Anma to onna (The Masseurs and a Woman)

My first experience with Hiroshi Shimizu, and a very pleasant one.  It’s a quick, gentle comedy/drama/romance about a pack of blind masseurs working in a winter resort village, and their interactions with a woman from Tokyo and the other spa guests.  It moves along effortlessly, and sucks you in with its light humor, emotional tones, and charming characterizations.  The cinematography is excellent as well, with figures approaching or receding from the viewer, the camera gliding along corridors, and some intriguing cuts.  Looking forward to checking out the rest of the set.  Rating: 8

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They Were Expendable

I’ve seen five other collaborations between John Ford and John Wayne.  Stagecoach was okay, but I’ve hated the rest.  And this one goes in the “hate” stack.  The cinematography is very good, highlighted by some impressive battle scenes (a few moments of obvious rear projection notwithstanding).  And the story is mildly engaging, although rather fragmented.  It’s the attitude I can’t tolerate.  I understand that it’s a product of its time, but all this gung ho patriotism makes me ill.  The military is portrayed as entirely made up of a swell bunch of Joes, every single one of them.  They’ve all got nicknames, and they can all take a good ribbing, and they’re falling all over themselves to serve their country and go kill some “Japs” and “nips”.  When they get put on “boring” duties, they get very crestfallen and start whining their asses off… there’s nothing manly about DELIVERING MESSAGES, for Pete’s sake!  And the score is unbearably packed with patriotic tunes, it’s incredibly awful.  Sentimental, heavy-handed pap, and poorly acted as well.  And what a waste of Donna Reed.  Rating: 4

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Sin City (rewatch)

Let’s not kid ourselves here… this is pure adolescent fantasy.  Curvy babes in skimpy costumes, insane amounts of violence, and cool guys with tough talk.  Its intellectual value is nil, and its artistic value is only in its style.  But oh what style.  Since my first viewing, I’ve read Miller’s works, and Rodriguez brings it to life perfectly.  It might be garbage, but it’s FUN garbage that’s awfully easy on the eyes.  Although I’m not as gaga over it as I was at first, I still enjoy it.  Rating: 8

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The Servant

Terrific little film from the British New Wave.  The proletariat uprising against the bourgeoisie, on a small scale.  There’s a very Buñuellian flavor to the class warfare, sly subversive wit, slightly surreal narrative, and sensuality.  I honestly had no idea what was going to happen next… not that it was so off-the-wall crazy, but it always managed to surprise me.  This is all augmented by some fine cinematography, a hep jazzy score, and a very good performance from Dirk Bogarde (the other actors were decent, too, but it’s pretty much Bogarde’s show).  Complaints: enough with the mirrors.  I’m getting bored with mirrors.  There were one, maybe two, good uses of them here, the rest was just showing off.  Also, I didn’t care much for the “married couple” bit near the end (if you’ve seen it, you should know what I mean), but it doesn’t last that long.  Other than that, I really liked this one a lot and might add it to my collection.  Rating: 9

IMDb

Senso

The cinematography is okay and the period detail is excellent.  But there wasn’t much else about this film I liked.  I hate the character of Livia (Alida Valli): deceitful to her husband, clingy with her lover, a traitor to her people, and a vengeful bitch when she finally gets what she deserves.  All because (it’s implied) she’d never been boned so well before.  It’s hard to believe in anyone going so ridiculously ga-ga over boring old Farley Granger.  Of course Granger is dubbed, quite badly, in Italian for this movie, with plenty of overacting.  But if you really want to see some overacting, look no further than Valli, who chews the scenery like it’s made out of Twizzlers.  It seems like somehow there’s the makings of a good film here, but it got lost along the way.  Rating: 5

IMDb

Ben-Hur

I watched the 1925 version first because I assumed I would like this one more.  That was a mistake, it makes Wyler’s pale in comparison in just about every way.  This version (and I’ve heard the Niblo’s is more faithful to the novel) is all Hollywoodized.  About 50% longer, it adds a bunch of silly crap in an attempt to amp up the sympathy for Judah, his steamy passion for Esther, or the dramatic tension.  Maybe the silliest of all is that old Hollywood standby, the deathbed speech.  The sea battle in this one is, amazingly, an absolute joke compared to what had been done over 40 years earlier.  Rear projection and miniatures as plain as day.  At least this one tries a little harder to be more ethnically accurate… including Hugh Griffith in blackface.  Whoops.  I would say that even the much-lauded chariot race is not a significant improvement.  The widescreen presentation is more dramatic, but otherwise it’s not really any more exciting than what Niblo pulled off.  And I had to laugh out loud at Messala’s spinning wheels of death; just one more way the deck is stacked more against Judah (who, while Messala is merciless with his horses, never once pulls out his whip during the race…. awww, what a great guy!).  As for Heston, his intense brooding gets tiresome.  Doesn’t his face hurt from all that gritting his teeth and thrusting his jaw forward?  If it sounds like I’m being harsh, I am.  The only reason I’m not giving this a lower rating is because I’m taking into account that it’s a bit unfair to compare it to another version.  But I can’t imagine enjoying this any more if I had seen it before Niblo’s.  Rating: 6

IMDb

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

There are two versions of this story on the TSPDT list.  Fortunately, they’re both in the same box set, so I watched them back-to-back and had a Hur-iffic day.  I decided to go with the Niblo version first.  For a silent religious epic, I enjoyed this far more than I expected to.  The production value ($3.9 million worth, according to iMDB) shows on the screen: the chariot race and the pirate battle are especially astonishing, and there’s a lot of other impressive stuff too.  The story is much more complex and nuanced than a typical silent, and moves at a pretty good pace most of the time.  I got really involved in it.  I could have done without the magic fairy tale Jesus aspects, but it does contain some of Christianity’s better teachings.  Also, for a story set largely in the Middle East, the cast is lily-white… none more so than Jesus (although, in an interesting touch, we never see his face).  But I guess that’s to be expected.  I probably wouldn’t watch this again, but it was satisfying.  Rating: 8

IMDb

Chelsea Girls

Fascinating and infuriating.  I hardly know where to start.  I’ve been aware of Warhol’s films since I was a child, reading about Empire and Sleep in “The Book of Lists” under “Longest Films”, but this is the first one I’ve actually seen.  It must be said upfront: as a conventional “movie”, this is terrible.  The split-screen is a gimmick, the attention deficit camerawork is annoying, scenes go on way too long and there’s huge sections without sound (at least on the DVD… I don’t know if there was any audio recorded for those scenes or not).  This is not entertainment, there’s no message, and there’s probably not much thought put into it.  I hate to say this because it invites sneering and snickering, but this is art.  And it serves an artistic function.  It makes you think about the medium.  Which screen do you look at?  Are the occasional synchronicities between the screens accidental, and does it matter?  How much of this is scripted (probably not much), how much is improvised, how much is real?  Are these people being themselves, or are they playing personalities?  Maybe both.  I’m sure this all sounds a bit trite, but it really is interesting.  Kind of. 

I liked all the Nico (whose album “Chelsea Girls” has long been one of my favorites), Ondine and Brigid parts.  Nico’s mild semi-domestic scene in the beginning, then Ondine’s toying with Ingrid, then Brigid just being hilarious.  After that, it goes into “Hanoi Hannah” (Mary Woronov of Rock n’ Roll High School fame) being an obnoxious cunt to everyone around her.  I don’t find this interesting, fun, clever, or even especially good improv.  It’s pretty easy to act rude and antagonistic.  This goes on for quite a long time, much of it silent (which may have been a blessing).  Then comes a short thing with a drag queen, and after that 30 more minutes of silent footage.  I really struggled through this part.  My initial enthusiasm was waning fast, and then narcissistic Eric shows up, riffing about his sweat and other things.  However, the last half hour brings us back to Nico (silent and weeping on the left, photographed with multi-color light patterns) and Ondine (shooting heroin and ranting amusingly on the right).  If I could edit this film the way I wanted (and it was Warhol’s original intention to let the projectionist decide which reels to show when and how to mix the audio), I’d love it a little more.  But given the version here, I have to deduct some points for that whole middle 100 or so minutes.  Still, a thought-provoking work that gives you something to chew on… even if it is essentially just a bunch of junkies/freaks/actors/artists fucking around with a camera.  Rating: 7

IMDb

The Crowd

I’ve said that Westerns are my least favorite type of film.  I think silent-era films are the runner-up.  While there aren’t many that I outright loathe, there’s only a couple I’ve bothered to watch more than once, and only a handful more that I would want to.  I like the ones that have some kind of avant-garde element to them… Un Chien Andalou, A Page of Madness, Metropolis, The Man With the Movie Camera.  For the rest, it’s usually a case of appreciating their influence and artistry at the time, but not especially enjoying them.  And it’s not because they’re silent… many of my favorite films have very very little dialogue.  It’s just that the storytelling in them is so unsophisticated.  And the humor is almost never funny to me.  I get a kick out of Buster Keaton sometimes, but I prefer Groucho Marx… or Jacques Tati.

With that out of the way, what makes The Crowd so special that it ranks #178 on the TSPDT 1000, despite being so hard to get hold of?  Well, King Vidor definitely pulls off some great shots, making excellent use of space and perspective, and utilizing a few techniques that were probably ahead of their time.  Other than that, however… it’s just a simplistic, unsurprising tale of a schlub trying to make it in the big city.  The schlub is not a particularly likeable guy, either.  He’s whiny and impulsive and kind of a jerk.  The film is moving, but only on the most basic level.  I wasn’t getting choked up or anything.  There are a couple of poetic moments (the irony of the juggling job, the final shot) but that’s it.  I can’t rightfully say it was an awful movie, but definitely not one I would watch again.  Rating: 6

IMDb

Älskande par (Loving Couples)

You could mistake this for a Bergman film at first glance.  It’s shot by Sven Nykvist, and it’s got a number of his favorite actors.  In fact, director Mai Zetterling was herself in a couple of films.  Even the basic plotline, the stories of three very different women in a maternity ward, is the same as Brink of Life.  Zetterling focuses more on the events that got them there, in an extensive series of flashbacks (which is itself not unlike Secrets of Women), which reach a climax involving all three characters coming together at a midsummer gathering (think Smiles of a Summer Night).  I liked childlike, carefree, hedonistic Agda (Harriet Andersson) and bitter, gloomy alcoholic Adele (Gunnel Lindblom).  But I wasn’t too intrigued by Angela (Gio Petré), who felt lifeless and underdeveloped, despite having the most screen time.  Now maybe it’s a coincidence that the Bergman regulars got the more interesting parts, or maybe I liked them more because of their association with Bergman.  Or the more likely explanation: Bergman chose to work with actors who knew how to get the most out of a part (Petré did have a small role in Wild Strawberries, though).  Nykvist’s photography is beautiful, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that the story seems to drag and meander nowhere whenever it focuses on Angela.  I’m on the fence about my rating, but since Andersson and Lindblom are so good, I’ll go with 7.  But it’s a low 7.  Rating: 7

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