PERSONAL DIARY AND HAYWORTH BY WELLES

NOTES FROM RICK’S PERSONAL DIARY

I have just come from the ending of A Good Day to Die Hard.  The climax of the film is shot entirely in the dark.  It is impossible to tell who’s who much less who’s shooting at whom.  You hear shots fired.  Metal clangs and crashes against metal.  But you see nothing.

When did this begin?  Can any of our readers pinpoint when it became fashionable to keep the film from the viewer?

In The Piano Jane Campion delighted in photographing objects from angles and perspectives that made them difficult to identify until the camera moved.  She settled things differently in The Power of the Dog, shooting in the dark so that objects and people are not even seen.  In almost every scene of serious emotional conflict in The Power of the Dog,  the actor’s faces are not visible.

The point?

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THE LADY FROM SHANGHAI        Orson Welles        1948

More than one critic mentions the spectacular photographic effects.  ‘Taint so.  There is only the justly famous fun house shoot out at the end.  There are clumsy process shots, scads of tight close-ups of faces, and one glaring matte.  No spectacular photography nor script that would demand it.

 

The usually reliable Hayworth cannot really give the camera and us her performance because (SPOILER ALERT) she is always having to give a performance for her Irish seaman Welles.  Off the top of my memory I recall Olivia de Havilland managing a similar kind of thing better in My Cousin Rachel.  But Hayworth, whatever we know or don’t about her character at any given stage of the story, is believable and /or believably unbelievable.  As always, she is delicious to behold  (delicious:  Richard Schickle’s word for her).

Orson Welles is close to ridiculous walking about bare-chested as a supposedly rough and tough Irishman.

NEXT Friday POST May 3

On May 3 Rick’s Flicks will begin serialization of Harry Richards’ book THE JUDY WATCH.  Richards is a free lance writer out of Missoula, Montana.  He has spent much of his life observing, studying and analyzing the work of Judy Garland.  Though there are now over fifty published books about Judy Garland, Richards believes his is the first devoted exclusively to her live concert career.  Richards enjoys being a father and grandfather.  He likes flowers, reading and viewing vintage films.

May 3    –    THE JUDY WATCH  by Harry Richards

Until then,
Enjoy a movie,
Rick

ONE SHORT TAKE AND TWO SHORT-SHORTS

ONE SHORT TAKE AND TWO SHORT-SHORTS

HELLER IN PINK TIGHTS        George Cukor        1960

A tale of a troupe of actors traveling the Great West in two caravans  —  usually on the run from creditors.  Even when over-acting Sophia is still grand to watch as the company’s diva.  Eileen Heckart is perfect as the actress aging and sensitive about it,  and as her daughter Margaret O’Brien does well.  Steve Forrest is ideally cast as the likeable villain.  And Anthony Quinn at this time was still acting and not yet settled into always playing the great actor.  Edmund Lowe is the company’s seasoned performer, and the great Ramon Novarro has a small, thankless part.

screenplay, Dudley Nichols and Walter Bernstein
art direction, Hal Pereira and Gene Allen
set decoration, Sam Comer
costume design, Edith Head

from a novel by Louis L’Amour

Novarro as 1926’s Ben-Hur

THE SAND PEBBLES        Robert Wise        1964

About 80 minutes’ worth of narration are given a three-hour Hollywood treatment; but it offers lots of subtleties because of the direction of Robert Wise and the performance of his star.  Steve McQueen has almost no dialogue.  He creates his seaman character through facial expressions (or lack of them) and especially with body language.  It is a remarkable piece of acting.

IN DUBIOUS BATTLE        James Franco

Despite its Steinbeck credentials, the potential drama in the good guys’ warring among themselves and the star-studded cast, Franco’s film never comes to life.  As director Franco’s ambitious reach still seems to exceed his grasp.

NEXT Friday POST April 19

Until then,
Enjoy a movie,
Rick

 

LIFE AND DEATH IN THREE SHORT TAKES AND SAVING THEATERS

NOTES FROM RICK’S PERSONAL DIARY

I am happy to learn that a group of directors which includes Alfonso Cuarón and Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan has organized to save the Village Theatre in West Los Angeles.  I once lived five blocks from the theater and attended more than one premiere there  —  attended as a sidewalk spectator.  At the premiere of A MAJORITY OF ONE I can’t remember why the marquee on the Bruin Theatre, directly opposite the Village, was dark that night.  What I remember is that when Rosalind Russell arrived, she exited her vehicle on the passenger side, facing the Bruin.  I still remember how her face fell.  No lights, no sidewalk spectators.  Then ol’ Roz wheeled about and found the Village’s lighted marquee and the assembled crowd.  The lights and the applause brought the smile back to her face.*

Readers will recall that it was the Village Theatre where the Margot Robbie character went to watch herself in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

LIFE AS A HOUSE        Irwin Winkler    2001

This touching story about learning to live life while facing death is given its life by an excellent cast.  Kevin Kline is outstanding.  Kristin Scott-Thomas, in a smaller role as his ex-wife, is always believable and very affecting.  A shockingly mean-spirited Mary Steenburgen is also very good as the neighbor, and Hayden Christensen as the son is perfectly cast.

THE HORSE WHISPERER        Robert Redford        1998

This is an indulgent film indulgently paced, but it remains engrossing.  A teenage  girl is recovering from an accident which took one of her legs and the life of her beloved horse.  She is helped by her parents and a knowledgeable horseman played by Robert Redford.  But the film belongs to Kristin Scott-Thomas as the mother.  She makes us care about a not very likeable character.  As the girl, a very young Scarlett Johansson is already a very fine actress.

Through the camera lens Montana looks high, wide and handsome.

Photography, Robert Richardson

MONTANA STORY        David Siegel and Scott McGehee        2021

This is not a Montana story.  This dysfunctional family is universal.  It is an American tale.  But there ARE Indians.  And a horse is central to the tale.  The film is superbly acted by Owen Teague and Haley Lu Nuttgens as estranged brother and sister.

The Montana-set film was shot NOT in Alberta, NOT in Wyoming but IN Montana, in and near the city of Bozeman in what is now called Paradise Valley.

Photography, Giles Nuttgens
Editing, Isaac Hagy

*Rick’s Flicks thanks Nicole Sperling for information on the Village Theatre:  “A Landmark Movie Palace Is Bought by Star Directors,”  New York Times, 2/24/24.

NEXT Friday POST April 5

Until then,
If you live near a restored theater,
See you AT the movies,
Rick

 

 

MCDANIEL AND MAMMY and MAGUIRE IN BROTHERS

MAMMY IN GONE WITH THE WIND

In an October article in the New York Times* about the replacement of Hattie McDaniel’s long-disappeared supporting actress award for Gone with the Wind, a gift the actress made to Howard University, Jonathan Abrams wrote:  “McDaniel had earned the award for her portrayal of Mammy, an agreeable slave at the whim of Scarlett O’Hara.”

Mammy was not at anybody’s whim.  She is the only character in the film that Scarlett is afraid of, the only person she bows to.  She is the one character whose respect Rhett Butler craves.  Mammy is the moral compass of Gone with the Wind.

*Jonathan Abrams, “Academy Replaces Missing Historic Oscar Plaque.”  New York Times, 10/4/23.

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BROTHERS        Jim Sheridan        2009

The acting is outstanding in this ugly story set in Afghanistan and on the American home front during our longest war.  The screenplay goes far in violence  —  physical and especially emotional violence  —  in making its case against war.

Tobey Maguire

Cast against type, Tobey Maguire is a revelation as Sam.  As his ne’er-do-well brother Tommy, Jake Gyllenhaal is believable in every frame.  As Sam’s wife Grace, made an emotional wreck by the two brothers, Natalie Portman is fine.  Also remarkable is Bailee Madison as the older daughter of Sam and Grace.  It is often hard to know how much a great performance by a child actor is the result of editing, but Bailee Madison seems born to cry.

NEXT FRIDAY POST March 22

Until then,
Enjoy a movie,
Rick

 

 

 

SHORT SHORTS : WASHINGTON X 3

THE BONE COLLECTOR      Phillip Noyce 1999

Two cops bring each other out of their shells while solving the crimes of a serial killer with revenge as his motive.

The crimes in this thriller spring from a grisly concept and feature some near-gory details.  But Denzel Washington, despite the genre, achieves once more a total, and unique, characterization.  And Angelina Jolie is excellent in a firm characterization of her own.

From a novel by Jeffery Deaver.

 

THE HURRICANE        Norman Jewison        1999

This is a heartbreaking account of the false imprisonment of boxer Rubin Carter.  Denzel Washington is superb as his acted-out anger becomes lifelong suppressed rage.  Unfortunately his three legal advisors (which include the great Liev Schreiber) are not sufficiently characterized, in the writing, to be of that much interest.*

*Rick’s Flicks is indebted to Leonard Maltin for this observation.

A LOSS TO THE FILM WORLD

The many obituaries for Norman Jewison, director of The Hurricane who died January 20, all failed to mention among his credits that he directed some of the weekly programs of The Judy Garland Show.

INSIDE MAN        Spike Lee        2006

This is a story of an offbeat bank heist led by Clive Owen with Denzel Washington assigned to talk him out of his hostages.  The film is too long and so is each sequence in it, but the robbery is ingeniously planned and has a motive with historical/social implications.  Washington once again creates a full characterization and, along the way, spouts some of the dirtiest dialogue Rick’s Flicks can recall hearing in a movie  —  clever, but dirty.

Jodie Foster develops a powerful character in a small but memorable role.

NEXT Friday POST March 8

Until then,
Enjoy a movie,
Rick

 

 

THE CIDER HOUSE RULES

THE CIDER HOUSE RULES

N.B.  The discussion is all SPOILER ALERTS.

In this coming of age tale young Homer Wells proves he’s grown up by his willingness to perform an abortion, something he had always refused to do in the illegal abortion clinic where he previously worked  —  and where as an orphan he had grown up.  He is helped to this choice by the fact that the woman involved is someone he knows and that she is impregnated by her own father, someone he, and the audience, have liked.

Also shown as maturing on his part is his willingness to destroy the long-standing rules posted on the wall in the cider house where he and his fellow orchard workers live and sleep.  He is told to destroy them by his fellows and he obeys.  He is the only white in the otherwise black crew.

When the father attempts to stop his daughter from absconding, she knifes him and leaves.  Homer agrees, on the father’s insistence, not to give him any medical help.  This also appears to be a part of Homer’s coming of age, along with agreeing not to tell the police what happened.

Homer comes honestly by his resentment of authority.  He grew up in a small rural hospital that is a front for an abortion clinic.  Its one doctor (Michael Caine) and his two nurses lead a life of lies and are always concealing facts from their board of trustees.

The owner of the orchard where Homer has gone to work after leaving the hospital has a son away in the army.  His fianceé is on hand, staying with his mother, and she sees to Homer’s sexual coming of age.  She needs sex while her intended is in combat and uses Homer who falls in love with her.  To her credit, when the soldier returns paralyzed, she accepts him.  The fiancée is played by Charlize Theron, soon to become a formidable actress.

Critics have called this film glowing, “warm,” “loving” !  This perception may have to do with the performance by Tobey Maguire who is perfectly cast and whose charm survives all the corruption and betrayal and death of the script.

From the novel by John Irving

THE CIDER HOUSE RULES        Lasse Halström        1999

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MOVIES ARE EVERYWHERE

Yes, they are, including in good novels.  In Paul Auster’s latest novel Baumgartner, the wife of the narrator is fed up with what the ceiling fans in the office where she works do to her hair.   ” . . . but what a hideous tangle those fans wrought on the uppermost parts of a girl’s head, so I marched into a hairdresser’s place on the first Saturday I had off, showed the stylist a photograph of Jean Seberg in Breathless, then another one of Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, and told her to split the difference between the two.”

Paul Auster.  Baumgartner.  Grove Press, 2023.

NEXT FRIDAY POST February 23

Until then,
Enjoy a movie,
Rick

4 MOMENTS OUT OF PAST LIVES

“You only dream in Korean.”

Four scenes from PAST LIVES offer some of the finest acting we will see in our times.  Four quiet events brought to profound life by actor Teo Yoo.

The first occurs when Nora tells Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) that she wishes to break off their telephone communication  —  communication we have seen become a relationship; rather, renewal by two adults of a long-ago childhood relationship.  He says almost nothing.  His face and his wet eyes tell us all.

The second moment comes as Hae Sung awaits a face-to-face renewal of that relationship.  He has come from Korea to meet Nora in Central Park, twelve years after the breakup over the computer phone.  He is standing by a park pond, and he primps.  It is a slight gesture.  He checks his hair and smooths it.  With one gesture, writer, director and actor have shown us all.

Next comes the reunion itself with Greta Lee as Nora coming into her own here.  Not very likeable as a character until now, she is affective and as moving as Teo Yoo when the two finally embrace after years of separation and both find themselves without words.

SPOILER ALERT

Finally there comes the goodbye when it is time for Hae Sung to return to Korea, having met Nora’s husband and talked long with her at a final meal.  The goodbye is almost wordless.  Greta Lee is fine here, but Teo Yoo, in his silent suffering, is overwhelming.

At one point in the film, Nora’s husband surprises her by telling her about talking in her sleep.  “You only dream in Korean.”

PAST LIVES        Celine Song        2023
screenplay by Celine Song

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Tobey Maguire

COMING NEXT

Tobey Maguire and THE CIDER HOUSE RULES

NEXT Friday POST February 9

Until then,
Enjoy a movie,
Rick

 

 

BROTHERS IN SHORT TAKES

TRUE CONFESSIONS        Ulu Grosbard        1981
(screenplay by John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion, from Dunne’s novel)

A tale of two brothers, one a county prosecutor, the other a Catholic priest, centered on corrupt real estate dealings in which churchmen are intricately involved.  Robert Duval as the law and Robert De Niro as the church are excellent.  However, there is no spiritual dimension to De Niro’s conception of the priest.  Is this deliberate?  Is there no spiritual dimension to the character?  In the scenes depicting the confessional  —  the confessional is used by the film’s characters for assignations and crime-plotting!  —  the confessional, where we would expect the cleric’s spiritual qualities to be most evident . are of course played in the dark.  Confessionals ARE dark.  And De Niro’s face cannot be seen.

THE JANUARY MAN        John Patrick Shanley        1989

This is a romantic comedy and a suspenseful comedy-mystery.  Critics seem to have been confused by the mix of genres in this tale of a search by two estranged brothers for a serial killer.  Susan Sarandon hits the key of this offbeat mélange with perfect pitch.  Usually brilliant Kevin Kline seems not to make the most of a meaty part, and Harvey Keitel does even less with, admittedly, a not so interesting one.  But this does not interfere with the pace of a thriller that somehow demands the word charming.

OZU ACCORDING TO MERMELSTEIN

In a discussion in the Wall Street Journal of the films of Jasujiro Ozu, treating of those shots in Ozu’s films of clothes on the line, chimneys, empty rooms, etc., David Mermelstein writes:  “All of these retain potency for us because they are no less central to Ozu’s world than the characters inhabiting his kitchens, bedrooms, offices and bars.  They speak to a power that transcends the individual in favor of the collective, which then inclines toward something even bigger.  The artfully folded blanket, the teacup waiting to be raised  —  they don’t just belong to the characters on screen; we too lay claim to them.”  (Alexander Pope:  True wit is nature to advantage dressed.  What oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed.  Thank you, David Mermelstein.)

Actor Chishu Ryu. Was Ozu his muse, or was he Ozu’s?

NEXT Friday POST January 26

Until then,
Enjoy a movie,
Rick

SHORT – SHORT TAKES

HEAT        Michael Mann        1995

Rick’s Flicks could not put it better than Leslie Halliwell/John Walker:  “A highly polished, lovingly crafted thriller, but overlong, portentous and padded with irrelevant subplots, and one that finally gives birth to a mouse of an idea:  that cops and robbers are much alike.  Its true subject-matter is no more than male bonding between two boastful and unlovely characters, and its real purpose seems to have been to bring together on screen Pacino and de [sic] Niro.”

Coppola

 

THE COTTON CLUB        Francis Coppola        1984

Leonard Maltin writes:  ” . . . style to spare and a wonderful soundtrack . . . all it needs is a story and characters whose relationships make some sense.”  HEAR!  HEAR!  Confusion reigns as to motivations behind relationships and even to the identity of some of the multitudinous characters.  One never believes that the Richard Gere character is as interested in music as he and his script claim.  But Bob Hoskins is a delight as a gentle mobster.  Also featured is a young, slender Laurence Fishburne (here billed as Larry).

Halliwell, Leslie and John Walker,  Halliwell’s 2004 Film Guide.  HarperResource, 2004.

Maltin, Leonard, Movie Guide, the modern era.  Plume, 1993

NEXT Friday POST January 12.

Until then,
Enjoy a movie,
Rick

INTERNATIONAL FILM IN THE 21ST AND HOLLWOOD MOVIES IN THE 19TH

SHORT TAKES

THE CONSTANT GARDENER    Fernando Mereilles        2005

Like Mereiiles’ City of God, this is another mosaic* of many, many characters, but this time fitting together to form one story instead of the convergence of many strands  —  a story not all that interesting had it been told chronologically and, in any case, too long in the telling.

There are lots of African location shots, without the cast, in disconcertingly different film stock.  Lots of filmgoers love what they call “real footage” or “actual footage.”  Your reviewer does not.  It takes him out of the narrative rather than embedding him in it.

The cinema vérité style of presentation is woefully inappropriate for the kind of narrative trying to unfold itself here.  It is used even in scenes of supposed tenderness and love-making.  It makes the film hectic (probably intended) and exasperating (probably not).

This shocking story of pharmaceutical industries, with the help of British diplomats and bureaucrats, risking the lives of countless Africans for the sake of profits, features good performances from Rachel Weisz, Bill Nighy, Danny Huston, Pete Postlethwaite and especially Ralph Finnes.

From the novel by John Le Carré.

Fernando Mereilles

*Rick’s Flicks is indebted to Leonard Maltin for the term mosaic describing Mereilles’ manner.

MEET JOHN DOE        Frank Capra        1941

This is my first Frank Capra disappointment.  It is too long.  Every scene is too long.  Every speech is too long  —  not just those delivered publicly by John or his supporters, but those spoken to him by Barbara Stanwyck, those drunkenly said to him by James Gleason.  They are all a lot of Ezekiels.  They don’t know when to stop.  One exception are those of Edward Arnold, the shortest in the writing and the most convincingly delivered.

Despite all the brash talk and hyped speed of dialogue and movement, this story of a decent guy used by journalists and betrayed by politicians is no more realistic than Snow White.  But its ideas are real, and powerful.

Gary Cooper is shockingly uneven.  Is it intentional?  As part of his character?  When he is angry, he is very good indeed.  Barbara Stanwyck’s overacting is embarrassing though due to some extent to her overwritten part.  (Everything is over- in this movie, over-wrtitten, over-long, over-acted.)  But James Gleason is slightly subdued for Gleason and  Edward Arnold is outstanding.

The Video/DVD guides are puzzlingly kid-glove kind to Meet John Doe, nay  —   over-the-top in praise.  Meet John Doe is the lapse of a film-making genius.

 

Next FRIDAY Post December 29,
Until then,
Enjoy a movie,
Rick