A Farewell to Arms (1932)

Posted on February 22, 2018 by 4 Star Films

394px-Poster_-_A_Farewell_to_Arms_(1932)_01 Again, I must confess that I have not read yet another revered American Classic. I have not read A Farewell to Arms…But from the admittedly minor things I know about Hemingway’s prose and general tone, this film adaptation is certainly not a perfectly faithful translation of its source material. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

However, I do know at least a little something about Frank Borzage a filmmaker that time has been less kind to, though he contributed some quality pictures during the silent era and during the ensuing generation of talkies — even a couple of reputed classics. And yet watching A Farewell to Arms you can see his philosophies working themselves into the story line — the very themes that he would repeat again and again in many of his movies.

It soon becomes apparent that Borzage’s film is not about a war at all though WWI is a major plot point. He would examine an analogous idea with The Mortal Storm. Its his predilection not to focus so much on the carnage or alienation of war and more so on the effects that such a cataclysmic event has on the lives of those thrust into the middle of it. So his narrative borrows from Hemingway but hinges on this idea of lovers battling against the wiles of the world through the sheer euphoria of their romantic fling and yet it proves to be more than transient.

There’s without question a verisimilitude and a candor to the portrayals of Gary Cooper and Helen Hayes as said lovers — an ambulance driver and a nurse. Two seemingly unextraordinary individuals who nevertheless become extraordinary in each other’s arms. They will go to such great lengths to remain together despite the obstacles hindering them on every side. Perhaps it’s heightened by the times but still, there is this general belief in what they do on the part of the audience — that they can actually fall in love and will do whatever it takes to stay together.

Even if it’s not wholly plausible, they lend that needed credence to the parts. Their emotions feel genuine even as their romance gets crippled by the very circumstances they find themselves in. Where years are sped up into days and marriage must be forged in the most humble of moments. There’s no time or space for a normal life with a normal love affair even if that’s what both parties desire. It cannot be so.

Gary Cooper exudes a gentle tenderness in the majority of his scenes and he manages to be as vulnerable as we’ve ever seen him in the part because this romance tears him apart. Helen Hayes is an actress that I, unfortunately, know very little about but she strikes me as a beauty like Claudette Colbert and yet I find an easier time liking her and by some form of transference, the same goes for the character that she plays. It’s also crucial to note the splendorous black & white cinematography of Charles Lang which paints the contours of this love affair with expressionistic shades while never quite allowing us to forget the war at hand.

Though we can compare Borzage’s film with the original novel it seems equally compelling to juxtapose this cinematic adaptation of A Farewell to Arms with Joseph von Sternberg’s romance, Morocco, of only two years prior also starring Gary Cooper and Adolphe Menjou with von Sternberg’s muse Marlene Dietrich. Hayes doesn’t have the same gravitas or allure of Dietrich but that actually serves her better in this film with what Borzage is trying to accomplish.

Because this story is a tragedy as much as it is a romance of faithful devotion. Whereas von Sternberg seems most interested in the locality and the depictions of his stars — allowing them to have looser morals, you could make the argument that Borzage film holds a greater stake in its thematics and what such a romance can represent in such a turbulent world. The Great War is only an unfortunate backdrop to play the action against and it’s unfortunate because love is a rapturous thing. But it’s the many evils of the world that tear it asunder. The kind of troubles that force two people to bid each other a tearful adieu even if it’s the last thing they want in the world.

3.5/5 Stars

Columbus (2017)

Posted on February 11, 2018 by 4 Star Films

ColumbusPoster I wrote an article quite a few years back where I considered what it would be like if and when an Asian made the leap toward a true leading role in Hollywood. The performers I put up for consideration were John Cho and Ken Jeong. Back then I thought they deserved a platform to go beyond the Star Trek and The Hangover franchises.

While Columbus was not exactly the picture I was considering at the time, it’s more than I could have hoped for. I finally got my wish in this moving character study looking for pulchritude in the midst of life’s incessant turbulence. It’s an unassuming even meandering story. A version of it could exist in real life and that’s a glimmer of the allure.

The narrative plants us in Columbus, Indiana (not Ohio), a Mecca of modernist architecture, and not much else. A Korean-American translator named Jin (Cho) comes back home from Korea to call on his estranged father who is currently bedridden in a coma. It’s difficult to discern what is more tragic: That he is dying or that his son could care less.

Then there’s Casey (Haley Lu Richardson) a young college-aged woman who has foregone the typical trajectory of a person her age with her intelligence to stay behind with her mom, a recovering addict with a serial poor choice in men. While her mother tries to keep a menial job, Casey all but cares for her, spending her days working at the local library and the nights preparing their meals.

The proposed dynamic is obvious but nevertheless satiating when it comes to fruition. Where two people who seem so diametrically opposed in their life stage and social circles somehow form an immense bond in a world so often hampered by superficial, surface-level interaction.

In this facet alone, John Cho, a man waiting so long for such a time as this, has confirmed what many of us have long known. He deserves to anchor a film and Columbus proves he is more than up to the task. While relative newcomer Richardson (Edge of Seventeen) provides him a fascinating talking partner and friend who deals in terms that are simultaneously candid and profound.

Especially in the film’s opening moments, there is a brazenness to Kogonada’s staging and often stationary camera, because it creates this so perfectly symmetrical, oftentimes cavernous space. It’s the height of art and overtly so. In such moments where a color pops in a composition so obviously or he dares to linger on an immaculately staged frame, I see the touches of Ozu. Whether this was done consciously or not is hardly up for contention. It’s too close to be mere coincidence.

The framing of shots. How doorways are used as an entry point for seeing an entire sequence. The fearlessness in using what other people would deem establishing shots to tell a story through the building of an environment in front of us.

It strikes me that often shot length corresponds with the confidence a filmmaker seems to put in their work. Because if you constantly splice and dice every second or two there’s no precision necessary. It will go all but unnoticed on the cutting room floor but to be brave enough to put a sequence up to scrutiny for seconds on end — sometimes even achingly so — it’s something that has become a forgotten practice.

Where it’s alright to linger and watch faces and to catch the nuances of reactions rather than a constant barrage of over-articulated actions and histrionics. Sure, we have a few of those moments here that feel like they are the rhythms of a film drama trying too hard to be a version of reality. The character Jin even remarking in one needlessly self-reflexive moment, “This isn’t a movie.”

Whereas Lost in Translation was built around a city full of energy and cultural clout in Tokyo, with its bright lights and cutting-edge society, where there’s so much to do and a lot of stimuli, Columbus is the antithesis of this.

In fact, an issue might be that it tries to derive so many of its conclusions not through actions but the mining of personal struggles and familial strife. Those are vital areas and yet in the same sense, it’s when the film tries to unwind this exposition we feel like we are, indeed, watching a movie. Still, when it intentionally digs into conversation and moments and feelings, it’s done with tact and an undisputed transparency that’s refreshing even in its heightened realism.

Each character has their alternative foils casting a light into their lives. Certainly, they have each other and they have their parents, who have no doubt made them who they are, while also influencing the direction of their lives. But when we look at Jin there’s Eleanor (Parker Posey), his father’s assistant, and though she’s married now, Jin’s long harbored feelings for her since they first met.

Meanwhile, Casey’s coworker (Rory Culkin) is her continuous companion in the vast hall of the library they work at. He is a doctoral student serving as both a friend and someone to assist her in considering her future endeavors. But there’s no doubting he likes her even as she casually dodges his well-meaning advances.

But Columbus is also bathed in a Midwest malaise. Those terms I put together rather tentatively. In fact maybe like Lost in Translation before it, this is less about the location and more about the people who find their paths crossing. I think this might be it.

Richardson appeals to us because there’s something so chill about her. She ambles through life like one of those people who doesn’t take things too seriously, at least on the surface, because you can easily imagine if she didn’t manage to go with the flow her hardships might tear her apart limb by limb. In fact, they almost do.

But I think I only recall one character who ever had the same sense of wonderment and affection for something like the architecture in Columbus. It came in another artistically-minded and entrancing movie, Museum Hours, where the bright-eyed security guard watches over the art in his stead with the same degree of relish. He loves being surrounded by such sights.

Yes, she says most people could care less about these relics, and yet that’s not everyone. She rattles off facts like a seasoned tour guide but that’s not what does it for her. It’s the memories elicited from certain places. It’s the feelings. The undeniable monuments of magnificence found in her humble corner of the world.

There’s a mood wafting over the film’s canvas that can either be interpreted as melancholy or serenity. Because beautiful things often manage to raise our spirits while also burrowing into our distinct places of hurt. That’s how we manage to cope and ultimately come to terms with them.

So Columbus is a picture coming like a whisper, looking austere and aloof, but rip away the walls, the exteriors of some phenomenal architectural marvels, and you will come to find a beating heart that is well worth its weight. No doubt this picture will be glossed over by many. But that makes its discovery all the sweeter.

4/5 Stars

Jane Eyre (1943)

Posted on February 1, 2018 by 4 Star Films

Are you always drawn to the loveless and unfriended? ~ Edward Rochester

When it’s deserved. ~ Jane Eyre

I can still recall visiting the Bronte Parsonage, marveling at the fact that these sisters were able to have such a lasting impact on the world of literature — a world so often dominated by men at that time — and I simultaneously rued the fact that I had yet to crack open any of their works. Now several years down the road, I still have not opened up Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre by Emily and Charlotte Bronte and so I can only come into this 20th-century adaptation with certain expectations.

I realize that no film can wholly represent every page of a novel — especially of great length — because in a practical sense it’s simply not theatrically possible. But my hope is that at the very least this version of Jane Eyre maintains the essence of the source material and if nothing else I can revel in the fact that it is a thoroughly engrossing film from director Robert Stevenson.

It feels like some sort of intriguing marriage between Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre and the recent craze of gothic fiction adaptations — the most noted of course being Hitchcock’s Rebecca only a few years prior — that by some strange happenstance had input from Aldous Huxley. Here we have the ever timid beauty Joan Fontaine starring once more, this time opposite Welles. But the story starts at a much earlier point in the life of Jane Eyre.

Her life is a desolate and horrible affair as we soon find out, due in part to a caustic culture that uses their religion to ostracize others instead of bringing them into the fold of society.

In fact, most of those who hold a Christian belief system are puritanical and more problematic still, hard-hearted. Ironically, there’s no room for grace in the Christian faith that they practice. Foremost among this crowd is Mr. Brocklehurst (Henry Daniel) who runs the Lowood Institution for Girls.

It’s in this very issue revealed early on where the film finds much of its substance. Because thematically all throughout the narrative the audience is forced to grapple with various characters who are subjugated to the fringes of society and for various reasons are labeled as outcasts.

This is how Jane is seen first by her unfeeling aunt (Agnes Moorehead), then by the narrow-minded reverend. They seem absolutely incapable of compassion sitting atop their high horses of proclaimed humility and charity. In reality, they have very little of either to offer. A few do show her kindness including Dr. Rivers (John Sutton) and the cook Bessie (Sarah Allgood) but such behavior is the exception and not the norm.

Still, Jane the very person who has been relegated to a wretched and lesser state is for that very reason ready and willing to reach out to those around her who are treated likewise. The very fact that she has been marginalized allows her to see it in others and be compelled to move toward them when others move away. She cares deeply for the outsider.

The most galvanizing experience involves her closest friend as a young girl (played by a child who still is very unmistakably Elizabeth Taylor). Then as she grows up and chooses to move away from the oppression of her surrogate home, it is the role of a governess in a gothic manor that once more allows her the opportunity to extend her graces to others. First in the form of the precocious ballerina extraordinaire (Margaret O’Brien) and then the brusque but obviously tortured man of the house (Orson Welles).

She sees in him something that runs deeper than the surface. He’s far from a bad man. In fact, she grows to love and cherish him because she sees the good that dwells in his conflicted soul. Burdened as he is with guilt and a past that still haunts him to the present moment. The film exhibits a bit of a love triangle as Rochester invites many guests to his estate among them the well-to-do Blanche Ingram (Hillary Brooke).

But the film pulling from its source material goes a step further still. It digs into the dark recesses, involving itself with the less than pleasant realities, namely an unseen person who hangs over the storyline like a specter. In those very designs, whether they are simply employing the rhythms of Bronte’s book or not, there’s another evident parallel there with the 1940 adaptation of du Maurier’s Rebecca.

Gothic tones matched with an impending sense of foreboding with the demure Fontaine similarly relating the action through voiceover even reading verbatim off the page as if from a diary. And once again it works. While there is no Mrs. Danvers, Welles has the same Shakespearian gravitas of an Olivier that accentuates the very modesty of many of Fontaine’s performances. Their exchanges reflect the sensibilities of the time but furthermore help draw up the very differences of their characters. However, as much as that juxtaposition would seem to draw them apart it even more passionately brings them together.

Some might find this rendition of Jane Eyre too stark, too much of a studio production, even too abrupt, but with Welles and Fontaine opposite each other, it’s a frequently enjoyable gothic romance. As much as gothic romances can possibly be enjoyable.

4/5 Stars

Clouds of Sils Maria (2014)

Posted on January 23, 2018 by 4 Star Films

Clouds_of_Sils_Maria_film_poster It’s my prerogative to respect films that dare to leave me questioning their ambitions and their outcomes. Clouds of Sils Maria is such a film. At times it gets so caught up in its own meta-narrative perhaps too much so.

Still, this is a story about a middle-aged actress (Juliette Binoche) called upon to return to the script that made her famous but this time in the much more unglamorous role. Her stardom is such that she can pick and choose her work still but that doesn’t make growing older and life in general any easier. She must navigate press junkets, paparazzi, divorce proceedings, and on top of it all the death of a good friend — the man who helped make her famous.

The person keeping Maria sane through every bit of drama and every tiresome ordeal is her personal assistant Valentine (Kristen Stewart). She is also the one who cajoles her client to take the role. My gut further suggests that there are the inklings of All About Eve echoed in Olivier Assayas story between a mature actress and a rising star who is a prima donna scandal maker of the social media age (played by Chloe Grace Moretz).

But still that dynamic proves to be less fruitul and ultimately less interesting than the relationship that is examined between Maria and Valentine. It is their scenes together that are tirelessly engaging because their interactions run the gamut of emotions. How do you begin to define them?

The dividing line between this play that they are bouncing off each other and their actual lives at times feel perilously close as they jump in and out. Somehow in some unknowable way, it seems to reflect real truths about their relationship.

The meta moments are innumerable including those that suggest Binoche’s earlier film Rendez-vous, Chloe Grace Moretz forays into superhero blockbusters, even a passing coincidental remark Stewart makes about a film featuring werewolves. There’s a Harrison Ford film directed by Sydney Pollack (a lah Sabrina) maybe lightly poking fun at how Juliette Binoche and Julia Ormond could easily be confused.

But if nothing else these feel like only slight nods if not pastiche that do not necessarily aid the aspirations of the film. They mean very little. The far more fascinating suggestion is just how closely the characters of Maria and Valentine read to the figures in the script while they practice the lines in the mountains. But it’s not just that. It’s how their conversation organically reveals bits and pieces of their personal philosophies.

So to clarify it’s not reality intersecting with fiction but the fiction within the fiction that creates a greater depth that complicates matters. That’s what makes the film at times beautiful and perplexing. The fact that Valentine evaporates is tantamount to Michelangelo Antioni losing his main character in L’Avventura. Likewise, Valentine disappears into the clouds never to be seen again and that’s far more interesting than any amount of commentary that could have been crammed into the storyline about Stewart’s actual career.

And in truth, this has to be without question the greatest performance of Stewart’s career thus far because there’s something streetwise, nuanced, and clever about her. There’s a strange sense through her wardrobe and demeanor that this is part of Stewart that we are actually seeing, although I’m not sure how true that is. It feels the very essence of “un-acting” if we can coin that phrase.

Binoche, of course, has a lauded spot as one of the eminent stars of European cinema for very good reason with a career that has been held in regard for well nigh 30 years. Somehow she feels like oil and water mixed with the likes of Stewart and Moretz, products of Hollywood blockbusters, but that’s what makes this film an interesting marriage of backgrounds.

Far from being conflicting, the pairing of Binoche and Stewart is ripe with interesting qualities because their differences make the interactions pop. They can be so diametrically opposed. Their age, backgrounds, and at the very core how they view these central characters of Sigrid and Helena in the film within the film. Yet at the same time, they’re so closely tied together and interconnected — their relationship of a star with her personal assistant that proves to be even closer still to that between friends and confidantes.

When Stewart disappears from the story much of what was interesting vanished from the picture but then again because she vanished it made the picture’s denouement more interesting.

By the end, as an audience, it feels as if we have little stake in the trajectory of Maria’s career. It’s hard to care too much about her at this point because she’s been a star, she is a star and she probably still will be one unless her own temperamental nature gets in the way. It doesn’t leave us with the same empathy that comes with All About Eve because our heroine still has a career fully intact.

Clouds of Sils Maria’s immaculate classical music played over elegant tracking shots, matched by soft fade outs between sequences is pleasant if not a tad pretentious. But its ambitions thematically, by the time the curtain falls, feel noticeably more nuanced than its predecessor. It leaves us with something mystifying to ruminate over and that is nearly enough if not wholly satisfying.

4/5 Stars

Ride in the Whirlwind (1966)

Posted on January 18, 2018 by 4 Star Films

Ride_in_the_Whirlwind_(movie_poster) Anyone who takes the time to search out this movie whether the reason is a young Jack Nicholson who wrote, helped finance, and starred in this western or because it’s directed by cult favorite Monte Hellman, they probably already know it was shot consecutively with The Shooting. Whereas the first western has an unnerving existential tilt as the plot takes us through an endless journey across the oppressive desert plains, you could make the claim that Ride in the Whirlwind is a more conventional western.

However, it’s still highly intriguing for its main premise and the dilemmas that evolve as a result. But that’s enough with the big picture. Here are a few more details to fill in between the lines. The action begins with a holdup, a true western staple. True, a pair of men get injured but it’s about what you expect from such a skirmish. In the end, the stage rides off generally unimpeded and the bandits retreat to their lair up in the nearby mountains to wait it out for a while. Maybe they know a posse is on their trail and maybe not.

Either way, they’re mighty careful when a trio of riders make their way through the main pass. Of course, they don’t know that these are only a few cowhands making their way to Texas and they’re looking for a place to bed down for the night.

Both sides have a general sense of the other but rather than make waves they do the mutually beneficial thing and everything goes about their business nice and easy. There’s no need for guns and no ones looking for any trouble.

But the next morning a posse that means business rolls in and they’re not about to wait and ask questions. They set up posts to pin down their adversary and they hardly discriminate between who was a bandit and who is innocent. That’s not the way their righteous form of justice works.

Rather like the early Hollywood Classic The Ox-Bow Incident, they are searching for the men to lynch and it hardly seems to make any difference if the men are innocent or not. They shall be avenged. However, an interesting observation is that in once sense this does not seem like mob rule. The posse is calculated and cool in executing their objective although that’s no comfort to those who are actually innocent.

In the ensuing standoff, one of the ranch hands, caught in the crossfire gets it and the two bandits who come out with their lives get about what we expect. The second half of the film follows the two men who were able to escape and they just want to find a pair of horses so they can ride away from the whole business.

Their quest on foot leads them to a nearby homestead and this latter half of the story brings to mind earlier pictures such as Shane or Hondo where families are seen trying to make a life for themselves out on the plains.

Wes (Nicholson) and Vern (Cameron Mitchell) are desperate to get away yes, and they sneak into the families home but what makes them so different is the very fact that they are not real criminals. They are only doing this out of necessity. They treat the womenfolk respectfully including the ranchers taciturn daughter Abigail (Millie Perkins) but they’re also bent on taking for themselves a pair of horses.

First off, Evan ain’t so keen on having his home invaded or his family held hostage and he’s especially not obliging that they’re going to run off with some of his stock because they’re his after all.

This is in itself another brooding film like The Shooting but for different reasons. It’s filled with genuine tension because the irony of the situation is that we know these men are innocent and yet in order to survive in some ways they must take on the mantle of criminals just to live another day. There’s no space for a rational third way. There’s no grace or any type of understanding and so they’re forced to play by the rules already set up by the posse that’s pursuing them. That’s the moral conundrum at the core of this tale.

Ride in the Whirlwind has the dismal type of ending we expect with a bit of a silver lining but it’s that very shred of hope that makes it an affecting western. It feels right at home with the sentiments of the 1960s where the world is not as innocent as it used to be and the world often does not function by the most equitable standards. Some would say that’s why the western fell out of favor because in the classical sense, it no longer reflected the perceived world at large like it once did.

3.5/5 Stars

Woman on the Run (1950)

Posted on January 14, 2018 by 4 Star Films

Woman_on_the_Run B-films have little time to waste and this one jumps right into the action. In a matter of moments, a man is shot, another man has killed him and a third witness gets away into the night. Although Frank Johnson (Ross Elliot) is rounded up by the police to be a witness he gives them the slip for an undisclosed reason and they must spend every waking hour trying to track him down.

What’s important to this particular story is that he left behind his wife Eleanor (Ann Sheridan) to be questioned by the police and they are hurting for a break. They need answers so they slam her with all sorts of inquiries.

She’s not all that cooperative though and the reasons are rather hard to discern. Is it belligerence, fear, or sheer apathy to the entire ordeal? Because you see, Ms. Johnson for some time had been drifting apart from her husband an accomplished painter who nevertheless put little stock in his own skill.

And that’s where the film’s two themes begin to intertwine. The police surmise that the runaway man is fleeing a killer, but for his wife the implications are twofold. In her eyes, he’s just as likely running away from a marriage he couldn’t cope with. That is her dilemma which she masks both pointedly and inadvertently with various diversions to keep the police reeling. After all, she’s not particularly keen on helping them or sticking around for that matter.

Whereas in earlier roles Ann Sheridan was always slightly overshadowed by other performers, most notable of those being the always electrifying James Cagney, here she gives perhaps her finest performance and she’s at the center of it all. That’s not to say she isn’t surrounded by a stellar supporting gallery.

Dennis O’Keefe, remembered as a gritty leading man in pictures such as T-Men and Raw Deal, showcases a new playful side as a journalist trying to nab a scoop on the runaway witness and at the same time making eyes at the man’s bride. But he manages to give the part some life that goes far beyond a one-dimensional characterization. There’s more to him as we soon find out.

The other important player turns out to be Inspector Ferris (Robert Keith) who as the long arm of the law is looking to find his man before his adversary does. But he’s not about to take flack from anyone and if ever there was a cop who was no-nonsense he fits the bill. His croaking voice always interrogating his subjects in a continuous effort to get his job done. Too bad he wasn’t quite counting on Ann Sheridan.

A relentless climax aboard a roller coaster at a local amusement park precedes Hitchcock’s Strangers on the Train when it comes to making carnival games such a deadly ordeal. And there are hints along the way ratcheting up the tension whether it’s a familiar cigarette lighter, a striking coincidence, or a passing remark that initially goes unnoticed.

The script strikes a strange path at times given to clunky expositional dialogue that feels as trite as can be and then in the very next sequence there’s a bit of patter or a dry quip that makes things all the more interesting. Also, a pair of small supporting roles for Victor Sen Yung and Reiko Sato add another layer of authenticity to the characterization only surpassed by the on location shooting that catches the essence of mid-century San Francisco.

In the end, Woman on the Run turns out to be one of those wonderful treasures that has rather unfairly gotten buried in the dusty attic of film noir. But far from being an antique, it plays fairly well today with an underlying tension running through Sheridan’s performance as she not only reflects on her own dwindling marriage but stresses to discover her husband’s whereabouts in fear of his very well-being.

It’s surprisingly entertaining and you get the sense that if Norman Forster (a fairly prolific actor, director, and screenwriter) were someone other than Norman Forster, this picture might have been scrutinized more closely. As it is, it’s just waiting for more people to dredge it up. How did I get here? If you’re a sucker for film noir and Ann Sheridan there’s no better place to go than Woman on the Run.

3.5/5 Stars

Review: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

Posted on January 3, 2018 by 4 Star Films

James_Stewart_in_Mr._Smith_Goes_to_Washington_trailer_crop The opening credits roll and recognition comes with each name that pops on the screen. Jean Arthur, James Stewart, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold, Guy Kibbee, Thomas Mitchell, Eugene Palette, Beulah Bondi, H.B. Warner, Harry Carey, Porter Hall, Charles Lane, William Demarest, Jack Carson, and of course, Frank Capra himself.

We are met with the ubiquitous visage of Charles Lane calling in a big scoop on the telephone. A senator has died suddenly. The likes of Porter Hall and H.B. Warner fill the Senate Chamber presided over by a wryly comic VP, Harry Carey. Corruption is personified by the flabby pair of Edward Arnold and Eugene Palette while Claude Rains embodies the tortured political journeyman. The eminent members of the press include not only Lane but the often swacked Thomas Mitchell and a particularly cheeky Jack Carson.

To some people, these are just names much like any other but to others of us, linked together and placed in one film, these figures elicit immense significance and simultaneously help to make Mr. Smith Goes to Washington one of the most satisfying creations of Hollywood’s Golden Age from arguably “The Greatest Year in Cinematic History.” The acting from the biggest to the smallest role is a sheer joy to observe as is Capra’s candid approach to the material.

As someone with a deep affection for film’s continued impact, it gives me great pleasure that stories such as Mr. Smith exist on the silver screen if only for the simple fact that they continually renew my belief in humanity, whatever that means. Because it’s an admittedly broad, sweeping statement to make but then again that’s what Frank Capra was always phenomenally skilled at doing. He could take feelings, emotions, beliefs, and ideals synthesizing them into the perfect cultural concoctions commonly known as moving pictures.

But his pictures always maintained an unfaltering optimism notably in the face of all sorts of trials and tribulations. He never disregarded the corruption dwelling in his stories–it was always there–in this case personified by the stifling political machine of Jim Taylor gorging itself off the lives of the weak and stupid.

The key is that his narratives always rise above the graft and corruption. They latch onto the common everyday decency, looking out for the other guy, and in some small way uphold the great commandment to love thy neighbor.

Politics have never been my forte. Like many others, I’m easily disillusioned by “politics” as this becomes a dirty word full of arrogance, partisanship, and scandal among other issues. It seems like the founding principles that laid the groundwork for this entire democracy often get buried under pomp & circumstance or even worse personal ambitions.

Although this film was shot over 75 years ago everyone who’s been around the block lives as if that’s the case then too and so they’re not all that different from today at least where it matters. Cynicism is a hard thing to crack when it runs through the fabric of society from the politicians, to the newspapers, all the way down to the general public. It’s not hard to understand why. Still, the genuine qualities of a man like Jefferson Smith can act as a bit of an antidote. He as a character himself might be a bit of an ideal, yes, but I’d like to have enough faith to believe that people with a little bit of Jefferson Smith might still live today.

Common, everyday people who nevertheless are capable of extraordinary things like standing up for what’s right when they know that no one else will or when they know all that waits for them at the end of the tunnel is disgrace. But the promise of what is beyond the tunnel is enough. That is true integrity to be able to do that and those are the causes worth cheering for when David must fight Goliath and still he somehow manages to overcome. That’s the chord Mr. Smith strikes with me. thanks in part to Capra’s vision but also Stewart’s impassioned embodiment of those same ideals. He has a knack for compelling performances to be sure.

Time and time again James Stewart pulls me in. His career is one of the most iconic in any decade, any era no questions asked. There are so many extraordinary films within that context perhaps many that are technically or artistically superior to Mr. Smith by some estimations, but he was never more candid or disarming than those final moments in the senate chambers as he fights for his life — clinging to the ideals that he’s been such a stalwart proponent for even as his naivete has been mercilessly stripped away from him.

In the opening moments, his eyes carried that glow of honest to goodness optimism, his posture gangly and unsure represented all that is genuine in man. Now watching those same ideals and heroes come back to perniciously attack him, he presides with almost reckless abandon. Is he out of his mind? At times, it seems so, but as he wearies, his hair becomes more disheveled, and his vocal chords have only a few rasps left he still fights the good fight. There’s an earnest zeal to him that’s positively palpable.

As our stand-in, Saunders (Jean Arthur) first writes him off as a first class phony or at the very least a political stooge ready to do another man’s bidding but she does not know Jefferson Smith though she does grow to love him. And Arthur’s performance truly is a masterful one because without her Smith would hardly be the same figure. She brings out his naivete by sheer juxtaposition but she also puts the fight back into him because he brought a change over her that in turn rallies him to keep on pushing. They’ve got a bit of a mutually symbiotic relationship going on in the best way possible. You might call it love.

Capra repeatedly underlines Smith’s honesty and genuine nature not only through numerous rather simplistic montages of Capitol Hill and the surrounding national monuments but in the very way his character carries himself around others. He never assumes a position of superiority. He’s always humble. He sees the inherent need to raise up young people well so that they might progress to become the leaders of tomorrow with a great deal to offer our world. He fumbles with his hat in the presence of pretty girls and holds his idols in the highest esteem. It’s all there on Stewart’s face and in his actions. We too comprehend the solemnity and the gravity that he senses in the office of the Senate.

While this was not Jimmy Stewart’s debut and it was only at the beginning of a shining career as has already been noted, it was in these moments that the cinematic world fell in love with him. He can’t be licked and for good reason. He was never one to give up on lost causes just like his father before him.

I guess this is just another lost cause, Mr. Paine. All you people don’t know about lost causes. Mr. Paine does. He said once they were the only causes worth fighting for, and he fought for them once, for the only reason any man ever fights for them: Because of one plain simple rule: Love thy neighbor. ~ James Stewart as Jefferson Smith

5/5 Stars

Review: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)

Posted on January 2, 2018 by 4 Star Films

Gary_Cooper_in_Mr._Deeds_Goes_to_Town_trailer “He could never fit in with our distorted viewpoint, because he’s honest, and sincere, and good. If that man’s crazy, Your Honor, the rest of us belong in straitjackets!” ~ Jean Arthur as Babe Bennett

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is a true treasure of idealism and Americana. People, especially now, may have many quibbles with the films of Frank Capra because he was the undisputed champion of feel good cinema that revelled in happy endings, stalwart honesty, and the little guy being permitted a fighting chance.

It’s no wonder that he made such good use of the likes of Gary Cooper and James Stewart because they embodied common, everyday American decency like few other actors could ever claim. Admittedly it’s easy to belittle his pictures as saccharine and sentimental to the nth degree but beyond that Capra always seemed to have an inherent sense of what America stood for or at least what he believed it could and still can stand for.

Every man deserves a certain amount of respect. You might call them inalienable rights like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And any force that tries to impede that is in simple terms an affront to all humanity. Because though we might all think we’re different, we share a lot more similarities than we often want to concede. It’s easy for us to forget that and that’s what happens here.

Longfellow Deeds (Cooper) becomes the overnight talk of the town because his rich uncle dies in a horrible car crash and bequeaths his wealth to his unsuspecting nephew. It’s the kind of good fortune that others drool over but in Deeds’ hands, he takes it in stride. He comes off as a real Yokum from the one horse town of Mandrake Falls but if anything Deeds is incredibly smart. He realizes he can have contentment out of the limelight and with very little. He enjoys quiet days oftentimes filling idle hours with his prized tuba and poetry that he writes for postcards.

But his new status as a millionaire forces him into the life that he doesn’t much want. Mansions and butlers, folks looking for handouts, ravenous newspapermen (and women) and conniving lawyers. Front and center is Mr. Cedar (Douglass Dumbrille). It’s these very individuals who see Deeds as a ridiculous outsider to be belittled and taken advantage of.

The brilliance of Capra’s movie is that he makes his hero, while simple and practical, still very astute. He may have his many quirks but there’s a surprising amount of business acumen and common sense flowing through his veins that consequently sends everyone else for a loop. He spies phonies from a mile of away and he looks to reform the local opera while finding ways to spend his newfound fortune sagaciously.

The only thing he’s not watching out for is a pretty girl, journalist Louise “Babe” Bennett (Jean Arthur) is ready to nab him, capturing his heart and simultaneously giving the whole city a front row seat to his exploits about town from quarrels with a snooty circle of poets to an evening jaunt ending on a fire engine. She’s a pro at spinning the tale into one of a first class boob, christening him the “Cinderella Man” that the whole world laughs at. They eat it up and they want to see him fall–this idiotic nobody suddenly being scrutinized by society for his good fortune. It’s all rather unfair but oftentimes that’s the way the world turns. It’s a cruel and sometimes curious place.

Because while Deeds grows fed up with this whole lifestyle, ready to leave it all behind him, Babe finds herself truly falling for her project since he models something she rarely sees in a man — real honest to goodness integrity that guides his every action. There’s never a false pretense or a veiled intention. What you see is what you get. Ironically enough, in this land of fakes, she’s the only “real” person he thinks he’s met. And she knows what’s been going on, going so far as to tell her editor that she’s quitting. There’s no way she can keep up the charade only injuring the character of the one she loves more and more.

But of course, everything dives into the depths of despair when Deeds is sent to trial calling into question his sanity after he resolves to use $18,000,000 to portion off acres of land to destitute farmers to work for him. It’s utter lunacy, isn’t it? The workers line up around the block leading into his home as he offers them a chance at a real life without starving children and food lines every day. This is what Cedar, Cedar, Cedar, and Blumenfeld are bringing him to court for or is it the fact that they want a portion of his fortune? Yes, that just might be it.

Anyways, far worse than that fate is the fact that he thinks his girl has betrayed him and she has in a sense, but she’s also devoted to him by now. She watches helplessly as her man gets railroaded. She began as the one to crucify him in the tabloids and now she prepares to watch him get crucified in the courtroom. In these moments, he does take on a Christ-like post watching all the proceedings without a word. He never makes any effort to defend himself after accusation after accusation is thrown his direction.

But the bottom line is that he does not have to let himself be destroyed. Being the martyr, in this case, is not his job and Capra lifts him out of the pit and resurrects him. The fact that Louise fights for him and numerous others including his cynical right-hand man Cornelius Cobb (Lionel Stander) and the local newspaper editor (George Bancroft), not to mention a legion of grateful farmers. So Mr. Deeds ends with a tumultuous courtroom finale befitting one of Capra’s finest pictures. It brims with goodness and bubbles over with humor that constantly underlines this feel good classic.

Though Gary Cooper represents Capra’s love of the every man with common decency and common sense, Jean Arthur remains equally crucial to the worlds that he creates. It has to do with her quality as an actor that allows her to play the snappy, witty, world-wearied types. Because she represents all the many people with that very same cynical streak and yet the very fact that her heart can be melted and her whole mindset can be changed suggests that there might be hope for all of us. That hope burgeons up from Mr. Deeds and leaves us with a warm feeling indeed.

4.5/5 Stars

A Christmas Tale (2008)

Posted on December 24, 2017 by 4 Star Films

achristmastaleposter The initial inclination for seeing Arnaud Desplechin’s sprawling family drama was the presence of the estimable Catherine Deneuve. And she’s truly wonderful giving a shining, nuanced performance that makes the audience respect her, sympathize with her, and even dislike her a little bit. But the same goes for her entire family. The best word to describe them is messy. Dysfunctional is too sterile. Messy fits what they are. If you think your family is bad around the holidays, the Vuillards have a lot of their own issues to cull through.

The inciting incident sends a shock wave through their already crumbling family unit. Their matriarch has been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer and must make the difficult decision of whether or not to risk treatment or go without. But Deneuve carries herself with that same quietly assured beauty that she’s had even since the days of Umbrellas of Cherbourg. In this capacity, she makes A Christmas Tale, far from a tearful, sobfest. She’s strong, distant, and you might even venture to say fearless.

And because of her strength, this story is not only about her own plight – it’s easy to downplay it because she is so resilient – but it frames the rest of the interconnecting relationships. It began when her first son passed away. The children who followed included Elizabeth (Anne Cosigny) who became the oldest and grew up to be a successful playwright. Junon’s middle child Henri (Mathieu Amalric) can best be described as the black sheep while the youngest, Ivan, was caught in the midst of the familial turmoil.

Because the issues go back at least five years before Junon gets her life-altering news. It was five years ago that Elizabeth paid Henri’s way out of an extended prison sentence (for a reason that is never explained) with the stipulation that she never has to see her brother again. Not at family gatherings, not for anything. And she gets her way for a time.

But with Junon’s news she and her husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon) realize this is a crucial time to get their family back together because, above all, their matriarch needs a donor and due to her unique genetic makeup, a family member is her best bet.

Underlying these overt issues are numerous tensions that go beyond sibling grudges and sickness. Elizabeth’s own relationships have been fraught with unhappiness and her son Paul has been struggling through a bout of depression. Ivan and his wife (Chiarra Mastroianni) are seemingly happy with two young boys of her own. But old secrets about unrequited love get dredged up and Sylvia is looking for answers of her own. Although it’s a side note, it’s striking that Chiarra Mastroianni is Deneuve’s real-life daughter and in her eyes, I see the spitting image of her father, the icon, Marcello Mastroianni.

There’s also a lot of truth and honesty buried within A Christma Tale and in most competitions, it would win for the most melancholy of yuletide offerings. However, it’s important to note that its darkness is balanced out with romance, comedy, and a decent dose of apathy as well.

Still, the most troubling thing about A Christmas Tale is not the fact that it is extremely transparent, but the reality that the themes of Christmas have no bearing on its plot. We leave these characters different than they were before but whether they are better for it is up for debate.

The sentimentality of a It’s Wonderful Life crescendo would be overdone and fake in this context but some sort of reevaluation still seems necessary. Because without faith in anything — faith in their family is ludicrous — their world looks utterly hopeless. The two little grandsons wait in front of the nativity staying up to get a glimpse at Jesus (perhaps mistaken for Santa Claus) and their father calmly states they should go to bed because he’s never existed anyways. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with holding such beliefs.

Even the fact that Junon and her grown son Henri attend midnight mass is an interesting development. But during this season emblematic of hope and joy, it seems like the Vuillard’s can have very little of either one. Henri can be his mother’s savior for a time by extending her life for 1.7 years or whatever the probabilities suggest. But then what?

It’s this reason and not the family drama that ultimately makes A Christmas Tale a downer holiday story. Its denouement feels rather like a dead end more than fresh beginnings. Because Nietzche and coin flips are not the most satisfying ways to decipher the incomprehensibility of life – especially with death looming large during the holidays.

But that’s only one man’s opinion. That’s not to downplay all that is candid about this film in any way. If you are intrigued by the interpersonal relationships and entanglements of a family — may be a lot like yours and mine — this film is an elightening exposé.

3.5/5 Stars

A Tale of Two Cities (1935)

Posted on December 23, 2017 by 4 Star Films

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It’s no surprise that this adaptation begins with that oft-repeated bit of poetic parallelism. “It was the best of times it was the worst of times” etc. Of course, in its abridged format the opening suggests the universal quality of those iconic words. It was a period very much like the present.

The scene is set. What follows are images that prove to be deliciously atmospheric with a loving mixture of British colloquialism and Hollywood storytelling all stirred together in an agreeable period drama.

Perhaps the highest compliment I can pay this film, directed by Jack Conway, is that it manages to capture some of the essence of Dickens’ novel even if it does not wholly enrapture me as the source material did those many years ago in my freshman honors English class.

The beauty of literature is that it allows you to create pictures in your head — to let your imagination run rampant — the magic of film is how it allows for such spectacles to be brought to us visually though they might come out imperfectly. Owing to length and practicality, it cannot completely transcribe every last detail onto the screen resorting to jumps in time and abridging of the text.

In fact, a slight criticism is that the film resorts to title cards too much. Still, there are some inspiring moments including the climactic storming of the Bastille sequences courtesy of that inspired combination of Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur. It’s simultaneously harrowing and marvelously condenses the sweeping forces of the mob rule’s swift rise during the French Revolution into a matter of brief images that overwhelm with their sheer scope and ferocity.

Also, whether this film succumbs to pure histrionics or is instead an impassioned interpretation of Charles Dickens’ material is up for debate but there is no denying that there is a pleasing texturing to many of the most prominent characterizations.

Though a minor part, Basil Rathbone that legendary villain turns in one of his myriad performances as a heartless French nobleman. Whereas Miss Pross is played with endearing yet resolute defiance by Edna May Oliver. Both Lucie Manette and Charles Darnay exude a certain geniality that we’ve come to attribute to the roles. They are less interesting but necessary for the story to have any magnitude.

The most telling difference in depictions for me was in the character of Mr. Lorry (Charles Gillingwater) likened to a crotchety old coot though Dickens paints a picture of him that feels much more reserved and similarly steadfast. I would know because out of all the many figures, I always resonated with him a man who remained a supporting player but nevertheless reflected fine qualities of loyalty and quiet integrity.

But of course, we must inevitably come to Sydney Carton. In the book, he transforms into our hero coming to the fore among a wide array of other characters but with Ronald Colman undoubtedly the biggest star in our film we are conveniently tipped off to his crucial importance and he is vital to the story.

It could have been all too probable that like The Prisoner of Zenda, Ronald Colman could have taken a double role because (SPOILER ALERT) Dickens’ original novel hinges on the likeness of Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton. But in this case, it’s almost a stroke of good fortune that Colman was only given one part.

In it, Ronald Colman plays the brilliant young solicitor who nevertheless spends most of his evenings with his snout in a bottle wasting so much of his talent toward purposeless diversions. He’s a charming fellow but he seems hardly a person of note. But that’s not the final word.

Colman is aptly able to focus all his energies on the man and he’s further allowed to embody one of the great redemption tales in all of English literature. It seems he knew it too, willingly relinquishing his iconic and beloved mustache in deference to the role which no doubt was one of the defining moments of his career.

There’s also no denying the transcendent themes that course through this narrative and reveal themselves much as we would expect. Because this is a story of ultimate sacrifice and a very overt evocation of the Christ story.

Thus, it seems no small coincidence that as Carton takes part in a selfless act that will define his life the trills of “Come All Ye Faithful” quietly play in the background. The inference is plain. Though, it’s a political fable as well a spiritual one, Carton’s words are what entrench themselves into the viewer’s consciousness, “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” Some might vehemently disagree but this is a Christmas film if ever there was one. Because it points to hope even in the darkest times. That’s how those paradoxical lines can stand true. It was the worst of times but also the very best.

4/5 Stars