Review: Shane (1953)

Posted on March 8, 2016 by 4 Star Films

Jackson Hole, Wyoming and the looming Tetons lend the same iconic majesty to this western that Monument Valley does for many of Ford’s best pictures. But then again, George Stevens was another master and he too was changed by the war, coming back with a different tone and an “American Trilogy” that included some of his best work. Shot in Technicolor, this picture boasts more than wide open spaces and raw Midwestern imagery. Stevens has some wonderfully constructed sequences and there are a number of great characters to inhabit them.

Shane is the eponymous gunman who is content to linger in the background while others become the focal point. Namely, Joe Starrett (Van Heflin), a man who came to the untamed land due to the Homestead Act and won’t let the rancher Stryker muscle them off the land that he believes is rightfully theirs. Despite this being her final film — and a favor to her previous collaborator Stevens — Jean Arthur is as wonderful as ever. The character Marian is brimming with goodness and a sensitivity that is hard to discount. It’s a part very different than her earlier work and yet she plays it so wonderfully. As for newcomer Brandon De Wilde, he’s an astute little actor and we really see this world through his eyes, so he does wonders to hold the story together.

Grafton’s general store and saloon become a wonderful arena of conflict within the film because it is rather like Ryker’s stomping ground since he and his men can always be found lounging around there when they aren’t terrorizing some poor sodbuster. After he agrees to work for Starrett, Shane goes into town for new duds, leaving his gun behind, and he quickly learns what he’s in for. It’s in such a scene that we learn who this man really is. He’s not a hot-head and he initially takes the abuse of Stryker’s guns, who call him out for purchasing soda pop. It’s for the boy Joey, but he doesn’t have to say that, because he needs not prove himself, at least not yet. Also, the relationship between Shane and Marian might be troubling to some — will they fall for each other — but when Ryker makes insinuations about Starrett’s wife, Shane is quick to shut him up. He’s not that kind of man. When Shane does return to the store, he’s prepared this time for retaliation and although it might not have been the smartest thing, it sure is gratifying for him and for the audience. He and Starrett make a killer team, after all, beaten and bruised as they end up.

What follows is retribution from Stryker as he tries to buy out, threaten, and continually lean on the sodbusters, but Starrett remains resolute in keeping his friends together. In fact, there’s still time to share a wonderful Fourth of July dance with all the neighbors and it shows signs of a brighter, happier time that could be possible. With neighbors joining together in simple community and sharing life together. Shane feels somewhat out of place in this type of environment, and maybe deep down he knows it too, but he seems oddly content.

This happy time is juxtaposed with the funeral of ornery “Stonewall” (Elisha Cook Jr.), who was gunned down near the saloon by hired gun Jack Wilson (Jack Palance). His death is making some of the others jumpy, but once again Starrett keeps his group together, by first giving their former friend a proper burial and banding together once more. But by this point, they’re barely hanging on. Stryker’s got them on the run and Joe knows he needs to have it out with his arch-nemesis once and for all if things are ever going to return to the status quo. His dreams of ending this whole thing are ludicrous because there is no way he can get out alive. His wife knows it. He knows it, but it doesn’t stop him and his American Dream.

It’s interesting how Shane at first does not try to stop him, but then he gets tipped off to what awaits Joe, and he decides to go in his place. This is his arena after all. The gun we all fawn over is finally getting put to use as Shane rides into town for the final showdown to have it out with the men in the saloon. However, although the shootout is intense it ends very quickly. Thus, what is really interesting are the moments beforehand where friend is literally fighting friend. Both doing what they think is right. However, since Joey only thinks in absolutes, when he sees Shane hit his father over the back of the head, he initially reacts with hatred towards his fallen hero. He doesn’t understand why all this is necessary. But as time goes on and he sees events unfold, he gets it.

As Shane rides off into the night, Joey yells after him to come back, he cannot bear for this idolized man to ride off. It makes me wonder if young Joey grew up with the image of Shane, the hero of his childhood. The doer of good and the ultimate champion of the oppressed.

The cast was rounded out nicely by some solid supporting players like Palance, Ben Johnson, Edgar Buchanan, Elisha Cook Jr., and down to Ellen Corby and even Nancy Kulp. It’s astounding to think that this film could have starred Monty Clift and William Holden potentially with Katharine Hepburn as well. Because, after all, the casting of Shane feels just right. Clift would have brought depth and emotional chops to the role, as a wonderfully impassioned actor. Just look at George Stevens’ A Place in the Sun (1951) for proof of that. However, what Alan Ladd has is a serenity and simple goodness that still somehow suggests something under the surface. It begs the question, how can someone so upright make a living packing a six-shooter? No doubt I like Holden better as an actor, but Heflin has the scruffy outdoors-man look, while still reflecting high ideals. Hepburn just does not seem to fit a western. This is one of the instances when all the pieces seemed to fit into place and we were blessed by a western classic that never seems to lose its luster. In a sense, we become boys again like Joey, completely in awe of Shane. Let us revel in that feeling, that moment of innocence once more.

5/5 Stars

Still Mine (2012)

Posted on March 6, 2016 by 4 Star Films

This is not a powerhouse film, but it’s bolstered by a powerhouse performance from James Cromwell. His career has always been one worth watching. He’s been prolific for many years now in films like Babe, L.A. Confidential, The Queen, The Artist, and so on. And yet he’s never been a star, simply a wonderful character actor making each film he appears in all the more interesting. He has an imposing frame, often a quiet persona, and a relatable quality.

Still Mine is certainly a romance film, but it’s about one man almost as much as it’s about a couple. Craig Morrison (Cromwell) is well into his 80s now and he is still living in a farmhouse with his wife of 60s years. Her health and memory are quickly deteriorating and he, along with all his children, knows it. He resolves to build her a newer, smaller farmhouse that will be easier to manage.

We like him as an individual because he still has ties to the old world and the way it used to be. He doesn’t beat around the bush, and he gets fed up with the impracticality of modern-day bureaucracy. He’s proud and independent. His idol was Babe Ruth, and he has a great passion for lumber because he father was a shipbuilder long ago.

That’s why when his new project hits roadblock after roadblock in the form of building code violations, he’s peeved and annoyed. But he tries to push through, going past them, because that’s his way. His main opposition is building inspector Mr. Daigle, who although he might be a sour apple and a stickler for rules, is by no means a villain.

So in a sense, this story is twofold. We get to see the ties that bind two people together even after so many years of marriage. They are so closely knit. They can have their tiffs, they can get frustrated, but ultimately there is an almost insurmountable amount of faith and affection that holds them together. It makes the mundane beautiful and yet at times, it becomes difficult to watch because Craig knows that his other half is slowly losing her edge, and yet he still loves her so deeply. He gets angry with her, but he has an extraordinary capacity to love her still.

But also this film is interesting because we get to watch the resolve of a man on another front. He wants to keep busy. Despite his advanced years, he wants to do this on his own. It’s the principle of the thing, and he sticks with his convictions no matter what children, neighbors, or members of the bureaucracy say. Although Cromwell still feels fairly young and spry, I didn’t mind him playing a man quite a bit older than himself. Also, the ending including Mumford’s “After the Storm,” was a rather surprising inclusion, but not a bad thing. It adds a contemplative tone to this film’s resolution.

3.5/5 Stars

Ordet (1955)

Posted on March 5, 2016 by 4 Star Films

Carol Theodor Dreyer’s Ordet is a deeply thought-provoking, spiritual foray into the realms of faith and love. However, it is as much about doubt as it is faith, as much about discord as it is about love. It shows a spectrum that, while irrevocably Danish with its actors and setting (a bit reminiscent of Bergman), still has a universality that correlates to the contemporary world we live in. This later work by Dreyer is deliberate in pace, simple in its misce-en-scene, but the life is breathed into it by the characterizations and a beautifully subtle approach to depicting them.

The story is based off a play by Lutheran Pastor Kaj Munk, which was first performed in 1932. The majority of the tale takes place on a rural farm belonging to aged and bearded widower Morten Borgen. Aside from being a farmer, he is a prominent member of his community and a devout Christian. Now he contents himself smoking his pipe as he has three grown sons and a couple grandchildren.

His first son is happily married to a wonderful woman and mother of two, but he himself is struggling with belief in a God, and he acknowledges lacking faith in such things. His wife continues to encourage him, but he knows that such news will deeply trouble his father.

Johannes, the middle son, began believing he himself was the incarnation of Jesus Christ after deluging himself with the works of the famed Christian existentialist Soren Kierkegaard. So now he goes around spouting off scripture and calling out those around him for their lack of faith. What makes it so mesmerizing is the dazed sincerity behind each word. He truly believes what he is saying.

Finally Borgen’s third boy, Anders, is deeply taken with a girl named Anne from the nearby town, but of course her father Peter is from a different sect, and so everyone knows that neither father would willingly agree to a marriage.

These are the problems that plague the Borgen family, so they are undoubtedly commonplace in any spiritual community. Dreyer depicts it all in very mundane terms but not as unimportant, not without a deft hand and sensitive touch.

There is one scene in particular that comes to mind. The young girl Inger, a namesake for her mother, comes up behind her uncle Johannes and with all sincerity, in her eyes and voice, she begins to ask him to raise her mother from the dead. They talk about it for a time and while they talk pensively the camera slowly makes a spiral around them. Now if this was Tarantino (in Django for instance), he would need to bring attention to his camera and the scene loses all of its impact, because he’s a director who is often about as subdued as a toothache. But with Dreyer there is a sensitivity to his movement that’s gracefully smooth, accentuated by his long takes, with a simple backdrop, and pinpoint lighting.

Between the bickering over Ander’s betrothal and the sudden decline in the condition of the pregnant Inger, there is a lot of soul searching to be done and problems to be parsed through. In a sense, it looks like any life full of conflict, pain, and unforeseeable suffering. It’s all there and it hurts the Borgen family and turns neighbor against neighbor. This film has so many different worldviews and philosophy colliding at once. There are those who are devout in their faith, but their faiths differ. There are those who doubt it all or want cold hard facts. Some have blind faith and others are off-putting with their message. Then there those who seem content in their spiritual lives even though they are not perfect people. So essentially we have almost every iteration or cross-section of society, at least to some degree. It makes for an interesting battleground, but within that, it’s interesting how these characters start to find common ground and build rapport instead of breeding bitterness.

Furthermore, the final moments of the film are so surprising in their sincerity as they are for what actually happens. It’s in a sense wholly unbelievable, but we don’t disbelieve it — in fact, we want it — because we have followed this film thus far. What happened felt so close to home and so the ending, although somewhat unusual, feels right. It’s a strikingly beautiful conclusion to a film that speaks to our doubts, questions about faith, and ultimately our capacity to love and be loved.

This is the sort of film that would probably never see the light of day in Hollywood. It’s either you make God’s Not Dead or something that has no spirituality in it whatsoever. Ordet goes far beyond the depth of such films and it is better for it. I will not say I agree with everything that each character says, but that’s the point, because they all come from different perspectives. The best we can do is come and try to understand what others think so we can move forward from there. But spiritual conversations matter.

4.5/5 Stars

Review: The Godfather (1972)

Posted on March 3, 2016 by 4 Star Films

That moment when the undertaker is first seen pleading for justice and the camera slowly pulls closer, it’s so slight we hardly even notice it, but we hear his bitter monologue about America and his disfigured daughter. A head appears in the frame and we get our first vision of the now iconic Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando as masterful as ever). It’s a brilliant little scene that introduces us to the character this whole narrative revolves around, and it really is an important point to enter his story, on the wedding day of his daughter.

But it’s not just this opening scene that’s of note. In the sprawling expanse of this film that goes from New York, to Hollywood, to Las Vegas, and even back to the old country in Sicily, there is so much to be taken in. A gruff studio head faces the wrath of Corleone when he gets a present in bed, and he learns never to cross the Godfather again. There’s the moment where Vito first utters the words, “Make him an offer he can’t refuse” and then it is mirrored by his son Michael later on.

You have the quip from the tubby Clemenza after they pull one of the many hits and then very business-like they leave the gun, but take the ever-important cannoli. There’s the turning point where Michael the war hero faces off against crooked cop McCluskey (Sterling Hayden) and the opportunistic heroin dealer Solozzo because he wants revenge for the shot they took at his father. There’s the striking juxtaposition when Michael takes part in the dedication of his god-child knowing full well what is happening to the bosses all across town. Finally, we once more peer into the inner office now with Michael at the helm, and the door closes as a concerned Kay looks on at what her husband has become.

But not many people need to be told what their favorite scenes from The Godfather are, and they could probably rattle them off while giving color commentary. Aside from just being great scenes, however, these moments tie together a major theme that pervades this entire epic narrative. Because really, when you break it all down, with all the bloodshed, all the business, and everything else this film encompasses, it’s really about family. It becomes such an interesting paradigm, how Family can be sacred, held in such high regard, and yet violence is at times necessary and it’s also seen as a part of life. The two things are so interconnected and yet somehow they still can occupy two different spheres. Wives, children, etc. are left out of the fray. But when it comes down to business, men like Don Corleone will do what they have to do. After all, they are the men of the family and with that comes responsibility and a need to be stoic and strong. Never lose your temper, never show weakness, never say what you’re thinking, and always make them an offer they can’t refuse.

Vito Corleone played so famously by Marlon Brando is the epitome of The Godfather. A 40-year-old man was made to look decades older, he was given a distinctive mouth guard, and the rest is a giant simply delivering his lines with the nuanced — almost gasping delivery — that he was so well known for. He is in many ways the center point as the patriarch of this great family and the head of their business. Although his role does change as the circumstances change, he is a man of incredible influence with a great many friends, allies, as well as a few enemies. In other words, he’s the man with judges and politicians in his pocket, but it doesn’t come without a cost.

Sonny (James Caan) is the eldest son who is first in line to take over the role as head of the family. But although Sonny is a tough guy, his fiery temper is his downfall. He doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, and he lets his anger get the best of him. It doesn’t bode well in a business like his.

Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) is another interesting addition to the family, because he’s not really one of them at all, but Vito took him off the street and he’s rather like a son, becoming a trusted member of Corleone’s inner circle. He helps carry out business and represents the Don when it comes to legal issues. He’s a good man to have around, but it also makes for an interesting dynamic with Sonny and even Michael.

Fredo (John Cazale) is the one brother who is lost in the shuffle, and he’s most certainly the weakest. All he’s good for is living it up and getting drunk so the family sends him to Las Vegas to stay out of trouble. He is unfit to be head of the family, because he simply has no guts and although his father cares about him, he would never trust him with the business.

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Michael (Al Pacino) comes back a war-hero and with a girlfriend in Kay (Dianne Keaton) who has no understanding of his culture or his people. In fact, the family wants to keep Michael as far from the fray of the family business as possible to protect him. The only possible role he might play is something unimportant so there’s no chance of him getting hurt. But while Don Vito is the focal point at first, The Godfather really evolves into the evolution of Michael from beginning to end. He starts out as an idealistic veteran so far removed from corruption. But the turn of events that deeply affect his family cause him to step into a different role, and he changes as a result. He is a far cry from the man we met during the wedding because now his almost subservient nature has been replaced by a cold-blooded dominance that is personified through his eyes. They’re like to icy black holes that can stare right through you, and they do.

The cinematography of Gordon Willis is obviously superb and generally popularized the golden tinge of The Godfather that gives it a classy and generally nostalgic touch of the 1940s. It makes locales like the open air wedding, Don Vito’s inner office, or even a cathedral all that more atmospheric. On his part, the score of Nino Rota manages to be hauntingly beautiful at one moment and even upbeat when necessary.

What more is there to say but that The Godfather is cinema at its purest and transcendent in its scope. There are few films that carry such magnitude in the vast annals of film history.

5/5 Stars

Intolerance (1916)

Posted on March 1, 2016 by 4 Star Films

800px-Intolerance_(film) His ambitious follow-up to The Birth of the Nation a year before, D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance boasts four narrative threads meant to intertwine in a story of grand design. Transcending time, eras, and cultures, this monumental undertaking grabs hold of some of the cataclysmic markers of world history. They include the fall of Babylon, the life, ministry, and crucifixion of Christ, along with the persecution of the Huguenots in France circa the 16th century.

The stories are stitched together and become only a few touchstones in a contemporary tale of a young man and woman battling against the bleak world around them. The Dear One must try and recover her child from the clutches of a society crippled by corruption, while her husband must battle against a criminal past that looks to ruin his life forever. Each setting has its lulls and crescendos that fluctuate between the mundane and the overtly bleak.

Although some of the religious undertones are somewhat simplistic they still have some resounding power in their successive notes. A Christ subjected to the crucifixion sent there by hypocritical Pharisees. A mother crying to God that she might recover her child because the corrupt and evil seem to be having their way with her. These are the low points of despair. But just as Babylon fell at the hand of Cyrus the Great, our hero The Boy escapes the business end of the hangman’s noose literally by a matter of seconds. It’s perhaps the most intense and ultimately gratifying moment in a film that runs the gamut emotionally.

The film’s four arcs are certainly not in equal parts or equal in impact, but nevertheless, they suggest the complex plotting that Griffith was attempting to experiment with and it’s still quite impressive even by today’s standards. He takes such a broad, universal theme like intolerance and gives it legs in the form of a story that crosses time and space, cultures and languages to really meet all people where they are at. I will stop short of calling it overlong, because Intolerance is one of the truly epic films out there, and while it’s possible to lose a bit of the film’s cohesion, it nevertheless is an impressive endeavor.

So perhaps it’s true that he made the film due to people’s criticism of The Birth of the Nation — though it seems rightly justified. Still, even to this day, the film stands as an emblem of something more and perhaps the best “sequel” to a film of such a dubious nature. It cannot cover up for the sins of the former film, but it can certainly overshadow them. History has looked kindly on Intolerance and if it is not more widely known than its predecessor than it certainly deserves to be.

You could argue that D.W. Griffith was the first person to really explore the language that is film, as a mode of artistic expression. Because, although it may have cleaned Griffith out and ended up an unfulfilled commercial flop, there is no doubt that this colossal silent left an indelible mark on the industry. Perhaps Hollywood took note and began to turn away from the single-minded vision of auteurs in favor of a regimented machine that churned out a commercial product. That ‘s the Classic Hollywood period for you. However, Griffith perhaps unwittingly created many of the rules and dimensions that Hollywood would take to heart and systematically put to work in its future works. Furthermore, a case can be made that Griffith also set the groundwork for European cinema that often gave birth to loftier, more artistically inspired works altogether. Thus, the influence of Griffith cannot be understated. He was vastly important to the medium of film as we now know it.

4.5/5 Stars

Spotlight (2015)

Posted on February 27, 2016 by 4 Star Films

“They say it’s just physical abuse but it’s more than that, this was spiritual abuse.”

I wrote a piece tracing the obvious parallels between All the President’s Men and Spotlight, two films that I could easily see both shaking the very framework of American society through their very candid portrayal of journalism. When actually getting to see Spotlight the connections became even more prominent. Our narrative begins, not in Washington D.C., but in Boston Mass, 1976. It even goes so far as having a Ben Bradlee connection. Bradlee Sr. worked with Woodward and Bernstein while the Big Throat story was breaking. Of course, numerous years later Bradlee Jr., continuing the family profession, was working at the Boston Globe and becoming an integral part of what was going on there.

But enough with similarities, this film, written and directed by Tom McCarthy, deserves its own personal set of commentary. Spotlight is the investigative unit of the Globe and as such their work is not for the quick news flash, but grinding out long, detailed stories, although at times it takes a while to latch onto a juicy tidbit.

However, a new, rather stiff editor named Marty Baron points the team towards a story where a lawyer is accusing a local Cardinal about doing nothing after he found out a local priest was sexually abusing children. It’s a problematic scenario that deserves a little more time, but at this point, it’s an isolated event. It’s one man’s evil. One man doing nothing to remedy an outlier in the Catholic Church.

What follows is as troubling as it is imperative storytelling. The members behind the Spotlight team are not arrogant, self-righteous people, or figure pointers, only truth seekers. That’s their job, after all. The cast is well rounded and credible while no one figure steals the spotlight, literally. Michael Keaton is their leader “Robby” who has close ties with the community even going to high school across the street. Mark Ruffalo is the integral member Michael Rezendes who not only writes the story but has the important task of trying to needle a local attorney for information and documents that can blow the story wide open. Meanwhile, Sascha Pfeiffer (Rachael McAdams) carries out numerous interviews of her own in this multiple-pronged assault for the truth.

Their investigation looks to victim organizations, lawyers, priests, and a psychotherapy specialist. If it’s not obvious already, Spotlight makes it painfully clear that this is not a story of a few isolated incidents but an entire epidemic. This is the whole country — the whole world. It makes you positively squeamish and it’s perturbing in its brutal honesty. There’s no way for it to be sanitized and that’s indubitably frightening. We should be angry, we should be grieved, it should be abrasive to our senses.

It’s bringing to light an entire conspiracy of corruption. There are no paper trails, evidence is swept under the rug, and person upon person remain tight-lipped either due to guilt or shame. Humanity is drawn to darkness, but we want things to be brought to light. It’s the dissonance of what it is to be a person — the constant battle going on in our own human hearts. This isn’t meant to be about individual finger pointing, but an indictment of a system. An indictment of what we all are capable of. If it’s not being able to maintain the celibacy requirement, then it’s a pastor addicted to pornography, or a man sleeping with someone else’s wife. They’re different scenarios, but the people behind them are all similarly broken.

With the narrative of Spotlight cataclysmic events such as 9/11 shift focus, but they cannot fully distract from the bleeding that is still going on behind the scenes. There’s still a need to get to the root of the problem and they do. Mark Ruffalo’s character talks about having some deep down inclination that he will one day go back to the church and then came the day that all that came crashing down as they prepared to break the story. All his hopes went unrealized. It has to be an abysmal feeling. These are folks living in a secular world and a Church that falters so greatly is of little comfort. God is a distant deity, not a personal one, so it seems.

When the story hits the pavements you know that all hell is going to break loose, but what really happens is that all the pain, suffering, and shame has finally received the spotlight it deserves. The major realization is not that one person is the problem or even that another person is the problem. But the most frightening revelation Spotlight offers up is that we’re part of that problem. That’s tough news to swallow and this is a film that does it with immense credence and poise. Perhaps the toughest moments of the film come when the lights have died down and we see the staggering numbers of just how many cities were rocked by similar scandals. If you’re like me you see cities that are all too familiar. A film of this magnitude begs for some kind of response from its audience. It’s up to the viewer to decide what that will be — whether social, spiritual or something else entirely.

This is a potent film of the highest nature that lifts up journalism as a noble profession, while simultaneously rocking its audience with a real-life narrative of substantial magnitude. I’m not one prone to bloated statements, but this just might be the best picture of the year. Its impact has been duly noted.

4.5/5 Stars

A Most Wanted Man (2013)

Posted on February 26, 2016 by 4 Star Films

A Most Wanted Man gained some notability as one of the last works of Philip Seymour Hoffman, and it must be acknowledged that he gives a truly worthwhile performance. No surprise there.

He’s Gunther Bachmann, the German head of a covert team that is looking to undermine potential threats from Islamic terrorist organizations in a post-9/11 society. The film features cinematography that can be best described as sullen and pale, fitting the mood of a, at times, dismal Hamburg, Germany. It looks to be everything a spy thriller is supposed to be, boasting an international cast including the likes of Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, Daniel Bruhl, Nina Hoss, and Robin Wright, who are all intriguing to see in action.

But it is Hoffman with his team that commands the most attention, as they try and monitor an escaped political prisoner from Chechnya, who is seeking refuge but is also suspected of terrorist affiliations. He is contacted by a compassionate lawyer (McAdams) who wishes to help him, but they get caught up in Gunther’s plan and try and flee from his prying eyes. It doesn’t exactly work. But really they are both part of a bigger ploy to pin down a wealthy Muslim philanthropist who could be in it even deeper with terrorist organizations. They just have to catch him with the help of some insiders and a banker (Dafoe), so Dr. Abdullah can be put away unequivocally. But Gunther also has his superiors and the American diplomat (Robin Wright) continually questioning his plans and mistrusting his motives. After all, he works for a, technically, unconstitutional organization that’s supposed to be off the radar.

What A Most Wanted Man becomes is a brooding game of watching and waiting interspersed with a few moments that get the heartbeat up. But honestly, it’s mostly waiting, and it does serve to build the tension. There is one final turn that we could probably expect, and overall this is not a film of high volumes of action. In fact, there is barely any. Except by the time it ends, we are left with the same hopelessness and moroseness that seems to float over these characters in a haze. We are constantly wondering, “Where do their allegiances lie?” or “Why are they doing this?” and in the end, it doesn’t seem to matter. This is by no means Chinatown in its intricacy or otherwise, but you do get that same sense of futility.

I must admit I was a little surprised to see Rachel McAdams playing a German, but ultimately I was able to accept it. And although my knowledge of German film is limited, it was exciting to see two talented actors like Nina Hoss and Daniel Bruhl be featured, but they regrettably were relegated to smaller, hardly interesting turns. We might have to simply content ourselves with their other roles. Because this is most certainly Philip Seymour Hoffman’s show first and last. And it would, unfortunately, end up being his last. However, he left us as jaded and distraught as ever, and that’s a compliment to the actor he was.

3.5/5 Stars

La Strada (1954)

Posted on February 25, 2016 by 4 Star Films

Federico Fellini’s La Strada is in the tradition of other films like Chaplin’s The Circus (1928) and even Nightmare Alley (1947). He even goes so far as to feature two regular Hollywood performers in Anthony Quinn and Richard Basehart. This film is prominent for helping the Italian master achieve mainstream success, and it functions as a sort of crossroads. It still has one foot planted in a neorealist world with the other slowly entering a world of whimsy. It also suffered a production schedule that was as plagued with problems as the characters depicted therein.

The plot itself is relatively straightforward following a volatile strongman (Quinn) who buys a shy young woman off her mother to travel from town to town with him. He’s a real entertainer, and he teaches her most of what he knows so she can assist in the act. However, when they’re not working together, and the show is done, he goes right back to treating her badly and making life quite miserable for her. Zampano’s not the understanding sort.

Giulietta Masina has a starry-eyed quizzical face that elicits not so much a negative response, but one of perplexment. It’s the perfect visage for say a clown (which she masquerades as) since it can be so jovial and in the same instant sad and somehow distant. As her life on the road progresses she finally forgets loyalty and goes on her own to get away from Zampano’s abuse. While being alone she comes across the performance of a skilled acrobat (Richard Basehart) and what follows is a rocky partnership in a rat tag act that once again includes the strongman. But the constant heckling and joking of “The Fool” gets on Zampano’s nerves until things start to get violent. Once he gets out of prison for his behavior, he and Gelsomina get back together, but a run-in once more with his old nemesis turns out badly.

This time all the wind is taken out of her sails after what happens. She is a mime without any emotion, hardly any life left in her. One night Zampano leaves her behind in the night never to see or hear from her again. His existence from then on is as dismal as Gelsomina’s outcome.

Fellini himself suggested that La Strada was a very personal film, and it brings into question if he had a bit of Zampano and Gelsomina inside himself. La Strada also lacks the excess of his later films, instead contenting itself with simple roads and humble people — a stream of beautifully austere images without much extravagance. Also, with the character of Gelsomina comes a wistfulness that drives the tone of the film. As she contemplates with “The Fool,” everything must have a purpose, because if even a pebble has no purpose then everything is pointless. It’s in many ways a dismally bleak film, but still enduringly interesting.

4/5 Stars

The Revenant (2015)

Posted on February 24, 2016 by 4 Star Films

The_Revenant_2015_film_poster (1) By definition, a revenant is someone who returns, but there is often a connotation that they are returning from the dead like a specter. The term gives major insight into Alejandro González Iñárritu’s latest undertaking with Leonardo DiCaprio. It’s a fully immersive, grimy, gory, grisly, grizzly-filled piece of cinema caked in blood, sweat, and tears in every sense of the word.

Its production took the cast and crew to Canada and Argentina to shoot sequences that were probably just as desolate in person as they looked onscreen. In that way, Iñárritu did not fudge or cheat with the use of excessive computer-generated imagery. Even if his production was overlong and undoubtedly volatile, you could say he was rewarded with vast expanses of engulfing cinematic visuals. Emmanuelle Lubezki yet again probably becomes one of the film’s biggest assets and his use of natural lighting is superb. In truth, it’s a painful exhibition in acting by DiCaprio and this icy frostbitten wilderness becomes the backdrop for a gargantuan feat of survival.

What would inspire such a film? I think many people were asking that, and it does find some of its story from the true circumstances of Hugh Glass, a 19th-century explorer, trapper, and guide who was part of a fur trapping expedition out west. After enduring an onslaught from a group of belligerent Pawnee, Glass can hardly recover from a bear mauling that essentially leaves him a lifeless carcass of a man.

His scared and scattered band is just hoping to get to their outpost to regroup, but their leader (Domhnall Gleeson capping off a phenomenal year) is intent on holding onto Glass because he’s the only one who knows the way back. His main insubordinate is the grubby, paranoid, scumbag John Fitzgerald, played so invariably corrupt by Tom Hardy. Glasses Pawnee-born son, the young trapper Bridger (Will Poulter) and a reluctant Fitzgerald agree to stay behind with the feeble man, while the others push forward. But being the backstabber that he is, Fitzgerald looks to bury Glass alive or finish him off for good with his musket. It doesn’t make much difference to him, but Hawk doesn’t want to see his father dead. Fitzgerald could care less. After all, what is he supposed to do? Keep this man alive only so he might die too?

Bridger naively follows Fitzgerald’s lead and they leave Glass behind for dead. There is no man who could survive, half-frozen, half-dead and still find a way to live another day. That’s where the story goes into stage two of survival.

The images that follow are ceaselessly gripping with majestic landscapes that are raw and brutal in the same breath. DiCaprio forges through streams, makes fires by some miracle, and keeps warm any way humanly possible. To don such a role you almost have to give up any human sensibilities and allow yourself to simply exist. He crawls and claws painfully, eats raw meat torn from a dead bison carcass, and sleeps inside the hide of his dead horse. It should repulse us in our modern lifestyles of comfort and excess, but in the same sense, it is a fascinating portrait of realism taken to the extreme.

The final chapter follows Glass as he returns to the fort, gets in contact with Captain Henry, only to chase after the fleeing Fitzgerald one last time. When he caught news of the ghost man’s return from the dead he knew the implications. Dead men tell no tales, but it’s a different story if they don’t die.

Unfortunately, The Revenant is rather laborious in the end and it’s a fatalistic revenge tale certainly but it’s not altogether satisfying. True, the perpetrator of evil is brought to justice, but that doesn’t mean a great deal. Perhaps because we admire Glasses gumption, but we never really build a connection with him. He truly is a solitary figure looking to avenge the death of his boy. There’s not more to grab hold of with this dynamic, maybe due to the fact that he is really a ghost. He’s so gaunt, battered, and spent that there is little space for emotions to fill all the nooks and crannies. Only a constant, pulsing desire for vengeance.

Still, we can always go back and be contented in Lubezki’s gorgeously stark visuals. The frontier look of this film brought to mind Malick’s film (also with Lubezki) The New World for a brief instant, and it makes me want to give it another look. Otherwise, The Revenant stands as an impressive feat, but it does not quite have the emotional wallop that it had the potential to wield. Although, the performances are thoroughly impressive, even if it’s more for their singular commitment than anything else.

4/5 Stars

Viridiana (1961)

Posted on February 23, 2016 by 4 Star Films

Luis Bunuel like another cinematic auteur, Ingmar Bergman, seems to often fill his films with religious imagery and themes, but whereas Bergman appears to have genuine questions about his own spirituality, Bunuel is all but content to subvert all such depictions for his own purposes. He has a wicked sense of humor with the opening crescendos of Handel’s “Messiah” playing over the credits only to come back later when his film is at its most tumultuous.

The story opens, of all places, in a convent with a pretty young novice (Silvia Pinal) preparing to take her vows. But she is ordered by her superior to visit her long-estranged uncle. She is reluctant but goes anyways to his mansion in the country as a courtesy.

There she meets the lonely old man (Fernando Rey), isolated in his great home with only a few servants surrounding him. In young, vibrant Viridiana he finds joy and dare we say, love because in her face he sees the likeness of his now long deceased wife. She embodies the objects of all his passions and desires that he forgot so long ago when he was widowed. However, Viridiana is aloof and will show no affection towards him, ready to stay only as long as she has to. But he wants her to stay, needs her to be by his side forever, obsessing about her, and using all means necessary to keep her in his midst. It’s disconcerting how far he takes things, even lying to his niece that he took advantage of her in her slumber. Now if she leaves the house, she can never be the same woman she entered as, even if what Don Jaime is false. In the end, she does pack her bags in a tizzy and her hopeless uncle takes his life.

Now the life of a nun seems impossible, her life all of a sudden becoming tainted by these events. So she resigns to do the next best thing by taking her Uncle’s home and opening up its doors to the less fortunate — the beggars and the sickly. It’s a nice sentiment, but it doesn’t turn out especially well. She also becomes connected once more with her Uncle’s illegitimate son (Francisco Rabal), who has a more cynical view of the world. He sees her piety with an air of contempt.

In the chaotic interludes that follow, the house is torn to shreds by all the benefactors of Virdiana’s charity. While she is away, they make for themselves a rich feast, “A Last Supper,” pulling out all the stops like table clothes, fine china, and wine. What ensues is utter debauchery that Bunuel plays for laughs all the while Handel reverberates over the din.When Viridiana returns and sees the degeneracy around her she slowly dissolves into a shell of who she used to be. She’s been broken and much to her cousin’s delight, she’s lost her ardor, now jaded by all that is around her.

It’s a depressing conclusion suggesting that charity is all in vain because there is a degree depravity that courses through all people. In some sense, I find a Bunuel film more uncomfortable and disconcerting than most any, because he displays the most surreal, idiosyncratic, and even perverse things as comical. He lacks reverence and reveals the darker side of humanity all with a smile on his face. His style of filmmaking is abrasive because it rubs up against social mores and has fun with the baseness of mankind. If we note that before going forward, it still seems possible to learn from him and be a tad mystified by his work.

4/5 Stars