Blog 09

It's finished - sort of. A lengthy disclaimer atop the piece notes that I hope to add more but as for the meaty part - the round-up of links, my own highlights, the tribute to my hosts of the past year, it's all there.

Here it is.

Here are some images to whet your appetite:

Syndromes and a Century

A few weeks ago, I reviewed Syndromes and a Century for the Examiner. The enticing visuals, considered apart from the film's intriguing themes and structure (though of course they are all inextricably linked), are worth celebrating, so I present, unadorned, images from the movie:

Triumph of the Will

As I may have mentioned recently, I've been tracking down classics I haven't seen (and re-watching old favorites) in anticipation of a long-awaited, perpetually postponed canonical exercise. On Netflix, I set up a queue of about 50 films which it seemed especially pressing to watch. The list ranged from iconic hits without a great deal of critical acclaim (Saturday Night Fever, A Nightmare on Elm Street) to widely acknowledged classics I had seen only parts of (The Great Dictator, Orpheus) to unseen films by auteur directors (Made in USA, Simon of the Desert, Salo). I proceeded chronologically and finished just before the new year; but at task's end I realized there were still a few films I meant to see which had slipped through the cracks.

One of them was Leni Riefenstahl's notorious 1935 Triumph of the Will, probably the most famous, castigated, and cautiously celebrated propaganda film of all time. Documenting the National Socialist Party rally of '34, when Hitler had just ascended to power but had already taken complete control of the country, the film has been imitated even as it's been held at arms' length. Today, Hitler and the Nazis tend to be viewed primarily in conjunction with the Holocaust but to watch Triumph of the Will in 2010 is to be reminded not just how the Nazis saw themselves but how the world first came to see them. Before his name became synonymous with pure evil, the German dictator and his bizarre, unexpected, and wildly popular movement were regarded with a mixture of awe, dread, and comic incredulity - sometimes all three at once. Triumph of the Will was widely screened and, while scorning the political content, many filmmakers admired the craft and later imitated it for their own propaganda films (once Hitler's Germany had unqualifiably become the enemy). Indeed, seeing this film after the films which followed it, one can see all the sources of the Hitlerite myth, both the one he fostered and the one that sprung up when his toxic brand of fanatical monumentalism encountered foreign sensibilities.

Riefenstahl is an artist, and if the sentiments and sensibilities her film celebrates (her later arguments about political neutrality notwithstanding) are rather naive, her articulation of them is exceptionally subtle and disturbingly effective. Note the way she humanizes (and homoeroticizes) the Nazi youth as they horse around early in the day or the meticulousness with which she follows the program of events for the celebration - every roll call, every tribute to every sub-group, snippets of every speech from every sector of the party, as if this was merely a larger-than-life, particularly malevolent Shriner's convention. In keeping to the human and mundane dimensions at first, Riefenstahl allows the film to build slowly until we are suddenly shocked to find ourselves dwarfed by an immense crowd - those playful youth suddenly standing in columns by the thousands, rigid and at attention; those laughably numerous sub-committees unveiled in precise units marching down the street to cheering throngs, goose-stepping in chilling unison like clockwork; speech after speech merely appetizers for the bloody entree - a screeching, hysterical oration by the Fuhrer himself in which previously subdued subtexts (only one prior speaker mentions racial purity, in passing) come galloping to the forefront. The film - along with the event it captures - is brilliantly structured, so that we can see the development of every thread yet still be surprised when it's unveiled in all its pomp and circumstance.

Watching the conclusion, I found myself in several different frames of mind: both disturbed and impressed by the charismatic appeal Hitler still holds, and prone to shivers of recognition when the curtain was lifted a bit and (with 20/20 hindsight) the parade of corpses trudged before my eyes - the direct result of all this ferocious rhetoric and blind devotion. Yet I was also aware of another sensibility in play. I already mentioned that the film exposes us not just to what Germans thought of Hitler, but what others thought of him at the time. What I mean is that Triumph of the Will, although intended as a orgasmic celebration of the Party, is also how many around the world were first exposed to the dictator (either through the film itself or through the footage of Hitler's other rallies and public appearances, which were in the same spirit). This triggers an appreciation of reactions which with time were eclipsed by sheer horror, hatred, and even numbness. What I was reminded of was the steotypical American reaction of the time: as Hitler ranted and raved on and on about his glorious , I pictured a wisecracking Yankee newsman chewing loudly as he rolls his eyes and jots down every crazed word of the Teutonic loon. This dismissive response, perhaps a form of self-protection as much as anything else (those nutty Germans, they aren't like us commonsensical, democratic folks) has been obscured by the very real damage Hitler unleashed, but watching the film as an American, and one well-acquainted with films like The Great Dictator, To Be or Not to Be, and numerous anti-Hitler Bugs Bunny cartoons, this attitude was reawakened in my mind. Just as Hitler "others" his perceived enemies, so it seemed for a time that he could partially defused by being "othered" himself.

Another American reaction came to mind: one captured in the Peter Jennings turn-of-the-milennium TV miniseries "The Century." An octogenarian WWII veteran recalls being spooked by newsreel footage of the Germans marching (and God could they march, as Triumph never fails to remind us: it's a shame they didn't stick to their real - and far more harmless - talents). He remembers shuddering at their precision - the fact that they seemed like an undefeatable war machine while Americans were still practicing with wooden weapons and "grenades" filled with baking soda. The b-roll footage played over his reminiscence, in conjunction with the eerie music, bears out this trepidation. The incredulity and the fear: both responses keep us from falling entirely under the aesthetic spell of Riefenstahl's extremely effective propaganda. The very nationalism which enabled Hitler's rise, and was widely condemned in the wake of war, is in this case actually a rescue valve (at least for those of us who aren't German): allowing us to dismiss, fear, or loathe Hitler as something outside of ourselves and our culture. Safely ensconced in our Americanness or Britishness or whatever, we can sneer at him as the evil enemy and not a potential threat lurking within.

Yet, of course, there are universal aspects to Hitler's rise and adulation, and universal aspects to the appeal of Triumph of the Will. The film is aesthetically attractive, but more disturbing is its attractiveness as, well, is ideology the right word? The politics of National Socialism were more an aesthetic than a coherent political ethos. I recently saw a fascinating film about the artistic roots and products of Nazi Germany, called The Architecture of Doom. Its closing lines are worth quoting in full:

"Defining Nazism in traditional political terms is difficult, mainly because its dynamic was fueled by something quite different from what we usually call politics. This driving force was, to a great degree, esthetic; its ambition was to beautify the world through violence. From the first murders of mental patients to the mass-murders of Jews, there is no real political motive. It was not enemies who were liquidated, nor opponents of the regime, but innocent people whose very existence was in conflict with the Nazi dream.

The civilian character of the mass-killing makes it unlike war-crimes. These were civilian murders under a military guise. The obscure mental baggage, the bizarre political notions, which constitute a kind of under-vegetation in European culture, suddenly saw the light of day with Hitler. Hitler went from words to deeds. Without restraint, he transformed an abstract ideology into a hellish ideology.

In her famous essay "Fascinating Fascism", Susan Sontag further muses on the latent and residual appeal of the Fascist sensibility Riefenstahl taps into:

"National Socialism - or, more broadly, fascism - also stands for an ideal, and one that is also persistent today, under other banners: the ideal of life as art, the cult of beauty, the fetishism of courage, the dissolution of alienation in ecstatic feelings of community; the repudiation of the intellect; the family of man (under the parenthood of leaders).

These ideals are vivid and moving to many people, and it is dishonest - and tautological - to say that one is affected by Triumph of the Will and Olympiad because they were made by a film maker of genius. Riefenstahl's films are still effective because, among other reasons, their longings are still felt, because their content is a romantic idea to which many continue to be attached, and which is expressed in such diverse modes of cultural dissidence and propaganda for new forms of community as youth/rock culture, primal therapy, Laing's anti-psychiatry, Third World camp-following, and belief in gurus and the occult.

[...]

Riefenstahl's current de-Nazification and vindication as indomitable priestess of the beautiful - as a film maker and now, as a photographer - do not augur well for the keenness of current abilities to detect the fascist longings in our midst. The force of her work is precisely in the continuity of its political and aesthetic ideas.

Ironically, Sontag earlier notes that Riefenstahl's aesthetic has not been very influential on documentaries. What she doesn't note is how influential it has been on fiction films, particularly the blockbusters (which developed mostly after she wrote her essay) - many of which are either explicitly (Raiders of the Lost Ark) or implicitly (Star Wars) anti-Nazi in content. Yet when I saw that massive, undeniably impressive shot of Hitler, Himmler, and the leader of the S.A. (whose name escapes me) approaching a giant altar surrounded by an immense mass of regimented men, I thought of George Lucas - and not the various shots of Darth Vader in such formations, but rather the celebration of the Rebel Alliance at the end of A New Hope.

Indeed, one could contend that Triumph and other politically reactionary classics like Birth of a Nation are more honest than many latter-day movies - they tie their aesthetically exploitative and domineering styles to unapologetically fascistic content. Don't get me wrong; I love many of these films that seek to weave a spell over us, to manipulate our emotions, to stir us. But this is precisely why I think value judgements of art and value judgements of politics should exist in different realms. This may seem contradictory, given my previous statements, yet what I'm getting at is this: every sin ranging from totalitarianism to day-to-day egoism can be made attractive onscreen. Indeed, it doesn't even have to be "made" attractive - its attraction exists already inside of us, else these phenomena would never have arisen in the first place.

Aesthetics is all about what's attractive, not necessarily what is good: and recognizing the power of a work is not to say it is morally right. Ultimately, the irony is that a Triumph of the Will may be less ethically dubious than a Star Wars (which is, by the way, one of my favorite films and, I'd contend, a great one). It does not reaffirm questionable values under cover of a recognizable righteousness but rather (unintentionally) exposes them by tying them to a repudiated ideology - it drops the mask, so to speak. This is in some regards a hypothetical argument because I'm not sure all the values Sontag reproaches are entirely flawed - yes, they can lead to fascism, but some of them can also lead to anti-fascism; and to be fair, there's enough ambivalence in her litany of similar movements to suggest she reads them the same. Furthermore, even if the values are reproachable, we still need an outlet for them - and better that outlet be on the screen than on the street. The pity, of course, is that the world Triumph of the Will evokes was manifestly not just on the screen.

Which brings me back to the start of my ruminations: in order to watch this film during my busy schedule and concluding Netflix line-up, I searched online for a streaming copy. There were several on You Tube, but ultimately I chose one on Google Video. Why? Because watching the You Tube clips made me uneasy - many were posted, and all were frequented, by neo-Nazis. The calm with which they discussed their views, eschewing rather than celebrating the Holocaust, scolding rather than excoriating critics of their ideology, only made it all the more disturbing, a reminder that Hitler and his appeal do not belong entirely to the past. Among the residual messages Triumph unveils to us today: the appeal of fascism, if we're honest, has deep roots, and the topsoil which obscures them is perhaps thinner than we'd like to believe. Aside from its aesthetic appeal, its historical impact, its fascinating "inside look," Triumph of the Will is essential viewing for this very reason.

This turned out to be a much longer piece than expected. Perhaps it'd be a better fit on The Dancing Image, as I try to keep things brief here, and maybe in the future another essay of this length will go up there instead. However, it was written very impromptu (unlike the majority of pieces I hope to put up at my old, and hopefully soon re-active, blog), and besides, I'd rather leave the space clear for that upcoming round-up right now. Let this particular dark cloud linger here for the time being...

"Smoking hernia and taking odium, and getting very high (some were only four foot three high, but he had Indian hump, which he grew in his sleep)."

A radio interview (no pictures, folks) conducted with John Lennon on December 10, 1963. After playful but nonetheless quite straightforward discussions with the other Fab Three, the reporter turns his attention to Lennon, only to be skewered on the nonchalantly vicious lance of the laconic pop star. Hilarity ensues (if not for the hapless questioner), followed by a reading of one of Lennon's poems from which the above quotation was plucked.

Patriot Games

I'm so used to Patriot Games, having seen it numerous times, that I can hardly "see" it anymore. To put it on the VCR is like putting on mood music, where you may not hear every note but still catch the general ambience. The comparison is appropriate because Patriot Games is a movie marked by signifiers, yet without real depth - a straight-up action movie which relies more on connotations than insight for its effect. Still, I like the retrospectively more classical style of the '92 film, and find its details, however superficial, evoke an enjoyable mood. Take the ubiquitous Irish pubs, thick accents, and ethereal Celtic music (which, along with the draconian anti-IRA perspective of the film, so incensed Variety film critic Joseph McBride that he wrote a scathing review - and was apparently fired from the publication as a result!). They are little more than associative signposts, but they work - if the film has any soul, it's borrowed, but I prefer borrowed soul to no soul and miss the days when Hollywood films - however superficially - bartered in such.

The very straightforwardness of Patriot Games - the way it embodies so many action films cliches without really transcending them - is part of its charm. Everything about it influenced countless home video-shot, ketchup-splattered action movies when my friends and I were kids - the villain so irredeemably nasty that you naturally cast yourself as him, the treacherous supposed good guy who shoots a fellow anonymous agent, the bad guys who don't bat an eye when killing their own. The attempts at gravity only add to the fun. There's the standard Harrison Ford beleaguered family man persona (a friend tells me that on "Family Guy," they once hypothesized a Ford movie in which he spent the whole film running up to random people on the street, grabbing them by the collar and desperately growling, "I want my family back!"). Also said actor's entirely rote facial expressions of sorrow and furrowed-brow intensity as he doggedly tackles terrorists and protects his family (the moment when he screams "Get down!" was looped over and over again, and combined with a high-pitched Mariah Carey note and a Bush 41 bon mot, in a hilarious and suprisingly catchy experimental music video I saw years ago - and haven't been able to find online since). Of course, even Ford's narrow collection of trademark tics seems versatile stacked up next to Sean Bean's admittedly enjoyable perpetual scowl (that face only lights up - briefly - when dispatching someone) and Anne Archer's eye-gleaming wry smile...which remains her only expression for the entirety of the film's two hours. In fact, it's the precocious Thora Birch who gives the most well-rounded performance in the movie.

In other words, the dramatic elements are only there as ingredients in the stew - and while audiences and creators are both in on that particular joke (though one at times suspects Tom Clancy might not be), neither one drops the poker face. Which makes the film both more palatable in this tired age of all-knowing postmodernism, and still residually effective - again with the point about borrowed soul. I think I like it more when a mainstream film "plays the game" than when it tries to have it both ways, as a commercial product and a comment on its own nature. There are exceptions to the rule, sure, but there's something a bit stale about the movie that's junk, knows its junk, and expects more respect due to its knowledge. The quality I speak of isn't camp exactly - that I appreciate, in just the right doses (like with Jon Voight's performance in Anaconda). It's less good-natured than that and, coupled with the cramped, flatter aesthetic of today's Bourne-style actioners - as if they've given up with trying to tap into the viewers' imaginations, however un-subtly - makes a viewing of Patriot Games still refreshing (and the revival of this mentality, in a movie like last year's Taken all the more so). Sometimes I think that the "standard" for action films should be the early 90s aesthetic, one which can carry the film probably more than it deserves (the same is true, for most other types of films, of the 30s "look", but that's a subject for another post, another day). Nostalgia perhaps but, hey, indulge me...

How cool is this picture?

Bulle Olgier in L'Amour fou (1969), dir. Jacques Rivette. Click on the image to see it in its full glory.

Happy new year (best of blogsophere goes up next week)

Thanks to everyone for the enthusiastic response (see last post). Keep 'em coming, too - especially since I've pushed back the round-up post until after the weekend. I simply haven't had any time to work on it yet. All of you have made this a great year for my online endeavors - despite their infrequency. Happy New Year & see you next week...

Best of the blogosphere

Last year, I posted a year-end round-up of my favorite entries from my "fellow travelers." This was much easier to do in 2008 for several reasons. For one thing, there were fewer sites on my blogroll and as I myself had only been blogging for half the year, I only included entries written after July. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly (and shamefully, from the '09 perspective) I was not a very good member of the blogosphere this year. In terms of my own output - which was sporadic - but also in terms of my participation on other sites.

Certainly, I established a presence at Wonders in the Dark, enjoying the suspense of the countdowns, participating in the lively back-and-forths, and contributing my own pieces from time to time. Otherwise, however, I found myself falling away from following most other blogs with any regularity, and a lot of great writing got lost in the shuffle. Sporadically, I would pop up to read and perhaps comment on individual posts but as such my reading of whole sites was hardly comprehensive. (Since I saw few new movies in theaters this year, I also tended not to check out the applicable reviews, which also played a part in cutting off my reading.)

As a result, combing through the past year's volumes of prose, in order to select my favorite pieces from my "followers" and "fellow travelers" on The Dancing Image and The Sun's Not Yellow has proved difficult. So I've reached a compromise which I think is not only fair, but perhaps better than my original idea. Lazy, perhaps, but also honest and, honestly, more beneficial in the end. I would like to solicit your choices for your own best writing of the year, and I will link it up on my both blogs, same as last year. As a "thank you" there will be three exceptions to the rule: Sam Juliano of the aforementioned blog, Tony Dayoub of Cinema Viewfinder, and Ibetolis of Film for the Soul. All of them published some of my work this year and in return, "above the fold" so to speak (the rest of the submissions will be listed alphabetically) I will post my favorite piece of theirs that I have read (though of course they are invited to highlight their own favorites as well).

So please feel free to propose a piece below - I will also be visiting all the sites on my blogroll to solicit submissions. And, though I said no resolutions, I can say that I hope next year I will be able to repay my gratitude for your readership and thoughtful commentary with a more active presence online - I'm even hoping to set aside some time during the busy week specifically for that purpose. Until then, I hope you will consider participating in the round-up - among other things, I am looking forward to seeing the work everyone's most proud of.

A Christmas Tale (& other stuff)

My review of A Christmas Tale is up in time for the holidays. The first paragraph, along with a link, is up at Wonders in the Dark, where commentators have responded. Usually the discussions unfold on that site (where I have been linking up all my entries in the "Best of the 21st Century" series) so head over there to share your own thoughts on the film. Here's some more entries which have gone up on Examiner recently:

Syndromes and a Century (discussion here)

Kings and Queens (from the director of A Christmas Tale) (discussion here)

In addition, some of my older pieces have gone up at Wonders, fueling discussion. Join in, if you wish:

Best of the 21st Century? (intro to the series)
Flight of the Red Balloon
Capturing the Friedmans
Grizzly Man

Merry Christmas to all applicable...(and a happy new year to all & sundry...)

...enin rebmun, enin rebmuN

And the record rotates full circle: when 2009 was fresh, I posted "Number Nine, Number Nine" on The Dancing Image in response to a meme (remember those?) about nine New Years resolutions. Now I'm ready to take a deep gulp and a look back, to see where I succeeded and where I fell short.

But first, a mea culpa: early this week I "promised" to finally review many of the films I'd been seeing, mentioning, but begging off writing about. Now, a few days later, I've punted a couple times, reviving some old unread pieces, and have to face the fact that now's not the time to tackle a bevy of fresh reviews on The Sun's Not Yellow. For a few reasons: my plate is already full with upcoming Examiner pieces (which will continue to be linked here as well as, in some cases, on Sam Juliano's blog Wonders in the Dark); the films are no longer so fresh in memory (though I still might tackle them anyway in the new year); decreasing traffic (due in part, no doubt, to the looming holidays and also, probably, my own lax posting of fresh non-linkage content); and because I've been reneging on or delaying announced projects all year, so why break the habit now? Which brings me to my "tenth" resolution, one shrouded in an air of finality while soaked with a sense of supreme paradox.

My last resolution? No more resolutions! At least no more public ones. (I believe the contradiction inherent in that statement may have just breached a hole in the space-time continuum, but there you have it.) I'll endeavor to announce upcoming pieces only when they are locked in as part of an ongoing series (which, with the exception of my aborted Auteurs - I'm usually pretty good at keeping up), or when they are already written and hence neither fatigue nor obstruction can stop their onward march. Believe it or not, I mentally was going to segue from this firm statement into a preview of unwritten pieces on The Dancing Image but lest that breach turn into a yawning black hole which sucks all of us up with one last cry of "Great Scott!", I metaphorically bite my tongue.

Well, then, without further ado (not to say as much of shame), the "Nine":

1. Keep blogging.
Well, this I did - intermittently, in increasingly scattered fashion (something this blog has attempted to rectify, even while perhaps exacerbating it). But at year's end I can safely say I carried the torch onwards for twelve months. It may have flickered dimly at some points - just look at my post counts on Dancing Image over the summer and early fall compared to last year - but it never went out, and is burning pretty strongly right now.

2. Look forward.
Sort of. I put up at least one "state of cinema" musing, and addressed the concerns of the medium's future in scattered asides and subtexts elsewhere, but my eye was still too focused on catching up with the past (especially in light of an ongoing canonical undertaking) to really focus on the future.

3. See more movies from the 21st century.
Yes, especially in recent months, and especially with the pursuit-in-earnest of my "Best of the 21st Century?" series. Still have a lot of catching-up to do, however.

4. Read more novels.
Oops. I had a spurt of fiction-reading in spring, mostly to finish books I'd left off in previous years, and then lost myself in the massive David Copperfield late in the summer (it's a pleasant read, but not really a gripping one, especially compared to my favorite Dickens, Great Expectations - at any rate, I've let myself be led astray numerous times but have now tackled it with renewed gusto). I read a whole lot of nonfiction early in the year, and a whole lot of nothing in recent months, which have admittedly been consumed by movie-watching and, when on the subway, music-listening (though lately the text-on-the-T habit has resumed). Better luck next year. I always get such satisfaction out of sinking into a good novel, but am so frequently distracted by the more ephemeral enjoyment of factual prose...

5. See more classics on the big screen.
Compared to last year, sure, but still holds no candle to the New York years. Different cities are partly to blame, but to be fair Boston has plenty of great retro screenings every week. Time has been one issue, economics another (though the free "press pass" privileges have been one of the few tangible perks of my online ramblings...) That said, this summer, there was a great series in my hometown, however, which spurred my first run of Examiner pieces, all of which were quite popular on Wonders in the Dark.

6. Investigate more off-the-beaten path movies.
No, not really. There's too many classics I've yet to see, and that's been made my priority, which I don't regret. Sure, it would be nice to "discover" more films on my own, but that can wait a few years.

7. Evangelize.
Nope - at least not to the outside world, which is what this resolution/commandment was meant to imply. My friends and family remain largely in blissful ignorance of my cinematic pursuits, but perhaps that's for the better, at least for now...

8. See at least one modern masterpiece on its initial run - preferably an unhyped one that sneaks up on us.
Welll...I saw so few new releases in theaters this year that this would appear to be a no-brainer no. But Antichrist - while not necessarily a modern masterpiece - was certainly a modern something. And in its opening minutes I was astonished - viscerally, intellectually, aesthetically - in a way I have not been by most recent films. It certainly had the element of greatness in it (along with some flaws), whether in enough quantities to merit the term "masterpiece" only time will tell. Synecdoche, NY was also another somewhat messy but rewarding experience which left me in a bit of a glow as I departed the cinema. In both cases, the experience was not shared with a moviegoing mass. In fact, with Antichrist, after purchasing my ticket from a teller who informed she would never be seeing this movie (after I asked her if I should go in after missing the first five minutes - though, luckily, the previews turned out to still be running), I entered an empty theater and sat alone in the dark for two hours while von Trier unleashed his demons on my fragile mind. Which might have been better, come to think of it, than having some other random person sitting silently on the other side of the small room... At any rate, Antichrist was not "unhyped" (though I read nothing about it before seeing, and later writing about, it). So it can't quite have been said to "sneak up on me"...still, it comes close to fitting the first half of my above prescription.

9. Make a movie.
Big, resounding no. I could blame conditions, which were not ideal, but truthfully I believe - particularly in this day and age - if one wants to make a feature, one can, even if on a shoestring if necessary. I made a conscious decision not to venture forth into this undertaking, not yet - and to focus my energy on writing about movies rather than making them for now. Which means that, sadly, I have been tripped up by the Orson Welles must-make-first-feature-by-25 gauntlet. Luckily, the Truffaut and Godard hurdles remain safely on the horizon - and if worse comes to worse, I can always take comfort in the example of Jean Cocteau (41) or Vittorio De Sica (39) among others, though both had accomplished quite a bit more than blogging by 30...

So there they are, by my reckoning three successfully achieved resolutions, two partially achieved resolutions, and four out-and-out failures. As for the success of my one, single (anti-?)resolution for 2010, we'll wait and see how that's faring a year from now.

If you too participated in this exercise (initiated by Piper of Lazy Eye Theatre), please feel free to link up your own updates below...

Annie Hall

(Another day, another delay. But not to fear, there's more where yesterday's Manhattan came from: here's a passage on Annie Hall from that same essay. Hopefully tomorrow, or the day after, I'll discuss a film mentioned by characters in both movies.

Incidentally, I don't think I can stand by the claim that Annie Hall, Interiors, Manhattan, and Stardust Memories represented the "high point" of the Woodster's career, except perhaps on the strength of the two most popular films. However, I do still think this period may have been the most interesting point in Allen's development as an artist and entertainer.)

Annie Hall is introduced through a monologue by the main character, Alvy Singer, played (of course) by Allen. He tells the joke about the old women in the lousy restaurant and then bemoans the fact that he and his girlfriend Annie Hall broke up; it’s something he just can’t get his mind around. The rest of the movie is flashback; after they meet at a sports club Annie invites Alvy up to his rooftop where they exchange pretentious banalities, hilariously subtitled to show what they’re really thinking as they speak. Somehow they hit it off, with the neurotic, Jewish Alvy trying to shape the nervous, daffy WASP Annie. Whenever she’s in over her head, she simply recites, “La-di-da. La-di-da. La la…” Its her way of resigning herself to fate and forces out of her control, going with the flow. But Alvy won’t accept this passivity; he gets her to see a shrink, tries to convince her not to rely on drugs for refuge, and encourages her further education and singing career. In the end she leaves him, but as a result of their relationship she is more confident and independent than before.

Along the way there’s animation, characters addressing one another across time and space, characters addressing the audience, fantasy sequences galore, split screen, indeed every device one could imagine. But the effect is not surreal because we know Alvy is a comedian and he’s telling the story as he knows how; there is no doubt that he (and by extension Allen, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Alvy) is the storyteller here. At least Alvy doesn’t cop out with us the way he does with his first play, which echoes a fateful meeting between Annie and Alvy in California, but ends the scene with the two reuniting. “What can I say; it was my first play,” Alvy shrugs to the audience.

But the end of Annie Hall does not provide any easy happy endings. Instead, Annie and Alvy run into each other in New York after she has spent some time on the West Coast. She is now more confident, due in part to Alvy’s encouragement (which came hand-in-hand with his deprecation), but also independent and the two are merely friends instead of lovers. Their relationship ended when Annie chose L.A., with its sun and freedom, over Manhattan, which Alvy could never dream of leaving and to which he is even compared to by Annie. “Alvy, you’re incapable of enjoying life,” she tells him. “I mean you’re like New York City. You’re just this person. You’re like this island unto yourself.” Indeed, Allen’s working title for the film was Anhedonia, which is a psychological condition in which one is incapable of feeling pleasure. That’s somewhat unfair to Alvy, who can experience pleasure; the problem is that he can’t hold onto it. And yet he keeps coming back for more. Allen closes the film with a long shot out of a restaurant window as Alvy narrates another old joke, about a man who says his brother is crazy and thinks he’s a chicken. I’d turn him in, the brother says, “but we need the eggs.” And, Alvy says, relationships are “totally irrational and crazy and absurd…but I guess we keep going through it because most of us need the eggs.”

Critics and audiences needed the eggs as well, and Allen was soon churning them out. But each film was decorated in a new Easter coating so that one could never be sure just what form his meditations on love, art, and death would take next. For four years from 1977 to 1980, Allen came out with a new film that expanded his boundaries and showed what a deep and truly talented artist he was. These four films, Annie Hall in 1977, Interiors in 1978, Manhattan in 1979, and Stardust Memories in 1980 form the high point of his career. And Allen followed his Academy Award for Annie Hall with an enigmatic, ultra-serious motion picture in which he didn’t even appear as an actor.

Manhattan

I promised some new posts for this blog, but I was just stuck on the T for about 40 minutes longer than necessary, I already have a bit to write tonight and I'm not quite feeling up to it. So here's a compromise, on my end at least: a piece new to you, but not to me. It's a selection from an unpublished essay I wrote on Woody Allen years ago, revived in honor of seeing Manhattan on the big screen recently, with Gordon Willis in attendance. Even with the cinematographer on hand to speak after the show, it was hard to focus exclusively on the photography: the image, the performances, the story all blend seamlessly together in one of Woody's finest pictures. Here, then, in a moment of frustration with my own city let me turn my gaze towards Allen's idealized metropolis...

(P.S. The time it took me to actually dig up this old piece made this not so economical after all, but at least it didn't take much mental energy...)

[Following Interiors, Allen's] next picture was just right for the times, a last summation of the seventies spirit before it was swallowed by the feel-good comforts of the Reagan era. In 1979’s Manhattan, Allen returned to the combination of seriousness and comedy that had worked so well with Annie Hall, but without the hectic and buzzing style. In fact, the director made a very interesting stylistic choice with Manhattan: instead of using the form to reinforce the content, he does the reverse, letting the look and feel of the film offset and balance the story and characters. While analyzing the struggles and flaws of a few Manhattan love affairs he glorifies the city around them. Manhattan’s uplift derives from the romantic possibilities provided by the beautiful city, photographed in black-and-white Panoramic widescreen.

The film’s most famous sequence is its opening, which features a gorgeous montage of New York City’s skyline, streets, and people, in all seasons, scored to “Rhapsody in Blue.” On the soundtrack, Isaac (Woody Allen) crisply revises the opening lines of his new novel, finally settling on: “Chapter One. He was as tough and romantic as the city he loved. Beneath his black-rimmed glasses was the coiled sexual power of jungle cat. (I love this.) New York was his town, and it always would be…” Cue the transcendent finale to “Rhapsody,” bring on the wide shot of the fireworks in Central Park, and you’ve got a grand prelude. It has little to do with the rest of the film, but perfectly sets the background mood, so that we can move on to the more intimate stuff. This opening sequence is Manhattan in a nutshell: admittedly pretentious but technically brilliant, with an enthusiasm that washes away any lingering tastes of self-importance.

Formally, Manhattan is like a finely-tuned instrument that never misses a beat, sharing its perfectly modulated outpouring of joy with the George Gershwin soundtrack. The final scene of the movie is a masterpiece of measured dialogue, camerawork, and music; and the closing expression on Isaac’s face speaks volumes. This formal maturity, however, is a double-edged sword. If the movie has a flaw it is that it may be too self-assured, the confidence of the style seeping into the characters as well; it lacks the frenetic goofiness of Annie Hall that made that film so fresh, honest, and endearing. The bourgeois smugness of many of the characters signals an artistic impulse that will come to envelop much of Allen’s work. Here it is redeemed somewhat by the vulnerability of its central characters.

For example, Mary (Diane Keaton) is not as arrogant as she first appears; when they first meet (she’s having an affair with his married best friend) Isaac can’t stand her. But after they run into each other again and begin to talk, he discovers she actually has very low self-esteem. As for Allen’s character, any smugness he may suffer has to be a defense mechanism. His self-assured balloon is constantly being pierced: by his lesbian ex-wife (Meryl Streep) who writes a tell-all book about their marriage; by his guilt over sleeping with Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), a 17-year-old who thinks they’ll spend the rest of their life together; and by the weakness of his friend Yale (Michael Murphy), who ends up stealing Mary back after setting her up with Isaac.

Isaac’s quest in this movie is for stability and some sort of moral structure. While Yale ends up whining “we’re only human” to justify his own behavior, Isaac tries to hold himself to a higher moral standard. That is why he is always telling Tracy that she shouldn’t waste all her love on him; he tries to remind her that she’s still in high school and has her whole future ahead of her and she should pursue an opportunity to study acting in England rather than keep dating him. In the end, when he realizes his love for Tracy and tries to stop her from going overseas, it’s a moral lapse; he’s abandoned his better judgment to his emotions, the same way that Yale did. But Isaac is lucky; his high standards have rubbed off on Tracy, who gently rebuffs him with the same advice he gave her. It’s Isaac’s realization that finally his morals have paid off—albeit in a bittersweet way—which gives the story it’s redemptive, ever-so-optimistic resolution.

The Girlfriend Experience

My review of The Girlfriend Experience is up at Examiner.

Catching up

As the end of the year approaches, I've a number of things on my plate. Among others, I'd like to finally put up some fresh material on this site, in addition to the usual links to the Examiner. So I'll be writing some short, in some cases very short, pieces on films I've seen over the past month. Back in the summer, I compiled a short list of movies I wanted to see before making my own top 150. Most of these movies were great director's movies I'd missed out on (including four Godards). Some were iconic popular hits like Saturday Night Fever, others were the movies I most wanted to see from Allan Fish's countdown, and still others were just acclaimed movies I had an inclination to rent (Open Your Eyes). I'm on target to finish these movies by Christmastime, and I already wrote about three of their number - When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Accattone, and The Exterminating Angel - on this blog. Now I'm going to catch up with all the ones I've seen since then with a variety of capsules, brief reactions, short reviews and other forms of tribute. I'll also write a bit about other movies I saw but did not write about in November or December. And, of course, I'll continue to post Examiner updates (I've started linking to my "Best of the 21st Century?" pieces on Wonders in the Dark; visit there if you're looking for more discussion on the posts).

There should also be one or two big pieces - one essay, one round-up (knock on wood) - presented on The Dancing Image before year, and decade, are out.

The Tracey Fragments

My review of The Tracey Fragments is up at Examiner.

Grizzly Man

My review of Grizzly Man is up at Examiner.

Antichrist

My review of Antichrist is up at Examiner.

This is England

My review of This is England is up at Examiner.

Coming up this week

My weekly preview is up on Examiner.

Capturing the Friedmans

My review of Capturing the Friedmans is up at Examiner.

In Bruges

After a delay (still catching up from Thanksgiving) my review of In Bruges is up at Examiner.

Man on Wire

My review of Man on Wire is up at Examiner.

Where is Mulholland Dr.?

For months now, I've been slowly making my way through 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die (usually in the bathroom or bedroom, as it's difficult to transport it elsewhere). It's a nifty tome to have on hand, and since I bought it at a discount I don't regret the purchase. That said, most of the prose is merely serviceable, despite the occasional splash of liveliness (usually courtesy of Jonathan Rosenbaum or, especially, Jean-Michel Frodon). What's more, the descriptions, while attempting to be succinct and introductory, are often burdened by academic jargon and strained sociopolitical readings - as if the authors can't decide whether they're writing for scholars or laymen. There are also a surprising number of gaffes, grammatical and factual, throughout the book. Granted, a tome this size (nearly 1,000 pages) must have been hard to edit but a cursory check-through should have taken care of most of the mistakes. At any rate, despite its flaws, the book mostly serves its purpose, which is to establish a rough canon of the most talked-about, popular, and/or acclaimed films in history - if not 1001 films you must see before you die, at least 1001 films you should probably know about.

However, there's one startling omission which throws the whole enterprise into question. Tonight, I was reading the entry for Lord of the Rings - all three films squeezed into two pages. True, I have my problems with the trilogy but, given its impact, its popularity, and the critical acclaim which greeted it, the saga certainly belongs in the book. As I turned the page I looked forward to another entry from 2001: Mulholland Dr. David Lynch's masterpiece, which aside from being a personal favorite (and what I consider one of only two or three great American films I've seen this decade) is also one of the most acclaimed films of the 21st century. It's controversial, to be sure, but about as noteworthy as cinema gets in the 2000s. In other words, an absolute-brainer for this book, something I think even opponents of the film could recognize.

Yet on the next page was The Pianist. But that meant we were already into 2002, and no sign of Mulholland! I was immediately perplexed; had they gotten the wrong year for the film? (It wouldn't be the first time.) But no, as I flipped back and forth it became increasingly clear that they just hadn't bothered to include Lynch's book. Huh? To me, that's inexplicable. It fits all the criteria for inclusion, there's plenty to discuss (just think what Frodon could have done with it!), and it's certainly a more obvious inclusion than, say, Meet the Parents, which greets us a few pages earlier. What's going on here? A massive typo in which a whole entry was accidentally excluded? I must admit I'm perplexed. What's the point of a canon which doesn't include what is by many accounts the best film of our young century?

This week on Examiner

My weekly preview is up at the Examiner.

Because of the hectic and busy weekend, it will probably be another week before I can get to all the movies I mentioned seeing last week (and of course, I've seen even more since then). However, stay tuned, as they'll be addressed next week - and in the mean time, I've got Examiner pieces going up every day this week.

Reading I Met the Walrus

Last night, I settled down to read a book I'd received a while back as a birthday present from an aunt (the same one whom I mentioned in my Michael Jackson obit this past summer). I'd already started it several weeks earlier, and enjoyed what I read without finding it especially astonishing. Now I thought I'd read a little more before falling asleep, but I couldn't stop until the book - a short tome, but still about 150 pages - was finished.

I Met the Walrus, is written by Jerry Levitan, and while it contains illustrations and some nifty designs to liven up the pages, most of it consists of his text. It's a memoir of sorts, focusing on one specific incident in his life: when, as a precocious and fearless 14-year-old, he infiltrated John Lennon's and Yoko Ono's hotel suite in Toronto and conducted a lengthy interview with his genial hero. In summary form, the story seemed like just a nice little anecdote; the first part of the book, recounting Jerry's fascination with the band, was entirely familiar to me - in a comfy but unexceptional way - from the reams of Beatle & me memoirs I've perused in bookstores over the years, being a great fan of the band myself.

But when Jerry's and John's paths intersect, the enthusiasm of the story suddenly becomes infectious. Jerry wavers on the line between obsessed stalker and devoted fan but ultimately falls on the latter side due to, paradoxically, to both the innocence of his exuberance and the sophistication with which he gets himself on the "inside." Ultimately, he's able to wrange a long and revealing interview with the great Beatle star, possibly the only one Lennon offered in Toronto, while a bevy of seasoned press pros salivated at the hotel door. (Jerry even gets a date with willowy Apple beauty Mary Hopkin, to boot!) By the end of this little book, I had a an ear-to-ear grin, and I'd recommend it to all Beatles fans and perhaps those who aren't as well. Jerry is obviously a lifelong dreamer, but his conclusion betrays an adult voice that he manages to keep subdued for most of the text, where he succesfully recaptures the bright but somewhat naive perspective of his youthful self. We learn of his struggles and failures later in life, as well as some rather astonishing successes (though unforgettable, the Lennon interview was not his last daliance with the big time).

Indeed, this book is actually a tie-in to a larger project of which I was unaware, but I'm thankful for my ignorance as it lent my reading a true feeling of discovery. If the title I Met the Walrus doesn't ring a bell with you either, read no more about the book, starting at the beginning if you can, and check it out whenever you have some time to kill in a bookstore. It's that rare achievement, a genuinely affecting, charming, and - no less - true "feel-good" story.