The Blood of a Poet (1930)

The first in Jean Cocteau's Orphic Trilogy, The Blood of a Poet is everything it is always described as: dream-like, expressive, and visually arresting. Cocteau's films are always a treat due to his mastery over visual effects, most of which are more interesting to look at than what we see today. The films in the trilogy all attempt to look at the role and person of the artist. In a lecture he gave upon the first screening of this film, he said (in essence) that he could stand there and dissect each symbol in the film: he could say that the cheating card player stealing the Ace of Hearts from the dead child is the artist reaching into his childhood, rather than deeper into himself. However, to parse the symbols would defeat the purpose of cinema.

Hopefully something beyond these facts is presented through the whole of the film, through the experience of viewing, and I think it is. It is definitely not my favorite Cocteau. His more straightforward narratives seem to have a magic that this looser film doesn't quite acheive. However , it is wonderful to see such an uncompromising artist working so passionately and expressively. I hate to sound like such a cliche, but it doesn't cease to surprise me how accepting the public was to a film like this. I am sure it was mocked by plenty of people, but the fact that the general film-going public in Europe would have sat through this and pondered it is just flabbergasting in an age where a masterful (and straightforward) film like The New World (by one of America's most underappreciated directors) draws jeers and audible derision from audiences.

Black Narcissus (1947)

This classic Powell and Pressburger film is intensely melodramatic, and gets more interesting the more melodramatic it gets. The film follows the story of five missionary nuns who attempt to start a hospital and school in a small Himalayan village. Photographed in glorious 3-strip Technicolor by the legendary Jack Cardiff, it remains one of the pinnacles of that color process. Most of the film is the classic, sweeping, "Golden Age" Archers visible in the Life and Death of Col. Blimp, among others. However, in the final act, one of the sisters finally snaps and the film becomes almost a thriller, and fascinatingly expressive.

The entire film was created on sets in London, and the times that shows the most are in this final act, as Sister Ruth lurches through a piecemeal jungle of shocking green bamboo and knee-deep fog.



The real gift in this film is the photography, expressive and perfectly crafted to create mood and tone. Even the obvious painted backgrounds seem opulently beautiful, and contribute to the surreal artifice of the classic, Hollywood cinema (which The Archers were trying to prove British cinema could stand up to).

Un Flic (1972)

Un Flic was Melville's last film and is everything you expect from mature Mellville. It begins with an expertly depicted bank heist. Using more handheld camera than I've noticed in Le Samourai or Le Cercle Rouge, there are some breathtaking moments on the streets of Paris. Some of his shots make simple things like getting in and out of cars into rapturous cinematic moments.

The film is weakened a bit by its large centerpiece: a train-heist sequence. It gets a little silly, involving helicopters, oversized horseshoe magnets, and some poorly conceived model shots. I am still wondering how intentionally self-conscious it is. For one thing, it's hard to regain the chilly, slightly cruel tone the film had up to that point. Alain Delon, as the police inspector, is a true anti-hero, minus the heart of gold. Played with a vacuum where any emotion should be (and a healthy amount of sadism), Delon moves motiveless through the motions of his archetype. There is a sense in which everyone in the movie performs the classic cliches of the film noir with such vacancy, you wonder if its a comment on his own work, or the film noir in general. It goes beyond the vacant, shell-shocked cool of Delon in Le Samourai. He even reuses the club from Le Cercle Rouge. I don't know, the jury is out. Despite all this, you never doubt you are seeing the work of a master of the cinema.

Why do genre directors get disqualified from the canon? Seijun Suzuki and Jean-Pierre Melville are two directors who show an understanding of the language and possibilities of cinema that is every bit as sophsticated as Antonioni, Godard, Fellini, Cassavetes, Herzog, Truffuat, Malick, Bergman, Tarkovsky, Lynch, Eisenstein. Ok maybe not Eisenstein.

Dead Ringers (1988)

This is a really artful film, more lyrical and poetic than I've seen Cronenberg be. Starring Jeremy Irons playing a pair of prestigious gynecologist twins, it touches on most of Cronenberg's interests in the body, but remains focused on the emotional and pyschological complexities of the male mind. There's plenty to dissect metaphorically, as far as the public self/private self, masculine self/feminine self, warring interior personalities, etc. However, the film is far from an intellectual exercise. It utilizies common mythology and the basic creepiness of identical twins as well as good old-fashioned paranoia to create an emotive experience full of vascillating sympathy and repulsion.

There's always a lurking danger in films that could feasibly be read as a singular, cohesive metaphor. There are several ways to sidestep the film becoming trite or too self-sufficient. Dead Ringers manages to do so by not only involving the viewer emotionally in the characters (through Irons' wonderful performance), but also by creating a strange urgency in the film. The conclusion of the film, if described here out of context, would sound outlandish and repulsing. However, Cronenberg creates an atmosphere and deep sense of internal logic, so that you never doubt the necessity of what is happening. It all must happen somehow. The final, very moving sequence actually becomes deeply satisfying. That's quite a nice trick.

The photography is just ridiculously beautiful. Covered in the gloss of the high-80's, there are so many virtuoso visual moments its hard to point one out. Maybe most chilling is an inebriated Jeremy Irons, being dressed in his blood red surgical clothing. He stares vacantly into a window, arms outstretched, and we see numerous reflections of his attendants buckling and buttoning his coat. Its a deeply frightening moment, like watching the beginning of some occultic ritual.

Wise Blood (1979)

John Huston's adaptation of Flannery O'Connor's powerful and moving novella is simply unforgivable: rife with after-school-special acting, "pictures of people talking" cinematography, and Southern accents from a can. The film systematically destroys O'Connor's masterful pacing, stripping away several of the mysteries that are vital to the action emotionally and completely defusing every bit of tension. Finally, he treats some of O'Connor's most expressive and disturbing imagery (The New Jesus, Gonga) as "zany antics," replete with wacky shenanigan music.

All is not entirely lost however. Hazel Motes, the main character, is perfectly cast. Though he falters a little, Brad Dourif plays him with a stare that burns a hole through whatever it happens to be pointed at. His performance helps you hang on for the first hour, before the grating direction, complete lack of aesthetic attention, and upsettingly poor filmmaking force you to give up hope.

There really isn't much more to say, except don't waste your time. Go read O'Connor instead.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)

This late work from Vittoria De Sica bears few of the marks of the Italian Neo-Realism he was instrumental in creating in the 1940's. Poetic and lyrical, it is rife with expressionistic editing, and more shaky zooms per-minute than any film I've watched recently.

The film follows an aristocratic Jewish family living on a large estate in Italy during World War II. As the war worsens, they retreat into their lavish world, using their wealth to shelter themselves from the horror of reality. The transformation of their fantasy world into the harsh reality of the holocaust is as abrupt for the audience as it is for Finzi-Continis. Their intentional isolation and denial is seen as a primary contributor to their downfall. This is a well-crafted, enjoyable film from a director full of life, late in his career.

Interesting enough, it seems to me a frequent occurence for a director instrumental in a stringent movement to deny almost all its tenets late in life, and create some of his/her best loved films. Despite the wonderful, uncompromising exubrance of benchmark Dogme films, Cinema Verite films, New Wave films, or Neo-Realist films, it is equally satisfying to see filmmakers taking themselves not quite so seriously.

Opening Night (1977)

Part of Cassavetes's unofficial trilogy starring Gena Rowlands, Opening Night lacks the cohesive emotional stab of Woman Under the Influence (1974), but that doesn't stop the viewer from falling headlong into his glorious filmmaking. In the opening sequence, Cassavetes's handheld camera trembles and swings upwards as the curtain to a play rises, and a lens flare consumes the frame. This is why we watch his films. Not only because they are beautiful, but because they impart 80% of their content through these moments.

The movie follows Gena Rowlands as an aging actress, being forced to play her first role as such. After an ardent fan (a young woman) is struck by a car and killed, Rowlands character begins a downward spiral, her sanity breaking as her cultural power as a woman is diminishing. Like most of his films, Opening Night is semi-improvised, and a sprawling two and a half hours. However, only a few times do you feel the length. There are a few scenes that become indulgent, but the magic (I know! Listen to me!) and potency of the images always redeems the overlong moments.



A sequence where Rowlands first sees the dead girl in her dressing room is probably my favorite moment in the film. Completely silent, the camera trembles and swings again through mirrors, makeup lights, finally to see a portion of the young girl's face, suspended in some reflection of a reflection. Rowlands's lip quivers and there is no motion until someone bursts through the door, and the face slides back into some nether-world.

This film is as deeply satisfying as Cassavetes gets, full of beautiful, kinetic cinematography, and incredibly sophisticated writing and performances.

Naked City (1948)

There's a particular deep satisfaction that comes with a genre picture executed perfectly. This is the last film Jules Dassin made in the USA, before being named at a House on UnAmerican Activities Committee meeting and moving to France to direct Rififi (1955). From the opening aerial shot of New York's 1940's skyline, I knew this was earning a place in my top 5 New York films. The narrator (and also producer!) Mark Hellinger informs the viewer that this is unlike any film we have seen previously. All shot 100% on location, no sets, and a thousand New Yorkers playing alongside the cast.

Narrating the entire film, Hellinger adds layer upon layer of interest to the unfolding story of a beautiful blonde, knocked out and drowned in her own bathtub. He gives interior monologues to everyone in the film, and shouts warnings and advice to the detectives and the murderers, alternately. Mostly however, he continually widens the scope of the film from the plot to the city itself. Each establishing shot comes with his introduction: "This is New York's Lower East Side, somewhere here, our culprit lurks." Finally he pulls all the way back in the famous tagline that closes the film: "There are 8 million stories in the Naked City..."

It helps that he is accompanied by William H. Daniel's luminous images of New York, for which he won an Oscar. The film is surprisingly arresting, especially the final chase through Lower Manhattan to the Williamsburg Bridge. Dassin gives some very personal and affecting touches other director's might have skipped, including interesting treatment of the victim's parents. As many have noted, the bitterness and guilt in the victim's parents is contrasted neatly with the optimism and joyous presentation of Detective Jimmy Halloran's home life.

The innovation most people credit Naked City with is the interest it shows in the detective's personal lives, and the weaving of that material into the narrative. Obviously, a quick look at any detective film or TV show from the last 50 years will show that this is an idea that has stuck. In this film, an excellent performance from Barry Fitzgerald as the hardened but kindly old Irishman helping his up-and-coming detective son adds a humanity to the story that keeps it from being a flat genre-exercise.