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1. SCHINDLER�S LIST
2. THE GODFATHER, PART II
3. ON THE WATERFRONT
4. THE ELEPHANT MAN
5. THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
6. IT�S A WONDERFUL LIFE
7. FOREST GUMP
8. THE GODFATHER
9. NORTH BY NORTHWEST
10. REAR WINDOW
Reviews
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
It's a sin to destroy the music of loving kindness
TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD; 1962, ROBERT MULLIGAN (9 out of 10)
The film deals with racial relations in the American South in the shadow of America's peculiar institution, about seventy years after its formal demise. It manages to condemn racial bigotry without being preachy or demonizing the victims of culturally instilled racism who are otherwise decent and reasonable people.
The leading protagonist, Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck is a father of two (a young boy and a girl), a widower, an attorney and one of the town's most respected citizens, who defends a black man falsely accused of beating and raping a young, poverty-stricken white woman. At the trail it becomes obvious that the accused is innocent (indeed, that a rape did not even take place), and without directly accusing anyone, Atticus makes it abundantly clear to all who is truly responsible for beating the poor, illiterate woman.
The background story is about a mysterious recluse who lives in the home next to Atticus', an obviously kindhearted and generous person who leaves gifts for Atticus' son to find in a rotted-out knot in a tree on the property.
The story is sparsely narrated by Atticus' grown daughter in voiceover, so we only see her as a child as she describes her life, the people around her and the events that take place over a period of roughly seventeen months. Ironically, the little girl's older brother has the more prominent role in the story, and since it is he, not she, who is present at some of the story's most important happenings, we must assume that her brother later described these events to her when they were children.
This is a story about the magic of small-town life in America and the sweet blessings of healthy familial love in the face of human nature's irrational tendency which drives people to fear and to envy those who are different than ourselves. It suggests that loving kindness is our only effective weapon against this dragon though the outcome is always uncertain; that we must be wise enough to see the world as it is and foolish enough to live our lives as if the world were something else.
L'avventura (1960)
A solution that ends with a compelling mystery.
Using very little dialogue or music (virtually none of the latter), this is a smartly constructed work that readily reveals its character's psyches without the use of voiceover. Instead it relies on effective, rule-breaking camera work, visual metaphors, poignant dialogue and brilliant acting (mannerisms and behavior). The cinematography is gorgeous, and there are no wasted shots here. Every frame is a painting and a clue about the inner workings of the minds of its characters -- conveying their moods, theirs thoughts . . . their next move. Ingenious!
This is one of those films that appears to be one thing in the beginning, but turns out to be something else altogether. Antonioni pulls a fast one on us, but as he effectively uses one of storytelling's most common and powerful devices (the allure of the mystery), we're already in over our heads, utterly engrossed, when the ruse becomes apparent. This is a film whose story begins like a mystery, but is in fact a solution that ends with a compelling mystery.
8 out of 10
Brief Encounter (1945)
A masterpiece of technical and narrative craftsmanship
BRIEF ENCOUNTER is Lean's last "small" picture, as well as being the last of his collaborations with the great Noel Coward, as Lean was determined to be known for something more than just being the best interpreter of Coward's work on the screen.
The film is based on Coward's STILL LIFE, a one-act play about a middle-aged man and women -- both married with children, he a physician and she a suburban housewife -- who start an illicit affair that is doomed from the beginning. Though Lean expands the story in his adaptation, not a shot of film is wasted on the nonessential and not a single essential aspect of the original work is lost in the translation.
The tragic lovers first meet inside a small deli at a train station located in Milford, England just before the start of W.W.II. Laura Jesson, the housewife (poignantly played by Celia Johnson), travels to Milford from her home by train every Thursday where she spends the day shopping, having lunch with friends, taking in movies, etc. Dr. Alec Harvey (played by Trevor Howard), a general practitioner, meets up with her sometime after he agrees to assist his friend Stephen (played by Valentine Dyall) at Stephen's practice in Milford. Alec travels to and from his home by train, which frees Stephen to service his other patients at a second practice in London a few days each week during which time Alec resides at Stephen's flat. Alec departs on a train that leaves just before Laura's in the early evening . .. every Thursday.
Their first meeting occurs when Laura gets a bit of coal dust in her eye from the stack of a passing train just outside the deli. She hurries inside for help from the matron who runs the deli (Myrtle, played by Joyce Carey). Naturally, the good doctor, who is sitting at a nearby table awaiting his train, comes to her aid. This brief encounter sets up the logic for the more friendly and personal chance encounter that occurs the following Thursday in a small restaurant in Milford, which marks the beginning of the end of the affair, one that is never consummated by anything more than three kisses. Indeed, while they fall deeply in love and remain so to the end and beyond, they will meet only three more times, on Thursdays of course, in Milford. And these are the only times they will see or talk with one another throughout the film before their affair of three weeks ends.
This is not so much a film about a doomed romance as much as it's a film about two people who come to fully appreciate the extent of the wretched emptiness and loneliness in their own hearts when they discover in each other the kind of companionship that is possible between kindred spirits. Though they share moments of the most exquisite joy, they are nonetheless constantly tormented by the guilt and the shame that comes with the little lies and evasions they play out to conceal their love from others, primarily from Laura's husband, Fred, a kind but self-absorbed man (played by Cyril Raymond), and her friends in Milford. These are two very decent people, and they are also tormented for the sake of their respective spouses and children. It is these dark feelings that doom the relationship, as they both agree that the pain of deceit is greater than the delight of their love and would utterly destroy them and the lives around them. Before they become more deeply involved, they decide that Alec must take the position in Johannesburg, South Africa that has been offered him and go their separate ways forever.
Nothing is directly revealed about Alec's relationship with his wife and children. Indeed, they are never seen and are only mentioned twice in the film . . . just so we know that he has a family in another town. However, Alec's loneliness is evident from the beginning, and we see him come to life in Laura's company; the passion he has for his vocation as he reveals himself to her. We also see that Johnson's character is somewhat frivolous, but this aspect of her makeup is by design, a contrivance behind which she hides herself. Inside is a sensible and caring person, an adult, who comes out from behind her hiding place to meet with Alec and is about to endure the greatest heartache of her life. And herein lies the key as to why the film works so well, for Laura narrates the story. We are let into her psyche, and watch and listen as she undergoes a process of self-realization and discovery. It's a painful journey accented by the comings and the goings of the trains. Further, the story is told in flashback, an unspoken confessional to her husband in voiceover as they sit together at their home in the evening -- he reading, she knitting -- shortly after she has returned from Milford where she and Alec have just ended the affair.
In addition to the visual and voiceover narratives, the notes of Rochmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 rise and fall just under and over the narratives as the mood demands. It plays briefly during the opening credits along with the attention-grabbing opening sequence and then is reintroduced to accompany the voiceover narrative just under the characters' dialogue. It swells up to support the drama's emotional tension at key moments or to rush the rails along with the passing trains. The music is ingeniously attached to the narrative, as it naturally flows in the background from the radio in Laura's and Fred's parlor! To reinforce this, Lean briefly breaks into the narrative at the mid-way point, and we are jerked back into the parlor, into the now, when Fred interrupts Laura's thoughts to reduce the volume on the radio. Naturally, the break in the narrative occurs at just the right moment . . . before it continues on again.
Also, the film's larger story begins and ends with the scene of the couple's final breakup, which is interrupted by Dolly (played by Everley Gregg), a boorish twit and one of Laura's acquaintances who also travels to and from Milford by train. The interruption of the couple's final goodbye is balanced against the earlier interruption that occurs at the flat in Milford when the couple is in danger (?) of consummating the relationship just as Stephen arrives home early one night. Laura flees from the flat out the back door. If the film's narrative breaks down at all, it's at this point, for we are privy to the conversation that ensues between Alec and Stephen .. . after Laura's departure. Stephen discovers the decidedly feminine scarf that Laura inadvertently leaves behind and voices his disappointment in Alec rather harshly. Stephen of course has no idea who the fleeing woman is; he just knows it's not Alec's wife!
I believe this violation of the point of view works, as it is brief, there is appropriately no voiceover and it is immediately followed by a sequence in which poor Laura is running through the pouring rain as if a hoard of demons were after her. We are to understand that the conversation is both real and accurately imagined by Laura at the same time. I suppose some critics would complain, but I think it's brilliant. In any event, it strikes me as the height of absurdity to believe that Lean, who was one of the industry's leading film editors before he took the director's chair, simply failed to notice it.
As it is indispensable, there is at least one other aspect to the film that must be acknowledged. Through Laura's eyes, we watch the delightfully uninhibited exchanges between Albert (ticket inspector, played by Stanley Holloway) and Myrtle the matron, the working class lovers. These sequences smartly support the narrative and serve to underscore Alec's and Laura's repressed desperation and the flatness of their lonely middleclass existences.
This is Lean's most masterfully constructed film, and all of the performances, especially Johnson's, are solid gold.
The only weakness, and it is so minor as to make this complaint almost petty, is the unnecessary voiceover touching on Laura's brief moment of madness when she rushes out of the deli with the notion of throwing herself in front of an oncoming train just after Alec leaves the station for the last time. Aside from the action itself, the creative lighting (which briefly narrows around her, plunging everything else into darkness) and camera work (which tilts the frame and the world around her) that are employed here is all the narration needs.
Pale Rider (1985)
A pale remake of a great classic
PALE RIDER is essentially a remake (howbeit, a mystical version) of one of the greatest westerns ever made, and fans of SHANE (1953, George Stevens) will readily recognize this fact after watching PALE RIDER.
For the most part, Eastwood's filmology is a history of hits and misses--respectable, but not earth shattering. Then there was UNFORGIVEN, with which he established himself, once and for all, as not only a good director, but as one of the few who have wrought masterpieces. Unfortunately, PALE RIDER is not a happy addition to his life's work.
Clearly intrigued by SHANE but not eager to face the kind of critical scrutiny that is especially vigilant when one presents a remake of a classic, Eastwood blinked and instead presented a ghostly retelling of the original story with more guns, more gunman, one more love interest (two, instead of just one) and more violence; and changed the story-line (along with the tittle) just enough to pass it off as an original. Of course, this is not the first time that someone in the industry has tried this, but it is the first time that someone has tried this with such an acclaimed classic without at least giving some credit to the inspiration.
Eastwood should have shown more guts than gall and simply made an out-and-out remake or abandoned the idea altogether, as attentive fans of SHANE are neither fooled nor amused. This film is awful--not only as it stacks-up against SHANE, but also as it stacks-up against everything else that Eastwood has done. A true remake would have been better! Though he may not have equaled, let alone surpassed, the original, Eastwood is more than capable enough to have at least made a decent showing. On the other hand, some classics have aspects, techniques really, that are so intricately part of what makes them great, they are better left alone.
Eastwood should have left this one alone.
I give it a 2 out of 10 for gall.
The Fisher King (1991)
Close, but no cigar
Terry Gilliam's THE FISHER KING is a great story, a great vision but a disappointing film that comes close to greatness just before it meanders off into near mediocrity. It is both a startling pleasure to watch, especially for the first hour or so, and an irritation to endure. For the most part, the film's script is brilliant, its ambience appropriately and compellingly disorienting, its cinematography stunningly beautiful and its acting (with a few exceptions) superb.
Some of the blame for the film's failure goes to editing, but it is the director who inexplicably allows the narrative to stray and fails to notice that allowing Bridges' character to incessantly state the obvious, i.e., that which has already been wonderfully conveyed by the narrative and the cinematography, is irritating as hell. But what is most exasperating about this film is not that it fails to live up to the high standard it sets for itself, but that it needlessly fails to do so. The fixes are readily obvious and quite simple. Less is more; stick to the essentials.
It is not necessary, e.g., for Williams' character (Henry Sagan) to be nearly beaten to death in order to once again lapse into a catatonic state for six months while Bridges' character (Jack Lucas) deserts his girlfriend, goes back into radio, has a second epiphany (Eureka!) and rushes to Henry's bedside. One epiphany per film is enough, and life itself is enough to drive Henry's fragile mind back into its hole. Before the narrative strays, Jack has already discovered and involved himself in the needs of others. He's finally free to love himself and others. All that remains is his struggle with commitment and his inevitable confrontation with the bloody Red Knight. Faced with Henry's tragic relapse on one side and his girlfriend's love-sick anguish on the other, Jack has all the motivation he needs to emerge from his psychic stupor and be convincing. This film is about twenty minutes too long.
Further, cut Jack's maudlin speech at Henry's bedside; silent anguish and good camera work is all that's needed here. Why must Jack babble as he climbs the castle wall? Silence! Why must he suddenly and inexplicably have flashes of Henry's hallucinations?; the shot of the bloody Red Knight in the stain-glass window conveys everything.
Why must Jack utter the F-word in the scene where he learns about the murder-suicide? Like much of Bridges' dialogue, it's redundant! The expression on his face, in his eyes, is enough.
Less is more! Less is more! Less is more!
Still, this is a good film that simply fails to live up to its tremendous potential. It's well worth one's time. Give it a look and see why it just misses getting an Oscar nomination for best picture and going down in history as one the greats. I give it about a 6 ½ to 7 out of 10.
An American Werewolf in London (1981)
A great idea badly executed
AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON is arguably the most brilliantly creative vehicle from the 80s, but ideas alone don't make full-length feature films.
The film's script provides its audience with precious little story, and what there is of it is illogical and therefore unconvincing. Instead of story, Landis fills the screen with gimmicky sequences that undermine the impact of the truly substantial ones that work. Provided that the dialogue, which is really quite awful throughout the film, be reworked--the nightmarish home-invasion, the second visitation of the protagonist's savaged friend, the protagonist's transformation, the hilarious balloons-in-the-park and the haunted theater sequences are all keepers. The rest of the script should be scrapped and replaced with a story that makes sense.
Further, the film's lovers, David and Alex, are virtual strangers--not only to the audience, but to one another. The audience needs to know who these people are and understand what motivates their love. Given that Alex invests the most and is willing to put her life at risk, it is especially important that we be given some clue as to why she apparently comes to love David so much. Reducing David's and Alex's relationship to what appears to be a casual affair while depicting acts of great devotion is confounding and seriously undermines the impact of the film's horror. Also, the film's comedic element is introduced too early in Landis' version. This should not occur until after the romantic element is well established.
Landis' film is a B-movie, unconsciously presented as something more, but not in the tradition of the great, classic noirs of the 40s and 50s. This film really is mediocre.
Not withstanding, the film's makeup, for which it deservedly won its only Oscar, and some of its special effects are really quite excellent and continue to hold up against today's standards. And though its effectiveness is somewhat undone by the film's shortcomings, the juxtaposition of real horror and comedy is stunningly imaginative.
I give it a 5 out of 10 for creativeness and effort, and strongly recommend it to film lovers, as this is a potentially great film still waiting to happen and should not be allowed to languish as a cult classic, namely because it isn't, i.e., a classic. I recommend Michael McDowell to write and Tim Burton to direct the remake.