‘Odd Man Out’

Directed by Carol Reed and presented by the legendary J. Arthur Rank, both of whom were at the height of their careers with still more great films to come, Odd Man Out is one of the pinnacle achievements in post-war British cinema. And with James Mason in the lead, a major British star at the time, the film had everything going for it: superb direction, a solid screenplay, terrific performances, and stunning cinematography by Robert Krasker. The final result was named best film of the year by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts and was chosen as one of the ten best films of 1947 by the National Board of Review. Certainly, Odd Man Out was widely seen and well regarded in its time. But now, with a newly released Criterion Blu-ray of the picture, it’s hard to think of a more glorious presentation.

Reed opens Odd Man Out with an overhead helicopter shot traveling atop the Belfast cityscape, slowing cutting downward to the streets and buildings below. This choice of an introductory vantage point is significant, for as a film, Odd Man Out is most fascinating as it hones in on individual dramas—one in particular but many on the periphery—in a time and place of wider turmoil and strife. While there are undeniably the sociopolitical motivations behind the film and its storyline, for the most part, particularly as the picture progresses, the driving ideology goes out the window. Far more than the politics that serve as the instigation for Mason’s Johnny McQueen character and his cohorts, the film is primarily concerned with average folks in extraordinary, uneasy circumstances.



At the start, Johnny, a recently escaped convict, is smooth, soft-spoken, and confident. He is the leader of an ambiguous and ambitious Irish “organization” in need of funding. It is decided that said funds are to come from a mill, which Johnny and his crew plan to rob. While Johnny seems cool and collected, if not wholly enthused, others have their doubts about his competency (perhaps he should sit this one out, they propose, having just fled from prison after all), but they are nevertheless assured. In these opening sequences, where the men lay out their strategy for the heist, what stands out in a strange and prominent way is that though they are planning an obviously criminal act, these men aren’t like criminals. All of the performers—Robert Newton, with Mason, the most famous among them—are so comfortable and relatable that their down-to-earth personalities never once seem malicious. A lot of this also has to do with Reed’s direction, which, especially in these early scenes, captures the workaday environment of this Irish town, and how this desperate action seems to be born from blue-collar necessity.

With the other women who move about the circle of accomplices, Kathleen Sullivan (Kathleen Ryan), Johnny’s love interest, never really questions the actions of the men. By nearly all accounts, what they plan to do has to be done. But she does cast doubt on the ultimate aim of the their mission. “Will you ever be free?” she asks Johnny. Not just from prison, her question suggests, but from the dogma that drives his actions. Indeed, even if and when he and the others rob the mill and attain the money, what then? Where do they go from there? Toward what will those funds go? And how far will it take them?

Giving credence to the other men and their doubts, and concurrently setting up the suspense of the theft, Reed conveys Johnny’s mental unease and physical distress via a brief sequence on the way to the mill. Through quick cutting, erratic camera movement, oblique angles, and a simulation of his blurred vision, Johnny’s anxiety is visually apparent. It’s an effective way of punctuating the narrative with expressive imagery, and later, Reed and Krasker will similarly utilize sharp contrasts of black and white with deep focus photography to do the same. In general, Reed does for this Irish town what he and Krasker would do for the streets of Vienna in The Third Man two years later. Their representation of the city places equal focus on the weather-beaten setting as well as the faces that populate it.

Sure enough, the concerns of the other men and Johnny’s own evident reticence prove fatally prophetic. Johnny is shot during the escape and subsequently shoots and kills a cashier. Though Johnny is rescued as they speed away, he slips (or is let go, depending on who recalls the story; those who escape safely are quick to pass the blame). He falls from the car and is left behind. He manages to run off, but is now left wounded, alone, hunted, and hallucinating.



Once the drama of the heist itself becomes secondary, the film becomes an almost allegorical character study of the citizenry, with attention shifting to the diverse lives of those in the town. Throughout the film, Reed and writers F.L. Green and R.C. Sherriff highlight the alliance between like-minded individuals, with many encountered by Johnny in particular having a bond united by similar views on their shared social condition. Others, however, and there are just as many who sympathize with Johnny as those who don’t, have their own selfish motivations. Some are quick to care for the injured convict, no matter what he did, but some are equally quick to sell him out for their own personal gains. Some are caring, some are conniving, some are ambivalent to the whole ordeal and are content to just live and let live. But in all cases, the point is that people will do what they do, and despite initial appearances and actions, one shouldn’t judge too harshly. There is often more to these people than we first see. Just as in the opening we are surprised to hear these decent men talk of robbery as they pack their guns, through other portions of the film, we are similarly surprised to see the goodness that arises from apparent scoundrels and the cruelty from those who appear to be upright. Though a minor character, Grannie (Kitty Kirwan) identifies this dichotomy and stresses a need for objectivity and an avoidance of blanket judgment, thus verbalizing a key theme of the film. When she comments on the decency of even one of the questioning policemen, she gives those around her, as well as the audience, something to consider. A different inspector later hammers the point home in his own way: “In my profession, there is neither good nor bad. There is innocence and guilt. That’s all.”

See, for example, Lukey’s (Newton) apparently crass obsession with painting Johnny as he nears death. It’s not so much that he is an unfeeling bastard (though it is some of that), but it’s that he is after something profound, something that applies to everyone, another example of how Reed and company present with subtle accuracy the ties that bind all in this community, and beyond. In painting Johnny in this condition, Lukey is seeking to capture the “truth about us all…he’s doomed.” By this point, Johnny has come to be more than a single man; his plight and current state represent that which faces so many others: entrapment, helplessness, sorrow, confusion, angst.



The famous images of Johnny staring down into the bubbles of his spilled drink make for an evocative sequence. In a desperate state, he sees and hears many of those whom he has encountered in the course of the evening, and he and we become aware of just how interconnected they all are. Each of these individuals, in one way or another, played a part in sealing his fate, and in doing so, their own characters were markedly transformed.
 
Odd Man Out is broken into three distinct visual segments, each signaled by a change in the weather. The earlier portions of the film—overcast and still—are only minimally decorative, shot in bland grays that scale back to give room for the narrative. But when night falls and rain pours, the city comes alive with atmospheric glistening streets and deep shadows, lending the film a touch of the noirish thriller. As the night goes on and temperatures drop, the rain is replaced by snowfall, and for a time, the film itself slows down for several sequences of somber reflection, as characters are given a chance to question their own values and their own morality. Most intensely moving is the steadfastly loyal Kathleen. Her love toward Johnny is clear from the beginning, but it’s only at the film’s tragic conclusion that we see the full extent of her devotion. Against the bars of a fence as the police close in, Johnny is finally trapped, imprisoned after all. But what happens next proves to be the most surprising and heartbreaking scene of the entire film.

With a motley crew of rag-tag Irish rebels and delinquents, alongside some purely innocent and honest folk, Odd Man Out is an emotional film illustrated by Carol Reed’s first-rate direction. Without ever making a case for its inherent politics, the film presents people, just plain people, caught up in one exceptional night that may or may not have any lasting consequences, but will, in any case, be one remembered by those who played a part in it. In a way, this is true of the film itself. Though still lauded by many, it isn’t typically among those hallmarks of world cinema now held up with the utmost esteem in the pantheon of film history. But for those who have seen it, it’s not easily forgotten.
REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

It’s my body and I’ll ‘Fly’ if I want to: Cronenberg’s scientific cautionary tale

As diverse as his career has been, there is arguably one key feature that best defines a David Cronenberg film. There are, of course, exceptions (in some cases, great exceptions: A History of Violence [2005]), but from Rabid (1977) to A Dangerous Method (2011), the relationship between science and the human body and mind has been a prevalent and powerfully expressive theme in much of the great Canadian filmmaker’s work. Of his films that deal with the repercussions of this relationship, and their unique, often disturbing manifestations, The Fly (1986) may be his finest achievement.

In this horror/sci-fi classic, Jeff Goldblum plays Seth Brundle, a brilliant if socially awkward and rather eccentric scientific mind. His newest invention, a teleportation device that can move inanimate objects from one pod to another, seems innocuous enough, in theory anyway. And at least as he tells it, he seems to have genuinely developed the machine with the best of intentions, touting the mobility benefits of the world-changing technology. Somewhat intoxicated, and more than a little smitten, he is eager to show off his creation to journalist Veronica Quaife (Geena Davis). Brundle lets his guard down and divulges more than he wishes he had about the contraption. Though he is initially angered by the compromising situation, he and Veronica reach a stalemate and, more than that, begin a romantic relationship. With all going well on that front, Brundle is further enthused when he discovers how to transport a living being—in this case, a chimp who unfortunately had his brother become the initial, and eventually mangled, guinea pig.



When Veronica suddenly leaves one evening (in reality to stop her editor and former lover from running a story about Brundle’s work), Brundle assumes she is still involved with the sleazy ex. In a drunken stupor, he transports himself from pod to pod, and though that in itself is successful, a fly inadvertently landed inside the starting container and subsequently has its genetic makeup merged with Brundle’s, the result being a single being the scientist later dryly dubs “Brundlefly.” Through the duration of the film, Brundle’s body and, to varying degrees, his mental state, begin to go through progressively more disturbing and destructive alterations.

As he begins to lose his humanity and identity, so too does his external being start to increasingly dissipate. While Brundle’s personality is undeniably altered, becoming hostile and aggressive though never without fully escaping a sense of his true self, it’s his physical transformation that is most prominent and most drastically disastrous. At first, the manipulations prove to be favorable, with increased strength and stamina, but the ostensible positives are short lived and he is soon falling apart—literally so, as chunks of his flesh, fingernails, and teeth detach from his body with darkly comic ease and regularity. As his body begins to deteriorate and evolve, with each new passing ability comes a horrific abandonment of his human form, often shown in graphic detail by Cronenberg via some truly extraordinary make-up and special effects. The pain of these changes, and the extent to which each passing phase takes him further and further from being human, is agonizing to behold.



One could read easily into The Fly a cautionary tale about taking science too far. Certainly, it paints a vivid picture of what can happen when science is used to alter mankind in unnatural ways. But that Brundle’s modification happens in this film is, in the grand scheme of things, largely incidental. His physical transformation is accidental, and that such a thing could have happened was never part of the plan. If anything, the warning comes as Brundle begins to take for granted the physical perks that are initially produced by the genetic merging. He enjoys the newfound sexual vigor and his superhuman strength, and he playfully revels in the fly-related abilities—crawling on walls and hanging from ceilings—but with each new and exciting endowment comes those unavoidable, though perfectly natural (for a fly) shortcomings: bodily contortions, gruesome digestion, and structural disfigurement. The good and the bad balance out for a time, but eventually, the corruptive and fatal metamorphosis begins to outweigh any superficial benefits.



In depicting the changes that sweep over Brundle, Cronenberg ventures into his trademark body horror, with an oftentimes gruesomely detailed and prolonged depiction of the corporeal alterations. Undeniably apropos given this film’s emphasis on the transformation of one being into another, it similarly returns to a bodily emphasis that the director has explored in a number of venues. Brundle voices the vivid power and potential of flesh and blood— in terms of cinematic presentation and natural function—as he chides Veronica for not wanting to “dive into the plasma pool.” Seeing what is obviously happening to Brundle, she refuses to likewise teleport, which he takes as a personal affront and cowardice. “You’re afraid to be destroyed and recreated, aren’t you?” he angrily asks her. “I’ll bet you think that you woke me up about the flesh, don’t you? But you only know society’s straight line about the flesh. You can’t penetrate beyond society’s sick, gray, fear of the flesh.” More than just the ramblings of a madman, these comments get to the heart of The Fly’s own repulsive imagery. To see this film with an audience, one truly gets a sense of how collectively repulsive Brundle’s transformation is. As body parts mutate and orifices open to oozy fluids, it is indeed a ghastly sight. But it’s not only because how extraordinary the transformation is (from man into fly), and in that sense how out of the realm of reality it is, but it’s also how relatable the disfigurement actually is. We may not be able to wrap our heads around the reality of turning into an insect, but we can definitely emphasize with teeth falling out, fingernails falling off, and pores of puss bursting on our faces.



This is why David Cronenberg’s particular brand of body horror works so well, and it’s also a primary reason why The Fly is so memorable. Through a brilliance of creative conception and technical execution, the effects created and rendered on screen are utterly disgusting, yet are also wholly believable. What is more, if standing back and seen from the vantage point of “it’s only a movie,” one also marvels at the design and construction. Cronenberg’s body horror, and The Fly may indeed be the best case in point, rides a fine line between aesthetic admiration and psychological and physiological identification. We may never see a Brundlefly, but thanks to David Cronenberg, we can easily appreciate what it takes to make one—both in the fictional story of The Fly and in the film’s actual production.

REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

‘The Beyond’

While he may not have the name recognition of George Romero or Wes Craven, Lucio Fulci has had a singular impact on the horror genre. And though his work doesn’t lend itself to the sort of pop culture familiarity that unites these and other more mainstream horror directors, what he did best within the genre, he did as well as any other filmmaker. His was a down and dirty horror: grisly, textured, elaborate, graphic. And arguably his finest achievement, certainly one that perfectly showcases his style and skill, is The Beyond (1981), out now on an extensive 3-disc collectors edition Blu-ray.



The Beyond begins in 1927 Louisiana, where the basic premise of portentous evil lurking near seven doors to hell is established. Upon one of those gateways sits an old gothic hotel, which in the present day, Liza Merril (Catriona MacColl) inherits from her recently deceased uncle. As the film gets underway, the hotel is undergoing some much-needed repair. A house painter, stricken by a vision of haunting eyes piercing through the darkness, falls to his death. Thus initiates the ominous and gradual—and gradually more outrageous—terror.

Upon hearing tales of the hotel’s past, Liza is initially doubtful, carelessly dismissing the series of tragic incidents that appear to be related to said gateways, and ignoring dire warnings about the site. She examines a sacred text that connects the seven portals to hell with the hotel, but only does so with a passive curiosity. She also brushes off the eccentric, malicious, and quite possibly evil incarnate servants, Martha and Arthur (Veronica Lazar and Gianpaolo Saccarola)—”they came with the hotel,” she casually notes.



Eventually, she discovers more about the mysterious occurrences and their menacing origins and starts to believe in the prospect of malevolence unleashed upon the earth, just as the threat escalates and expands, not as in a zombie-inflicted virus, but in a dispersing atmosphere of danger enveloping the region (and beyond?). A doctor she befriends (David Warbeck) remains skeptical, but by the time his opinion starts to sway, the film’s narrative grows increasingly secondary, disappearing behind Massimo Lentini’s production design, Germano Natali’s special effects, and the make-up creations by Giannetto De Rossi and Maurizio Trani, all of which, of course, are born from the terrifying imagination of Lucio Fulci.

When honing in on the maimings and the gruesome bits of brutality, Fulci films in lingering detail, shooting straight on and cutting away only to substitute real body parts for fake ones, but never to curb the violence or cheat the audience. He denies no potential chance for corporeal mutilation and is seldom hesitant to show it in extreme close-up. It’s a most potent stylistic choice in terms of shock value, but it’s also a way to tout the exceptionally well-crafted carnage. This film might have Fulci’s most fluid gore, with gushing goop ever flowing, but it also contains several other squirm-inducing sequences of less liquefied death: flesh tearing spiders, a carnivorous dog, and eye gouging galore. Marveling in the practical construction of the bloody effects may distance one from the narrative, as the focus goes to technique rather than plot or character identification, but such a diversion in no way diminishes the effectiveness and the thrill of the film. Quite the opposite.



The Beyond is more than blood and guts though. It also has some of Fulci’s most atmospheric settings, such as the morgue with its sterile whiteness and its carefully placed corpses, and the historic buildings with their ornate interiors beautifully lit and arranged. Toward the end, when the dead finally rise, the hotel is shown from the outside, coming alive with stilted silhouetted figures in the widows. Location shooting around New Orleans, which itself has a natural ambiance in real life, undoubtedly lends the film an additional authentic sense of peculiarity. Fulci’s penchant for graphic gore might get the notoriety, but one can’t deny his capacity for equally stunning visuals that rely more on aesthetic beauty than stomach churning bloodshed.

Fulci was firing on all cylinders when The Beyond was released. After several lesser known features within diverse genres, Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972) gave the director a degree of international attention within the Giallo form. This attention was further surpassed by Zombi 2 (1979), an extraordinary work sold as an alleged sequel to Romero’s Dawn of the Dead (1978), followed by the outstanding City of the Living Dead (1980), the first in a trilogy of sorts that would include The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery (1981). Into the 1980s, financial constraints, shifts in genre interest, and physical illness relegated Fulci to the margins of horror, where he was sadly joined by fellow countryman Dario Argento and even the pioneering Romero.



Nevertheless, these directors and their best movies are special chapters in the story of the horror film, and it’s nice to see a film like The Beyond receive such a stellar home video release. The new Blu-ray from Grindhouse releasing contains a great looking transfer of the uncensored director’s cut, a commentary track featuring MacColl and Warbeck, interviews with Fulci and many others involved with the film, the long thought lost German pre-credit sequence in color, liner notes by genre experts, and even the original soundtrack album by Fabio Frizzi. It’s an excellent treatment of an excellent film.
REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

Warner Brothers Musicals Collection

The Musicals Collection Blu-ray set from Warner Home Video contains four Hollywood classics of the genre, at least two of them among the greatest of all time: Kiss Me Kate, Calamity Jane, The Band Wagon, and Singin’ in the Rain. And all except for Singin’ in the Rain are making their Blu-ray debut. While the films may not rank equal in terms of quality—those latter two titles are the all-time greats—each of the transfers are outstanding, the movies themselves are still nevertheless enjoyable, and the set is a terrific bargain.

Kiss Me, Kate is offered in 2-D and 3-D versions. Though the 3-D is certainly not the best to grace a Blu-ray, it’s still the version to watch, even with the clichéd, though occasionally amusing gimmick of characters throwing things at the camera. However, it’s the color cinematography by the legendary Charles Rosher—this, his penultimate picture—that really pops. We get a sense of just how vibrant the color is going to be during the early “Too Darn Hot” performance by Ann Miller, who, more than the leading lady Kathryn Grayson, is the most interesting actress and female protagonist of the film. Her pink dress explodes off the screen as she shimmies seductively around the room, and for the first time it’s made lavishly clear just how astounding this film is going to look. For much of the picture’s basic plot, the colors are relatively subdued, but when the focus turns to the dance numbers that later make up the performance within the film, the results are likewise dazzling.



The storyline of Kiss Me, Kate runs along familiar backstage lines, with its show business setting, the drama in front of and behind the curtain, blending in some cases, and the anxiety caused by comical misunderstandings. Howard Keel is Fred, an actor who convinces his ex, Lilly (Grayson), to appear in a musical version of “The Taming of the Shrew,” written by Cole Porter, who appears as himself. Jealousy (this is when Miller’s Lois Lane comes in) and some confusion about an unpaid debt result in the relatively inauspicious narrative motivation. Once the play within the film begins, there are four musical numbers by the movie’s intermission, and these performances take up about 20 minutes of screen time, while the film’s off-stage story essentially stops dead. The halves of the film are subsequently uneven, with the first part providing the necessary setting of the scene only to give way to the theatrical performance, slowing down the plot until they begin to merge in the end.

To director George Sidney’s credit, he does a good deal to open up the restricted spaces through camera placement and set design, as well as some creative uses of the 3-D. Somewhat unique to 3-D films are repeated appearances of mirrors. On occasion, this creates an interesting composition (reminiscent of Sirk’s melodramas), but Sidney doesn’t utilize the reflections to manipulate the depth perception as much as he could have, with a flattening out of space via the mirror shown in depth by the 3-D.

Of only minor genre and technical interest, Kiss Me, Kate is still one of the more visually appealing films of this set, but compared to the other three films, it doesn’t stack up in any other regard.



Aside from the singing cowboy films of yesteryear, musical Westerns are few and far between. For the most part, that’s probably a good thing, as the two genres don’t always mix well. One exception—arguably the greatest exception—is Calamity Jane, a pleasantly surprising film.

Doris Day in the title role is delightfully infectious from start to finish. She performs everything with great exuberance and humor, with lots of comic mugging, an impressive physicality—particularly during the extended take dance numbers—a rootin’ tootin’ rowdiness, and a surly adoption of rough and tumble Western slang. Calamity is well liked and apparently quite a skilled shot (though she does seem prone to embellishment; tall tales, of course, in the best Western tradition), but due to her tucked away hair and buckskin attire, she’s commonly mistaken for a man. With various statements suggested or noted explicitly concerning masculine and feminine Western tropes, Calamity Jane is an unexpectedly provocative look at sexual identity, certainly in ways other Westerns wouldn’t dream. There’s gender lopsidedness in the film’s Deadwood town—”Gentlemen and, uh, gentlemen,” says Henry Miller (Paul Harvey) as he announces performances—and as such, the film points to the same deficiency in the Western genre as a whole.



When Francis (not Frances) shows up to entertain the citizenry, he is forced to perform in drag, as the men of the town expected a female entertainer. Calamity aims to help Henry, the beleaguered inn/theater owner, and so travels to Chicago to employ star Adelaid Adams. A fish out of water in the big city (where she assumes a wig shop is displaying scalps), Calamity instead brings back Katie Brown (Allyn Ann McLerie), under the assumption that Katie is Adams. Thus, we have another musical with its basic premise born from misunderstanding, and another musical with entertainment itself as a key part of its narrative (see also the remaining two films of this set).

Back in town, the truth is revealed, but all is forgiven when Katie turns out to be quiet the girl herself. Unforeseen contention, however, comes when Calamity, apparently having been the only white woman in town, suddenly has some competition when it comes to male companionship. Though she had never expressed much romantic interest in a man, her gradually more ladylike transformation at the hands of Katie gets her emotions reeling and her (perhaps now outdated) feminine instincts kick in, or at least do so on occasion. But the transformation is a false one, and so is doomed to fail. Authenticity of character is crucial to Calamity Jane, just as it is in most Westerns. But in a male-dominated genre like the Western, this musical variation with such a prominent and endearing female focus is certainly something unique.



The versatile and vastly underrated Vincente Minnelli directs the third film in the set, The Band Wagon. Shot in gorgeous Technicolor and produced by the famed Arthur Freed unit at MGM, the film follows fading—no, faded—movie star Tony Hunter (Fred Astaire) as he makes the shaky transition from screen to stage. Joining him are the husband and wife writing team of Lester and Lily Martin (Oscar Levant and Nanette Fabray), who are first seen as Hunter’s two-person fan club, famed ballet star Gabrielle Gerard (Cyd Charisse), and producer/director Jeffrey Cordova (Jack Buchanan). The alliance isn’t always a sturdy one, but once everyone gets on the same track, it exemplifies the “no business like show business” adage. Like Kiss Me, Kate and so many other musicals, The Band Wagon is set primarily behind the scenes of a theatrical production as it goes from initial inspiration to opening night, with all the creative differences along the way—so many, in this case, it’s a wonder the show comes off at all. But even in this tried and tested set-up, Minnelli and company create something special.



Primary reasons for the film’s excellence are the extraordinary dance numbers and the music and lyrics by Arthur Schwartz and Howard Dietz. Form the early “Penny Arcade” sequence, with Astaire’s ode to a shoeshine, to the grand finale, the genre-bending noir-tinged “Girl Hunt,” the film’s most iconic number and its most brilliantly designed, all involved do flawless work. The only exception is the “Triplets” number, which is truly bizarre. Astaire and Charisse make a dynamic duo, even if at first seeming to be personally and physically mismatched (IMDB claims they were actually the exact same height and weight). Astaire in particular displays a stunning range of movement in his straightforward dancing, his casual shuffles, and his mannerisms—in everything he does really.

The second key feature of The Band Wagon is its recurring thematic discrepancy between light, box office fun and serious, classic productions. When the film begins, Cordova’s current work is the gloomy and somber “Oedipus Rex.” Hunter wonders if he is really the right man for the job when it comes to a musical. Indeed, as it turns out, Cordova does envision a modern day “Faust,” not what anyone else had in mind, and, as we see, not what audiences want. Things get turned around and all is well, but the theme pervades. The “That’s Entertainment” sequence, which Cordova actually instigates, gets to the heart of the film and its artistic conflict. The artificial barrier between high and low art, typically designated by critics and subsequently influencing product accessibility and audience perception, more often than not hinders both categorizations. As The Band Wagon shows, there may be differences in subject matter and tone, but entertainment is entertainment, be it ballet and Sophocles or tap dance and a gangster movie. Just put on a good show.



Finally, there is Singin’ in the Rain, arguably the best musical ever made (it certainly is for my money). Stanley Donen and star Gene Kelly direct this American movie essential about the transition from silent pictures to the talkie. With Kelly’s Don Lockwood are musician Cosmo Brown (Donald O’Connor) and chorus girl/wannabe actress Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds), as well as Lockwood’s perpetual co-star, Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), who, like so many real silent stars, struggles to make the transition into talking pictures.



The music of Singin’ in the Rain is famously fantastic and the dance numbers are inventive and enjoyable. The performances are amusing (Selden is particularly funny) and the look of the film is dazzling (thanks largely to the cinematography of five-time Oscar nominee and one-time winner Harold Rosson). But why the film holds up best has to do with the fact that it’s a great movie about movies. As is evidenced by just the three other films in this set, so many great musicals have Broadway or similarly theatrical scenarios as their backdrop. Rare is the movie musical about a movie musical. Behind the scenes musicals about what it takes to put on a stage performance can obviously be entertaining and even enlightening, but they can also do a discredit to what it takes to make such a film itself. Singin’ in the Rain not only takes that as its primary concern, but does so in a time period setting just at the dawn of the musical genre. Subsequently, it’s a fascinating movie that bears historical significance beyond its own standing as one of Hollywood’s finest achievements.


REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

‘The Lady from Shanghai’

The Lady from Shanghai (1947) didn’t come easily for Orson Welles. No film ever really did after his breakthrough, the great Citizen Kane (1941), the movie that put him on the map and in the crosshairs of the Hollywood establishment. They wanted little to do with this iconoclastic hotshot from New York, and for the rest of his days, Welles struggled to achieve an autonomous artistic vision. That so many astonishing films came out of this struggle, like The Lady from Shanghai, surely says something about his cinematic gift, an inherent talent that could not be restrained or denied.

It took considerable wheeling and dealing for Welles to convince Harry Cohn to back the film. Welles had three features on his directorial résumé, and though Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) were not financially successful, his third film, The Stranger (1946), was. “You’re only as good as your last movie,” as the Hollywood adage proclaims, so it was on that basis that Colombia’s notoriously ruthless studio head even entertained the director. Welles needed money to financially stabilize his stage musical of “Around the World in 80 Days,” so Cohn provided the cash, purchased the rights to Sherwood King’s “If I Die Before I Wake,” the source novel, and assigned Welles to write, direct, and star in the film. Part of the picture’s potential commercial viability came from the its leading lady (and Welles’ real-life romantic interest), Rita Hayworth, who was fresh off her extraordinary turn in Gilda (1946). Much to Cohn’s chagrin, however, Welles the perpetual rebel had the famous redhead died platinum blonde.



In any event, The Lady from Shanghai was made. And it was a box office disaster.

Today though, it’s a classic.

With evocative chiaroscuro photography credited to Charles Lawton Jr. (he was one of three cinematographers who actually worked on the film), The Lady from Shanghai has all the trappings of a quintessential noir. There’s the first person narration told in flashback—”Some people can smell danger. Not me.” There’s the scheming femme fatale. There’s a chance encounter, a chance relationship, and chance murder. There are shadowy figures and shadowy settings (though it’s at times also one of sunniest noirs), and there’s an omnipresent mystery about everyone, their never fully professed intentions and motivations leading to lurking danger at every turn.

It’s clear right away that someone in the film is working an angle … or they all are. “Here’s to crime,” toasts George Grisby (Glenn Anders), a little too merrily. Soon he reveals the reason for his joy: he has an ingenious moneymaking scheme. He wants Michael O’Hara (Welles) to say that he killed him. Grisby will then be able to disappear and leave his supposed stolid life behind, and without there being a body, O’Hara won’t be convicted. The only thing is though, is he telling the truth? Elsa Bannister (Hayworth) and her husband (and Grisby’s law partner), Arthur (Everett Sloane), have their own goals, none of which seem to jibe with one another. Who is really supposed to die, and who stands to benefit the most? Maybe it’s all a little convoluted at times, and it certainly bewilders O’Hara, but it holds up sure enough to make for a fascinating thriller.



For his part, O’Hara says he once killed a man, so we assume he’s been around the block a time or two. He is witty, worldly, and occasionally wiser than he should be. This makes him confrontational and breeds an unintentional animosity. Presumably then, he would know when he is being had. But that still doesn’t stop him from getting in over his head, and all for a dame.

Welles’ visual inventiveness is one of—if not the primary—hallmarks of his work. The Lady from Shanghai is no exception. Staging a scene in a darkened aquarium, Welles plays beautifully with light bouncing and rippling off glass-enclosed water. And at the end of the film, in its climactic and most famous sequence, Welles dazzles with a montage of camera angles, movement, and other deliriously creative techniques as a final shoot-out is set in an amusement park crazy house, with mirrors upon mirrors reflecting and deceiving the characters. With Welles at his best, even just run-of-the-mill exchanges between two stationary individuals are shown from unusual angles with carefully orchestrated lighting designs.

Welles was a fine actor, too, and though his Irish accent here isn’t entirely convincing, his performance is respectable. More than anything, he simply has a singular presence, in voice and body, one that in many cases compensated for what might have been lacking in any given role. Hayworth, undoubtedly a beauty, is comparably underutilized. She serves her character’s potentially devious purpose well, but does little else to stand out in terms of narrative impact. The rest of the primary players—Anders and Sloane in particular—are fiendishly quirky and sleazy. Anders is an unceasingly irritating antagonist, and Sloane, hobbling along as the crippled Bannister, gets his finest moment during a court proceeding full of theatrics, jokes, and shocks, leading to a revelatory conclusion.

Yes, The Lady from Shanghai is now a classic. But like so many Welles films, that current evaluation doesn’t save it from the studio tampering of its time: Columbia executives cut the picture from 155 minutes to its current 87 and ignored nearly all of Welles’ editorial suggestions. Still amazing though, like The Magnificent Ambersons, Othello (1952), or Touch of Evil (1958), is how much brilliance manages to shine through, despite artistic interference, budgetary constraints, or the comparably immaterial box office failure. There is, and was, no question about the genius of Orson Welles.


REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

‘The Soft Skin’

Riding high on the critical reputation of the French New Wave (if not its consistent box office success), and with The 400 Blows (1959), Shoot the Piano Player (1960), and Jules and Jim (1962) behind him, François Truffaut’s fourth feature is something rather different. There is still the same cinematic playfulness, a combination of genuine skill, pervasive influence, and a rampant passion for the medium itself, but with The Soft Skin (1964), Truffaut slows things down somewhat, takes a breath, matures. That’s not to say there weren’t adult themes in his earlier films (most certainly there were in Jules and Jim), but here, the entire tone of the film feels more aged, more serious, as if Truffaut was for the first time making a film explicitly for grown-ups, not just featuring them.

Nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 1964 Cannes Film Festival, The Soft Skin is nevertheless seen as one of François Truffaut’s least recognized works. And truth be told, it doesn’t hold up as well as some of his more famous features. But there’s still a lot working in its favor, from Truffaut’s own energized direction, which rarely falters, to the contributions of his key collaborators. This is one of Georges Delerue’s most diverse scores, perfectly expressing the anxiety and the doomed romanticism of the characters. Cinematographer Raoul Coutard is top notch, as usual. And frequent Truffaut editor Claudine Bouché keeps a solid pace.



The picture begins with the same sort of frenetic pacing that kicked off Jules and Jim, as Pierre Lachenay (Jean Desailly) rushes to catch a plane. It’s a chaotic opening, with only bits of character exposition obtained sporadically here and there. We gather that Lachenay—married, with a daughter—is an academic of some renown, and he’s traveling to Lisbon to lecture on Balzac. He holds a position of popularity and prominence, with all the perks and confidence boosters that such a standing entails: autograph seekers, planes waiting for him, lecture halls filled to capacity, dinners in his honor, and so on. Aside from his initially running late, everything about his life and occupation seems otherwise conventional and complacent. Desailly was seen as an unlikely choice for the lead role, presumably because of his ordinariness. But that same sort of unassuming everyman quality is part of what makes The Soft Skin work so well. Despite his plaudits and his status in the academic community, Lachenay is a basically average fellow.

Into this bourgeois contentment enters Nicole (Françoise Dorléac), a flight attendant Lachenay first encounters on his flight to Portugal. He is enamored by her, and she, though perhaps not as abruptly, by him. His advances are at first rejected, but she apologizes and they later meet. She appears interested in his work, or at least she fakes it well, and they—that is, he—end up talking through the night. Lachenay and Nicole jump head first into the affair, with no consideration of the consequences, the difficulties, or the sort of tragedies that almost instantly develop. There’s still the possibility that nothing further will become of their tryst, but when Lachenay arrives back in Paris and sees her number on the pack of matches she had given him, there is little hesitation.



Tension inevitably mounts. In time, the illicit affair proves to be increasingly difficult to maintain. They take great pains to avoid suspicion, for there is a good deal of effort in keeping their movements secretive. For Lachenay in particular, his double life leads to constraints that build on an increasing strain, especially as he deals with the stress of juggling personal and professional commitments. The best example of this is during an extended sequence when he has to introduce a film in Reims and brings Nicole along. As their romantic getaway is thwarted by a series of interruptions, jealously develops on both sides. Eventually, both struggle with physical and psychological agony. What sensuality there is, or was, is gradually offset by this unease. As Lachenay and Nicole stop for gas at one point, Truffaut masterfully composes a brief sequence of spinning numbers on the gas pump, close-ups of the nozzle and the tank, swift glances of vehicles passing by, all quickly cut together, all coalescing into a perfectly accelerated representation of paranoid tension, even if that which is shown is completely harmless.

Though she was largely absent for the mid-section of the film, once Lachenay’s wife, Franca (Nelly Benedetti), becomes aware of her husband’s deceit, she too is quick to act, insists on a separation, and is set to hire a divorce lawyer. But she hesitates: for fear, for the sake of their daughter, for, finally, a love that remains. Meanwhile, Nicole starts to cool off. Though she was, of course, entirely complicit, she even admits Lachenay made a mess of things, rushing as he (or they) did with such heedless abandon. When she and Lachenay quibble about their future, about marriage, about moving in together, Truffaut reminds us of Mrs. Lachenay’s anguish. Their issues seem trivial by comparison. It’s clear this isn’t going to end well.



In one of the bonus features included on the new Criterion Collection Blu-ray of The Soft Skin, Kent Jones speaks to Truffaut’s Hitchcock influence, and influence in general, drawing connections between each director’s depiction of the “suspense of ordinary situations” (catching the plane) and the “tautness” of certain scenes (like at the gas station). There’s also the desire expressed through a fetishistic gaze, as in The Soft Skin’s opening close ups of intertwined hands, or Nicole’s feet seen under the flight attendant curtain as she slips on a new pair of shoes, or Lachenay’s slow, full body caress of Nicole as she sleeps. There is certainly more than a little of the master’s impact in this film.

Also on the disc, Truffaut briefly discusses the origins of The Soft Skin and talks through a few specific scenes, but his most revealing comments are his own evaluation of the picture. He dubs it an “autopsy of adultery” and quite rightly points to its clinical, dry nature, and just how unromantic it all is. He posits these traits almost as faults or shortcomings, but in many ways, they are what distinguish the film as something markedly different from most illicit romance films, and certainly as something different from many New Wave features of the time.

In watching the film, this “autopsy of adultery,” one has to wonder why Lachenay would instigate such a devastating exploit. It could be as simple as the physical attraction between he and Nicole. But it could also be ego—he thinks he deserves whatever he wants, that the conventional rules of marital commitment don’t apply. He appears to have a decent home life; the film gets to the affair rather quickly, so we don’t see much of it, but it’s a safe assumption that his domestic situation is better than average.

The key thing here is that Truffaut isn’t so much interested in causes though, nor with the psychology of the affair itself (he certainly is, however, tuned in to the psychology of its effects). The greyness of the film, something of a standard for many New Wave features, is weather related to be sure, with autumnal or wintry settings, but it also captures the hazy morality of the characters and the nonjudgmental presentation by Truffaut. While Hitchcock is the recurring reference point when it comes to The Soft Skin, mostly because its production was around the time Truffaut set about his book-length interview with the legendary figure, with regards to this lack of explanation—with the lack of a need for it—Truffaut is also channeling another cinematic great: Jean Renoir. In this, one can apply to The Soft Skin the most famous line from Renoir’s The Rules of the Game: “The awful thing about life is this: everyone has their reasons.”

REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

‘Kiss Me, Stupid’

How good was Billy Wilder? So good that this film, Kiss Me, Stupid—largely entertaining, frequently witty, beautifully shot, and with at least two noteworthy performances—probably wouldn’t figure in most lists of his top 10 movies. Yet it is a good Billy Wilder film, if not a great one.

Starting in Las Vegas, we are introduced to Dino, a womanizer, a drunk, an accomplished singer, and a clever jokester. Dean Martin, in a bit of curiously inspired and rather daring casting, plays the rapscallion; not surprisingly, he does so very well. On his way to Los Angeles, he stops in Climax, Nevada (with all the sexual innuendo built into this film, the town’s name almost seems the least obvious). There he encounters Orville (Ray Walston), a nebbish piano teacher and amateur songwriter who is irrationally jealous of his wife, Zelda (Felicia Farr), whom he assumes everyone, from the milkman to the dentist, is trying to flirt with. Orville’s musical collaborator is Barney (Cliff Osmond), a gas station attendant. With the arrival of Dino seen as their big break, Orville and Barney arrange to have him stuck in their one-horse town just long enough to convince him of their own musical talents. But when Dino’s philandering ways put him at odds with Orville’s marital paranoia, especially when it’s revealed that Zelda harbors a crush on the singer and was even the president of his fan club, Orville schemes to get her out of the house while keeping Dino in. As part of this process, he and Barney enlist the help of waitress-cum-prostitute Polly the Pistol (Kim Novak) to pretend to be Orville’s wife, thus providing the requisite female companionship for Dino without actually subjecting Zelda to Dino’s amorous advances. None of this, of course, goes quite as planned, and as this summary probably indicates, the events that transpire are somewhat ridiculous and erratic. By and large though, it’s great fun to watch.



Martin is the main attraction here, as is obvious by his self-conscious characterization alone, but while his trademark cool and his casual quips may be some of the best parts of Kiss Me, Stupid, the continual scenes of his relentlessly aggressive one-track-mind are some of the worst. I love Dean Martin—his songs and his movies—but I surely hope this degree of sleazily obsessive sexual avariciousness is at least mostly a creative liberty. Nevertheless, he and Novak are the acting highlights. Novak plays Polly as a tragically heartbreaking character, with a low self-esteem but an endearingly charming resilience. She assumes the life she lives is as good as it gets, only because she doesn’t know any better, and though she has to deal with Dino incessantly pawing at her throughout the evening, she takes a liking to the feigned domesticity she embodies in Zelda’s absence. Farr is generally appealing—pretty, playful, and the object of considerable sympathy as Orville cruelly abuses her in order to drive her out of the house—and Osmond, a Wilder regular, essentially just serves his co-conspirator/sidekick role only to the degree absolutely necessary.



Written with his brilliant collaborator, I.A.L. Diamond, Wilder’s script for Kiss Me, Stupid functions on three levels, two of them successfully. What works is primarily the dialogue. As evidenced in their past four consecutive films together—Irma la Douce (1963), One, Two, Three (1961), The Apartment (1960), and Some Like It Hot (1959)—Diamond and Wilder had a way with words. One-liners, snappy banter, and double entendres were par for the course, and here they’re top notch. This then leads to the second positive element of the film’s script: the audaciousness. By 1964 standards, this is a rather suggestive liberal-minded film (little surprise it was condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency). Novak the clear sex symbol of the picture dresses at times in very little, and even Farr, playing the dutifully modest housewife, albeit the most beautiful one in Climax, appears in her bra. The sexuality of the film—repressed or on full display—never really ceases, and by the end, morals are tried and tested and some surprisingly waver. There may be lessons learned by the conclusion, but there’s no real remorse or censure. Just as One, Two, Three took on the contemporary politics of the time, Kiss Me, Stupid is a bold exploration of the changing sexual mores of the 1960s.

Where the film’s screenplay falters, however, is in its basic premise. At slightly over two hours, the novelty of Martin knowingly having some fun with his recklessly informal persona grows a little tired. The on-again, off-again theme career advancement for Orville and Barney is a shaky one; for a fair amount of time, that motivating factor goes by the wayside altogether, with the focus instead on the sexual comedy of manners. When Polly questions how Orville could let Dino go after his (fake) wife like he does, right in front of him, we’re kind of wondering the same thing. And doesn’t Dino, even as much of a horndog as he is, find it unusual that this woman’s husband would just sit idly by through all of his advances? Finally, while it seems odd that the role of Zelda rather than Polly was apparently written for Marilyn Monroe, in many of Novak’s scenes with Walston, the two seem to be clearly playing on the Monroe-Tom Ewell relationship from Wilder’s The Seven Year Itch (1955). It’s occasionally funny, but it’s a little too familiar.



Music and the movies play a large part in Kiss Me, Stupid’s appeal. André Previn, who had by this point amassed five Academy Award nominations and three wins for his musical work (including on Irma la Douce), provided the film’s score. The original songs were by none other than the Ira and the late George Gershwin. Movie references come from several prior films, most notably a nod to the famous grapefruit scene from The Public Enemy (1931). Then there are the constant references to Martin’s Rat Pack cronies. Kiss Me, Stupid ultimately exists in a strange sort of metafilmic world where real life is merging with on-screen personas and preceding cinematic models.

Kiss Me, Stupid is an enjoyable movie, a crude farce with several laughs and worthwhile performances. If it doesn’t live up to some of Billy Wilder’s finer films, it’s his own fault. Few directors have set their own bar so incredibly high.


REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT

'Il Sorpasso'

Bruno Cortona (Vittorio Gassman) zips along deserted Roman streets in his Lancia Aurelia B24. In search of a telephone, he is a high-speed automotive speck dwarfed by towering housing complexes and businesses. Bruno maintains this frenetic pace whether he’s on foot, in his car, or speaking. He talks fast and barks orders, assuming everyone else is on his own wavelength. He’s a tornado personified, seeming to barge in wherever he goes, making noise, making a scene, making an entrance. According to his estranged wife, for Bruno, the “first impression says it all.” He is also self-obsessed and self-assured, with an apparent disregard for others and with no social filter: “Who’s this fatty?” he asks Roberto Mariani (Jean-Louis Trintignant), whom he just met, picking up a photograph from the stranger’s desk. It’s Roberto’s mother. Bruno’s behavior is marked by reckless irresponsibility, a freewheeling egotism and arrogance that borders on outright charm. “He is, to be blunt, a jerk,” writes Phillip Lopate, “but a strangely sympathetic one.” He likes fast cars and flirting with girls, and his rambling pontifications cover any and every topic that pops into his head. Frankly, he’s a little exhausting.

But the character of Bruno also embodies the dynamism that runs through the entirety of Dino Risi 1962 comedy, Il sorpasso. This was Risi’s 15th feature, after nearly a decade’s worth of documentaries and short films, and it probably remains his most famous and widely acclaimed. Like Alberto Lattuada and Pietro Germi, Risi had his roots in Neorealism, and like these other directors, he was doing what he could to break away from that tradition. Ravaged by war and burdened by 20 years of prior Fascist reign, Italians in the early 1960s were ready to laugh. Neorealism had its place and its undeniable influence, but this “Neorealismo Rosa” expressed its own social commentary with some of the devastation scaled back. A burgeoning modernity was nailing tight the coffin of Neorealist austerity, in the form of pop music, recreational activities, wealth, casual even caustic language, and in the broad sense of a loosened morality. This to say nothing of a physical Italy shown a million miles from the remnants of World War II.



Il sorpasso’s co-writer Ettore Scola refers to Risi’s “light touch,” his ability to coolly turn the critical camera on Italy itself, without any condemnation or contempt; in the finest Commedia all’italiana tradition, Risi points to the foibles and follies of his fellow countrymen, but does so with a pleasant, good humor. Looking at the film years later, Trintignant identifies Il sorpasso as something of an historical film, in that it captures the economic and social state of the nation during a booming era potentially spoiled by a newfound fascination for all things modern and materialistic. As Scola cautions, alluding to the film’s finale, “There’s no boom without a crash.”

Here’s where a more literal translation of the film’s title comes in—”overtaking.” That is, passing, full speed ahead, heedless. And this comes back to Bruno and his bombast. Of course, his bravado is most striking in contrast to others, particularly in contrast to the meek, awkward, and arguably studious to a fault Roberto. In the time spent with this extrovert among extroverts, Roberto’s façade of strained seriousness begins to crack, and his reluctant impatience begins to waver as he comes out of his shell. Roberto isn’t the only one to succumb to Bruno’s ways though; his brash exuberance brings out the same in anyone willing to be complicit in his zest for life. He apparently has a respectable job of some sort, and he can certainly turn on the charm when necessary, yet he comments on others, most notably country folk, with a mocking derision—they dance the “clodhopper twist,” he says. But even then, when he’s at his most acerbic, one does not sense any genuine malice. A surprising moment comes when it’s incidentally revealed, almost as an unexceptional after thought, that Bruno has a wife and teenage daughter. With the introduction of these two also come sudden moral standard—he chides his daughter for dating a much older man and for her smoking.

Make no mistake though, Bruno is hazardous, particularly behind the wheel. It’s mainly played for laughs, as he overtakes other drivers at breakneck speed and drives the wrong way down a one-way street, all while blaring his irritating horn. But the full extent to his vehicular negligence results in the film’s controversial conclusion. Without revealing any spoilers, Il sorpasso’s dénouement is indeed a startling one, which producer Mario Cecchi Gori, for one, was completely against. “It’s a bit cruel,” acknowledged Risi, “but that’s how life is.”



In many ways, it also leaves the audience to rethink the film and everything that came before it, not in the sense of a mystery with its last-minute reveal, but in the way it causes one to flash back to what had transpired over the course of the previous 100 minutes or so. Where had Bruno and Roberto arrived psychologically by this point? Were their respective moments of enlightenment and enjoyment worthwhile? Are they, in these final moments, satisfied with life? The ending is undeniably the film’s most unsettling sequence, due to its abrupt change in tone and the shockingly tragic halt in the picture’s general merriment. Its significance remains up for debate. Lopate, in his essay, “Il sorpasso: The Joys of Disillusionment,” says in light of the conclusion, “it would be wrong to interpret the film as a morality tale,” yet in his article, “Il sorpasso: Italy, Dark and Light,” Antonio Monda argues that by the end of the film, “Il sorpasso reveals itself to be a harsh, uncomfortable moral fable.” Similarly, Rémi Fournier Lanzoni speaks of Il sorpasso’s dual indictment: On the one hand, ridiculing to a degree the pre-planning, stagnant, conformist tradition of Roberto; on the other, clearly deriding the frivolous and avaricious life of the more modern individuals.

As a road trip film, an exemplary modern cinematic model in itself, Il sorpasso is a breezy, scenic tour of the Italian countryside on the Assumption holiday, shot in gorgeous detail by Alfio Contini. In this by now familiar form, the trope of self-discovery is expected, as is its episodic structure (episodic here, yes, but exceptionally aimless—a largely improvisational adventure). In a brilliantly subtle tonal shift, Bruno even starts to question himself to a certain extent. He, like Roberto, is at something of an existential crossroads. Both men maintain a still lingering youth that hasn’t quite caught up with adulthood, and their respective solitude has them each reflecting on an acute identity crisis. As night falls, Risi takes an understated and precarious breath from the overkill as Roberto and Bruno discuss these issues, each acknowledging their own shortcomings (Bruno considers himself a “stray dog”). But this sober introspection is short lived, and though Gassman in particular does an extraordinary job of changing the tenor of the film, which is remarkable given just how high-pitched he is otherwise, we know such a deviation is fleeting.

Aside from these scenes of explicit contemplation, Risi remains generally unobtrusive. His camera placement is optimal for the action—well composed but rarely self-conscious—and the imagery is frequently quite picturesque as he chronicles this impromptu Italian travelogue. When set on the performers, especially Gassman, he films frontally, with an almost deadpan camera placement: Here’s what’s happening. Look at it. Can you believe this guy? Let’s just let it play out. Still though, Risi imbues in the film a strong Italian personality, with an authentic cinematic taste of the region. Moreover, he likewise packs the picture with strong Italian personalities, single shots occupied by all sorts of people, some highlighted for occasionally imprecise reasons, some simply on the periphery of the primary drama—all, in any case, integral to the atmospheric totality of the film.



Not an outright metafilm in the sense of Fellini’s 8 1/2, Il sorpasso does, nevertheless, have its finger on the pulse of Italian filmmaking circa 1962, particularly as it was representative of Italian culture at the time. The English title of the film, “The Easy Life,” at once suggests the fancy-free nature of the picture and no doubt attempted to capitalize on Fellini’s “Sweet Life.” Risi and similar filmmakers were broaching a type of Italian cinema that also deviated from the films of Fellini, as well as Visconti, Antonioni, and Pasolini, among others. Monda alludes to the work of these directors as points of comparison (and as points of more prominent standing). Certainly, Il sorpasso is of a different mold than these “highbrow,” intellectual examples of overt cinematic artiness. Risi’s most obvious filmic commentary comes when Bruno voices his ambivalence toward Michelangelo Antonioni, whom he still considers a great director. He talks with Roberto about “loneliness, inability to communicate, and that stuff that’s all the rage now—alienation, like in Antonioni’s films.” On L’eclisse: “I fell asleep. Had a nice snooze.” Ironically, of course, all these traits are to a degree present throughout Il sorpasso. But Bruno would probably like this film. With its tempo, its humor, and its comical slice of leisurely life, there is no room for such perceived cinematic fatigue.


REVIEW  from FILM INTERNATIONAL

‘Fellini Satyricon’

It’s somewhat surprising that in 1971, Federico Fellini was nominated for a best director Academy Award for Fellini Satyricon. To say the least, it’s a very un-Oscar type of film, especially by today’s standards. But it is a film, an exceptional one, that truly from start to finish conveys the creative imagination of its directorial guiding force. So perhaps in that regard, the nomination makes sense. This very rationale is also the reason why Fellini remains one of the greatest of all film directors, and why Fellini Satyricon, though not at all his best work, nevertheless remains so fascinating and precious. As its title suggests, the movie explicitly expresses the personal vision of its director—more than his name above the title, Fellini’s name was the title. (It also had to do with some legal wrangling concerning the rights to the title). See also the movie’s tagline: “Rome. Before Christ. After Fellini.” How many recent films have had this type of promotion or identification solely on the basis of its director? There is a lot that happens in Fellini Satyricon, and multiple collaborators made it possible, but in the end, Fellini is the star of the show here. And what a show it is.



“Freely adapted” from portions of Petronius’s Roman novel of the first century AD, Fellini Satyricon is an episodic chronicle that has as its primary narrative thrust the ill-fated romance between Encolpius (Martin Potter) and the young Gitone (Max Born). Into this drama enters Ascyltus (Hiram Keller), who also has affection for the boy. Over the course of more than two hours, Fellini essentially follows the three on their various paths, while making more than a few digressions along the way, none of which attain this basic plot’s albeit minor emotional resonance. The other individuals who appear are essentially “types” more than fully-formed characters, their generic, basically illustrative purpose evident in their broad uncredited roles: Transvestite, Black Slave, Fat Woman, Brothel Girl, Participant in Orgy Sequence, Nymphomaniac.

I can’t pretend to suggest that everything that occurs throughout Fellini Satyricon actually makes sense. In an interview on the new Criterion Blu-ray, classicist Joanna Paul remarks on the intentionally complex fragmentation of the film and its source. But more often than not, and even if it doesn’t all add up, it still looks wonderful.

Arguably the most remarkable aspects of the film are the costumes and especially the sets, both by renowned designer Danilo Donati. These glorious constructions are astonishing in their intricate, picturesque design. Monuments and statues pop with expressive adornment of every conceivable color. The claustrophobic darkness that shrouds labyrinthine underground corridors gives way to stunning exteriors, both natural and fabricated. The geographic layout of these sets may belie any logical sense of space, but it’s an arrangement that emerges all the more pronounced and impressive when you see just how people actually do inhabit the locales, with heads and bodies peeking in and out of portal-like frames.



In classic Fellini style, there is recurrent singular imagery, that is, carefully and clearly arranged images of prominent aesthetic value; a shot that may not have narrative necessity or significance, but is nevertheless still striking. One sees this in any number of forms, from some of the aforementioned structures that look amazing simply because they are so extravagant (giant stone heads, towering facades, ornate  murals), to quick, random inserts of particular people and their flamboyant makeup and attire. In Fellini Satyricon, we see as clearly as in any other Fellini film the director’s cartoonist background still informing his visual sensibilities. The landscapes and sets, some genuine, some clearly created via matte processes, and, even more than that, the cast of characters, are all colorful (in every sense of the word) and they radiate with exaggerated animation. Many of the people—disfigured, grotesque, strange, captivating, beautiful—have a physical presence that can only be described as “Felliniesque.”

There is, especially at the start of the film, but resurfacing throughout, crude and occasionally gallows humor, complete with fart jokes and all sorts of randy behavior. The decadence depicted includes unbridled sexuality and gluttonous ingestion, with unabashed exuberance in both cases. Everything is flesh and fornication and voracious desire. In speaking about the film, Fellini proposes that he sees true morality in vitality. If this is the case, Fellini Satyricon is a notably moral film, as rarely does any character do anything without great gusto. Along these lines, and not at all uncommon with Fellini’s carnivalesque sense spectacle, there is an emphasis on showmanship, on theatricality and storytelling; stories within stories and performances that lead to extraneous plot lines while simultaneously illuminating the narrative proper.

The dialogue, while often admittedly opaque in terms of substance and meaning, does on occasion allude to more profound issues regarding the power and class struggles of the period, as well as a general recognition of the times these individual live in, for better or worse. Art and economy are at odds, slavery (sexual and otherwise) is rampant, and looming destruction (an earthquake) causes concern. It’s also a world of superstition, cruelty, and violence, a world that seems so foreign and otherworldly—thanks in large part to Fellini’s envisioning of it—that the film is frequently spoken of in terms of a science fiction picture.



Federico Fellini was never one to hide the artificiality of his films; indeed, at times he seemed to revel in it. And this is certainly the case here. Just how synthetic Fellini Satyricon is can be seen in Ciao, Federico!, probably the highlight bonus feature of the Blu-ray. This hour-long documentary shows with candid insight what went on behind the scenes, how the settings were actually assembled, and how Fellini himself directed: barking instructions, physically dynamic, humorous, and very hands-on. (You even see Roman Polanski drop in on set for a visit.) Where other elements of the movie may falter, the scope of the film’s pure creation never does. According to director of photography Giuseppe Rotunno, Fellini Satyricon was one of two films Fellini regarded as “fully realized” (the other being Casanova, 1976). Even Rotunno admits he’s not quite sure what the director was saying with this comment, but in rewatching Fellini Satyricon, and with the benefit of the new 4K digital restoration, one can reasonably surmise that Fellini was alluding to how intricately and elaborately crafted each and every element of the film was, and how fully it came to express his own distinctive vision, a vision unlike any other.


REVIEW  from SOUND ON SIGHT