Weimar Romance

Film: Three Comrades
Format: Turner Classic Movies on rockin’ flatscreen.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not usually at a loss for words. It does happen, though, especially when I am presented with a movie that I frankly don’t understand. Oh, I get the plot of Three Comrades just fine. What I don’t get with this film is the point of it, nor do I understand for a second the incredibly stupid ending. In retrospect, I was probably way too nice to this on Letterboxd. Anyway, Three Comrades takes place in those years just following World War I. Just as it would seem that Germany didn’t know what it wanted to be in those years, neither does this film.

We start with the close of the war. A gang of three friends have survived and decide to go into business together with the premise that the country will need mechanics in these years. The three are Erich (Robert Taylor), Gottfried (Robert Young), and Otto (Franchot Tone). One evening, on the event of one of the three’s birthday, they go out for a drive in the country and end up racing another car. This is how the three meet Patricia (Margaret Sullavan).

Deux for the Price of Un

Film: The French Lieutenant’s Woman
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

The concept of a story within a story, a play within a play, or a movie within a movie is hardly a new one. Typically when something like this happens, the conceit is that the “real world” story mirrors the inner story in some significant way. That’s absolutely the case with The French Lieutenant’s Woman. Here, the surface story is about the making of a film about a Victorian romance. And, naturally, the story of that film within the film very much has parallels in a relationship in the real world.

This actually isn’t that difficult, but it’s tough to explain. I’ll do my best. In the film within the film, a Victorian scientist named Charles Henry Smithson (Jeremy Irons) has proposed marriage to a proper woman of some substance named Ernestina (Lynsey Baxter). Ernestina is the epitome of what a Victorian woman should be, and the romance appears to be pure in all ways that we expect the almost Puritanical Victorian romance ideal should be. Soon after the proposal, Charles becomes aware of Sarah (Maryl Streep), a woman who is the subject of many unsavory rumors in the area. Sarah is called “the French Lieutenant’s Woman” because of a very public affair with a French soldier. Of course, Charles becomes infatuated with sarah, and as the story progresses, the two slowly fall in love with each other despite the social differences and the social suicide that even spending time with a woman considered all but a whore is for Charles.

O Canada

Film: 49th Parallel
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

I find propaganda films an interesting sub-genre of film. 49th Parallel is unquestionably a propaganda film, and absolutely one that is specifically geared toward American audiences specifically as a way to drum up support for the war. Unlike many a later film that humanizes the average German soldier, the bulk of the Germans in this film, particularly the lead German, is portrayed as an inhuman monster. Such is the nature of propaganda, after all.

The premise is an interesting one. In the early days of the war, a German submarine approaches the Canadian coast. A group of six men from the submarine go ashore as a raiding party. Just as they come ashore, a squadron of Canadian planes spots the sub and bombs it, sinking it, stranding the half dozen sailors in the middle of nowhere in the Canadian wilderness. They resolve to get to the American border and find a German embassy, since at the time, America was still a neutral country.

Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Actress 1953

The Contenders:
Deborah Kerr: From Here to Eternity
Leslie Caron: Lili
Ava Gardner: Mogambo
Maggie McNamara: The Moon is Blue
Audrey Hepburn: Roman Holiday (winner)

Be Careful What You Wish For

Film: Room at the Top
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop.

Say the word “romance” in the context of a movie and certain things immediately come to mind, don’t they? What you don’t expect is something harsh and brutal and aimed specifically at depressing the audience. I had this exact experience when I watched A Place in the Sun, which has the downbeat ending to end all. Room at the Top heads in the same direction. It doesn’t go all the way there, but it comes pretty close.

Joe Lampton (Laurence Harvey) has arrived in the town of Warnley as a result of getting a new job in the local government office. The job is solid and safe, but low paying. Joe meets up with coworker Charles Soames (Donald Houston) to help get settled into his new town. Joe comments that what he really wants is one of the big houses up on the hill. He wants everything that comes with it as well, and sets about with a will to get it. The target of that is young Susan Brown (Heather Sears), the daughter of one of the local wealthy industrialists. To get to know her bette,r Joe becomes a member of the local thespians, since Susan likes to act a bit as well.

Finishing Best Picture...Again

Film: 12 Years a Slave
Format: DVD from Northern Illinois University Founders Memorial Library on laptop.

There wasn’t a great deal of surprise in 12 Years a Slave. I pretty much figured it would be like watching a much shorter version of Roots, and I was right in the main. I can’t honestly imagine how someone might make a positive film about slavery and I’m sure I wouldn’t want to see someone try. There’s a part of me that wonders what the point of a film like 12 Years a Slave is. As soon as I have that thought, though, I remember that stories like this are important. We need to be reminded of our past.

The title of this says it all, of course. We’re going to witness the life of a man who was sold into slavery and lived it for 12 years. The man in question is Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free man living in upstate New York. He is a talented violinist and is contacted by a couple of men who wish for him to come to Washington to accompany their circus. Of course, it’s a ruse. The men kidnap him and pass him off as an escaped slave named Platt. He is first purchased by a “good” master named William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). All is not peaches and cream, though. It’s immediately evident that Platt/Northup is an educated man, which brings him into direct conflict with Ford’s overseer, John Tibeats (Paul Dano). This conflict escalates to the point where Ford is forced to sell Northup to a man named Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender).

Wakey Wakey

Film: Awakenings
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

Of all the actors I have encountered in this massive project, none is so frustrating as Robin Williams. When Williams is reined in by a strong director and force to stay on task, he is capable of both brilliant and affecting performances. When left to his own devices, he is embarrassing. Fortunately for us, Awakenings was directed by Penny Marshall, who has the chops to keep Williams under control, which means we’re in for one of his better and more affecting performances. The other bonus here is that we get Robert De Niro in the sort of role that seems out of character for him.

Awakenings is based on the real experience of Dr. Oliver Sacks in working with patients who had been catatonic for years after surviving encephalitis. Here, Sacks is fictionalized as Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams), who takes a job in a psychiatric hospital after working exclusively as a researcher and laboratory doctor. Sayer is uncomfortable around people and patients, and almost for this reason becomes fascinated with this collection of patients who are, essentially human statues.