104 in 2009 Week 26: The Exterminating Angel and Phantom of the Paradise

We're officially at the halfway point of the year, and I'm holding steady at just a sliver ahead of the curve. I kind of wish I was doing better, but this isn't bad. Plus, I can expect a pretty big boost come October.

El Angel Exterminador (The Exterminating Angel)
Luis Bunuel, 1962

The guests at an upper-class dinner party find themselves unable to leave for weeks on end. Nothing prevents them from leaving, though – they just can’t.

The Exterminating Angel is built around a simple idea – people trapped in a room for no apparent reason – and never really moves too far from it. Most of the characters are relative ciphers, and even by the end of the movie, I really couldn’t tell several of them apart. This isn’t really a problem, though, and may even be intentional – after all, Bunuel is criticizing a class of people, and their interchangeability is an obvious part of that. It’s a conceptual piece, where story trumps character and idea trumps story. This may sound tremendously dull, but it’s actually a very funny film, if a bit stretched. The core idea – that the bourgeoisie have built their own prison out of social mores and behavioral codes that they don't really believe in – isn’t really enough to sustain a full length movie, but Bunuel also manages to work in all manner of bizarre images which keep things interesting, and he adds an extra layer of depth by roping the Catholic church into the whole mess at the end. It may not be the best that Bunuel has to offer, but it’s still quite good.

7.5/10

Phantom of the Paradise
Brian De Palma, 1971

A demonic record producer named Swan (Paul Williams) steals the life’s work of a geeky songwriter (William Finley), who is then horribly disfigured by a record press when he tries to take revenge. The songwriter puts on a mask and mucks about Swan’s new theater, the Paradise, while becoming obsessed with a young singer (Jessica Harper).

This is said to be De Palma’s 70’s rock and roll version of Phantom of the Opera, but it really is only marginally related. The biggest connection is the backstory of the Phantom – but this film only shares that backstory with the 1943 Claude Rains film, not with – well, any other version of the story.

One nice thing about De Palma is that he’s never boring. The man never met a goofy stylistic quirk (or Hitchcock movie, for that matter) that he didn’t like, so even when a movie drags, you can still enjoy the random split-screen or lengthy tracking shot that he’s sure to throw in. This is fortunate, because once the Phantom is created about halfway through the film, things kind of drag to a halt, despite a few bravura sequences (the restoration of the Phantom’s voice, the chaotic on-stage finale). I can’t entirely put my finger on why, but I suspect it may have something to do with Jessica Harper. As much as I love Suspiria, she seems to be a lead weight around the neck of any other movie she appears in, at least in my experience. She’s barely present in the first half, but becomes much more prominent later on. It could also be that Finley’s doofily affable performance as the songwriter did a lot to carry the first half, and once he seals himself away behind a mask and a vocoder, that element is lost. Whatever the reason, even the back end of the movie is never less than watchable, and the piece as a whole is occasionally quite good. Just not often enough.

6.5/10

Progress: 55 (Par + 3)

104 in 2009: Week 25: Night and Fog and Knives of the Avenger

Two very different movies, two very similar ratings. Huh. The first one is kind of a cheat - it's shorter than I tend to accept. It's a highly acclaimed movie that frequently appears on best-of lists, though, so I'm going to count it (as I did with Un Chien Andalou, for another example).

Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog)
Alain Resnais, 1955

A documentary about the Holocaust. Basically.

The first half or so of this documentary was a disappointment, given the acclaim that it typically receives. It was made up of a mixture of documentary footage of the concentration camps and newer footage shot at the same locations, now abandoned and overgrown. It’s an interesting conceit, but the focus was on the documentary footage which, combined with the matter-of-fact voiceover, gave it the tone of the sort of thing you’d seen in a middle school classroom.

But then they started showing the bodies. Mutilated, starved, bulldozed, burned . . . simulated death in movies never looks like this. The point of the flat narration suddenly became apparent, as anything else would trivialize the images, rather than showcase their full nauseating potency. I was impressed.

And yet. . . it almost seems like cheating, in a way. The imagery was horrifying, sure. It had a strong, dramatic impact – but only because of the subject matter. I don’t know that this movie presented the pre-existing footage in a way that made it any more effective than it would have been in some other (relatively neutral) context. The movie works, yes, but the reason why it works (given that the other interesting aspect, the comparison with the abandoned sites, never fully developed) is kind of disassociated from the production.

6/10

I Coltelli del Vendicatore (Knives of the Avenger)
Mario Bava, 1966

Helmut (Cameron Mitchell), a warrior with a dark past, falls in with a peasant woman (Elissa Pichelli) and her son. He soon finds himself the only thing standing between them and all manner of violent semi-political intrigue.

Knives of the Avenger is far from Mario Bava’s best effort. It was a cheap and rushed production, and this is evident in pretty much every frame. Still, Bava does what he can to make it look good, and even succeeds at times. The fight in the tavern and the climactic battle in the cave/grotto are shot with wonderfully moody lighting that would better fit a gothic horror movie, and it does a lot to help those sequences pop. Of course, that’s the sort of thing Bava could do in his sleep.

Storywise, this is basically a western made out of Vikings, which particularly owes a debt to Shane, what with the troubled drifter falling in with a poor family, becoming a father figure to the son, falling in love with the mom, and protecting them from the bad guys. The plot is actually reasonably compelling, with plenty of twists and turns - it just isn’t put forward with much enthusiasm. It’s definitely worth a look, but if you just want to see Bava’s style applied to a swords-and-sandals film, you’d do a lot better with Hercules in the Haunted World.

6/10

Progress: 53 (Par +3, and we're over the halfway point)

104 in 2009 Week 24: Sunrise and It Happened One Night

Wow, it seems like only yesterday I was posting last week's reviews. I guess time flies when you slack too much.

Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
F.W. Murnau, 1927

A villager (George O’Brien), tempted by a sophisticated woman from the city (Margaret Livingston), reluctantly plans to murder his wife (Janet Gaynor) by throwing her overboard on a boat trip. He is unable to go through with it, however, and after reconciling, he and his wife spend a magical day in the city, falling back in love. But as they cross the ocean on the return home, a violent storm approaches. . .

I spent most of this movie stunned at the camera work and effects, almost to the point of distraction. There are lengthy tracking shots that look like steadycam work, decades before steadycam was invented. There are shots that look like chroma-key (blue screen) years before chroma-key was invented. I can’t figure out how half of what I saw was accomplished. After all, these were the days when everything outside of simple editing occurred in-camera. Murnau is rightly hailed as a visual genius on the strength of his Nosferatu, but Sunrise puts the earlier film to shame. This is probably more ground-breaking than Citizen Kane was, and I don’t say that lightly.

Outside of the technical laurels, though, Sunrise is a bit less successful. The story is almost ludicrously simple and the characters are very broadly drawn – frankly, there’s no way this would work if it weren’t a silent film. The layer of detachment created by the format is what allows it to work. On the other hand, Murnau was well aware that he was making a silent film (in fact, there are only a half-dozen or so intertitles in the movie, so it’s not only silent, but very silent), so I can hardly hold this against him. It’s a strike against, but a much more minor one than it might be in a different film. In fact, one could argue that the simplicity is to the movie’s benefit, not detriment, as the proceedings therefore take on the air of a fable or fairytale. I’m not sure I can buy into that argument, but it’s not unreasonable. Either way, whether it’s a fantastic but slightly flawed movie or a fantastic movie period, who can complain?


8.5/10

It Happened One Night
Frank Capra, 1934

An heiress (Claudette Colbert) runs away from home when her father threatens to annul her new marriage. She meets up with a reporter (Clark Gable) who decides to help her out in exchange for an exclusive on her story, despite the fact that they can’t stand each other. This mutual loathing does not at any point blossom into love. Nope. Not at all, not one bit. Nosiree.

It Happened One Night is one of the great American classics. It was the first movie to sweep the major categories at the Academy Awards (and one of only three movies to ever do it). It practically created the genres of screwball comedy and romantic comedy. As classics go. . . well, it’s okay.

Clark Gable is a lot of fun (and I’m not generally a fan), it’s very funny in parts – in other words, the comedy and the screwball are fine. It’s really the romance that’s the problem. Early on, when Gable and Colbert can’t stand each other, they’re great together. Fun to watch, good chemistry, things zip along just fine. Once they start to like each other, though, you can feel all the air going out of the tires and the movie grinds to a halt (the interminable musical interlude on the bus doesn’t help). Later, after the inevitable misunderstanding, things pick up again – but then love triumphs after all and it all falls apart again. I have to wonder if Capra realized that seeing our heroes happy together was not a good thing, because the entire reconciliation and everything that goes along with that happens offscreen, and the last 5 minutes or so are filled with supporting and incidental characters talking about what’s going on*. This results in an extremely unsatisfying conclusion, which harkens back to a very pained extended metaphor that the screenwriters just can’t resist bringing up at every opportunity. I swear, if I hear the phrase “walls of Jericho” one more damn time. . .

The more I write about this movie, the less I like it, so I’ll just stop here. I did enjoy about half of it quite a bit, and I have to give it a little credit for creating its own genres, so I guess that puts us at:

5.5/10

*As I consider it further, I think the ending was actually a matter of satisfying dear old Will Hays. The second to last scene ends with Colbert's father giving a zinger that feels like it should end the film - the problem is that what he says can (and should) be interpreted as "I don't care if they are married yet, they should totally have sex!" If you realize that this is a problem late in production, there's no real way to fix it other than to tack on a scene without any of the leads (who were probably busy on other movies by then) in which a kindly motel owner assures us that he has seen the marriage license. Problem solved.

Progress: 51 (Par +3)

104 in 2009 Week 23: Wuthering Heights and My Favorite Year

Hmm. . . guess I should have gotten around to this sooner. Instead, here I am, squeezing it in at the last minute before next week's post, which I'll be doing tomorrow (or, most likely today by the time you read this). Anyhoo. . .

Wuthering Heights
Robert Fuest, 1970

When a street urchin named Heathcliff (Timothy Dalton) is taken in by the Earnshaw family, he immediately bonds with Cathy (Anna Calder-Marshall), the only daughter. As they age, however, class barriers begin to separate them, and they unwittingly slip into a game of cruel and sadistic one-upsmanship (and love, I suppose).

Like just about all adaptations of Wuthering Heights, Robert Fuest’s version omits the last third or so of the book. This has the effect of making it a story about Heathcliff and Cathy instead of a story about Heathcliff and, more critically, making significant strides toward turning the story into a romantic tragedy (which it’s not). Fortunately, much of that work is undone by the addition of a new ending that gives Heathcliff a sendoff worthy of a great, sympathetic villain (which is what he is).

The casting is kind of hit or miss, but hits more than it misses. After seeing Dalton’s animalistic glowering, I can’t really see anyone else in the role, and most of the supporting cast is quite good as well – but Anna Calder-Marshall lacks Cathy’s fire, looks far too old for the part, and is generally inconsistent. She does have her moments (like her return to Wuthering Heights after spending a few months with the Lintons), but each of those is offset by something like (for instance) her ass-like braying of Heathcliff’s name as she runs around the moors looking for him.

Visually, things look great and atmospheric – as if Hammer films decided to adapt classic non-horror literature (which is fitting, since it was produced by the American Hammer, AIP). Fuest showcases a love of dramatic foreground objects (scythes, pitchforks) and has a tendency to create frames within the frame, surrounding actors with rock formations, windows and mirror edges in a manner similar to how Mario Bava shot Diabolik. It’s more subdued, but you can definitely see early stirrings of the talent that would go on to create The Abominable Dr. Phibes the next year.

All told, it was very enjoyable and generally well-crafted. But losing that third of the book robs the events of a lot of their meaning and depth, and Cathy is a pretty critical role to blow. It’s good, but not nearly as good as it ought to have been.

7/10

My Favorite Year
Richard Benjamin, 1982

An obnoxious comedy writer (Mark Linn-Baker) has to babysit a drunken, aging movie star (Peter O'Toole) who is slated to appear on a live comedy show.

Clearly, I waited too long to write this review, because I don’t have much to say. Peter O’Toole is good, but seems to be in a different movie from everyone else. Every moment he’s not onscreen (and some where he is) is excruciating.

2.5/10



Progress: 49 (Par +3)