- Un Alibi Perfetto – 2009 – ♥♥  -

di

Peter Hyams

Lanciarsi nell’ impresa di realizzare un remake di uno dei “masterpieces” della cinematografia mondiale (il “Beyond a reasonable doubt” di Fritz Lang) non è mai una cosa facile. Il celebre regista espressionista col suo lavoro volle indagare la malvagità insita nell’ essere umano che trova la sua esternazione nella barbara esecuzione della pena capitale. L’ americano Hyams invece sembra concentrarsi fin troppo in particolari superficiali e più “moderni” come la corruzione del personaggio interpretato da Michael Douglas o la storia d’amore da serie televisiva tra la bella apprendista avvocato del nemico e il bel giornalista interpretato da Jesse Metcalfe (che viene appunto da una serie televisiva come Desperate Housewives). E infatti a non funzionare sono proprio gli attori: Michael Douglas sembra imbalsamato nel suo ruolo da procuratore corrotto che aspira a diventare governatore, affossato maggiormente da un sorriso sornione e un pò mafioso e un doppiaggio innaturale che non gli rende per nulla onore; Jesse Metcalfe al contrario non gode della notorietà di Douglas e sembra non asperare neanche a raggiungerla perchè resta imbrigliato più nell’ esternazione della sua prestanza fisica che delle suo doti recitative. Si salva in parte soltanto la riflessione in merito alla corruzione umana e a fin dove un giovane rampollo riesca a spingersi pur di raggiungere la sua fama che il regista Hyams intende produrre nello spettatore. E quest’ ultimo si sa è un fenomeno che oggi, nella nostra società è ben presente. Nel caso di Un Alibi Perfetto il giovane giornalista C. J. Nicholas si spinge addirittura a farsi incarcerare (e non solo!!) per tentare di smascherare le false prove che processo dopo processo il procuratore Mark Hunter (Michael Douglas) sembra creare dal nulla pur di vincere le cause, ma soprattutto per arrivare a diventare un giornalista da Premio Pulitzer. Nel film di Hyams si salvano anche le sequenze d’azione, soprattutto quelle degli inseguimenti che, seppur con sbavature insensate (non ci si spiega come mai il poliziotto corrotto sgomma per 2 minuti intorno alla malcapitata Amber Tamblyn), riescono ad incollare lo spettatore allo schermo con le conseguenti scariche di adrenalina che ne derivano. Il film scorre facendo pensare più ad un giallo da legal thriller in stile Grisham (genere cinematografico che tanto è andato di moda negli anni ‘90). Il resto sono solo “attuali e moderni” (quanto scontati) stereotipi moderni sul mondo dell’ avvocatura , dei nerd e del giornalismo. Il tutto come se non bastasse appesantito da un finale con un colpo di scena telefonato fin da metà film e da una volgare esclamazione della protagonista femminile Tamblyn del tutto fuoriluogo. Va bene rimodernare un classico della cinematografia. Ma in questo modo è decisamente troppo!

(Storia d' amore da serie tv per due aitanti belloni)

( L' imbalsamato Douglas e le sue finte prove)

Si potrebbe parlare dell’ultimo capitolo della saga leggendaria di Mabuse azzardando una lettura comparata con l’hitchcockiano ‘Vertigo’ – impossibile non scovarne la trasmutazione speculare dell’enigma Madeleine/Marion – e Jan Fethke, del quale Lang sfrutta la novella paranormale per rappresentare il *suo* dottore. Fortuitamente, si parla di uno che la distopia la inventa, formalizzandola, trent’anni prima, e che fra le altre cose accende la dissacrante parabola sul Male Assoluto già nel 1922, anno domini della comparsa di quest’icona e stimmate del cinema langiano. Noir, dicevamo – obbligatorio riscoprire ‘M: Il Mostro Di Dusseldorf -, ma anche paranoia, indizi, speculazione, dopo tutto una storiella poliziesca come tante, ma dove l’elemento soprannaturale stende la sua malia, prima, e giostra i propri burattini, sul finale. Mabuse – Reincarnato? Figlio? Presenza Aleatoria? – colma la nemesi dell’antieroe ambiguo, segreto, il cui scopo ultimo, senza girarci troppo intorno, rimane la sovversione dell’ordine prestabilito delle cose, un uomo emerso dalla (folta) schiera di Agenti del Caos che già a quei tempi incrinavano la vostra brancolante pantomima di certezze: oggi ce la tiriamo con il Joker ledgeriano, con più trucco, più pistole, meno ESP e meno mistero, ma il succo è più o meno lo stesso, così come lo stesso rimane l’auspicio da fine di mondo. La grande intuizione è quella di accorpare la sofisticazione orwelliana di un occhio simil-onniscente, ispirata a Lang da certe pratiche di spionaggio nazista durante la guerra mondiale o dalle paure scaturite prefigurando l’ulteriore evoluzione dei mezzi di comunicazione – chissà cosa pensava Pasolini della sua idea di televisione; anzichè venir relegato a Mordor, questo visore si insinua nel privato, scontrandosi con la mente di Kras, un detective-Prometeo, se vogliamo, il cui pensiero razionale, dannatamente mittel-europeo nell’attitudine, mostra l’unico appiglio alla terra. Probabilmente non sfiora nemmeno i vertici inarrivabili de ‘Il Testamento Del Dottor Mabuse’ e molta critica, a ragione, ne ridimensiona la levatura, sottolineandone la natura prettamente estensoria rispetto alla saga cui appartiene; ciò non di meno, va ugualmente celebrato, anche solo per costituire una delle più compute “paranoid stories” dell’epoca, alla faccia di coloro che, in seguito, avrebbero cercato di sfruttare il personaggio, allungando il brodo.

Most of my analysis of the real-estate market in Vancouver is premised on the assumption that the real-estate market is headed down, and steeply so. But what happens if it doesn’t? Ironically, that might actually be the worst outcome of all for the average Vancouverite. As it stands, Vancouver is dangerously close to becoming a pleasuredome, a city in which real people – those without inheritances, trust funds, or lottery winnings – can’t afford to live. Instead, they huddle increasingly at the periphery, forced to the margins by an unrealistic and unrealizable cost of living. It reminds me of Fritz Lang’s 1927 film Metropolis, a groundbreaking silent film that portrayed a futuristic urban dystopia in which an elite caste played in the gardens above ground while the workers toiled below to make their leisure possible. While the film was a metaphor for the tension between workers and owners in Weimar Germany, it is a remarkably good fit for what Vancouver is in danger of becoming.

It’s no secret that Vancouver is the most expensive city in all of Canada in which to live. What’s less widely known is the fact that incomes in Vancouver don’t come anywhere close to supporting the high cost of housing. According to a 2008 RBC report, it would take 75 per cent of Metro Vancouver’s median income of $60,000 to afford an average two-storey home, which carried a price tag of $619,892. In downtown Vancouver, the epicentre of real-estate unrealism, the skew between incomes and housing costs is even greater. The gulf between the haves and the have-nots, when it comes to owning real-estate, has never been bigger in Vancouver, or more dangerous for those brave – or stupid – enough to try to make the leap between the two categories.

It would be one thing – a bad thing, but a manageable one – if this were contained to the downtown peninsula. Instead, though, that virus is spreading to what were once the more modest areas of the city, places where people were once able to own their own homes without the help of wealthy parents or a willingness to sign on for a lifetime of debt. Take this recent story about a house on East 24th Avenue near Main Street that sold for $284,000 over asking, for a whopping total of $1.13 million. The sale wasn’t a case of temporary insanity, either, as a house at Main and East 20th Avenue sold just days earlier for $1.38 million, a whopping $320,000 over the listing price. Re/Max realtor Darryl Sverjen spun the sale as proof that the neighbourhood was the new hot spot, noting that “this is an area with awesome amenities. Once you live in the area, you don’t leave.”

But beneath the noxious fumes of Sverjen’s spin lie some uncomfortable realities. Yes, Main and East 25th Avenue is a hipster’s paradise, with plenty of great bars, interesting restaurants, and clothing boutiques. But if homes are selling at over a million dollars, those hipsters are supposed to have long since moved on to their next neighbourhood, and their bars are supposed to have been transformed into family-friendly brunch spots, doggie daycares, and Starbucks outlets. Similarly, there shouldn’t be an empty lot at the nieghbourhood’s busiest corner, and the local library shouldn’t have the ambiance of a run-down men’s shelter. Main and East 25th Avenue is a lot of things, but a place suitable for million dollar homes isn’t one of them.

As if to underscore the perverse nature of the relationship between what people earn in Vancouver and what they pay for their homes, the city of Vancouver recently explored the possibility of permitting lane way housing as a way of creating more affordable housing. “It is creating affordability,” city councillor Raymond Louie argued in a 2008 phone interview, saying that increasing the supply of rental housing will soften demand and potentially lower rents. “It is our preference that those who are working in the city and helping to build the city are able to remain in the city.” Yes, that’s right; it has become acceptable to think, and to argue, that the only way people working in Vancouver can afford to live here is by allowing the creation of upscale shantytowns in the city’ s alleys.

When families can’t afford to live in the city in which they work, something dangerous is afoot. Yes, rising real-estate prices might make some middle class families wealthy, but for every one that parlays that new found equity in their house into a vacation property in Mexico there are ten who are priced out of the market, the neighbourhood, and the city. While the Bob Rennies of the world might argue otherwise, all the foreign investment, international visitors, and immigrant buyers in the world won’t make up for the loss of a healthy middle class. It’s the middle class that makes neighbourhoods work. With the way things are going, they won’t be around for much longer, and the dark vision that Fritz Lang articulated in Metropolis will be one step closer to being realized.

posted/written by caroline picard

Woody Allen Woody Allen Woody Allen

An older gentleman, he came upon a fallen Redwood, collapsed and soundless in the yellow grass. The sun was hot, it stole the sound and smell from the air, except sometimes the man heard a buzzing fly land and when it landed everything was more silent than it had been before. The man studied the log, imagined its figure wearing away with rot, woodmites and termites and peculiar worms, until it wore down into dust—the shit of insects—and fed the dull earth.

Instead, the man took a cast of the tree:

He hired a team of employees and together they gathered around its stupendous girth. They raised the dead log on pedestals—sweating, the whine of the chainsaw—cutting the trunk into eight three foot cross-sections. They took elaborate photographs of each of the tree’s parts. Like a murder scene, quadrants of the surrounding area were taped off. Surrounding tree trunks bore neon pink symbols of work on their bases. Everything was documented.  Everyone wore rubber gloves.

They took a cast of its massive breadth, width, length in sections:

sealing the tree in soap, they poured wax around its parts just before nightfall and in the night the wax hardened and in the morning they cut the wax off in clean, re-sealable pieces. They sent those pieces to Japan in a very cool box.

What came back:

The tree—a new one, it resembled the original—came back without the wax, for the wax had been burned to make the new tree. The tree came in parts, the same eight three-foot cross-sections. Its parts made of wood, not Redwood but Hinoki. Its surface had been carved in a myriad of patterns, different borring strokes; the surface of the replica was carved to look like the surface of the old. This new wood blonder and clean looking, though with the self-same hollowed core of its dead predecessor.

There was a note attached to the mid-section.

Someone was asked to translate:

Once put together, this tree will last 400 years, before hitting a crisis of 100 years, during which it will crack. Thereafter it will last another 400 years before it begins to decompose.

*

Manhattan, New York, 2009: Mr. Allen finds himself sat in the corner window of a high-rise apartment—his own, (he can tell by the family photographs, framed and standing on the bookshelves, and the side table too).  He recognizes the pattern on the carpet; it looks to be Persian, red and black interlaced geometries. He remembers the smell of the place—the smell is both familiar and difficult to perceive; it must be a smell belonging to him.

Soon-yi sounds to be making coffee in the adjacent kitchen and he can hear the clattering of domestic objects as she opens and closes kitchen drawers, cabinets, the dish washer; he can hear utensils bump up against interior wooden walls. Mr. Allen conjures a flash of light pouncing on the landscape of things, sprung suddenly from the dark. He wonders if objects possess a sense of being.

It is as if I am in a dream, he thinks assuming a moment of adolescent existentialism. My actions are not entirely my own but I am more or less comfortable. He looks at his hands clasped in his lap and feels, for a moment, the texture of the corduroy underneath. Past his hands, legs, he looks at his feet in brown, waspy loafers. He isn’t wearing socks. For a moment he imagines his actors feel this way in a set and, going against better judgment, makes the disquieting attempt to peer over the bounds of his imagined consciousness—

into the dark, a mottled grey behind his eyes, either the color of his brain or simply the color of what he’ll never know—

His eyes glassy, he looks at you without seeing. “Talk to me, shout at me, so that I’ll wake up and know that I’m here with you and that certain things really are just dreams.” He is merely talking to himself, a recitation.

Truth be told, he cannot remember living in any other place. At the same time he does not remember how he came to be here.

He lifts a hand to feel his upper lip, relieved to find the moustache still in place.

*

The first opera singer ever recorded had past her prime when she was recorded. By then an old woman in her career, her voice wove through the aria like burning paper. Upon listening to the record, people of then recalled how remarkable she’d been before, as a young woman. “The best,” they told their children, smitten by nostalgia.

Children, when grown, repeated the rumor to respective children. And everyone, ever since, has believed the first opera singer recorded to be the best singer there ever was, for their memories make her so and there is no evidence to the contrary.

*

The young people aren’t any good in his movies. Terrible actors. They don’t understand. They try too much to be like him; they aren’t like him enough. They don’t listen to his direction. They impersonate rather than become. Scarlet Johansson. Jason Briggs. Christina Ricci.

Mr. Allen crosses one leg over the other, relishing contempt. Doughy and plump and taut. Ripe. Budding.

The aroma of coffee wafts into the living room.

*

The dream is one of paradise. In the dream men and women live forever, a glistening surface projected by the whirring of gears and oil and machinations run by invisible, grease-stained hands. The dream is one of desire.

*

Mr. Allen has a hand on his temple. His eyes are closed and therefore he does not see the grey day so much as he feels it. Or, discovers the feeling of it. He can picture it in his mind. The leaves are turning in the park below, across the street; he does not see these either. He knows only they are there. For a moment he imagines that the changing leaves are expressed in the sound of loose interior cutlery. He thinks of the sun as something that pounces.

And then he concentrates:

Music comes from a computer on the desk in the opposite corner of the room. It sounds like it comes from a phonograph. Concentrating on static, the overarching fuzz and pop, as bad as any radio station, he imagines the music to be broadcast from the past.

Mr. Allen presses his fingers into his eyes, pinching the lids together almost, feeling a dull pressure in the back of his head. In the darkness behind his eyes; trying desperately to imagine what she might have sounded like—this siren—when she was young. Feeling through the static, for the traces of her youth. Straining back into the past, her voice the bridge.

In a record, he believes, there is the promise of eternity.

*

Someone said LA was like a Dream Factory. He said working in the Dream Factory was pretty tiring; he was pretty tired of making dreams. He complained about the silt he was always breathing—dream silt. He hoped one day to unionize the workers.

*

In a club in Brooklyn with Soon-yi: Mr. Allen has come to the conclusion that Soon-yi’s friends, boys mostly, hide their sexuality from him. He is conscious of the shadows in the basement barroom—no windows, barely any light. Drums clatter and dash and bang as Mr. Allen is jostled occasionally by flanking, shiny strangers.

“One time in Romania I went to a bar we drank in bars that used to be dungeons they used to torture people in those bars. No I’m serious you could still see the burn marks on the sides of the brick where they used to keep lit torches while they tortured people.” Soon-yi can’t hear him and she smiles in a dreamy way watching the young boys on stage, watching the people at the club, hiding her mouth behind her hand; hiding her mouth from her friends across the room. Mr. Allen feels the shadows like a blanket. “I’ve been feeling so odd lately. I can’t explain. I don’t feel myself,” he says. “I must be getting sick. You can have my whole fortune.” Stuttering. “Did you hear? They finally arrested Polanski.” But Soon-yi does not hear because she’s dancing also, jostling up and down against the others in the room and Mr. Allen feels like an old man wearing socks.

It occurs to him that he will die childless, save for those things that he made in discrete instances; things starring himself in scenes he could control.

*

When Charles Darwin’s turtle, Harriet, died in 2006, they discovered her organs had not aged at all. It was believed that, barring disease or accident, turtles could live forever for evidence of time was not apparent on any of her interior organs.

In Hollywood there is a single mother selling serums of Harriet’s DNA on e-bay. It was manufactured abroad. Black market. It has not been tested. Some of her clients: Ashley Olson, Elizabeth Taylor, Heath Ledger, Michael Jackson etc.

*

The next band comes on stage, just after Mr. Allen looks at his watch, notes the time and wonders what time he might be able to go home—

Soon-yi talks to some of her male friends at the bar.

Mr. Allen looks around at everyone in the room and shakes his head. He looks again on stage.

The keyboardist looks exactly like him. Only younger. And shorter. Should the keyboardist step off the stage, he might stand a head shorter than Mr. Allen. Everything else about the fellow is spot on. He hears Soon-yi giggling across the room. He imagines her covering her mouth.

“I have a proposition for you,” Mr. Allen says after the show. There are candles on the bar and they cast an irregular but welcome light. “I would like to hire you. Assume my life.” They sit at the bar. His doppelganger drinks a whisky Mr. Allen has bought. “I’ll pay you very well.” Mr. Allen’s hands dance around for emphasis. He finds himself regularly touching the young man, occasionally going so far as to pinch the fellow’s shoulders now and again, testing the fellow’s firmness. The sensation is exhilarating. Mr. Allen wonders, abstractly, if he was himself the same density once.

“Why should I do that?” the young man asks. He looks amused. He wears a plaid cowboy shirt with opalescent, buttons—snaps. Tight black jeans on and converse. Sideburns and Buddy Holly glasses. He smokes. His hands are smaller than Mr. Allen’s.

“Only, you’d have to cut down your sideburns.” Mr. Allen says, worried suddenly, brow knit. He studies the youth, looking for other discrepancies. “And maybe get just a slightly different haircut. I understand the times are different, but at least for the transition period, you’ll need to adopt a little more of my style.” With a sudden clarity of thought, Mr. Allen smiles, relived. “Oh! I know. You’ll have to go away for a while. I’ll send out a press release. I’ll say I’m going abroad. You go abroad too. We can meet in another part of the world, somewhere where no one will know who we are. Then I can teach you how to be me. Then you can come back to America. It’s very simple, really. We could even make movies abroad. When you, ‘I’” he smiles and winks, “come back, no one will ever know the difference.” The young man shakes his head. He seems not to understand. “This has to be good.” Mr. Allen continues. “I’ll pay you an exorbitant amount of money—where do you work? Retail?”

“Record store.”

“Right. Good. Well. You’re rich. Did you think it would be this easy?”

*

In the end:

After the first recording of the opera singer, but before the death of Harriet, an anthropologist and a sociologist made a movie with a cameraman and they traipsed around Paris and Saint-Tropez playing tag with a camera. The interviewee became the interviewer, each time asking, “Are you happy?”

No one was famous.

My Top 10:

Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's brilliant M

1. M
2. King Kong
3. Duck Soup
4. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
5. The Invisible Man
6. The Blood of a Poet
7. The Mummy
8. Little Women
9. Dinner at Eight
10. The Private Life of Henry VIII

Academy Awards:

• Best Picture:  Cavalcade
• Best Director:  Frank Lloyd  (Cavalcade)
• Best Actor:  Charles Laughton  (The Private Life of Henry VIII)
• Best Actress:  Katharine Hepburn  (Morning Glory)
• Best Adaptation:   Little Women (from the novel by Louisa May Alcott)
• Best Original Story:  One Way Passage

TSPDT Consensus Top 5 Films:

• M – #53
• Duck Soup – #103
• King Kong – #115
• Trouble in Paradise – #162
• Love Me Tonight – #405

Top 5 Awards Points:

1. Cavalcade – 265
2. I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang – 185
3. Little Women – 175
4. Lady for a Day – 170
5. A Farewell to Arms – 160

AFI Top 100 Films:

• King Kong – #43  (1998) / #41  (2007)
• Duck Soup – #85  (1998) / #60  (2007)

Nighthawk Awards:

Katharine Hepburn won the Oscar in 1933 for Morning Glory, but should have actually won for Little Women

• Best Picture:  M
• Best Director:  Fritz Lang  (M)
• Best Actor:  Peter Lorre  (M)
• Best Actress:  Katharine Hepburn  (Little Women)
• Best Supporting Actor:  Adolph Menjou  (A Farewell to Arms)
• Best Supporting Actress:  Elsa Lanchester  (The Private Life of Henry VIII)
• Best Adapted Screenplay:  I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (from the book by Robert Burns)
• Best Original Screenplay:  M
• Best Foreign Film:  Boudu Saved from Drowning

Nighthawk Notables:

• Best Film to Watch over and over:  Duck Soup
• Best Scene:  The revelation of The Invisible Man
• Best Ending:  The dark despair of I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang
• Best Line  (comic):  “Go, and never darken my towels again.”  (Duck Soup – Groucho Marx)
• Best Line  (dramatic):  “How do you live?”  “I steal.”  (I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang – Helen Vinson and Paul Muni – final lines)
• Read the Book – Don’t See the Movie:  Oliver Twist

Ebert Great Films  (in order of being added):

• M
• Trouble in Paradise
• Duck Soup
• King Kong

This is the last combination of years as the Academy made their dates of eligibility August 1, 1932 to December 31, 1933, trying to align with the calendar year.  It was also the period when the National Board of Review decided to start giving out a Best Picture of the year, instead of simply a Top 10.  Horror films continued to be fantastic (three of my top 10), and once again, the best film of the year was a Fritz Lang film.  There is a current general consensus on the best films of the year (M, King Kong, Duck Soup) and they combined for 0 Oscar nominations.

Film History: Acts of the U.S. government allow for the vertical integration of production companies, essentially allowing them to act like monopolies, something that will last until the Supreme Court bans the practice in 1948.  Sergei Eisenstein flops in the Western Hemisphere, as, defeated by Hollywood, and unable to finish Que Viva Mexico, he returns to Moscow.  In response to AMPAS calls for wage cuts due to the Great Depression, both the Screenwriters Guild and the Screen Actors Guild are formed.  Flying Down to Rio is released, the first film teaming Fred Astaire with Ginger Rogers.  Fatty Arbuckle dies, 12 years after being banned by Will Hays.  Hedy Kiesler (soon to be Hedy Lamarr) creates an international sensation with her long nude scene in Ecstasy.  David O. Selznick moves from RKO to MGM, run by his father-in-law, Louis B. Mayer (prompting the comment “the son-in-law also rises”).  According to Fritz Lang he is offered the position of film supervisor by Josef Goebbels.  He flees for Paris that night, leaving behind his wife, Thea von Harbou, who had joined the Nazi Party the year before.  Darryl F. Zanuck forms 20th Century Pictures, which two years later will merge with the Fox Film Corporation.  The British Film Institute forms in London in September of 1933.

Academy Awards: Cavalcade was only the second film to win Best Picture and Best Director and according to Inside Oscar “received 50 percent more votes than first runner-up, A Farewell to Arms, with Little Women in third place”, but today it is largely forgotten (and not widely admired).  When Frank Lloyd won for Best Director, Will Rogers simply said “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.  Come up and get it, Frank!”  Except while he was talking to Lloyd, Frank Capra, nominated for Lady for a Day, got up, thinking he had won.  Capra had come in second, two votes ahead of George Cukor.  May Robson had finished a less distant second to Hepburn (20% behind) and Paul Muni close behind Laughton (10% behind).  A Farewell to Arms becomes the first film to ever win multiple technical awards (winning Best Cinematography and Best Sound).  Walt Disney winning the second of 8 consecutive Oscars for Short Subject (Cartoon), expresses thanks for winning an “Oscar,” the first public use of the term.  His Three Little Pigs gets 80% of the vote.

• Worst Oscar:  Best Art Direction for Cavalcade
• Worst Oscar Nomination:  Best Picture for She Done Him Wrong
• Worst Oscar Omission:  Best Sound for King Kong
• Worst Oscar Category:  Best Original Story – three lackluster candidates when they ignored King Kong, Duck Soup and Trouble in Paradise
• Best Oscar Category:  Best Actress – three of the four best and the other one was for Katharine Hepburn, who was already one of the nominees

Awards: The National Board of Review starts giving out, in addition to its Top 10 films and Top 5 Foreign Films, actual awards for Best Picture and Best Foreign Film.  For 1932, the winners are I Am a Fugitive for a Chain Gang (a full fourteen months before it would be nominated by the Academy) and A Nous La Liberte.  For 1933, the winners are Topaze (very difficult to see now) and Hertha’s Erwachen, a German film so forgotten now that the IMDb has no user votes and no user comments on the film.  It is hard to verify that the two Foreign films actually won.  Tom O’Neill’s book Movie Awards lists them as winners in the yearly recap, but not in the text and the official NBR list does not indicate any winners among the top 5 Foreign Films.

The Story of Temple Drake (1933): the pre-code film that helped bring on the Production Code

Over-looked film of 1933:

The Story of Temple Drake (dir. Stephen Roberts)

The film world has not been particularly kind to William Faulkner.  He worked in Hollywood for a while, but never particularly thrived there.  At one point he said that he was more comfortable at home than at a studio office and asked to write at home.  The studio was surprised to find that he went all the way home to Oxford, MS (Faulkner’s problems working in the industry and the heavy drinking he did in Hollywood are the basis for John Mahoney’s character in Barton Fink).  Faulkner would return in the 40’s and be a part of the two brilliant Bogie / Bacall / Hawks films: To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, but would fail to get Oscar nominations for either one (Have, based on Hemingway’s novel is the only film to make use of two Nobel Prize winning writers).  Faulkner’s own novels have had mixed success on screen, with several adaptations in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, none of them getting much in the way of an audience or critical approval and several of them getting big plot changes (The Sound and the Fury) or even title changes (Pylon was filmed as The Tarnished Angels).  Many of these films are now hard to find.

You could say part of the problem is Faulkner’s style, a stream of consciousness that doesn’t lend well to adaptation.  Part of the problem as well is that Faulkner’s dark, Southern Gothic aspects (rape, murder, incest) weren’t meant for films being made under the auspices of the Production Code.  But then why is it that no feature film has been made from one of his novels since 1969?  Several of his novels would lend themselves well to a new cinematic treatment and no one has bothered to make the attempt.  The prime example of what can be done when given the chance with a Faulkner novel is that The Story of Temple Drake, the first film version of Sanctuary, is probably the best film version ever made from a Faulkner novel.

Yet, in these days of DVD releases, with three box sets of “Pre-Code Classics” it still remains that the only place to see The Story of Temple Drake is on YouTube.  Given that Joseph Breen, the enforcer of the Production Code demanded that it never be re-released and it was lost until the fifties and still remains widely unavailable today, completely unavailable on either video or DVD, rarely even being aired on TCM, it is amazing it can even be seen on the web, but there it is, in its entirety.  I am not a fan of uploading copyrighted content to YouTube, but when a company (in this case, Paramount) either refuses to make a film available or no longer seems to have a copyright hold, then I relent.  Films should be available for people to see, and for classic films, if the companies won’t do it, and users can, they should.

Of course, there are numerous reasons why this film should be made available.  First of all, there are the Faulkner fans, and believe me, I am not the only one out there.  Most of the film versions of Faulkner’s novels are hard to find, but we’ll try to find them, because even if they’re terrible, it’s a chance to see it.  Then there is the historical aspect of the film.  It has been widely written about, is incorporated in many film history books as “the film banned by the Code,” with several pages describing the film, its plot and various critical reactions in Thomas Doherty’s Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality and Insurrection in American Cinema, 1930-1934.  Then of course, there is the other reason to see it.  It’s a good film.

Again, it is probably the best adaptation of any Faulkner novel.  Tarnished Angels is mediocre at best, The Sound and the Fury and The Long Hot Summer suffer a bit from the overwrought Southern melodrama pushed in by the screenwriters, Intruder in the Dust and The Reivers are good, but not great and the Lee Remick version of Sanctuary is near impossible to find (Sound and the Fury isn’t easy either – I bought a VHS copy off Ebay several years ago).  But Story is a good film, with a very solid, sexually lurid performance from Miriam Hopkins as Temple.  It captures many of the best aspects of the novel (including putting the baby in a drawer to sleep to keep it safe from the rats), holds well enough to the story and the horror of the novel without bottoming out into the truly lurid details that even the Pre-Code Era wouldn’t have allowed on screen.  Yes, at the end of the film there is the trial and that seems to sum up and conclude the film in true Hollywood fashion, but it moves well, has good cinematography, is well directed and captures the essence of the novel more than I would have thought possible.  So see it, while you still can, even if you have to watch it online.  Because films are made to be seen and film history deserves to be preserved, even if it’s only in 10 minute long clips on YouTube.

Respirando e transpirando cinema noir.

Max Reinhardt was the most tremendous and important person to have ever influenced my career and my work. - Bob Ryan provando que Reinhardt não fora apenas um dos pais do teatro moderno e do cinema alemão, mas dele também.
Sem Reinhardt não existiria Lang, Murnau, Lubitsch e outros desocupados, por consequência não existiria todo expressionismo alemão e cinema noir norte-americano. Sem Reinhardt não haveria o curso de teatro que fundou nos EUA, Ryan não teria encontrado um rumo para sua vida neste mesmo curso e todos perderíamos um ator estupendo imortalizando uma quantidade incalculável de grandes cenas do cinema, boa parte delas fazendo parte daquele mesmo cinema noir supracitado.
Mas Ryan era diferente de outros ícones noir, gente como Bogart, Ladd, Lancaster e Mitchum possuíam um tipo de aura heróica e dignidade que prevalecia mesmo nos mais profundos esgotos, Ryan não, ele ia mesmo fundo na podridão humana, se mesclamava na escória, rastejava nos dejetos e é aí que entra a influência de Reinhardt, ao abster-se da vaidade do astro de cinema para dar vazão à necessidade do ator, numa quase-versão sexy de Peter Lorre. Robert Ryan é pulp cinema em suor, sangue, penumbra, músculos, pistolas, cigarros e câncer no pulmão.

RR tem tanto filme excelente no currículo que dá impinge pensar em fazer um top de sua filmografia.

1- Meu Ódio Será Tua Herança (The Wild Bunch, Sam Peckinpah, 1969)

2- Cinzas que Queimam (On Dangerous Ground, Nicholas Ray/Ida Lupino, 1952)

3- Punhos de Campeão (The Set-Up, Robert Wise, 1949)

4- A Quadrilha Maldita (Day of the Outlaw, André De Toth, 1959)

5- Casa de Bambu (House of Bamboo, Samuel Fuller, 1955)

6- Homens em Fúria (Odds Against Tomorrow, Robert Wise, 1959)

7 -O Preço de um Homem (The Naked Spur, Anthony Mann, 1953)

8- Rancor (Crossfire, Edward Dmytryk, 1947)

9- O Menino dos Cabelos Verdes (The Boy With Green Hair, Joseph Losey, 1948)

10- O Homem que Surgiu de Repente (La Course du Lièvre à Travers les Champs, René Clement, 1972)

11- Ato de Violência (Act of Violence, Fred Zinnemann, 1948)

12- Os Que Sabem Morrer (Men in War, Anthony Mann, 1957)

Nem só de sombras viveu um dos maiores motherfuckers do cinema, mais do que noir, Robert Ryan exalava testosterona. Desde os anos 40 Mr Ryan poderia entrar em qualquer antologia de cinema-de-macho, o homem trabalhou com Peckinpah, Fuller, Aldrich, Walsh, Boetticher, Winner, Frankenheimer, Anthony Mann, John Flynn e Sturges – ele também trabalhou com o resto da galera sem talento do outro lado como Lang, Tourneur, Losey, Ray, Ophuls, Lupino, Renoir, mas isso não tem a mínima importância. O que quero mesmo dizer é que o senhor Ryan tem todo direito de estar naquele seleto hall onde estão inclusos Clint Eastwood e Charles Bronson, com a diferença que Bob Ryan já era motherfucker antes que esse povo tivesse sonhado em ser tal coisa.
Apesar de RR ter sido separado de seu siamês Sterling Hayden logo após o nascimento, dessa galera macho-pra-dedéu o único ator páreo para ele no cinema americano era Lee Marvin – foram dois dos mais intensos, versáteis e talentosos atores evindeciados no pós-guerra – vai ver por isso fizeram quatro filmes juntos e Bloody Sam queria Marvin ao lado dele no Wild Bunch, em vez disso Marvin foi cantar com o Eastwood naquele outro filme… A verdade é que o duo Marvin-Ryan formam uma espécie de objeto transitório de anti-heróis com testosterona acima da média entre a geração Cagney-Bogart para o ciclo Eastwood-Bronson.

Eu sei que meus bíceps são irresistíveis, mas tenha respeito, Bronson!

Top “resto”:

13- Coração Prisioneiro (Caught, Max Ophüls/Robert Aldrich, 1949)
14- Só a Muher Peca (Clash by Night, Fritz Lang, 1952)
15- Os Doze Condenados (The Dirty Dozen, Robert Aldrich, 1967)
16- A Mulher Desejada (The Woman on the Beach, Jean Renoir, 1947)
17- O Mais Longo dos Dias (The Longest Day, Ken Annakin/Andrew Marton/Bernhard Wicki, 1962)
18- A Quadrilha (The Outfit, John Flynn, 1973)
19- Expresso Para Berlim (Berlin Express, Jacques Tourneur, 1948)
20- Billy Budd – O Vingador dos Mares (Peter Ustinov, 1962)
21- Rastros do Inferno (Inferno, Roy Ward Baker, 1953)
22- Conspiração do Silêncio (Bad Day at Black Rock, John Sturges, 1955)
23- The Iceman Cometh (John Frankenheimer, 1973)
24- Rei dos Reis (King of Kings, Nicholas Ray, 1961)
25- Uma Batalha no Inferno (Battle of the Bulge, Ken Annakin, 1965)
26- Os Profissionais (The Professionals, Richard Brooks, 1966)
27- Nas Garras da Ambição (The Tall Men, Raoul Walsh, 1955)
28- O Pequeno Rincão de Deus (God’s Little Acre, Anthony Mann, 1958)
29- A Batalha de Anzio (Lo Sbarco di Anzio, Duilio Coletti/Edward Dmytryk, 1968)
30- À Borda da Morte (The Proud Ones, Robert D. Webb, 1956)
31- Os Bravos Não se Rendem (Custer of the West, Robert Siodmak, 1967)
32- A Hora da Pistola (Hour of the Gun, John Sturges, 1967)
33- A Estrada Dos Homens Sem Lei (The Racket, John Cromwell/Nicholas Ray/Mel Ferrer, 1951)
34- Alma Sem Pudor (Born to Be Bad, Nicholas Ray, 1950)35- Mulheres de Ninguém (Tender Comrade, Edward Dmytryk, 1943)
36- Império do Pavor (Horizons West, Budd Boetticher, 1952)
37- O Assassinato de um Presidente (Executive Action, David Miller, 1973)
38- De Volta da Eternidade (Back from Eternity, John Farrow, 1956)
39- Escravo de Si Mesmo (Beware, My Lovely, Harry Horner, 1952)
40- Lonelyhearts (Vincent J. Donehue, 1958)
41- Tudo Por Ti (The Sky’s the Limit, Edward H. Griffith, 1943)
42- A Guerra Secreta (The Dirty Game, Christian-Jaque/Klingler/Lizzani/Terence Young, 1965)
43- O Homem da Lei (Lawman, Michael Winner, 1971)
44- Cidade Abaixo do Mar (City Beneath of Sea, Budd Boetticher, 1953)
45- Selvas Indomáveis (Escape to Burma, Allan Dwan, 1955)
46- O Melhor dos Homens Maus (The Best of the Badmen, William D. Russell, 1951)
47- Cada Vida… Seu Destino (The Secret Fury, Mel Ferrer, 1950)
48- Caçada ao Pistoleiro Escondido (Un Minuto per Pregare un Instante per Morire, Giraldi, 1968)
49- Horizonte de Glórias (Flying Leathernecks, Nicholas Ray, 1951)
50- A Volta dos Homens Maus (Return of the Bad Men, Ray Enright, 1948)
51- Capitão Nemo e a Cidade Submarina (Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, J. Hill, 1969)
52- Bombardeio (Bombardier, Richard Wallace/Lambert Hillyer, 1943)
53- Sem Deus e Sem Lei/O Passo do Ódio (Trail Street, Ray Enright, 1947)
54- Os Homens da sua Vida (Her Twelve Men, Robert Z. Leonard, 1954)
55- Marine Raiders (Harold D. Schuster, 1944)
56- Nuvens de Tempestade (The Woman on Pier 13/I Married a Communist, R. Stevenson, 1949)

Nota 1: Ninguém chuta a bunda de Deke Thornton, mas se não fosse pelo final, On Dangerous Ground seria talvez o primeiro dessa lista. O filme de  Ray sofreu exatamente a mesma coisa que The Magnificent Ambersons na década anterior, onde o final original foi refeito porque o estúdio assim quis e apesar do final imposto não ser uma tragédia, a situação original desejada por Ray era amplamente superior. Robert Ryan foi queridinho dos filmes B durante o reinado de terror de Howard Hughes na RKO, um bom motivo para que ele e Nicholas Ray se tornassem tão unidos no período, trabalhando juntos em quatro filmes seguidos (mais tarde tiveram um quinto filho temporão) – enquanto Hughes entrava de cabeça no macartismo, Ryan e Ray batiam o pé como notórios liberais, o que gerou todo aquele entrevero com John Wayne durante as filmagens de Flying Leathernecks, um filme cujo conteúdo belicista e de direita nada tinha a ver com suas visões.

Nota 2: Só as participações com no mínimo uma fala entraram no top, filme com participação ínfima deixei de fora, como é o caso de sua estréia em O Castelo Sinistro (The Ghost Breakers, George Marshall, 1940) onde fez figuração carregando uma maca (é, eu reconheço alguém com dois segundos em cena e praticamente de costas)Nota 2: O maior choque que tive seguindo a carreira de Ryan foi quando assisti O Pequeno Rincão de Deus (God’s Little Acre, Anthony Mann, 1958) foi alí que me dei conta que estava diante de um dos maiores atores do mundo. Quando vi a cena em que sua personagem resolve raptar um albino não sabia se gritava, gargalhava ou chorava de emoção por estar diante de um gênio em sua arte. Mann havia começado essa tranformação de Ryan em Zé Buscapé já em O Preço de um Homem (The Naked Spur, 1953), onde em meio a uma atmosfera leoniana Ryan praticamente cria o pai do Tuco de Três Homens em Conflito.

Nota 3: O top é por qualidade geral dos filmes, mas se fosse eleger as 12 melhores atuações de RR, seriam estas: Odds Against Tomorrow, Billy Budd, Caught, God’s Little Acre, Custer of the West, Clash by Night, The Iceman Cometh, The Set-Up, Born to Be Bad, The Naked Spur, Inferno e On Dangerous Ground.

Nota 4: Presumo que o “Patch Pack” tinha uma queda pelo senhor Ryan – Walsh, Ray, De Toth e Lang trabalharam com ele, o único maldito de tapa-olho com quem não trabalhou foi o John Ford.

Nota 5: É fato – Ryan tem os melhores bíceps e tenho dito. É por isso que recomendo com veemência filmes em que aparece sem camisa ou de camiseta, também por isso Ed Dmytryk disse certa vez: Bob hit like a mule.

Nota 6: A minha “fase Jeff Bridges” do último semestre me levou, por consequência, a ver alguns filmes onde Robert Ryan esteve presente. JB tem RR como ator favorito e impusionou-me a ver o porquê foi tão importante como muso inspirador, além do fato de dois dos últimos filmes com Ryan terem sido também dois dos primeiros filmes com a presença de Bridges. Só depois de ter trabalhado ao lado de Ryan, Lee Marvin e Fredric March em The Iceman Cometh (John Frankenheimer, 1973) é que JB resolveu ser ator de verdade, coisa que até então ele só levara na brincadeira, tamanho o peso que tais homens tinham em cena, algo fácil de se perceber já que Ryan e Marvin jogam ping-pong com JB naquele filme, onde o então guri fica na função de bolinha. Também pudera, The Iceman Cometh é o último momento de Ryan no cinema, o câncer em estado bastante avançado acabou tornando seu personagem ainda mais melancólico do que dramaticamente já era e presumo que nenhum outro ator de qualquer montagem da peça de Eugene O’Neill tenha sido mais efetivo durante o final do terceiro ato.

Nota 7: Robert Ryan foi o único ator que vi eclipsando James Mason. Vi Mason de igual para igual com Alec Guinness, Peter Sellers e John Gielgud, mas a única presença que esteve um degrau acima de Mason numa cena foi o Robert Ryan em Caught – *Medo. Em compensação o Nemo de Ryan não chega aos pés do de Mason.

Você é fodão, mas eu sou mais alto. mimimi

Hughes called Ryan in and said “It’s okay if you play me, I don’t want them to put some other actor in there” – Robert Parrish, então editor de Caught (Max Ophüls, 1949) sobre o fato de Howard Hughes achar que apenas Robert Ryan seria digno de interpretá-lo - como se já não fosse suficientemente estranho o patrão deixar que um personagem pouco lisongeiro fosse inspirado nele.

Nota final: Hoje comemora-se cem anos do nascimento de RR, oras.

*Da série: Este post foi programado, eu não estou aqui!

METROPOLIS av Fritz Lang (1927)
Med Alfred Abel, Gustav Fröhlich, Brigitte Helm, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Theodor Loos, Fritz Rasp, Erwin Biswanger, Heinrich George

Metropolis är en feberdröm.

Och Metropolis är den hypnotiska, storslagna visionen av den vidunderliga, enorma staden som sträcker sig flera kilometer upp i luften och ofantligt långt ned i underjorden och som med sina dunkande maskinkomplex och sin storslagna skönhet och ofattbara enormitet utövar en magnetisk lockelse och skrämmer till vanvett. Metropolis ofantliga byggnader badar i solsken om dagen och stadens elektriska ljus om kvällen, men nere på gatorna, på botten av de djupa stadsravinerna, råder det ständiga dunkel där man inte vet vilka eller vad som frodas. Och långt ned i underjorden, i djupet, i Metropolis lägst belägna delar, i väldiga hus i ofantliga bergrum, bor de miljontals arbetare som håller det väldiga maskineriet igång utan att någonsin se dagens ljus.

I filmen är det staden som har huvudrollen. Den behärskar alla sina invånare, från diktatorn Joh Fredersen och den lättjefullt lyxlevande överklassen till den enorma medelklass som bor och lever ovan jord till de förslavade arbetarna i underjorden. För Metropolis omfattar allt och alla. Att lämna Metropolis är otänkbart, för Metropolis är världen. Metropolis är sinnebilden för det ofattbart enorma, myrstacksmyllrande samhället i all sin skönhet och all sin fasa. En väldig, evig paradox.

Det är knappast en överdrift att säga att Metropolis gigantiska stadslandskap har etsat sig fast som en arketyp på det allmänna medvetandets näthinna. Utan närmare reflektion säger man på engelska att en enorm storstad är “a metropolis” och även människor som aldrig har sett filmen känner närmast instinktivt igen bilderna på det hisnande stadslandskapet, även om de inte vet varifrån de kommer.

Metropolis är den första film i historien som inkluderats på UNESCO:s världsarvslista, bland andra kulturella milstolpar som Beethovens nionde symfoni och Gutenbergbibeln. Därför att Metropolis är en kulturens och den mänskliga civilisationens metaforiska feberdröm.

När det slentrianmässigt hävdas att filmhistoriens tre största superklassiker är Casablanca, Citizen Kane och Gone With the Wind ligger det förstås mycket i det, eftersom Metropolis befinner sig på en nivå så långt över superklassikerstatus att den hamnar ovanför tabellen.

Och det säger ännu mycket mer om denna magnfika film än man i förstone kan tro, för efter premiären 1927 är det ingen som har sett mer än delar av verket. Fritz Langs 210 minuter långa epos klipptes av filmbolag och distributörer brutalt ned och det på olika sätt i olika delar av världen, varför en lång rad stympade versioner har florerat sedan dess – några av dem så stympade att intrigen varit halvt obegriplig, andra något mer kompletta eller med fler nyckelscener intakta, men fortfarande strängt taget bara fragment av den ursprungliga filmen. En längd på 80 minuter i stället för 210 har inte varit ovanlig. Trots det har Metropolis varit så hypnotiskt suggestiv att den kommit att bli en ständig metafor för staden, den samhällsform som mer än någon annan kommit att prägla den mänskliga civilisationen.

Bland många övriga aspekter på Metropolis kan nämnas att den även är högaktuell just nu, när man firar 20-årsminnet av Berlinmurens fall. Denna tyska film handlar om hur den politiska barriären mellan de marklevande överklasserna och de i underjorden boende arbetarna raseras, liksom Berlinmuren drygt sextio år senare kom att rivas och förena det demokratiska Västtyskland med diktaturens Östtyskland.

År 2008 hittade man i lagret på filmmuséet i Buenos Aires en komplett kopia av Metropolis – filmens samtliga 210 minuter, så när som på den drygt minutlånga scenen med den predikande munken (som enligt ett obekräftat rykte är för skadad för att kunna räddas). Nu, slutligen, saknar Fritz Langs fråga till sf-författaren Robert Bloch, när denne visade intresse för filmen, äntligen all relevans: “Why are you so interested in a picture which no longer exists?”

Fast den version som i dagsläget finns att tillgå på dvd i Sverige (i serien Filmklassikerna, utgiven av Atlantic) är även den omtumlande, så i väntan på den slutgiltiga versionen kan man njuta av den restaurerade Metropolis från 2002, där man med utgångspunkt i flera års restaureringsarbete på Bundesarchiv Filmarchiv på Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung samlat ihop en lång rad scener från de många olika versioner som funnits utspridda över världen, klippt ihop dem till en version som ligger så nära den ursprungliga filmen som alls var möjligt före fyndet i Buenos Aires och restaurerat Metropolis igen, nu digitalt – och med fullkomligt häpnadsväckande resultat.

Jag har sett Metropolis fler gånger än jag kan minnas, men numera liknar den inte några av de versioner jag tidigare sett. För i den här upplagan får vi 117 minuter och 29 sekunder i stället för cirka 80 minuter och förhäxat fascinerad har jag suttit och stirrat på en film som inte bara är alldeles ren, helt utan de repor och skador och det oupphörliga flimmer som alltid vidhäftat alla tidigare kopior jag sett, utan även nästan 40 minuter längre.

Metropolis är en vision som nu är mer än 80 år gammal, men som framtiden ännu inte hunnit ikapp. Staden som idé och verklighet har alltsedan sången om det sköna Ilion varit den främsta av alla symboler för mänsklighetens civilisation, men skönare och fasansfullare än i Metropolis har sången aldrig sjungits.

Thea von Harbous manuskript, byggt på den egna romanen med samma titel, kan ges många tolkningar, men den mest relevanta och ständigt aktuella är det Metropolis berättar för oss om staden – och om maskinsamhället, där maskinerna kan vara både en förbannelse och en välsignelse. I Metropolis är maskinerna båda delarna, beroende på om man lever under eller ovan jord. Hos maskinerna där man är deras slav eller ovan jord där man njuter deras frukter. Det givna svaret finns inte, dikotomin är närmast självklar, maskinerna är både en förbannelse och en välsignelse – eftersom staden, maskinsamhället, förblir en paradox.

Visuellt är Metropolis ett kinematografiskt underverk.

Oöverträffad.

Någon jämförelse står icke att uppbringa.

Metropolis går inte att göra sig kvitt. Staden hemsöker en. Och i perioder blir besattheten lika feberhet som visionen.

Och särskilt nu, när bilderna på de väldiga stadslandskap som jag såg i form av teckningar på en av utställningarna när filmkonstens 100-årsjubileum firades i Berlin 1995 finns med i filmen, när de av surrealistisk estetik genomsyrade scenerna från nattklubban Yoshiwara plötsligt dyker upp i filmen med sina förvridna ansikten och den suggestivt dansande, i en sekvens drömda i en annan konstgjorda Maria, när Freder besöker de sju dödssynderna, när den konstgjorda Maria bränns på bål som häxa, när man bestås en lång kavalkad av närmast hypnotiskt laddad, estetisk njutning i form av scener som varit praktiskt taget försvunna i nästan åttio år och som får Metropolis att framträda som det komplexa mästerverk den ursprungligen var.

Skåda den pulserande koreografin i det underjordiska maskinrummets frenetiskt arbetande myller. Skåda de andlösa, vidunderliga exteriörerna och interiörerna. Skåda Rotwangs surrealistiska laboratorium och skåda äntligen robotkvinnan och hennes förvandling till Maria i kristallklar skärpa. Skåda den väldiga arbetarstaden i underjorden. Skåda monorailerna som löper över hela det väldiga Metropolis, skåda byggnaderna som kilometer efter kilometer strävar mot himlen, skåda det sköna Metropolis.

Metropolis.

En feberdröm.

Metropolis.

Outsägligt fasansfull.

Metropolis.

Outsägligt vacker.

Metropolis.

Oöverträffad.

Metropolis.

Det sköna Metropolis. Det fasansfulla Metropolis.

Det oemotståndliga Metropolis.

Kör hårt,
Bellis

Yesterday, I went in to buy Malinda Lo’s Ash. It’s a relatively new book, or at least I thought so. After all, Lo is still doing book tours. You’d think her hardback might still be on the shelves.

Now usually it’s not my habit to purchase a new book unless it’s something I’m really excited about, and I was very, very excited about a lesbian take on Cinderella. Enough, I’m embarrassed to say, to break my previous vow on this blog to read only the stack of unread books glaring from the living room shelves.

I went into Barnes and Noble in Irvine. Probably Orange County’s most depressing chain book store; Irvine’s B&N is a the kind of dim halogen mall hole where fathers read “Rapture Ready” aloud to their children, and the latest idiocy a la “Why do Men have Nipples?” is prominently displayed.

But I was determined. I looked in sci-fi, in fiction, in YA. Nothing, until hope draining, I slogged up to the counter and asked the clerk, who said, “We do have one copy, I think.”

We returned to the YA section,but the book was still not there. “Hmm,” he said, “Let me check in the back. It might be being shipped back to the publisher.

Huh?

I was just in time, it seemed. After a few minutes, he appeared from the back room, that last copy in hand, rescued from the shredder.

“But, why were you shipping it back?” I asked.

“Got to make room for new books,” he said.

Maybe my eyes aren’t very good, but this book looked new and shiny. It had a dust free jacket and a September 2009 publication date on the inside.

And there was only one left.

I could go into all sorts of Orange County conspiracy theories, that a lesbian-themed fairy tale for teens might be targeted in a bookstore with umpteen mega churches within a ten block radius. But as Ursula Le Guin remarked in a Jan, 2008 issue of Harper’s, it’s probably more that “the stupidity of the contemporary, corporation-owned publishing company is fathomless.”

If a title that was supposed to sell a lot doesn’t “perform” within a few weeks, it gets its covers torn off—it is trashed. The corporate mentality recognizes no success that is not immediate. This week’s blockbuster must eclipse last week’s, as if there weren’t room for more than one book at a time. Hence the crass stupidity of most publishers (and, again, chain booksellers) in handling backlists.

This is far worse than any conspiracy I could dream up. If you’re a lonely adolescent living in Orange County, surrounded by squealing, dimwit fans of Twilight and questioning your sexuality, good luck. Your own vampire romances are being shipped back to the publisher by virtue not of homophobia, but lack of instantaneous profits.

But don’t worry, homophobia will always be there to limit even more of your reading options. I’m talking to you Scholastic, now that you’re in the business of blatantly censoring LGBT children’s books.

Now on to November Noir.

“I met him a corral. He had the jump but I guess hate made me fast.”

This movie killed me. Marlene Dietrich riding piggy back on a cowboy in a saloon, that crazy ballad about the legend of “Chuck-a-Luck.” Do you mean dog food or a defunct sporting goods store?

Actually the song narrates a great Johnny Guitar style piece of Western Noir, referring to a game of chance. Fritz Lang, in fact, wanted to call it “Chuck-a-Luck” but was stopped by Howard Hughes who argued that European audiences wouldn’t understand. Lang retorted that neither would they get the name “Rancho Notorious.”

This movie is insane! See it!

No próximo dia 20 de novembro milhões de meninas vão aos cinemas suspirar e desejar sinceramente uma mordidinha no pescoço. Se ela vier de Edward, o Vampiro Camarada, melhor ainda. Enquanto esperam, é provável que baixem os episódios de True Blood ou de The Vampire Diaries. Vampiros estão na moda, definitivamente. Ou, como diria uma amiga minha, “são tendência”.

Interessante é ver como o tratamento dos vampiros muda através dos tempos. O cinema já dedicou uma boa quantidade de celulose às Crianças da Noite. Muitos atores já se celebrizaram (e alguns se maldisseram) por protagonizarem bebedores de sangue. “Imagens, Sons e Telas” (oquei, esse nome é péssimo mesmo) pretende indicar oito bons filmes de vampiros já feitos nesse século e pouco de cinema.

O primeiro a ser indicado não poderia ser outro. Nosferatu (Nosferatu, Eine Synphonie des Grauens, 1922), de F.W. Murnau, é uma das primeiras adaptações da clássica obra “Drácula”, de Bram Stoker. Por problemas de direitos autorais o filme não pode fazer referência ao próprio Drácula, optando Murnau por chamar o filme de “Nosferatu” e o seu vampiro da Transilvânia de Conde Orlok. O filme, mudo, é considerado um dos marcos do expressionismo alemão, escola cinematográfica que cresceu na República de Weimar e mostra uma Alemanha amargurada ainda pela I Guerra Mundial e já assustada pela tenebrosa ascensão do nazismo. Orlok é magistralmente interpretado por Max Schreck, que criou um vampiro que certamente despertaria pavor nas adolescentes que suspiram por Edward. Orlok é nojento e abjeto, convive com ratos e sujeira. Ele representa o que há de ruim na humanidade.

Uma das mais clássicas cenas de filmes de horror

Será que a Bella daria o pescocinho dela para ele?

Um filme que não trata exatamente de vampiros, mas tem vampiros no nome é “M, o Vampiro de Dusseldorf” (M, 1931, Fritz Lang). O mestre Lang conta a história da caça a um assassino de crianças no seu primeiro filme falado. O tema do assassino talvez seja um dos primeiros leitmotivs da história do cinema e o filme retrata a descrença geral nas pessoas e nas instituições da Alemanha durante a brutal crise econômica e o crescimento do nazismo…

Voltando aos vampiros propriamente ditos, Drácula (Dracula, 1931, Tod Browning) não poderia ficar fora da lista em função da caracterização magistral de Bela Lugosi. Sabe aquele vampiro com o cabelo todo penteado para trás, com a pele pálida e a capa preta forrada em vermelho? Se você tem esse vampiro como paradigma, agradeça a Bela Lugosi. O Conde Drácula dele, já apresentado aqui como um sedutor, foi tão definitivo que se transformou, durante décadas, no modelo do “verdadeiro” vampiro. A clássica cena do automóvel estragando no meio da madrugada bem na frente daquele castelo taciturno, clichê dos clichês dos filmes de terror, fez sua estreia aqui. E há, é claro, a clássica menção aos lobos, “Children of the night”. Se fosse existir apenas um clássico sobre vampiros, seria esse.

Bela Lugosi, o mais clássico dos vampiros

E dessa vez, a Bella ia? Será que a Bella ia no Bela? (desculpem, impossível resistir ao trocadilho...)

O personagem gótico de Bram Stoker também deu origem a “Drácula: O Príncipe das Trevas” (Dracula: Prince of Darkness, 1966, Terence Fisher). O nobre romeno foi vivido (tecnicamente um vampiro pode ser vivido? Enfim, não sei…) pelo sempre ótimo Christopher Lee. A história de Drácula é sempre parecida, mas a interpretação de Lee faz valer assistir, novamente, a mesma história.

Christopher Lee: Saruman nunca me enganou...

O filme de vampiros que marcou a minha pré-adolescência (e do qual eu até participei de uma adaptação teatral) foi “A Hora do Espanto” (Fright Night, 1985, Tom Holland). Charlie, um adolescente viciado em filmes de terror antigos, fica desconfiado de um novo vizinho e seu empregado, que ele só vê a noite. Sua mãe, seu melhor amigo e sua namorada não acreditam em suas desconfianças e o próprio espectador é levado a duvidar de Charlie durante boa parte do filme. O filme é leve e tem toques de humor sarcástico, um típico filme dos anos 80.

Sorria, seu vizinho adolescente está olhando!!

É possível contar a história de Drácula de uma maneira diferente? Essa foi a pergunta que levou Francis Ford Coppola a fazer “Drácula de Bram Stoker” (Dracula, 1992). Coppola decidiu ir na contramão de todas as adaptações anteriores e, ao invés de usar a versão adaptada para o teatro, adaptar diretamente do livro de Stoker. Os fãs da história fazia anos pediam uma adaptação mais fiel ao livro, e foi isso que Coppola tentou fazer. O elenco é ótimo, com Winona Ryder como Mina Murray, Anthony Hopkins como van Helsing e Keanu Reeves como Jonathan Harker. Mas novamente o vampiro rouba a cena: o Conde Drácula de Gary Oldman talvez seja a maior interpretação da sua carreira.

Assista o filme e acredite: a Bella se entregava para esse...

Se os fãs de Bram Stoker queriam uma adaptação mais fiel, os fãs de Anne Rice pediam há muito também uma adaptação cinematográfica da obra vampírica da autora. “Entrevista com o Vampiro” (Interview with the Vampire, 1994, Neil Jordan) teve o roteiro adaptado pela própria Anne Rice para o cinema. Se Gary Oldman e Christofer Lee já haviam feito vampiros sedutores, o Louis de Point du Lac encarnado por Brad Pitt adiciona um outro elemento: o vampiro não é senhor da situação, é amargurado, tem remorsos e dúvidas. Humanizado, o vampiro torna-se heroi e ganha a simpatia do público. O vampiro mais tradicional é encarnado por Tom Cruise com o seu Lestat de Lioncourt. Destaque também para a jovem vampira-menina Claudia, atormentada por ter sido vampirizada ainda criança e que torna-se uma centenária num corpo infantil. Claudia foi interpretada por Kirsten Dunst, que tinha menos de doze anos durante as filmagens.

Vou encerrar minha lista com um filme que foge um pouco do padrão grave dos filmes vampíricos. “Drácula – Morto mas Feliz” (Dracula: Dead and Loving It, 1995, Mel Brooks) entra naquela categoria de spoof movies, filmes que satirizam um gênero.  O sempre hilariante Mel Brooks além de dirigir ainda faz o papel de van Helsing, enquanto o Drácula da vez é o imbatível Leslie Nielsen, soberano absoluto desse gênero.

Eu poderia falar ainda de Blade ou de Anjos da Noite, a questão é que eu não gosto tanto assim desses filmes. Enfim, curtam a lista!

PS: primeiro post em que eu me aventuro a colocar imagens…

und zeigt dabei :

metropolis

Stummfilmklassiker mit Begleitung am Klavier, D 1927, 123 min Regie: Fritz Lang Mit: Alfred Abel, Fritz Alberti, Grete Berger Stummfilmpianist: Daniel Kothenschulte

SAMSTAG 07.11. 18:00 18:00  Sektempfang
19:30  Einlass zum Film
20:00  Stummfilm mit filmhistorischer Einführung
und musikalischer Begleitung am Klavier

Im Mittelpunkt dieses Stummfilmklassikers steht die futuristische, titelgebende Stadt »Metropolis«. Ihr Erbauer, Joh. Fredersen, hat als das »Hirn« der Stadt von seinem »Neuen Turm Babel« aus sämtliche Fäden in der Hand – die absolute Kontrolle. Für Fredersen sind Menschen nur noch Teil der Arbeitsmaschine, nur noch »Hände«, die sein Werk zur Perfektion bringen und aufrechterhalten sollen. Freder, Joh. Fredersens einziger Sohn, beschließt eines Tages in die Arbeiterstadt hinabzusteigen, um dort die engelsgleiche Maria zu suchen, die den Arbeitern mit ihren Predigten von Liebe und Klassenlosigkeit Hoffnung schenkt. Freder will einer der ihren werden, ganz zum Verdruss des Vaters der nun alles daran setzt, um Maria auszuschalten…

»Metropolis« ist einer der bekanntesten Science-fiction- und visuell einflussreichsten Stummfilme der Filmgeschichte.

die Einladung habe ich weggelegt und mich fürs Arbeiten entschieden. Vorbereiten und Bedienen. Wird bestimmt fein.

*****

Mabuse. That name, pronounced Mab-ooz-a, may not resonate with present-day moviegoers, but in the 1920s it struck fear into the hearts of those lucky (or should that be unlucky?) enough to witness the two-part German epic Dr Mabuse, The Gambler (Dr Mabuse, Der Spieler) and the birth of a criminal mastermind.

It was in 1922 that young German director Fritz Lang, perhaps best known today for directing the seminal sci-fi classic Metropolis, brought his version of Norbert Jacques’ novel detailing the exploits of criminal mastermind Dr Mabuse (Rudolf Klein Rogge) to the screen.

Made at a time of great upheaval, both politically and socially, in Lang’s home country, the two-part Der Spieler was a visually hallucinatory attempt to tell the story of a man determined to destroy the economy and legal system of Germany in various dastardly ways.

Using mind-control, violence, con tricks and illusion, this master of disguise would stop at nothing to ensure dominance of the criminal underworld.

Lang’s singular vision, much copied but rarely equalled, ensured that audiences of the time were treated to visually stunning set-pieces and camera tricks the equivalent of today’s computer generated effects,  generating gasps in auditoriums as Mabuse’s head detaches itself from his body in one standout sequence.

Clocking in at nearly five hours for both films, originally released a few months apart in cinemas, these are epic in more ways than one.

The story of Mabuse continues in the 1933 sequel The Testament of Dr Mabuse (Der Testament Des Dr Mabuse), in which Lang brought him – and by this time Mabuse was a legend rather than a person – back to a Berlin waking up to the full terror of the rise of Nazism.

This time made with sound, Mabuse has been driven insane following the events of the first film, yet his power manages to transgress the walls of his prison cell into the alleys and dens of Berlin. The strongest, certainly the creepiest, of the three films in this set, Der Testament may be more accessible than its predecessor but it’s equally dramatic.

Lang would return to Germany thirty years later for the final part of his Mabuse trilogy, The 1000 Eyes of Dr Mabuse (Die 1000 Augen Des Dr Mabuse), a prescient look at a surveillance society in which once again the spirit of Mabuse is alive and well in the Cold War era.

Goldfinger’s Gert Frobe takes on the role of the lawman faced with the return of a name from the past as new technology clashes with superstition in 1960s Germany, in what would be Lang’s final film.

Dark, multi-layered and historically important, the films in this set are accompanied by some near-perfect audio commentaries from film historian David Kalat which entertain and illuminate in equal measure – if any finer yack tracks have been laid down on DVD this year then I’ll be amazed.

Other extras include 90 minutes worth of video essays, an interview with the star of 1000 Eyes Wolfgang Preiss and three in-depth booklets discussing the significance of the films to both audiences and film scholarship.

A truly stunning DVD set, this is certainly one of the most important releases of the month and perhaps even the decade.

The Complete Fritz Lang Mabuse Boxset is out now from Masters of Cinema.

Human Desire

Pais: EU
Año: 1954
Género: Drama.
Duración: 90 min.
Dirección: Fritz Lang
Guion: Alfred Hayes (Novela: Émile Zola)
Música: Daniele Amfitheatrof
Producción: Columbia Pictures

Reparto:
Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, Edgar Buchanan.

Descripción:
Carl Buckley, un maquinista ferroviario que teme perder su empleo, pide a su mujer, Vicki, con la que mantiene una fría relación, que interceda por él ante un personaje influyente de la compañía, con el que Vicki tuvo relaciones íntimas antes del matrimonio. Cuando Carl se entera del precio que su mujer ha pagado por evitar su despido, asesina al directivo, durante un viaje en tren, implicando a Vicki en el asesinato. Al mismo tiempo, otro ferroviario llamado Jeff se enamora de Vicki, y ésta le hace saber el chantaje a que está sometida por parte de su marido, y planea la muerte de Carl… (FILMAFFINITY)

Críticas:

Obra maestra del género negro. Un relato que bucea en los abismos del deseo y que diserta sobre la imposibilidad de escapar del destino y de huir de los propios instintos. Ford y Grahame, la pareja protagonista de “Los sobornados”, recrean una pasión turbia y malsana en la que se entrecruzan sexo, crimen y ambición. Una clase magistral de cine.” (Miguel Ángel Palomo: Diario El País)

Es la obra siguiente a la estupenda “Los sobornados” de un año antes en 1953, repitiendo el enorme cineasta austríaco, Fritz Lang, la química brutal existente entre estos dos fabulosos actores, el recientemente fallecido Glenn Ford y la ingenua femme fatale de todo paradigma azabache que se precie, la MARAVILLOSA Gloria Grahame.

Rodada en el áspero blanco y negro ferroviario del prestigioso y oscarizado fotógrafo norteamericano Burnett Guffey (“De aquí a la eternidad(1953)” y “Bonnie and Clyde(1967)”), la película es una muestra más del enorme oficio de Lang como extraordinario cineasta con un ramillete de obras maestras en su haber.

Basada en la obra “La bestia humana” del novelista francés Émile Zola, uno de los más destacados exponentes del movimiento artístico de finales del s., XIX y principios del s.,XX que surgió como réplica al romanticismo y surrealismo, el naturalismo, fueron dos las versiones de esta obra llevadas a la gran pantalla; la primera una versión germana de 1920 del cineasta austríaco Ludwig Wolff, y la segunda de 1938 a cargo de Jean Renoir con el título original en inglés de la novela, “The Human Beast”.

La obra recrea de manera magistral los ambientes azabaches del género, sólo que focalizados en las vías ferroviarias de las proximidades de Trenton, Nueva Jersey.

Mujeres fatales, ingenuas por naturaleza pero que arrastran a la compañía masculina al caos y la destrucción. Porque a los aparantemente machistas comentarios de la cinta, el propósito del artista austríaco fue precisamente destacar lo contrario; la superioridad de la mujer en cuanto a instinto, y los deseos incontrolables que infunden en el género masculino; Así, cuando la amiga de la ciudad de Vicki Buckley (Gloria Grahame) (aquella que les prestaba a los Buckley su apartamento cada vez que bajaban a la ciudad, o la misma que posteriormente se lo prestaría a su amiga Vicki cuando ésta viva su particular historia de amor con el ex-soldado de Corea Jeff Warren (Glenn Ford)) se dirigió al orondo y viejo marido de Vicki, Carl Buckley, desposeído de su trabajo como ayudante de parque de la estación ferroviaria con aquello de; “…las mujeres son todas iguales, ¿no te has dado cuenta? Tan sólo llevan caras distintas para que los hombres podáis reconocerlas…”, Lang no estaba más que reafirmando la superioridad natural de la mujer sobre el hombre, incapaz de dominar sus impulsos y deseos, ni menos de modificar su naturaleza.

En la oscuridad de los túneles por los que pasan los vagones del tren, los seres humanos interactúan a oscuras, desarrollándose miles de combinaciones que se suceden de forma aleatoria y sin mucha lógica.

Extraordinariamente narrada, fabulosamente rodada,y a pesar de que la historia sea en realidad una simple historia del género noir, logra captar la atención del espectador a través de su poderosa y arrolladora mística ambientada en las oscuras y proletarias vías ferroviarias…

¡¡ F A N T Á S T I C A !!

Datos técnicos:

Tamaño: 1,28 Gb
Duracion: 01:30:47
Vídeo codec: Xvid (doble pasada)
Resolución: 624 x 336
Bitrate:   1825 Kbps. Qf: 0.348
Códec Audio: 0×0055(MP3, ISO) MPEG-1 Layer 3
Bitrate Castellano/Inglés: 48000Hz  96 kb/s (1 chnl)
Subtítulos: [Castellano (gracias a Rotonda)]

Capturas:

Película

Subs. castellano

La dedico a Ramón.

My Top 10:

Fritz Lang's 1926 visionary film: Metropolis

1. Metropolis
2. Sunrise
3. The Last Command
4. The Circus
5. The Cat and the Canary
6. Seventh Heaven
7. The Man Who Laughs
8. Laugh Clown Laugh
9. The Lodger
10. The Cameraman
    

Academy Awards:

• Best Production:  Wings
• Best Artistic Quality of Production:  Sunrise
• Best Director:  Frank Borzage  (Seventh Heaven)
• Best Actor:  Emil Jannings  (The Last Command / The Way of All Flesh)
• Best Actress:  Janet Gaynor  (Sunrise / Seventh Heaven / Street Angel)
• Best Adaptation:  Seventh Heaven (from the play)
• Best Original Story:  Underworld

TSPDT Consensus Top 5 Films:

• #12 – Sunrise
• #17 – The Passion of Joan of Arc
• #70 – Metropolis
• #178 – The Crowd
• #338 – The Cameraman

AFI Top 100 Films:

• The Jazz Singer – #90  (1998 list – not on 2007 list)
• Sunrise – #82  (2007 list – not on 1998 list)

Top 5 Awards Points:

1. Seventh Heaven – 310
2. Sunrise – 240
3. Wings – 140
4. The Last Command – 110
5. The Crowd – 95

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture:  Metropolis
• Best Director:  Fritz Lang  (Metropolis)
• Best Actor:  Emil Jannings  (The Last Command)
• Best Actress:  Janet Gaynor  (Sunrise)
  

  Janet Gaynor in her Oscar (and Nighthawk) winning performance in Murnau's Sunrise

• Best Supporting Actor:  William Powell  (The Last Command)
• Best Supporting Actress:  Brigitte Helm  (Metropolis)
• Best Adapted Screenplay:  Sunrise (from original theme “Die Reise nach Tilsit”)
• Best Original Screenplay:  Metropolis

Ebert Great Movies (in order that he added them):

• The Passion of Joan of Arc
• Metropolis
• The Man Who Laughs
• Sunrise

This was the beginning of the Academy Awards.  It covered films released in the United States from August 1, 1927 until July 31, 1928 and the actual ceremony wasn’t held until May of 1929 even though the winners had been announced in February.  It was a vital year for the film industry as sound was introduced with The Jazz Singer.  That these two seminal events happened in the same year make this the birth of modern film.

The Academy Awards: The history behind that first year of the Academy is rather bizarre.  Official Academy records used to list The Last Command and The Way of All Flesh among the Best Production nominees, at least up until the 70’s and they are included as nominees in Inside Oscar as recently as 1994, but they are no longer officially recognized as nominees.  Also, Inside Oscar lists specific films for the Title Writing nominees Joseph Farnham and George Marion Jr., when Academy records list no specific films attached to the nominations.  There are the same discrepancies in the Best Cinematography and Best Engineering Effects awards.  Charlie Chaplin was originally nominated for Best Actor and Best Comedy Direction, but his nominations were erased and he was given a Special Award for his “versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing The Circus.”  There were four awards given that year that have never been given since: Best Artistic Quality of Production, Best Comedy Direction, Best Title Writing and Best Engineering Effects.  There are also a number of films from that year that seem to be impossible to find, not just lost films like The Way of All Flesh, The Devil Dancer or The Magic Flame, or films like Underworld, The Racket and Two Arabian Knights, which, if you’re lucky, you can catch on TCM (which is how I saw all three of them), but all sorts of films that seem to only exist in archives (whether they be the Academy archives, UCLA or the Library of Congress), including The Noose, The Patent Leather Kid, A Ship Comes In, Sorrell and Son, Glorious Betsy, The Private Life of Helen of Troy and The Dove.  Most of those films have very few votes on the IMDb and usually only one comment, from Arne Anderson, who runs the Lost Film Files and who has managed to see all but 7 of the Oscar nominated films (I am missing 240 films, which accounts for a little over 8% of all the films ever nominated).

Film History: Of course, we have the advent of sound.  We have the introduction of the Oscars.  But it doesn’t end there.  We have the first appearance of Laurel and Hardy.  We have the marriage of boy wonder Irving Thalberg to screen beauty Norma Shearer.  We have the arrival of Clara Bow, the “It” Girl (I finally saw It a couple of months ago and even though the movie at best qualifies as an okay film, Bow had It, more than any star of the day and more than most stars since).  We have the opening of Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the first prints outside.  We have Frank Capra being hired by Columbia Pictures, where he would go on to win 3 Oscars in the 30’s.  We have the release of Two Arabian Knights, the beginning of Howard Hughes’ involvement in motion pictures.  There is the U.S. release of Metropolis, at the time, the greatest film ever made, establishing Fritz Lang in the forefront of all the directors.

Overlooked film of 1928:

Laugh Clown Laugh (dir. Herbert Brenon)

Lon Chaney in Laugh Clown Laugh (1928)

Again, it is Chaney that is overlooked.  It didn’t used to be overlooked.  It used to be listed as an Oscar nominee (for Best Title Writing – a category that only existed that first year because it held no significance once the Silent Era was gone).  But then people looked closer at the records and discovered that there was no specific film listed for the writer and that three films were chosen almost at random as the “nominees” (and one for the winner), when we really don’t know what won.  But in a year where Wings is remembered as the first Best Picture winner and The Jazz Singer is immortalized because of the introduction of sound, here is a film, mostly ignored, often forgotten, that is better than either of them.  And given a choice between this and such revered films by critics as The Passion of Joan of Arc and The Crowd, I will take this every time.  It even gets forgotten because of the similarity in titles to The Man Who Laughs, possibly, in some ways, the most influential film upon the world from this year (that the slashing of the lips on the Black Dahlia seemed inspired by this and that Bob Kane acknowledge the influence of that film on the creation of The Joker simply pushs The Man Who Laughs to the top).  But this is one of the last Chaney roles, one in which he pushed his heart and soul, one in which he isn’t forced to grotesquely hide his features, but allowed to put on a pure performance of heartbreak.

Roughly speaking, this is the same story as the famous Ridi Pagliaccio, essentially a joke with a heartbreaking punchline about the person who goes to the doctor because he is so depressed, the doctor mentions the famous clown who is in town and suggests he go to see the clown, only to have the patient admit that he is the clown.  Here we have more of a story, with the clown adopting a small girl, then watching her grow into a lovely woman (I’m so glad here that this is a silent film because I must admit that the appeal of Loretta Young is lost on me, so at least I don’t have to listen to her attempt to speak dialogue) and realizing that he has fallen in love with the young woman at the same time that she is courted by a Count.

This is a story that truly one works in silence.  It depends so much on visual cues and emotions that are present in the eyes rather than on dialogue, which can’t help but be melodramatic and sentimental in such a plot.  But there was never anyone like Chaney for giving facial expressions that explored the depths of his soul.  He even was the heartbroken protective power during the making of the film, realizing that the director was teasing Young constantly whenever Chaney was not on the set, so after that, Chaney pretty much never left the set.

Of course, Laugh Clown Laugh and Hunchback aren’t the only Chaney films which are overlooked.  Chaney was a master actor and an incredibly gifted makeup artist.  There is a decent biopic of his life (Man of a Thousand Faces, starring James Cagney, one of the few actors who could do the kind of physical performances that Chaney could), but if you aren’t familiar with his career on film, you really need to start searching your local library.  There are box sets out there and there are many great performances waiting for you to find.

click the image for the original size picture

- TEXT -
Typewriter dialogue from “Body Heat” (1981)
Lyrics from The Platters‘ hit “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (1933)

- IMAGES -
Bogie in “The Maltese Falcon” (1941)
Joan Bennett in “Scarlet Street” (1945)
Billy Bob Thornton in “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (2001)
Scene from “The Big Combo” (1955)

—
Thanks to Brian from the Drive-In Theater

My Top 10:

1. The Battleship Potemkin
   

   The Battleship Potemkin (1925)

2. Greed
3. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
4. The Birth of a Nation
5. The Gold Rush
6. The Phantom of the Opera
7. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
8. Foolish Wives
9. The Last Laugh
10. The General
    

TSPDT Consensus Top 5 Films:

• #8 – The Battleship Potemkin
• #27 – The Gold Rush
• #30 – The General
• #51 – Intolerance
• #64 – Greed

AFI Top 100 Films:

• The Birth of a Nation – #44 (1998) – not on 2007 list
• The Gold Rush – #75 (1998) – #58  (2007)
• The General – #18 (2007) – not on 1998 list
• Intolerance – #49 (2007) – not on 1998 list

Nighthawk Awards:

• Best Picture: The Battleship Potemkin
• Best Director: Sergei Eisenstein (The Battleship Potemkin)
• Best Adapted Screenplay: Greed (from the novel McTeague)
• Best Original Screenplay: The Gold Rush
• Best Actor: Charlie Chaplin (The Gold Rush)
• Best Actress: Lilian Gish (Broken Blossoms)
• Best Supporting Actor: Donald Crisp (Broken Blossoms)
• Best Supporting Actress: Zasu Pitts (Greed)

Ebert Great Movies (in order that he added them):

• The General
• The Battleship Potemkin
• Greed
• Broken Blossoms
• The Last Laugh
• The Birth of a Nation
• The Phantom of the Opera
• Faust
• Safety Last
• Nanook of the North
• Cabiria
• The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• Souls for Sale

1912 is where I begin this project because it was in 1912 that Richard III, the earliest surviving feature length film was released.  1926 is where this post ends because the Academy Awards began in 1927.  So this pretty much covers the pre-Academy era of feature films.

Because these are the pre-Academy years no group existed to decide what was the best film of each year.  So if you’re looking to try to figure out what films to watch from this era, there are several ways to go about it.  First, you can look at TSPDT and their list of the Top 1000 films of all-time.  It’s a good place to start, though it leaves a lot to sort through.  You could try the AFI list which, between the two versions of 400 films in consideration, included 19 different films from this era (aside from the 4 films on the two versions of the top 100 they also nominated Richard III, The Cheat, The Poor Little Rich Girl, Broken Blossoms, Within Our Gates, The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Kid, Safety Last, Sherlock Jr., The Thief of Bagdad, The Big Parade, The Freshman, Greed, The Phantom of the Opera and Ben-Hur).  There are 13 films from this era that have been featured on Roger Ebert’s Great Movies list.  You could also try focusing on one director in particular.  Charlie Chaplin began in this era making short films, eventually starting his feature directing career, though his only true classic during this era is The Gold Rush.  D.W. Griffith was the top director of the era and almost his entire career was done before sound ever made it to the screen.  There is Erich von Stroheim, who made far fewer films than Griffith, but each film is worth seeing.  Then there are the foreign directors, the ones who get missed if you stick to AFI, like all of the great silent work of Fritz Lang and F.W. Murnau.  While the #1 film on my list (and TSPDT) is Russian, 5 of my top 20 are German films (1 Lang, 3 Murnau and Cabinet).  But really, it’s hard to go wrong.  I’ve seen over 100 feature length films from this era and none of them are bad and only 2 of them are as low as **.5 (Dream Street and The Idol Dancer – two of Griffith’s weakest films).  Films that have managed to survive from this era usually have survived for a reason – either because of their director, their historical value or their quality.

To me, among the actors there are four main names that stick out: Charlie Chaplin, for his amazing ability, Lon Chaney for the way he would disappear into his characters, Emil Jannings, who in the silent era proved that language was irrelevant and Erich von Stroheim, who maintained a dignified air about him even when he was acting the complete cad.  Among the actresses, there was only one; Lilian Gish rises above everyone else in the profession during this era.

Of course, there are highlights of film history all through this era:

• 1912 – Mack Sennett releases the first Keystone Kops films / Carl Laemmle organizes several independent companies into Universal
• 1913 – Lon Chaney begins working in Horror films / D.W. Griffith leaves Biograph after over 500 shorts / Cecil B. DeMille rents a barn that will later become Paramount
• 1914 – Chaplin first appears on-screen as the Tramp / Louella Parsons becomes the first movie columnist
• 1915 – Film debuts of W.C. Fields and Douglas Fairbanks
• 1918 – Warner Bros. release its first film  (Four Years in Germany) / first Tarzan film
• 1919 – Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks and Griffith form United Artists / Oscar Micheaux becomes first African-American director
• 1920 – Marriage of Fairbanks and Pickford
• 1921 – Fatty Arbuckle trial
• 1922 – Will Hays appointed head of MPPDA / release of Nanook of the North
• 1923 – Introduction of 16mm film by Eastman Kodak / Hollywoodland sign is erected
• 1924 – Metro, Goldwyn and Mayer form to become MGM
• 1925 – Soviet Union begins to finance national filmmaking
• 1926 – Death of Valentino

My Top Film from each calendar year:

• 1912 - Richard III
• 1913 – Ingeborg Holm
• 1914 – The Avenging Conscience
• 1915 – The Birth of a Nation
• 1916 – Intolerance
• 1917 - A Man There Was
• 1918 – The Spiders Part I: The Golden Lake
• 1919 – The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
• 1920 – The Golem
• 1921 – The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
• 1922 – Foolish Wives (Nosferatu is my #1, but it’s Oscar eligible in 1929)
• 1923 – The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• 1924 – The Last Laugh
• 1925 – Greed
• 1926 – The Battleship Potemkin

Overlooked film of 1923:

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (dir. Wallace Worsley)

Lon Chaney as Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923)

I had actually planned to write about the 1922 version of Oliver Twist, also starring Lon Chaney.  I had begun with talking about how if you have only seen Chaney in horror films, then your film horizons need to be expanded, how Chaney was one of the greats of the Silent Era, how he was the first great film Fagin but in spite of his acclaim, today it is easier to find a still of Ben Kingsley or Alec Guinness (or even Timothy Spall) when you Google the words “Fagin” and “Chaney.”  But then going through all the lists I came to a realization.  Hunchback is obscenely overlooked.  Ebert hasn’t covered it, it isn’t included in the Top 1000 (or even the doubling the canon extra 1000 films you can find there though the inferior 1939 remake is) and wasn’t among the 400 films by AFI under consideration for either their original list or the 2007 version.  Yet it is an essential Horror film (and made it to #19 on my Top 25 Horror List) and ranks only behind Phantom of the Opera in the Chaney pantheon.  It is an excellent early example of how books could be translated onto film and how the images we see up on the screen stay with us through our voyages in literature.

Have you read the book?  The odds are no.  Victor Hugo is much talked about and much adapted, but seems to be rarely read.  Les Miserables has been memorably translated into many different forms, but at 1463 pages (longer than War and Peace) isn’t read particularly much.  And of course, Hugo didn’t write a novel titled The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  The actual title of the book is Notre-Dame de Paris.  Hugo’s title emphasizes the cathedral’s place as the center of the book.  But films didn’t go for that.  The first film version was titled Esmeralda and this film pretty much set in stone the notion of Quasimodo as the central character and Hunchback as the title (which is what you will usually find on current printings of the book).

The film certainly wanted to focus on Quasimodo and to give Chaney free reign to show his incredible talent (both for acting and for makeup).  The first shot of him, a couple of minutes into the film, captures him high in the frame, up on the balcony of Notre Dame, watching the proceedings of the Festival of Fools.  Then we cut to a somewhat closer shot and get the first hints of his grotesque looks.  Then there is the title card announcing the character and actor.  Then we cut again, this time to a close-up and we get our first real look at the hunchback: curved spine, distorted face, scar for a right eye, wild hair, rough hands covered with thick, dark hair.  It is a brilliant simultaneous slow and quick reveal that prefigures the same kind of theatrical effect we would get from the first look at the Phantom’s face only two years later.

Movie audiences hadn’t really seen anything like this before.  Here was this grotesque monster, leering and mocking the people below him, later stripped to be punished and determined to be grotesque through and through; yet their sympathies were touched.  He is so gifted that he is able to climb down the outside of the cathedral.  He is so devoted that he will go to any lengths to please those whom he feels he serves.  His love is so strong that in the end, death is more pleasurable than the concept of existence without his beloved.  He is so much more preferrable to Phoebus, has so much more honesty, courage and even dignity.  While it was Chaney who had conceived the project, even having say over the cast and director, and thus no question that his monster would be the center, it is his performance rather than any ego that makes him the star.

When Chaney died in 1930, death was already no stranger to Hollywood; yet no death before Chaney had robbed cinema of so much.  Valentino was revered by women everywhere and good films had been made by Ince and Stiller, but it was Chaney who had the most future to offer to film fans.  This film was the beginning of the crowning of Universal Studios as the champion of Horror.  Great Horror films had been made in Germany (Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, The Golem), but nothing like this had been seen in the States.  His Phantom would cement his reputation as the Man of a Thousand Faces and we can only imagine what kind of makeup we would have seen had he been around to perhaps star in Dracula or Frankenstein or The Mummy or The Wolf Man.

But instead he died.  We were denied the chance to see him become a huge Horror star in the sound era.  And he could have done it.  “No dialogue.  We didn’t need dialogue.  We had faces.”  Norma Desmond says that, of course.  And it’s true most of all about Chaney.  He had a great voice as was proved in his one sound film, but he didn’t dialogue.  He had that face, those moves, those natural abilities.  He was always a star, even if people don’t seem to remember the film that truly made him one.

Um Dia, Um Gato (Az Prijde Kocour, Vojtech Jasný)

Vidas Secas / Boca de Ouro (Nelson Pereira dos Santos)

Fugindo do Inferno (The Great Escape, John Sturges)

O Desprezo / Viver a Vida / O Pequeno Soldado (Le Mépris / Vivre Sa Vie / Le Petit Soldat, Jean-Luc Godard)

Charada (Charade, Stanley Donen)

Os Malditos / O Criado (The Damned / The Servant, Joseph Losey)

Paixões que Alucinam (Shock Corridor, Samuel Fuller)

O Chicote e o Corpo / As Três Máscaras do Terror / Olhos Diabólicos (La Frusta e il Corpo / I Tre Volti della Paura / La Ragazza che Sapeva Troppo, Mario Bava)

8½ (Federico Fellini)

A Casa é Escura (Khaneh Siah Ast, Forugh Farrokhzad)

Nota: Para manter viva esta série, agora não há mais anotações bobas, nem numeração, nem grau de importância pessoal, são só filmes que muito me apetecem por um motivo ou outro. Só não vale passar de 10.

Fritz Lang, « Espions sur la tamise », d’après Graham Greene, 1943, remastérisé.

Cela commence par un plan fixe, un tableau géométrique, magnétique, un mixte entre la mesure du temps et la balance de la justice. Les poids et le balancier d’une horloge, quelque chose d’insondable, un dispositif capable d’imposer à toute l’histoire une pulsion hypnotique par le biais de son personnage principal, une sorte de pur, pris dans le piège de l’indistinction entre bien et mal et qui ne parvient pas, aux yeux de la société, à en sortir. Du début à la fin, magnifique innocent ignoré, il garde sur lui le poids du regard policier. Sa nouvelle liberté est conditionnelle. Ce mouvement de balancier, ce va-et-vient entre passé et futur, mesurant le présent qui fuit sans donner prise à quoi que ce soit, sans permettre de prendre pied, se retrouve dans les mouvements de Steven Neal face aux situations qu’il doit trancher où l’identité amie ou ennemie des personnages devient de moins en moins affirmée. Avec un jeu récurrent entre le normal et le paranormal : le balancier le promène sur le fil entre rationnel et irrationnel, condition inséparable de toute architecture paranoïaque. Chaque fait et geste en cache d’autres, les couches de réel et d’irréel se confondent, les signes futiles masquent les indications capitales, et à expliquer à un tiers ce qui se passe à l’intérieur de la machination, on risque simplement de passer pour fou, mis hors course, expulsé, retour à l’asile ou la prison, à l’injustice. Cette structure narrative se met en place avec richesse, finesse et précision… De retour à la liberté, prenant son ticket pour Londres, Steven Neal n’aspire qu’à plonger dans la vie quotidienne, au milieu de gens ordinaires, sans histoire, regarder des visages et entendre des histoires banales de nature à faire oublier le terrible balancier. Face à la gare, il y a une fête populaire, fête de charité. Tout ce qu’il y a de plus inoffensif, sauf que le montage l’a fait apparaître par le son et l’image comme si elle surgissait de nulle part, une apparition.  Tout va s’y nouer sans que l’on puisse, sur le moment, deviner les conséquences de chaque interaction qui s’y noue et dénoue. Pour mieux se plonger dans cette atmosphère humaine, il participe activement aux attractions proposées pour récolter des fonds et accepte de peser le gâteau. Celui qui en estimera le mieux son poids l’emportera. Dès que l’étranger élégant s’empare de la pâtisserie, il devient le centre de l’attention, tout le monde donne l’impression de « penser à autre chose », de savoir quelque chose qui n’est pas encore dit et que Steven Neale ignore comme nous. Bien sûr, c’est le genre d’attention que l’on observe régulièrement dans les concours où le public attend de voir si le concurrent va gagner ou perdre. Mais il y a une déformation, une exagération, un air artificiel. Peser ce gâteau, jouer à la balance comme doit le faire si difficilement la justice, c’est manifestement peser son destin et celui des autres. Cela semble d’une gravité collective inexpliquée, inexplicable. C’est la première configuration paranoïaque : confusion entre le destin individuel et communautaire. D’une certaine manière, le gâteau est le premier engrenage qui aspire l’intrigue dans les plis et replis d’un complot dont il est difficile de vérifier s’il existe vraiment ou s’il est une construction mentale du personnage, d’autant que l’épicentre désigné semble improbable, l’organisation de bienfaisance « Mères des Nations Libres ». Nous sommes en 1943, les bombardements sur Londres sont réguliers, la peur des insulaires d’être attaqués et envahis par les forces nazies développe de nombreux fantasmes, stimule la culture du soupçon. Dans ce contexte de paranoïa généralisée, la multiplication des hypothèses de complots est la meilleure couverture au complot véritable. (Ce qui nous reconduit à l’histoire de la lettre volée, analysée par Lacan, dans sa thèse sur la personnalité paranoïaque). Pris malgré lui dans des événements dont il ne mesure pas la portée et qui peuvent le reconduire en prison, le « héros » tente de réunir la preuve qu’il est innocent et, ce faisant, il accumule de plus en plus d’indices qui en font un témoin dérangeant une vaste organisation occulte. Il devient donc, tant pour les bons que les méchants, un homme indésirable, à abattre. À l’intérieur de cette configuration complexe sans repos, sans abris, une relation amoureuse s’installe entre lui et une des organisatrices des Mères des Nations Libres. L’amour étant aveugle ou du moins destiné à aveugler, de quel côté du balancier se situe cette jolie blonde exilée ? Va-t-elle le perdre ou le sauver ? Il cherche son chemin en conservant une surprenante « pureté », pas fabriquée, relevant plutôt de l’onirisme, il se débat comme dans un rêve.– Je ne regarde que trop rarement ce genre de classique. La précision de l’écriture et la maîtrise de l’ensemble du langage visuel – pas seulement ce qui relève du langage cinématographique, plans, mouvements de caméras, mais aussi la construction des décors et la disposition des formes géométriques ou du désordre, le jeu des ombres, le dédale des lieux artificiels (très peu de scènes se déroulent dans la vraie vie) – sont merveilleuses et rappellent des dimensions du cinéma que l’on oublie trop souvent. Aujourd’hui, souvent, les « effets », tout ce qui fait suspens et impressionne immédiatement sont travaillés au détriment de tout le reste, soit la profondeur du texte, ce qu’il y a à regarder et lire dans l’image, au-delà de la sensation. Décidément, il faut revenir plus souvent aux « classiques ». (PH) – Fritz Lang en Médiathèque -

One of the most important works in cinematic history is to be shown in its complete uncut version at next year’s Berlin Film Festival.

The restored version of Fritz Lang’s silent classic “Metropolis” is to hit the silver screen 83 years after it first premiered in Berlin.

Read more Spiegel Online International