1973

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April 11, 2009

Amarcord

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1973, comedy, drama, entertainment, foreign, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
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amarcord

One of the most captivating aspects of the films of Fellini has been the sheer energy he conveys. There is no doubt in mind that Fellini was a man who loved life, vibrantly living out his fantasies with glorious women, wine, song, and art. It is an envious existence, to be sure, one that I am grateful to partially emulate in all my stumbling glory. With Fellini’s movies we find a passageway to his desires and to his experiences. Many of the man’s works stand as open doors to his very soul and as insightful vignettes to a culture that many of us will never understand.

Fellini’s 1973 contribution, Amarcord, displays his vibrancy for life in colourful, voluptuous fashion. At the same time, it is a searing indictment of all that Fellini grew to disdain. He skewers Mussolini and fascism, the Catholic Church, and what he saw as the perpetual adolescence of his people. This is illustrated through the bizarre fantasies and seemingly petty events that his characters rummage through haphazardly.

Essentially Amarcord takes us through one year in the lives of the fictional village of Borgo. Borgo is based on Fellini’s hometown Rimini. We are introduced to the great, crazy citizens of Borgo at first sign of the puffballs (meninas) in the air, signifying the arrival of spring. Winter has gone and the village idiot (Aristide Caporale) lets us know via poetry. We are taken on a whirlwind tour of the village and introduced to its various characters, including the town beauty Gradisca (Magali Noël), the town whore Volpina (Josiane Tanzilli), the sexy and buxom tobacco lady (Maria Antonietta Beluzzi), Titta (Bruno Zanin), Titta’s father (Armando Brancia), and others.

The film takes us through several events and themes, including the annual spring celebration bonfire, a lot of farts, the chaotic school experience, confession, masturbation, family life, lust, sex, a wedding, and so forth. Amarcord, Romagnolo for “I remember,” is life-affirming cinema in that respect. It is not so much about traditional plot devices or entrance points; there is no character to guide us, save for perhaps a rambling lawyer (Luigi Rossi). Instead, we’re on our own in Borgo.

There is a lot going on in Amarcord and it certainly begs a few repeat viewings. On an initial glance, it is an engaging year in the life of a remarkable group of townspeople. The characters are engaging, the way of life is charming, and there are an awful lot of rambunctious hijinks to observe. Fellini’s picture is gleeful, energetic, high-spirited. It is also extraordinarily effortless, almost simplistic in its approach to the subject matter.

When Fellini unleashes a barrage of criticism towards, say, the Church, it is natural and free-flowing. His critique is never heavy-handed; rather it functions like breath of fresh air and a natural extension of the story and character. Fellini has always been a sort of effortless filmmaker. Other directors would have possibly laid the “message” on thicker, pushing the energy of the movie in a direction that would have impacted the characters in a more considerable fashion. With Amarcord, and indeed most of Fellini’s works, there is spaciousness to his transitions. Everything operates as it should rather than as a movie screenplay would have it work.

So Amarcord is a truly organic experience and a lovely starting point for those looking for a way in to Federico Fellini’s masterpieces. Others are more involving and perhaps more engrossing, but no other piece exposes where this tremendous talent came from and describes how he came to be with such incredible beauty and humour.

10/10

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November 12, 2008

Lady Snowblood (Shurayukihime)

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1973, action, adventure, entertainment, foreign, historical, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , |
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The ultimate story of revenge, Lady Snowblood (Shurayukihime) laid the groundwork for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films and proved to be the inspiration for several others. It is a blood-spattered and beautiful picture, directed by Toshiya Fujita with all sorts of fierce, blood-spurting glee. While many would argue and perhaps complain that this gem of a samurai exploitation flick is only getting attention because of Tarantino’s homage/rip-off, any awareness of Fujita’s little blood-fest is good news in my book.

Thematically, Lady Snowblood fits comfortably in the exploitation genre. It is a film about social change and victimhood as the characters react to incoming Western philosophies and new forms of rule. Like many exploitation films, Lady Snowblood uses violence and graphic content to draw notice to its central theme. Unavoidably, the graphic violence overshadows the theme and the blood-and-guts take over in full force.

The story is told through flashbacks and cutaways, adding a disjointed sense of reality to the plot. Meiko Kaji is the attractive Yuki Kashima, whose entire life is dedicated to retribution after the vicious murder of her father and sadistic rape of her mother. Yuki is born in a woman’s prison to her mother, Sayo (Miyoko Akaza). Sayo dies from childbirth but is able to tell her cellmates that Yuki is to be raised for the purpose of retaliation. Six years later, one of Sayo’s cellmates takes young Yuki to a priest, Dōkai (Kō Nishimura), for training.

After her training, Yuki hits the path of revenge to track down those who wronged her parents. We are shown, graphic novel-style, who Yuki is looking for: Takemura Banzō (Noboru Nakaya), Kitahama Okono (Sanae Nakahara), Shokei Tokuichi (Takeo Chii), and Tsukamoto Gishirō (Eiji Okada). Stripped of emotion, sadness, and anger, Yuki’s quest for vengeance takes hold of her entire life. It is all she is able to do, it is her birthright, it is her divine purpose. As a “child of the netherworld,” she tracks her prey and dispatches of them in magnificent, gruesome fashion as only she can.

Some critics misguidedly dismiss Kaji’s Yuki as a crude walking samurai sword. On the contrary, Meiko Kaji brings depth and multiple dimensions to her role. She remains a stoic, certainly, and is rightly passive in her expressions, but we must remember the culture and time period in which Lady Snowblood takes place. We also must remember the role of women in such a society. Yuki knows what is expected of her as a young woman of her time, but she also knows what her ultimate quest for justice requires of her. Her only expression comes at the conclusion of the picture when she finally allows herself to cry.

While there is indeed texture and substance to the character of Yuki Kashima, the core of Lady Snowblood is the bloodshed. And there is plenty of it. Much of the film features color dynamics of severe, vivid scarlet splashed on untainted white. There is almost always snow on the ground or flakes falling from the sky, which provokes an odd feeling of wholesomeness as counterpoint to Yuki’s violent adventure. Yuki’s wardrobe, too, is pure white and the blood splatters it like war paint.

The blood is a character in and of itself here. It gushes, spurts, pours, and bursts out of wounds. Arms are chopped off, bodies are sliced in half, and torsos are gutted liberally. The blood takes its time in greeting the air, almost always splashing out seconds after the sword breaks the skin. As though through a fire hose, the blood sprays everyone in range until there is nothing left. These extraordinarily ridiculous crimson displays are common in samurai exploitation (chambara), but perhaps no other film demonstrates such artistry with the dazzling red stuff.

Lady Snowblood is the decisive revenge movie. Centered on a character with nothing to live for but fierce, violent retribution, this is an exploitation picture with often-overlooked profundity and great action sequences. For a bloodthirsty good time, find a copy of this tonight.

8.6/10

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August 27, 2008

Mean Streets

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 1973, crime, drama, entertainment, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , |
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Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets is really the first picture to truly be infused with the Scorsese spirit that we’ve all come to know so well. His student film project, Who’s That Knocking At My Door, was filmed over the course of many years and took numerous different paths to get to where it wound up. Boxcar Bertha was a Roger Corman exploitation production that Marty used to learn how to film quickly and cost-effectively. But with Mean Streets, Scorsese really filmed what was deep within and used his background as the template for what would become a cinema classic.

Based on events that Scorsese experienced growing up in Little Italy, Mean Streets tells the story of an Italian American man, Charlie (Harvey Keitel), trying to move up the ladder in the local mafia.

He works for his uncle Giovanni (Cesare Danova) and collects debts around the neighbourhood. Charlie is blessed (or cursed) with a sense of compassion and is continually tolerant with his self-destructive friend Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), often to his own disadvantage. Charlie is also dating Johnny Boy’s epileptic cousin, Teresa (Amy Robinson), in secret because of her condition and the shame that comes with it.

Obviously much is made of Scorsese’s work with De Niro and this is the film that started it all. De Niro is absolutely astonishing as Johnny Boy and he inhabits the role with such wildness that it’s hard to like the character. He is insufferable, slippery, crooked, and unsophisticated. Johnny Boy is the block of cement that weighs Charlie down, he is the sin in Charlie’s life, and he is the inexorable reality of life on the tough streets.

But Mean Streets really isn’t about thugs and gangsters; it’s about sinfulness and kindness.

Take the film’s key words: “You don’t make up for your sins in church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. And the rest is bullshit and you know it.” This Scorsese-spoken introduction serves as the skeleton on which the director mounts the flesh of his story. It is the spirituality of Charlie and the way in which he reconciles his almost absurd allegiance and tests the fires of hell by running his hand over a votive candle that captures us and draws us in.

Like all Scorsese films, to only assume the surface would be a mistake. Goodfellas is far from a simple gangland picture, The Departed isn’t just an Infernal Affairs remake, and The Last Temptation of Christ is no simple re-telling of the crucifixion of Christ.

Mean Streets takes the world of Charlie and bathes it in crimson culpability, illustrated through the colours utilized by Scorsese in shooting various scenes. Whenever Charlie descends into the bar, for instance, he becomes misshapen and ensconced in immorality. The streets are untainted, but he is not. Charlie’s first slow-motion entrance to the bar is evidence of this, as Scorsese’s trademark musical walk (set to Rolling Stones) sets up a character’s soul better than any internal dialogue could ever hope to do.

Teresa, Johnny Boy, Giovanni, Michael (Richard Romulus), and the stripper (Jeannie Bell) are all devils on Charlie’s shoulder. But Charlie seeks nothing more than salvation, even from the most innocuous activities, and Scorsese’s framing of this is immaculate. Done through slanted cameras and malformed views, including Charlie’s ever-active dream life, Scorsese illustrates just how much Charlie needs from these characters and how little they need from him. When Teresa utters that she loves Charlie, he tells her not to say it. She shouldn’t say such brainless things.

Mean Streets is a profound, commanding masterpiece from one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. It would be unwise to simply judge the film as a gangster picture or as a loose biography. Instead, this is a movie about deliverance, crippling transgression, and infinite compassion. With brilliant performances, an excellent soundtrack, and pitch-perfect direction from the master, Mean Streets is remarkable and would serve as the blueprint for films about the criminal working class and their internal struggles.

10/10

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January 23, 2008

Coffy

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Coffy

You can’t really talk about blaxploitation cinema without talking about Pam Grier. Blaxploitation is the genre of film that emerged in the 1970s as many films in the exploitation genre were made to target black audiences. An exploitation film is a film that typically goes against type in terms of producing expensive productions, instead choosing to be rather economical and rely on the bolder interests of the filmgoer. Exploitation films typically feature little to no artistic value, by most definitions, and are rather eyed towards a quick profit and high-pressure sales. That’s how Ephraim Katz defines the genre, anyway, in his “The Film Encyclopedia.” In my terms, there is indeed artistic value to exploitation cinema and the volumes that such films speak for parts of culture cannot be ignored.

Most exploitation films are targeted towards an adult audience. As the censors relaxed their standards during the 1960s, Hollywood began to play with more liberal filmmaking components. Forbidden sex, wanton violence, drug use, gore, monsters, nudity, rebellion, and general mayhem began to take over. While by today’s standards, those elements seem rather puritanical, by the standards in the 1960s and 1970s, those elements were new ground for most filmmakers. Blaxploitation sprang out of the exploitation genre with films like 1971’s Shaft and 1972’s Superfly. These films tended to feature elements like pimps, ghettoes, drug dealers, hit men, and other criminal elements. White people were frequently the villains or were relatively negative characters and sexuality was ramped up considerably.

As well as stereotyping white people, these films stereotyped black people. There was actually a Coalition Against Blaxploitation that was developed on the part of cooperation from The Urban League, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. These groups railed against blaxploitation films for setting black people back in time and very likely caused the demise of the genre, for the most part, by the late 1970s. A lot of current films, however, owe a lot to the genre in terms of thematic elements. Many say blaxploitation never left but rather it simply evolved. With the “gangsta” themes in rap music from the 1990s seeping into films, many people argued that those films were a revival of sorts for blaxploitation. Regardless, the impact of the genre cannot be discounted and there are plenty of memorable films within it that should be checked out by anyone with an interest in entertaining cinema.

Coffy is one such film. With Pam Grier as the lead character, Coffy helped catapult the actress to stardom. She had previously been in a string of exploitation films, including a few “women in prison” films. Once she had the reigns in Coffy, however, all hell broke loose and she became an icon of the genre. Blessed with a full figure and great looks, Grier took on the role of Coffy, the vigilante, with reckless abandon. Coffy is a nurse by day and a vigilante by night, called to the streets of justice to conduct a one-woman war on drugs after her sister is taken in by drug addiction. Coffy’s vengeance-fuelled mission takes her to some dark places, but she’s the baddest one chick hit squad that ever hit town, as the poster says. The film, through Coffy’s journey, examines issues of drug use on the streets, gangs, pimps, and the role of women.

Coffy was directed by Jack Hill, who is somewhat of an icon in the exploitation genre. Hill would work with Grier again a year later on the film that really made things for Grier, Foxy Brown. His direction is overdone in all of the right places, using several quick cuts and edits to quicken the pace of the film. These effects and camera techniques were used time and time again in the genre and are often lampooned today in film, but I believe they served a very succinct purpose for the filmmakers. For one thing, Hill’s quick cuts made the story move at a greater pace than it would have without it. For another thing, quickly cutting away from a body or another figure on the screen is a very practical way to avoid using too much by way of cost to dress a proper stuntman. In many scenes, the stuntmen and stuntwomen are obvious, but Hill’s direction minimizes the damage and ups the ante for entertainment.

Of course, Pam Grier is greatness personified in this film. As Coffy, she’s tough but vulnerable. The way the action keys up and down throughout the film is brilliantly woven with her bouts of sadness for the situation she’s in. She kills these drug dealers and pimps because she can’t figure out a way that the justice system will work for her. Coffy’s plight is one of helplessness wrapped up in scorn, as she blasts away the final baddies with vengeance and fear, all at once. It helps that she’s absolutely drop-dead gorgeous and has these great, big, heaving……eyes. She makes no bones about using her assets, too. A general rule of thumb for the film is “if a boob can fall out, it will fall out.”

In a day and age that claims empowerment, it’s interesting to see realized empowerment coming from a genre and a time period in which empowerment was espoused to be barely existent. Pam Grier’s Coffy doesn’t need assistance and she doesn’t need a man, either. All she needs is her attitude, her charm, her assets, and a shotgun. Coffy may be an exploitation picture, but I still found it far less exploitative than what passes for most modern film. This film has guts and it’s well worth watching for fans of the genre. Coffy is a hit!

8/10

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November 26, 2007

Scarecrow

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Scarecrow

Scarecrow is a road movie from 1973. Directed by New York photographer and director Jerry Schatzberg, this film follows the relationship between two vagabonds as they attempt to rise above the standards of life they are used to. Scarecrow stars Al Pacino and Gene Hackman as the two vagabonds, using each actor’s strengths to build compelling characters for the narrative.

Pacino stars as Francis Lionel Delbuchi, a sailor who is on his way back home to see the child born while he was out at sea. He happens upon Max (Hackman), who is an ex-con, as they are hitchhiking up the same road. Max ignores Lionel at first, but eventually the pair become fast friends as a result of Lionel’s sense of humour. Max and Lionel have breakfast together at a diner and Max lets Lionel in on a business proposition to open up a car wash. Max has a temper, however, and he and Lionel make for an interesting pair as they travel the countryside meeting various people and coming closer to opening up their business. The film follows this journey as the two men come into conflict, get put in prison for a time, and meet different women. It truly is the ultimate road movie.

The road movie is a film that has been done several times before. Of Mice and Men, for example, had a little farm as the ultimate goal. Easy Rider focused on retirement in Florida. Midnight Cowboy had its orange groves. With Scarecrow, there’s a car wash. Perhaps more importantly than that to Max and Lionel, though, there is a fresh start as the dirt comes off of those cars. Both men are in need of something new and of something fresh. Both men need a shade of redemption and this becomes more and more apparent as the characters play out their lives on the screen. Each character has made mistakes, continues to make mistakes, and likely will always make mistakes. Nobody learns from their actions or changes the course of their lives to any significant degree. Outlooks change, prospects change, but the people in Scarecrow do not change.

This lazy flow to the film would have been nice had it consistently rode out the drama throughout the duration of the film. It seems, however, that director Schatzberg eventually tires of the pace and decides to throw in a carbon copy “tragic” ending. Without spoiling it, I will say that the final scenes of Scarecrow suddenly buck the slow and easy trend that made the film so enjoyable. It’s a good thing that Hackman and Pacino are two of the greatest actors of all time because Scarecrow would have sunken to instant obscurity (it almost has) had it not been for those two. Schatzberg, while he does capture some glorious cinematography, often doesn’t give enough credit to his actors and instead allows the film to suffer through a sort of haze of lighting mistakes, often like peering through a fog. Granted, the remastered DVD cut of the film seems to have corrected this problem somewhat, but there is no question that Schatzberg and Vilmos Zsigmond are obsessed with the visuals.

Pacino is wonderful to watch in Scarecrow; his performance is reason enough to see it. Pacino is still in the early stages of his career, having just finished The Godfather the year before in 1972. He had also acted for Schatzberg in the 1971 film The Panic in Needle Park, a film that closely resembles the style of this film. Pacino works the comedic role here, but does so with a haunting tragedy. There is a ghost of a man within Pacino’s Lionel and Al works hard so that the ghost is never seen. It’s too bad that the film had to blow the reason behind its title, as it would have been nice to have Pacino really represent a scarecrow instead of demonstrating with obvious candor that he really was the scarecrow.

Hackman is equally good as Max, the guy who loves to fight and thinks he’s tough as nails. Max is willing to lay a beating on a guy and does appear to be able to hold his own in a fight, that much is clear. But Hackman brings a sort of obnoxious innocence to Max that belies a reality in which Max probably has no idea as to what he’s doing. His internal confusion and complexity is on display thanks to Hackman. In the hands of a lesser performer, Max would have suffered from the typical failings of such a character. In the hands of Hackman, however, the tragedy of Max’s anger and rage really comes to light with clarity and a sort of odd sweetness.

All in all, Scarecrow is certainly worth a look. It is, at times, in love with its own style to the point that it plods along while milking the wide shot for all its worth. Still, when Hackman and Pacino are rambling and rolling across America, Scarecrow is a film worth its salt. It is a road movie with soul and purpose, but it may not stack up that well against some of the true greats. Worth seeing for a solid early Pacino performance and the great work of Gene Hackman.

6.5/10