The Earrings of Madame de...

Madame de...; romantic drama, France / Italy, 1953; D: Max Ophüls, S: Danielle Darrieux, Charles Boyer, Vittorio De Sica, Jean Debucourt  

Paris, 19th century. Comtesse Louise sells her diamond earrings, her husband’s wedding gift, to a jeweler in order to pay off her debts. But when she feigns to her husband, General Andre, that her earrings were stolen at an opera, the jeweler contacts Andre about them, so Andre buys the earrings again and gives them to his mistress, who loses them while gambling in Constantinopol. The earrings are bought by Italian diplomat Fabrizio who meets Louise in Paris, and the two fall in love. Angry about all of this, Andre challenges and shots Fabrizio in a duel, which breaks Louise who dies from sadness.  

“The Earrings of Madame de...” reveal all the features of their author: a true romantic, but also a tragic realist, the director Max Ophuls again presents a doomed love story, this time through a love triangle between Louise, General Andre and diplomat Fabrizio. Ophuls uses a subtle codification of events through several little details—for instance, General Andre mentions that Napoleon only made two mistakes in his life (“Women and Waterloo”), and this comes full circle when Andre escorts his mistress in a train department with the number 13; while his wife Louise shows Fabrizio a painting of the Battle of Waterloo, implying that Andre is unlucky when it comes to relationships, and that he will experience a “love Waterloo”. The whole structure of the film is the one of a circle, so the camera drives are often from left to right, right to left, up and down, and then back again, whereas this is even hinted at in the scene how Louise and Fabrizio first met: the wheels (circle) of their two carriages accidentally got stuck on each other while passing on the street. 

The earrings of the title heroine are a clear film device: they are a symbol for love, and since they pass from owner to owner, they show how affections change between characters. The earrings were first a wedding gift to Louise from her husband Andre, who loved her, but since she never really loved him, she sells them. Andre rebuys the earrings from the jeweler and gives them to his mistress, but she also has no affection towards him and uses them for gambling. However, Fabrizio loves Louise and gives her the earrings as a gift—and all of a sudden, they are precious for her once again, since she loves him as much as he loves her. The earrings are a catalyst for the heroine's transformation from materialism into romanticism and humanity. Among the flaws of the film are its dry, formulaic, sometimes even distant approach, while the story is somewhat banal, always dangerously close to a soap opera. The grand theme is how love is rare and fragile, since Louise spent her entire marriage with her fake love, but when she finally found true love, her fake love Andre prevents her from true joy. Nonetheless, Ophuls manages to lift the film above kitsch: even after the death of two characters, the camera continues to make its drives from left to right, up and down, in an empty room, as if it honors them when they were alive, or as if it follows their "ghosts". Also, in one sequence, Louise wants to write a love letter to Fabrizio, but tears it apart and throws them out the window of a train, and hundreds of pieces of paper scatter across the forest, more and more, until they dissolve into hundreds of snow flakes, in a moment so poetic that it needs no words.  

Grade:+++

Nomadland

Nomadland; road movie / drama / art-film, USA, 2020; D: Chloé Zhao, S: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Bob Wells, Peter Spears  

After her husband dies, Fern sells most of her belongings, buys an RV and decides to live in it, moving through the road from town to town, from job to job. She meets other van-nomads, including David, who is interested in her. When David moves back to his family, he invites Fern to live together. However, Fern just borrows some money from her sister and goes back into living as a nomad. 

“Nomadland” is a bitter critique of the negligence of the 21st century capitalism towards the retired people and a shortage of financial savings among each new generation, the working class that has to work for the rest of their lives, even in old age, but is written and done in a boring and banal way. The director Chloe Zhao took the strategy of showing the feeling of scattered nomads in their vans by depicting the protagonist Fern as a desolate, anti-social traveler-character who never takes roots, and thus other characters just come and go, and scenes also just come and go, as if they themselves are just “nomad-scenes” that refuse to take roots, but instead just randomly migrate across the film without a plot. The problem is that all this is not very cinematic, it is just a random series of vignettes which never connects as a whole on some more gratifying level. 

At one point in the film, Fern is in trouble because her RV’s engine broke down, so she brings it to the auto mechanic. This could have been an important point in the film which could engage, since her basic life philosophy is under threat. But three to four scenes later, this is forgotten, and the movie just moves on. In another sequence, a woman tells about her cancer and how she has only a short amount of time to live. Does this play a role later on in the film? No. This is a major weakness. The entire film is just a collection of pretty looking scenes, but none of them have any weight or influence on the next set of scenes. As if it doesn’t matter whatever happens. And thus, the viewers cannot engage in this episodic storyline. Sadly, the movie is not memorable since nothing is going on, with only some moments standing out, such as Fern defecating in a bucket in her van or taking a shower at her work place. “Nomadland” has no humor, no excitement, no ingenuity, no spark, and is even scarce in emotions, turning into a peculiar, flat minimalistic existentialist art-film reduced to its essence: a person unable to connect to anyone. Unfortunately, despite an ambitious and intelligent constitution, Fern’s inability to connect spilled even over onto the viewers, who cannot connect with her.  

Grade:++

Color of Night

Color of Night; thriller, USA, 1994; D: Richard Rush, S: Bruce Willis, Jane March, Ruben Blades, Lesley Ann Warren, Scott Bakula, Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen, Kathleen Wilhoite, Shirley Knight

New York. When his patient commits suicide by jumping off from his office, psychiatrist Bill Capa is traumatized and left color blind. He arrives to Los Angeles to visit his friend Bob, a psychiatrist who leads a group therapy consisting out of Casey, Clark, Sondra, Buck and Richie, a teenager with gender identity crisis. Bob is killed, and Bill starts investigating, while at the same time he meets Rose and starts a passionate relationship with her. After Casey is killed, as well, Bill finds out Richie is actually Rose in disguise, since the real Richie committed suicide while under custody of his older brother Dale, so he decided to cover it up. Since Rose secretly had relationships with Casey and Bob, Dale killed them. When he threatened Bill, Rose kills Dale. Bill comforts Rose as to not commit suicide.

It seems highly peculiar that after getting an Oscar nod for "The Stunt Man", it took 14 years for the director Richard Rush to helm his next film, "Color of Night", often considered his weakest achievement. "Color of Night" is a mess of a thriller, as if someone wrote the worst possible rip-off of "Vertigo" and "Basic Instinct" and re-packaged them into an even bigger mess: for instance, while the protagonist got his fear of heights in "Vertigo" after a traumatic event, here the hero Bill becomes color blind after a traumatic opening in which a patient commits suicide in a highly exaggerated sequence where she goes "through" the glass to jump off from the building, not even bothering to open the window beforehand. What triggered that? It is unclear. Why did she have to go to that particular building instead of doing it in her home? Unclear. Even worse, what difference does it make that Bill has now become color blind? None. Throughout the storyline, no crucial moment seems to hinder Bill in his daily life without colors. The film also has incredibly trashy, heavy-handed depictions of murders and violence, from the murder of Bob who falls on his back through a door and is left impaled by glass up to the ridiculous, demented sadomasochistic strangulation of Casey. In another scene, Bill opens his mailbox and finds a rattlesnake inside, and then just lies there underneath, calling for help. Why not simply slowly crawl back away from the mailbox, since the rattlesnake is not budging from it, anyway?

The whole film is just so routine and bland that it seems like a soap opera of a thriller, with endless scenes of Bill walking and "investigating", but without any inspiration, care or spark while depicting him in these situations. It is as if the director's or the screenwriter's heart is somewhere else while creating these scenes. There are only two good things about "Color of Night": one is the beautiful actress Jane March as Rose, since she delivers some charm and wit in the story—the sex sequence in the middle of the film is sensual and well done (though she was better in Annaud's "The Lover"), while she also has some playful moments, such as in the sequence where she surprises Bill by wearing only an apron in the kitchen, turning around to reveal her naked butt, only to quickly take two napkins to cover her two butt cheeks. The other virtue is the plot twist at the end—even though it is in plain sight in front of the viewers, many will miss it, and thus it deserves a plus point for its surprise factor. Unfortunately, the film is way too long at 120 minutes—or 139 minutes in the director's cut—since Rush fooled himself into thinking there is some sort of a deep, psychological message about intolerance and persecution of transgender people at the end, when in fact the whole story is boring, with bad dialogues and tiresome scenes. The movie should have been just about the passionate relationship between Bill and Rose, since this is the only territory where it works, and should have just ditched the thriller elements which simply do not work.

Grade:+

The Stunt Man

The Stunt Man; drama / comedy, USA, 1980; D: Richard Rush, S: Steve Railsback, Peter O’Toole, Barbara Hershey, Allen Garfield  

Cameron, a fugitive wanted by the police, dodges a car on the bridge, and throws a metal item at it, which then crashes into the river. Cameron is taken under the wing of demented director Eli, who lies to the police that the fugitive is the stunt driver Burt (who fell with the car in the river), and now hires Cameron as his stuntman on his World War I film which is under delay. Cameron starts a relationship with the main actress, Nina, but is repulsed when he finds out she got her roles by sleeping with Eli. On the last day of filming, Eli wants Cameron to drive the car over the bridge into the river. Cameron starts the car early in order to escape, but the pyrotechnics blow up his tire, so the car falls into the river, anyway. Cameron swims to the shore, but starts an argument with Eli over his small fee.  

Films about making films often end up as an interesting watch, since many filmmakers insert problems and difficulties that happened to them, giving a metafilm touch. “The Stunt Man” is one of these films: its premise is basically simple, but the director Richard Rush tends to obfuscate the whole storyline. “The Stunt Man” seems like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde picture, since it has two levels—at times it rises to brilliance, and then at times it falls down into a sloppy mess—that are fighting each other, trying to alternately take the leading position. The film is a chaotic, disorganized, at times even clumsily directed patchwork, with the music playing over the actors talking, making it occasionally difficult to understand what they are saying, whereas the bizarre moments abound, from the infamous opening shots of a dog licking its own crotch, up to the demented sequence of the stuntman Cameron playing a WWI soldier running across the rooftop of a modern looking building, falling through a window, and landing on to a brothel (!), where other soldiers start taking his clothes off while the prostitutes are cheering. On one hand, this all seems weird, but on the other hand, it gives the impression of the madness of the megalomaniac director in the story, Eli, who is even more insane than Fellini was in his later surreal phase of his career, which makes it understandable why Cameron would be so hesitant at continuing working on the film set.   

Indisputably, Eli gives the story spark, and the film is consistently inspired while he is on the screen, a film director who would do anything to complete his artistic vision, whereas Peter O’Toole plays him wonderfully, delivering another fine performance. Moreover, Eli is often presented coming down from the sky, either from a helicopter or a camera crane, to symbolize his feeling of divine while he controls other people like pawns. Some of Eli’s funny lines include: “Burt here was so busy being brilliant that he wouldn’t have noticed sweet Jesus walking on water”. On the last day of filming, where they can film only one take of the crucial scene, he shouts in front of the film crew: “I therefore order that no camera  shall jam and that no cloud shall pass before the Sun!” When one of his cameramen shouts “cut!” and ends a scene because only 33 feet (equivalent to 22 seconds) of film were left in the camera, Eli goes berserk and accosts him: “In 22 seconds, I could break your spine! ... In 22 seconds, I could put 22 bullets inside your ridiculous gut!” The main protagonist, Cameron, is never as interesting as Eli, but the script gives him a few comical monents to shine: one of them is one of the most hilarious confessions of an attempted murder ("He was banging my old lady, so I started banging on his door!... I took the ice cream bucket and slammed it on his head! But it wasn't him, it was a cop... The tip of his nose frozen, and his earlobe frozen..."), which causes Nina (exceptional Barbara Hershey) to burst out laughing, or the moment where the make up woman stretches her hand out towards Cameron, who gives her back her underwear, but then she just grabs his hand, instead, and pulls him towards herself. One of the wildest movies ever to be nominated for an Oscar, “The Stunt Man” is a crazy experience— but that may be a part of its raw charm, being a true original that is its own thing.  

Grade:++

Robin Hood: Men in Tights

Robin Hood: Men in Tights; parody, USA / France, 1993; D: Mel Brooks, S: Cary Elwes, Richard Lewis, Amy Yasbeck, Roger Rees, Dave Chappelle, Mark Blankfield, Tracey Ullman, Dom DeLuise, Patrick Stewart  

In the 12th century, Robin Hood escapes from the Crusades in Jerusalem and returns back to England, where he gathers followers, including Ahchoo, Blinkin and Little John, in order to rebel against evil King John, who usurped the throne from King Richard. Thanks to their bravery, Robin Hood is able to de-throne the villain, marry Maid Marian, while King Richard returns to the country.  

Mel Brooks’ penultimate film, “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” is a parody true to his filmmaker style: some gags work, some don’t. Yet since Brooks lost his freshness in the 80s, more of them do not work this time around. In the first 40 minutes, he truly achieves a good comedy film, with several funny sketches that put a smile on your face, but sadly, he seems to run out of ideas after that, and thus the last 60 minutes are just “improvised” until the unsatisfactory ending, with too many empty walks and long stretches between the (good) jokes. The opening act is Brooks at his finest: dozens of archers shoot flamming arrows in the sky at night, creating opening credits with waves of fire. Until it is revealed that some of the arrows fell on the rooftops of houses, setting them on fire, so one of the villagers laments that there should be a better way of creating credits. Other jokes also work in this segment, akin to some Monty Python sketch, from Robin Hood leaving from the Middle East coastline to go into the sea to swim (!) all the way to England; through tax collectors removing a whole castle from its foundation (!); up to Robin’s intervention to save Ahchoo from six attacking guards, so he fights them, and asks Ahchoo to “watch his back”—only for Ahchoo to just watch a guard punching Robin Hood in the back.

Underrated Cary Elwes is a small gem as the title hero, impeccably mimicking E. Flynn’s performance and flamboyant attitude, amusingly wearing that oversized feather on his hat. On the down side, the inspiration for the cartoonish storyline is lost after 40 minutes, and thus too many bad or weak jokes end up embarrassing, banal, lame or too childish. The iron chastity belt is the worst joke of the entire film, but is done to death. The film has huge pacing problems: the overlong singing sequence in the middle of the film should have been cut to keep the story flowing, or done in a better way, whereas too many supporting characters are underused and unmemorable: by the end of the film, the viewers will probably already forget about Ahchoo, since he got little to do. The camera breaking the window joke still causes a chuckle, even though it was recycled from Brooks early film “High Anxiety”. “Robin Hood: Men in Tights” is one of those guilty pleasures: you like it just enough to wish it had more good jokes and less weak jokes, and not the other way around, as to what we got.   

Grade:+

My American Uncle

Mon oncle d'Amérique; psychological drama / art-film, France, 1980; D: Alain Resnais, S: Gérard Depardieu, Nicole Garcia, Roger Pierre, Nelly Borgeaud, Pierre Arditi, Henri Laborit

Neurobiologist and philosopher Henri Laborit talks about his theory of human behavior influenced by subconscious animal instincts of consumption, escape, struggle, and inhibition... Three stories: Janine grows up with her communist father and dominating mother, but defies them and runs away from home to try to become an actress. She is spotted in a play by the CEO of a radio station, Jean, who hires her and leaves his wife to start a relationship with Janine. However, when Jean is removed from the job, he starts suffering from kidney pain. Ultimately, Jean returns to his wife. Rene defies his farmer's family and studies to become an executive in a small textile factory, but is deemed incompetent and sent to a different factory, 600 km away from his wife and two kids, who do not want to leave their house. Upon being offered a job as a cook, Rene is so humiliated he tries to commit suicide in his room by hanging, but is saved by the maid. His family visits him in the hospital.

Included in Roger Ebert's Great Movies list, "My American Uncle" is not so much a film as it is a film study about behaviorism and its psychoanalysis, and why some people react the way they do, even when they themselves don't understand why they had a certain reaction. It is directly inspired by theories of neurobiologist and philosopher Henri Laborit, who intermittently talks into the camera and is heard off-screen, presenting his conclusions ("Through language, man has been able to pass on to succeeding generations all the experience that has accumulated over millions of years"; "In other words, our drives and our cultural automatisms will be masked by language, by logical discourse"). Unfortunately, while these theories are insightful and clever, this all makes for a very dry, didactic set of events, film-wise. The three stories are told just as an excuse to illustrate these theories, not to constitute truly inspired filmmaking. For instance, it is explicitly stated that Rene's and Jean's health problems (stomach ulcer; kidney pain) are caused by their suppressed psychological anxiety, stemming from their problems at job, since they are not in charge of their lives anymore, while the human brain is taught from childhood to dominate over others. 

Some sequences are themselves almost subliminal in their expressionistic attire: two kids read during the night in their beds, so a grown man enters their room, unscrews the light bulb and takes it with him to ensure it will be dark and they will go to sleep; while carrying a plastic pillar in preparation for a play, Janine is found and confronted by her over-dominating mother who slaps her since she forbade her to become an actress, causing all the other theater crew members to protest in Janine's defence; after refusing to show her his island where he grew up when he was a child, Jean finds Janine there when he came there in his boat, while she stretches her arm out towards him and says: "Don't worry, I won't steal your memories", as she persuades him to show her around for a sight-seeing tour. Gerard Depardieu is good as the tormented Rene. In one great little idea, the director Alain Resnais shows a lab rat escaping from one part of a cage to another, to escape electric shocks, and then switches to the scene of Jean wearing a rat's mask (!) over his head, leaving his wife in the apartment to flee to his mistress, drawing a parallel in some foundations of animal behavior of trying to escape from the unpleasant. These disparate stories never come to a satisfying conclusion, and are only held together as so far to imbue them with Laborit's messages. Yet, like most message movies, "My American Uncle" is also not that cinematic, and is instead too schematic, regardless of the nobleness and insightfulness of its psychoanalitical message.

Grade:++ 

In a Lonely Place

In a Lonely Place; drama / film noir, USA, 1950; D: Nicholas Ray, S: Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith

Los Angeles. Dixon Steele is a washed-up, ill-tempered Hollywood screenwriter whose best days are behind him. His manager Mel tries to persuade him to adapt a popular novel into a screenplay, but Steele is so lazy he instead invites a woman who read the novel, Mildred, to his place to have her tell him the novel's story. Realizing Mildred is not interested in him, Steele sends her home during the night. The next day, Steele is summoned by the police because Mildred is found killed, and he is one of the suspects. Steele is supported by his neighbor, Laurel, who starts a relationship with him. However, Steele's negative and bitter behavior cause Laurel second thoughts. After Steele proposes her, Laurel accepts, but then changes her mind, fearing he might have indeed killed Mildred. When the police call Laurel and inform her that Steele has been cleared of murder, it is already too late, since Steele's relationship is ruined.

Excellent drama "In a Lonely Place", which coincidentally premiered with two other movies deconstructing the Hollywood show business, "All About Eve" and "Sunset Boulevard", was at first unjustifiably neglected among Humphrey Bogart's opus. One of the reasons probably lie in character Dixon Steele: unlike "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre", where Bogart played a character who was at least initially sympathetic, but later on became uncaring, or "The Maltese Falcon", where he was a charming outsider, here Bogart plays a character who is a completely unlikeable, unredeemable, selfish and unsympathetic anti-hero from start to finish. This is already demonstrated in the police interrogation sequence, where Steele is completely indifferent when the Inspector informs him that Mildred has been found murdered: "You puzzle me, Mr. Steele". - "Well, I grant you, the jokes could've been better, but I don't see why the rest should worry you - that is, unless you plan to arrest me on lack of emotion". He is a grouchy, even violent nihilist, though, as the title hints it, this may have been caused by his loneliness, as he started to act at least tolerable when he began a relationship with Lauren. The director Nicholas Ray treats the whole film as an elegant piece of fatalism, in which Steele is never able to escape his fate, and is resigned that he is only worth something when he makes money for the studio, not when he writes quality that doesn't sell. Mildred just might be a symbol for Steele's last remains of optimism and sense of joy, which was killed in this society, leaving him stuck in an endless dread. The snappy dialogues are wonderful and very quotable ("You have sent the son-in-law business back 50 years"; "It was his story against mine, but of course, I told my story better."; "I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me"), whereas despite a rather overstretched second half and a couple of lukewarm moments, "In a Lonely Place" works even today, and thus with time obtained the status of a classic that it deserved.

Grade:+++