Movies: The Official "Movie of the Week" Club Thread II

[Jevo]

My next pick is Häxan. I know there's two versions out there, the original silent version, and a version with a voice over by William S. Burroughs. Personally I intend to watch the silent version, but you can watch whatever version you like, or can find.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Life of Oharu
Mizoguchi (1952)
“Did you ever think it would end up like this?”

We first meet Oharu in her 50s. She’s a prostitute struggling to find work as age and life has ravaged her. The rest of the movie is how she got to that point. Life begins well. She’s from a good family with status, but an affair with a man of low rank gets both her and her family cast down in society. This cycle will be repeated many times through the film — stability, then expulsion. Unable to marry, she becomes a concubine. After giving the Lord a child, she is tossed out again. She becomes a courtesan. Then a maid. The former association leads her to lose the second job. There is a brief period of happiness — she meets good man. But he is killed. She tumbles further down the ladder. She is kicked out of a convent after being raped. Remember her son from way back at the beginning of the movie? He doesn’t know her. He is important and strides past here without knowing. Though later invited to live at the palace, she is basically quarantined on the grounds and forbidden from any interaction. She flees to walk the earth alone.

Sheeesh, and I thought Floating Clouds presented a hard-luck life for Japanese women. That’s practically a Rock Hudson-Doris Day rom-com compared to Oharu. This is the stuff of melodrama, but it never gets that heated. The tone is steady. The pain and sadness just is. There are bad people — the father definitely isn’t getting a Father of the Year coffee mug — here. But they’re just as much pawns of society as Oharu is. That isn’t a defense of their cruelty and judgement of our heroine. It was the style at the time! It feels borderline documentary at times in the approach. Oharu is a good a person as one could expect given the events that unfold throughout her life. Doesn’t matter a whole lot though. Society sees what it sees. The story isn’t broken into chapters officially, but it feels like it. It’s a structure I quite enjoyed. There isn’t much transition. It hops forward in time from circumstance to circumstance.

It feels like there is a Buddhist vibe in here but I don’t know enough to know how to articulate that and what it means. Just a feeling I got. (well, aided by ample imagery).

Kinuyo Tanaka is marvelous as Oharu. I was particularly impressed with her ability to play the character across decades and the aging (up and down) not being a distraction. The scene where the religious man tricks her late in the film and she claps back at his group of nuts was the standout to me.

Life of Oharu is sad, beautiful film that I will probably never watch again.

 

[kihei]

The Story of Oharu (1952) Directed by Kenzi Mizoguchi

Mizoguchi is in the same league to me as eating my spinach. I know it is good for me; I know I need to do it. But I don't approach the task with much enthusiasm. I don't go out of my way to cross Mizuguchi's path either. Which explains how, before now, I had not seen The Story of Oharu. So now I have. I found the primary messages of the film--the indefensible discrimination that Japanese women face in Japan just for being female; the savage inequalities of what amounts to a caste system with women, once again, on the bottom--highly laudable, and I praise the strong feminist statement in general, especially noteworthy given the fact that the film was released in 1952 by a Japanese male and was about a prostitute which would have been an eyebrow raiser in any country in the world at the time. (Diagram that sentence, petals). As always, Mizoguchi's films are beautiful to look at (if only there wasn't quite so much of them to see). I love black and white cinematography when it is done well, but I sometimes wished The Story of Oharu was in colour because of all the design and detail that the director brings to his sets. Like Wong Kar-Wai, Mizoguchi seems to choose carefully even the fabric of the kimonos so as to delight the eye. So for once, I wished his movie was in colour. And the acting is superb throughout, especially the performance by Kinuyo Tanaka as the woman for whom more suffering is always just around the corner. So, that's a lot to like.

But watching the movie for me was too often a slog. I keep thinking of Mizuguchi as the guy at the bar that earnestly makes the same point over and over. I agree with the guy, I really do, but I just want him to shut the f*** up already. And he never does because there is always just one more embellishment that he wants to make, one more unnecessary point that he feels is really important. Mizuguchi is a message guy. His movies aren't entertainments as much as they are social statements. For me a little of that stuff goes a long way. Yes, he is massively talented technically; yes, his movies are beautiful to observe; yes, his themes are indeed important. But when I think of him in the director's chair, I see a bunch of spinach.

Side note: Though Mizoguchi moves his camera around freely, he nonetheless reminds me a bit of the master, Yashujiro Ozo, in the way that he so often directs the viewer's eye to exactly where he wants it to go in the frame. Like Ozu, Mizuguchi is always cutting down the frame, forcing us to look where he desires. Then I had the somewhat perplexing thought: maybe Japanese interior design of this period--living spaces with all those natural rectangles and doorways--made it easier for Japanese directors to do this sort of thing. Does this rain on their reputations as visual geniuses at all? Nah, not in these two guys cases anyway. Nothing says that utility is forbidden from helping brilliance along every once in a while.

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[Ralph Spoilsport]

The story of Oharu: set in 17th century Japan, the pretty daughter of a samurai falls in love with a lowly page of the court. Oharu initially tries to resist, she knows their love is forbidden. She acts aloof, she scorns him. But she can't deny her true feelings. Together they steal away to a local inn but are caught. The scandal this creates results in Oharu being banished from the city. Her parents too are banished for failing to raise her properly. And the boyfriend gets his head chopped off, but not before making one last plea in defence of true love. It's all tragically romantic...and that's just the first 10 minutes. The scene repeats itself with various settings and characters but the results are the same: for every moment of pleasure or happiness in Oharu's life the world repays her with misery 1000 times over. How much heartache can one woman edure? The life of Oharu is one of humiliation, abuse, degradation, disappointment and sorrow. And she brings it all on herself by unintentionally arousing desire in other men. The girl can't help it.

Actually, the "tragically romantic" element of that first scene (the first scene of her life story that is, which is told in flashback) begins to wear thin--every chance of finding happiness ends badly for Oharu--but something much deeper emerges instead. (And I wonder if Toshiro Mifune's early exit as Oharu's doomed lover was meant to be the tip-off that we're in for something more than a weepy melodrama. Mifune was established as a leading man by that point in his career and to see him out of the picture so early on must have jarred audiences in the same way that Janet Leigh's murder did in Psycho; no chance for the couple to overcome social prejudice and live happily ever after, the focal point for the audiences sympathies is suddenly gone, leaving them up in the air.) Throughout the film Oharu is seen as an object--a piece of meat, a baby machine, a goblin cat woman--but rarely as a person with dignity. Even people she gets along with change their attitude toward her once her reputation catches up with her. Shimabara girls are easy: men try to take advantage. Women become suspicious and jealous. Oharu may describe herself as a fallen woman but we see that she was pushed.

The Life Of Oharu may be an ancient tale but it has a modern focus. The most striking element to me was the attention to historical detail. The costumes, set designs, mannerisms, emphasis on social structure, family life, even commerce, all seem designed not to take us away to another time but to help us recognize our time, our modern world, in its formative stages, transitioning from the medieval world. It thus gets to the core of a social injustice that is still with us today. I think it's also important to note that no character in the film understands Oharu, they all wrongfully assume things about her because of her reputation. Her suffering is revealed only to us. The whole film is a privileged moment, speaking directly to the audience. The Life of Oharu may begin as a tearjerking chick flick, it ends up a poetic and moving protest film condemning sexism in all forms.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

Empire of the Sun
Spielberg (1987)
“You’re not 12 anymore.”

Young Jim (Jamie to his parents) is living a cushy life in 1941 Shanghai. His father is a businessman. Their lives are very British despite the foreign setting. The families still run in well-heeled circles. But WWII is encroaching and the Japanese are just over the horizon — quite literally as depicted in one of the film’s most memorable scenes as Jim follows his glider over a hill and right onto a Japanese position. Attacks begin and in a mad dash to flee to safety in the city, Jim is separated from his parents. He returns home, alone. The servants are looting and a stern slap from the maid lets him know the times have changed. He eventually runs into Frank and Basie, a pair of American scavengers trying to scam and scrounge a living amid the chaos. Jim’s guidance accidentally gets them caught and shipped off to a series of prison camps. It’s a bit of a confusing time for Jim. He’s never been to England and his experiences in Japan and love of airplanes have him ever sympathizing with the Japanese. His familiarity with the country and its language, however, saves his and others lives on multiple occasions. Still, illness and hunger wrack all the prisoners. An escape planned and Besie is beaten nearly to death. Jim’s surrogate mother wastes away. The survivors hold on long enough to see the war’s end as the bomb drops on Nagasaki. In another effective scene, Jim reunites with his parents. The union is sweet, but who is this young boy now?

I suppose this might have seemed like an odd project for Spielberg at the time. Though he had done some drama (The Color Purple, which still feels weird to type), he was still more of a genre wizard at the time. Watching it now though, it feels almost as if it is a prototypical Spielberg film. You have the world POV through a child and his sense of wonder. He is quite literally a lost boy. You have the broken family. It’s the first of what would become several explorations of WWII from varying events and perspectives. The POV of Jim doesn’t shield the horrors completely but it does dull them as Jim himself never seems to fully grasp the situation he and the others are in. It’s a bit of a game at times.

As I mentioned when I picked it, I was intrigued because I hadn’t seen it in a good 20 years (at least) and in some recent Spielberg retrospectives, some writers I enjoy placed it much higher in their rankings than I would have expected. My only recollections were the memorable choral pieces and the scene near then end when Jim’s Japanese counterpart is shot and killed in a tragic misunderstanding. After seeing it … I think I feel the same as I always have. It’s good overall with a few memorable (some spectacular) moments and an impressive child performance from Bale. But will it stick with me any more now than in the past? I’m not sure. Parts of it stick with me way more than the whole — Jim’s fake dogfight in the downed plane and his discovery of the Japanese troops, the brief scene on a runway when Jim salutes the Japanese pilots as sparks fly around them, the tense sneak through the marshy waters by the camp and the distraction provided by the young Japanese boy, the stadium scene and dropping of the bomb, the Japanese boy’s death, the reunion with his parents. I already praised Bale, but Malkovich is great too as the charming schemer who is kind(ish) to Jim but clearly sees and uses him as an asset more than a person, a cruelty Jim seems oblivious to. Adding that up, that’s a decent hit rate. So why doesn’t it FEEL like I like it more?

Randomness: Empire of the Sun is based on a memoir by J.G. Ballard (also the writer of the source material for Cronenberg’s Crash, incongruously). Another useless connection in my mind is that Bale would grow up to play a similarly aviation-obsessed character stuck inside a brutal POW camp in Herzog’s Rescue Dawn, which was based on the Herzog documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly. That small coincidence kept popping into my mind every time Jim’s plane obsession would raise its head.

 

[kihei]

Empire of the Sun (1987) Directed by Stephen Spielberg

I have a Steven Spielberg problem. I enjoy a lot of his movies, especially some of his wonderful early films that are among the greatest pure entertainment movies in film history (Jaws; Raiders of the Lost Ark; ET--not Close Encounters of the Third Kind, though, which I would have started where it ended). The problem I have is with almost everything else. My annoyance with him has built up over time, especially so as he has had a rather front-loaded career. In a nutshell, though he is a great film technician, one who can be mentioned in the same breath as Hitchcock, Kubrick and Ford, he is a banal and lazy thinker. With a few exceptions (Schindler's List; Munich; and to a somewhat lesser extent Bridge of Spies), he has spent his career making movies for 14-year-olds. Even some of his histories (The Color Purple; Amistad) are history lessons delivered to 14-year-olds, easily digested and not very complicated. In general, I would say this is true not just of the movies that he directs but also of most of the vast number of movies that he produces. He is a living, breathing Peter Pan who throughout most of his career wills himself to never grow up. He hasn't aimed all his lesser films at children--Minority Report; Catch Me If You Can; Lincoln could be argued to be adult fare. But even in these instances the end result is shallow. He thinks the subjects are important enough to devote his time and skill to them, but their delights are pretty much on the surface. His movies may stay with me because of his technical virtuosity or because of his ability to create stunning images, something for which he has a major gift. But I never think about the ideas he is dealing with--his movies have the intellectual depth of a Hallmark birthday card. Generally speaking, no other great director has ever presented a body of work that is as lacking in depth as Spielberg's oeuvre . In this negative regard, I can't think of another great director who even comes close.

Which brings us to Empire of the Sun, theoretically one of his "adult" movies except for the fact that it stars a 12- to 14-year-old boy and that the movie could have been subtitled "A British Lad's Jolly Tme in a Japanese Internment Camp," at least until the last half hour of the movie. After an effective introduction, the movie becomes a character study about a plucky young teen who keeps himself busy in the cleanest, most downhome prison in movie history. Jim (a young, very good Christian Bale) is surrounded by characters who are either earnest in a furled-brow British sort or way or look like they have just stepped out of the pages of a Dickens' novel, starting with John Malkovich's Artful Dodger of a character, Basie. The movie contains some brilliant scenes and images (why Spielberg movies are almost always worth coming back for more) but Empire of the Sun is also a good compendium of many of Spielberg's principal sins. When he wants to move his audience, he always takes the most deliberate route. So we get touching scenes with a Japanese school boy who is inexplicably part of the occupying forces; we get Jim saluting the Japanese flyers whose vocation he idolizes; we get Jim showing how plucky he is in even the most dire situations. As is true in way too many of his works, if you don't get the obvious heart warming bits, Steven will help you out by providing the gooiest choir imaginable schlocking its collective heart out in the background as though it had just entered the gates of heaven. While Spielberg is busy moving us, it is hard not to notice that with the exception of Jim, his other characters aren't going anywhere--we never learn anything more about them that we couldn't have figured out after their first couple of minutes (or less) of their screen time. They might as well be mannequins. It's not that Spielberg isn't capable of moral complexity, as evidenced by Munich and the last half hour of this movie. It just isn't something that is normally in his comfort zone. Maybe it is just too hard to think about it.

There was one moment that stood out for me in this movie in a positive way. Near the end, when things aren't so jolly any more and Jim is no longer an Oliver Twist stand-in, there is a brief throwaway scene that resonates with all that Spielberg movies usually lack: spontaneity, unpredictability, risk. His surrogate mom, morosely sitting in a lawn chair, is dying and unable to leave the camp. Jim doesn't know what to do but he doesn't want to abandon her. He comes up with "Lay down and pretend you are dead." He shows her how, then she follows suit, and moments later, she dies. That move took my breath away: an absolutely out-of-the-blue, totally unexpected gesture that the audience doesn't immediately know what to do with in a movie filled with depressingly predictable responses. If he can do that even once, why can't Spielberg make movies of depth designed for adults more frequently? Maybe he just really has nothing to say.

 

[NyQuil]

There was one moment that stood out for me in this movie in a positive way. Near the end, when things aren't so jolly any more and Jim is no longer an Oliver Twist stand-in, there is a brief throwaway scene that resonates with all that Spielberg movies usually lack: spontaneity, unpredictability, risk. His surrogate mom, morosely sitting in a lawn chair, is dying and unable to leave the camp. Jim doesn't know what to do but he doesn't want to abandon her. He comes up with "Lay down and pretend you are dead." He shows her how, then she follows suit, and moments later, she dies. That move took my breath away: an absolutely out-of-the-blue, totally unexpected gesture that the audience doesn't immediately know what to do with in a movie filled with depressingly predictable responses. If he can do that even once, why can't Spielberg make movies of depth designed for adults more frequently? Maybe he just really has nothing to say.

I found the relationship with the surrogate parents to be one of the more interesting and less cliched portions of the film. The other scene I found a bit fascinating was the one in which he's a voyeur to their love-making. It was certainly a coming of age moment but the eye contact was unusual and somehow disturbing.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

I found the relationship with the surrogate parents to be one of the more interesting and less cliched portions of the film. The other scene I found a bit fascinating was the one in which he's a voyeur to their love-making. It was certainly a coming of age moment but the eye contact was unusual and somehow disturbing.

Forgot that bit. It is an odd moment, almost from a different movie.

 

[kihei]

I found the relationship with the surrogate parents to be one of the more interesting and less cliched portions of the film. The other scene I found a bit fascinating was the one in which he's a voyeur to their love-making. It was certainly a coming of age moment but the eye contact was unusual and somehow disturbing.

...which actually I could have used way more of in the film...disturbing, that is. I had a different reaction to that scene. I can understand that people may make love in internment camps. But I didn't buy that woman in her devastated condition, physically and emotionally, doing so at the particular moment of time. Of course, Spielberg never shows us more than what is on the surface, so it is hard to gauge a character's inner feelings. However. the actress seems to be communicating something more profound about what is going on within her character, and I doubt seriously it included even dutiful sex.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

In Empire of the Sun a privileged English boy stranded alone in Shanghai during WWII must quickly learn the law of the jungle in order to survive. It may be based on real events, but it is every boy's fantasy: total freedom. And instead of being eaten alive he manages to come through the ordeal relatively unscathed. His parents may not be around, but the director and screenwriter are definitely looking out for him.

We should call this Empire of The Son: life isn't bad without mummy and daddy. Riding his bike in the dining room, hanging with the big boys, living dangerously…it's always his buddy that gets the shit kicked out of him (and his Japanese friend fares even worse), Jim gets one well-deserved slap in the face but otherwise barely musses his hair. When he does get himself dirty, such as when he ventures outside the camp's wire fences, he returns a mud-caked hero and proceeds to lie back to relax on the clean sheets of his bed. Right...try doing that when mom's around. For a starving child he has limitless energy. He single-handedly saves the infirmary from destruction as we discover he is suddenly fluent in Japanese. He returns to the camp just in time to hear a wrap-up of the atomic bomb attack on the radio, the Japanese soldiers naturally listen to BBC.

OK, fine. If the movie is being pitched to a younger audience I will certainly cut it a lot of slack. It would be mean not to. Empire of the Sun after all is a cracking good adventure yarn. And it's smashing to look at, with an eye for David Lean-type epic imagery and many memorable visual moments, my fave being the foreigners in their limousines on their way to a masquerade ball while all hell is breaking loose in the streets. But is it supposed to be pitched to a younger audience? I dunno...ET and Raiders both clocked in at under two hours; with a runtime over two and a half hours I'd be fidgeting before the bomb drops. Empire of the Sun seems to be aiming for historical epic when it might have made a better kidflick. Plenty of unnecessary scenes could have been left on the floor. It doesn't fail by any means, but it does struggle.

 

[KallioWeHardlyKnewYe]

My next pick is Paul Schrader's Blue Collar (1978).

 

[Jevo]

Empire of the sun (1987) dir. Steven Spielberg

Japan has invaded a large part of China prior to WWII, including Shanghai. In the Shanghai International Settlement life is still normal, and you'd hardly notice there was a war going on, but for the war planes flying past the settlement from time to time. The planes excite Jamie Graham ( Christian Bale), a young British boy living in the settlement. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invade the settlement and the people living there try to flee. During commotion Jamie gets separated from his parents. After spending some time roaming the streets looking for his parents, or any kind of parental figures, he eventually gets captured and is put into an internment camp for British and American subjects. His parents are not there, but he finds other adults to look up to and learn from.

As usual with Spielberg movies, Empire of the sun is a very accomplished movie technically. I can't really pinpoint anything technically to criticise about the movie. The acting is good as well. Christian Bale does very well for someone his age. Then why do I feel so indifferent to this movie, and most Spielberg movies for that matter? There should be something to like about them. And there is, but it seems to get drowned out. There are certain stories that Spielberg seems to get attracted to. At least in terms of his serious drama movies. They always seem to be 'important' stories. But Spielberg doesn't make them feel important I feel. In Empire of the sun, it never really feels like the stakes are very high. I never feel like Jamie is in any significant danger. Not when he's running around Shanghai alone, not in the internment camp, not after. There's death and destruction around Jamie. But we only really see it in glimpses, and it's quickly thrown aside again, so we can get back to Jamie running around in his trading business. There a few really good scenes, such as the one with Jamie's surrogate mother dying. Which is beautiful, but it doesn't like it has any lasting impact after it ends, and that's a real shame. Because it's something like that, that the movie could really build on. Another problem with the film is that it's too black and white. The brits and americans are good guys all around, even if the americans are a bit morally dubious at times, they are definitely good guys. The japanese are mostly some murky entity of bad, but we never get to know any of them. It's just some baddies in the background. Most of the time in the internment camp I forget the Japanese are even there. It feels more like a summer camp than an internment camp. Albeit a summer camp with a significant part of the campers in the infirmary, maybe there's something in the lake water.

Steven Spielberg can make great movies that I enjoy watching. Jaws is fantastic. Saving Private Ryan has an amazing first 30 minutes before it falls into the same traps that most Spielberg movies fall into. Indiana Jones is at the very least entertaining. But when it comes to serious dramas his often feel like the lack something. Maybe what he actually has to say doesn't match the depth of the subjects that he chooses to make films about. Maybe that's why his movies often feel too black and white, and why I end up indifferent to them. My biggest movie wish is Steven Spielbergs technical prowess combined with someone who can tell a good story.

 

[Jevo]

Kihei, I just want to confirm. Seven Beauties is this one right? I'm not familiar with the movie, and I can't seem to find the post where you announced the pick, in case there was some clarification there.

Seven Beauties (1975) - IMDb

 

[kihei]

Kihei, I just want to confirm. Seven Beauties is this one right? I'm not familiar with the movie, and I can't seem to find the post where you announced the pick, in case there was some clarification there.

Seven Beauties (1975) - IMDb

Yes, correct. It's a Lina Wertmuller movie if that helps. I thought we could use one of hers.

 

[kihei]

By the way, I change the "movie of the week" and "coming attractions" thread every Sunday on page one just in case anyone needs to double check what is coming up next.

 

[Jevo]

The Apartment (1960) dir. Billy Wilder

C. C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a young man in a large insurance company. He's trying to work his way up in the company. One of his tools in this matter is a small side business, where he lends out a key to his apartment to a group of executives, who use it for their extra martial affairs. Baxter himself, like most men in the company, has a good eye to Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), an elevator operator in the office building. Baxter gets his promotion and becomes the 2nd youngest executive in the company. Only now Mr. Sheldrake, and executive higher up in the hierarchy has lured that something is going on, and he wants to use the apartment as well, since he wants to rekindle his affair with Fran. Baxter doesn't know Fran is Mr. Sheldrake's lover, so he obliges. Sheldrake knows how to string his girls along, and has done it with several girls before Fran. Fran however gets news of this during the office Christmas party, and that night in the apartment after confronting Sheldrake, she tries to commit suicide. Thankfully Baxter gets home in time and gets her back to life with the help of his neighbour, a doctor. The time that Fran spends under Baxter's care, results in feelings sprouting between them.

I don't want to take anything away from the direction, the editing or the script. But this really feels like Jack Lemmon's film through and through. He's in practically every scene, and he carries and drives the movie every time he's on screen. He has so much energy it seeps through the screen. It really seems like he just picks a cadence, and then everything has been done to accommodate whatever he does. A more wise decision could not have been made, because this might be Jack Lemmon at his very best. I doubt there's ever been an actor in Hollywood who can match his comedic timing, at least not since silent film was a thing. Even when he's rattling off 100 words a minute, he's still landing 5 jokes in 30 seconds with perfect timing. The dramatic parts of the movie he also nails. Because he never overdoes it in the comedic scenes, he blends seamlessly into the dramatic scenes. Of course Lemmon has help. The script is great, and it has a lot of great jokes in there. The movie also keeps a very good mix of comedy and drama. The editing keeps up with Lemmon's blistering pace, and Billy Wilder's direction is also really good. We really see that in how great the supporting cast is. Shirley MacLaine, although not a supporting role, is also really good. She keeps up with Jack Lemmon and never looks out of place next to him, that's quite an achievement in a film like this. She's very charming and cute, and you can see why Baxter falls for her, just like you can see why she eventually falls for Baxter. But Sheldrake, Baxter's neighbour, the key sharing club, are also very good characters, they are all fun and played very well. They bring a lot to the film, which would otherwise have felt a bit flat without them, and with more focus on Baxter and Fran.

The Apartment is one of my favourite romantic comedies. Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine is such a cute couple, you can't not root for them to get together. I actually found even more fun than I remembered it to be. I don't think it would be possible for me to watch it without being in a better mood after seeing it. However I can't figure out what Jack Lemmon did to the Academy that year to convince them not to give him the Oscar.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

If there was ever an actor who had to come to appreciate sexism from the feminine point of view it must have been Jack Lemmon c. 1959-60. First, Billy Wilder and his screenwriting partner I.A.L. Diamond dressed him up in drag and had him fend off the advances of Joe E. Brown in Some Like It Hot. Then they had him climbing the corporate ladder by performing sexual favours for his superiors in The Apartment. The favours here involve pimping his bachelor pad to his bosses for their clandestine quickies. At first he is well-rewarded but eventually integrity and self-respect show up to spoil their fun. The Apartment is one man's story that hundreds of thousands of women could relate to, harrassment-wise.

Of course, the female viewer may be more likely to just naturally relate to Shirley MacLaine's character. She's not sleeping with the boss in hopes of getting a promotion or a nice gift. Fran really believes she is in love. She's devastated when she discovers she's being used. It's a clever role-reversal in which it is the male who has to put out in order to get ahead. Through CC Baxter the male viewer gets a taste of the degradation that women have to put up with every day.

Was The Apartment intended to be a feminist statement in 1960? Did the phrase "feminist statement" even exist then? It's especially relevant today when harrasment in the workplace is a top-of-mind issue. #BeAMensch.

 

[Jevo]

Interesting point about the role reversal and Baxter being the one who puts out, to climb the corporate ladder. I didn't make that connection myself, but after thinking about it for a little bit. It's a really fun and interesting way of viewing the film.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

And I wondered if that was the intent of The Apartment, or if I was just interpreting it that way in the context of our current events.

In that sense it reminded me of Fury, one of Fritz Lang's first Hollywood movies. Spencer Tracy plays a wrongfully accused man threatened by a lynch mob. Even back then I think it was well known that 99% of lynching victims were southern black men. Casting a white actor in the lead role might have been seen as a cop-out by some, or good communications strategy by others. If you want your audience to sympathize with the victim, put them in the victim's shoes. That's what Fury does and I think The Apartment does this too. Buddy Boy happily takes that promotion ahead of the more senior colleague sitting next to him. But there are times when he's not "in the mood"--he has a cold, he wants to go home to bed--but he can't say no. His experience mirrors that of women who are pressured to compromise themselves in the business world.

One thing for sure…role-reversal scenarios are usually good for laughs!

 

[kihei]

The Apartment (1960) Directed by Billy Wilder

The shocking thing about The Apartment now is how dramatically it demonstrates one of the last periods of Hollywood film in which movies were made for adults. We have here adult themes, adult humour and an adult worldview that mixes cynicism with social observation in a way that appears perceptive and funny. The Apartment is a movie whose life-blood is its script which is witty, intelligent, although quite stagy--even the most minor of characters speak their lines to the back of the third balcony with a near show-stopping gusto. It remains a good movie, but it would have been a great comic play.

Playing a character that the audience will take some warming up to, Jack Lemmon is wonderful. He is a fussy actor; his body looks like it is infused with way too much nervous energy; and his emotions can't seem to wait to leap to his face. His sometimes near frenzied reactions can be exhausting and his persona is often in danger of becoming annoying (Regarding Lemmon, I remember one critic commenting way back when that "even his hair looks clenched.") But he could get to the core of being human in a way that few of his contemporaries could.

For all of the movie's maturity and intelligence, it is not a work that requires much active participation on the part of the viewer. Perhaps it seems a little pre-packaged, a little too neatly worked out, so that the audience need only sit there and enjoy its not inconsiderable pleasures rather than take it on in any direct way. Though it seems almost innocently tame, I suppose this movie caught the attention of the moral watchdogs at the time. Few Hollywood movies of this period dealt with any dimension of sex or did so only to be hysterical about it (check out the Tennessee Williams adaptations). A movie that calmly presented moral duplicity in the pursuit of extramarital entanglements and did so in a comic manner must have shocked a good percentage of the audience. I like the work and I think after seeing it just now, it is even better than I remember it. But to paraphrase Emily Dickensen's line about great poetry, The Apartment doesn't take the top of my head off.

Final point: no way our little schmuck ends up with the girl, no way in hell (which I think director Billy Wilder was signaling in the final scene through her non-committal response to his assertions of love). A movie this coolly perceptive ain't intending to go that soft in the head.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Next pick will be Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day.

 

[kihei]

Next pick will be Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day.

Neat pick.

 

[kihei]

Seven Beauties (1976) Directed by Lena Wertmuller

Set in Italy in the early war years, Seven Beauties focuses on a few years in the life of Pasqualino (Giancarlo Giannini), a Neapolitan ne’er do well with a lot of unappealing characteristics. When we first meet him, his high regard for himself is made obvious by his inflated sense of self-worth and his preposterous sense of personal honour. He sees himself as the guardian of his seven unattractive sisters, but he is really more consumed by his stupid male ego than he is concerned with their actual welfare. He likes to think of himself as a tough guy worthy of respect, but his bark appears rather more formidable than his bite. Though he displays bravado when trying to discipline his sister, who may be on the road to prostitution, he is at heart a coward. Although not very bright, he does possess a degree of cunning which is often sufficient to get him out of some very tight scrapes.

Pasqualino’s trials are many and varied. He accidentally kills his sister’s pimp and then has to amateurishly dismember the dead body to hide his crime. When his sister still blows the whistle on him, rather than assume a possible legal defense of some kind, he admits to his crime out of pride. Sent to a mental asylum (the best deal his attorney could get), he relies on his whiles to survive as comfortably as possible. However, when he sexually assaults one of the female patients, he makes life even more miserable for himself. Forced into the army, he deserts soon enough and is eventually apprehended by German soldiers. His humiliation as a prisoner of war leads him to do whatever it takes to survive, including profess love to a sadistic female commandant who enjoys toying with him. Eventually he will protect his own life by picking out others for slaughter. Though he survives, the toll is high even in regard to Pasqualino’s tattered excuse for a soul.

In a surprising move, director Lena Wertmuller presents Pasqualino as not a completely unsympathetic figure. He is played by Giancarlo Giannini, one of the great comic actors of the 20th century, who softens Pasqualino’s rough edges with sly humour and great comic timing. Pasqualino may be beneath contempt, but that doesn’t make him less human. A horrible fate remains just that even when it falls upon a character for whom we feel little sympathy.

In Seven Beauties, Wertmuller raises more questions than she answers. First, what exactly is she saying? With the help of Gianinni, who can communicate deviousness one moment and vulnerability the next, much of the movie has a comic patina thanks to her droll approach to the material. The tone of the film stays--how to put it?--on the light side of dark. But as Wertmuller ratchets up the degradation that Pasqualino must manage, the seriousness of the proceeding can hardly be ignored. So we have a not exactly sympathetic character who finds that even for him there is a question about how much to endure just to go on living. This is not a movie that espouses the notion of “live to fight another day”; this is movie that asks when enough is enough; when is survival itself a disgrace?

One could argue that this is a great anti-war film because it shows what war makes humans capable of doing to one another. But another target might just be the overarching malevolence of male pride and masculine power. After all, while Pasqualino comes from a long pernicious patriarchal tradition which he accepts as gospel, he didn’t create it himself. He didn’t get messed up without a lot of help along the way. Nor did the people who appear to be even more messed up than he is. Perhaps it is such values as these, placed in action, that can make life not worth living.

subtitles

 

[kihei]

Next pick: Wim Wenders' 1976 The Goalkeeper's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (aka The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty)

 

[Newsworthy]

I rank NETWORK as one of the most overrated movies of all time.
If kept were a hockey team they would be TB.
If it