Month: February 2018

#172) 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

OR “You Say You Want An Evolution”

Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Written by Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. Kinda sorta but not really based on the short story “The Sentinel” by Clarke.

Class of 1991

The Plot: A monolith. Ape-men. “Also Sprach Zarathustra”. The greatest jump cut ever. “The Blue Danube Waltz”. A mission to Jupiter. A supercomputer that has never made an error. Pod bay doors. A trip to the edge of the universe. A star child. “2001” defies plot.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls it the film that “pushed the envelope of narrative and special effects to create an introspective look at technology and humanity.” And of course there’s an essay, this time by film critic James Verniere.

But Does It Really?: Oh I can’t touch this one. Clarke lays the foundation with some astute and provoking (and ultimately quite accurate) future theory, and Kubrick runs with it, showcasing his detailed vision, some of the best repurposed classic music choices, and one of filmdom’s most unique and terrifying villains. Kubrick is no dummy; he knows that film succeeds as a visual medium. He keeps the dialogue to a minimum, leaves a lot of the film open to interpretation (while still maintaining his own clear vision), and presents us with some of the best visuals ever presented on screen. This film is an experience, arguably the film experience. You don’t watch “2001”; you let it wash over you, allowing the images and ideas to stay with you and challenge your viewpoint long after the film is over. “2001” is an undisputed classic, and the ripple effect is still going strong 50 years later.

Everybody Gets One: Co-writer Arthur C. Clarke, as well as most of the cast. Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood are still with us at the time of this writing and more than happy to discuss their experience on the film. The more private Douglas Rain resides in retirement in his native Canada.

Seriously, Oscars?: How much time do you have?

For starters, “2001” divided critics during its initial run, but did eventually find box office success with the counterculture youth, so its status as a classic wasn’t solidified when the Oscars rolled around. The film received four nominations, but NOT Best Picture (because “Funny Girl”, you guys!). Kubrick lost Director to overdue veteran Carol Reed for “Oliver!”, and Kubrick and Clarke lost Original Screenplay to Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” – perhaps Oscar’s most extreme case of “Apples v. Oranges”. The film did, however, win for Visual Effects. Due to unnecessarily restrictive eligibility guidelines, the statuette was awarded to Stanley Kubrick, credited as the “Effects Designer”, though he was not one of the four credited effect supervisors. This win – Kubrick’s sole career Oscar – resulted in a revision of the category’s eligibility policy.

Other notes

• The film was developed concurrently with the novel, hence its inclusion in the Original Screenplay category. The simultaneous writing led to some slight differences between the novel and the film, primarily the novel filling in some of the film’s story gaps.
• Did I just watch a stuntman in an ape suit get attacked by a leopard?
• Kudos to Stuart Freeborn, the film’s makeup artist. Those apes are way more realistic than the “Planet of the Apes” apes.

• This is the beginning of Kubrick with a budget, and boy does he use every penny they gave him. There is some incredible model work happening here. So much detail in every shot. This is not just another “rocket movie”.
• How different would this film be if they had used the Spike Jones cover of “Blue Danube” instead?

• “Your Christian name”? I guess this version of the year 2001 didn’t go through a PC ‘90s.
• Had to look up what a bush baby is. That’s a weird birthday request, Vivian.
• I love me some practical effects. The shots of people walking up walls in zero gravity are incredible. Say hi to Fred Astaire while you’re up there!
• A cover-up story on the moon that’s directed by Stanley Kubrick? What a ridiculous notion.
• HAL gets one of the best intros in any film. You instantly know that something is up. It’s quite chilling.

• Critics complain about how “bland” Frank and Dave are, but isn’t that the point? Technology has become more advanced, leading to more reliance on them from humans, meaning less independent thought, hence the blandness. Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood are doing the best with what they were given, but they are fully aware that they are secondary to the visuals.
• BBC 12 may be the film’s only joke.
• Another What-If for you: What if Kubrick had kept his original choice of Martin Balsam for the voice of HAL? I’m sure Balsam would have appreciated not just being “the guy who falls down the stairs in ‘Psycho’”.
• Science fiction is always dated once it arrives at its future year, but we caught up to this film’s use of flatscreen tablets eventually.
• Yes, there are long stretches of the movie where “nothing happens”, but like “The Shining”, Kubrick still holds your focus in these moments. Even the stillness is riveting in this movie.
• My note for Frank’s last scene simply read “Oh shit, son!” I knew it was coming and it still shocked me.

• January 12^th 1992: George Bush is in the White House, Americans are listening to “Black or White” and reading “The Sum of All Fears”, “Avonlea” wins big at the CableAce Awards, and HAL 9000 is born!
• The Star Gate sequence. Man, that is a trip. No wonder you have to see this on the big screen. Side-note: Did “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” steal this scene shot-for-shot?

• My own take on the film: The prologue sets up our ancestors as prey that evolved into hunters. The meat of the film is about “modern” humans who have created technology that can become autonomous and turn us back into prey. We are reborn at the end, but only after things have gotten too complicated. Perhaps we evolve beyond the point of our own survival. As for the monolith, I dunno…magic? You want a thorough explanation of everything? Read the book.

The Legacy of “2001” (as well as a few bonus segments) can be found here.

Listen to This: “2001” is represented twice on the National Recording Registry: the 1954 Chicago Symphony recording of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (the film uses the 1959 Vienna Philharmonic recording), and the 1961 recording of “Daisy Bell” that inspired HAL’s last scene.

#171) Meshes of the Afternoon (1943)

OR “Czech Mix”

Directed by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid

Written by Deren

Class of 1990

The Plot: It’s experimental, there ain’t no plot. As best I can tell it’s a woman (Maya Deren) experiencing a dreamlike scene at her friend’s house that involves a flower, a phone, a key, a knife, and Death!

Why It Matters: The NFR calls it “one of the classics of avant-garde cinema” and praises the writing and cinematography. “Meshes of the Afternoon” was the first experimental film inducted into the National Film Registry.

But Does It Really?: The nice thing about experimental films is that I don’t get it, but I’m not supposed to get it. You can read whatever you wish into a film like this, and as long as you explain your viewpoint to others in the most condescending, self-entitled way possible, it’s valid! There’s some lovely technical work happening here, particularly the cinematography and editing, and Deren & Hammid recreate a dreamlike experience quite effectively. I give it a pass for being a prime example of American surrealism, and for being existential commentary on the work of Buñuel (At least that’s how I viewed the film. You disagree? Oh, you probably just didn’t get it.)

Everybody Gets One: We’ll see Alexander Hammid again with his later film “To Fly!”, but this is where we meet Maya Deren. Born Eleonora Derenkowska, she found herself in Los Angeles in the early ‘40s following a tour as the photographer/assistant to choreographer Katherine Dunham. It was in L.A. were Deren met Alexandr Hackenschmied, who nicknamed her Maya and helped turn her photography into experimental film.

Wow, That’s Dated: Rotary phones? I got nothing. Next!

Other notes

• Deren and Hammid were married in 1942, one year prior to “Meshes”. This has got to be the weirdest honeymoon video ever, and that’s saying something.
• For the record, I watched the 1959 version with the added score by Maya’s then-husband Teiji Ito. And if you’re going to add a score to a surreal film, atonal is the way to go. Side note: Don’t watch this version with ear buds. It will drive you insane.
• Speaking of the score, at the very beginning it sounds like Gumby’s going to start.
• I have never dropped a key that far down a flight of stairs. How is that even possible? Of course, if I start questioning the logic in this film we could be here all night.
• What do you think the script for this looked like? “Close-up on crazy shit. Wide angle on other crazy shit. Repeat.”
• Must have been weird for Maya and Alexander’s neighbors to look out their window and see Death walking by.
• Maya went to the “Star Trek” school of stumbling for the camera.
• A mirror as Death’s face. Nice touch.
• I believe I’ve seen the key/knife combo for sale on one of them late night infomercials. It’s the Lindsay Wagner one, right?
• Without spoiling too much, the shot that involves a mirror and the ocean is really cool.
• I wish my dreams were this artistically gratifying. Most of my dreams are me back in high school; no amount of camera trickery can spice that up.

Legacy

• Deren and Hammid made a few more films together prior to their divorce in 1947. Both would continue to make films, as well as other artistic endeavors, for the rest of their lives.

• David Lynch cites “Meshes of the Afternoon” as a major influence on his work, particularly “Lost Highway” and “Mulholland Dr.”

• The Death figure with the mirror face reappears in the music video for Janelle Monáe’s “Tightrope”. I’m just delighted I can legitimately reference Janelle Monáe on this blog. That’s a win!

#170) Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)

OR “Cinematic Couples Counseling”

Directed by F.W. Murnau

Written by Carl Mayer. Based on the short story “The Excursion to Tilsit” by Herrmann Sudermann.

Class of 1989

The Plot: A Man and his Wife (George O’Brien & Janet Gaynor) live on a farm in the country with their newborn child. Though they were once happily in love, their marriage has fallen on harder times. The Man has been carrying on an affair with a visiting Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston). She convinces the Man that he must kill his wife, sell the farm, and move to the city to be with her. The Man begins to carry out this plan, but cannot bring himself to do it. Their marriage is put to a demanding, yet cinematically beautiful test.

Why It Matters: The NFR salutes Murnau and his penchant for “introducing new technical methods of enhancing the storytelling process.”

But Does It Really?: You don’t make the first round of NFR films without doing something right. “Sunrise” has earned its reputation as possibly the best silent film ever made. It is the apex of what film could achieve before the advent of sound. F.W. Murnau succeeds at the difficult balancing act of strong story and innovative technology. The technical breakthroughs are a revelation, yet always at the service of the story. O’Brien & Gaynor don’t let the aesthetics overpower them, and both give genuine, heartfelt performances that ground the film. “Sunrise” is an apt title for a film that showed us the promise and the beauty of a new era in film.

Everybody Gets One: Margaret Livingston is known for two things: playing the other woman in “Sunrise” and being on William Randolph Hearst’s yacht when director/producer/her alleged lover Thomas Ince died on board. His death certificate says “heart failure”, but yellow journalism at the time speculated murder, and the legend lives on.

Wow, That’s Dated: Mainly the whole “women are property” vibe that permeates throughout. Also big bands and jazz, but mostly that first thing.

Seriously, Oscars?: As if the Academy created the Oscars with this film in mind, “Sunrise” was a major player at the 1^st Academy Awards. “Sunrise” started with four nominations and won a record-breaking three: Actress for Janet Gaynor (along with her performance in “7^th Heaven”), Cinematography, and something called Best Unique and Artistic Picture. This category was only presented at the first Oscars, alongside the category of Outstanding Picture, which went to “Wings”. The Academy merged these two categories together the following year and retroactively declared “Wings” the first Best Picture, leaving “Sunrise” out of oh-so-many Best Picture montages. Despite the film’s strong turnout, F.W. Murnau was not nominated for Best Director.

Other notes

• “From an Original Theme by”? I guess the word “adapted” hadn’t been invented yet.
• All I wish is to one day be cast in a movie as either “Obtrusive Gentleman” or “Obliging Gentleman”.
• Fox was quick to cash in on the latest trend, consequently making “Sunrise” one of the first movies to have its soundtrack synchronized with the film.
• Holy crap this is already a vast creative improvement over its contemporary silent films. Murneau is fully aware that movies are not the real world and adhere to their own logic. You can move the camera around, superimpose images for symbolism, or do anything else you can think of. Long Live German Expressionism!
• Nice try, but you can’t make 21-year-old Janet Gaynor look homely and careworn.
• A flashback within an intertitle! Talk about innovation.
• I wonder how that baby felt years later we he learned that not only is his butt featured in a movie, but that movie has been preserved by film historians, meaning his butt will be seen by future generations.
• Dogs are always the first to sense earthquakes, hurricanes, and attempted murder.
• George O’Brien may have the worst posture of any movie star ever.
• I predict a lot of couch-sleeping in The Man’s future.
• The city is only one trolley stop away? Why would you ever live in the country?
• Not a big turnout for this wedding. Is it a weekday?
• But seriously, the cinematography in this is amazing. Kudos to Charles Rosher and Karl Struss. There are several shots that made me think, “How did they do that?”
• Geez, even back then there was manspreading. No wonder he’s “The Obtrusive Gentleman”.
• If you’re watching the version with the original soundtrack, you’ll recognize the use of Charles Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette” in the photographer scene. I didn’t realize Hitch made cameos in other people’s movies.
• And then we get to the funfair sequence that, while entertaining, really has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It’s an example of the dangers of adapting a short story into a film. I was not expecting one of the first 25 NFR films to devote this much screen time to a drunken pig (and that’s not a euphemism, there’s an actual pig who sops up wine).
• Not only does Murnau overlap some of the film’s visuals, he also overlaps some of the film’s soundtracks.
• Wow, Gaynor can sleep through anything.
• The ending left me breathless. Literally, it wasn’t until the film ended that I realized I was holding my breath.

Legacy

• F. W. Murnau would go on to make three more films in America (including fellow NFR entry “Tabu”) before his untimely death in a car crash at age 42.

• The original short story was adapted into a German film in 1939, this time as “The Journey to Tilsit”.
• Where this movie left off, “A Place in the Sun” picked up and continued.

• This film’s unintentional legacy was, appropriately enough, the beginning of film preservation. Turns out nitrate film spontaneously combusts when not properly stored, and “Sunrise” was one of several films whose original negative was destroyed in the 1937 Fox vault fire. This was Hollywood’s first wakeup call to the danger of losing our films/cultural heritage. Side Note: Obviously a print of “Sunrise” survived elsewhere, and a new negative was created.

** 2020 Update: Told ya.

Listen to This: Speaking of Bowie…

Further Viewing: The similarly structured “Betrayal”, based on the Harold Pinter play. If you’ve ever wanted to see Ben Kingsley with hair, this is your movie.

• There’s talk of an American remake, but why would you make this again? We already have “Finding Dory”.

• “Memento” was remade in India as 2005’s “Ghajini”, which itself was remade by Bollywood three years later.

• And I certainly would not have guessed three Batman movies.

• If you had asked me in 2000 what Christopher Nolan’s follow-up film would be, I would not have guessed something with Robin Williams.

• This film started the well-crafted, oft-confusing, internet-worshiped Christopher Nolan filmography that’s still going strong today.

Legacy

• I cannot hate any movie that plays David Bowie over the closing credits.
• What a twist! Or, for the chronological viewing: What a set-up!
• Jimmy goes to the Derek Smalls Academy of Moustache Grooming.
• Teddy doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would namedrop Annie Leibovitz, but here we are.
• It’s nice to see Harriet Harris do some wonderful low-key acting. I’m used to her work as Bebe Glazer and Bebe Glazer-esque characters.
• Can credit cards still open a locked door now that they have chips?
• “Oh, I’m chasing this guy. No, he’s chasing me.” I laughed out loud at that line. This film manages to be quite funny when it wants to be.
• It must be degrading having your butt kicked by a naked guy.
• Pearce does a great American accent, but his teeth are the giveaway that he ain’t from around here.
• Shout out to “Green Acres”.
• Stephen Tobolowsky loves movies that fuck with linear time.
• The chronological cut of “Memento” gives you added appreciation for the work of Joe Pantoliano and Carrie-Anne Moss. You won’t see that kind of nuance in “The Matrix”, that’s for sure.
• Ah yes, the time-honored film tradition of flashbacks to your dead wife. It’s to Nolan what the “absent fathers” trope is to Spielberg.
• I’ve never understood people who get tattoos with lengthy text. Am I supposed to read the whole thing? Would you stand still for a sec?
• Not only is Guy Pearce giving a wonderfully captivating performance, but he’s also very good at solving L.A. based homicides.
• Hey hey hey, no times for puns, Leonard. You leave that to me.
• This is one of the rare films where the voiceover narration feels necessary. Take that, “Blade Runner” original cut!
• What a great opening credits sequence. It sets up the whole film perfectly. And to think that opening credits would be all but extinct in just a few years time.
• Why Original Screenplay instead of Adapted? Because Jonathan’s short story wasn’t published until 2001, a few months after the film’s release.

Other notes

Seriously, Oscars?: A commercial and critical success, “Memento” walked away with a boatload of year-end awards. But when it came time for the Oscars, the film went home empty-handed. Dody Dorn lost Best Editing to “Black Hawk Down”, while the Nolans lost Original Screenplay to “Gosford Park”. Wanna hear something worse? Christopher Nolan would have to wait 16 years to get his first Best Director nomination. That’s right, he wasn’t nominated until “Dunkirk”. Don’t that just beat all?

Title Track: No one says “memento”, even though Leonard has the perfect opportunity when he’s burning his wife’s stuff. All that aside, the real drinking game is every time someone says the word “condition”.

Wow, That’s Dated: Polaroid cameras, that’s the big one. Can you imagine this movie if Leonard was using a smart phone to solve this?

Everybody Gets One: Christopher Nolan, though I’m so positive that will change soon I’m just gonna put the Update Asterisks here now**. Special mention to Jorja Fox as Leonard’s wife, aka “the vic”.

But Does It Really?: Oh yeah. “Memento” is an intellectual thriller that scratches your brain in just the right places. Nonlinear storytelling can feel gimmicky when applied incorrectly [laughs nervously], but married to this particular story it creates a film that isn’t a whodunit, but rather a how and whydunit that kept me guessing until the very end. Nolan expertly leads you through the labyrinth without making things too confusing. Add in a brilliantly subtle yet complex performance by Guy Pearce at the center of it, and you’ve got yourself a modern classic. Not only is “Memento” a thoroughly solid film, but the ripple effect that it gave us with Christopher Nolan is still very much being felt in pop culture and filmdom today.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “innovative” and explains just how Nolan pulled off the film’s nonlinear structure. “Memento” is the first narrative feature from the 2000s to be included on the National Film Registry. So it’s basically the “Citizen Kane” of the last decade, no big whoop.

The Plot: Told in two parallel storylines (one going chronologically and the other in reverse), “Memento” focuses on Leonard (Guy Pearce), a man afflicted with anterograde amnesia (aka short-term memory loss) as the result of an attack on him and his wife (Jorja Fox) that ended with her dead. Using a detailed supply of notes he writes for himself, and tattoos on his own body with just the facts, Leonard is determined to find and murder the man who killed his wife. But the real question isn’t who killed her, it’s who can Leonard trust? The charming but cryptic Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss)? The suspiciously friendly Teddy (Joe Pantoliano)? Or his own memory?

Class of 2017

Directed & Written by Christopher Nolan. Based on the short story “Memento Mori” by Jonathan Nolan.

OR “Warily We Roll Along”

#169) Memento (2000)

Fourteen Months Earlier

Windmills on Film

Cinematic Everest

Two Scoops of Random

Confessions of a Film Junkie

The Horse’s Head [Sounds like a bar name, but keep it until you think of something better.]

Eleven Years Earlier

#168) The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912)

OR “Lower West Side Story”

Directed by D.W. Griffith

Written by Griffith and Anita Loos

Class of 2016

The Plot: A musician and his wife (Walter Miller & Lillian Gish) live in a poor apartment in New York near “Pig Alley” in Greenwich Village. Gangster “The Snapper Kid” (Elmer Booth) mugs the musician right outside his front door. The musician vows to get the money back, inadvertently getting him and his wife mixed up in the Snapper Kid’s turf war with a rival gang. Sounds exciting, right? Well I’ve got some bad news…

Why It Matters: The NFR calls it “the first gangster film” and hails its employment of “several innovative camera techniques”. And it’s not just them; this is all anyone has to say about this film.

But Does It Really?: I try to give silent movies the benefit of the doubt while viewing them, but I could not get into this film. There’s so little to latch on to with this one, despite the impressive pedigree of D.W. Griffith. It’s a breakthrough in genre and technological innovations, sure, but man is it slow. And it’s only 15 minutes! We’ve got other films from D.W. Griffith and other gangster films, so it’s the NFR’s defense that is keeping this thing afloat. This is a “D-” on the preservation-worthy scale: Not exceptional, but still passing.

Everybody Gets One: Elmer Booth’s film career was just getting started when he died in a car crash at the age of 32. D.W. Griffith was especially distraught by Booth’s death, and delivered the eulogy at his funeral. Elmer was survived by his younger sister, legendary film editor Margaret Booth.

Wow, That’s Dated: Common usage of the phrase “musketeers”, women’s hats the size of a tractor tire.

Other notes

• This is one of those movies where I understand each individual word in the title, but the name as a whole takes some getting used to.
• For those of you not versed in cinematography terms (like me), this film’s main innovation was the camera technique “follow focus”. This is the practice of focusing only on one part of a shot rather than the entire frame. It has since become the standard.
• Seeing as this is Greenwich Village, couldn’t the musician find work with the Blue Man Group?
• This is my first Lillian Gish film on the blog. Mercifully, this is far from her only representation on the NFR.
• Speaking of, that’s Lillian’s sister Dorothy featured prominently in one of the crowd scenes.
• One cut in this film makes it seem that the door to their apartment leads straight into the bar. Another successful design from Escher Architect!
• Can we PLEASE have dialogue intertitles? I am begging you!
• Everyone dressed liked Buster Keaton back then.
• Nice of the cops to show up instantly during the fight.

Legacy

• Follow focus. That’s the main one. I guess someone had to invent it.
• Martin Scorsese loves this film and is single-handedly keeping its memory alive. Scorsese, of course, would make his own film about the gangs of New York called…um….