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Greed (1924)
GREED is better than good.
The only positive application of Gordon Gekko' "Greed is good" screed in WALL STREET would be if he was talking about Erich von Stroheim's classic silent GREED. But of course we know that's not the case, for the reptilian Gekko's sermon was about justifying avarice and the insatiable appetite for more, more, more. Along with Huston's THE TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE, GREED is a powerful polemic about the deadly sin's effect on friendships and marriages. Based on the 1898 novel McTeague, von Stroheim was determined to see it brought to the screen, even if it ruined him, and it damn near did!
In the 1920's, von Stroheim was a Stanley Kubrick before Stanley KubrickKubrickwas even born. Alongside Charlie Chaplin, he was the perfectionist's perfectionist, a meticulous filmmaker who planned every detail down to the letter. Von Stroheim was so anal about the wardrobe that in one picture he made sure that the character's undergarments were authentic, even though the audience would never see it on the screen. Before production began on GREED, von Stroheim insisted on filming completely on-location, with not a single scene shot on a set. That's how devoted he was to absolute realism.
Von Stroheim signed an exclusive contract with the Goldwyn Company that gave him complete carte blanche over every aspect of GREED. He took the cast and crew up to San Francisco, where GREED takes place, to begin filming, which includes areas around the city as well. The most arduous location was Death Valley, where the temperature rose as high as 51°C. It was an isolated area that had no roads, motel, and water, making the temporary lodgings a gruelling ordeal.
Unfortunately, during the shoot, the Goldwyn Company merged with Louis B Mayer's Metro Pictures to become Metro Goldwyn Mayer, which nullified the exclusivity clause in his contract. One of the executives in the newly formed studio was Irving Thalberg, with whom von Stroheim clashed when both worked at Universal. Thalberg was a kind of anomaly in the front office: an administrator who believed equally in art and commerce, that the two were mutually intertwined with each other. More than anyone else at M. G. M., Thalberg was responsible for making it the top studio in the Thirties, ahead of Warner Bros, Paramount, and Twentieth Century Fox.
The differences of opinion between von Stroheim and Thalberg picked up where they left off. When von Stroheim began assembling GREED during postproduction his final cut clocked in at eight hours!!! Not surprisingly, Thalberg ordered him to trim it down, and when von Stroheim grudgingly obeyed, it still ended up at the four hour mark, leading the executive to take the film away from the director and edit it down further. But really.....what else could Thalberg have done? No one would sit down in a theater and watch a movie that would run most of the afternoon and all of the evening. Today, GREED would have been made as a limited series on television, but in 1924,binge watching wasn't an option. Thalberg appointed the job of trimming GREED down to two hours to June Mathis, one of the ace editors of her day.
All the President's Men (1976)
Follow the money.
Almost since the Declaration of Independence, American politics has been a cesspool of mudslinging, racism, and corruption. Its Constitution was the most advanced piece of egalitarian legislation since the Magna Carta, but has come under assault a few times by dangerous fanatics. The venality of the previous administration has brought up Richard Nixon's name more than once. One of the best aspects of ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN is how it demonstrates the importance of a free press and its role in holding powerful people to account for their criminal behavior.
The Watergate hearings on television had viewers riveted to their seats as, one by one, the depth of Nixon's attempts to cover up the break-in were getting exposed. One of those people was Robert Redford, who had eagerly read the Washington Post articles by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. In fact, it was Redford who encouraged the reporters to write the book "All The President's Men" in the first place, with options for the movie rights. Another superstar fascinated with Watergate was Dustin Hoffman, who tried in vain to acquire the rights before learning that Redford beat him to the punch. Intending to play Woodward, Redford called up Hoffman to let him know that the role of Bernstein was his if he wanted it. Hoffman's reaction was "I thought you'd never ask ".
Academy Award winning screenwriter William Goldman (BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID) was hired for the daunting task of putting together a script from a nonfiction source. For him, it was an ordeal comparable to a colonoscopy. After submitting his first draft, Goldman was forced to send in rewrites, and if that wasn't insulting enough, he was infuriated to discover that Redford urged Bernstein to write his own screenplay -which was ultimately rejected.
Alan J Pakula (THE PARALLAX VIEW; KLUTE) was brought on to direct and he closely worked with everyone concerned to ensure that ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN was as historically accurate as possible. The production design team probably had the most work cut out for them, and that's just to recreate the Washington Post newsroom.
Oliver Twist (1948)
It'll leave you wanting some more.
Despite their being separated by almost a century, Charles Dickens and David Lean share a symbiotic relationship. Dickens may very well be the greatest novelist of the 19th century, while Lean, on the other hand, was unquestionably among the finest filmmakers of the twentieth. Dickens was the great social critic of the Victorian era, railing against child exploitation and debtor's prisons and class discrimination. His tales astutely encapsulated the British Empire in all of its glory and shame.
Following the success of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, Lean decided to give Dickens another go. The book he had in mind this time was "Oliver Twist, but there was controversy attached to this one, and it had to do with the character of Fagin. Almost since "Oliver Twist" was published, accusations of anti-Semitism were leveled against Dickens' depiction of Fagin, implying that his descriptions and artist's drawings were rife with negative stereotypes. It should be noted that despite the book's containing several references to Fagin's religion, at no point in Lean's version is it ever mentioned. Looking at the film today, I concluded that there were plenty of villains in OLIVER TWIST for people to jeer and hiss at. Fagin just happened to be one of many.
Lean tested almost 1400 applicants to play the title role and rejected all of them by claiming they were too well fed to be convincing as an orphan. His uncompromising persistence paid off when a colleague of his suggested eight year old John Howard Davies. To portray Fagin, Lean reunited with the chameleonic actor Alec Guinness for the second of six times, and unlike their experience on GREAT EXPECTATIONS, there were no fireworks this time.
For the vicious Bill Sykes, Lean thought Robert Newton was perfect for the part, but the roistering actor's well known alcoholism made him a questionable insurance risk. Happily, all the kinks were ironed out, paving the way for him to join Lean's cast. Best remembered today as the definitive Long John Silver, it was reputed that Newton was the inspiration for sea captain McAllister on The Simpsons ("Yarrr, call me back, Ishmael!").
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Film noir's royale with cheese.
PULP FICTION, the Palme D'Or champ of 1994, graduated into the public mainstream that autumn with a fanfare that for Cannes winners happens about as often as Halley's comet. This was Quentin Tarantino's second feature, and it not only lived up to the promise of his debut RESERVOIR DOGS, but actually surpassed it, making himself a household name in the process. It seemed that everyone in the world except for Pope John Paul II knew who he was.
The soundtrack also became a phenomenon too; containing an eclectic selection ranging from surf instrumentals to Al Green, not since SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER had one movie captured the Zeitgeist. Even PULP FICTION's poster, with the sultry image of Uma Thurman lying belly down on the bed while dramatically holding a cigarette between her fingers did a good job of setting the mood.
What made Tarantino stand apart from other directors of his generation was his audacious use of dialogue, with its colorful profanity and junk culture references. A cineaste with an affinity for the classic and the schlocky, Tarantino took various elements from both and threw them into his melting pot. Although he was hardly the first to turn the whole film noir narrative upside down à la CITIZEN KANE, he gave it a much-needed adrenaline shot with a fresh, hip approach. As far as people under 35 were concerned, Tarantino reinvented the cinematic wheel, so to speak. And every copycat in Hollywood and abroad attempted in vain to replicate his übercool attitude.
PULP FICTION set in motion one of the biggest comebacks in movie history. For fifteen years, John Travolta's career was on life support, unable to capitalize on the one-two punch of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER and GREASE. This downwards trajectory was not totally his fault, for while he did make some poor choices, Travolta was also the victim of changing times and the public's ever-so-fickle appetites. But Tarantino wanted him an him only to play Vincent Vega, and Travolta, grateful for the opportunity, seized it with relish.
Bruce Willis was another star whose career was heading towards the toilet. His spiral was happening at a faster pace than Travolta's, due to a series of flops, none of which had the words DIE HARD in the title. Knowing an olive branch when he saw it, Willis took a much smaller salary amongst an ensemble cast because a smaller role in a good project was better than the lead in a bad one.
Vincent and Jules (Samuel L Jackson) are a pair of hitmen in black who engage in some not-so-philosophical banter about Burger King and foot massages before executing -literally- a job on behalf of their boss Marcellus (Ving Rhames), a gangsta whose bad side you don't want to be on. In address to bumping off the unfortunate saps, they're also tasked with retrieving a briefcase belonging to Marcellus. Judging from the orange glow emanating from inside the case, the contents inside are worth killing for.
Shichinin no samurai (1954)
Ronin the countryside.
To truly appreciate how the motion picture became the art form of the twentieth century, you have to watch one not in the English language. By immersing yourself into an offering from France or Italy, Germany or Russia, Iran or India, then you'll truly understand the universality of film. Japan produced a titan whose success lifted his country's movie industry out of the ashes of its defeat in the Second World War. His name was Akira Kurosawa.
Kurosawa opened the world's eyes to Japanese cinema after his RASHOMON took the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in 1951. In some ways, this mutual awareness was the cinematic equivalent of Commodore Perry arriving in Tokyo Bay, only without the beligerence. Curiously enough, Kurosawa's peers in Japan weren't ecstatic over his breakthrough, accusing him of adopting Western ideals and forsaking Japanese tradition. But Kurosawa smashed through where many had failed. The film generally regarded as his best is SEVEN SAMURAI.
Great Expectations (1946)
Lives up to its expectations.
Before David Lean gave us the widescreen Technicolor spectacle of THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, he applied the same pictorial beauty to his black & white classics. In particular, his two Charles Dickens adaptations stand out, GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OLIVER TWIST.
Dickens may have been the greatest novelist of the nineteenth century, having penned the literary masterpieces "Oliver Twist", "David Copperfield", "A Christmas Carol", "Nicholas Nickelby", "Little Dorrit", "A Tale Of Two Cities", and "Bleak House". But the consensus among writers, readers, and historians is that "Great Expectations " is his magnum opus. Some will go so far as to say it's the best novel of the nineteenth century, period, ahead of "Moby Dick", "Little Women", "Heart Of Darkness", and "War & Peace".
Before becoming one of the most acclaimed directors of all time, Lean got his start in the British film industry as a top-notch editor, acquiring a reputation as the finest in England. In 1942, Noel Coward offered him a job to co-director with him on IN WHICH WE SERVE, a rallying propaganda piece designed to pick up the spirits of a nation at war. It was a big success in the Free World, earning Coward a special Academy Award, and the legendary playwright/actor signed Lean to a contract with him.
After their contract concluded with the memorable love story BRIEF ENCOUNTER, Lean wanted to branch out on his own, forming the production company Cineguild with Ronald Neame and Anthony Havelock-Allan. Lean had always wanted to film GREAT EXPECTATIONS, and hired a screenwriter to adapt it for him. But he hated the treatment so much that he resolved to write it himself with help from Neame and Havelock-Allan, with Lean's actress wife Kay Walsh also pitching in.
One of the hallmarks of a great director is matching the right actors to the roles, and Lean definitely had an acute eye for casting. GREAT EXPECTATIONS was his first collaboration with Alec Guinness, with whom he had a love/hate relationship; while they respected each other's craft, they often butted heads over character interpretation. John Mills, who would become a British institution, was very well cast as the adult Pip. And a teenage Jean Simmons had her first noteworthy part as the young Estella.
Das Leben der Anderen (2006)
A film Orwell would have appreciated.
As the 21st century has reached young adulthood, I'm going to go out on a limb and state that THE LIVES OF OTHERS is the second best movie of the new millennium so far, behind the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy (I count all three as one). It's one of the most emotionally shattering motion pictures I've seen in a long time. It was the feature directorial debut for Florian Henckel von Hammersmarck, and he joins Orson Welles and Mike Nichols in that rarefied group of filmmakers who hit a grand slam on their first at-bat.
Baseball metaphor aside, I should preface by writing that THE LIVES OF OTHERS isn't a feel-good movie since it takes place in 1980s East Germany, not exactly a location that conjures up images of glamour. Of all the Soviet satellite countries during the Cold War, East Germany was without a doubt the most oppressive, the very nation-state that George Orwell cautioned us about.
A Man for All Seasons (1966)
The King's loyal subject but God's first.
By 1527, the Roman Catholic Church had already been in turmoil after Martin Luther's historic break a decade earlier, and now Henry VIII was threatening to do the same thing in England. The king's main bone of contention had to do with Pope Clement's stubborn refusal to grant him a divorce from Catherine of Aragon so that he could marry Anne Boleyn. And out of this clash of religious dogma came Robert Bolt's brilliant play "A Man For All Seasons".
Bolt's drama became a hit first in London's West End with respected stage actor Paul Scofield headlining as Sir Thomas More. When "A Man For All Seasons" debuted on Broadway, Scofield recreated his role and won a Tony for his performance. Oscar winning director Fred Zinnemann was an admirer and wanted to adapt it into a motion picture. Because Scofield was little known across the Atlantic, the producers preferred Richard Burton or Laurence Olivier. To Zinnemann's credit, he insisted on preserving the play's integrity by having Scofield portray More in the screen version, putting to rest Charlton Heston's fond wish to be cast as the Lord Chancellor.
Thanks to Bolt's experience with David Lean on LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, he was perfectly qualified to adapt his own play for the screen. To keep the budget within $2 million, Zinnemann and his actors, which included Wendy Hiller, Robert Shaw, Leo McKern, Orson Welles, and Susannah York agreed to work for a fraction of their normal salaries. Vanessa Redgrave, appearing in a one-scene cameo as Anne Boleyn, didn't take any payment at all.
City Lights (1931)
Chaplin at his most illuminating.
Although Charlie Chaplin counted THE GOLD RUSH as his personal favorite of his films, the consensus among critics and historians is that CITY LIGHTS represents the summit of his genius. The American Film Institute rates it as the greatest of all romantic comedies, even ninety years after it was made. Chaplin's peers in the director's chair also have a reverence for CITY LIGHTS: it's one of the favorite films of Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick, Guillermo Del Toro, Andrei Tarkovsky, Federico Fellini....and ugh! Woody Allen.
Although you wouldn't know it from its running time, CITY LIGHTS consumed three years of Chaplin's life, from the pre-production stage in 1928 to it's release in 1931. Normally, that kind of lengthy Kubrickian shoot would be compatible with a three hour epic, not a silent comedy barely clocking in at ninety minutes. But being an independent artist with his own studio meant that Chaplin could develop his project without having to answer to any executive breathing down his neck.
Aside from Erich von Stroheim, Chaplin was the most perfectionist filmmaker of his era, often starting production without a finished script. He was one of those rare directors who liked to develop his story as he moved along, ordering an excessive number of takes, to the frustration of his co-stars. In lieu of a screenplay, Chaplin would pantomime how he wanted his actors to perform, right down to the last extra on the set.
Chaplin and his leading lady Virginia Cherrill -playing the blind flower girl- didn't get along. He would frequently explode with anger if she didn't act out a scene precisely how he wanted. Chaplin also disapproved of the 20-year old Cherrill's active nightlife either, and the tension got to the point when he would fire her out of frustration. After terminating her services, Chaplin realized that he'd filmed too much footage of her to start anew with another actress. Cherrill got wind of this somehow, for she offered to return to complete CITY LIGHTS....for double her salary. Chaplin grudgingly rehired her.
Children of Men (2006)
The future isn't what it used to be.
Alfonso Cuaron's last two features, GRAVITY and ROMA, earned him Academy Awards for Director -and Editing- but in his limited filmography, the movie if his that made the most searing impression on me was his 2006 science fiction CHILDREN OF MEN. Often referred to as the anti-BLADE RUNNER, it was critically acclaimed upon release.....and it's got even more praise in the ensuing years! Movie critics -and even the armchair ones- have been busy compiling their best of the new millennium since it began, and you can bet your bottom dollar that CHILDREN OF MEN will finish somewhere in the top ten. It's certainly in mine!
Unlike Ridley Scott's dystopian classic, CHILDREN OF MEN doesn't have any of the cliched futuristic set pieces one normally associates with sci-fi. There's no flying cars, no guns that disintegrate anything that comes into contact with them, nor any robots taking on a human form....so far anyway. It may have been set 21 years into the future, but the expositional backgrounds don't look too much different from when it was made. The high-tech billboards are the only things that have a similarity with, say, MINORITY REPORT.
It's November of 2027, and humanity has been gripped by a mysterious infertility that's lasted eighteen years. That was when the last baby was born, and it looks like by the time the 22nd century enters its second decade there won't be any humans left in earth. Add war and depression to that dystopian scenario and civilization is on the brink of collapse. Only Great Britain soldiers on as the last bastion of what remains of democracy , and even that is teetering on the edge. Refugees from all over the world are kept in cages that chillingly parallel American border policies from 2017 to 2021. The right-wing government is locked in a battle with a left-wing militant group known as The Fishes over immigration policies.
The reluctant hero of CHILDREN OF MEN is Theo Faron (Clive Owen), a middle-aged civil servant who in his younger days was a radical activist along with his wife Julianne (Julianne Moore). His life took a downward turn after (a) their infant son died during a flu pandemic, and (b) his marriage fell apart shortly after. In 2027 Theo is now a disillusioned alcoholic with a penchant for the dog races, along with a countryside sojourn tohis hippie friend Jasper Palmer (wonderfully played by Michael Caine), a a political cartoonist who grows and distributes his own cannabis.
Theo's humdrum existence -I'm not sure it could be described as a life- is upended when he's kidnapped by The Fishes and taken to a safehouse. Their leader just happens to be Julianne, who dealt with her grief over their son by plunging ahead into her activism. She needs Theo's help in procuring letters of transit from his well-connected cousin in the Ministry of the Arts. The objective is to emigrate a young woman safely out of Britain to an island sanctuary in the Azores called the Human Project.
Black Narcissus (1947)
And then there were nuns.
I don't remember which star said "Always become friends with your cinematographer. He'll make you look good on the screen", but it might be the best advice to give someone starting out in the movie business. Everyone must have been clamoring to be Jack Cardiff's Bff during his long career. An early practitioner of three-strip Technicolor during the 1940s, Cardiff was known as a man who could turn beautiful women into goddesses. Laurence Olivier once declared him to be the finest cameraman in the world. A modest person, Cardiff's talent as a lensman was such that he could take a bad movie (CONAN THE BARBARIAN; RAMBO) and elevate it to mediocrity. However, when he worked with first rate filmmakers such as John Huston and Michael Powell, the result was nothing less than magic.
Cardiff's best work was with Powell and Emeric Pressburger, known professionally as The Archers. They were the Gilbert and Sullivan of motion pictures, not because they were accomplished librettists but because, as a working partnership, they brought out the absolute best in each other. On paper The Archers were credited as producers, directors, and writers, but the truth is, Pressburger was responsible for about 90% of the script while Powell called the shots on set. The Forties were their glory period, both during and after the war, gifting us with such artworks as THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP, ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT IS MISSING, THE RED SHOES, and A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH. My personal favorite of theirs is BLACK NARCISSUS.
Although set in the Himalayas, not one frame of BLACK NARCISSUS was shot outside of the United Kingdom. All of the interior was filmed at Pinewood Studios while for the exterior scenes, Wales and West Sussex substituted for northeastern India. Because no mountain in the British Isles could compare to the tallest range in the world, Powell used matte paintings as a backdrop. In this capacity, production designer Alfred Junge would be of immeasurable value. His art direction was apparently so convincing that Britons of East Indian or Gurkhan descent, upon viewing BLACK NARCISSUS, honestly believed it was photographed on location in their ancestral land.
In casting the natives, Powell and Pressburger chose Caucasian actors, a practice that would definitely raise flags today. Even today, it's difficult to visualize Jean Simmons as a teenage Indian girl. In fact, the only Indian cast member to actually portray one was Sabu, as the young general. To play Sisters Clodagh and Ruth, the Archers chose Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron, both of whom had worked with them before on separate projects. And... awkwardly, both actresses had affairs with Michael Powell at some point. But as far as I know, there was no tension between the two women.
The Killers (1946)
"I did something wrong once."
One of the greatest of all films noir, the genesis for THE KILLERS sprang from an Ernest Hemingway short story written in the Twenties. One critic later described the movie as one-tenths Hemingway and the remaining nine-tenths Universal. Not having read Papa's original treatment, I can't say how accurate that is. But what I can say is THE KILLERS is a crackling good way to spend two hours of your time.
The harsh reality of the Second World War rendered screwball comedies and Astaire/Rogers musicals antiquated. Postwar audiences were hungry for something grittier from Hollywood, and THE KILLERS responds to that hunger with a vengeance. Anthony Veillor was the credited screenwriter, but a few others unofficially worked on THE KILLERS, including John Huston, who was just released from his military duties. His name was not acknowledged on the screen because technically he was still under contract at Warner Bros, and THE KILLERS was a Universal production.
Credit for bringing THE KILLERS to the screen lay squarely with Mark Hellinger, a former newspaperman turned movie producer. Invited to Hollywood in the late Thirties by Jack Warner, he quickly established his reputation before leaving to work for Twentieth Century Fox and Universal-International. On THE KILLERS, Hellinger did everything behind the scenes except actually direct the picture. For that, he turned to Robert Siodmak, a German who began his career towards the end of the Expressionistic era. When Siodmak fled Germany after Hitler took over, he brought with him the dramatic lighting techniques he learned from the masters. It would be a perfect fit for a film noir like THE KILLERS.
A Matter of Life and Death (1946)
Afterlife goes on.
In 1946, a most unusual movie appeared out of England that was different than any other made in Britain at that time, or from anywhere else. With a devastating world war finally over, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger decided to explore in deeper context the taboo subject of death that would have been unthinkable just two years earlier. Hollywood tackled the subject of afterlife in HERE COMES MR JORDAN, but that was a romantic comedy which came out before Pearl Harbor brought America into the conflict. With A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH,Powell and Pressburger delivered the definitive statement about the hereafter.
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH was released in the United States under the title STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN because it was felt that following the Second World War American audiences would be less than receptive to a motion picture with the word "death" in the title. An absurd rationale, really, because the British people endured five years of blitzkriegs and blockades, so if anyone had reason to resent the D word, it was them.
When it came to casting the main role of Squadron Leader Peter Carter, Powell thought of David Niven, who spent all of World War Two in the British Army, loyally putting his career on hold after Great Britain declared war on Germany. Niven never talked about his experiences -as do most veterans- yet he was intrigued by the celestial aspects of A MATTER IF LIFE AND DEATH. But there was just a teeny problem with Niven accepting. Technically he was still under contract to Sam Goldwyn, so Powell and Pressburger had to work out a deal with the mogul so that the actor would be freed up.
They also rounded up a pretty good cast from both sides of the Atlantic. After working with the Archers on THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP, Roger Livesey was elated to accept the part of neurosurgeon Dr Frank Reeves. Canadian actor Raymond Massey was an experienced hand in Hollywood and England, so he was recruited for the role of Yank Abraham Fardan. Searching for the right female lead of an American in the Women's Auxiliary Corps, Powell preferred an unknown because established actresses such as Gene Tierney and Rita Hayworth would have brought preconceived notions, plus acquiring their services would have been a major headache. Alfred Hitchcock showed him a screen test of a 22 year old Kim Hunter -long before Stella Kowalski- which impressed him enough to sign her immediately.
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH begins in a Technicolor cosmos before honing in on the English Channel in the spring of 1945. Squadron Captain Peter Carter is the only surviving occupant of a crippled Lancaster over the channel. With no parachutes left, Carter has the unenviable choice of burning up in the cockpit or jumping out and drowning -assuming he survives splashdown. Prior to his alighting from the plane, he shares his emotional final thoughts on the radio with June, a Bostonian Wac stationed in Devon.
The next time we see Peter, he's floating in the the water until washing ashore at Devon. Assuming that he's dead, he walks around the beach and sand dunes until a plane flying overhead makes his realize he's still alive. Peter also happens to come across a distraught June; meeting each other for the first time, they instantly fall in love.
Meanwhile, up in monochrome heaven, many deceased Allied serviceman are arriving on the stairway -actually it's more of an escalator- including a young Richard Attenborough. Waiting for Peter Carter at the pearly gates is Bob, his subordinate who was killed in the plane. After loitering around for his captain, it's becoming obvious to everyone in the afterlife that a slipup occurred.
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
A cinematic gem about abject poverty.
Many John Ford disciples consider THE SEARCHERS to be his greatest film, but from my armchair perspective, I'm going to stick to my guns and go with THE GRAPES OF WRATH. After more than eighty years this solid adaptation of John Steinbeck's masterpiece has lost none of its potency, serving as a document of the devastation wreaked by the Great Depression. The visuals provided Ford and cinematographer Gregg Toland have the stark power of a Walker Evans photograph.
From the moment Steinbeck's novel was published, Twentieth Century Fox honcho Darryl Zanuck wanted to make a motion picture out of it. But he had to tread carefully to avoid the wrath of the big bankers, whom Steinbeck portrayed very negatively. To keep the project as hush-hush as possible until ready for release, production on THE GRAPES OF WRATH proceeded under an alternate title. Zanuck also sent men out to the California agricultural fields depicted by Steinbeck to make sure the author wasn't embellishing the exploitations against the migrants. He was quite stunned to learn that, if anything, Steinbeck downplayed their experiences, that it was much worse.
THE GRAPES OF WRATH also afforded Zanuck the opportunity to sign two independent minded talents who were reluctant to be tied down by a contract. John Ford was a maverick director who cherished his artistic freedom but he also knew how to play the game in Hollywood. He already won an Oscar for THE INFORMER, and by the time of THE GRAPES OF WRATH, Ford was enjoying a hat trick with STAGECOACH, DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK, and YOUNG MR LINCOLN in 1939.
Ford's leading actor on the latter two films was Henry Fonda, a man who also managed to freelance in an era where that was very uncommon. When he was filming JEZEBEL at Warners, Fonda had a clause in his contract allowing him to leave the set for New York to be present when his baby daughter Jane was born. Knowing how important THE GRAPES OF WRATH was to both men, Zanuck used the material to issue take-it-or-leave-it offers to entice Ford and Fonda over to Fox. Ultimately, both of them signed along the dotted lines.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
A movie of constant delight.
Joel and Ethan Coen's O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU is the most intelligent Three Stooges comedy ever made. Okay....so Larry, Curly, and More aren't really in this picture -they have been deceased for quite some time- but the comical situations that the Coens' dopey threesome get into are reminiscent of the lowbrow comedy trio. Actually, O BROTHER is an ingenious and loose rendering of Homer's Odyssey updated to the American Deep South during the Great Depression.
Being true cinephiles, the Coens enjoy incorporating references from some of their favourite motion pictures, often as in-jokes which only an equally devoted film buff might catch onto. The movie's title comes courtesy of the titular character of Preston Sturges' SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS. The Sullivan in question isa director of comedies who yearns to make a serious drama about the Depression he intends to christen as O Brother Where Art Thou. There's also a reference to THE WIZARD OF OZ in the scene where Klansmen march and chant just like the Wicked Witch's henchmen as they're about to lynch someone.
From the beginning, the Coens only had George Clooney in mind to play Ulysses Everett McGill. They travelled to Phoenix, where Clooney was filming THREE KINGS, to show him their script, but they needn't have wasted the gas. The actor always wanted to work with them, and accepted the offer before reading it. He would be in good acting company, with John Turturro, John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Tim Blake Nelson, and Charles Durning along for the wacky, whimsical ride.
Ulysses Everett McGill is a silver tongued convict who regards a tin of Dapper Dan as next to godliness.....or vice versa. Doing time on the chain gang, he talks Pete and Delmar, the other two tethered to him to make a break for it.
Z (1969)
Any resemblance is purely incidental.
Working abroad in the 1960s, Greek director Costa Gavros could only watch on in helpless fury after seeing his beloved country - the cradle of democracy - seized by a military junta. As bad as that coup d'etat was, Greece's years before that wasn't exactly an idyllic Shangri-la. When they weren't bottlenecked in external conflicts with Turkey, the Greeks had their hands full with internal issues. After finally driving the German invaders out of their country, the Greeks were gripped by a civil war between the communists -who mostly fought the Nazis- and the monarchists.
A bright light in postwar Greece appeared when Grigorios Lambrakis, a member of Parliament, became a powerful voice of peace and antifascism. An Olympic champion, former resistance fighter, doctor, and pacifist, Lambrakis was determined to restore egalitarianism, but in doing so he made many powerful enemies. In May of 1963, six months before Kennedy was killed, Lambrakis was assassinated at a rally by right-wing thugs. The murder and aftermath was the basis for Costa-Gavros' not-so-thinly disguised roman à clef, 1969's Z.
Raised in a left-wing household, Costa-Gavros' ideals were shaped by his father, who was a member of the wartime Resistance in Greece, followed by imprisonment during the civil war. Upon reaching adulthood, Costa-Gavros went to France so that he could study film. He started making features shortly after Lambrakis was killed, and hoped someday to do a film centered around the assassination.
The opportunity arrived sooner than he expected later in the decade when independent producers liked his concept. But because Greece was now firmly under the military's iron hand, there was no chance that filming would be allowed there. Strangely enough, Algeria -which achieved independence from France in 1962- was happy to accommodate the filmmakers, and Algiers substituted for Thessaloniki.
Z opens with a group of far right military officers discussing about how to eliminate communism, intriguingly referring to it as "ideological mildew", which in their eyes would apply to anyone to the political left of Ante Pavelec.
The Big Parade (1925)
The SAVING PRIVATE RYAN of the silent era.
If the Academy Awards had existed in 1925, then THE BIG PARADE would almost certainly have been named the Best Picture of that year. All of the ingredients were there: it was epic, clocking in at two and a half hours; it had a love story that made it appealing to both genders; and the combat scenes were quite realistic for its time. THE BIG PARADE also made John Gilbert a bankable star, a halo that, sadly, he would not wear for too long.
King Vidor had been directing many silent pictures for Metro Goldwyn Mayer, but was tired making ones that played for maybe a week and then petered out. Wanting to create a movie that people would watch for a second and maybe third time -as well as recommend to family and friends- Vidor pitched his idea of an American doughboy's experiences on the Western Front to Irving Thalberg, the wunderkind of the newly merged Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Thalberg responded with enthusiasm and not only did he encourage the director to proceed with the screenplay but brought in Laurence Stallings to help out.
Stallings was a Marine veteran who lost his right leg in the Battle of Belleau Wood. Upon returning home from France, he continued his writing career where he focused almost exclusively on his fellow servicemen. When Stallings expanded into drama, the result was"What Price Glory?", co-written with Maxwell Anderson, and it was a big Broadway hit. Because Thalberg was unable to acquire the movie rights, he persuaded Stallings to come to Hollywood and work with Vidor on what would become THE BIG PARADE.
Despite Stallings' having served in the Marine Corps, everyone decided to highlight the main branch of the Army instead. The United States War Department would be of immeasurable assistance to M. G. M., loaning them over 3000 men, 200 Army trucks, and 100 planes.
Raging Bull (1980)
Technically a knockout.
There are never enough superlatives to adequately praise Martin Scorsese's opus RAGING BULL. Many critics and film historians consider it to be the best movie of the Eighties as well as the finest sports movie and, by extension, the greatest boxing movie. It pulls no punches -yes, the pun is intended- in its portrayal of a thoroughly unpleasant man with more warts than a knot of toads.
It was Robert DeNiro who talked Scorsese into making RAGING BULL, as the director wasn't particularly enamored with boxing. But the pugilist's private life was chock full of the sort of dysfunctional melodrama to make Scorsese change his mind. Taking their cue from Jake LaMotta's autobiography of the same name, DeNiro spent almost a year training with the real LaMotta. By the time the cameras were ready to roll, LaMotta publicly stated that DeNiro was good enough to step into the ring and compete professionally if he so wished.
DeNiro also helped Scorsese with the casting of two other major roles. By the late Seventies, Joe Pesci had given up on the acting business and was working in a New Jersey restaurant, an Italian one, of course. When approached by DeNiro to take on the role of LaMotta 's brother Joey, Pesci was initially reluctant, but ultimately he accepted the offer. As for who would play Vicki LaMotta, it was Pesci who decided to pay it forward when he suggested 18-year old Cathy Moriarty, model whose deep voice and maturity belied her actual years.
About three quarters of the way through production, Scorsese did something unusual and risky. Because the final part of RAGING BULL depicted LaMotta's post-career as an obese caricature of himself, filming stopped for several months so that DeNiro could gain up to eighty pounds instead of using a fatsuit to portray LaMotta's physical decline more convincingly. In doing so, he set in motion a practice that virtually every actor since has done.
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The movie that dreams are made of.
Historically, the 1941 version of THE MALTESE FALCON was notable for a few firsts. For starters, it was Humphrey Bogart's first notable starring role in a motion picture after almost a decade as a second lead, mostly in gangster pictures. The movie was John Huston's directorial debut following years of toiling away as a screenwriter. THE MALTESE FALCON served as an introduction to British actor Sydney Greenstreet. It was America's first true film noir, featuring shadowy lighting techniques borrowed from the German Expressionists. And finally, in the character Sam Spade Hollywood inaugurated the antihero, a protagonist of dubious morality motivated mostly by self-preservation.
Most Bogart fans are well aware that he wasn't the first actor considered for what would be the career altering role of Sam Spade. George Raft refused not only the leading role in THE MALTESE FALCON, but in HIGH SIERRA as well which, incidentally, also went to Bogie. According to Huston, Raft's reason for turning down such a great project was because he didn't want to work with a first-time director. Another picture he declined because he didn't like the script was CASABLANCA which, as we all know, got scooped up by Bogie. Clearly, Raft didn't possess a barometer for detecting superb material.
At the time, Huston was one of many screenwriters who was unhappy with the way his scripts were being misinterpreted. Perhaps inspired by Preston Sturges, he wrote his treatment for a bargain price under the condition that he be allowed to direct it.
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
The war movie to end all war movies.
THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. PATHS OF GLORY. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT. LA GRANDE ILLUSION. COME AND SEE. These are the greatest war movies ever made, and you can also add to that list SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, Steven Spielberg's stunning World War Two drama about an platoon sent to find a missing soldier.
Even before its general release in July 1998, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN was generating a lot of buzz over the battle sequences, specifically how it was heralding a new chapter in combat realism. When aging veterans saw PRIVATE RYAN in the multiplexes that summer, their reactions varied from bending over in their seats with their heads at their knees, to just walking out altogether. Obviously, a lot of painful memories came rushing back.
The Gold Rush (1925)
Worth its weight in gold.
Of 1925's THE GOLD RUSH, Charlie Chaplin said this was the one movie he always wanted to be remembered by. He was an idol of my father when he was a boy, and when I was ten during the summer of 1975, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation began airing Chaplin's silents on Sunday nights. As we sat in front of the television, Dad introduced me to the Little Tramp, beginning with THE GOLD RUSH, followed by CITY LIGHTS, MODERN TIMES, THE GREAT DICTATOR, and MONSIEUR VERDOUX.
Looking back on it today, I think that was his way of passing down a family heirloom to me. Then... for many years, I went without ever seeing a Chaplin film until the late Eighties when, in conjunction with his centenary, they debuted on home videocassette. Watching them all over again with adult eyes, I realized for the first time just how much of a genius Chaplin really was.
Chaplin's inspiration for THE GOLD RUSH derived from two iconic moments. The first was the ill-fated 19th century Donner party, a lost group of greenhorns attempting to cross the Continental Divide who resorted to cannibalism in order to stay alive. The second was a famous photograph of prospectors ascending the Chilkoot Pass in the Klondike. Because replicating that image in the actual location was not feasible for the film, Chaplin recreated it at a place in the the Sierra Nevadas called Truckee.
As it turned out, that recreation of Chilkoot Pass was the only exterior shot Chaplin filmed in Truckee. Many crew members suffered frostbite due to the cold, leaving him to close up shop and head back to his studio in Hollywood where it would be more comfortable. Well.... about as comfortable as one can be wearing snow gear in southern California.
Taxi Driver (1976)
Here is a man who would not take it anymore.
Martin Scorsese is the cinema's poet laureate of the American urban jungle. No other filmmaker in history has captured the grime and crime and general ugliness of the mean streets with as much artistry as he has. Part of Scorsese's genius is his ability to create powerful and lasting art featuring unlikeable characters at the core. Timing was a factor working in his favor ever since censorship restrictions were replaced by a ratings system in the late Sixties. Classics of his such as TAXI DRIVER, RAGING BULL, and GOODFELLAS would not have worked during the days of the Hays Office because the sex, extreme violence, and profanity one normally associates with Scorsese was not allowed.
TAXI DRIVER bears the unenviable distinction of being the only movie to be tied to not one but two attempted assassinations. Screenwriter Paul Shraeder based his story and protagonist on the diaries of Arthur Bremer, who tried to kill presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972. Five years after TAXI DRIVER was released, John Hinckley Jr became so obsessed with rescuing Jodie Foster's character that he shot President Ronald Reagan.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)
The system don't know Jack.
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST was the prototype of the anti-establishment films that were so prevalent during Hollywood's era of easy riders and raging bulls. From 1969 to 1980, the now-antiquated breed of virtuous male protagonist -Bing Crosby, Gary Cooper, Pat O'Brien- was replaced by the likes of Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, and Al Pacino, men who were less concerned about appearing "likeable" on the screen and more about playing flesh and blood characters. They were actors who became reluctant movie stars. Nicholson was probably the most charismatic of them all, starting with EASY RIDER, then FIVE EASY PIECES, THE LAST DETAIL, and CHINATOWN. In all of those aforementioned films he was nominated for Academy Awards, and each time he came out empty handed. That would change.
In 1962, Ken Kesey wrote his counterculture novel "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest", years before the countercurrent became mainstream. Basing the story on his own experiences as an orderly at a mental institution, Kesey's book was optioned by Kirk Douglas, who had it adapted for the stage. The play had a short run and closed soon after, but Douglas was determined to turn it into a movie. For twelve years, he tried in vain to convince reticent studio executives of its potential. Finally throwing in the towel, Douglas passed the project down to his son Michael, who by that time was starring in the successful television series The Streets Of San Francisco.
The younger Douglas managed to procure a deal with an independent producer named Saul Zaentz, whose company Fantasy Records brought us all Creedence Clearwater Revival. Branching out into movies, Zaentz liked the concept of ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, with its theme of individuality. But Kirk Douglas, by this point, was too old to play the youthful radical, and Jack Nicholson was cast instead.
Chosen by Michael Douglas to direct was Czech filmmaker Milos Forman, who just immigrated from his native land because the artistic freedom that once flourished there was now under tight control following the Prague Spring. Forman accepted Douglas' offer because, hailing from a communist satellite where the censor was a constant thorn in the side, he could identify with Randall Patrick McMurphy, as he later would with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Larry Flynt, and Andy Kaufman.
Randall Patrick McMurphy is a charismatic inmate serving time for statutory rape who's transferred to an Oregon mental institution for observation. Apparently, McMurphy's unusual behavior at the prison necessitated transfer, although the authorities are convinced that he's faking insanity just to get out of work detail.
Jaws (1975)
It all started with the shark. 🦈
Hollywood has long had their annual rite of passage known as the leave-your-brain-at-the-door summer blockbuster. If one was to apply a Darwinian theory as to how back this phenomenon (!) dates, the answer would be JAWS. Of course, we wouldn't be inundated with these dime-a-dozen special effects laden popcorn flicks if JAWS and STAR WARS weren't so entertaining in the first place. JAWS had struck such a nerve in the summer of 1975 that people were terrified of going in the water, in the same sense as they were jittery about stepping into the shower after that famous scene in PSYCHO. It didn't matter whether that body of water was an ocean or a landlocked lake, the fear was vividly implanted into everyone's subconscious.
Peter Benchley's best seller was optioned by Richard Zanuck and David Brown, who immediately, and correctly, sensed its box office potential. Making a deal with Universal, they considered a few directors before giving the job to an eager young man who just finished helming THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS for them: a fellow by the name of Steven Spielberg.
Although important as the shark was to the story, the three main characters would have to be well cast. For the salty Captain Quint, Spielberg and the producers had their hopes on Sterling Hayden, an actor who was also an expert sailor. However, tax battles with the Internal Revenue Service prevented his return stateside. Robert Shaw was approached next, but he hated the book, describing it with colorful language I can't use here. He changed his mind when his wife urged him to reconsider. Allegedly, Charlton Heston wanted to play Chief Martin Brody, but Universal wanted someone less expensive, so Roy Scheider was brought in. And finally, Richard Dreyfuss was given the part of Matt Hooper largely on the basis of his work on AMERICAN GRAFFITI.
JAWS was a nightmare to film on the sea, and the majority of the headaches surrounded the mechanical shark, nicknamed Bruce after Spielberg's attorney -well, you know the old joke about sharks never attacking lawyers out of professional courtesy. Actually, there were three Bruces, and at various times all malfunctioned due to the salt water. The weather was also an everpresent nuisance, as was friction between Shaw and Dreyfuss -mostly caused by the former-
plus numerous rewrites.
For anyone unfamiliar with the plot of JAWS (as if!!), the island resort of Amity is menaced by the presence of a great white shark. A week prior to Independence Day, the remains of a young woman are found on the beach. After the cause of death is attributed to a shark attack, the new police chief Martin Brody immediately attempts to close the beaches, but is rebuffed by the chamber of commerce. As the mayor explains, Amity is a summer town that depends on summer dollars.
Fargo (1996)
Is FARGO a classic? Yah, you betcha!
The Coen Brothers' first five films were all well received critically, but it was their sixth that earned them invitations to the annual country club fests known as awards season. Released in the spring of 1996, FARGO was Joel and Ethan Coen's best up to that time, and was already generating home video buzz before the Academy Award nominations were announced. Eighteen years later, it spawned a television series that was almost as good as its progenitor.
Fans of the Coens -also known as Coenheads- and film buffs alike have been amusing themselves in the decades since trying to guess which true crime may have inspired the story. One theory was a 1963 case where a St. Paul attorney was convicted for trying to arrange the murder of his wife. Another was an account of a Connecticut man who, after killing his Danish born wife, disposed of her body in a wood chipper. The brothers never confirmed one way or another if either was true....but they didn't deny it!!
Frances McDormand may have been married to Joel Coen, but that didn't mean she was going to get every single female lead in their films. However, the role of pregnant police chief Marge Gunderson was perfect, and for all I know it was probably written specifically for her. William H Macy, who'd never worked with the Coens before, badly wanted to play Jerry Lundegaard as soon as he read the script, and told them "Guys, this is my part. I want it". But politely, of course.
Steve Buscemi had been in a couple of prior Coen films, but he was getting more and more recognizable thanks to his performance as Mr Pink in Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS. The siblings provided him with a terrific part as Carl Showalter, the funny looking one. And stage veteran Harve Presnell hadn't appeared in a movie since 1969, but as he was approaching social security age, he ended up with his best screen role ever as Wade Gustafsson.
In truth, only the first five minutes of the movie takes place in Fargo; after that the story shifts east of the Red River to the siblings' home state of Minnesota. Jerry Lundegaard is the general manager of a car dealership owned by his father in law Wade.