not a huge fan. In truth, I’m not much of a fan of live theater in general. It just doesn’t do a lot for me. I’ve tried enough times to realize that it generally moves over me and leaves me unmoved.

Jung at Heart

Film: Peter Ibbetson
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

The opening of Peter Ibbetson promises us that this will probably be a glurge-fest. We are introduced to two children in 19th century Paris quarreling over what to do with some boards. Gogo (Dickie Moore) wants to build a wagon; Mimsey (Virginia Weidler) wants to build a baby carriage. We see their argument not with each other, but as they explain their positions to their respective mothers. It’s evident that Gogo’s mom is in poor health since she’s sitting in a wheelchair. The kids argue more, Mimsey’s doll is broken, and then Gogo’s mother dies. Mimsey reacts to this by giving her baby carriage and all the boards to Gogo. Cue the orchestra. Ah, the pathos!

Shortly thereafter, Gogo’s uncle from London shows up to take charge of the boy. Gogo and Mimsey attempt to run away, but it’s all for naught. The uncle (Douglass Dumbrille) immediately changes the boy’s name to the less clown-chic Peter Ibbetson, and thus we have our title. Peter grows up into an architect and also turns in to Gary Cooper. Soon enough, he is working on a restoration project for the Duke of Towers (John Halliday). Once there, he becomes smitten with the Duchess, Mary (Ann Harding), and she with him. And, of course, it turns out that Mary is the grown up version of Mimsey and the two have carried a torch for each other all these years. Cue the orchestra. Ah, the pathos!

Abracadabra!

Film: The Lady Vanishes
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.

Everything about pursuing this list of films is conditional. I thought I had been done with silent films for some time, but the number of silent film reviews I’ve posted in the last couple of weeks belies that. Additionally, I had been done with the work of Alfred Hitchcock, and yet here we are again with another Hitchcock film. This time it’s The Lady Vanishes, a film from the late 1930s, and one that sees Hitch starting to include the sort of complexity that he eventually became known for. There’s a straight through-line in this film; there’s just a lot of stuff going on on the side and on the fringes of the plot this time.

An avalanche has closed of traffic in a small, fictional European country that is vaguely Switzerlandish, at least based on the languages spoken by the various people who crowd into a guesthouse. Included in this motley collection is Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood), a British girl looking to get back home in time for her impending marriage to a man she doesn’t really love or even care for very much. We meet a few more people here, too. The most important of these are Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), who is researching the folk songs and dances of the native population; and Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), an ex-governess travelling back to England.

A for Artsy, F for Fartsy

Film: F for Fake (Verites et Mensonges)
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on rockin’ flatscreen.

In a massive list of films, many of which are strange, F for Fake (sometimes called Verites et Mensonges) may be the strangest, or at least the most unclassifiable. Is it a documentary? Sort of. It is closer to being a filmed essay on the nature of art and forgery. It is also a fortuitous collection of coincidences that, if believed, are almost impossible to reconcile. In a film that is itself about hoaxes, it might be the supreme hoax that everything worked out for Orson Welles the way it did.

The upshot of the film is a profile on the world’s greatest art forger, Elmyr de Hory (who appears in a great deal of the film) Welles, in front of the camera for some scenes and “behind the scenes” but still in front of a camera in an editing room, tells us about the strange career of de Hory, who manufactured a number of original pieces of art in the style of famous artists, passing them off as the work of others.