Ten American Films That Capture The Soul of America

Wild Boys of the Road

The premise is simple. I here present ten American films from the last ninety years that in their own way reveal aspects of the American zeitgeist. As both a visual and oral story-telling medium, cinema is uniquely qualified to mirror society and its ever-changing norms and shifting ideals and concerns. Between them the films I've selected do not capture every aspect of this country’s culture, but they do represent different times, different moods and different places reflective of the American experience, spirit and soul. The films I selected are:

Wild Boys of the Road (1933) Wellman

The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Ford

On the Waterfront  (1954) Kazan

The Great Escape (1963) J. Sturges

The Last Picture Show (1971) Bogdanovich

Taxi Driver (1976) Scorsese

Do the Right Thing (1989) S. Lee

The Ice Storm  (1997) A. Lee

Mean Girls (2004) Waters

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) Tarantino

I don’t pretend that this is a definitive list. One could easily include another dozen or more films (I’ve got examples at the end of the post) and other people would have selected some very different movies for the same task. But I believe these films, from nine different decades and ten different directors, provide an introduction into an exploration of the American soul through film.

The first two films on this list are both set during the Great Depression which effected nearly every American — most adversely. The Depression wasn’t just a devastating economic event that dominated political discourse, it insinuated itself into the culture. Early on movies did two things with the Depression: try to make sense of it and try to distract people from it. These two films stared the Depression in the eye.

Wild Boys of the Road follows a group of teenagers who’ve left home to take their chances on the road. The main protagonist Eddie (Frankie Darro) has done so to ease the financial burden on his parents. It is an unflinching look at the hardships everyday Americans faced, particularly those who “rode the rails.” We see the brutality of those enforcing the law, whether city police or railroad bulls. There is a rape, a boy is maimed and children are arrested. Despite this, Wild Boys of the Road is not a pessimistic film. It is imbued with the spirit of can-do American youth and the belief that everyone is entitled to an even break. Wild Boys is also not sentimental. The ending is hopeful, not sappy. The kids are plucky and determined, unwilling to bow to the enormous obstacles that have been put in front of their pursuit of the American dream. It is a classic of the pre-code era directed by William Wellman,  arguably the greatest director of the pre-code era. In addition to Wild Boys he directed Heroes For Sale (1933) which is another hard look at the Depression, The Public Enemy (1931) and Midnight Mary (1933).

My favorite of John Ford’s films is Grapes of Wrath which explores a different aspect of the Depression, the Dust Bowl and the migration west from it by the people who came to be known as Okies. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by John Steinbeck, the film follows the fortunes of the Joad family, specifically Tom Joad who we meet after he’s released from prison after serving time for manslaughter. Tom is a sort of everyman, despite his time behind bars (after all it was self-defense). Through him we discover the devastation that has been visited upon the Great Plains by the combined might of Mother Nature and banks. Farms have been lost, families displaced and some people have given up or gone mad. The Joad family embodies the spirit of a people who push on, dreaming of greener grass on the other side — in this case California, where there are supposedly jobs aplenty. Upon arriving in the promised land they are confronted by the hard truth that this is no eden after all and the competition for menial jobs is stiff and the bosses are greedy and uncaring. To organize is to court trouble. Strike breakers are a vicious enemy as are — sadly — the police. Grapes of Wrath is a beautifully filmed and filled with brilliant performances (Henry Fonda, Jane Darwell, John Carradine to name a few) and in my mind one of the best films in the American canon. Part of its brilliance stems from — like Wild Boys, only more poetically — it’s realism. Again this is a film without sentimentally but one with a sense of hope. A cynical movie about the Depression would be cruel. Grapes of Wrath is no joyous romp but it does reflect the power of the American spirit.

On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront is a compelling film on a lot of levels. It is about working men, it is about corruption, it is about organized crime, it is about unions, it is about the often very fine line between truth-telling and betrayal, it is about the power of the group and the power of the individual. Set in the docks of  New Jersey in the 1950s, Waterfront was a star vehicle for Marlon Brando who portrayed the conflicted longshoreman, Terry Malloy. Malloy is a simple working class stiff who coulda been a contender as a boxer but has had to settle for the dreary nine-to-five routine. He is protected by a strong union (albeit a corrupt one) but is also at its mercy. A crime commission is investigating the union and others like it and stool pigeons are being dealt harsh mob justice. It is a classic story of how far loyalty goes and the heavy price of being honest. It was also a story ripped from the day’s headlines and thus resonated with audiences. Waterfront looked at American brotherhood and its corruption by evil forces. Another dichotomy of the American Dream. Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Karl Malden and Eva Marie Saint also feature as part of one of the best casts ever assembled. 

The Great Escape was a phenomenon in the early and mid 1960s. It had an all-star cast led by Mr. Cool himself, Steve McQueen. It was set during the “Good War” when Americans were unquestionably the good guys. It was a true story. It had action. It was smart. It was beautifully shot. Americans have always loved war pictures of all kinds and have made scads of them, from the jingoistic and racist to gritty dramas with strong character development to the fantastical explosion-laden adventure story, to the faithfully told true story. Stars ranging from John Wayne, to Humphrey Bogart, to Brad Pitt to Clint Eastwood to Lee Marvin, to Cary Grant to Henry Fonda to Ben Affleck to George C. Scott to William Holden have featured. Casablanca (1942) Curtiz, can be safely considered the most popular of WWII films, as well as one of the most critically esteemed. But the Great Escape — the true story of a mass escape from a German POW camp during World War II — symbolized American derring do in the form of McQueen’s character Virgil Hilts. He was an individualist, thumbing his nose at the hated Nazis and he did it with verve, as encapsulated by his vain attempt to escape through the Alps on a motorcycle. The British were our allies, they were good, disciplined, smart people, but to American audiences they lacked the panache of Yankees like Hilts. Hilts was a one-man case of American exceptionalism.

The Last Picture Show shone a very bright light on small town America, Texas style. It’s cast of characters included lonely housewives, carousing youngsters, grizzled and wise elders, dashing playboys and the mentally challenged. It is at heart a sad story of emptiness and loss and the great efforts people make to escape their doldrums, without physically leaving. Sex is an escape. Drinking is an escape. The movies are an escape. Sports are an escape. But only a character who joins the army really gets away (and that to the confines of military life). This is an America rarely depicted in films but one that tens if not hundreds of millions have lived in. Life offers small rewards, sparingly doled out. Despair lurks around the corner for most, yet hope is a constant — whether justified or not. The Last Picture Show avoids being depressing; it has compelling characters whose stories are relatable and engaging. When a teenage boy psychologically wounds the middle aged women with whom he’s had an affair, we feel her rage just as we sympathize with the young man. They are all victims. America would not have been ready for The Last Picture Show anytime before it’s premier, but it came at a time when — with an unpopular war raging in Vietnam and cultural values shifting -- introspection and self-critique came into vogue.

Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver takes us into the heart of the big city — indeed America’s biggest — and it is not a journey for the meek of heart. Our guide is one Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) a disaffected taxi driver, war veteran and loner who — when he can’t find love — looks for meaning. But his is a damaged mind and his quest ends in bloody massacre and this after he nearly assassinates a presidential candidate. Taxi Driver explores the underbelly of the American urban experience and the deranged individuals there formed. Yet is it a poetic film and like all great cinema is never depressing -- in large part because it is so honest. It is also about the loneliness of the big city and how easy it is to get lost deep in the recesses of your own mind. Bickle is hardly an American everyman, but he is a product of a culture that over values individualism. Bickle is, in his own way, also a crusader whose ultimate goal is to do the right thing.

American cinema has largely shied away from issues of race but a major exception can be found in Spike Lee’s seminal 1989 film Do the Right Thing. The tension is palpable, the violence as if from a documentary, the issues are timeless. It’s set in New York but could just as easily be in any other large American city. There are types of people but no stereotypes of people. These are strong, well-crafted characters who as an ensemble reflect much of the joy and pain of being an other in white America. Do the Right Thing climaxes in a confrontation between the white owners of a pizzeria and its black customers. Into this scene comes a character who is restrained by police officers  — as if the story was ripped from headlines from the future —and is  killed in the process. A riot ensues. No one wins. There’s a harsh message right there. No one wins. Like many great films, DTRT asks questions rather than feeding audiences easy answers. It thus allows — nay, insists — that viewers do their own thinking, examining both the state of American race relations and their own feelings on the topic. Lee has made much of the fact that many viewers are more concerned with the destruction of the pizzeria than they are with the death of a character. DTRT can thus be seen as a kind of American racial litmus test.

Ice Storm is simply the best representation of suburbia ever committed to film and not incidentally a clever look at the 1970s and the upper middle class. The wise ones here are the teenagers who variously pursue love or find meaning in comic books our follow the latest news on Watergate. The adults go to key parties for a sad, perverted form of the sexual revolution and incidentally cheat on each other in less open, totally dishonest ways. Truth is spoken by the teenaged girl whose offering of grace at Thanksgiving is an attack on American consumerism and the theft of the lands from Native Americans. This is a decadent America that has lost its values. It is a prettified suburban version of The Last Picture Show. Ice Storm is an exposure of desolation of hearts in a soulless land of cocktail parties and banality. Remarkably we don't come to hate nor necessarily dislike any of the characters, that would be too easy.

Mean Girls

I’ve long championed Mean Girls as not only a cultural phenomenon but, a great film. On the surface it’s a light teen comedy that satirizes the high school experience, but it’s — perhaps despite its own intentions — far more than that. It is wise and witty and revealing of the cliques, social hierarchies and peer pressure that make the high school experience a fraught one for many. High school can be a walk in the park for some students while a race through a land mine ridden field for others. Other teen films — including those set in high schools — tend to focus on boys and how they will be boys. As the title suggest Mean Girls has a primarily female cast and given the struggles and triumphs and dramatic ups and downs of its main character, Cady (Lindsay Lohan) it can be seen as post feminist. Hierarchies and status are based less on merit and more on wealth. Beauty is extolled over intelligence. Social standing trumps academic standing. There are a lot of aspects to the high school experience that are universal, but still others that are unique to the United States and Mean Girls is adept at portraying them. The films journey to a happy ending is a fraught one with obstacles aplenty. Along the way viewers are guided through socialization American high school style.

I don’t know that any other film has captured the time period it depicts better than Quentin Tarantino’s OUTH. The sights, the sounds and even the colors of late Sixties California are so vivid as to be transformative. It is also a film rich in themes and ideas and history. It is about celebrity, about the film and television industry, about an era, about cults and about the struggle to stay relevant and popular in a competitive world. As he did in another of his great films, Inglorious Basterds (2009), Tarantino re-writes history and again it feels like the right thing to do for the story. In addition to reflecting a time, place and a mood, movies are good for occasionally taking us away from reality and if creating a new one is necessary, so be it. But the broader point about OUTH is its exploration of a given time in which the U.S. underwent the mad melding of the hip new counter culture with the tradition bound. Some people fully embraced the hippie movement, others adapted aspects of it such as longer hair or experimenting with drugs or listening to rock music. The late Sixties were a time when squares like Dean Martin and cool cats like The Beatles were competing in music’s top forty. The establishment’s Bob Hope and the counter culture’s George Carlin were both making American’s laugh. The establishment was providing jobs and financial security at the same time it was benefitting from institutionalized racism and sending young men to die in Vietnam. Meanwhile the counter culture was offering exciting alternatives in everything from music to fashion to gaining awareness at the same time it was producing the Manson Family and drug overdoses and runaways. OUTH gets it all and through the mores it explores provides a uniquely American kaleidoscope.

Other films I considered for this article were: Heroes For Sale (1933) Wellman, My Man Godfrey (1936) LaCava, The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) Wyler, Rebel Without A Cause (1955) Ray, Midnight Cowboy (1969) Schlesinger, Shampoo (1975), Network (1976) Lumet,  Ashby, Platoon (1986) Stone, Boyz N the Hood (1991) Singleton, The Truman Show (1998) Weir, Milk (2008) Van Sant, and Get Out (2017) Peele. I highly recommend them all.

Ten Lists of Ten Films For Your Veteran's Day Enjoyment

Dead Man

Regular readers of this blog (Judas Longshanks of  Cut Bank, Montana) may recall that last  Memorial Day  I provided ten lists of ten films in various categories. Much to everyone's chagrin this has become regular holiday feature. Subsequent installments appeared on this site on Independence Day, Labor Day and Indigenous Peoples Day. A sixth installment will be posted on Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, please enjoy my Veteran's Day list -- or not, entirely up to you.

My Favorite Films With the Word Man in the Title

1. Dead Man (1995) Jarmusch

2. The Third Man (1949) Reed

3. My Man Godfrey (1936) La Cava

4. Odd Man Out (1947) Reed

5. The Man Who Would Be King (1975) Huston

6. The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001) Coens

7. The Man Without a Past (2002) Kaurismäki

8. A Serious Man (2009) Coens

9. Marathon Man (1976) Schlesinger 

10. The Thin Man (1934) Van Dyke 

My Ten Favorite Films Directed by The Coen Brothers

1. Inside Llewyn Davis (2013)

2. No Country For Old Men (2007) 

3. The Big Lebowski (1998)

4. A Serious Man (2009)

5. O Brother Where Art Thou? (2000) 

6. The Man Who Wasn’t There (2001)

7. Fargo (1996) 

8. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)

9. True Grit (2010)

10. Blood Simple (1984)

My Favorite Jean Harlow Films

1. Red Dust (1932) Fleming

2. Bombshell (1933) Fleming

3. Libeled Lady (1936) Conway

4. Platinum Blonde (1931) Capra

5. The Public Enemy (1931) Wellman

6. Hell’s Angels (1930) Hughes

7. Dinner at Eight (1933) Cukor

8. Reckless (1935) Fleming

9. Red-Headed Woman (1932) Conway

10. China Seas (1935) Garnett

Thomas Mitchell in Stagecoach

My Favorite Films Featuring a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award Winner

1.  Stagecoach (1939) Ford -- Thomas Mitchell 

2. Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) J. Huston -- Walter Huston 

3. The Last Picture Show (1971) Bogdanovich -- Ben Johnson

4. Cabaret (1972) Fosse -- Joel Grey

5. Godfather Part 2 (1974) Coppola -- Robert DeNiro

6. Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) Allen -- Michael Caine

7. Goodfellas (1990) Scorsese -- Joe Pesci

8.  No Country for Old Men (2007) Coens -- Javier Barden

9. Inglorious Basterds (2009) Tarantino -- Christoph Waltz 

10. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019) Tarantino -- Brad Pitt

My Ten Favorite Pre-Code Films

1. Wild Boys of the Road (1933) Wellman

2. Heroes for Sale (1933) Wellman

3. The Public Enemy (1931) Wellman

4. The Thin Man (1934) Van Dyke

5. Blonde Crazy (1931) Del Ruth

6. Baby Face (1933) Green

7. Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) LeRoy

8. Red Dust (1932) Fleming

9. All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) Milestone

10. Trouble in Paradise (1932) Lubitsch

Ten Films I’ve Loved Since Before I Turned Twenty

1. The Great Escape (1963) J. Sturges

2. A Hard Day’s Night (1964) Lester

3. The Strawberry Statement (1970) Hagman

4. If… (1968) Anderson

5. A Clockwork Orange (1971) Kubrick

6. 2001, A Space Odyssey (1968) Kubrick

7. Bananas (1971) Allen

8. Bonnie & Clyde (1967) Penn

9. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) Hill

10. Harold and Maude (1971) Ashby

My Ten Favorite LGBTQ Positive Films

1. My Own Private Idaho (1991) Van Sant

2. Carol (2015) Haynes

3. Call Me By Your Name (2017) Guadagnino

4. I Love You Phillip Morris (2009)  Ficarra, Requa

5. Milk (2008) Van Sant

6. Philadelphia (1993) Demme

7. Brokeback Mountain (2005) A. Lee

8. Tangerine (2015) Baker

9. A Single Man (2009) Ford

10. Moonlight (2016) Jenkins

The Stalker

My Favorite Russian Films

1.  Stalker (1979) Tarkovsky

2. Battleship Potemkin (1925) Eisenstein

3. Andrei Rublev (1966) Tarkovsky 

4. Come and See (1985) Klimov

5. Letters Never Sent (1960) Kalatozov

6. The Ascent (1977) Shepitko

7. The Cranes Are Flying (1957) Kalatozov

8. The Mirror (1975) Tarkovsky

9. War and Peace (1966) Bondarchuk

10. Wings (1966) Shepitko

My Favorite Films Set in High Schools

1. Mean Girls (2004) Waters

2. Rebel Without a Cause (1955) Ray

3. Rushmore (1998) W. Anderson

4.The Virgin Suicides (1999) S. Coppola

5. Superbad (2007) Mottola

6. Pleasantville (1998) Ross

7. Napoleon Dynamite (2004) Hess

8. Elephant (2003) Van Sant

9. Election (1999) Payne

10. Ferris Buller’s Day Off (1986) Hughes

Ten Great Films Set in Ten Different European Cities

1. Cabaret (1972) Fosse - Berlin, Germany 

2. Rome, Open City (1945) Rossellini - Rome, Italy

3. The Third Man (1949) Reed - Vienna, Austria

4. Midnight in Paris (2011) Allen — Paris, France

5. Match Point (2005) Allen —London, UK

6. The  Match Factory Girl (1990) Kaurismäki — Helsinki, Finland

7. Le Havre (2011) Kaurismäki — Le Havre, France

8. The Commitments (1991) Parker — Dublin, Ireland

9. The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1998) Kaufman — Prague, Czechia

10. Rocco and His Brothers (1960) Visconti — Milan, Italy

I Really Watched Four Films in One Day, All Were Short, All Were Good

From God's County by Louis Malle

Assuming you noted the title of this blog post you know what’s coming. Yes indeed I did watch four movies yesterday which at the very least ties a personal record. (What, you think I keep track of these things?). Two of the films were just over an hour long and of the other two, one was just a tad over an hour and half and the other a tad under. So I totaled about five and a quarter hours of movie viewing. That’s not outrageous when you consider I watched neither any sports nor TV shows all day. I also managed to read the Sunday Times, start a book I was given as a Father’s Day gift, eat two hearty meals, snack and washes the dishes — twice.

All four films I watched were courtesy of the Criterion Channel which is one of the greatest innovations in human history ranking just behind the wheel, electricity and donuts. For most of the time the channel has existed (fourteen and a half months) I’ve had a long list of movies on it to watch. Perhaps this is reflective of my mental state (a state almost as poorly off as Mississippi) but having all these films waiting to be watched had started feeling like a burden. So a few weeks ago I decided to focus on winnowing down the list to a manageable number and to accomplish this before more films were added at the beginning of July when they put up their latest releases. Knocking off four in one day was a huge step towards that, plus all the films were ones I’ve been dying to watch. The Criterion Channel has to compete for my time with the two DVDs I get each week from Netflix, the movies I record from Turner Classic Movies and my own extensive DVD collection of nearly 250 titles.

Obviously you are by now dying to know what I watched yesterday. Since I’m going to list them I’ll also offer a brief review. Here goes.

First up was Luis Bunel’s L'Age d’Or (1930). This completed my tour of the great Spanish director’s films which I began a few months ago. I have either liked or loved every one of his movies that I’ve seen. So I can say it was my least favorite of his films and at the same time aver that I thoroughly enjoyed it. L'Age d’Or has the surrealism that so typed Bunuel’s work, though at times it felt a bit overdone and less a way of telling the story and more a way of showing off. That said it is a splendid film and an enjoyable way to begin my movie marathon. I'd give a capsulize summary but it's not a film that lends itself to one. Suffice to say that if you like Salvador Dali (who was involved in pre-production of the film) and Bunuel, this is a film for you.

Next up was a Louis Malle documentary called God’s Country (1985) which was my favorite offering of the day. In 1979 Malle went to the small Minnesota town of Glencoe and interviewed some of its residents. What a wonderful slice of Americana he created out of it. We meet farmers, an octogenarian with a large garden, the assistant police chief, a banker, a lawyer whose son was a draft resister, a very young couple on their wedding day (she was seventeen) and a surprisingly liberated and open woman (for the time and place) of twenty-six. The interview with her was the highlight of the film for me. God’s Country is not at all surprising yet it is revelatory and fascinating. It is a small town America that us citified folks often get limited exposure to. We tend to mock such people and their values which is a poor reflection on us. There is an honesty and earnestness in many small town folks that is admirable. But at the same time it’s sad to hear one resident talk about how Blacks aren’t well-liked by many residents and another state that gays are stuck in the closet this community. God's Country is the type of movies that I wanted much, much more of.

From Claude Berri's The Two of Us

Film number three was the only of the day I’d seen before, The Two of Us (1967) directed by Claude Berri.  In Nazi-occupied France a young Jewish boy is sent to live in the country with an older couple neither of whom know the lad’s a Jew. The grandfather is an anti-semite but he loves his new boarder and they get along famously and have a series of adventures. The Three of Us is touching without being cloying. It is sentimental but with edges. Mostly its a delight highlighted as it is by a bravura performance by Michel Simon as the old man.

Rounding out the day’s programming was Cynara (1932) directed by King Vidor (King was his first name, he was not a monarch — but you knew that). Vidor was better known for two silent classics, The Big Parade (1925) and The Crowd (1928), two of the greatest films of the 1920s. Cynara is very much a pre-code film centering as it does around an extra marital affair and it’s consequences. The husband is played by Ronald Coleman. He is his usual debonair self, the quintessence of charm and sophistication. But he “makes a mistake” and falls for a younger woman while his wife is out of the country. Disaster ensues. Kay Francis is the missus and she gives a her usual solid if unspectacular performance. I’m always glad to see Ms. Francis in a film though I don’t think she had terribly great range (not that Colman did). The two are serviceable in their roles as is the young woman in question ably played by Phyillis Barry, an actress who never attained stardom. That Cynara succeeds is a credit to its screenwriter Francis Marion, one of the few female writers working in Hollywood at the time — or for that matter anytime. There are certain destinations that you know the film is going to get to but you’re never sure how.  Cynara was very much a film that relied on how it ended and Marion's screenplay did not disappoint. I liked and believed in the ending and in the movie as a whole. Vidor, so successful with "big stories" proved more than capable of telling a more intimate one.

So there you have it, I was four-for-four making for a most rewarding and enjoyable day and my queue on the Channel is down to a handful, thus easing my troubled mind. Of course now I’ve got a backlog of films I’ve recorded on TCM to get to and there are a number of films in my collection that are overdue for a viewing. A cinephile’s work is never done.

A Nod is as Good as a Wink to a Dead Squid a Blog Post in Three Parts Written Over the Course of Three Days

PART ONE
Written on Sunday
I swear it smelled like someone brought a dead squid on MUNI the other day. I believe the squid was quite recently deceased and the cause of death was a virulent form of dysentery.

I take the MUNI to BART after work. As I’ve previously mentioned the bus goes through Chinatown and many passengers have just been grocery shopping. Some of their purchases are malodorous. Usually the offending odor can be identified as raw chicken freshly killed, or some variety of raw fish. But there’s never been anything as offensive as to the olfactory receptors as the dead sea creature from Wednesday last.

If you had never walked around Chinatown and just rode the #30 through it on a regular basis you could be forgiven for assuming that 90% of all Chinese people are either over 80 or under 18. The other 10% would seem to be people with foul smelling groceries. I don’t know where San Francisco’s Chinese American hide after their teen years and why they don’t come out again until they're octogenarians — except to tote around groceries — but there you have it.

Of course you have to be careful when writing about people of a particular age, nationality, sexuality, ethnic group, religion or with a handicap — I mean, a special need. Anything you say about anyone in a group can cause you to be marked as a crypto fascist. You can even lavish a group with praise and be called out for gross insensitivity. Try saying that Asians are mostly all good at math and note how many pitch fork bearing howler monkeys come for you. Oh god I typed howler monkey. There’s no telling how that can be misinterpreted. If nothing else the Anti Howler Monkey Defamation League is bound to be up in arms.

I have been at the forefront sensitivity, tolerance and inclusiveness all my life (well not when I was a toddler, I mean, come on). As a teacher I have preached the value of these noble traits long and loud. But as a society we have gone way too far and a by product of this is that those knuckle dragging conservatives sometimes have a point when they complain political correctness and the consequent diminution of free speech. There is a fine line between exercising free speech and being hurtful and hateful. Unfortunately it seems beyond most people in our society.

Salt mines, not where I work

PART TWO
Written on Monday
So now I'm resuming this post a day later and a day dumber. It's nearly ten pm. At one point in the day I thought of some really brilliant stuff I wanted to write about. I had the exact wording and it was clever thought provoking and original. I've since forgotten every word. No clue even to the topic. My Monday's at the salt mine are brutal (its not so much as salt mine as an international language school but you get the picture). I followed my work day by paying the gymnasium a call and proceeded to make myself sweat profusely. This felt good. I then came home to be yelled at by the wife. She didn't actually yell she was really quite pleasant and usually is. Imagine being pleasant to a misanthrope like me on a daily basis. Takes all kinds. I made a fruit smoothie and watched a Simpsons episode then caught up on work. Too much. So I guess I can be forgiven for completely forgetting the best writing since the Gettysburg Address that I was going to produce right here on this blog.

Yesterday included a trip to youngest niece's house to celebrate her first born's first birthday. She and her husband are two marvels of creation as they are more incredibly sweet and smart and fun then can be imagined. Their son is in a good place. (I now boast three young grandnephews ranging in age from two to 18 months and a grandniece who recently turned five years.) There were a lot of people at the gathering. Some of them a I knew including a few who I know quite well as they are kin. But there were a lot of people I didn't know from Adam or even from Eve. And still others I'd seen around before and maybe been introduced but couldn't tell you their name or anything about them for $50. This is not my favorite situation and I figured out why.

I grew up going to large gatherings of Finns, most had been born in the old country. I was comfortable with this and not just because I'd grown up around them. Finnish people just have a way in social settings that I'm comfortable with. There is a pace to the gatherings and a way of serving or getting food and talking or not talking to people. I can't really explain because its just in my DNA. It's clearly no better or no worse than the way any other ethnic group gathers and celebrates we're all different after all. After moving from home I continued to go to social gatherings and did quite well because of course I was lubricated with massive amounts of alcohol. I was a real charmer, unless of course I'd had one or twelve too many in which case I was loud, obnoxious and your very best friend or lover for life whether you knew or liked me or not. Anyway I got through all manner of party or celebration by greasing the wheels, so to speak. When I went off the sauce I had nothing. I didn't -- and still don't -- feel comfortable talking to people who I don't already know and like. Yesterday I spent more time petting and talking to a golden retriever than I did any theretofore unknown human beings. I'm cool with children, the younger the better. I'll chat up a storm with a baby and get along swimmingly with a toddler. Unknown adults however I shy away from.

PART THREE
Written on Tuesday
Strange. I was just in a conversation with a co-worker who I highly esteem discussing a topic of mutual interest. Suddenly she just took over the conversation and ran roughshod over everything I said oblivious to my words, actually being down right rude. Too much coffee? Jealous of my more intimate knowledge of the topic or of my including one of my daughter's in the story? Masking some problem she is having through word diarrhea? I dunno. I've never known her to do it before. Usually when a person is a rude conversationalist its a consistent pattern and I steer the hell away from talking to her or him. This was an anomaly. Just strange.

I really like people. I love my students, for example and am very nice to them. In my evaluations they comment on this. I suppose I just don't like engaging in meaningless blather, small talk. I like big talk, silly talk or no talk at all. Oh I'll have idle banter about the weather and weekends with intimates but I never participate for too long and its just to fill the time before more meaningful conversation. In some cases I care what a person is doing over the weekend but for the most part.....Yawn.

Speaking of odd segues...movies. I watched a few over the weekend and can recommend them all. Midnight Mary (1933) directed by the criminally underrated William Wellman stars Loretta Young at age 20 when she was as beautiful a human being as you've ever seen. It's a pre code film and is thus honest about sex, crime and the ways of the world. Young played the title character, a poor waif who through a variety of misfortunes finds herself in juvenile hall, later in prison and with gangsters. Later she finds love with a rich young lawyer Franchot Tone. The film begins with her murder trial and then we see her story in flashback. Wellman directed many of the best pre code films including Wild Boys of the Road and Heroes for Sale. This ranks right up there with those two.

I also took my first look at Gia Coppola's directorial debut (you may be familiar with her grandfather) Palo Alto which is based on some short stories by James Franco who features in the film. There is no plot, per se, which is fine with me. Traditional story structure can place artificial endings or elements to a film. There are several interconnected characters most of whom are high school students. What impressed me most about Palo Alto was -- as with pre code films -- its honesty. It is a very matter of fact depiction of disaffected suburban youth trying to grow up too fast. The performances are excellent and Gia Coppola has clearly inherited the director's gene. I noted that on the Rotten Tomatoes website Palo Alto did far better with critics than audiences. I suspect that a lot of people went to the movie expecting the usual teen fare and were taken aback by the film's bluntness and unflinching look teen's in perils.

John Ford's My Darling Clementine (1946) was another film I enjoyed over the weekend. More like loved. Sometimes the recent experience of watching a film is difficult to write about because it was so special. This was such a case. It's  a meticulously made story beautifully shot (in Monument Valley) and centered around a typically strong performance from Henry Fonda as Wyatt Earp. It's one of the reasons that I like to own DVDs of my favorite films so that I can watch them anytime.

Okay. Started this post Sunday morning and here it is Tuesday afternoon and I've got work to do before my next class. So.....

Good Night Bassington A Comedy in About Three Acts

The man in me will hide sometimes to keep from being seen
But that's just because he doesn't want to turn into some machine
Take a woman like you
To get through to the man in me 
--  From The Man in Me by Bob Dylan

Survivor's guilt. Not good enough. Not nearly. Haven't measured up yet. Owe so much more than can't be repaid. An anniversary a few days ago for cleanliness of sorts. Dry as a bone. Mind more muddled than ever in some respects. But clearer about how to see the world. Appreciate it and thus to know my limitations. Have trouble seeing tomorrow -- those next days are so unpredictable. Yesterday becomes clearer and it often hurts to look at it. Bad bad days perpetrated by -- let's face it -- a bad bad man. Today is something I do, not something I see. But I like the notion of it for sure. There's a measure of control in today. I can see those thing that are in my power to alter.

Sometimes.

"I'm here now. I was there before." Those were my words many decades ago as I entered a clearing coming out of a wooded area in Tilden Park. I was very high on LSD. A stunned family gawked at me as if I had something quite insane. Well really I had. But today I say those same words -- often, mind you -- and they make perfect sense. I have seen things. I have been things. And oh how I have done things. I was there and now....

Today on BART. Blind man gets on my car at MacArthur Station with his seeing eye dog. Next stop is Ashby and a blind woman gets on same car also with a seeing eye dog. The canines sniff each other but as they are well trained there is no rough stuff. The owners tug at their pooches and eventually start to chat. Soon the man moves toward the woman and the dogs are sitting together happily smelling one another. The man and woman discuss their dogs and where they got them and what their names are and how much they weigh. The man reaches towards her for an introductory handshake which takes some effort to accomplish but gets done. I look around the car and others are, like me, sitting beaming with great big smiles watching the scene. The dogs are both handsome. The man gets off at Berkeley station and there is a nice-to-meet-you exchange. Sometimes I like what public transportation brings me.

I watched Jean Harlow in Red Dust (1932) over the weekend. In some ways she was not particularly beautiful but in every way she was totally adorable and sexy as hell and funny and smart in wise acre sort of way. What a treasure to have her old movies around to look at it. Red Dust is perhaps her best but Bombshell (1933) runs a close second. Red-Headed Woman (1932) also is quite good. If I could time travel...well you know where I'm going with this. Hell, I think the wife would understand. Speaking of women of the past, Red Dust also features Mary Astor and the combination of Astor and Harlow I mean the contrast of those two. So different and so wonderful to watch together. Astor was what was in her day called a classy broad by some. She was the smart, sophisticated sexy and of course a damn good actress or haven't you seen her in say The Maltese Falcon (1941) or The Palm Beach Story (1942) or Dodsworth (1936). Clark Gable was in Red Dust too. I reckon it not too far fetched to say he was the George Clooney of his time. Or Clooney is the Gable of his time, which by the way, is now.

Watched Design For Living (1933) over the weekend too, it's a deliciously deviant pre code film in which Miriam Hopkins (speaking of sexy) beds both Frederic March and Gary Cooper. March and Cooper play best buds, a playwright and an artist respectively. March writes a play the title of which found its way as the header for this here post. DFL is an uneven film (despite being directed by the legendary Ernst Lubitsch) but worth your time. Gay icons Franklin Pangborn and Edward Evertt Horton are in the cast (okay they weren't icons but they were gay). Also re-watched a silly comedy written by and starring Steve Martin called Bowfinger (1999). Eddie Murphy co-stars and is frickin' hilarious. In a critical sense it is a raving mediocrity of a movie but any film with such huge belly laughs has earned its place. You could do worse than watching it if you're in need of a pick-me-up.

I'm picked up. I worked long and hard today but that's a good thing to do when you like your labors. The missus is making spaghetti and I reckon I'll eat some.

Three Favorite Films From Some of my Favorite Directors Much Annotated And This is Part 2

Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.- Jean Cocteau

Here is what I said before part one of this series which I have by the way decided will have three parts:
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.

Roberto Rossellini. Roma, citti aperta (1945). Stromboli (1950). The Flowers of Saint Francis (1950). Neo realism as it was meant to be. The human drama. In World War II. In a lonely fishing village. Among monks. The evil the beatified the depraved the tortured. I've never seen a spectacular shot within a Rossellini film but I've seen the spectacular. How do you film desperation or fear or moral decay or certitude? Seems impossible but he did it. There was magic in his style in that he created such depth and drama so effortlessly to our eyes and senses. It just sank in. Sinks. His films don't won't age.

William Wellman. Wild Boys of the Road (1933). Heroes For Sale (1933). Westward the Women (1951). Someone asked me the other day what films most captured the spirit of John Dos Passos and his novels that comprised the USA Trilogy. I said the pre code films of William Wellman which include Wild Boys and Heroes. Like Dos Passos these stories had the power of relevance truth honesty and authentic American style characters often bucking up against the rich and powerful. The struggle of individuals to survive in a cold mechanized and heartless society. Usually finding strength and comfort in numbers. Wellman was a truly American film maker who never bent his films in the direction of easy popularity. He didn't soften characters or stories. There is a timeless quality in his films just as there is in the novels of Dos Passos.

Stanley Kubrick. A Clockwork Orange (1971). 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Barry Lyndon (1975). Here comes the kitchen sink. Stanley did not play ladies and gents. Everything went into the picture all his energy and creativity and attention to detail. And it showed. What spectacular visions. Creations of worlds. Beautiful to behold even when what was taking place in the was repellant. The people were props used masterfully. Kubrick had a way of exaggerating characters to help fill the frame and fill out the story. Films that lasted in your mind and heart and ideas and wow.

Louis Malle. Au Revoir Les Enfants (1987). Elevator to the Gallows (1958). Murmur of the Heart (1971). What is he? New Wave? Noir? There are war pictures. Romances. Family drama. Philosophical meditations. There is Jeanne Moreau in the rain. There is a young Jewish boy being taken away by Nazis. There is oedipus. Lurking lurching loving and leaving and moving and heaving. Camera left and stage right and the eyes of man wandering the city. The artful director and the precise moment captured that lives a lifetime in our memory and can never be wiped away. That indelible moment. That moment. The expression. That sigh. That sign. That director. That man Malle.

Aki Kaurismaki. Ariel (1988). Le Havre (2011). Lights in the Dusk 2006). My Finnish brother. don't come to his films looking for beautiful people or action scenes or special effects. Come for the humanity and the simplicity and the beauty of human experience. The luck good and bad of being alive and going through whatever comes. How people handle the mundane and the interruption of that by the wildly unexpected. Dude is very Finnish. My father told me the Finnish proverb about a man being chased by a bear. He is relieved to come upon a river knowing the Bear won't follow him. Half way across the river he sees another bear waiting for him on the other side. He laughs.

Frank Capra. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). Meet. John Doe (1941). It's A Wonderful Life (1946). A softer gentler America then Wellman but a liberal sentimental fighting underdog loving one. Capra was a Republican but his films were often about battles with powerful establishment figures. A neo fascist tycoon in John Doe a predatory banker businessman in IAWL and a corrupt political machine in Smith. One man taking on the vested interest against impossible odds. Very American characters played by the likes of Gary Cooper Barbara Stanwyck James Stewart and Donna Reed. Good clean believable dialog. Easy to root for stories.

Francois Truffaut. Jules and Jim (1962). Shoot the Piano Player (1960). 400 Blows (1959). Exuberant and stylish but never showy. An attention to the little movements and the short seconds that can fly by unattended. But he was a joyful director with a free floating and happy camera. Grounded in his art and telling the story just so. Just so that we would appreciate -- almost like he did -- what an amazing story he was telling.

Charlie Chaplin. City Lights (1931). Modern Times (1936). The Great Dictator (1940). The pathos. The little tramp. The comic genius. The pratfalls the chases the choreography the cute man the pretty girl the darling child the adorable mutt the pulling of heart strings...the tear -- never two. Then the silents ended and Charlie adapted but never yielded. Still mostly silent realizing that words can be so limiting. The sheer brilliance of the above three films. The painstaking attention to detail that created the  large gaps between pictures but resulted in such fine craftsmanship. Such great art. No one to compare him with before during or after.

Movies You May Not Have Seen That I'd Like to Recommend

Any idiot can recommend a classic or well-known film to watch. Being any idiot myself I've done it dozens of times. But I'd like to step out of my usual idiot role and suggest some movies you are less likely to have seen.

I've selected ten movies, all from different decades with different directors and different stars. None are exactly obscure, but none are regulars on favorite movie lists or are considered classics. Also, all are available on DVD. Most importantly, they're all damn good films that will have appeal to most discerning viewers, and some of you undiscerning viewers as well.

The Circus (1928). Of Charlie Chaplin's later silent era films, this is the one that gets lost in the shuffle. Many who've seen it compare it favorably with The Gold Rush (1925) and a few even prefer it. One would assume that the Little Tramp set loose in a circus would be a recipe for hilarity. One would be correct in this assumption. There is romance, there are chases, there is pathos, the usual Chaplin fare and its all too good for you to have missed it.

The Mayor of Hell (1933). A favorite topic of pre code films like this one was social injustices. In this instance the victimization of the young is explored. James Cagney plays that rare combination of gangster and social crusader, the latter quite by accident. He finds himself in charge of a reform school and gains an interest in it when he falls for the school's activist nurse. In opposition to the corrupt head of the school, our hero supports a program of reform where the inmates run the asylum (to great effect, mind you). Complications ensue. There's a lot going on in this 90 minute film: intrigue, romance and melodrama aplenty. Archie Mayo directed and did a fine job.

The Long Voyage Home (1940). John Ford cranked out a couple of dozen or so excellent films so its no surprise this one is often forgotten. While many of his usual cast including John Wayne is aboard (as a Swede!) this time the setting is a ship rather than the Old West. I only discovered TLVH a year ago and fell head over heels. The opening scene, sans dialogue for a full five minutes, is positively mesmerizing and will suck you into an captivating film. As the son and brother of one-time merchant marines I appreciated its depiction of the sea faring life. You will too.

Sudden Fear (1952). Somebody named David Miller directed this largely forgotten noir. 1952 was when Hollywood was cranking out noirs and here again we have a case of movie that gets overlooked among others of its type. Joan Crawford stars as a newlywed whose younger husband (Jack Palance) is conspiring to off her, with the help of his mistress (Gloria Grahame). The streets of San Francisco are beautifully utilized in the telling of this suspenseful tale. You haven't seen it, have you? Give it a shot, thank me later.

Ride the High Country (1962). A Sam Peckinpah Western before the blood started spewing. This is one of my all time favorites. Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott were aging actors playing aging lawmen at cross purposes as they set out to transport gold through dangerous country. Along the way they are side tracked by a mission to rescue a girl held by some of the nastier villains in filmdom. Mariette Hartley is positively sumptuous as the girl. McCrea and Scott were getting on in years but were in peak form and Peckinpah was as good here as he'd ever be. Here's what I wrote about RTHC a few years ago.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973). With friends like Eddie's got, who needs enemies. Am  I right? You wouldn't know if you're among the many who've missed this fine film from director Peter Yates (best known for Bullitt (1968)). Robert Mitchum was, in my opinion, never better than in this performance as the title character, a career criminal looking to avoid another stretch in stir by ratting out his friends. Do they know? Will they "take him out"? It's a superbly told story with many subtleties and strong performances all around. They were making a lot of really good films in the 1970s and this was one of them.

Local Hero (1983). Question: did Burt Lancaster and Peter Reigert ever co-star in a quirky comedy set in Houston Texas and Northern Scotland? Answer: yes and this is it. Local Hero is a criminally neglected film that I couldn't recommend more. Reigert is an American Oil company employee sent to Scotland to buy a village. He falls in love. With the village. His boss, Lancaster, eventually joins him. He too falls in love. And you'll fall in love if you wisely decide to watch Local Hero. Kudos to director Bill Forsyth.

A Bronx Tale (1993). Okay, you've probably seen this one but in case you haven't....Robert DeNiro directed and co-stars along with Chazz Palminteri and Lilo Brancato (who's been in a spot of bother with the law of late). The film is based on Palminteri's play of the same name which is based on his childhood experiences. Brancato plays a young man torn between his honest hard-working bus driver father (DeNiro) and the local crime boss (Palminteri). Oh yes, he also falls for an African American schoolmate in a time when such a romance in that area was a no-no. One of the better film scripts ever in a memorable film that every young person in America should see. For that matter youngsters of other countries should see it to as well as us old fogeys.

Notes on a Scandal (2006). Master classes in acting by Cate Blanchett, Judi Dench and Bill Nighy highlight Notes. It is the powerful story of an older teacher (Dench) who  befriends a younger married teacher (Blanchett). There's something rather creepy about the older woman and the manner in which she ingratiates herself into her new friend's family. Matters take a dramatic turn when Blanchett's character has an affair -- with a student. Egads! Nighy plays the cuckolded husband. It is a powerful and memorable film. NOAS received four Oscar nominations but won none. Typical.

The American (2010). Only recently in theaters but missed by many. It was a George Clooney vehicle that did not appeal to the masses. The American calls to mind French thrillers of the 1960' in that it was more about characters than action. There is a leisurely pace to this story about a hitman (Clooney) in a small Italian town who finds romance. I thought Clooney was particularly good as a suave but mostly silent, ruminative and meticulous craftsman. His craft was killing, but still.... Italian actress Violante Placido was enchanting as the love interest. Anton Corbjin, from Holland directed.