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.