‘The Brood’

Inspired by his own unpleasant divorce, and the subsequent liberation of his daughter just before his ex-wife was able to take the girl to a California cult, David Cronenberg’s The Brood is essentially an ugly, highly unorthodox custody battle. As the great Canadian filmmaker famously quipped, “The Brood is my version of Kramer vs. Kramer [also released in 1979], but more realistic.”
The Brood is Cronenberg’s sixth feature, coming just after the seemingly out of place Fast Company (1979)—not so very odd given the director’s love for automobile racing—and just before his more exemplary breakthrough, Scanners (1981). It is consummate Cronenberg, with a heady mixture of clinically twisted science and the deep psychological strain that inevitably mars said science with corporeal disfigurement.

With his wife, Nola (Samantha Eggar), undergoing treatment at a facility known as the Somafree Institute of Psychoplasmics (a Cronenbergian term if there ever was one), Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) discovers his daughter, Candice (Cindy Hinds), is returning from visitations with her mother bruised and scarred. Given his estranged wife’s instability, as well as the dubious nature of the institute, Frank naturally assumes Nola is behind the abuse. She is in therapy of some sort, under the psychiatric care of the unconventional Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed), author of “The Shape of Rage.” It is clear there is more than a doctor/patient association with Raglan and Nola; it would seem there is more than even a sexual male/female relationship. There is something far more devious at play.

It is suggested Nola may have suffered past abuse at the hands of her own mother, Juliana Kelly (Nuala Fitzgerald), who tells Candice her mom would sometimes wake up covered in big, ugly bumps when she was little. Was Juliana then, or is she perhaps now, a partial catalyst for the bizarre events that transpire? Certainly, some type of hereditary malice is presumed, something even more pronounced by the film’s end. Perhaps invoking his own personal concerns at the time, Cronenberg appears to posit that women in general, from one to the next, possess the capacity for manipulation and destruction. “Mommies don’t hurt their own children,” says Nola at one point, quickly adding that maybe sometimes they do. This is not to suggest any type of misogyny on Cronenberg’s part, though many have. As Carrie Rickey points out in her essay, “The Brood: Separation Trials,” “In the judgment of film historian Robin Wood, his most outspoken critic, Cronenberg consistently exhibited his dread of women by creating monstrous, voracious, and repellent female characters.” While this may go to the extreme, phrases such as Raglan’s declaration that, “The law believes in motherhood,” singe with bitterness, no doubt stemming from Cronenberg’s own predicament.

Nevertheless, just as suspicions are aroused concerning Juliana’s potential culpability, she is brutally attacked. It’s not clear by who, or what, but the assailant is a little child-sized creature emitting ferociously guttural growls. For a time, The Brood then takes on the basic form of a police procedural, as an investigation into the murder ensues. But things change when Frank hears testimony and sees evidence of the physiological damage inflicted at the hands of Raglan and his disreputable procedures. According to one tormented patient, the doctor encouraged his own body to revolt against him through a type of mind control, a mentally induced malevolence.

Nola’s father, Barton Kelly (Henry Beckman) enters the picture and briefly brings with him his own emotional baggage—he has been separated from the departed Juliana for some time (marital troubles run rampant on screen and off). And Candice’s teacher, Ruth (Susan Hogan), likewise gets unknowingly involved, even though she makes an effort to remove herself from the situation, telling Frank his life is “just a little too complicated.” She has no idea.

As the film proceeds, and recalling Raglan’s famous text noted above, it becomes evident just what shape Nola’s rage can indeed form, as she produce the literal, physical manifestation of her anger. The Brood expresses a perfect Cronenberg union of the psychological and the physical, a conglomeration that generates any number of gruesome effects, primarily, in this case, the gestation of Nola’s organic spawn, little people called at various times “deformed children,” “monsters,” or, most portentously of all, the “disturbed kids in the work shed.”

As part of a documentary included on the newly released Criterion Collection Blu-ray of The Brood, Eggar says the part of Nola was “Shakespearian,” and hers is definitely the standout performance of the film. She is mostly seen seated, in the same setting, in basically the same position. Yet within this physical constraint, she demonstrates an oftentimes hysterical range of emotion. When Nola is referred to as the “queen bee,” it’s an acute analogy to what exactly her maternal role has involved. The reveal at the end of the film, and what follows, is a classically creepy Cronenberg climax that ranks among his most intensely shocking and brilliantly realized.

The others featured in this documentary, including producer Pierre David, cinematographer Mark Irwin, assistant director John Board, and makeup effects artists Rick Baker and Joe Blasco, all spend a fair amount of time quite rightly touting the exceptional artisanal effects of The Brood and other Cronenberg films, the make-up, prosthetics, and puppet designs that distinguish much of his early work. They also speak of the film in terms of its unique standing as a Canadian production. To hear these individuals discuss such an isolated and insular film industry truly does emphasize just what a phenomenal jolt of distinctive creativity Cronenberg was (and still is).

Irwin also hits on something else that comes through in many of Cronenberg’s films, but especially so with The Brood, and that is the oscillation between brightness and darkness to create suspense. As he points out, it is one thing to go from a reasonably dark location to an only somewhat darker site; the horror is there in the visual shift, though markedly less evident. But to go from someplace bright and clear into the darkness—literally and figuratively—makes the effect more pronounced. With The Brood, part of what gives certain scenes an unsettling undercurrent, resulting in a thematic continuation of domesticity torn asunder, is that well-lit, impeccably homey interiors, all ensconced in wintertime tranquility, can breed the most hostile actions. After Juliana is attacked, an officer suggests the assailant may have been in the house all the time, the implication being that home is where the horror is.

Cronenberg’s sophomore effort Crimes of the Future (1970) is also included on the Criterion release. While the availability of this generally obscure title is a major plus, and is an excellent addition to what is already a well-stocked disc, the film itself is not very good, though it is apropos to the themes of The Brood. If not for what is necessarily seen, much of what is discussed in this early feature does reemerge in later Cronenberg titles. Making up the rest of the disc is a delightfully informal interview with Hindle and Hinds conducted by Fangoria editor in chief Chris Alexander, and a 1980 episode of The Merv Griffin Show, featuring the notoriously rambunctious Reed, a rotund and ever captivating Orson Welles, and Charo, who mostly just leaves the three men baffled.

Couple the recurrent Cronenberg motif of transformative physiological processes with the director’s private demons at the time of production, and the offspring is The Brood, one of his finest films. It is a stunning testament to Cronenberg’s ability to allegorically expose and explore real world traumas, such as death and divorce, via an extraordinarily unique vision. One thing also remains certain: children’s snowsuits never looked so menacing.

‘Fellini’s Casanova’

 

Depending on where one draws the line in his filmography, Fellini’s Casanova may be the best film of Federico Fellini’s late period (I would argue it ushers in that era). Of any period, it’s certainly one of his most underrated. It was, according to Fellini biographer John Baxter, the most complex project of the director’s career, ultimately costing $10 million, making it also the most expensive.

Though a commercial failure, which greatly disappointed Fellini, Casanova follows a thematic line extending throughout the maestro’s 40-years of filmmaking. From the drifting layabouts of I Vitelloni (1953) to the hollow wanderings and shallow encounters of Marcello in La Dolce Vita (1960), to Donald Sutherland’s titular role in this 1976 feature, Fellini’s focus on an alienated, superficial existence repeatedly found new and unique manifestations. Such a pattern continues here, as the legendary Casanova emerges to be a lonely figure, one who fancies himself a “man of letters” and yet is nevertheless known only for his ability to have sex … really well, apparently.

Fellini’s Casanova is very loosely based on Giacomo Casanova’s autobiography (as much as any Fellini film could ever be based on anything), and it opens in the midst of a celebratory carnival, a frenzied gathering that bursts with lights, color, fire, spectacle, music (or rather, sounds), and a horde of clamoring people. Early on, we see Fellini’s representation of this world is going to be a largely fabricated and exaggerated one, where over the top is just the beginning. The fantastically illusory nature of the film is made evident in such setting details as illuminated plastic bag ripples standing in for water waves and, later, some obviously staged stationary shots of supposed vehicular mobility. With this combination of pageantry and artificiality, Fellini’s film plays out as each passing scene maintains a continued preoccupation with performance and deception.

It seems Fellini’s depiction of Casanova was to be far more scathing than it finally became. Indeed, it is now quite the opposite. While he isn’t exactly an admirable figure, and Fellini frequently voiced a dislike of his behavior and his ego, Casanova is an unexpectedly tragic one. Given the film’s source and subject, sex is predictably prevalent, from graphically illustrative murals to wardrobe replete with suggestive, and quite sexually accommodating, attire. Yet as Casanova travels country to country, embarking on what is essentially an episodic series of sexual escapades, he continually likes to profess his wit and his cunning, and he would rather speak of his wealth and his experience in commerce than his prodigious sexual abilities. But while he is touting his intellectual accomplishments, others couldn’t care less. They just want to see him do it. He even attempts to intellectualize his sexual prowess, discussing the various scientific reasons why he performs better than others do. Nobody cares. His amorous reputation precedes him wherever he goes, and it far outweighs his own philosophical pronouncements. Everyone sees his proficiency merely as grounds for a contest of sexual stamina. Who cares about the why or the how? In the end, his experiences are ultimately empty (like Marcello and the boys from I Vitelloni), so much so that one of his most satisfying sexual encounters is with an automaton.

Now this is not to say Casanova doesn’t like sex. As frivolous as parts of his life are, he does at least appear to approach sex with a genuine verve and passion. When it is time to get busy, he does so with a wild abandon, frequently accompanied by the bleep, bleep, bleep of some sort of phallic mechanical bird contraption somehow connected to his lovemaking. And that bird is just one element of what are some of the most bizarre sex scenes ever committed to celluloid. Notably though, these sex scenes are ridiculously hysterical, clearly synthetic, and not the least bit arousing (curiously, there is also little to no nudity). So again, there is this combination of showmanship and simulation.

Despite some initial difficulties while shooting (as much a result of the language barrier as Fellini’s unorthodox directing style), Sutherland shows quite the range here, going from the flamboyantly extreme, carousing with great gusto, to the potently somber, as he expresses apparent disillusionment and silently reflects during moments of pause. Two things appear to affect Casanova most. First, while he clearly loves women in general, and has no trouble making love to all sorts, his trouble is finding that one single woman to love. For all his trysts, he lacks the capacity to form a durable relationship. Second, while he does meet diverse political and social figures through the course of his travels, he winds up looking for sophistication in all the wrong places. In many of the locations where he ends up, he finds only debauchery, chaos, and foolishness, and is almost always intellectually dissatisfied, if not physically.

Fellini’s Casanova concludes with a dream sequence, which though certainly peculiar is really nothing so very out of the ordinary within the context of the film, where the entirety of the picture to this point likewise took the form of a surreal exhibition. The ending is, however, a rather beautiful and peaceful conclusion to what had otherwise been a generally manic adventure.

In typically ambiguous fashion, Fellini has called the film the worst he ever made, yet he also stated it seems to be his “most complete, expressive, [and] courageous.” It would make sense that Fellini cared a great deal for the film. There are times when it truly feels like his invigorating life force seeped into the production and reveals itself in the finished product. A giddy vibrancy runs throughout the movie, as if he reached into his distinctive bag of cinematic tricks and pulled out his entire arsenal. If Fellini’s Casanova does lag at times, as during Casanova’s brief stopover in Switzerland, the slower moments only really stand out in comparison to the vitality of the surrounding sequences; on their own, or in another film, there would be nothing so terribly sluggish about these more sedate moments.

Fellini’s Casanova contains an unmistakably Fellini blend of the fantastical and the grotesque, all enhanced by frequent cinematographic, editorial, and musical collaborators (Giuseppe Rotunno, Ruggero Mastroianni, and Nino Rota, respectively). Amazingly, Fellini’s script, written with Bernardino Zapponi (who had just the year prior penned Dario Argento’s fabulous Deep Red), was even nominated for an Academy Award. Populating the picture are classic Fellini characters and caricatures, his “landscape of faces,” all mixing and mingling in an eccentric concoction of abnormal bodies and faces and perverse behavior. Moreover, as with several of his films, particularly during the years around Fellini’s Casanova, there is also the inventive costume design further endowing these individuals with their striking presence (Danilo Donati won an Oscar for his creative outfitting). Taken together, Fellini orchestrates a visual delight of eccentric individuals, vibrant colors, shifting light design, and a detailed, expansive, and astonishingly complex set construction, all at the renowned Cinecittà studios, by now well-tread ground for Fellini.

Fellini’s Casanova boasts an assortment of people, locations, and entire sequences that are created and realized in a way that can only be called “Felliniesque.” Clichéd though it may be, there is simply no other adequate description.

‘Dressed to Kill’

Whether one loves or hates his work, Dressed to Kill is a quintessential Brian De Palma film. It is a tour de force of his trademark flourish, with long takes, flowing camera movements, and a superbly stylized sense of composition, particularly his integration of split-screens and split-diopter shots (nobody does either quite as well). It also encompasses a number of his most frequent thematic fixations, namely voyeurism, deceptive perception, and the commingling of a consuming obsession with an equally charged aggression. Now, that is all for those who like his movies. For those who do not, there is the contentious misogyny, the abundant allusions to Hitchcock (detractors would say blatant rip-offs), and the lingeringly gratuitous sex and violence. As a dedicated De Palma devotee, I am much more likely to side with those in the former camp, but I can see in Dressed to Kill some of the better arguments concerning the latter. Still, even with this possible—though admittedly flimsy—concession, I hold this 1980 film up as a classic. It is the first of three fantastic features in a row (with Blow Out [1981] and Scarface [1983] next in line) for a director who remains one of the most underrated in American cinema.

A repressed, unsatisfied sexuality gets Dressed to Kill on its way, as Kate Miller (Angie Dickinson) departs her house following a hurried and unfulfilling early morning romp with her husband. After a visit with her psychiatrist, Doctor Robert Elliott (Michael Caine), to whom she voices her troubles, she stops off at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (only on the outside; interiors were shot at the Philadelphia Museum of Art), where she finds herself enamored by a stranger, a stranger who seems to be enticing her along. Sure enough, they wind up back at his room for an anonymous rendezvous. Later that evening, she dresses and heads back home, shaken to her core when she discovers the stranger has been diagnosed with a venereal disease. Before she can make it out of the apartment building—spoiler alert—she is slashed to death with a straight razor, her blonde-haired, female assailant unclear save for a few distinguishing features, notably dark sunglasses and a dark trench coat; key accessories and articles of clothing (however minimally they clothe) are a prominent motif throughout Dressed to Kill and more than once they play a crucial role in the narrative. As crafted by De Palma, this murder is an expertly arranged orchestration of camera angles, make-up effects, multiple points of view, and shockingly bloody violence, and Kate’s brutal, seemingly random death rouses the suspicion of her son, Peter (Keith Gordon), who with prostitute Liz Blake (Nancy Allen), a witness to the gruesome scene, begins an investigation into the attack.

In one of several interviews included on the new Criterion Collection Blu-ray of the film, De Palma speaks of the genesis for Dressed to Kill and discusses how it, like much of his work, was born from “visual ideas.” Like those other titles, this is indeed a very visual film, with an oftentimes airy, luminous luster and some truly extraordinary sequences of prolonged tension (it is amazing how long De Palma will let a suspense scene play out), all of which is heightened by his balance of movement and montage. But he is also quick to likewise argue for the necessity of a good story and relatable characters, another area where Dressed to Kill excels. Though Kate is essentially only the subject of the film for about 30 minutes or so (and with her gone also goes what seemed to be the primary plot of the film), her character’s initial importance never wanes, not only because of Peter’s familial motivation, but because she was such a pronounced individual (Dickinson, in fact, considers the role the best work she has ever done). The same sort of immediate and lasting impression is felt with the entire primary cast and their respective characters. From the likable Allen and Gordon as an efficient, if improbable, duo, to Caine, always a first-rate actor, who whether we know it or not embodies the most complex character in the film, to even the bit players, like Dennis Franz as the tough-talking, wise-ass Detective Marino, by the film’s conclusion, we have invested a good deal in these few individuals, and in a relatively short period of time.

De Palma also stresses the importance of sound design for his films, comparing the right sound to hear at any given moment with the most effective color on a canvas. This type of careful selection is clear when most diagetic sounds drop out during the famous museum courtship, one of several wordless sequences where only very specific points of aural focus are cued up, or when Peter uses his techno-sleuthing skills to eavesdrop on the conversation between Marino and Elliott, where De Palma isolates the dialogue and similarly obscures the background noise.

Nevertheless, that Dressed to Kill is a visual film first and foremost is evidenced by some distinctly De Palma formal strategies. The careful placement of mirrors, windows, and other screens within screens give the film a dense layering of multiple planes, which coincides with the recurrent shots of people watching others by way of these various features, and which is further significant thematically, as we then become the ones watching someone watching someone. It is all about looking with De Palma: us at them, them at each other, both with a voyeuristic secrecy. This particular facet of the director’s work was by 1980 par for the course.

Working in aesthetic harmony, the audiovisual union of Dressed to Kill is thus exceptional. As Michael Koresky notes in his excellent essay on the picture, “De Palma’s film, thanks in part to Ralf Bode’s sensuous, soft-lens camera work and Pino Donaggio’s ecstatic, romantic score, is a work of baroque, intensely cinematic horror.” The sense of luxurious romanticism that therefore results lulls one into a sedate yet engrossing atmosphere, only to be spoiled abruptly and effectively by the sudden violence. It is a genuine cinematic seduction every bit as potent as the fictional ones taking place on screen.

Dressed to Kill’s reception is mentioned in several of the interviews included on the Criterion disc, but there are also separate features examining in detail the different versions of the film and how it was re-cut in order to obtain an R rating. Even still, the final version managed to ruffle more than a few feathers (albeit nothing quite like what De Palma encountered four years later with Body Double). “This film is a minefield of potential offense,” writes Koresky, “with its horrific butchery of a middle-aged woman and its full-frontal images of naked women shot like soft-core pornography…. it was bound to incite some anger.” In De Palma’s twisted spin on transexuality, he likens the identity confusion and subsequent materialization of latent desires and volatile behavior to something akin to a Jekyll and Hyde transition (with connotations that probably would not sit lightly these days). And in a making-of documentary, a number of preproduction changes are also mentioned, like the removal of Kate’s voiceover narration. More prominent, however, was De Palma’s decision not to shoot his original opening of a transsexual (presumably Elliott) performing a self-penectomy. One can only imagine how that would have gone over.

All controversy aside, Dressed to Kill has a perfect blend of De Palma story with De Palma style, where each is equally in the service of the other. Unlike some of his films, where the technique trumps the plot (Snake Eyes [1998], Passion [2012]), or where the narrative, either convoluted or ridiculous, burdens the form (Wise Guys [1986], The Bonfire of the Vanities [1990]), Dressed to Kill gets the balance perfect, and as such showcases why those who are fond of De Palma frequently count the film among his best.

‘Fear’

The moral furor that erupted when Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman began their much-condemned affair in 1950 did not, thankfully, hinder their productivity or their creativity. Despite the outrage, the two embarked on a cinematic collaboration that produced a series of excellent films in a relatively short period of time. While their marriage lasted until 1957, their final feature together was Fear (1954), out now on a new DVD from the British Film Institute. Though the film’s home video release is a welcome one—any Rossellini film made available is a good thing—the film itself pales in comparison to their earlier efforts.

Just as he had on many of his brother’s films, Renzo Rossellini provides the score, which here is instantly redolent with the sounds of a thriller. The opening likewise looks as if it’s a standard film noir, with a menacing city at night and headlights piercing through the at times barely visible surroundings. Fear begins with two different confrontations. Though left somewhat vague in terms of complete detail, trouble is evident right away as Irene Wagner (Bergman) and Erich Baumann (Kurt Kreuger) meet under what are clearly unnerving circumstances. Their relationship seems to be at an end, yet it remains passionate even in its dissolution, hinting at the love that once was and still may be. Not long after that, further tension is added in what is also noirish fashion, as Luisa Vidor, AKA Johann Schultze (Renate Mannhardt), emerges ominously from the shadows outside Irene’s home. She accosts Irene, who does her best to abolish the young woman by throwing some money at her, presuming her to be a beggar. Irene then enters her house where she encounters her husband, Professor Albert Wagner (Mathias Wieman), who is still awake working. So she is married … the plot thickens. The next day, Luisa shows up to the laboratory where Irene and Albert work (so much seemingly unnecessary attention is given to the poison he is toiling with that it can’t help but reemerge). Luisa, who turns out to be Erich’s jaded ex-lover, is aware of Irene’s affair. As she demands more money to keep quiet, the inescapable blackmail begins. Soon she is following Irene with a harassing insistence.

Everything is essentially set up by this point: Fear is to be a story of secrets and lies within a gradually evolving web of deceit, which is itself melodramatically merged together in a suspenseful fusion. The problem is most of these narrative checkpoints are not particularly unique, and for much of the film, Fear displays little of the hallmarks that distinguish Rossellini’s better productions. There is, in the end, little to distinguish the film at all.

The other features Rossellini made with Bergman—especially the big three of Stromboli (1950), Europa ’51 (1952) and their best collaboration, Journey to Italy (1954)—all bore something exceptional, if not in their literal, superficial plot, than in their emotional weight, their complex themes, and their contemplative, existential tone. Some of this introspection is seen in Fear, by way of Bergman’s despair and dire confusion; she is exhausted, in a state of panic, and obviously at a crucial crossroads in her life. And it must be said that her performance does get better toward the end of the film, as her past and her now threatening present collide. Yet even with the twist near the film’s conclusion, which leaves us to question the motivations of several involved, certain sections of the film come on overly strong in their obvious attempts to instill various scenes with the underlying subject of the film, principally honesty. “Everyone in our house is honest,” says Albert after he discovers their daughter stole from their son. He and Irene then discuss the girl’s lack of courage to admit she did something wrong. Irene wonders if maybe she was ashamed. “I don’t want you to think I don’t know how to forgive,” reassures Albert. It’s so blatant that the theft is not the true topic under discussion that it all becomes a little heavy handed. Having seen the sublime subtlety of his prior works with Bergman, we know Rossellini can do better than this.

Though the reveal at the end is admittedly somewhat surprising, the real question is, does it do enough to make what had transpired more interesting, or, most importantly, does it elevate the film as a whole? While it contributes to the former, it does not result in the latter. By the time it’s all over, we feel the wrong person is happy, the wrong person is sad, the wrong one relieved, and the wrong one guilt-ridden. The film’s conclusion, as Tag Gallagher puts it, leaves moral conflicts “glaringly unresolved.”

There are also errors in terms of practical detail, as when a scene begins while Bergman sits in her car: there is a brief beat while she is immobile for no apparent reason (presumably waiting for a call to “action”), then she suddenly drives forward, only to come to a stop a few feet away. This jerky type of discontinuity is not unheard of for Rossellini. In fact, there are several similar examples in his neorealist masterworks. But in their defense, Rossellini’s filmmaking methods and production capacities then were far different than they were by 1954, and one could even argue that such lapses in editorial smoothness worked in the service of his quest for an unaltered, unbridled realism. With Fear, it sometimes just seems sloppy.

Where Fear does stand out is in its imagery, thanks chiefly to the versatile cinematographer Carlo Carlini, here working with the German Heinz Schnackertz. From the opening night in the city to the sequences in the tranquil countryside, there are few moments when the film doesn’t at least look impressive. There are times, too, when Rossellini integrates some unexpected camera movement, giving the film a few brief, though notable, bursts of stylistic vitality.

As is detailed in the booklet accompanying the BFI release, Rossellini shot two versions of Fear, a German version (known as Angst, maintaining the title of the Stefan Zweig source novel), and an international version, which is what is contained on this disc. Shots and editing patterns differ between the two, and the first Italian version (known as La Paura) corresponds to the international release. Rossellini left the film’s post-production to his assistants, and once released, it was severely panned by critics and played in Rome for just three days. Further complicating matters, the film was later cut and released, without Rossellini’s consent, into a shorter version called Non credo più all’amore (I No Longer Believe in Love), then into a version called Incubo (Nightmare). This multifaceted back-story in many ways mirrors the resulting film, which is also a composite of features not always working together in successful unity.

Fear is an excellent example of a filmmaker done in by their prior, far superior work. Rightly or wrongly, it’s difficult not to judge the film based on what we know Rossellini and Bergman could accomplish, and fortunately, better films were still to follow for both, even as they went their separate ways. So while Fear is worth taking a look at, it is not representative of the best the two had to offer, and it generally exists as work primarily for Rossellini or Bergman completists.

‘Night and the City’

Harry Fabian is probably the best at what he does, even if he is never very successful. Richard Widmark’s character in Night and the City, out now on a gorgeous new Criterion Collection Blu-ray, is a low-level con who works wherever he can, however he can, doing whatever he can to make a buck. He enters Jules Dassin’s 1950 film noir classic on the run; he will always be on the run: always hustling, always running. Sincere though his half-baked plans may be, he is perpetually—pathetically—down on his luck. He has the ambition, there’s no doubt about that, and as he shrewdly stumbles past one obstacle after another, it becomes almost humorous in the way he manages to charm his way through life, always just by the skin of his teeth. He cooks up a new scheme like other people change clothes, continually insistent that he can’t lose. But such a heedless methodology, damning the consequences of his actions and the impact on those around him, leads to a personality torn by conflicts of self-preservation, self-destruction, and self-deception. Harry incessantly lies to others, but even more frequently, he deludes himself at every turn.

Still, he never gives up or gives in. He proceeds forward, certain of his objectives and his abilities. In this unwavering perseverance, Harry is indeed without equal. His optimism and blind determination enable him to spin almost anything in his favor, even the most seemingly hopeless and useless. What’s more is that his excitement is oftentimes contagious. That’s one reason Mary Bristol (Gene Tierney) keeps hanging around, entertaining Harry’s wildly fluctuating notions and routinely bailing him out of trouble: for all of his faults, there’s still something likable about the guy.

Happening upon a wrestling match and overhearing the contemptuous comments by wrestling legend Gregorius (Stanislaus Zbyszko), who condemns the state of the sport as being beneath his protégé Nikolas (Ken Richmond), Harry finds an opening and jumps right in. Without so much as a moment’s hesitation, Harry feigns interest and knowledge in wrestling and approaches Gregorius with the prospect of entering into a business venture together, ostensibly to return wrestling to a more respectable standing (seriously). As this plays out, Harry finds himself in the midst of not just competing wrestling campaigns but a corresponding family feud. Currently ruling the business of wrestling promotion in London is Kristo (Herbert Lom), Gregorius’ son, who is himself touting his main attraction, The Strangler (Mike Mazurki). With different strategies and ideologies, Gregorius and Kristo butt heads—and Harry is always there to make the most of it.

In order to embark on his new Fabian Promotions undertaking, Harry needs financial backing. And so, while all of this wrestling/family drama is happening, Harry also gets in the middle of Helen (Googie Withers) and Philip Nosseross (Francis L. Sullivan), husband and wife owners of a “naughty” nightclub who have their own fair share of domestic issues.

As Night and the City progresses, jealously runs into greed, ambition meets deception, and one double-dealing move encounters a newly revealed double cross. Before he knows it, Harry is in over his head on any number of different fronts.

For a while though, when the wrestling project seems to take off, Harry wastes no time in gaining a cocky swagger, waltzing around as the newly minted expert on the sport and gazing lovingly at his nameplate stating “Managing Director.” Just as he always wanted, Harry has become somebody, if just in title only. As this is textbook film noir, however, it quickly becomes clear he can’t stay at the top for long. Desperation sets in and in the very individuals whom he had previously found a degree of sympathy and tolerance, he now finds impartial cons who are preoccupied by their own similarly shady wheeling and dealing.

As integral as it is to the plot of the film (and it’s an oddly unique narrative strand to be sure), wresting is really just incidental. Harry’s headlong approach toward this endeavor could have easily been replicated anywhere else in any number of undertakings. The wrestling scenes and the associated family squabbles are undeniably necessary to what transpires in the film, but that side-story, however impactful, is nonetheless the least interesting aspect of the movie, especially when compared to Harry’s more personal demons and dilemmas.

Gene Tierney, who from Laura (1944) to Leave Her to Heaven (1945) to Whirlpool (1949) had made her presence known in a string of excellent, penetrating performances, is tragically underused here. While a relatively minor character, her Mary undoubtedly still emerges as the most sympathetic. Her relationship with Harry is complex and coarse, and it’s truly painful to watch as he violently dismisses her and steals from her with an utter disregard, scorning the one person who genuinely cares for him. He attempts a degree of redemption at the film’s conclusion, but it’s too little, too late.

Widmark, on the other hand, was really just getting started with his career, and he goes all out in Night and the City. He’s working very hard here. His physically and mentally exhausting quest for “a life of ease and plenty” takes its toll (evidently so on this new Blu-ray, where the 4K restoration is so detailed that the glistening sweat on Widmark’s face is shown to be persistently streaming). Widmark is manically go go go from start to finish: excited, energetic, anxious, and expressive. Yet despite his outward confidence, his vulnerability shows through as others mock his pipe dreams that never come to fruition, and at certain points, he nearly breaks down in tears when confronted by their cruel dismissal. Everything for Harry culminates in a beautifully lit and arranged final sequence, where he is literally like a deer in the headlights as his world comes closing in.

Under suspicion during the communist witch-hunts at the time, director Jules Dassin shot Night and the City in London at the behest of Darryl F. Zanuck, head of Fox studios. Aside from being part of an international post-war deal that Hollywood had with English corporations, this was also so that Dassin could work away from the dramatics (and theatrics) of McCarthyism while still being employed by Fox. Though the postponement of personal tribulation for Dassin was in vain, Night and the City’s nontraditional film noir setting in London turned out to be ideal for the director, who had in films such as Brute Force (1947) and The Naked City (1948) exhibited a comparably concentrated use of location. Here, the noirish London alleyways are as confining as their American counterparts, the nights as menacing, lights as luminous, shadows as absorptive, the towering buildings as encroaching, and the nightclubs every bit as disreputable. Deep focus photography opens up this nocturnal world, with treachery and violence lurking behind every concealed corner. In their international application of noir imagery and themes, Dassin and German cinematographer Mutz Greenbaum compose a textured visualization of a dangerous, vibrant cityscape, and Franz Waxman’s pounding score further heightens the intensity.

That score, however, is just one element of Night and the City’s complicated post-production and distribution. Because of the aforementioned agreement between Fox and their British counterparts, two versions of the film were released, the 95-minute American version (which all of the above refers to) and the 101-minute British version, which Criterion also includes on this disc. Among the differences is a wholly distinct score for the UK cut, composed by Benjamin Frankel. There are other alterations as well: dialogue, shot design, structure, and even some character development. No matter which version you look at though, as Paul Arthur states at the opening of his essay, “Night and the City: In the Labyrinth,” “On film noir’s unparalleled roster of resonant titles—Kiss of Death, Out of the Past, and Where Danger Lives, to name three—none is more emblematic or iconographically cogent than Night and the City.”

‘Day for Night’

From Fellini to Fassbinder, Minnelli to Godard, some of international cinema’s greatest directors have turned their camera on their art and, by extension, themselves. But in the annals of great films about filmmaking, few movies have captured the rapturous passion of cinematic creation and the consuming devotion to film as well as François Truffaut’s Day for Night. While there are a number of stories at play in this love letter to the movies, along with several terrific performances throughout, the crux of the film, the real star of the show, is cinema itself.

Prior to Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino, Truffaut was arguably the most fervent film loving filmmaker, wearing his affection for the medium on his directorial sleeve and seldom missing an opportunity to sound off in interviews or in his own writing about what made a great film great (or what didn’t — see his seminal essay on “A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema”). Never one to rest on his laurels, Truffaut put into practice what he preached, with terrific films like The 400 Blows (1959), Shoot the Piano Player (1960), and Jules and Jim (1962). Yet while many of his Nouvelle Vague compatriots were around this time seeking ever more radical approaches toward cinematic style and storytelling, Truffaut seemed to be getting rather more traditional as the 1960s progressed, and though once a critical darling, he was now starting to fall out of favor. Partly to remedy this, in 1973, he turned to what he knew best: the movies. And the result was Day for Night, a much loved, widely awarded, and truly joyous work about the trials and triumphs of making a film and the extraordinary power of motion pictures as objects of affection and obsession.

There are several fancies and flings that make up the plot of Day for Night, a film Truffaut considered a comedy. As a film crew arrives at the Victorine studios in Nice to make a seemingly prosaic melodrama called Meet Pamela, there are enough off-screen dramas to give the fictional story a run for its money, with romantic advances, flirtations, and all sorts of scandalous behavior one even still associates with “movie people.” Primary among the characters and their respective issues are: Julie Baker (Jacqueline Bisset), a British star who recently suffered from a nervous breakdown and is now married to an older man, Alexandre (Jean-Pierre Aumont), who also happens to be her doctor; Severine (Valentina Cortese), an aging actress who struggles with her alcoholism and, subsequently, her lines, much to the frustration of the other cast and crew; and Alphonse (Jean-Pierre Léaud), an amorous young man who appears to revel in the complications of love as much as he suffers from them. Holding everyone together—as well as the production of the film within the film—is, fittingly enough, the director, Ferrand, played by, fittingly enough, Truffaut himself.

Of all the actors—the real ones—Léaud and Bisset are the most widely recognized and dynamic, though it was Cortese who walked away with the most acting awards. Léaud, Truffaut’s protégé and surrogate since The 400 Blows, plays Alphonse similar to his Antoine Doinel character in Truffaut’s cycle of films following that young man: impulsive, hopelessly romantic, and fragile (not unlike Léaud himself at the time). For her part, Bisset was the more famous name, having gained an international stardom thanks to films such as The Knack… and How to Get It (1965), Roman Polanski’s brilliant Cul-De-Sac (1966), Casino Royale (1967), Bullitt (1968), and Airport (1970), and here she does a wonderful job conveying Julie’s interrelated vulnerability and allure. While not to take away from these actors, the romances and struggles of those involved in the making of the fictional film, nor the emotional engagement that develops between the audience and the characters, nearly all of whom appear as generally decent individuals, this still isn’t what Day for Night is all about.

This is a film about filmmaking, and Truffaut never looses sight of what he’s really after. “I won’t reveal the whole truth about filming,” he said, “but just some real things that happened in my past movies or in other movies.” The allusions to cinema, as an art and as Truffaut personally connects to it, are plentiful and varied. The title itself, of course, derives from a filmmaking technique, and the film is dedicated to the legendary and luminous Lillian and Dorothy Gish. On a self-referential note, Truffaut and Léaud as director and actor undoubtedly carries on-screen weight based on their real-life relationship (this was their seventh collaboration), and Truffaut rarely passes up a chance to incorporate nods to a few of his own favorite films and directors, with Citizen Kane lobby card dreams and a bounty of film-related books on figures such as Hawks, Hitchcock, Dreyer, Rossellini, and Godard (this last one ironically so given Godard’s venomous attack on Truffaut after seeing Day for Night, calling his former Cahiers du Cinéma comrade a liar and a sell-out).

Though brief, this book scene in particular is one of the standout moments in the film, for the very reason that it does draw such explicit attention to the esteem in which Truffaut holds these filmmakers; playing over it is Georges Delerue’s music (part of his score for Truffaut’s Two English Girls [1971]), giving the dropping of titles and names a stirring acknowledgement of admiration. A second key moment that likewise expresses a more technical movie love is a whimsical montage of film creation, with Truffaut focusing on camera tracks and cranes, dollies, lights, clapper boards, actor situating, and prop placement. It’s a lovingly composed sequence of  assorted facets of filmmaking, a symphony to the craft and the art of cinema. Similar to this are moments that spotlight the artifice of filmmaking: stunts, false interiors, fake snow, even the process of “day for night” shooting is illusory. How can reality ever hope to compete with such adept trickery?

Having said all this, it’s perhaps not surprising that the Criterion Collection has gone above and beyond with their new Blu-ray release of the film. In addition to a visual essay by :: kogonada, there is an interview with Dudley Andrew, where he discusses in further detail the animosity that developed between Truffaut and Godard, and a short documentary on Day for Night featuring the always eloquent Annette Insdorf. Archival footage is also included, alongside a slew of interviews with no less than nine figures, including Truffaut, assistant editor Martine Barraqué, editor Yann Dedet, and actors Jean-Pierre Aumont, Nathalie Baye, Jacqueline Bisset, Dani, and Bernard Menez.

There is also an essay by David Cairns titled “Day for Night: Are Movies Magic?” This is in reference to a question frequently posed by Alphonse, where he wonders if women are magic. But Cairns follows that with his own question regarding Day for Night: “Are movies magic? By peeling away the layers of performance and craft, Truffaut seems to be asking that question, and finding that even when we see the celluloid unspool and the soundtrack frizz, hear the offscreen arguments, and experience the plans gone awry, some essence of the wondrous remains.”

François Truffaut still worked for another decade or so following Day for Night, before he passed away at the tragically young age of 52. But more than any of his later films, this is the one that comes across as a true final testament.

‘Two Days, One Night’

Are there any filmmakers working today with a better recent track record than Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne? From their 1996 feature La Promesse, to Two Days, One Night (2014), available now on a new Criterion Collection Blu-ray, the writing/directing duo have made seven classics of contemporary world cinema in a row, all of which were also among the best of their respective year of release. There have been six films up for the Palme d’Or, resulting in two wins (as well as five other Cannes awards), five César nominations, a host of critical accolades, and dozens of other honors spanning the globe (though curiously, no Oscar love for the brothers). Two Days, One Night, itself the winner of 40 international awards, is just the latest to follow this exceptional trend. It’s a film utterly unique in so many ways, yet perfectly consistent with the Dardenne filmography.

Teaming with Marion Cotillard, who did receive an Oscar nomination for her role in Two Days, One Night, the Dardennes were collaborating with their highest profile star to date. But as is their tradition, they maintain a low-key approach toward style and storytelling, with an unobtrusive aesthetic, a limited location, a narrow time-span, and a narrative that is powerfully intimate, universally relevant, and sometimes painfully honest. This time, the plot follows Sandra Bya (Cotillard) over the course of a weekend, as she seeks to persuade her 16 coworkers to support her keeping her job rather than them receiving a bonus. While Sandra was on medical leave, the supervisor of her solar panel factory decided the crew got by just fine without her, thus rendering her position unnecessary. In her absence, a vote was held to either have the company pay to keep her job, or pay each of the other employees an annual bonus for some additional work. Following the 13-3 decision in favor of the bonus, Sandra makes her rounds, often with her husband, Manu (Fabrizio Rongione), attempting to sway opinions before a Monday-morning recount. Despite its absence of conventionally suspenseful tropes, as Girish Shambu describes it in his essay, “Two Days, One Night: Economics Is Emotion,” the film is, nevertheless, “a model of that familiar form, the ‘ticking-clock thriller.'”

The solar panel business here is an operation just small enough for close relationships with coworkers to be casually developed, which subsequently leads to complex personal motivations and feelings regarding the decision. At the same time, it is also just small enough that divisions can easily breed animosity. (And as the brothers point out in an interview on the Criterion disc, such a business is also just small enough to avoid unionization, which presumably would have restricted such a ballot-based procedure.) As with most of the Dardennes’ work, there is a singular focus of narrative attention, a primary 1-3 characters or so who are so prominent, so dynamic, and are usually performed with such complete conviction that it is often easy to overlook the larger issues at hand. This is somewhat the case with Two Days, One Night, where the socioeconomic themes are clear and present yet are also rather secondary. Though Shambu does make a strong case for the film as an examination of the post-2008 financial crisis and a concurrent capitalistic critique: “Like all of their films of the past two decades, Two Days, One Night feels urgent and jolting because it holds a mirror up to life lived in our current global economic regime. And this time around, the picture they paint acquires a redoubled resonance in the ongoing aftermath of the financial crisis.”

Still, such issues may drive the narrative and give Sandra her motivation (and give the film its wider cultural relevance), but her personal drama as a result of this catalyst overshadows what started it all in the first place. Luc Dardenne talks of the film as depicting the “solitude of the worker,” insofar as it illustrates the isolation of a lone figure within the larger framework of a corporate mechanism, and while he is undoubtedly right about that, such a statement also speaks to the way the Dardenne brothers’ films can hone in on individuals, and individual concerns, which may otherwise be buried or ignored within a larger social construct.

Solidarity is another of the ever-present themes that run throughout the Dardennes’ work. It takes on various guises—as in families sticking together, friends uniting, lovers bonding, etc.—but here the emphasis is on a professional solidarity. It works two ways though. On the one hand, it is, at the most obvious, about standing with a colleague, coming to his or her defense and aid. But it is also about the simple act of understanding. And even that has two branches of action. First, it is about Sandra’s coworkers, whom she pleads with for their understanding of her struggle. Second, it is also about her own evolution of discovery when seeing where they are all coming from, especially those who are reluctant to give up their bonus as a result of their own financial dependency. Having the shoe on the other foot isn’t always easy, but it is usually enlightening.

Again like those in so many Dardenne films, Sandra subsequently undergoes a life-changing journey in a matter of hours, and grows immensely in her transformation from weakness to strength. It doesn’t always look good for the young woman, most evidently as the tightly restricted interiors intensify and accentuate her psychological instability (she is nearly always on the precipice of a complete and devastating breakdown, coming mortally close at one point), but there is an underlying perseverance that keeps her efforts tinged with optimism.

Giving emotional credence to the representation of various intertwined lives and their specific scenarios are the actors in Two Days, One Night, all of whom are excellent. Cotillard is certainly the heart of the film, and hers is a powerhouse performance, one of her best, but the supporting cast is also brilliant, broadening the scope of the picture to illuminate those on the periphery of Sandra’s plight. Each supporting player does a remarkable job bringing his or her character to life despite minimal screen time, which results in not only Cotillard having extremely capable counterparts, but also adds to the viewer’s sympathy for even those who decline Sandra’s appeal.

In a nearly hour-long Criterion conversation with the Dardenne brothers, it becomes clear, in a way, just why their films are so special. First and foremost is their methodical direction, and they insightfully elaborate on their careful attention to the staging of characters within their setting, the placement of props, and their choice of camera angles, distance, and movement. I say “in a way,” however, because despite these explicitly voiced explanations of technical practice, it all still seems so deceptively naturalistic. Even with an extensive rehearsal period (five weeks according to Cotillard, who says the time is integral to the rhythm and authenticity of the film), nothing at any time appears contrived. “Organic” is a word that comes up often in the Criterion interviews, as the brothers and their actors speak of character actions and traits naturally occurring during these rehearsals or the actual shooting. And as is pointed out by Rongione, who has himself appeared in five Dardenne films, many incorrectly assume those appearing in the brothers’ movies are amateurs, which further suggests a truthful quality one generally attributes to non-actors.

Assisting this fundamental creation is the fact that especially in Two Days, One Night the Dardennes frequently compose in sequence shots, where a single take follows characters in close proximity, recording the good and the bad, the exciting and the banal, all the drama and action, or lack thereof, as it steadily, realistically unspools. In this formal design is the tension of the everyday. Shambu cites Dave Kehr, who writes, “Though the Dardennes’ films are scrupulously naturalistic, they all belong to the suspense genre, though it is a suspense of character, not of plot. It is not so much a question of what will happen next as of how the characters arrive, or fail to arrive, at a decision to act.” By not cutting, by not drawing back during times of potential distress, the brothers ratchet up the anxiety with the certainty that we will bare witness to whatever the characters decide to do, or not do.

For directors who have such a uniquely consistent worldview and filmmaking style, several of the bonus features on the Criterion disc allude to a surprising number of multimedia influences. The brothers alone draw a connection between their films and reality television, they pay homage to Satyajit Ray’s The Big City (1963), and they profess an admiration of Cesare Zavattini’s Neorealist ideals (this is where the sequence shots come into play). And in his visual essay, Kent Jones refers to Eisenstein and Rossellini when discussing the Dardenne brothers and their cinematic points of reference. With Two Days, One Night in particular, I would also say there is also something of 12 Angry Men (1957) in its essential narrative construction, in that both films follow the efforts of one as they try to convince and sway others.

But perhaps the most astute comparison is when Jones cues up a statement by Jean Renoir. Remember it was Renoir who uttered his often-quoted quip from The Rules of the Game (1939)—”Everybody has their reasons”—which itself is apt when it comes to the cinema of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne. In this case, though, Jones brings in another quote from the famed French filmmaker, one that similarly gets to the crux of the brothers and their work, and hints at why their films are so powerful and so full of captivating energy. It comes down to reality, and reality, says Renoir, “is always magic.”

‘The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein’

Since May of this year, I have embarked on an ongoing exploration into the cinema of Jesús Franco. After first viewing Justine (also known as Deadly Sanctuary), one of seven Franco films released in 1969 (his filmography boasts 203 directorial credits from 1957 to 2013), I sought out more of what this infamous Spanish auteur had to offer. Like Justine, some of these films have been extraordinarily entertaining: The Diabolical Dr. Z (1966), Vampyros Lesbos (1971), A Virgin Among the Living Dead (1973), Female Vampire and Women Behind Bars (both 1975), and Bloody Moon (1981). Others, however, have been downright atrocious: Emmanuelle Exposed (1982) and Red Silk (1999), one of the worst films I have ever seen.

The latest addition to what is now a 25-films-and-counting “Summer of Jesús Franco” is The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein, available on a new Blu-ray edition from Redemption Films, which has released several other Franco titles. Neither top notch, nor bottom of the barrel, this 1972 feature—one of nine he released that year—is a decidedly middle of the road Jesús Franco film, with a fair amount to admire and plenty to ridicule.

A common complaint (or excuse) regarding many Franco films is that his plots are usually inessential. It’s true that many times the narrative is unimportant at best, utterly incomprehensible at worst, but this seems to be an unfair disregard. No matter how muddled the plot—as in the way it is all presented—there is always a larger story to be told, and The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein is an excellent case in point. The basic premise revolves around the murder of Doctor Frankenstein (Dennis Price) and the theft and revitalization of his monster, which is then used to kidnap virgins for the evil Cagliostro (Howard Vernon) in order to fulfill his desires and his experiments. Said experiments concern the creation of a new race of perfect women: a “combination of beauty and submission.” Assisting Cagliostro is Melisa (Anne Libert), a squawking vampiric creature who is half woman half bird, mostly nude and with talons. Standing in Cagliostro’s way is Doctor Seward (Alberto Dalbés) and Frankenstein’s daughter, Vera (Beatriz Savón), who takes over the reigns of her father’s operation. Observing much of this is a largely silent horde of cultish individuals who hover hauntingly in the background.

As he did with Count Dracula (1970), Franco incorporates several standard conventions to acknowledge the literary source as well as its various cinematic incarnations. Unlike Count Dracula, here these conventions are but mere jumping off points for a far more eccentric take on the familiar story. In this extreme departure from prior Frankenstein tales, there nevertheless remains a recurrent exploration of reanimation, its scientific foundation (a magnetic life ray in this case) and its purpose (to get information from a “dead” person and to have a controlled being at one’s disposal). Even Cagliostro himself is some sort of deceased individual who periodically returns from the hereafter to wreck havoc. Into this, Franco liberally dispenses his own thematic predilections of sex, sadism, and violence, occasionally all in the same scene or even shot.

Like most Franco films, Erotic Rites was shot on the cheap, and while this financial deficiency is readily apparent, as in the spray-painted silvery coating of the monster (to presumably make him metallic?) as well as in some hilariously bad special effects (a sulfuric acid attack that makes no sense whatsoever), the director keeps things dynamic if not always convincing. Franco employs an irregular stylistic fluctuation of technique, with shifty, unstable zooms and erratic hand-held pans. But what one sees in some of his films, and again, Erotic Rites is a good example, is a more controlled and thoughtful incorporation of striking camera angles and creatively psychedelic lighting. Certain shots even have an enchanting gauzy sheen or an effectively disorienting wide-angle perspective. In contrast to the more shoddy technical facets of certain Franco movies, this type of surprisingly arresting imagery indicates, at least as far as I can tell, a more evident interest in the material and a more earnest attempt to make something very good if not great. And even if it all doesn’t come off every time, Franco deserves credit for his imaginative resiliency and his total lack of conventional restraint.

Complimenting these visual techniques is the music, composed by Daniel White, who worked on a number of Franco features including Oasis of the Zombies (1982), a commonly maligned Franco film that nonetheless remains one of my favorites. It’s an odd concoction of abstract instrumentals and incongruent noises. Most notable are some genuinely catchy riffs that recall the director’s own jazz compositions.

As for this particular Blu-ray release, there is good news and bad news. On the plus side of things, this is the uncut version that Franco preferred. While there is some minor gore, more pronounced is the gratuitous nudity (admittedly also minor compared to some of his work), and all of this is fully intact. The downside is that the alternate version—generally known by the film’s original title, La maldición de Frankenstein, somewhat longer, and edited for nudity and violence—has scenes featuring Lina Romay in her screen debut. The beautiful and amazingly audacious Romay would become Franco’s muse, starring in dozens of his films. She would also be his life partner and, eventually, his wife. Though her scenes in La maldición de Frankenstein apparently have little to no relation to the actual plot of the film, her presence in every Franco feature that I’ve seen (save for that Red Silk catastrophe) has elevated the enjoyment level considerably. Even if irrelevant to the story, perhaps that would have also been the case here.

‘Hiroshima mon amour’

The first thing we see is a textured image of ash covered bodies. Indistinctly illuminated limbs are entwined in what appears to be a passionate embrace. Glistening particles of dust sprinkle down like snowfall. Then comes the dialogue. A woman recalls the devastating effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima Aug. 6, 1945. She says she saw it all. A man says she didn’t see a thing. “How could I not have seen it?” she questions. We see images of it, but some of it is staged, presented for the camera, possibly from her point of view. That is, if she’s telling the truth. There is a graphically unsettling montage of photographs, reconstructions, and Japanese films, all chronicling the attack; there is a morbid museum containing artifacts of that fateful day, haunting reminders of the physical and material destruction. There are also atomic tour busses and gift shops. Are there explanations to be found in these images, those real and those created, those authentic and those developed into a capitalistic commodity? We hear statistics and see newsreels—documentary evidence. Do these make her memories real? Do they help us to understand what the explosion was like?



Though stated far less poetically expressive than the film itself is, this is essentially how Hiroshima mon amour begins. Alain Resnais’ staggering 1959 work, a French/Japanese coproduction, begins with this assembly of heart wrenching imagery and disembodied voices—a man and a woman’s—lasting for about 15 minutes. The physical experience of the then and now is represented by the depiction of this ash and body fusion, signifiers of death and life. During this abstract compilation, that which is vividly realistic or sufficiently fabricated is gradually given a thematic crescendo, as from the horror comes rebirth, renewal, survival, strength, and perseverance. The Japanese people, so utterly devastated by the assault, carry on and rebuild. What’s more is the possibility that love, too, can emerge from the ruins. Perhaps not immediately, perhaps not in 1945, but in 1959, years later, when superficial and far deeper wounds have both been healed.

This is where the film proper starts, and with this powerful preamble, Hiroshima mon amour establishes a context that will temper every scene to follow. Ultimately, it’s a love story, but it’s a love story irreversibly influenced by war. As Resnais scholar François Thomas suggests in an interview contained on the outstanding new Criterion Collection Blu-ray, Hiroshima mon amour exists against something of an atomic landscape, where the bomb is not front and center, as it is in the opening, but hovering omnipresent in the background.

She is “Elle” (Emmanuelle Riva, in her first leading film role). He is “Lui” (Eiji Okada, a veteran with more than 25 films to his credit). She is French. He is Japanese. Both are in their early 20s and both are never named. She is an actress in Hiroshima to make a “film about peace.” They meet, they fall in love; they are both married, they must leave one another. Hiroshima mon amour is, then, a love story.



But that’s not really what the film is about. Like Resnais’ brilliant follow-up, Last Year at Marienbad (1961),Hiroshima mon amour is about the fallibility and function of memory, about where lies and truth merge and what distinguishes one or the other, and whether or not that designation is subjective or objective. “Have you ever noticed people have a way of noticing what they want?” he says. “I noticed you. That’s all.” Is that all? Do the past and the context of the present cease in their importance when trumped by an instantaneous, passionate observation? Is that where truth lies?

There’s a break in the developing romance when, over several glasses of beer, she recounts a moment from her past, one she did actually experience (we suppose). In her hometown of Nevers, during the occupation, she has a brief relationship with a German soldier. She is disgraced and condemned, by her family and her community. Her German lover is killed and she is stowed away in a cellar, only later being allowed to flee during night. During her bicycle trek to Paris, Hiroshima is attacked (so she wasn’t, in fact, there). In recounting this period in her life, she tells “Lui” just enough, but does she tell him, and therefore us, everything? We see her narrative in flashback, but given the nature of Hiroshima mon amour, how those events truly transpired is up for debate. In any case, what she has just told him she hasn’t told anyone, not even her husband. This makes “Lui” ecstatic. He’s overjoyed to be the only one who knows, to be the only one to have shared in this private memory. It is, to him, the ultimate evidence of their intimacy and trust. In this memory is their deepest love. Perhaps paradoxically, though, in retelling this personal experience, she is also keeping alive her deceased lover, if only though her memory and her recitation, even perhaps projecting their love onto that which she now has with “Lui,” which is likewise ill fated.

If the basic love story of Hiroshima mon amour comes across as less than unique—a brief encounter between doomed lovers—Resnais’ presentation amplifies the romance to make it something special. To a certain extent, Resnais got away from this after the 1960s, but here, as much as anywhere else in his early oeuvre, every image is so obviously constructed with great care that even the most banal moments are visually remarkable. Every single shot is lit and composed in such an overtly formalized fashion that a still frame taken from any part of the film is, in itself, even out of context, truly a thing of beauty.

All technical facets of Hiroshima mon amour are exceptional, making it the tremendous film that it is on so many levels. The black and white cinematography by Michio Takahashi and Sacha Vierny is dazzling (Vierny, who worked with Resnais on the great 1955 short Night and Fog, as well as Last Year at Marienbad). In their respective scenes and countries, Takahashi and Vierny utilize differing film stocks, focal lengths, and assorted visual strategies, yet everything seamlessly flows into the whole. Also receiving dual credit are the film’s composers, Georges Delerue and Giovanni Fusco. While this film was released before both musicians would do their finest and most recognizable work — for Godard and Truffaut in the case of Delerue, for Antonioni, specifically  L’Avventura  (1960),  L’Eclisse (1962),  and Red Desert (1964),  in the case of Fusco — their work on Hiroshima mon amour combines their particular talents for romanticism and other-worldly unease. As Kent Jones notes in an essay that accompanies the Criterion release, “It’s possible that Hiroshima mon amour is the first modern sound film in every aspect of its conception and execution—construction, rhythm, dialogue, performance style, philosophical outlook, and even musical score.” One can see how the visual and aural so expertly mesh when “Elle” walks the neon Hiroshima streets one evening, the images of which are cut with shots of the dilapidated, less modern Nevers. Over this is the score: modern, jazzy, wistful. The result is a dual city symphony that reflects the vibrant present and the forlorn past of the two locations and of the young woman herself.

Save for the opening of the film, none of this would work as well as it does were it not for Riva and Okada. Spurred on by Marguerite Duras’ Oscar-nominated screenplay, a work of ostentatious stylization in the best possible sense, Riva and Okada epitomize the type of “art film” acting of the period, with gestures, comments, and emotions all heightened and not always reasonable, yet no less engaging.



There is the sense throughout Hiroshima mon amour that the two characters aren’t necessarily what they seem, that they aren’t singular people but are representative of their nationalities, and that theirs is a cultural romance as much as it is an individual one. The movie began as a documentary short about the bomb (presumably in the form of the completed film’s opening). Only later did Resnais and Duras decide to fashion a fictional story from the actual events. So perhaps as a result, the literal relationship between “Elle” and “Lui” is somewhat secondary; their deeper connection is a symbolic reckoning of French and Japanese reactions to the war, specifically the bombing, at the time and as years pass. Such an interpretation is hammered home in the film’s concluding sequence, when “Elle” and “Lui” call each other by their respective birth cities rather than their real names.

Finally, it’s hard to watch Hiroshima mon amour and not politicize the film, especially when viewing it in America and, I would assume, Japan. When “Lui” asks “Elle” what the bombing meant in France, she says it was mostly surprise in the fact that they [the United States] dared to do it, and that they succeeded—in dropping the bomb, in ending the war, both? Knowing what we know of the catastrophic horror and the bomb’s terrible impact, maybe that’s how Americans see it now, or at least some of us: pure shock that it ever even happened, amazement that life went on. As Resnais tackles the subject, broadens the narrative to integrate a romance, and gives it all such energy and emotion, we also come away somewhat satisfied, satisfied in the fact that love and passion carried on, even in war-ravaged Hiroshima.

‘The Killers’ (1946/1964)

Ernest Hemingway’s 1927 short story, “The Killers,” inspired to varying degrees the 1946 and the 1964 screen versions of the same name. To varying degrees because the story is less than 3,000 words and essentially only covers the opening of the two films. A man—Ole “The Swede” Anderson (Burt Lancaster) in the first film, Johnny North (John Cassavetes) in the remake—is hunted down by two hired killers. Right before they shoot him, Ole and Johnny do something strange, or rather, they don’t do something they should: they don’t run, they don’t really move, they don’t even seem to care. Before Ole is killed, he admits he “did something wrong, once” (in film noir, that’s all it takes), and when Johnny is told two men are on their way to kill him, he responds with, “Oh, I see,” and says not to bother calling the cops. Why would this be? Why is this man, holed away working at a service station in the earlier film, teaching at a school for the blind in the later, so resigned to his fate and so accepting of his impending death? This is where the story ends. It’s where the films begin.




Robert Siodmak’s 1946 version of The Killers takes this impetus and follows along as claims investigator Jim Reardon (Edmond O’Brien) attempts to piece together the puzzle of Ole’s past. His initial interest in the murder is primarily professional, as an odd insurance beneficiary triggers his investigation. In Don Siegel’s 1964 version, one of the killers, Charlie Strom (Lee Marvin), sets off on his own inquiry, with partner, Lee (Clu Gulager). He looks at the effortless hit as a professional anomaly, unnerved by Johnny’s acceptance. What both searches reveal is that Ole and Johnny, decent men to start, each took part in a robbery, and in each case, they made off with money that should have been disbursed among the others involved in the heist. (The prospect of $1 million being out there somewhere also appeals to Charlie.) Also in both films, entangling Ole/Johnny in this uncharacteristic life of crime is a woman, a classic femme fatale: Kitty Collins (Ava Gardner) in 1946, Sheila Farr (Angie Dickinson) in 1964.

Despite these basic similarities, Siodmak and Siegel and their respective casts and crew integrate distinct divergences in story, style, and characterization, as much influenced by their corresponding years and conditions of production as by their unique directorial approaches.



The German-born Siodmak brings to his version an expressionistic touch derived from the groundbreaking silent films of his homeland, a form to which film noir, his most proficient genre, was heavily indebted. His The Killers is noir through and through, with immensely vibrant light and shadow contrast: deep, dark blacks and bright whites with little shading in between—this is a black and white movie. Most notable are certain shots where shafts of light or shadow seem to swallow characters whole, casting pronounced accents that illuminate or obscure their faces and bodies.

Siegel, whom 1946 producer Mark Hellinger originally wanted to direct (he was under contract to Warner Bros. and couldn’t take on the project), ended up not being a fan of Siodmak’s film. This primarily had to do with how Siodmak and screenwriter Anthony Veiller (with uncredited scripting by John Huston and Richard Brooks) picked up from the Hemingway story. So once Universal offered him the chance to produce and direct the remake, this time working from a screenplay by Gene L. Coon, he decided to do things differently. Siegel’s version, which maintains manynoir sensibilities, eases up drastically on the noir style. Originally conceived of as the first television movie (an idea scrapped when producers saw how violent the picture was), this film is much brighter, has a garish color scheme, and is only periodically heightened formally by Siegel’s bold strokes of unusual camera angles, quick movements, and surges of spontaneous action.



Given the nature of each film’s narrative—starting with the death of the main character—there are flashbacks aplenty. “It started Thursday, a week ago…” states Jim in the first feature, a standard verbal signal to one of an extraordinary number of back and forth recollections that reoccur throughout the 1946 film. There are far fewer such transitions in Siegel’s take; one of his big concerns when initially preparing the film for television was that the originally planned 22 flashbacks would disorient the viewer when coupled with commercial breaks. In any event, The Killers, particularly the 1946 version, covers checkered pasts, deceptively stable presents, and uncertain futures—the trifecta of noir narrative.



The depiction of the killers differs a good deal as well, obviously so as the 1964 film continues with Charlie and Lee, whereas the 1946 film basically leaves Al and Max (Charles McGraw and William Conrad) once Ole is dead (though they will reappear). All four men, however, are smart, cool, crass, and utterly careless in their regard for any degree of decency. They wear their cruel streaks on their faces and act with a pitiless detachment. They are there to kill, to routinely kill, to kill for money—it’s a job, nothing more. Veiller’s screenplay gives Al and Max crackling chatter that is short and sharp, a tough-guy dialogue in tune with Hemingway’s writing. Distinguishing Charlie and Lee is a capacity for even more brutality. Al and Max talk tough; Charlie and Lee are downright vicious.

Then there’s the characterization of Ole and Johnny. As played by Lancaster, Ole is initially a down on his luck boxer, way down. As his story plays out, he goes from Philadelphia to Atlantic City to Brentwood, New Jersey. (Brentwood itself representing so many noir characters and plot devices, in that it’s a nowhere town that becomes ground zero for a history of violence it could never have saw coming.)



He’s a beaten down roamer with an equally roaming eye, which is what gets him into trouble with Kitty. He is pleasant enough for the most part, but he has an impulsive violent streak. Lancaster also imbues in Ole a personality that is both gallantly aggressive and pathetically unlucky. When we first see Johnny, on the other hand, he is a race car driver at the top of his game. It’s always hard to watch Cassavetes and not think of his naturalistic performances in his own films, but here he gives his character a melodramatically cocky swagger that is only bested by the appearance of Sheila. She’s pretty forward too, and he loves it. Unlike the Ole and Kitty relationship, which certainly has its obstacles, Johnny and Sheila seem to thrive on a challenging, almost combative, romance.

These male/female relationships form the crux of each film’s plot, though the 1964 film spends a considerably longer time on the romance between Johnny and Sheila (as well as on details of Johnny’s racing). In both stories though, it’s the women and their respective other men—the criminal masterminds in each of their lives—who lead Ole and Johnny to the eventual crimes and the ultimate consequences for all involved.



With enough similarities and differences to make each film stand apart in their own right, Robert Siodmak’s version of The Killers is better in almost every way. Siegel’s take might have the more interestingly eclectic cast, with the beautiful and confident Dickinson, Ronald Reagan in his final film role, Marvin stealing the scene every time he enters the frame, Gulager in an exceptionally malicious turn, and Cassavetes, who presumably used the paycheck from this film to partially fund his next directorial effort, the brilliant 1968 film, Faces (look also for Cassavetes regular Seymour Cassel in a brief role). But Siodmak’s direction is better, the script is tighter, and Elwood Bredell’s cinematography is gorgeous. And while Lancaster and Gardner are both great, Sam Levene and O’Brien both give excellent supporting performances as well; O’Brien in particular is almost giddy in his investigation, motivated by earnest curiosity and professional duty, eager to solve this “double cross to end all double crosses.” Finally, proving Roger Ebert’s view on the timelessness of black and white photography, it’s the more recent film that also appears most dated, at least stylistically.

A side note: For a third—and by far the most faithful—variation on the story, see Andrei Tarkovsky’s short film adaptation, which is included on the newly released Criterion Collection Blu-ray set of The Killers. This short was co directed by Tarkovsky, Marika Beiku and Aleksandr Gordon, when all were students at the State Institute of Cinematography in 1956, and it starts and stops just as the story does. Its dialogue, too, depending on the translation, seems to adhere nearly word for word to Hemingway’s text.