Getting Acquainted: A look back

I don't want to gaze at my own navel too much today, but at least on a personal blog that you can choose to read or not to read, that kind of thing generally gets a pass.

Still, I thought it would be useful to look back on the Getting Acquainted series I just completed after nearly two years, which, with a couple breaks, resulted in a total of 20 posts. That's in part because I started this series for a reason, and I want to see if I accomplished the goal I set out to accomplish.

Actually, I'm fudging the history a bit there. See, before I did Getting Acquainted, watching three movies per month by directors and actors I needed to get to know better, I did a six-month series called Decades, which featured three movies per month from the decades between 1920 and 1970. In truth, I started Decades in order to accomplish the goal that I continued to explore in Getting Acquainted: namely, to give myself a regular schedule for watching older movies, which otherwise might get postponed indefinitely.

If you remember this post from July of 2010, you know that my thesis was that I am an expert on recent movies, but somewhat limited in discussing older films. Oh, I was still a lot more proficient with older cinema than your average person, even when I first wrote this -- but maybe not more than your average cinephile. I wanted to bring that proficiency level up, and I hope I have.

In the aforementioned post, I gave a breakdown by decade of the films I'd seen that were released prior to the year 2000. Here was that breakdown:

1990s: 879
1980s: 418
1970s: 134
1960s: 66
1950s: 43
1940s: 29
1930s: 23
1920s: 8
1910s: 2
1900s: 1

And here's the breakdown today:

1990s: 904
1980s: 443
1970s: 152
1960s: 85
1950s: 64
1940s: 44
1930s: 30
1920s: 15
1910s: 2
1900s: 1

So every decade from the 1940s onward gained at least 15 films in two-and-a-half years. The 1920s and 1930s gained seven apiece. What can I say, I'm still a bit wary of the really old films. (I watched none from the 1900s or 1910s during this period.)

My newness bias definitely still exists, as the 1980s and 1990s gained the most films with 25 apiece. The 1960s actually gained one more than the 1970s, 19-18, even though I'm on record saying that the 1970s were the best decade in the history of filmmaking. (Looking at my stats, I should probably say that this is more a theory of mine than something I observe in practice.) Interestingly, the 1950s gained more than either of the two decades that came after them, with 21 films since July of 2010.

Of course, the most recent films are still the most dominant. During that same period since July of 2010, I saw 494 films that have come out since 2000. What are you gonna do.

But let's look at it another way. In July of 2010, I'd seen 307 film movies that were released before 1980. Now I've seen 393. So that's 86 more movies, or 22% of the total movies I've seen from before 1980. Not bad. Not bad at all.

And another way: Part of the reason I wanted to stop doing Getting Acquainted was because I found it too limiting. By watching older movies only according to a monthly theme, I was preventing myself from catching the random one-off movies, the ones that didn't fit into the theme. Those are the ones I want to spend my time on now, instead of having to find two other movies by the same director, or with the same star, and fitting them into the monthly schedule in order to see them.

Mission accomplished, I'd say.

Okay, enough of this. Before I put Getting Acquainted to bed for good, let's give out some awards:

Favorite new acquaintance: Carl Theodor Dreyer (director, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Day of Wrath, Ordet)
Least favorite new acquaintance: Edward D. Wood Jr. (director, Glen or Glenda?, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Bride of the Monster)
Acquaintances I wished I'd gotten on the schedule, and would have if I'd continued: Yasujiro Ozu, Luis Bunuel, The Marx Brothers
Acquaintances I wished I'd left off the schedule: The Three Stooges
New acquaintance I thought I would love but didn't (biggest disappointment): Federico Fellini (director, La Strada, La Dolce Vita, Amarcord)
New acquaintance I liked much better than I thought I would (biggest surprise): James Cagney (actor, Angels With Dirty Faces, Yankee Doodle Dandy, White Heat) 
Best film I discovered through this series: The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Film I found most trying: Faces (1968, John Cassavetes)
Biggest regret: Out of 20 personalities I focused on, only three were women, all of them actresses.
Happiest about: Despite logistical obstacles and periods where everything felt pretty tedious, I never bailed, and managed to write each post at least by the 10th of the following month.

Okay, end navel gazing now. 

Next week: I'll announce my new monthly series, which may begin as soon as this month, but more likely February. It'll only require a single viewing per month, I'm pleased to say.

Getting acquainted with ... John Wayne

This is the final installment of a series I've been running for the past two years called Getting Acquainted, in which I have watched three movies per month by (mostly) directors and actors whose work was at least somewhat unfamiliar to me.

At long last, I've reached the end of the road on Getting Acquainted.

It's been a useful feature in many ways, but it has ultimately been more of a burden to me than a benefit. I've found it hard, especially in the last few months as I've been focusing on 2012 movies, to always make time for three other movies that adhere to a specific theme -- movies that, with only a few exceptions, my wife has not been interested in watching with me. Then there's the fact that writing this post always feels pretty tedious (the formatting, the extra photos, recalling what I thought of a movie I watched nearly a month ago). And then there's the most salient fact, that you the reader have shown fairly little interest in commenting on this series. Hey, I don't blame you -- if you haven't seen the movies, then why read the posts?

So I'm going to start a new, less-taxing monthly feature in 2013, one that I'll announce in the coming weeks. I'll also do a wrap-up on this series as a final send-off, which a series of this length certainly deserves.

But for now, let's concentrate on the man I chose to close the series with: John Wayne.

I've never been a very big Western fan. Try as I might, I just don't find these stories as interesting as stories in other genres. Even the undisputed classics in this genre don't do that much for me. There are exceptions, such as Unforgiven, which is among my favorite 20 films of all time. But on the whole, it's just not my genre.

This certainly explains why I could count the John Wayne films I'd seen on one hand. Make that two fingers. Prior to December, I had seen only The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. I figured if I could use this series as an excuse to more than double my total of Wayne films, it's at least something I can check off my cinematic bucket list.

So, Pilgrim, these are the films I chose:

Stagecoach (1939, John Ford)
Watched: Monday, December 10th
One-sentence plot synopsis: A group of travelers from different backgrounds board a stagecoach bound for New Mexico territory, each for their own reasons, despite the looming threat of an Apache attack.
My thoughts on the film: I watched Stagecoach as much to see a John Ford movie as a John Wayne movie. But even more than that, I watched it because it's the film that was used back in my high school film class to teach us the concept of the "frame story." If you don't know what a frame story is, the quick definition is: any story in which a disparate array of personality archetypes or walks of life are thrown together to address the same narrative crisis. (Many disaster movies are also frame stories.) Even though Stagecoach was used as the primary example of this technique, we didn't go so far as to actually watch the film. I decided that more than 20 years later, it was time to correct that. I found this film pretty interesting on a basic level, but I wouldn't say it totally captivated me. I guess I expected something about it to be a bit more grandiose, it being a Ford movie. (But at least it flies by in only 96 minutes -- its modest length was something I really appreciated, especially considering the next two Wayne movies on my schedule.) Although much of the first half of the movie is fairly intimate, taking place in coach depots and inside the coach itself, I did appreciate getting to know the characters, even if their defining traits sometimes played a bit broadly (which may be why my film teacher chose this as his prototypical frame story). I also greatly enjoyed the performance of Andy Devine, with his distinctly cracking voice, as the coach driver. But where the movie really took off for me was the late second/early third act escape from the pursuing Apaches, which must have been an incredibly difficult scene to shoot. The coach and the approaching Apaches on horses both gallop along at impossibly fast speeds, requiring the camera to keep up on a vehicle pacing them at the same speed, without getting jittery. A pretty impressive feat for 1939. It bummed me out that this was not actually the film's climax, which instead involved a fairly typical showdown between Wayne's character (a fugitive named Ringo Kid) and the man who killed his father and brother. Now that I think about it, Stagecoach may have also been responsible for introducing me to the "whore with the heart of gold" archetype, which I believe my film teacher also mentioned. That character, played to archetypal perfection by Clare Trevor, is Wayne's love interest. As for what light this movie shed on Wayne, I'd say, not much. I've seen enough clips of John Wayne to be plenty familiar with his famous persona, and Stagecoach did nothing to adjust that impression.

Rio Bravo (1959, Howard Hawks)
Watched: Wednesday, December 19th
One-sentence plot synopsis: After arresting a man for murder, a sheriff and his ragtag group of deputies have to prevent the wealthy and powerful brother of the accused from staging an assault on the jail.
My thoughts on the film: If Stagecoach was the Wayne movie I was most overdue to see, then Rio Bravo was the one I was looking forward to most. That's because Bravo, which has been on my radar for a much shorter time, has been getting a ton of love in various movie forums which I follow or in which I participate. I also knew it featured a dramatic role for Dean Martin, whose acting career has interested me a bit more since I watched him in a movie alongside Jerry Lewis earlier in the year. Unfortunately, I must report that Rio Bravo left me a bit disappointed as well. The name Rio Bravo itself suggests to me these huge, wide-open spaces, but this is a movie comprised mostly of interiors -- two hours and 21 minutes worth of interiors. Oh, a couple scenes take place outside, but they are decidedly in the minority. If that's a case of letting my preconceived notions prevent me from fairly analyzing the movie I actually saw, then so be it. I do think Martin is very good, and that Wayne is, well, Wayne. I was also interested to see a movie starring Angie Dickinson, since that may be another first for me -- a known name, and a partially known face, but not someone I'd seen much of. But overall, I felt that the themes in this movie could have taken a lot less time to play out, even if they are occasionally very valuable themes, such as Martin's constant struggle against the bottle leading to a quest for personal redemption. I feel like I've seen a lot more interesting films in which a motley crew of underdogs tries to hold off a powerful enemy. However, I will say that I really enjoyed the fact that Martin's character was nicknamed Dude. There's something about the way Wayne spits out the word "Dude" that is verging on epic. Look, I don't want to give you the impression that I didn't like Rio Bravo, but watching it over the course of two evenings turned it into a slog that I was glad to be finished with. The high praise it got undoubtedly contributed to my feelings of disappointment.

McLintock! (1963, Andrew V. McLaglen)
Watched: Thursday, January 3rd
One-sentence plot synopsis: A land baron so wealthy that the town is named after him deals with a variety of local issues, including his angry estranged wife, the return of his daughter from college, and a group of Comanches who are being forcibly settled into a new home by the government.
My thoughts on the film: If Stagecoach was the Wayne movie I was most overdue to see, and Rio Bravo was the Wayne movie I was most looking forward to seeing, then McLintock! was the first Wayne movie I looked up that was available for streaming on Netflix. Beyond that, I didn't know anything about it -- maybe I was just intrigued by the exclamation point in the title. And there were certainly a number of other movies I could have chosen as my third Wayne film (The Quiet Man, The Shootist and True Grit were also considered, the last of which was even available for streaming). But I'm glad I watched McLintock!, because it was a totally oddball experience, and I can't decide if it's good or bad. This is a lot more of a comedy than an actual western, as I believe not a single person gets shot, and much of the fighting is of the absurdist variety -- several fistfights are scored to wacky music, and they result from silly miscommunications rather than actual malice. In fact, there's an entire five-minute scene devoted to people punching each other out and sliding down a muddy slope into a giant puddle, and then going back up the hill to do it again as though it were some kind of theme park attraction. The whole movie kind of goes on this way, with goofy little vignettes that fit into the essentially three-tiered plot I described above. Looking it up just now on Wikipedia, I discovered why part of me didn't like it very much -- it's loosely based on Shakespeare's The Taming of The Shrew, which I already extensively dissed in my Elizabeth Taylor Getting Acquainted (see here) for its almost unimaginable sexism. In fact, two different men in this movie spank their women with one of those iron shovels you use to remove ash from your fireplace -- and both women are more wooed by this monstrous behavior than repulsed by it. That said, there are some truly sensitive and thoughtful moments in this film, such as the scene where Wayne's title character explains to his daughter why he isn't leaving her his entire fortune (he knows she'll value what she has more if she earns it), and anything and everything related to McLintock's treatment of the Comanches (he's learned their language and acts as their champion in the land dispute with the government). Too much of this movie is downright silly to be considered much of a classic, but perhaps that's why I may remember it better than either of the other (technically better) films. It also showed me a Wayne I hadn't really seen before, one with a sense of humor, one willing to act out several scenes of being fall-down drunk, one with a real knack for comedic timing. That in itself was highly refreshing. (I also enjoyed picking out a young Jerry Van Dyke in the cast.) It took five sittings over four days to finish McLintock!'s 127 minutes, but I'm glad I did.

Conclusion: I still don't like Westerns very much.

My favorite of the three: Stagecoach

Well that's it. It's all over but the shouting. And by "shouting," I mean some kind of "looking back on two years of Getting Acquainted" piece, which I will write in the next week or two.

Probably. Either that, or I'll just move on to the next thing.

Either way, thanks for reading these past two years. And if you did actually like reading Getting Acquainted, let me know, and maybe I'll consider doing a one-off month for the series every once in awhile. After all, there are always new cinematic personalities to discover ... even if they are really old cinematic personalities.

Getting acquainted with ... Elvis Presley

This is the second-to-last in my Getting Acquainted series, where I have been watching three movies per month by a director or actor or writer whose work was previously unfamiliar to me. I've got one final installment in December.

November's subject has probably got to make almost anyone laugh. Who doesn't know Elvis Presley?

But the Elvis I know is not Elvis the actor. In fact, I had seen none of his movies. Not that they were supposed to be great cinematic masterpieces, but you'd think I would have caught one at one point, just by accident. Never happened.

I had a very specific idea of what to expect from Elvis' movies, but got off to a bad start when the first one didn't conform to my preconceived notions ...

Jailhouse Rock (1957, Richard Thorpe)
Watched: Monday, November 5th
One-sentence plot synopsis: A man convicted of manslaughter tries to forge a music career after getting released from jail.
My thoughts on the film: It may sound crazy to compare an Elvis Presley movie to Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, but yep, I'm about to do that. One of the many things that annoyed me about that film is that they spent almost no time in Guantanamo Bay -- literally less than five minutes of screen time. In Jailhouse Rock, Elvis might spend twice that amount of time in jail --15 minutes at the absolute maximum. Then the plot turns to the not-that-interesting machinations of how his character becomes a music star. Although it's always a good idea to judge a movie on what it is rather than on what you thought it would be, I couldn't overcome the disappointment of being shortchanged on the type of movie I thought Jailhouse Rock would be. Even the titular song doesn't take place in the titular location; instead, it appears as a musical number on some kind of Ed Sullivan-type show later on in the narrative. But what really turned me off about this movie was Elvis himself. I was expecting a fun-loving scamp who was up to all kinds of skirt-chasing and mischief, but ultimately had a good head on his shoulders. This Elvis, however, is a surly, me-first guy who seems to disrespect women and gets off on being "cool." I have a kneejerk negative reaction to this personality type. So the thing that makes many people consider Jailhouse Rock to be Elvis' best movie -- its sense of substance and realism -- was the very thing that ultimately turned me off. Bring on the bubblegum Elvis!

Blue Hawaii (1961, Norman Taurog)
Watched: Tuesday, November 20th
One-sentence plot synopsis: A solider returning from the army to his Hawaiian home resumes his slacker island ways with his friends, despite his parents' insistence that he go to work in the family business.
My thoughts on the film: Ahhh ... that's more like it. I chose Blue Hawaii, the least iconic of the three titles, precisely because I expected it to be light and charming, and to remind me of my love affair with Hawaii (which I share with pretty much everyone). I've been there once (in 2005), but have also loved a lot of movies set in Hawaii (Forgetting Sarah Marshall for one), and specifically have an affection for Elvis-era Hawaiian music -- when we were staying in an Airstream trailer on our trip to Bisbee, Arizona (see here for a fuller discussion), we played a couple Hawaiian albums on the vintage record player, at least one by Dean Martin. I'm glad to say that Blue Hawaii did not disappoint in any of these respects -- which only means that it is an enjoyably frivolous confection, well short of a "great" film. This is the smilin' rather than sneerin' Elvis, and since this is the Elvis I understand we saw in most of his movies, his career sure was a strange sort of repudiation of Jailhouse Rock, even though that movie was a pretty big hit. It's fun to see the carefree King dancing at luaus and singing with his native Hawaiian friends as they paddle around in various skiffs and another local forms of aquatic transport. He has a playful relationship with his leading lady, too, even though he seems determined to keep her off balance (one song about his time in the army talks about how he was "almost always true" to her). One thing I noticed is that the campaign is now in full swing to almost subliminally sexualize Elvis, where more overt displays of sexuality may not have been feasible. His exchanges with various women are almost dripping with a winking sexual innuendo. The movie also has a breezy comedic subplot about Elvis' role as a tour guide for a group of mainland schoolgirls, one of whom becomes fixated on him, causing many Three's Company-style misunderstandings and hijinx to ensue. I was impressed to note Elvis' fitness for this type of comedy. One thing I found interesting is that poor Angela Lansbury must have always been thought of as some kind of dowdy old woman. Even at the young age of 36 -- making her only ten years older than Elvis -- she's cast as Elvis' mother, a stick in the mud who comes closest to being the film's antagonist. And in this role I noticed a bit of the movie's latent (or blatant) misogyny: Elvis' father is quite the opposite, an easygoing soul who seems to genuinely hate his wife and all she stands for.

Viva Las Vegas (1964, George Sidney)
Watched: Friday, November 30th
One-sentence plot synopsis: A Las Vegas race car driver crosses paths with the girl of his dreams while trying to win/earn the money necessary to replace his engine and race in The Big Race.
My thoughts on the film: More of the Blue Hawaii vibe here, except there's one big difference from Blue Hawaii that's important to note: Instead of hogging the spotlight for himself, Elvis shares it with his leading lady, making for a far more balanced love story and a much more progressive film in terms of its gender politics. That leading lady is Ann-Margret, and I must say, my qualms with her odd hyphenated stage name aside, she is charming (and talented) as all get-out. I don't think I'd seen Ann-Margret in anything in which she wasn't already middle-aged, and I must say, I was astonished at the radiance of her beauty. But if she were just a beautiful face, she'd be no different from a series of unknown pretty faces who played opposite Elvis in his other films. She can (and does) sing, including at least one solo, and she dances like there's no one watching -- which is to say that she gives her all to a number of 60s-style jigs that we might confuse for convulsions if we didn't know they were popular back then. In fact, I was particularly impressed with her solo "My Rival," which was shot in one long take without edits -- a feat that was made more complicated when the choreography required her to catch several slices of toast ejected from a toaster oven at precisely the right moment. Little details like this made the movie seem more than just a color-by-numbers Elvis movie, shot as quickly as possible according to the path of least resistance. Oh, I suppose I should say something about Elvis, but you already know I think he has a good talent for comedy, more of which is on display here. My one complaint about the movie is that it has an almost comically hasty conclusion, as though at that point they really did just decide to close up shop, cut and print. A couple other quick things to mention: 1) The famous scene of Elvis water-skiing alongside what I now know to be Ann-Margret, which I always assumed was probably in Blue Hawaii, materializes here, and it's actually on Lake Mead near the Hoover Dam; 2) The movie made me wish I'd ever bothered to visit Vegas' old downtown, which was bustling back in the 1960s long before the strip surpassed it in popularity; 3) The sexuality in this movie becomes considerably more blatant, as Elvis and Ann-Margret actually simulate sex sounds briefly during one of their songs; 4) For reasons I'm not sure I entirely understand, several different characters in this movie know how to fly a helicopter.

Conclusion: I would like to watch more of Elvis' comedies, having been particularly intrigued by a screwball-looking affair called Live a Little, Love a Little, whose trailer appeared before Viva Las Vegas.

My favorite of the three films: Viva Las Vegas by a hair over Blue Hawaii, mostly because of Ann-Margret

Okay! It's finally here, the last month of Getting Acquainted. And as I told you last month, I plan to go out with another icon, a little somebody you may have heard of named John Wayne. (Marion to his parents.)  I have seen probably only about three of the 142 features he appeared in, and I need a good excuse to finally watch several of his most famous titles: Stagecoach and Rio Bravo. (Stagecoach is really young Wayne and is probably more associated with John Ford than John Wayne, but it's supposed to be a masterpiece in its own right and I finally need to see it.) Mostly because I know it's available on streaming, I'm going to finish the whole shebang with McClintock! I always love titles with random exclamation points.

I'll see you back here on the other side of December.

Getting acquainted with ... the Archers

This is the latest in a monthly series called Getting Acquainted. I watch three movies featuring the contributions of a particular actor, director or the like whose work has previously been unfamiliar to me, then I write about them at the end of the month.

Strangely, I spent the month of October getting acquainted with the Archers in multiple ways. I had been listening to Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence for the last couple weeks of October, and the main character in the book (played by Daniel Day-Lewis in Martin Scorsese's movie) is one Newland Archer. The book also features his mother, his sister Janey and his wife May. Together, they are the Archers.

But the Archers I want to discuss today are none other than Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, a British directing team who were often know as "the Archers." (That's actually the name of their production company. Each film begins with an arrow hitting a target and says "A Production of the Archers.")

As I mentioned last month when I announced my choice for October, the duo came on my radar by having an inordinate number of movies (six) that appeared among the 250 most mentioned films in the recent Sight & Sound poll of directors and critics. I'd seen none of these six, and was only passingly familiar with their names, probably due more to the alliteration of the Ps than having any idea what role they played in film history. (In fact, I might have told you that Emeric Pressburger was German, if I'd been asked, though that would just be ignorance of the finer differences among European names, since the man was actually born in Hungary.) I'd seen Powell's solo directing effort Peeping Tom, but nothing more.

So I chose exactly half of their six movies from the Sight & Sound list, and was on my way.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
Watched: Friday, October 12th
One-sentence plot synopsis: On the eve of another new war, an aging officer looks back on a 40-year career in the British military.
My thoughts on the film: I must admit that one of the primary reasons I chose this film was that it struck me as a particularly odd title for a film that I had never heard of. And it seemed like I should have heard of it, considering that it was a lofty 93rd most mentioned on the list. So either the name should have been funny enough or the film should have been good enough for it to cross my path before now. And the movie has an appropriately funny (as in absurd) opening, as a throng of soldiers captures Major General Clive Wynne-Candy (Roger Livesey) in a Turkish bath despite his protestation that "War starts at midnight!" Unfortunately, after a rousing and more than a bit disorienting opening, Colonel Blimp slows down as it heads into flashback to the Boer War some 40 years earlier. And here we see a pattern that would continue throughout all three of these films: Powell and Pressburger start slow, and require me to overcome a strong impulse toward indifference. As we made our way through several wars and minor conflicts, and more than a little bit of hanging around parlors, I started to wonder how this history/love story/story of an unlikely friendship could continue this way for 163 minutes. Then it slowly and steadily started to grab me, most particularly in a scene where Wynne-Candy's unlikely German friend and romantic rival (played by Anton Walbrook) movingly recounts his estrangement from his children when they became Nazis. I started to realize that by following these characters for many years of their lives and witnessing the events that shaped them, I had indeed come to care about them, and I started to find the film's structure illuminating rather than frustrating. I later read that Colonel Blimp had, in large part because of its structure, been thought of as "the British Citizen Kane," and by the end I was willing to stop short of calling that comparison blasphemy, though I definitely did not love it. Livesey and especially Walbrook give very good performances, and I enjoyed Deborah Kerr too. Somehow, however, I ultimately missed who "Colonel Blimp" was supposed to be -- it's not actually the protagonist himself, despite his eventual rotund shape.

Black Narcissus (1947, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
Watched: Tuesday, October 16th
One-sentence plot synopsis: A group of British nuns encounters repeated difficulties while trying to run a convent in a former brothel in an isolated Himalayan village.
My thoughts on the film: Another slow-starting Powell/Pressburger film, but when this one captured me, it captured me completely. (To be fair, that could be because I watched this relatively brief film in a single evening, and Colonel Blimp eventually got stretched out over three nights.) I liked the film's high concept setup, with its breathtaking Himalayan setting and its many cultural clashes between British Catholics and the local villagers to whom they are trying to minister, specifically in terms of providing a hospital. But what really made this film start to be interesting, once I fell into pace with it, is the way it explores exactly what it means to be a nun -- specifically, forsaking all carnal desires. And in that respect I eventually found this to be an incredibly daring and forward-thinking film for 1947. Two of the main nuns we follow are the convent leader, Clodagh (played again by Kerr), and mentally unstable Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron), who are both tempted by a local Brit who has been living in the village. One represses these desires and the other, well ... did I mention she was mentally unstable? Things progress toward a climax that can best be described as Hitchcockian. Byron gives an incredibly daring performance, one that becomes boldly sinister in a way that the Catholic church surely could not have liked. Although there are a lot of ideas flying around in this movie about the lengths people are willing to go to succeed, the extent to which they should impose their will/belief on others, and the shades of gray of personal morality, one thing I liked about Black Narcissus is that it follows a leaner and essentially simpler structure than Colonel Blimp. I don't mean that Colonel Blimp was hard to follow, just that the relatively straightforward nature of Black Narcissus' narrative carried a much greater payoff for me. The last third of this film is genuinely exciting and envelope-pushing, and it exploded some of my ideas that Powell and Pressburger may be a bit stuffy. I don't want to tell you anything about what happens, but they make maximum use of this wonderfully foreign landscape, and there are no pat answers or resolutions.

The Red Shoes (1948, Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger)
Watched: Monday, October 22nd
One-sentence plot synopsis: A talented ballet dancer must weigh her career against her personal happiness when she finds herself in a love triangle between a world-famous choreographer and the composer who she's fallen in love with.
My thoughts on the film: I wanted to love The Red Shoes, really I did. It's gotten a huge amount of love on the Filmspotting podcast, and it's also Martin Scorsese's favorite movie of all time. But I just couldn't really get into it. I guess my problem begins with the person who makes the film what it is, in its incredible dance sequences: world-famous Scottish dancer (and novice actor) Moira Shearer. Although she is capable enough as an actress not to stand out, she's not capable enough to make her character anything other than a cipher (says me). Since the emotional core of the film is supposed to hinge on how she struggles to decide between the thing that will make her a world-famous star and the thing that will nourish her heart, we need to see more of that struggle on screen -- and we need to have more screen time devoted to her falling in love with the composer, played by Marius Goring. Their love is basically established in a single scene, after which we are meant to find it a nearly immovable obstacle around which the rest of the action revolves. Anton Walbrook is more memorable as the choreographer (that's probably not a strong enough term for what his character is -- wikipedia refers to his character as a "ballet impresario"), giving a strong, villainous performance as the jealous and controlling figure who could make Shearer a star -- if she plays ball. As he also did impressive work in Colonel Blimp, Walbrook's talent (especially in the hands of these collaborators) is beyond question. I just wish I felt more involved in the film's central conflict. What I should devote some time to is the absolutely incredible centerpiece dance sequence, which is a ballet based on Hans Christian Anderson's titular fairy tale about an indefatigable pair of red shoes. The scene goes on for more than 15 minutes of screen time, changing sets and backgrounds, and delivering not only astonishing ballet, but some state-of-the-art camera and editing tricks that allow the sequence to extend seamlessly through these different backgrounds, while also providing what must have been some of the most jaw-dropping effects audiences had seen in 1948. That sequence demonstrates what cinema is all about, and alone justifies the casting of Shearer. The rest of the film didn't grab me enough, though it was interesting to see the debt that Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan owes to it.

Conclusion: Powell and Pressburger definitely have the skills of epic craftsmen, but there's something about their approach that left me a little cold. Still, I find myself thinking about seeing A Matter of Life and Death, one of their greats from the Sight & Sound list that I did not include in this month's slate.

My favorite of the three: Black Narcissus

As it is now November 8th, which means it's been 17 days since I watched The Red Shoes, it may be evident to you that I am finding it harder and harder to write these Getting Acquainted posts. Even with the more compact format that I introduced to the series in 2012, these posts still tend to hang over my head like tedious burdens. I'm enjoying watching the films far more than I'm enjoying recapping them on my blog, in part because if I don't write about them immediately (which I don't), details I wanted to mention can be easily forgotten by the time it's time to write.

So I've decided -- for other reasons than this one, which I may expand on at a later date -- to wrap up the Getting Acquainted series at the end of 2012. Or at the very least, take a year hiatus from it and see how I feel. And I've decided to end with two big names: Elvis Presley and John Wayne. I've already started watching my Elvis films for November. I watched Jailhouse Rock on Monday night, and I've still got Blue Hawaii and Viva Las Vegas ahead of me. I'll announce the Wayne films at the end of November.

Thanks as always for reading ...

Getting acquainted with ... the Three Stooges

This is the latest in an ongoing monthly series in which I watch three films by one or more movie personalities I want to brush up on.

I realized soon after choosing the Three Stooges for my September Getting Acquainted that there was a reason I hadn't seen many features starring this ever-changing lineup of slapstick artists: They didn't make many features. As Stooges fans know, shorts were really their thing. So a Getting Acquainted series devoted to their movies ended up seeming like a pretty flimsy choice. But I'd already chosen it by the time I recognized their paucity of feature-length films, and choices like this are set in stone once they appear on my blog. (Except when they aren't. I actually watched only one of the three features I originally said I would watch.)

But I still considered it a worthwhile project because of the way I was going to end it: watching the Farrelly Brothers' The Three Stooges, released this past April. At the very least, watching a trio of Stooges movies would help me determine how effective Chris Diamantopoulos, Sean Hayes and Will Sasso were as Moe, Larry and Curly. And because I've been in a forgiving mood toward the Farrellys recently -- I loved Hall Pass, for example -- I thought they deserved the benefit of the doubt on this seemingly ill-conceived project.

But the original reason for focusing on them was because I wanted to familiarize myself with these icons, whose most iconic lines and finger maneuvers are known to me, but not much beyond that. If you're a person who talks pop culture, it's useful to be at least somewhat familiar with Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp and Curly Joe. And it's not just morons who like the Stooges. I know Larry David is a big fan, not only because the Stooges came up for discussion a couple times on Seinfeld, but also because David appears in the Farrellys' movie ... as a nun.

So I had to see if there was something deceptively smart about their consummately dumb brand of comedy. I found what I could and was on my way.

Soup to Nuts (1930, Benjamin Stoloff)
Watched: Friday, September 7th
One-sentence plot synopsis: A costumer is going out of business because he spends his time on Rube Goldberg inventions rather than improving his shop, and the representative sent in by the creditors falls for the costumer's niece.
My thoughts on the film: Did that sound like a rather strained plot synopsis? That's because this movie is more of a collection of bits than anything else -- welcome to the Three Stooges! This was actually their first-ever appearance, with Shemp predating Curly, and Moe being credit as "Harry." In fact, the boys were associated with a straight man named Ted Healy, appearing jointly as "Ted Healy and his Stooges." (I guess they have him to thank for their wildly successful careers, but watching the movie today, I couldn't help but think "Who does this Ted Healy guy think he is?") What interested me most about this otherwise somewhat forgettable collection of shenanigans (albeit some fun ones) was that the movie was written by none other than Rube Goldberg. (Hence the presence of Rube Goldberg devices.) Goldberg is a person whose work I have referenced on numerous occasions, but I knew almost nothing about him, let alone that he was still alive in the 1930s. For some reason I fancied him to be a 19th century personality, to the extent that I thought about him at all, but in fact he lived from 1883 to 1970. Shows what I know. Anyway, Goldberg and the Stooges seem a natural fit, but their parts of the movie are actually somewhat separate -- the Stooges play firefighters who come to put out a fire the the costume shop with all the Goldberg devices. (And really, these particular devices are pretty simple, a necessary limitation of what they could effectively reproduce on film in 1930.) Soup to Nuts made the Three Stooges famous, I guess, and I guess I can see why. Their appearance at a fire station party -- doing a variety of pratfalls and groaners, in a variety of costumes -- would have made a pretty good introduction to what we would get for the next 30 to 40 years.

Swing Parade of 1946 (1946, Phil Karlson)
Watched: Tuesday, September 18th
One-sentence plot synopsis: Faced with eviction from her apartment, an aspiring singer (Gale Storm) accepts a fee from a real estate mogul to serve a cease and desist order to the owner of the nightclub where she wants a job -- but ends up falling for the nightclub owner, who happens to be the mogul's son.
My thoughts on the film: I had announced Dancing Lady as the second Stooges film I was going to watch, but I realized that that would make two movies in which one of the three best known Stooges didn't appear. I didn't need two Stooges films from before Curly came on board, so I looked later in their filmography and found that although Swing Parade of 1946 wasn't available from Netflix, I could stream it on youtube. Having never before used youtube that way, I decided it was definitely time -- and might have written a separate post about it were Swing Parade not one of my Getting Acquainted movies, which I usually don't even reference until the monthly recap post. I found it a pretty good way to watch a movie -- a movie you don't care that much about, anyway. And you can leave off and pick back up anywhere you want, as long as you have a computer and the internet present. Anyway, I found this movie sort of delightful, actually. It's an example of the type of movie that was common in this era, where the plot is basically an excuse for a handful of musical numbers, the kind you'd see at a nightclub (which is the movie's setting). I had the opening number, performed by Louis Jordan and his orchestra, in my head for about a week afterward. The plot itself is minimal, giving brief screen time to such standard elements as the romantic couple meeting and falling for each other, while also devoting a decent amount of time to the Stooges (who play dishwashers) breaking dishes and getting involved in other hijinx. I didn't consider anything the Stooges did to be especially inspired, but I also didn't find their presence obnoxious. As seems to be the case in most of their efforts, they embody an essential good will and serve as an agent for steering their protagonist toward a successful outcome of his/her goal. Storm makes a very likable protagonist, and her love interest (Phil Regan) is equally likable. One funny thing that speaks to the perfunctory nature of the narrative beats is that there is literally about a minute of screen time between the thing that drives a wedge between these two and its resolution. But that's not why you see Swing Parade of 1946. Another element that speaks to the film's narrative oddity is that a significant portion of the movie's final five minutes is devoted to the impressive verbal powers of a young man who had spent the movie trying to get an audition for the nightclub. In the show's true variety show nature, he's given a moment at the end to do his remarkable impersonation of a locomotive, and other outstanding impersonations -- right as most movies would be concentrating on tying up the central plot.

Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961, Walter Lang)
Watched: Monday, September 24th
One-sentence plot synopsis: Instead of seven dwarfs, there are three Stooges, and a number of the set pieces take place on ice skates.
My thoughts on the film: The second Stooges film I said I would watch but didn't was The Three Stooges Meet Hercules, and the reason for the shift was a) I had heard this film referenced in another Stooges review I was reading as something that had high production values, and b) I found that Snow White was available for streaming on youtube as well. Also, the fact that it starred an Olympic gold medalist ice skater (Carol Fleiss) seemed too interesting to pass up. By this late stage in their careers, with Curly gone and replaced by Joe DeRita (Curly Joe), the Stooges had morphed into full-on ambassadors of good, capable of very few pratfalls and finger pokes. (As a joke early on, they are shown as traveling salesmen who try to sell a bogus potion called Nyuk that helps re-grow hair.) I didn't mind them in this mild benevolent capacity, and I thought they worked pretty well in the plot. Fleiss is a pretty capable actress, and her handsome prince charming (Edson Stroll) is as handsome and charming as you would want him to be. This too is a musical, but in addition to people breaking into song to disrupt the flow of the narrative, they break into sudden bouts of ice skating -- something I had never seen before. I found it no more peculiar than what we always accept in musicals, the sudden singing. Indeed the film has decent sets and production values overall, and I found it plenty charming. Not much more to say, really.

The Three Stooges (2012, Peter and Bobby Farrelly)
Watched: Saturday, September 29th
One-sentence plot synopsis: A modern-day version of the Stooges tries to raise $800,000 to keep the orphanage where they were raised from closing down.
My thoughts on the film: Since I'd heard this film praised in various quarters, I managed to be let down by something I never thought would be any good in the first place. The leads -- Chris Diamantopoulos, Will Sasso and Sean Hayes -- all do perfectly credible impersonations of the three most famous Stooges, but in the end, I decided that these impersonations weren't really such an amazing feat after all. A couple of the set pieces are marginally impressive; more of them seem pointless. The best thing the film has going for it is that its heart seems to be in the right place. The worst thing it has going for it is that it seems to have tried to prop up its fortunes in two pretty dubious ways, neither of which work. The ads for this film assumed that if you weren't otherwise interested in the Three Stooges, you'd see it because Snooki gets her eyes poked by Moe, and because Kate Upton appears in a nun bikini. Well, the film relies too heavily on the Jersey Shore bit, as Moe actually becomes a cast member on the show, and the show's idiot regulars each get far too much screen time as a result. The opposite sin is committed with Upton, as the money shot from most of the ads does not even appear in the completed film -- she's seen in her nun bikini only while sitting in a lifeguard chair, which tends to obscure much of what the audience came to see. Oh, and David's appearance basically amounts to a lot of yelling.

Conclusion: In the end, I don't feel like I actually saw any vintage examples of the Stooges. In order to do that, I needed to be steered toward their classic shorts -- which wouldn't have been a relevant assignment for this blog. That said, I found each of the films I saw pleasing enough.

My favorite of the films: Swing Parade of 1946

October: Bring on Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. This is a choice inspired directly by the Sight & Sound list, where they had a staggering six films listed -- none of which I've seen. In fact, I'd say I didn't even know much about them before this list, though I later realized that I've seen a solo effort by Powell: Peeping Tom. My current plan is to see The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes, though as you saw from last month, this is subject to change. Especially since one of their other films from this list, A Canterbury Tale, is available on Netflix streaming while Blimp and Shoes are not.

Until then, enjoy my usual frivolous output.

Getting acquainted with ... John Cassavetes

Welcome to yet another edition of Getting Acquainted, where I watch three films by a cinematic trailblazer whose work is unfamiliar to me, over the course of a month's time.

John Cassavetes has long been a figure of some fascination for me. From seeing only a single film he directed (Gloria) and a few more he appeared in as an actor (Whose Life Is It Anyway?, and later Edge of the City), I developed an interest in the type of filmmaker Cassavetes aspired to be -- a true iconoclast, who would sooner eat a bowl of rusty nails than make a conventional Hollywood movie.

In fact, I'd say that a large part of my impression of Cassavetes came from a movie his son made that tried to emulate the elder Cassavetes' style. On a trip to Atlanta for my cousin's wedding in 1997 -- almost exactly 15 years ago, in fact -- I saw She's So Lovely, a gritty drama directed by Nick Cassavetes and starring Sean Penn, Robin Wright Penn and John Travlota. I didn't like this movie very much; I didn't even like the type of movie it was trying to be. I just didn't care for Penn and Wright Penn playing glorified white trash who love each other and hate each in equal measure, with brutal fights, tearful apologies, inarticulate emoting and torrid makeup sex accounting for basically the entire dynamic of their relationship. But I wondered if I mainly didn't like it because I thought it was a simulacrum of something his father would have done better and with more authenticity.

Still, it wasn't just Penn and Wright Penn who had the love/hate relationship -- that seemed to be my relationship with Cassavetes as well. While on the one hand, I didn't really respond to Gloria, on the other, something essential about this man's persona intrigued me. Any time he would come up, I would feel this amorphous sense of respect for his work -- even though I didn't really like the things he made, or the things that were inspired by the things he made. I couldn't ignore that he seemed important in some way, and that I should see more of his films.

Apparently, I existed in this state of suspended animation with regards to his career until about a month ago, when I finally watched my second Cassavetes movie -- and then my third and fourth soon afterward.

Shadows (1959, John Cassavetes)
Watched: Wednesday, August 8th
One-sentence plot synopsis: A free-form look into the lives of a number of characters living on the fringe of society and the music scene, including an interracial would-be couple separated by society's prejudices.
My thoughts on the film: I try to do these plot synopses without actually consulting a written synopsis for the movie, and this was the best I could do for Shadows. This is independent cinema, pure and simple -- except in 1959, independent cinema didn't exist like it does today, making this a pretty groundbreaking film. Instead of seeing Shadows exactly on its own terms, I saw it in terms of future movies it reminded me of, such as the beginning section of Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law and the entirety of Damien Chazelle's Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. (And look how impressive I am, name-dropping a Jarmusch film, and then an indie musical that most people reading this will have never heard of.) Cassavetes' first film introduced a future hallmark of his work, which can be seen in this poster: confronting, unflattering close-ups of characters, which is symbolic of the way he's using a microscope to peer into the very essence of their humanity. Although Shadows has some of the affectations that I didn't like about She's So Lovely, it mostly side-steps being ponderous and exists on a level that's fairly easy to digest. The little interludes that comprise this movie usually have a beginning, middle and end, and the central spine -- the relationship between the light-skinned black woman and a white man -- has some truly devastating moments. They're devastating without being the slightest bit manipulative or heavy-handed, which contributes to the sense of naturalism derived from using non-professionals and relying almost entirely on improvisation. For a movie that is mostly about people hanging out and talking -- about things that rarely string together concretely into a greater whole -- Shadows is pretty satisfying. And I can really see how people would have found it bracing and original at the time it was made.

Faces (1968, John Cassavetes)
Watched: Sunday, August 19th
One-sentence plot synopsis: In a state of marital impasse, a husband and a wife strike out to find love in the arms of others with painful, troubling results, which highlight the emptiness of their lives.
My thoughts on the film: Just because I can make a nice-sounding synopsis of this movie doesn't mean I found it the least bit rewarding. Have you ever watched a film where it felt like everybody was speaking a foreign language, even though it was filmed in your native tongue? That's how I felt throughout Faces, which is decidedly, exactly the kind of Cassavetes movie I fear. Which I guess puts me on the outs with most movie folks, because Faces actually appeared on the Sight & Sound 250 at #183. The crux of this movie is supposed to involve a middle-aged man (John Marley) and his slightly younger wife (Lynn Carlin), unhappily married after 14 years. Yet we don't meet her until the movie is 30 minutes old -- Cassavetes fritters away the first half-hour on an evening out involving Marley, his friend and a prostitute played by future Cassavetes wife Gena Rowlands. And when I say "fritter," I mean that this is where I felt like I was watching another language -- what they're talking about is this aimless, meandering mish-mash of anecdote and life philosophy, punctuated by frequent bouts of inexplicable singing and dancing. (The fact that they're drunk does not adequately explain it.) It's not that I found what they were talking about too difficult to grasp; I found it simultaneously banal and pretentious, containing so little content of interest that I literally could not focus on it. The movie then tries us further by essentially repeating this same dynamic again with Marley, Rowlands and some other people, and again with Carlin and a young swinger played by veteran character actor Seymour Cassel. Each of these scenes involves endless minutes of characters talking around things, and I suppose that Cassavetes intends us to deduce a lot from what they're not saying, from awkward exchanges and from uncomfortable pauses. Again, it's not that I'm incapable of meeting a film on these terms, I just didn't find it skillfully or engagingly done. Another problem was that I didn't find any of the characters the least bit sympathetic. Surprisingly, both Carlin and Cassel got Oscar nominations for their performances in this film, which is rather astonishing -- I can't imagine a time when this kind of film would have had any mainstream appeal, let alone enough to yield two Oscar nominations. The affection for this film indicated by its numerous Sight & Sound mentions left me with the feeling that Cassavetes may just not be my kind of filmmaker.

The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976, John Cassavetes)
Watched: Friday, August 31st
One-sentence plot synopsis: To clear a $23,000 gambling debt, the owner of a Los Angeles strip club (Ben Gazzara) allows himself to become the trigger man in a plot to kill a local Chinese bookie.
My thoughts on the film: And just when I think Cassavetes has defeated me, along comes The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. In a way, the Getting Acquainted on Cassavetes was an excuse for me to finally fulfill my long-gestating desire to see this film, which had always caught my attention because of the specificity of the title (especially specific, you might say, when compared to Cassavetes' two previous films that I watched). In fact, you could say that just knowing this title gave me some of my impression of the type of filmmaker Cassavetes was. However, by the time I got to watching it, I was sure that my Faces disappointment would only carry over here. Nothing could be further from the truth. Giving himself ever so slightly over the greater structural requirements for narrative in a genre film, Cassavetes made a masterpiece -- but one that clearly has his own stamp on it. And I'd say the difference in my interpretation of it has to come down to Ben Gazzara. With him as an unambiguous figure to root for, I found that Cassavetes' trademark meandering provided color and context rather than frustration; his long stretches of inessential dialogue, part of ordinary life rather than some kind of artistic affectation. Which is not to say that Gazzara's Cosmo Vittelli is a model citizen, nor even that different from other Cassavetes characters I've found repellent -- just that he is sympathetic enough for us to be on his side, which is key in my enjoyment of a film. There are long portions of this film -- especially at its 135-minute length, rather than the stripped down 108-minute length that was put back into theaters after the original's poor reception -- that are devoted simply to things like dance numbers at the strip club. But the main story, and Gazzara's understated yet charismatic performance, give a viewer reason to stay invested, and to accept these interludes as brief diversions rather than just incomplete ideas in Cassavetes' head. In fact, the interludes in the strip club, though technically inessential to the plot, are some of the most effective in terms of the type of subtle character development on which Cassavetes prides himself. The cadre of gangsters who bring Vittelli under their thumb is truly intimidating, and Bo Harwood's original score only deepens the sense of impending doom. I could probably go on and find a greater eloquence about why this film worked so well for me, but my self-imposed space limitations prevent me from doing so. Let's just say that this makes a welcome addition to a 1970s subgenre that also features the likes of Mean Streets and Taxi Driver.

Conclusion: John Cassavetes is not my kind of guy ... except when he is.

Favorite of the three: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie

In September, I'm going to do something a little different. Actually, a couple things different. For starters, I won't focus on one person, but three, or even sometimes four: Mo, Larry and Curly, and sometimes Shemp. That's right, I'm going to acquaint myself with the sophisticated comedic stylings of the Three Stooges. Right now, I'm lined up to watch Soup to Nuts, Dancing Lady and The Three Stooges Meet Hercules. Here's hoping they'll all be short. And then the other different thing I'm doing is finishing the month with the Farrelly Brothers' The Three Stooges, which came out earlier this year. I figure I'll be uniquely qualified to assess the success or failure of the actors' impersonations, having just watched these other three films. I'll probably write a short bit about that as well.

Until then, expect another 15 to 20 posts on other matters.

Getting acquainted with ... Clara Bow

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Getting Acquainted series.

I took a two-month break to move, and then settle from the move. And though it would be inaccurate to say that I am truly "settled" (and who knows when I will be), I wanted to get back into this series -- for my sake, if not for yours. (Let's be honest -- you read these pieces out of a sense of duty, if at all.)

When I was in journalism school, I wrote a piece on a practice that was commonplace in 1999: entertainment media outlets (usually magazines, specifically Entertainment Weekly) anointing this or that young actress the "it-girl." The idea was that the young starlet possessed the intangible quality of "it," meaning that she either actually was, or was being positioned to be, the go-to commodity for casting directors. In short, it meant that her career had some heat.

The thing that struck me was that these entertainment outlets could not, or perhaps did not want to, come to a consensus about who the "it-girl" of the moment really was. The title seemed to imply exclusivity: This person was "it" at that particular moment, and no one else had legitimate claim to the title. But the phrase "it-girl" was being thrown around with such abandon, and so little certainty that the person they had crowned would actually live up to the hype, that it had become ridiculous. There were a number of names discussed in my piece, but my inspiration was an actress named Gretchen Mol, who was dubbed the "it-girl" by Entertainment Weekly in the spring of 1999. Mol's most significant credit at the time was the poker movie Rounders, starring Matt Damon and Edward Norton. You could argue that she has not had a more significant credit since then, meaning that the title was indeed bestowed upon an unworthy subject.

Anyway, as I learned from entertainment types I interviewed for the story, the origin of the phrase "it-girl" more or less dated back to a 1927 movie called It, starring Clara Bow. I had not previously heard of Bow, but her name quickly became one of the focal points of my piece. She was the original "it-girl," and seven decades later, her legacy had borne fruit in the form of this phenomenon: magazines trying to commodify the zeitgeist in a quick, two-word phrase that would jump out at you as you walked past the newsstand.

But in the 15 years since I wrote that piece, I still had not seen one of Bow's films. This Getting Acquainted series seemed the perfect opportunity to remedy that. Who was this star who had burned brightly, but perhaps not brightly enough to become a household name? This charismatic flapper who had taken her own control of the zeitgeist in the late 1920s, though perhaps not for much longer than Mol supposedly did 70 years later?

In July, it was time to find out.


The Plastic Age (1925, Wesley Ruggles)
Watched: Saturday, July 14th
One-sentence plot synopsis: A promising college-bound athlete (Donald Keith) finds himself distracted from his studies and his training by a wild girl (Clara Bow) who frequents speak easies and dance halls.
My thoughts on the film: I've seen somewhere around 20 silent films (a pathetic total, I will admit), but until The Plastic Age, I had not seen an unimportant silent film. That's probably because the lesser films of that era, the disposable entertainments with no lingering artistic value, have been lost, or have not been deemed valuable enough to make available on modern media. This film itself doesn't really register in the places you'd expect it -- for example, I couldn't give it a star rating on Letterboxd because it's not in the database. But it was available for rental from Netflix (packaged with a movie I did not watch, The Show Off), so it became my introduction to Bow. The movie is basically a romantic sort-of comedy involving a love triangle between the two leads and a third man (Gilbert Roland), which climaxes in a big football game. There isn't a whole lot more to say about the plot, except that it involves an initial flirtation between Bow and Keith, Keith disappointing his parents by failing to live up to his academic or athletic expectations as a result of Bow's partying lifestyle, an eventual split between the two, and an eventual rekindling of their romance after Keith's football team wins the big game. Plus Roland's presence sometimes mucking things up for them, and sometimes helping them. So instead of the filmmaking, I'll concentrate my thoughts on Bow. Although it's clear that she has a certain charisma, I'd say that this film doesn't make maximum use of her talents, and she seems to disappear for sizable chunks of it. Let's just say this film did not make it clear to me why Bow was considered to have "it."

Wings (1927, William A. Wellman)
Watched: Wednesday, July 18th
One-sentence plot synopsis: Two young men from the same town (Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen) in love with the same woman (Jobyna Ralston) are called into service to fight in World War I as aviators, each trying to survive and return home to the woman they both think loves them.
My thoughts on the film: I was interested in Wings more as an excuse to check a best picture winner off my list than as a chance to appreciate Bow and her talents. In fact, Wings was the first best picture winner (along with F.W. Murnau's Sunrise -- they split the award between the best technical achievement and most artistic merit back then). And although a 139-minute silent film is not really compatible with my current lifestyle, I jammed it in one night when my wife was out, without too many comestible stimulants to keep me awake. The film is, indeed, incredibly impressive in sheer terms of its technique. The numerous air battles must have been very tricky to film, but it was some of the less-obvious, smaller-scale stuff that actually caught my attention the most. Very near the beginning of the film, a camera is mounted on the front of a swing that is holding Arlen and Ralston, and the effect is startling for a film so old. Wellman also makes terrific use of tracking in a shot at a French nightclub, as it travels along a path going "through" a number of small circular tables, capturing a snippet of action by each couple at each table as it goes by, and culminating in the table where Rogers is getting plastered on champagne with a French girl. In order to capture Rogers' drunken stupor, bubbles appear on screen as a recurring and very early type of special effect. (It also made me realize that this film would have never flown -- pun intended -- only a few years later when the Hays Code was introduced.) Unfortunately for Bow, she gets left kind of on the sidelines in this film. Not only does Rogers not realize until very late in the film (and in a pretty contrived, convenient way) that she is the girl for him, but since much of the action takes place in Europe, the film struggles to keep her involved -- though it does manage to arrange a plot point where she goes to war in the capacity of a nurse, and has a brief interaction with the drunken Rogers, whose blurred sight keeps him from recognizing her. Wings also has a notable and brief appearance by future Hollywood legend Gary Cooper -- and since I haven't seen all that many Cooper movies, I was pleased to identify him so quickly. The film has enough good melodrama to register beyond its undeniable technical accomplishments.

It (1927, Clarence Badger)
Watched: Wednesday, August 1st
One-sentence plot synopsis: A department store clerk (Bow) sets her sights on the handsome owner of the store (Antonio Moreno), despite the fact that he continues to fail to recognize her, even though his goofy friend (William Austin) labels her the very personification of Elinor Glyn's concept of "it."
My thoughts on the film: At last, the film for which Bow was famous (at least to me) -- and at last, I see what all the fuss was about. There's something so wonderfully coquettish about Bow in this film, that I didn't see either in a role where she should have displayed it (The Plastic Age) or one where that characteristic was being underplayed because she was playing the underdog role (Wings). It's striking how much Bow stands out in a scene involving a bevy of other clerks, all of whom are in the same neighborhood of beauty as Bow, but none of whom have ... well, "it," the way Bow does. She bats her eyes, teases and flirts in a way that is truly memorable in this film. What's more, the film is pretty fun, even if pretty square. The fun part: Bow and Moreno go on a date to Coney Island, where they ride all sorts of unusual contraptions that function as carnival rides, including a spinning centrifuge that steadily spits its occupants off to the side. (She and Moreno stay on board the longest before being dumped into each others' laps on the side.) The square part: The entire second half of the film is consumed by a Three's Company-style (don't you love what my mind produces as a point of comparison) misunderstanding, in which Moreno believes Bow is an unwed mother because she claims ownership of a child in order to save a friend under scrutiny from child protective services. Although this obstacle to their relationship is very much in keeping with the morals of the day, a modern viewer like me can't help but see it as a bit stodgy -- in today's romantic comedies, a leading man could never possibly judge a woman because she already had a child. In fact, in the modern-day portrayal of romantic comedy heroes, having a child would actually be a selling point for him. Balking as he does, Moreno seems stiff and judgmental, and the misunderstanding seems to go on forever, when a single word by any number of key characters could clear it up. One thing I did find surprisingly modern about the film, however, was the character played by Austin, who seems impossibly effeminate, and even refers to himself as an "old fruit." I can find no reference on the internet to Austin actually being gay, however. Lastly, one thing that stood out was the humorous period slang on the dialogue cards, such as "Sweet Santa Claus!" and "I'm so low, if I were on stilts I could walk under a dachshund!"

Conclusion: Clara Bow has "it." At least one out of every three times.

Favorite of the three: Wings

August: After four of my last six Getting Acquainted films (dating back to Carl Theodor Dreyer in April) were silent films, I desperately need to move forward in time. So I'm going to check out the work of actor/director John Cassavetes, in his capacity as a director. I've seen only one Cassavetes-directed film -- Gloria -- and I simply must add to that total to consider myself a true cinephile. So I'll be watching Shadows, Faces and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. I'd love it if you'd like to check them out with me.

See you next month ...

Getting acquainted with ... Carl Theodor Dreyer

 
This is the latest in my Getting Acquainted series, in which I familiarize myself with a legendary cinematic talent whose work was previously unfamiliar to me. I watch three films by/featuring that person during the month, then write about it at the end.

My interest in getting acquainted with Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer was driven almost purely by The Passion of Joan of Arc. This film has surfaced in various film tomes (including 1001 Movies to See Before You Die) and other lists of generally great films, but I guess what set it apart in my mind was the immediacy of the poster (which you'll see below). This poster seems to suggest the unlimited depths of the suffering of Joan of Arc leading up to her execution, and I guess I was surprised that such an early film (it was made in 1928) would address such a controversial figure in a likely controversial way.

As it turns out, it's correct that it was controversial -- the film was banned all over the place, and was once thought to be entirely lost, the master copy destroyed in a fire. Thirteen years after Dreyer died, a nearly complete copy was discovered in the janitor's closet of an Oslo mental hospital in 1981. It's considered one of the greatest discoveries of a lost masterpiece in film history.

As it also turns out, there were plenty of other controversial films about controversial topics made around that time -- it was only my ignorance that deemed this one to be a special case. Or perhaps it just struck a chord with me, as I seem to be endlessly fascinated by the depiction of religious fervor on film. I imagine this dates back to my fascination with depictions of Christianity in 15th century Flemish art, which I discovered in an art history class in college. I want to be clear that I am not a religious person myself -- far from it. But the depiction of religion in art has interested me for at least those 17 years since I took that class as a senior in college.

Little did I know the extent to which religion and religious persecution would appear in most if not all of Dreyer's films, many of which are considered masterpieces, only three of which I've seen, with more certain to come.

I'll get into the films in particular in a moment, but I wanted to also mention at the start (since I'm not sure how this will factor into my individual discussions of the films) that I was amazed the extent to which Dreyer seems to have influenced two other filmmakers, one indisputably great, one disputably great. I was first struck by how the black and white compositions and religious themes seemed to directly influence the work of Ingmar Bergman. Needless to say, most great filmmakers were influenced by other great filmmakers before them, but until now I was not familiar with what seems to be Bergman's greatest influence. Then Dreyer also seems to have influenced enfant terrible Lars von Trier, his fellow countryman. Both being Danish filmmakers would seem to be enough, but more specifically, each film I saw of Dreyer's includes the kind of masochistic persecution of a woman for which von Trier has become famous. At least Dreyer's treatments didn't go to the extremes of von Trier's, but it was clearly a preoccupation of his.

Okay ...

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Watched: Thursday, April 5th
One sentence plot synopsis: A depiction of the events, including trial and torture, leading up to the execution of Joan of Arc at the hands of the English.
My thoughts on the film: Wow. Can I just leave it at "wow"? I ranked this film five out of five stars, without hesitation, at Letterbox'd, where I keep track of my film rankings. I've only given that rating to ten other films I've seen since about 2004 (which is where I stand now in terms of adding my back movies in reverse chronological order). Simply put, I was astonished at the level of artistry on display in a movie made in 1928, when most other filmmakers were making the cinematic equivalent of cave drawings. (Another exaggeration, but I'm making that exaggeration to indicate just how astonished I was.) What struck me most was Dreyer's use of close-ups, to capture every groove of his actors' faces, and all that they expressed. There are the hardened lines of the gruff and unyielding judges, but then there are the freshly quivering lines of the face of Maria Falconetti as Joan. Falconetti has been rightly praised for giving one of the most captivating screen performances of all time, though you can't say it is 100% realistic -- her Joan often behaves as though she is in some kind of trance, which is consistent with the character's purported religious state, I guess. It's impossible to look away from the expressions of horror, despair and ecstasy Falconetti gives us, her eyes the size of saucers. It was instantly clear to me that Sinead O'Connor must have modeled at least some aspects of her persona on Falconetti. But Falconetti's performance and Dreyer's close-ups are not the sum of this movie's greatness, and I'd like to quickly mention three other stunning things about it: 1) Dreyer's use of a panning camera. I can't say to what extent it was used by other contemporary filmmakers, but it is used wonderfully here. 2) The editing in the scene where Joan is gradually slipping into a faint while viewing the spinning wheel of the implement that will be used to torture her. Dreyer goes back and forth between the two, with ever closer shots of this spinning torture device and the man who is impassively spinning it. 3) Joan's execution. It is incredibly detailed. The camera never looks away from what's going on, and that includes seeing a slumped and blackened corpse being licked by flames. I have never seen a movie like this, and it was made nearly 85 years ago. One note: If you are going to watch this, be sure to watch it with Richard Einhorn's "Voices of Light" score accompanying it. At the time it was made, Dreyer showed it with different music at different times, so there is no definitive native score. If you watch it without the score, you will be watching nothing but silence for the entire running time. After about two minutes of this, I decided I couldn't do it. (Plus, the score Einhorn composed in 1994 is really beautiful.)

Day of Wrath (1943, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Watched: Thursday, April 19th
One sentence plot synopsis: Following the decision to have a woman burnt at the stake for witchcraft, a pastor must consider evidence that he may be married to a witch himself -- and that this witch may have cast a spell on his son.
My thoughts on the film: I must admit, I chose this film more for the title than because of any particular reputation it had. You may recall that I wrote a piece on the use of the word "wrath" in movie titles when Wrath of the Titans came out, so I thought this would make a logical choice for something to see. Fortunately, it's also pretty brilliant. The film is more or less divided into two halves, the one leading up to the execution of a woman thought to be a witch (which rivals Joan of Arc in terms of being surprisingly graphic), and the second involving the wife of the pastor, who seduces his son. Day of Wrath lulls you with its pacing, but it also has this understated yet exotic beauty with its black-and-white cinematography. In fact, it was this film that first caused me to make the connection to the works of Bergman. Lisbeth Movin is otherworldly in a way that's truly chilling, playing the young "witch" (I'm putting it in quotation marks because it's only assumed, not known) who casts a spell on the ordinarily pious son of her pastor husband. You can't tell if she's truly in love with this son, or if she's merely acting out against a man at least 20 years her senior who made her his wife against her will, or a little of both. But the effect is dreamy. There's plenty more to ponder on the idea of godliness and its opposite, and whether "good" men are truly good, or "evil" women truly evil. As this film employs dialogue and Joan of Arc of course did not, I became aware for the first time of Dreyer's keen abilities with the pacing of dialogue and his minimal use of score/sound effects. Many sequences in this deliberate and spartan film are scored only with the sound of the whistling wind, and the effect is both lonely and oddly captivating.

Ordet (1955, Carl Theodor Dreyer)
Watched: Monday, April 30th
One sentence plot synopsis: Heads of two neighboring homesteads clash over their different approaches to believing in God as one tries to marry his son to the other's daughter.
My thoughts on the film: Dreyer's second-to-last feature film is also considered by many to be his masterpiece. (Joan of Arc notwithstanding, I guess.) I am almost in agreement, but I guess I have to give Joan of Arc the slight age as seeming more radical and groundbreaking for the time it was made. Needless to say, Dreyer continues to struggle with religion in this film, which would seem to serve as a kind of overview of his whole career. (I'd have to see his other films to be sure.) You can see elements of both the previous films I've discussed in Ordet (translation: The Word) -- the farmer Morten Borgen (Henrik Malberg) has a son Johannes (Preben Lerdorff Rye) who believes himself to be the resurrection of Jesus Christ (in a bit of "blasphemy" similar to Joan's purported crimes), and the pacing, precise framing, cinematography and themes of family and religion seem to directly echo back to Day of Wrath. But this film may contain more philosophical meat than either of the others, as the dialogue frequently touches on the difference between believers and non-believers, believers and different types of believers, and the intersection between science/medicine and faith. For a fairly simple film that's easy to follow, there's quite a bit going on here. And it's in this Johannes character -- who, trance-like, tells people that they can't believe in him (Jesus) walking the earth now, though they did then -- that I'm seeing some of von Trier's later efforts. We watched von Trier's The Kingdom horror TV series, which includes a boy with Down's Syndrome working in the hosptial's dishroom. For all intents and purposes, he and a fellow female dishwasher with Down's Syndrome function as the "chorus" of that TV show, commenting on the action with an all-seeing eye but not involved directly in it, and his trance-like delivery is very similar to the trance-like delivery of this character Johannes. As I mentioned earlier, this film also has a suffering female character, the godly wife of Morten's atheist son, who is about to give birth to a baby and has numerous trials in store for her. That's all I'll say about that. All of these philosophical ideas about belief or lack of belief in God come to bear on these two families with their stubborn father figures and their innocent children suffering indirectly at the hands of their stubbornness. And it's all encased in Dreyer's unique style, with its deliberate pacing and that eerie use of the whistling wind outside as one of the only noises you hear other than the dialogue. Quite simply, I was blown away. This despite the fact that my schedule meant I had to watch it in four -- four -- different sittings. Now that's a great movie.

Conclusion: I am a full Dreyer convert. Up soon, I hope: Vampyr and Gertrud.

Favorite of the three: The Passion of Joan of Arc

Although I may be a bit exhausted by the greatness of Dreyer, that's not why I'm taking the month of May off from Getting Acquainted. It more has to do with me being out of town this weekend, then going headlong into moving. That's right, we bought a house, and escrow is supposed to close on May 25th. (There, that was my grand announcement to you that I'm becoming a homeowner.) I just figure things will be too chaotic leading up to the move to give any cinematic luminary my full attention this month.

Even though things will still be pretty chaotic in June, I do hope to return then. (If not, definitely July.) I have a number of next candidates for Getting Acquainted, but we're due for a woman on the schedule, so I've decided to go with Clara Bow, the first ever "It-Girl." This will allow me to finally see the first film to win the Oscar for best picture, Wings. I'll also see It (appropriately) and The Plastic Age (because it was one of her only other titles I could find on Netflix).

See you back here then ... in the meantime, enjoy all my regularly scheduled programming, about five times a week.