New posts.

I have been seeing a bunch of other movies but for some reason or another didn't feel like writing. Filipa and I are now going deep on Fassbinder. Hope to be done with most of his movies from 1971 to 82 in the next two weeks. So far it has been a revelation!!!

Million Dollar Baby (2004, USA)

Directed by Clint Eastwood,
With Clint Eastwood, Hilary Swank, Morgan Freeman, Anthony Mackie

First and foremost, let me say that this was the most revealing movie of Clint Eastwood that I have ever seen. While I was watching it, all of his movies unravelled in front of me and I realized that Eastwood, like Fritz Lang, John Ford, Nicholas Ray, Dreyer and so on, has always been telling the same story over and over….Just like a parent that repeats endless times the same tale to their children for their great delight.

Think of A Perfect World, The Bridges of Madison County, Unforgiven, True Crime or Mystic River. In all these films we follow a man desperately trying to escape from his past, in search for a salvation (usually personified by a woman) that will never come. Both the impossibility of changing the future and the inevitability of perdition which is present in most of his movies, qualifies Clint Eastwood as the greatest living director of American tragedy.

Million Dollar Baby goes one step further in American Tragedy because, unlike his other work, the film doesn’t end when Frank (Eastwood) fails his chance of redemption. We still get more twenty minutes to see a glimpse of his Calvary, that can easily beat the fates of Sisyphus, Tantalus, and Prometheus all together.

[SPOILER AHEAD] My friend Rosa disagrees with me and argues that Frank has actually found salvation because he challenged an abstract sense of order (personified by the Priest) and sacrificed himself for Maggie (Hilary Swank). I agree that when he terminates Maggie’s life, he’s giving himself too. But while Maggie passed away and no longer takes part of this world, Frank will still be wandering around with his now truly damned soul, with no hope at all for escape, and left alone on a downward spiral of pain. Of course one can think that such suffering will be temporarily and only on this life, but being these first class Tragedy, I tend to believe that will just endure forever.

House of The Flying Daggers ( 2004, Hong Kong)

Directed by Zhang Yimou,
With Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Ziyi, Andy Lau Tak-wah, Song Dandan

Contrary to most people, I found “Hero” quite dull even if it had amazing choreographies and all that. “The House of the flying daggers” was going about the same way when, in the last half an hour, the movie had a sudden twist and became one of the most operatic pieces of film I have seen in a while. The duels are up to the last part of human flesh (literally), the heroine sacrifices herself to the last drop of blood and the love promises are so intense that they will hold in this world, the next one and in the one that comes after that. Filipa and I were glued to our seats just thinking what the hell is going on. The most appropriate word to describe it is “rollercosteratic” instead of operatic.

The Big Red One: The Reconstruction (1980, 2004 USA)

Directed by Samuel Fuller
With Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Bobby Di Cicco, Stéphane Audran

“Cinema is like a battleground: love, hate, action, violence, death… in one word, emotions."
Samuel Fuller in Pierrot le Fou

Writing about Fuller and including the above sentence is a tremendous common place by now. Nevertheless, it is so true and summarizes his films so well that I had to include it.

Seeing a Fuller movie is like going full speed on a highway. He never takes detours, never looses time with unnecessary comments, and everything is allowed if it is to provoke an emotion in the audience. Even if that means to distort a cliché so much until it becomes poetry. This has the effect of giving such a raw intensity to his movies that, whether you like it or not, you can’t easily forget after you’ve seen it. Godard rightly called it “cinema-fist”.

The Big Red One: The Reconstruction is the nearly four-hour epic director’s cut of the movie he did in 1980. We follow a platoon commanded by Lee Marvin through WWII, first in Africa, then in Italy, and finally in Normandy and Germany. It is when they arrive to Normandy that the movie fully takes off and becomes by far the best war movie ever made. We become an omnipresent element in the platoon, guided by Lee Marvin, on his tour of “love, hate, action, violence, death… in one word, emotions” across Europe.
This movie influenced quite obviously Saving Private Ryan, but in my opinion it was even a greater influence to Mallick’s The Thin Red Line. Not only we have all the wild life shots and the communion of the soldiers with nature, but in both movies the war is filmed like a natural disaster, with its horrors and wonders. It starts randomly, messes up deeply with human life and then suddenly stops, just like a volcano or an earthquake.
Of course there’s a crucial difference between Sam Fuller and Terence Mallick: Fuller has absolutely nothing to say and that’s why I love his movies so much. There’s no pretentious metaphysical content whatsoever, just pure raw cinema.

P.S. Truffaut answer to Jakov’s reserves: “Samuel Fuller is not a beginner, he is a primitive; his mind is not rudimentary, it is rude; his films are not simplistic, they are simple and it is this simplicity that I most admire. It is impossible to say to yourself, faced with a Samuel Fuller film, “It should have been done differently, faster, this way or that.” Things are what they are, they are filmed as they must be; this is direct cinema, uncriticizable, irreproachable , “given” cinema rather than assimilated, digested or reflect upon. Fuller doesn’t take time to think; it is clear that he is in his glory when he is shooting.”

Kinsey (2004, USA)

Directed by Bill Condon
With Liam Neeson, Laura Linney, Chris O'Donnell, Peter Sarsgaard, Timothy Hutton

Kinsey was a Professor at Indiana University that studied exhaustively the human sexual behavior during the 40’s and 50’s. The movie recounts Kinsey’s life in that period, as well as all the bigotry and preconceived notions about sexuality in those days. Thus, so far so good.

Initially, Kinsey travels around the USA conducting exhaustive questionnaires regarding people’s sexual habits. After a while, his wife and his group become guinea pigs in the experiments he is conducting and when this happens I just have one question in mind: How does she handle that?
According to the movie, apparently she just accepts his argument that he is doing it for the sake of science (?!) Hence, Kinsey is now one of these selfish bastards , of which science is full, that disregards people’s feelings in order to get a nice scientific result. That Kinsey doesn’t seem to bother with that it’s of course his problem, but that the director doesn’t care with that becomes now our problem.
The climax of nonsense is achieved when Kinsey suffers the dreadful humiliation of having a luxurious dinner with some magnate and having to say something like “The foie-gras was excellent and so was the caviar. Do you think you could fund my project?”. Somehow I can imagine worth things happening to a human being… for instance, watching this movie.

Dreyer's Extravaganza

Filipa and I had a Dreyer's extravanganza this week. We went through the box set of Criterion that is shown above. No matter which movie canon you choose, it's a punishable heresy not to choose any of these movies as The Best Movies Ever Made.

Day of Wrath (1943, Denmark)

Directed and Written by Carl Dreyer
With Thorkild Roose, Lisbeth Movin, Sigrid Neilendam, Preben Lerdorff-Rye and Albert Hoeberg

During religious prosecution of women for witchcraft in Denmark's 17th century, the Reverend's wife, Anne, falls in love with his son, Martin. This is an extraordinary story of a woman that refuses to live with a man she doesn't love to then refuse life if it's not with the man she loves.
Shot with amazingly austere images, every look and every movement of Anne carries an amazing level of intensity and sensuality. The simple act of Anne showing up with her hair loose takes such carnal proportions that you feel as if Venus was undressing in front of you. The scenes in the open field between Anne and Martin are also of an amazing purifying beauty.

Ordet (1955, Denmark)

Directed and Written by Carl Dreyer
With Henrik Malberg, Emil Hass Christensen, Cay Kristiansen and Preben Leerdorff-Rye

Can the essence of faith be filmed? Can we, as spectators, experience a miracle on screen? And, above all, can it be done without being an agonizing, even if intense, experience as in Breaking the Waves? After seeing The Ordet I know the answer. This is cinema transforming into an epiphany at the speed of 24 frames per second.

Gertrud (1965, Denmark)

Directed by Carl Dreyer.
With Nina Pens Rode, Ebbe Rode, Bendt Rothe, Axel Gebuhr and William Knoblauch.

The last movie of Dreyer is both an outstanding aesthetic statement and a remarkable ode to life integrity. Directed in the most sparsed style I have seen in any Dreyer movie, it has the effect of purging cinema to its almost unbeareable essence. Every scene contains just the necessary minimum to make you feel.
Like Joan of Arc or Anne in Day of Wrath, Gertrud refuses to compromise in what she firmly believes and is willing to accept all the consequences of it. She demands total commitment in love and forsakes her lovers to do the same. "Amor Omnia", even if that means to live and die alone. This is inspiring film art of highest degree.

Top Ten Westerns

This is my first "top ten list". I am utterly addicted to these lists and hence they will be quite frequent. Today I apply the "one film per director" rule because otherwise John Ford, Anthony Mann and Howard Hawks would have them all....

The Naked Spur (1953)

The Naked Spur (Anthony Mann, 1953)
With James Stewart, Robert Ryan, Janet Leigh ands Ralph Meeker.

Truth should be said about this movie: Not only is the most amazing western ever made as it ranks easily in any top ten list of the best movies ever. Jimmy Stewart (Howard) plays a bitter cowboy who's dragging a wanted man (Robert Ryan) back to justice, not to serve any noble purpose but just the sake of cold, hard money.
It is his most anguished role ever (beats by far Vertigo and It's a Wonderful Life), where salvation doesn't come through a ressurection or an angel but as the girlfriend of the fugitive (Janet Leigh - Lina). There are no words to describe the scene where Jimmy Stewart, facing a colossal strugle between good and evil, succumbs to Janet Leigh's redeeming moral imperative. As my friend Jakov pointed out, instead of Howard and Lina, they should be named Raskolnikov and Sonya.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962)
With John Wayne, James Stewart, Lee Marvin, Verla Miles and Edmond O'Brien.

It is not John Ford's most influential western (these are Stagecoach and The Searchers), but of all the movies he ever did, this is the one I loved the most and believe me that this is saying a lot (top ten John Ford movies will come soon...).
After tearing the western genre apart with The Searchers, he still has the kindness of giving us a final swan song. This hara-kiri of the Western myth has some of the most emotional scenes that John Ford has ever shot. Tom Doniphon (John Wayne) knows that the very existence of of villains like Liberty Valance is what justifies his own existence. In the beautiful scene where Doniphon steps briefly from the dark to shoot Liberty Valance, he knows that he will loose Hallie and that everthing he rellied upon will disappear. There's still time for a last burst of violence that we so desperately seek, but it's too late because progress has arrived.
Many Fordian themes are here represented like nostalgia for a lost past, glory in defeat, reality vs. myth, in this very, very emotional masterpiece.

Unforgiven (1992)

Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)
With Clint Eastwood, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Richard Harris and Jaimz Woolvett.

"You better not cut up nor otherwise harm no whores, or I'll come back and kill every one of you sons of bitches." William Munny.

William Munny is simply the darkest angel cinema has ever seen. A man for which no one was ever able to explain to Mrs. Feathers "why her only daughter had married a known thief and murderer, a man of notoriously viscious and intemperate disposition."
This is the story of an evil man gone good where his past is always omnipresent and constantly hauting its future actions. In the most revengeful scene cinema has ever seen, William Munny walks into a "shithole" to unleash his damned soul, kill everything that walks or crawls and become now truly unforgiven.

The Wild Bunch (1969)

The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
With William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan , Edmond O'Brien and Warren Oates.

If The Searchers dismantled the western credo in a higher level, The Wild Bunch takes the fight to the ground and just finishes what was left over.
Violence has always been present in American cinema. It can be seen in Lang's movies as an external force, becomes our own inherent violence with Nicholas Ray, but it is Peckinpah that releases it from all of its constraints and lets it flow freely in this human carnage called The Wild Bunch. Even the most sacred pillar of the western genre, woman and children, aren't safe and take part in this bloodshed feast. Of course, over the last 30 years, this level of violence in movies has been easily surpassed, but no one has yet been able to top Peckinpah's depth of feeling in this film.

Rio Bravo (1959)

Rio Bravo (Howard Hawks, 1959)
With John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson and Walter Brennan

Made to dismiss High Noon, which Howard Hawks always saw as an anti-western, Rio Bravo became the most poetic western ever made and a great tribute to fraternity. Only an amazing director would be able doing such a movie. The proof? Check the scene where Dean Martin plays "My pony, my riffle and me" for his buddies barricaded inside the jail: suicidal heroes celebrating friendship in the face of death. Amazing!
As in most of Howard Hawks movies, there's always the woman who is part (or wants to be part) of the gang. This time is Angie Dickinson and her moments with John Wayne are so damn good!! As it happens with all great movies, this one has been retold countless many times.

Johnny Guitar (1954)

Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)
With Joan Crawford, Sterling Hayden and Mercedes McCambridge.

"I'm a stranger here myself", Johnny Guitar.

Deeply poetic and intensely operatic, this is the western where "comboys circle and die like ballerinas" (Truffaut). The eternal Nicholas Ray's tale of misfits who just want to belong, this is not the movie you should read or write about. It was made to be seen. Over and over.

Rancho Notorious (1952)

Rancho Notorious (Fritz Lang, 1952)
With Arthur Kennedy, Marlene Dietrich and Mel Ferrer

The quintessential Langian's theme is here: murder, love and revenge. This time love falls shortly to ease the need of revenge and the scene where that happens is among the most dramatic that Lang has ever shot. The amazing synthesis power of Lang's directing style can be seen in the formidable opening sequence, which is even better than the one of The Big Heat.

I Shot Jesse Jesse James (1949)

I shot Jesse James (Samuel Fuller, 1949)
With Preston S. Foster, Barbara Britton and John Ireland

The movie tells the story of Bob Ford, a gunman of Jesse James' gang that shot him on the back. He does it in order to afford marry his girlfriend but later he becomes afflicted by the fact that he shot his friend. Being Sam Fuller the screenwriter, this ends up being a noir Crime and Punshiment, where Sonya ditches Raskolnikov and condemns him to the purgatory. Being Sam Fuller the director, the movie is so intensley shot that you are hooked to the screen from beginning to end.

High Noon (1952)

High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952)
With Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly and Thomas Mitchell

Heavily criticized by the Cahier du Cinema people for being a supra-western (meaning that it appeals to elements exterior to the genre), the truth is that even not very talented directors can sometimes make great movies.
Gary Cooper is a newlywed sheriff that decides, against the will of his wife, Grace Kelly, not to runaway and stay to fight an outlaw that is arriving in town soon. Because no one in the town offers his support, a lot of political conclusions were drawn from this movie.
The movie works greatly in part due to Gary Cooper, that plays perfectly the stressed cowboy inflicted by the anxiety that he just got married to Grace Kelly and might not have the chance to enjoy his honeymoon...

My Darling Clementine (1946)

My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946)
With Henry Fonda, Linda Darnell, Victor Mature and Walter Brennan.

"But that the dread of something after death...
The undiscovered country
From whose bourn no traveller returns,
Puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all... ", Doc Holliday citing Hamlet.

Had to break the one-director rule because it would be unfair. I was about to pick The Ox-Bow Incident (also with Henry Fonda) but, even if that movie is great, it cannot be compared to My Darling Clementine.
The narrative in worldwide cinema would never the same after this film came out. Between the beginning (where Wyatt Earp's brother is shot) and the gunfight at the end of the movie, nothing happens in the traditional sense, meaning that we are not driven by characters which have to go from X to Y and then to Z in order to accomplish W. All the imense pleasure we draw from this movie comes from contemplating pure cinema. Just seeing Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) going to the barbershop, sitting outside rocking a chair or dancing with its sweetheart, is already a divine experience.
Must also not forget Doc Holliday, that amazing tragic character that left a doctor carrer in East Coast to come to the West and wash himself in booze. Like in all of John Ford's masterpieces, and Doc Holliday is no exception, everyone has a past which you never see and it's barely mentioned but still endows them with such a humanity that it's beyond my imagination.

Chunking Express (1996 Hong Kong)

Directed by Wong Kar-wai.
Directors of photography, Christopher Doyle and Lau Wai-keung.
Edited by William Chang, Hai Kit-wai and Kwong Chi-leung.
Music by Frankie Chan and Roel A. Produced by Chan Yi-kan.
With Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Valerie Chow, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Faye Wang.

Two separate love stories just slightly connected. Both have police officers which were abandoned by their girlfriends and find comfort in a drug dealer (!) and in a restaurant worker, respectively.
The first story is visually more attractive (the chasing scenes are great!!) but the second one is way more gripping. I don't know about the "incredible sexy" statement in the cover, but the overall tone is refreshingly light. The flashbacks of the cop's ex-girlfriend are kind of heartbreaking but don't get me wrong because there's no depressing shit here.
So if you feel like 2 hours of great pleasant love story, look no more because this one does the trick.

The Hitch-Hiker (1953 USA)

Directed by Ida Lupino.
Written by Collier Young, Lupino, adapted by Robert Joseph from a story by Daniel Mainwaring.
Photographed by Nicholas Musuraca. Edited by Douglas Stewart.
With Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy, William Talman, Jose Torvay, Sam Hayes.

Two friends go on a Mexican fishing trip (one of them is the great Edmond O'Brien) and end up being kidnapped by a crazy psychopath that is being chase by the police. He plans to used them in his escape and killed them in the end.
Like most of the low budget noir films of the 50's, the plots are always extremely simple and what matters it's the way they are told. The tension is so amazingly well done that after 5 minutes you no longer care about the simplicity of the story because you are desperate in that car trying to find a way out. Usually the dread you feel is proportional to the creepiness of the psychopat and believe me that being in car with a guy that even in his sleep always keeps an eye open has its effect.
Another amazing thing about this film is its effectiveness. Lasts 70min and there's not a single shot that is in excess or in defect. Every frame matters and every frame counts.