1960

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November 5, 2009

The Fugitive Kind

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FugitiveKind

Sidney Lumet attempts to work with Tennessee Williams’ 1957 play Orpheus Descending in 1960’s The Fugitive Kind. There’s a lot of interesting stuff here, but Lumet almost overwhelms in his approach to the material and the smaller emotional moments get lost in the shuffle. Still, the casting is tremendous and no fan of cinema should ever pass up an opportunity to see Marlon Brando in his prime.

Williams had written the role for Brando all along, hoping that he’d star in a Broadway version of Orpheus Descending alongside the marvellous Anna Magnani. Brando was too intimidated to star with Magnani on such a small stage, however, thinking that her performance would overshadow his own (he might have been right). With Williams’ blessing, Brando took to starring in the screen version of the piece as directed by Lumet.

Brando is a drifted named “Snakeskin” Xavier, known for playing the guitar and for wearing a snakeskin jacket. We are told he was a club singer, but he calls himself an “entertainer” and there is certainly more than a little mystery when he describes himself and his past. Xavier is forced to flee New Orleans due to trouble with the law and he finds himself in a remote town in Mississippi. After a series of events, many of them bizarre beyond explanation, Xavier finds work at a five-and-dime run by Lady Torrence (Magnani).

Torrence has a few stories of her own and lives her life filled with bitterness and rage towards men who burned down her father’s vineyard because he served blacks. She has also had a love affair and now has to take care of her sick husband, a terrible man named Jabe (Victor Jory). Tossed into the mix for Xavier’s attention is a strange alcoholic nympho named Carol (Joanne Woodward). She attempts to lure Xavier away, but his affections are set.

The Fugitive Kind is a complicated motion picture in that it is filled with multiple confusing romantic entanglements and some strange segments of dialogue. Lumet directs it well, utilizing a mesh of close-ups and unique impact shots to put us in the midst of the sweaty store, but the emotional impact of the characters is often left elsewhere due to his busy approach to the material. Things that could have merely been said (and were merely said in the stage version) are given elaborate treatments at the expense of smaller emotional connections.

That’s not to say that the performances are off because they are not. Brando is spellbinding and ultimately resourceful, giving a full set of possibilities to each moment. Watch as Torrence asks him why he “walks like that.” His response, a shrug and an “I don’t know,” is staggering in its opportunity. It is that range of emotional possibility that gives him his greatest strength here, as we are never sure what a gesture will mean or how it will evolve. Magnani is equally powerful, proving once more that she may be one of the best performers of the classic “woman scorned” archetype in Hollywood history.

Lumet does score points for keeping a lot of the monologues in the picture. The film opens with a terrific one, delivered by Brando facing us as though we are the unseen judge of his character and his overall sense of self. The judge (perhaps us?) belittles him somewhat before releasing him to the world, as though Brando’s Xavier needed to be grounded as a point of order and humanity.

The Fugitive Kind is not the best of the Williams adaptations set to the big screen (that would go to Baby Doll), but it does retain that classic scorching South feel, complete with sweaty villains and heavy, breathy, attractive women. It is more than worth seeing for Brando’s work with the tremendous Magnani, of course, and remains a celebration of one of America’s most gifted performer’s talents.

7.1/10

 

October 17, 2009

The Virgin Spring

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1960, drama, entertainment, foreign, movies | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |
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the virgin spring

Based on a 13th Century Swedish ballad (“Töres dotter i Wänge”), Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring tells a tale of revenge, faith, morality, and justice. It won the 1961 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and has become one of Bergman’s most famous pictures. Interestingly, the movie was banned in Fort Worth, Texas, over controversy dealing with the pivotal rape sequence.

Bergman’s picture is couched in religious belief and the clinging that people do to their traditions and concepts of reality. As with many of his movies, The Virgin Spring questions the conception of deities and highlights the confusion that many feel in practicing religious beliefs. The tale is thoughtful and intimate despite feel rather large and expansive at times, owing a lot to Bergman’s skill as a filmmaker in taking the medieval genre and creating something as small as a standard modern setting. At no time does he attempt to make an “epic;” this is a small, spiritual story about revenge and justice.

Set in medieval Sweden, The Virgin Spring tells the story of a deeply religious time in Swedish history. There was a continual shift between the worshipping of traditional pagan gods and the newer one god of Christianity. Bergman’s characters set this up nicely, with the film opening with Ingeri (Gunnel Lindblom) praying to Odin as a god who stands for war and death. Ingeri is a foster child and she is pregnant, presumably against her will. She is the outcast of a rather wealthy family and is jealous of the family’s daughter, Karin (Birgitta Pettersson).

Ingeri is useful as an entry point to the tale, as her Norse beliefs clash with the family’s Christian beliefs. Christianity is new to the region; most of the family has not even seen a church, as the closest one is quite far away. Karin is, as a virgin, dispatched to take candles to the church and to the Virgin Mary. Ingeri goes along, but the two are separated thanks to a creepy man in the woods. Karin is set upon by a trio of herdsmen and is raped and killed.

Bergman then concerns himself with the concept of revenge and how it meshes with the family’s Christian beliefs. The herdsmen, it is presumed, are savages. They don’t care about what they’ve done and, when they show up at Karin’s family’s house looking for shelter and work, they aren’t aware of the situation they’ve put themselves in. Karin’s father, Töre (Max von Sydow), and his wife, Märeta (Birgitta Valberg), discover the truth about the herdsmen and their revenge is set in motion.

On its surface, The Virgin Spring functions as a tale of vengeance and ultimate horror. It has been adapted somewhat in the revenge fantasy film Last House on the Left, but Bergman has more at work here than simple comeuppance. This is a picture about the collision of “compassionate” Christianity and the root beliefs of a pagan culture. Ingeri prays to Odin, hates Karin, and feels ultimately responsible for her prayers being answered by the Norse god. Töre struggles with forgiveness and returns to violent roots, later begging forgiveness from his god.

The Christian characters are essentially filled with grace and mercy (outside of the obvious vengeance, of course). Karin is innocent, like a lamb to the slaughter, and shares her food with the herdsmen before meeting her end. All the same, Märeta compassionately serves travellers from her food storage and cares for the sick and weary.

There, too, is a sense of reluctance on behalf of Töre. Through Max von Sydow’s beautiful portrayal, we get the sense that his reaction is beyond that of a simple broken man. We get the sense that he is perhaps a recent, unwilling convert to Christianity. Perhaps he has followed the faith of his wife or the changing tide of the land. Regardless, that Töre attempts to make it right before his new god at the conclusion of the picture is telling of his true spirit. Confused as he is, he swears to build a church.

Bergman is unrelenting in his approach to every concept in The Virgin Spring. He does not allow us the respite of turning away during the awkward, fumbling, violent sequences and he does not allow us an escape during scenes that require deeper contemplation. The film is short, clocking in at 89 minutes, but it is groundbreaking and staggering in its ultimate impact. A beautiful, quiet, moving piece of work, The Virgin Spring is superb.

9.8/10

 

November 1, 2008

Psycho

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1960, drama, entertainment, horror, movies, mystery, thrillers, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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There is no question that Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho changed the face of the horror and thriller genre forever. Its structure, style, and attention to detail altered what audiences saw as conventional thrillers and added new dimensions to a genre that often struggled under the weight of its own importance. Hitchcock, one of the genre’s true auteurs, is still widely revered as the undisputed leader of the genre and Psycho is largely considered his finest piece of work.

There are so many pivotal and influential scenes wrapped up in this 1960 thriller that it is almost impossible to describe the movie completely. Any attempt to sum the film up or describe its many nuances is almost always destined to failure, as Hitchcock has filled his masterpiece with an incredible amount of style, substance, and shade. Nevertheless, I shall humbly attempt to look at Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.

One of the most apparent aspects of Psycho is just how much it resembles an exploitation-style film. Look at Hitchcock’s promotion of the piece as a picture that must be seen from the beginning. His “no late admittance” promotion, in which he told theatre-goers to not arrive late for the movie, was ripped right out of the pages of gimmicky films that sold audiences on a shocking premise. When one looks at Hitchcock’s oeuvre and contrasts Psycho with the rest of it, the slasher thriller is less slick than almost every other piece.

And that’s the why Hitch wanted it. Coming right out of North by Northwest, he used the crew from his television show. Psycho looks gritty as a result, with the use of the black-and-white adding a haunting feel to the proceedings. The budget, $800,000, was small even at the time, allowing for more freedom of expression. The content would raise the ire of the censors, but not in the fashion that one would expect. And the stars would become icons of terror.

The situation opens much in the same way that other Hitchcock films have opened. We are introduced to an ordinary person – in this case it is Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) – as she is put into a devious, criminal situation. The setup is beautifully tricky. Marion has just stolen $40,000 from her office and is heading to California to be with her discreet lover Sam (John Gavin). The money will help her and Sam start a better life together and perhaps they can finally marry.

As she heads to California, she is trailed by a police officer (Ted Knight). Marion gets lost driving in heavy rain and finds herself at an obscure motel, the now infamous Bates Motel, and meets Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). She is given a room and eats sandwiches with Norman, who is overheard loudly arguing with his mother. After Norman and Marion share a conversation, she retires to her room, and we are thusly introduced to the famous “shower scene” in stunning, visceral fashion.

It shocks us. It shocks us because we have been treated to an extravagant setup and suddenly we are abandoned by it. This is Hitchcock at his best, playing with the strings and tugging our responses like an expert conductor. The remainder of the film follows a cast of characters, including Sam, Marion’s sister Lila (Vera Miles), a private detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam), and Deputy Sheriff Al Chambers (John McIntire).

Throughout this process, we learn new tricks that are being introduced to filmmaking. Dispatching the apparent main character in such a fashion and so early into the film was a shock, to be sure. The visceral “shower scene” was also shocking, although Hitchcock’s direction offers more by way of art and situation and less by way of gore and blood. It is a beautiful scene, one of purity and violence. Many looks have been taken at the scene and it stands as one of the most famous sequences in all of cinema history.

What makes Psycho so grand is that it is a pure film. It is what the movies are all about. Hitchcock toys with his audience, moving them wherever he would like whenever he would like. There are no rules. Everything audiences thought they knew about movies was gone in an instant, in a screeching instant, as one of cinema’s finest talents tossed out the book.

10/10

Trailer (this is the 6-minute version):

 

October 24, 2008

La Dolce Vita

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1960, drama, entertainment, foreign, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita one of those classics where the meaning and the symbolism is discussed by intellectuals and cinephiles around the world. It is also one of those classics where the meaning and symbolism is almost irrelevant in terms of the relatively simplistic and basic story the Italian master has to offer here. Instead, La Dolce Vita is comprised of a series of vignettes that follow a man without a core during his continuous ascents and descents through day and through night. That’s not to say that one can’t dissect Fellini’s 1960 masterpiece, of course, but I find the process to be rather degrading.

Instead, look at the characters and the richness of Fellini’s locations for the heart and passion of La Dolce Vita. We meet Marcello (Marcello Mastroianni) in the opening sequence as he is in a helicopter with a plaster statue of Christ dangling below. Marcello is a gossip reporter, a newsman who covers the more glamorous but phony side of life. He is dispatched to cover royalty, arriving celebrities, press junkets, and religious events. He is a trash journalist.

Marcello lacks a core, essentially. He is trapped in an endless convoy of days and nights. Marcello longs for something more, as evidenced in his idolization of friend Steiner (Alain Cuny), but he cannot push himself further. He is, it appears, destined or doomed to repeat the same decadence and debauchery for the remainder of his life. Marcello’s fiancée, Emma (Yvonne Furneaux), longs for him to settle down into a normal life. He resists, abusively, and instead loves Maddalena (Anouk Aimee) who, in turn, loves anyone with a wallet. Other nights find Marcello trying to bed an American actress (Anita Ekberg) and basking in the glow of his nightly debauchery. He, at once, resents and loves his life.

Fellini’s characters are shallow, remarkably so. Marcello’s ability to throw away “the sweet life” at every corner is trying, yet at the same time it is ultimately relatable. The interaction between him and his father (Annibale Ninchi) is touching and poignant, but ultimately evocative of the entire scope of the film. Indeed, La Dolce Vita is as much about not living the good life as it is about the glitz and sensationalistic lifestyles Marcello finds himself in the midst of on a daily basis. His nights are filled with moments of pain, “love,” and excess. His days are filled with the rest of it.

Fellini has woven a certain sense of symmetry here and things are more cohesive than they may first appear. The movie is bookended by Christological visions, for instance, as the towering Christ figure makes its way through Rome to the Vatican in the air while the fish makes it way to land via the sea. These moments, and indeed the film’s several similar moments, remind us of Fellini’s anchors. The spiritual world is never far off, even in the immoral lights and obnoxious noise of the parties, nightclubs, and brothels that Marcello wanders in and out of.

La Dolce Vita is about discovery, about our own pursuit of “the sweet life” and our own failure to recognize it. The lives we dream of often have a neon haze to them; they are coated in sin and mired in self-indulgence. They are couched in lust. Perhaps there is no escape from this desire and perhaps it is the lifeblood of our consciousness. Or perhaps there is more. That is our discovery to make, of course, and Fellini’s exposure of Marcello’s journey enables us poise to embark on our own.

La Dolce Vita is a masterpiece. Fellini’s direction is superb, capturing the beauty of Rome and its darker underbelly with beautiful sequences and dreamlike aesthetics. Nino Rota’s music is the companion, as always, and guides the viewer through Marcello’s life with an open hand on the back. The performances are excellent as well, with Mastroianni putting in yet another classic performance.

Fellini’s tremendous 8 ½ would come three years after La Dolce Vita. It is another step on the journey, offering us a matured man on a similar journey through the purifying fire of art. La Dolce Vita works as a companion piece to 8 ½, granting us the first moments of naïve birth and excess in Mastroianni’s character. The two films are incredible and should be seen by anyone who takes film seriously.

10/10

Trailer:

 

January 2, 2008

The Time Machine

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1960, adventure, entertainment, science fiction, trailers | Tags: , , , |
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The Time Machine

The Time Machine is a 1960 science fiction film based on the 1865 H.G. Wells novel of the same name. The film was directed by George Pal, who also directed the famed 1953 version of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. The Time Machine was renowned in its time for its usage of special effects and picked up an Academy Award for Special Effects in 1961. Among its more notable effects is the usage of time lapse photography to illustrate the world changing at a breakneck speed according to the point of view of the time traveller. The Time Machine was remade in 2002 by H.G. Wells’ great-grandson in a film that starred Guy Pearce and Jeremy Irons.

The Time Machine stars Rod Taylor, also known from the Hitchcock classic The Birds, as George, a Victorian era Englishman with an interest in time travel. He spends time working on a time machine in his home and discusses the possibilities of time travel with his sceptical friends, who appear to humour him up until he shows them a miniature model of the time machine and has it disappear in front of them. George’s friends dismiss this disappearance as a parlour trick and depart, only to have George, frustrated, get into his full-scale time machine and blast off through time. George departs through time, stopping at each major World War on the way, until he eventually reaches the year 802701.

Upon landing in the year 802701, George discovers the Eloi, a race of blond white individuals. He meets Weena, played by Yvette Mimieux, and soon discovers that the Eloi are largely apathetic. They have no knowledge of history or books, and very little curiosity. Instead, the Eloi merely sit around and stare off into space like a bunch of hippies. Frustrated as all hell this time, George decides to get back on his time machine and get out of this terrible time. Instead, he finds that it has been stolen by the enemy of the Eloi, the terrifying Muppet creatures, the Morlocks. The Morlocks are cannibalistic and feast on the apathetic Eloi, who think there’s nothing they can do about it. When the Morlocks take Weena, George springs into action worthy of Indiana Jones and takes out the Morlocks, getting his time machine back in the process. It’s quite a sight.

Thinking about the film in the context of its time, The Time Machine is an impressive little science-fiction swashbuckler story. Rod Taylor is the perfect chiselled-jaw hero, full of guts and bravado and not much else, two-fisting his way through countless Morlocks with fists of fury and fire. In today’s time, The Time Machine will likely lose a few steps and descends into camp value for the most part, which in my view is not a necessarily bad thing. The Time Machine, to me, represents one of those cases of really good quality camp. The Morlock fights are ridiculously over the top and meandering, almost like a bunch of kids playing around on a jungle gym complete with body slams and tackles. It’s a ludicrous and maddening sight, to say the least. Yet something in the way Taylor throws himself into these sequences with his stone-faced resolve makes it encouraging in its silliness.

The Time Machine is also interesting because of the view of the future. There are no flying machines or ridiculous elements of the future. Rather, the frightening nature of the future in H.G. Wells’ imagination lays within the idea that the people are apathetic to most everything. As the Morlocks’ signal goes off, the Eloi mindlessly walk through to their slaughter without a thought in their heads. They do this simply because they do this, it is what they know. When George arrives and witnesses this calamity for the future, his desire is to get back to the present and try to stop it from happening. His gutsy but ignorant resolve is contrast in the face of the Eloi’s notions of quitting, as George refuses to resign himself to fate and the Eloi have done nothing but for several thousands of years.

The Time Machine works as both a campy science-fiction adventure story and a frightening glimpse into the nature of apathy. It isn’t particularly well-acted and nothing stands out about the direction. The special effects, especially the time lapse photography as George embarks on his journey, are quite good. The Morlocks themselves are downright silly in any time frame, but the fight between George and the foul beasts remains highly entertaining and funny regardless of what year the audience may find themselves living in. I recommend The Time Machine for its fun adventure and its compelling plot points.

7/10

Trailer:

 

March 30, 2007

The Magnificent Seven

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1960, adventure, drama, entertainment, western | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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The Magnificent Seven

The quintessential western, The Magnificent Seven is a powerhouse of a film from 1960. It is a remake of Seven Samurai, the Akira Kurosawa classic, and it effectively translates to a western with seamless direction, powerful acting and a tremendous script. Directed by John Sturges, known as “the dean of big budget movies” from the 50s and 60s, The Magnificent Seven features a blockbuster cast pulling out all the stops.

Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn and more star in the western. Brynner is the man in black, known as Chris, who leads the gang of mercenaries. Eli Wallach is Calvera, the leader of a gang of bandits that is terrorizing a small village near the United States-Mexico border. Calvera steals from the people in the town and, with a gang of about 40 men, continues his reign of terror until the villagers are fed up.

Three villagers are sent to the nearby town to dispatch some weapons so that the townspeople can defend themselves. Instead, they run into Chris in the middle of a heroic act against bigotry. The villagers hire Chris and his newfound companion Vin, played to perfection by the masterful Steve McQueen, to help their situation. Chris and Vin put together a gang of their own and set towards the town.

As the film unfolds, the characters become more familiar to the audience through a witty and intelligent script and through the top-notch performances of the actors. The Magnificent Seven is as much a meditation on loneliness and the life of a gunslinger as it is an action-western. Director Sturges pieces together scene after scene of broad stroke camera shots and intense stand-offs played out by cool characters.

The Magnificent Seven would be one of the most influential westerns of all time. TV shows like the A-Team would borrow from it conceptually, as would many other films. In a bit of an ironic twist, A-Team leader George Peppard was originally selected for the role of Chris, but he was passed over after his erratic and volatile behaviour became a major issue.

Another key component of the film is the famous score by composer Elmer Bernstein. The Academy Award nominated score drives the action and plays out in each scene as the perfect accompaniment. It is essentially a constant score, guiding us through the film with large blasts of sound and sweeping instrumentals. Berstein’s score is one of the finest in western film history and is certainly one of the most emulated.

With a perfect score, witty script, great performances, exciting and smart action and top class direction, The Magnificent Seven is one of the finest westerns of all time. It truly a passionate and engaging film that unravels on the screen through its use of character over standardized action and its use of a tight script over the use of the usual suspects of cinema trickery. Instead, the film is carefully and meticulously put together with a fascinating end result.

9/10