Movie Masterworks

“You know, a bad doctor can kill you. I won’t kill you, but I might break a couple of arms or legs.”

Synopsis: A testament to the goodness of humankind, Akira Kurosawa’s ‘Red Beard’ chronicles the tumultuous relationship between an arrogant young doctor and a compassionate clinic director. Toshiro Mifune, in his last role for Kurosawa, gives a powerhouse performance as the dignified yet empathic director who guides his pupil to maturity, teaching the embittered intern to appreciate the lives of his destitute patients. Perfectly capturing the look and feel of 19th-century Japan, Kurosawa weaves a fascinating tapestry of time, place, and emotion.

Critique: There are few films that reach as deeply as this one into the realms of the human condition, including despair and caring. At one level, the film is about the nature of medical care, but, in the nineteenth century, medical care was not materially different than the broader term, “caring.” Medicine had few scientifically validated treatments to offer and virtually no capacity to cure ailments. Red Beard knows that his business is as much about giving hope and fighting poverty as it is about disease: “Medical science doesn’t know everything. We know the symptoms and how things go. We can only fight poverty and ignorance, and cover up what we don’t know. If it weren’t for poverty, half of these people wouldn’t be sick.” Fields like psychology and social services didn’t exist, at the time, so medicine encompassed most of what is now divided among many different so-called “helping professions.” Medicine has changed both for better and for worse. On the positive side, doctors now have a much broader arsenal of efficacious interventions for many kinds of disease. On the downside, many physicians have lost the holistic orientation and “bedside manner” that Red Beard embodies and which Yasumoto is beginning to appreciate. Beyond that, the film’s other specific themes are those listed above as the seven lessons learned by Yasumoto. The one about the value of life residing in loving and caring for others is perhaps most central.

The script of Red Beard provides both its greatest strengths and its only significant weaknesses. The general contours of the story were based on a novel by Shugoro Yamamoto, called Red Beard. Shugoro’s writings had also provided the main plot elements for Sanjuro. Kurosawa wrote the screenplay for Red Beard himself, incorporating additional elements from Dostoevsky’s The Insulted and the Injured, as well as some of his own experiences. The story takes place mainly at the Koishikawa Public Clinic in nineteenth century Japan, near the city of Nagasaki. Medicine in Japan was undergoing major changes due to exposure of Japanese physicians to Western medical practices at the Dutch medical school in Nagasaki. The Japanese referred to Dutch physicians as “Red Beards” and their medical practices as “Red Medicine.” Hence the film’s title, “Red Beard.”

The film’s script treats its subject matter with admirable realism. A rich variety of primary and secondary characters are introduced and several undergo character development over the course of the film. Instead of basing the evolution of the main character on one climactic revelatory moment (as all too many films do), Kurosawa allows the deepening of personality and understanding to accumulate gradually as a natural result of numerous experiences (which is how personal growth usually occurs in real life). There’s a profound honesty and simplicity to the script that is downright refreshing. The script is highly literate and provides an excellent balance between humor, drama, characterization, and action.

The film’s major weakness is that the script is somewhat overly episodic. This gives Red Beard something of the feel of a mini-series or soap opera. Kurosawa strays frequently from the main story in extended tangential subplots. The gradual education of the young doctor Noboru Yasumoto provides the only integrating motif. It’s a bit like four or so episodes of Dr. Kildare strung together.

This film is not especially typical of Kurosawa’s output due to the extent of emphasis on narrative. Kurosawa was known, both early and late in his career, for spectacular visuals and highly developed camerawork. There’s nothing that disappoints about the cinematography for this film. It just doesn’t stand out as it does in either The Seven Samurai or Ran. It’s kept subordinate to the story. For many of the scenes in Red Beard, Kurosawa uses telephoto lenses to flatten the visual field and allow the camera to remain in focus as it moves. There’s an assortment of interesting perspective shots, looking down corridors, for example, and a magnificent tracking shot, near the end, by which the camera descends into a well before turning to peer back up at a group of characters shouting into the pit. If the individual images draw less attention than is typical of Kurosawa’s work, they nevertheless exhibit the same masterful composition and richness of chiaroscuro. It’s mainly only the kinetic element and the panoramic landscapes that are less in evidence in Red Beard compared to, say, Ran.

The costumes and sets were meticulously designed with period authenticity firmly in mind. Details of medical practice were verified as consistent with nineteenth century medicine. The soundtrack is mostly unobtrusive, though occasionally resorting to those heavy-handed dramatic sounds designed to tell viewers what they are supposed to be feeling. The music sometimes pauses for extended periods of time to allow natural sounds to permeate the atmosphere.

Both of the lead men provide strong performances. Yuzo Kayama gives us a highly sympathetic character as the central protagonist. It is through his eyes that we see the events unfold. Kayama had earlier appeared in Chushingura (1962) and was something of a matinee idol in his day. Mifune’s performance is restrained and authoritative. He’s magnificent, of course, in the one fight scene, but just as powerful, in other ways, as the compassionate healer and mentor.

This is a high quality film, with a touching story and profoundly humanistic themes. The performances are excellent, the cinematography is superb, and the character development outstanding. You shouldn’t let my small number of quibbles with the film (such as length and an overly episodic script) dissuade you from watching it.

-Metalluk

My thoughts: I agree with Metalluk’s conclusion: “I especially recommend this film for anyone anticipating a career in medicine, psychology, social services, or other helping professions. It’s a reminder that we all need to keep our priorities straight and recognize that status and success are less important than making some kind of tangible difference in the lives of our fellow humans.”

“You don’t know yet what an awful place the world can be.”

Synopsis: Anna Magnani is Mamma Roma, a middle-aged prostitute who attempts to extricate herself from her sordid past for the sake of her son. Filmed in the great tradition of Italian neorealism, Mamma Roma offers an unflinching look at the struggle for survival in postwar Italy, and highlights director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s lifelong fascination with the marginalized and dispossessed. Though banned upon its release in Italy for obscenity, today Mamma Roma is considered a classic: a glimpse at a country’s most controversial director in the process of finding his style and a powerhouse performance by one of cinema’s greatest actresses.

Critique: Pasolini was a deeply fatalistic individual and believed that “the only thing that makes man really great is the fact that he will die.” The foremost theme of Mamma Roma might be summed up as the hopelessness (and infectious influence) inherent in the efforts of the sub-proletariat to improve their lot in life. Pasolini despised the consumerism of the bourgeoisie and felt that the sub-proletariat despoiled itself in striving for middleclass status. Mamma Roma’s purchase of a motorbike for her son is emblematic of her contamination by consumerism. One might cynically note that Pasolini late succumbed to the lure of consumerism himself. When he was murdered and run over by his own car at just fifty-three years of age, the car was an Alfa-Romero. At least his tragic death fulfilled his own criterion for greatness.

Pasolini portrays Mamma Roma as virtually imprisoned in her social class and pathetic in her efforts to emerge from it. It was for this reason that Pasolini’s fellow Communists rejected his work, even though it was also vociferously rejected by the neo-Fascists on the right. The Communist perspective on the arts favored portrayals of the proletariat as noble and wholesome individuals unfairly suppressed by decadent capitalists. Pasolini, instead, paints a picture of life in the borgate that is itself morally decadent and anything but noble.

The script for Mamma Roma follows the Neo-realist tradition to the extent of evoking emotions of empathy and concern for the struggling lower class. A story of a struggling mother trying to provide for her family and improve their lot is ordinary enough, but the particulars with which Pasolini fills out his story are exceptional. The sympathetic treatment of prostitution and blackmail was quite original and aroused the consternation of Italian authorities. Pasolini’s script was also exceptional for what it did not tell. Many particulars are left to our imaginations. We don’t know, for example, the identity of Ettore’s father or who raised him in his youth. For that matter, we learn precious little about Mamma Roma’s history.

One of Pasolini’s consistent strengths, as a filmmaker, is the quality of his dialog. Pasolini had a keen interest in language, local dialects, and street language, in particular. He drew both his actors, for this film, and those he later used for dubbing from the borgate, giving the film exceptional linguistic authenticity. Then, Pasolini drew on his experience as poet and novelist to write dialog that was always compelling and sometimes, even, poetic.

There is a pair of standout scenes in this film in which Mamma Roma strides along the prostitute’s promenade, soliloquizing on life, the hardships of prostitution, love, and destiny. As she strolls along, the camera rolls backward, receding at the same pace as she approaches, thus suggesting the unattainable destination that is her dream. As she walks, the people in her life – a mix of hookers, pimps, and customers – momentarily join her, share a bit of dialog with her, and then peel off, each in turn. The two recurrences of this basic motif pretty much sum up the essence of Mamma Roma’s existence: a few passing contacts with the folks mired at her own level of existence combined with striving toward an unattainable objective. Mamma Roma’s boisterous demeanor can be easily understood as defense against genuine involvement.

Pasolini had a deep love for the paintings of the Renaissance masters and his cinematographic style demonstrates it. His mise-en-sceée is always painterly. He emphasizes frontal shots with a shallow depth of field. Backgrounds are carefully selected to set off his characters. Both Mamma Roma and its predecessor, Accattone!, were shot in gritty, high-contrast, black-and-white.

-Metalluk

My Thoughts: Richard Gibson was kind enough to recommend “Mamma Roma” as a companion to “Nights of Cabiria.” There were many parallels between these films such as the Catholic symbolism and subject matter. However, I found myself much more sympathetic toward Cabiria than Mamma Roma.

“Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

Synopsis: A landmark movie in the film noir tradition, Roman Polanski’s ‘Chinatown’ stands as a true screen classic. Jack Nicholson is private-eye Jake Gittes, living off the murky moral climate of sunbaked, pre-war Southern California. Hired by a beautiful socialite (Faye Dunaway) to investigate her husband’s extramarital affair, Gittes is swept into a maelstrom of double dealings and deadly deceits, uncovering a web of personal and political scandals that come crashing together for one, unforgettable night in… Chinatown.

Critique: Could Chinatown be made today, in a Hollywood climate that rewards productions with no ambition and demands happy endings? Probably not. Even in 1974, screenwriter Robert Towne wanted a more upbeat conclusion, but Polanski believed that the film’s true path intersected with tragedy. From the vantage point of almost 30 years distance, it’s difficult to argue with the director’s interpretation. Had Towne’s vision held, the mediocre climax would have robbed Chinatown of an element of its power. One has to wonder whether it would be held in as high regard.

The most interesting aspect of the ending is how, although much of Chinatown is concerned with the unraveling of the San Fernando land buying conspiracy, the eventual resolution involves events that have nothing to do with the “big picture” and everything to do with the warped relationship between various key characters. In its final moments, we appreciate the manner in which Chinatown works both as a mystery and as an exploration of a deeper, more personal human tragedy. Gittes is not an unattached observer, as many private investigators are, and his involvement lends greater impact to the conclusion - especially since we see events through his eyes. He is, after all, our surrogate throughout the film.

Ever since film noir reached Hollywood, the detective has become a type, with film noir being his playground. It takes a Herculean effort to transform this type into a character and to replace the formula with a story, and Chinatown’s success in both of these regards is one of the reasons it is universally viewed as a classic. The movie is a nearly flawless example of movie composition, with close examination revealing how carefully it was put together. For those who take a less studious and more visceral approach to movie viewing, it’s also worth noting that Chinatown is a superior thriller - one that will keep viewers involved and “in the moment” until the final, mournful scene has come to a conclusion.

-James Berardinelli, ReelViews

My thoughts: The story of “Chinatown” unfolds like the layers of an union until you reach the core. Jack Nicholson gives one of the best performances of his career and John Huston is wonderful. Huston’s character (Noah Cross) exudes an aura of oily sleaziness that can be felt through the screen. This movie revived the Film Noir genre.

“God…Odin…come!”

Synopsis: One of the most visually beautiful of all black-and-white films, The Virgin Spring won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1961. The picture remains a powerful parable of good and evil, of faith lost and recovered. Adapted from a folk ballad, it is a study in contrasts, but not extremes. Set in a society struggling with the transition to Christianity from Norse paganism and a feudal economy, the film depicts savage violence that begets savage retribution. But there is also hope, and light and shadow, dappled in shades of gray both symbolic and literal, as with the stunning chiaroscuro cinematography—one of many quiet wonders in this rich, deeply moving cinematic experience.

An emotionally devastating experience, The Virgin Spring elicits a deep appreciation of life through its depiction of senseless death and the futility of revenge. Bergman urges his audience to cherish the time we do have, even in the face of incomprehensible cruelty. That sweet sentiment softens a harsh reminder of the fleeting hours ahead.

Steve Evans, DVD Verdict

Critique: In October 2005, Ang Lee took time out from Brokeback Mountain’s festival circuit to record a video introduction for this Criterion edition of Ingmar Bergman’s austerely beautiful The Virgin Spring. In it, Lee says that when he first saw this black-and-white Scandinavian film as an 18-year-old in Taiwan, it “dumbfounded” and “electrified” him. He stayed in the screening room to view it a second time, and “life changed afterward,” he declares. Its quietude coupled with brutal violence, and its whispering fundamental questions — particularly “God, where are you?” — expressed for Lee a “microscope into humanity.” He adds, “Watching that movie made me a different filmmaker.” Lee probably didn’t set out to speak thematically of The Virgin Spring in terms of a filmmaker in transition, though it’s fitting given the film’s place in Bergman’s canon. Released in 1960, it marks the final title associated with the auteur’s classical period, those major films of the 1950s such as Wild Strawberries, The Magician, and The Seventh Seal. Although its visual and existential aesthetics strike us here and now as unmistakably “Bergmanesque,” the director himself became critical of his reliance on imitating the visual styles of other filmmakers, chiefly Kurosawa. Beginning with his next major work, Through a Glass Darkly (’61), we see Bergman’s own distinctive style assertively developing. And in terms of practical professional transitions, after The Virgin Spring ended up winning Bergman his first Best Foreign Language Oscar in 1961, the newfound acclaim brought a financial and prestige boost that helped him ascend to the next phase of his career.

—Mark Bourne

“Adapted from a fourteenth century Swedish legend by screenwriter and novelist Ulla Isaksson, The Virgin Spring is a harrowing, yet ultimately affirming portrait of faith, humanity, and atonement. Using chiaroscuro imagery that interplays light and shadows, Ingmar Bergman reflects the process of spiritual illumination in the transitional era of the Middle Ages where mysticism, amorality, and paganism coexisted with the period of intellectual, artistic, and religious enlightenment: the opening image of Ingeri performing her chores that transitions into an illuminated crucifix as Töre and Märeta pray; the physical dissimilarity between the fair haired Karin and the dark haired “adopted” Ingeri; the stark visual contrast between the dark and claustrophobic interiors of the farmhouse and the sunlit path along the stream; the light precipitation of snow after the brothers’ unconscionable act. As Ingeri (the allusional fallen sinner, Mary Magdalene) becomes a witness to the manifestation of secular discord and divine grace, she follows her own figurative path from religious darkness and moral bankruptcy to a state of spiritual baptism and enlightenment.”

-Acquarello, Strictly Film School

My thoughts: There are emotions that films commonly elicit from people like desire, happiness, interest, surprise, wonder and sorrow. “The Virgin Spring” is the only movie in which I have experienced hate. It’s testimony to just how emotionally brutal this movie is. It will test you, and for some viewers, it will change you.

Sam: [singing] You must remember this / A kiss is still a kiss / A sigh is just a sigh / The fundamental things apply / As time goes by.

Critique: If we identify strongly with the characters in some movies, then it is no mystery that “Casablanca” is one of the most popular films ever made. It is about a man and a woman who are in love, and who sacrifice love for a higher purpose. This is immensely appealing; the viewer is not only able to imagine winning the love of Humphrey Bogart or Ingrid Bergman, but unselfishly renouncing it, as a contribution to the great cause of defeating the Nazis.

No one making “Casablanca” thought they were making a great movie. It was simply another Warner Bros. release. It was an “A list” picture, to be sure (Bogart, Bergman and Paul Henreid were stars, and no better cast of supporting actors could have been assembled on the Warners lot than Peter Lorre, Sidney Greenstreet, Claude Rains and Dooley Wilson). But it was made on a tight budget and released with small expectations. Everyone involved in the film had been, and would be, in dozens of other films made under similar circumstances, and the greatness of “Casablanca” was largely the result of happy chance.

The screenplay was adapted from a play of no great consequence; memoirs tell of scraps of dialogue jotted down and rushed over to the set. What must have helped is that the characters were firmly established in the minds of the writers, and they were characters so close to the screen personas of the actors that it was hard to write dialogue in the wrong tone.

Humphrey Bogart played strong heroic leads in his career, but he was usually better as the disappointed, wounded, resentful hero. Remember him in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” convinced the others were plotting to steal his gold. In “Casablanca,” he plays Rick Blaine, the hard-drinking American running a nightclub in Casablanca when Morocco was a crossroads for spies, traitors, Nazis and the French Resistance.

The opening scenes dance with comedy; the dialogue combines the cynical with the weary; wisecracks with epigrams. We see that Rick moves easily in a corrupt world. “What is your nationality?” the German Strasser asks him, and he replies, “I’m a drunkard.” His personal code: “I stick my neck out for nobody.”

Then “of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” It is Ilsa Lund (Bergman), the woman Rick loved years earlier in Paris. Under the shadow of the German occupation, he arranged their escape, and believes she abandoned him–left him waiting in the rain at a train station with their tickets to freedom. Now she is with Victor Laszlo (Henreid), a legendary hero of the French Resistance.

All this is handled with great economy in a handful of shots that still, after many viewings, have the power to move me emotionally as few scenes ever have. The bar’s piano player, Sam (Wilson), a friend of theirs in Paris, is startled to see her. She asks him to play the song that she and Rick made their own, “As Time Goes By.” He is reluctant, but he does, and Rick comes striding angrily out of the back room “I thought I told you never to play that song!”. Then he sees Ilsa, a dramatic musical chord marks their closeups, and the scene plays out in resentment, regret and the memory of a love that was real. (This scene is not as strong on a first viewing as on subsequent viewings, because the first time you see the movie you don’t yet know the story of Rick and Ilsa in Paris; indeed, the more you see it the more the whole film gains resonance.)

The plot, a trifle to hang the emotions on, involves letters of passage that will allow two people to leave Casablanca for Portugal and freedom. Rick obtained the letters from the wheedling little black-marketeer Ugarte (Peter Lorre). The sudden reappearance of Ilsa reopens all of his old wounds, and breaks his carefully cultivated veneer of neutrality and indifference. When he hears her story, he realizes she has always loved him. But now she is with Laszlo. Rick wants to use the letters to escape with Ilsa, but then, in a sustained sequence that combines suspense, romance and comedy as they have rarely been brought together on the screen, he contrives a situation in which Ilsa and Laszlo escape together, while he and his friend the police chief (Claude Rains) get away with murder. “Round up the usual suspects.”

What is intriguing is that none of the major characters is bad. Some are cynical, some lie, some kill, but all are redeemed. If you think it was easy for Rick to renounce his love for Ilsa–to place a higher value on Laszlo’s fight against Nazism–remember Forster’s famous comment, “If I were forced to choose between my country and my friend, I hope I would be brave enough to choose my friend.”

From a modern perspective, the film reveals interesting assumptions. Ilsa Lund’s role is basically that of a lover and helpmate to a great man; the movie’s real question is, which great man should she be sleeping with? There is actually no reason why Laszlo cannot get on the plane alone, leaving Ilsa in Casablanca with Rick, and indeed that is one of the endings that was briefly considered. But that would be all wrong; the “happy” ending would be tarnished by self-interest, while the ending we have allows Rick to be larger, to approach nobility “it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world”. And it allows us, vicariously experiencing all of these things in the theater, to warm in the glow of his heroism.

In her closeups during this scene, Bergman’s face reflects confusing emotions. And well she might have been confused, since neither she nor anyone else on the film knew for sure until the final day who would get on the plane. Bergman played the whole movie without knowing how it would end, and this had the subtle effect of making all of her scenes more emotionally convincing; she could not tilt in the direction she knew the wind was blowing.

Stylistically, the film is not so much brilliant as absolutely sound, rock-solid in its use of Hollywood studio craftsmanship. The director, Michael Curtiz, and the writers (Julius J. Epstein, Philip G. Epstein and Howard Koch) all won Oscars. One of their key contributions was to show us that Rick, Ilsa and the others lived in a complex time and place. The richness of the supporting characters (Greenstreet as the corrupt club owner, Lorre as the sniveling cheat, Rains as the subtly homosexual police chief and minor characters like the young girl who will do anything to help her husband) set the moral stage for the decisions of the major characters. When this plot was remade in 1990 as “Havana,” Hollywood practices required all the big scenes to feature the big stars (Robert Redford and Lena Olin) and the film suffered as a result; out of context, they were more lovers than heroes.

Seeing the film over and over again, year after year, I find it never grows over-familiar. It plays like a favorite musical album; the more I know it, the more I like it. The black-and-white cinematography has not aged as color would. The dialogue is so spare and cynical it has not grown old-fashioned. Much of the emotional effect of “Casablanca” is achieved by indirection; as we leave the theater, we are absolutely convinced that the only thing keeping the world from going crazy is that the problems of three little people do after all amount to more than a hill of beans.

-Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

My thoughts: Love stories don’t get much better than this. Ingrid Bergman is heart wrenchingly beautiful; not glamorous beauty but the natural beauty of youth and vitality. She really is stunning. When I think of classic movies, I think of “Casablanca” first.

“I met Death today. We are playing chess.”

Synopsis: A Knight and his squire are home from the crusades. Black Death is sweeping their country. As they approach home, Death appears to the knight and tells him it is his time. The knight challenges Death to a chess game for his life. The Knight and Death play as the cultural turmoil envelopes the people around them as they try, in different ways, to deal with the upheaval the plague has caused.

Critique: Easily, one of the greatest films ever made, The Seventh Seal, Ingmar Bergman’s towering allegory about the human condition, seems at once utterly timeless and acutely aware of the world that it takes place in. Set in 14th-century Sweden, the movie takes place in a medieval land that’s being torn apart by the Crusades and the Plague, but it focuses just as intently on the fleeting moments of happiness that its characters feel as the disasters that they face. Within minutes of its opening, the movie casts itself into a realm of abstraction, trotting out Death itself as a main character, and this distance from reality enables it to look more directly at its philosophical question, which is, basically, “What if there is no God?” A variety of answers are offered up to this question, through the reactions of the diverse assortment of characters that populates the film, and each of them is parlayed with enough conviction from the actor delivering it that it feels as convincing and right as the last. As in many of Bergman’s films, it’s fairly impossible to find a definitive surrogate for the director, since each character is both sympathetic and pitiable.

Every scene seems to be balanced delicately between comedy and drama, and in the best scenes (the confession to Death, the confrontation of the priest turned grave-robber) each line of dialogue seems to change what the scene is trying to say. The theme moves from anger, to revenge, to lust, to freedom, to fear, to forgiveness, from second to second. You realize what it’s trying to do, and succeeding at, is saying all of those things about people at once. Its optimistic and droll moments are all the more impressive because they come after people stare into the abyss. The impending end of the world seems no reason not to keep one’s chin up. Perhaps even more impressively, it shows that the desire to search for answers here doesn’t preclude being afraid that the answer might not be what one hoped. The reaction of a knight (a brilliant Max von Sydow) and his squire (Gunnar Bjornstrand) to spiritual disappointment is contrasted most tragically against that of an angry mob that burns an innocent girl, claiming she is a witch. The power of this harrowing scene is reduced in no way by the shenanigans that surround it, nor the impression that Judgment Day is just around the corner anyway.

Bergman touches on nearly every one of his major themes in The Seventh Seal, and if he might have elaborated on many of them better elsewhere, I’m not sure that he’s ever made such a comprehensive, watchable flick as this one. Man’s self-destructive search for answers is made literally apocalyptic here, but it’s also made apparent that it’s wholly necessary if any meaning is to be found. The complexities that the film offers up as answers seem to hold fragments of universal truth, but nothing definitive, and in that haziness lays the movie’s truest wisdom. The blunt insistence of Death (the unforgettable Bengt Ekerot) that the game of life must come to an end frustrates most since, thanks to the supreme intelligence of the script, we felt we were on the right path, even if still haven’t figured it all out. The movie’s ultimate message is not to look for definitive answers, since nothing is guaranteed to remain as might originally appear. Even inevitable death is a disappointing anticlimax here, since it doesn’t bestow the expected enlightenment with its coming. The serendipitous joys found in the moment are most important in this context because they make no demands and carry with them no expectation. That surprisingly life-affirming message is the one thing in The Seventh Seal that endures long after its striking images of death and decay fade from the mind.

-Jeremy Heilman, MovieMartyr.com

My thoughts: I can relate to the knight, Antonius Block, “I want knowledge, not faith, not supposition, but knowledge.” Like Ikiru, the Seventh Seal is one of the great cinematic expressions of Existentialist philosophy. I love this Movie.

“You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!… All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

Synopsis: Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond, an aging silent film queen, and William Holden as the struggling writer who is held in thrall by her madness, created two of the screen’s most memorable characters in ‘Sunset Boulevard’. Winner of three Academy Awards®, director Billy Wilder’s orchestration of the bizarre tale is a true cinematic classic. From the unforgettable opening sequence through the inevitable unfolding of tragic destiny, the film is the definitive statement on the dark and desperate side of Hollywood. Erich von Stroheim as Desmond’s discoverer, ex-husband and butler, and Nancy Olson as the bright spot in unrelenting ominousness, are equally celebrated for their masterful performances.

Critique: One of the most difficult things to explain is a phenomena that is ground into our collective consciousness so deeply that it becomes an instant cliche. The shock of recognition is immediate, intense & irreversible. We can never go back to seeing the world as we did before. Prior to “Sunset Blvd.,” only employees within the film industry knew the truth about stars like Norma Desmond. They were rich, isolated & unemployable, but why make a film about such a depressing subject? When Billy Wilder did make a film about the twilight world of Norma Desmond & her live-in lover Joe Gillis, Louis B. Mayer told Wilder that he’d disgraced the industry & should be run out of town. Wilder gave Mayer a two-word dismissal evocative of Mayer’s dismissal from MGM the following year, after a 27 year reign. The future belonged to harshly critical mavericks like Wilder: Mayer was history.

Originally, Wilder intended for Joe’s ghost to tell us the story of his wasted life from a slab in the mortuary, surrounded by corpses. Instead, we get the story from the bullet-riddled body in Norma’s swimming pool. The body might have been played by Montgomery Clift, but the story of “Sunset Blvd.” evidently hit too close to home: Clift was living with a fading star from the flapper era, Libby Holman, & he turned down the revealing role. William Holden had never played such a sleazy role as Joe Gillis. He knows that spoon feeding hope to a doomed & desperate woman is wrong, but he doesn’t care. After all, Max the butler is doing the same thing & Max used to be a great director. So was the Oscar-nominated star who played Max Von Mayerling: Erich Von Stroheim. Von Stroheim, who once insisted that film extras wear meticulously accurate underwear, plays a supporting role with all the autocratic swagger he can muster, but Wilder’s pitiless dialogue reveals the truth: Max was Madame Desmond’s husband before he became her butler.

Youth is represented by Nancy Olson as Betty Schaefer & Jack Webb as her fiance Artie Green. Betty & Artie are bursting with unjaded artistry & untested idealism, & are thus the perfect pigeons for a cynic who wants to forget that he’s already sold his soul. The past is represented by glorified versions of Hedda Hopper & Cecil B. DeMille, who play themselves as savvy survivors, & by silent stars Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson & H.B. Warner, who appear as musty, if still breathing, waxworks at the altar of Gloria Swanson’s Norma. The bright-eyed young girl who’d first bounced around a movie set in 1918 & would still be making movies over 65 years later, gives Norma a jolt of satire amidst the sparks of restless energy. Earlier choices for Norma included Mary Pickford (who could not have played Norma to save her soul) & Pola Negri (who might have been able to give Norma a uniquely exotic spin), but no one was better at capturing a woman who lived in the past than Swanson, who really didn’t give a damn about the past. “Sunset Blvd.” nurtured a new mythology about Hollywood which has persisted since its release in 1950. It fuels the content of tabloids & chat shows. Movie stars do not live happily every after in the year 2000. They can’t gain a pound at the waist or lose a dime at the box office without whispers of their sad last days being routinely recorded with all the delicacy of an ambulance siren. Billy Wilder, who left Hitler’s Germany to toil in the blinding California sun, came, saw & showed us ourself in striking & unforgettable ways. “Sunset Blvd.” drives his indelible observations home.

-Monica Sullivan, Movie Magazine International

“Tomorrow the birds will sing.”

Synopsis: ‘City Lights’ begins with an uproarious skewering of pomp and formality, ends with one of the most famous last shots in movie history and, from start to finish, so completely touches the heart and tickles the funny bone that in 1998 it was named one of the American Film Institute’s Top-100 American Films.

Talkies were well entrenched when Charles Chaplin swam against the filmmaking tide with this forever classic that’s silent except for music and sound effects. The story, involving the Tramp’s attempts to get money for an operation that will restore sight to a blind flower girl, provides a star with an ideal framework for sentiment and laughs. The tramp is variously a street sweeper, a boxer, a rich 0poseur, and a rescuer of a suicidal millionaire. His message is unspoken, but universally understood: love is blind.

Critique: City Lights is a product of the closing days of the silent film era. By the time it was released, talking films were in the theaters. Would that half the talkies to come were masterpieces as rewarding as this one! This episode in the tales of the Little Tramp displays Chaplin’s extraordinary skills as actor, writer, director, and composer of the score. The Tramp is everyman, funny and sad, exhibiting Chaplin’s unparalleled ability to observe the vagaries of human behavior. Whether battling with a strand of spaghetti, getting impaled from behind on a statue’s sword, or coming to the rescue of an apache dancer, Chaplin’s screen foibles are of a sort with which any viewer can identify. And he knew exactly when he had made his point, always moving on to his next bit of funny business without overplaying his hand, always propelling his story forward.

The other roles in City Lights are stock characters, there to be foils for the very real tramp. With Chaplin, even stock characters can be memorable. Here we have the blind flower girl with whom he falls in love, played by beautiful Virginia Cherrell (Cary Grant’s first wife), the suicidal rich man who befriends the tramp when drunk, only to forget him when sober, the crooked fighter who leads the tramp into what must be the funniest boxing scene ever filmed.

We laugh and we are touched and we come away a little wiser about the human condition. Nobody before or since has combined slapstick and poignancy to make such a perfectly timed, perfectly modulated entertainment.

-Arthur Lazere, culturevulture.net

My thoughts: Just a beautiful story that showcases Charlie Chaplin’s genius.

“Rosebud.”

Critique: Seldom are films so carefully crafted, and more seldom still do they have so much to say. Citizen Kane, Orson Welles’ masterpiece, which he made at a very early age, is often jokingly called “the best German film Hollywood ever made” due to its similarity to the dark, haunting, surreal pictures Germany was producing at the time. More seriously, it is called, simply, “the best film ever made.”

As with all great films, Citizen Kane’s theme is completely absorbed in its characters. It presents them, then judges them, taking a firm moral stance. The characterization and acting are flawless. Joseph Cotten as Jedediah Leland, Agnes Moorehead as Kane’s mother, and Orson Welles as Kane himself make particularly unforgettable impressions.

The central character, of course, is Charles Foster Kane, who utters the most famous dying word in all of filmdom in the opening scenes. “Rosebud.” But what does it mean? A curious reporter, whose face we never see and whose shoulder we’re always looking over, is determined to find out. He interviews the people Kane was closest to, and they tell their stories in flashback. Audiences of the day were unaccustomed to the non-linear chronology of the narrative; in 1941, it was unconventional to say the least.

The glimpses we get of Kane’s life, from varying points of view, are haunting, tragic, and resounding. Kane’s life was a grand success in politics and business — less so in domestic terms. But had he found what was so important to him that he’d make it his dying thought? Finding out is a fascinating experience, one of the most involving cinema has to offer.

The film is a grand if harsh statement on the human spirit. Equally compelling is how meticulously the film is constructed. Every frame is so purposefully composed, every line of dialogue and stage direction so carefully planned, all to further its theme and punctuate the action. Volumes have been written about the artistry in Citizen Kane and still there is more to say. Conscious decisions were made about every detail — how far apart characters stand from each other, where individual shadows fall, what objects appear in the background, etc. One famous shot involves Kane and Leland talking to each other. Leland is drunk and spouting off at Kane. The camera shoots the scene from floor-level, which, aided by Leland’s wavering drunkenness, turns the moment into a surreal, dreamlike tempest of emotions.

Most of the techniques Welles employed to make the film had been used before, but never in such a dynamic manner, or in such quantity and diversity, or with such consistent effectiveness. And they were all employed in service to the film’s complex subject matter, as is proper but which is often not the case.

What’s Citizen Kane all about? Answering that question is what first-time viewers and long-time critics have been pondering since the film’s release. Coming up with valid insight is not difficult, but comprehending all this film has to offer, even after repeated viewings, is. In other words, there’s always more to see and learn by watching Citizen Kane yet one more time.

At-A-Glance Film Reviews

My thoughts: From a technical perspective, Citizen Kane is the greatest film of all time. But it’s not the most entertaining film of all time.

“Rice, salt, matches …give some. Other people come, find food, not die.”

Synopsis: Against a backdrop of the treacherous mountains, rivers and icy plains of the Siberian wilderness, acclaimed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa (The Seven Samurai, Rashomon) stages an extraordinary adventure of comradeship and survival. For decades, Kurosawa had longed to film Vladimir Arsenyev’s novel and was only able to do so at the invitation of Mosfilm Studios in Russia, who financed an arduous, two-year filmmaking expedition into the far reaches of Siberia.

The Academy Award-winning (Best Foreign-Language Film) Dersu Uzala is the enthralling tale of an eccentric Mongolian frontiersman who is taken on a guide by a Soviet surveying crew. While the soldiers at first perceive Dersu as a naïve and comical relic of an uncivilized age, he quickly proves himself otherwise with displays of ingenuity and bravery unmatched by any member of the inexperienced mapping team, on more than one occasion becoming their unlikely savior.

Critique: Legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa ventures outside the Japanese language with Dersu Uzala, a spectacular visual journey through the lives of the eponymous Siberian hunter (Maksim Munzuk) and Russian explorer Arseniev (Yuri Solomin). The auteur displays on screen the awesome power of nature that words simply fail to adequately describe. Kurosawa brings Arseniev’s stirring memoir to life. Dersu and Arseniev undertake two expeditions together through the brutal Siberian wilderness. Their struggle to survive an incredibly dangerous ice storm leaves an indelible imprint on the viewers mind. Although the landscape is undeniably breathtaking, the film is really a human portrait, focusing on the lengthy friendship between the two men. It’s tested by differences in opinion, culture, time and space; the perennial challenges to any human relationship.

-Ky N. Nguyen, Washington Post Diplomat

“Akira Kurosawa transcends the confines of traditional cinema with the startling imagery and camerawork of Dersu Uzala: the barren trees glowing red from the embers of the campfire; the ethereal blue smoke rising as Dersu points out his family’s burial site to Arseniev; the long, static shot of the two men looking at the horizon, juxtaposed between the rising moon and setting sun; the seamless tracking of the soldiers aboard a raft, drifting down the river; the frenetic panning sequence as Dersu and Arseniev struggle to reap grass during the windstorm. To define Dersu Uzala as a story about an aboriginal tribesman is to describe humanity through a two-dimensional photograph. Dersu Uzala is an allegory for the environmental toll of civilization, a testament to a profound, enduring friendship, and a heartbreaking portrait of aging and obsolescence.”

-Acquarello, Strictly Film School

My thoughts: Dersu Uzala has a much different feel and pace than Kurosawa’s other films. It is long, contemplative and primal. I couldn’t help but like the character of Dersu. This is one of the best “buddy” movies I’ve seen.