Time After Time After Time After Time

Films: La Jetee
Format: Online video on laptop.

While it’s only been a week since I started this blog for real, I thought it was time to get myself out of my comfort zone and do something new. Up until now, everything I’ve watched has been in English with only one exception (M), and I’d already seen everything at least once before. So, it was time to move into uncharted territory. Thus, I decided to not only look at something in a different language—French in this case—but that was also completely new to me.

Of course, that’s not entirely true in the case of La Jetee. While I haven’t seen this film before, I have seen the film that came from it, and it’s a movie I love very much. Terry Gilliam used this film as an inspiration for 12 Monkeys to the point where a special notice on his film was included to give Chris Marker at least some credit for inspiring Gilliam.

La Jetee cannot be considered as anything other than an art film. In fact, the only real thing it has in common with a traditional film is a narrator. It is not a moving picture as most of us are used to in that it doesn’t actually move. Instead, it is a series of black and white stills linked into a cohesive story by a narrator.

With its short running time, there isn’t a lot of room for exposition in the film; instead, things just kind of happen without much explanation given to us. We start at Orly in Paris as a young boy and his family watch the planes take off and land. The young boy is struck by a particular image, a combination of the sun, the jetty, and a woman’s face. Later, the boy realizes that he has just witnessed a man being killed on the jetty, and this may well be why the image stays with him.

Later (and yes, this is essentially the plot device used here), World War III starts. Paris, and presumably the rest of the world is completely destroyed and people are forced to live underground. With the world uninhabitable, the scientists who live underground are forced to try a variety of experiments. The only way to find what they need to survive—food, medicine—is to travel through time, back to the past. But surviving in the past is impossible for most men. Waking up in an old time as an adult would drive most men mad. The only way for this experiment to work is to find a man who can truly imagine the past.

The most successful at this is the boy from the jetty years before, mostly because of the strength of the vision he has of the jetty at Orly and the woman’s face. Subjected to experiment after experiment, he calls up images from a past time, essentially travelling back through time, where he meets the girl he remembers from the jetty years before. But this time, he is an adult and not a boy.

***HERE THERE BE SPOILERS***

The point of the film is that the boy at the beginning, the man killed on the jetty, and the man traveling back into time are all the same person. The boy, essentially, witnesses his own death. It is an existential moment that will, in one way, continue to repeat itself ad infinitum. The boy grows up to become the man who is killed in front of the boy who grows up to be the man who is killed in front of the boy, ad nauseum. There is a beauty here, though, of a life so perfectly created and contained that its beginning contains the seeds of its own end, and that its end creates its beginning.

***THUS ENDETH THE SPOILERS***

Because of the path this film takes, I don’t think it could possibly be anything but French. It is a truly existential experiment, one that could not come from a different culture or time. While Gilliam used this film to inspire 12 Monkeys, I don’t think that film would have happened without this one first. It is without question a French invention, and a set piece of French sensibilities.

La Jetee is tragic and sad, and yet filled with its own beauty and wonder. It is a film that I believe will stay with me for a long time, if only because of the way that it works and the way that the story unfolds. It is not a fantastic example of storytelling, nor narration at its best, but it is a wonder of imagination and inventiveness.

Incidentally, if you have already seen 12 Monkeys, the ending of this film is quite similar, and you should go up and read the spoilers. If you’ve seen the one, there are no surprises here in the other.

Why to watch La Jetee: A quiet, tragic beauty and an inventive story.
Why not to watch: 26 minutes of still photography and existential angst.

Tyler Durden says, "Watch These Twice!"

Films: The Sixth Sense, Fight Club
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop (The Sixth Sense), DVD from personal collection on laptop (Fight Club).



















I am always suspicious of people whose names appear to be too perfect. M. Night Shyamalan, for instance, writes and directs movies about disturbing, dark things, and his middle name is “Night.” It’s a little too perfect. I prefer to imagine that his real middle name is something like Gary and that he changed it for effect. Maybe I’m wrong and that’s his real name. If so, I apologize to Mr. Shyamalan, but if I’m right…

Regardless, Shyamalan tends to create movies that use a shock ending or a huge twist as their stock in trade. It’s what initially made him famous with the release of The Sixth Sense, and what viewers of his movies always look for with every new one. David Fincher’s films don’t necessarily have that problem, but he doesn’t always shy away from them either, and never more effectively than in Fight Club. These two films depend in some way on the big reveal, or the big surprise to get to the end. Because of that, they’re nearly impossible to discuss without giving up that big reveal.

***HERE THERE BE SPOILERS***

The magical moment of The Sixth Sense is not when young Cole (Haley Joel Osment) says the now-famous “I see dead people” line. Instead, it’s the big reveal when we discover that Dr. Crowe (Bruce Willis) didn’t survive the attack by his former patient at the start of the movie. It’s a moment that works and works brilliantly. Some people like to claim that they saw the end coming, that they knew all along, and I don’t believe them. It’s brilliantly handled throughout the film.

Dr. Crowe appears to interact with people around him, and at times, those people appear to interact with him as well, but this is something we do ourselves in the watching of the movie. It’s on the second viewing that it becomes evident that his wife really doesn’t see him, that he never really speaks with Cole’s mother (Toni Collette), and that he really doesn’t ever interact with anyone but Cole himself.

Because of this, watching The Sixth Sense a second time is an entirely different experience than watching it the first time. Once you’re aware of what the great secret behind story is, you can see all of the foreshadowing that Shyamalan put there, which allows the film to work at a second level. It still functions as a thriller, but the scary moments are far less so once you also know what it is the spirits Cole sees are after.

The same is true of Fight Club. Here, of course, the big reveal moment is when it becomes evident that the narrator (Edward Norton) and Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) are actually the same person. Interestingly, though, this doesn’t so much change the view of the entire movie as it does the single character of Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter). On a first viewing, Marla is, bluntly, a crazy bitch who acts not only as Tyler’s special friend in the bedroom but also as a constant thorn in the side of the narrator. On a second viewing, knowing that the two men are sharing the same body, Marla becomes the most sympathetic character in the film. Instead of her driving the narrator insane, the narrator himself is treating her like garbage.

And here is where the two movies diverge for me completely. The Sixth Sense is brilliant in its own way, mostly because of the expert handling of that shock reveal. There are legitimately enough clues in the film to see that Dr. Crowe is one of the spirits haunting Cole, but this is handled deftly enough that it isn’t obvious until a second viewing. This is not as true in Fight Club, where the clues are much less obvious.

***THUS ENDETH THE SPOILERS***

In addition to the secret surprise ending, The Sixth Sense trades on a few tremendous scares and a couple of iconic moments. The most famous line from the film, arguably one of the greatest of the last 20 years or so, is the young boy lying in a hospital bed, saying, “I see dead people” to his psychologist. Other scenes rank highly, though. Cole sitting in his tent, seeing his breath in the air made freezing by the presence of a ghost, the clothespins holding the blankets together snapping off one by one, for instance, is still effective. Once we as the audience realize that Cole’s seeing of dead people is reality and not insanity, we begin to accept their presence regardless of how terrifying that presence might be.

But the very major twist at the end of the film that makes The Sixth Sense so iconic as a movie, and what made it work so well, is also the very thing that makes further rewatching of the movie less interesting. The first time gives us the surprise, the second gives us the chance to pick up on all of the dropped hints…and after that, there are no surprises left.

It reminds me of the Shirley Jackson story “The Lottery.” I can remember being assigned that for the first time in school and being surprised at the way the story ended. Then I was assigned the story a second time by a different teacher the next year in school. And like The Sixth Sense, it was a completely different story the second time around. And then I was assigned it again. And again. And again. Finally, the last time I was assigned that story in a class, I came back the next day and commented to the class at large that I found the story funny. The rest of the class didn’t see it, but I had read that story so many times, over and over, that it had lost its ability to surprise me or frighten me. The Sixth Sense is like that. After a couple of viewings, there is nothing more for it to give.

Often, two different movie companies in Hollywood will release very similar films at almost the exact same time. Armageddon and Deep Impact, for instance, or Volcano and Dante’s Peak. Roughly a month after The Sixth Sense came out, another film with similar themes was released. Stir of Echoes is also about a young boy who sees dead people and is compelled to help them. Sadly, Stir of Echoes was lost in the furor around The Sixth Sense despite the fact that it is in many ways a much better movie. The young boy is far more tragic, there is no reveal that prevents multiple rewatchings, and the ending is so existentially terrifying that, at least for me, it is also significantly more affecting.

Fight Club doesn’t have this problem. While the movie is different a second time, it also continues to reveal little subtleties every time it is watched. Fight Club works not because of a particular piece of cinematic sleight of hand, but because it is about far more than just the secret it carries. Fight Club is all about the irony, not the shock.

What makes Fight Club tick is the disparity between Tyler Durden’s spoken philosophy and the reality of what that philosophy becomes in practice. At one point, in an impassioned speech, Tyler says to the audience, “You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet.” It’s a good, solid philosophy, one that I find fairly life affirming. I am more than my job and my car. But over the course of the movie, when Tyler’s and the narrator’s personal path of self destruction gets truly underway and they begin Project Mayhem, the men who have decided to be more than the contents of their wallet become something far less. While they may be more than the contents of their wallets and more than their cars, at the center of Project Mayhem, they all dress the same way, all look the same, and have even surrendered their names. In trying to be something other than what society wants, they instead become less than they were, a nearly perfect irony. It’s an irony foreshadowed by the narrator’s taking a different fake name at every support group he goes to.

Beyond this, Fight Club features a narrator capable of the most staggering observations, most of which are tossed off as blithe asides, simply thrown away and yet worth remembering. It’s a movie worthy of studying simply because the observations are fascinating and the way in which they are revealed is so forthright and upfront that there is nothing else like it. How can you ignore lines like, “If I did have a tumor, I’d name it Marla. Marla. The little scratch on the roof of your mouth that would heal if only you could stop tonguing it, but you can’t.”

So ultimately, Fight Club works better because it’s a movie that can be watched over and over, while The Sixth Sense really doesn’t function well after the second viewing. It’s worth noting that after directing Fight Club, director David Fincher went on to direct Panic Room, Zodiac, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. M. Night Shyamalan hasn’t done anything but, in general, disappoint his audience since the release of The Sixth Sense.

Why to watch The Sixth Sense: A few iconic moments and the line “I see dead people.”
Why not to watch: You’ve already seen it twice or you’ve seen the superior Stir of Echoes.

Why to watch Fight Club: It’s made of equal parts awesome and rock and roll.
Why not to watch: Because you’re a lily-livered Nancy boy.

"M" is for Morbid

Film: M
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on laptop.

The women in my family, or at least my wife and older daughter, are in love with pugs. In their world, there is nothing so loveable and adorable as a pug. I’m not so enamored with the little dogs. They’ve got smashed faces and buggy eyes. If a pug was turned into a human being, it would look quite a bit like Peter Lorre.

Of course, this says nothing of the quality of Lorre’s acting, or in this case of Fritz Lang’s film, M. Lorre was perhaps the perfect person to play the role of Hans Beckert, a role that required the lead to have something of a disturbing look to him. The reason is that Beckert is a child murderer, and through implication throughout the film, a child molester.

Beckert hunts children, and his presence on the hunt is announced by his whistling a piece from Edvard Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” The people of this unnamed German city are naturally going berserk over the murders, causing riots every time anyone speaks to a child in public. The police are in overdrive, and have continually raided the known haunts of the city’s criminal elements.

This causes a huge amount of consternation in the criminal community, since all of the people in the city’s united criminal underworld are being pinched by the police. In an effort to restore their own criminal enterprises back on a paying basis, the criminals set up a network of beggars to keep an eye out for the child killer with the hopes of bringing him to justice themselves.

What’s worth noting here is Fritz Lang’s use of what now are common film techniques. In 1931, however, all film techniques were new ones. As the criminals meet to discuss their plans for finding and destroying the child killer, for instance, the police are meeting at the same time. Lang cuts between the two conversations in a montage, having one conversation pick up where the other leaves off, back and forth for several minutes.

Lang also uses sound in interesting ways. Beckert himself is introduced by his whistling long before he is ever seen on screen. There are sound-based jokes as well; a beggar covers his ears while listening to a badly-tuned organ grinder, and the music reappears only when he uncovers his ears. In fact, it is sound testimony given by a blind beggar that ultimately verifies the guilt of Beckert, a plot device that could not have happened in a movie half a dozen years before.

While all of these things are noteworthy, what is truly remarkable in M is the way that Hans Beckert is treated not by the police or the criminal element, but by the film itself. There is no question of the man’s guilt, and no question that he is committing one of the most terrible crimes any human being can possibly commit, and is doing so over and over. His capture is something that everyone should want, and yet his treatment by the film, while not sympathetic in any way, is at least understanding. Beckert, given the opportunity to defend himself, makes a fairly compelling argument. It is the case, he claims, that he is compelled to do what he does by something he cannot control while other criminals have chosen to break the law.

Until I had watched the film, I was unclear as to its name. The answer becomes obvious about mid-way through the movie. Identified by his whistling, a criminal arranges to place a mark on Beckert’s back, a chalk “M” identifying him to the underworld so he can be tailed. Roughly the same time this happens, the police also break the case, leading to a confrontation among Hans Beckert, the city’s criminal underworld, and the police.

M is a staggering film for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the daunting subject matter for a year like 1931. It is brilliantly made and acted, daring and impressive. In addition to this, there are elements of humor dropped into the film, a surprise in a film that deals with such an uncomfortable subject. On trial by the criminal element, Beckert’s defense attorney demands to know what right another criminal, a paid assassin, has to judge his “client.” Such touches are deft, and easily overlooked on a first pass.

The film unquestionably belongs to Lorre, who is both terrible and pitiable. He is a monster of the sort shown in another 1931 film, Frankenstein. There is no question that he must be destroyed. It is equally undeniable, though, that he is a product of something other than himself, that he was created by society, or upbringing, or something greater and more terrible than what he became. That such a creature could be viewed with anything approaching pity in the final reel is a testament to what Lang was able to accomplish.

Why to watch M: Few filmmakers today have the guts to make a film like M today; that Lang had the guts 80 years ago deserves some respect.
Why not to watch: The subject matter is too disturbing.

It's All in Your Head, Man!

Films: Pi, Jacob’s Ladder
Format: DVD from personal collection on laptop (Pi), DVD from personal collection on big ol’ television (Jacob’s Ladder).

There was a time in my life when I was more than good at math. In high school, I studied calculus, and started college as an engineering student. Then I got to multiple variable calculus—pure theoretical math—and it was time for me to switch to something else. If I could wish for anything, it’s that I understood math better than I do.

Darren Aronofsky’s Pi starts with the assumption that math is the center of the universe in all respects, that math can explain anything and that everything in nature is a mathematical construct. We follow the person of Max Cohen, a mathematician searching for something that everyone would love to find: predictable patterns in the stock market. The theory Max works under is that because math is the language of nature, nature itself is a pattern. There must be a pattern in everything, including something as complex and complicated and chaotic as the New York Stock Exchange.

Max is vastly troubled, however. The moment his is introduced to us, we discover that as a narrator, he is extremely unreliable. He frequently takes large amounts of medication, both in pill form and by injection, and appears to have frequent hallucinations. People appear and disappear on the subway, visions come to him at random, and there is virtually no end to his paranoia. A man with a bleeding hand appears in subway terminals, and at one point, Max finds a pulsing human brain on the subway stairs.

Max’s paranoia is evidenced by the extreme number of locks on his door. The locks are there to protect Euclid, his computer, which Max uses to make stock market predictions. Max is also disturbed by a woman named Marcy Dawson from a brokerage who wants answers from him as well as a Hassidic Jew who is searching for numerical truth in the Torah.

While making predictions, Euclid blows a gasket and spits out what Max believes to be a series of random meaningless numbers. He discards the printout only to later discover several important facts. First, his mentor Sol encountered a string of random numbers during his own research with pi, a string of about 216 digits, roughly the same length as the random number string Max got from Euclid. Second, he learns that the Kabala students are looking for a string of 216 digits in the Torah, because this number string represents the true name of God.

As Max continues to push for the 216-digit number his world falls more and more apart and he descends further and further into madness. The answers he wants appear to be everywhere, taunting him, and yet just barely out of his grasp, a fact that drives him on while it pushes him further into insanity, evidenced by the slow progression of the number of pills Max takes at regular intervals.

Frankly, I’m not sure what to make of Pi, although I’m fascinated by it. Much like mathematics itself, I find the film compelling, and yet beyond my grasp at the same time. The black and white cinematography adds a great deal to the film—this film would not be nearly as effective or disturbing in color. The fantastic soundtrack adds to the head trip as well as is the strange camera work. In essence, for me, Pi is what the secret of the 216-digit number is for Max; it’s just out of reach and I can’t turn away from it.

















As with Pi, much of Jacob’s Ladder takes place in the protagonist’s head. Jacob Singer (Tim Robbins) is a Vietnam veteran whose platoon suffered near total casualties due to a disturbing attack. Singer, back home now, is having a strange series of flashbacks to the night in question. He also has flashbacks to his first marriage and his son Gabriel (an uncredited Macaulay Culkin), who was killed in a traffic accident. More disturbing is the fact that he’s seeing distorted and horrifying creatures virtually everywhere, things that look like demons. Many of them move in disturbing fashions, doing that rapid headshaking thing which prevents one from focusing on the object in question. Despite his Ph.D., Singer now works in the post office with his current lover, Jezebel (Elizabeth Pena).

Singer’s flashbacks intrude on his waking life, and it becomes impossible to tell what is the dream and what is reality. The only solace he has is from his chiropractor (Danny Aiello), who frequently repairs Singer’s back and gives him advice to hold onto. Singer flashes between his life with Jezzie, his former family, Vietnam, and a nightmare world of demons until it becomes impossible to know which reality is the true one.

***HERE THERE BE SPOILERS***

I find it impossible to talk about Jacob’s Ladder without getting into what the movie actually means, or at least means to me, and this means getting into the ending. If you haven’t seen the film and don’t want the ending to be ruined , you should probably skip down to the end now.

The question to be asked when watching Jacob’s Ladder is what each of us will see when we die. The answer the film seems to be giving is that where we end up after our death is our own decision. Moving on means giving up on the life we had, and that clinging to life essentially tortures us and breaks us down. Jacob’s Ladder puts a new spin on the old “it was all a dream” motif, giving us a two-hour ride into a man’s mind as he decides whether or not to make peace with his life or cling to the scraps that remain.

***THUS ENDETH THE SPOILERS***

Both of these movies are difficult to classify in terms of genre. Neither one fits comfortably into any particular type of movie. Both have elements of horror films, and both are unquestionably at least partly psychological drama. Both can also be difficult to watch, although of the two, Jacob’s Ladder is both scarier and more rewatchable.

The human mind is a terrible thing to waste, and a very scary place to get lost in, as both of these films aptly demonstrate.

Why to watch Pi: It’s a head trip like no other, a disturbing, waking dream.
Why not to watch: You’re not ready to be more freaked out by math than usual.

Why to watch Jacob’s Ladder: An old trope given new and terrifying clothing.
Why not to watch: You scare easily.

I Been Workin' on the Railroad

Film: The Bridge on the River Kwai
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on little bitty bedroom television.


While there are plenty of great war movies out there, World War II gets the lion’s share of really great ones. Sure there are a couple of American Revolutionary War films worth watching, some classic World War I films, a number of great Vietnam films, even a very good one from the Crimean War, but if you start listing great war movies, my guess is that half or more will concern themselves with the years between 1939 and 1945.

When it comes to World War II movies, there are two specific categories that seem to be relatively popular. The first is prison movies, and indeed, many of the great WWII films are based at least in part on prison life. Von Ryan’s Express, The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape, and Stalag 17 all take place entirely or in large part inside a military prison. The other that seems extraordinarily popular is the “secret mission” film. Shining Through, Saving Private Ryan, The Guns of Navarone, and Where Eagles Dare fall into this broad category. Today’s film, The Bridge on the River Kwai, involves both prisons and secret missions.

We begin in a prison camp in Thailand where Commander Shears (William Holden) and an associate are burying another prisoner who has died from beriberi. They watch as a large group of British soldiers enter the camp whistling the "Colonel Bogey March." You may not know it by this name, but when you were a kid, you probably sang lyrics to it that went like this:

Comet! It makes your bathroom clean!
Comet! It tastes like gasoline!
Comet! It makes you vomit!
So get some Comet and vomit today!

The British contingent is lead by Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), who is the epitome of a British officer. The camp commandant, Colonel Saito(Sessue Hayakawa), instructs the new prisoners on the realities of life at the camp. There are no wires, there is no fence, there are no watchtowers. These things aren’t needed, because anyone who tries to escape will be killed by something far worse in the jungle. He also tells the group that in the morning, everyone will begin working on the bridge that the camp has been charged to build. Nicholson reminds Saito that officers are prohibited from doing manual labor.

The next morning, all hell breaks loose. Nicholson refuses to order his officers to work, and we have a stand-off between Saito and Nicholson. Saito refrains from shooting the officers on the advice of the British medical officer, Major Clipton (James Donald). Instead, he leaves them to stand at attention in the tropical heat. At the end of the day, the officers are placed in a small hut as punishment, while Nicholson is placed in a metal box to sweat it out.

What happens next is a contest of wills. Nicholson refuses to budge, maintaining his dignity as best he can in the iron box, doing his best to walk ramrod straight when he is called out for meetings. Saito tells him that if the bridge isn’t built in time, he (Saito) will be forced to commit suicide. Nicholson remains unmoved, and eventually, on the brink of death himself, gets Saito to relent. At this point, Nicholson takes over the construction of the bridge and turns it into a British operation, taking the construction seriously. His goal, noble as it seems at first, is to regain and then retain the morale of his men—to keep them soldiers instead of slaves. The bridge is his means to do this, and rather than create a temporary rail bridge, he plans to build one that will last for hundreds of years.

In the meantime, Shears escapes, and is shot in the attempt. Wounded, he makes it back to friendly lines, where he tells the British authorities about the rail bridge, Nicholson, and Colonel Saito. The British hatch a scheme to destroy the bridge, and they want Shears to go with them. This team, lead by a Major Warden (Jack Hawkins) needs Shears, and has the way to get him to go with them. It seems that Shears really isn’t Shears. When his ship sank, he came ashore with Commander Shears, but Shears was killed. The William Holden character traded uniforms with the dead Shears in the hopes of better treatment. He uses this as a way to get out of the mission, but discovers that the British already know the ruse, and he’s stuck.

And that’s really the movie here. One guy wants to get a bridge built; another group wants to bring the bridge down. But as with any great movie, there’s much more at stake here than a simple bridge. This movie is about duty. What does it mean to fulfill one’s duty, and how does anyone truly know what his duty is? Where does duty stop and madness begin? Is attempting to keep his men British soldiers in essence committing treason by building a bridge for the Japanese?

All of these questions are asked in the course of the film, and as with most great works of art, the answer isn’t given. It’s left to the viewer to determine the value and impact of Nicholson’s, Saito’s, Warden’s and Shears’s actions and the results of those actions. Each acts from a sense of duty, and each is compelled to his actions by something greater than himself. Warden is particularly interesting here, although I cannot be specific without giving away the ending.

The Bridge on the River Kwai stands as a great movie not because the story is so noteworthy, but because the theme is so excellently addressed. It’s just as worth watching now as when it was created. It’s just as powerful, just as moving, and just as great.

Why to watch The Bridge on the River Kwai: Like most WWII prison movies, a great and intense film, and a brilliant character study.
Why not to watch: It’s long, and the action sequences are few and far between.

My Day in Court

Films: 12 Angry Men, Anatomy of a Murder
Format: Internet video on laptop (12 Angry Men); DVD from DeKalb Public Library on big ol’ television (Anatomy of a Murder)


Courtroom dramas have a long history in film, and with good reason. A trial, at least a good trial, is inherently filled with drama. In these two movies, the cases involve murder, which makes them even more interesting because, well, they’re about murder. Of the two films, only Anatomy of a Murder smacks of realism; 12 Angry Men simply doesn’t.

Fortunately for us, 12 Angry Men doesn’t have to be reality for it to be a noteworthy film and worth watching. In this movie, the trial is merely window dressing for the actual story here. In fact, we only get to see the very tail end of the trial when the judge charges the jury with its job of finding the accused guilty or innocent. The case is that of a young man accused of murdering his father with a switchblade, and it feels very much like an open and shut case. At the outset, 11 of the jurors believe the young man is guilty while one is undecided and wants to talk more about the case itself before deciding.

That’s all—since it’s a murder case in New York in the late ‘50s, the death penalty is on the table if a guilty verdict is returned, and he just wants to be sure.

Using that as a starting point, 12 Angry Men is an allegory, plain and simple. In fact, it’s so much an allegory that the characters don’t even have names beyond their juror numbers except for the very end. Except for the first few and last few minutes, the entire film takes place in a jury room, making it one of the easiest sets ever created in the history of film.

It’s also an allegory in the sense that the 12 characters are, in no small sense, caricatures, or at least idealized stereotypes. Henry Fonda, as Juror 8, the lone holdout, is the man who stands against society because it is the right thing to do. Ed Begley, Juror 10, is the racist who makes his decisions based not on fact but on prejudice. Jack Warden, Juror 7, equates everything to a sports analogy and makes jokes throughout the case. E. G. Marshall is a man of logic who makes his decisions rationally, while Lee J. Cobb plays the tortured father, damaged by his relationship with his son and looking to rain down justice on someone else’s son.

As the film goes on, Juror 8 slowly begins convincing others of his side of the story. He brings up subtle points that the defense attorney missed. He slowly starts to build the idea of reasonable doubt in the minds of the other men, who one by one start to understand his point of view.

For the story being told here, a jury trial is merely a convenience; the movie is really about the power of standing against the crowd, of believing in oneself and going against the masses for the right reason. The actions and responsibility of a jury simply make that story more easily told. As the case continues to unfold in the jury room, each of the men at some point reveals himself for what he is.

The actual guilt or innocence of the young man on trial is never revealed, because it isn’t important. Ultimately, the jury’s decision isn’t that important either. What is important is the actions of Juror 8 in standing his ground and simply wanting to make sure that the case is fully discussed before any decision is made. The interplay of the characters is what makes the film work, and what makes the film so compelling to watch. It certainly helps that the film is brilliantly acted by all involved.

There are plenty of similarities with Anatomy of a Murder. While the actual verdict here is much more important to the outcome of the movie, what is more important is the method by which that verdict is reached. Anatomy of a Murder is more of a look at the trial system and its potential faults than the actual guilt of the accused man.

The man here is a Lieutenant Frederick Manion, played by Ben Gazzara. Manion shot a man named Barney Quill, who owned a local bar. He admits the killing, but also claims that he was justified in the murder because Quill had raped Manion’s wife Laura, played by Lee Remick. The defense attorney, Paul Biegler, played by Jimmy Stewart, is reluctant to take the case initially, but does so.

His reasons for taking the case are two-fold. He’s a former district attorney recently run out of office by a new hotshot named Mitch Lodwick. Since losing the position, Biegler has spent his days on a fishing boat avoiding work, playing jazz piano in bars, and drinking with his alcoholic mentor Parnell McCarthy, played by Arthur O’Connell. This case gives him a shot at taking on the man who removed him from his former office to prove that he’s the better man. The second reason is that he’s convinced Manion that he’s got a potential defense. Lodwick, wanting to make a splash with a murder conviction, brings in assistance from the Attorney General’s office in the form of Claude Dancer, played by George C. Scott.

Biegler, like any good defense attorney, is more concerned with winning the case, even on a technicality than he is about the potential innocence of his client. Of concern are the things that stand against Manion’s chances for acquittal. There’s no real evidence that Laura Manion was raped, and that’s a major strike. Manion himself is unlikeable and somewhat nasty. Most important is that Laura Manion is a flirt and a manchaser, and there’s substantial evidence that Barney Quill may not have so much raped her as committed a consensual act with her, and was then killed for making time with the wrong man’s wife. This is best evidenced by her appearance at a juke joint with several strange men while her husband languishes in prison, followed by her steamy play for Biegler’s attentions.

Is this an indictment of the trial system in the United States? It well may be, and it’s a good one. Regardless of the motives of Otto Preminger concerning American jurisprudence, there are some noteworthy parts of this film that need to be addressed. The jazz soundtrack is one of the best around, and was composed and performed by Duke Ellington, who makes a cameo appearance as a band leader at a honkytonk. Additionally, the film breaks formerly taboo territory in terms of subject matter. While earlier films have covered some dangerous ground, this one brings in some language that hadn’t really been heard in films before. There’s plenty of talk of semen and panties, for instance, which was pretty racy for 1959.

One of the more interesting additions to this film is the personage of the judge who presides over the trial of Manion. This part is played by Joseph N. Welch, who is most famous for defending the U.S. Army in the McCarthy hearings. He’s the guy who stood up to McCarthy and said, “Have you no sense of decency, sir; at long last, have you left no sense of decency?"

Anatomy of a Murder focuses on points of law and procedure. Innocence and guilt simply aren’t critical to the case. Biegler arranges his case by asking the right questions that can’t be answered in open court to get the jury thinking the way he wants, working his case not by proving his client innocent but instead by planting ideas in the minds of the jury. He pushes the idea of the rape so consistently, that when the prosecution eventually slips up, he gets the evidence placed into the record.

In other words, looked at side by side, these two films demonstrate both the greatest strengths and the greatest weaknesses of our legal system. Fascinating that the greatest strength and the greatest weakness are so similar.

Why to watch 12 Angry Men: Twelve great roles perfectly acted.
Why not to watch: You need to know if the guy was guilty or not.

Why to watch Anatomy of a Murder: Great jazz, interesting twists and turns, and a sexy Lee Remick.
Why not to watch: You don’t want to consider that American justice might be flawed.

The Lord of the Recliner

Films: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, extended versions
Format: DVD from personal collection, big ol’ television



















So why start here? Several reasons. When I first came up with this lunatic idea, it occurred to me that at least for a few days, I’d probably have to depend on my personal collection of films. It also made sense to start with a grand gesture, and few gestures could be more grand than an 11-hour sit-down. More importantly, psychologically, The Lord of the Rings trilogy concerns a great quest against impossible odds. Since I feel that that’s what I’m on, watching a bunch of people do the impossible gives me some hope.

Depending on which fanboy you talk to, The Lord of the Rings as envisioned by Peter Jackson and company is either the greatest achievement in the history of humanity or the largest abomination of the same. One breed of fanboy is excited to see a fantasy film (or three) that doesn’t flat-out suck, which makes these movies the pinnacle of moviedom. The others see any deviation from Tolkien’s story as rank heresy, and since the movies do deviate in significant ways, they must thus be worthless.

Fortunately, as far as this production goes, I am not a fanboy. While I’m certainly a geek/nerd/dork, I’ve actually never made it through the entire written trilogy. I’ve read most of it, but I can’t get all the way through. Page after page of dwarven poetry really does nothing for me except make me sleepy. So, dork though I am, I’m evidently not a very good dork. As I am not a true fanboy, I don’t have an extreme opinion on The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The trilogy is a huge achievement. Merely adapting the books into something that could be legitimately filmed is noteworthy. It is also gorgeous to look at. When the trilogy was in theaters, people made a great deal of noise about the fantastic scenery of New Zealand, and it truly is spectacular enough that it looks like a fantasy world. It’s not just that, though. The filmmakers created an entire world for these movies—everything looks like it fits, from the old books and maps to the racks of mugs in Bag End.

Each of the movies in and of themselves is a remarkable piece of film. Beyond that, it also works very subtly. After the introduction , we are quickly introduced to Bilbo Baggins, but the first truly major character we see is Samwise Gamgee, who in many ways is the true hero of the trilogy. He’s not named in this quick shot of him holding a plant, but it’s a quick glimpse at the character who not only holds the introduction to hobbits together, but who ultimately holds the trilogy together as well.

The other remarkable thing about the entire trilogy is that despite the presence of elves, dwarves, orcs, uruk-hai, wizards, and the like throughout, they are essentially human films. For all of its epic sweep, this is essentially the story of people, and their own growth. Each character, or at least each major character, has his or her own story arc, and follows a personal journey as the ring goes on its trip from the Shire to Mount Doom. Eowyn, for instance, goes from being a troubled maiden to a true power. Aragorn deals not only with the threat to his world but his own reneging of duties and destiny to become a true leader of men. Pippin and Merry grow up and become men. And so on. Every character is more than simply something in support of Frodo’s quest to destroy the ring, but has a story independent, or at least tangential to the main storyline. Even those characters who do not survive the trilogy, like Boromir, grow and become more than they were when they started. Boromir’s weakness becomes strength before his death, and Aragorn’s benediction of him, “You fought bravely; you have kept your honor” shows this.

It’s easy to miss this growth when the films are watched days or months apart; easier to see it by far when the trilogy is viewed as a single film. Witness, for instance, the reluctance of the hobbits to pick up the blades from Aragorn on Weathertop in The Fellowship of the Ring contrasted with the immediate willingness of Merry, Pippin, and Sam to rush into battle by the middle and end of the third film. By the time the final film rolls around, it’s easy to forget where the hobbits started, since they have grown so much.

For the true die-hard fanboy, it’s easy to fault the trilogy for the changes. Shelob, for instance, appears at the end of The Two Towers in print form, but doesn’t make an appearance until a good way into The Return of the King here. Tom Bombadil is gone completely; other characters have been shoehorned into a single body. Saruman’s end may be the biggest change, or at least his fate and the fate of Wormtongue. These changes don’t bother me. Film is its own medium, and certain changes need to take place to make something filmable. To my mind, nothing significant is lost with these changes, and the telescoping that this allowed for helped streamline an already epic-length story. Instead of detracting from the story, these changes enhance the film version.

If I do have a complaint, it’s how Gimli was used as a character. From the books, I remember enough that Gimli was an honorable character, but here, while fearless, brave, and a great warrior, he is used much more for comic relief than he needs to be. Pippin and Merry already make for a good deal of comic relief, particularly in the earlier films—I would have preferred Gimli to be more than a guy who falls off his horse and trips a lot.

One aspect of the trilogy that is done particularly well is how the ante is constantly upped. I can remember watching The Fellowship of the Ring in the theater and being completely awed by the battle sequence at the end of the film. Watching Legolas drop orc after orc, Boromir nailing one with a thrown dagger, Gimli dividing his axe, even the hobbits getting a kill or two, and thinking, “that’s going to be difficult to top for awesomeness.” And then there’s Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers, followed by the battle at Minas Tirith in The Return of the King. Helm’s Deep makes the fight in the forest look like a tea party, and Minas Tirith makes Helm’s Deep look like a pillow fight. It gets consistently bigger and grander, and with more at stake.

What also works for me is how the three movies themselves interact. In, say, the Star Wars trilogy, there’s a particular trajectory that the story takes. Star Wars ends on a huge up-note, Empire on the lowest of lows, then Jedi on a larger high. The Fellowship of the Ring ends on a down note with the death of Boromir and the breaking of the fellowship, while The Two Towers ends higher after the defense of Helm’s Deep. It’s less a rollercoaster than a climb up, and I like that progression.

Of course, no one really watches The Lord of the Rings for character progression or plotline. It’s all about the effects, the costuming, and the battles. The battles truly are spectacular in the truest sense of the word. LotR is all about spectacle, about constantly and consistently showing the audience something it hasn’t seen before. Whether that’s giant oliphants in battle, hordes of orcs storming a keep, or an army of spirits, the trilogy is filled with the fantastic and amazing. Gollum/Smeagol is the greatest of these creations, a unique blend of acting and technology that looks as real as anything else in the movies.

But there’s more than this. There are scenes in all of the movies of startling beauty and power. Pippin’s song in the hall of Denethor is one of the saddest things I’ve seen in a film, and is truly beautiful and poignant. Even the extended coda, which would be unnecessary in a shorter epic (like there are longer ones) has its own beauty and wonder. It’s noteworthy again that Sam gets the last word here, too.

All in all, these three movies contain everything I want in film: spectacle, humor, action, adventure, and a believable reality I can get lost in. Ultimately, although parts were cut from the books and changes were made, Peter Jackson and company captured the idea of Tolkien’s work, the heart and spirit of it. The films contain just enough detail to make the world believable without overwhelming the audience with minor things that ultimately mean nothing. It will stand for possibly the rest of my life as one of the greatest film achievements simply to bring this work to the screen in a legitimate form, regardless of whether or not the movies were any good. It certainly doesn’t hurt that all three of the movies are truly great.

As a final note, it’s worth watching the extended versions of all three films. Unlike many extended versions that add a few minutes here and there, the additional footage across the three films here tacks on slightly more than two full hours, and virtually all of these scenes really add something to the story being told. Whether this is the scene of the gifts being given to the fellowship by Galadriel or Pippin interacting with Faramir before the failed attack on Osgiliath, these scenes reveal more about character and enrich the total package. The theatrical releases were great, and combined won 17 Oscars, but they can’t stand up to the full epic. You may also notice that I didn't talk a lot of plot here. The reason for that is simple for these movies. Either you've seen them already, or you haven't, and don't care enough about plot to read it here.

Why to watch the LotR trilogy: Arguably the greatest trilogy in film history and unquestionably the three greatest fantasy movies ever made.
Why not to watch: Because you hate fantasy.