Thursday 7 September 2017

Object #70 + #71 - Clam Shells / Dagger - Cleopatra (1934) / Macbeth (2015)

Dir. Cecil B. DeMille / Justin Kurzel



Heavy-handedness is easy, subtlety is difficult. True, or not? 

Take one look at Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra, marvel at the set construction, costuming, and prop work and it becomes very apparent that something so heavy-handed must have taken a lot of work. DeMille succeeds at bringing to the screen sumptuous visuals, Hollywood constructions packed to the brim with props and extras, and overwrought acting of overwrought scripts. This is his style, and Cleopatra is no different. It's enjoyable on a surface level way, but it's as hollow as the sets themselves. 

In this gaudy sea, moments of subtlety can be found. One excellent bit of staging has Cleopatra (Claudette Colbert) lazing on a chaise lounge, with her lover, Marc Antony (Henry Wilcoxon) at her side, sprawled across the stone steps. DeMille covers the two with the strings of a harp, which a servant plays, his hand almost caressing Cleopatra's chest. We never see Antony and Cleopatra make love, but this is the closest we get, with a subtlety so non-evident everywhere else. 


The initial seduction of Antony for example, is precluded by a scene in which he expresses his thoughts on women aloud with his compatriots, to the tune of "Women, what are they good for?". To anyone with a shred of history education, or even someone who's heard the term Antony & Cleopatra, it's so obvious that this is being ironic for its own sake. In the literal next scene, Antony meets with Cleopatra on her exotic, extravagant barge, where in no short order, he is seduced by her charms. 

How does Cleopatra do this? She presents the wealth of Egypt, by sending a net overboard, and trawling up clams full of peals. Ah, but it isn't that simple. In the net are scantily dressed women, who present the clams to the two. They open the clam shells wide, as Cleopatra monologues about the 'treasure' of the Nile which can be his...do you get it? She throws the pearls to the crowd, who rush to get the treasure, and bids him to do the same, making him complicit in the fun to be had in her land, flaunting the wealth of Egypt, both literally, and metaphorically in her own sexuality. Honestly, it's not terrible as far as visual metaphors go (it's not exactly great either), but more girls show up, dressed in animal furs, play-clawing at the crowd, before eventually performing a dance where they jump through flaming hoops. The camera, just as complicit pans back from this dance over the large rowing oars of her barge, letting the audience enjoy the money shot. The next scene is the harp scene I described above, confirming that they made love.

Note the jewellery....
I'm not actually doing DeMille's heavy-handedness justice but all you need to do is hear the delivery, particularly among the Romans, to realise that this is almost a farce, elevated to the heights of Hollywood by nothing but copious amounts of money. Take the scene, famous from Shakespeare, where Julius Caesar (Warren Williams) is betrayed and murdered by his senators, including, of course, Brutus (Arthur Hohl). Their earlier conspiring has a Brutus who plays it with such laughable dourness that it's almost a comedy. The murder is just as bad, as the famous line is of course quoted, in a production not fit to carry it. 

So to reiterate we have this scene, an almost parody of Caesar's murder, followed by a brief scene of Cleopatra's reaction to the news, and then Marc Antony's wooden dialogue about how he really doesn't like women, like at all, he swears. Honestly he might as well say 'Girls are icky', it'd have the same value. Then - barge seduction, sultry women, pearls, wealth, power. It's so truncated, and devoid of actual human emotion that it's like seeing a kids picture book on screen, where the text is elementary-level, but the pictures have been so fine tuned that you can gawp guilt-free. The clam-shells opening to present Antony with sexual gratification is about as subtle as you can get for films of this time with regards to sex (and actually relatively restrained for a pre-code film), but it's still the type of subtlety that's centre-screen, and supported by scantily dressed women, to really hammer home the message. 


Now since we've mentioned Shakespeare, let's take a look at an adaption that actually manages to not only bring it to the screen with visual aplomb, but with textual and subtextual depth, wringing new interpretations from a piece of literature so well-rung by not only literary critics, stage adaptions, but also esteemed filmmakers such as Polanski, Kurosawa, and Welles. No mean feat, and it puts DeMille to shame. Now of course, DeMille only wanted to make the 'Hollywood' version of a famous 'work' of history - that of Cleopatra. Kurzel's purpose was to spin the classic Scottish play in a more intimate way, one in which film can succeed where stage cannot. 

His purpose is clear from the off, as we do not open on the three witches, but on Macbeth (Michael Fassbender), and his wife (Marion Cotillard) laying to rest their young boy. This is a fundamental focus for the rest of the film, and this loss haunts the two of them, and haunts your thoughts as a viewer, making you reappraise the text you've likely heard many a-time in the past. Children are found throughout the film, reminding Macbeth in particular of his loss and grief - take for example a shot of children playing after he exits the tent after his 'discovery' of the murdered King Duncan (David Thewlis), which frames his action against the children's innocence, and the innocence he has lost, replaced in both he and Lady Macbeth's lives with ambition for power. Later in the film he, in a fit of paranoia, has the wife and children of Macduff (Sean Harris) hunted down through a forest, as she screams that they are innocent of any crime. He uses them to send a message, tying them to posts outside the castle, shouting of the prophecy that no man born of a woman can kill him, and burning them alive as warning. 


Some, like Macduff's children, Banquo's (Paddy Considine) boy, and Malcolm (Jack Reynor), the son of King Duncan and heir to the throne, are apparent in the original text, but Kurzel chooses to place emphasis on each of these in detail, as well as including Macbeth's dead child to open. Of particular note is a recurring emphasis on a young solider (Scot Greenan) who perishes in the opening battle of the film. Greenan's distinctive features, and muddied warpaint ensure that he's well-remembered from the off, as we see Macbeth strap the boy's sword to his hand, haul him to his feet during the battle, and finally place rocks over the eyes of his corpse, just as he did to his son minutes earlier in the film, linking the two. This boy is a spectre which haunts Macbeth throughout the film, another uniqueness to this film, rather than the classic spectral haunting of Banquo at the feast, which is also retained. 

The dagger which Macbeth sees before him, presented as a mental apparition in the Polanski version and in numerous RSC adaptions, normally hangs in the air, leading him to Duncan so that he may commit the foul deed. Here however, the boy appears holding the dagger, and so the dagger appearing before Macbeth is intertwined with the haunting image of the boy who he failed to save, which naturally is a surrogate for his own child. By using this young solider, rather than the image of his own child, there is a subtle subtext of tangible guilt which is associated with the horrific battles against traitors of the land. Both Fassbender and Kurzel are explicit in their presentation of Macbeth as a more modern figure, spurred to greedy ambition by witches which may be apparitions of PTSD and grief - and so the 'scorpions' which fill Macbeth's mind are rooted in our modern interpretations of mental illness.  
    

One of the highlights of this adaption is the stark re-interpretation of the "Out damned spot!" soliloquy of Lady Macbeth. It removes the plot-based purpose of the classic text, where her sleepwalking speech makes evident both her and Macbeth's guilt in Duncan's murder to staff of the castle. Instead, it has Lady Macbeth, in a stark white gown, present her guilt just off-camera, in a bare church, in a village abandoned due to her husbands poor running of the land. The church, warmly lit for Lady Macbeth's first 'solo' scene earlier in the film, already creates as stark a visual contrast as possible in its current condition. The whispering delivery of Cotillard contrasts to the passion-filled performances which litter your mind from past portrayals, making this unique to Cotillard and unique in the way only a film close-up can do.

The soliloquy ends by revealing Lady Macbeth's young child, absent-mindedly playing in front of her, causing you to reappraise past text, as not a sleepwalking admission of guilt, but one directed at the child whom she feels she has let down, and who stands in her mind as a bastion of innocence. As a mother, this is how Lady Macbeth's guilt is manifest, whereas Macbeth's is heavy with the young soldier of war. She commands: "Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. Look not so pale. To bed, to bed. (...) Come, come, give me your hand! What's done cannot be undone." 

Previously, commands to herself, to wash the daggers and the bloodstained guilt from her hands, but now, this meaning is paired with a tearful, heartfelt urge for the normalcy of the mother/child relationship. It's heartbreaking, and Cotillard herself in behind-the-scene interviews calls this addition of Kurzel's 'genius', as it solidified how she should perform the scene, not to herself in madness, but out of grief for her child. It's telling that Kurzel's seemingly bold-for-boldness' sake addition of a fourth witch is not done lightly, as it takes the form of a child, again intertwining the lost child as central to the witches, themselves the originators and spur to both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's mad urge for power. Indeed, following the Damned Spot scene, Lady Macbeth witnesses the witches, and they hold in their hand a baby, almost suggesting that in her mind, she willingly dies to be reunited with innocence again, in the shape of a young child. 


Compare this to Cleopatra, who near the end of her film proclaims: "I am no longer a Queen, I am a woman". It's borderline insulting, that a film centred around Cleopatra is dominated by Roman politicking, at the expense of rich scenes featuring Cleopatra herself, rather than in addition to. For a film of her namesake, she is underserved, always subservient in performance with male-dominated scenes. She becomes "a woman" and nothing else, in dialogue as leaden as the message it promotes - gone is the not-so-subtle seduction, and in its place a domesticated woman, no longer a queen, only a wife, to a failure of an emperor. I'm cheating somewhat as Lady Macbeth is one of the greatest female characters in literature, but in comparison her royalty and motherhood are heavily intertwined here, creating subtleties of performance and interpretation found nowhere in the work of DeMille, and nowhere else in other Macbeth adaptions. We can only hope that Cleopatra gets not only the script she deserves, but one which can give that performer a bevy of subtlety, which embraces her royalty and sex, rather than denounce both. 

Tuesday 5 September 2017

Object #69 - Knickerbocker Glory - Mona Lisa (1986)

Dir. Neil Jordan 


Like a striptease, Mona Lisa becomes more and more debauch as it goes. Despite opening with our protagonist, George (Bob Hoskins) having a midday domestic with his wife and child in a London suburb, the seedy life-of-crime George falls back into, following his prison release, remains at arm's length. He's tasked with ferrying high-class prostitute, Simone (Cathy Tyson) from place to place, from fancy hotels, to secluded estates. 

The opener immediately characterises George, as he, fresh from prison, attempts to mend a clearly fraught relationship with his wife (Pauline Melville), flowers in hand. Well, in fact, his main purpose seems more to be reuniting with his daughter, Jeannie (Zoe Nathenson). We can assume he's been in prison for a while, as she's now a teenager, not the child he once knew (if indeed he knew her at all pre-prison). He desperately tries to halt any calling of his wife, clinging to a brief moment with Jeannie. When it all goes tits up, and descends into a shouting match - wife telling him to leave, Jeannie begging her Mum to let him speak - George reacts like you'd expect, throwing the flowers at the door, tipping bins over, and grappling with passers-by who attempt to get him to leave. George is a thuggish man, like many we've seen before, unable to vent his emotions in any other way than violence. But, and this is the crucial part, he has a heart - Jeannie. 


Following this outburst of violence at the open, the film tones down into a drama presenting crime, rather than a crime-drama. The prostitution of Simone is done in upper-class environments, as classy a way to do prostitution as there can be, and behind closed doors. She goes about it business-like, with George being the one out of place, with his geezer attitude and mismatching clothes. Even when Simone gives him money for fancier clothes, he wastes it on gaudy, low-rent gangster threads. A great moment occurs where she avoids his escorting her out of the hotel, distancing herself from his apparent lower-classness and crime background, jokingly stating that he might as well have a gold necklace, to which he pulls one out from under his shirt. They're an odd couple. He offhandedly throws racist jokes at her, expecting her to go along, but again, crucially, when she doesn't, he falls back on it being his nature, and the way he was raised, a damn sight better than say calling her a bitch or some other worse response.

The two fall into what could be called love. They have a connection, in that odd-couple way, where their bickering and poles-apart natures (in background, gender, skin colour, and culture) are what makes them a great fit. So much so, that George agrees, against his better nature, to help Simone track down another prostitute friend of hers, Cathy (Kate Hardie). Cathy, when Simone last saw her, was being abused by her pimp (Clarke Peters), and despite Simone manging to escape him and move higher up the crime ladder, Cathy's fate hangs over her. 


Here, we descend into the more debauch nature of the London criminal world. George uses old contacts to find any prostitute with the name Cathy who matches his description. He finds himself in really seedy, crappy backroom bars where drugged up women dance naked to disinterested punters. The women gaze, dead-eyed at the tatty environments they find themselves. Upstairs rooms lead off from a bare hallway, the building used for one purpose, cheap sex. In one of these rooms he finds a prostitute called Cathy, but she isn't blonde, and isn't who he's looking for. 

May (Sammi Davis), as we later find out her true name, is fifteen years old. Even the contact of George, a bouncer for bars like this, remarks "I didn't know you liked 'em that young, George.". It's uncomfortable ground, and the air of abuse, both physical and sexual, is heavy. May has a black eye from her pimp, who we discover is the same pimp from Simone's past, and she pleads with George to tell him that she was 'good'. She's out of it, due in part to her age, with Davis fantastically conveying this young girl who's used to this abuse, knowing no better. 

As the film goes on, we learn that George's boss (Michael Caine) has a hand in the pimp ring. We dive in more depth to street prostitution and street pimps. When introduced to the real Cathy, she is naked, pushed up against a one-way window by an old man, likely a politician, herself far too young, and on the table lie needles, likely heroin. The window into the seedy crime world is even opened on Simone, as we see her revealed at first in polaroids, then in a porno which George tracks down, and finally in fetish-wear, handcuffed, pleasing a client. 


The message of the film, that the commodifying and abuse of women and young girls is a societal problem oft-overlooked, is best encapsulated when George attempts to gather information from May. He sees her on the street after their first meeting, midday, and attempts to talk to her again. She refuses to answer his questions, trying to hail down customers. George strong-arms her, again using aggression as his primary method of solving situations. She goes along with him on the condition that he pays her for time she could be spent with clients. 

They enter a standard London cafe, George gripping her arm lightly. He orders a tea for himself, and when asked, May orders a Knickerbocker Glory ice-cream. They sit, as George awkwardly attempts to start a conversation. He asks her if she likes ice-cream, to which May responds that it's all she can eat anymore. George is put off, the ramifications of the life of abuse May and prostitutes like her go through flash across Hoskins' face, masterfully understated acting, where we understand his thoughts without having access to them. May can't eat solid foods due to the amount of drugs she's taken, or been forced to take. After he gains information from her, including her real name, she exclaims "Oh, my ice cream!". George goes over to the counter, then brings it to the table, and as he returns, he swears, hastily dropping the tea and ice-cream on a table. 

The camera cuts outside to May getting in a car with a customer, as George crosses the road, shouting after her "What about your ice-cream?". It's a surprising moment, and one that really struck me, despite the later scenes of worse circumstance, as this one truly sold the child-like aspect of the prostitutes. May is excited for ice-cream, like a child younger than her years, as if she hasn't aged mentally at all due to being forced, for how long we don't know (and don't really want to know), to please strangers. 


It's the suddenness that really gets me. May goes from happily exclaiming for ice-cream, to soliciting a random car-bound stranger for sex in barely a minute. From child to under-the-thumb, wilful embrace of sexual abuse. She's so locked into this life that time off to briefly enjoy child-like pleasure, is ditched to pleasure someone else, to keep her pimp happy, and to earn her way. George we know would have paid, it's in his character, a funny thing really as earlier in the film, waiting for Simone, he tips a tip-jar of coins into his pocket. He's the type of guy to do that, but he not enough of a crook to disenfranchise what he sees as a child, in poor circumstances. 

Later in the film, [SPOILER WARNING] it's revealed that the reason Simone wanted to find Cathy was that they were in love. George was a means to and end, his and Simone's chemistry used for her to get her true love out of trouble. George, being not only a man of his time, but also a man who so clearly needs some connection to anchor him and to escape from the drudgery of his criminal life, is enraged that he's been duped. We see it in Hoskins' face as the truth becomes clear. The pier scene where he confronts Simone about his feelings sell not only in words, but in wordless expression the rage at being made a fool of, being made a fool of by a woman, being made a fool of by a black woman, having his emotions twisted by a (in his own words) 'dyke', emotions twisted by someone who he thought he had a connection with. 

Hoskins and Tyson are electric throughout the film, and this is the climax of their relationship, as it's torn apart. We empathise with both, and indeed, sympathise with both - he's estranged from his wife and daughter, she's unable to be with and to care for the woman she loves, a gem in the world of shit that she and the trapped women of London find themselves. He hates and loves her, and his journey into the seedy sex rings of London has matured him to the plight of women in the city, and yet a betrayal is a betrayal so it still hurts. We end the film with him finding connection with a young girl untainted by the seedy world of crime, Jeannie, his daughter, who he can bond with on a deeper level thanks to the journey he went through in Mona Lisa, and find a connection which can repair the damage that the world left on him. 

Tuesday 29 August 2017

Object #68 - Masks - The Life and Death of 9413: A Hollywood Extra (1928)

Dir. Robert Florey + Slavko Vorkapic


I hate the term 'up its own ass', and I hate how many use it as a cheap criticism of experimental film. True, some films have pretensions of deeper meaning where none exist, but if you've read any of my past posts, it's clear I'm not opposed towards reading 'too much' into things. If you have an emotional response to a film, and in a way which may seem bonkers when externalised, then that film has spoken to you in a way it hasn't to someone else, and that's something that should be celebrated. The documentary Room 237, about various people's interpretations and theories about the titular room of Kubrick's The Shining, is far more entertaining than it has any right to be for this very reason. People's responses can be so off-the-wall towards 'regular' film, so when experimental film-making and deliberately interpretive works are presented, you can get some fantastic responses. I'm reminded of an interview with Nicolas Winding Refn, where after a screening of his film Only God Forgives, a woman informed him that the film clearly took place within a vagina.

Funnily enough, none of that applies here. There is a beautiful simplicity to this film, despite its experimental nature. A simplicity that may seem empty to some: "So what? Extra goes to Hollywood, wasn't good enough to become a star, died in poverty. Heaven. Big whoop!". But underneath that simple plot is a beauty of expression in the telling. And underneath again, subtext, which due to the nature of the film is arguably, well...text due to how obvious it telegraphs the message. 

In this 13 minute film, our protagonist 9413 (Jules Raucort), is a man who travels to Hollywood, the land of dreams, to become a movie star. He's greeted by an agent, drawing the number 9413 onto his forehead, as he becomes just another extra. A woman, 13 (Adriane Marsh), obeys a director to the letter. 15 (Voya George), 'performs' by presenting various masks in front of his face, wowing his audience, as his forehead now boasts a drawn star, the allusion pretty obvious - he's made it. 9413 meets 'Star' who doesn't give him the time of day. 9413 is met with 'No Casting Today', to the point where he lives in poverty, unable to pay his bills, and later dies. He leaves his body, and we see a cut-out version of him rise away from Hollywood, away from Casting (literally expressed in words), and onto Heaven, where he now has wings, his forehead free of the numbers, and he flies, happy again.


Very simple plot, of a story heard a thousand times. Firstly, it's novel to us now that such a story is told in 1928, as many of today's film viewers, including myself despite knowing better, don't really equate the silent age with the concept of a big-budget blockbuster, one requiring copious amounts of extras. It seems an odd concept, but just like theatre, film has always needed extras, silent or not. The film satirises the big Hollywood pipeline which fed productions such as Thief of Baghdad, Ben-Hur, countless Zorro and Robin Hood films, The Black Pirate, even the famed Intolerance, released a decade prior, but take a look at that Babylon set and count the extras, you'll be there for hours. 

Secondly, there is a beauty in the economy of this satirisation. All it requires is very few actors, a couple of face-masks, and an ingenuity in presenting Hollywood itself - made of cardboard tubes, re-dressed toy trains, and a few wires. Take the masks for example. 15's first mask is a Douglas Fairbanks type, moustached, angular jaw, handsome - and the crowd eats it up, turning to themselves and expressing surprise at the great acting being shown. The next mask, noticeably the same face, but angry, scarred - a villain, but one played by the same man. This is even more commendable, you'e one guy but you can play good and bad? Welcome to Hollywood!


After a montage of flashing 'SUCCESS', clapping hands, and blaring trumpets, Star places a simple mask (the first image on this page) briefly on his face. Now here then, my interpretation comes in. As he does this we see the crowd clap, mouths opening (like almost all do in the film), fish-like - their praise as empty as the still performance of Star. Indeed, this is what I love about the bare mask (two eye dots, and a triangular, simple smile) - to me, it represents when an actor has made it, and any performance they give, while different, defaults to the viewer as 'The Star'. Think George Clooney, the man can act, but I'll be damned if he doesn't look exactly the same in most of his films, and acts fairly similarly in them all. So at this point, Star has reached that stratified height of Hollywood, where the acting itself is of little quality, the star-power is all-important, which of course contrasts to the 9413 atop 9413's forehead. 

When in a scene together, the mask for Star shifts to the one pictured above, more detail, more ornate, in comparison to the floppy, ugly mask of 9413. Even from scene to scene, the masks represent different things, and are used in a different way. Now here, we are into 'reading too much into it' territory, but again, if one mask is fancy, and another crappy in a scene, isn't it clear what the message is? A past scene with Star has the blank mask, representing (in my own interpretation) the star-power quality of his acting career, but by having different masks, which mean different things in different scenes, there is a richness and life to the prop choices of the filmmakers. You could say it reflects the themes of how status is represented to and perceived by a crowd of movie-goers, as compared to the perception of an extra vs. a high-profile film-star. Or maybe, I'm opening my mouth like a fish, thinking that the words I speak (type) have any higher meaning. 


That's the beauty of interpretation. Having said all that, as I stated earlier, beyond a few instances, the film is clear in its message: Hollywood chews up and spits out the dreams of hard-working actors to, ironically, create films which make you dream of bettering yourself. That last part is again, my interpretation, now I come to think of it. But the film couldn't be clearer in showing 9413 being happy in Heaven, far from the earthly concerns of Hollywood. There's a deeper message there to unpack, but it's a simple one at the core - Hollywood is shit. That is the core. I could argue it warns jobbing actors to be wary of Hollywood, I could argue that it represents stardom as empty and vacuous (as I did above), and I could argue that Hollywood has no place for ambition. Hell, if I dig deep I even think that when we see 13, the female extra, bend down and back up again repeatedly at the command of a male director, that that's a commentary on the sexual abuse that many actresses go through in Hollywood to get a break. I don't know for a fact if that was the case in the 1920s, but it still echoes into Hollywood's future. 

Like any great experimental film, The Life and Death of 9413 leaves room for the imagination. It is stylised, has a clear plot and message, but has elements, such as the masks, which while telegraphing a message pretty heavily, allow the viewer to think for themselves about what it means. Any film does this, silent or not, experimental or not, but some leave more room for interpretation than others, and as this post shows, there's still life and accuracy in the meaning behind this film. Most of what I've said doesn't buck the trend from the central theme of the film, that Hollywood is shit, and so remain in the realm of plausibility. But as Room 237 shows us, there's entertainment, to say nothing of value, in a compelling argument, even if it's a highly implausible one. 

If you have 13 minutes, you can view the film on YouTube here, and if you've read this far, you've probably killed a few minutes anyway, so what's the harm in giving it a watch yourself, and draw your own interpretation.   

Thursday 17 August 2017

Object #67 - Log - King Kong (1933)

Dir. Merian C. Cooper + Ernest B. Schoedsack


Film and technology are inextricable. The camera, itself a complex bit of tech, captures images onto some form of storage, be it film, videotape, hard-drive, or some future form we haven't even invented yet. Multiple still images are captured in rapid succession, to the point where, upon later playback, a sense of motion is created - and so we have the film medium. In King Kong, more than any other film before it, the very technology that allows us to film the real-world is invaded by stop-motion trickery. 

Stop-motion entails the slightest movement of an object for each and every frame that the camera captures, so that when the images are played at fast speed, the object appears to move in real-time. Talk about movie magic! It's a magic trick that imbues objects with soul, and King Kong gave us, thanks to the magician, Willis O'Brien, the first real character of this technique, Kong. True, O'Brien gave us life-like dinosaurs in The Lost World, but a dinosaur is a simple beast - Kong, well, Kong is something else entirely. 



The inanimate maquette, a rudimentary skeleton upon which the 'costume' of Kong was made-up, becomes animate as it moves, millimetre by millimetre between frames. This is the art of the animator. It's why Ray Harryhausen, or Aardman's Nick Park are household names to any film hobbyist, because like O'Brien, they have a skill to create facsimiles of life itself, and oftentimes, as with Kong, they give life to creatures fantastical. Admittedly with Kong, that process is easier than most, as he's an ape, a real animal suped up, human-like in concept. In Peter Jackson's 2006 remake of King Kong the CGI animators ran into the opposite problem, translating Andy Serkis' human performance into the performance of a fictional giant ape.    

With all that said, the scene in King Kong I find remarkable is not due to the movie magic of stop-motion, although it is a component of the scene, but rather the crudeness of filming special effects at the time, and the effect it has on an audience. The 'Log-Scene' as it's become known, is a memorable scene from the film for displaying the brutality and ingenuity Kong has in dispatching the human pests who have invaded his island. You can view it in, frankly, abysmal quality here but I'd like to think you're familiar with it anyway. If not, it's the same principle as in Jackson's 2006 version, which you're more likely to have seen - some of the Venture crew flee from Kong in the jungle, attempting to cross a fallen tree, which bridges a ravine. (It's not technically a log, but it's simpler to call it that.) 


As they attempt to cross the log-bridge, Kong appears, roaring at them as they attempt to flee in fear. Kong grabs hold of the log, the crew hold on tight. The massive log is shaken by Kong, like you would a stick covered in bugs, and one by one the crew-members fall to their deaths into the ravine, their screams cut short by the impact of the fall. 

What's impressive about this scene is the interaction between the fantastical Kong and the humans. In the film, Kong picks up and puts down Ann (Fay Wray), and the blending of Wray, and the model of Ann used by the animators isn't always the smoothest. This has only been made worse by our ability to see the film in crystal clear HD. But, the log scene avoids this, by having an object as an intermediary between fantasy and reality, where the interaction of Kong shaking a human-infested tree, and the humans shaking and reacting to Kong's action, is entirely believable. 

Oddly, technology fails the film, not in Kong, but in the bodies and corpses of the falling men. As they fall and scream, we see a side-shot of the ravine, vines hanging down, conveying the size of the gap. The music goes all-out during the entire scene, conveying the fear and panic Kong causes, and this is joined by the screams of the falling men. However, the bodies are quite obviously dummies, inanimate, incapable of reacting in any way like a real human. The fall speed isn't too unrealistic, perhaps a little too fast, but as they hit the ground, they almost bounce, and the limbs of the dummy flail unrealistically, bending at angles that we can charitably call, 'floppy'. Worst is when Kong throws the entire log, with one crewman still hanging on, into the ravine, and as it hits one of the already fallen crew, the body bounces left, when it should be crushed into a bloody mess.


Now yes, obviously, you won't get hardcore gore in a 1930s proto-blockbuster, but in more modern films which aim to convey the horror of a monster attack, usually on a 12A rating, bloodless violence is creatively hidden and obscured by camera motion, or objects on screen. That said, this can sometimes be just as, if not more horrifying than the 'real' thing, as our imaginations make the violence that much worse. In Jackson's King Kong, we follow the characters into the ravine, and as they fight off the deadly, hellish insects, the soundtrack and methods of dispatch, while not showing gore, are horrifying. Andy Serkis' Lumpy, who perishes to writhing, muscle-like ring-worms has stuck with me since my teenage years, and remains one of the most disgusting character deaths I've seen in any film, and that's a 12A!

I'm not one to criticise effects-work out of hand, and I don't for one second feel that those unrealistic corpses reflect poorly on the film. They are an on-screen representation of the deaths of the sailors, utilising the best methods available at the time. Your imagination can write away the take where the log fell and the body bounced instead of being crushed. The deaths do still have impact, as the sudden cut off of the screams, and the hard impact of the bodies hitting the floor still resonate to this day, just as in Jackson's Kong, the near-silent, bloodless shot of a crewman's corpse being flung from pincer to pincer still resonates the horror of the ravine. 

This is King Kong for god's sake, criticising the effects for not looking 'realistic' isn't the point! At this point in time, this was the top-tier of film effects work, where a monstrous, giant ape could realistically fling sailors into a ravine. It's notable however that this bold new film-making technique more convincingly animates an inanimate object to life, than the then-current effects work available to represent a real human being. 


Nonetheless, the imagination and skill at work in the entire film lit the fire for generations of effects artists, stop motion animators (including Harryhausen), and filmmakers such as Jackson himself, whose 2006 remake was a passion project, birthed from his childhood love of the film. So much was his passion for the original that he used era-accurate techniques of stop-motion, costuming, and back projection to re-create the legendary lost Spider-Pit Sequence, as a supplemental on the home video release of his film. 

The sequence was animated originally by O'Brien and takes place immediately after the log sequence, as the fallen soldiers, some of whom survived, are picked off, one by one, by the creatures which dwell in the dark recesses of the ravine. Jackson's recreation is a delight, and makes me appreciate the passion of Jackson to recreate a piece of film history, now lost. The original sequence was cut due to pacing issues, as the already long log scene extends into a superfluous massacre of the sailors down below. The footage was lost to time, with only still photographs of the scene surviving. A real shame, and one which loses the revolutionary work of O'Brien, whose animation of insects, rather than giant apes, and dinosaurs would have been interesting to see. 

As noted earlier, Jackson included his own interpretation of the sequence with his own interpretation of the characters in his remake, to great effect. My own childhood/teenage imagination was sparked by the doom-laden atmosphere, and the CGI creepy-crawlies conjured by Jackson; it's a real-stand out scene in a film which I admire very much, and goes to show the direct influence of the incredible effects work of the original King Kong


Technology and film are inextricable, but the quality of both are not co-dependant. Many criticise the shallow plot/scripting of Cameron's Avatar, while the effects filmmaking is clearly superb. Other films have robust and effective stories, but are hampered by poor effects work, say, The Mist. Indeed, many, including myself, criticise the early scenes of King Kong, for hokey dialogue, mediocre framing, and now, somewhat dated sexism and racist portrayals. With that said, King Kong could not exist without the technological aid of stop-motion, back projection, model-work, and camera trickery, and so more than most films, it is a film that is inextricable from technology in conception. But, it is a film that uses that inextricable nature, and runs away with it, embracing it, creating and developing bold new techniques of filmmaking that echo in time. A few dodgy dummies of dead sailors can't stop movie magic of this scope. 

Thursday 6 July 2017

Object #66 - Poker Chips - A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Dir. Richard Lester 


A great film is one you can return to after many a year, finding your viewing experience completely changed. My first viewing of Blade Runner had me intrigued, but frankly, a little bored - this at the age of 15/16; my second viewing, age 17/18, had me drawn into the world of neon, smoke, and Replicants, fully comprehending the plot this time around, and starting to appreciate the subtext of the narrative; third viewing, not long after, it became (and remains) my favourite film. It wasn't a 'click' moment, but rather the unveiling of a beautiful art piece that resonates to my very core, bit by bit, each viewing. Although I will admit, it can drag in places, I wasn't wrong that first time, but I was missing so much. 

So far in my amateur dive into all things film, it's a rule that has stayed true - if you leave a film with the thought "That was...alright", but with a feeling in your chest and brain that there's more to uncover, then, boy, that might just be a film that resonates with you. Always trust your gut. It works for TV as well, with my latest example being the finale to Doctor Who's series ten, The Doctor Falls. First viewing - great moments, choppy scenes, a smidge unsatisfying. Second viewing, day later - a 10/10 episode, the closest Who has ever come to mythological storytelling, with the bonus of sticking the landing. Moments such as the departure of a secondary companion, which felt rushed and weak first time around, become beautifully understated and thematically satisfying exits when you know the outcome and structure of the episode, and have mulled it over a bit. 

In the case of A Hard Day's Night, I first watched it at around the age of 17, during that sacred period that everyone (it must be everyone, right?) goes through in their life - discovering The Beatles. This odd little B&W, mock-documentary, where the Fab Four seem to be there only to perform all the iconography that you would later see in Beatles photo-books, attached to articles online, and on all sorts of merch. You think of The Beatles, you think of images like the one below, except maybe in your head they had groups of screaming girls behind them. It doesn't matter, because like all pop culture, it seems to be in not only your DNA, but everyone's. Fine details non-existent - a cultural hodge-podge of screaming girls, twangy guitars, harmonised vocals, and suited young Liverpudlians? That's more like it.


The film itself was neither here nor there. It was almost a check-list tick -
 i) A Hard Day's Night 
ii) Help!
iii) Magical Mystery Tour
etc. etc. 
To know The Beatles was to have listened to all the albums, viewed all the films, and caught up on the fifty year head-start every older person on the planet seemed to have. The film is a culture piece, not in the sense of reflecting culture, but the fact that it is culture. Does is matter if those screaming girls at the start of the film were real fans, actors, or a mix of both? Not a bit, because if Lester wanted to catch reality he could have had them actually run out on a street and roll a camera. Instead, what we have is an encapsulation of Beatlemania, and one that is done in the eye of the storm of 1963, by the filmmakers and The Beatles themselves, as the boys 'act' scripted versions of their own personalities. It's reality, enhanced. The camera angles as the fans rush into the foyer do so much to convey excitement, and are in fact almost more true recordings of the emotions The Beatles created, than it would be to plonk a camera in the middle of the street and record rabid fans in real-doc fashion. 

Here then, my first viewing of the film was almost the most accurate, as it was consumed by myself as a part of the myth of The Beatles. I didn't pay attention to things like shot composition, camera placement/movement, or editing, I simply experienced the film on a visceral level, and what I saw was a reflection of Beatlemania, the humour of the Beatles (Did they trade quippy one-liners like that in reality? Doesn't matter, that's how they've passed into pop culture.), and of course, the music of the Beatles early in their careers. 


Skip ahead a good few years, and here I am re-watching the film, almost everything from that first watch with regards to plot forgotten - the most remembered being Paul's grandfather (Wilfrid Brambell) and stuff happening on a train. This time I know what was happening in 60s cinema, not in encyclopedic detail, but enough of an understanding to know what was the common style (particularly in Britain) and which filmmakers were pushing boundaries. Lo and behold, this mockumentary thing I passed off as fodder in the Beatles myth, suddenly becomes a precursor to MTV,  kinetic documentary cinema, and a contemporary to the French New Wave. 

Here's a film which takes the rebelliousness in film-making that Truffaut, Godard, and Chobral were beginning to display in films like Breathless, or The 400 Blows, and not only successfully mimics it from a British viewpoint, but manages to add to it a unique spin. From my experience, the early New Wave tends to use editing as its most potent weapon, in an obvious way. Whereas, with A Hard Day's Night, the camera itself seems to be doing more of the work, particularly the way it's placed. 


Take for example, the famous Can't Buy Me Love sequence, where the four leave the stuffy recording studio, head down the fire escape, and dance in a field like a bunch of kids. Smarter people than I have analysed each and every cut, but what I love about the camera-work is how them simply going down the fire escape has such energy. The way the camera looks up at them, light twinkling through as their feet clatter down, the camera turning, following their action. It's not rocket science, but the camera is selling this feeling of freedom, and it's working with the music, not against like the stagey set-ups of the rehearsals inside. 

Honestly, even look at that screenshot above, and notice how Ringo opens his arms, welcoming the world, happy to be free. Yet paired with the church, and the religious imagery of Christ on the right side of the shot, that famous quote of The Beatles "Being bigger than Jesus" swims into your mind and is made truth - here they are, fresh from recordings that will conquer the living rooms of thousands/millions, ready to be embraced as deities, and yet deities that want something money can't buy, love, and the simple pleasure of frolicking in a field. Even that is enhanced by the film-making to become a stepping stone to their conquering of the medium of editing, and music video itself. 



Do you see how I wasn't wrong that first time around? But now my eyes are opened and I can see! See the majesty of The Beatles! Not only as musical pioneers, but as avatars of the quick-cut, hand-held shot, music videos we all love today, and which feed themselves in and out of film itself, the place where the likes of Ridley Scott (lest we forget, the director of Blade Runner) and David Fincher would cut their teeth. 

But, beyond all this film magic, what I love about A Hard Day's Night is Paul's Granddad. He's unique to this film, a creation of Alun Owen the screenwriter, an older man to counterbalance the four, and bring a more classic sense of British humour to the film. Nowhere is this blend of styles more apparent than the party scene early in the film, scored to I Wanna Be Your Man, and All Your Loving, where the editing literally makes a point to show Paul's Granddad up to some japes in a casino, as the boys (scored by their own revolutionary music) party, trade quips with guests/journalists, and in the case of Ringo, awkwardly but lovably dance. Yet, both are funny.


There's a great bit where Paul's Granddad is playing baccarat, and upon finding he's lost all his chips, he hastily scrawls a bill on a piece of paper, puts it on an empty plate, walks over, flapping a towel over his arm, and presents it to a patron on the nearest table. The patron, looks, scowls a bit, then puts two chips as payment on the plate. Granddad returns to the baccarat table, tips the chips out and places a bet, exclaiming "Bingo!" as he nibbles on some food.

It suddenly feels like and Ealing comedy, and a damn good one as well, as the move of Paul's granddad is surprisingly effective, completely off-the-cuff, and endemic of a British guy who's a bit weaselly but completely lovable. Who better to portray this than the 'dirty old man' (or is it clean, as the four keep reminding us?) Wilfrid Brambell, famous as Arthur Steptoe? This clash of styles is echoed by the camera-work, as the casino scenes are more static, traditional affairs, which cut right into hand-helds of Ringo dancing, showing us the difference in generation - but each funny, unique, and mythological in their own way. Paul's Granddad with a foot in the past, BBC, Ealing, older-fashioned suit vs. The Beatles, music to openly dance to, novel camera-work in exteriors rather than the studio, and suits which disguise the rebellious youths.  

In sum, watch films from every era, re-watch films that you have unfinished business with, and discover the connections and synergy that comes from generations working together to create something that will stand the test of time. Dance like a child, be a crafty old geezer, take your camera outside, make music, and remember that money can't buy you love. 

Wednesday 12 April 2017

Object #65 - Ladder - A Gorgeous Girl Like Me (1972)

Dir. Francois Truffaut


People who call Truffaut over-rated are fools. Dismissing films like Jules and Jim, The 400 Blows, or Day For Night can only be done by someone who's trying to make a point, be that against Truffaut, or against the entire French New Wave. I'm not one to dismiss criticism lightly, because frankly, to do so is to stifle your own growth as an appreciator of film. That said, if you dislike all of Truffaut's films then I'm sorry, there is some cinema greatness that you will be worse off for not having in your life. We're all allowed one or two, after all, you can't love every film by every great director, I understand that. But my fear is that someone will view, say, 400 Blows and write off the 'lesser' films of Truffaut as a complete no-go, as why bother with the lesser works of a director you don't appreciate? I feel this fear because I did it myself. 

Yes I know, look at me the Truffaut spokesman speaking ill of the Oh-Great Master. But I did. I saw Shoot the Pianist and thought: "Not bad. Not entirely my cup of tea.". I then ignored his films for nearly two years. Then I saw Jules and Jim, and boy, I dug that groove hard. Since then I've been playing catch up. Digging into the 'lesser' works, the B-Grade, say The Soft Skin (which to call B-grade is massively insulting, but there you go), I was still digging it. Then I came to A Gorgeous Girl Like Me, which has only gained a bit of traction lately due to a new HD transfer, and said to myself: "Just get this one out of the way, and move on to the later stuff". For the record - I'm a fucking moron who should never listen to himself. 


A Gorgeous Girl Like Me is a film that once you watch it, you wonder where it's been all your life. Let's talk about the object to illustrate why. The film opens with a young sociologist (Andre Dussollier) entering a female prison-ward to interview Camille Bliss (Bernadette Lafont), imprisoned for the murder of her father, early in her life, and her lover, more recently. The young sociologist, Stanislas, is out of his depth the moment Camille first interacts with him. This is entirely within character for her. She is a woman who throughout the film, can dominate men to do her bidding with the mere promise of sex, the provision of sex, or the withholding of sex. Now, this may give you the wrong impression, but rest assured, Camille is an incredible character beyond her sexual appeal. The sex-drive of men makes them buffoons, and their sexual quirks are exploited by Camille to full effect. Like an unwitting insect, Stanislas has walked into her spider-web, and she will spins her charms on him, to his full knowledge, and yet he will find himself unable to resist. He will help free her from prison, and it will sting him, but to him, oh what a pleasurable sting.

The playfulness of Camille, brought to vivid life by Bernadette Lafont, makes her stand out, even in the drab prison environment. Her choice of song to test the microphone for the interview, the very fact she chooses to sing, paint a picture of a woman un-encumbered by the worry of a prison sentence. It is very rare to see Camille entirely alone, so we can't tell if she's putting this on to charm Stanislas, but it seems to be 100% her, which is both endearing and terrifying, as prison is no deterrent at all to her. 

The filmmaking reflects this playfulness, which comes as no surprise considering it's Truffaut. Saying that, most of his visual and editing uniqueness is contained in the early flashback to Camille's murder of her father. Her father argues with her mother, off-screen, as we see a young Camille pluck at a banjo. This annoys her father, who throws a box at her, and we see him burst out of the house - a rotund, bullish man, who steps down, kicks at the dirt, then steps on her banjo. He literally kicks his way about the farm, kicking his young daughter on the butt. If nothing else gives you the tone of the film, it's the fact that she is sent boosted into the air, with a whimsical musical note, and lands in a hay-bale. It's clearly an effect, what looks like by wire, and that's the point. Truffaut does not constrain himself to hard realism, and casts it aside when needed. The recollection of Camille is entirely hers, and is one where a kick up the arse sends you up like a cartoon character.


Very quickly, the screen geometrically closes up on her surprised face, blackening the rest of the frame. It's not the first time Truffaut has used such a trick, but the inclusion here adds to the playfulness, not in any massively significant way, but it's a touch that simply by being unique and unexpected, gives the scene (and the film as a whole) a levity, life. Her father climbs into a barn-loft used to store wood, and again, stomps his way about looking for a right piece. The next shot has the ladder float upwards, being carried by someone as the camera pans left following the ladder, before it is lowered and falls out of frame to the right, revealing in the next shot that's it's Camille carrying it. We hear her father shout, a loud thud, see Camille briefly turn her head and smile, nodding to herself at a job well done. She leaves screen-left, the ladder trailing behind. We see the father dead on the ground, surrounded by chickens, having fallen out of incompetence at the ladder's disappearance. 

I've seen playful murders on screen before, but never quite like this. The way the ladder floats, Truffaut withholding the identity of the carrier, almost making it seem as if the ladder is literally floating away of its own volition. It isn't a mystery by any means, we know Camille will be involved, but it's playful, and I love the fact that it's done with some nice camera work. The fact that it's a little girl efficiently killing her father adds to the humour as it's treated as such a non-event. What the editing achieves, as I alluded to earlier, is a setting apart of Camille's recollections in comparison to the dull prison environment. This doesn't really last or become a pointed rule and that's why I love it. Childhood is a playful time, so why not have some fun with film conventions as we show the plot-necessary event?



Even in the 'lesser' Truffauts, you will find gems like this. I enjoy the entire film for being so fun, and for its full embrace of sex as a tool for humour. You look at your trash like Sex-Tape and compare it to this, and it's night and day; where one treats sex as a cheap punchline, this revels in using sex on a character, plot, and thematic level. But I like the Carry On films, so take my judgement as you see fit. My point with this post is to remind myself, and you the reader, to never underestimate or put down a filmmaker that is great, or that you appreciate, as what drew you to them in the first place is oftentimes not a fluke, but may not express itself as fully in some works as in others. Also in this case, fuck general opinion as you could be seriously missing out on something that just clicks with you, like A Gorgeous Girl Like Me did with, well, me. 

Monday 10 April 2017

Object #64 - Bucket - Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Dir. Vittorio De Sica


There is power in reflecting life on film. Objectively, the ability to empathise with characters on screen shouldn't matter in our appreciation of a film. Subjectively, and in practice, that's bullshit. Take one look at the Harry Potter fandom and it's clear that a large majority of those fans love the world of Hogwarts because they would wish to be there themselves, in the shoes of Harry, Hermione, or Gryffindor Student #84. Hell, some people watch Breaking Bad and empathise so wholly with the journey of Walter White from chemistry teacher to drug baron, that they whine and moan about how horrible a wife Skylar White is. Objectively, she is the wife of a man who, while suffering from cancer, spends his remaining time not with his family, but cooking and selling drugs to pay for his treatment. That excuse is lost as the series continues, and he cooks for the pleasure of it, but still, some people stand with him, and the amount of times I've seen Skylar called a bitch is unbelievable. But is that a bad thing?

The answer is of course, yes, one of the reasons being the above. But arguably, the show-runners and filmmakers of Breaking Bad succeed in making us empathise with Walter to such a degree that we at the very least understand his drives as a person, whether we support him is a different matter, but many do. Skylar doesn't support Walt, and so she becomes this shrewish woman to some viewers, bringing down this outlaw, drug dealer vibe that the show bathes us in. Scorsese's Wolf of Wall Street does the same thing as in a drug-haze Jordan Belfort attempts to drive away with his child, crashing the car, his child's head slamming into the seat - it comes like a bucket of cold water, breaking us away from the outrageous fun of the previous two hours, and showing us the true Jordan, an incompetent, dangerous father.


Speaking of buckets (how's that for a clunky segway?), we have Bicycle Thieves. Here, as with most Italian Neo-realist films, the goal is to portray the lives of present-day (post WWII) Italians, often poor, and to have us see them not as larger than life characters on a screen, but as real people, merely shown to us via the screen. I spoke in my last post about Vertov and the cinema-eye, showing us the true world, well this is it again, however it is no documentary. It is fiction, but done in such a way to reflect real-life that it may as well be a documentary. The plot has a political bent, as we see how the country fails to find work for all the returning soldiers of WWII, and this tale, of a man and his family making ends meet to afford a bicycle so that he can hang posters of new Hollywood movies over Rome, is one of many. 

The film opens with Antonio (Lamberto Maggiorani) learning of the job opportunity that he's chosen for, but to accept it he must have a bike. He says he does, although he doesn't. He returns to his wife, Maria (Liannella Carell), she fetching water in two buckets for the house. She is clearly doing her bit, like the other wives, as housekeeper. Antonio relays the information to her, his personality apparent - slightly feckless, a worrier, who is lost in his own problems but doesn't solve them directly. She struggles to carry the buckets and he does nothing. He turns around to see her reaction to his worry that they cannot afford a bike, and she articulates her neck to the buckets. Almost snapped back to reality, Antonio reaches over and takes one of them, saving her the struggle.


The scene continues, as the walk back to their house. But that's it. That it the moment where the promise of Neo-realism, which I'd read up on a little before viewing the film, was met. See my previous Ponyo post to see how much I appreciate human moments on film. This was glorious. The detail adds nothing to the plot, but it provides spades of character-building. The way Maria struggles for a while, not even prompting Antonio, as she is used to this absent-minded treatment from her husband, who she nonetheless adores. The way Antonio immediately rights the wrong, and welcomes her input after taking the bucket. 

As they return home, we get another of these moments, as Maria goes into the bedroom and begins to take the sheets off, to Antonio's befuddlement. In that wonderful, determined way, she does this, then reaches into the cabinet drawer to remove the spare blankets, so that they can be sold to afford the bike. But wonderfully, the drawer sticks a bit, and in her frustrated mental state, this annoys her even more. She doesn't want to deprive them of the simple warmth of a bed, but she must do, and will do, so that her husband can afford the bike, get the job, and earn enough money to buy food, pay the rent, and eventually buy the sheets back. We've all had drawers stick when we're in a hurry, and it's doubly frustrating, and so what do we do? We empathise almost fully with Maria, and we see her as a real-person, dealing with real issues - Neo-realism in a nut-shell, accomplished not with camera trickery, but with the documentation of real, trivial things like forgetting to carry heavy buckets, or a stuck drawer.


As the two pawn the bed-sheets later, they sneak a look through the window of the warehouse and we see rows upon rows of similar sheets plied high, as the warehouse attendant must climb the wooden shelves to find room for them. This is how the film links to the wider social issues of the country, as hundreds, if not thousands of families go without necessities like bed-clothes to keep themselves alive. The much needed sheets however sit, among hundreds of their type, in a warehouse, benefiting nobody but the pawnbroker, and even he benefits little as who has the money to buy sheets? The film points fingers, but does it with an understanding that the person you point fingers at is just that, a person, with their own story, their own troubles.

The thief of Antonio's bicycle is later found, and is defended by his neighbours as an upstanding man. The old man who spoke to the thief only wants to be left alone, and the churchgoers look down on Antonio for disrupting their service. I mean it when I say that every character in Bicycle Thieves is believable. Each character has a story that can be inferred from their place in this era of Rome, and that story tends to be one of poverty. Antonio, Maria, and their son, Bruno's (Enzo Staiola) story is only one such story. In the close of the film, Antonio he attempts to steal a random bike, and he is accosted by the crowd, who see him as little more than a weak-willed thief. We know different, but only because we have been shown his story. Even the 'villains' of the world should be given the utmost empathy, as under poverty families begin to look out only for themselves, and this tends to harm others, ironically it is normally the poor, thus creating a cycle of misfortune for those already under economic blight. The world is not black and white, but grey, and on film, that grey is a rainbow of opportunity to explore.