Mad Dog

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

There has always been a certain level of fascination around serial killers for a certain type of person. In the U.S., there is a particular unique brand of such killers that populate the wide open spaces of the West. These killers seem to thrive in the emptiness where they can be alone except for when some unlucky soul comes across them. Such is the story of Badlands.

Kit (Martin Sheen), a garbage man, takes an immediate liking to Holly (Sissy Spacek) when he sees her. The fact that there is 10 years separating them and that Holly is a mere 15 doesn’t seem to dissuade him at all. When he loses his job, he takes up as a ranch hand, and he and Holly see each other in secret, mostly because Holly’s father (Warren Oates) doesn’t approve of Kit. This may be his daughter’s age, the age difference, or the fact that Kit looks a bit like a greaser and a bit like James Dean. When he discovers their times together, he punishes Holly by shooting her dog.

The two resolve to be together anyway. Kit attempts the pacifist path first, telling Holly’s father that he plans to be with her. But Kit is run off again, and the two decide to leave town. While he is collecting Holly’s things, her father enters, and there is a bit of a showdown. It’s one-sided, though, because Kit is armed, and he doesn’t hold back, shooting her father several times. He records a message that he and Holly have decided to kill themselves, collects Holly’s things, and sets the house on fire.

And suddenly, the film enters a sort of lull. The pair run off into the untamed woods of South Dakota and build a sort of treehouse for themselves, living together without any intrusion from the outside. At least, that is, until there suddenly is intrusion from the outside. Kit is forced to kill again, and the pair hit the road again, slowly working their way out of South Dakota by heading west. Kit kills again a few times, sometimes for no reason other than to do it, and Holly simply goes along for the ride, never participating in the killing, but also never preventing it or even saying anything to slow Kit down.

Of course, a ride like this one eventually has to end, and this one does, too. And the police and state troopers find what we have slowly come to learn over the course of the film—there is a sense of magnetism in Kit. He is a conscienceless killer, but is almost likeable in a way. Through all of this, Holly becomes more and more distant, retreating into her own sparse mental world, about as unpopulated as the west the pair drive through.

Despite this, Holly’s musings are fascinating. Rather than focusing on the killings and the death, she instead focuses on her own feelings and her own reactions to everything that is going on around her. At one point, near the time when the two part, she has retreated inside herself completely, ignoring everything Kit does. She tells us that rather than talk, she spells out entire sentences on the roof of her mouth with her tongue so that the sentences will never be heard by anyone. Comments like this one have a strange, subtle beauty to them. There is a sense of poetry as well as a sense of loss in them that seems to fit the expansive wastes of the setting.

What’s interesting to me here is that director Terrence Malick seems not to care overly much about the violence that is happening in his own film. The various killings of Kit Carruthers are treated with no more ceremony or slow-motion footage or glorified camera angles than any other event in the film. Potential victims left alive are treated no different from those who Kit guns down in cold blood and for no reason. There is, within the confines of this film, essentially no moral difference between killing and not killing. In fact, Holly’s reactions to all of the violence around her, even the murder of her own father, is a sort of vague, passive indifference. Both characters appear to exist in a world of solipsism, where the death of another is important only in how it might affect the self.

Malick’s photography is as sparse as the landscape and as devoid of emotion as Holly’s narrations. It’s effective throughout. There is a sense of simply events happening on the screen with no implied moral judgment one way or another. The events unfold, each filmed with the same distance as the last, and we are given no cues as to how we should react. In effect, Malick lets us decide for ourselves.

Badlands is an almost contemplative film despite its lurid subject matter. It avoids attempting to shock the audience with the violence of similar films (Straw Dogs from the same era comes to mind. So too does Natural Born Killers of some years later). Rather than focusing on the violence, the film instead focuses on Holly and to a lesser extent Kit and simply shows us their lives together.

An astonishing, difficult, and worthwhile film.

Why to watch Badlands: Malick before he got as Malick-y.
Why not to watch: Because you need the movies to make your moral judgments for you.

What is it with Bertolucci?

Film: Prima Della Rivoluzione (Before the Revolution)
Format: Internet video on laptop

Considering the parade of films I have watched in the past two years, it takes quite a bit more than it used to to really squick me, but Bertolucci’s Prima Della Rivoluzione (Before the Revolution) managed to in its first half hour or so. The reason will become evident as I get into the actual narrative here. What’s interesting is that the main reason for this, while central to the plot, could have easily been changed to be far less creepy and still have almost the exact same purpose in service to the narrative.

Fabrizio (Francesco Barilli) is in many ways the classic example of youth in revolt. Blessed with a bourgeoisie upbringing, he is filled with passion and energy, and the teachings of his professor, Cesare (Morando Morandini), a communist. At home, Fabrizio spends time with his friend Agostino (Allen Midgette), who shocks Fabrizio with his sudden death. Agostino drowns, and there are some indications that it may be a suicide. Conflicted and filled with an energy that has no focus or direction, Fabrizio falls into the arms of Gina (Adriana Asti) and begins a passionate affair.

And here’s where the squicking comes in—Gina is Fabrizio’s aunt. She’s about 10 years older than he is and plenty attractive, and in many ways it would be natural for him to be attracted to her. In this case, though, the attraction is mutual, and they begin mashing on each other at Agostino’s funeral and continue for quite a bit of the rest of the film. I’m not a prude and I try not to keep my views provincial, but every time these two ended up in a clinch, I found myself wanting to look away.

This is not the first time that I have encountered creepy sex in a Bertolucci film. I am instantly reminded of the butter and pig vomit scenes in Last Tango in Paris as well as the sex with the epileptic prostitute and the pederasty sequence in Novocento. Of all of these, I can see the point of some of what happened in Novocento, but I’m forced into the belief that Bertolucci might have been something of a pervert. In the case of this film, the function that Gina serves is as more or less an outlet for Fabrizio’s undirected, general frustration. I don’t, honestly, see any real difference that would have been made by having Gina be a friend of the family, akin to something more like The Graduate.

The real point of the film comes in the third act when Fabrizio, Cesare, and Gina go to visit Gina’s friend Puck (Cecrope Barilli). Puck lives on a parcel of undeveloped land that he is about to lose, unable to maintain his hold on it into the future. That, more than anything, is what Fabrizio is dealing with. He cannot, and will not live in Italy’s fascist past, and it appears that the future is both bleak and completely unknown. For him, neither past nor future hold anything worth saving or working toward. There is only now, and now is also insufficient in fulfilling him.

Prima Della Rivoluzione was filmed in black-and-white, which is evocative of several different possibilities. One possibility is that Fabrizio, still young, sees his world in these same black-and-white tones. Another is that the world for many of our characters truly does exist in this colorless world. There’s really no reason to choose between these two possibilities, of course. Bertolucci may have meant both, or neither, or something else entirely. It’s noteworthy, though, that the one small piece of the film that is in color is essentially a short pseudo-fantasy that Fabrizio arranges for Gina’s benefit. Here, and only here, something completely outside the normal world, do colors exist for us.

With a film like this, I am unable to prevent myself from projecting the characters forward, beyond the scope of the film itself. In this film, my thinking concerns family gatherings in the future and just how awkward some of those meetings well be. “Hey, Aunt Gina, remember that time a couple of years ago when you and I had all of that incestuous sex?” In fact, near the end of the film, Gina leaves and Fabrizio goes back to Clelia (Cristina Pariset), his fiancé introduced very briefly at the beginning of the film. And while he accepts this, it is soon evident that his mind is still on Gina.

It’s evident throughout the film that Bertolucci spent a lot of time watching Godard, as this film is very similar in style to Breathless. We see similar jump cuts, similar camera movements. In fact the two films look very much like the could have come from the same director. This isn’t too surprising, considering Bertolucci’s age of 22 at the time of filming this. Like the work of many a young filmmaker, this comes across in many ways as a combination of homage, tribute, and outright theft of a favored mentor. This isn’t a criticism, but a statement of fact.

But really, Gina’s identity, her eventual betrayal, and the destruction of their relationship could have had 95% of the same effect had she simply been the girl across the street, although it does make for a fascinating reaction from Gina at Fabrizio’s wedding.

Why to watch Prima Della Rivoluzione: It’s a natural, Italian counterpoint to the French New Wave.
Why not to watch: Because for Bertolucci, good sex is disturbing sex.

What Ever Happened to Paul Muni?

Films: I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang; The Life of Emile Zola
Format: DVDs from personal collection on big ol' television.

How come no one seems to remember Paul Muni? For a time, he was one of the most lauded actors in the world. He was apparently born to play the lead in biopics, and a quick skim over his profile on IMDB shows that this seems to be where he made his bread and butter. Muni appears in several films on the Big List, and I’ve spent the better part of a day with the man.

I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang has the lurid title of a film of a few decades in the future. It tells the somewhat true story of an escaped convict who broke away from a chain gang crew and lived as a fugitive. Certainly there are a number of whitewashed aspects of this story from the original, but this version served to expose the chain gang system and create a desire for prison reform.

Our hero is James Allen (Muni), freshly returned from World War I. He’s given his old job in a factory, but it’s not anything he’s interested in any more. Instead, after working with the Army Corps of Engineers, he has a desire to build things. Sadly, there’s no work to be had, and Allen eventually ends up on the road, living hand-to-mouth.

At one stop, another down on his luck drifter convinces Allen to go with him to a local greasy spoon to bum a couple of hamburgers off the owner. The owner, after a little pleading, agrees. But this is more than just a quick attempt at a bite to eat. Our drifter pulls a gun and forces Allen to steal the money. Killed by the police in an ensuing shootout, the drifter leaves Allen to take the rap, and take it he does—ten years of hard labor. It’s not too long before Allen desires to go on the lam, and with the assistance of another prisoner named Bomber (Edward Ellis), he makes a break for it.

Eventually, he lands in Chicago and gets a job on a construction crew. His hard work and good ideas see him rise in the ranks. As he does, he becomes more and more attractive to Marie (Glenda Farrell), his landlady. She discovers his chain gang past and holds it over him, forcing him into a marriage that is perfectly beneficial for her. She spends more than he makes and runs around with other men while she keeps him on a tight leash. This gets even more confining when he meets Helen (Helen Vinson), with whom he falls in love.

Eventually caught, Allen is told that if he returns to the unnamed state of his escape, he’ll be given a pardon after 90 days. But it’s all smoke and mirrors—he’s put back into the chain gang and left, his pardon unfulfilled and the case closed. And so he escapes again, and goes on the road, living in shadows and in fear.

This film is naturally melodramatic, and it plays for pathos rather than tragedy. James Allen is not so much tragic as pitiable. His only crime, (other than escaping from the chain gang), was to give up a stable but boring job. Everyone, it seems, is complicit in the miscarriage of justice that causes him to be condemned to a life on the gang despite the overwhelming evidence in his favor. This, more than anything, is the reason for my accusation of wart removal in this film.

And yet, it’s a pretty good film. Muni is quite effective throughout the film. He suffers well, at the very least. The rest of the cast in general (with the exception of Ellis as Bomber) is subject to fits of extreme overacting and over piety. Regardless of this, the injustice done to Allen strikes a chord, as do the constant and consistent cover-ups of the brutality of the chain gang system in the South. For what it’s worth, the film set the standard and tone for chain gang films to come like The Defiant Ones and Cool Hand Luke. And regardless of the melodrama, the actual story is pretty effecting.

One of Muni’s triumph as an actor, though, comes in The Life of Emile Zola, a film, like Chain Gang for which he was nominated for an Oscar. In this film, we see initially a few snapshots of the early days of Zola (Muni), living in a cold flat in Paris with artist Paul Cezanne (Vladimir Sokoloff). The two suffer for their art, when suddenly Zola is given a job at a book publisher. He goes, but suffers again, this time because he begins to publish articles that call into question a number of facets of French life and society. Dismissed from his job, he returns to poverty, this time dragging along his wife Alexandrine (Gloria Holden).

During this time, however, he meets Nana (Erin O’Brien-Moore), a prostitute. She tells him her story, which he publishes as the book Nana. The book becomes an instant hit, and suddenly everything Zola touches turns to gold. He is lauded throughout Paris and the world by everyone by Cezanne, who tells him that he has grown fat with his success.

At the same time, the French military discovers a traitor in its ranks passing information to the enemy. Captain Alfred Dreyfus (Joseph Schildkraut) is accused and immediately found guilty, stripped of rank, and sent to Devil’s Island. Meanwhile, the real traitor, Major Walsin-Esterhazy (Robert Barrat) is uncovered, but his crime is covered up to maintain the Army’s dignity over the Dreyfus affair. Eventually, Zola gets wind of this and, pricked by the conscience that Cezanne has left him, calls into question the entire affair, accusing the military and even the highest levels of government of conspiracy to keep an innocent man in prison and allow a guilty man to walk free.

Here’s the thing—much like Chain Gang, The Life of Emile Zola is melodramatic to the extreme. Historical events are compressed at the end for a more bittersweet and poignant ending so that the melodramatic feel can remain throughout. Because of this, the movie telegraphs many of its moves, particularly in the last dozen minutes or so. And yet it still works really effectively. This is still a film that has the power to move and to create a great deal of sympathy for the figure of Dreyfus as well as for Zola’s sudden return to firebrand status. The most telling moment is Zola's speech at the end of his own trial. Despite everything working against it--the age and melodramatic stance--it remains one of the great courtroom speeches in film history.

Additionally, the film does tend in many ways to follow the actual history of the events. In some ways, the real story is far more drawn out and difficult, so it would seem that many of the events were compressed for ease of storytelling as well as for melodramatic purposes. But no matter. The film manages to work very well as a courtroom drama, as the story of a man called to action once again, as the story of the man’s life, and, by the end, a story of vindication and triumph.

What’s particularly interesting is the lack of mention of Dreyfus’s ancestry. One of the main charges against the military tribunal that convicted him was very real and evidently legitimate accusations of anti-Semitism. This is completely glossed over in the film, more than likely because of the rising trend of anti-Semitic feelings throughout Europe in the late 1930s. There are mere hints here—Dreyfus is accused and condemned by his military superiors based strictly on his name, a slight nod to the reality of the reason he was convicted in the first place.

What’s also interesting here is the depth of the conspiracy. In many ways, there are echoes today in news coverage and political ideologues that resonate from this film. The Life of Emile Zola manages to expose the subtle workings of human nature and our ability to suddenly grasp onto exactly the wrong idea because our feelings have been stirred up by those paid to do exactly that. If for nothing else, the film is worth watching today because it reveals—as do many other, similar films—our failings as a people to truly understand the depths to which those in power will sink if such power is threatened.

Why to watch I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang: It single-handedly caused a call for prison reform.
Why not to watch: Melodrama phasers are set to kill, not stun.

Why to watch The Life of Emile Zola: Melodrama that works almost in spite of itself.
Why not to watch: Yet another kick to the hoolies for the French military, as if they needed another one.

Your Cheatin' Heart

Film: Crimes and Misdemeanors
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

Oh, Woody Allen! Is there any subject your various neuroses won’t cover? Crimes and Misdemeanors is a film with essentially two stories that are mostly tangential, with a couple of characters that intersect here and there. Except for the very end, there is a relatively minor character who appears in both stories sort of as a link between the two, although he’s not really a major player in either one.

The first, and sort of main plot, features an ophthalmologist named Judah Rosenthal (Martin Landau). Rosenthal is a hell of a doctor and has a string of honors behind his name. He has a wife (Claire Bloom) and a daughter (Stephanie Roth Haberle) and a deep, dark secret. The secret is that he also has been having an affair with a flight attendant named Dolores Paley (Angelica Huston) for the last two years, and things are starting to get difficult. Dolores wants him, and wants him out of his marriage. She’s threatening to go to his wife, and she’s also threatening to out him on his financial improprieties.

In the other story, a documentary filmmaker named Cliff Stern (Woody Allen) exists in a loveless marriage to Wendy (Joanna Gleason). Wendy’s brother Lester (Alan Alda) is a big shot television producer who makes sitcoms for the masses. He also makes Cliff exceedingly jealous. There is a documentary film being made on Lester, and Cliff is tapped to direct it. Also working on the film is Halley Reed (Mia Farrow). Cliff forms an instant attraction to her, and is nonplussed to discover that Lester has a thing for her as well.

The two stories collide in the person of Ben (Sam Waterston), who is the brother of Lester and Wendy and a patient of Dr. Rosenthal. Ben, a rabbi, is rather rapidly losing his eyesight and will probably be completely blind in a couple of months.

In essence, the two stories also meet in this connection over infidelity. In Judah’s case, the infidelity is real and has been going on for some time. In Cliff’s case, the infidelity is desired and mostly in his mind. He feels this connection and it’s evident that there is a little bit of a connection from Halley as well, but it’s primarily from him. Judah, on the other hand, wants out and is trapped in this double life by the evidently increasing neurotic behavior and desperation of Dolores.

Things come to a head in Judah’s story when he confides in his gangster brother, Jack (Jerry Orbach). Jack suggests that perhaps Dolores can be convinced, strong armed, or simply eliminated, and eventually, Judah breaks down and agrees. When the deed is done, he finds it necessary to go to her apartment and retrieve some incriminating evidence, and is confronted with the body, which sends him into a serious existential crisis.

For Cliff, things come to a head differently, but in an oddly similar fashion. In addition to the piece on Lester, he’s been working on another biopic about a philosopher who espouses a basic idea of what love is and what it means for us. As he continues to work on it, the philosopher kills himself by jumping out a window, essentially invalidating his philosophy, his life, and Cliff’s dream project.

Crimes and Misdemeanors is interesting because it has all of the makings of a black comedy, but in general, there’s not a lot of comedy here. There are moments of it certainly, but too much of the film spends its time around Judah and Cliff in their own private dark midnights of the soul for the film to truly be comedic. This is not specifically a problem—it’s merely an observation on the way the film plays and the reality of the content.

There are a few moments that are difficult to watch, not because of violence or even really content, but simply because of the reality of the situation. Again, this is not a criticism of the film, but a mere observation.

I love the cast. It contains a number of actors who instantly place me in New York. Allen himself is primary among these, of course, but so too are Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston, both of whom I love seeing on screen. I also love Angelica Huston in most of her roles, and here she is suitably crazy and passionate all at the same time. Were he not already famous, this would be a break-out role for Alan Alda. Alda, it seems, had to work hard to overcome the Hawkeye Pierce role, and he does it here. Lester is a smarmy bastard, and Alda plays him as if from memory of seeing too many wealthy, egomaniacal producers wander through his life. He’s picked bits and pieces from many, I would guess, and created an amalgam that is mildly pitiable and easy to dislike.

Despite the lack of comedic content here, I enjoyed this film pretty well. The theme is an interesting one, as is the resolution at the end. At its heart, the film asks the question of whether or not a man can truly live happily with the memory and guilt of his past sins. For one of our two leading schmucks, the answer is affirmative, while the other seems to disagree with every fiber of his being. I’ll leave who is who out here—no need to spoil—but if you know the work of Woody Allen, you know the answer to this already.

Why to watch Crimes and Misdemeanors: Woody Allen exploring the ideas of infidelity with Mia Farrow. If you think about that for a second, it’s almost too meta to handle.
Why not to watch: Jerry Orbach and Sam Waterston aren’t used nearly enough.

Refugees

Film: Kundun
Format: DVD from Schmaling Memorial Library through interlibrary loan on kick-ass DVD player.

Some films I find difficult for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they are difficult because they are poorly made or badly plotted. In the case of Kundun, the reason for its difficulty for me is much more nuanced and complex. This film is expertly made and gorgeously filmed. The problem I find here is one of focus and direction rather than skill or quality or even subject matter. There are simply things going on here passed off as historical truth that I cannot get my mind around.

Kundun is essentially the history of Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th (and current) Dalai Lama, secular and spiritual leader of Tibet, who has ruled in exile for more than a half century. Such a history is naturally of considerable interest. But, and this is where I will probably take heat from others, this history is enmeshed with spiritual, religious, and otherworldly portents and signs of significance.

“Of course,” you say. “This is, after all, the story of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. It is only natural that there a spiritual side to this story.”

And with that I agree. I don’t have a problem with the idea that the film would naturally explore the spiritual side of Tibet and of Tenzin Gyatso. Where the problem comes in for me is that this film is less an exploration of the history of his finding, teaching, coronation, and flight from Tibet in front of the People’s Army of China and more a strict beatification of the man himself. Watch this movie and take it at face value, and you have no option but to simply believe that the man is divine.

I don’t want to take away from the more technical aspects of the film, which are as good as they get. The cinematography here is absolutely sublime. Additionally, the color and pageantry and spectacle of the various ceremonies and aspects of Tibetan life. Additionally, Scorsese was able to bring out professional-level performances from a non-professional cast, a number of whom are actually related to the Dalai Lama. On a technical level, this film is as good as it gets.

But again, I am continually drawn back to the idea that to accept this film and story as it is told, I must accept most of the tenets of Gelug Buddhism, which I frankly do not. I do not accept that Tenzin Gyatso is the reborn spirit of the previous 13 Dalai Lamas. I do not believe in the signs and portents that are given here, or that the Dalai Lama has the ability to foresee the future, as he is seen doing multiple times in the course of this film. I simply do not believe this, and thus I do not believe in the veracity of the film put before me.

Let me put it another way. A few months ago, I watched the entirety of the three-season television show Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s evident that a great deal of that show was borrowed from the life of the current Dalai Lama. The determination of his identity by choosing items from his past life, the spiritual connections, even the name Gyatso appears in the show as one of the Avatar’s teachers. And for Avatar, I buy it. I buy it because it is inherently a fantasy, something that does not purport itself to be a reflection of the real world in any way. It is a fantasy world complete with (essentially) magic and spirits and an entire, populated spirit world.

Not so for Kundun, which purports to be a part of the real world, mystic signs and portents, supernatural powers, rebirth, and all.

And so I find myself relatively conflicted on this film. On the one hand, it is an expertly made film by one of the greatest working filmmakers today. It is a difficult film to dislike because of the care and skill with which it has been made. On the other hand, the premise is something I find ludicrous on its face. I do not ascribe magical powers or divinity to any man, no matter how impressive.

This is not a knock against the Dalai Lama himself. He seems by all accounts to be an impressive and decent human being, a man who has sacrificed much for his beliefs, and who is willing to do anything for the betterment of his people. I respect that and admire that. But it still doesn’t make him a mystical figure, and there’s simply no getting around that.

I will say, though, that I did appreciate that at least the spirituality here is something other than what is traditionally hammered at us. The fact that at the very least I could get away from the strict Western view of religion—particularly as practiced by many of the most rabid supporters—was a welcome relief.

Why to watch Kundun: A tale of modern spirituality that differs greatly from most Western stories attributing everything to Christian teaching.
Why not to watch: As usual, spirituality offers no explanations other than itself.

An Ordinary Average Guy

Film: The Crowd
Format: VHS from Downers Grove Public Library through WorldCat on big ol’ television.

Films often are about the people we want to be or wish we were. Frequently it seems to me that films are about a sort of wish fulfillment. The people in films are beautiful, and their characters live the sort of lives we dreamed we would as children. They have meaningful and important dream jobs, carry with them the fate of the world often enough, and exist in a world of either opulence or of at least quiet luxury. “Poor kids” in a lot of John Hughes films still live in big houses and have their own cars—they just aren’t the nicest houses and the cars aren’t new. That’s how you can tell they are poor in the film world.

This is why Italian neo-realism was such a shock. It’s also what makes King Vidor’s The Crowd such a noteworthy film for its time. It certainly starts out like the film we expect, with the main character overcoming terrible odds and adversity to become the great success he always knew in his heart he deserved to be. And yet it doesn’t really play out like that when we come right down to it. Instead, it is a sort of precursor to a film like It’s a Wonderful Life in tone if not in plot.

John (James Murray) is born on the 4th of July and has no reason to disbelieve his father when he is told that he is destined for great things. Despite the loss of his father at a young age, John is convinced that he is something and someone special and needs only a slim opportunity to make the best of everything. At 21 he moves to New York and starts on the bottom rung of a large company, one man in a sea of faceless office workers and identical desks. But he still has hope and ambition.

He eventually meets the equally ubiquitously named Mary (Eleanor Boardman) and the two are soon married. John isn’t much of a hit with the in-laws, particularly with his low-rent job and high-rent speech about his rosy future. A couple of kids follow, as do bills, marital strife, bickering, and a terrible tragedy that nearly crushes the couple under its weight. John eventually sinks into a terrible depression, quits a series of jobs, and becomes essentially a nothing, not capable of doing much of anything. Naturally for the time the film ends on an uplift, but throughout, the film depicts the slow spiral of John from his idealistic youth to the reality of the world around him.

And that, more or less, is the entire point of the film. John and Mary are not exceptional in any way. Oh, John can juggle a bit and play the ukulele, and Mary can sew a dress, but in the grand scheme of the world, there’s nothing about them that is particularly noteworthy or special. All of this makes John’s die-hard belief in himself and his own abilities that much more tragic and painful to see play out on the screen. In fact, the only real thing that John has going for him is this unwavering belief in himself that slowly erodes as the film wears on.

It’s an interesting theme for a film, particularly for 1928. Interesting in that John’s woes of unemployment and long lines of people seeking work seem to presage the stock market collapse of the following year. But also interesting in the sense that John is not by any stretch a movie hero. He’s a bum, He’s a man who spends much of his time dreaming about something better but who is evidently unable to work up the courage or the effort to do much of anything about it. Because of this, he is a tragic figure, lost, and lost because of his own shortcomings and faults.

Also critical here (and why the film was named as it was) is the faceless and impersonal nature of the crowded city itself. John can do nothing to separate himself from that crowd and can do nothing to rise above it. His complete lack of any exceptional quality turns him into just another faceless drone at his job and just another face in the crowd in the rest of his life. Ultimately, like most of us in the world, John’s fate is to be just a man struggling with his own existence rather than mastering the fates as he had always believed himself capable.

The Crowd suffers from precisely what most other silent dramas do. It is very melodramatic in terms of the acting style, and this is frequently off-putting. Additionally, there’s a reason that most films contain truly heroic characters. It’s easier to get behind and root for someone who is in some way exceptional than it is to cheer and hope for a many who seems at each turn to be unable to help himself at all.

Despite this, The Crowd is very effective at showing the life of this simple, average man an in showing how simple it is for that life to quickly become a tragedy.

Why to watch The Crowd: It’s tailor-made for the 99%.
Why not to watch: It’s still laden with melodramatic overacting, like most silent films.

O Brother, Why Stay Thou?

Film: Des Hommes et des Dieux (Of Gods and Men)
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.


The plot of Des Hommes et des Dieux (Of Gods and Men) is relatively simple as plots go. However, the way these plots are put into action is strangely compelling. In fact this is another film like Black Narcissus that on the surface appears to be about a dull subject that will likely be told in a dull manner. It is, after all, a film about monks. For someone like me, with a religious background but no real current religious convictions or motivations, that is a hard sell.

Briefly, a group of Trappists live in Algeria. The monastery has evidently been in the location of this small village for some time and the monks are an accepted, even welcome part of the community despite its overwhelming Muslim population. The monks tend to the sick, work in their garden, and otherwise see to the daily running of the monastery. However, a group of fundamentalist Muslims has entered the area, and people are beginning to die at their hands. And thus, the question the film appears to ask is “What is the value of a life of sacrifice?"

What makes this film so interesting for me at least is that the monks appear to choose their fate. It is, perhaps, inevitable that they will at some point have a serious run-in with the extremists. They have multiple chances to flee the area. But they do not. That they stay is not what is noteworthy here. What is is their reasons for staying. Throughout, several of the brothers are film in their decision to stay at the Algerian monastery, while others come to this decision over time. For all, the reason is essentially that this is where they belong.

The film naturally has a strong amount of spiritual content, and it could not exist any other way. But this content is not jammed down the throat of the viewer. Instead, it is a quiet spirituality, a real world belief and conviction that is all the more powerful for its essential lack of theatricality. They simply believe in the value not of their lives, but of living as they always have, immune to the fear the terrorists want to engender. Their choice is one of peace and love over fear and hate. They stay because the people need them and they stay because this monastery is home.

It would not be difficult for Of Gods and Men to become a polemic against Islam, but the film does not make that particular choice. Instead, both the brothers inside the walls and the people outside the walls live in a sort of spiritual and religious harmony, The two groups have a deep and abiding respect for each other and for each others’ traditions. There is a simple beauty and poignancy in such mutual respect, and it is this mutual respect more than anything that motivates the brothers into staying. Thus, the Muslim extremists are treated as exactly that within the context of the film—extremists who do not represent the majority or even the sizable minority view of the people in the area.

What is evident here is a spiritual strength, and this sort of conviction in the face of everything is admirable. There is no earthly reason for the men to stay at their monastery, and so they stay for no earthly reason but for a divine one. That is smart and powerful filmmaking.

Ultimately, there is a quiet and moving strength here.

Why to watch Des Hommes et des Dieux: Another film that shows the power and value of a spiritual worldview.
Why not to watch: The real-world story behind the film.