Historical (In)Accuracy

Film: Good Morning, Vietnam
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

When looking at a film like Good Morning, Vietnam, you have a few options. You can assume that Hollywood played with it a little, but that it’s basically accurate. You’d be wrong to do that, but you could do it. You could also get really bent out of shape that there’s little similarity to the Adrian Cronauer depicted in the film and the real guy—a life-long Republican who worked within the guidelines of military edicts for his entire career. Or, and this is recommended, you can forget about historical accuracy and look at this simply as a movie and judge it on that basis. That’s the best idea because there’s nothing in this film that complies with history.

Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams) is brought to Vietnam to help build the morale of the troops as a radio performer. He’s been called in from Crete mainly because he’s very good at what he does; he’s funny and the troops seem to like his brand of humor and his taste in music. He’s greeted at the airport by Edward Montesque Garlick (Forest Whitaker), who is a bit of a nerd and worried about getting into trouble, but also sees problems in the army around him. We’re also quickly introduced to Marty Lee Dreiwitz (Robert Wuhl), who thinks he’s funny and isn’t (a statement true of both the character and of Robert Wuhl himself). On the “bad guys” side, we have Lieutenant Steve Hauk (Bruno Kirby) who is supremely unfunny and a martinet and Sergeant Major Dickerson (J.T. Walsh) who has a massive stick up his back porch. These two take an immediate dislike to Cronauer and do everything they can to keep him off the air, morale be damned.

Cronauer is immediately fascinated by Vietnamese women, and focuses on one in particular, who refuses to talk to him. As a method of getting to know her, he takes over her English language class and, as a precursor to getting the girl, meets up with her brother, Tuan (Tung Thanh Tran). Tuan doesn’t trust Cronauer, but over time learns to, and eventually arranges a meeting between the American and his sister, Trinh (Chintara Sukapatana).

Much of the time is spent in Jimmy Wah’s, a local bar/restaurant run by the eponymous owner (Cu Ba Nguyen), who is flamingly and overtly gay and has a fetish for Walter Brennan. As the film progresses, the relationship between Cronauer and Tuan takes a darker turn. Tuan, for instance, pulls Cronauer out of Jimmy Wah’s moments before the place explodes, and Tuan also seems to be able to move through Viet Cong territory with relative ease.

The film essentially becomes a battle between the disc jockeys—Cronauer in particular but also the other working stiffs in the unit—and those more dedicated to living by the book. This includes Hauk and Dickerson mainly, but also includes the Army censors (Dan and Don Stanton who look so much alike that it almost seems like a camera trick instead of identical twins). Cronauer clashes with the brass on a near-daily basis, which leads to his being pulled from the air and replaced by the supremely, dreadfully unfunny Hauk in one of the film’s best moments.

Good Morning, Vietnam isn’t quite sure of what it wants to be. Is it a comedy about dealing with the brass and people without a sense of humor? Yes, it is in part, and these sequences tend to be the strongest in the film. Is it a drama about relationships, racism, and nationalism? Yes, it’s that too, especially as we delve into the relationship between Cronauer and Tuan and Cronauer and Trinh. Is it about inefficiency and stubbornness, and playing things too close to the book instead of living? Yes to that as well. Because it is all of these things, it’s also none of these things completely, and as much as the film tries desperately to gel into a unified, complete story, it never really does.

It’s still a strong performance from Williams. The best scenes in the movie are those in which he is able to improvise and work with a very loose script and material he’s been given as a starting point. His radio rants are staggering and manic, offering glimpses of comedic genius, improvisational skill, and excellent timing. Similarly, his immediate responses to jabs from his superiors are funny and delivered perfectly. It’s elsewhere the film seems to break down. Williams can certainly pull off relationships in film, but here, it doesn’t seem to work as well as the straight comedy does.

Good Morning, Vietnam also seems to mark a slow slide into sentimentality for Williams, comedic films that seem to have a moral message that never quite pans out or that comes out not as heartwarming and real but as sap and cheese. It was a long, slow slide through films like Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, Hook, Toys, and Jack, finally culminating in the diabetes-inducing Patch Adams that marked a frequently unfunny, unentertaining slide in the man’s career. That he’s broken out of this in the main is a good thing. And while his performance here is a strong one, there’s no mistaking that his dozen-year, face-first slide into sappy sentimentality started here.

Watch the movie for him, for Forest Whitaker, and for Bruno Kirby. Williams is at his comedic best here, at least in the moments he is allowed to be funny. When the relationships shows up, fast forward, or go make yourself a sandwich.

Why to watch Good Morning, Vietnam: When over-the-top Robin Williams works, it really works.
Why not to watch: History is tossed out the window for dubious dramatic effect.

Tales of the New West

Film: The Naked Spur
Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on laptop.

The Western is a genre I still find something of a mystery. It’s a genre that perhaps more than any other has evolved over time. Aside from the setting, there is very little to connect a classic Western from the ‘40s (say, Destry Rides Again) to those of the modern era (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford). Early Westerns tend to be idealized in many respects, particularly in the characters. Winchester ‘73 changed all of that. The Naked Spur picked up a few years later right where the first film left off.

In fact, the ‘50s were something of a landmark decade for Westerns that didn’t fit the traditional mold. The Naked Spur fits in with this idea as well as any other. Saying that it follows in the footsteps of Winchester ‘73 is not just saying that—Anthony Mann directed both, and James Stewart stars in both, making this film the natural son of the other.

As with a lot of Westerns, the plot is pretty straightforward, with the only real twists and turns coming from the fact that the genre was starting to change. This big change is the idea that heroes aren’t specifically heroic in all things, that they are real people who aren’t completely idealistic or morally perfect. Howard Kemp (Stewart) is a man on a mission; he’s looking for an outlaw named Ben Vandergroat (Robert Ryan), wanted for crimes committed in Kansas. Before meeting Vandergroat, he encounters a couple of other people who will be important in the plot.

First is an unlucky prospector named Jesse Tate (Millard Mitchell, who was also prominent in Winchester ‘73. Howard hires the prospector for $20 with an eye toward catching his fugitive. Jesse immediately assumes that his new riding partner is a lawman, and Howard does nothing to change this idea. The pair then come across Lieutenant Roy Anderson (Ralph Meeker), recently discharged from army for being morally unfit. The reason, implied with force, is that he carried on with the daughter of a native chief.

Not too long after this meeting, the trio meets up with their quarry and discover that he’s not traveling alone—he’s riding with Lina Patch (Janet Leigh), the daughter of his former partner. Lina is convinced of Ben’s innocence. It’s also at this time that we discover a few important things. Howard Kemp isn’t a lawman; he’s just someone looking for the substantial bounty on Ben Vandergroat.

We discover more as we go on. We learn, for instance, that Roy is running east because he is being pursued by members of the native tribe. When the tribe catches up, he sets up an ambush during which the natives are killed; during the fracas, Howard is shot in the leg. It’s here that we learn the truth of his story—he went to fight for the Union in the Civil War, and deeded his ranch to his fiancée while he was gone. During that time, she sold the ranch out from under him and ran off with another man. We also see some of the intense anger in Howard as he pistol whips a native to death when his gun runs dry.

Really, the five main characters already mentioned are the ones who carry the whole film, and there’s not much need for any others. The film becomes a mental game between the four men in particular. Ben tries to play the three off each other, telling each that if there were fewer bringing him back, each share of the reward would be greater. In particular, he works on Roy and Jesse, telling them that Howard can’t buy back his ranch without the complete reward. Through all of this, Ryan plays Ben as a man in the middle of a joke he’s very much enjoying. Any dissention in the group causes him the greatest pleasure. He knows he’s headed for a rope, a short drop, and a sudden stop, but he’s still plainly convinced he can get out of it one way or another.

Stewart carries the picture, of course. It is he that we are essentially forced into sympathizing with. His sudden bursts of anger and his frustration serve not to make him less of a hero, but more realistic and believable as a character. He’s not so perfect that we are forced to root for him (and in many ways, Jesse is a more entertaining character), but he is a character who is completely believable. Just as worth watching here is Robert Ryan, who is joyfully malevolent and vicious. There’s a sadistic pleasure in him that is surprisingly entertaining to watch.

If I have a complaint, it’s that at least some of the conclusion is foregone as soon as we are introduced to all of the characters. This isn’t to say that there aren’t a few surprises, particularly at the end, but it’s hardly a spoiler to suggest that Lina will end up falling for Howard and vice versa. That is, after all, how the genre goes, even in cases that attempt to break the mold.

Having grown up with James Stewart in films like It’s a Wonderful Life, Harvey, and Vertigo, it always surprises me just a little when I see him in the lead role of a Western. I don’t know why this is, because he’s always worth watching in the genre, no less here than anywhere else.

Why to watch The Naked Spur: The continual refinement of the Western genre.
Why not to watch: It’s still a bit formulaic in places, although less so than you might think.

And the World's Happiest Caterer

Film: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on big ol’ television.

I suppose if I really think about it, I knew what I was getting into when I decided it was time to watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It is, after all, a musical from that classic era of Hollywood when every other film seemed to be a musical. And that means giant dance numbers, people singing what they think to each other with a full orchestra background behind them, color-coordinated outfits, misunderstandings, and stereotypical division of the sexes. But, I’m committed to it, so I may as well push my way through it.

Adam Pontipee (Howard Keel) rides into town one fine day to trade for some goods and to find himself a wife. And, wonder of wonders, he finds one. That very day he meets, proposes to, and marries Milly (Jane Powell). He fails to tell her that he lives with his six brothers and that he fully expects that she’ll take care of all of them. Fortunately for her, the brothers are conveniently named alphabetically and Biblically. After Adam comes Benjamin (Jeff Richards), Caleb (Matt Mattox), Daniel (Marc Platt), Ephraim (Jacques d’Ambroise), Frank (short for Frankincense and played by (Tommy Rall), and Gideon (Russ Tamblyn). Of course, she’s having none of this and she sets to civilizin’ those boys right quick.

Everything comes to a head at the barn raising where the six unmarried brothers meet six girls from the local town and are immediately smitten with them. They are, paired up the same order as above, Dorcas (Julie Newmar), Ruth (Ruta Lee), Martha (Norma Doggett), Liza (Virginia Gibson), Sarah (Betty Carr), and Alice (Nancy Kilgas). Of course, in the Oregon Territory, there are more men than women, and each of the six already has a suitor.

What we get is a dance-off, essentially as five of the brothers in particular (Benjamin was played by a non-dancing ex-baseball player, evidently) battle it out with the girls’ dates, and it’s evident that the girls prefer the tall, red-haired, and studly Pontipee men to their current beaus. Those beaus take it out on the Pontipees by physically attacking them in small ways as the barn sides start going up. Eventually, the Pontipees react and a huge fight breaks out (which is actually quite entertaining) and at the end, the entire barn comes crashing down. Naturally, everyone blames the brothers and they are essentially run out of town on a rail.

But now the brothers are distraught over their missing girls. So, when winter comes, Adam relates to them the story of the Sabine Women (which he mistranslates as the Sobbin’ Women) and convinces the boys that their best course of action is to ride into town and kidnap the girls. They do, and on the way back to their farm, they cause an avalanche so that no one can follow them, at least until spring. Unfortunately, they’ve managed to forget to bring the pastor with them, which means no marriages. This is to say nothing of the fact that the six girls are naturally quite upset about being dragged off into the wilderness by six large and horny men. The actions also cause a rift between Adam and Milly, and Adam goes off to the trapping cabin.

Big sigh. The brothers are forced to live in the barn and the six girls vent their frustration on them through the winter until by the spring it turns out that (of course) they’ve fallen for the strapping young boys. And, because it’s a musical, everything works out in the end just like you knew it would from the first moment Howard Keel started singing.

My biggest complaint here is not that everybody sings and dances. It’s that the women are so compliant in the whole thing. This isn’t a movie about love or marriage, but the Stockholm Syndrome, complete with a frontier underwear catfight. It’s actually pretty insulting. Milly complains that Adam doesn’t understand her, or women, or love, but it seems like he’s got it pretty much on target for what this film tells us. Capture a woman like a caveman, drag her away from everything she knows and keep her prisoner for a few months, and just like that, you’ve got a bride who will be completely devoted to you. Better romance through criminal behavior.

Another issue is that with a couple of exceptions, the brothers are pretty much interchangeable. It’s easy to spot Adam because, well, he’s Howard Keel. And Russ Tamblyn is considerably smaller than the other brothers, so he’s pretty easy to spot as well. But the other five may as well be given numbers instead of names for as much sense as I could make of them. Even the fact that the brothers end up conveniently color-coded from the barn raising on, I still couldn’t really tell them apart.

It’s also evident that wherever they are in Oregon, the woods get snowed in for a good seven or eight months per year. It’s cozy!

It’s interesting that it’s taken me this film to really understand what my problem is with many classic musicals. It’s the sexual politics of these films. Women have no meaning or purpose without men, and seem to be willing to endure any sort of mistreatment from the men in their lives simply because they are the men in their lives. It’s not the sort of lesson I’d prefer my daughters learn from things that they see. I understand why people like these films and I even understand why this message was there in 1954, but it doesn’t mean it’s a lesson that belongs in the world any more.

Why to watch Seven Brides for Seven Brothers: Because the barn raising scene is really worth seeing.
Why not to watch: Stockholm Syndrome is not a healthy basis for a marriage.

The Evolution of Revolution

Films: Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters, Reds
Format: Streaming video from Hulu+ on laptop (Mishima); DVD from Rockford Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player (Reds).

Biographies are always interesting to me. There is always a question in my mind as to whether or not something is accurate or not unless I know the answer going in. I knew, for instance, that a film like Yankee Doodle Dandy was highly fictionalized and had all warts and blemishes removed. A film like All That Jazz is somewhat fiction and not a true biography, but is still an excellent look at the director’s life. From what I understand, Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters doesn’t dovetail precisely with author Yukio Mishima’s life and death, but it bears a definite ring of truth.

Like the film Time Regained about Marcel Proust, Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters conflates the author’s stories with his life. We see glimpses from his life and the world he grew up in as well as snippets from three of his books as well as a few other stories. Each of these is given the weight of autobiography as well, pulling events taken in part from the author’s life. In the first, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, a young man with a stutter destroys a temple because its beauty makes him feel inferior. It is implied that Mishima spoke with a stutter as a child, and also mentioned that his youth was, at least in the eyes of his domineering grandmother, sickly. His childhood is matched against this story, which gives us a sense of his early life and desire to create. There are also some hints at homosexuality and uncomfortableness around women.

In the second story, Kyoko’s House, a young man essentially sells himself into sexual slavery for the benefit of his mother. The relationship quickly turns sado-masochistic and more than a little disturbing, and ultimately fatal. Here we learn of Mishima’s obsession with death, or more to the point, with dying well and in the right way to prove a point. There’s a cruelty in this part of the film that is evidently attractive to Mishima, a desire to suffer for the sake of art, but also a desire to suffer for the sake of suffering.

It is the third film that plays the closest to the narrative of Mishima’s life at the point we encounter him, though. In Runaway Horses, nationalistic fanatics attempt to overthrow the government and fail, ending with the leader committing suicide. As this is essentially what happened at the end of Yukio Mishima’s life, the viewer could easily credit Mishima with a certain amount of prescience, publishing the story a year before the reality.

In fact, it seems that Runaway Horses is a sort of manifesto of Mishima’s actual point of view. His character in the story longs for a return to the traditional past, a return of power to the Emperor and the destruction of the capitalism he feels has weakened Japan’s traditional culture. Interspersed with this story (as with the others, but more telling with this one) are clips of Mishima essentially espousing the same philosophy. As the character is abandoned by those who would help him, he continues forward anyway, just as Mishima does with his own poorly executed coup d’etat. As the characters swear to die to restore Imperial Japan, we see Mishima and his own followers swear essentially the same pact, signing in their own blood. It is in this segment (except for the end) where we get the most of Mishima himself, this story in many ways being the closest to his heart.

One of the benefits of a good biopic is that when it really attempts to reflect reality, we see the inner workings of the subject’s mind. Mishima’s mind was evidently a fascinating and scary place. So dedicated to the idea of nationalism and the return of the samurai tradition to Japan was Mishima that he created his own private army with uniforms of his own design, military regularity and samurai discipline.

While a great deal of the film rests on the shoulders of the adaptations of the three stories, the bulk of the film truly comes in the performance of Ken Ogata as Mishima. This is a powerful performance of a man dedicated to a way of life and an ideal to the exclusion of everything else.

Schrader made a series of interesting decisions throughout the film, all of which work beautifully. Many of the story excerpts are shown essentially as stage plays, lending both a sense of drama to them as well as a step away from reality, almost as if to tell us that we are seeing a play within a play, a story within a story. It is beautifully realized and works on every level from the color choices to the lighting effects. It is, in a word, masterful.

In fact, every aspect of this film works to near perfection. Philip Glass’s soundtrack is one I recognized from other films or at least from trailers without knowing that it had come from this film. It captures the action beautifully. The switch to black and white for Mishima’s segments in the three stories works as well, giving us an obvious cue as we switch between reality and fiction. This is a film to be watched more than once, a truly magnificent achievement in film as art and film as narrative.

Reds, the 1981 film from Warren Beatty, follows a different revolutionary path and a different sort of revolutionary. The film follows the communist struggles of John “Jack” Reed (Beatty), an American journalist, and his time before and after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917. Perhaps no other film since has cemented the link between Hollywood and the extreme political left since this film, and had HUAC not already happened, this might well be the sort of film that would trigger such thoughts, particularly in those early Reagan years.

Reed was, by all accounts, an excellent journalist as well as an extreme liberal. He was also one of the founding members of the American Communist Party, and was in Russia during the 1917 revolution. In fact, Reed is one of the handful of Americans buried in the Kremlin, so highly was he thought of in the new Soviet Union.

But that’s jumping ahead. The early part of the film centers on Reed’s time as a journalist in the United States, writing for left-wing newspapers and trying desperately to make ends meet. He encounters Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton) and is immediately smitten by her, and it’s evident that the feeling is mutual despite her marriage to a local dentist. Reed persuades her to come to New York and follow her path of writing and discussion of left-wing political topics, and she does.

Their union, though, is not a particularly happy one. It tends to be filled with his own trips to other parts of the country to try to organize labor, leaving her with her work and not much else. It’s around this time that Louise meets playwright Eugene O’Neill (Jack Nicholson) who also becomes smitten with her, and while Jack Reed is away, Louise decides to play. This causes even more of a rift between the two, which they attempt to repair by getting married, which leaves O’Neill out in the cold and depressed.

Louise gets an offer from Horace Whigham (George Plimpton) to go to Europe to cover World War I, which according to Reed is nothing more than capitalists fighting over capital. But she goes, and during this time, Reed falls ill. He is forced into the hospital and has a kidney removed. He eventually follows her on his way to Russia because he is convinced that communist revolution is about to take place. It does, of course, and he and Louise are in the perfect position to cover it. When the revolution ends, they return to the States to write. Louise goes on a lecture tour to cover their expenses and Reed writes his magnum opus, “Ten Days that Shook the World.”

But the two can’t stay happy together. As the revolutionary movement in the United States begins to splinter into factions, Reed returns to Moscow to attempt to gain the Comintern’s approval for his new political party. Thwarted in that, he is prevented from leaving because the Party wants to use him to attempt to incite workers’ revolutions in other parts of the world. Eventually, Louise comes to Russia to find him, and, overworked and ill, Reed eventually succumbs.

This is a film for which it appears Beatty called in as many favors as he could. There are some small roles played by great actors. Paul Sorvino appears as an Italian communist who is alternately friendly and antagonistic to Reed. Gene Hackman shows up as a journalist who sometimes employs Reed but can’t quite get over his communist tendencies. Character actor Edward Herrmann plays a friend of the couple, and character actor M. Emmett Walsh shows up as a speaker at one point. Lots of small but entertaining roles for an excellent cast.

One of the best aspects of the film are the frequent remembrances of people who knew the actual Louise Bryant and/or Jack Reed. These ancient voices and faces pop up into the narrative at times, explaining the relationship of the couple as they understood it, commenting on the politics of the time, or simply remembering. If nothing else, this lends an air of authenticity to the production it would not otherwise have.

Reds is gutsy for appearing when it did and for taking the stance on Reed that it does. It is Keaton who truly shines in this film though. Louise Bryant—free love tendencies, extreme politics, and all—ends up as the most sympathetic and most human character in the drama. In all honesty, I’d rather watch a film about her than Jack Reed.

In the end, Reds is far too long. While part of the story can handle the epic narrative style, the part that can is merely a blip on this film’s radar. I could handle a 3+ hour film on Reed’s and Bryant’s point of view of the Bolshevik revolution. It’s the rest of their lives and their relationship that I find less interesting. Ultimately, the film is two-thirds of two different films glued together. It’s not the film it should be in many ways; it’s good and worth watching, but an adaptation of Reed’s book might be more interesting and more worthy of the epic length.

Why to watch Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters: A unique portrait of a unique mind.
Why not to watch: Not much happens that is happy for anyone.

Why to watch Reds: Because Diane Keaton rocks and because Jack Nicholson plays Eugene O’Neill.
Why not to watch: It’s much longer than it needs to be.

Giallo

Film: L’uccello dalle Piume di Cristallo (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage)
Format: DVD from NetFlix on kick-ass portable DVD player.

See enough movies, and eventually, you see something from pretty much every genre. I’m not terribly familiar with the giallo style, despite having seen a few. I know the basics, but I can’t really tell you what is derivative versus original in the style because I’ve only seen those few. It’s an interesting style, though. With gialli, it’s all about murder and sex, even if the sex isn’t explicit. The more lurid the sex and the more awful the crimes, the better. All of this led me to L’uccello dalle Piume di Cristallo (The Bird with the Crystal Plumage), the first film from Italian stylist Dario Argento.

Like most gialli, the film plays with our expectations of what we think is going to happen and with twists at the end. This is pretty standard fare for the genre as I understand it. I wasn’t caught terribly off guard by the twist, even though it’s a good (if standard) one. Part of this may well be Argento’s novice status behind the camera at the time, which may also account for the relatively linear plot. The twist, in fact, feels a little forced, like it was put there because the audiences expects it in the genre, not specifically because it will make the movie better or more interesting. So the good news here is that the film is interesting almost in spite of its simplicity.

An American writer named Sam (Tony Musante) is in Italy where he had hoped to become inspired to write. It hasn’t panned out for him, though, so he’s all set to return to the States with his girlfriend Julia (Suzy Kendall) when he witnesses an attempted murder in an art gallery. A woman named Monica Ranieri (Eva Renzi), who happens to be the wife of the gallery owner, Alberto Renzi (Umberto Raho), is stabbed by a gloved and trenchcoated figure. Sam sees the attack but doesn’t get much of a look at the attacker, and the woman lives. Unfortunately for Sam, he’s now a bit of a suspect, and is forced to hand over his passport. And it turns out that there have been several such murders recently, leading the police to believe that they have a serial killer on their hands.

It soon becomes evident that Sam is not guilty, though, when new suspects turn up. Additionally, Sam gets a disturbing phone call from the apparent killer, a call that he manages to get on tape. His passport is returned by Inspector Morosini (Enrico Maria Salerno). Sam decides to stay on for a few more days since his lease isn’t quite up to see if he can aid in the investigation in any way. Slowly, clues come to him, as do increased threats. And throughout the film, he tries to remember the attack on Monica as clearly as he can, with replays changing slightly as the film continues. Eventually, there is a showdown, and then a twist in which Sam faces down the actual threat and (of course) all seems lost.

For a simplistic plot and some strange dubbing and voice work, L’ucello dalle Piume di Cristallo is surprisingly engaging. There are some excellent moments in the film that are surprising and work extremely well. For instance, when it becomes evident that Sam and Julia are targets of the killer, they are given a police escort who tails them at a given distance. In one scene, Sam and Julia are walking down the street with their escort behind them. Suddenly, a car approaches and with no warning, simply runs down the cop escort, which leads to a pretty good chase sequence through the streets of Rome. It was sudden and disturbing because of how quickly it happened, and it still works like a charm.

It also indicates to me that Dario Argento has always had a thing for creepy, disturbing soundtracks. This one seems to consist of moments of people singing “La la la” over and over in a way that doesn’t quite sound like vocals, but sort of does. When it’s not that, it’s more or less the sound of women in the heat of sexual passion. It doesn’t hold a candle to the Goblin soundtrack for Suspiria, but it’s still pretty weird and fun, and I rather liked it in spite of myself.

I’ve no doubt that there are other gialli worth my time and attention out there, but it would not surprise me if someone who really knew the genre told me that this one ranked as one of the better ones. The plot is a bit too simple, but still engaging. The characters act in logical ways that don’t leave me scratching my head as to their motivation. And I like the strange sexual tension that seems to exist in at least a few of the killings. There’s definitely more going on under the surface than we are allowed to see, so I appreciate the fact that the film is quite a bit deeper than it lets on at the start.

As a final note, a film that is this influential deserves a decent DVD copy. The transfer is good, but the DVD itself is punishing. There's no menu, no subtitles (and no ability to watch in Italian with subtitles) and no options or extras. The film deserves better treatment. Someone tell Criterion.

Why to watch L’uccello dalle Piume di Cristallo: A surprisingly effective thriller, even after 40+ years.
Why not to watch: Is it too much to ask for a decent DVD version?

Month 25 Status Report

So I missed putting this up last night.

January was a good month. I located a number of movies I couldn't find in the past and watched a few of them too. I also knocked out a set of foreign films, which always take more concentration, and are thus more difficult to work into my schedule.

Even better, I'm currently at 500 films to go. That's a pretty good milestone. The goal for the rest of the year is essentially 25 films per month, so February is going to be a little tough because it's short.

In the Ghetto

Film: The Pianist
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on kick-ass portable DVD player.

(This review is a part of the Blind Spots series. See others in the series for January at The Matinee.)

World War II is a common theme for films, and when it comes to World War II, the most common theme is to investigate aspects of The Holocaust. There are almost certainly more films on The List about this particular terrible part of humanity that any other topic with the possible exception of love and romance, and even then I’m not sure I’d take the bet. Because this is such a common topic for film, it becomes increasingly important for filmmakers to tell different stories rather than the standard tale of survival against crippling odds and horrifying brutality and inhumanity. And yet, in the long run, this is what most of the stories become—triumphs of simple humanity against a truly loathsome evil.

The Pianist is one such story that manages to transcend the idea of a tale about simple survival while essentially being a film about just that. Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is a classically trained pianist who plays for Polish radio. On September 1, 1939, German troops cross the border into Poland, and both France and England declare war on Poland’s side. The Poles are convinced that the war will be won quickly and decisively, thanks to their allies coming to their aid.

Of course, this is not the case, and soon Poland is in the same grip of fear that plagues the rest of Europe. For Szpilman and his family, there is greater cause for alarm—they are Jewish, and the laws against them soon become restrictive. As Germany takes over, there are fewer and fewer rights available to the Jews and life becomes harder and harder. As the takeover progresses, so do the increasingly harsh laws, and as these go into effect, the behavior of the occupying forces become more and more openly sadistic. Eventually, the Jews are moved into a walled ghetto, a city within the city of Warsaw.

We follow Szpilman as he attempts to survive in the ghetto, tries to maintain a life with his family, and as he learns that there really is very little help from the outside world. A few friends do assist him, managing to get him out of the ghetto shortly before the uprising. He is moved into an allegedly abandoned apartment right across from the ghetto, which gives him a bard’s-eye view of the battles that go on there as well as the complete destruction of everything inside the walls.

Food becomes scarce, forcing him to go “prospecting” in other apartments with the hope of finding anything to eat. He is eventually found in a hiding place by a German officer named Wilm Hosenfeld (Thomas Kretschmann), who allows him to survive and even brings him food and clothing before the tide of the war turns in favor of the Allied forces.

The story is based on the real-life experience of the real Wladyslaw Szpilman, which makes touches like this one easier to believe. I have no idea how much, if any, of the film was based on the real story and how much was tweaked to better fit a particular narrative. But knowing that there is some basis in fact on the events depicted does lend a certain air of authenticity to the story.

Adrien Brody is perhaps the perfect person to play this role. He has an unusually expressive face, and his natural gauntness makes him ideal as Szpilman begins to starve. He looks like a man who is starving already. Put him in clothing a few sizes too big, and it looks as if he hasn’t eaten in a week. Toward the end of the film, with a full beard grown in, he looks positively decrepit. The beard doesn’t fill out is face but instead enhances the appearance of emaciation.

What’s interesting here is the starkness of the environment. Forced to move from location to location, Szpilman regularly encounters areas of Warsaw that have become blasted landscapes on which he appears to be the only living thing. We witness depraved acts of inhumanity that are shocking at the start of the film and become simply a part of the environment by the end. It is this that makes Hosenfeld’s behavior so noteworthy and, in its own way, beautiful. He asks Szpilman to play, and sits enraptured by the man’s talent, and then acts to save him. It is as if saving this one thing of beauty—a man’s talent—is a way to repay for the complete destruction of a people, a culture, a society, and a country.

I have a tendency to like or love Polanski’s films. I like this one. Perhaps on a second, future viewing I will love it.

Why to watch The Pianist: It’s a World War II story that is very different from the standard.
Why not to watch: How much time do you want to spend in the Warsaw Ghetto?