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

[kihei]

My next pick will be Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr from 1932.

 

[Jevo]

Tokyo Story (1953) dir. Yasujiro Ozu

An elderly couple leaves their comparatively small town, and their youngest daughter, to go to Tokyo and meet their oldest son and daughter for the first time in many years. In Tokyo also lives Noriko, the widow of their youngest son, who died in the war. The kids Shige and Koichi, have their own families and businesses, and would prefer to not spend more time or money than necessary entertaining their parents, although they are not without good intentions, there are just things that are being prioritized more. So Noriko is tasked with showing the parents around Tokyo. A task she gladly accepts, willingly offering her own time and money to be with them, and make sure they have a good time.

It is easy to get a bit angry at Shige and Koichi, and their seeming lack of compassion, like Kyoko does at the end. When you've seen them discuss how it will be much cheaper to send the parents to a spa on their own, than entertain them in the city. And how Shige starts dividing up the loot at the wake, before she and Koichi seemingly leaves as fast as possible. Noriko delivers a very good speech to Kyoko, about how life changes as you move away from your parents, and start to form a life and family on your own, and how your priorities start to change when this happens. Noriko is probably a bit too nice on her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, since Shige could do with a bit of tact, and Koichi seems to suffer from a lack of priorities in regards to his kids, who are as unable to get his attention as his parents are. That being said, there is also a lot of truth in what Noriko says. You do grow a lot less dependant on your parents once you move away from them, and especially in a scenario like this, where they live a days journey away from each other, in a time without the easy communication tools we have today. Over time with little communication, the lack of dependence, could lead to a lack caring in some way, like we see here. Noriko is willing to spend a lot more time and money on the parents, despite not being their child, or having spend a lot of time with them in the past. She claims to not be a better person, but just a person in the right circumstance, I don't entirely agree with that sentiment, but it is interesting point of view to take. As I mentioned earlier, I tried watching this movie for the first time in High School, while I was still living with my parent. Probably the worst time to try and watch this movie. After you move away from home and live on your own, you get a very different perspective on what this movie is about. A perspective I assume changes as you start a family of your own, and at last are the one to visit your kids and their family.

Tokyo Story is likely to be considered slow in some regards. The story isn't exactly big on action, and is composed mainly of gentle conversation. On top of that the camera barely moves, if it moves at all. Time inside the film still moves at a fair pace, and gives the film a good rhythm, that makes time outside the movie pass by fast as well. Despite the camera not really moving, most shots are surprisingly dynamic. Many sets are very shallow, and doesn't allow much movement lengthwise, but the sets are very deep, and most of the movement seem to take place in that direction, and there is often some movement happening all the time. The camera is often placed very low, almost on the floor. Something I don't think I've seen before, perhaps outside of Cafe Lumiere where I seem to recall similar shots, but I think that was an Ozu homage, so perhaps it is not so strange after all. The low camera works very well, since the Japanese traditionally sit on the floor, and the camera brings you at eye level with them in that situation.

Tokyo Story is a very touching movie, and one of the very best I have ever seen. I think this is a movie that can be enjoyed by almost everyone, once they reach a certain point in their lives. The story is very universal, despite it of course being based on Japan from 60 years ago. It certainly made me think about, and evaluate my relationship to my own family.

 

[Jevo]

L'Eclisse (1962) dir. Michelangelo Antionioni

Vittoria (Monica Vitti) leaves her lover Riccardo after a long night of talking, despite Riccardo trying to persuade her to stay with him. Vittoria goes to the Rome stock exchange to meet her mother, but her mother is more concerned about how much money she made that day. At the stock exchange Vittoria meets Piero (Alain Delon), her mothers stock broker. The next day Vittoria again goes to the stock exchange, a big crash is happening, and everyone is losing money. Her mother is distraught after having lost 10 million lira. Vittoria and Piero leave the stock exchange together, and they start to form a connection together.

L'Eclisse is a very minimalist work, where the story and the sparse dialogue takes a back seat to things like mood and imagery. The story isn't one I would call forgettable, but it isn't one I have thought a lot about since I watched the movie. The black and white imagery is striking, a great example of how beautiful black and white can be. Though not as striking as in Antonionis previous movie La Notte, which I also watched recently, and which I think is one of the best looking movies I have seen. The general minimalist approach in the movie is only broken during the few scenes in the stock exchange, that are unusually loud and action filled compared to the rest of the movie, and serves as a great juxtaposition to the scenes that focus mainly on Vittoria, which are much more slow and sombre. Delon and Vitti in the lead roles are great. Delon is cool as always, and he's great in the role as the young energetic and somewhat carefree stockbroker. Vittis character is very different, but she excels even more. Her face seems to natural fall into an expression of melancholia, and it is not strange that Antonioni seems to have fallen in love with this expression. I find it very mesmerizing, she completely steals the picture whenever she is on screen with that particular expression. It has been like that every time I have seen her in a movie by Antonioni.

I think L'Eclisse is a great example of the minimalist approach that Antonioni likes to take, and how effective it can be. Antonioni is without a doubt one of the best at making this type of movies, and I think they are a treat to watch. The way he choose to end this movie with a 7 minute silent montage is very bold, but also shows his skill, since less talented directors might have made it boring and meaningless, which Antonionis version isn't at all.

 

[Jevo]

My next pick will be Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind.

 

[kihei]

L’eclisse (1962) Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

I decided to prepare for L’eclisse by rewatching the first two films in Antonioni’s trilogy on modernity, L’avventura and La notte. These films had a lot of impact on me when I first saw them. While I was smitten early with the French New Wave, it took me longer to warm to Italian film. As I wrote in an earlier review, I was skeptical about neo-realism and, in addition, Fellini struck me as a vulgarian, the fat guy at the New Year’s Eve party blowing a noisemaker in people’s faces. But director Michelangelo Antonioni impressed me from the beginning. Some of his cinematography seemed like it should be framed and hung in an upscale gallery somewhere in Florence. But it was what his films were about that really grabbed my attention: the alienation and boredom experienced by well-off, intelligent people for whom the world should have been their oyster. Nobody was tackling a topic like that in film at the time. In fact, I associated Antonioni’s works more with the existential novels that I had read by Camus and Sartre than with movies by other filmmakers.

I'm glad I revisited the entire trilogy. L’avventura was about little more than vapid people behaving badly, but it was a fascinating study to me. La notte raised the level of gravitas considerably by focusing on a more intelligent and self-aware couple, and it helped that Marcelo Mastroianni and Jeane Moreau had taken over the acting reins from Gabrielle Ferzetti and a still woefully inexperienced Monica Vitti in the earlier film. La notte I resisted for a long, long time but now it seems at least the equal of the other two movies. It doesn't just show alienated characters getting through the day but begins to point a finger at some of the causes of contemporary malaise. With Antonioni obviously enthralled as a filmmaker by the cinematic potential of the Milan Stock Exchange, La notte seems an almost Marxist-style rebuke of modern capitalism. The characters seem more complex as well—Delon is great as the shrewd, ambitious stock broker and a much improved Vitti is perfect as a woman who is a little dissatisfied with just about everything, including romance. The cinematography is frequently more engrossing than the dialogue. The extended montage of images with no dialogue at the end of the film is a stunner. What is the point? Maybe there is no point. Life just goes on, for good or ill. Camus would have approved, I think.

subtitles

 

[kihei]

Vampyr (1932) Directed by Carl Theodore Dreyer

Allan Gray, a somewhat disturbed young man who seems to be searching for something but it is unclear what, visits a country inn where he is visited in the night by an old man who leaves a small package behind. Gray is not to open the package until the old man's death, an eventuality that isn't too long in coming. Gray slowly becomes involved in the strange goings on taking place at and near the inn. There is a murderer loose, and one of the dead man's young daughter's is almost certainly the victim of a vampire, one who wants to finish the job. There are more things going on, too, some of them involving shadowing figures who literally have no substance.

All of the above takes place as if the protagonist (and the viewer) is trapped in a slow motion nightmare. The film is filled with beautifully photographed scenes that are unsettling and images that are haunting, with the precisely shot interiors contrasting with the hazily fuzzy exteriors. In many ways, Vampyr seems a very odd choice for Dreyer's first sound film (he doesn't give up silent film approaches entirely--in fact, only about a third of the film makes use of sound). His choice of actors, amateurs for the most part who cannot act, lends an oddly appropriate feel to the movie, increasing its sense of drowsy unreality. The final dispatching of the villain occurs in a way that is as original as it is disquieting. In uber-creepy Vampyr, atmosphere not only enhances the story, it almost eerily takes its place. It remains a curious thing that the earliest vampire movies, Nosferatu, Dracula, Vampyr, defined the genre so well that they have seldom been even marginally improved upon.

 

[kihei]

My next pick is Mike Nicholls' Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

 

[Jevo]

Vampyr (1932) dir. Carl Th. Dreyer

A young traveller with an interest in the occult, Allan Grey, comes to a small country inn. Shortly after his arrival strange things start to happen. Allan is given a small gift by an old man, that is to be opened after the old mans death. The gift is a book describing the history of vampires, and the accounts in the book share similarity to the current events in the area.

Dreyer is a very visually interesting director. With a focus mainly on the human element in the frame, instead of grand sets and landscapes. After Vampyr his movies became extremely minimalistic, with many shots lasting several minutes, and with very little camera movement. But Vampyr is probably his most experimental movie visually. External shots all look like they were filmed during a fog, and it adds to the movies allready creepy atmosphere. The movie involves a dream sequence that I really like. Greys 'soul' is shown leaving the sleeping body by leaving it as a transparent ghost or what ever you want to call it. And he is kept transparent for the entirety of the sequence. I don't know why, but I really like the effect that it creates. Something similar is done in Metropolis and Man With A Movie Camera, and I really like it there as well.

I read that Dreyer said his only intention with this movie was to make a movie like no movie before it. He belived he succeeded. It's hard to sit here more than 80 years later and judge whether he is right or not. Vampyre movies are nothing new by then. The classic Dracula with Bela Lugosi was released a year earlier in America, and of course Nosferatu predates Vampyr by 10 years. While he Germans made many horror movies in the '20s, they often used expressionist visuals. Dreyer takes a very minimalist approach, mixed with influences from his time in the Parisian avant-garde community in the late '20s and early '30s. The mix between that style and the horror genre is not something I remember seeing in other movies, before or after, so in that regard he could be correct. In any case it is a fun thought experiment to undertake.

Dreyer is an interesting case. I don't believe any of the movies he made during his life were a commrcial succes, and many of them didn't do well with critics originally either. Many of them are now well regarded by critics, but in the general public he's still obscure. If you did a survey in Denmark, I don't think would know who he is, or know his movies. Which is odd, since you can very good case that he is the greatest Danish filmmaker ever. Why is hard to say, many of his best known movies weren't made in Denmark, and his best known Danish films were quite conservative even when they were released, and even more by todays standards. Which might be a reason why you don't see them played on Danish TV, TV stations don't believe they'll garner much attention. His nearest competitor for best Danish filmmaker, Lars Von Trier, is likely more infamous than famous, but nearly all Danes will know the name, either for good or bad, either for his movies or for his various escapades in the media.

 

[kihei]

Vampyr (1932) dir. Carl Th. Dreyer

A young traveller with an interest in the occult, Allan Grey, comes to a small country inn. Shortly after his arrival strange things start to happen. Allan is given a small gift by an old man, that is to be opened after the old mans death. The gift is a book describing the history of vampires, and the accounts in the book share similarity to the current events in the area.

Dreyer is a very visually interesting director. With a focus mainly on the human element in the frame, instead of grand sets and landscapes. After Vampyr his movies became extremely minimalistic, with many shots lasting several minutes, and with very little camera movement. But Vampyr is probably his most experimental movie visually. External shots all look like they were filmed during a fog, and it adds to the movies allready creepy atmosphere. The movie involves a dream sequence that I really like. Greys 'soul' is shown leaving the sleeping body by leaving it as a transparent ghost or what ever you want to call it. And he is kept transparent for the entirety of the sequence. I don't know why, but I really like the effect that it creates. Something similar is done in Metropolis and Man With A Movie Camera, and I really like it there as well.

I read that Dreyer said his only intention with this movie was to make a movie like no movie before it. He belived he succeeded. It's hard to sit here more than 80 years later and judge whether he is right or not. Vampyre movies are nothing new by then. The classic Dracula with Bela Lugosi was released a year earlier in America, and of course Nosferatu predates Vampyr by 10 years. While he Germans made many horror movies in the '20s, they often used expressionist visuals. Dreyer takes a very minimalist approach, mixed with influences from his time in the Parisian avant-garde community in the late '20s and early '30s. The mix between that style and the horror genre is not something I remember seeing in other movies, before or after, so in that regard he could be correct. In any case it is a fun thought experiment to undertake.

Dreyer is an interesting case. I don't believe any of the movies he made during his life were a commrcial succes, and many of them didn't do well with critics originally either. Many of them are now well regarded by critics, but in the general public he's still obscure. If you did a survey in Denmark, I don't think would know who he is, or know his movies. Which is odd, since you can very good case that he is the greatest Danish filmmaker ever. Why is hard to say, many of his best known movies weren't made in Denmark, and his best known Danish films were quite conservative even when they were released, and even more by todays standards. Which might be a reason why you don't see them played on Danish TV, TV stations don't believe they'll garner much attention. His nearest competitor for best Danish filmmaker, Lars Von Trier, is likely more infamous than famous, but nearly all Danes will know the name, either for good or bad, either for his movies or for his various escapades in the media.

Lars does certainly go out of his way. In a fascinating documentary on Ingmar Bergman called Trespassing Bergman in which a goodly number of the greatest directors on the planet visit Bergman's island, where he lived in isolation and filmed so many of his seminal works, Von Trier is among the directors chosen to participate. His most memorable line: "**** Bergman." (He rambles on a bit in this vein before softening his stance in the end). On another note, Vinterberg is still relatively young and just entering his prime with an already impressive track record (The Ceremony; Submarino; The Hunt; and at least a decent take on Far from the Madding Crowd, the only works of his that I have seen). Might he not yet give Dreyer and von Trier a run for the money in the Best Danish Director sweepstakes?

I don't actually read much about film at all. I just bump into things. I stumbled over a comment that suggests that von Trier is going to make another Five Obstructions, but this time with Martin Scorsese. Wild idea. Any truth to it, do you know?

 

[Jevo]

Lars does certainly go out of his way. In a fascinating documentary on Ingmar Bergman called Trespassing Bergman in which a goodly number of the greatest directors on the planet visit Bergman's island, where he lived in isolation and filmed so many of his seminal works, Von Trier is among the directors chosen to participate. His most memorable line: "**** Bergman." (He rambles on a bit in this vein before softening his stance in the end). On another note, Vinterberg is still relatively young and just entering his prime with an already impressive track record (The Ceremony; Submarino; The Hunt; and at least a decent take on Far from the Madding Crowd, the only works of his that I have seen). Might he not yet give Dreyer and von Trier a run for the money in the Best Danish Director sweepstakes?

I don't actually read much about film at all. I just bump into things. I stumbled over a comment that suggests that von Trier is going to make another Five Obstructions, but this time with Martin Scorsese. Wild idea. Any truth to it, do you know?

The Celebration and The Hunt are two of the biggest Danish language movies the last 20 years, Submarino is also good, but didn't get as much attention domestically as the other two. His English language movies have been a bit hit and miss, mostly miss. If he contines from now as he has done since making Submarino, he could definitely challenge Dreyer and Von Trier by the time he retires. He has a new movie coming out in the new year called The Commune, about a sort of hippie commune in the 70s, I'm looking forward to seeing what he makes of it.

I've read about the Scorsese and Von Trier matchup too, I think there were some definite intentions from both of them. But commitments to other projects means it has been put on more or less permanent hold, unfortunately. They could have made a great couple.

 

[Jevo]

Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (2004) dir. Michel Gondry

Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) skips work on Valentines Day, and instead takes the train to Montauk for no particular reason, other than for not to go to work. While walking around in Montauk he spots a woman, Clementine (Kate Winslet) several times. On the train back towards New York she starts talking to Joel, the two hit it off and spends the rest of the day together. After some time, Clementine suddenly doesn't recognise Joel anymore. He finds out it is because she underwent a procedure that erased Joel from her memory. To get over the pain of having been erased, Joel decides to get the same procedure done. But while getting his memory erased, he regrets, and his subconsciousness starts fighting the procedure, and he starts to go on the run with Clementine in his own mind.

Joel starts running once all the bad memories from the end the relationship, when everything started turning sour, are erased. He might have wanted to keep the memories anyway, but Joel and Clementine doesn't seem like a relationship that was ever going to last. To put it bluntly, Joel is kind of a schmuck. When Clementine initiates contact with him in the beginning of the movie, all he seems to be able to call anything is "nice", everything is just nice, no more no less. Joel seems so afraid to repel the woman showing interest in him, that he devoids himself of any personality. Clementine has to take all the initiative, and Joel is just along for the ride. When we see how they really met, Joel is not quite as much a schmuck, so maybe the procedure erased some important memories in Joel that changed him, but Clementine still leads everything. Clementine on the other hand is adventurous, impulsive and expressive, pretty much everything Joel isn't. Not that it necessarily makes Clementine a more desirable partner. Every time something happens in their relationship, it seems to be because Clementine decided something was going to happen. At some point their differences had to clash, and they did. The only we see Joel be resilient and take action, is in his subconsciousness, when he decides to run from the procedure. It is probably also the time in the movie where Clementine has the biggest respect for Joel. Sadly Joel is not able to take that side of himself into his conscious self.

Charlie Kaufman is one of the most original screenwriters in working Hollywood the last 20 years. I can't think of anyone who writes stories like his. His writing isn't just good, he has also been lucky to have some equally creative directors putting his screenplays into film, like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry. Michel Gondry is probably the perfect choice to direct this movie. He seems to like exploring the blurring between the real world, and the subconsciousness, like he also does in The Science of Sleep. The direction really flourishes in the scenes insides Joels head. Where the line between time and space becomes blurred, and we see Joel walking through his memories, from his friends living room, directly into the doctors office. Jim Carrey does a great job as Joel here I think. It's not the first time he takes on a dramatic role, but I think it is his best dramatic role. I don't think he's funny once in the movie, and if he is, it's very underplayed, the opposite of how he's normally funny. Kate Winslet is also a good choice as Clementine. You can see what Joel sees in Clementine in Kate Winslet, but she also shows the bad sides of Clementine that Joel doesn't recognise at first. I also liked Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Woods supporting roles.

The procedure given in the movie is luckily not real. But it is fun to think about the repercussions that would follow if it was. At first sight it's a brilliant idea. Why spend weeks or months trying to get over a bad breakup, when you can just forget the other person completely in a single nights sleep. But it might not be so great after all. The movie doesn't explore it much on a larger scale. But we see how it affects Joel when Clementine suddenly doesn't recognise him anymore. We also see how Mary is affected learning that underwent the procedure, something she has no recollection of. But what if it was widespread, it would be a big cluster **** of not mentioning forgotten ex'es to friends, and them trying not to mention your forgotten ex'es. Would we even have any meaning full memories left, if we could just delete the bad ones. Bad memories are often those that shape us the most as human beings, for good or bad. Would we all just end up as bland blobs wandering around. We see Joel getting some unintended memories deleted, and he seems even more bland when he meets Clementine after having the procedure done, than he was beforehand. Is it really worth it to give up something of your own personality, just to forget someone that hurt you? The procedure is probably not something that will ever be possible. But I think it is interesting to think about the 'what if' of the technology.

 

[Jevo]

My turn sneaked up on me this week, so I forgot to think of a movie to pick next. I'll return later with my choice.

 

[Jevo]

My turn sneaked up on me this week, so I forgot to think of a movie to pick next. I'll return later with my choice.

Made up my mind. My next pick will be Raise The Red Lantern by Zhang Yimou.

 

[kihei]

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Directed by Michel Gondry

As it turns out, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is one of those movies that I remembered as being a less complicated experience than it actually is. In fact, the movie is rather depressing. Jim Carrey plays a hopeless schmuck who seems overmatched by life. Kate Winslet plays someone who seems mentally unstable a big part of the time. And the team of four charlatans that they go to for help all seem like losers in one way or the other, especially the Patrick character, who is easily among the yuckiest, creepiest non-murdering personages in the history of movies (the role made me hate Elijah Wood forever ). The movie seems all about sadness, regret, and emotional pain; in short, a bit of a downer.

So why did I remember the movie as such a great love story the first time around? Undoubtedly nostalgia played a role. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the kind of rainy day movie that easily envelops me in an atmosphere of romantic reverie, inducing thoughts about all the relationships that didn’t work out in one way or the other, the ones that got away or the ones where I was just too much of a moron at the time to even realize it. But, hey. While there’s always a degree of masochistic pleasure in that sort of speculative recollection, wallowing in wistfulness has its limits. I hardly noticed the first time I saw the movie that while Joel and Clementine seem to get a second chance, in reality it’s just an opportunity to make the same mistake twice. The movie’s ultimate message seems to be a bracingly dispassionate one: romantic delusion is inevitably self-inflicted.

I don’t know how original this movie is, though. When I first saw Eternal Sunshine in 2004, I immediately thought of it as a cleverly commercialized take on an Alain Resnais movie (it sure as hell is a Resnais-ish conceit). Specifically I thought screenwriter Charlie Kaufman might have acquired the kernel of the idea from Alain Resnais’ hard to find Je ‘taime, je ‘taime. Trouble is, I saw that movie so bloody long ago that I can’t remember exactly what happens in it except that this guy is allowed, through some experiment, to go back through time and relive one moment of his life. But that’s all I can remember. However, I noticed, like two days ago, that Je ‘taime, je ‘taime just got re-released and is available again. So when my turn comes up, I am going to make it my pick for movie of the week and then we shall see if there are any significant similarities or not. (Assuming you can locate a copy, Jevo).

After reading Jevo’s review: I think it would be truly horrifying to erase from my memory people who were once important to me. It would be like erasing some of the best parts of my own being. Whatever momentary comfort it might have afforded at the time could never make up for the damage it would inflict long term. I think such a thing would be the very quintessence of soul-destroying.

 

[Jevo]

Je t'aime je 'taime shouldn't be a problem for me. I haven't seen it before, but Resnais hasn't let me down yet, so I'm looking forward to it.

 

[kihei]

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) Directed by Mike Nichols

At a small Eastern college after a late night party that already has gone on too long, Martha (Elizabeth Taylor), much to the displeasure of her husband George (Richard Burton), invites Nick (George Seagal) and Honey (Sandy Dennis) home for a drink. George is a long established faculty member at the college and Martha is the daughter of the college's president. Nick has arrived to take a position at the school with his mousy wife in tow. In the guise of being collegial, George and Martha have some fun first attacking one another before gradually turning on the young couple who are in some ways deserving targets. With games like "get the guests" and "hump the hostess" in store as well as George and Martha's nasty little secret, things turn decidedly vicious very fast.

Word that Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? would be made into a movie was an incredibly prestigious and intellectually exciting occasion when it was initially announced. The play had catapulted playwright Edward Albee into a stratosphere of fame that he shared only with the likes of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams, providing Albee in the process with the kind of pop culture visibility that few playwrights could ever dream of achieving in their lifetimes. Mike Nichols was a successful and sophisticated comedian who had made the transition to directing theatre on Broadway without the hint of a misstep. He had never directed a movie before but he created a stir when he accepted the challenge to usher this play, which many considered the greatest American play since Death of a Salesmen, from the stage to the screen. There were no movie stars bigger or more glamourous than Elizabeth Taylor who, nonetheless, was a controversial choice for the role of Martha, a frumpy middle-aged faculty wife who devours her men whole. There were no such reservations about Richard Burton who, though he had “sold out” to Hollywood, still retained his reputation as one of the most gifted and powerful stage actors of his generation.

Everybody delivered. The adaptation smoothly transferred the play’s verbal pyrotechnics to the screen. Though a novice, Nichols' direction was assured and polished. Taylor created a shockingly memorable Martha, and Burton provided one of the best performances of his career. Watching the film again, I enjoyed it immensely, but it ended up being a different kind of experience than I was expecting. I’ve very seldom seen a play brought to the screen with such devotion, and there’s the rub. Theatrical reality and film reality are really two distinctly different things. In some ways, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? does its job too well. I could never quite forget I was watching an artful contrivance. As is true when I attend plays in general, I can never completely shake my awareness of their theatricality, which inevitably distances me from what I am watching. From the time I sit down I am congnizant that I am observing a performance in a theatre. That’s true to some extent when I watch a movie, too, but with a play the artificiality of the experience is somehow more pronounced. In this particular instance, I don’t think I ever quite believed that people talk the way that George and Martha do. Not that couples don’t tear themselves apart, but they don’t do so with the language that a great playwright provides or with the delivery and presence of a great actor. Watching Albee, Nicholls, Taylor, and Burton do their stuff was still very impressive, but I didn’t give myself over to the movie the way I do watching, say, Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage or Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’avventura. I guess the best way to put it is that with good adaptations of great plays my disbelief fails fully to suspend. I enjoy the experience, but it doesn’t blow me away.

 

[kihei]

My next pick will be Alain Resnais' Je t'aime, je t'aime.

 

[Jevo]

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) dir. Mike Nichols

Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) and George (Richard Burton) come home drunk from a party. George is ready to go to bed, but Martha reveals that she invited a young couple over for drinks. When Nick (George Segal) and Holly (Sandy Dennis) arrive, the battle of words between Martha and George is all ready heating up. The old couple don't hold back, and are not afraid to embarrass, themselves, their spouse or their guests. At first the young Nick and Holly are embarrassed and want to leave. But as they get drunker, they get more and more interested in seeing where this game is going to end.

It is no surprise that Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is based on a play of the same name. It's full of snappy dialogue firing from all sides, the like that Aaron Sorkin has been known for penning nowadays. It would be hard for a movie to ever rival a good stage production with a talented cast. But Nichols and Co. is making a good run for it. First of all the casting is just great. Elizabeth Taylor is possibly the ugliest she's been her whole career, in looks and maybe in personality as well. The unpleasantries rasps off her tongue like the crack of a whip. She is pleasure to watch in this movie, few of her contemporaries could have done what she did here, and I suspect fewer would have wanted to be as ugly as she is here, for an entire picture. Richard Burton is normally quite a well looking man as well, isn't exactly a looker here either. His George is almost an anti-thesis to Taylors Martha. He takes the abuse like a man who has tried it many times before, a man who has either stopped trying to stand up for himself, or like a man who never even tried. He comes with passive-aggressive comebacks to Martha, but they lack the punch that Martha brings. That is until she finally drives him to the point, where he is willing to be as mean as her. Burton is great in this role, he and Taylor compliment each other well. It is surprisingly to think they were married to each other during filming, because they really seem to hate each other, but that's good acting I suppose. Lets hope things were a bit more mellow after hours. The young couple Nick and Holly seem so innocent at first, and out of their depth in Martha and Georges game. Holly might just be that innocent, or she might not be smart enough not to be innocent. Nick while he appears it at first, is all but innocent. With a mind of cunning he plans to do everything it takes to get to the top. He didn't marry Holly for her looks or her pleasant conversation, but rather her prospective bank account. And he seems great prospects in Martha as a way to get an in with her father, the president of the college, and she sees great prospects of him being in her. Much to Georges dismay, while Holly appears either oblivious in her drunken state, or like someone who has learned to ignore it.

Mike Nichols died just last year, and continued to make movies into his old age, as one of the veteran directors of Hollywood. But Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was his debut, while it might not be the most logistically or technologically demanding movie in history, he still had to create an environment where his actors were able to deliver their best. Considering the performances from all four, he succeeded quite well in that task. Most scenes are composed of a series of long shots, where the actors are allowed to move around in the scene and deliver fluid performances, much like you would see on a stage. Instead of cutting back and forth between shots, although that does happen at times. But I feel the movie is at its best when the cast is allowed to show off their talents without being 'interrupted' by editing. Thankfully they are allowed to do just that most of the time.

A single location play with only a small handful of characters often don't translate to the screen particularly well. There can be many reasons why they are unsuccessful, or at least not as good as their stage counterparts. But I think Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is successful because it doesn't try to do too much. Had Nichols tried to add too much, or make it more cinematic, whatever that might entail, I think it would have hurt the movie, and taken too much attention away from what makes it good, the characters, the dialogue and the acting. The script has just enough dynamism for it to work on screen. A play like Waiting For Godot probably wouldn't work very well on screen because it would feel too static. Something you don't get the same way on stage, probably because the actors have more freedom of movement, and they crowd is involved in a different way than when watching a movie. I don't believe Waiting For Godot has ever had a successful movie adaptation, or even an attempt at one, and this could be a reason why. On the other hand My Dinner With Andre worked great as a movie, and that is just two guys sitting across from each other talking. Which might be the reason it wouldn't work as a play, because there would be no movement, and you wouldn't get the close ups of the characters faces, which is really what makes My Dinner With Andre great. Either way, My Dinner With Andre is a one of a kind movie, and it would be foolish to use it to predict other movies successes, either artistically or financially. This paragraph was meant to be a short round off of my review, but I seemed to get carried away there, I hope it wasn't too rambling.

 

[Jevo]

Raise The Red Lantern (1991) dir. Zhang Yimou

After the death of her father, the young woman Songlian is forced to give up her studies, and marry a wealthy man, Chen, as his fourth wife. In the Chen household everything is done according to custom, as it has been done for decades, with little room for innovative thinking. One of the customs is that the master chooses a woman to spend the night with each night, and that woman gets special treatment from the servants, and is allowed to chose the menu for dinner. This leads to more or less open war between the wifes, as they battle for the masters attention. Songlian has to learn who, if any, she can trust, and who is ready to put a knife in her back, should the opportunity arise. And she has to learn to play the political game herself.

I find it very interesting to watch how the different wifes handle the politics of the family. The first wife seems to have resigned to a life involuntary celibacy, instead of fighting with the younger wifes, knowing that she has supplied the master with his first born son. The second wife is a shrewd player of the game, and is as ruthless as she seems kind. She can't compete with the younger wifes on beauty, and as such uses other means to lure the master into her quarters. The third wife a first seems hostile to Songlian, and while she is a good player of the political game, she seems most concerned with upsetting the second wife, and having her son born a few hours before the second wifes daughter, seems to be one of her crowning achievements. Master Chen seems to pay little notice to his wifes infighting, perhaps he even enjoys that it is going on, and such sees no reason to interfere. Either way the old customs of the household more or less all seem to exist, so that they encourages the wifes to fight for the masters attention, even if they don't particularly seek him for his pleasant conversation skills or sexual prowess. That way there will always be a willing lady for the night, and he doesn't seem to mind whether or not they enjoy the time he is there or not. All the wifes seem to live a very depressing existence when looked at from an outside perspective. I don't believe anyone would willingly choose such a fate, unless there weren't any other to choose. We even see Songlian contemplating suicide, saying that being dead must be better than being a wife there.

Director Zhang Yimou started his career as a cinematographer before becoming a director. I can't say if that is the reason, but Raise The Red Lantern has amazing cinematography in my opinion. There is a not a frame in this movie that is not picturesque. Often times the Chen family compound is used to create completely symmetric shots, sometimes through a couple of gates as well. Rarely do we get close up shots of characters. When the master visits Songlian in her room, it is always shot from the far end of the room, leaving the characters faces small, and hard to pick up on. It seems like the distance at which characters are shot from, mirror how close Songlian are to them. As such we rarely get a good look at the masters face, perhaps because Songlian never feels close to him. We get quite close to the characters when Songlian and the third wife are together, perhaps because the two end up forming a rather close connection as the movie progresses. I'm not sure if this true or not, or if it was an intention from Zhang. Maybe it was just an artistic choice in the different scenes, that I am reading too much into and forming false connections. Either way I do think the film is visually stunning, a world class movie in that regard.

Raise The Red Lantern has taken an issue that is luckily very rare in this day and age, and made it very relatable. While Songlian is the main character, I think most people will be able to relate to all the wifes, and understand their actions. The principal characters are well developed and three dimensional, and the acting is good as well. But Zhangs direction and artistic choices visually are what brings the movie up to level, where I wouldn't hesitate to call it a minor masterpiece.

 

[Jevo]

My next pick will be a bit of change of pace. Since there is a new Star Wars movie coming out soon, I figured we'd take a look at the original, and see how the biggest film franchise ever started out.

If anyone has been wanting to join, this might not be the worst time to do it. Who doesn't have an opinion about Star Wars, and can write a few words about it?

 

[kihei]

Raise the Red Lantern (1991) Directed by Zhang Yimou

I forgot how good Raise the Red Lantern is. If anything, the film seems a little unassertive at first, almost like it is keeping a respectful distance, but it picks up power as it goes along. Zhang, early in his career and already possessing a massive technique that will only get greater as he matures, does wonders with a story that takes place in a very confined space. The setting, despite the elegance of its decor, has the feel of a prison with our rooting interest Songlian and everyone else trapped inside it. Gradually the chilly aura established by long and midrange shots early in the film gives way to greater intimacy as Songlian becomes more comfortable and confident in the world of the court. That her confidence is misplaced, that she is not going to win any battles really, is the nasty little sting carefully concealed in the movie that eventually leads to tragedy all around. This is a movie about keeping one’s place or paying the price.

Raise the Red Lantern is a surprisingly strong statement about the subservience of women. Of course, the Royal Court in the distant past would be open game for Chinese directors in the 1990s. But it is not that hard to extrapolate from the past what Zhang is suggesting about the present. In totalitarian systems, though artists have to be careful obviously, they manage to shoehorn their points in one way or another. Indeed it is noteworthy how often in his career Zhang has chosen to make movies about women. In fact, for the longest time he almost exclusively focused on women’s lives. Even when he shifts to more male-oriented themes as in Hero, women characters still figure predominantly, or as is the case with House of Flying Daggers, they remain the central focus around which the action turns. Zhang contributed greatly to the emergence of Gong Li and Zizi Zhang, two of the most prominent and internationally acclaimed Chinese actresses of the past quarter century. For the emphasis that he places on women in Chinese society, both in terms of their tribulations but also in terms of their strength of character, he deserves way, way more credit than he receives. He has had a brilliant career and been a positive force for change in the process. He makes social responsibility seem kind of sexy actually.

 

[kihei]

Je t'aime, je t'aime (1968) Directed by Alain Resnais

Claude, who has recently attempted suicide, is approached by a group of scientists who ask him to be their guinea pig on an experiment that they are doing on time travel. Would Claude be willing to go back in time one year and spend one minute of his past life over again before returning to the laboratory? The experiment has been done successfully with mice but mice can’t talk, and the scientists need confirmation about what has occurred. Claude agrees. But something goes wrong, and the minute stretches far beyond a single moment of his life to encompass his memories of a past relationship that ended tragically. As he becomes trapped in his past, Claude's reasons for attempting to take his own life become clear. He relives these realities as though every moment were still the present, and he eventually comes to the only conclusion that he can.

I was watching this with my partner at home and about a half hour into the movie she said, “This is like an early version of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” No kidding. If Kaufman’s script stops just short of plagiarism (and it would be a case of “just short” and by the slimmest of margins), it is because he has reworked the story quite brilliantly to tell a different tale, one with its own implications about the importance of memory. But in terms of basic framework, and then some, Eteranal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind owes a great debt to Je t'aime, je t'aime, one that it probably should have acknowledged in its credits. What do the two films share in common? A very comparable science fiction framework provides a context for the investigation of memory, complete with incompetent technicians coping poorly when something goes wrong. Both movies investigate very similar “broken” relationships, and there is the same atmosphere of sadness and regret that are defining characteristics of both works. The film's even share closely approximate scenes, shot on desolate beaches, for instance, as well as something close to copy-cat editing on occasion. In short, that’s an awful lot to lift from one movie without that film receiving major acknowledgement.

Ultimately, however, the two films do say different things. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind focuses on the complications that arise when people’s memories are erased. Je ‘taime, je ‘taime is an even darker tale about a man who cannot escape an unconscionable act. But what most defines Je t'aime, je t'aime for me—and what I’m guessing caught Kaufman’s attention, too—is the film's essential sadness, the pervasive sense of melancholy that permeates the atmosphere of the film with a force that is tangible. Ignored for years, Je t'aime, je t'aime remains a haunting film. It is one of those minor works by a great director that would seem major if done by anyone else. As, I guess, come to think of it, is indeed the case.

subtitles

 

[kihei]

My next pick with be Elio Petri's Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970).

 

[Jevo]

Je t'aime Je t'aime (1968) dir. Alain Resnais

Writer Claude Ridder gets picked up outside the hospital by members of a mysterious science institute, after his failed suicide attempt. Initially he is not given much information, but he still goes along willingly. After arriving at the institute, Claude is told that he has been carefully chosen to be a part of the their experiment to send a person back in time. They have successfully sent mice back in time for one minute, but Claude will be the first human. He is to be sent back for minute, and then return to the present again. Once the experiment starts, things do not go quite as smoothly. Claude is unable to stay in the same place in his past for very long, jumping for time to time, seemingly at random, with some places being visited several times. He also occasionally returns to the present, but never long enough for the scientists to the rescue him.

I can see why Kihei thought of this movie while watching Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind. On the surface they are very similar, with the way they interact with the main characters mind and memories. I wouldn't be surprised if Charlie Kaufman consciously or subconsciously used this movie as an inspiration for his screenplay. Both movies are very good in my opinion. Je t'aime Je t'aime takes a slightly more esoteric approach to the premise. Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind has a central love story that it focuses almost entirely on, which makes it quite easy to follow. Je t'aime Je t'aime doesn't have a main subject in the same way, and jumps around in Claudes past a lot, and it can be hard to figure out what the meaning of it all means, and it seems more random, which I suppose you would expect from a scenario like this. But there does seem to be an incidence with Claudes former lover Catrine that takes up a lot of space in Claudes mind. He may or may not have killed her by leaving the gas on in their hotel room while she was sleeping, and he went for a walk. He has a lot of memories of her before that, but the guilt of her death fills up following the incident, and ultimately leads to his suicide attempt.

It's surprising that Alain Resnais was attracted to this story, he seems to have an interest in non-traditional ways of telling a story. All three movies of his that have been featured here, Providence, Last Year in Marienbad and this movie, have all had particular ways of telling their story. As I remember it, the two prior movies were both executed seamlessly, and Je t'aime Je t'aime is no exception to that. I am very impressed with how smooth it seems when you watch it. While everything is quite disjointed once Claude starts travelling back in time, it never seems particular confusing to me. Not that I found meaning in all of it either. But when I let the movie take me for a ride, without thinking to much about where we are going. All the changes in scenes all seemed to flow together very well, and in the end form a somewhat clear picture. The editing deserves some praise for sure, all the jumps from time to time were made to seem very natural, and like the fitted into a grander scheme, even if the scheme wasn't clear.

 

[kihei]

Looking forward to Star Wars tonight. By the way I sent away for Tarkovsky's Sculpting in Time. Couldn't locate it in TO. Ordered Fujiwara's Cinema of Nightfall, too. Looking forward to both those, as well.