Pickpocket (Bresson, 1959)
My viewing of Pickpocket had the unfortunate timing of coming about a month after I finished Crime and Punishment. Pickpocket borrows a few themes and character interactions directly from Crime and Punishment. Pickpocket is about a petty thief whereas Crime and Punishment is about a murderer, but the characters both give the same motives. They believe there are extraordinary people who aren't subject to the law. The interaction between him and the police officer is very similar to the interaction between Raskolinov and Porfiry in Crime and Punishment. The police officer points out that everybody believes they are one of those extraordinary men. As he hones his pickpocketing craft, it becomes more and more evident that his kleptomania is an addiction rather than a hobby or a means for gain. He can't resist it even when it's obviously not a good idea.
The heart of the film comes in his interaction with a woman whose father disowns her after she gets pregnant. (Which is another one of those cultural differences you notice when you're watching old movies. Women being abandoned by their families because they got pregnant before marraige.) She knows he's a hopeless addict, but she accepts him because he's the only one willing to stay with her. The few moments in the film with that character express the need for human connection in bleak times, no matter what the source of that connection.
Rating: **** / 5
It might have gotten half the fifth star if I hadn't seen it so soon after reading a book it borrowed ideas from.
59/101
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
#52: Contempt
Contempt (Godard, 1963)
I think I'm just about done with Godard. I've seen three of his films. At first I thought, "Okay, I just don't get his cinematic style". So I've listened to what other people have to say about him. I've seen three of his films, one of them twice. I get his cinematic style now. His films suck.
It's not that what he has to say in his films isn't interesting. He has lots of interesting things to say, and cool ideas about what a film should be. But his characters say those ideas directly to the camera. He has no characters. His characters are empty symbols, incapable of self awareness or even the slightest hint of human thought or behavior. Never have I seen such interesting ideas implemented so badly. Godard clearly thinks he's earned such theatrical license he doesn't even need to justify his intellectual masturbation with a plot.
In Contempt, the main character is a playwrite who is asked to write a script for a movie of the Odyssey. He and his wife despise each other but stay together, holding on to the ideal of being in love. He wants to make Ulysses' motives into that he stayed away from home for ten years because he hates Penelope so much. The director fights him, and he complains that audiences don't like intelligent cinema. (That's not the character complaining, it's Godard. The character is just the one talking.) He fights with the producer and director who are strawmen for soulless mechanical filmmaking over the direction of the script, and then quits. Idiots. They don't understand his artistic genius! They want a return on their stupid financial investment.
As his fans will tell you, Godard challenges the notion of filmmaking, and all the cliches about what a film has to be. Some examples. He challenges whether meaningless abstractions built upon meaningless abstractions have to have any connection at all with the human experience. He even goes so far as to challenge whether intellectuallism has to be intelligent! The result is a movie often discussed intensely by film theory students, but rarely enjoyed.
Rating: * 1/2 / 5
58/101
I think I'm just about done with Godard. I've seen three of his films. At first I thought, "Okay, I just don't get his cinematic style". So I've listened to what other people have to say about him. I've seen three of his films, one of them twice. I get his cinematic style now. His films suck.
It's not that what he has to say in his films isn't interesting. He has lots of interesting things to say, and cool ideas about what a film should be. But his characters say those ideas directly to the camera. He has no characters. His characters are empty symbols, incapable of self awareness or even the slightest hint of human thought or behavior. Never have I seen such interesting ideas implemented so badly. Godard clearly thinks he's earned such theatrical license he doesn't even need to justify his intellectual masturbation with a plot.
In Contempt, the main character is a playwrite who is asked to write a script for a movie of the Odyssey. He and his wife despise each other but stay together, holding on to the ideal of being in love. He wants to make Ulysses' motives into that he stayed away from home for ten years because he hates Penelope so much. The director fights him, and he complains that audiences don't like intelligent cinema. (That's not the character complaining, it's Godard. The character is just the one talking.) He fights with the producer and director who are strawmen for soulless mechanical filmmaking over the direction of the script, and then quits. Idiots. They don't understand his artistic genius! They want a return on their stupid financial investment.
As his fans will tell you, Godard challenges the notion of filmmaking, and all the cliches about what a film has to be. Some examples. He challenges whether meaningless abstractions built upon meaningless abstractions have to have any connection at all with the human experience. He even goes so far as to challenge whether intellectuallism has to be intelligent! The result is a movie often discussed intensely by film theory students, but rarely enjoyed.
Rating: * 1/2 / 5
58/101
#9: Singin In The Rain
Singin In The Rain (Kelly, 1952)
This was a pleasant surprise for me. All the other comedies from the same era I've seen have been inane. I'm biased against musicals. But, Singin In The Rain pulls it off in a way that's intelligent but still really identifiable and easy to watch. It finds a way to sum up the soul of pop culture and the art of entertainment.
The main characters are famous silent film actors, right before the beginning of talking pictures. When they try to make their latest project into a talking picture, it turns out all the exaggerated pantomime and cheesy dialog you could get away with in a silent film seems ridiculous when you add sound. They realize they don't have the acting talent to pull off a talking picture and think their careers are over. But then they realize, the sort of pure performance charisma and campy antics they worked at through their early career is accepted in a musical. So they work through some lame plot devices to justify having modern singing and dancing in a rennaisance setting. We see the fickleness of taste and also our willingness to accept pure ridiculousness so long as it's entertaining and the ridiculousness is the point. Also, it manages to compare popular entertainment to 'Serious theatre', and you come off with the message, "Yes, it can't be compared to Hamlet, but who cares?"
Rating: **** / 5
57/101
This was a pleasant surprise for me. All the other comedies from the same era I've seen have been inane. I'm biased against musicals. But, Singin In The Rain pulls it off in a way that's intelligent but still really identifiable and easy to watch. It finds a way to sum up the soul of pop culture and the art of entertainment.
The main characters are famous silent film actors, right before the beginning of talking pictures. When they try to make their latest project into a talking picture, it turns out all the exaggerated pantomime and cheesy dialog you could get away with in a silent film seems ridiculous when you add sound. They realize they don't have the acting talent to pull off a talking picture and think their careers are over. But then they realize, the sort of pure performance charisma and campy antics they worked at through their early career is accepted in a musical. So they work through some lame plot devices to justify having modern singing and dancing in a rennaisance setting. We see the fickleness of taste and also our willingness to accept pure ridiculousness so long as it's entertaining and the ridiculousness is the point. Also, it manages to compare popular entertainment to 'Serious theatre', and you come off with the message, "Yes, it can't be compared to Hamlet, but who cares?"
Rating: **** / 5
57/101
Saturday, June 19, 2010
#62: Once Upon A Time In The West
Once Upon A Time In The West (Leone, 1968)
What attracts me to Leone westerns is the aesthetic. It's the same aesthetic that's now drawing millions of people to Red Dead Redemption. Other famous westerns try to be idyllically American. That's why they cast John Wayne. Leone presents the old West as the kind of dusty, chaotic anarchy where the strong do whatever they feel like doing.
Once Upon A Time In The West shows the beginning of the end of the Old West in pictures. The strong silent 'Real men' are being replaced by businessmen who know hundreds of angles to make more money. The story is, a woman who used to be a prostitute marries a man who owns a seemingly useless piece of land out in the west. When she arrives, she finds him and his entire family murdered. She still wants to cling to that new life that he was going to give her, so instead of heading back to New Orleans she stays and manages his land. It turns out, the land isn't as useless as everyone thinks it is. Her husband knew that the railroad would eventually extend west, and because it sat upon the only water within a hundred miles, it would be forced to come right through his property. The bad guy, the businessman who controls the railroad, had his family killed to avoid having to pay out to him to run the railroad through his land.
Her husband was visionary in that he foresaw the end of the classic 'Old West' early enough to speculate future profits from the expansion of the city into the desert. Now that development is an unstoppable tide that will put an end to the entire paradigm of the lawless West and the 'Real man'.
The 'Real men' in the picture are represented by a hitman hired by the bad guy and a drifter played by Charles Bronson. The drifter goes out of his way to frustrate the hitman and interfere with his plans to steal the land, but doesn't appear to have any personal motive. The hitman on the other hand tries to take on the tricks he learns from the businessman to make a profit, but the drifter sees through him and recognizes him as being not a businessman, but 'Just a man', which he refers to as 'A dying race'. It's those two, and it's the world changing around them, but because they're men, they don't care about anything but their pride and independence. This way the film comes off like a sendoff to the entire 'Old West' lifestyle.
Rating: **** / 5
56/101
Others:
Damnation: *** 1/2 / 5
A bleak movie about the irreversibility of life with a similar visual style to Tarkovsky. The movie is in black and white and the staging of the scenes if beautiful and hits the emotional notes perfectly.
New movies:
Winter's Bone: 9/10
The best movie of 2010 so far. A 17 year old girl whose father cooks crystal meth who takes care of her insane mother and two siblings is going to lose the house if her father doesn't show up for his trial date. She has to find her father but everyone else in the community is blocking her because they're involved in the drug trade as well. The film has themes of powerlessness and despair of poverty, but also exposes empathy and caring from the sorts of people we wouldn't consider to be empathetic. There's no other movie like it.
What attracts me to Leone westerns is the aesthetic. It's the same aesthetic that's now drawing millions of people to Red Dead Redemption. Other famous westerns try to be idyllically American. That's why they cast John Wayne. Leone presents the old West as the kind of dusty, chaotic anarchy where the strong do whatever they feel like doing.
Once Upon A Time In The West shows the beginning of the end of the Old West in pictures. The strong silent 'Real men' are being replaced by businessmen who know hundreds of angles to make more money. The story is, a woman who used to be a prostitute marries a man who owns a seemingly useless piece of land out in the west. When she arrives, she finds him and his entire family murdered. She still wants to cling to that new life that he was going to give her, so instead of heading back to New Orleans she stays and manages his land. It turns out, the land isn't as useless as everyone thinks it is. Her husband knew that the railroad would eventually extend west, and because it sat upon the only water within a hundred miles, it would be forced to come right through his property. The bad guy, the businessman who controls the railroad, had his family killed to avoid having to pay out to him to run the railroad through his land.
Her husband was visionary in that he foresaw the end of the classic 'Old West' early enough to speculate future profits from the expansion of the city into the desert. Now that development is an unstoppable tide that will put an end to the entire paradigm of the lawless West and the 'Real man'.
The 'Real men' in the picture are represented by a hitman hired by the bad guy and a drifter played by Charles Bronson. The drifter goes out of his way to frustrate the hitman and interfere with his plans to steal the land, but doesn't appear to have any personal motive. The hitman on the other hand tries to take on the tricks he learns from the businessman to make a profit, but the drifter sees through him and recognizes him as being not a businessman, but 'Just a man', which he refers to as 'A dying race'. It's those two, and it's the world changing around them, but because they're men, they don't care about anything but their pride and independence. This way the film comes off like a sendoff to the entire 'Old West' lifestyle.
Rating: **** / 5
56/101
Others:
Damnation: *** 1/2 / 5
A bleak movie about the irreversibility of life with a similar visual style to Tarkovsky. The movie is in black and white and the staging of the scenes if beautiful and hits the emotional notes perfectly.
New movies:
Winter's Bone: 9/10
The best movie of 2010 so far. A 17 year old girl whose father cooks crystal meth who takes care of her insane mother and two siblings is going to lose the house if her father doesn't show up for his trial date. She has to find her father but everyone else in the community is blocking her because they're involved in the drug trade as well. The film has themes of powerlessness and despair of poverty, but also exposes empathy and caring from the sorts of people we wouldn't consider to be empathetic. There's no other movie like it.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
#80: Bringing Up Baby
Bringing Up Baby (Hawks, 1938)
This one I had trouble even getting through. I don't know what it is about comedies of the 40s and 50s, but other than Singin In The Rain (Which I'm in the middle of watching right now and will write about soon), all of them seem completely inane. They're like sitcoms from the 80s and 90s, only with better actors. They're filled with farse situations where characters are incapable of questioning even the most ridiculous lies. All the gags are predictable, all the women are loveable airheads (Is that how people saw women in the 40s and 50s?) and they don't even have the slapstick that make the stupid comedies from the earlier 30s enjoyable.
Even the acting in this one isn't very good. Cary Grant is good at playing one character, and this isn't it. He's trying to do this weird nerd-voice for the whole film and he just can't do it. And at the end it feels like there's no reason the main characters should get together except "They're the main characters, therefore…".
Other than a few amusing moments involving a leopard, the film did absolutely nothing for me.
Rating: * 1/2 / 5
Others:
Paris, Texas: **** 1/2 / 5
Four years ago, the main character disappeared, and his son showed up on his brother's doorstep. Now, he suddenly appears, barely willing to talk. His brother brings him home, and he decides he wants to reconnect with his son and bring his family back together, but what happened four years ago to make him just leave and his mother just leave her son? The revelation of that question is one of the greatest scenes I've ever seen, and the ending is one of the most emotional. All around it's just a beautiful movie.
This one I had trouble even getting through. I don't know what it is about comedies of the 40s and 50s, but other than Singin In The Rain (Which I'm in the middle of watching right now and will write about soon), all of them seem completely inane. They're like sitcoms from the 80s and 90s, only with better actors. They're filled with farse situations where characters are incapable of questioning even the most ridiculous lies. All the gags are predictable, all the women are loveable airheads (Is that how people saw women in the 40s and 50s?) and they don't even have the slapstick that make the stupid comedies from the earlier 30s enjoyable.
Even the acting in this one isn't very good. Cary Grant is good at playing one character, and this isn't it. He's trying to do this weird nerd-voice for the whole film and he just can't do it. And at the end it feels like there's no reason the main characters should get together except "They're the main characters, therefore…".
Other than a few amusing moments involving a leopard, the film did absolutely nothing for me.
Rating: * 1/2 / 5
Others:
Paris, Texas: **** 1/2 / 5
Four years ago, the main character disappeared, and his son showed up on his brother's doorstep. Now, he suddenly appears, barely willing to talk. His brother brings him home, and he decides he wants to reconnect with his son and bring his family back together, but what happened four years ago to make him just leave and his mother just leave her son? The revelation of that question is one of the greatest scenes I've ever seen, and the ending is one of the most emotional. All around it's just a beautiful movie.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
#58: Rio Bravo
Rio Bravo (Hawks, 1959)
Rio Bravo is campy, artificial, a strictly for fun Western that showcases the star personalities of the likes of John Wayne and James Dean. It's a very fun movie to watch. The plot is pretty stereotypical for a Western. (So much in fact, it's the basis of that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the holodeck characters were all replaced with Data.) A man murders another in a bar for no reason. The sherriff arrests him and has to hold him until the county prosecutors arrive. But, his rich brother shows up with a team of hitmen to get him out. A team of quirky personalities, including a drunk and a crippled old man are greatly outnumbered and their only leverage is that they can 'Accidentally' shoot the murderer at any time. The plot is strictly cliche and only works because the actors carry it well and the plot is structured competently. If that's the sort of thing you go for, I recommend it to you.
Rating: *** / 5
54/101
Rio Bravo is campy, artificial, a strictly for fun Western that showcases the star personalities of the likes of John Wayne and James Dean. It's a very fun movie to watch. The plot is pretty stereotypical for a Western. (So much in fact, it's the basis of that episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation where the holodeck characters were all replaced with Data.) A man murders another in a bar for no reason. The sherriff arrests him and has to hold him until the county prosecutors arrive. But, his rich brother shows up with a team of hitmen to get him out. A team of quirky personalities, including a drunk and a crippled old man are greatly outnumbered and their only leverage is that they can 'Accidentally' shoot the murderer at any time. The plot is strictly cliche and only works because the actors carry it well and the plot is structured competently. If that's the sort of thing you go for, I recommend it to you.
Rating: *** / 5
54/101
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
#64: Pather Panchali
Pather Panchali (Ray, 1955)
Pather Panchali is one of those films with very high artistic value and very low entertainment value. The first film from India to attain worldwide fame, it's a personal story of a poor family that can't find any success making money, but still tries to get by without sacrificing their ambitions and dignity. They're looked down upon by their neighbors because they can't pay back their debts and because the daughter of the family is a petty thief. The husband keeps finding tenuous employments that pay out for a while, but then stop paying out and disappear. He's forced to go far away with no communication for months trying to find money to bring back, and while he's gone the house is deteriorating and falling apart. In all this the son, Apu is born. The lesson he learns from living through all these family tragedies so early in life is that he should never get attached to anything, because he will only lose it.
The character development is subtle and beautiful, and the beauty of the film is how they react and cope as the tragic events of the plot unfold. The story telling style and the scenery are also beautiful. It's the sort of film any film buff should see once but probably won't want to see again.
Pather Panchali is the first part in a trilogy. I haven't seen the other two, but as it's known as the 'Apu Trilogy', I assume it details how Apu copes in later stages of his life after what he's gone through in his early childhood.
Rating: *** 1/2 / 5
53/101
New movies:
Air Doll: 4/10
Air Doll is a film by Kore-Eda, the same director who did Nobody Knows and Still Walking, about a blow up doll who comes to life. It sounds like the premise of a Rob Schneider flick, but it takes the approach of having the doll experience the world with the wonder of a child, but with the constant knowledge that everyone sees her as nothing but a 'Substitute' whose function is to bring pleasure. It could have worked, but some of the writing and plot twists are just plain silly. And since the bare premise is also just plain silly, but the tone of the movie is preachy and anti-modern, it all just comes off as stupid.
Pather Panchali is one of those films with very high artistic value and very low entertainment value. The first film from India to attain worldwide fame, it's a personal story of a poor family that can't find any success making money, but still tries to get by without sacrificing their ambitions and dignity. They're looked down upon by their neighbors because they can't pay back their debts and because the daughter of the family is a petty thief. The husband keeps finding tenuous employments that pay out for a while, but then stop paying out and disappear. He's forced to go far away with no communication for months trying to find money to bring back, and while he's gone the house is deteriorating and falling apart. In all this the son, Apu is born. The lesson he learns from living through all these family tragedies so early in life is that he should never get attached to anything, because he will only lose it.
The character development is subtle and beautiful, and the beauty of the film is how they react and cope as the tragic events of the plot unfold. The story telling style and the scenery are also beautiful. It's the sort of film any film buff should see once but probably won't want to see again.
Pather Panchali is the first part in a trilogy. I haven't seen the other two, but as it's known as the 'Apu Trilogy', I assume it details how Apu copes in later stages of his life after what he's gone through in his early childhood.
Rating: *** 1/2 / 5
53/101
New movies:
Air Doll: 4/10
Air Doll is a film by Kore-Eda, the same director who did Nobody Knows and Still Walking, about a blow up doll who comes to life. It sounds like the premise of a Rob Schneider flick, but it takes the approach of having the doll experience the world with the wonder of a child, but with the constant knowledge that everyone sees her as nothing but a 'Substitute' whose function is to bring pleasure. It could have worked, but some of the writing and plot twists are just plain silly. And since the bare premise is also just plain silly, but the tone of the movie is preachy and anti-modern, it all just comes off as stupid.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
#22: Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959)
I'll start by saying what most professional critics always forget to say. I AM NOT THE AUDIENCE FOR THIS FILM.
Some Like It Hot has a ridiculous premise. These two guys are musicians who accidentally witness a mob murder. They hide from the gangsters trying to kill them by dressing up like women and joining an all woman band. One of them falls in love with 'Sugar Cane' (Marilyn Monroe) and expands the deception by first interrogating her about what she likes in a man then impersonating that exact man. It's all pretty stupid, but it's so well pulled off it kind of works. It's well written and well carried by the actors. Even if it's full of shallow stereotypes and all the women in the film fit the 1950's idyllic female mold of the loveable airhead.
Rating for me: ** 1/2 / 5
Rating for your grandmother: ***** / 5
52/101
I'll start by saying what most professional critics always forget to say. I AM NOT THE AUDIENCE FOR THIS FILM.
Some Like It Hot has a ridiculous premise. These two guys are musicians who accidentally witness a mob murder. They hide from the gangsters trying to kill them by dressing up like women and joining an all woman band. One of them falls in love with 'Sugar Cane' (Marilyn Monroe) and expands the deception by first interrogating her about what she likes in a man then impersonating that exact man. It's all pretty stupid, but it's so well pulled off it kind of works. It's well written and well carried by the actors. Even if it's full of shallow stereotypes and all the women in the film fit the 1950's idyllic female mold of the loveable airhead.
Rating for me: ** 1/2 / 5
Rating for your grandmother: ***** / 5
52/101
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