KPK on the CINEMA (97): The Films of March 2020

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March 2020 came in like a lamb… went out like a lion! This world we have taken for granted may never be the same again. One good thing about this social distancing, shelter in place era… Plenty of time to watch great movies!

(All ratings are on a 5 star scale. Note that a classic only becomes a classic after a decade or more.)

(Titles in purple have been expanded for Flix Pix columns.)

> This month I evaluate the following 15 features: (+ a BONUS short film)

DARK PASSAGE (redux)  (2019)****
THE FORBIDDEN ROOM  (2019)****+
THE RARE BREED  (1966)****+
TABU  (2012)****
THE SOUTHERNER  (1945)****+
NIGHT MUST FALL  (1937)***+
GYPSY  (1962)****+
THE AERONAUTS  (2019)****
MOBY DICK  (1930)*
THE SEA WOLF  (1941)*****
POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL  (1917)*****

ROBIN WILLIAMS: COME INSIDE MY MIND  (2018)****

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE  (1968)***
AU HASARD BALTHAZAR  (1966) ****
MABUSE THE GAMBLER  (1922)*****

+ WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE  (1980)***

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

DARK PASSAGE (redux)  (2019) ****

> Wow! This film noir is as good as any Hollywood film I have ever seen. When I saw it on Turner Classic Movies, I just could not resist a second look:

. DARK PASSAGE is the ultimate definition of the word “classic”.

. The resonant location is San Francisco in the 1940’s. Playing an innocent man convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, escaped from San Quentin to clear his name, Humphrey Bogart is not seen at all in the early part of the film. Bringing to mind the similarly classic LADY IN THE LAKE, it begins entirely from the desperate fugitive’s POV. With the cops closing in, ‘Victor’ is forced to take a chance, hitchhiking to get away. Unfortunately, things go awry almost at once when the wrong guy pulls over to give him a lift. His rescuer is a petty criminal, and a very observant one. It doesn’t take long for him to figure out who his passenger is. After the inevitable confrontation, a beautiful young woman appears on the scene. This calm but urgent siren is of course, a young and sexy Lauren Bacall.  She knows who Victor is, but mysteriously offers him refuge anyway. Perplexed, and short on options, the unseen Bogie leaves with her, (As any sane man would!), but does not leave the problem of the observant grifter behind.

. Slowly, gradually, the many mysteries at the core of DARK PASSAGE are revealed, as we meet a very helpful taxi driver and a very nasty Agnes Moorehead. The wronged convict is eager to begin searching for the truth of who killed his wife, but with his mug splashed across the front page of all the city’s newspapers… Good thing his new taxi driving ally knows this disgraced doctor, see? And he is quite the artist when it comes to plastic surgery.

. It isn’t until Bacall lovingly removes the bandages do we finally see Bogart’s craggy, world-weary face. But until then, the acting he does under a bandaged face that only reveals his soulful eyes, is absolutely extraordinary. The ability to convey everything the character is thinking or feeling using only the eyes is the rare gift of a true artist. (The only other actor I have seen pull this off so spectacularly? Giancarlo Giannini in SEVEN BEAUTIES- or any of his Wertmüller films.) From here, it’s a desperate race against all odds until the rather too sudden end, which is a bit weak for such a great flick.

. The upshot: Bogie and Bacall are simply volcanic here. Their chemistry is so combustible, their offscreen romance comes as no surprise whatsoever. Bacall was so poised for such a young actress, and that voice- sandpaper and silk! Fantastic. And Bogart moved like a cornered panther, exuding sheer animal magnetism. Every moment they share onscreen becomes iconic.

– If you missed this one, rush out and get it. The acting, the script, the production values are all first-rate and it is just a hoot to watch!

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM  (2019) ****+

> Canada’s fractured genius Guy Maddin is absolutely one of a kind. No other filmmaker anywhere on the planet is in his lane.

. Judging by his body of work, I would imagine the man to be utterly mad. All his films certainly are! I have seen almost all of ‘em, and there is a certain sameness to them, because this experimental filmmaker knows himself as an artist in a way few do. He has found his twisted, amateur/retro style. It works for him and he’s stickin’ to it. The outcomes are so… other, that I doubt even 1% of filmgoers would ‘get it’, let alone groove on it. I have seen some Maddin films that I hated (his previous feature KEYHOLE), some that fascinated more than entertained (TWILIGHT OF THE ICE NYMPHS), and a few I absolutely loved like BRAND UPON THE BRAIN and the only accessible Maddin film, his quasi-documentary MY WINNIPEG. But love em’ or hate ‘em- you gotta admit that they are absolutely unique in filmdom, and that is saying a hell of a lot.

. Maddin is fascinated with the melodrama of silent films, and he brings that ethic to all his projects, including this maddening masterpiece. The soundtrack very integrated and includes dialogue, but there are also intertitles to push his wildly convoluted plotlines along to nowhere- which is where most of them are going. Maddin and his dedicated team of cinematic henchmen torment the film stock physically, to produce scratches and blemishes and jump cuts and bubbles of molten celluloid bleeding colors. His images shift and meld wildly, as though you were on a rare, exotic mind-altering drug and dreaming- both, at the same time! Not sure whether you are in a nightmare or on the path to enlightenment, you go into his films like Roger Daltry’s Tommy entered the world in Ken Russell’s film version of The Who’s rock spectacle: deaf, dumb and blind. Like Tommy, you are bombarded with sounds and images that are hard to precess because they are like nothing you have ever experienced. Guy Maddin takes us as acolytes into an alternate reality that few brave cineastes have the intestinal fortitude to enter. To watch a Guy Maddin film is to become Harry Haller in Herman Hesse’s Steppenwolf, and walk blithely into the Magic Theatre For Madmen Only. Do not expect to come out at the other end with your sanity intact.

. Maddin has developed a stable of mainstream actors you don’t expect to see in these kind of lunatic experimental excesses, including Udo Kier (wonderful here), Isabella Rossellini, the delightful French actor Mathieu Amalric (now also a Wes Anderson regular), and game elder stateswomen Geraldine Chaplin and Charlotte Rampling. You just never know who you are going to catch a quick glimpse of, doing something unimaginable in a Guy Maddin feverdream! I must confess that I do not really have the patience needed to sit through most of his films without having to take a break and test the ground to see if it is still there, and if gravity is still in effect. I tell myself this is okay. It’s the best I can do! So don’t let a little thing like Reality stop you from attempting a Guy Maddin hallucination. This is why some genius invented the pause button.

. But don’t get too complacent! Come back to it. If you don’t, how will you ever know about Udo Kier’s absolutely hysterical musical obsession with women’s butts? How would you see the unforgettable image of two people standing in a small boat at sea, while a gigantic human brain that floats on the horizon is strafed from the air by jet fighters? And this is an image you need to see! (Guy would probably say it’s an image you need to sea.)

. In an appropriate homage to my very unusual review of his brilliant piece about memory BRAND UPON THE BRAIN I will close with this:

THE FORBIDDEN ROOM is a:

… of a film!

THE RARE BREED  (1966) ****+

> I guess I’m a sucker for old Jimmy Stewart westerns.

. Even more so if they feature Maureen O’Hara at her fiery best and Brian Keith in broad character as a swaggering alpha male Scotsman. This genre film is a lot of fun.

. It tells the story of two women traveling from highbred New England to the rough-and-ready St. Louis of 1880, with a big Hereford bull named Vindicator, intending to crossbreed the animal with the longhorn cattle of the area. They are met with more than a little skepticism, and even when they have made a deal, they cannot trust either Keith or Stewart to live up to their end of the bargain, so they embark on a dangerous roadtrip to ensure Vindicator is bread and not butchered. The second woman is played by a winsome Juliet Mills, and she is certainly intriguing enough to wish she had had a more productive career- like her sister Haley.

. Corny sometimes, a bit hackneyed, but films are products of their era, aren’t they? And I enjoyed the plot points of both Keith and Stewart having to rediscover their moral centers when challenged by strong-willed O’Hara.

– Huzzah! Another excellent western!

TABU  (2012) ****

> Oh man, this one is a slow starter. But stick with it.

. This exotic Portuguese tragic romance begins as one somewhat uninvolving story, that eventually becomes a mere springboard to tell another, far more compelling tale. Good!

. Aurora is an elderly woman in steep decline, with memory and health issues that grow more critical all the time. She berates her long-suffering caregiver Santa awfully, and her do-gooder friend Pilar frequently intervenes when Aurora loses her shit. When she takes a turn for the worse, the dying woman begs Pilar to find someone important from her past, and bring him to her deathbed. Here’s when the film gets good.

. They find the man from Aurora’s past, who eventually opens up about their shared past, on the road to her hospital bed. At this point, the rest of the film is storytelling. And despite the flat, unprofessional voiceover narration by the old codger, the story it tells is sticky and dreamlike. He tells the two women about the life Aurora had when she and her husband lived in Africa, in a ranch at the foot of Mt. Tabu. He was Aurora’s husbands best friend, but eventually his rival for her love. It’s the story of the torrid, illicit affair they had, which threatened to destroy that wild, idyllic life.

. The carefully calibrated black-and-white photography is gorgeous, and the tropical atmosphere languid and dreamlike. The woman playing the younger Aurora is fascinating to watch- as is the entire film. Watching TABU is like being hypnotized. It washes over you like a dream.

– Watch the trailer. It will make you want to see the film!

THE SOUTHERNER  (1945) ****+

> Impressed by THE RIVER, I have begun to seek out the other films by celebrated French filmmaker Jean Renoir. It is a rich body of work!

. Of course, I had seen THE GRAND ILLUSION and THE RULES OF THE GAME in my youth, but nothing more. Here, Renoir turns his eye to America’s rural southland. Again, the film is beautifully shot, again the somewhat wooden performances by actors who don’t appear to be trained, but have some intrinsic quality that makes them compelling.

. THE SOUTHERNER tells the story of a brokeback laborer aspiring to a better life for his lovely wife, his two precious kids, and his hellishly grumpy mother-in-law. Picking cotton in the fields for another man is not the life for him, so accepting a loan from his benevolent but businesslike bossman, he borrows a truck, packs up his brood and moves to a long-dormant farm to make that dream come true. He finds rich soil, yes- but he also finds a useless well, a ramshackle house that appears ready to fall over at the slightest breeze and a neighbor who is anything but hospitable.

. Zachary Scott and Betty Field are the young couple, and they are good together. Scott has an unstudied Gary Cooper quality and Field is pleasantly Ida Lapino-ish. They set right to work making a go of it, granny hectoring them mercilessly all the while. Beulah Bondi as nasty old granny, is so over-the-top it’s hard to swallow now. Beulah always played this same character. It was her specialty, from STREET SCENE, to IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE to The Waltons. I guess she is supposed to be comedy relief, because it’s pretty tough going for the family, who have immediate shortages of food, water, and everything else you need to run a productive farm. And that bastard of a neighbor is actively working to see them fail.

– No, it’s not THE RIVER, but like all of Renoir’s films, THE SOUTHERNER has its own rich rewards.

NIGHT MUST FALL  (1937) ***+

> I remember owning a copy of this play when I was a teenage actor-wannabe, but after seeing the film, I’m pretty sure I never got around to reading it.

. This overwrought thriller tells the story of a charming psychopath who worms his way into the household of a fussy old hypochondriac with money in her safe. We know he is the killer the police are searching high and low for, but the old matriarch is so entranced by his spell that she is in total denial about the possibility. Her niece? Not so convinced- and less so with each passing hour.

. Robert Montgomery is just too much as the friendly murderer with a veneer of over-the-top Irish charm. He is great fun to watch, but it all seems so flatly phony. Rosalind Russell on the other had is equally watchable here, but a good deal more grounded in reality. When she comes to intuit the awful truth, her terror is palpable. Unfortunately, she is restrained by the script. Her character has plenty of opportunity to act on her fears, yet always holds back. And it’s hard to fathom why. Perhaps I am looking at it too much through the prism of a wholly different time, when women are more empowered to speak up if their gut tells them something is wrong. Then too, the character is conflicted: She is so bored with her well-ordered life, that a little unpredictability and a hint of danger is poisonously alluring. And perhaps she herself is falling under the spell of his oozing snake oil charm, and just cannot resist the snake who just may swallow her whole when he gets hungry.

– NIGHT MUST FALL is flawed, but entertaining. And the performances are great fun to watch.

GYPSY  (1962) ****+

> I grew up in a household with a gigantic console stereo that was also a TV, and stacks of LP records my mother provided.

. Among them, some great jazz albums, and a great many film and Broadway cast albums of popular musicals from the likes of: Fiddler on the Roof, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, Camelot, Anne Get Your Gun, Kismet, Carousel, South Pacific, West Side Story, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Oklahoma, Mame, The Wizard of Oz, Bye Bye Birdie and Hello Dolly. (No doubt I left many out!) I don’t think we actually had the soundtrack to this Styne, Sondheim and Laurents musical among them. But boy do I remember seeing in in the theaters!

. It could not possibly have been the original release, as I would have just turned 6 when it was released in 1962. It had to be some re-release when I was closer to 10 or 11- because I recall being absolutely flustered by Natalie Wood’s striptease act that seemed so racy to me then, and looks so yawningly tame now. I’m pretty sure my own sexuality had not consciously occurred to me when I saw GYPSY the first time, but in my own way, I was in love with Natalie Wood the moment I set eyes on her. And when she started to take off her clothes- hot flashes in my theater seat!

. Interestingly, I was well-familiar with Gypsy Rose Lee from the gameshow circuit, but I hadn’t more than a vague notion of what it was she did that made her a celebrity. This lively, tuneful, colorful musical is actually less Gypsy’s story than it is her mother’s. A preternaturally plucky Rosalind Russell plays a supremely annoying stage mother of two girls, aggressively pushing the career of her “talented” daughter, (dubbed Baby June” in a disturbing infantilization), while her other, much shier girl Louise lived in her sister’s shadow. But when vaudeville died, so did June’s career. When she bailed for a normal life, ‘Mama Rose’ was devastated- until she turned a gaze on her other daughter, determined to transfer her dreams of stardom from June to meek Louise.

. Thinking she has finally booked a gig for Louise, Rose is horrified to find her scheduled to perform at a burlesque theatre. Mama is set to bail, but Louise is ready to make the transformation from an awkward duckling into a desired swan, remaking herself into celebrated stripper “Gypsy Rose Lee”. At this point, Louise suddenly notices what her mom’s former beau Karl Malden and the entire audience noticed long ago: Mama Rose is a harpy from Hell!

. GYPSY sags a bit towards the end. So much time is spent on the origin story of Mama Rose and her struggling showbiz family, that Louise’s transformation into a world-famous performer is given short shrift. Simply: that isn’t the story Warner Brothers was comfortable telling. To me, this is the flaw that leaves GYPSY just shy of 5-star “classic” status. I remembered that there was something I didn’t like about the film, but I did not remember what it was. On this adult viewing, that flaw is readily apparent. Yes, Roseland Russell is iconic in this role, but there is just TOO MUCH OF HER here. Her pitbull of a stage mom becomes tiresome fast, eventually making the film feel longer than it should have been. (Was this just a vanity thing, with Russell a big established star and Wood an up-and-coming ingénue?) In the end, once she is a big burlesque sensation, Louise comes to feel the same way, declaring her newfound independence and nudging her mom to the sidelines. Having lived her entire adult life for her daughter’s glory, who is Mama Rose without this dream?

. The great news: there are several great show tunes here! “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” became Russell’s signature tune- though not having much of a voice, she acts it more than sings it. “Let Me Entertain You” made me sweat! Pay attention to the casually brilliant song lyrics that are so clever and witty.

– What can you expect from hacks like Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim?

THE AERONAUTS  (2019) ****

> Since I got a free trial run of Amazon Prime, I thought I might as well check out films that were available there and nowhere else, and this historical ballooning quest topped my list.

. I love films like this- flicks that harken back to the old days of filmmaking when studios still made movies for the entire family. It’s hardly great, but it’s greatly entertaining to anyone with a shred of childhood wonderment left in them.

. It is 1862 and the world is changing fast. A lively Felicity Jones and a wonkish Eddie Redmayne are thrown together on a quest to go higher into the atmosphere than any human had ever dared go. He is a scientist pioneering the new discipline of meteorology to skeptical response from his peers. She is a balloon pilot and shameless self-promoting grandstander, constantly playing to the crowd- much to his chagrin. No surprise: sparks fly between them. It is hard to ignore the undercurrent of sexual tension between the two, but the film wisely decides not to go there. THE AERONAUTS has a bigger story to tell- a tale of brave exploration and simple survival against the indifference of Nature. He is obsessed with going higher than they can safely ascend- an obsession that just may end up killing them both.

. There is a terrifically exciting scene where the tables are turned on the usual Hollywood trope, and the woman becomes the action hero while the man is incapacitated. What she has to do to save them is insane and grippingly tense! This lark is based on a true story. Perhaps this dangerous desperate act was what actually happened, but it is so extreme that is hard to fathom! Remember to breathe while you watch it.

. In any case, I love looking at Felicity Jones’ fetching overbite, and have been been  an Eddie Redmayne fan since his wonderful turn in LES MISERABLES. They make an interesting couple, especially without the gratuitous romance we have been trained to expect. This light historical adventure is frequently breathtaking to behold, as our intrepid adventurers take to the vast, unpredictable skies in pursuit of science and glory.

– THE AERONAUTS may be a bit light on the science, but there is plenty of glory to revel in.

MOBY DICK  (1930) *

Terrible studio fucking of a great novel. Capt. Ahab as a swell, lovable ladykilling rogue? Really? Moby Dick as a romance? REALLY?! And the great white leviathan becomes whale oil in the end? What? the? fuck? That defeats the entire central metaphor of a man being driven to his own destruction by his obsession for revenge. Without Ahab going down with the whale, what is the point of making Moby Dick? John Barrymore is an awful Ahab, grandstanding and showboating and hamming it up enough to make the eyes bleed. He accidentally Shanghais his own brother who is his romantic rival? Give me a friggin’ break! Skip this trash by all means, and check out the real MOBY DICK- the Gregory Peck vehicle from 1956, adapted by Ray Bradbury and directed by John Huston. This version should have the negative burned!

THE SEA WOLF  (1941) *****

> Taken from the Jack London story, Michael Curtiz delivers another slam-bang entertainment, featuring three great performances from three great stars.

. This is a first-class adventure- a tense, exciting drama about a ship chillingly called ‘The Ghost’, and Wolf Larsen- its ruthless, tyrannical, pitiless Captain, providing Edward G. Robinson with one of the best roles of his career. He is ostensibly running a fishing boat, hunting valuable fur seal pelts- but it’s all a ruse for a much darker motive. Larsen (the “sea wolf” of the title), has a reputation so horrible that few sane, sober sailors would willingly sign up to crew The Ghost, so he sends his first mate out into the dives and bordellos of the San Francisco Barbary Coast of 1900, to get sailors dead drunk and kidnap them.

. Add to the mix, two fugitives from the law who just want to get out of town ASAP, played by a tough-as-nails John Garfield and a highly sympathetic Ida Lupino, who also end up on board, virtual prisoners of the callous Captain and the high seas that surround them.

. The storytelling is impeccable and when the requisite storms arrive, the effects are not bad for their day. It’s exciting stuff. I really enjoyed this.

– But the best thing about it: it really made me want to read more Jack London!

POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL  (1917) *****

> Finally, I found it!

. Been looking for this title for many years- ever since The American Film Institute included it in their centennial list “100 Years, 100 Movies”. I even ordered it through the library once, and they delivered the 1936 Shirley Temple film of the same name. This POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL came 10 years before films started becoming “talkies” and it’s a Mary Pickford comedy with a big heart.

. Mary plays poor, lonely Gwendolyn- the only child of a couple of detached, preoccupied parents, to whom Gwen is no more than a second thought. She stares out the window longingly at the poor kids outside, who are allowed to play with childhood abandon, while she is shut in and kept in line by her nasty nanny. Mom is a social butterfly and dad is Daddy Warbucks incarnate- a monied mogul who gives all of his attention to his empire, with nothing left over for his neglected daughter. And that daughter is a mischievous spitfire- always straining at the bit to have a normal childhood, though she is unaware that a market crash as made her father suicidal- and life may never be normal again.

. Everything changes when her awful caretaker accidentally gives her a double-dose of a medication intended to put her in a compliant stupor. Poisoned, Gwen enters a dreamworld that is very surreal for its time, as her regretful parents sit by her bedside awaiting the worst. Like Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ, she goes to an imaginary land where all the people in her life are present- but changed. Her drug-induced visit to the Garden of Lonely Children in the Tell-Tale Forest is the highlight of the film. After seeing this gem, I really get why Mary Pickford was a sensation of her era.

. Playing an 11-year old child here, she was so much tinier than everyone else, it was almost believable- but not quite. The public ate it up though! Mary returned to this child character many times in her storied career. In the end, it becomes a struggle between clinging to life or joining a beckoning Death.

– The A.F.I. was right. POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL is quite delightful, and probably among the best of its kind. And the great news: It is available to watch uncut, commercial-free on YouTube right now…

ROBIN WILLIAMS: COME INSIDE MY MIND  (2018) ****

> Wow! What an absolutely beautiful tribute to the great improv genius of his time.

. This love letter to the brilliant goofer could hardly be more delightful… until the predictably wrenching ending.

. Robin’s story did not end well. The double-whammy of Parkinson’s disease and something called “Lewy Body Dementia” an insidious malady that fucks with movement, cognition, mood and behavior- was just too much for this deep feeler, and he took his own life on August 11^th of 2014. What a tragedy for the world and the many who loved him.

. One of the funniest men who ever lived, Robin was rife with demons. This may have been the engine that kept him going like the Energizer bunny on amphetamines. He had a constant need to entertain others- onstage or off, it didn’t matter- Robin was always “on” except in his most private moments. The footage here is a cornucopia of delights. The cast of famous characters from Bobcat Goldthwait to Billy Crystal comes in a dazzling parade of celebrity.

. This wonderful document covers his life from the early days studying acting under the great John Housman to the improv and comedy club circuit, to his sudden rise to the top of his profession via Mork and Mindy. His film career faltered almost before it began, when his first movie was a terrible choice that critics and audiences rightfully loathed. How was he to know that a great director like Robert Altman would make a dreadful turkey like POPEYE? Then came the struggles with cocaine and alcohol, followed by rehab and open-heart surgery. It seems the quicksilver wit began to fade after this, as life went from one big party to a world of worry.

. The tragic ending notwithstanding, this is a great film for this horrific moment, when the entire world in cowering in fear of a tiny bully virus. Robin’s voice-over is very revealing, and there is always a big laugh just around the corner. I must confess that I was not enamored of Robin as a straight actor. Though he was highly trained, he seemed almost incapable of wiping that sly, subversive smirk off his face- so I rarely saw a character there, only a funny man playing a character. I’ll bet it was terrifically hard for Robin to step out of the shadow of his comedy act.

– He did make some fine films like GOOD WILL HUNTING and DEAD POET’S SOCIETY and GOOD MORNING VIETNAM, but I will always remember him as the very funniest man alive in the 70’s and 80’s.

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE  (1968) ***

> Directed by celebrated British director Tony Richardson, this was the third go-round for this story.

. First came a silent version in 1912, an Errol Flynn/Olivia deHavilland version in 1936, and then this big budget incarnation featuring a blustery Trevor Howard, an unctuous John Gielgud, a fiery David Hemmings and a completely wasted Vanessa Redgrave.

. Richardson tells the story as though the events were common knowledge to everyone. Perhaps to Englishfolk of a certain era they were. I knew nothing about this, and so much is completely unclear. Perhaps that’s the point: nothing is really clear on the field of battle- it’s all mayhem and nearly impossible to tell at any given moment who has the upper hand.

. The story takes place during the Crimean War between Britain and Russia in mid-1800’s. It recounts an infamous tale of military ineptitude that resulted in a near decimation of their ranks. The light brigade charged, recklessly, and very few lived to tell the story.

. Trevor Howard is the best thing about this very British military drama. As overbearing Lord Cardigan, Howard is a magnificent blowhard, an awful bully, regally entitled, cluelessly self-absorbed, effortlessly arrogant, bitter, blustery and fighting for dominance with every soldier or officer he meets. What a fun turn! John Gielgud is perfect as his utterly feckless superior officer, whose inept chain of command spells disaster for his troops. When the dust clears on the massacre, there is only one important item left on the agenda: to assign blame!

. Hm.

– Has anything really changed since 1850?

AU HASARD BALTHAZAR  (1966) ****

> As I was watching “BALTHAZAR AT RANDOM”, I really did not know what to make of it. Now that I’ve seen it, that feeling remains.

. I am not acquainted with the films of celebrated French auteur Robert Bresson, but he appears to have been in a class of his own. I payed close attention, yet still had a hard time following events. Part of that could just be the ‘otherness’ of French culture. Still, I can’t help but feel the larger part was just the stylized way Bresson chose to tell his story.

. Rife with obtuse symbolism and gorgeously photographed in perfect black-and-white, AU HASARD BALTHAZAR is a brutal and heartbreaking outing.

. A young girl has a peaceful life in the countryside, playing with her childhood sweetheart and the donkey she cherishes to an almost unhealthy extent. When her idyllic summer ends, her young beau leaves for home, expecting to see her the following summer. But time and life have other plans. Years pass in absence, their families feud, her beloved donkey Balthazar gets sold and traded and stolen by a series of total fucking assholes who abuse the poor animal horrifically. It seems Bresson had a very dim view of his countrymen! The girl grows up to be a winsome beauty- and a total doormat to the young punk who commandeers her for his own pleasure, then jettisons her when he grows bored. This heartless cad treats Marie as shabbily as Balthazar is treated, and she seems to think it is a woman’s place to take a kicking and respond with “More, please sir!”

. In this role, actress Anne Wiazemsky is a knockout. This is one of those actors of whom you remark: “The camera loves her!” Mostly she just pouts and sulks, to rueful effect.

. I had a terrible time figuring out character’s motivations when they did things, making this a very frustrating experience for me. I found it disorientingly choppy, with major plot points left to inference. I was also put off by the bland flatness of much of the acting. Intense events are transpiring, and many of the performers respond like window mannequins. Strangely, this may be intentional. Bresson did not think of the people who played parts in his films as actors. He always referred to them as “models”, to be manipulated according to his design. This places everybody at a remove that unsettles.

. In the end, (SPOILER ALERT!) Balthazar lies down and dies amid a flock of sheep. Cheerful!

. So- you get the shit kicked out of you in life, and then… you die! No, this film is NOT what I needed in a time of worldwide plague. Beautiful to look at, with brilliantly composed frames and an understated power, it takes a very dark view of humanity, making me wonder:

– Are all the French assholes? All of them in AU HASARD BALTHAZAR  are…

MABUSE THE GAMBLER  (1922) *****

Fritz Lang was truly a monster of early cinema. Taken from a popular novel of his time, this silent masterwork that was miles ahead of itself in modern storytelling techniques, spawned a franchise that spanned decades. It is a delicious cat-and-mouse story about a brilliant master criminal who rules every world he touches by the sheer force of his superhuman will. He mesmerizes unknowing victims to get them to do things they would never dream of doing otherwise, using his skills as a hypnotist to amass a massive underworld empire. But a wily prosecutor is hot on his heels. It’s a high-stakes mind game, and the powerful Dr. Mabuse always seems to be one step ahead of our intrepid lawman… for the better part of four-and-one-half-hours! (This is one long silent film! Did silent audiences really sit still that long to be told a story- even as complex and exciting story as this? No, actually. It was released in two chunks.) Every one of Mabuse’s victims describes him as a different man. How could this be? It could be, if our criminal genius is also a master of disguise! The acting is spotty here. Film acting was still a new animal, and even with a deft, calibrated director in charge, not every player seemed to find their groove yet. (The women in particular, seem to be way over the top: think  Sarah Bernhardt, who died one year after this film was released. A societal thing of its time?) But the two gentlemen in the leads were riveting. Rudolf Klein-Rogge as the evil doctor was a Lang regular apparently, and he is a powerhouse. (He played the mad scientist behind METROPOLIS.) And Bernhard Goetzke has an innate intelligence that makes him believable as the clue-solving sleuth. Lang certainly had a good deal to say about the craven depravities of unrestrained capitalism. In the first sequence, Mabuse pulls off a theft that brings the stock market crashing down, and sends cash flooding into his coffers. He runs the city’s gambling dens and a counterfeit operation staffed by blind men. Disloyalty or weakness brings a death sentence, carried out by a motley crew of nasty henchmen and women, who enforce his devious schemes. (My favorite lackey was the jittery coke fiend!) There are complex action sequences here that are very impressive for 1922, including a nail-biting sequence where under the Machiavellian influence of the pernicious doctor, our intrepid prosecutor takes to the highway at top speed, racing toward his own death, but unable to stop himself! It took me a few sittings to get through it, but DR. MABUSE THE GAMBLER is a dynamite film. You bet it could use some judicious editing now. Some shots go on too long before the iris closes. A few shots communicated absolutely nothing whatsoever to me, and I wondered why they were included in this restoration. But film editing was a new animal back then also. It begs the question: “Just how slavishly loyal must restorers be to great films?” Is messing with a single flaw a sacrilegious act? A prime example: I cannot imagine why the fuck they had to use the original German intertitles, then print the English translations smack over them in yellow. This made it very difficult and annoying to read them! All of them! Why on earth they could not have just made new English language intertitles that were actually decipherable, and replaced them for English-speaking audiences just boggles the mind. Why on earth the luminosity should flicker constantly also baffles me. SURELY there is a computer program to correct this! It seems a pretty easy technological fix. Still, this was such a pleasure. The soundtrack on this version was perfect for its time, unlike POOR LITTLE RICH GIRL which just kept repeating the same musical passages again and again and again until the final frame. The ending satisfied, and set up Lang’s sequel of 11 years later, made once the age of talkies had hit. Now I am really looking forward to THE TESTAMENT OF DR. MABUSE- that horrible fiend!

+ WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE  (1980) ***

> Ah! What a joy!

. I’ve been looking for this short documentary for decades now! Signed up for the streaming Criterion Channel (The best thing I’ve done in a long time!), and found it among the many gems and jewels they offer.

. Documentarian Les Blank filmed this brief, goofy look at the outcome of a bet between two filmmakers: When accomplished filmmaker Errol Morris was a young, green wannabe documentarian, he despaired of making his first feature because, he simply could not imagine how to raise the money. His friend German wunderkind Werner Herzog made Errol a bet: if Errol somehow finished his debut feature, against all the seemingly insurmountable odds- Werner would eat his shoe. Lucky for the world, Errol Morris did indeed succeed at the seemingly impossible task, making the 5-star classic documentary GATES OF HEAVEN, an understated but riveting look at life, love, death and grief through the detached lens of a family that runs a pet cemetery. Bing a man as good as his word, Werner stepped forward to take his medicine in a public performance. For him, it was a symbolic show of support for all filmmakers out there struggling to make their first feature.

. Before the event, Herzog boils the shoe for a long, long time, stuffing it with vegetables and spicing up the broth, all the while spewing the inspired, half-crazy off-kilter verbal madness that has become his trademark. Then: the moment of truth… We join the filmed audience in rapt attention.

– So glad I was finally able to cross this meaningful silliness off my list. WERNER HERZOG EATS HIS SHOE is fractured fun that imbues your laughter with the savory taste of old shoe and garlic…

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> Once again, I appear to have had so much more to say about these films than I had any idea. Thanks for indulging me, and:

Vive Cinema, realists and fantasists!

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