La Strada (1954*)

Dir. Frederico Fellini
Writ. Frederico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli
w/ Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart

By artfully sticking to character, Fellini celebrates life through the eyes of a simpleton girl from peasant stock sold to a brutish, callous carnival man. The title personifies a third element at play, the impetus of the road around which these two interact. Just as Zampanó never relents from their schedule to find the next crowd to fill their bellies, Gelsomina's sunny disposition never ceases to enchant and delight. Watching the pair of them is not unlike happening upon a rare and delicate flower blossoming upon a lethal crag. One of Fellini's greatest commendations should be his wife, Giulietta Masina, whose talents he evaluated so well and brought so movingly to life.

Using the always trickier black and white, a great deal of this rendering relies on lighting and costume and set design, all of which are impeccably simple, subtle, and powerful. Especially when working with circus performers, it would seem easy to lose the scenery in the gray shades, the mirth of the crowd in the pale background. Not for one moment, though, does Fellini stray from developing his glowing heroine in her master's darkroom. Gelsomina's purity of devotion to him has a lifeforce of its own, just as strong and unending as the road before them.

Tony Quinn, not necessarily someone to ever be described as gentle, is capable of a rigidity that leaves him depthless and hollow; i.e., the perfect pick for such a role. Which is why, when under great duress of emotion and circumstance, his character is called upon to do a sudden reversal, the results are somewhat spectacular, I suppose.

What La Strada essentially boils down to is tight directing, artful showmanship, and the clear, cool resonance of an eternal story caught in just the right place to give it the appearance of a beginning and an ending. With no good guys and no bad guys, and no hidden motives muddying up the scenes, what we see is what we get. If, of course, we can handle that kind of purity.

*This is another one of those annoying dates that should be noted. La Strada won the Foreign Film Award at the 1956 Academy Awards, but the film itself was released in 1954. Was this because, do you think, of slower shipping in the '50s?

City of God (2002)

Dir. Fernando Mereilles, Kátia Lund
Writ. Paulo Lins (novel); Bráulio Mantovani (screenplay)
w/ Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino

In this aptly named cinematic phenomenon, the camera explores the fast and bloody rise of L'il Dice to power as he reinvents himself as the drug warlord L'il Zé. Armed with whatever guns he can get his hands on, a severe lack of conscience, and his faithful sidekick Benny, we watch the clever L'il Dice trick his fellow hoods into thinking he's the police and going on a senseless and bloodthirsty rampage inside a hotel that his cohorts have already plundered. The director doesn't shirk from showing the seeming relentless, random, and violent acts that mark each day in the titular ghetto, making each act seem more futile than the last. L'il Dice kills every hood who gets in his way, even Rocket's older brother, Shaggy, who was part of his original posse. The only hood immune to his apathy is Benny. The moment Rocket realizes that the hour in which he could have sought his revenge has passed, it's understood that L'il Zé has become too big.

That's the way stuff goes in the city of God, though, and to help those of us unfamiliar with this maudlin world, Rocket shares his sense of the way things are through his stand-offish sense of things as his interest in photography unfolds. Though the slums are poor and dismal, the beach and the girls he has met in school present a much lovelier view than any he ever cares to acknowledge in the city where it appears he would have to be either a worker or a killer. By the time Little Zé decides he needs a photographer to promote his image, photography is second nature to Rocket. School is just an option to keep him a few steps ahead of the hoods, the slum.

Based on the true story of two hoods, one who got away with everything, and one who took the hits for the public eye (but his is really a different story) City of God exists as a sort of lamppost between the world of the middle class and the survivors. Brought into the encompassing sphere of believability and tempered with the milk of human kindness, the film goes where no other film has gone before, and that isn't just some slum outside of Rio de Janeiro. It syncopates the life of an ordinary boy who could live anywhere with that of a brutal maniac in a land where poverty, hunger, and deprivation rule the humor, personalities, and activities of its citizens. It is a rare glimpse at a world that most Westerners know nothing about and can't relate to one iota.

Howl's Moving Castle (2005*)

Dir. Hayao Miyakazi
Writ. Hayao Miyakazi, Diana Wynne Jones (novel), Cindy Davis Hewitt, Donald H. Hewitt
w/ Chieko Baisho, Takuya Kimura, Akihiro Miwa, Tatsuya Gashuin, Ryunosuke Kamiki


Gesundheit.

Originally, Digimon movie and TV series director Mamoru Hosoda was slated to direct this fairy tale of true love in a world of wizards, witches, and a very confusing war. The film may have been saved in innumerable ways when Spirited Away helmsman Hayao Miyakazi stepped up to the challenge. His landscapes are unlike any others seen in the world of animation, his sense of the medium intuitive. These scenes hold together at times as precariously as the rusty, old bits of the wizard's mysterious and legendary castle.

The version the Oaks Theatre [1] has graciously extended for another week contains the original Japanese dialogue, but the names are the American translations; so, Hauru becomes Howl, and Sofí becomes Sophie, etc. Thus we are spared certain possibly insulting distractions resulting from, for example, Billy Crystal's voice over on the centrifugal character, Calcifer, a fire demon whose strength keeps the castle hidden from the world of mere humans. With the characterizations thus preserved and still quite funny in an honest and believable way, Castle's plot is simple enough that ever were Disney to suddenly get grabby with the material, they wouldn't be able to malign the film too, too badly. [2]

Sisters Sophie and Lettie are worlds apart: Lettie oozes charm and beauty while Sophie introverts, putting much of herself into her work as a seamstress at her mother's hattery. A chance meeting downtown with a mysterious and beautiful man, however, makes Sophie a target for the spirits of darkness who are hot on his trail. The Witch of the Waste, a woman with whom the man had had a brief dalliance once, then puts a spell on the unsuspecting Sophie in a fit of jealousy. She becomes an old woman before her time, and isn't even afforded the ability to talk about it as her mouth glues shut when she starts to open up. Unable to confront her family with her dilemma, she leaves and wanders the wastes as she tries to adjust to the restrictions that sudden age has put upon her.

As is often the case with such stories, she meets another under a similar circumstance, a scarecrow who has been likewise enchanted and can not speak either. He befriends her immediately and delivers her out of the wastes and to Howl's castle, where Sophie sets up shop as housekeeper. And boy, does the place need her. Practically overnight, she transforms the moveable optical illusion into really homey accomodations, for it turns out that Howl is the mysterious man and she is in love with him, but unable to do anything about it. While he is not precisely unkind to her, he certainly shows no sign of returning her feelings, and she feels ugly. Being something of a prodigy, even for a wizard, he says nothing, but of course can see her true self despite the strength of the witch's curse.

The central conflict of the story manifests itself two-fold. On one hand, a war rages in the world of men and all wizards and witches have not only been asked to fight in it, they are being forced to do so by the King's magician. On the other, Howl has troubles enough of his own. His heart has been stolen by the fire demon and he and Calcifer depend upon each other for survival. When the fire dies, so does Howl. In this light, Sophie acts not only as lovelorn housekeeper but also as the guardian of the fire.

A few minor flaws announce themselves with gusto at certain points. We only see Lettie once, for example, perhaps just to contrast her starry blonde-haired and blue-eyed looks with Sohpie's decidedly plainer Jane features. For those of us who like to mix things up, it's a treat to watch a film with pronounceable names that we can relate to, but still get the colloquial quality of the original dialect. There's something quite satisfying, too, about watching wide-eyed Western-looking cartoon characters speak brilliant Japanese. I liked this juxtaposition a lot, enough to recommend that you watch this version first.[3] I wouldn't want to say much more about it. It's utterly delightful and certainly worthy of its Oscar nomination.

And I am suddenly reminded that I did not get to finish Spirited Away as planned.

*According to IMDB, this came out in 2004, but the Oscars list it as 2005. That may be the Americanized version. I can't really be sure, but it makes sense that the Academy would nominate that version, if for no other reason than because Crystal isn't hosting this year and they do so love to keep him around.


[1] The Oaks is playing it through Thursday, each day at 5:30 and also at 9:15 every day except Monday.

[2] There's considerably more to all of this than I've whisperingly hinted at, but Disney never can get a damn thing right. I do feel better, but I felt a bit better earlier.

[3] That's not to say that Christian Bale, Blythe Danner, Jena Malone, et. al., can't be good. Of course not. But I wouldn't want to watch an Americanized Triplets either, and I feel that they only did so to this because there's a much wider cultural gap between Japan and America than between America and France, which is something that won't get solved by the diluted version or the motives behind it.

City Lights (1931)

Dir. Charlie Chaplin
Writ. Charlie Chaplin, Harry Clive (uncredited)
w/ Virginia Cherrill, Florence Lee, Harry Myers, Charles Chaplin

Many films from the thirties have a difficult time translating into the minds of the so-called generations X and Y, MTV babies who don't see the point of watching something that isn't run on a loop of just seconds before the next bit of scenery intervenes to ensure that, no matter what, they don't get bored by actually having to think or absorb something fully. Whatever criteria needs to gain popularity to change this in any tangible way the world may never know, but certain films from the dim days of the silent era are gems that need only be noticed, rented, and popped into the DVD player to be fully enjoyed and thereby rediscovered.

Chaplin shot footage for a reported 180 days, but his distilling of City Lights over a three year span remains a beauty of an example of patience winning over hurried production simply for the sake of producing. In light of certain personal aspects of the eccentric artist's life, it may also be of interest to note the heady preoccupation with chance and circumstance inherent in the film. This reflection of the deliberation in the making of City Lights gives the scenes an extra layer of lens depth discernable to anyone not immune to Chaplin's magnificent sense of the world.

It's a world where a blind flower girl and a millionaire who forgets his station simply exist, and he does what he can to enjoy their company by saving her from eviction and him from suicide. His mattter of fact manner perhaps his most charming attribute, his life is beset by trials and joys as he sets about the business of acting as breadwinner by day and dubious friend to his drunken, rich acquaintance at night. That the millionaire only remembers that the Tramp is his long, lost savior when he is drunk is marvelous. But it his simple, undaunted sincerity in his loyalty to these two that lifts the spirit of the film above the sidewalks the Tramp strolls in his daily wanderings, never more than half a frame away from his next adventure.

And adventure it is, in the honest, traditional sense of the word. The Tramp's lonerism is a pure and vital foundation of the story. As the antics end, he continues on his way, disheartened at his seeming failure but still true to himself. When he finally does amble back into the flower girl's life, in a city where even politicians' worst noise can't taint the magical proof of time served in a love rediscovered, it's the most natural thing you ever did see.

Talk to Her (2002)

Dir. Pedro Almodóvar
Writ. José Salcedo
w/ Javier Cámara, Dario Grandinetti, Leonor Watling, Rosario Flores, Geraldine Chaplin

Almodóvar's exploration of the human capacity for solitude confronts the sovereignty of societal norms over human emotion and spiritual ideals. Using the ancient paradigm of two separate couples inextricably linked by fate and circumstance, he delves into forbidden territory with the ease of a schoolboy dipping cookies in milk. Treating taboos with mature rationality seems to be this director's indigenous talent. He's mastered the knack so fluidly that the villain in this scandalous montage is virtually untrackable. The beauracracy might be winkable, but even they won't incite hate. They're just people, just doing their jobs.

Love, loneliness, and calm acceptance of circumstance in a cruel world of accidents and elusive truth form a backdrop in which the artist skillfully uses the winding nuance of theatre and dance to represent the steady advance of time. Benigno and Marco view the opening act, in which two women feel their way across a stage blindly and a man shows up unexpectedly to remove a table and chairs so that they don't hurt themselves. That night, Benigno tells his lady love, a comatose dancer named Alicia, all about the play and the man who sat next to him and wept. Alicia listens intently, with a smile on her face. She's been in a coma for four years, but Benigno knows she hears him. Marco, in the meantime, espies the bullfighter Lydia on a talk show in which the hostess acts as the woman's inner, desperate voice.

Intrigued by this woman in a profession set aside for males, Marco sets out to meet her and interview her for a magazine story; he ends up, however, driving her to Madrid and killing a snake in her kitchen. Before their romance can really ignite, a bull gores Lydia so badly she slips into a coma and joins Alicia at the care facility where Benigno has been looking after exclusively. And so, the two men are drawn back together again, bit by bit, Benigno's secret passion for his beautiful, sleeping ward reveals itself.

In a rare visual treat, Almodóvar uses a silent film motif involving a shrunken man saved from his cruel mother by his true love. Overjoyed, the man climbs back into the womb of his lover and stays there forever. This style is so deft, so clean. When Alicia turns out to be pregnant, Benigno is confined for the rape; but, of course, Benigno loves her, wants to marry her, and would do nothing to hurt her. If only she would wake up.

What a rich tapestry Almodóvar weaves. Especially recognized for his use of shock value, he does not shy away from the rustier workings of the frail human psyche. He portrays his characters with warmth, brandishing his wit through sharp dialogue and a tender but firm application of an astounding visual vocabulary.

[1] Geraldine Chaplin, in a surprise performance for those of us that have been landlocked too long. I wish we'd see more of this, like when Jodie Foster turned up in A Very Long Engagment.

On the Waterfront (1954)

Dir. Elia Kazan
Writ. Budd Schulberg, based on Mike Johnson's notes
w/ Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint

The nation-wide poster billed Waterfront as "The Story of the Redemption of Terry Malloy", but the story would turn out to be about much more than just one young man rising above a one dimensional role he'd gotten duped into by "family".

Kazan had been looking to make a film specifically about the waterfront monopolies of the day, and had been working with muckraker Arthur Miller on a lead on Red Hook in Brooklyn. They eventually deserted the project. With moral support from tough, real-life Hoboken character and waterfront veteran Tony Mike and a rough screenplay from Schulberg, Kazan gave the revised idea to Darren Zanuck. Although the pioneering producer had worked a waterfront job as a young man and probably had convictions supporting the film's best interests, he passed on it. It's presumable he was trying to avoid the same sort of political pressures that had caused Kazan and the tireless Miller to abandon their original and extensive body of research.

When independent producer - a title practically unhead of then or now - Sam Spiegel stepped up to produce he was, in Kazan's words, "a downer on uppers". He needed a film and fast. Paring down the script with Schulberg night after night resulted in a film that would take away seven major honors at the Academy Awards.

Having co-founded the Actor's Studio [1] in New York City in 1947 for the express purpose of teaching method acting, Kazan knew what sorts of actors he needed for this project. Brando's working-man-trying-to-make-good is a steadfast and reliable sort, a true testament to the wonders of "the Method". Rather than creating a dominating character that the rest of the cast would either have to try to outdo or react to at every turn, he allows for a great tenderness and vulnerability which chisels Terry Malloy in a way that swagger and unyielding masculinity never could.

The film opens using him as bait so that the bad guys can push somebody off of a roof. This doesn't sit well with Malloy, who discovers his own part in the crime ex post facto. To augment this flaw, Schulberg presents us with the dead guy's younger sister - in the luminous form of Eva Marie Saint - as Malloy's love interest, managing in one stroke to connect all of our hero's struggles. The secret that distances him emotionally from his girlfriend creates problems in her life as she and her poor, old dad struggle to make ends meet in a family that has lost its breadwinner. His relationship with his older brother, a dyed-in-the-wool waterfront sycophant, begins to run threadbare as their loyalties divide. Rod Steiger plays this down effortlessly, as a boy following the path of his father, as if being a mob thug were the only role that someone like him could ever aspire to claim. When the more sensitive brother begins revolting against the tyrrany of union racketeer Johnny Friendly - a flawless Lee J. Cobb [2] - it becomes a raw scene of mano y mano in which Terry Malloy rips his dignity back from the hands of the man who would have every other man on the stagnant docks cowering under him. Our hero takes the working class with him, restoring dignity to his girl's family, and saving the day.

This is a triumphant story of more than just the redemption of one man against a mob of indifferent gangsters, it's a story that had blue collar working types from every industry lined up for blocks, their crusty uniforms and worn faces proclaiming the arrival of a film worth spending an hour's wages on. Every once in a while, it's good to know that a box-office smash is really worthwhile. It stands up to that benchmark to this day with cinematography, acting, and writing the quality of which gets harder and harder to find. It is, perhaps, Kazan's finest film. [3]

[1] Native to American cinema, this study of Stanislavski's ideas, directed by Lee Strasberg, was eventually also picked up in Los Angeles, with the opening of the Actor's Studio West in 1966. However, many of the notable actors from the '50s and '60s were the rangey New York types, whose ilk included Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Julie Harris, and Paul Newman, as well as Al Pacino, who became co-artistic director (with Ellen Burstyn) upon Strasberg's 1982 demise.

[2] If you're riveted by Cobb's performance in this, check out the Brothers Karamazov, which earned him a second Academy nomination four years later for the foul, despicable Fyodor. Or even 12 Angry Men, which is just brilliant single-setting writing and acting.

[3] Considering that this is the man who brought us A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Gentleman's Agreement, A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata! and East of Eden, that's saying something. Of course, it's hard to go wrong when you have the Actor's Studio, not to mention the complete works of Tennessee Williams, as your major - and abundant - resource.

Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Dir. Ang Lee
Writ. Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana, from E. Annie Prouxl's novel
w/ Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid


From the opening shot in the greatness of "Big Sky" country, this reeked of poetic grace and Lee's helpless, preternatural love affair with the camera lens. [1] To watch a Lee movie that is exceptional is to behold a finely tuned product of self-effacing wonder, which can be more than just mildly seductive to anyone susceptible to the charm of well-presented fiction. In his latest sonnet to the silver screen, the director coalesces the lone ranger mythos with taboo. The dynamics of such an untenable fusion cast exhilarating shadows and forebodes the seeming doomed aspects of the relationship between two men who meet on a sheep wrangling job on a stretch of mountain touched only by God. [2]

Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist each have a bit of Wister's Virginian in them, the sort of man who can do just fine by himself and often prefers to do just that for reasons known only to himself. Their senses of themselves and of each other is in many ways as pristine as the land they work together, wild and untamed and subject only to the laws of nature. There's a candor and an eagerness in these scenes as they enjoy themselves, beholden to none. That it's a love story that works should be amazing enough, but Lee manages to develop more than just atmosphere. There are bears to be reckoned with, a far away and out of sight wolf, and a leery hiring man somewhere at the base of the mountain. [3] The dangers of being a cowboy living out of the saddle are heightened, and the romance of the setting takes it course. At no time in this drama does the frailty of human nature go unaccounted for, so neither does it lose any joy in its moments of splendor.

Whatever it is about the lonesome demeanor that is universally appealing Lee managed to capture as well. With most directors, actors, and scripts, the relationships between Jack and Ennis and the girls they marry would have been stilted, with no chemistry or believability behind their motives. But Jack Twist is a neighbor nearly anyone can claim to know, working for his wealthy father-in-law and acting almost as a subordinate to, rather than an equal to, his wife, and Ennis fights for his rank as head of the household also. With very little backstory, these two are painted as boys who grew up understanding the nature of relationships as something immutable and routine. That they marry for lackluster bipartisanship and fail even at that underscores the simple theme of the movie. [4] Nothing in their lives goes untouched by their need for each other. Their wives and children simply reap the whirlwind.

On a personal note, I should point out that I'm a tough critic. [5] I haven't absolutely adored everything that Lee has ever done. When he lacks, he lacks. The Ice Storm is a stunning example of a movie that had so many components working for it that when the script failed to deliver any tangible emotional payoff and insted fell flat and sterile, it hurt. On the other hand, the first time I saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was rapturous. I made a point of seeing it alone and thank God, too. The fighting sequences were nothing short of exhilarating, the mature love story desirable, and the less mature love story at very least likeable. With Brokeback, all I could do was enjoy and muse as to what on earth this guy's going to do next; and while, for the most part, I couldn't care less about who wins what Oscar, he deserves both Best Picture and Best Director. If he doesn't get at least one of those, the joke's on Hollywood.

Compare this any time with Lasse Hallström's interpretation of a different Prouxl manuscript, The Shipping News. While both productions are the efforts of "all-world auteurs", one of them stands out pretty clearly as an example of craft and a virtuoso style. Even with genius of light Oliver Stapleton by his side, Hallström couldn't reach this level.

[1] Technically south of big sky, but close enough to conjure up similar images and feelings.
[2] And, if you feel the need to differentiate, an awful lot of precipitation.

[3] Whom I didn't even realize was Randy Quaid.

[4] Best delivered on the poster reading Love is a Force of Nature.

[5] Which must seem a little hypocritical, since I haven't even finished my first screenplay and have "settled" for short stories in an effort to live up to this number's original intentions.

King Kong (2005)

Dir. Peter Jackson
Writ. Fran Walsh, Phillipa Boyens, and Peter Jackson; from the Merian C. Cooper and Edgar Wallace story
w/ Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, Jack Black, Andy Serkis


After having tackled Tolkien's landmark trilogy with such incredible thoroughness, it should be little surprise even to non-fans of the gnomish Kiwi that King Kong receives no less respect in this treatment. By expanding upon the story and fleshing out the three main characters, new dimensions are added to the original tale of the raging, hopelessly misunderstood beast who gets exported from his natural habitat and reinstalled in the Big Apple. Jackson doesn't flinch from showing New York the way it really is, a place where starving people fend for themselves in Hell's Kitchen and actors and other Vaudevillian types just try to get by from job to job. An old man pulling a half-eaten apple from a city trash can and eating it is precisely the kind of element that is neglected in the movies of the Depression era, and for good reason. It would have struck too close to home for so many that suicides, already at a high rate, may have escalated had people been forced to face their poverty rather than escape into a picture show. At any rate, it would've been hard to profit by such.

This is just the dichotomy that sculpts the trio comprised of Carl Denham, a man in need of money and support to finish his movie; Jack Driscoll, the writer; and Ann Darrow, the actress. Essentially, they're three independent filmmakers struggling to either secure the next meal, the next quiet moment for writing, or the next shooting location, which elevates each of them above the gray depression of the city and makes them heroes, whether they realize it or not. That's the epitome of the human side of Peter Jackson's Kong, which is why the mere fact that the titular star must stop thinking of Ann Darrow as food is so significant. The humans involved are able to dream of loftier things than the next meal, and pursue those goals, but what happens after that? Carl Denham and Jack Driscoll are still movie producer and writer, and they keep existing and working as such. It's Kong who evolves. He either falls in love so deeply with this one connection that he has through Darrow or is in fact so moved by her beauty that to mar it or allow her to be marred in any way is simply not an option. [1]

There are so many genuinely tense and frightening moments, so much suspense, that the story, although completely fantastic and overdramaticized by ounces if not pounds, is completely believeable. If anything tangential came to mind, it was that Jackson had put his "orc look" to good use for some of the more unwholesome-looking natives' makeup. [2] But it's the moments between Kong and Darrow that stand out as the best and the brightest. There's no substitute for quiet companionship, even when there is a huge language barrier, and Jackson makes the most of their simple understanding. It's often more exhilarating when they're just sitting together than when he's swinging from vine to vine and taking on three tyrannosauruses at once, all the while doing what he can to help Darrow stay alive.

Kong's a lonely beast, to be sure, but he has his pride. He doesn't force his beautiful co-star into being his sidekick, but lets her come to him on her own, thus yielding my favorite bit: when he takes off into a run and nonchalantly picks her up and puts her on his shoulder. That big lug.


[1] I think there's a joke in there somewhere about how you can take the ape out of the jungle, but not the jungle out of the ape.

[2] I also checked the clock on my phone a couple of times. If the theatre hadn't had so many kids in it being noisy, though, I have to question whether or not I would have done this.