To Do Good Work, You Gotta Have Good Tools: Lilies Of The Field (1963)

Popping in to post a blog as it is yet another snow day here in Columbia, South Carolina.  Apparently these things are rather rare in a decade, but we have somehow managed to have two in the same month.  I knew last night that I would sit some time aside to throw together a blog, but was rather uncertain as to what film I would discuss, as my viewing has still been predominantly directed at all things related to Godzilla.  Indeed, I watched the marvelous Point Blank last night and was rather certain that it would prove the point of discussion, but earlier this morning, amidst my inability to justify being productive despite being given a full day to myself, I finally caught up with Lilies of the Field, a classic in cinema that I had long been meaning to view.  While I expected a few things going into the film, particularly a great performance by Sidney Poitier and some heavy handedness in terms of religious allegories, what I did not expect was to discover a deeply engaging and outright evocative look into the nature of humanity, when social connections and a desire to prove communal worth take on transcendent levels.  Indeed, if read at a very face value level, Lilies of the Field will come across as an idyllic look at persons from non-hegemonic groups coming together in the name of a collective vision and this reading is not of base at all, because that is what the narrative emphasizes.  I would tough contest that it is this and so much more, looking specifically at how individuals are willing to reappropriate and rationalize their own world views either in grand or simple ways to fit with a larger idea, one that might at first seem wholly abstract or completely built on faith, but if the work of anthropologist Anne Fadiman is any indication, eventually in these spaces the spirit will catch you, and you will fall down, although in a far less violent or physical way.  Here the falling down is more of a social realization, one that notes diversity and barriers as things that can and should be transgressed and perhaps the most frustrating blockades to unity are those we build around ourselves.  If all this can occur within the space of a rather succinct modernization of the Tower of Babel tale, I would call Lilies of the Field a rousing success.

Lilies of the Field begins with the arrival of Homer Smith (Sidney Poitier) to an unmarked nunnery, wherein he hopes to merely borrow water from the women there, in order to jumpstart his overheated engine and be on his way traveling.  This simple plan is quickly altered when the nunnery's head sister Mother Maria (Lilia Skala) asserts that the arrival of Homer is an answer to her prayers.  While Homer is noticeably and verbally reluctant to help, the insistence of Maria and the other nun's lead to him agreeing to fix a hole in the roof of the nunnery.  Assuming that this will suffice his duty and allow him to leave, Maria ends up convincing Homer that he must stay for dinner, a task that expands in to her blatant refusal to acknowledge his requests to be on his way.  Bizarrely intrigued by the constant insistence of Maria that he should stay, Homer decides to keep in residence at the nunnery, while also beginning work laying road for a local contractor.  During Sunday's Homer also serves as a chauffeur for the nun's to a local truck based Catholic church, run by the well-meaning but constantly intoxicated Father Murphy (Dan Frazer).  Refusing to be involved with the mass, as he identifies as a Baptist, Homer spends the time in a local tavern eating large amounts of food to make up for the minimalist breakfasts and dinners at the nunnery.  When Homer yet again attempts to leave, he is ignored the request by Maria, somehow becoming, instead, roped into working on building a church for the people of the area, including immigrants with little or no English skills.  Taking this task as a building of his own self-character, Homer pours his heart and soul into the endeavor, only to become roadblocked when he runs out of materials.  However, the desire of the community to see the church into fruitions results in communal donations of the materials required, a process that causes the group to learn to talk in a collective language and navigate their own understandings of spiritual endeavors. While Homer is offered a steady job in the process, upon completion of the church, he decides he must leave, although the town and the nunnery he has stayed with will be changed in noted ways, but clearly it is Homer who has advanced in the most considerable manner.

Building structures and creating faith are two endeavors that seem to involve similar rhetoric and it is little to no surprise that the filmmaker and the author of the original text are fixated on overlaying the themes within this film.  However, while this is key to the text, I am far more intrigued by the manner in which this film focuses on the troubles and benefits that emerge from creating semiotic understandings, or, more in-line with the previous sentence, language structures.  Lilies of the Field seems to be a film about the constant navigation of similarities and differences as they relate to talking and positively working in a collective manner.  Indeed, this is most telling in the initial engagement between Homer and the women of the nunnery at which he stays.  Whilst trying to teach the women proper English composition, he starts with a series of labeling of very subjective ideas, noting items in the room such as a phonograph and a record and suggesting them to be singularly of an item.  Yet when he moves out to explain the difference between his skin color as black and their whiteness, things become more complex as they repeat his statement, claiming themselves to be white.  In this rather humorous exchange, one begins to understand that the idea of blackness, or "schwarz"ness as it were to the nuns, only holds value when the language agrees upon a social ascribed implication.  Essentially, Homer's blackness holds no value in terms of language, when the women do not understand its societal implications and even when they do realize what he is suggesting it does lack a layer of societal problems that would emerge in other situations.  As fascinating as this exchange does prove to be, it seems a bit curious that the filmmaker does not navigate a similar language issue in regards to gender, but that already seems well established in the segregated space of the nunnery from the onset.  This language issue becomes even more intriguing when the building of the church becomes communal and the pictorial and gestural elements of communication take precedence over verbal suggestions, particularly ones of ideas, as the immigrant works listen to not Mother Maria, but Homer and his use of drawings and motions to complete the task.  Intriguingly, this reworking of language allows the group to build the space without the necessity of capitalist endeavors, denying the use of high quality bricks in favor of the adobe that had sufficed up until this point. Money holds far less value because their language in the space is barter and trade based, the bricks becoming removed from the term 'valuable' thus only being seen as fodder for a gravel walkway.

Key Scene:  The Amen song that becomes the point of bonding between the nuns and Homer is something I was aware of prior to viewing this film, however, it was far more engaging and delightful than I could have imagined.

I lucked out and obtained this as part of a large collection of DVD's.  It is currently rather pricy on Amazon and considering this I would suggesting renting it before making a commitment to dropping that much money on it, although it is certainly worth its price.

He's Got His Boots On The Wrong Feet: The Longest Day (1962)

I am a sucker for the big budget Hollywood spectacle film, particularly when Steven Soderbergh is afforded the chance to direct some of the biggest stars in a crime heist movie on three different occasions.  It is not every day, however, that I can actually sit down and enjoy these works, particularly since many of them are rather lengthy endeavors, necessitating a fair amount of screen time for the various performers.  When I do though the rewards are rather clear, the last example being How the West Was Won, a film so absolutely engaging and expansive, both narratively and literally in its use of Cinerama a work so captivating that it catapulted directly to the top of my favorite westerns of all time in the process.  To achieve the same sort of feat with a war film would seem a bit more daunting, particularly since it is predicated on depicting rather graphic elements, particularly when said film is set in and around the storming of the beaches of Normandy.  While my theory can really never be tested, I would like to formally posit that the deciding factor in the success of such grand Hollywood narratives, rife with all-star casts might be the figure of John Wayne, present in the aforementioned How the West Was Won, he too is featured prominently in 1962's The Longest Day, a work that is also made possible by the directorial efforts.  While the film seems to sell Wayne as the major figure, it also consists of a variety of other notable Hollywood leading men, such as Robert Mitchum, Henry Fonda and even features Sean Connery, who was then just becoming a star for his role as James Bond.  These cameos were all absolutely delightful, but the absolute piéce-de-résitence comes in the form of a rather brief appearance by Rod Steiger, who is by far one of my most adored of actors, mostly for his sleezy and slimy roles, although he plays it straight here.  This is a tangent I know, but it is worth noting.  The Longest Day at a runtime of just under three hours succeeds at telling a story of the scale of the days leading up to and immediate aftermath of D-Day, looking at all person involved, both allied and enemy, never forgetting to accept that such a depiction can only succeed if it is capable of showing both the higher up strategy and the on-the-ground grit.  The Longest Day is what a war film should aim to achieve and it is all the more successful if you happen to have Mitchum and Wayne in your corner.

The Longest Day focuses on the invasion of Normandy, agreed by most historians to be the big moment of change in a lengthy and hard fought war.  As such, narrative plot would seem rather redundant as it is a well-known historical event, particularly in regards to its tragedy.  Yet, what The Longest Day does is not provide viewers with an absolutely linear narrative of the events, but three interlocking experiences of American, British and German forces during the events.  The American experiences focuses specifically on the planning of the beach storming, with figures like Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Vandervoot (John Wayne) and Brigadier General Norman Cota (Robert Mitchum) prepping their men for what will, undoubtedly, be a very grueling and life threatening mission.  Vandervoot takes a very technological approach, whereas Cota seems quite ready to dig his feet in and push alongside his men.  Meanwhile other figures emerge from the American forces, whether it be the waxing poetics of a wary Destroyer Commander (Rod Steiger) or the adamant demands of Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. (Henry Fonda) that he live up to his father's reputation.  The British forces center on their own technological endeavors, particularly creating dummies to airdrop and distract German soldiers, their key figures include the somewhat existential Flying Officer David Campbell (Richard Burton) and the wise cracking Scottish soldier Private Flanagan (Sean Connery).  Indeed, this is all juxtaposed with the frantic worrying of the German soldiers whose own insistence on their superior status is put into question when they realize that they are not only incapable of verifying when the American storming might happen, but that they are equally ill-equipped to stifle the French Resistance occurring in the areas with which they have occupied.  This is not to say that they do not fight with poise, indeed, they kill many Allied troops, some before they even land on the ground, causing much frustration for Vandervoot and while it is certainly a hard-won victory, the Allied forces do secure Normandy, the closing moments depicting Cota as he drives off in a moment of celebration, the camera panning out to the various soldiers working away at rebuilding the area, however, suggests that this victory is only a minimal achievement.

War films are all about depicting the emotional toil and physical strain of the endeavor.  For some directors this means a venue to explore the futility and fragility of the human psyche in such a space, perhaps most evident in Kubrick's war films, certainly Full Metal Jacket and Paths of Glory (and to a lesser extent Fear and Desire).  Other directors see it as a moment to praise those who take their burden with great dignity and pride, most obvious in Saving Private Ryan, but it could be argued that it works this way in Oliver Stone's Platoon as well.  The Longest Day manages to traipse, ever so carefully, between both worlds, noting that it is not simply a matter of depicting valiant individuals, because during war it is a matter of destroying the enemy and many individuals on both sides of the fight are merely there out of forced necessity.  This was certainly true for Nazi inscription of soldiers, but the zeitgeist at play in World War II America caused such a fervent patriotism that to not join the war effort was tantamount to treason.  As such, The Longest Day captures the humanity of war for all those involved, save for a few sly and ill-willed Nazi officers.  Accepting the death that is necessary in such a narrative, The Longest Day manages to both deal with images of the dead in a very stoic and dignified manner while also not overselling the image in any degree of exploitative nature.  It is a careful navigating between both worlds, but one that pays off successfully when it is later referenced if only in very indirect terms in the closing moments of the film as the soldiers, fresh off of their storming of the beach, drag themselves up the hills working in a near zombie-like fashion never allowed a moments rest.  Furthermore, while the film does situate the narrative around central figures like Wayne's Vandervoot and Mitchum's Cota, it does not glorify their presence as anything more or less important than the lowly ranking cooks and infantrymen.  Indeed, this film paints the picture of the barracks with such a loving stroke as to capture both the glee in the homosocial bond and the constant threat of death that leads to an anxious dialogue and bonding between each member of the crew.  Despite its decidedly masculine orientation, this film depicts World War II with poise and dignity in a way only twenty years detachment from its occurrence could ever hope to achieve.

Key Scene:  The soldiers hanging from power lines is about as stark a war image as you can get without actually encountering actual footage.  What makes the scene work, however, is Wayne's reaction, one that is so sincere as to suggest he is looking at the real thing.

I snagged this bluray up as a result of the downfall of Blockbuster.  Considering that others, undoubtedly, invaded the store and did the same it should show up on Amazon in the coming days.  I suggest you grab a copy immediately!

Barnaby, You Don't Know Anything About Women: Hello, Dolly! (1969)

I have watched a lot of musicals this month and still have a few more to look into, but I am rather certain that Hello, Dolly! will prove to be the example of all of the possible elements of a good musical layered into one brilliant epic number, all helmed by the poised and focused delivery of entertainer extraordinaire Barbra Streisand.  This, however, is only one of the contributing factors to this film as it possesses comedy, drama and enough toe-tapping musical numbers to make even the most anti-musical of viewers want to get out of their seat and dance around, hell I even found myself swaying to the music occasionally.  If any of these elements cannot manage to get the cold hearted cinephile to leap with joy, the inclusion of a singing Walter Matthau is certainly the swelling and inspiring factor of cinematic perfection.  While I might come away from this month with an understanding of Busby Berkeley still being the premier director of movie musicals, followed in a very close second by the eccentric works of Bob Fosse, then I would consider Hello, Dolly!, directed by noted performer Gene Kelly who has made multiple appearances this month on the blog, the actor turned director of the genre.  While wholly different films in theme, tone and appearance, one could suggest that Kelly's transition from actor to director that occurs here in Hello, Dolly! takes on a level of intensity tantamount to that of Charles Laughton going from actor to director of The Night of the Hunter, although the latter does have the notable one and done nature that gives it a mythic sense of scale.  Regardless, Hello, Dolly! is nothing short of a musical at its most ambitious and realized, moving in a sweeping manner through its lengthy runtime, but still leaving a sense of wonderment throughout and a wish that the tim could hold on for just a bit longer, because between the comedic timing of the various actors, a few music interludes that include at least one delightful cameo by Louis Armstrong and what has to be the highlight of Streisand's career, Hello, Dolly! from its opening frames melts into exuberant existence for all to enjoy.

Set in 1890's New York, Hello, Dolly! focuses on a group of upper middle class individuals navigating the spaces of socialite dinners and engagements of marriage and prosperity, most notably with the endeavors of one Horace Vandergelder (Walter Matthau) a tailor and textile aficionado who has long overlooked the necessity of settling down and getting married, admitting the need for a "dainty" woman in his life for composures sake.  While he has his eye on a milliner named Irene Molloy (Marianne McAndrew) it is a woman from his past named Dolly Levi (Barbra Streisand) who seems more interested in accruing his affections after the passing of her late husband.  Using her charm and guile, Dolly convinces Horace to take his time in approaching Irene for her hand, while she simultaneously introduces Irene and her coworker Minnie Fay (E.J. Peaker) to Horace's young apprentices Barnaby Tucker (Danny Lockin) and Cornelius Hackl (Michael Crawford) hoping that their wide-eyed charm will prove just the trick in getting the group to move their affections away from Horace onto their own goals, ones that allow for Dolly to plant the seed of desire in the stoic, but often misguided Horace.  Of course, the narrative plays this entire endeavor out in grand form, involving a variety of parades and dinners with which Dolly must come to odds with her lavish past, one that includes the adoration of Rudolph Reisenweber (David Hurst) and a vast array of other well-to-do individuals, all evidence when she arrives to much spectacle at the man's home and is in an honored guest during dinner.  Furthermore, Barnaby and Cornelius are not exactly forthright in their affections and need prodding and poking to become intimate with Irene and Minnie, eventually needing the women to make the advances, much in the same vein as Dolly is proving to be the instigator in her impending relationship with Horace.  While Horace flails to keep his dignity in tact as it becomes apparent his ways are becoming antiquated, fully evidenced by his nephew Ambrose Kemper (Tommy Tune) outright refusing to listen to his advice and the opening of a new tailor shop by his former employees, he has no choice but to concede to marrying Dolly.  The brilliance being that Dolly never once suggested the reality, instead hinting at it subliminally or allowing for misdirection to work in a layered form.

This movie is grand in scope and no musical number is short or half realized.  Indeed the film has a rather lengthy ten minute opening song and dance bit before viewers are even given a title card.  This is in line with the genre, but even in this context the breadth and length of such performances are exceptionally long.  While it is arguably the case for every musical, I would suggest that the length of time devoted to performance within Hello, Dolly! is intended to extend the metaphor of performing social responsibilities, here referring to ones involving dating and advancing an agenda of marriage.  Take for example, the initial performance of "I Need A Dainty Woman" by Walter Matthau's Horace. The stoic man whose refusal to speak at any length in the non-singing portions of the narrative, is juxtaposed with his marching and tonal shifting--albeit comedically--while singing this song.  Pairing this with a rather extensive use of the tropes of musical genre, allow for the entire song to speak length to what Horace knows he must do socially to accrue such a woman, yet his reluctance to do so is reflected by his musical numbers existing in the space of marching with other, affirming his own retreating back into masculine singularity as an ideal.  It is not until the closing moments when the song is reappropriated to refer to his newly formed relationship with Dolly that it is moved into a space of a large outdoor dancehall.  The performance is newly situated.  Even other songs like the title song, take on this performative layered level as Dolly must navigate a social space where she is both adored and must learn to navigate her adoration with care and poise.  However, it is wholly the fifteen plus minute dinner service seen that uses narrative performance through the musical to its most extensive and realized.  Cleverly juxtaposed with the ideals of social etiquette, Horace's own suspicions about Dolly's motivations and the attempts by Barnaby and Cornelius to escape the judgement of lower class status, the spectacle of flipping and leaping waiters and demanding patrons is evidence of a director whose own work in front of the camera is of decided note to his ability to impose grand visions onto film.

Key Scene:  Did I mention flipping waiters and flying chicken dinners yet?

This movie is worth your time and is certainly easily accessible via Netflix and other sources.

Mon Amour. Je Tai'me, Je Tai'me: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

I ramble quite often about certain films existing on my shame list for a far lengthier period of time than I want to admit.  Indeed, in this case it is often a definitive classic of cinema, usually one from New Hollywood or likewise, ones that make it well into the top hundred lists of IMDB or AFI.  These films often live up to their established reputations, only occasionally proving a disappointment.  In other instances they are simply films that people of various walks of life and cinematic tastes seem to happily coalesce around.  One example of this comes in the way of Jacque Tati's Playtime.  Indeed, between its zaniness, grand vision and genuinely engaging cinematic quality it proves to be adored by all who encounter it, but has recently fallen to the wayside due to copyright issues and has since gone out of print.  In contrast to this is something like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which I had heard countless mentions of between dear friends and within various blogs.  To encounter this film has long been a goal of mine and while the means with which I did so were less than ideal, it was more than a long time coming, and falls in the likes of Playtime or Night of the Hunter in the immediate and undefined perfection that all can find relatable.  The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is perhaps the most musical of all musicals in that all but one of the lines of dialogue are delivered through singing and, nonetheless, manages to flow with all the sentimentality and swelling emotion of the best melodrama.  Indeed, Jacques Demy's work possesses what may well be the most refined and focused of color palettes ever committed to film, clearly proving a point of inspiration for the likes of Pedro Almodovar and Jean-Pierre Jeunet.  The Umbrellas of Cherbourg is cinema at a level of artistic expression rarely achieved, wherein each frame of the film, where it to be frozen could double as a singular work of art, a feat I have only seen one other time in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line.  Here though, one can clearly see the benefit of Agnes Varda on Demy's work and the art historical infusion such a relationship can inspire, never mind the wonderful and always ethereal performance of Catherine Deneuve, which is balanced perfectly with the remaining members of the all-singing cast.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg might be visually expansive and grand in proportions, but the heart of the narrative is about as traditionally melodramatic as they come.  The narrative focuses initially on Guy Foucher (Nino Castelnuovo) a mechanic in Cherbourg who happens to take a particular liking to a local umbrella sales girl named Genevieve Emery (Catherine Deneuve) and she indeed shares his affections.  Although the two are seemingly inseparable, even planning a life with a child, when Guy is called off to serve in the French Army things change drastically, particularly since Guy's service is extended for a rather lengthy amount of time.  Knowing the social shame that is associated with single motherhood, Genevieve's mother and employer Madame Emery (Anne Vernon) insists that she find a suitor and trick him into believing him to be the father immediately, finding such a person in Roland Cassard (Marc Michel).  Things begin quite rocky with the newly formed couple, particularly considering Genevieve's unwillingness paired with her continuing communique with Guy.  However, it comes to a point when she can no longer hide her pregnancy resulting in a confrontation wherein Roland asserts that he will raise the child as his own out of his admiration for Genevieve, leading to the two becoming married days later.  Eventually, a few years later, Guy does return, not only to find that the umbrella shop has been closed and replaced with an appliance store, but that Genevieve has moved away as well.  Confused, Guy is told by his mother and her nurse Madeleine (Ellen Farner) that she has married and is with child.  Initially distraught and seeking comfort through call girls after losing his job, Guy is afforded a huge amount of inheritance from his late mother, wherein he proceeds to marry Madeleine and have a child with her.  The two now happy, open up a gas station of their own and on Christmas Eve night, the two plan to spend the evening together, Guy saying goodbye to his son Francois and Madeline.  Only moments later, Genevieve with her daughter Francoise arrives to get gas.  After a cold exchange, doubled by the weather outside, Guy returns to his family, while Genevieve drives off into the night.

The saccharine and synthetic look of this film draw another filmic comparison immediately within my mind to Agnes Varda's delightfully scathing critique of modern marriage through impressionism that is La Bonheur.  Much like her film, and the earlier mentioned Playtime, the visually stunning palettes of the various films layers on a degree of pitch perfect irony about the terrible events occurring on screen.  Here the depression and sadness emerge from the inability to assure and enact upon a love as a result of social expectations and governmental demands.  The manner with which the street is lit within this film is both inconceivable but absolutely perfect, again a sign of an art historical element that is undoubtedly due credit to Demy's wife Agnes Varda.  The street implodes in a wash of purples and blues that evoke Van Gogh, wherein the stunning visual nature of Starry Night, also comes from a man deeply depressed.  As Guy and Genevieve walk up and down this street, the same hues encompass their bodies, implying that even in this moment of serenity that their futures are at a dire loss.  Indeed, perhaps the most telling scene of the entire film emerges when Roland, now attempting to court the broken hearted Genevieve plays a game involving the donning of a crown.  Here the shot captures Genevieve in the center of the camera as Deneuve plays up with a perfectly composed stare into the camera, almost as if to demand that the viewer takes pleasure in the ethereal spectacle on display, while also being completely reminded of the way in which she and her character are exploited both within and outside of the diegetic space, an occurrence that is redelivered, although not quite as jarringly when the ironically veiled Genevieve is made up to appear like the Virgin Mother.  All this considered, it is also fascinating to consider the moments when Demy does decide to drain the color from sequences, most specifically during Guy's return from service, wherein the same purple lit streets are replaced with grays and whites, thus denying it the lush flourishing space in favor of a vapid palette, one reflecting the reality with which Guy has to return, or even suggesting the world of war he is bringing back to Cherbourg.

Key Scene:  It is one wholly paced musical reverie and as such can only be treated as a perfect moment of cinematic spectacle, although within this there are particular flares of absolute genius, as is the case with the train departure sequence.  Also, it is worth mentioning that Michel Legrand's score is amazing.

This is a film that is currently difficult to come by, as such one must get creative with how they attain a copy, but trust me it is very much worth the effort.  It appears to also make the rounds on MUBI so could prove the route to go viewing wise.

Two Men Eat, One Man Dies: The Housemaid (1960)

I had been made aware of The Housemaid well before finally coming to watch it, although had I been bit more patient I probably could have seen the bluray that is to be imminently released as part of Martin Scorsese's World Film Heritage Project which is being mounted by Criterion.  Due to research for a project though viewing was of the necessity and its availability on Hulu made it all the more justified.  I, of course, had already seen the somewhat loose remake of the film by director Im Sang-soo, but had long been trying to find an inexpensive way to see Kim Ki-young's Korean classic.  Often mentioned in  both intensive analysis of Korean melodrama, as well as the more broad surveys of the country's film, The Housemaid has been aptly described as the "before and after moment" in Korean cinema.  While it is far and away a different and in some ways better film than Psycho, I am comfortable suggesting that this providing the same sort of film/viewership dichotomy shift but in a way that proved far more evocative in terms of the trajectory of both Korean cinema specifically and the larger East Asian filmic output in general.  Were one to go purely off of the visual stylings and narrative choices in this film it would be hard not to immediately think of Hiroshi Teshigahara's stunning and visceral Woman in the Dunes, yet this equally engaging, if not decidedly more abrasive film arrived to cinemas four years earlier.  I find The Housemaid particularly worth one's time because it is as near perfect a genre hybrid that will ever exist, in so much as it is a combination of the deep-seeded psychological intensity both present in horror and melodrama, usually for entirely divergent reasons.  The Housemaid is scary, but not in the jump scare kind of way or in the ways in which the slasher films of the eighties proved to be, instead working from a frame of reference where the human existence is a thing of inherent frustration always managing to result in the greatest of psychological fracturing.  Furthermore, given the film's entrenchment in horror and melodrama the narrative is visually preoccupied with the idea of the body as something that is to be placed upon with force sometimes physical, but always cripplingly emotional.

The Housemaid, despite its rather suggestive title, focuses on the experiences of a man simply known as Piano Teacher (Kim Jin-kyu) whose teaching music at a women's factory is barely managing to keep his family from falling from their tenuously attained middle class status.  The Wife (Ju Jeung-nyeo) attempts to work from home as a seamstress, but her constant bouts with sickness have troubled her ability to do so, made doubly challenging by taking care of their daughter Ae-soon (Le Yu-ri) who appears to have suffered bodily affects from polio, as well as a son Chang-soon (Ahn Seong-gi) whose precociousness borders on diabolical.  Needless to say, Piano Teacher finds his job burdensome, all the more so when he is made the object of misguided affection by countless students, one whose whimsy leads her to write a love letter that causes her expulsion and eventual suicide out of shame.  Moving along with his plans of achieving a higher status for his family, Piano Teacher begins offering piano lessons from home, wherein one of his vocal students Miss Cho (Um Aeng-ran) leaps at the opportunity.  Working in a surprisingly invasive manner, Miss Cho establishes herself as a dominant force in the house, despite only appearing for the piano lessons, when it is revealed by Piano Teacher that he is now hoping to obtain a maid, Miss Cho calls upon her chain-smoking friend, who becomes known specifically as Maid (Lee Eun-shim).  Moving into the space, the Maid is associated more with destruction and mismanagement than nurturing and anything remotely indicative of domestic work in a traditional sense, indeed her inability becomes a point of frustration for Wife and to a degree Piano Teacher, yet when it is revealed that the student who confessed her love to Piano Teacher is dead, both Miss Cho and Maid use it as an opportunity to blackmail him, leading him to "accidentally" have sex with Maid and causing her to become pregnant.  This pregnancy comes simultaneous to Wife also becoming pregnant, causing a divide in the family for expectations and a decision to force Maid to procure an abortion.  This jealously results in Maid becoming vengeful and attempting to kill their children and eventually does convince Piano Teacher to consume poison.  In a final twist, the film moves back in time and suggests the entire set of events to be a series of day dreams only to be compounded by yet another unusual narrative choice in the closing moments of the film.

Given my recent movement in academic research towards gender and embodiment in cinema, both in traditional genres like horror, as well as newer, more unconventional examples, mostly related to non-human/robotic bodies, I have tended to read recent films with this lens upon each text.  While, I will admit it has proven to be an overextension in a few cases, with something like The Housemaid body is not only worth considering, but is absolutely essential to the narrative.  Take for example Ki-young's decided fascination with the disabled body in the film, his choice to included Ae-soon is at first suggestive of problematic exploitation, however, on second consideration one understands that in both melodrama and horror the disabled figure often represent the point of suffering and even decided anger in the case of the latter genre.  Here, Ae-soon, is not the point of ultimate suffering, because individuals like Piano Teacher exist in a state of han, or notion of suffering based on unfair oppression, a term unique to Korean culture and usually evidenced in a larger collective notion.  Many Korean thrillers pull the idea of han to invoke a knowing subtext related to elements such as colonialism or class-based oppression, these ideas are popular in works like Mother or the Whispering Corridors franchise.  Here han is a decidedly privileged feeling and what is often embodied physically, instead becomes something reappropriated for a privileged individual to feel as though he is suffering, despite being well-to-do and only responsible for his own terrible decisions.  Furthermore, body becomes a class-based signifier as well, wherein the rats that appear throughout the film, both evidence a breaking from hegemonic and socially prescribed structures to something deem unsavory and indicative of the lowest of classes, in that rats represent the sewers and streets.  I say this to suggest that the very rats that Maid kills represent her own attempt to destroy her classed body, yet when it is her ability to convince Piano Teacher to commit suicide via poison, it becomes rather clear that he too is capable of embodying a rat. Of course, body works in other ways throughout the film, just as psychoanalysis, Marxist class ideals and many other readings would, it only speaks to The Housemaid as a rich cinematic text.

Key Scene:  The water spiting scene is great, but there is also a scene that falls apart on itself, here literally, due to the lack of a complete copy being available.  In the context of the scene and its suggestion of a psychotic break, it would appear as if the loss of these few frames was predestined from its inception, working in a similar way to Bergman's Persona.

I plan to obtain this as part of the World Film Heritage box set, but it is also available on Hulu, so viewing is subject to multiple options.

Man Is Foolishly Oblivious To Danger: Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell (1968)

I have seen a lot of Japanese films in my day.  Indeed, before I decided to focus primarily on South Korean cinema I considered throwing my hat into the ring of Japanese film scholarship, which has come quite a long way since the labor intensive work of Donald Richie and the many off shoots that followed.  While I certainly still incorporate Japanese cinema into my research when possible, it has now become more a labor of love to engage with the country's cinema in all its glorious forms whether samurai or kaiju related, even stepping into the lush and evocative world of Kurosawa on occasion.  I say all this with reference to one of my particularly adored genres within Japanese cinema, the shoe string budget horror films that were released throughout the sixties and well into the late seventies, including the wonderfully wacky House and the schlock heavy, but well-regarded Matango.  Indeed, I am, as such, always on the look out for a new film in this bizarre cannon to consume, realizing that in the space of these non-traditional, low-budget films exist some of the most pointed and scathing critiques of the many facets of Japanese society and the manner with which it relates to a larger global context.  The delightfully eerie Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell is certainly a case of this, right down to its use of a white European (perhaps American?) character and her lost Vietnam soldier as an extension of larger post-colonial woes in a country that was then still finding its footing on a global scale.  At times some of the special effects in the film could give the worst of the b-movie nonsense a run for its money, but given the clear admiration and care for the filmic out come of his product, director Hajime Sato manages to make a shoe-string budget into something spectacular, through heavy use of red tones, a healthy does of fake blood and enough hand drawn animation to make even the most stern of film viewers smile in disbelief.  Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell will never exist in a world of perfect cinematic output, but it is also far from being incurably bad, in fact, it is precisely in its willingness to not take itself seriously that the very critiques and condemnations it spouts become almost prophetic, even if only in a satirical sense.

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell begins with a group of individuals flying on an airplane from Tokyo to  Osaka, wherein the flight stewardess Kuzumi Asakura (Tomomi Sato) attempts to layout a general flight plan only to be repeatedly interrupted by birds killing themselves by flying directly into the plane. Paired with a disturbingly red sky the other members of the crew and the passengers begin to grow anxious of their safety on the plane.  When information suggests that their might be a man on board with a bomb, the captains order an immediate search of all the persons present, including the somewhat befuddled Neal (Kathy Horan) an American widow, as well as a prestigious senator named Mano (Eizo Kitamura).  When a sudden light floats above the ship, the captains lose control of the plane's computers and the aircraft spirals downward, landing damaged on a desert like area, assumedly between the two cities.  It is at this point that the crew becomes suspicious of a particular man on the ship known only as The Hijacker (Hideo Ko), whose possession of a rifle makes him a prime suspect for a political assassination that happened prior to the flight.  Noting the inherent survival nature of the situation, a psychiatrist in the group named Momotake (Kazuo Kato) suggests that the group be incredibly aware of each action they commit as the wrong phrase or move could send the entire group into a frenzy, a warning that proves futile when it is revealed that not only is The Hijacker dangerous on purely an assassin level, but that he is indeed a creature that consists entirely in blob form, using the human body as a vessel to transport itself and destroy the other members on the plane in a manner quite similar to a vampire.  Nonetheless, figures like Mano in a foolish quest to quench their thirst drink large amounts of whisky, only worsening his suffering, while Neal, already reeling from the trauma of her loss, begins to act in bouts of hysteria bemoaning the war in Vietnam and the general downfall of humanity.  Matters come to their worst point when it is revealed that the aliens, who refer to themselves as Gokemidoro, show that they are capable of transferring between bodies at a quick rate, consuming the life force of all those they encounter.  The closing shots depict two remaining survivors traveling about the streets of Japan in a quest for survivors, only to be told by the spectral voice of a Gokemidoro that no human will be spared, as the camera then pans out to show the true destruction wrought not only on Japan, but the entire world.

While a well-argued case for this not really being a horror movie, but more so a science fiction thriller could be made, I would like to instead say that the survival aspects of the work are precisely what make it fall within the framework of a horror movie, as deemed so by Criterion who released it as part of their stellar and repeatedly rewarding Eclipse box set When Horror Came to Shochiku.  In fact, the psychiatrists speech during the film notes that in times of survival one can see humanity turn to its most inhumane, tapping into base animal instincts and maliciously seeking their own survival over that of others.  The narrative in Goke certainly evokes this sort of sensibility, but manages to take it even a step further, using this moment of survival to allow characters to challenge deeply entrenched notions of oppression, privilege and accessibility.  This is absolutely the case when Tokiyasue (Nobuo Koneko) exploits the well-being of Mano by offering him the initial drink of whisky, thus affording his increasing suffering and drunkenness as a point to show the horrors and injustices he has condoned while in office.  Similarly, there are multiple through lines between the figure of Neal's dead husband and his oppressive behavior both in regards to how he navigates as a continued colonial identity in Japan, while also proving quite hazardous to Neal who appears to be at a complete lack without the privilege attached to a white male in society.  Of course, the horror does not extend at these oppression, one can certainly look closer and note the manners with which Japanese women become a doubly othered figure in the narrative, neither possessing the whiteness or the maleness to be taken completely seriously, despite, at times being the most rational in a situation.  As such, Goke, in its low-budget ways becomes a wonderful look at the spectrum of intersectionality and the ways this oppression occurs even in the face of a near fatal accident, suggesting that as long as oppressors exist in the framework of a society, hegemony will exist and perhaps that is where a real horror lies, if not in this realization the purposeful juxtaposition of the Gokemidoro with the violence occurring in reality (Vietnam, political assassinations and riots) certainly drives the point deeply in a viewers psyche.

Key Scene:  The airplane crash!

This particular film is part of an Eclipse series that is full of great Japanese horror films, in which this piece of brilliance is not even its best offering.

To Look Ordinary, Not Beautiful, Just Ordinary: Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

My consumption of Hammer films has always been of considerable lack, particularly since I have decided to take upon yet another prospective project involving solely an analysis of the films within this unique franchise.  Upon inquiring from a friend as to some viewing recommendations from the storied company's catalog, I was amazed to find that there are quite a few films, indeed, even various eras of Hammer studio output.  Needless to say, I now have a considerable stack of Hammer films to undertake, having only seen Horror of Dracula, The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires and the more recent, and considerably underwhelming The Woman in Black (My review at the time was far more positive).  A suggestion to begin my journey with Frankenstein Created Woman proved quite fruitful, particularly since it is a decidedly watchable work by Terence Fisher, one that manages to pull in the wonderful gothic horror elements I have come to appreciate from the few Hammer films I have seen, while also incorporating a storyline that stretches a considerable temporal length without exhausting itself or seeming a bit too haphazard.  In fact, between some of the wonderful scowling put on by Hammer veteran Peter Cushing and an overall sense of fun being exuded by all involved, Frankenstein Created Woman gives the sense of being a fully fleshed out genre film that manages to take itself lightly, thus making some of the more subtle social commentaries that emerge seem that much more realized, even decidedly intentional. I would even go so far as to suggest that Frankenstein Created Woman works primarily because it does have such a focused critique on issues of gender and class and how projections of privilege from either group can, ultimately, hinder and even harm the individuals whose bodies are othered and subsequently silenced, never mind a consideration of all the ways in which gender and identity are subverted and undermined throughout the films, pointing to the distinct yet seemingly inextricable entities of the body and the soul.  Packed into an hour and a half movie, Frankenstein Created Woman is precisely what I want from a genre piece and while I have high hopes, I know that not all of the Hammer films I will encounter later are likely to carry his same sense of brilliance and wonder.

Frankenstein Created Woman begins in a pre-title sequence, wherein an unnamed man is depicted being brought to the guillotine for an unexplained crime, only to have a small child looking on during the entire ordeal, it is revealed in the closing moments of this sequence that the boy is apparently the son of the man.  This then begins the film proper, showing Hans Werner (Robert Morris) a goofy, albeit likable guy who works for the more creepy and generally less genial Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing) whose stoic demeanor seems only concerned with pushing beyond the limits of science into a new degree of living, particularly so considering his fascination with the moments after death where the soul has yet to leave the body.  Aside from his work with Frankenstein, Hans also possesses romantic ties to the local barmaid Christina (Susan Denberg) who for all intents and purposes is an attractive girl, save for scarring on the left side of her face, a point of ridicule for her via a group of aristocratic youth who take much joy is throwing their money around and mocking all those worse of than they are, particularly the scarred Christina, as well as Hans for his romantic relationship with the woman they deem monstrous.  When the three reprobates return to the bar later that night to wreak more havoc, the bar owner beats the young men to death, an act that is immediately blamed on Hans who is assumed to share a genetic line with his murderous father, thus proving enough for a conviction.  Falling victim to the guillotine himself, Christina becomes distraught and throws herself into a river dying.  Realizing the moment of science possible in this, Frankenstein is able to transfer the soul of Hans into the body of Christina who returns to the living world blond and void of any of her scarring.  However, she now possesses the vengeful soul of Hans, thus using her new level of sexuality to pick off the three members of the gang, all the while Frankenstein flails to reign in his destructive creation, only to meet her at the cliff  of a river, wherein she jumps to her demise a second time, however, now as a more sacrificial act, acknowledging her body as a surrogate for Hans and his vindictive soul.

There is a ton of stuff at play in this film, much to my surprise, although I cannot be entirely thrown off by this occurring, since I had an equal if not greater reaction to The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires.  However, I was of the assumption that much of the brilliance in that film was directly a result of The Shaw Brothers' involvement, yet it appears equally that of Hammer, if not entirely so.  I say all this because Frankenstein Created Woman manages to be a film that is deeply concerned with the process of othering and the oppression which occurs in such acts.  Take, for example, Hans who is impoverished and the son of a murdered criminal.  Society, it would appear, has all but written him off as a productive individual, leading to his being able to only find work within the space of Frankenstein's lab, a place that has been othered primarily because of a figure whose quest for scientific truth runs counter to the assumption that all power or privilege is either pre-ordained through God or can be accrued through wealth.  Indeed, when one needs to find a victim the blame falls directly on Hans and his lower class body, one could only imaging what Angela Davis might think of this particular moment in the film.  Even greater is the oppression on the body of Christina who is also lower class and that of a woman, becoming a thing of assumed exploitation for the aristocratic men, something they believe they can use freely without concern.  When the factor of her scarring is added, one could make the case for her being disabled, in so much as her scarring makes her somewhat immobile through a society that predicates women's bodies as things to be looked at and deemed attractive, something that is not entirely possible when one is maimed.  When the body of Christina is then melded with Hans' soul something intriguing happens, wherein the newly risen Christina becomes hyper-mobile in the space of the narrative, perhaps a statement on the layers of class and gender performance occurring before become futile upon death, more so a consideration though of their fluidity and how easily they can be leapt over once a person decides that following the foolish rules is not only a waste of time, but perhaps severely limiting.

Key Scene:  The matter-of-fact ending to this film made me chuckle a bit, although it was quite well-executed.

This is available in a box set with The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires and Dracula: Prince of Darkness.  This is your best bet for viewing the film, as it is cheaper to get these three together than it is to get any of them on their own.

My Revenge Will Seek You Out: Black Sunday (1960)

Also known as The Mask of Satan, Black Sunday is essentially how the world became aware of Mario Bava, horror provocateur and cult cinema mad man.  Now I am fully aware that he made movies well before this work, as well as even more output following, but with its recent bluray release and the access it has to horror fans via Netflix Watch Instantly, it has gain a new level of adoration.  Admittedly, I was far from completely enamored with this film, but it does have me curious about undertaking more work by the Italian director, primarily as a means to see how much German Expressionism might seep into this other work.  Also, I am deeply intrigued by some of the special effects that unfold during this film, proving equally baffling to Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity which I also saw yesterday, although the spectacle is certainly favored in the latter, the execution is no less dynamite.  I guess my hesitation in fully embracing a work like Black Sunday resides in having a considerable trouble getting behind works of gothic vampire horror, because in my mind their dreary setting, ambient soundtracks and general appeal is often squandered in some half realized narrative of sex and lust, which is overemphasized and always undermines anything worth a damn in the film.  While Black Sunday certainly has moments where this threatens to be the demise of the film, for the most part, the narrative manages to side step any egregious errors and remain watchable and poignant.  I am also completely aware of the film having a now fifty year history behind it, making its pristine look that much more captivating considering the life and rediscovery of horror films to be a less than prevalent act since it is a genre that seems content to begin its history within the late seventies.  While Black Sunday will never be on the level of something like Carnival of Souls it does manages to contain several moments of pure cerebral and surreal intensity, and at this point the dubbing in such a film is more endearing than grating, say nothing of the absolutely ethereal performance delivered by Barbara Steele who may or may not have had the aid of a prosthetic mask.

Black Sunday begins with a historical event focusing on a series of executions in a non-descript Moldovan town, where villagers and clergy men use various tools and religious iconography to destroy a series of demons in their village, one an older man and the other a younger woman, suggesting their ties to satan.  Using masks that are lined with spikes, the villagers slay the creatures dubbed vampires and bury them within coffins in an underground labyrinth.  The narrative then flashes forward two hundred years to focus on Dr. Thomas Kruvajan (Andrea Checchi) and Dr. Andre Gorobec (John Richardson) who are traveling through Moldova in hopes of making up time in route to a medical conference.  A minor vehicle accidents leads to their having to hole up in a local castle, where they immediately discover the tomb of Asa (Barabara Steele) the woman murdered for being a vampire some two centuries earlier.  This bizarre discovery is only made doubly so when they return to their carriage to find Katia (Barbara Steele) who takes on an uncanny resemblance to Asa.  An accident earlier, involving Kruvajan, results in his blood reawakening the vampire of Asa, who begins wreaking havoc on the two doctors as well as Katia, eventually even bringing back to life Javuto (Arturo Dominici) her partner and half of a Hall and Oates vampire cover band.  Between the two of them, they attempt to offer the doctors a chance at eternal life in exchange for their blood, while the fascination implemented by both Asa and Javuto is strong the two doctors are able to deny the advances, instead turning to Katia for suggestions on how to slay the assumedly immortal beasts.  After a series of scenes with Asa attempting to pass as Katia, only to fail to turn her when she finds a crucifix around Katia's neck, the return of Gorobec affords him the ability to slay the real vampire in Asa, turning her in the moment to an shriveled up corpse, while Kruvajan knocks Javuto into a fire, burning his body permanently. Katia now free from the spell of the vampires, awakens as young and jovial as ever.

I have not seen nearly enough gothic horror films and only marginally more vampire flicks, so I would be hard pressed to claim myself an authority on either.  Furthermore, I am hesitant to appropriate things such as tropes to such a specific genre of films.  Nonetheless,  I have the space and certainly cannot help but consider the particular way in which the "intellectual" figure emerges within the space of these films.  Of course, since they are classic works in gothic horror the figure of the intellectual is always male, driven by his unbridled desire for truth and scientific fact, he often finds himself in curious situations only to become involved out of a quest to explain that which is inexplicable.  In many of these films, particularly the Dracula films "proper," this intellectual is represented through the figure of Van Helsing, but even in these instances there is an acceptance of the paranormal as a fact in the world, one that is confronted with goodness to overcome the evil.  In Black Sunday one can certainly pull many elements of the traditional good versus evil narrative, but it is clear, particularly in their dual presence, that the intellectual is intended to be seen as the ultimate savior in a world of violence one exacted by and upon all involved, whether it be the blood thirsty vampires or the villagers who kill these creatures without even the slightest attempt to understand their actions.  Indeed, that is not to say that the intellectual within the space of a gothic horror film is void of character flaws.  The major cause for concern with such figures, despite their deep understanding of science, human nature or archaic folklore still seems to revolve around some degree of sexual repression, whether by choice or social situation.  The relationship between Gorobec becomes particularly fascinating as one watches him fall for Katia, and assumedly Asa in the process, it is precisely this infatuation that nearly leads to his point of intellectual privilege becoming undermined and leading to his own turning into a vampire, void of any sense of rational thought when, in such a scenario, his need to devour would overcome his desire to learn and understand.  Interestingly, this film also reconsiders the intellectual to a degree by affording Katia a considerable opinion in how to slay the creatures, one that proves both well-reasoned and useful.

Key Scene:  The simultaneous aging and return to youth of Asa and Katia is cinematic magic even by contemporary standards.

This is on Netflix, take a chance to watch it as it is an undisputed classic and certainly a higher end work in vampire film.

Hark! Jungle Sounds: Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

I have seen a lot of films that could be describe as brutal, whether it be the commentary on fascist oppression through sexual violence in Passolini's Salo, or the biting commentary on middle American economic entrapment through the humping of trash, in Harmony Korine's eponymous Trash Humpers.  Yet, never would I have imagined that one of my most viscerally challenging and jarringly brutal cinematic experiences would ever come in the way of a film starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.  However, I can say with high degrees of certainty that Who's Afraid of Viriginia Woolf? is by far one of the most challenging, troubling and unsettling works of fiction ever realized.  That, of course, is not to say that I did not absolutely enjoy the film, but going into it somewhat blindly, I was not prepared for it to be so dark and liable to erupt in its own heated passion at a moments notice.  Indeed I had come to understand that the film was a classic, what I had not come to learn prior to viewing was just how much of an indictment it was to a certain class of American's in Sixties America, both young and old alike.  As the movie unfolded in front of me I had to do a bit of research to see why it was striking me in such a way, only to discover that it was directed by none other than Mike Nichol's whose well-regarded The Graduate is one of my favorite films, and knowing that I began drawing some through lines between moments within that work, as well as this one, not to mention other films by Nichols, his adaptation of Catch-22 coming to mind specifically.  What is perhaps the most amazing element of this film though is that it was critically, and to a degree, culturally well-received.  Usually movies with such an unsettling aesthetic fall the way of the films mentioned earlier, in that they end up only being appreciated by a handful of the artistically inclined or those in favor of politically and socially engaged counter-cinema.  Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? manages not only to exist as both of these things, but also proves to be a brilliantly acted, perfectly shot and might well break into discussions of the greatest film adaptations to date.  Despite clearly being a product of 1966, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is, undoubtedly, one of the most prolific pieces of cinema in the American consciousness.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? centers on the life inside a small New England college, particularly focusing on the relationship between aged history professor George (Richard Burton) and his wife Martha (Elizabeth Taylor), who just happens to be the daughter of the college's president.  To describe the relationship between George and Martha as tense would be a decided understatement, particularly considering that both not only leap at one another's throats at the slightest hint of verbal dismissiveness, but once they have engaged in an argument stop at nothing to defile their individual self-respect.  Despite clearly being aware of their tense relationship, Martha, nonetheless, invites one of the new biology professors Nick (George Segal) and his wife Honey (Sandy Dennis) over for a nightcap at their house.  Upon arriving to the house Nick and Honey immediately discover the old couple in a heated argument, wherein they attempt to extract themselves, only to be coyly welcomed by George and Martha, who begin shoveling booze down the couples throat.  George and Martha in their particularly vindictive natures begin pulling and prodding at the couple using them as veritable chess pieces in their larger argument, one that appears to stem from a unseen son, who viewers, as well as Honey and Nick are led to believe exists somewhere in the world.  Furthermore, the young couple represent to George and Martha extensions of their own unsuccessful lives, Nick being the up-and-coming young professor whose desire to do well by his name will invariably lead to his being stuck in a dead end position at a college that refuses to value his presence.  To Martha, Honey represents her own latching to the idea of a career that is not her own, which takes on an added layer of frustration when she cannot fulfill a maternal desire to bare a child.  Thing throughout the late hours of the night always threaten to breach into violence, particularly when George and Nick begin to text one another's masculinity, yet after the group takes an unnecessary trip to a roadside bar things blow out of proportion, when upon their drunken return home, Martha and Nick attempt to engage in intercourse, only to have Nick fail due to his drunkenness.  This leads George into a level of fury that drives him to call to attention not only all of Nick's failures and his terrible future prospects, but the illusions that Martha has been living as well, all swirling back together regarding a traumatic story which George had shared earlier in the film.

While many a possibilities could emerge from critically reading a work like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, it is worth seriously considering what makes it such a visceral and challenging movie going experience by breaking down exactly what choices Nichols makes as a director that allow for his film to be successful.  Considering that I am looking at it filmically, the dialogue, while a key factor in the nature of this film, is to be credited to the play's author Edward Albee, therefore, it will receive less acknowledgement.  Instead, one must begin by noting the way Nichol's situates the film in a seeming melodramatic setting, with an opening shot of a couple walking home while the idyllic swell of violins plays in the background.  Hearing and seeing this would lead one to assume that they are in for a romance of sorts, with its fair share of tragic moments, instead, one could argue you receive the exact opposite in the film, wherein the possibility, let alone plausibility, of a romantic bond between Martha and George is not posited until the absolute last shot of the film.  Another layer of the visceral nature of the film comes in the decided use of evasive close-ups and extreme angles, paired with intense lighting to make the characters seem far less ethereal and grand than they would in a more traditional melodrama.  Indeed, even the choice of black and white cinematography allows for icons like Burton and Taylor to become grotesque and void of any endearing or likable qualities.  Yet, what seems to be the most telling sign for the alienating qualities of this film come in its seemingly detached sense of time and space.  While Albee's play is set entirely within the confines of a house, Nichol's moves the action outside of the house and even into another building entirely, yet all of this seems to take place within a single moment, never really moving into the daybreak that is always threatening to end the maniacal performance put on by Martha and George.  It is as though they are navigating a feverish nightmare on par with Eraserhead, yet the hope to wake up seems far worse than the disconcerting reality.  Indeed, it is not until the inexplicable emergence of the sun in the closing moments of the film that any respite is afforded, but viewers feel, as the narrative clearly suggests, this is far from an end to the couple's larger angst and suffering.

Key Scene:  Umbrellas and guns.

As it stands there is not bluray for this film, I would suggest patiently holding out until this is not the case.  It is certainly worth seeing in the highest quality possible.

Informers Inform, Burglars Burgle, Murderers Murder, Lovers Love: Breathless (1960)

I am once again in the throes of a blogathon, this time hosted by the excellent blogs Once upon a screen... and Classic Movie Hub Blog.  The topic: "Dynamic Duos in Classic Film."  I was a bit late to the sign-up for this blogathon, so missed the chance to jump on some of the real classic duos, both in terms of romance and comedy, which is fine, because I have read the work of many of the bloggers involved and I am certain that they will more than do justice to the topics.  As such, I decided a bit of creativity could not hurt in the endeavor and I began to think of a dynamic duo within the context of classic film, pre-1970, that managed to hearken back to an earlier period, while still remaining within the confines of "classic."  I realize that this may have seemed like an absurd endeavor, but considering that the collective of the sixties were a watershed moment in history, it by extension assumes that the same rings true for movies as well.  With that in mind, I realized that I had the perfect offering for this blogathon with what may well be the most important work to come out of the 1960's in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless.  The now well-established classic was by many accounts, the premier film in the French New Wave movement and invariably changed the language one uses to describe cinema.  This masterwork in European filmmaking, is a rare treasure that offers many varied and legitimate critical levels, while also proving and fresh and unique viewing experience.  Trust me, I have seen the film countless times and it only proves more engaging, the more my cinematic language and consumption matures.  In fact, the current Criterion bluray available only helps to add layers to the film's conceptual framework.  I say all this to set up how it is very much a work that exists within the important film's involving dynamic duos.  Part romantic comedy, part crime thriller there is, excluding Tarantino, perhaps not a more cinematically referential work than Godard's 1960 breakout hit and one of its many points of reference come in the duos of classic noir thrillers, wherein Godard borrows the dynamism of the genre and its gendered duos, using its tropes to push his hip, wild and fast-paced narrative, while also completely calling attention to the frailty of the structure of such an assumedly dynamic pairing.  If some of the other works mentioned during this blogathon embrace the lasting nature of the romantic dynamic duo, it is fair to say that Breathless makes viewers aware of both the performance involved in such duality, while also suggesting that at some point the differences in the duo will result in a collision of fatal proportions.

While the film is about a romantic coupling to a degree, it does begin focusing primarily on the film's "protagonist" Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) a part-time thief and full-time woman admirer, who is constantly on a quest to make money, while spouting his own frustrations and problems with the opposite sex.  Indeed, Michel makes it quite clear that women, in his eyes, are incapable of functioning on any legitimate societal level, taking particular disdain in their always being broke and their being terrible drivers, never mind that he himself is constantly without money and certainly is not the most sane or logical of automobile operators.  When an auto theft goes awry and Michel murders a cop to save his own life, he moves into a constant state of paranoia and flight from authorities, which seems to be fine, until he runs into Patricia (Jean Seberg) an American living in Paris while working as a correspondent/salesperson for the European branch of The New York Herald-Tribune.  While the narrative does not outright express it as fact, it is assumed that Patricia and Michel have had some intimate past together, indeed, Michel admits to returning to visit her, almost entirely on a desire to have sex.  Patricia who is initially dismissive of Michel due to his one-track mind and his flippant attitude towards her and most women, nonetheless, agrees to spend time with him, when he seeks shelter from the authorities in her apartment.  At this point the two spend an entire afternoon, evening and morning discussing the ethics of love, lust and humanity, while engaging in intercourse.  In the process, the two become more romantically entwined than before, admitting their deep affection for one another and while they would enjoy the possibility of staying in the moment, Patricia must return to work, while Michel must accrue the necessary funds to flee from his imminent arrest.  It is while Patricia is at work that French police approach her with information regarding Michel, threatening her livelihood and visa status should she not help their investigation.  At first, Patricia is committed to her affections for Michel and stays by his side, yet when it becomes clear that he is still occupied with his criminal life, Patricia breaks down and reports his location to the police, an act she clearly regrets immediately.  Irony arises when the two are driving and the police finally catch up with Michel, only moments after he obtains the money he as been seeking since the onset of the film.  Realizing the futility of the entire endeavor he flees down the street, only to be gunned down by officers.  Patricia distraught runs to Michel's aide and stares at him as he slowly fades into death.  Michel simply dismisses her and her foolishness, claiming that her betrayal makes him want to puke, although a language barrier causes Patricia, in the closing moments of the film, to wonder exactly what "puke" means.

It is precisely this closing moment of Patricia being "lost in translation" as it were, that speaks to the particular dynamism of the duo of Michel and Patricia.  Language being the first obvious difference between the two, lays out a duality of difference that is often challenged, ignored and undermined in the hopes that the two can create some degree of a lasting and meaningful romance together.  Many of the classic Hollywood comedic duos play upon this difference, while, ultimately, noting that the pair can overcome adversity and find a powerful force in love, and Breathless, certainly borrows from that tradition.  However, Godard has over the years been very expressive of the major influence the genre of film noir had on his works, particularly this and Alphaville.  In as much, Michel and Patricia are as much a hapless hero and femme fatale, as they are a romantic comedic pairing.  However, even this is revisionist to a heavy degree, because Michel, while misogynist and a criminal, does not exude the same hardboiled chiseled nature of his idol Humphrey Bogart, in fact, when his absurdly effeminate mugshot appears in the papers, one cannot help but laugh at how non-threatening he looks, despite having committed a murder earlier in the film.  He is not the traditional masculine figure of the genre, just as Patricia is not truly a femme fatale.  Sure it is her betrayal that causes his downfall, but there is not the sense of remorselessness that comes with a Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity.  The duo is not a pair of drifting individuals who come together for a fleeting moment, but instead to opposing forces, that find themselves so magnetically drawn to each other that their cohesion factors heavily into the film.  The hotel room scene, where they consummate their love for one another, lasts roughly thirty plus minutes, nearly constituting half of the film, which is deservedly so, because what happens prior is their movement at a high speed towards one another, while the post-apartment moments represent the aftermath of their collision, which has a very fatal result for Michel.  The ignorance of Patricia at the films closing could be read as demeaning to her character, but I think it simply speaks to a larger issue of duality in love, where ideologies never truly mesh and because of such inherent miscommunication one partner is always far less aware of the damage done to the other, so while it is literal in the film, it plays into a much larger metaphorical statement.  In the end, Godard is clearly claiming that love can arise between even the most unusual of duos, and while it can certainly burst through barriers of language, ideology and personal desire, doing so also runs the risk of one or both of the people involved being trampled in the process, or in the case of this film being shot in the streets of Paris.

Key Scene:  While it is quite an extended bit to consider a scene, I do thing the entirety of the dialogue and interactions occurring within the apartment, might be the single greatest moment in modern cinema.

Criterion Bluray.  Buy it...for your health.

A Lot Of People Are Going To Think We Are A Shocking Pair: Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1967)

One would quickly assume that a film with such an invested interest in talking about the racial issues and dilemmas of an America still in the grips of a violent, troublesome and, more importantly, societally altering ear of the late 60's would prove troublesomely dated by the time I get around to watching almost fifty years later.  One would assume a lot of things about a film like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, a work by the great Stanley Kramer and starring some of America's most well-established and well-regarded actors.  I had written the film off, primarily because I feared it would have a sensibility that was indicative of its time and the racial elements would be dealt with in a manner far too idyllic and concerned with political correctness to properly deserve the repeated recognition and devotion even years after its initial release.  Sure it may have been the fact that I had the great fortune of seeing this on a big screen or my adoration for a well made melodrama, but I can say with the utmost certainty that Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is not only the rare stroke of masterful filmmaking that results in a perfect piece of cinema (No Country for Old Men and Casablanca being two other examples from different decades), but one that proves more socially relevant today than it ever has in the past.  Indeed, as I was watching the "gimmick"of this film unfold I could not help but wonder that, if this film had not already existed in the cinematic consciousness of America that the notion of an interracial couple, one of a white woman and a person of color getting married, would have proved equally challenging to much of America today as it, undoubtedly, did in the hostile racial climate of 1967.  I am a bit disconcerted by the seemingly comfortable embraces by some on the film's more comedic elements as being the core to its continued adoration, because it is a searing indictment on both the ignorance spouted by those with foolish racist mind frames, as well as a careful consideration as to what a progressive mind really thinks when faced with the reality of "otherness" or socially revolutionary behavior stepping through their doors. Without a doubt, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner works on a structuralist level, but it works deeper on its pertinent and multi-layered consideration of race in America and teaches lessons far too great to be suppressed and should be required viewing on the ideas of race relations in America, much as the work of Mark Twain continues to exist as a similar frame of reference.

For a narrative that runs well under two hours, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner takes great care to include as much information and consider as many viewpoints on an issue as possible.  The story, of course, focuses on the newly engaged couple of Joanna "Joey" Drayton (Katherine Haughton) a recent college graduate who finds herself smitten with the successful doctor John Prentice (Sidney Poitier).  Indeed their relationship would be relatively normal were it not for the distinct fact that both were of different races.  This noticeable division and difference is immediately condemned by the world around them, but Joey, ever the optimist, believes that her parents will not only welcome John into their family, but they will also be open to their rather quickly thrown together wedding plans.  The first to meet John is Joey's mother Christina (Katherine Hepburn) whose shock is immediately and noticable although she quickly comes to her senses and is happy for the introduction to John, who she finds an upstanding and well-to-do man, although she expresses clear concern for how Joey's father might react.  This hesitation is justified because Matt (Spencer Tracy), the patriarchal figure of the Drayton household is indeed uncertain about the entire endeavor, first because he thinks it to be a hasty decision, and secondly, because he is quite aware of the social stigma the two will carry and the very violent way some of the world will react to such an engagement.  Nonetheless, John explains that he cares deeply for Joey and that he will only marry her should Matt give his consent.  A dear friend of the Drayton family, one Monsignor Ryan (Cecil Kellawy), attempts to assuage the concerns of Matt noting that a change in societal attitudes has to happen at some point, regardless of their liberal views, Ryan reminds Matt that they mean nothing if they cannot be backed up with quantifiable actions.  John faces condemnation from the Drayton's maid Tillie (Isabel Sanford) who finds John's actions reprehensible because he is stepping beyond his race.  Nonetheless, a dinner goes on as planned, only made all the more intense by the sudden invitation by Joey for John's parents to join in the dinner.  Invariably it leads to a serious of dialogues and discussions between the families all of which, ultimately, rest upon Matt's decision to give his blessing, which plays out with a stern sense of importance not only within the narrative, but as an extension to the world outside the film itself, almost as if to speak truth to an injustice that transcends the filmic universe and exists in the very spaces of cinematic encounters.

It is precisely the transcendent elements of this film that make Guess Who's Coming to Dinner a continually relevant film.  It is one task simply to create a (to use an earlier term) gimmick about an interracial couple announcing their wedding plans, however, it is an entirely different film and one that grapples intensely with the personal, social and political ramifications of such revolutionary actions for not only the couple of Joey and John, but for the larger state of their respective families and America as a whole.  Take for example the interactions between Tilly and John in the context of welcoming a new member into the family one would expect Tilly to be quite excited, ecstatic and embracing of the person, especially since John is such an upstanding gentleman.  The problem is, however, that not only does John represent to Tilly a privilege she has not obtained, but it also forces her to come to grips with her own racial oppression as a servant, which affords Matt and Kristina some freedom from the chores of house and home, which she undertakes, and likely returns home to continue undertaking well after her work day for the Drayton's.  Of course, this is a layered reading of the film, all be it an important one, and the real issue comes from deconstructing the notion that a person can separate their racist actions from their verbal claims to be nothing of the such.  If both Matt and Kristina were as open to equality amongst the races as they claim to be, nothing about John would have caused any red flags, certainly not his race.  Kristina, of course, snaps out of her foolishness rather quickly and realizes the two are madly in love and that her hesitation is indeed a result of her archaic views of the world, even if only out of the fear for her daughter and soon-to-be husband's safety.  Matt takes a considerably higher amount of prodding and self-reflection before he can come to grips with the issue, both in the shock that it leaves him in his own belief system, but also because he genuinely believes that the couple will face degradation beyond their worst nightmares.  Indeed it is not until he is reminded that love is a transcendent thing that is often lost with time, by of all people John's mother Mrs. Prentice (Beah Richards) that he comes to understand that his passion for equality will just have to fight twice as hard to help the love of his daughter and John overcome the vast ignorance and hate that they will invariably face.

Key Scene:  The entire movie flows like a wonderful stings concerto starting of simply, perhaps even playfully, but as things come together it is clear that like a concerto normalcy can only stand so long and things swell and swing accordingly, often clashing in purposeful disharmony.  As such, the scene where Tillie finally confronts John with her opinion takes on a layer of fury that is matched by a slanted camera angle and an extreme close-up and this is only one of many scenes where the filmic structure alters ever so slightly to convey a mood.

I was mesmerized by this film on the big screen and am not sure how it holds up when brought onto smaller proportions, as such I would suggest renting it before purchasing.