The past few weeks have been good for Humphrey Bogart on Blu-ray. The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The African Queen were recently rereleased and assembled for the Best of Bogart Collection, and now, Sabrina,
one of the legendary star’s final films, has received its first
American appearance on the format. Perhaps more importantly, if total
number of titles available on Blu-ray is the basis for judgment, Sabrina
also marks one of disappointingly few Billy Wilder titles available in
the remastered form. That the film also stars the radiant Audrey Hepburn
and the remarkably versatile William Holden confirms that the release
is worth commending.
From about 1944, with Double Indemnity, to Irma la Douce in 1963, Wilder had an astonishing run in Hollywood, and Sabrina came roughly in the middle of that period. Wilder, by this point, had 12 Oscar nominations for writing or directing. Sabrina would bring him 13 and 14. It was a relatively early picture for Hepburn, just a year after her similarly delightful turn in Roman Holiday, and it was arguably at the height of Holden’s career. He had worked with Wilder on Sunset Blvd. and Stalag 17,
winning his only Oscar for the latter. Ernest Lehman and Samuel A.
Taylor, who would both have several stellar titles to their credit in
years to come (each would do work with Hitchcock, for example), co-wrote
the script with Wilder. Finally, with Charles Lang (Charade, One-Eyed Jacks, Some Like It Hot, The Man from Laramie, The Big Heat, Ace in the Hole) as director of photography, it’s easy to say that Sabrina had considerable talent behind it.
Based on Taylor’s original play, “Sabrina Fair,” Sabrina
tells the pleasant story of a chauffeur’s daughter who first falls in
love with one rich brother then, over time, falls for the other. The
brothers are David (Holden) and Linus (Bogart) Larrabee. The waifish
girl is Sabrina Fairchild (Hepburn). The Larrabees of Long Island lead a
life of wealth and luxury, to say the least, the description and
presentation of which is done in typically cynical Wilder style. We are
introduced to their lifestyle by way of their hired hands and
possessions (indoor pools, outdoor pools; indoor tennis courts, outdoor
tennis courts). While this may seem comical to the audience, the young
Sabrina witnesses the life they lead with extreme envy and wonder. She
is particularly smitten by younger brother David, a frivolous playboy.
Doe-eyed, she looks on David and the Larrabee life in general with great
awe. But it is not to be. They are out of her class. As her father
reminds her, there is a front seat and a back seat, and there’s a window
in between.
In
contrast to David is the financially minded and pragmatic Linus. While
David is out spending the family money, Linus is making it. Part of his
scheme for profit is to have David married off for business purposes.
David is not one to settle down, nor is he particularly worried about
the productive merger that would develop as a result of the arranged
union. Nevertheless, the engagement is settled and all seems to be going
well for the Larrabee clan.
Following
her pathetically amusing suicide attempt, spurred on by David’s
inattention to her, Sabrina is sent off to Paris for culinary school,
where her first lesson is apparently on how to correctly boil water.
Away from David for 2 years, Sabrina matures but never truly forgets the
love she has for him. Upon her return, that infatuation is rekindled,
this time with a twist. The twist is that now grown up, smartly dressed,
well spoken, and looking even more radiant, Sabrina catches David’s
eye. If only he wasn’t now engaged. And if only the family company
didn’t have so much riding on the impending marriage. In any event,
Sabrina now enamors David, while the perpetually diligent Linus is more
concerned with a newly manufactured plastic. This all changes, however,
when Linus schemes to keep David’s focus on the marriage/business
proposal and intimately encounters Sabrina himself, becoming equally
besotted by her looks and charm.
With
Linus, before her true feelings for him are apparent, Sabrina is
easygoing and cordial. She doesn’t have to try so hard with him. There
aren’t years of infatuation to overcome. Even if Linus isn’t sure of
what to do with Sabrina, how to keep her away from David and to not
interfere with the marriage/merger, he manages to charmingly entertain
her and their relationship grows closer with each diversionary attempt.
They even share a troubled suicidal past. Ultimately, both David and
Linus fall for Sabrina, no matter how they came to that feeling, how
genuine it may be, or how likely their association is.
Like Bogart’s most famous feature, Casablanca, there was supposedly quite a bit of trouble with the Sabrina
screenplay, even as filming was underway; like that 1942 classic, one
would never know it by the completed film. Most prominent and admirable
is the adept balance of romance and drama infused with comedy. Wilder,
as he does so well, keenly observes and reveals the subtle humor
inherent in even the most dramatic moments, never taking anything too
seriously. The smartness of the dialogue is also typical for the
filmmaker: after sitting on champagne glasses, David begins composing a
poem and wonders, “What rhymes with glass?” All three main performers
expertly fluctuate between moments of almost screwball comedy and
delightful romantic rapture, and all work particularly well with and
against each other. It must be admitted, however, that Bogart does seem
somewhat out of place in the film, if only because he’s not typically
associated with such a straightforwardly stuffy character. Cary Grant
was the original choice for Linus, and Bogie’s casting was the subject
of some debate at the time, revolving mostly around his age, despite the
fact that he was only about 6 years older than Grant; when taking
Sabrina out at one point, Linus dubs himself “Joe College with a touch
of arthritis.” He was not pleased by Holden and Hepburn as costars,
either (though they certainly didn’t mind each other – they fell in love
while making the movie). Bogart apparently wanted his wife Lauren
Bacall instead of the young leading lady newcomer, whom he felt wasn’t
the least bit talented.
None
of this stopped the film from being a success, ultimately earning $10
million, about five times its budget, and garnering a multitude of
awards; its only Oscar win was for Edith Head’s black-and-white costume
design. Along these lines, a short bonus feature on the disc highlights
not only Head’s celebrated work, but also focuses on Hepburn as a
fashion icon. Upon Sabrina’s return from Paris, Hepburn’s stylish
prominence is evident, particularly in view of Sabrina’s “ugly ducking” narrative transformation.
Additional
features on the disc run an eclectic gamut, from a documentary on the
North Shore of Long Island to a promotional overview of the film’s
production. More interesting are the features that look at William
Holden’s career at Paramount (where he evolved from William Franklin
Beedle Jr. into the leading man he became by the time Sabrina
rolled around) and the short look at Paramount’s camera department. The
real gem of the supplemental materials, however, is a documentary titled
Supporting Sabrina, which highlights some of the character
actors in the film, such as John Williams, Marjorie Bennett, Emory
Parnell, Ellen Corby, and Walter Hampden. While Sabrina is just
one film to feature some of these familiar but frequently forgotten
faces, the value of these performers is a subject crying out for
extensive exploration and further study.
With
solid bit players like these, stars who shined as bright as any in
Hollywood, a versatile director who maintained a staggering constancy of
theme and wit, and with such an agreeably simple story, Sabrina is a classic of American cinema. It’s an exceptional example of the assured best the studio system had to offer.
REVIEW from SOUND ON SIGHT
When he wasn’t genre hopping from Film Noir
to Westerns to epic spectacles and war films, the perpetually
underrated Anthony Mann was mixing conventions and mingling styles
amongst more indefinable works. These were films like Reign of Terror (1949), The Tall Target (1951), Serenade (1956), and, perhaps his most eccentric picture, God’s Little Acre
(1958). Over the course of about two hours, this idiosyncratic slice of
quirky, sultry southern life is a fusion of homespun philosophizing,
social commentary, sexual pervasiveness, inflated melodrama, and
ventures into the downright bizarre.
Based on the novel by Erskine Caldwell, who also penned the source of John Ford’s Tobacco Road (1941), God’s Little Acre was officially adapted by Philip Yordan, screenwriter of the similarly unorthodox Johnny Guitar (1954) as well as, later, El Cid
(1961), which Mann would also direct. The true writing of the film,
however, is somewhat more ambiguous, as Yordan was frequently a front
for the left-wing Ben Maddow, a target of blacklist-era suspicion. This
sort of indistinct gestation of God’s Little Acre suits the film well, as it too is a schizophrenic blend of diverse narratives, performances, and forms.
A
boisterously animated Robert Ryan, acting here quite unlike he ever
has, is Ty Ty Walden, a Georgia farmer bent on finding the gold his
grandfather supposedly buried on their farm. He’s aided by two of his
sons, Shaw (Vic Morrow) and Buck (Jack Lord, later to star in the
popular television show Hawaii Five-O). The latter is married to the stunning Griselda (Tina Louise, later to star on Gilligan’s Island).
Animosity between husband and wife is quickly established, and much of
it derives from a past relationship she had with Will Thompson (Aldo
Ray), who is now married to one of Ty Ty’s daughters, Rosamund (Helen
Westcott). It also doesn’t help that the exaggeratedly attractive
Griselda causes nearly every male in the film to ogle incessantly; this
includes, rather awkwardly, Ty Ty and Shaw. This much of the family is
first seen in Ty Ty’s field, which is peppered with mounds of dirt
shoveled aside to yield one gaping hole in the ground after another.
They’ve been at this for quite some time.
Living
nearby, but brought in to be a part of the gold quest, is another
daughter, the kooky Darlin’ Jill (Fay Spain). She is the object of Pluto
Swint’s lusty affection. Swint is a most unlikely sheriff candidate
(who nevertheless does get elected) played by the bumbling Buddy
Hackett. It is Swint who suggests that Ty Ty enlist the services of an
albino to help him find the hidden treasure. Quite straight-faced, Swint
asserts that albinos possess secret powers: “They can see right through
the ground.” Ty Ty, who had previously decried superstition (he
repeatedly touts a “scientific” approach), is nonetheless quickly
convinced. The audience is, for better or worse, denied the albino
wrangling, but we soon see that sure enough, this crew has attained this
apparently exotic creature. Not that they care (an albino could be from
another planet the way they act), he is named Dave Dawson (another TV
connection: Michael Landon, future star of Little House on the Prairie). While initially rather reasonable, God’s Little Acre
takes a turn to the surreal with this peculiar plot component that
doesn’t really get anyone (or the film) anywhere, though Darlin’ Jill,
for all the wrong reasons — primarily, and probably solely, his unusual
pigmentation — is instantly smitten by Dave. It is, however, darkly
ironic to see the farmhand Uncle Felix (Rex Ingram), an African
American, standing over Dave with a shotgun ordering him around. And it
must also be admitted that the matter-of-factness that follows regarding
Ty Ty’s use of Dave is, at times, quite funny: “What would I be doing
with an albino if not to get gold?” he asks, as if it should be obvious.
A
side drama, which compared to the gold digging and albino retaining
emerges as the more practical narrative, revolves around Peach Tree
Valley, home to Will and Rosamund. In this distressed company town,
where the chief source of employment and income was the now six months
inactive cotton mill, Will persistently drinks (and apparently abuses
his wife), as he and the other out-of-work men wait mournfully for the
mill to get up and running again. Mann shows his noir roots in
these sequences; always shot at night, the lighting of the streets
evocatively illuminates the mass of men huddled in the shadows. Will’s
combustible nature also gives the sense of danger and dread that ran
through so many of Mann’s earliest features. While this semi-urban
milieu stands in contrast to the comparatively Western setting of the
farm, it’s more than just visual differences that affect the characters.
The town vs. farm conflict, coupled with the Will/Griselda past,
emerges as a frequent, if underexplored, cause of strife between the
brothers and Will. He disparages their toiling away on the farm, while
they see him as being uppity in his highfaluting “townie” attitude. This
sentiment is also echoed later by the emergence of yet another son, the
cotton broker Jim Leslie (Lance Fuller). He lives in the even more
sophisticated Augusta, in a nice house full of what Ty Ty condemns as
“breakables”. Now widowed, he has made a clear break from his less
refined, though more genuine, family, and not without some ill will.
As God’s Little Acre
progresses, these various narrative elements collide and merge as the
film’s main themes become apparent. Among them is a constant suggestion
of naïve stubbornness working for and against the characters. On the one
hand, this refusal to deviate from the norm acts as a motivating factor
in their lives: if they did change their ways, would they know what to
do? Especially for Ty Ty, tenacious routine seems to keep his life worth
living. On the other hand, blindly clinging to one’s past — past
relationships, past jobs, past rumors — hinders emotional evolution and
existential mobility.
With Mann’s notable use of setting in his Westerns and Films Noir,
it is no surprise that he skillfully utilizes what this region has to
offer, in terms of substantive natural elements, to enhance
personalities and action. Aided immensely by the renowned
cinematographer Ernest Haller, the photography gives a tangible sense of
stifling southern heat. With a majority of the scenes playing out in
daytime exteriors, the sun beats down on the performers as they’re
constantly wiping their sweaty brow, dirt caked to their glistening
faces, and the related violent and sexual pressure enhanced by these
conditions grows increasingly hazardous.
God’s Little Acre
also contains a notable attention to detail, in setting and dialogue.
In the case of the former, minutia like flypaper hanging from ceilings
gives the entire film a localized authenticity. Concerning the latter,
down-home moralizing (a “street of sin and shame” outside a saloon) and
humble musings (“God never made a finer raincoat than a man’s skin”)
contribute to a richness in character development. Other comedic
comments, especially from the unpretentious Ty Ty, help to leaven some
of the tension in certain parts of the film (his comment about one of
Jim Leslie’s paintings being more beautiful than the newly erected
Coca-Cola signs comes to mind).
And
finally, one can’t really discuss this film without noting its overt
sexuality. Made at a time when Hollywood was pushing the boundaries of
such explicitness (this was two years after Elia Kazan’s Baby Doll, probably God’s Little Acre’s
closest kin), the at times comically obvious sexual suggestiveness
seems unavoidable, particularly when Tina Louise enters the frame. One
scene, for example, borders on self-conscious parody as she, wearing
only a slip, cools down by dowsing herself in well water and then
intimately encounters Ray, shirt off, smoking and sweating profusely.
These moments are never tawdry—it’s all in good fun—and indeed some of
the implied sexual banter is quite amusing: “Is that watermelon cool and
ripe and ready to eat?” asks Ty Ty when Griselda exits the house
bearing the voluminous fruit.
A most unusual film by a tremendously talented filmmaker, God’s Little Acre
is an underseen gem of cinematic distinction. Captivating performances
(if not fully convincing), exceptional cinematography, and a curiously
unpredictable story keeps the whole thing uniquely fascinating in spite
of its occasional, inconsequential faults.
God’s Little Acre was released on Blu-ray and re-released on DVD by Olive Films
This REVIEW was previously published in FILM INTERNATIONAL
“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
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
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
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!
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.
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.”
