I am thwarted...

Apparently the gods were not with me this week. Did I forget to make a crucial sacrifice? A magnum of champagne and a celluloid necklace to the goddess Filmenetta? Or maybe just a gram of coke and a sloppy kiss to that naughty old satyr, Bacchus Cinematicus?

Either way, The Sound of Music did not get watched this week. And it was not for lack of trying. We knew we were going to be busy Tuesday night. And even though my darling husband was reluctant to watch one of my favorite movies with me, I knew I could sneak it in somewhere. Wrong!!! We are working on a writing project with our writing partner, and all of a sudden, we have a deadline! Very exciting, but also very harrowing, considering it is barreling towards us at an alarming speed and my husband and I both work 40 hours a week. So we worked every night, and most of Friday (of which we had off). The deadline was met, but the movie remained unwatched.

Undaunted, I packed our copy of The Sound of Music into our weekend bag. We went to visit my parents in Orlando and to go to EPCOT and the Food and Wine Festival. We spent most of Saturday watching the Gophers lose spectacularly to Ohio State, and me sitting on the floor making a glorious mess with paper and rubber cement. (I'll post about that some other day in the future.) In the evening we went to EPCOT and sampled lots of goodies from around the world: spanikopta from Greece; a pint of Strongbow cider from England; kefta and falafel from Morocco; spicy tuna roll and sake from Japan; and some outstanding crawfish etoufee and praline bread pudding from the U.S. (Louisiana had the spotlight this year.) I found out I am not a fan of sake. When we got home we watched the Gators vs. Mississippi State that we tivo'd so my darling husband wouldn't have to miss his precious football. Gators are still undefeated, which is quite impressive. Too bad they're not my alma mater. Gophers don't often strike fear in the hearts of their opponents. In real life or in football.

Sunday morning, I was all prepared to watch the movie. I took the movie out of the bag and ambushed everyone with it. And then to my horror I opened the case to find only the second disc inside! Where was disc #1? I have to admit that we got the movie from the donation bin at the library and had not checked it, a mistake I will surely never make again! I sat there and fumed for about fifteen minutes, and then announced that I was going to Best Buy to buy the stupid movie. It was almost 10 in the morning by that time, and we had to start it soon because we were due to go out to brunch at 1. The Sound of Music is is a loooong movie.

Kosta said he would come with me, so we got dressed, got in the car, and drove the blessedly short distance to Best Buy. It was a few minutes before 10 and they weren't open, so we swung over to the grocery store to pick up essentials. When we got back to Best Buy, it was 10:01 and the parking lot was still very empty. That's when I saw they hours on the door. Monday - Saturday they open at 10... Sundays at 11.

I threw a little tantrum in the parking lot. Just a little one.

Then we went home and watched the Vikings lose a heartbreakingly close one to the Steelers. Yes, my weekend was full of football and nary a Von Trapp.

This morning (Monday) I decided we would watch it tonight. When I got to work I went to check it in the catalog. I work at the biggest branch (collection-wise) in the county. So naturally, we don't own a copy. Naturally.

Shall I try to purchase a copy of said film at lunch?? For once there isn't a Monday night football matchup my husband cares to watch. Will the gods bitch-slap me down again?

Stay tuned to learn if our hapless heroine gets her Austrian groove on this evening.

The French Connection

The French Connection (released October 9, 1971)

Directed by: William Friedkin

Starring: Gene Hackman, Fernando Rey, Roy Scheider, Tony Lo Bianco

Produced by: Philip D'Antoni

Written by: Robin Moore (novel), Ernest Tidyman

Music by: Don Ellis

Cinematography by: Owen Roizman

Distributed by: 20th Century Fox

The French Connection didn’t connect with me

I understand a film in search of realism can be an exciting and rewarding thing to watch if handled with the utmost care. After all, most of us pay good money to enter theaters and be entertained by stories and characters  somewhat  removed from reality. William Friedkin’s, The French Connection sustains a gritty reality to it for 104 minutes, but I wassurprised to discover that after a while, I was less and less entertained.

Ah, look at all the ugly people...

I think it was a combination of things, really. I could have possibly forgiven the filmmakers for their lack of proper lighting, proper makeup for the actors, some less than stellar editing, or even the screeching, discordant soundtrack that was supposed to reflect some sort of edgy jazz theme as trademarks of a daring, edgy director, but all those things taken together just made the film look and sound really less than polished and professional. Yes, I understand that this film was not supposed to look slick, -- but wow! -- I don’t think I’ve ever seen an uglier looking movie. And after a while, I began to find the vulgarity rather tedious.

I think I know now where Martin Scorsese got the overall look for the hoods in his film, Goodfellas. Just check out the scene in the nightclub where Detectives Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman) and Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) are watching the drug kingpins at play with their “womenfolk”. Now that’s a pretty scary looking collection of people. The big hair and the dresses on the ladies still have the power to shock and horrify!

Buddy Russo: a kinder, gentler cop.

Don’t look for much redeeming character traits in the hero of the piece either. Hackman plays tough-guy Doyle without any noticeable concessions to humanity. Even though his aim is to take down the drug lords, one finds his methods odious and his character extremely hard to root for. It’s saying something when Roy Scheider is cast as the kinder, gentler cop.

The justly-famous (for its time) car-chase sequence with the elevated train through the crowded Brooklyn streets has lost a bit of its sting simply because car-chases nowadays are practically a raison d'être to current action directors, and let’s be honest – we’ve all seen a million of them by now. 

Crash!

All these ponderous observations don’t leave me much to applaud when it is all said and done. And I am left with the personal estimation that William Friedkin as a director is over-rated.

As far as naming The French Connection the best picture for 1971, I am left wondering: were things that awful in 1971?

--kak

I’ve Been Called Worse

The French Connection won five academy awards. It gets glowing reviews from every source.  I looked up reviews online and people wax poetic about its dark gritty nature, its exceptional editing, and its amazing writing. Everyone thinks it is the pinnacle of what an American crime film should be. The crème de la crème.

I thought it was skunk brains on a Triscuit.

I know that this essay (which is now indexed by Google!) might make some people angry out there, because I am about to rip this movie a new one. Say what you want, I’ve been called worse.  This is different from The Greatest Show on Earth, because there was a reason (the Red Scare) that such a movie won. The French Connection seemed to have won on its own merit. And it beat out such movies as Fiddler on the Roof, A Clockwork Orange, and The Last Picture Show.

It was almost funny... almost.

I want you to know that when I sat down to watch this movie, I hardly knew anything about it. I hadn’t read anything about it online. I only knew what I had read on the back of the DVD case. I knew I liked Gene Hackman.  (Anyone who can play a blind monk in Young Frankenstein and Lex Luthor is all right in my book.) I knew I liked France. What could be so bad?

The French Connection is the story of two detectives (Doyle and Russo) who stumble upon a huge shipment of drugs coming into the country from France, and they want to nail the bastards who are in on it. I can get behind that.  Nailing crooks is always a fun movie past time. But there was so much wrong with this movie that the basic plot was all that was really right.

Doyle freezes his nuts off.

First off, there was no character development. I felt no connection to “Popeye” Doyle or Buddy Russo. They were two-dimensional. When the movie opens, we know they are cops.  When the movie ends, we know they are cops, and that Doyle is more of a badass than his partner.  I know that they both did a lot of stakeouts in cars, and froze their nuts off hanging around outside hotels, but that’s it. That’s all we know. I don’t know anything about their thoughts, their motivations, or their personalities.  And that made the movie feel flat to me – very Super Mario Brothers.  Strike one.

And Lord, was this picture ugly. Well, the 70’s in general were pretty bad, weren’t they? They started with a big bang, and hideously bled to death for a decade. Clothes, hairstyles, décor, cars, it was all one big, avocado, shaggy mess.  And this movie was no different.  When it first started playing, I believe I said, “Geez, this is a crappy transfer.” But apparently it was made to be that way – stark, grainy, and ugly…just like the streets of New York and the cops that defend them. (*snort*) Even the portions of the film shot in Marseilles, (in France, people) were not pretty. They made the French Riviera ugly too!  Strike two.

Even Marseilles was ugly.

Apparently they were trying to make a statement here. I have a theory as to what that statement is, too. If you think about it, the world was just coming out of the 60’s which was the decade of the musical. West Side Story, My Fair Lady, The Sound of Music, and Oliver all won best picture in the 60’s, and there were many more that came out as well. I wonder if The French Connection and the 1969 winner, Midnight Cowboy weren’t a direct backlash to the colorful almost carnival-like spectacle that a musical often produces. Come one, even West Side Story has gang members doing grand jetés in the streets.  Not exactly gritty.

I felt the writing was confusing. Not only did the script run like a police report, (“We followed them here, then we waited outside for 2 hours, then we followed them there. They ate lunch. We stood across the street and froze. Then we followed them back to the hotel.”) but there was a lot of stuff that I didn’t understand. In the opening scenes of the movie, Doyle and Russo shake down a hood who has been dealing drugs in a bar. Doyle keeps asking him weird questions like, “Did you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?” I found out later from reading about the movie that he was just doing that to throw the guy off guard with crazy questions.  How the hell was I supposed to know that? Was I just supposed to intuitively figure that out?

Strike three: the movie made me feel dumb. And it was full of stupid lines like this:

DOYLE

Apparently these guys talk like this.

Whatta you say we wait and give him

a tail?

RUSSO

Give who a tail?

DOYLE

The greaser with the blonde.

RUSSO

What for -- you wanna play Hide the

Salami with his old lady?

Who talks like this? Do people really talk like this? Please tell me people don’t talk like this.

It's hard to look tough in a LeMans.

There was a badass car chase, although probably not as much fun as Steve McQueen’s in Bullitt. A car chase is made cooler by the car you do it in. McQueen had a Mustang.  (Heh. James Bond had a damn tank in Goldeneye.) Poor old Doyle had a crappy ugly brown Pontiac. However, that the car chase was one of the highlights of the film, and I did gasp in a few places, and dig my nails into my palm – especially when the lady with the baby carriage pops up in front of him.

So the movie gets three strikes from me. In baseball, that means you’re out. I don’t know what that means in the movies. It probably isn’t good though.

All right, I’ve said my piece. You are welcome to 5 minutes of rebuttal. And….begin!

~Anna

Up next: The Sound of Music (1965)

Mrs. Miniver

Mrs. Miniver (released June 4, 1942)
Directed by: William Wyler
Starring: Greer Garson, Walter Pidgeon, Teresa Wright, Dame May Whitty, Reginald Owen, Henry Travers, Richard Ney, Henry Wilcoxon
Produced by: Sidney Franklin
Written by: Jan Struther (book), George Froeschel, James Hilton, Claudine West, Arthur Wimperis
Music by: Herbert Stothart
Cinematography by: Joseph Ruttenberg
Distributed by: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

K.I.S.H.

Keep it Simple, Hollywood

I really like old movies. There is something straightforward about them: what you see is what you get. Today’s moviegoer is too sophisticated for his or her own good.  They expect fancy plot compositions, bigger and better special effects, and unexpected plot twists. And it is getting harder and harder to fool the audience.  Pulp Fiction, Memento, The Crying Game, The Sixth Sense, The Matrix, all of these have set the bar in Hollywood for the next generation. But let’s rewind for a minute and focus on a time when we didn’t have to try to dupe the audience with a lot of cleverness.

Mrs. Miniver was the Best Picture winner for 1942, and the United States was poised to enter World War II in Europe. I know my husband is going to talk all about the war, because that’s his thing, so I’ll leave him to that. What I want to focus on is the story itself: about a family trying to hang together through an extremely difficult time.  The Miniver family lives on the Thames on the outskirts of London, in what they dub a “middle class household.” Oh please, if that is middle class, then I grew up poor white trash. The house was huge, they had 2 servants, for crying out loud. The Miniver family consisted of Mr. Miniver (Walter Pidgeon), Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson), adult son Vincent (Richard Ney), and young children Judy (Clare Sandars), and Toby (Christopher Severn).  I found out from my husband after we watched the film that Greer Garson actually married Richard Ney, her onscreen son after this film. He was only 11 years her junior, but the marriage didn’t last long. Apparently he was abusive and made some disparaging remarks about her age in public. Jackass. On the bright side it ruined his career.

This movie was also adapted from a book, although it was not from a true novel. The author, Jan Struther, originally wrote about Mrs. Miniver in a newspaper column.  These columns were based largely on her own life, and became wildly successful in the face of World War II. When they were collected and published, they became popular in the United States as well, and Struther actually did a book tour after the book’s release. Both Churchill and FDR credit the movie as being the tipping point of American sympathy and our hastening to go to war in Europe.  And they didn’t even have to show any blood.

And even while the movie didn’t have a tightly written plot, I still enjoyed watching it.  It was almost like watching a series of newspaper articles – little vignettes woven together to create a greater picture, and that was satisfying. Over these smaller stories looms the threat of war, which is woven in several places: Vin enlists with the RAF, Mr. Miniver runs his boat back and forth across the channel saving soldiers from Dunkirk, and of course, the family eventually must take to their air-raid shelter at night as the Battle of Britain roars overhead. After hearing what falling bombs actually sound like, I now understand why my uncle never went to the fireworks on the 4^th of July – they are eerily similar.

I haven’t mentioned the main love story of the film yet. It is between young Vincent (Vin) Miniver and Carol Beldon, who is the daughter of Lady Beldon, of Beldon Manor. They of course hate each other at first, but fall in love, and when Vin enlists in the RAF, you just know that he is going to die. Hmmm, I guess old movies do have plot twists after all! Anyway, the most interesting thing is that I found Carol (played by Teresa Wright), bears a striking resemblance to Ellen Page, star of Juno, and the recently released, Whip It.  What do you think? You really have to see her talk and see her facial expressions mannerisms to get the full effect, but I think some of it comes through in the pictures.

And finally, a word on the vile demon child TOBY! How did they find the ugliest child on earth and why would they immortalize him on film? I think he must be the spawn of a human woman and one of those flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. Ugly little thing, and a total spaz to boot.

~Anna

“MRS. MINIVER”

BOMBS AND ROSES

William Wyler and the folks at MGM did not for a minute even try to hide the fact that with the United States now at war (the Battle of Midway and this film opened on the same day) the American people needed some good solid propaganda to get them in the mood to concurrently face Hitler and the Japanese warlords. The U.S.’s direct involvement in the European war was still several months away (Operation Torch – The Invasion of North Africa, Nov ’42) but in the meantime an uplifting film featuring the long-suffering English, hunkering down and taking whatever the evil Hun could dish out at them was perfect fodder for Hollywood. In fact, Hollywood was handed a plum (or a rose?) as they bought the rights from authoress Jan Struther, who created the fictional character of Mrs. Miniver who first appeared in a newspaper series dating back to 1937.

Amid the bucolic scenes of English country life (reminiscent to me of the shots in Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion) we meet the Minivers, your typical mid-level British family who slowly come to realize the maelstrom of world events is about to come crashing down atop their beautiful country home, “Starlings” located somewhere outside of London with the peaceful meandering Thames in their backyard. However, before the calamitous event takes place, we are made privy to another war in smaller scale taking place in the Miniver home. Vincent – Vin (played by Richard Ney), their oldest child of three has just returned from Oxford where his head is stuffed with ideas about the odious class divisions in English society. He has it out with a neighbor’s daughter, Carol Beldon (Theresa Wright) a member of the upper class he so despises but in true Hollywood fashion, as the film plays out, falls head-over-heels for her.

There is another subplot brewing in the form of an annual flower competition held in the village whose first prize for most beautiful rose is taken every year by Carol’s aristocratic grandmother, Lady Beldon (May Whitty). It is a forgone conclusion that she will win it this year again just because she is landed gentry and wins it every year, but the introduction of an outstanding rose, grown by the village stationmaster and church bell-ringer, James Ballard (Henry Travers) adds to the complications as he has decided to enter it in the competition. In the film’s first scene, we see him offering to name the flower after Mrs. Miniver (Greer Garson). It is the perfect allegory as Kay Miniver is offered up to audiences as the quintessential English lady: beautiful, sophisticated, charming, reserved and levelheaded. She is everyman’s ideal of what a proper woman and mother should be. (Her one fault I will elucidate on later.) And what flower most represents the English than that of the rose?

Beneath all this polite melodrama is the running theme of class division in England and how world events – i.e., the War, was swiftly breaking down hundreds of years of aristocratic/commoner partition. I suppose when you’re hunkering down in a foxhole, there are no atheists, nor for that fact, lords or ladies. Everyone’s in it together. I am not sure how much of this class division in England was known to American audiences at the time, but if Hollywood filmmakers could make people of the U.S. understand what challenges the English were facing at the time, it would possibly be conceived as a sympathetic and good thing.

As far as the legendary British “stiff upper lip” attitude goes, the film does an admirable job highlighting that trait. Kay Miniver’s quiet disarming of a Luftwaffe pilot who was shot down and forced himself into her house at Lugar-point to steal some bread and clothes was supposed to show your prototypical English courage.

I similarly enjoyed the fantasy featuring her husband Clem Miniver, played by Walter Pigeon (with a distinct lack of a British accent) as he calmly(!) evaluates the damage done to his partially bombed-out house while puffing on his pipe and murmuring asides to himself. Yes, this movie is a total flight of the imagination, but one must see it in the context of its times. The British had to be shown to be courageous and enduring and holding the line against the Germans until the Arsenal of Democracy could arrive. Winston Churchill had glowing things to say about this film precisely because he understood the power of its message.

Even though you know this film is aiming directly for your heart, one marvels at the power of the finale at the flower competition when Lady Beldon unselfishly gives away her first place award and bestows the top prize to the Miniver Rose instead. Even more emotional is the scene where she awards herself second prize and the crowd stands and gives her a rousing ovation. It is a scene that is certain to create a lump in your throat. Soon after though, the real tear-jerking begins and leads way to the uplifting conclusion with the vicar’s powerful sermon ringing in our ears. Given the times, I can easily see why the Academy swooned over this picture.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the creepy little kid, Toby. The youngest of the Miniver clan, this strange little character blurts out all sorts of disturbing lines and looks rather half-crazed with his wild, staring eyes and unkempt hair. I enjoyed making fun of him throughout the film. Sorry, it’s the ne’er-do-well in me, and I found it odd that Mr. & Mrs. Miniver, in all other aspects a perfect screen couple, allows this unpleasant little tyke to act up the way he did without any hint of chastisement.

One last thought: the title is something of an enigma to me. Does it refer to the title character, or perhaps the flower that was named after her?

--kak

Up next: The French Connection (1971)

Kramer vs. Kramer

Kramer vs. Kramer (released December 17, 1979)

Directed by: Robert Benton

Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Meryl Streep, Justin Henry, Jane Alexander

Produced by: Richard Fischoff, Stanley R. Jaffe

Written by: Avery Corman (novel), Robert Benton

Music by: Paul Gemignani, Herb Harris, John Kander, Erma E. Levin, Roy B. Yokelson, Antonio Vivaldi

Cinematography by: Nestor Almendros

Distributed by: Columbia Pictures

A “Small Film” in Name Only

I thought the one of most astounding aspects of the 1979 Best Picture winner, Kramer vs. Kramer was that the story itself didn’t degenerate into the farcical. I might be getting too cynical in my advancing age, but in remaking this film I could very well imagine today’s version having Billy Kramer, the child, prattling on with pages and pages of much-too-clever, mature dialog, and contain a courtroom scene that would play out much longer and display much more meanness between the characters than the scene would ordinarily demand. Indeed, the beauty of the film was the balanced portrayal of how painful divorce can be for all involved. Believe it or not there was a certain amount of subtleness and deftness to this film which I think is lost on a lot of filmmakers today. It seems in movies nowadays there has to be an overabundance of just about everything, be it plot devices, character traits, edits, you name it. Kramer vs Kramer was as the producers themselves remarked: “a small movie” and thank goodness they kept it that way.

Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep in their roles as the feuding couple brought an amazing level of realism to the story, but the most challenging thing about the film was in casting eight-year old Justin Henry as the child caught in the middle. The producers scored a coup with that decision. Without his truly believable acting, the film would have not had the resonance it otherwise enjoys to this day. The story develops naturally as a new life is imposed upon father and son after the separation and divorce. It’s not always pretty, but it rings true and I must admit the scene at the hospital where Billy gets stitched up after a fall in the park as too painful to watch (it is too reminiscent of a similar event involving my young nephew).

Kramer vs. Kramer is a movie that explores the raw emotions involved in family break-ups and because it does so in such a faithful and unbiased way, it remains a powerful film and one that justifiably earned its awards.

--kak

“Don’t Leave Me, Mommy…”

Oh God, I had no idea this movie was going to be so wrenching. I knew vaguely it was about divorce, and I thought it was going to be an ugly courtroom battle. And there was an ugly courtroom battle, but it was only a small part of the movie. The rest of the movie was taken up by Dustin Hoffman and Justin Henry digging my heart out of my chest with a spoon. There was no weeping, but there was definite moaning and wailing directed at the TV, and maybe a tear or two.

Dustin Hoffman plays Ted Kramer, an ad executive who is making it big in NYC and is on the cusp of greatness. He lands the biggest account of his life, and when he arrives home to share the news with his wife, Joanna (played by the amazing Meryl Streep) she announces she’s leaving him. And not only is she leaving, but she is also leaving behind their five-year-old son, Billy.  She says as she is getting on the elevator that she doesn’t think she is any good for him, and he would be better off without her. Those are some powerful words. And I sat there wondering, “What kind of woman would leave her child?” I found out later, and it wasn’t the answer I was expecting.

Ted is left alone with a son he barely knows and has to care for him when he is used to spending 10+ hours a day at the office. Reality hits him hard, but I was very gratified to see his character man up and do the right thing. He learns how to do all the things necessary to be mother and father to Billy, and he gets his priorities in order. There is some comedy in Ted trying to learn how to take care of his son, making jury-rigged French toast, and such, but mostly it was pretty serious.

And in the courtroom where Joanna and Ted battle for the custody of Billy we discover why Joanna felt she must leave Billy behind. Joanna had gone through a terrible depression that had left her so low and stripped of any self-worth she truly thought she was harming her son by staying and being a mother to him. After she sought therapy she was able to get her head on straight and realize she wasn’t a terrible person. When Ted and Joanna tell their stories before the court, they both realize just how hard the other person had it, which surprised them. Ted was shocked that Joanna was on the edge of a nervous breakdown and he had never noticed, and Joanna never realized what Ted had to go through trying to tell Billy where his mother had gone.

Included on the disc was a small documentary on the making of the movie, which I watched after we viewed the film. It was probably done 10 years ago, and was interesting to see what Justin Henry looked like as an adult. But the most interesting comment to me was one Meryl Streep made about it being such a small movie. And I know what she means. Today we have movies that are epic in their scope and have huge casts of characters, elaborate sets, and spend millions and millions of dollars. Hell, DeMille did that in the 50’s with his The Greatest Show on Earth. But this movie is small – it has only a few characters, and it focuses on what would seemingly be a small subject: divorce. Everyone knows the divorce rate is 50%. People do it all the time. And yet someone went to the trouble to make a movie about the intimate landscape of divorce and exactly what it did to a specific family. And I think that was why this film was such a success. Everyone on some level can relate to it.

Whether you come from a broken home or not, you are probably close to someone who does. I myself am lucky in that my parents will be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary in November. But some of my best friends across my life have parents who were divorced (or should have been), and seeing this movie was like having a ringside seat as to exactly what that is like. For those of us who have experienced it first hand as an adult or a child, I am sure it was even more of an identifying experience.

This movie showed me that the smallest, most mundane things about life can be the most riveting, if we can just present them the right way. If the entire human population can identify with your story, and you have a crackerjack list of actors, you really can’t go wrong. It can be small, and it can be spare, and it can move you to tears and break your heart because you know it is authentic.

~Anna   

Up next: Mrs. Miniver (1942)