Non-Political Politics

Film: Odd Man Out
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.


The comedian Eddie Izzard does a great impression of James Mason. Usually, it’s Izzard talking as God with the voice of James Mason. This is, I think, appropriate. James Mason was a hell of an actor. He could play anything—good guys, bad guys, misunderstood geniuses, and conflicted heroes. He happens to be the bad guy in North by Northwest, which is my favorite movie ever. How could I not love James Mason?

Mason plays an Irish rebel named Johnny McQueen in Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out. It’s never mentioned exactly what organization McQueen works for, but it’s not difficult to make the assumption that the works for the Irish Republican Army. Regardless, McQueen broke out of prison and has reunited with his cell. For months he has planned a raid on a mill to generate the cash needed to keep his cell of the organization going.

It all goes according to plan until the gang makes its break after the heist. Johnny is temporarily dazzled by the light of the sun and is attacked by a guard. In the scuffle, two shots are fired; one hits Johnny in the left shoulder while the other kills the guard. Johnny is pulled into the getaway car, but falls out, and the rest of the gang bicker and end up abandoning him while Johnny runs off to hide.

What follows is series of interconnected vignettes. We see the members of the gang fight with each other, blaming each other for what happened to Johnny. Johnny staggers off, now badly wounded both from the gunshot and the fall from the car, and finds himself in an abandoned air raid shelter left over from the war. No one wants Johnny back safely more than Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan), since it is evident she loves him desperately—although it may not be clear to Johnny himself.

While the various gang members attempt to rescue Johnny and come to a variety of conclusions, Johnny begins to hallucinate, is spotted a few times, and attempts to stumble home. What ensues throughout is that Johnny becomes less a man and more of a problem for the people who encounter him. Everyone he meets quickly discovers who he is, and either wants to help him or bring him to justice for their own selfish reasons. The police are looking for him and offering a substantial reward. Many see the betrayal of Johnny and his friends both morally correct and financially beneficial. Others see his presence as a problem to be dealt with, seeking only to shove him off to somewhere else before they are caught with him.

Where Carol Reed went right here is in keeping politics as far away from this film as he could. There’s no morality here in terms of Johnny’s believes, the rightness or wrongness of the IRA, or the actions taken by Johnny McQueen. Reed doesn’t ask us to praise Johnny and his band of revolutionaries, nor does he expect us to condemn him or be morally outraged by him. Instead, the film concerns Johnny’s struggle to survive the night, wounded and hunted like an animal, and ultimately, an animal is what he becomes.

What’s worth seeing here, though, is that Johnny is not the only one who turns into an animal. The characters who interact with Johnny act the same way. They become interested in Johnny only for what they can get from him—money, fame, power. Johnny stops being a man and starts instead to be merely an object, a thing. Conversations happen around Johnny and at him rather than with him.

Mason’s portrayal of Johnny McQueen is played in mime, essentially, for a large part of the film as people talk around and about him. Much of the drama comes from his eyes. It’s a hell of a performance to convey as much as he does throughout the film without speaking. It allows both Mason the actor and Johnny McQueen the character to deliver a rousing speech toward the end of the film in a way that is believable, even inspiring.

For a film that is ostensibly a political drama, or at least promises political overtones at the beginning, it instead turns out to be a very human drama. A police inspector hunting for Johnny to bring him to justice sums up the essential mood of the film when he says, “In my profession there is neither good nor bad. There is innocence and guilt.” Reed’s film doesn’t ask us to judge whether or not the cause is just, but how the person of Johnny McQueen should be viewed. That he is guilty is certain—the value of his beliefs is not on trial. What is a bigger question is whether or not he should be viewed with sympathy or empathy.

That sympathy can only come, however, if we are capable of viewing the man’s actions as justified. Or can it? Mason’s portrayal of the wounded and dying man is geared to create exactly that sympathy, and it works. Agree with the cause or not (and really, as a non-Irish American, I’m pretty neutral) the character engenders a significant emotional response. That’s the genius of Odd Man Out.

You want to know what’s even better? You might be able to guess the ending correctly, but you won’t really know how it’s going to turn out until the last few minutes, and yet the ending fits with everything we’ve been shown.

Why to watch Odd Man Out: Plots and twists and turns and no one to trust. Oh, and James Mason.
Why not to watch: A tendency to speak in an Irish accent once the movie is done.

I Can Count to Ten

Film: Dekalog (The Decalogue)
Format: DVDs from NetFlix on laptop.


The word “masterpiece” gets bandied about frequently when speaking of any artistic endeavor. I’ve certainly used it more than my share of times on this blog in the past eight or so months. And yet, when a true masterpiece is encountered, it is undeniable. There isn’t another word for it. When Stanley Kubrick was asked to name a masterpiece created within his lifetime, he could name only one: Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Dekalog.

This is not a film. Instead, it is a series of ten films are loosely on the Biblical Ten Commandments, or at least a version of them. It was interesting to me that there are different versions, or that they are at least broken down differently. The version I learned way back when, for instance, considered coveting as a single commandment, while the version here considers coveting a neighbor’s wife as the ninth, and a neighbor’s goods as the tenth. Regardless, the sentiments are the same despite differences in division.

Each of the ten films deals at least in a vague way with a single commandment, although the division isn’t perfectly clean. While one edict may be the main part of the story, elements of other commandments creep in and help drive each plot forward. The connection between the stories, other than the obvious Biblical references, is that all of the take place in the same block of apartments in Warsaw, each film is just shy of an hour long, and a young, unnamed man appears in the background of all but the final film. They are also all very slow to develop, with the true direction of the film often not being revealed until mid-way through. Sometimes, situations from one story or related people will crop up. The story of the second film is referenced in the eighth, for instance. The tenth film concerns the sons of a minor character in the eighth.

Because of the subject matter here, each of these stories pivots around ethical dilemmas, where people are forced into making terrible, difficult choices or are forced to deal with the consequences of decisions they have made. The main characters are placed into situations where a particular sin becomes a temptation, or even a necessity, with all that this entails.

What strikes me here is the inventiveness of some of these stories. Coming up with an hour-long drama dealing with infidelity or murder, for instance, would be easy. But how does one make a drama out of a false idol or keeping the Sabbath holy? Kieslowski, who co-wrote as well as directed these films, creates moving, beautiful stories to answer these questions, and does not stop there. The tales concerning the relatively “easy” commandments of adultery, killing, and covetousness are handled with the same level of inventiveness and style. In going deeper into each of the commandments, Kieslowski brings up and deals with complex moral issues.

For instance, in the fifth film, the topic is murder. A young man named Jacek kills a cab driver seemingly at random. The death is a terrible, brutal affair that lasts far longer than it should, either because Jacek cannot deal with his actions or because he is torturing the driver. Regardless, Jacek is caught, convicted, and sentenced to death. His attorney attempts to argue against the death penalty to no avail, and Jacek is killed, almost as terribly and brutally as the cab driver. So if killing is proscribed and Jacek a terrible human being for committing murder, why is it that we allow the state to commit the same act? How are the actions of his executioners any different from his own? Certainly this is an argument that could go around and around, but the fact that the film addresses that argument is a great thing. It’s a perfectly legitimate question, and one that the film asks, but leaves the viewer to answer.

The second film tells of a man lying in a coma. His wife continually pesters the doctor as to whether or not her husband will live. Eventually, we discover that she is pregnant by a man other than her husband. If he is going to die, she will have the baby, because she wants the baby. However, she also loves her husband, and if he is going to live, she will have an abortion. Does the doctor have the right to determine the fact of the man or the child? Does he have the right to place himself in a position before God?

The book upon which this blog is based mentions only the first of these films—Jeden—as the one to watch. I cannot agree. All of these films are beautifully done, and each is different from the next. Kieslowski, in an effort to make each film its own entity, worked with ten different cinematographers. As a matter of fact, I don’t think Jeden is the best of these films. Each has its merits, and each is worth not just watching, but pondering over. While Jeden may not be my favorite, I don’t think I can pick one I liked the best. Of them all, I think Dziesiec (10) was the most difficult to watch, although that may simply have been from my being so close to the end.

I’ve watched Dekalog over the course of the last several weeks, and I think this is the best way to watch it. The films bring up enough material that watching them straight through would quickly become overwhelming. Dekalog requires time to mull over each film and each of the moral and ethical problems posed. Don’t watch just the first one—you’re only robbing yourself if you do. Watch them all, and take your time with them. Give each one the space and thought it deserves, and you will find yourself amply rewarded.

There neither space nor time to discuss each of these films in depth, although each film is rich enough to deserve such treatment. In the interest of completeness, though, here is the story of each one (numbered as in the Polish) as well as the main commandment it concerns parenthetically:

Jeden (false idols): A young boy lives with his father, who has essentially lost his faith. Instead, the father trusts almost exclusively in his computer. The computer here is a false god, an idol given complete deference by the father, who believes in it completely.

Dwa (no other god): As mentioned above, the wife of a comatose patient is pregnant by another man. Should the doctor claim the power of God and pronounce the man dead, or should he risk the woman having an abortion against his own beliefs?

Trzy (keeping the Sabbath holy): A cab driver wishes to spend Christmas Eve (a holy day) with his family. Instead, he is contacted by a woman he once had an affair with. She claims she cannot locate her husband and begs for help. Should he keep this day sacred, or help someone who needs it?

Cztery (honoring father and mother): A young woman lives with her father, her mother having died days after giving birth. She finds a letter from her mother that tells her that the man she thought was her father is not. The film concerns how she reacts to this news and the relationship with the man who raised her.

Piec (no killing): As discussed above—the murder of a cab driver and the state sponsored execution of his killer. Why does the state have rights that the individual does not?

Szesc (no adultery): A man spies on a promiscuous woman through his apartment window. He is obsessed with her, and manufactures reasons to see her. He finally admits this to her, and she destroys his notions of romance, causing him to attempt suicide. Possibly my favorite of the ten (pictured above).

Siedem (no stealing): A girl is raised by her grandmother, not realizing that her “sister” is actually her mother. The girl’s actual mother kidnaps the girl and attempts to run away with her, stealing the girl in the way she envisions that her mother stole the girl from her.

Osiem (no false witness): An ethics professor is confronted by a translator who knew her in the past. The translator is a Jewish survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto. The professor (of ethics, no less) is the woman who denied the translator asylum after having promised it, claiming that to do so would be to bear false witness, and that it conflicted with her beliefs. Another contender for my favorite.

Dziewiec (no coveting of spouses): A doctor discovers that he is permanently impotent. He suggests to his wife that she take a lover, and then finds himself obsessed and insanely jealous of the situation, in effect coveting his own wife.

Dziesiec (no coveting of goods): Two brothers inherit an incredibly valuable stamp collection from their father, and find that it is far more trouble than it is worth.

The word “masterpiece” is overused, but here it applies. Kieslowski’s series of films is a staggering achievement, and it is relatively unknown in this country only because of its origins as a Polish television series. That’s a shame. More people should watch this. You should be one of them. Yes, you.

Why to watch Dekalog: Intelligent moral questions without preaching.
Why not to watch: Locating it isn’t easy, and people will ask you why you are watching Polish television.

To the Mattresses

Films: The Godfather, The Godfather Part II
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on middlin’-sized living room television.


If you are older than 15, you’ve probably seen both The Godfather and The Godfather Part II. My wife has not seen either of these films and doesn’t really have a lot of interest in them. That makes her one of about five adults in the world who have never seen these movies.

With that in mind, I’m going to guess that the chances are very good that, male or female, you’ve seen these movies, so I’m not going to delve into plot here much beyond the very basics. There are plenty of places both on the Internet and elsewhere you can discover summaries of these films. And really, since the combined length of the films is over six hours, even a cursory summary here will have me typing for the next hour.

Suffice it to say that The Godfather is the story of the Corleone crime family. Specifically, we have Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), who took the name when he arrived in America in the early part of the century. His last name is actually the name of the town he grew up in, and it was given to him by one of the immigration officials. Vito has four children: Sonny (James Caan), Fredo (John Cazale), Connie ( Talia Shire), and Michael (Al Pacino). Sonny is to be the next boss, and is hot-blooded and uncontrollable. Fredo is weak and not very bright. Connie is wild and spoiled. Michael is the family pride. He is to be kept out of the business so that he can be respectable.

A war starts between the Corleone family and the other crime families in New York based on the drug trade—Vito wants no part of it because it’s dirty. This leads to an assassination attempt on him, one that he survives. The war continues, significantly in that Michael enters into the conflict as an active participant despite the fact that he has always been a civilian—untouchable because he is a war hero and not a part of the criminal enterprises.

Of course, things don’t work out the way Vito Corleone planned, as Michael becomes more and more embroiled in family business, eventually ending up in charge of the family.


The sequel picks up several years after the original film stops. We also get a number of flash backs to the early oughts and the early pre-crime life of Corleone (played here by Robert De Niro). Corleone is poor, and loses his job to a crime boss in New York. When he turns to crime and is forced to give up some of his take to the boss, Vito plots to kill him and does so, leading to his eventual respect in the neighborhood and his life of crime as the head of a major syndicate, all of which is covered in the first film.

This film also concerns the continued criminal career of Michael and his role in charge of the family. Michael has learned to become ruthless, and acts in the way to best further the aims of himself and his people, despite promises to turn the family’s businesses legitimate he makes to his wife, Kay (Diane Keaton). This story is much more about Michael’s consolidation of power as the head of the family and his own maneuverings made under the tutelage of his father.

Both films are really about Michael. The first concerns his entry into the family business as the one sibling most untouched by the life of crime originally. It’s important that his entry into the criminal world is voluntary—he makes it himself rather than by force from someone else, and this dominates every decision he makes from that point forward. While the second film does include the back story of Vito Corleone, it is also Michael’s film. His efforts to make the family business legitimate come to nothing, and he can do nothing to leave the life of crime he has entered, and soon no longer has a desire to do so.

These are sprawling films filled with death and pain. They also feature tremendous casts. In addition to the people above, Robert Duvall plays Tom Hagen, the family lawyer and all but adopted son. Other roles are played by Bruno Kirby, Lee Strasberg, Troy Donohue, Abe Vigoda, Harry Dean Stanton, Danny Aiello, Sterling Hayden, and more.

It may be that The Godfather films glamorize the Mafia and the criminal life despite their bleakness. Glamorized or not, these films are tremendous portraits of the people in them. All of their stories are tragic and unhappy, and while I find it difficult to really like them, there is still a great deal of empathy for them. There is cruelty throughout, and pain, and very little that happens here is good in any sense of the word.

But it is brilliant. Both of these films won Oscars for Best Picture; the second was the first sequel to do so. The third, considered by most people to be the poor stepchild of the bunch, was nominated. It is the worst of the lot, but is still good—but suffers in comparison with the first two films. It’s hard to be the third film following two of the greatest films ever made.

Which is better? Hard to say. They are both exemplary films, evidence of Coppola’s skill at that point in his career. If you’ve never seen them, spend a day with them and allow yourself to become engrossed in them. They are worth it.

Why to watch The Godfather: Movies don’t get much better.
Why not to watch: There is no reason to not watch this film.

Why to watch The Godfather Part II: It has everything.
Why not to watch: Few films glamorize the idea of the mob more than this film.

I'd Travel to Get Away from the Cast

Film: The Accidental Tourist
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on middlin’-sized living room television.


As a parent, there are things I don’t want to experience, even in a movie. I’m not a huge fan of films that put children in danger, or worse, kill them off. The Accidental Tourist starts with a dead kid and goes from there. Macon Leary (William Hurt) and his wife Sarah (Kathleen Turner) have lost a son to a random murder, which we discover about 10 minutes in. We also discover that Macon is emotionally distant, and has not dealt with the death in a way that helps Sarah. In fact, Sarah wants a divorce, which we also discover right away.

Macon writes travel guides focused on the business traveler. Sarah, in fact, seems to think that Macon’s travel guides are an extension of him. His guides specifically instruct travelers on how to be away from home without it feeling like being away from home. His books are loaded with instructions on how to feel at home while away—what to pack and not to pack, where to go in foreign countries to feel like an American in America, and the like.

When Macon heads out for a trip to London for his next guide, he is forced to board his dog, Edward (a little Welsh corgi that looks quite a bit like my mutant corgi mix), because Sarah can’t take him where she is living. He locates a kennel run by Muriel (Geena Davis), who is the sort of wacky movie woman who also happens to be Macon’s complete opposite in almost every way. While he is reserved and dislikes human contact, she is outgoing and bubbly. The only thing they appear to have in common is marital woes—he is going through a separation while Muriel claims to be a divorcee in one of her first ten sentences.

If this is the first movie you have ever seen, you may not know what is going to happen. If, however, you have seen at least one movie in your life, you know for a fact that these two are going to hook up. In fact, when Macon picks up Edward after his trip, Muriel all but humps his leg, offering to both train Edward and to be available just to talk if Macon finds himself lonely. Since Macon seems to survive without human contact, much like lichen or sea urchins, he finds this behavior disturbing, which means that she has to call him, and she does.

After a bizarre accident involving Edward, a basket of laundry and a skateboard, Macon moves back in with his siblings Rose (Amy Wright), Porter (David Ogden Stiers), and Charles (Ed Begley, Jr.), who are all suitably wacky and kooky in the way movie families often are. They do things like alphabetize their groceries in the cabinets and act in ways that make them endearing in a cinematic way, and in ways that no humans actually act. Everyone has crazy relatives, but very few people have charming, goofy relatives that make life wacky and sweet.

Because of his broken leg from his abortive skateboarding expedition, Macon has fallen behind on his latest book, and is visited by Julian (Bill Pullman, when he was evidently 12-years-old), his publisher, who immediately becomes enamored of Rose. This is despite the fact that one of the main reasons Macon’s manuscript is behind is because Rose doesn’t have the right sized envelopes for his chapters, and is just anal retentive enough to be unwilling to send out his work until she buys envelopes that fit his work exactly. As Julian prepares to leave, Edward bites Macon, who naturally decides that it is time to get the dog trained, and naturally turns to Muriel.

What happens next should surprise no one. Macon and Muriel start to find themselves attracted to each other despite their obvious differences. Macon goes back and forth between Muriel and Sarah, who decides she wants Macon back. And that's the movie.

Here’s the thing. I genuinely dislike everyone in this movie with the exception of Macon. All he wants is to be left alone, even if the movie gives him this burning inward desire for a connection with other people. Muriel is annoying and never shuts up. Sarah does nothing but cry and feel sorry for herself. Rose needs therapy.

I find it difficult to enjoy a movie that feels so artificial. Only Macon seems like a real character while the rest are either window dressing or plot points. I don’t like these people and I don’t want to like them.

Some movies stick on the list only for a cup of coffee—an edition or two. The Accidental Tourist is one of those films. Honestly, I don’t think it should have ever been on the list on the first place.

Why to watch The Accidental Tourist: William Hurt, travel tips, and a few good dog training hints.
Why not to watch: These people need to be beaten with sticks.

Rip-leeeeeeeeeeee!

Films: Alien, Aliens
Format: DVDs from personal collection on laptop.


It’s been awhile since I updated, mostly because of a film that will be appearing here in a few days. I just received the last DVD for that, and while I’m interested in finishing that film up, I needed a break from it today. So I’m watching a couple of films I dearly love instead: Alien and its arguably better sequel, Aliens.

Alien is the story of the crew of the Nostromo, a towing ship with a crew of seven. The ship has been roving around the galaxy and is, at the start of the film, loaded with 20 million tons of unrefined ore. The ship is headed back to Earth with the crew in hypersleep, when they are suddenly awakened by a distress beacon from a nearby planet. The crew investigates and discovers something startling—a massive alien spacecraft with no evidence of survivors. The ship itself is huge, and the creatures it held, based on the scale, were massive. The skeletal remains of one sits in a chair on what passes for the bridge, with bizarre wounds—it appears to have had its ribcage burst apart from the inside.

What there is is a room filled with bizarre eggs. As the crew investigates, one of the eggs splits open and a creature leaps out, attaching itself to the faceplate of a crewman named Kane (John Hurt). It burns through the glass and attaches itself to his face. Kane is still alive, and the rest of the crew drag him back aboard the Nostromo before taking off. Any attempt to remove the creature threatens Kane’s life, so they leave him where he is. After a few days, the thing falls off his face and lies dead on the floor. This takes the first hour of the film.

Of course, if that was all there was, there wouldn’t be much of a film, let alone one of the greatest science fiction/horror films ever made. At the next meal, Kane convulses, and a brand new creature pops out of his chest in a scene that, despite being 30+ years old, is still effective and startling. The creature runs away, grows to a massive size, and then begins to pick of members of the crew one at a time. This crew, in no order, consists of Brett (Harry Dean Stanton), Lambert (Veronica Cartwright), Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Ash (Ian Holm). Once things get going, they really get going. Half an hour after Kane’s abortive last meal, half of the remaining crew is dead in one way or another.

There are other surprises along the way, of course. It would still be a great movie without all of the additional surprises that crop up along the way and the interplay of the personalities. Ash, for instance, is a hardass who tows the company line in all things. Parker and Brett just want their share of the money for the job. These characters turn into real people with depth over the course of the film, which is one of the reasons the film is so effective, as is the fact that we don’t really see many of the deaths on screen in front of us.

The two stars of this film are Sigourney Weaver as Ripley and the alien itself, which was based on the artwork of H.R. Giger. Beyond these two, and the rest of the cast, what makes the film work so well is the blending of genres. Alien is absolutely a science fiction film, but it is equally horror. Essentially, it is a slasher movie or a haunted house picture set in outer space, with higher stakes because the characters literally cannot get away from creature, since they are millions of miles away from home.

It’s worth noting that Alien was written by Dan O’Bannon, who was a college friend of John Carpenter. In fact, O’Bannon starred in Carpenter’s college film project, a low-budget science fiction comedy called Dark Star that is actually worth watching despite the $0 special effects budget (the alien in this film is played by an inflated beach ball). It’s not immediately clear to me who is responsible for the overall look of the film, but as far as I am aware, it’s the first time that a film of this type feature such a dirty, industrial look for the future. Far from the lean and clean spacecraft of earlier science fiction films, the Nostromo looks like an overcrowded factory with pipes and wires hanging everywhere, and not quite enough lighting to see everything clearly. It’s really effective. This is made even more effective by the constant smoking of the crew, which adds a foggy, smoky atmosphere to every scene.

It’s also notable in the sense of Ripley’s role. There are two female parts in this film—Ripley and Lambert. Lambert is far more of a traditional sci-fi woman’s role. She screams a lot, and spends a good bulk of the last hour crying, a stereotype often played in movies based on the idea that women are more emotionally fragile than men. Ripley, on the other hand, is a extremely strong, in-charge character. O’Bannon’s original script considered all of the character roles unisex, so there’s nothing specific about Ripley’s part that requires a woman to be in the role. What that means is that Ripley is, in many ways, one of the first film characters who is her job in the film first, and a woman second. There were certainly female asskickers in film before Ripley, but this role is different. Ripley isn’t a kung fu killer or a sexy assassin trading on looks and slinky outfits. She’s a competent performer in her job who merely happens to be a woman, making this an important film in terms of the presence and treatment of women by and in film.


Alien proved to be such a success that seven years later, its sequel was produced. Aliens does not pick up from where the first film left off, but instead gives us a new story with only one character consistent—Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley. The biggest change is the directorial duties. Ridley Scott opted not to direct the sequel, giving way to James Cameron. Cameron is much more attuned to straight action, and in this sequel he delivers.

In fact, Aliens is very much a straightforward science fiction film. While there are scares and jump moments here, no one would call this film horror. It takes place nearly 60 years after the original film. Ripley’s escape pod has been rescued, and she learns that, to coin a film cliché, everyone she knows and loves is dead, including her daughter. She’s put on trial by Weyland-Yutani, the company she worked for because of the destruction of the Nostromo, and is banned from finding work in the same field. Shortly thereafter, she is contacted by the company again when a terrible secret is revealed. The company has placed settlers on the original planet, and they have now lost contact with the colony.

Ripley, because she is the only one to have survived contact with the alien species the first time, agrees to return to the planet to investigate what has happened. She accompanies a team of marines who are going just in case the worst has happened (and if you know anything about films, you already know that the worst has happened). The colony has been overrun—the people are dead, and the place is crawling with the same kind of alien that ravaged Nostromo in the first film. Of course, the kicker this time is that there are a bunch of aliens this time—probably coming from the thousands of eggs that didn’t open in the first film.

Ripley is seen as something of a crackpot at first, at least until the marines first encounter the creatures for the first time. It’s at this point that the personalities of the marines start to come into play, and we get a better sense of who they are, and they are an interesting bunch. A good half of the marines bite it in the first encounter, and those remaining are a motley assortment. Ripley is still around naturally, as is a little girl they encounter on the planet early on. This is Newt (Carrie Henn), who survived the carnage by hiding from the giant creatures. Also surviving at this point is Hicks (Michael Biehn), the corporal, and a solid soldier; Bishop (Lance Henriksen), who is more of an advisor (see the spoiler below); Carter Burke (Paul Reiser), a company representative; Hudson (Bill Paxton), a wannabe tough guy who is prone to panic; Gorman (William Hope), the inexperienced lieutenant; and Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein), a tough-as-nails marine out to prove that women can do anything men can do.

*** QUICK SPOILER ***

Bishop is an android. This is revealed early in the film, so it’s not much of a spoiler. Ripley has an intense reaction to this, though, because Ash in the first film was also an android, and attempted to kill her as well as the rest of the Nostromo’s crew.

*** LIKE I SAID, QUICK SPOILER ***

Again, the goal is to survive, this time against overwhelming alien odds. The characters attempt to get off the planet, fighting against time and the aliens as well as each other. While there are certainly tense moments, this is an action film. The characters aren’t stalked by the aliens, but assaulted by them, and the aliens are fended off with high caliber weaponry, flame throwers, and explosives. Burke wants nothing other than a live specimen to bring back to Weyland-Yutani, and threatens the others at every turn.

There are two payoffs in this film. The first is that Ripley continues to be a strong female presence on the screen, this time with mothering instincts kicking in thanks to the presence of young Newt. While in Alien the Ripley role could have been handled by a man or a woman, in this film, the role is definitely a female one. Ripley is no less competent, no less bad-ass, and no less an asskicker than in the first film, but here she is allowed to be more than just a character who happens to be female. Here, she is allowed to be an asskicker who happens to have a nurturing, caring side. It’s an even better role than the first film.

The second great payoff is the confrontation between Ripley in the forklift suit and the queen alien in the loading dock. In this moment, Ripley comes into her own in one of the great fight scenes in science fiction film history. It says a great deal for Cameron’s script and Cameron himself that he was not only able to recognize this quality in the character, but keep it and expand it in the sequel without it ever becoming trite or maudlin. Ripley’s relationship with Newt is entirely believable. This is especially true in the director’s cut of the film, which reveals Ripley’s relationship with her biological daughter.

Aliens happens to be far more quotable than the original film as well. I don’t know if I can think of more than a couple of actual lines from the first film, but there are more than a dozen from Aliens that have become classics not only for the genre, but for film in general.

So which film is better? It’s impossible for me to say. These are not really comparable films despite the fact that the enemy is the same and the main character is the same. Alien is a horror film in a science fiction setting. The fact that the characters happen to be on a spaceship just means that they don’t have a way of getting out of the situation. They’re trapped, but they’d be trapped the same way in a deserted house with a guy carrying a machete. The second film is a straight action film. It's a war with an unusual foe, and so it really works like a war film in a lot of ways.

Naturally, with the success of the first two films, more sequels appeared. Specifically, there was Alien3 and Alien: Resurrection. The first of these was directed by David Fincher, who was so disgusted by what happened with the film that he wanted to have his name removed from it. Fincher has since gone on to have a tremendous career, but Alien3 started it out on a very wrong foot. In truth, it’s not a terrible film. It’s actually okay, but it starts with two strikes against it, namely the first two films in the series. Had it been a stand-alone film, it would have something of a following for no other reason than the kick-ass critter. As the third film in one of the greatest science fiction properties ever made, though, it falls woefully short. The fourth film is really better not mentioned any further. For my money, the series ends after the second film.

Why to watch Alien: Because it’s freakin’ awesome!
Why not to watch: Lambert needs a punch in the kisser.

Why to watch Aliens: More of what made the first movie great, plus a shit-ton of great quotes.
Why not to watch: Where the series went after this film.

This Blog Post is Not Self-Referential

Films: Persona, The Purple Rose of Cairo
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on middlin’-sized living room television (Persona), DVD from Rockford Public Library on middlin’-sized living room television (Purple Rose).


Were I a smarter man, I would not have chosen Ingmar Bergman’s surreal black and white thought experiment Persona as the first Bergman film for this blog. I would have gone with something simpler, or at least easier to track. It is a film like this that makes Bergman easy to spoof, and probably has influenced a few hundred thousand film students in making their own film projects with meaningless juxtapositions and shots of bleak landscapes.

Ostensibly, Persona is the story of Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann), an actress who freezes on stage one night. From that moment, she slides into a sort of willful catatonia, refusing to speak or really interact much with the outside world. She is, we are told, physically and mentally sound (although I’m not so sure about the second part of that). After a long stay in a hospital, she is sent off to a beach house with her nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson).

But wait. That’s not how things start. We start with a series of unconnected images. The film opens with what looks like problems with the projector. We see a lamb evidently being slaughtered, a man having a spike pounded through his hand, a spider, and then what looks to be bodies in a morgue. It looks that way until one of the bodies opens its eyes, and another one shifts around and looks at us. And then we get into the story of Elisabet and Alma.

Alma talks; Elisabet listens. Lather, rinse, repeat. Alma talks about everything, and much of it is trivial initially. Eventually, after drinking more than she should, Alma talks about the one time she was unfaithful to her fiancé, a casual fling on a beach during a day spent sunbathing nude. She also talks about the subsequent abortion. It’s clear that Alma is harboring a great deal of guilt for these events, but it is unclear as to the exact reason. It’s possible, and likely in her mind, that the guilt comes from having done something she regrets. The implication, though, is that the guilt stems from the fact that it appears this impromptu beach orgy is the only satisfying sexual event of her life.

The next day, Alma drives to the nearby down to send off some letters. One letter, written by Elisabet, is unsealed, and Alma reads it. She discovers that Elisabet is actually studying her, and revealing all of her confessed sins in the letter. Now furious and betrayed, Alma returns to the beach house and breaks a glass on the patio outside. She refuses to clean this up, and watches as Elisabet steps on a piece of broken glass, cutting her foot.

And then the film breaks. It tears vertically, freezes, and burns and the screen goes white. We’re treated again to some of the images from the opening of the film, and watch as one of the two women walks around in the house while the camera is out of focus. Suddenly it snaps back into focus, and we’re back to the story. Alma tears into Elisabet and threatens her with a pot of boiling water, which forces Elisabet to finally speak. She storms off and Alma chases her, begging for forgiveness.

Suffice it to say that at this point, it becomes evident that the two women are merging into a single personality—Elisabet’s will is dominating that of Alma, and Alma is essentially becoming Elisabet. This is shown in several different ways, initially by a visit from Elisabet’s husband (Gunnar Bjornstrand) in which he mistakes Alma for Elisabet, and then by a merging of the two women’s faces in what is certainly the most shocking scene of the film. We see Alma’s face screen left, Elisabet’s screen right, and the two women look almost identical. There are differences in the nose and around the mouth, but the eyes are the same. Alma welcomes this initially—she accepts Elisabet’s husband as her own and agrees that she is truly Elisabet.

So, what the holy living hell is going on here? It seems to me that Elisabet is attempting to force Alma to become her. The pain of her own existence is so acute, so intense, that the only way out for her is to force someone else to become her so that she can live in seclusion without the pain of putting on the mask of real life. That’s got to be at least part of it based on the name—it isn’t called “People” or “Women”, but Persona, which calls to mind such words as “identity,” “public identity,” “character,” and even “façade.”

Despite this, Bergman never lets his audience forget that it is watching a film. The introductory sequence, the broken film and out of focus camera work in the middle, and the actual filming of the crew filming a scene at the end serve as reminders that this is not real. We are an audience watching a story take place on a screen. We’ve been watching what we have always been trained to believe, both willfully and by trickery, is life instead of a film. But really, we’ve just been watching personae adopted by the actors, who then go on with their lives once the filming is over.

The film is shot in stark black and white. Most of the scenery—the hospital, the beach house, the beach itself—is bright white while the women wear black outfits and little or no makeup. The camera moves very little if at all in most scenes and there is almost no set decoration, which forces the audience to pay attention to the women. Bergman frequently places his camera in such a way that one face appears in the foreground and the other behind, partially obscured. Even before we get the blending of faces near the end, the two women are already becoming one, since they are often shown in this way, one partially obscuring the other.

The genius here is that not only is the story about this idea of persona, the public façade that everyone has, but that Bergman constantly reminds us that these are actors playing a role. In discussing these personae, they are themselves adopting personae.

Is it Bergman’s greatest work? I don’t know. I haven’t watched nearly enough Bergman to know. It is justifiably considered one of the greatest films ever made, and its influence on films that followed it is understandable and justified.


Anyone who has ever seen both a Bergman movie and a Woody Allen movie knows that the first is a huge influence on the second. There’s something about Woody Allen’s style that screams existentialism, either when he’s being serious (which he does well) or when he’s going for comedy (which he does very well, especially early in his career). Allen, for all the strangeness of his personal life, is a consummate filmmaker. He rarely makes a good film—his stinkers are complete misfires, but his better films are truly great, and he’s made a lot of great films. It’s also evident from watching his work that he dearly loves movies. He undoubtedly loves to talk about movies and spends a lot of time thinking about movies. It comes as no surprise, then, that he’d make a movie about movies.

Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo contains a different sort of self reference. It’s less of a meta film then it is a film within a film. Even more than that, it’s a love song to movies in the same way that Allen’s Radio Days was a love song to the days before television. In this film, Cecilia (Mia Farrow) is a not-so-good waitress in New Jersey during The Great Depression. She’s married to Monk (Danny Aiello), who is a shiftless, out-of-work, philandering gambler. Cecilia loses herself in the movies, going to a show every week. She also attempts to leave Monk time and time again, but can never quite get there.

The latest film is The Purple Rose of Cairo, and she loves the film tremendously. In the film, an explorer is dragged away from an archaeological dig in Cairo and brought back to New York where he falls for a singer at the Copacabana. But everything changes when on a repeat viewing of the film, the character walks out of the screen into the real world and approaches Cecilia on the day she loses her job.

This is one of the great scenes of Allen’s career, or really anyone’s career. The character Tom Baxter (Jeff Daniels) steps off the screen and the other characters immediately react as if they are characters on a stage. A minister shows up in the scene even though he’s not supposed to be there until reel six, and the maid comes out and complains that someone is playing a vicious joke on her since Tom has left the film. What makes this scene work, however, is the reaction of the audience. While Tom and Cecilia run out of the theater and the manager has a minor nervous breakdown, the bulk of the theater patrons sit, smiles on their faces, happily eating their popcorn as if this is precisely what is supposed to happen. The characters have a minor existential crisis when the manager threatens to turn off the projector.

Tom is a completely engaging character, a true movie character of the 1930s. He’s a sort of perfect man in his pith helmet and wide smile. He’s an odd mix of things, and while vaguely three-dimensional, he really isn’t. For instance, he talks about his father, but then claims to have never met him because the film’s story occurs at some point after his father has died. He is, after all, a character, and knows only those things that are written into him. Cecilia takes him to an amusement park that is currently abandoned as a place to hide, and he is excited because he understands amusement parks—they are written into his character. Popcorn, he doesn’t understand, having never eaten it, but has seen it eaten by the endless waves of theater patrons.

The movie company, of course, panics now that one of the main characters has left the film, and they bring the actor who played Tom Baxter, a man named Gil Shepherd (obviously, also played by Jeff Daniels). What follows is, I think, completely unique in film stories. Cecilia is wooed by both men, forgetting her bum of a husband. Both the fictional Tom and the very real Gil romance her, forcing her to make a choice. Her choice is best left to spoilers.

*** A STEP INTO REALITY ***

Cecilia has the opportunity to step into the film world with Tom and forever be a character on the screen. She opts not to, essentially forcing Tom back into his screen romance forever. Instead, Cecilia decides that it would be better to live a real life with Gil. Naturally, Gil leaves her, and she is without a job, without a home, and without a husband, and both of her romances have left her. The film ends with Cecilia again sitting in the movie theater, this time watching Top Hat and again finding solace in film.

*** BACK TO THE FILM WORLD ***

So what does it all mean? It means that movies are movies. They are flights of fancy and a way to take us somewhere else than the mundane real world that most of us live in, but that they’ll never be more than that, and they shouldn’t be. The idea that they are imagination and nothing more than that may be sad, but it’s also ultimately true. Movies are there for us to love, and for us to fall in love with, but they aren’t and cannot be reality.

Allen’s film is, of course, self-referential, as any film about film must be. That it’s a different sort of self-reference than Bergman’s means nothing. This film is, as I’ve said, a love song, and like any great love song, it ends too soon.

Why to watch Persona: Bergman’s existential masterpiece.
Why not to watch: Seriously, WTF?

Why to watch The Purple Rose of Cairo: If you love movies, it’s what you dream about.
Why not to watch: The ending is a wrist-slitter.

(I Never Loved) Eva Braun

Film: Der Untergang (Downfall)
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on middlin’-sized living room television.

Certain stories and certain people are a problem when it comes to film. How does one treat Adolf Hitler in a movie? I’ve been thinking about this since watching Der Untergang (Downfall). Actually, what’s been running through my head is the first line of “How do you solve a problem like Maria,” with the lyrics going “How do you solve a problem like der Fuhrer?”

One answer is comedy. One of the only ways to deal with the enormity (using that word in its original, correct sense) of what happened in the 1930s and ‘40s in Europe is to make it ridiculous. Mel Brooks did that over and over in a number of his films, as if to say that despite the best efforts of the Nazis, the Jews are still around and surviving. To go to that type of extreme makes a certain sense. It also makes sense to paint the Nazis as inhuman, almost supernatural monsters. The evil was so great that it is almost incomprehensible that it could come from human beings.

But how do you deal with the reality of the history if you are a German filmmaker? Der Untergang is the answer. You paint Hitler as a man. A sick, twisted, insane and palsied man, but still a man because that’s what he was. The cruelty, the evil, the destruction, and the insanity all came from a very human mind. This is precisely what Oliver Hirschbiegel has done.

Der Untergang is the story of the last few days of Hitler’s life in the Berlin bunker. The film opens with comments from Traudl Junge, Hitler’s private secretary, and an old woman when this film was made. We see Hitler (Bruno Ganz) hire the young Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara) in 1942, and then, for the rest of the film, we jump forward to April, 1945, and the end of the war.

This is the story not so much of Hitler himself, but of the death of the Third Reich. Most of the story takes place within the bunker, as surviving members of the Reich hierarchy come and go, are given impossible orders, and seek to either remain loyal to the ideals they hold to, or to save their own skins. Nothing, and this is important here, is glossed over, prettied up, or sugar coated. The characters speak frankly of their planned suicides, and Hitler passes out cyanide capsules to those he favors as a good, painless method of killing oneself. We witness Magda Goebbels (Corinna Harfouch) drug and then poison her six children and then commit suicide herself with her husband.

This is not really a war movie. It is instead a movie about death, blind loyalty, and the destruction of a terrible evil. This doesn’t make the film a happy one by any stretch of the imagination. Normally, I’m someone who will happily cheer when a few Nazis get blown up or gunned down. Here, though, we are witness to senseless slaughter ordered by a man who was determined to destroy the state he had tried to create.

While this is Junge’s story, the focus is naturally on Hitler himself until he exits via cyanide and bullet at the end of the film’s second act. I cannot imagine that this was an easy role for Ganz to play. How does one take on the role of one of the most despised people in history, particularly when that person is from one’s own heritage?

Der Untergang is not an easy or pleasant film to watch. It is, however, an important film to watch. All of the horror, the gruesome deaths, the suicides, the slaughter, and the misery bear with them an important history. No matter how painful it may be, we must be honest with the past. No matter how much we may not want to discuss it or deal with it, everyone’s cultural past is filled with terrible acts that we must understand and learn from. Hirschbiegel has made an important and daring film, and he deserves a lot of credit for not just taking it on, but taking it on in this unflinching and direct manner.

The film ends with another comment from the real Traudl Junge. She claims to have known nothing of the concentration camps until the trials after the war. But, she says, she could have found out. Her age (22 when hired as Hitler’s secretary) was no excuse for not discovering the evil of her countrymen. She’s right. We have the same responsibility.

Why to watch Der Untergang: Germany comes to grips with its terrible past.
Why not to watch: It’s grueling.