‘Hatari!’

Hatari! is essentially about a group of men with a job to do, which makes it a perfect vehicle for John Wayne and Howard Hawks. Hawks reveled in stories about professional people who take their job  seriously, and more often than not, Wayne played a character who was the best man for the job. As in their other collaborations — two Westerns before and two after — this film highlights what these two can best bring to the cinematic table. While Hatari! mostly falls into the action/adventure category (though throughout its 157-minute runtime, relatively little is concentrated on extensive action), it ends up being an entertaining and amusing character study, something perhaps more in line with Hawks than Wayne.

This was Leigh Brackett’s third screenplay for Hawks (with two more to follow) and as usual, she expertly captures the banter and behavior of a masculine assembly with a common goal. Having only heard her name and not seen it written, many at the time assumed she was a man herself. That may well be a compliment to her writing. Behind the camera was Russell Harlan, cinematographer on no less than six Hawks features. His work here would be the film’s sole Academy Award nomination (quite understandably, he lost to Freddie Young for Lawrence of Arabia). There was a good deal for Hawks and Harlan to work with in this tropical Tanzania locale. The east African landscape is quite beautiful, and the vast expanse of barren terrain where the film’s hunting sequences take place functions as a desolate arena for the clashes between the wild animals and our protagonists. Musically, Hatari! benefits immensely from a terrific score by Henry Mancini.

Newly out on Blu-ray, however, the imagery and sound, while impressive as far as the film is concerned, are not as well treated in this format as they should be. The video quality especially leaves much to be desired. It’s not awful, but it should be better (see, by contrast, Warner Brothers’ Blu-ray of El Dorado, also released last week).



Wayne, as Sean Mercer, leads the way. The men hunt down and round up animals to be sold to zoos. Fortunately, killing only seems to be done when absolutely necessary, so the audience is spared any severely harsh cruelty. Joining Mercer is Kurt Muller (Hardy Krüger), Pockets (Red Buttons, the comic relief), Bill “Indian” Vaughn (Bruce Cabot), who is injured early on and is largely out of commission for the duration, and Charles “Chips” Maurey (Gérard Blain), a brash newcomer who fills Indian’s spot. (In the film’s initial phases of development, Clark Gable was to co-star, but his salary was deemed to high when combined with Wayne’s. As it happened, Gable tragically died 12 days before shooting started.)

The film was designed with “little plot and more characterization,” according to Hawks. It would take, he said, the episodic form of a hunting season, from beginning to end. Improvisation was also key, with much being created on location. Besides, as Hawks put it, “You can’t sit in an office and write what a rhino or any other animal is going to do.” Summing up, Buttons noted, “There was never a script, only pages.” While there is the ostensible narrative motivation of these men meeting their required number of animals trapped, and that much is given ample screen time and attention, the film’s real drama happens when Anna Maria “Dallas” D’Allesandro enters the picture. Perhaps as a nod to Brackett’s own name confusion, the men, for some reason, assume that a letter signed “A.M.” was from a man. They are quite surprised when the photographer, played by Elsa Martinelli, shows up; no one more so than Sean, as he first meets her when she’s sleeping in his bed. There is also Brandy de la Court (Michèle Girardon), daughter of their former boss. When Sean reluctantly begins to fall for Dallas, and when the other men realize that little Brandy is all grown up, love, more than wildlife, threatens their camp. Sean thinks women are trouble. “Well,” admits Dallas, “they are.”

While there are the trapping sequences, and they are among the most prolonged and thrilling moments of action in Hawks’ career, in this basic set-up, the true tension arises in the form of the men and their relationship with their jobs, the women, and themselves. In other words, it’s quintessential Howard Hawks. As a result of their loyalty to her deceased father, the men give Brandy their paternal respect (they even call her “boss”); to start, they don’t think of her as an adult, more as a girl who comes with the territory, someone they’ve known since she was young, someone they have to take care of. Dallas, on the other hand, is seen for what she is right away: a beautiful woman whose inexperience in the field could spell disaster. While she may be a professional in her line of work, she’s not cut out for their occupation.



It’s clear, though, that sex is a concern much more so than apparent naivete. While this causes some amusing unrest and awkwardness, it also plays into some rather condescending cliches. During an expedition early on, Dallas is relentlessly tossed around while riding in the back of one of the jeeps. She gets bruised and battered and shrieks incessantly, affirming Sean’s reservations about her abilities and quickly dismantling any sense of sturdy independence she may have hoped to convey. And later, it seems that her primary roles with the group are as Sean’s love interest and the caretaker to some elephants — the dutiful wife and mother. As for Brandy, she is the female center of a love triangle to start, with Kurt and Chips volleying for her affection, but she ultimately falls for the relatively unlikely suitor, Pockets. This leaves Kurt and Chips stuck with each other, a more ambiguous relationship that has been oddly contentious and complicated since they first met. (At the end of the film, Kurt tells Sean he’s going to Paris with Chips. “We found out we both know a girl there.” “One girl for the two of you?” asks Sean. “We’ll go halves.”) Though Sean is clearly smitten with Dallas, he maintains a distance for a good portion of the film. It’s revealed that this is largely due to a bad past relationship, one where his then-mate tried to get him away from his work, obviously a no-no. When Dallas seems to accept his lifestyle, all is seemingly well, and even the ultra-masculine and typically stoic Duke isn’t immune to loving affection.

While the women manage to get everyone in a tizzy for one reason or another, there is still adequate emphasis on the prominent Hawks theme of men and their profession. Much talk is based around their work, its difficulty, its methodology, and the specialized knowledge and skill they each possess. Brandy, born around this type of work, recognizes its inherent danger: “You all take chances,” she says. “That’s part of the job.” Danger is the norm to these men. It goes with the territory. (“Hatari” means “danger” in Swahili.) They may acknowledge it, but it’s mostly an afterthought when there’s a job to do, and this is quite a difficult job to do. To their credit, the actors apparently did their own stunt work, which is remarkable given the physicality of their repeated efforts. There’s also the initial testing phase for Chips, where, like in so many Westerns, the new man is required to prove his skill via a shooting match. Successful, he is accepted, but not before he punches Kurt in retaliation for Kurt’s own attack on him earlier in the film — this is how men bond.

Hatari!’s loose narrative is not one of the film’s strongest points. It plods along during certain sequences (more than 2 1/2 hours is somewhat excessive for a film like this), and the basic goal of animal attaining comes across at times as nothing more than a pretense upon which to intermittently hang the various points of contention and drama, interspersed with moments of broad comedy. There’s some local culture brought in to give the film a nominal sense of regional authenticity, mostly through tribal singing and customs and explanations of the inhabitants’ traditional ways, but the picture isn’t really concerned with documentary. The hunting sequences are exciting enough for what they are, with reasonable detail emphasizing the procedural tactics, but it’s a thorny enjoyment; the scenes are fast-paced, creatively shot, and the animals themselves are a sight to behold, but the creatures are ultimately roped, violently apprehended, and hauled away in constrictive makeshift cages. In any event, when not rhino wrangling or deploying a rocket-propelled monkey net, the characters are more interesting back at the camp anyway.

“Directed and produced” by Howard Hawks (Peter Bogdanovich has noted that the credit order is indicative of which role Hawks felt was more important), Hatari! is an enjoyable film, with engaging characters — all crucially adept at what they do — wonderful scenery, and a generally effective balance of drama, comedy, action, and romance. The leisurely pace, when not victim to the aforementioned stalling, gives considerable time for the characters to interact, joke, and enjoy each other’s company, much as the audience does. The shoot was described by some as being like a vacation: a group of people hanging out together, doing stuff outside, drinking, taking their time. Though not one of their greatest efforts (together or otherwise), Hatari! has much of what one would want in a John Wayne/Howard Hawks film. It’s casual, friendly, and sincerely straightforward. And it does all come across as having been extremely fun to make.

‘El Dorado’

When El Dorado was first shown in 1966, the Western in its classical form was beginning to disappear from American cinema. John Ford, synonymous with the genre, released his last feature that year, and El Dorado would be the second-to-last film by its own legendary director, Howard Hawks. The Western was evolving and its old masters were giving way to modern innovators. The stylishly self-conscious films of Sergio Leone first signaled the shift (the films of his “Dollars Trilogy” came out in 1964-1966), and it was certified by the critical, ominous, and violent The Wild Bunch, directed by Sam Peckinpah in 1969. Hawks decried the slow-motion bloodletting of Peckinpah. He argued that he could kill four men, get them to the morgue, and bury them before this newcomer could get one on the ground.

With this as the context of its gestation, it’s little wonder that El Dorado feels nostalgic, like a fond farewell to a familiar style and story that once was. Hawks would still make one more Western — Rio Lobo, in 1970 — but with this film, there is a strong sense of treading well-worn territory in an effort to preserve a type of film he and his generation had created and now saw slipping away. After the failure of his Red Line 7000 the year before, Hawks was eager to get back to what he knew, even if it meant replicating an earlier success, in this case his masterful Rio Bravo. Seasoned writer and frequent collaborator Leigh Brackett did the screenplay, very loosely adapted from Harry Brown’s novel, “The Stars in Their Courses” — in fact, it’s hardly even close. Brackett also wrote Rio Bravo, but her final draft of El Dorado was, she said, the best script she had ever done. However, Hawks refashioned her script and the result, according to Brackett, derisively, was “The Son of Rio Bravo Rides Again.” Hawks would deny an outright remake, but he did unashamedly acknowledge a relative similarity: “If a director has a story that he likes and he tells it, very often he looks at the picture and says, ‘I could do that better if I did it again,’ so I’d do it again….I’m not a damn bit interested in whether somebody thinks this is a copy of it, because the copy made more money than the original, and I was very pleased with it.” Indeed, El Dorado was a fairly substantial commercial success.

Rio Bravo wasn’t the only cinematic point of reference, though. Todd McCarthy, who, with Richard Schickel and Ed Asner, provides one commentary track on the newly released Blu-ray, mentions others in his superb biography, “Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood.” El Dorado also alludes to prior Hawks features like Red River, A Girl in Every Port, and The Big Sleep. Hawks even worked again with the venerable cinematographer Hal Rosson, who first manned the camera for the director in 1929, on Trent’s Last Case. (Rosson’s meticulous lighting in El Dorado looks stunning on this disc.) Peter Bogdanovich, who discusses Hawks and the film on another commentary track, sums it up by calling El Dorado an “omnibus” or “anthology of things Hawks did in other pictures.”

The basic characters for El Dorado certainly bear some similarity to those in Rio Bravo. To start, there is the pairing of the sheriff, J.P. Harrah (Robert Mitchum), and his longtime friend, Cole Thornton (John Wayne). This time, the sheriff is the drunk (Dean Martin’s role in the earlier picture). There’s young gun Mississippi, played by James Caan (it was Colorado in Rio Bravo, played by Ricky Nelson). Instead of the ace sharpshooter, though, this time, the youngster can’t hit the broad side of a barn. In the beginning of El Dorado, however, there are notable differences, in terms of initial location and narrative motivation. The film is opened up more than the previous picture. For at least the first third of the film, much is shot outdoors in the desert, providing a contrast to the confines of the Old Tucson set that becomes significant later.



Plot-wise, the stage is set with a feud over water. Bart Jason (Asner) has been suspiciously expanding his landownings throughout the area. This includes into property already claimed by the MacDonald family, headed by father Kevin (R. G. Armstrong). Cole is brought in to do some work for Jason, but he’s not sure what; he just knows that he pays well. Harrah warns his friend about Jason’s violent intentions, and Cole returns the money and turns down the offer. Riding back into town, Cole is fired upon by a MacDonald son, Luke (Johnny Crawford), who had dozed off, is abruptly woken, and haphazardly shoots in his direction, assuming Cole is someone from Jason’s crew. Cole, who also expects an attack from Jason, instinctively fires back, hitting the boy in the stomach. The pain is too much for the boy to bear and he kills himself. Cole is devastated by the unintended circumstances and returns the body to the MacDonald ranch. They believe his story and he is more or less forgiven. The less being from daughter Joey (the striking Michele Carey); she shoots Cole and the bullet becomes lodged next to his spine, not an immediate concern, apparently (he is John Wayne after all), but something he should probably get checked out at some point. Cole feels guilty over the boy’s death and rides south to move on. Months later, he meets two other central characters, Nelse Macleod (played with intriguing likability by Christopher George), a top gunslinger hired by Jason for the slot Cole vacated, and Alan Bourdillon Traherne, otherwise known as Mississippi. Hearing that Harrah has become a worthless drunk and that the MacDonalds need help, Cole, with Mississippi in tow, hurries back to El Dorado, hoping to sober up the sheriff and pay penance to the MacDonalds.

In town, and once Jason is arrested, El Dorado begins to most fully resemble Rio Bravo. There’s Wayne as essentially the same type of character, there’s the drunk, the young man, the imprisoned bad-guy boss, and an old timer, here the bugle-toting Bull, played by Arthur Hunnicutt, a less kooky variation of Walter Brennan’s Stumpy from the earlier film. Far less significant than Angie Dickinson’s Feathers in Rio Bravo, Charlene Holt is Maudie, the woman who this time courts both the Wayne and Mitchum character. With everyone settled back in El Dorado, things play out basically as before, with only minor differences, and it still remains hugely entertaining. There is exceptionally witty dialogue (“I’m looking at a tin star with a drunk pinned on it,” Cole says to the inebriated Harrah); there’s abrupt, economical, typically Hawksian action; and there’s plenty of masculine camaraderie and notions of “professional courtesy.”



El Dorado even manages to approach some of the same self-reflexive subject matter that the Peckinpah films and similar Westerns were also dealing with during this time, particularly ideas of violence and aging. Luke’s death is not only a traumatic event for those involved, but it also points to the casualness of Western brutality. So many Western characters are brazenly quick to shoot, for one reason or another, and El Dorado questions this social condition, acknowledging that frequently this violence is tragically unnecessary. Such is the level of paranoia in these Wild West days that Luke and Cole naturally assume they’re under attack and fire first and ask questions later. The lawlessness that is part and parcel in the Western is out of control, claiming innocent victims as a result of the world that has been created. Related to this and also weighing on the characters, Cole and Harrah especially, is the inevitability of old age and the fragility of the human body. Wayne more than Mitchum shows his age here (understandably, as Wayne had just undergone the removal of a cancerous lung), but by the end of the film, both characters enter the final battle as cripples; no less capable, it should be noted. Western heroes are growing more vulnerable. Their time, like the genre’s classical form, is nearing an end.

Wayne in El Dorado is as one would expect. One brief bonus feature on the disc has former Paramount executive A.C. Lyles recalling his impressions of the Duke. Always a solid actor, he was really more of a presence. It’s truly a testament to his star status that he was able to maintain such a likable and consistent onscreen persona. Mitchum, who agreed to do the film on the basis of the most minimal of proposals (“There is no story, just you and Duke,” Hawks told him), is also in prime form, conveying a sense of effortless performance that by all accounts required considerable effort. Of the film’s main trio, Caan is the only weak note; it’s not necessarily a bad performance, just an underwhelming one. If one were to compare his version of the young-man complement to Wayne’s seasoned professional with earlier incarnations, he doesn’t have the appealing charm of Montgomery Clift in Red River or the casual coolness of Nelson in Rio Bravo.



Additional features on the new Blu-ray include a documentary, Ride, Boldly Ride: The Journey to El Dorado, which goes into fascinating detail about how this film was made, drawing parallels between Hawks and John Ford and their relationship with Wayne, as well as noting how El Dorado resembled and deviated from other classic Hawks pictures. There is also a short featurette about Olaf Wieghorst, the artist whose paintings are seen during the film’s opening credits.

Howard Hawks was a master at every genre he encountered, and he seemed to encounter them all. While he would only make four Westerns, they were among the very best. Against the revisionist Westerns that would soon be in vogue, or the plethora of Western television series that were on air at the time, El Dorado is a refreshing genre classic, at once suggesting topical concerns while conserving an enduring arena for its Hollywood icons to do what they do best. It incorporates much of what distinguished Howard Hawks’ cinema: his uniform themes, style, and tone. As Bogdanovich states, “If you’re a Hawks fan, it’s pretty irresistible.”

Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Napoleon’ – What Might Have Been

    “It’s impossible to tell you what I’m going to do except to say that I expect to make the best movie ever made.” – Stanley Kubrick, Oct. 20, 1971.

There are few unrealized projects in the history of cinema more tantalizingly fascinating than Stanley Kubrick’s planned feature about Napoleon. Even in 1967, at the time of its initial pre-production (the first time around), it seemed like a potentially great idea. But now, looking back with Kubrick’s entire body of work as a reference point, it truly does stand as a project this legendary filmmaker should have been destined to make. Thanks to a mammoth and comprehensive collection of materials fashioned into Stanley Kubrick’s Napoleon: The Greatest Movie Never Made, edited by Alison Castle and published by Taschen, we can for the first time see how Kubrick prepared for the film and what he had in mind for its ultimate big-screen presentation. Stylistic and thematic features now synonymous with Kubrick are evident, as are particular characterizations, set pieces, action sequences, and recurring visual motifs. 

Kubrick first began discussing the project around the time of 2001: A Space Odyssey; a notebook on the proposed film dates back to as early as July 1, 1967. He was never satisfied with previous depictions of the life of the great leader, even going so far as to criticize Abel Gance’s masterful Napoleon, from 1927. “I found it really terrible,” he said. It was “technically ahead of his time and [Gance] introduced inventive new film techniques … but as far as story and performance goes it’s a very crude picture.” Sergey Bondarchuk’s 1966 War and Peace was “a cut above the others, and did have some very good scenes,” but, he added, he wasn’t overly impressed. With Paths of Glory and Spartacus under his belt, a large-scale epic would have been reasonable for the then-39-year-old filmmaker; with Lolita and Dr. Strangelove most recently completed, he also had a degree of influence and had made a name for himself as a gifted, if provocative, director. Though 2001 had not yet been released when Kubrick first started contemplating the Napoleon project, it too would have further indicated his visual prowess and technical proficiency.



Kubrick expected to keep costs down on Napoleon by utilizing the same sort of front projection technique he had for 2001. Super-fast lenses and specially engineered film stock would enable him to shoot in real interiors with relatively little light (by just candlelight he suggested at one point, as he would eventually do with Barry Lyndon). Camera tests were also done using a “new kind of tear-resistant paper which could be printed to look like an actual military uniform from a certain distance.” Always with the bottom line under consideration, Kubrick, as indicated in the documentation included in the Taschen set, was meticulous about the financial aspects of this large-scale production. He knew that keeping under budget, as he regularly did, helped to ensure his creative freedom and limit studio interference. 

Kubrick estimated that the film would run about 180 minutes. Shooting would be done largely in France, Italy, and Sweden, and Romania and Yugoslavia had agreed to supply up to 30,000 troops as extras. According to biographer Vincent LoBrutto, “Production for the exterior location work was planned for the winter of 1969. Kubrick estimated he would complete the location filming in two to three months and another three to four months for the studio work.” 

Despite a pre-production memo that at one time stated “no stars” — presumably to keep costs down — to play the emperor, Kubrick had considered David Hemmings, fresh off his success in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, as well as Oskar Werner, Al Pacino, and, briefly, Ian Holm. Jack Nicholson was also a strong candidate, indeed the primary candidate into the 1970s; Kubrick was immensely impressed with the young co-star of the recently released Easy Rider. Peter O’Toole, Alec Guinness, Richard Burton, and Jean-Paul Belmondo were also rumored to star in unspecified roles. As for leading ladies, Kubrick had noted Julie Andrews and Vanessa Redgrave as possibilities. Audrey Hepburn was Kubrick’s top choice for Josephine, but apparently, the sexual nature of the planned film, certainly daring for its time, steered her away and she declined outright. (On the sexual nature of the film’s subject, Kubrick contended that Napoleon had a “sex life worthy of Arthur Schnitzler,” author of, among other things, the novella Traumnovelle,” on which Eyes Wide Shut was based.)

Through the years that followed, the film hopped from studio to studio. Financing would seem secure and then suddenly dissipate. The proposed cast would change, possible locations would change, the storyline would change, and so on and so on. Alas, no film was to be made. The disastrous failure of other large-scale epics, particularly a similarly Napoleonic film like Waterloo in 1970, seemed to sideline the film for good. (“Waterloo was such a silly film,” wrote Kubrick not long after it came out. “It will not make things any easier but in the end I am sure we will get it done.”)

Yet even after A Clockwork Orange in 1971, Kubrick told an interviewer, “I plan to do ‘Napoleon’ next,” and in 1972, “A Clockwork Orange” author Anthony Burgess told the Village Voice that he was working on a novel about the life of Napoleon: “I’m writing it in the shape of a Beethoven symphony. Kubrick is going to make it into a movie.” And during the making of Barry Lyndon in 1975, rumor had it that Kubrick was simultaneously shooting battle scenes for “Napoleon.” By the next decade, though, the project had more or less vanished from his radar. In 1980, he gave the following response regarding the film: “I haven’t seriously though about [the] Napoleon film for years … [I]nflation would put the film in the neighborhood of $50 to $60 million, and I’m not sure that it can be done in under three hours’ playing time.” The idea of a Napoleon film was not totally dead for Jack Nicholson, though. As late as 1986, he was still talking abut the possibility of a Napoleon movie; in 1983, when asked who he would like to direct him in such a film, he responded, “Stanley Kubrick — I feel obligated to give it to him first. After all, he got me ‘Napoleonized’ in the first place.”

The frequent half-starts on the film through the years are perhaps largely due to how Kubrick viewed Napoleon’s life and times, insofar as they could be representative of any current period. The occurrences and the basic ideas that would manifest themselves in Kubrick’s Napoleon would have relevance no matter when the film would ultimately be made. Kubrick said, “I find that all the issues with which [Napoleon, the potential film] concerns itself are oddly contemporary — the responsibilities and abuses of power, the dynamics of social revolution, the relationship of the individual to the state, war, militarism, etc.” (Shades of Strangelove and Paths of Glory, to be sure.)



Included in the Taschen collection are a book of images taken by location scouts, photographs of costume tests, samples of note cards detailing what was happening every day of Napoleon’s life, and 17,000 slides of Napoleonic imagery. Aside from representing a fascinating collection for the Kubrick admirer, this assortment further stresses the meticulousness and drive toward total control that Kubrick brought to most of his productions. An extended conversation with professor and adviser Felix Markham gives remarkable insight into Kubrick’s queries regarding Napoleon’s life; alas, we can only speculate about their possible uses. Napoleon is also an exemplary case study of Kubrick’s attention to detail and obsession with collecting all of the facts, knowing all that there is to know about his given subject, and thus having the utmost control over his production. He was a filmmaker, as this collection can attest to, who wanted to see it all, understand it all, and know, better than anyone else, how to most successfully and authentically bring said details to filmic life. According to Eva-Maria Magel, “The material left behind by Kubrick is possibly the largest of all private archives on Napoleon … [comprising] a range of material, including his subject’s political testament, the memoirs of associates and opponents, academic studies, and popular histories. Numbering at one point at about 500 volumes …”



Also part of the set is a 1969 screenplay draft. From this alone, one is able to glean a decent idea of what Kubrick had in mind for the film. Of course, Kubrick’s cinematic eye was a singular one, and it would be egregious to presuppose what he would ultimately do. It is, nevertheless, not hard to imagine a reasonably accurate picture of the scenes described in the script, had they been shot, especially given the period in which the screenplay was written and at times considered for production, and taking into account the relative proximity of time periods covered in this story and Barry Lyndon. The imagery would have most likely taken on roughly the same detailed and carefully composed shape as the 1975 picture. As noted by Magel, “Barry Lyndon benefited enormously from the research, the pre-filming work and the technical insights of ‘Napoleon.’” Unquestionably, more than any other Kubrick film, Barry Lyndon can function as a sort of visual gauge with which to envision what is only described in the screenplay.

In a graphic pattern common to most of Kubrick’s work featuring wartime sequences, the script calls for scenes and shots depicting orderly assemblies of men on the battlefield; the mise-en-scene strongly indicates an illustration emphasizing symmetry and regimented formation, particularly as they are relevant to, and illustrative of, violent and militaristic exchanges. He wanted to stage the battles in “a vast tableau where the formations moved in an almost choreographic fashion.” And indeed, the screenplay descriptions do indicate what could have been immense panoramas of methodically orchestrated and executed carnage.

Throughout the screenplay, these sweeping vistas are juxtaposed with scenes of more constricted interiors, notably the scenes of strategic and bureaucratic conferencing and the scenes of sexual intimacy. In the case of the latter, if the violence proposed for “Napoleon” resembles Barry Lyndon and to a certain extent Paths of Glory, the sexuality is akin to Eyes Wide Shut. “Maxima erotica” is simply how Kubrick describes one scene, and Napoleon’s first encounter with Josephine is at a sexual performance of sorts, not unlike the haunting orgy in Kubrick’s final masterpiece. 

Relying on a good deal of commentary, the screenplay gives a voiceover to an unseen narrator as well as Napoleon himself, and at times Josephine and Tsar Alexander also chime in with their thoughts and observations. The voiceover belonging to the all-seeing narrator is similar to not only Barry Lyndon but also The Killing, in which the audience is afforded knowledge not necessarily granted to the characters involved. In Napoleon, it also gives considerable historical context, certainly helpful for a film so densely packed with names, years, military campaigns, countries, and so forth.

The structure of Napoleon similarly resembles Barry Lyndon in its rise-and-fall projection. With Napoleon, though, even more biographical area is covered. Kubrick manages to include a vast array of pertinent moments from the emperor’s life, starting as far back as his childhood, where we see that his military career essentially started at age 9. To maintain so much exposition and chronological information, Kubrick’s screenplay is remarkably swift. In fact, one wonders how, if filmed, Kubrick would have managed the pace. Starting with Napoleon as a small child, he is 20 years old by page 9, and from there on, it’s one scene after another highlighting crucial personal and professional events, all the way up to his death, and all in a 186-page script.

It’s clear that Kubrick cared a great deal about Napoleon. “I don’t claim he is the best and most honorable man in history – only the most interesting,” he said. And much of what is striking about Napoleon’s characterization in the screenplay is the larger-than-life persona he embodies. While this may indeed be historically accurate, one can’t help but also draw comparisons with the fictional Alex from A Clockwork Orange. Napoleon exhibits this same sort of independence, self-absorption, and social gall. “I am not a man like any other,” he declares at one point. By the end of the script, even if one knew nothing about the real figure, it would be hard to disagree with such a statement.



Also like Alex, Napoleon in Kubrick’s screenplay has a distinct love for authority, that is, his own. One of the most notable themes in all of Kubrick’s work is a depiction and analysis of organization, control, order, and authority, and this is unquestionably one of the primarily elements that continually arise in Napoleon. Though Kubrick’s project was never brought to eventual fruition, the materials that do exist on the film express perhaps better than any other Kubrick film notions of control and authority, in war sequences (pre-, during, and post-) in particular, but also in realms beyond. It’s little wonder that the topic so fascinated the filmmaker. As Geoffrey Ellis notes in “A Historian’s Critique of the Screenplay,” “I can understand why Kubrick’s fascination in Napoleon’s career lay chiefly in the nature of power itself: how it was gained, how it was ultimately lost.” And as LoBrutto rightly acknowledges, “Napoleon was an ideal subject for Kubrick: it embraced the director’s passion for control, power, obsession, strategy and the military.” A passage underlined by Kubrick in J. Christopher Herold’s “The Mind of Napoleon” clearly indicates how the filmmaker and his subject could be considered kindred spirits: “My power is dependent on my glory, and my glory on my victories. My power would fail if I did not base it on still more glory and still more victories.” Next to this, Kubrick wrote, “A task without an end.”

There are numerous scenes outlined in the script that illustrate these ideas. For example, Scene 21 reads: “ANIMATED MAP: Napoleon’s plan for the capture of Toulon. Explaining with narration how, rather than trying to capture the town by storm, it is, instead, only necessary to capture Fort Eguillette, a promontory of land from which French batteries would command the inner and outer harbours of the port, making them untenable to the English fleet, and quickly leading to the fall of the city.” Here, as seen in Fear and Desire, Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Full Metal Jacket, is a familiar image of one in control (or, at least, one trying to be in control), consulting a map as it stands as a tangible object conveying order and understanding. Along those lines, Scene 31 details: “INT- NAPOLEON’S PARIS HQ – DAY: Pencil between his teeth, dividers in one hand, [Napoleon] creeps around on hands and knees on top of a very large map of Italy, laid out from wall to wall. Other large maps cover the table, the couch and any other available space.” Still with the actual and symbolic significations of maps, this sequence epitomizes a man obsessed with control, with securing the details of his endeavors. Could there be a more telling image in a Kubrick film than this when it comes to showing one’s pursuit and craving for absolute control? This picture of the great general (with ranking an indication of authority) crawling around on all fours going over, no doubt to the last detail, his next move?

Also like in much of Kubrick’s work, there are sprinklings of humor in “Napoleon.” Kubrick often infuses some comedy, however dark, into a majority of his movies, and in Napoleon, there are moments of obvious comedic banter done simply to amuse, but there are also sequences of subtle, emotionally affecting comedy that has more resounding resonance. In the first case, one scene has Napoleon discussing the cold with Tsar Alexander. Napoleon inquires about whether or not the Tsar wears long-sleeved and long-legged underwear. “You can never conjure up brilliances with a cold bottom,” says the emperor, causing both men to laugh, concluding the scene. In the other case, however, the scene of the divorce proceedings for Napoleon and Josephine is tragically amusing in its superficial unspoken falseness; she agrees to the separation because she has been unable to bear him a child, not, of course, because neither one has ever been faithful.

Stanley Kubrick’s uncompleted Napoleon project is an engrossing entry in the great filmmaker’s career, and any admirer of his is certainly grateful for the breadth of material he left behind. Few of film history’s nonexistent potential classics have this much to work with and to explore. We’ll obviously never be able to know exactly what Kubrick intended to create. (This will remain true even if Steven Spielberg’s attempt to adapt Kubrick’s outline to a TV miniseries comes to fruition.) However, we should consider ourselves fortunate that he was so distinctive in his formal tendencies and narrative concerns; with these consistencies, combined with what is available, at least we can partially analyze Napoleon, or at least what might have been.
ESSAY  from SOUND ON SIGHT

‘Tess’

Roman Polanski revealed an exceptional eye for gripping visual design in his earliest films. In those works, like Knife in the Water, Cul-de-sac, Repulsion, Rosemary’s Baby and, somewhat later, The Tenant, most of this pictorial construction was derivative of themes, and subsequent depictions of, confinement, claustrophobic paranoia, and severely taut antagonism. In terms of visual and narrative scope, Chinatown opened things up somewhat, but it was with Tess, his 1979 adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the d’Urbervilles,” that Polanski significantly broadened his canvas to encompass the sweeping tale of the Victorian era loves and conflicts of this eponymous peasant girl.

Polanski speaks to this distinction during an interview in the newly released Criterion Collection Blu-ray/DVD of Tess. In discussing the film for the French TV program Cine regards, the director acknowledges that many of his prior films, and indeed modern life itself, tended toward the absurd and surreal. With this film, he hoped to venture into a world for those, apparently like himself, who wished, “to return to things that are more realistic, more essential, more human … like love, loyalty, betrayal, shame, the intolerance and cruelty of society.” In terms of Tess’ style, Polanski was also striving to visually extricate himself from restrained settings and condensed situations. With Tess, he wanted the camera to remain outside, objective, as opposed to the subjective camera positioning of Chinatown for example, where he says much of what we see is influenced by the inclinations and movements of Jack Nicholson’s Jake Gittes character. Tess would stay back, in most cases, holding to carefully composed tableaux of detached yet nonetheless powerfully evocative beauty.



The imagery of Tess is what strikes first and leaves the greatest impression, and it was undoubtedly with this in mind that Criterion pulled out all the stops with this release. The 4K digital restoration, done under Polanski’s supervision, is spectacular. While Polanski admits that he always admired films set indoors, hence the abundance of interior settings in the aforementioned early features, Tess is at its sumptuous best when outside. From the dusk-tinged luminosity highlighting the first half of the picture, to the bucolic mud and muck that emotionally inflects the latter half, Tess gloriously illustrates the ethereal impact of its pastoral setting. The delicate play of light in the beginning and, by contrast, the stark absence of any sense of warmth that dampens the concluding scenes, are both fully realized and gloriously presented. In some ways like a Terrence Malick picture, it’s easy with Tess to disengage from the plot and characters, getting swept up instead by the breathtaking visuals. This takes nothing away from the film (Polanski’s or Malick’s); fortunately, the pacing is leisurely enough that to simply watch for a while never once leaves the audience scrambling to catch up. In fact, some specific shots in Tess seem explicitly designed for their beauty rather than their narrative significance. It’s little wonder that Tess received Academy Awards for Best Cinematography (shared by its two DPs, Geoffrey Unsworth and Ghislain Cloquet, the former posthumously) and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Pierre Guffroy, Jack Stephens), as well as Best Costume Design (Anthony Powell).

Criterion also went above and beyond with its supplemental features. This is particularly beneficial for a film like this, which, despite numerous accolades upon its release, including the Oscar wins (there were also three other nominations: Best Picture, Director, and Original Score), it is nevertheless among Polanski’s least discussed works. Perhaps this is because it deviated from what one thinks of as a “typical” Polanski film. Or perhaps it is because so much of its production was overshadowed by Polanski’s personal troubles at the time (despite being set in England, filming had to done in France, where he wouldn’t face extradition to America). Whatever the case, this Criterion release is a welcome one. Interviews with on-set footage and documentaries about the production give considerable insight about the movie and those involved. With so many extras, some of the material gets a little repetitive, but it’s nevertheless highly enlightening. We are able to see Polanski at work, setting up these astonishing shots. The behind-the-scenes material goes a long way to convey the difficulties of this type of filmmaking; Polanski is often shown to be meticulous in his directorial choices and is understandably impatient with talking and laughing onlookers.



Polanski dedicated Tess to his late wife Sharon Tate, who, while pregnant, was brutally murdered by members of the Manson family 10 years prior. It was Tate who first gave her husband Hardy’s novel.  Adapted by Polanski and frequent collaborators Gérard Brach and John Brownjohn, Tess follows the source rather faithfully, with the radiant 18-year-old Nastassja Kinski starring in the title role. In an episode of The South Bank Show included here, Polanski says Kinski simply had a “face for the movies,” and he recognized that, when photographing her, she had “no bad sides.”  In the Cine regards segment, he also likens her to a young Audrey Hepburn or Vivien Leigh: “When men see her on screen, they want to protect her. It’s an essential quality for a woman on the screen.”

The film begins as John Durbeyfield (John Collin) first hears that his family is supposedly descended from the prestigious d’Urberville aristocracy. He becomes infatuated with the notion and sets off his oldest daughter, Tess, to seek employment and residence at the nearest household where a remaining d’Urberville is thought to live. With a little luck, she will reclaim their rightful lineage and the Durbeyfields will attain their proper social status. There, she meets her possible cousin, Alec (Leigh Lawson), who appears instantly devious. Tess is bewildered by the whole arrangement and rather leery of her newfound heritage and relative, while her family, particularly her father, remains oblivious to the suspicious nature of the situation. Tess’ misgivings prove to be well-founded when it’s revealed that Alec only “bought” the d’Urberville name and is, indeed, a morally reprehensible scoundrel. He takes advantage of Tess’ fragility and rapes her. Following the violation (but not immediately), she leaves Alec and sets off on her own.

In these initial sequences, Polanski’s previously seen penchant for conveying an undercurrent of lurking danger is more apparent than anywhere else in the film. Clearly sensing that Alec is not who he claims to be, the potential for sexual violence is intense; his gaze is often chilling and the camera lingers on he and Tess just long enough to stress an unspoken, latent threat. This is especially disconcerting in the way that it contrasts with the lushness of the settings. For the first part of the film, the dazzling scenery remains a constant, acting as a complement and counterpoint to the drama that unfolds. When Tess’ life is going well and romance later blooms, the natural beauty that surrounds her ecstatically reflects her emotions. However, in these times of peril and abuse, the background doesn’t change; it ironically envelops scenes of dread in the same natural warmth.



Tess, to start, was a good-natured young girl, innocent and naïve. But it doesn’t take long for her to become soured by life’s injustices and disappointments. It’s revealed that she became pregnant from the altercation(s?) with Alec, and her emotional state is further battered when she loses the sickly child. Tess moves to a dairy farm and there meets Angel Clare (Peter Firth), the dashing apple of every young girl’s eye. In direct opposition to the first impression from Alec, Angel is charming and decent, and he and Tess share a physical and spiritual bond. They discuss their inward fears and mutually recognize that “life’s a puzzle,” neither one necessarily meeting the expectations thrust upon them by others. One of the film’s most delightfully romantic scenes comes in this portion of the picture, when Angel carries three other girls over a large puddle only so he could eventually hold Tess. “I’ve gone through three quarters of this trouble for your sake alone,” he tells her as he sweeps her into his arms.

Angel and Tess fall instantly and joyously in love and soon wed, but her scandalous past, however blameless for it she may have been, plagues their relationship. Angel is unforgiving and dismisses her (despite his own illicit dalliances prior to their marriage). Tess now takes a darker tone, and likewise shifts to a more somber color palette further underscored by a seasonal change of cold, rain, and grey skies. Tess reencounters Alec, but now, with her family in dire financial straits, the prospect of being with him has some disconcerting appeal. And when Angel again enters the picture and expresses his regret at having scorned Tess, she is subsequently torn between her true love and a love of necessity, neither of which has treated her well. Proud and resilient, Tess remains a headstrong girl, for better or worse, and by the end, her passionately enacted decisions have grave consequences for all involved.

“[Polanski] begins his projects by assembling his materials, including a perfectly crafted script … and then trains on them an eye that knows better than that of any other filmmaker how to frame a scene,” states Colin MacCabe in a predictably incisive essay included with the Criterion disc. This essentially is what makes Tess, as well as most of Polanski’s work, so great, this ability to have a discernable style that is illustrative and engrossing, and yet to have it, first and foremost, at the service of a well-told story. With Tess, there is unquestionably this balance. It is a stunning film to behold and it is a tale that has emotionally captivated readers since its 1891 publication.


REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

‘Foreign Correspondent’

As if his British films weren’t evidence enough of his talent, Alfred Hitchcock made quite the impression when he came to Hollywood in 1940. His first picture in the states, Rebecca, was nominated for Best Picture at the 1941 Academy Awards. So was his second, Foreign Correspondent, also released in 1940. While Rebecca would ultimately win, many – then and now – consider the achievement as belonging more to producer David O. Selznick than to the director. This is not without some justification. Though Rebecca bears more than a few notably Hitchcockian touches, between the two features, Foreign Correspondent looks and feels more appropriately like Hitchcock’s previous and later works. The Criterion Collection, recently very kind to Hitchcock on Blu-ray, now gives this latter feature a suitably well-rounded treatment, with a documentary on the film’s visual effects, an hour-long interview with Hitchcock from The Dick Cavett Show, Joseph Cotten’s radio adaptation, an excellent essay by scholar James Naremore, and two features that focus on the film’s war-time resonance.

America had not yet entered World War II when Foreign Correspondent was released, and there’s more than a little insinuation – particular toward the end of the picture – that maybe it should. Set in Europe and following essentially just one American character, the propaganda isn’t as explicit as in films being made in more directly affected European countries at the time. Even though the movie opens with a dedication to real foreign correspondents (the “eyes and ears of America”), the audience is initially at a distance from the global troubles. There’s something happening Over There, and it’s probably not good, but for now, let’s just keep an eye on it. This is basically the sentiment of the New York newspaper editor Mr. Powers, played by Harry Davenport. He’s suspicious about this Hitler fellow, his rise to power, and the inevitable war that’s no doubt soon to follow. On the other hand, crime reporter Johnny Jones (Joel McCrea) is less concerned. Asked what he knows about the crisis in Europe, he responds, “What crisis?” The editor needs a man in Europe reporting on the situation, but he doesn’t want someone sending out indefinite telegrams. He wants facts, not “a guessing game.” Despite his international ignorance, Jones might be the man for the job. He’s an average guy who recently beat up a policeman while covering a story (“Sounds ideal for Europe,” says Powers). He seems careless, but he’s apparently good at what he does.

Jones gets the assignment – give him an expense account and he’ll cover anything, he quips. Under the alias “Huntley Haverstock,” Jones first arrives in London to interview Dutch diplomat Van Meer (Albert Bassermann), a man who may hold the key to European peace talks. Van Meer is associated with the Universal Peace Party, which is headed by Stephen Fisher (Herbert Marshall). This being a Hitchcock film, and Hitchcock knowing that it often takes two to tango in thrillers (from The 39 Steps to Family Plot, an opposite-sex pair of protagonists is frequently prominent in his work), Fisher’s daughter, Carol (Laraine Day), soon catches Jones’ eye. They exchange barbs and banter; they are, of course, clearly in love. Hitchcock somewhat recreates his proposal to his wife when Jones and Carol talk marriage as they’re huddled together during a cold, damp, and bumpy boat ride. In real life, when Hitchcock asked his wife to marry him she burped due to seasickness; he took that as a yes.



Before he knows it, Jones is in Amsterdam and Van Meer is apparently assassinated in a wonderfully staged sequence that concludes with a swarm of umbrellas shot from above, enveloping the crime scene (Brian De Palma thought this overhead shot looked good, too; see The Bonfire of the Vanities). But when Jones, Carol, and a newfound colleague, ffolliott (George Sanders), follow the assassin into the countryside, the assailant’s car disappears. Jones investigates and discovers the real Van Meer hidden in a windmill. The captors escape with the hostage and Jones is left trying to convince others of what he saw. Fortunately, Carol believes him. However, unbeknownst to both of them at the time, her love and allegiance to Jones is going to get dramatically tested by a life – and a father – she previously thought she knew. Their relationship faces conflict as all involved attempt to unravel the mysteries of who’s up to what and to what aim. In the screenplay’s successful alternation between the points of view of Jones, Carol, and Fisher, emotional tension is well-integrated as the audience gradually knows more than each of the characters, and we’re left to suspensefully wonder when they too will ultimately get the full breadth of information.

Van Meer, for his part, knows something about a mysterious and apparently quite critical clause in the peace treaty, and that, as the famous Hitchcock “MacGuffin,” is what drives the film’s narrative on a basic, superfluous level. More important is the general scheming and suspicion surrounding those who make war, those who profit from it, and those who have the power to manipulate it. Jones is clearly in over his head in this world of foreign intrigue, but due in large part to Joel McCrea’s humorous charm, it’s tremendous fun to watch him go from the wrong man for the job to the man who knows too much.

Aside from McCrea’s nonchalant performance (it’s hard to imagine original choice Gary Cooper in the role), Foreign Correspondent also contains other strong comedic features throughout. There are more subtle bits of amusement, such as the menacing baddies being obvious stand-ins for Nazis, though the word “Nazi,” or even “German,” is never used. There’s also Alfred Newman’s jaunty score which, in the beginning, keeps the film happily and lightly moving along. And the sudden death of a complaining woman near the end of the film is one of Hitchcock’s funniest and darkest inclusions. Perhaps more than anything though, it’s George Sanders who comically steals the show. He’s not our main hero, but he might be the most entertaining and appealing; he blends a sharp wit with a degree of daring that Jones doesn’t quite possess.

Known for stunning set pieces and action sequences, Hitchcock takes to the skies for Foreign Correspondent’s most famous special effects spectacular. Even if you do inadvertently see studio lights, the film’s concluding plane crash is pretty remarkable. Hitchcock goes into some detail about this scene during the Cavett interview, which, with the director being hilariously droll, is the most insightful and enjoyable bonus feature included.



Throughout the film, Hitchcock masterfully creates a number of other scenes that benefit considerably from their setting. The aforementioned assassination is brilliantly aided by the rain and necessary umbrellas, the search amidst the windmills gets much of its visual value from its unusual locale, and there are multiple scenes played out from great heights, all quite effectively shot (was Hitch already thinking of Vertigo?). In all of these sequences, the location is both visually striking and functional. It’s more than just a backdrop to the action: the umbrellas, the windmills, the hotel rooms, the towering cathedral each serve a crucial narrative purpose in addition to their cinematically potent presentation. Among his many other filmic talents, this use of place was one thing Hitchcock did better than almost anybody.

As informatively pointed out in “Hollywood Propaganda and World War II,” the interview with writer Mark Harris on this disc, the gestation of Foreign Correspondent did not begin with Hitchcock. The film was more the brainchild of maverick producer Walter Wanger. Ever socially and politically minded, Wanger took the film, which first got his interest in 1936, and added considerable topicality. The impending war in Europe was a hot-button issue in America prior to Pearl Harbor, with many feeling that isolationism was imperative. As production went on, Wanger did what he could to slightly sway this idea by bringing the film up to speed, with the latest real-world developments added when possible. This is generally minimal throughout the film, but it’s nonetheless done efficiently. It’s fascinating and terrifying to see characters balancing on the brink of war, in a precarious situation where there are looming blackouts and requisite planning based on the inevitability of destruction, yet there’s still time for drives in the country and touristy sightseeing.



Explicit propaganda is only brought in at the very end of the movie. It starts when America’s then-neutrality is somewhat mocked; during the film’s most hilarious scene, Jones attempts to secretly report to his paper about what has transpired (he’s not allowed to discuss such war matters aboard the American ship he’s calling from). The great Ben Hecht was brought in to write Jones’ final speech. Over the radio, Jones passionately pleads for America’s strength and perseverance in the face of the approaching war and the anticipated need for participation. Carol declares, “They’re listening in America, Johnny,” and he proceeds: “Don’t tune me out, hang on a while. This is a big story, and you’re part of it. It’s too late to do anything here now except stand in the dark and let them come, as if the lights were all out everywhere, except in America. Keep those lights burning, cover them with steel, ring them with guns, build a canopy of battleships and bombing planes around them. Hello, America, hang on to your lights. They’re the only lights left in the world.”

As is pointed out on the disc, this wasn’t Hitchcock’s only war-related work. He made a number of shorts for the US and British governments, and films like Saboteur and Lifeboat are strongly connected to World War II dramatics, but this, in Mark Harris’ words, is the “closest thing he ever made to a message movie.” Be that as it may, with the filmmaker’s customary humor, characterizations, staging, editing tricks, and a variety of camera effects, Foreign Correspondent is quintessentially, and unmistakably, a classic Hitchcock movie, whatever its motives.


REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

‘Jules and Jim’

In François Truffaut’s debut feature, The 400 Blows, widely seen as the flagship production of the French Nouvelle Vague, or “New Wave,” he was able to convey a representation of youth in a very specific era and, at that time, in a very unique way. Autobiographical as the 1959 film was, it also featured a notable vitality and honesty, two traits that would distinguish several of these French films from the late 1950s and into the ’60s. While The 400 Blows was an earnest and refreshing portrayal of adolescence, in some ways, Truffaut’s 1962 feature, Jules and Jim, his third, feels even more youthful, in terms of stylistic daring and energetic exuberance. Though dealing with adults and serious adult situations, Jules and Jim exhibits a formal sense of unbridled glee, with brisk editing, amusing asides, and a sinuously mobile camera. Jules and Jim is alive like few films are. It’s a movie by a young cinephile (Truffaut wasn’t quite 30 when it was released) as he explores and exploits the medium he loves.

As befits a film of this quality and esteem, The Criterion Collection release of Jules and Jim is one of their most impressive. Essentially carrying over the supplemental materials from the previous DVD release, the recent Blu-ray/DVD combo does boast a new digital restoration and retains two commentaries (one with co-screenwriter Jean Gruault, Truffaut collaborator Suzanne Schiffman, editor Claudine Bouché, and film scholar Annette Insdorf, the other with Jeanne Moreau and Truffaut biographer Serge Toubiana). There is also a documentary about the author of the film’s source novel, Henri-Pierre Roché; interviews with Gruault and cinematographer Raoul Coutard; a conversation between scholars Robert Stam and Dudley Andrew; and several excellent and insightful interviews with Truffaut, one also featuring Moreau and Jean Renoir.



A classic love triangle motivates the drama of Jules and Jim. Each making their way through various women like they would packs of Gauloises cigarettes, Jules (Oskar Werner) and Jim (Henri Serre) struggle to find “the one” amidst the bevy of beauties they bed and abandon. Suddenly, into their lives bursts forth Catherine (Moreau), a girl even more erratic and spiritedly unpredictable than they are, first seen in a stunningly cut montage that ranks among the best character introductions in film history. She’s a perfect match — but for which guy? Both, apparently. Jules falls first and falls the hardest, and Jim does his best to maintain a respectful distance — this is Jules’ girl — but when Catherine inexplicably and purposefully plunges into a river, far from being unnerved by this action, Jim becomes further enamored by this reckless young woman. Despite her impulsiveness (or perhaps because of it), Jules marries Catherine. He loves her; however, he possibly also hopes that the institution of marriage and family will remedy her unconventional behavior. “Less the grasshopper and more the ant,” is how he puts it later in the film. In any event, it doesn’t work. And still, Jim harbors feelings for Catherine.

With Jules on the German side and Jim on the French, World War I distances all three from each other, and through it all — the battles in the trenches and the emotional turmoil at home — Jules and Jim maintain, above all else, their unyielding friendship. Even when it becomes painfully obvious that Catherine no longer loves Jules (by his count, she has had at least three lovers and only just recently returned after having randomly left for 6 months), and even after she unashamedly transfers her affections to Jim, the two men remain respectful and cordial to one another. As the film’s narrator concludes, their “friendship had no equivalence in love.” Nevertheless, this inconsistent fluctuation of affection, as well as the resulting despair, paranoia, and frustration, cannot last. A breaking point for the trio is inevitable.

Upon subsequent viewings of Jules and Jim, knowing how the film ultimately turns out, it becomes obvious early on that this three-part relationship is not destined to succeed. One notices skeptical glances from Jim; regardless that he ends up falling for Catherine, he clearly senses something is askew with this potentially unstable charmer. Georges Delerue’s outstanding soundtrack also signals trouble on the horizon; even sequences of apparent elation are underscored by a particular piece that reappears throughout the film, a song tinged with impending doom, casting an audible cloud over the visual bliss. To be sure, Jules should know what he’s getting in for. No matter how one views Catherine, there can be no denying that she is who she is; she’s true to herself, if no one else. So when Jules insists that a woman’s fidelity is the most important thing in a relationship, we (and Jim) instantly have our doubts.

This is nonetheless all quite tragic, for despite their faults — and no one here is more or less guilty or innocent than another —  Jules, Jim, and Catherine are relatively likable and sympathetic characters, especially when things are going good and one wishes to be the fourth member of this joyous assembly. Jules gets hit the hardest, though. He goes from pleading “not this one,” asking Jim to refrain from encroaching on his budding relationship with Catherine, to “be careful,” when he becomes resigned to the fact that Catherine now loves his friend. And it’s Jules who, at the end of the film, clearly elicits our deepest sympathies. Jim, envious of the apparent (though illusory) stability of Jules’ life with Catherine and their daughter, Sabine, tells Jules that while France may have won the war, he would have rather “won all this.” This type of domesticity is, for now, beyond the gallivanting Jim. And thanks in no small part to Moreau’s appeal, it’s continually easy to forgive and forget Catherine’s transgressions. Truffaut, in one of the interviews on the Criterion disc, describes the film as one about a woman who “loves two men with equal passion.” She may be heedless in her other relations, but it’s hard to really blame her for what she seems to think is a perfectly legitimate arrangement among the three of them. If they’re all good with it, or at least pretend to be, well, why couldn’t this work?



Like so many other films of the Nouvelle Vague, Jules and Jim is largely lauded and remembered for individual sequences, most of which highlight the incomparable Moreau. (This movement was nothing if not a showcase for beautiful and talented actresses.) According to John Powers, in an essay included here, Moreau was “a pop-eyed siren with the ferocity of Bette Davis and the kitty-cat wiles of Tuesday Weld.” From Catherine as “Thomas,” to the footrace on the bridge, to her musical interlude as she sings “Le Tourbillon,” there are many remarkable moments to take away from Jules and Jim. Already established as an attractive and gifted performer, it’s Moreau who generally steals the show. Having appeared in Touchez Pas au Grisbi, Louis Malle’s Elevator to the Gallows and The Lovers, and Michelangelo Antonioni’s La Notte, Moreau was a familiar and breathtaking screen presence, but usually a somber one. Aware of this, she and Truffaut have some fun with the brooding convention, making sure that Moreau smiled more often than normal (one scene in particular alludes to this). Their collaboration and friendship would grow from this film forward. They would remain close and work together again 6 years later on The Bride Wore Black.

At the time prior to Jules and Jim, Truffaut’s career was anything but secure. The financial failure of his second feature, Shoot the Piano Player, which is now a beloved film, led to some notable shifts in Truffaut’s production methods, namely a required bankable cast and a solid screenplay that was to be followed, his improvisatory tendencies temporarily put on hold. Whatever it took to get it completed, Jules and Jim is now one of the greats. It was enough to make Jean Renior jealous for not having made it himself, and–as noted by renowned New Wave cinematographer Coutard, who does exquisite work on this picture–it’s “a film that leaves one speechless.” Truffaut thought the film was perhaps “too decorative” in its depiction of a complex love affair: “not cruel enough,” he says in one of the interviews here. This could have been the result of a young man’s naiveté, but in any case, he sought to rectify the approach with Two English Girls in 1971, also, like Jules and Jim, adapted from a Roché novel with Gruault. This tale of a lovestruck threesome instead features, as the title implies, two girls and one boy and is much less buoyant than its predecessor.

Before his untimely passing at the age of just 52, François Truffaut covered a lot of cinematic territory, as a hugely influential critic (he speaks on the auteur theory in one interview on the disc) and as a filmmaker. He surely pulls out all the filmic stops here. Jules and Jim begins with a breakneck opening and never lets up in its barrage of technical tricks: rapid cutting, flowing camera maneuvers, tracks, dollies, zooms, irises, superimpositions, stock footage, and some superb freeze frames that perfectly, yet fleetingly, capture that Moreau essence. Few cineastes, in whatever form they choose to work in, wear their love of the medium so obviously on their sleeve. As a result, Truffaut is something of a film lover’s filmmaker. A quote from him gets to the heart of this. It perhaps helps to explain how he was able to make so many tremendous movies, movies that embodied and projected a passionate love of the cinema, and why he appreciated the art as he did. Asked in an interview which he preferred, seeing sights in real life or in the movies, he said, “I think I like the image of life better than life itself, because I don’t think real life is as satisfying as a film.” After watching Jules and Jim, it’s hard to necessarily disagree.


REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

Altman’s Unsung ’70s

Director Robert Altman had his fair share of ups and downs. The oscillation between works widely lauded and those typically forgotten is prevalent throughout his exceptionally diverse career. This was — and still is — certainly the case with his 1970s output. This decade of remarkable work saw the release of now established classics like M*A*S*H, Nashville, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller, as well as a picture like 3 Women, which would gradually gain a cult following of sorts and subsequently be regarded as a quality movie despite its initial dismissal. But couched between and around these features are more electric and generally more unorthodox films. There are multiple titles from this, arguably Altman’s most creative of decades, that remain generally unheralded to all but his most ardent of admirers.



For Altman, the 1970s began with this disparity. The first year of the decade saw the release of M*A*S*H, one of his most instantly provocative and popular films, and one of his most enduring. Later that same year though, there was Brewster McCloud, easily one of his most eccentric. The titular main character, played by the quirky, owl-eyed Bud Cort, resides in the Houston Astrodome and pines to one day fly, which he ultimately does by means of a mechanical wing device he has constructed. (Sounds reasonable enough so far.) Along the way, the film, supposedly Altman’s favorite of his own movies, brings in the following: the opening credits, shown twice; bumbling cops trying to solve mysterious murders; multiple references to The Wizard of Oz (the film even features Margaret Hamilton, AKA the Wicked Witch of the West); an assortment of peculiar characters (for example, Altman regular Shelley Duvall in her first film role, and Sally Kellerman as a guardian angel of sorts who wears only a trench coat); some of Altman’s most random dialogue (Suzanne: “Have you ever had diarrhea from eating Mexican food before?” Brewster: “I like your car.”); and, well, a lot of bird excrement. After the timely and trendy M*A*S*H, a film like Brewster McCloud as a follow-up was certainly a change of pace, one that baffled audiences, most critics, and studio bosses. Now though, it feels charmingly unconventional. “It was my boldest work,” said Altman a few years later, “by far my most ambitious.”



While 1971′s McCabe & Mrs. Miller has rightfully been read as a key revisionist Western, where notions of generic heroism, setting, and imagery were subverted, Altman similarly deconstructed the Western film’s superficial ideas pertaining to mythic heroism with Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson in 1976. In this case though, the results are more combative, not necessarily just toward the characters (McCabe is definitely not presented as a “hero” either), but chiefly in its general approach to the genre’s penchant for distorted and exaggerated historical reconstruction; there’s a reason “history lesson” is part of the film’s subtitle. This Buffalo Bill is not the uncontested legend of the west; this Buffalo Bill is a questionable legend of his own making, a scheming, egotistic, shameless self-promoter. As played by Paul Newman (and like with Warren Beatty in McCabe), there’s an obvious thesis regarding the nature of celebrity in the casting here, commenting on image-centric star constructions. The film is very much about show business, according to Altman. “Buffalo Bill Cody was the first movie star, in one sense, the first totally manufactured American hero,” he noted in 1976. “That’s why we needed a movie star … to play the role.” Beyond that, the film’s larger concerns are those of the Western’s very essence: myth vs. reality, truth vs. fiction, and heroes vs. villains. Black and white distinctions are fine for John Ford; Altman works in shades of grey.



Between McCabe & Mrs. Miller and what is perhaps his best film, Nashville, Altman continued to broach new and ever varied filmic territory, with Images, The Long Goodbye, Thieves Like Us, and California Split. While each have their qualities, the former two stand out for this uniqueness. Images (1972), one of Altman’s most enigmatic features (along with 3 Women five years later), is also his lone venture into horror filmmaking. The results, predictably when Altman goes genre, are fascinating. Susannah York gives a stunning performance as a women plagued by continuous and increasingly disturbing visions (she would win best actress at Cannes). Her paranoia and schizophrenia seep into the film itself — in its cryptic narrative exposition and its equally ambiguous visuals — and we are never quite sure of what is real and what isn’t. We’re left to wonder, with York, what is developing, why, and if it even really is. The film makes excellent use of contrasts. There’s the idyllic rural Irish setting, but played against its serenity is John Williams’ unnerving, Oscar-nominated score, his most exciting, if not most memorable, movie music. There’s also the relatively stable and secure life of the film’s main characters. The husband and wife have money, mobility, and a weekend cottage, but beneath this veneer of comfort, the mysteries and doubts lurk. Images, then, is a perfect title for this ominous film that questions the illusory surface of people and places.



Though not a genre in itself, no fewer than ten films have featured hard-boiled detective Philip Marlowe as he adroitly solved crimes and treaded through the criminal underworld. Altman’s inclusion in this, The Long Goodbye (1973), is something a little different. Never having finished the source (“It’s almost impossible to comprehend”), Altman took considerable liberties with this 1953 Raymond Chandler novel. (Credit should also be given to screenwriter Leigh Brackett, who additionally penned the classic Howard Hawks Marlowe picture The Big Sleep, in 1946.) While still on the trail of a murderer, this Marlowe, played by Elliott Gould, is a chain-smoking, cynical, lackadaisical, too-cool-for-school smartass. As such, while there’s detective work to be done, in Altman’s hands there’s also more than a little fun to be had. That fun is as much a part of the performances — Gould especially has considerable time for amusing asides, ticks, and character-building habits (the bits with his cat, for instance) — as it is with the Marlowe mystique. Those expecting a Bogart-esque slickness and tough-guy persona were sorely thwarted by this jaded incarnation. Altman the audio-innovator also takes the idea of a musical theme to another level, bringing in the title song in a variety of styles, popping up throughout the picture, even as grocery store music. A minor touch perhaps, but one that only adds to The Long Goodbye’s singularity.



Speaking of Altman’s aural techniques, much has been made of his innovative use of multi-track sound recording, and the full impact of this fascinating system is usually most appreciated in his films compiling a large number of speaking roles. In most cases, Nashvilleis seen as the crème de la crème of this method; its characters constantly talking over each other leaving audiences to — quite realistically — pick up the pieces of audible dialogue. But it was with A Wedding in 1978 that Altman arguably outdid himself with this audio construction. The interiors were far more constricted than in Nashville(there’s essentially only one location), making for more people in less space in any given scene, thus more talk to sift through. Not only that, Altman upped the ante by including no less than 48 featured characters in this film. Apparently, Altman jokingly told a reporter that after 3 Women he was planning to film a wedding — what a demotion for such a filmmaker! However, upon reflection, Altman realized the drama that was inherent in weddings and his next film, his next real film, was set. Certainly, other movies have centered on weddings and the catastrophes that abound, but none come close to equaling the hectic yet perfectly plausible mingling of people and their individual tragedies and comedies as A Wedding.



Altman’s next foray into genre territory was the 1979 science fiction film Quintet, again with Paul Newman. This movie isn’t quite like any other in the Altman cannon or in the wider category of sci-fi/fantasy. “It’s set probably in the future, or else in the present in a parallel world,” stated Altman, and this type of obscure description perfectly suits the film’s unconventional visuals and narrative. The titular ‘Quintet’ is the name of a game played amongst the inhabitants of an inhospitable arctic wasteland; some play with a dire and deadly seriousness, thus forming the crux of the film’s suspenseful and mysterious plot. The setting is a city dying out, the result of an impending ice age set to eradicate human existence. This idea of a frozen reality dooming humanity is more than an additional narrative catalyst though, it’s a stylistic device. Aided by a genuinely frigid location (at one point, the temperature reached 60 below), the film looks and feels cold. The icy conditions are palpably present in every stark, grey, dismal scene. It gives the performances and the story credibility, and it all forms the despairingly bleak visual palette of the picture. In some ways, it similarly reflects the glacial pace of the film, certainly one of Altman’s most trying in terms of typically swift story progression. And if the locale looks barren yet somehow futuristic, it’s most likely because the film was shot on the dilapidated site of the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montréal, which perfectly matched the desired sense of prior vibrancy now in decline. Lastly with Quintet is one of Altman’s most curious stylistic choices. For some reason (and the reasons are quite debatable), the edges of the frame are obscured with a Vaseline-like substance, essentially creating a blurred border around the central image not unlike masking effects from the silent era. A further part of the film’s overall visual appearance? (Something to do with the cold maybe… or symbolic of surroundings closing in?) Or simply an empty and ineffectual gimmick? This is but one point of discussion raised by this truly distinct Altman movie.

Altman would begin the next decade with what may be his most underrated movie. Popeye was widely panned upon its opening and is still seen by many as one of the great filmmaker’s lesser works, one that, just in general, seems rather odd (at best) or simply bad (at worst). But Altman’s Popeye is actually one of the director’s most purely enjoyable pictures and, as some more recent Internet comments point out, the film is newly gaining much deserved popular appeal. When released, Popeye was not the kind of movie audiences were expecting from this rebel director (ironically, it appears Popeye was seen as too unusual and too unclassifiable, even by those who appreciated Altman for being just these things). In any event, with a mumbling one-eye-closed Robin Williams in the title role and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl (the part she was born to play; indeed it’s her best performance), the plot is as delightfully unassuming as one of its source comics. It’s directed and acted like a live-action cartoon, with sequences obviously exaggerated and preposterous, the characters similarly erratic and unorthodox in the extreme, and some moments at times simply bizarre. It’s over-the-top and amusingly absurd, but it’s extremely likable and fascinating, and Williams’ nearly inaudible one-liners are frequently hilarious.



Nevertheless, Popeye’s poor reception would signal the beginning of further tumultuous, though nonetheless productive, times for Robert Altman. After more than a decade of lower-key film and television work, work that is still noteworthy, Altman would burst back onto the Hollywood scene with a film that, oddly enough, sharply jabbed the ridiculous mechanics of Hollywood itself: The Player in 1992. As opposed to his work in the 1970s, from this point on even his lesser features were paid some attention, based solely on his previous record of accomplishment if nothing else. Then into the new millennium, Altman was generally heralded as one of America’s great filmmakers, an iconoclast who was still doing things his own way. An honorary Oscar in 2006 sealed the deal.

From his first feature (Countdown, 1967) to his last (A Prairie Home Companion, 2006), it is surely indicative of Altman’s talent and place in cinema history that so many of his films are worth a second look and critical reevaluation; not only worth it, but benefiting from it, their merits justly revealed. In so doing, as hindsight remains 20/20, no doubt more unsung Altman films originally dismissed will be newly minted as classics.


This piece is part of the Robert Altman Spotlight at Sound on Sight