Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘Nostalghia’

Nostalghia was Andrei Tarkovsky’s penultimate film, and the 1983 movie, made for Italian television, has the tone and scope of a work of contemplation and austere topicality, not at all uncommon for an artist in his or her later portions of life. The notion of this frequent tendency, to broach issues of dire seriousness in concluding creations, doesn’t work seamlessly with Tarkovsky, though. To begin with, while Nostalghia may have been his second-to-last feature, he was only 51 at the time (he tragically passed away just 3 years and one film later). In addition, this type of weighty subject matter had been common thematic territory for Tarkovsky since his first films in the early 1960s. And though only having made seven feature films, each approach was a spiritual level of visual, verbal, and atmospheric transcendence not regularly attempted by many other filmmakers, save for the likes of Bresson, Dreyer, and Bergman, and even they at least started with some frivolity. While Nostalghia is distinctly divergent from some of Tarkovsky’s previous works (certainly his shooting out of the USSR was a crucial factor), it is, nevertheless, unmistakably one of his own, a fine addition to his remarkable, though limited, body of work.

Nostalghia’s basic plot is established clearly and early. This sets the broad narrative wheels in motion while allowing time for the characters and the film to carry on with more substantial concerns beyond a surface story. Andrei Gorchakov (Oleg Yankovskiy) is a Russian writer traveling through Italy to research the life and work of an Italian composer. Married with children, he is conflicted by his growing attachment to his traveling companion and translator, Eugenia (Domiziana Giordano). Her romantic intentions are more obvious than his relatively internalized feelings, but in any case, it’s the cause of initial friction when the two arrive in a small Italian town. The film’s next major narrative thrust, the more significant one, comes when the two encounter Domenico (Bergman regular Erland Josephson, who would star in Tarkovsky’s final film, The Sacrifice). Townsfolk ridicule the old man, for some time ago, fearing an impending apocalyptic event (a prime plot point of The Sacrifice), Domenico kept his family locked up for 7 years. Once freed, his family fled and he was left alone, deemed crazy and potentially dangerous. There doesn’t seem to have been much attempt to understand his reasoning, but Andrei is less quick to judge. What’s more, he’s in some way inspired, or at least intrigued, by Domenico’s conviction. Where others see madness, Andrei sees (and hopes for) faith.

Here begins Nostalghia’s more abstract interests. While these story elements infuse the duration of the film, for the most part, the primary ideas, actions, and images are expressly preoccupied by larger dilemmas pertaining to memories, fears, and spiritual voids. Upon first arriving in the town, Tarkovsky’s visual magnificence as manifest in natural exteriors is readily apparent. A foggy, damp majesty sweeps around the characters and envelops the screen. Anyone familiar with Tarkovsky’s films from Ivan’s Childhood onward knows that weather and the natural elements are of major aesthetic importance. The climate is literally and cinematically one of somberness. Rain, or the remnants of, soaks through nearly every frame, exteriors and, in some cases, interiors alike — “Water is a mysterious element,” said Tarkovsky, “a single molecule of which is very photogenic.”

Eugenia enters a church, where a devotion to initiate childbirth is underway. She speaks with a priest but she’s awkwardly out of place when surrounded by such belief (she can’t even kneel). This is where we first encounter some of the film’s religious application, and for the first time, one also sees common Tarkovsky compositions of observation; she’s not there to pray, she’s there “just to have a look.” Be it through the point of view of his characters, or just a general position of authorial commentary, lingering gazes of contemplation signal the thoughts and feelings of Eugenia (in this case) and assist in guiding the spectator toward the film’s own deliberations. This observational positioning continues throughout the film, moving back and forth between vantage points owned by the characters and unattached views resulting from Tarkovsky’s lateral tracks and slow dollies forward.



The emphasis on the written word, particularly poetry (Tarkovsky’s father was a well-regarded and quite famous poet), alludes to another of the film’s preoccupations, that of translating texts and, subsequently, cultures. Can an Italian ever really understand Russian poems or novels? Conversely, how can a Russian fully grasp someone like Dante? As much on Tarkovsky’s mind as Andrei’s (the director was, after all, working for the first time away from home), this question boils down to a difficulty in understanding. Tarkovsky said the film “is about the impossibility of people living together without really knowing one another … there is an aspect of the film … concerning the impossibility of importing or exporting culture.” This carries over to Domenico, and Andrei’s attempts to come to terms with what the man did and why. In the same way that one tries to understand a culture and a country through its art, Andrei seeks to make sense of Domenico’s seemingly inexplicable actions. This is where the titular notion of the film is most prescient. As Tarkovsky stated, “I wanted to speak about that which is called ‘nostalgia,’ but I mean the word in its Russian sense, that is to say, a fatal disease. I wanted to show psychological traits typically Russian … The Russian term is difficult to translate: it could be compassion, but it’s even stronger than that. It’s identifying oneself with the suffering of another man, in a passionate way.”

These attempts at a clear personal or cultural understanding, on the part of the character Andrei and the filmmaker Tarkovsky, are complicated by Nostalghia’s multifaceted overlay of audio/visual construction. Like most of Tarkovsky’s work, Nostalghia progresses slowly, often holding a shot much longer than is normally the custom in today’s cinema (certainly in America), with only gradually perceptible shifts in light or camera movement. Elsewhere, disembodied voices discuss characters and actions, yet it’s not always fully clear who is speaking or, at least at first, who or what they’re speaking about. Tarkovsky’s graceful and supremely controlled tracking shots bring people in and out of frame, at times tracing the path of a particular character, at times simply scanning the territory. Poetic musings further add to the intricate patchwork of aural components.

Visually, aside from the basic veneer of lushly soggy settings, Tarkovsky’s exceptional skill at composition gives Nostalghia a dominant and continual beauty. Every frame, if stopped, is a still photo of tremendous splendor. It’s a quality obvious to see yet difficult to explain when a filmmaker is able to craft such carefully executed imagery. Like Stanley Kubrick (a former photographer whose similarly meticulous arrangements are frequently breathtaking), Tarkovsky’s Polaroid photos give the same impressions as his films; perhaps this talent is derived from this photogenic pastime? With the recently released Kino-Lorber Blu-ray of Nostalghia, this striking imagery is more prominent than it had ever been before on home video. (The quality of the visual and audio transfer had better be good, as the disc offers nothing else in the way bonus features. Not that they’re necessary, but when compared to Criterion’s Ivan’s Childhood and Solaris, a few additions would have been nice; Kino-Lorber’s release of The Sacrifice was similarly bare-bones, but did contain the documentary Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.) As he did with Solaris, Tarkovsky also shifts to sepia-toned sequences, here in the times of memory or dream (or fantasy). It’s not always apparent what sequences fall under what category, and at times, these scenes overlap with sights and sounds from the actual events of the individuals’ real life.




Water has already been mentioned, but with Nostalghia, the elemental opposite occurs with some frequency and, presumably, significance. Fire, which first beautifully illuminated the church interior at the start of the film, by the end emerges during the two final scenes in pivotal though inconclusive ways. The first involves Domenico and a particularly shocking performance upon a statue. The last involves Andrei as he struggles to cross a drained pool without extinguishing the flame of a candle he’s holding. This latter sequence suggests a ritualistic test of sorts, a challenge that ultimately, when accomplished, leads to a sacred triumph yet also to Andrei’s apparent demise. Without making it explicit, Tarkovsky seems to be making a connection between death and fire, in opposition to water and life. “Our life is a metaphor, from the beginning until the end,” he has said. “Everything that surrounds us is a metaphor.” With this on his mind, it’s little wonder that so many of Andrei Tarkovsky’s films contained images if not entire sequences that seemed to be about more than just what they were simply showing. Reoccurring visual motifs point to narrative components that dictate something other than a momentary glance. And this is one of the joys with Tarkovsky’s work — frequently bewildering at first, if given the time and attention, mysteries unravel as further ambiguities are revealed, and, as in the case of Nostalghia, this fluctuation results in an extraordinary viewing experience.

‘Sunrise’

William Fox had seen Faust, Nosferatu, and The Last Laugh, and on the basis of these German masterworks, he brought their creator, F.W. Murnau, to Hollywood. What he got was a truly distinct cinematic vision, which was what he had in mind: something to set a few Fox features apart from the other studios’ output. What he probably didn’t expect was just how much of that “artsy” European touch he was going to get with Murnau on contract. Were American audiences going to go for this type of movie, with its symbolism, melodious structure, and overtly self-conscious style? At any rate, Murnau’s first picture at Fox was one to remember. Sunrise, from 1927, is one of the greatest of all films. It is a touching, beautiful, and artistically accomplished movie, one of the best ever made, and unlike anything to come out of the studio system. And now, available on a new Blu-ray/DVD combo, the film looks great and can be viewed alongside bonus features including a commentary, outtakes, and restoration notes.

Born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe in 1888, Murnau, “the greatest film director the Germans have ever known,” according to Lotte Eisner, changed his last name to the town near where he met the Blue Rider group, an assemblage of avant-garde artists. Following World War I, and with a theatrical background that included work with the legendary Max Reinhardt, Murnau set his sights on the movies. Expressionistic visuals and fantastical stories of magic, mystery, and the macabre haunted German screens during the late 1910s and into the ’20s, and Murnau was in on this early with films like The Blue Boy, The Head of Janus, or The Two-Faced Man – a classic example of the doppelganger (a common thematic device of the period) – and The Haunted Castle. Then came an astonishing string of films, all bearing the director’s noteworthy knack for cinematic flair. Murnau’s visual tricks and rich mise-en-scene engrossed the spectator with scene after scene of filmic inventiveness. Following the influential Nosferatu in 1922, other stellar films of awe-inspiring visual ingenuity and imagination surged forth. There was Phantom, also in 1922, and The Last Laugh in 1924 – one of his most remarkable achievements — and Tartuffe (1925) and Faust (1927), the latter considered the pinnacle of German silent production at Ufa studios. In these, there is a full range of technical virtuosity, from special effects to elaborate camera maneuvers to massive sets.

Frustrated at Ufa, Murnau was lured to Hollywood where he went to work at Fox, directing three films: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 4 Devils (1928), and City Girl (1930). Murnau’s artistic ambitions had to be held in check with these latter titles, but with Sunrise, he was able to pull out all the stops.

The story is simple, as are its characterizations. Sunrise is largely dependent on a sense of the film being relevant to anyone, applicable the world over. An early intertitle indicates as such: “This song … is of no place and every place. You might hear it anywhere, at any time.” The song is “sometimes bitter, sometimes sweet.” In other words, not unlike King Vidor’s The Crowd a year later, this story and these people were designed to have a sense of universal commonality.



Anonymity informs the three primary characters. The Man (George O’Brien) is tempted by the devious Woman from the City (Margaret Livingston) to not just leave but kill his wife (Janet Gaynor). Life is better in the (also anonymous) city, declares Livingston’s character: it’s exciting, fun, and not nearly as drab as The Man’s current rural existence (the country town is also never identified). Indeed, The Man and The Wife have landed on hard times. Their farm is falling apart, their animals have been sold, and they have little money. The set design bares this out; stark, unadorned interiors give the impression of poverty and a dire lack of means.

Gaynor’s character is plain and unglamorous (much has been made of her poor wig, fitting more like a shower cap, which holds back her flowing head of hair). By contrast, The Woman from the City, first scantily clad, then shown wearing all black, is a classic temptress in her appearance and demeanor. The Man is weak-willed and impressionable as The Woman from the City makes a strong case; an early special-effects sequence highlights the city’s razzle-dazzle. But could he actually kill his wife? The Woman from the City suggests drowning. The Man’s conflict and inner turmoil weigh him down (literally, as Murnau apparently had O’Brien wear weights in his shoes to give him a lumbering, menacing gait). It’s no spoiler to say that he doesn’t end up murdering his wife, as a majority of the picture concerns their path to marital recovery. An ironic twist brings the couple to the very city of enticement, where visual signifiers of urban stimulation and terror bombard them: lights, movement, traffic, people. This stylized yet critical look at an urban milieu was clearly a carry-over from Murnau’s homeland, German cinema during the 1920s doing much to delve into the construction and composition of increasingly modern city life.



This wasn’t the only remnant of Murnau’s former filmmaking territory. Berliner Rochus Gliese did the extraordinary art direction and Carl Mayer (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Last Laugh, Tartuffe, and many others) wrote the scenario, which is available to view here, along with Murnau’s notes. And while cinematographers Charles Rosher and Karl Struss were London- and New York-born, respectively, there’s more than a little expressionistic influence in Sunrise; their work on the film would win an Oscar at the Academy’s first ceremony in 1929. An impressively mobile camera (something Murnau was no stranger to utilizing) flows and drifts with airy smoothness; elaborate crane and tracking shots convey a surprising range of mobility. One night sequence in a fog-shrouded field has the camera first following O’Brien from behind. It then moves to his side, then to his front as he continues walking. He exits the frame to the left as the camera pushes forward, stops at The Woman from the City, holds, and he enters screen left. This type of cinematic choreography is stunning. Similarly, the optical effects in Sunrise, all done in-camera, coupled with the set-design, blend lyrical naturalism with a heightened filmic expressiveness. Forced perspective, multiple exposures, and the use of miniatures: Sunrise is a virtual textbook of visual manipulation. Cinematographer John Bailey provides the audio commentary to the disc, and he speaks informatively about the technical side of the film, discussing how shots were, or might have been, achieved.

Two cameras were used in making Sunrise, and subsequently, two versions of the film exist. The American release was an early Fox feature boasting new sound technology, the Fox Movietone sound-on-film system, so it needed room for a soundtrack. The export release was silent. The two extant versions not only contained occasionally different compositions and editing choices (the European version is somewhat shorter), they were released with different aspect ratios. For those interested in noting the differences, each version is available on this Blu-ray/DVD release. In both cases, there was still no dialogue, just a recorded score and a few sound effects in the domestic print. Murnau, however, was never a fan of intertitles (his The Last Laugh was famous for not having a single one, save for an insert of a note the main character reads). By the end of Sunrise, titles are sparse and essentially irrelevant, so much simply — though by no means effortlessly — expressed via the staging, the lighting, the camera, and the performances; Gaynor would win the first ever best actress Oscar, for this film as well as two Frank Borzage features from the same year, 7th Heaven and Street Angel.

Sunrise itself would win one of two best picture Academy Awards given at that premiere ceremony — for “Unique Artistic Contribution,” a category never again acknowledged. This is just as well. With Sunrise as the first recipient, it would have been all downhill from there anyway.

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project - Part 2

The three titles rounding out The Criterion Collection set showcasing six films preserved and newly remastered through Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project are markedly different, not only from each other, but from the three features covered last week in this column. Dry Summer, Trances, and The Housemaid maintain a strong sense of cultural identification and examination, but opposed to the previous three films, which exist somewhere between “docu-fiction” and a slightly indefinite art house categorization, these movies fall more in line with standard generic conventions. That is not to say, however, that they are in any way conventional. Within the recognizable forms of, roughly, the melodrama, the musical documentary, and the thriller, these titles peer into their respective cultures via a comparably subtle observation that is in some ways cloaked by a familiar surface style and structure.



Take Dry Summer to start. This Turkish film from 1964 initially pits farming brothers Osman (Erol Taş) and Hasan (Ulvi Doğan, who personally financed the film) against their neighbors, decent farmers themselves, but ones who are reliant on the brothers’ water. Water is scarce and immensely valuable in this rural community, so Osman decides to construct a dam cutting off the flow down to the neighboring fields. In the meantime, Hasan marries Bahar (Hülya Koçyiğit), a beautiful girl from the village who quickly arouses the attention of Osman. While things are relatively stable for a time, Hasan, the more decent of the brothers, sees only trouble arising from the provocative dam. Sure enough, fights ensue between the siblings and the neighbors and during one such melee, Osman shoots and kills a man. Reasoning that Hasan is younger and would serve less time, he convinces his brother to take the blame, which he does. With Hasan locked up, tensions rise between the aggressive Osman and the neighbors, and even more destructively, Osman’s unwanted advances toward Bahar become increasingly frequent and forceful. Osman goes on to cut off communication with his jailed brother, who is now in the dark about his wife and the farming dispute. Director Metin Erksan, with a constantly darting camera and kinetic editing, keeps the film continuously alive with motion and fraught with tension. The selfish, barbarous Osman seems capable of anything — violence against his neighbors, or sexual deviance toward his sister-in-law.

As a bonus feature, filmmaker Fatih Akin helpfully explains the movie’s societal implications; for example, the combative issue of the privatization of property. Erksan, also in a new interview on the disc, sums up his film as “a movie about water ownership.” Dry Summer was also, as Bilge Ebiri points out in the accompanying essay, the second in what became an “unofficial trilogy” for Erksan: the earlier Revenge of the Snakes focused on land as property and, later, The Well was about “the treatment of women as property.” Albeit emotionally heightened, in this middle feature, we do get a rather realistic portrayal of a Turkish farming lifestyle, where the demanding toil involved is notable, the importance of maintaining good land quite evident, but the cultural examination becomes partly concealed by the personal drama between the three characters. With this passionate and volatile love triangle as the main narrative focus, the depiction of the farmers, the splendor of the environment, and the representation of gender and familial roles are rather subdued by comparison. Nevertheless, Dry Summer, winner of the Golden Bear for best film at the 1964 Berlin International Film Festival, fits in nicely with the aims of the World Cinema Project. This is a fascinating film, one rife with localized complexities and dilemmas, but with individual concerns that span any cultural divide. The cinematic skill with which this is all executed also gives the film a remarkable visual appeal.



The first film restored by the World Cinema Foundation (personally suggested by Scorsese) was Trances, the next inclusion in this set. Ahmed El Maânouni’s documentary about acoustic Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane, the “singing soul of their country,” according to Scorsese, similarly takes a roundabout approach to its sociocultural exploration and presentation. Through music, a key feature of nearly every culture’s identity, this film shows the creative process of this hugely popular group, and presents their motivations, which are largely derived from regional traditions and ideology. In her essay on the film, Sally Shafto provides illuminating information about the political and national context for the lyrical content. Simultaneously poets, troubadours, and storytellers, these musicians connect with the Moroccan people through performances charged with social, economic, political, and religious significance. The music is the message, and it’s the message that informs the music.

Trances is an apt title for this documentary. As per what is a common Moroccan musical form, the songs here are hypnotic in their repetitive rhythms. Concert footage shows people in the throngs of zealous revelry as the band plays. And while the film does hone in on the cultural meanings and influences of the compositions, Trances is as much about a pop band as it is about their heritage. It’s lighthearted at times, the four members sitting around smoking, surrounded by speakers and recording equipment, ruminating about their chosen art form. There’s goofiness as they joke and touch on issues still common in today’s Western music business. (On piracy, one performer remarks, “I’m just an artist. Do I have to be a lawyer as well?”) Despite the seriousness of their lyrics, make no mistake, these guys are rock stars. Scorsese points to the “electricity” and “power” of their concerts, where crowds get unruly and have to be contained. It’s not quite the Stones at Altamont, but the popularity of Nass El Ghiwane and what their music does to their audience is revealing. Their mass appeal is an interesting comparison to America’s 1981 music scene, for instance. One wonders to what extent musical groups are admired for the cultural substance of their songs in this country, then or now. The sole pure documentary in this set, Trances is an intriguing look at the music that defines and affects a people and what it takes to create such poignant art.

(Interesting for Scorsese fans, in discussing his love for the film, he acknowledges Nass El Ghiwane’s influence on the soundtrack design for The Last Temptation of Christ.)



Returning to narrative cinema, The Housemaid is a stunningly sensational film; sensational as in quality and sheer audacity. Scorsese declares the film “unlike anything else I’ve ever seen in movies, and a world away from the rest of Korean cinema.” Among its features, the “perversity and everyday madness,” he says, is “unnerving.” Quite true. This South Korean feature directed by Kim Ki-young is a claustrophobic thriller that, particularly in the latter sections, resembles a Polanski-like tale of paranoia, anxiety, and manipulation. Bong Joon-ho, who discusses the film on the disc, and knows a thing or two about unnerving films, compares the picture to those by Imamura or Bunuel. Marked by high-contrast lighting and charged with an occasionally shocking sense of terrifying possibility, this 1960 film is remarkable. A music teacher (Kim Jin-kyu) and his wife (Ju Jeung-nyeo) decide that with work and two children to take care of, they cannot keep up with maintaining their home. A piano student recommends a housemaid (Lee Eun-shim). It doesn’t take long before this maid proves to be more than this stuffy and complacent family can handle. The father, who is something of a ladies’ man with his students, falls victims to her mysterious ways and everyone in the home is at risk of succumbing to the maid’s occasionally inexplicable evil wiles. Particularly toward the father (one of several helplessly weak males in Kim Ki-young’s work, according to Bong), she is “the most sexually driven female character in the history of Korean cinema.”

Against this taut set-up, where the unsound and dubious motivations of nearly every character are potentially explosive, The Housemaid keenly comments on the make-up of a seemingly secure middle-class house. Morality is questioned and normative domestic and social behavior is subverted as the characters struggle with this volatile, yet strangely alluring, intruder. She essentially holds them, as well as their way of life, hostage, exposing their dormant brutality, dishonesty, and malevolence. Kim obviously found further areas to explore within this basic framework; Kyung Hyun Kim points out in his supplementary essay that the director would remake the picture twice, with Fire Woman in 1971 and Fire Woman ’82 from 1982.

Like all six films in this set, the audio/visual quality for The Housemaid is exceptional. There are times, however, when the images falter more than in the other five, with evident scratches, pixelization, and skips. Strangely enough, it also seems like this is an intentional stylistic device. While the original source print may have been that poor to begin with (two reels were originally thought to be lost), at times, it comes across like the film simply can’t contain the manic behavior of the characters and their extremely unpredictable actions.

This Criterion set, hopefully the first in a continuing series of films attained in conjunction with the World Cinema Project, in some ways takes on more significance than an ordinary home video collection. The films might not be as “great” as the customary classics Criterion and other companies regularly release, but their fairly unique status and their relative scarcity place them as emblematic of why motion pictures need to be saved and treasured. Aside from the artistic merits these films possess – and with each there are many – they are cultural artifacts and historical markers that deserve attention. Save for the efforts of preservationist organizations throughout the world, these are works that might have disappeared into extinction. But now, thankfully, they are available for all to see, and they are all well worth a look.


REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

'Nosferatu'

In an age when the dominant version of the vampire is that of pop culture vessel for clichéd teenage angst, it's easy to forget a time when the cinematic vampire carried with it more serious, somber and certainly more terrifying connotations. True enough, prior to Twilight, movie history was still littered with vampires and their fair share of silliness, but what of the vampire that was genuinely affecting as a horrific being, one that haunted and disturbed? Where has this representation gone? For now, we'll leave that question unanswered; but the film with which one could answer the question, where did this incarnation begin, is F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, released in 1922, and now available in a Kino Classics two-disc deluxe remastered Blu-ray edition.

Murnau's Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horrors, an unauthorized adaptation of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," is still one of the most unsettling and visually dazzling vampire films ever made. It was ahead of its time in terms of screen horror, and it was among the best of Weimar-era German cinema; one of the finest films by one of the country's preeminent filmmakers.

Born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe on Dec. 28, 1988, “the greatest film director the Germans have ever known” (according to Lotte Eisner), Murnau changed his last name to that of the town near where he met the Blue Rider group, an assemblage of avant-garde artists. Following World War I, and with a theatrical background that included work with the legendary Max Reinhardt, Murnau set his sights on the movies.

Expressionistic visuals and fantastical stories of magic, mystery and the macabre haunted German screens during this period, and Murnau was in on this early with films like The Blue Boy (1919), The Head of Janus, or The Two-Faced Man (1920) – a classic example of the doppelganger (a common thematic device of the movement) – and The Haunted Castle (1921). But it was with Nosferatu that the director's noteworthy knack for cinematic flair was most appreciably present. Pauline Kael called the picture the "first important film of the vampire genre" and declared that it "has more spectral atmosphere, more ingenuity, and more imaginative ghoulish ghastliness than any of its successors." Indeed it does, and it's this blending of story and style that gave the film its power and is what keeps it a classic of world cinema, let alone that of the horror genre. Its action is riveting, its imagery visceral.

While the source novel was known (notoriously so since the filmmakers didn't bother to secure any rights), the origins of the film also derived from co-scriptwriter and producer Albin Grau, who had a fascination with the paranormal, based somewhat on stories of supposed real vampires. Murnau and Grau changed a few details of the story, in an effort to distinguish it from Stoker's work, but to audiences this behind-the-scenes question of material credit was irrelevant. They were captivated by the picture, thanks in part to innovative marketing and publicity campaigns, including rumors of actor Max Schreck actually being a vampire (this humorously shown in Shadow of the Vampire (2000)). Schreck, who plays the titular creature, had in fact been in four films previous, and would make 29 more after Nosferatu.

Whether or not audiences really believed this, there can be no question that it was Murnau's visual tricks and general mise-en-scene of unease that engrossed the spectator. Be it the images of the ghastly coach traveling unnaturally fast through bizarre woods – done by over-cranking the camera, using the film’s negative and painting the carriage white – or the stop-motion effects of the vampire rising from the coffin, Nosferatu was a stunning tour de force of filmic inventiveness. No doubt Schreck’s make-up, body manipulations and gestures played a part in this as well. Taking perhaps a cue from earlier films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Schreck moves slowly, deliberately, haltingly, and when dramatic action happens, it happens fast and furious (when the vampire, at first at some distance, suddenly appears much closer in the doorway). The light too was crafted to create interiors of menace and dread, with scenes shot in half-light, leaving sections of the frame completely black; sharp contrasts of chiaroscuro lighting and shadow play create a palpable sense of lurking potential horror. As per the norm of these Expressionistic films, the settings were also integral to the overall tone. The seemingly naturalistic landscapes and locations come across as bizarre and intimidating, even, at times, like they themselves are alive and are conscious of the terror mounting. The arches in the castle, the wooden slopes of the ship and the rocky peaks of the countryside form a jagged backdrop of violence.  

With so much happening on screen, and so much occurring in its country of production, Nosferatu has not surprisingly been greeted with multiple readings and interpretations. Emblematic of Germany between the wars, during a time of turmoil and uncertainty, Nosferatu was a film that kept citizens on their toes. A warning of impending danger was frequently derived from the film. Granted, much of this was in retrospect and with the benefit of post-WWII hindsight, but certainly some of it does seem reasonably indicative of years to come. Predominantly, Nosferatu was seen as a film that played on threats to the homeland, to an ordered society: Nosferatu threatening the Hutters and the town; lands to the east of Germany compared to the eastern Count Orlok. In other words, Nosferatu was a stand-in for foreign invaders. These external forces were apparently waiting at Germany's doorstep to bring pestilence and death, and this made the film’s terror easy to absorb. The plethora of rats and the general rat-like appearance of Nosferatu also suggested trouble on the horizons. According to scholar John Sandford, “Rats, and the plague that they bring with them, are, historically and in folk-memory, not native to northern Europe, but an invasive, ‘foreign’ force from the east.” (Of course, this emphasis on rats and similar physical traits would rear its ugly anti-Semitic head in subsequent years as well.)  

The threats didn't stop there with Nosfetau. The changes brought upon Hutter’s wife by the presence of Nosferatu also called into question what was happening in German culture and in German homes at the time. Weimar Germany was a society of rapid change, with values challenged by progressive modern views, amorality and decadence. Ellen, seen as the virtuous, morally upright middle-class wife, becomes vulnerable to the psychosexual prowess of Nosferatu.

Murnau followed Nosferatu with more stellar films of awe-inspiring visual ingenuity and imagination. There was Phantom in 1922 and The Last Laugh in 1924 – this one of his most remarkable achievements — and Tartuffe (1925) and Faust (1927). In these we again see a full range of technical virtuosity, from special effects and astonishing camera maneuvers to elaborate sets, as well as a continuing preoccupation with the uncanny. Like so many others, Murnau was lured to America where he went to work at Fox, directing three films: Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927), 4 Devils (1928), and City Girl (1930). Sunrise would win one of two best picture Academy Awards at the organizations’ first ceremony in 1929 – for “Unique Artistic Contribution.” Murnau’s last film, not by design, was Tabu (1930), filmed in collaboration with Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North (1922)) and shot around the South Seas. Before the film was released, Murnau died at age 43 in a car accident.

'Stories We Tell'

Sarah Polley’s Stories We Tell is a fascinating and engaging attempt to reveal life’s everyday secrets. As Polley seeks to uncover the true identity of her biological father, she encounters an assortment of recollections, assumptions, and opinions, some conflicting, some in sync, all contributing to a seemingly elusive truth about her heritage. It’s like Last Year at Marienbad meets Maury Povich.  

Stories We Tell is formally ingenious in its presentation of key figures in this familial drama. Contemporary interviews with siblings and acquaintances are mixed with reenactments deceptively and effectively shot to mesh seamlessly with genuine home video footage of Polley’s family. Even in this visual depiction of the past, the truth remains ambiguous and illusory.

Adding to the self-conscious unspooling of the investigation, Polley films her “father” as he narrates the documentary in the third person, even when talking about himself and his feelings and impressions. Where the films gains its most potent power though, is in its basic chronicle of events. Stories We Tell is about just that – the narratives that form our lives. In this personal tale of one family’s lineage, Polley examines the intricacies, certainties, and fallacies that ultimately shape our individual existence: how we got here, who was involved, and what really happened … if we can ever really know.


REVIEW from: SOUND ON SIGHT

'Mud'

It’s no secret that Matthew McConaughey is in the midst of an extraordinary stage in his career. Since 2011, over the course of six films, he has turned in one stellar performance after another, constantly surprising and continually impressive. As much as his talent is on the screen, part of this resurgence is undeniably due to the material. This is certainly the case with Mud.

While McConaughey gives what may be his strongest overall showing to date, why Mud stands out, and why it’s one of the best films of the year, is that it excels beyond just his accomplishments. Written and directed by Jeff Nichols, who is now three-exceptional-films-for-three, Mud is a brilliant convergence of filmic conventions. It’s a devoted love story, with McConaughey’s eponymous character obsessively and blindly seeking to reunite with his lost love, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). It’s a coming-of-age tale for Neckbone and Ellis (Jacob Lofland and Tye Sheridan), the latter experiencing the pain and confusion of unrequited young love while simultaneously caught in familial strife, further skewing his view of relationships. And it’s a thriller, with Mud on the lam, sought by police and a ragtag posse bent on revenge.

Further tension surfaces from ambiguous character development, with many of these people having no immediately comprehensive back-story or obvious motivation. Leveling the drama are moments of amusement: Michael Shannon in a somehow sexually useful scuba suit, the integral but bizarre boat in a tree, Neckbone’s no-nonsense crassness. The bonds formed by the characters, Nichols’ deft handing of the varying tones and divergent narratives, and the authenticity of performances and setting all ring true, and all make Mud a captivating fusion of filmmaking perfection.


REVIEW from: SOUND ON SIGHT

Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, Part 1

The Criterion Collection set assembling films rediscovered through the efforts of Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project is one of the company’s premier achievements. Bringing together six diverse titles from six different regions of the globe, the collection is a treasure trove for those seeking obscure, rare, and fascinating works that extend well beyond film history’s conventional canon. As stated by Criterion itself, “Each is a cinematic revelation, depicting a culture not often seen by outsiders on-screen.” The set also emphasizes, through its calling attention to the efforts of the WCP initiative, just how necessary and beneficial film preservation and restoration can be. The films included here are only a fraction of what else is out there waiting to be revealed and repaired, so with any luck, this set will be just the beginning.

Redes, from 1936, is the earliest and shortest inclusion, clocking at about an hour. But it is an hour packed with extraordinary imagery and a powerful message. Translated for American release as The Wave, but more accurately Nets, this Mexican film (with eventual Oscar winner Fred Zinnemann co-directing) is a sociopolitical examination of a small fishing village in the midst of revolutionary and economic change. In opposition to the vibrancy of the perpetually shining sun and ever-present sea, the film begins with stagnation, as boats are seen stationary on land and nets are hung up to dry. Fishing is slow, money is scarce, clothing is in tatters, and times are tough. These individuals have done a good deal of work, but the results have been minimal. Workers fight to survive while the wealthy throw their weight around and wheel and deal to their own benefit.

Once this basic premise is established, the film begins to take on a more didactic function. The socially progressive focus shifts to a call to arms in the spirit of collectivism, of fighting oppression and exploitation through employee organization. Wage disputes and struggles against corruption form the heart of the film. Somewhat heavy-handed, as many such propagandist features can be, the sense of insurgent defiance is nonetheless impressive. The other prominent focus of the film, related to this advocacy of the workers and their plight, is on the profession itself. With the natural locations, amateur performers, and attention to banal, laborious detail, Redes calls gorgeously shot attention to the mechanics of the work and to the physical exertion involved. In this combination of message and realistic representation, and through keen detail and almost abstract compositions of bodies and tools of the trade, Redes hearkens back to Soviet films from the decade prior and points toward the Neorealist films in the decade to come. (Visconti’s La Terra Trema, 12 years later, bears more than a few similarities to this work of “docu-fiction,” as cinematographer Paul Strand calls it.)

Scorsese provides brief introductions for each film in this collection (an additional interview or visual essay accompanies each disc, and a booklet for the set contains an essay about each title as well). With Redes, interestingly, Scorsese acknowledges that this was not a film he had seen before. Now, however, among its other qualities, he accurately points to the “majesty” and “grandeur” of the score, the music by composer Silvestre Revueltas being one of the highlights. The visual essay by Kent Jones details the film’s troubled back-story: contentious relationships between collaborators, extras, and the nonprofessional actors, and the crude means of production (editing by flashlight with a Moviola connected to a sewing machine foot pedal).

A River Called Titas, directed by Ritwik Ghatak, resembles Redes with a similarly realistic look at a remote and wholly distinct people. In this Bengali release from 1973, there is again a strong emphasis on the basic portrayal of a way of life, and it largely revolves around a body of water, symbolically and literally the source of cultural livelihood. Also set near a fishing village, and also boasting stunning cinematography, A River Called Titas takes its theme of progress and stretches it temporally and broadens it within a larger narrative. As opposed to the earlier film, where the sociopolitical change happens quickly and dynamically, Ghatak’s film is a more gradual examination of a world drifting out of its current existence. Children are growing up, getting married by choice or force, sometimes moving away, all while the traditional world of their past remains stagnant if resolute. Whatever the generation, one commonality seems to be constant in this world: tragedy. Ostensibly the key protagonist, Basanti (Rosy Samad) is just one young woman shown who suffers near-continual misfortune. Death, separation, poverty, hunger: these hardships are passed on like the traditions that historically, though more intermittently, govern their culture.

Filmmaker Kumar Shahani discusses the film and Ghatak’s inclination toward politically and socially rebellious views and working methods. Using his films to address critical issues (A River Called Titas is no exception), Ghatak stressed ideas over characterization, says Shahani, and by way of “lyrical” presentations, like in this film, he was able to examine the “wave of history,” in this case the partitioning of India. An aggressive cultural critique was why, according to Scorsese, the film was held back for release, and no doubt this cinematic instigation was why Ghatak had such a relatively limited output. With A River Called Titas, though, any sort of “point” the film may have, while still recognizable and supplemental to a full appreciation of the work, does nothing to hinder the pure emotional resonance, the personal drama at the forefront of this story.

If these previous two films dealt with cultures internally shifting, Djibril Diop Mambéty’s Touki bouki, from 1973, is similar in its concern for traditional civilizations, but approaches this idea with far more emphasis on the outside world. Probably the most famous film included in the set, Touki bouki follows Mory (Magaye Niang) and Anta (Mareme Niang), jaded young lovers who struggle to assimilate in their conventional Senegalese community. Formally, the film reflects this conflict. It eschews customary narrative, making the most of “art film” devices such as plot ellipses and incongruous audio/visual juxtapositions, but its graphic depiction of animals being led to the slaughter and the decrepit conditions of their city show a far less glamorous and trendy reality. In addition to Touki bouki’s unique structure, its visuals are extraordinary; Scorsese calls the film a “cinematic poem,” one that “explodes one image at a time.” Indeed, its vivid depiction of local color bursts from the screen. The natural environment, the vibrant clothing, even the blood from the butchered cows: it all underscores an inherent dynamism in this world.

Tantalized and at times bemused by the increasing modernity confronting them (glimpses of skyscrapers beyond their impoverished surroundings, political activism at college, sophisticated fashion), Mory and Anta daydream, making plans to escape and live the good life in Paris. Like many a youthful ambition to flee their fixed constraints, however, the scheme is half-baked at best. In a film that is so concerned with the rush of modernity, where movement is paramount (cars, motorcycles, ships, even the mobile camera), it is ultimately a sense of stasis that prevails. Mory talks big, and he and Anta long for the day they can leave, but their fantasies always end with them returning to rub their successes in the nose of their community. As much as they want to move on, they ultimately hope to do so just so they can come back. And when the time does arrive, when it seems that everything is set to depart, Mory falters and cannot commit to such a drastic life decision. Even so, in the end, the film is a positive one. Filmmaker Abderrahmane Sissako calls Touki bouki a “film of freedom.” While the two don’t reach the heights they aimed for, they came close and at least tried. They showed that they could if they really wanted to. More so than in A River Called Titas or Redes, the main characters in Touki bouki are capable of changing their lives if ambition and will allows.

The three films discussed here reveal with earnest authenticity and exceptional artistry people in the midst of drastic change, by their own doing or by the necessities of time. As such, they are not only engaging and entertaining stories of survival and social evolution; they are historical documents of a particular place during periods of profound transformation. The remaining three films of this World Cinema Project set — Dry Summer (1964), Trances (1981), and The Housemaid (1960) — featured in this column next week, similarly depict unique and seldom seen cultures. Only with these movies, the worlds are shown by way of popular music and documentary, and fictional tales of melodramatic sexuality, obsession, and violence.


REVIEW from: SOUND ON SIGHT

‘The Blue Angel’

It’s strange that the work of Josef von Sternberg has not been better represented in the realm of Blu-ray production. Aside from 1930’s The Blue Angel, available now on a new Kino Classics 2-Disc Ultimate Edition, not a single Sternberg film exists on the format. For such a stylish director, one who was expressly concerned with the ornate visual texture of his films, the enhanced images that go along with the standard digital restorations of Blu-ray titles would seemingly be ideal. That said, with at least The Blue Angel, it does become clear that this format and this filmmaker are indeed made for each other.

While not as deliberately composed to accentuate frames bursting to their edges with fore- and background elements (see The Scarlet Empress, for example), The Blue Angel nevertheless brings more to the surface than Sternberg’s work previously. Some of his great silent features, like Docks of New York, were moody, atmospheric dramas in the vein of French films to come by Rene Clair, Julien Duvivier, Marcel Carne, and Jean Renoir. With The Blue Angel, Sternberg shows his possible inspiration deriving more closely from Germany’s expressionistic output during the 1920s. While Sternberg denied any major filmic influence, and though he had been working in Hollywood and away from his homeland of Austria for some time, the echoes of these European classics are prominent. The obscuring lights and angles of darkened alleyways and the jagged rooftops all recall the synthetic sets of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari; shadow play on walls strongly evoke Nosferatu.

The principal point of potential allusion to these Weimar-era films, however, is in the casting of Emil Jannings as Prof. Immanuel Rath. Sternberg had already worked with Jannings in The Last Command 2 years prior, and the star from such films as Faust, Tartuffe, and The Last Laugh brought with him a range of acting talent as well as strong associations with these German films. Here, as an old-fashioned absent-minded professor, Jannings is excellent in conveying a sense of bewilderment and anxiety. The upstanding teacher Rath is respected (except by his students) and is a man of regimented routine. When he catches wind of a certain Lola Lola and a place called The Blue Angel, he becomes intrigued. His students are distractingly enamored with this young lady and he hopes to catch them frequenting this tawdry hot spot.

Upon visiting the nightclub, Rath too is struck by Lola Lola, played charmingly by the 28-year-old, baby-faced Marlene Dietrich (her youthfulness fully apparent in screen tests included as a bonus feature on this disc). In years to come, a certain indescribable allure would be synonymous with Dietrich – in her films and persona – and here Lola, “naughty” Lola, is a perfect early embodiment of her casually provocative appeal. Additional features on the disc include singing performances by Dietrich from 1963 and 1972 and a brief excerpt from a 1971 interview — that appeal was still there.

Rath is dumbstruck by this freewheeling girl and develops a blind crush that starts his downfall. He is at once shocked and captivated by her sexually suggestive behavior and shameless good humor. Though not quite a femme fatale, Lola is a less than positive influence who clearly enjoys the sway she holds over this stuffy professor. Around Lola, Rath is a bumbling fool; one awkward move after another leads to one uncomfortable situation after another. Like the schoolboys he sought to implicate, Rath is now wholly enamored by Lola, so much so that he neglects his work, attaches himself to the wild assortment of entertainers making up Lola’s entourage, proposes marriage to the young woman, and joins their troupe in what is ultimately a tragically demeaning shift in occupation.

While Jannings was the prominent name at the time of production, The Blue Angel is most notable for being the start of Sternberg’s professional and personal connection with Dietrich. Bringing the actress back to America with him, Sternberg and studio heads hoped to have a new starlet to develop and advance, one who could potentially rival fellow European transplant Greta Garbo. Their second collaboration, Morocco, would be released first in the United States; both Sternberg and Dietrich would receive Oscar nominations for that picture. Five more films together would follow, as would a love affair and a strikingly unique cinematic pairing rarely matched in film history. Sternberg dubbed Dietrich his assistant, acknowledging their mutual creative process, but many thought of their association as one of directorial, Svengali-like control and manipulation. (Not so, says Dietrich’s daughter; what her mother had, and what she would become most famous for in terms of her screen presence, was there before Sternberg. He just helped give it a celebrated cinematic context.) In any event, Dietrich was seldom better than when she was directed by Sternberg, and his films minus the star were nearly always subpar.

As noted, The Blue Angel would represent the start of Sternberg’s trademark penchant for intricate and richly decorative set design, illumination, and costume. Much to the chagrin of certain cinematographers, Sternberg was obsessed with the visual composition of every element of his movies, often doing his lighting and camera work. While The Blue Angel balances a level of complexity and subtlety more than later features (no doubt due to a lower budget than his Hollywood movies), certain interiors signal what was to come. Set design serves a more realistic purpose in The Blue Angel. The books and academic bric-a-brac that litter Rath’s apartment are as would be expected in a professor’s home, yet the on-screen placement does have these items in what is an intentionally illustrative arrangement. Similarly, Lola’s backstage life consists of a barrage of assorted theatrical details and furnishings, the chaotic mess accentuated by the confined spaces and the comings and goings of her fellow performers. Again, Sternberg packs the frame, but for now, it’s mostly in the service of authenticity and not as in the later, more famous and striking forms of calculated organization. Costumes in The Blue Angel also befit the characters in a more practical manner than in future Sternberg films, where Dietrich would don everything from a suit and top hat to garish feather boas to an ape costume. Here, her outfits are somewhat outlandish, but only insofar as would be typical for a showgirl of this time and place.

Certain images and sequences from their other collaborations are probably more famous, but The Blue Angel as a whole might be the most prominent film Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich made together. This could be because it’s the one that started it all, or it might have something to do with the unique state of the film’s production, Sternberg on hiatus from Hollywood and working in Europe, filming English and German language versions simultaneously (both versions are available on this Kino release as well as a short, side-by-side comparison). It also stands out as being an early, and still somewhat imperfect, sound feature from two of film history’s major figures. Finally, The Blue Angel is a tragic love story, charming, funny, and wonderfully acted and directed, and it now looks and sounds great in this pleasing high-definition transfer.


REVIEW from: SOUND ON SIGHT

Late Hitchcock – ‘Frenzy’ and ‘Family Plot’

There are some who opt for Alfred Hitchcock’s British years as his finest, taking into account his earliest silent features through Jamaica Inn in 1939. On the other hand, many regard the peak years in America as the Master of Suspense’s finest era, with films from Rebecca in 1940 to Marnie in 1964. Both have valid points to make and there are unquestionably several great works during each phase of the filmmaker’s career. Few, however, would rank Hitchcock’s final four films among his best. In a way, this is unfair, their lowly stature no doubt due to the masterworks that preceded them; with the films Hitchcock made before, the bar was set unassailably high. Taken apart from the imposing excellence of these earlier classics, these concluding films are solid movies. Of course, in auteurist fashion, one can also heap excessive praise on these concluding lesser features that is perhaps only based on Hitchcock as Hitchcock, director of Vertigo, The Lodger, Rear Window, Psycho, and more. In other words, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy, and Family Plot are worthwhile because Hitchcock made them, and that’s enough.

Wherever one falls in this assessment of Hitchcock’s career, Universal has made the home viewing and subsequent evaluation of his final films better than ever, with each now in remastered Blu-ray editions. Previously only available on the format as part of the impressive Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection, Topaz and Torn Curtain saw their individual Blu-ray releases in November and October, respectively, and now Frenzy and Family Plot join the increasing list of Hitchcock titles presented as best they can for non-theatrical consumption. In addition to the enhanced audio and visual quality, each disc comes with a fairly standard yet nonetheless informative making-of documentary, each about 50 minutes in length. The Family Plot disc also highlights the storyboards for the hilltop chase, a sequence it tries to sell as comparable to the famously structured and brilliantly executed crop-duster scene from North by Northwest, which it isn’t.

Frenzy, which screenwriter Anthony Shaffer calls a “very London film,” was Hitchcock’s first time shooting in his native England since 1956, when he had directed portions of his The Man Who Know Too Much remake. It was also a return to the sort of murder-infused thriller he reveled in, getting away from the political intrigue sustaining the two films immediately prior. Made in 1972, for the first time Hitch was able to accentuate both the sex and violence that had indirectly — though significantly — marked many of his greatest films. Explicit nudity was prominent, as were more abhorrent scenes of brutality; it would be the only Hitchcock film to be rated R. With Jon Finch, Alec McCowen, Barry Foster, and Anna Massey among its stars, Frenzy is classic Hitchcock: serial killers and intricate murders, police investigations, a wrongly accused man, and pitch-black humor. Its location shooting is exceptional, particularly its depiction of the world revolving around the Covent Garden Market, a setting of personal relevance for Hitchcock, his father having been a greengrocer.

Back in America, Hitchcock’s final film, his 53rd, was a lighter affair. Family Plot kept the thrills, but added more self-conscious humor (capped by its delightful final shot), not necessarily the droll, dark comedy of Frenzy. Despite the presence of 1970s icons Karen Black and Barbara Harris, as well as Bruce Dern and William Devane, the film looks and feels old-fashioned. When you think that Taxi Driver, All the President’s Men, Marathon Man, Network, and Carrie were also released in 1976, Family Plot comes across as anachronistic. It works as an archetypal Hitchcock film, though, reminiscent of Hollywood classics in the past (Devane notes that Hitch gave him William Powell as a model for his character and there’s some enjoyable screwball comedy banter between Dern and Harris), but it seems out of its time, especially when compared to the modern audacity of Frenzy.
A notable contrast between the two is the use of setting. Perhaps because of Hitchcock’s keenness for being back in England, Frenzy is clearly a film shot in, and in many ways is about, a very specific location. While Pinewood Studios served as base for certain interiors, the exteriors express a palpable sense of a specific place. Hitchcock, and the film, thrives on this prominent use of background and local character. Conversely, Family Plot was intentionally presented as occurring in a nondescript location. Clearly northern California, the exteriors never call attention to their region as Frenzy does. Given Hitchcock’s reputation for interesting and elaborate international set pieces, this might be another reason Family Plot feels flat by comparison.

The documentary on Family Plot gives notable insight to its casting, fitting since its performers are a major highlight of the film. Dern relates that Al Pacino was the first choice for his character, but after a string of major successes, Pacino’s asking price was too high (given the poor green-screen projections, the budget on the film was clearly on the lower end of the Hitchcock scale). Devane also reveals the rather crass process whereby he was cast: he was the first choice but was unavailable; Roy Thinnes was given the role; Devane’s schedule opened up; 5 weeks into shooting, Thinnes was let go. Both documentaries also benefit from footage of Hitchcock directing. This type of behind-the-scenes on-set look is common with today’s films and filmmakers, but it’s relatively rare to see one of film history’s true masters in their creative process (even if, in the case of the aged Hitchcock here, he’s not doing a whole lot).

Frenzy and Family Plot, admittedly slight works in Hitchcock’s career, are nevertheless valuable entries in the filmmaker’s canon, with scenes, shots, and moments of unmistakably Hitchcockian bravura. For all of their faults, and make no mistake, there aren’t many, these are two quality films. Those acquainted with Hitchcock through only his certified masterpieces may be somewhat let down, but those who have seen beyond the essentials will certainly find something worthwhile. These latter movies are not on the level of his standards, so they’re not quite as good as one might expect, but they’re better than one might think.

REVIEW from: SOUND ON SIGHT

Robert Altman’s ‘Nashville’

At the Cannes preview screening of Apocalypse Now in 1979, Francis Ford Coppola infamously declared, “Apocalypse Now is not about Vietnam; it is Vietnam.” Watching Robert Altman’s 1975 opus Nashville, perhaps the best film in a career full of exceptional work, one gets the feeling that it isn’t really about America; it is America. With its eclectic cast of individuals from all walks of life (typical for Altman), its sprawling narrative of disjointed personal and professional connections (ditto), and its setting of a distinctly American city around the time of our nation’s bicentennial, Nashville comes across as more than a fictional depiction of characters embodying certain nationalistic traits; it truly feels like the film is America in a nutshell. In the words of Keith Carradine, it’s an “extraordinary accomplishment.”

Now, with The Criterion Collection release of the film on a 3-disc Blu-ray/DVD combo, there is the chance to delve deeper into this film built on layer upon layer of finely tuned moments, moods, and music. Interviews with, and an audio commentary by, the late, great Altman are accompanied by a new documentary on the making of the film featuring stars Ronee Blakley, Carradine, Michael Murphy, Allan Nicholls, and Lily Tomlin, as well as screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury, assistant director Alan Rudolph, and Altman’s widow, Kathryn Reed Altman. Behind-the-scenes footage and a demo of Carradine performing songs from the movie round out this outstanding release.

Nashville contains everything that made Robert Altman the unique visionary that he was: the long takes with the ever-mobile camera, slow zooms with an unobtrusive detachment, overlapping dialogue recorded from an innovative multi-track system, and scenes of realistic and improvisatory behavior as if spontaneously caught unawares. It’s arguably the most complete compendium of his technique and talent. It’s also a showcase for a diverse assortment of performers. Altman regulars like Murphy and Shelley Duvall mix and mingle with newcomers like Blakley and Jeff Goldblum in this mosaic that boasts 24 primary characters. (Altman would more than double this amount a few years later with A Wedding and its featured players.) It’s to the credit of Altman and screenwriter Tewkesbury that these various threads manage to be woven together without major narrative knots or disagreeable loose ends. While most characters drift in and out of the picture, many without backstory or motivation, only discovered as the film progresses, by the end of the film a sense of satisfactory completion is nonetheless established, if not quite fully reconciled.

Among the performances, Tomlin is outstanding here in her first film role, and moments such as Blakley’s excruciating breakdown as Barbara Jean allow particular individuals to stand out from the crowd. (Both women would be nominated for Oscars.) However, from the amusingly self-conscious opening, where the cast is recited as if on a late-night record commercial, to the most memorable traffic jam this side of Jean-Luc Godard, Nashville is unmistakably an ensemble piece. Featuring ambitious and naive wannabes and pompously hallowed stars, the film is remarkable in the way it follows these contrasting characters, relying on their personal appeal more than their overt narrative function. Nashville was, as venerated critic Molly Haskell writes in her excellent essay accompanying the disc, a “crowning glory of a journey toward greater and greater freedom from conventional narrative cinema…”

As expected with a film set in Nashville, at the heart of the movie is music, specifically country-Western (with traces of folk, bluegrass, gospel, and rock). According to Altman, this “musical” contains nearly a full hour of songs, with some actors and actresses writing their own compositions; Carradine’s “I’m Easy” would receive the film’s sole Academy Award. Second to the music, and in many ways influenced by it, it’s the locale that emerges as a particular and peculiar place; rhinestones, cowboy boots, and fringed jackets adorn the film. While Altman and others interviewed acknowledge the animosity real Nashville residents felt when the film came out, they tend to downplay any sort of intentionally satirical tone the film may have had. This isn’t very convincing, though. A considerable amount of the film’s humor is undeniably at the expense of specific regional traits: their ideology, dialogue, costumes, the music. Nashville is as much a comedy as anything else, but it must be admitted who we’re laughing at. There are times, however, when local affection shines through and characters such as Henry Gibson’s Haven Hamilton using this native pride as an act of defiance in the face of the film’s concluding violence: “This isn’t Dallas, it’s Nashville! They can’t do this to us here in Nashville! Let’s show them what we’re made of. Come on, everybody, sing! Somebody, sing!”

Beyond this is where Nashville comes to signify and depict a wider sense of patriotic fervor. At once reflecting events from the decade previous while foreshadowing our current culture, it is this act of violence that serves as a dramatic and tragic catalyst for Nashville’s final moments. No stranger to political and social commentary, Altman nods to tumultuous times in the past and hints at those still to come; on this disc, he twice recalls when a Washington Post reporter asked if he felt responsible for John Lennon’s assassination. In the 71-minute documentary, Rudolph also ruminates on the political nature of the film and what he sees as the “pious patriotism” of some of its characters, particularly Haven, one of the established superstars of the film’s fictional music scene. It’s he who sings the nationalistic tune, “200 Years”; Rudolph criticizes this as a “skewed look at America” (he suggests it could be the anthem for today’s Tea Party movement). In the 2000 interview, Altman declares his intentions with this panoramic film as being to “reflect American sensibilities and politics.” Mission accomplished.

The documentaries and interviews do a good deal to illuminate the making of Nashville and Altman speaks insightfully on his ideas about this picture in particular and his wider views on filmmaking in general. Not a believer in the auteur theory, he gives considerable credit to his collaborators, something he’s always been known for and something that obviously kept the same people coming back to work with him time and time again. Occasionally, he’s overly generous in his recognition, suggesting in the 1975 interview that his films are 98 percent the writer and 2 percent him (though he adds, “my 2 percent is really big.”). He also tantalizingly mentions some extra footage that was apparently at the time planned for a television showing of Nashville. Altman’s comments, especially in this interview, are astute and provocative: “I consider myself an artist,” he says. “And by that I’m not a politician”; at one point, he also declares, in what must be seen by many as cinematic blasphemy, “I never liked John Ford.”

Others involved in the film provide fresh information as part of the 2013 documentary. Tewkesbury especially relates valuable material about her writing, starting with her visit to Nashville where she recorded her adventures, essentially living out the role of Geraldine Chaplin’s Opal in the film. She points out that Nashville is built in a circle, and that this contributed to the larger choreography of the film’s structure, where you have characters moving in and out of certain locations and back again. The film is an “event that moves through space,” she says.

The 1970s were a good decade for Robert Altman, with M*A*S*H, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Images, and The Long Goodbye made before Nashville and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson, 3 Women, and A Wedding. That Nashville emerges as arguably the key film during this period is a testament to its greatness. (Some may contend that M*A*S*H remains Altman’s most popular movie. Perhaps. But in many cases, this fondness is at least partially based on the television show, which Altman had nothing to do with and did not care for.) Quirky, unique, and technically and artistically fascinating, Nashville is also endlessly watchable. Despite all the personal drama and its traumatic conclusion, it’s ultimately an affirming film. Barbara Harris, whose character, Albuquerque, finally gets her much struggled for moment in the spotlight at the end, offers this piece of closing advice: “If we don’t live peaceful, there’s gonna be nothin’ left in our graves except Clorox bottles and plastic fly swatters with red dots on ‘em.” An inspiring message if ever there was one.


REVIEW from: SOUND ON SIGHT

"Tokyo Story"

December 12 marks 110 years since the birth of the great Japanese master Yasujiro Ozu (and 50 years to the date since his death). So what better way to commemorate the occasion than to revisit what is widely seen as his masterpiece among masterpieces, Tokyo Story, out now on a 3-disc dual format Blu-ray/DVD from The Criterion Collection? There have been few filmmakers treated as well by Criterion as Ozu, with more than a dozen titles available either as standalone discs or as part of a set. This latest edition of Tokyo Story, an update on their DVD release from 2003, is no exception.

The film looks spectacular in its new digital restoration, the sharpness making even more clear the attention to detail Ozu devoted to his compositions; sides, foregrounds, and backgrounds are all layered with authentic texture and icons of Japanese culture and Ozu’s distinct cinema. The disc includes a 1988 documentary about long-time Ozu actor and general staple of Japanese film, Chishu Ryu, as well as a revised essay by esteemed professor and author David Bordwell (“Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema”). Ryu, whose first of 213 roles was in Ozu’s early Pumpkin from 1928, is crucial to Japanese cinema generally and to Ozu specifically (he is featured in 52 of the director’s 54 films). The attention given to him in the documentary is well deserved and does much to highlight this performer who saw Japanese filmmaking go through every conceivable transition, from silent to sound, from black and white to color, pre- and post-war. As per the norm with his writing, Bordwell’s essay is insightful, concise, enthusiastic, and free of the pretentious jargon utilized by many academics when dealing with Ozu’s aesthetics. Updated for this Blu-ray release, the essay also allows Bordwell to point out the 2012 Sight & Sound poll that placed Tokyo Story as the third greatest film ever made.

Carried over from the previous edition are a commentary track by David Desser, editor of “Ozu’s ‘Tokyo Story;’” and Talking with Ozu, a tribute to the director, featuring seven filmmakers ranging from Wim Wenders, who made his own documentary about Ozu, Tokyo-ga, included on Criterion’s Late Spring disc, to Paul Schrader, whose “Transcendental Style In Film” is an essential film text looking at Ozu, Robert Bresson, and Carl Dreyer. Made to coincide with the anniversary of Ozu’s birth and death in 1993, Talking with Ozu is comprised of highly personal accounts about the director’s impact on the careers of those featured. Some become quite emotional (Stanley Kwan) and some approach Ozu’s influence with humor (Aki Kaurismäki), but all reveal the breadth of Ozu’s international reach. Wenders points out that, “Family throughout the world has become imaginable and understandable only through Ozu’s films,” and Hou Hsiao-hsien compares Ozu to a “mathematician” insofar as the way he analyzed Japanese people in a detached way. The documentary also contains some fascinating and rarely seen footage of Ozu on set directing.

The real treasure on the disc is I Lived, But . . . , a 2-hour documentary from 1983 about Ozu’s life and career. It alone is worth the price of purchase. This inclusion is abundant with biographical details, professional recollections, and critical reevaluations, many of which shed new and revealing light on where Ozu came from (it’s noted that he first became interested in filmmaking after seeing the 1916 Thomas Ince feature Civilization), and why and how he did what he did with his films. It covers nearly all of his major works and includes clips from most, including many now since lost or at least not readily available. In it, the narrator sets the scene by noting that some directors focus on “raging torrents,” while others, like Ozu, instead turn their cameras on “calmer waters.” Ozu gets to the crux of his filmmaking: “Rather than tell a superficial story, I wanted to go deeper, to show the hidden undercurrents, the ever-changing uncertainties of life.” With that, there is then the film at hand.



Tokyo Story was one of Ozu’s later films, his output steadily slowing by this point — there would only be eight films after. With frequent co-writer and drinking buddy Kogo Noda (they would judge their writing progress by the empty bottles of sake around them), and as was his tendency, Ozu would focus on an average, contemporary middle class family, emblematic of the Gendai-geki genre of Japanese film that he would almost exclusively favor. Within that, he would examine, most prominently, the eternal struggles between young and old, parents and children, single living and the institution of marriage, individual wants and familial responsibility. This focus could be seen as ironic; Desser notes in his commentary that Ozu never married nor had children. But in the banal realities of ordinary existence, Ozu continually found drama, sadness, and humor, all in the “nuances of everyday life,” as Desser puts it. While some of his earlier films were slightly more varied in their subject matter, this was to be the typical point of consideration in most of Ozu’s work.

Not unlike the basic narrative of Leo McCarey’s Make Way for Tomorrow, Tokyo Story is primarily concerned with an elderly couple, Shukichi and Tomi Hirayama (Ryu and Chieko Higashiyama), as they find themselves alienated and emotionally distanced from their grown children. Leaving youngest daughter Kyoko (Kyoko Kagawa) at home in Onomichi, the two visit Tokyo where they plan to spend some time with son Koichi (So Yamamura) and his wife and children, and daughter Shige (Haruko Sugimura) and her husband. Neither family, however, is particularly welcoming to the parents and they quickly view the visitors as burdensome and annoying. The children neglect and dismiss Shukichi and Tomi, while the elders reflect on the high hopes they had for their children and whether or not they’ve been met. The exception is widowed daughter-in-law Noriko (Setsuko Hara – as always, breathtaking), who is genuinely and warmly receptive to the parents of her dead husband. On the return trip to Onomichi, Tomi falls ill. After a brief stop in Osaka, where they reunite with the even more negligent son Keizo (Shiro Osaka), the couple makes it back home, where Tomi’s health takes a further turn for the worse. In this basic narrative are moments of tremendous depth and poignant resonance, Ozu hitting on universal ideas and feelings that no doubt contribute to Tokyo Story’s wide appeal and acclaim. “Isn’t life disappointing?” asks Kyoko. “Yes,” responds Noriko with a smile, “it is.” This sort of quiet resignation of life’s ups and downs is crucial to Ozu’s work, here and elsewhere. It’s not as melodramatic as McCarey’s film, but its emotional cues and moments of overt sentiment are more pronounced than in some of Ozu’s other features. It’s perhaps this careful balance that distinguishes Tokyo Story as the filmmaker’s most enduringly popular.



Two things are instantly apparent in terms of Ozu’s distinct style, and they’re both prominently on display here. The first is the filmmaker’s choice in camera placement, frequently at an uncommonly low angle, about even with the vantage point of someone sitting on the floor. Some argue that this position is indeed based on this sitting position, reflecting the sight of an individual on a tatami mat, for instance. In I Lived, But . . ., director Kaneto Shindo argues that Ozu “didn’t use low-angle shots just for style.” He says, “Ozu got to the heart of Japan” with this approach: ordinary people in typically Japanese settings. The constant presence of shoji screens, futon pallets, and tatami mats all form straight lines and right angles. “He confined living beings within these rigid forms,” states Shindo. For the interiors of his films, this is reasonable enough; when inside, his characters are usually sitting down and the architecture and set design lends itself to this sense of rigorous character placement and unspectacular though revealing action. There is also the fact that such a low angle, especially kept in a wider shot, presents more of a given room, and much of Ozu’s visual design is concerned with geometric patterns, of lines and depictions of interior space. But why does he maintain this angle when scenes are outside, such as in an alleyway or along a street? A theory that possibly carries the most weight is that this position best illustrates a sense of balance, of order. It’s a stationary arrangement that puts the spectator at a stable position reflecting objectivity and poise, all contributing to an equilibrium stressing Ozu’s preoccupations with contemplation and calm solemnity.

The second feature instantly noticeable are his transitions between scenes. Rather than dissolves or fades to black, we’re brought via straight cuts to the next sequence of events. Ozu incorporates something unique. When one of his scenes ends, before the next properly begins, we are commonly held back from the narrative through seemingly innocuous shots of buildings glistening in the sunlight, of factory smokestacks, of vacant rooms, of clothes hanging on the line. These “pillow shots,” as they’re sometimes known (Desser refers to them as “intermediate spaces”), don’t simply bring us to the next scene, they bring us further into the time and place of each story, giving Ozu’s films a marked sense of captured documentary realism. They are pauses in the drama that orient us not so much in the narrative progress, but in the world of the film. They are brief moments of reflection, extraneous to the apparent “action” of the film. These are sequences in opposition to our normal sense of simply “getting on with it.” When American audiences were devouring the action-packed samurai epics of Akira Kurosawa in the 1950s (films equally great in their own right), Ozu was at the time seen as being too reserved, too traditional, “too Japanese.” Now, these moments of meditative restraint can come as a relief from the current sensory bombardment in film.

Do these stylistic characteristics alone make Ozu great? Certainly not. But they do attribute to him a distinct formal technique and a distinguishing tone. He is a singular artist in the cinema, and each of his films are notably his and his alone. Their visual and thematic consistency can cause some to decry him for having made the same film over and over again (some similar titles can also add to this verdict), but within such standard formal patterns, Ozu conveys remarkable differences from film to film. Desser points out that Ozu considered himself a craftsman, or something akin to a tofu maker; he made one kind of film, but he did it exceedingly well with great care. If that is indeed the case, Tokyo Story may be his finest product.

REVIEW from: SOUND ON SIGHT