The Horse's Head

December 27^th, 2000: The National Film Registry makes it an even 300 with 25 more movies. Almost a full quarter century later, I’ve covered all of them on this blog. Here’s my recap of the NFR inductees (sung a la Conan O’Brien) “in the year 2000…”:

• President McKinley Inauguration Footage (1901): “[W]ell, we still film presidential inaugurations, so that’s a cool thing.”
• The Land Beyond the Sunset (1912): “If the NFR can’t come up with a good defense [for this film’s induction], what hope do the rest of us have?”
• Regeneration (1915): “may only work as an academic viewing for the serious film buff, but it won’t be on the final.”
• Salome (1923): “a challenging watch, but it does represent Alla Nazimova”
• Peter Pan (1924): “[I]f I say, ‘I didn’t like “Peter Pan”’ out loud, another copy of a silent film somewhere drops dead.”
• The Fall of the House of Usher (1928): “a fascinating visual variation on the story’s themes”
• Dracula (1931): “You cannot think of Dracula or any other vampire without thinking of Bela Lugosi’s performance.”
• Little Caesar (1931): “the influence of [Edward G.] Robinson’s performance is still being felt today.”
• The Life of Emile Zola (1937): “an interesting watch, but its historical significance is primarily academic.”
• Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938): “an exasperating watch. I started to question if there’s a way the NFR can reverse their decision”
• Porky in Wackyland (1938): “a good reminder that cartoons shouldn’t always obey real-world physics and logic.”
• Why We Fight (1943-1945): “an indispensable account of [World War II] while it was in progress”
• The Living Desert (1953): “proof that you can take any footage and manipulate a narrative through editing and music”
• A Star is Born (1954): “any flaws this film possesses are instantly forgiven by Judy Garland’s performance.”
• Let’s All Go the Lobby (1957): “equals (and in some cases surpasses) the cultural importance of its fellow NFR entries”.
• The Tall T (1957): “more complex and morally ambiguous than other Westerns of the era”, “not one of my more memorable movie-watching experiences for this blog.”
• Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957): “a few laugh-out-loud moments…but…the multiple dated references makes it all age poorly.”
• Five Easy Pieces (1970): “top-notch performances and [an] incisive screenplay, but it is definitely a movie of its time.”
• Multiple SIDosis (1970): “one very unique film and well worth a viewing”.
• Shaft (1971): “manages to still be a fun ride 50 years later”.
• Network (1976): “one of my favorite movies”, “continues to hold a mirror to what our world has become”
• Apocalypse Now (1979): “a one-of-a-kind movie” “Maybe the point is there is no point?”
• Koyaanisqatsi (1982): “the ultimate pattern-finding movie”, “an indelible influence on American filmmaking.”
• Sherman’s March (1986): “tows the line between fact and fiction quite effectively…but 2 ^1/2 hours of this?”
• Goodfellas (1990): “More like ‘Greatfellas’, am I right?”

Okay, now I’ve covered every NFR entry from the 20th century. Happy? Up next: 2001: An NFR Odyssey. Happy viewing, and keep taking care of each other.

Tony

Seriously, this is the photo the director wanted to name this film instead of a word. More on this later.

The Plot: The hardest thing I’ll ever have to write for this blog is a description of “Koyaanisqatsi”. The film is 86 minutes of wordless footage presented without context or narration, set to an invigorating Philip Glass score. The film begins with footage of the natural world, but quickly pivots to mankind destroying nature to create cities and skyscrapers. Through time-lapse, slow-motion, and any other camera trick you can think of, we witness humans in big American cities…existing: driving on the freeway, walking down a busy street, eating lunch, or simply looking into the camera. Director Godfrey Reggio purposefully avoids telling you what to take away from this movie, other than the translation of this film’s title: a Hopi word meaning “a crazy life”, “life in turmoil”, “life out of balance”, “life disintegrating”, and “a state of life that calls for another way of living”.

Why It Matters: The NFR calls the film “so lyrically unusual that it nearly defies description.” The write-up salutes director Reggio and composer Glass, and makes comparisons to fellow NFR entries “Manhatta” and “A Bronx Morning”.

But Does It Really?: While it took me a minute to get into “Koyaanisqatsi”, ultimately I dug it. We as humans are designed to search for patterns, and this is the ultimate pattern-finding movie. Each shot is so well composed and each visual so striking that it must mean something. My personal take was that this is a film about human destruction, of land and of ourselves. We are the life out of balance, and the film’s suggestion of our unsustainable world has only been proven more and more prescient in the last 40 years. “Koyaanisqatsi” may hit the “aesthetic significance” part of the NFR requisite harder than any other movie on the list, leaving an indelible influence on American filmmaking. 

Everybody Gets One: Godfrey Reggio’s filmmaking style makes a lot more sense once you learn that he spent 14 years taking a vow of silence training with the Catholic Christian Brotherhood. After becoming disillusioned with the monks, he focused on social activism, and was inspired to try filmmaking after seeing Luis Buñuel’s “Los Olvidados” (another “yeah, that scans” moment in my research). In the ‘70s he founded the Institute for Regional Education and collaborated with the ACLU on a public interest campaign about the invasion of privacy. During this production, Reggio met with cinematographer Ron Fricke, and the two started collaborating on a film after the campaign ended. Over the course of four years (with a few stops and starts when money ran out), Reggio and Fricke filmed anything and everything across 14 different states “without regard for message or political content.” 

Wow, That’s Dated: The modern city footage is a lovely slice of ‘80s corporate America, right before digital technology and home computers changed everything. And like the rest of America in the early ‘80s, “Koyaanisqatsi” has Pac-Man Fever! (Ms. Pac-Man to be specific).

Title Track: Godfrey Reggio didn’t want to give the film a title to avoid influencing anyone’s viewing experience, proposing the title be an image, specifically the J. R. Eyerman photo from Life magazine posted above. Once Reggio was told the title needed to be a word, he chose koyaanisqatsi because it “had no baggage culturally”. In perhaps the oddest title song we’ll ever get on this blog, the word koyaanisqatsi is sung throughout the movie by the Philip Glass Ensemble, with soloist Albert de Ruiter hitting those low, guttural notes. Side note: Although the Eyerman photo wasn’t used, there is a shot in the final film of an audience in a movie theater that is set up almost identically to that photo.

Seriously, Oscars?: There were a few critics organizations that gave “Koyaanisqatsi” prizes for Best Documentary or Best Score, but the film received zero recognition from the Academy. As of this writing, Philip Glass has gone 0 for 3 with his subsequent score nominations, and Godfrey Reggio has never been nominated. For the record: the 1983 Oscars gave Best Documentary Feature to Emile Ardolino’s “He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin’”. 

• Philip Glass had already been composing for orchestras, operas, theater, and even a few episodes of “Sesame Street” when he composed the score for “Koyaanisqatsi”. Glass is one of those composers whose style is so distinct and original that I can only describe this score as very…Philip Glass. Serving as the film’s only soundtrack, Glass’ score threads the needle of creating an emotional impact without dictating how the audience should feel. No easy task, and the result turns an already memorable film into an unforgettable one.
• Admittedly it took me a bit to get into this film. As I watched shot after shot of canyons, dunes, bat caves, and countless other representation of the four elements, I started to wonder if I was missing something. Was I supposed to get high before watching this? Once I stopped overthinking things and met the film where it was, things started to click. I particularly enjoyed the time lapse of clouds mixed with slow motion ocean waves. I see the correlation.
• After the film’s first movement, we proceed to my destruction thesis with nature being destroyed to make way for power plants, electrical infrastructure, and other manmade ways to harness our natural resources for our own use. We also get our first sightings of people, seen here relaxing on a beach located right next to a power plant.

• Guests of “Koyaanisqatsi” fly United Airlines! You’re flying the Friendly Skies! It’s very telling when all I see is a plane on a runway near a congested freeway and I immediately think “That must be LAX”. And I was right!

• As we move into the big cities I can see the “Manhatta” comparisons with the overhead shots of New York City skyscrapers. Shout out to Hillary Harris, whose 1975 film “Organism” similarly chronicled human behavior within the confines of Lower Manhattan, and got her hired as an additional cinematographer for this film’s New York sequences.
• What is it about human nature that we enjoy watching stuff blow up? I’m trying to focus on this movie’s themes and find myself distracted by its “When Buildings Collapse” segment. There is something oddly profound about watching something get destroyed.
• Tonight on “What’s Playing on Broadway Back Now”: Christopher Reeve in the Lanford Wilson play “Fifth of July”, which puts that shot’s production somewhere in fall 1980/winter 1981.
• In a weird way, I found a lot of the big city footage as beautiful as anything from the nature opening. Part of that is the shot compositions and film processing, which gives everything this attractive green glow, but part of that is also just watching things be. Those time-lapse shots of the freeway are gorgeous to watch, with the quick stop and start of blurry headlights evocative of fireflies. It’s like a dance.

• Speaking of compositions: This is the only movie I can think of where every shot could double as the movie’s DVD main menu loop.
• I like when this movie becomes an (un)intentional social experiment. It’s fascinating how many people will opt for the revolving doors when there is a perfectly functional manual door right next to them.
• Having recently moved out of the Bay Area, I was delighted to see footage of downtown San Francisco. There’s a couple shots of people entering a BART station (side note: those automatic turnstiles were only recently updated before I left) and we even get a time lapse ride along the Embarcadero Freeway, which was damaged in the 1989 earthquake and subsequently demolished. Ah, San Francisco, you were so beautiful before the techies moved in.

• My destruction thesis continues to be supported through the end of the movie, with EMTs and firefighters navigating busy city streets, and an extended shot of a rocket launching and exploding, perhaps the “container of ashes” that will fall from the sky according to the Hopi prophecy in the end credits.
• There’s a cacophony of TV soundbites during the end credits, and while hard to decipher, I definitely heard the “Price is Right” ding-ding-ding sound effect when you correctly guess a product’s retail value. If they had thrown in the “losing horn” music cue this movie would have been flawless.

• Outside of the Qatsi trilogy, Godfrey Reggio manages about one new film a decade. His most recent is 2023’s “Once Within a Time”, applying his experimental lens and global cautionary tales to the fantasy genre (though I get the feeling even that description is too limiting to the film).

• Though not his first film score, Philip Glass started to gain more recognition as a film composer thanks to “Koyaanisqatsi”. Glass would go on to score Godfrey Reggio’s subsequent films, as well as the films of Errol Morris and my personal favorite of his scores, Peter Weir’s “The Truman Show” (co-created with Burkhard Dallwitz and Wojciech Kilar).

• “Koyaanisqatsi” is one of those movies that people emulate without knowing it. Whenever you see artfully staged time-lapse footage with a minimalist yet sweeping score, odds are it can be traced back to “Koyaanisqatsi”. Perhaps the last bit of media I expected to include a “Koyaanisqatsi” reference is the trailer for “Grand Theft Auto IV”! 

The Plot: After he loses a bet and has to sell his horse, aging cowboy Pat Brennan (Randolph Scott) hitches a ride on a stagecoach that his friend Rintoon (Arthur Hunnicutt) is driving. Traveling with the newlywed Willard & Doretta Mims (John Hubbard & Maureen O’Sullivan) in tow, the stagecoach is held up at a way-station by Frank Usher (Richard Boone) and his young buck henchmen (Skip Homeier and Henry Silva). Upon learning that Doretta is the daughter of a wealthy local copper mine owner, Frank agrees to holding her ransom rather than simply robbing the stagecoach. While they wait for the money to arrive, Frank takes a liking to Brennan, who is aware that he and the rest of the captives will be killed after the ransom is paid. Can Brennan outwit the bad guys and save the day? And what exactly is a “Tall T”, anyway?

Why It Matters: The NFR’s brief write-up highlights the “deftly stylized” landscape in the film, as well as Boone’s work as “the most memorable of Boetticher’s witty, intelligent villains.” An essay by film distributor Michael Schlesinger is a love letter to Budd Boetticher.

But Does It Really?: Perhaps I set my expectations too high because of the Elmore Leonard connection (I liked “3:10 to Yuma”), but even at 77 minutes it was a chore to get through “The Tall T”. There are those who celebrate “Tall T” for being more complex and morally ambiguous than other Westerns of the era, and granted it is that, but it also felt a bit slight to me. At times the film aims for a gripping character study in the vein of “The Naked Spur”, but never fully hits that mark. Further research shows that “Tall T” made the NFR as representation of Budd Boetticher and his “Ranown Cycle” of Westerns, but without that context I could only take the film as face value, which given my track record for disliking Westerns did not bode well for “Tall T”. Based on the Boetticher/Ranown connection and the film’s uniqueness compared to other ‘50s Westerns, I won’t question the NFR standing for “Tall T”, but this was not one of my more memorable movie-watching experiences for this blog.

Everybody Gets One: Oscar “Budd” Boetticher spent the early 1940s working his way up the studio ladder at Columbia from crew member to first assistant director to director. In 1956, Boetticher got the opportunity to direct “Seven Men from Now”, a Western starring Randolph Scott and written by Burt Kennedy. Although the film was recut against Boetticher’s wishes, he enjoyed the collaboration so much that he quickly reunited with Scott and Kennedy for his next film, “The Tall T”. Also making their sole NFR appearance here is Richard Boone, best known at the time as the star of the TV drama “Medic”, who shortly after “Tall T” would begin a six season run in his most famous role as a gunfighter for hire on the Western “Have Gun – Will Travel”.

Wow, That’s Dated: Although we do have to sit through some chauvinism directed at the film’s sole female character, there are amazingly no slams against Indigenous people in this Western (in fact, no Indigenous people at all). Also, day for night shooting: How I’ve missed you.

Title Track: This film adaptation of “The Captives” needed another title because another film was already registered as “The Captives” (though I couldn’t find a record of any film called “The Captives” being released in the late 1950s). “The Tall Rider” was the film’s working title, with Boetticher changing it to “The Tall T” after the nickname for the Tenvoorde ranch, the way-station the robbery takes place at. Strangely, any dialogue referring to the ranch as “The Tall T” didn’t make the final cut, making the title a bit of a puzzler to the casual moviegoer. Side note: The film’s original trailer (embedded above) claims the T stands for Terror. It does not.

Seriously, Oscars?: No nominations for “The Tall T” from the Oscars or anyone else. Budd Boetticher’s sole Oscar nomination came in 1951 for his story of “Bullfighter and the Lady” (see “Legacy” below for more about Boetticher’s love of bullfighting and matadors).

The Plot: Following the mysterious death of her aloof husband Charles, Regina “Reggie” Lampert (Audrey Hepburn) is informed by CIA administrator Hamilton Bartholomew (Walter Matthau) that her husband stole $250,000 from the OSS during World War II, and was murdered by one of the men he double-crossed to get the money. Staying in a Paris hotel, Reggie receives numerous threats from Charles’ betrayed comrades (Ned Glass, James Coburn, George Kennedy), who believe she has the stolen money. She also receives support from Peter Joshua (Cary Grant), a charming tourist she previously had a flirtation with in the French Alps. Mysteries and identities are unraveled, and nothing is what it seems in this movie once called “the best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made”.

Why It Matters: The NFR gives an overview of the film and its “elegant and sophisticated” stars. An essay by fellow film blogger Michaela Owens focuses on how Reggie uses food as a coping mechanism throughout the movie. I fully understand the irony of what I’m about to say, but man that is a niche film observation.

But Does It Really?: I saw “Charade” for the first time about 15 years ago, but mercifully forgot enough of it that I was charmed all over again on this viewing. “Charade” gets my vote for the last great Classic Hollywood rom-com. The film successfully blends its genres with A+ talent across the board: winning lead performances, a superb script, airtight direction, plus some gorgeous location shooting in Paris. While not as revered as the rest of Grant, Hepburn, and Donen’s respective filmographies, “Charade” is an underrated classic that more than holds up six decades later, and I’m delighted it has found its rightful spot in the NFR.

Shout Outs: Reggie mentions “An American in Paris” while she and Peter walk along the Quai de Montebello. And in a nice bit of fortuitous foreshadowing, Peter references “On the Street Where You Live” from “My Fair Lady” (Audrey Hepburn would be cast in the film version shortly after production wrapped on “Charade”).

Everybody Gets One: Peter Stone got his start writing for television and the theater, but couldn’t get his screenplay “The Unsuspecting Wife” sold anywhere. On the suggestion of his agent (and with assistance from author Marc Behm), Stone adapted the script into a novel, now called “Charade”, had excerpts published in Redbook magazine, and started making the rounds to studios now very interested in the book’s film rights. Stone quickly sold the screenplay to Stanley Donen, and was on set every day for any last-minute changes, calling the production “an absolutely grand experience”.

Wow, That’s Dated: As with any old movie, there’s a lot of analog technology that would have to be completely overhauled if the film were made today (see “Legacy” below for how that didn’t pan out well). Oh, and the $250,000 would be about $4 million in today’s money.

Title Track/Seriously, Oscars?: Despite being a critical and box office hit, “Charade” only received a single Oscar nomination for its title song. Composer Henry Mancini and lyricist Johnny Mercer had won the Best Song Oscar the previous two years for their work in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “Days of Wine and Roses”, but their potential threepeat was denied when the award went to “Call Me Irresponsible”, a song that has more than outlasted the film it came from: the Jackie Gleason comedy “Papa’s Delicate Condition”.

• Another sign of the early ‘60s: Actual location shooting! This movie goes to great lengths to prove that it’s really Audrey and Cary in the French Alps. Shoutout to cinematographer Charles Lang for keeping the cinematography engaging even when there aren’t beautiful French vistas to shoot.

• Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn are so effortlessly charming in this; it’s as if they were set loose on the streets of Paris and the cameras just captured their natural repartee. Our stars’ wonderful chemistry is aided by the fact that the script was written with both of them in mind. Grant and Hepburn are so damn good that I may have to ignore this film’s major Michael Douglas Scale readout. There’s a 25 year age-gap between our romantic leads, a fact that made Grant hesitant to accept the part. He finally agreed when the age difference was written into the script, and the romantic sequences re-written to make Reggie the initiator, not Peter. Also helping matters is that Reggie is never infantilized; she’s an adult in a very adult situation, supported by another (albeit much older) adult. I never thought I’d find an NFR movie that could make me overlook standard Hollywood romantic age gaps, but you did it “Charade”.
• If you’re going to have this much upfront exposition, don’t have it delivered with a very thick French accent. Jacques Marin does his best as Inspector Grandpierre, but I definitely lost a few pertinent details. More exposition gets handed out a bit easier by Walter Matthau in a fun little turn before he struck gold with “The Odd Couple”. Side note: This movie has not one, but three future Best Supporting Actor Oscar winners: Matthau, George Kennedy, and James Coburn.
• My one quibble about the script: If Charles had the $250,000 he stole during the war, why did he auction off all of his belongings for the exact same amount of money? Even if he had already spent the stolen money and was raising the funds to flee the country, why the exact same amount? And doesn’t this all unnecessarily put Reggie in jeopardy? Fortunately, this movie is so charming that I didn’t think about any of this until after the movie was over.
• Our trio of heavies are the right level of threatening for a rom-com/spy thriller hybrid. Ned Glass’ more comedic turn is nicely balanced by Coburn and Kennedy’s menace. And while it’s always nice to see George Kennedy show up on this list, I don’t appreciate that his character’s hook hand furthers the negative association of any “otherness” with villainy. Where’s Harold Russell when you need him?

• The line that got the biggest laugh from me: Peter, upon realizing he and Reggie are walking right next to Notre Dame, “Who put that there?”
• Is it just me or is this French kid Jean-Louis really annoying? I groaned out loud when he returned for the film’s third act. And clearly Jean-Louis’ actor Thomas Chelimsky is doing just fine without my grousing; he’s now a neurologist in Virginia. Also, you’re not hearing things: Jean-Louis is dubbed by a French woman throughout the movie. 
• One of the reasons I feel “Charade” has stayed under the radar all these years is because no one wants to spoil its surprises. There are so many delightful twists and turns in “Charade” that you want to give others the pleasure of discovering them on their own viewing. No spoilers, but what I will say about the film’s ending is that 1) Charles’ murderer falls for the old “villain get distracted while monologuing his motives” trick and 2) I love the face Cary Grant makes during the film’s final scene. I hope that was an outtake that found its way into the final cut.

• Cary Grant liked the screenplay for “Charade” so much that he requested Peter Stone write a draft of his next movie, the 1964 comedy “Father Goose”, which earned Stone an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Grant had tried to get Audrey Hepburn to reunite with him on “Father Goose”, but she was already committed to “My Fair Lady” (which, somewhat ironically, Grant had passed on). Despite their desire to make another movie together, “Charade” was the only time Grant and Hepburn shared the screen before Grant’s retirement in 1966, with Hepburn semi-retiring from films shortly thereafter.

• “Charade” received the remake treatment with 2002’s “The Truth About Charlie”. Despite Jonathan Demme at the helm and a promising early starring role for Thandiwe Newton, “Charlie” falls into the “Stick With the Original” column so many remakes find themselves in. There’s no substitute for Cary Grant, and if there is, it definitely isn’t Mark Wahlberg. Side note: Because “Charlie” used enough plot elements from “Charade”, it was determined that Peter Stone should receive a screenplay credit. Stone opted to be credited under the alias “Peter Joshua”.

The Plot: With music courtesy of pianist Edwin Gershecfski, “Tarantella” is, as described in the opening text, “a swift moving dance presented musically and in linear forms of color”. That’s all well and good, but how is this going to help with my tarantula bite?

Why It Matters: The NFR gives us a rundown of the film and Bute, citing her influence on future filmmakers and animators. An essay by film professor and author Lauren Rabinovitz is a thorough dive into the artistry of Mary Ellen Bute.

But Does It Really?: Even with the amount of experimental animation covered on this blog so far, “Tarantella” stands out for being ahead of its time. With its geometric patterns and avant-garde music, “Tarantella” predates UPA’s animation style by a full decade! Plus, Mary Ellen Bute’s work here can definitely be seen in the films of Sally Cruikshank, Lisze Bechtold, Ayoka Chenzira, and many of the other female animators on this list. A pass for “Tarantella”, but mainly as representation of Mary Ellen Bute and her trailblazing work in experimental animation.

Everybody Gets One: After studying painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and stage lighting at Yale University’s Drama School, Mary Ellen Bute became interested in combing the two to create paintings that were visualization of music. Influenced by Oskar Fischinger (as well as working with inventor Leon Theremin and artist Thomas Wilfred), Bute continued these experiments through animated shorts throughout the 1930s and 1940s. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Bute had no problems with Hollywood, having her films screened at such major movie theaters as Radio City Music Hall in front of many a prestige studio feature.

Title Track: “Tarantella” opens with the definition of tarantella, citing the dance as a supposed Neapolitan remedy for a tarantula bite. The music in “Tarantella” appears to be more rooted in this origin, rather than the more upbeat evolution of the dance I associate with Italian weddings.

Seriously, Oscars?: No Oscar nomination for “Tarantella”. For the record, the winner for Animated Short in 1940 was MGM’s “The Milky Way”, the first time in the category’s history a non-Disney short took the prize.