'Autumn Sonata'

“A mother and a daughter. What a terrible combination of feelings and confusion and destruction.” So says Eva (Liv Ullmann) toward the end of Ingmar Bergman’s Autumn Sonata (1978). More than any other line of dialogue, in what is a remarkably written film, this gets to the crux of the picture’s thematic concerns. Here the mother/daughter composite of parent Charlotte (Ingrid Bergman) and child Eva unleashes an onslaught of conflicting and combative memories, emotions, and personal grudges, all brewing beneath the surface and suddenly liberated during the course of the narrative, in which the harsh realities of a familial relationship in tatters emerge.

Bergman begins the film with a modest depiction of stable domesticity. Eva writes at her desk while her husband Viktor (Halvar Björk), a minister, directly addresses the camera and brings the audience up to speed on his wife’s back-story. Crucially, he twice repeats that Eva has stated, “I feel at home here.” This idea of being comfortable at home and with the simplistic demands that their relatively sedentary life requires is but one point of contrast as Autumn Sonata progresses. Compare this with Charlotte’s comment at the end of the film: “I’m always homesick. But when I get home, I find it’s something else I’m longing for.” In their parsonage, Eva and Viktor are content if not tremendously exciting. The house’s interior suggests a humble situation, as does Ullmann’s unadorned appearance; she has never quite looked so demure and vulnerable. When into this enters Charlotte, very much a worldly and by comparison demanding individual (even her breakfast order is high maintenance), the inevitable conflict begins.



It has been seven years since mother and daughter last saw each other, and their reunion quickly gets off to a rocky start. Charlotte almost immediately relates in detail the recent death of her lover, Leonardo, and, blind to Eva’s obvious joy at having her mother there, rambles incessantly about herself. “Do you think I’ve changed much?” asks Charlotte. “You’re just the same,” replies Eva, who has remained silently off-screen. At first, it seems Charlotte recognizes her self-centered verbal bluster, but she then proceeds to further discuss her graying hair, her new clothes, her back pain, and so on. Then, less than 15 minutes in, the insults start and it’s clear that this visit is not destined to be a pleasant one. To make matters worse, Eva reveals that her handicapped sister, Helena (Lena Nyman), is staying at the house. Not one to revel in difficulties that aren’t of her own creation, Charlotte is displeased by this reminder of her other daughter’s affliction, something she has long since tried to forget. Ranking as one of Bergman’s finest chamber dramas, Autumn Sonata takes this initially hospitable household and steadily develops it into a confining pressure cooker building on the volatile Eva/Charlotte dichotomy.

With Charlotte being a successful concert pianist, music is understandably presented as a key connection between the two women, and as a major point of dissention. Ever in her mother’s musical shadow, Eva feels artistically inadequate. She plays the organ at church; her mother entertains thousands. When Eva tries to impress by playing a Chopin prelude, she asks her mother, “Did you like it?” “I like you,” is the cold, condescending response. Of course, Charlotte then proceeds to play it better. Bergman here includes his now-famous composition of one face seen frontally and one in profile, signifying the private dividing resonance of this implicit altercation.

Following dinner, which with decoratively folded napkins, candles, and flowers, is meant to rouse the sophisticated Charlotte, more friction arises. When Viktor finally speaks substantially (he has so far sat bemused and mostly quiet), he primarily attempts to psychoanalyze his wife to Charlotte. Later, when getting ready for bed, Charlotte and Eva continue their passive-aggressive combativeness. Prone to theatrical dramatics (alone she soliloquizes constantly), Charlotte’s vitality engulfs the pacific Eva. Most of their conversions alternate between accusations and insults and apologies and compliments, a bipolar back-and-forth of discomforting relations.



After what for the film’s first half have been really just previews of pent-up resentment, the severity of such antagonism dramatically comes forth in a prolonged sequence confining Eva and Charlotte to a single room in the middle of the night. Awakened by a nightmare, Charlotte is met by a worried Eva. But it doesn’t take long before this concern shifts to a full-fledged verbal assault. For about five hours, the two undergo a relentless and exhausting exchange of hurtful honesty and brutal revelation. Contending that she never felt smart enough, pretty enough, or talented enough, Eva strikes the first blow against her mother’s parenting skills, or lack thereof. Finished at one point, she demands, “Defend yourself.” Charlotte, in turn, responds with her case for herself and against her daughter, but while we understand where she’s coming from, sympathizing, certainly by comparison, is more difficult.

Threads of maternal concern run throughout Autumn Sonata. Obviously, there are the current issues between Eva and Charlotte, but it’s revealed that more lies dormant, stemming back years prior. With Eva, who was frequently dismissed as a girl by her preoccupied mother, her troubles first came about at the age of 18, when she became pregnant and, if not forced to, was at least not discouraged by Charlotte to get an abortion. A second chance at motherhood was also cut short when Eva’s son drowned at the age of three. Subsequently, with barely any time spent being a mother herself, Eva has retained a strong attachment to her own childhood. This ranges from her aforementioned reticence to her later donning girlish pigtails. However, a sense of her motherly love potential does appear in the compassion shown toward her stricken younger sister. Charlotte too recalls a childhood void of physical attention and consideration, and such similar absence of maternal support leaves Eva to wonder if it isn’t somehow handed down; she even goes so far as to suggest that perhaps there is a hereditary tendency for a mother to feel triumph at the cost of her daughter’s misfortune.

During this volley of personal jabs and accusations, Bergman inserts brief flashbacks illustrating some of the events mentioned in the distressing discussion. Though providing a visual reprieve from the spatial constriction of the room, the cutaways aren’t necessarily required; with two such stunning and gifted actresses as his focus, Bergman could have easily just maintained tight close-ups throughout. Like Persona (1966), Autumn Sonata, itself essentially a two-person drama, boasts an impressive visual intimacy, particularly in this latter sequence. Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Bergman are immensely expressive as their red eyes and weary, tear-stained faces reveal an excruciating catharsis of emotional release (Ullmann calls to mind her painfully emotive performance in Bergman’s Scene from a Marriage five years earlier).



In the aftermath of this nocturnal divulgence of individual torment, Charlotte having now departed, Eva writes her mother a letter. In it, she nevertheless conveys optimism toward their relationship. It’s not clear if Charlotte wholeheartedly concurs, but perhaps some resignation has indeed been achieved. The only question now is of its permanence. Given the abrupt immediacy of their recent purging, it is entirely possible that this hopefulness is temporary and only based on the relative fresh sense of sincerity.

Self-exiled in Norway (due to a convoluted tax evasion charge in Sweden), Ingmar Bergman assembled just a handful of regular collaborators for Autumn Sonata. Ullmann was there, spectacular as always, and Gunnar Björnstrand and Erland Josephson also make appearances. Behind the camera, cinematography by Bergman mainstay Sven Nykvist helps to visually distinguish the film. Starting with the screen behind the opening credits, the picture is color-coded (via lighting as well as set design and clothing) to reflect the titular season and the austerity of the film’s subject matter. Bergman enveloping the imagery in shades of deep oranges and reds and somber greens is reminiscent of his use of dominant reds in Cries and Whispers (1972) and points toward the colorful shift from welcoming warmth to barren danger in Fanny and Alexander (1982).

Finally, the much-heralded casting of Ingrid Bergman is, and was, noteworthy. Magnificently acting in her native language for the first time in more than a decade, this would tragically be the star’s final feature film. A recently diagnosed cancer would take her life just four years later.

Autumn Sonata was released on Blu-ray and DVD by the Criterion Collection.

This REVIEW  was previously published in FILM INTERNATIONAL

'Rififi'

The blacklist that shrouded the Hollywood community in suspicion, paranoia, and tragedy during the 1940s and ’50s, a steadily spreading outgrowth of the tactics formulated and executed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), would leave its tarnishing mark on many in the film industry: screenwriters, actors, producers, directors. Seemingly all branches of the motion picture industry were affected by the political upheaval of the time. Some individuals were admittedly marginal in the annals of film history; some were prominent figures with distinguished careers; all were working men and women who, in many cases, found themselves blindsided by the sudden furor.

This back-drop against which one typically places the life and career of Jules Dassin is crucial to his biography and a clear understanding of his working processes, but it can also be a distraction. There is no denying the impact — Dassin was named by colleagues as a former Communist (which he briefly was in the late 1930s); he was subsequently subpoenaed by HUAC in 1952, was blacklisted after refusing to testify, and then chose to leave the United States for France the following year. That, of course, is going to affect anyone, especially a director like Dassin who, with several titles to his credit, including the classics Brute Force (1947), The Naked City (1948), Thieves Highway (1949), and Night and the City (1950), was developing a cinematic proficiency of considerable distinction. Still, as with Elia Kazan, his own controversial role in the HUAC investigations, and his succeeding masterpiece, On the Waterfront (1954), one’s take on Dassin’s work, especially his post-HUAC output, is always prefaced with, or complicated by, how/why/if his films reflected or were a direct result of his personal struggles (just like this piece has been so far). His places of production changed, granted, and his general manner of filmmaking in Europe was obviously going to be different than that in Hollywood, but a filmmaker’s talent is there no matter what. What’s on the screen is what truly represents a film’s significance and quality. That’s why, after one attempts to sweep away this subterfuge of baggage and focus on the movie itself, it becomes easier to see Dassin’s Rififi (1955), his first film made as an expatriate, as the exceptional film that it is, regardless of troubled biographical back-story. Where, when, how, and why Rififi was made is important to history, no question, but its taut, supremely well-paced narrative, technical brilliance, and extraordinary photography raises the film and Dassin himself above the clamor.



Despite not speaking the language, despite the aforementioned drama still fresh, and despite prior trouble getting film work (Dassin called the period between the blacklist and Rififi “the void”), Rififi nevertheless ended up being a remarkable achievement, part heist/crime film, part noir. These were genres well tread by Dassin before. The immediately preceding four features noted above were marked by their attention to gritty detail, their use of actual location, their atmospheric lighting and set design, and their focus on the criminal underworld — “I think I am a crook at heart,” said Dassin, also acknowledging that he liked “authority to be conquered.” There was also already a rich tradition of such films in France, taking into account everything from Louis Feuillade’s silent serials to Marcel Carné’s atmospheric dramas of the 1930s, to Jacques Becker’s Casque d’Or (1952) and Touchez Pas au Grisbi (1954) released just before Rififi. Here though, one gets the best of both worlds: an American filmmaker in Paris making the type of film he does best, for a country and an audience that truly appreciated the form.

When our “hero” Tony le Stéphanois (Jean Servais) is first introduced (only after lingering close-ups of playing cards, cigarettes, and ashtrays, shot in a kind of blatant and tangible detail that reoccurs throughout the film) it’s as a worn, weary, sickly, and somewhat debased ex-con gambler. He has been playing cards all night and he’s out of money. So, he calls Jo (Carl Möhner), a friend and former criminal associate. Jo has a deep respect and love for Tony (Jo’s son is named Tonio), plus he owes him; Tony did time only after not “squawking,” thus leaving Jo to go free. Jo spots Tony the money. He’s the back up (“somebody’s gotta be”), in a procedure that is apparently quite common. This has happened before, but Jo remains faithful.

The two move on to meet a new acquaintance, Mario (Robert Manuel), a more flamboyant character who divulges his latest scheme, a caper involving the heist of some jewels from Mappin & Webb. It’s a proposal with much to gain and much to risk. Tony is reluctant. He is, after all, a beaten down shell of his former self, with a persistent cough only adding to the uncertainty of his abilities and physical state. Being in the noir lineage, once the key female character enters the picture — not quite a femme fatale, Mado (Marie Sabouret) is Tony’s former lover who now sees the corrupt gangster and nightclub owner Louis Grutter (Pierre Grasset) — Tony’s hesitance is swayed. Sympathies are unquestionably with Tony from the very beginning of Rififi (“Rififi” meaning “rough n’ tumble,” according to a nightclub musical number). But when he brings Mado back to his apartment and proceeds to make her strip, to whip her with his belt, and to then kick her out, we are left wondering about this man’s morality. Strange though, just how fast this behavior is forgotten as the film proceeds. In any event, apparently Mado follows money. Tony needs money. Perhaps his motivation for joining in on the caper is as simple as that.



With Tony signed on, all that’s needed is someone to handle the safe. For that, Mario suggests bringing in an expert, Cesar (played by Dassin himself, using the pseudonym Perlo Vita). He’ll agree, asserts Mario, just to be able to work with the famed Stéphanois — this is the first real sense we get of just who Tony used to be, his reputation one of great renown and esteem. This rounds out the likable and competent quartet, and with the decision settled, the duration of the film, about 90 minutes still, focuses on the heist itself and the aftermath.

Without giving away the events that occur following the theft (one of which includes a betrayal, perhaps the most plausible element of the film echoing some sense of Dassin’s HUAC familiarity), attention must be, and always is, given to the heist sequence. There are some moments in film history that are consistently cited for their brilliance. Everyone knows them, everyone recognizes the skill; it’s basically seen as a matter of fact that such and such a scene/shot/sequence is simply genius, no doubt about it. Rififi’s 30-plus minute B & E, with not a word spoken and no music, is one such example. Production notes point out that Dassin was never a fan of Auguste le Breton’s source novel, “Du rififi chez les hommes.” In it, the heist is a “mere 10-page throwaway” that occurred early in the 250-page text. By comparison, the deft, meticulous, professional execution of the film’s heist, and Dassin’s similarly adept construction of it, is astonishing. The four men move and operate with a distinguished sense of purpose and grace; it’s balletic the way their respective duties are acted out, each coordinated to move in accordance to the action of others (Cesar even wears ballet shoes to help keep quiet).

By this point, Rififi has already integrated many of the crime film’s staple ingredients. There’s the street-wise jargon (“rod,” “sparkler,” “busting chops”) and the settings are notably familiar, from the glittering nightclub, to the streets with perpetually wet cars and pavement illuminated by a dizzying hue of neon phosphorescence, to claustrophobic backrooms and shabby apartments. (These scenic visuals benefit greatly from Philippe Agostini’s black and white cinematography; having worked with Carné, Bresson, and Ophüls, among others, he knew a thing or two about composing impressive imagery.) In the presentation of these generic necessities, and especially in the bravura heist sequence, Dassin further distinguishes the film by his precise direction of carefully arranged shots and sequences. Everything about Rififi feels as intricately deliberate as the film’s famous larcenous centerpiece.



In an ironic career twist, Rififi proved to be Dassin’s most successful film to date, critically and commercially; among its accolades was the Best Director prize at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival (the film was also nominated for the Palme d’Or). Successes followed with Never on Sunday (1960) — another Palme d’Or nomination, as well as Oscar nods for Dassin’s script and direction — and Topkapi in 1964, a Rififi-esque tale of crime that garnered most of its plaudits for Peter Ustinov’s performance. Dassin’s final feature was Circle of Two in 1981. He would pass away 27 years later, at the age of 96, having lived long enough to see his politics forgotten and his work remembered.

Rififi was released on Blu-ray and DVD by Criterion Collection on January 14th, 2014.

This REVIEW  was previously published in FILM INTERNATIONAL

Martin Scorsese's ‘The King of Comedy’

It’s understandable if some viewers were a little surprised to learn Martin Scorsese was behind the comedic masterpiece that was last year’s The Wolf of Wall Street. While many of his films have had their fair share of black humor, he had never made what could be considered an outright comedy. The closest he had in the past was The King of Comedy, out now for the first time on Blu-ray. But this is no casual laugh riot. Quite the contrary, this 1982 film is among Scorsese’s most challenging features. Even with a dose of straight comedy, particularly early on, the film’s key themes and the increasing desperation of its primary characters are far from simply comical. Instead, The King of Comedy ends up as a cultural commentary wrapped in a darkly humorous veil, a disturbing work of discomfort, and an extraordinary motion picture.



In a 2013 interview included on the disc, recorded at the Tribeca Film Festival’s restoration premiere of the movie, Scorsese and Robert De Niro play it coy about even calling The King of Comedy a “comedy.” Both are reluctant to place it in the genre, and insist they never really intended to make it funny. This, however, is somewhat contradicted when Jerry Lewis later joins the two on stage (“You two do good together,” he tells the actor and director). Lewis recalls Scorsese having asthma attacks from laughing so hard and they all note a good deal of improv and behind-the-scenes antics. Even if they don’t want to call it a comedy, it’s certainly still funny. Perhaps Scorsese compromises best, dubbing the film a “comedy of manners.”

Stating he “didn’t quite get it” when he first read Paul Zimmerman’s screenplay in 1974, Scorsese was convinced to do the film by De Niro, who found the material more appealing. From there, in their fifth collaboration, the two discovered the film as they made it, according to Scorsese. De Niro as Rupert Pupkin is one of the legendary actor’s greatest and most underrated roles. It’s unlike anything he has ever done before or since, and while he has given fine performances in many excellent films that followed, it’s perhaps only with slight hyperbole that one could say his turn here was his last truly astonishing achievement.

Pupkin (commonly misspelled and mispronounced, as he frequently notes) is a budding comedian with pipe dreams of late-night television stardom, in the fashion of his idol, Jerry Langford (Lewis), a Johnny Carson-esque personality of tremendous popularity. For now, Pupkin settles with a makeshift stage in his mother’s basement (Scorsese’s mother plays his mom). There, with life-size cardboard cutouts of Langford and Liza Minnelli, he acts out his greatest hits and dreams, with show music, recorded applause, and a laugh track. A bold encounter with Langford leads to Pupkin’s naïve belief that his hero is willing to lend a hand and give the aspiring performer his big chance. To be fair, Langford does seem genuinely encouraging, even if we know he’s simply placating Pupkin in order to get away from him.



Somewhat unusual for a “Martin Scorsese Picture,” there is comparatively little camera movement in The King of Comedy. This was a conscious decision on Scorsese’s part, who intended to give the film a more sedentary look, not unlike television (at least in the early 1980s). This stationary intimacy results in some powerfully awkward viewing, whereby Scorsese has the camera just sitting back, observing, not flinching or looking away. The undercurrent of potential violence that runs through the film, coupled with Pupkin’s sympathetic desperation, is excruciatingly effective. Scorsese speaks of the “levels of hostility” present in the film, and the comparison to Travis Bickle, De Niro’s character from Taxi Driver, is apparent. Pupkin’s rapid path from admirable confidence, to brazen action, to sheer insanity is troubling, and with the proper trigger, he only seems a block away from Bickle’s vicious neighborhood. Shades of Travis are particularly strong when Pupkin barges back into Jerry’s office building after being kicked out. He doesn’t seem the violent type, but his belligerent drive suggests the prospect of anything being possible. His passive-aggressive interaction with Langford’s secretary is indecent, his blind optimism having given way to egotistical defiance. Pupkin embodies what happens when mere fandom becomes a frightening fixation.

Things come to head after Pupkin and Rita (Diahnne Abbott), the bartender he’s in love with, audaciously show up to Langford’s house. The justifiably perturbed television star chides Pupkin with some much-needed brutal honesty. Now accompanied by his partner in crime and celebrity obsession, Masha (Sandra Bernhard), Pupkin kidnaps Langford at gunpoint (albeit with a fake gun), presuming that with the star as a hostage, the television studio will surely give into his demands — he will now appear on late-night TV. Left alone with Langford, the eccentric Masha reveals herself to be an equally deranged fan. However, she is more obsessed with Langford the man than with being a star, and her threats are more along the lines of sexual molestation than violent brutality.

Remarkably, Pupkin achieves his goal. He’s on Jerry’s show long enough to perform his standup routine before he is promptly arrested. He has no regrets, though: “It’s better to be a king for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime,” he declares. As it turns out, he’s going to get what he wants after all. He serves a reduced sentence and becomes an overnight celebrity, with money, a book, which will be turned into a movie, and his own television special. Like with Travis in Taxi Driver, the destination to fame and admiration can have a curious path.

The characters are complicated in The King of Comedy, as they regularly are in Scorsese’s films. Even with his rudely inappropriate impudence, Pupkin is not totally unlikable, at least because he’s so pathetic. He gives his own autograph to Rita as a gift and his “office” is a Times Square pay phone, but his dreams are earnest, which makes his reality all the more distressing. The fantasy sequences where we see him and Jerry interacting as he one day imagines are not sad because we know it will never happen; they’re sad because Pupkin continues to think it will. Still, there’s no denying that he’s annoying and a nuisance.



On the other side of this, Jerry Langford doesn’t quite elicit sympathy without issue. He is dismissive and rude in his own way, and though he does put up with a lot, especially from his fans, ranging from decently complimentary to the overbearingly oppressive, these are nevertheless demands that go with the territory of being a celebrity. Lewis apparently knew where Langford was coming from, basing some of the incidents on what happened to him in real life, but audiences may have a harder time identifying. It’s clear that what Pupkin does is improper and, eventually, illegal, but Langford isn’t exactly a bundle of charm. This blurring of “good” and “bad” characters is typical of Scorsese, with parallels in his work up to and including The Wolf of Wall Street.

Despite similarities with later films, by Scorsese or others, nearly all involved with The King of Comedy contend, with good cause, that it is unique, and what is more, that it is the last of its kind. Scorsese, looking at the film in terms of post-Heaven’s Gate Hollywood filmmaking, when personal, controversial, idiosyncratic movies were few and far between (as opposed to in the 1970s), states that The King of Comedy is one of the last vestiges of “that type of picture.” It’s the “last really great film about culture,” according to Bernhard. A great film about culture, yes, but not the last one, though it was ahead of its time when it comes to the precariousness and fascination of television celebrity.
REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

‘Persona’

Ingmar Bergman’s Persona is probably the great Swedish filmmaker’s most perplexing and thought-provoking work; it’s certainly his most surreal. Unusual imagery and curious narrative developments aren’t necessarily foreign to the rest of his filmography, but they have never been as frequent as they are here, nor have they been as overtly inexplicable. (Even if their meanings remain unclear, at least the dream sequences in Wild Strawberries can be clearly identified as dreams; there is no such easy rationalization here.) With so much happening in this 1966 feature, so many levels of story and visual complexity, it’s little wonder that Persona has yielded a great deal of discussion and analysis. And subsequently, it’s little wonder that the newly released Blu-ray/DVD from the Criterion Collection is accompanied by an excellent gathering of supplemental material, enhancing an already fascinating film, which, incidentally, looks superb in this new digital restoration. A booklet featuring an essay by Thomas Elsaesser, an excerpt from the book “Bergman on Bergman,” and a portion of an interview with Bibi Andersson join four new and archival interviews and nearly 20 minutes of on-set footage. There is also the documentary Liv & Ingmar, directed by Dheeraj Akolkar. Not pertaining just to Persona, this affecting and at times troubling film does a good deal to shed new light on the tenuous relationship between Bergman and Liv Ullmann (it’s told entirely from her point of view), and it makes the viewing of their subsequent films together all the more revealing.

Preeminent Bergman scholar Peter Cowie, who has written and spoke extensively on the filmmaker, also provides a visual essay exploring the film’s prologue. This sequence, running nearly 7 minutes, represents according to Cowie, not only a microcosm of the whole film, “but of Bergman’s career and anxieties.” Certainly, this opening gets Persona off to a riveting start. A barrage of images burst from the screen, ostensibly with little to no relation to each other. It’s an assortment of beautiful and haunting visions, all shot, as with the rest of the film, in stark black and white. Nature, violence, sex, humor, old age, death, youth, and war: these apparently incongruous elements illustrate nearly everything that can feed a mind, influence actions, and preoccupy thoughts. Save for the images of war, it’s never quite clear to whom these visions belong as the film progresses. The footage from Vietnam, however, is viewed on television by Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann), an actress who has suddenly stopped speaking. Oddly stricken during rehearsals, she bears no physical or mental impairment. She has simply become mute: by choice, as a result of some tragedy, perhaps because of the world around her, a general state of despair and hostility represented by these opening shots. In this “poem of images,” as Bergman calls the film, it’s all speculation.

A doctor (Margaretha Krook), while sympathizing with Elisabet (she too recognizes “the hopeless dream of being”), questions the affliction, suggesting that it’s another role, a performance the actress will eventually drop. In any case, a nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson), is assigned to take care of Elisabet, and the two begin a stay at the doctor’s secluded seaside cottage. There, it becomes clear that both women are tormented. Though still uncertain about what affects Elisabet, Alma attempts to establish a connection by divulging details of her own past, her present, her fears, and her desires. She does so promptly and without a filter. Despite Elisabet’s silence and lack of verbal correspondence, Alma talks and talks. Not obliviously though; she knows she is perhaps selfishly rambling, but she doesn’t stop. It’s not as if Elisabet is contributing, after all, though she does appear to be genuinely interested. Indeed, as we and Alma find out, she is not just casually listening, she is studying.

In his essay, Elsaesser contends that it’s possibly Alma who is taking on the part of an actress. He writes, “Alma finds in Elisabet’s silence the screen upon which she can project all the roles she has always wanted to play. … By dramatizing her own existence in front of her silent spectator, Alma becomes an actress, performing before an audience.” By that same token, an artist’s job, according to Bergman, consists of “recording, making notes, observing, absorbing, and feeding off their environment,” just as Elisabet does when she sits silently watching Alma.

Quickly Alma’s talk becomes more intimate, as if speaking to a psychiatrist or confessor, or sister, or lover. She tells of an explicit sexual encounter with another woman and two young boys, a dubious pregnancy, and a subsequent abortion. Her emotions run the gamut. But perhaps her most revealing comments, at least as far as Persona’s essential themes are concerned, are those that mention how one can become multiple beings, and conversely, how multiple beings can become one. “I think I could turn into you if I really tried,” Alma tells Elisabet. “I mean inside.” “You could be me just like that,” she adds. It’s after this that Alma hears, or thinks she hears (hopes she hears) Elisabet speak, but it’s unclear.



Gradually, the cordial relationship between the two is ruptured. When Alma discovers that Elisabet has been writing about her, that she’s possibly using her confessions for her own gains, she lashes out. There are insults, accusations, and reconciliation. A lifetime’s worth of emotional strain is condensed in several days. And when Alma purposely leaves broken glass on the ground and Elisabet cuts herself, Persona reaches a decisive point of transition. The film appears to burn up and we get another barrage of assorted imagery, a disturbing precursor of what’s possibly to come. It’s hard to say which actress has the more difficult role here, the fervent Andersson with her incessant dialogue, or Ullmann, who must remain silent and base her whole performance on observation and reaction.

With the gifted Sven Nykvist dependably behind the camera, Persona contains a surplus of astonishing imagery, from the aforementioned montage of disparate footage to the cold, bare walls that make up the hospital rooms earlier in the film. The most prescient and crucial compositions, however, are those that contain Andersson and Ullmann in the same frame. These images range from the abstract to the ethereal, but their greatest significance is when the two are shot in tight close-ups (“uncomfortably close to the camera,” as Elsaesser puts it); they are side by side, often looking straight at the camera. As a result of this “facial chorography,” in Paul Schrader’s words, their similar features become more obvious, as does the film’s preoccupation with exchanging identities. For whatever reason, in whatever way, the two are merging with each other. Regarding the intense shift in drama and the film’s emphasis on struggling identities, Bibi Andersson argues that the film depicts “the chaos a person experiences when they’re in conflict with themselves.” It represents, she says, a “crisis of truth.”

When Mr. Vogler (Gunnar Björnstrand) shows up (or seems to; the certainty of depicted events at this point is questionable), he mistakes Alma for his wife. She initially denies it, but he pays no mind, and eventually she assumes the role. Elisabet silently appears as though she’s invisible to both characters (indeed, he may be blind). Soon they return to who they really are … or do they? An extended section of dialogue is repeated, first with the focus on Elisabet, then on Alma, and for a moment, their faces fuse together. “I’m not like you,” declares Alma. But perhaps it’s too late. The sequence ends with halves of their faces frozen together. This single shot, one of the film’s most famous, actually fooled both actresses. According to Ullmann, when she and Andersson each saw it they only recognized the other, never realizing that half of that face was their own.



As is inevitable with a film in which the image is so tantamount to the narrative, in other words, when what the spectator sees is an integral factor in the film’s progression and preoccupations, Bergman includes a good deal of self-conscious technique. “You are always aware that someone is filming this for you,” says Schrader, who points out several “metacinema tricks.” The characters have direct addresses to the camera, and aside from the moment the film seems to dissipate, there are also shots of film strips, projectors, the filmmaking process, and other films. As Cowie notes, “Cinematography” was the first title of the script. Is Persona, then, about cinema itself, about performers assuming their roles, about the creative process of storytelling, about audience reception and identification? It certainly is, according to Elsaesser, who calls the film “cinema about cinema.”

Persona was written by Bergman in just 14 days, while he was recovering in the hospital. He was quite ill and a previously planned project had fallen through, so these were not the best of times for the director. As such, he was preoccupied with personal, self-reflexive thoughts, and Andersson and Ullmann each acknowledge a level of autobiography present in the film. It is about “two sides of one human,” says Andersson. “Presumably Ingmar.”  “For him, a movie is also a persona,” states Ullmann.

Bergman admitted that, by this point, he was concerned less with the reception of his films. He knew a movie like Persona was demanding on an audience (in an interview on the disc, he stated that it’s not necessarily the type of movie even he’d like to watch, preferring, for example, Westerns or Goldfinger over something by Antonioni). But that’s part of the brilliance of this film — there is so much left for debate. “That’s very important to me,” states Bergman, “the idea that you can never understand a film like this.” What’s more is that it’s all so intensely imagined and photographed. Bergman was no stranger to arresting visuals, but those that make up this film are among his strongest. Persona is thus a supreme blend of ambiguity and stylistic flourish. Like 2001 as a chamber drama, it’s a film that rewards multiple viewings for the depth of character psychology and narrative discovery, and also for its astonishing beauty.

‘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