Some of the Films I've Watched Lately a Few of Which I Enjoyed Greatly

The Royal Tenenbaums

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) Anderson. I unreservedly love this movie. And I loved it all the more with this latest viewing. Dysfunctionality has never been funnier. Gene Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum steals the show with lines like these:

“Anybody interested in grabbing a couple of burgers and hittin' the cemetery?” 

“I'm very sorry for your loss. Your mother was a terribly attractive woman.” 

“I've always been considered an asshole for about as long as I can remember. That's just my style. But I'd really feel blue if I didn't think you were going to forgive me.”

“Chas has those boys cooped up like a pair of jackrabbits, Ethel.”

“Hell of a damn grave. Wish it were mine.”

“You wanna talk some jive? I'll talk some jive. I'll talk some jive like you never heard!”

“Hey, lay it on me, man.” This said when meeting a distinguished African American man. 

Royal, as should be obvious from the above, has a propensity for being totally inappropriate. But it’s not as though he’s surrounded by sanity. His family is a wacky crew. His sons (Ben Stiller and Luke Wilson) are, to put it charitably, eccentric (albeit successful) and his daughter (Gwyneth Paltrow) — who he introduces as his “adopted daughter” — is so far out there you couldn’t find her with a telescope. Attached to the family is more madness such as Raleigh St. Clair (Bill Murray) and Eli Cash (Owen Wilson). Only his ex-wife (Angelica Huston) seems at all normal and only just. This and Rushmore are peak Wes Anderson, for my money only Moonrise Kingdom has matched these two.

The File on Thelma Jordan (1949) Siodmak. Barbara Stanwyck stars opposite Wendell Corey. Wait, what? Wendell Corey the leading man? That can’t be right. He was always the protagonist’s buddy -- notably in Rear Window -- never the main man. Actually Corey  was fine in this picture though it would have been better served with someone else in the lead. Like a leading man. William Holden? Melvyn Douglass? Dana Andrews? Maybe they and others all turned it down. TFTJ is being shown on Criterion Channel as part of their "1950 the Peak Year of Noir" series. There’s always one basic problem with noir: you know the “bad guys” aren’t going to get away with it. The mystery, such as it is, is what is going to trip them up. The plot here is not worth detailing but suffice to say Stanwyck is the villainess though not half as interesting as she is in Double Indemnity. Of course this one wasn’t written and directed by Billy Wilder. TFTJ is a solidly mediocre picture, certainly no waste of time but nothing you’re going to much remember after watching it — unless you blog about it.

The Immigrant (2013) Gray. Simply a terrible movie. The first really bad one I’ve sat through in a long time. Marion Cotillard stars, or rather she goes through the motions. The brilliant Joaquin Phoenix similarly reads his lines and hits his marks. Jeremy Renner plays a thoroughly uninteresting character with little evident enthusiasm. The film starts off dark in confined spaces and one imagines we’re being set up for wide open vistas and large spaces with brilliant light much as John Ford would do. Nope. It stays that way through the entire running time. There is nothing interesting about the film except to imagine why some critics liked it. Cotillard plays an immigrant from Poland in 1921 coming to New York with her ailing sister. It’s a great set up but the rest of the film is a complete disappointment.

The Passenger (1975) Antonioni. Sometimes I amaze myself. Prior to my latest viewing I’d watched The Passenger once before many years ago and didn’t like it. In the intervening years I’ve read and heard so many good things about it that I decided it deserved a second chance. After all, I’d disliked another Antonioni film the first time I saw it (L’Aventurra) and thought it masterpiece after a second viewing. Guess what? Same thing happened with The Passenger. Who was that person who didn’t like it? What a great film! Jack Nicholson stars as a disaffected journalist in North Africa who assumes a dead man's identity. Turns out the recently deceased was running guns for rebels and had some serious enemies. As was his custom, Antonioni took his sweet time in telling the story with long lingering shots that allow the viewer to breathe and think and take in any of the various locales that the protagonist travels through. Maria Schneider co-stars. The Passenger ranks up there with Antonioni's best. The closing scene has got to rank with one of the best endings in cinema.

The Lady Eve (1941) Sturges. One of the ten greatest screwball comedies of all time for me and countless others. Hell, it's one of the great films of all time, period. In Barbara Stanwyck’s great career she was never better. Certainly never funnier nor sexier. Henry Fonda proved here that a great actor can play in any genre as this was a rare foray into comedy for him. A supporting crew of Eugene Palette, Charles Coburn, William Demarest and Eric Blore round out a picture worth seeing again and again. And again.

Prizii’s Honor. (1985) Huston. Such was the state of American cinema in the eighties that this was not only a very popular film but a highly acclaimed one. Honestly it’s not bad but sure ain’t great either. Jack Nicholson shines as always, Kathleen Turner is sultry, as always. Angelica Huston (directed by her Dad) turns in a nice performance (it won an Oscar?) the supporting players are just fine. But Huston who directed some of Hollywood’s great films (Maltese Falcon, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the African Queen, The Man Who Would Be King, Key Largo) was not in great form in this his penultimate directoral effort and more importantly the script was not up to the actors. The line “do I ice her or do I kill her” is memorable but not much else is in this in one ear and out the other film.

Mirror (1975) Tarkovsky. Critic Antti Alanen called the film a "space odyssey into the interior of the psyche.” That’s as good a description as any. This was my fifth or sixth viewing and I found it just as mysterious, enigmatic and enthralling. It’s like free form jazz on film, hopping from one scene to the next, cutting in actual footage of the Spanish Civil War or a bullfight. A woman floats in mid air. A woman we haven’t seen before upbraids a main character. A barn burns. It’s a puzzle why we’re watching certain things but they are compelling and it makes sense just as it doesn’t. I love this film.

One of the Best Seven Year Stretches in Cinema History, 1957-1963

Bergman's Winter Light, my favorite film of the period

I have long championed the 1970s as the best decade in cinema history and have also sang the praises of the 1930s. However I recently found a seven-year period that does not fit neatly into a single decade, that produced a surprising number of classic films: 1957 through 1963. In total I rank thirty-five movies (an average of five a year) among my all-time favorites, nine of which are on my top one hundred, three in the top ten. Of those thirty-five, twenty-three (about two-thirds) were made outside of the United States. It was a slack period for American cinema and fecund for European film. 

One thing I found interesting about this seven-year run was that there were a mere handful of films I rate highly in the years immediately preceding and following it. Somehow it stood in isolation. Why? Perhaps largely because several European directors were at their best during that time. Meanwhile other great directors had faded while a new batch of American directors were several years away from cranking out classics.

Another contributing factor has to be that walls of censorship were finally being chipped away, particularly in Europe. American film did not free itself from the restraints of censorship until the end of the Sixties.

The main contributor to the list was the great Swedish director, Ingmar Bergman, with six — twice as many any other director. Federico Fellini, Francois Truffaut and Michelangelo Antonioni each contributed three. There were five directors with two films, Luis Buñuel and Mikhail Kalatozov and three others who made English-language films, Stanley Kubrick, Billy Wilder and Alfred Hitchcock. 

Here are the films:

Winter Light (1963) Bergman

The Seventh Seal (1957) Bergman

La Dolce Vita (1960) Fellini

Through a Glass Darkly (1961) Bergman

Nights of Cabiria (1957) Fellini

L’Eclisse (1962) Antonio

Vivre Sa Vie (1962) Godard

The Great Escape (1963) J. Sturges

Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Mackendrick 

Vertigo (1958) Hitchcock

Psycho (1960) Hitchcock

L’Avventura (1960) Antonioni

The Silence (1963) Bergman

Ivan's Childhood (1962) Tarkovsky

The Virgin Spring (1960) Bergman

The Magician (1958) Bergman

Viridiana (1961) Buñuel

Ride the High Country (1962) Peckinpah

Spartacus (1960) Kubrick

Shoot the Piano Player (1960) Truffaut

Jules et Jim (1962) Truffaut

Hud (1963) Ritt

Some Like it Hot (1959) Wilder

Letter Never Sent (1960) Kalatozov

The Exterminating Angel (1962)

La Notte (1961)

Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

The Organiser (1963) Monicelli

The Cranes Are Flying (1957) Kalatozov

Witness for the Prosecution (1957) Wilder

The 400 Blows (1959) Truffaut

8 1/2 (1963) Fellini

Two Women (1960) De Sica

Paths of Glory (1957) Kubrick

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) Ford

The Blogger Herein Answers the Question: What are the Best Decades Enjoyed by Films Directors

Woody Allen directing Radio Days (1989).

In my last blog post I checked in with my favorite active U.S. directors to see how their careers were doing. In doing so I noted what a terrific output Woody Allen had in the 1980s directing no less than eight excellent films. This inspired to me compile a list of the ten best decades enjoyed by film directors. There are several caveats, the most important being that my definition of a good or great film is based solely on my own tastes. I'm sure anyone else taking on the same task would have very different lists. Also I'm not going by ten-year periods but specific decades. Thus a director cranking out seven great films between, say, 1974 and 1983 is of no help.

This sort of list penalizes those directors who go or went years between films such as Stanley Kubrick, Charlie Chaplin or Quentin Tarantino.

Chance plays a huge factor. Two of the people on the list (Preston Sturges and Hal Ashby) made no other outstanding films outside the decade in question and happened to start their string of greats at the beginning of the decade. Still, I thought it a worthy exercise.

It's also interesting to note that other than Allen in the '80s all the other great director decades were in the '40s through the '70s. Not sure what to make of that. 

Hitchcock and Allen -- all notably prolific directors, each made the list twice.

One criteria I established was that a director had to have at least five qualifying films in the decade. This eliminated Francis Ford Coppola who had four great films in 1970s.

Final note: I lied in the first paragraph in saying that this is a list of ten as it includes 11 different decades. I winnowed down an original list of 20 by counting how many films I loved from the director's output that decade, how many made my list of great films and how many are in my top 100. I came up with a three-way tie for the final two spots and rather than spilt hairs decided to include them all.

I offer the eleven in no particular order, within the lists all films are in chronological order.

Woody Allen the 1980s
1. Stardust Memories (1980)
2. Zelig (1983)
3. Broadway Danny Rose (1985)
4. The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
5. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
6. Radio Days (1987)
7. Another Woman (1988
8. Crimes and Misdemeanors (1988)
Note: Eight excellent films in one decade is outstanding.

Ingmar Bergman the 1960s
1. The Virgin Spring (1960)
2. Through a Glass Darkly (1961)
3. Winter Light (1963)
4. The Silence (1963)
5. Persona (1966)
6. Shame (1968)
7. The Passion of Anna (1969)
Note: This includes three films in my top 100.

Hal Ashby the 1970s
1. The Landlord (1970)
2. Harold and Maude (1971)
3. The Last Detail (1973)
4. Shampoo (1975)
5. Bound for Glory (1976)
6. Being There (1979)
Note: As said in the intro, this was the extent of it for Ashby, but oh what a decade.

Michelangelo Antonioni the 1960s
1. L'Avventura (1960)
2. La Notte (1961)
3. L'Eclisse (1962)
4. Red Desert (1964)
5. Blow-Up (1966)
Note: Those first four in five years represent a great four-picture run.

Robert Altman the 1970s
1. MASH (1970)
2. McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
3. The Long Goodbye (1973)
4. California Split (1974)
5. Nashville (1975)
6. 3 Women (1977)
Note: Although he made very good films for the next 30 years, this was his peak.

Howard Hawks the 1940s
1. His Girl Friday (1940)
2. Ball of Fire (1941)
3. To Have and Have Not (1943)
4. The Big Sleep (1946)
5. Red River (1948)
Note: Hawks also had excellent output in the '30s and '50s.

Hitchcock directing Rebecca

Alfred Hitchcock the 1940s
1. Foreign Correspondent (1940)
2. Rebecca (1940)
3. Mr. And Mrs. Smith (1941)
4. Suspicion (1941)
5. Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
6. Lifeboat (1945)
7. Spellbound (1945)
8. Notorious (1946)
Note: If I were ranking the decades this would likely be first or second (to Allen's '80s)





Luis Bunuel the 1960s
1. The Young One (1960)
2. Viridiana (1961)
3. The Exterminating Angel (1962)
4. Diary of a Chambermaid (1964)
5. Simon of the Desert (1965)
6. Belle de Jour (1967)
7. The Milky Way (1969)
Note: Some might say I cheated here because Simon is a short film.

Woody Allen the 1970s
1. Bananas (1971)
2. Love and Death (1975)
3. Annie Hall (1977)
4. Interiors (1978)
5. Manhattan (1979)
Note: Bananas and Interiors couldn't be more different.

Preston Sturges the 1940s
1. The Great McGinty (1940)
2. The Lady Eve (1941)
3. Sullivan's Travels (1941)
4. The Palm Beach Story (1942)
5. The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943)
6. Hail the Conquering Hero (1944)
Note: Not only did Sturges do all his great work in one decade, he did it all in a five-year span.

Alfred Hitchcock the 1950s
1. Strangers on a Train (1951)
2. I Confess (1952)
3. Dial M For Murder (1954)
4. Rear Window (1954)
5. The Trouble With Harry (1955)
6. Vertigo (1958)
7. North by Northwest (1959)
Note: He'd just had a great decade and had more to come in the Sixties staring with Psycho in 1960.

The Best Four Films In a Row By Any Director is....

I saw a tweet today that suggested that the best four-film-run of movies by any director was by Francis Ford Coppola with The Godfather (1972), The Godfather Part 2 (1974), The Conversation (1974) and Apocalypse Now (1979). I immediately took this as a challenge and looked for any director that has put out four consecutive films that could match or surpass Coppola’s output. The short answer is: I couldn’t. Several directors had four great films out of five or six, or had three great ones in a row. (Disclaimer: My criteria for a film being great is that I love it, therefore, of course, this is totally subjective.) For example Andrei Tarkovsky would have been a very close second to Coppola with Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Andrei Rublev (1966), The Mirror (1975) and Stalker (1979), but he had Solaris (1979) mixed in there and it is to me his weakest film.

Below I have compiled some runners up to Coppola’s fab four which I have put in order. At the top are four by Michelangelo Antonioni’ which came within a whisker of equaling Coppola’s quartet, followed by four from Stanley Kubrick which was also very close. You will note that there are two foursomes from both Alfred Hitchcock and Woody Allen. It is interesting to note that I couldn't find four in a row that rated from such luminaries as Martin Scorsese, Howard Hawks, Akira Kurosawa, Billy Wilder, Francois Truffaut, Louis Malle, Jean-Pierre Melville, Rainier Werner Fassbinder or my favorite director, Ingmar Bergman.

From Michelangelo Antonioni 1961-1964:
L’Avventura (1961)
La Notte (1961)
L’Eclisse (1962)
Red Desert (1964)

From Stanley Kubrick from 1968-1980:
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
The Shining (1980)

From Hal Ashby from 1970-1975:
The Landlord (1970)
Harold and Maude (1971)
The Last Detail (1973)
Shampoo (1975)

From Charlie Chaplin from 1925-1936:
The Gold Rush (1925)
The Circus (1928)
City Lights (1931)
Modern Times (1936)

From Preston Sturges from 1941-1943:
The Lady Eve (1941)
Sullivan’s Travels (1941)
The Palm Beach Story (1942)
The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1943)

From Alfred Hitchcock from 1958-1963:
Vertigo (1958)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
The Birds (1963)

From Woody Allen from 1975-1979:
Love and Death (1975)
Annie Hall (1977)
Interiors (1978)
Manhattan (1979)

From Aki Kaurismaki from 2002-2017:
The Man Without a Past (2002)
Lights in the Dusk (2006)
Le Havre (2011)
The Other Side of Hope (2017)

Also from Woody Allen from 1984-1987:
Broadway Danny Rose (1984)
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
Radio Days (1987)

From Federico Fellini from 1955-1963:
Il Bidone (1955)
Nights of Cabiria (1957)
La Dolce Vita (1960)
8 1/2 (1963)

Also from Alfred Hitchcock from 1940-1942:
Rebecca (1940)
Foreign Correspondent (1940)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941)
Suspicion (1941)

From the Coen Brothers from 1996-2001:
Fargo (1996)
The Big Lebowski (1998)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)

From Lynne Ramsey from 1999-2017:
Ratcather (1999)
Morvern Caller (2002)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
You Were Never Really Here (2017)

Labor Strife, Butter, Dinner Party and a Long Walk, the Films I Watched this Weekend

I watched four movies in the preceeding two days. In between I ate, slept, went to the gym, did chores, hung out with the wife, watched two football matches from England, wrote a short story, read poetry and fantasized about time travel. But my focus here will be on the aforesaid four films which I will discuss in the order in which I viewed them.

Matewan (1987) directed byJohn Sayles. Anyone who studies history, as I have for many decades, spends a lot of time being angry at the rich and powerful and the way in which they have exploited the poor and weak. I used the perfect tense and wrote “have” because this is a practice that continues onto this day. Matwean climaxes with a historic event, the 1920 Battle of Matewan between local coal miners and members of the Baldwin–Felts Detective Agency in Matewan, West Virginia. The gun battle was the culmination of an effort by coal miners — one of the most horribly exploited workforces in US History — to unionize. The movie pays virtually no attention to the mine owners who represented a true evil empire. Instead we see their surrogates, the detectives who act as would-be strike breakers. One of the saddest aspects of the exploitation of workers is the aiding and abetting done by hired hands, who, for a good day’s pay, will brutalize hard-working, well-meaning men should they dare challenge the powers that be. If they are people of color or hyphenated Americans, all the better for the true hired thug who is invariably a racist and a xenophobe. Bigotry is the mother’s milk for the rapacious corporate power, it's way of separating the people and consolidating their own power. Matewan stars a young Chris Cooper as the idealistic but realistic union man sent to help the coal miners organize. His job was monumental what with the powers-that-be stacked up against the worker. Labor struggles are a ubiquitous fact of America’s history and the bad guys, with brute force and the support of the government, usually prevailed. It took the Depression, FDR’s election and the creation of the National Labor Relations Board before the good guys started enjoying success. Matewan is a story of the bad old days and the spirited efforts of those who sought fairness and justice.

Last Tango in Paris (1972) directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. I last saw this controversial film sometime in 1973 when I was a mere lad of 19. Watching now 47 years later I can’t help but wonder what the hell I thought of it back then. I remember seeing it and even what theater I saw it in but have no recollection of how I reacted to it. It would have been the most sexually explicit film I had seen to date with the most nudity — virtually all in the person of the the then 19 year old Maria Schneider. I can well imagine that I must have developed a huge crush on Ms. Schneider. Heaven knows what I thought of anal rape and the use of butter, not to mention Brando's character asking to have fingers shoved up his anus. Although not a virgin I was still then fairly innocent about sex having to date just practiced the fundamentals, so to speak. But I also wonder how I reacted to the film as a whole which dove into issues more varied and complex than just fucking. I’m sure it largely went over my head or confused me and may have at times bored me. I ordered my copy of Last Tango from Netflix under the mistaken impression that it was not a well-received film that became noteworthy for how explicit it was and for another great acting turn by Marlon Brando. I also guessed that later controversy around it grew because Ms. Schneider expressed her feelings of having been badly used by the director and star who told her nothing of the “butter” scene before it was shot. However before I sat down to watch Last Tango I learned that it had won considerable critical acclaim and remains a much appreciated film. Brando plays a man in great pain at the recent suicide of his wife who tries to sublimate his anguish through a form of anonymous sex (no names, no personal histories) with a beautiful young Parisian woman. Schneider’s character is engaged to marry a young light weight (Jean-Pierre Léaud) who is drawn to the mystery and magnetism of this strong American. Ultimately the two get everything and nothing from one another and the affair turns tragic when the American can’t let go. Scandalous sexual shenanigans aside, it explores weighty themes and after watching it this weekend I can say it succeeds on many levels. But for the life of my I can't imagine what my naive teenage self made of it all.

The Exterminating Angel (1962) directed by Luis Bunuel. On the surface it’s a one trick pony. Upper class guests cannot leave the room where they have just enjoyed a late night dinner party. There is no logical explanation for their inability to leave, no physical force confines them. But what a trick it is and what a story it makes for. Bunuel was a master of skewering the bourgeoisie, taking on false manners, pretense, artifice and indulgence. In Angel he does not stop at the skewering as he goes on to slice, dice and pulverize. What happens when society’s conventions are eliminated? In fact only one such convention has been eliminated. Everyone is able to perform their roles in society. Everyone is “civilized” and polite and keeps their own counsel about things that really matter. But with a basic foundation removed they go into a free fall. Rules don’t apply. Anarchy reigns. Exterminating Angel is subject to interpretation. It is to be admired for the questions that it asks and more for the hypotheses it supposes.

La Notte (1961) directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. Jeanne Moreau wanders the streets of Milan, just as in Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows (1958) where she wonders the streets of Paris. There something beautiful, enchanting yet haunting about watching Moreau, head held high, walking — seemingly aimlessly — through city streets. The Moreau of La Notte, like her co-star Marcello Mastroianni, is an unhappy person. There is loss in her life as a good friend is about to die of cancer. As he will enter the void a void is created in her life. Why are she and her husband so melancholy? He is a successful author, she is rich, they are young and beautiful and healthy. They seem comfortable together but not happy together. Why? At a party held by a wealthy industrialist they go off separately. Both encounter “another.” Moreau ultimately balks at cheating on her husband. Maybe it’s the wrong man or she’s just not ready or her she clings to the idea of her marriage. Mastrioni has found the lovely daughter of the industrialist (Monica Vitti) and flirts shamelessly but is ultimately rebuffed. La Notte is part of Antonioni’s trilogy (between L’Avventura (1960) and L’Eclisse (1962)) of alienation. People who feel an emptiness and a lack inside. Perhaps they want something more, a meaning or a purpose that proves elusive. They are not destructive or self-destructive, just lost. Lost in their ennui. La Notte is a beautiful film to watch, as are most of Antonioni’s. And, like his other films, it is a beautiful film to ponder. It had been maybe two years since I watched La Notte, which seems a shame, because it can be watched again and again and more can be found it. Perhaps one day I’ll find a meaning to Moreau’s meanderings. If not, they are at least enchanting to watch.

The Code Word is Aardvark - or - How Antonioni's L'Eclisse Could be a Spy Movie

I was watching Antonioni’s masterful film, L’Eclisse on DVD. Early on two characters are speaking. I know a little Italian but not enough to render subtitles extraneous. So I’m reading them during the conversation. The male character asks the female (played by Monica Vitti) if she’d like him to call her later. This is ably translated and shown in the subtitles. Vitti’s character responds by saying what sounds like the word, “no.” However this is not translated and viewers not conversant in Italian are left to wonder if the Italian sound “no” means the same in their language as it does in English. For all anyone knows the “no” sound in Italian could mean something else entirely like, “aardvark.” (It doesn’t but I’m making a point here.)

So you’re watching L’Eclisse let’s say for the first time, you’re still in the first scene and a character utters a word that you can’t be sure means “no” and may in fact mean “aardvark.” So if the latter you’re going to speculate as to why a person would answer a question regarding making a phone call by naming an animal, one that is, according to my good friends at Wikipedia: “….a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. It is the only living species of the order Tubulidentata, although other prehistoric species and genera of Tubulidentata are known. The aardvark is sometimes colloquially called ‘African ant bear’ ‘anteater’ (not to be confused with the South American anteater), or the ‘Cape anteater’ after the Cape of Good Hope.”

You’d likely consider that perhaps the use of the word “aardvark” was code and that the two characters were spies. This would lead to speculation regarding the sudden use of a code word. Did they suspect that there were listening devices in the house? Was the question about calling later a coded message? Could there have been other coded messages within their dialogue? Will all this be revealed to us later in the film or is this one of those deals where we’ll have to ‘read the book.’ And if we do have to read the book what if it’s out of print and hard to get? Or what if the book is really long or what if it sucks or what if it is both long and sucks. That could put one in a deuce of a pickle.

All of this confusion is just based on a supposition that aardvark was the untranslated word. Maybe the untranslated word was “sure.” Thus the woman was inviting a phone call later in the evening. Changes everything though not as much as if the word was aardvark. Of course if the answer was “sure” maybe it was sarcastic. It’s not worth thinking about. It’s also perhaps not worth thinking about the thousands of other words that he woman might have said. A lot of them would be similar to aardvark in that they would not seem to make sense in answering the question. Examples include: sycamore, lioness, pulverize, curricular, bassoon, ensign or umbrella. Again if it was one of these words or a similarly obscure one, it could only mean that the word was code.

This actually might serve to pique the viewer’s interest. Someone without foreknowledge of the movie could find themselves excited at the prospect of a spy thriller with Miss Monica Vitti as the lovely heroine. Maybe this would also feature the Italian James Bond. After all Alain Delon, then a young dashing figure, was the listed co star and he could more than fill the bill as a suave secret agent. Could this mean that Monica Vitti would be a fellow agent? Surely not an enemy one? It would not seem that she would be a vulnerable femme fatale who needed rescuing or an evil seductress. Too big a star for that.

Further complications would arise as the viewer was forced to look for other spoken words that contained hidden meanings. The mind boggles. A couple of scenes early in the film would compound the viewer’s confusion. One takes place in the apartment of a friend of our main character. The friend is recently returned from a long stay in Kenya and has an apartment decorated with African art. Ms. Vitti’s character dons some African attire, darkens her face and dances to tribal music. It’s an odd scene but if one is convinced that they are watching a spy film it takes on additional and more mysterious meanings. Especially when the hosts tires of playing African. Another scene (and indeed there are others there) unfolds in Rome’s stock market and of course international financial intrigue is just the stuff of the spy genre. At one point Ms. Vitti follows a man who she has been told has that day lost millions. We were to believe that she is curious about how someone reacts to taking such a beating but our heroine pilfers a napkin he doodled on. She shows the doodles to Alain Delon. Surely they contain a message central to the entire plot. The failure to translate the word sounding like “no” has now born serious consequences in the mind of the viewer.

Later Mr. Delon’s car is stolen. This would further suggest to confused viewers that spy games are afoot. Surely the car contained vital secrets or was specially equipped. The next morning the car is dredged from a river. There is a body in the car but does it belong to the thief or, more importantly, to an enemy spy? Was something extracted from the car? One is left to wonder.

The mysteries pile up for our befuddled viewer. The languid pace, the long silent stretches, the shots of buildings, trees rustling in the wind, street lights, people walking seemingly without direction. What does it all mean? And how does one explain the ever-changing nature of the Vitti-Delon interactions. Of course there are no references to aardvark anymore, at least nothing that one can detect.

L’Eclisse finally ends, more like stops and the word “Fine” appears on the screen. Is this the Italian variation of “The End”? Or is this another message? Does it mean everything is fine? One can go mad trying to decipher the hidden meanings. All this because of the failure to translate the “no” sound. But this may be a wasted exercise, though, because sometimes no means no.

Crazy Eights -- Eight Crazy Ladies Of Film

Here's a topic I'm an expert on. Wacky women. Sadly this expertise derives from having been raised by one. Poor mom was posthumously diagnosed as being schizophrenic. That's a rough one for a kid to take especially when mother is so erudite and intellectual in her lucid moments. But it is what it is -- or so they say. She's been stone dead physically for 12 years now and dead to me in all other ways for many more than that. So perhaps this explains my fascination with insanity (not to mention the fact that I'm a bit of kook myself). I have a great sympathy for people struggling with reality. Especially those who shine so brightly in this often dim world. Besides there's an awfully fine line between bat shit crazy and perfectly normal and many of us precariously tread in the swift waters in between. I'd even argue that those folks that society can safely classify as perfectly normal are the real nut jobs. Imagine going through life without dipping your toes -- inadvertently mind you -- in the roiling waters of madness. Now that's crazy!

Films have long had a fascination with the mentally ill. They make for great subject matter and provide roles that actors can sink their teeth into -- often at the risk of chewing up substantial portions of the scenery. Lately filmgoers have been blessed with one of the best portrayals of a whacko in recent or for that matter distant memory. Cate Blanchett's transcendent performance in the title role of Woody Allen's latest flicker inspired the annotated list below. I could have made a far longer list but that would have robbed me of the clever title for this post. Maybe I'll have to write a part two or make a list of men. Anyway this one will suffice for now. Or am I crazy?

Cate Blanchett  as Jasmine Blue Jasmine (2013) Ms. Blanchett joins a long list of women who have graced a Woody Allen film with a stunning performance (see Farrow Keaton Cruz Johansson Wiest Sorvino Rowlands Ullman and more). But she might have just topped them all. How effortlessly she glides from reality to fantasy. How subtle her insanity and at times broad and obvious. For Jasmine there is madness to her method. Such self-possession often leads to flights of fancy and from there to long soaring journeys to another reality. The happy mix of prescription drugs (they can be the worst kind of drug having as they do the appearance of the medical world's stamp of approval) and booze makes for far easier segues into crazy. The Great Cate has given us one of the great screen performances of all time.

Gloria Swanson as Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd. (1950) Speaking of all time greats....Meet Norma Desmond ex silent film star bent on a comeback that no one is awaiting. Possessing oodles of cash and her very own screen writer (William Holden as Joe Gillis). She also possess delusions -- chiefly that the movie industry and public are hankering to see her again up on the big screen. Ahh delusions. Living in your own fantasies. A world of your own. How easily they can prey upon the mind. She has a butler/ex-husband (Eric von Stroheim) who is a candidate for world's greatest all time enabler. Nothing helps a nut along like someone supporting their madness.

Gena Rowlands as Mable in A Woman Under the Influence (1974) The nutty housewife. A staple of society but so rarely encountered on film. She somehow manages -- most of the time -- to keep house raise children look after her hard working hubby and give the appearance of all being hunky dory. But then there are the many other times when she just can't hold it together and anyone and everyone present sees the kook in action. Rowlands as Mable frankly creeped me out because watching the film was like looking at surreptitiously taken home movies from my childhood. She was manic, she was perfectly fine ,she was inappropriate ,she was dear old mom and loving wife. She was all over the place and it was brilliant.

Vivian Leigh as Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) This has been the gold standard of crazy ladies for over 60 years. There was a wonderful mannered broadness to her and co star Marlon Brando's performances. A kind of why-hold-anything-back approach that turned cinema on its head. Leigh played the classic drama queen nutcase which allows one be a bit of a ham. She took full advantage of the privilege and never crossed the line into vamping.

Kristen Dunst as Justine in Melancholia (2011) No one has quite done depression as Ms. Dunst did in this terrific film from Lars von Trier. There's a real difficulty in doing clinical depression because so much of it is self contained lethargy. You're not exactly bouncing off the walls. So a lot of it is the look and Dunst had it. She also had the faraway gazing zombie walk. It was a criminally underrated performance.

Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream (2000) One of the more common "real life" (whatever the hell that is) sufferers of mental illness is the shut-in older woman. Add a little TV addiction and a lot of diet pill addiction to an already unstable mind and you've got the recipe for one whacked out woman and one bravura performance from Ms. Burstyn. While Darren Aronofsky's direction helped heighten the performances, the cast here was superb. In Mrs. Goldfarb we see so many of those mad aging housewives filling their days with TV and fantasy and drugs to plug in the holes where there lives used to be.

Harriet Andersson as Karin in  Through a Glass Darkly (1961) Director Ingmar Bergman loved his crazy film characters and I had plenty to choose from but went with this one as my favorite. Karin is married to a doctor, her father is a successful writer and she has a precocious younger brother. She herself is bright and beautiful. But none of this stands a chance against the mental illness inherited from her mom. Not even a recent stint in a mental institution has set Karin straight. Bergman's fascination with mental illness made for some powerful, evocative cinema and Andersson's Karin is a classic example.

Monica Vitti as Giuliana in Red Dessert (1964) A very understated performance for a very understated insanity. To many a person suffering from mental problems is a raving loon pacing up and down streets screaming at squirrels. But there are much more subtle forms as Vitti showed in this great Antonioni film. She was detached, confused, unfocussed and prone to wandering and wondering. This not easy to detect mental illness can race downhill in a split second. It never quite does for Giuliana who holds it together -- fakes it. This is actually quite bad. The mentally ill person who can "pass" does herself no favors.

Three Favorite Films From Favorite Directors Much Annotated And This is Part 1

"Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions
And for a hundred visions and revisions
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo."
 - From 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Pufrock' by. T.S. Eliot.

The title says it. I take a favorite director and pick my three favorite films he's done or did. Then I write something though sometimes off topic and not necessarily about all three films. I'm calling this part one which suggests that there will be parts to follow. When I don't know. Who can know such things. Truly.

Ingmar Bergman. The Seventh Seal (1957), Winter Light (1963), Fanny and Alexander (1982). I started with my favorite of my favorite directors and immediately see that three is not enough but that rules are rules. I could have a dozen easily for Bergman. Woody Allen called The Seventh Seal one of the few perfect films and I make it a point never to argue with Woody Allen. Winter Light is a small picture could say bleak -- very black and white --  which could say about god's silence. While. Fanny and Alexander is a huge picture full of color and people and drama and laughter and life and villains and heroes. Opposites attract. Bergman films don't make me think they allow me the option of it. They do make me feel. Feel good. I love the depth and the humanity and oh the faces.

Federico Fellini. Amarcord (1973), La Dolce Vita (1960), Nights of Cabrira (1957). The broken record is saying there are so many that could have should have would have been here. His films so Felliniesque you might say. The drama never too heavy but inescapable. The humor never blaring just there to find and to hold. The characters so rich and wonderful. And life so very much on display and never gray. Just touchable. Films like a great meal with many courses. Faces again. The greats appreciate them.

Woody Allen. Manhattan (1979). Midnight in Paris (2011) Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). Wry smiles and broad jokes and the sound of Sidney Bechet or Benny Goodman or Cole Porter for crissakes. Pathos. The distracted love of the pixilated. Pondering the imponderable but always. Discordant but happy. Keaton Farrow Johannsson Cruz Cotillard. Beautiful vulnerable soft but strong. Bergman made the most great films but Allen has made the most good ones. That opening of Manhattan with Gershwin announcing and the skyline and the narration and then to the restaurant and oh my.

Michelangelo Antonioni. L' Eclisse (1962). Red Desert (1964). L'avventura (1960). Enchanting miles of drivers distracted confused by unspoken poetry. Lyrics of songs dying as the vipers in their engines devour large swaths of deaths for them. We linger on moonlight nights in soft winds of our fingers. Feelings not spoke only hinted at by the obtuse. So long the days of our splendor and the wonder of our confusion. Everyday. To be beautiful. Distracted. And thinking. All at once. So lonely. So ill-timed the forgetfulness of our sated sorrow. And still yesterday approaches.

Alfred Hitchcock. The 39 Steps (1935). Notorious (1946). Foreign Correspondent (1940). Wow what a list you could make what arguments you could have what fun it is to discover Hitch and then re-discover him. Master of Suspense is somewhat limiting a moniker. There is suspense created sure but there is also character and content and a camera that surprises titillates and amuses and dramatizes and captures. We start from the top of the stairs as we take a long trip to visit a key in a woman's hand. Masterful.

John Ford. Grapes of Wrath (1940). The Searchers (1956). Stagecoach (1939). Soliders of dignity. Women of valor. Horses. Monument Valley. Tough guys with dimensions. Stories well told. Never angry stories never preachy stories. Always so wonderful to look at and regard. Maybe the ultimate maker of American stories. Exposing what's under the rock without stating that its there just the showing of it. A genius with a goddam camera if there ever was one. Placing it just so and just so wonderfully. Mmmm. Grapes of Wrath a film worthy of a great book -- that's a rarity. Stagecoach the ultimate Western of the first half of the 20th century and The Searchers the ultimate Western of the second half of the same century. But his stories are more than Westerns. Yeah. They're fucking great.

Jean Renoir. La Grande Illusion (1937). Rules of the Game (1939). The Lower Depths (1936). Grand Illusion is another film Woody Allen said was perfect. The man knows a perfect film when he sees one. How Renoir slaps classism in the face. How unafraid he is of his audience -- but how he respects them -- how faithful he is to ideas. Good ideas. That ennoble us by tearing down what is facile and corrupt and depraved. The flourish is not evident but the precision is and the craftsmanship and the message and the story. Always the story. Glory.

Martin Scorsese. Goodfellas (1990). Raging Bull (1980). The Aviator (2004). Look at me everybody. I put The Aviator ahead of Taxi Driver and Mean Streets and for that matter The King of Comedy. I'm a nut! But I say and write what I think because to do otherwise is lying. Scorsese at his best does not lie. He is an honest filmmaker telling true stories. True in the sense that they are meant to be.....A man who loves loves loves films and loves loves loves to make them and does so with verve and panache but most of all with honesty. Sometimes brutally so. The violence in Goodfellas the anger in Raging Bull the brilliant madness in the Aviator.

Movies I've Watched Lately, All of Them I Enjoyed Greatly

I recently had a week off and of course watched a passel of movies. What else does someone like me, especially when I am me, do with some time off at home? Here's capsulized comments (you don't want tablets, I'm sure). And by the way these were all favorites that I own on DVD so you know I'm just gonna say nice stuff. 'Nuff.

Red Desert (1964). Amazingly beautiful especially with Monica Vitti and that marvelous face. Deep lush colors. The environment as the story along with the emotionally fragile and even damaged Vitti character whose actions alternate between the willful and the randomly bizarre. Antonioni directed and this is one of his three masterpieces and you should know the other two (L'Elclisse (1962) and L'Avventura (1960)). Richard Harris is a co-star and he plays a guy who goes with Vitt's flow. So.

Band of Outsiders (1964). Go Godard go. Jean Luc the director of this peripatetic story of three young rebels without the slightest cause other than perhaps the art of being cool. See them plan and sort of pull of a heist, see them take in the Louvre in record time, see them and their mannered dance, see them skip out on English class. See them smoke and drive and play at being latter day Bonnie and Clydes. See a cold overcast Paris in March looking so chill. It's a thrill.

Europa (1991). Wow. Fast becoming a favorite of all time. For me. Von Sydow's narration, meant to be hypnotic. Is. So is the whole movie. Strange and wonderful von Trier made this and Melancholia (2011), a great cinematic mind at work at times. Europa deftly from black and white to color to black and white to color to black and white to color. Not always sure what the story is about just sure that I like it. Germany right after World War II. Mysterious and strange. A movie I'd never rearrange.

Habla Con Ella (2002). Almadavor directs some weird stuff as a gay male nurse falls in love with his beautiful young catatonic female patient. Why not? He befriends a journalist whose bull fighter lover also goes into a coma. Wow. Beautiful story to watch and ponder as a contemplation of how we obsess, love, become ourselves through others. A thoughtful film. A film in thought. Glad I bought.

The Great Dictator (1940). A historical document as an entertaining comedy as a lampooning of particular dictators and forms of government and repression and hate. Chaplin takes on Hitler. Does he overdo the message at the end? How can you when your message is peace, love and understanding in the face of totalitarianism. The little tramp's last turn. After it, Europe would burn.

Run Lola Run (1998). Franka Potente is frenetic as she runs, runs, runs. We see how  a simple movement, decision, action can change the course of a life and thus many lives and thus the world. Direction by Tom Tykwer -- well done as is the editing and I like the way the movie makes a broad point in a broad way and is so damn much fun and gives such a rich vein of thinking to think on. Watch Lola run. It's fun!

The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972). Meet the utterly and totally and completely self possessed fashion designer Petra who falls utterly and totally and completely in love with young Karin and then just loses it. Meanwhile she's got an utterly and totally and completely dedicated assistant who responds to Petra's every whim and says nothin.' The mad and mercurial  Rainer Werner Fassbinder directed this mad long set piece. Peace.

Manhattan (1979). Start with vistas and skylines in glorious black and white to the tune of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Perfect prelude to a perfect film. Angst never better. Woody wrote, directed and starred with Dane Keaton. But don't forget Michael Murphy so good as the philandering friend, or Mariel Hemingway the young lover. Funny, wise and poetic. Love and betrayal. Allen hit on the nail.

Ivan's Childhood (1962). Not such a great childhood for the little Russian boy. Serving the Soviet Army during WWII. Haunted by memories of the sad fates that befell his family. Soothed or tormented by happier memories of Mom and pre war days. Visually stunning film from Tarkovsky. His camera soars above, or looks up from below. The action is muted but emphasized in foretelling or aftermath by the exquisite camera work. Haunting tale. Leaves a mental trail.

Films Inspiring the Intellect and Life's Moments in Movies, Recurring Themes on This Blog But This Time With a New Fridge

Every time I open our new fridge I feel like I'm in someone else's house. The someone else who has a better fridge than we do. But it's our fridge.

I'll get used to it.

Flexible people are happier. Making adjustments to circumstances over which one has no control is crucial to an emotionally healthy existence. Finding the good, the benefit, the reason. It's damn difficult but....

There is a real danger in the comfort of a routine. Your mind doesn't explore as much. You become rigid and thoughtless. By thoughtless I don't mean rude. I mean not thinking.

It's worth cherishing those things that inspire us. Move our minds in new directions. Shake off the cobwebs. That's what a really good film will do. You can get locked into diversionary movies that keep you from thinking. They don't challenge you. Your brain sits through them. Maybe wanders to trivial matters.

When I saw Napoleon (1927) the other day (maybe you read about it), my brain at times had trouble focusing on the movie. Not so much because the guy behind me had the sniffles, but because the movie was artistically so powerful that my intellect was doing the boogaloo. My mind was intoxicated. It's like a hypodermic shot of love.

Explosion.

(Did I mention that the fridge makes ice? Our old one had stopped doing that a long time ago. Ice is nice.)

Bergman films always get my juices flowing. So do those of Fellini, Antonioni (the picture up top is from his film L'Eclisse (1962)), Woody Allen, Kubrick, they all do it. No wait, "juices flowing." Kinda lame. Let's say they get my cerebellum synthesizing. Or my heart and intellect talking -- to each other. Each. other. To. And you do.

I like a movie for moments. Those real and simple moments - like those captured in a painting by Cezanne or a Diane Arbus photograph. Flower petal seconds, you could say. If you dig me. The brain on rapid-fire kitsch. Just check out the clouds....

....and note how the camera is looking up to the trail, following the two women on horseback. Simple beauty.

If we can look at the simple in a different way, we can contemplate in a different way, too, and away we go. We're onto something. Creativity or awareness.

The Coens are great at moments. The candy wrapper unkrinkling in No Country For Old Men (2007). Tarantino, for all his flash and dash, did it Inglourious Basterds (2009) with cream for the strudel.

Some moments are big. I know this from such things as earthquakes. Those can be some big f*cking moments. Let 'em be inside the movie. Don't make 'em outsized. Look at the stupid action super hero movies that just blow up big moments and turn them into dust. Eye candy. Watch how Coppola handles the big moments in Apocalypse Now (1979). Dead straight camera watching it. Unflinching. Boom! Guy's leg blow off, screaming. Observe and move on. Kubrick will expand them, sometimes. Surround our senses with them. We can't look away in A Clockwork Orange (1971) as Alex commits rape. Obvious and horrible. Just make them accessible for us. Don't be gratuitous.

Of course, like Abel Gance in Napoelon, like Bergman, Woody Allen, it's best when directors tell stories through faces. All of human history is written on the faces of the progeny of all who have come before. We wear on our visages all that we have done and all that has been done to us. Oh, the joy and the pain that we reveal in our eyes, cheeks, mouths and expressions. Those expressions when we are not posing. In great films there is very little posing and a lot of being. A lot of people being what we all are. Sometimes confused, sometimes enlightened, sometimes ignorant, sometimes curious. Always experienced.

Dance everyone. Lift yourself off your doldrums. Give up your comfort zone. Let your mind out for a walk. Buy a new fridge. See a movie that asks you questions; that challenges you to ask questions. OF YOURSELF. Be the somebody that you are capable of and not the somebody you can settle for.

I like our new fridge.

(An addendum, if you don't mind.)

The Poetry of Antonioni

“They were still in the happier stage of love. They were full of brave illusions about each other, tremendous illusions, so that the communion of self with self seemed to be on a plane where no other human relations mattered. They both seemed to have arrived there with an extraordinary innocence as though a series of pure accidents had driven them together, so many accidents that at last they were forced to conclude that they were for each other. They had arrived with clean hands, or so it seemed, after no traffic with the merely curious and clandestine.” 
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night

I'm reading Tender is the Night again. I never remember much about the plot after reading it and even while reading it I'll forget just exactly what's going on, who's who and where they are. I get lost, a lot, in Fitzgerald's worlds. I drown in the elegance and often must pause. Pause for what? I don't know. Trip, I guess. I'm on words, not acid. yeah, weird, but there I am.

So it is with films. Stories, plots, even some of the ideas and themes are just the window dressing of the moods and feelings created. Like the lyrics to songs you enjoy. The words can be cool, even meaningful. But the rhythm....

Michelangelo Antonioni is a director who understood the lyrical quality of films as well as anyone. In addition to such masterpieces as L'Eclisse (1962) and Red Desert (1964), he wrote a cinematic poem with his first film, which was of all things a noir, Story of a Love Affair (1950). As an Italian film it didn't suffer from what confined American Noir of the same period -- pre-destiny. The film could thus resolve itself of its own volition and without prescription from a prefabricated moral structure.

Story of a Love Affair was a preview of the visual masterpieces that Antonioni would later direct. It also features the type of morally ambiguous characters that would populate his later films. Without the distraction of a protagonist to root for, viewers can focus on mood, setting and where and how the camera trains its eye. Lovely.

It's always a plus that, while decadent or  banal, his characters are physically appealing. See Monica Vitti, Alain Delon, Jeanne Moreau, Marcello Mastroianni and in Story of a Love Affair, Lucia Bose and Massimo Girotti. They are, you see, an integral part of the scenery, taking up, as they do, so much screen time. By the end of L'Eclisse, Antonioni discarded them entirely. Vitti and Delon had served their purpose and the story could carry on without their presence. Dialogue? Please.

I love the snappy dialogue of certain films. The back and forth of characters. the deep thoughts, the verbal sparring, the philosophizing, ruminating and speechifying. I've dedicated many a post on this blog to my fondness for film quotes. But I love that some directors, like Antonioni, can dispense with chatter and tell a story through pictures. Things that are worth, the saying goes, a hundred words time ten. Sometimes endless chatter is the easy way out in story telling. Hell, Chaplin didn't need a lot of...words. Move your narrative through the flow of pictures, that's the thing.

There is so much talking today. Radios, TVs, even the Internet are blasting us with rapid fire verbiage. It is sensory overload and condemns us to drowning by minutiae. Often those words are accompanied by car crashes, gunfire, explosions and soaring superheroes. The 12 year old in us delights. The mind reels. Many suckle at the simple happiness of mind numbing stimuli. To each....

There is so much beauty in the world. So soft and gentle. So tempered by the angels that flit about our souls. We dance among the songs of our hearts and find joy in the visions of artists. Those who gave us light in dark moods.