Double Indemnity

This is a great old fashioned noir, in which boy meets girl, and girl beguiles boy into committing murder with her. Let's just say it's a classic for a reason. In a device that was probably over-used in noir films, Double Indemnity is told in flashback, as a haggard Walter Neff (Fred MacMurry) dictates his confession to Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson). This, as well as the metaphor of train tracks, gives the film a heightened sense of fatalism. From the outset, we know that Neff is doomed. And since he is telling his own story, it is saturated with grim foreboding.

"I didn't get the money, and I didn't get the girl."

"Suddenly it came over me that everything would go wrong. It sounds crazy, Keyes, but it's true, so help me. I couldn't hear my own footsteps. It was the walk of a dead man. "

Naturally, much is made of the relationship between Neff and Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), but the relationship between Keyes and Neff is equally interesting, if only because it marks an early version of bromance. Also, their chaste relationship forms an interesting parallel to one between Dietrichson and Neff. While Dietrichson is betraying Neff, Neff is betraying Keyes. As played by Robinson, Keyes exudes a gruff and completely endearing morality. Perhaps the worst aspect of the morass Neff finds himself in is it necessitates misleading his friend.

I like how Wilder uses physical groupings to highlight certain tensions. Here Walter Neff is visually trapped within the frame between Keyes and the one witness to Neff's crime.

I also love this sequence of shots, in which Dietrichson is trapped behind the door to Neff's apartment. The depth of field in these frames creates a really beautiful effect that seems to reduce the characters to one plane, while physically separating them. They seem to exist in a fragile balance on the screen. Once again, Neff is trapped between two major forces--the total morality embodied by Keyes, and the temptation embodied by Phyllis Dietrichson.

Well played, Barbara Stanwyck. Something about this shot tickles me:

And my favorite scene.

"No, I never loved you Walter--not you or anybody else. I'm rotten to the heart. I used you, just as you said. That's all you ever meant to me. Until a minute ago, when I couldn't fire that second shot."

"Neff: know why you couldn't figure this one, Keyes? I'll tell ya. 'Cause the guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from ya.
Keyes: closer than that, Walter.
Neff: I love you, too."

The Evil Dead

The Evil Dead might have been an unexpected film to watch on Christmas day, but we went ahead and did it anyway. In some flippant way, zombies actually fit rather nicely into the Christmas tradition. Okay, so maybe Dawn of the Dead (in which humanity makes its last stand in a shopping mall) would have been slightly more appropriate. But that's not the movie my sister got for Christmas.



What surprised me a little bit about this film is how basic the plot is. Although, Sam Raimi may have set the archetype for this type of isolation-bad-things-ensue horror movie, I'm not sure about that. Certainly, he was one of the first to achieve something this formally brilliant with such a tiny budget (in the area of 300,000 dollars, I believe). The plot is this: a group of five young people set off to spend the weekend in a cabin together (But how did they get it so cheap, anyway?). Upon getting there, they accidentally arouse the spirits of the dead, who inhabit and kill them each in turn, barring their exit by knocking down the one rickety bridge that would allow their egress. That's pretty much all there is to it, but Raimi's use of the camera and his ability to create tension make this film amazing and incredibly frightening, even to a Saw-jaded viewer, such as myself. This film might even be a precursor to gross-out horror, as the one way to get rid of the zombies is by total dismemberment, which we get to witness every part of!


The gender politics are strange, as well. It is a mistake that the first girl to fall prey to possession by the evil spirits is the one girl who came without a boyfriend? I think not. She is essentially raped by the forest, and soon becomes rampantly possessed. Ironically, she is the last zombie standing in the end, and the one that almost does Ashley (Bruce Campbell) in. The next two to succumb are the girlfriends of the two men. In various ways, each are inevitably destroyed by their boyfriends. In some fierce perversion of the femme fatale, the women in this movie become the evil force that must be overcome. And this can only be achieved by total, grotesque bodily annihilation.

If you as unnerved as I was at the end of this movie, watch the outtakes. Taken out of context, the scenes of goop and growling are hilarious. Stripped of the veneer created by editing, the constituent scenes of this movie really reveal its shoestring budget. This just makes it seem all the more amazing that Raimi managed to create the horror masterpiece that he did.

Miscellaney

A few nights ago after coming home from a long day at work, I was pleased to discover that it is Humphrey Bogart month on TCM. I caught the end of The Maltese Falcon, which was followed by Casablanca. Besides Bogie, these films share a few cast other members, including Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet, who, like Bogie, pretty much reprise their former roles.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but this was the first time I had ever seen Casablanca in its entirety. It was strange to watch a film that was new to me, and yet so familiar. Before I even knew what it was, I had already seen it parodied countless times on shows like Boy Meets World and the Animaniacs.

Of course, the iconic love story element is incredibly touching, but I also like how much of the plot involves crooked politics and law enforcement. The only way to survive in Casablanca is to adopt a certain flexibility when it comes to the law. Of course, if you do this too unethically, you are punished by the Gods of Cinema (as Terry Gilliam might say), which is why Peter Lorre's character disappears so early on. Rick is guided by ethics, though he deflects any suspicions of his soft spots with a hard-boiled exterior.

I also found it amusing how effeminate most of the foreigners are, especially in contrast with Humphrey Bogart's archetypal, brusquely independent American male. I couldn't help flinching a little bit when Ilsa tells Rick that he should do the thinking for both of them, because she is too overcome with emotion to be reasonable.


Although I probably won't properly write about them on here, I recently saw Antichrist and the Road, both of which are very much worth seeing, in my opinion. Although, the former requires a strong stomach. While it was done well enough, I don't really see that a film version of The Road was necessary, or that the screen adaptation presented anything new or insightful.

The Fisher King

In The Fisher King, Gilliam sets his manic protagonists loose against the backdrop of New York City. Although somewhat less stylistic than Brazil, The Fisher King retains a similar mood at certain points. As in Brazil, Gilliam makes the city come gruesomely alive, showing an underbelly teeming with malcontents, depressives and basket cases. Jeff Bridges' Jack Lucas becomes entangled with these people and discovers that he is not any more sane than they are underneath his sardonic veneer. Though desperate, they live by their impulses, outside the constraints of New York society.

What I sort of like about this film is that underneath all the elements that make it definitively Gilliam, it is a pretty recognizable narrative about redemption, with elements of romantic comedy thrown in. There is also some cosmic, religious subtext. Gilliam manages to warp a fairly conventional genre until it is unrecognizable, and completely enthralling. It doesn't hurt that the film is supported by incredible performances.

Jack begins the film as a powerful and privileged radio personality. As such, he is totally distanced from the people who call into his show, as well as everyone else. In his studio, the camera gazes on him bleakly from the top of a dark room, where he sits isolated in the darkness. When his ironic advice leads to a devastating act of violence, he plummets from his insulated world into the banal workaday life occupied by everyone else, including his girlfriend Anne (Mercedes Ruehl). Once he really hits rock bottom, he gets overly intoxicated and ends up encircled by a banshee circus of homeless men. The point of view camera has a surreal effect, allowing Jack to briefly access a piece of the alternate world that these people occupy. There he meets Parry, a man who believes himself to be a knight on a mission to retrieve the Holy Grail from Manhattan.

Still wracked with guilt, Jack finds himself using Parry to exculpate himself. At this outset, this seems to be more of a selfish motive than anything else, but gradually, he develops true feelings for Parry, whose somewhat vacant faculties provide him with a childlike benevolence. Jack begins by offering Parry some money, and eventually progresses to intervening in his love life, aiding him in landing the girl he has loved from afar (Amanda Plummer). Still, Gilliam doesn't make it that easy for his characters. While Jack is endeavoring to help Parry however he can, he nearly abandons Anne. As soon as he has done what he can for Parry, alleviating himself of the burden of his guilt, he decides to leave her.

There are many obvious similarities to Brazil, particularly Parry's (Robin Williams) vivid nightmare hallucinations of a fiery red knight--a figment that has replaced the devastating memories of his past. There is a chilling scene when these repressed memories suddenly return. Parry and the audience are confronted with full force as memory, nightmare and reality are interwoven into a cacophonous barrage of imagery.

This film is guided by the negotiation between fate and entropy, but it touches on so many different ideas that it is kind of hard to pick just one. It is an outlandish film with an outlandish plot, but Gilliam keeps it grounded in reality, perhaps through his assertion that insanity is latent within all of us, just a little below the surface. The most convincing characters in this film are the ones that shed their exteriors and play out their wildness.

Black Narcissus

In Black Narcissus, a group of nuns, headed by Sister Clodagh (Deborah Kerr) are sent to the Himalayas to start a school. As Criterion states it, the film is a "fascinating study of the age-old conflict between the spirit and the flesh," which is, naturally, simplifying things a bit. It is true, though, that the premise encourages the audience to think directly along those lines as the hard-edged spiritual nuns are thrown headlong into a den of hedonistic sin, led by Mr. Dean (David Farrar). The new environment incites a deeply personal struggle for each of them. Black Narcissus surprised me. I was expecting something more dark. It was, at parts, but more often, it was playful and dreamy. Although the whole set-up is pretty surreal, it really seems to touch on something inherently human, although it is hard to describe exactly how. Through its dream walk atmosphere, the film explores a constant battle within ourselves between what we want ourselves to be, and what we are.

There's some imperialism thrown into the mix, as well, which i don't feel entirely equipped to deal with. In a manner that is reminiscent of the jungle in Heart of Darkness, it is the very atmosphere of the place that seems to drive the inhabitants to madness. For the most part, the treatment of the natives is similar, too. With several exceptions, they are presented en mass, always on the periphery. Simultaneously, they seem to be at the center of the narrative and outside of it.

In a stark building, perched on top of desolate mountains, surrounded by drumming natives, the nuns attempt to do their work. The imagery on top of the mountains suggests something between Eden and Mount Olympus, but it is made ominous by frequent, exaggerated high angles, which show the land below disappearing into fog. Often, the place seems to be outside of reality. It is totally isolated, and the wind is constantly blowing with a steady drone underneath the action, causing the nun's habits to be in constant motion. The Saris of the natives, particularly the sultry Kanchi (Jean Simmons) move in a similar way as if drawing a comparison between these polar opposites.

In one of my favorite scenes, Sister Clodagh confronts Sister Briony (Judith Furse) about her waning spirituality. Briony is troubled by the atmosphere; she can see too far. It causes her to forget why she is planting potatoes, and then to question why she is doing it at all. I especially like this reflection on the space of the place; it's like the environment reflects or causes a void to open within the characters. Later, Con (Shaun Noble) teaches the Indian children English by marching them around the gardens, chanting the words for the objects they see. The almost musical rhythm of various flower names inter-cut with Sister Clodagh, who, while listening discovers that Sister Briony has indeed abandoned her potato planting, and has diverged totally from the strict plot of vegetables she was assigned. She rejects true sustenance for a kind of soul-sustenance. The same disintegration occurs in all of the nuns, including Clodagh, herself, who becomes plagued by memories of her past.

Most striking is the descent of Sister Ruth (Kathleen Byron) into psycho-sexual madness. This can only really be described in images:

This is a haunting film, and I keep finding myself running certain scenes over and over in my mind. To say that this is just a parable about sexual repression would be far too reductive. Black Narcissus is the kind of film that is almost too good for this kind of analysis. It leaves you with something you can't explain; you have to just see it for yourself.

Serendipity

I picked Das Himmel Uber Berlin by accident, not knowing how timely I was. But since it is the anniversary of the falling of the Berlin wall, this film is everywhere. Check around on some of the blog links I have and there are myriad articles to read.

Only if you're interested, o'course.

Das Himmel Uber Berlin

I don't understand why the German and English versions of the title of this film vary so much. The German title, Das Himmel uber Berlin translates to "the heaven" or "the sky over Berlin," which is a far cry from Wings of Desire, the English title. As I said, I don't see the reason for the discrepancy. I prefer the German title. The terrible American version of this film adapts its title from the German, as well. But if you haven't yet subjected yourself to that travesty, don't bother. See this film instead.

This is the most gorgeous film I have seen in a very long while. There is no better lens for the human condition than through the eyes of an immortal being. The angels spend their days in the enviable occupation of people-watching. Being angelic, they are privy to peoples' internal thoughts, and streams of consciousness. Luckily for us, the central humans in this plot have remarkably poetic minds, consistently spouting tightly perfected existential meditations. There are a few humans that appear multiple times, and their separate stories are different threads making up the fabric of the film. I love this image, where Homer, an aging poet (Curt Bois) sits amongst the replicas of heavenly bodies, laughing quietly to himself:

Another of these is Marion (Solveig Dommartin), a trapeze artist who has just lost her job, because the circus is going under. When we first see her, she is donning angel wings and swinging high above the ground. Damien comes to love Marion after quietly observing her. Like Homer, Marion seems to be prone to questioning the nature of things. Like the intelligently prophetic Homer, there is something serene and eternal about her, as if she really is an angel on earth, or at least conscious of her position in the universal scheme. She is similar to Damien (Bruno Ganz), the angel who voices discontent at his inability to experience the immediacy of mortal life.

The third human is actor Peter Falk, as himself. The angels observe him taking part in a film-shoot in the city. The angels, who, unseen follow their quarries, are sort of reminiscent of the viewers as unseen tag-a-longs and viewers of a hermetic filmed universe. This parallel is drawn by Wenders, not just by me. It is an apt choice that Peter Falk, an actor, should be a former angel, and therefore, cognizant of the invisible boundaries that separate one world from the next. "I can't see you, but I know you're there," he says, looking through an invisible Damien. Some of my favorite moments in the film take place during the shoot, as the camera pans up and down in an abandoned building. There is a visual divide that seems to create a heaven/earth dichotomy.

There is a gradual scission in Damien's world. As he begins to relinquish his immortality to embrace humanity, there are sudden moments where the film erupts in color. When he becomes human, the world remains in color. The viewers experience becomes disrupted, as well. First we will see the human perspective, then a sudden jump cut to the angel's. They are rarely taken from the same angle and are, thus jarring.


The Berlin wall is a central element in this film. The angels are often walking along it. When Damien becomes human, he identifies colors by using the graffiti on the wall as an example. Other moments of German history spring up in archival footage throughout the film. Using the omniscient immortality of the angels as a lens allows glimpses towards the past as well as the present. This film comments beautifully on the human condition. It does this mostly by poetic observation. It is very touching.