Criterion Sunday 647: On the Waterfront (1954)

Undoubtedly a classic film, one that had a lasting impact on the film industry and on screen acting. That of course may be its greatest legacy, but it’s a film suffused with the craft of generations of American filmmakers, feeling of a piece in its carefully-toned monochrome with the films noirs of the decade before, and has all the hallmarks of a prestige drama, bolstered by a fine line-up of character actors all doing some of their best work. It’s a pity then that it feels like an attack on the idea of unions — which is a problematic message to take from Elia Kazan — as these dockworkers are shown in impotent thrall to the power plays of the criminal gangs who could have been union-busting thugs but instead feel like the unions themselves. In a sense I suppose the physical world of work on the docks is just a backdrop to an internal struggle, but it boils down to: whether to go to the cops when you’ve witnessed a crime; whether thereby to save your eternal soul (a rather heavy-handed part nevertheless laid down with conviction by Karl Malden). Still, it has some classic speeches, some great scenes and some arresting cinematography.

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FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director Elia Kazan; Writers Budd Schulberg; Cinematographer Boris Kaufman Бори́с Ка́уфман; Starring Marlon Brando, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Eva Marie Saint; Length 108 minutes.

Seen at home (Blu-ray), Melbourne, Monday 22 May 2023 (and earlier on VHS at home, Wellington, September 2000).

Criterion Sunday 575: The Killing (1956)

I imagine that Stanley Kubrick probably would have dismissed this film as juvenilia by the time he got to his imperial phase (he certainly did of his feature debut, Killer’s Kiss, at least). It’s a film noir that in some of its elements feels a little derivative of earlier noir crime films, along with similar elaborately-plotted French heist films of the same era. But to leave it at that would be to overlook just how tautly structured it is, and how much fun to watch. Not that it’s Ocean’s 11 or anything — this is still noir, nobody gets away with anything at a deeper existential level, but while the ending feels somehow fated, it’s also exactly perfectly judged. A voiceover tells us what’s going on, as we see each of the characters who together make up the individual components of a heist orchestrated by Sterling Hayden, and it’s that calmly dispassionate voice that leads us towards a certain inevitability. But along the way, the crisp monochrome photography and the memorable character roles make for a rich tapestry of lowlifes and grifters who each believes they’re set to make a killing on the races. (What they didn’t know is that… etc etc.)

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FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director Stanley Kubrick; Writers Kubrick and Jim Thompson (based on the novel Clean Break by Lionel White); Cinematographer Lucien Ballard; Starring Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Elisha Cook Jr., Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen; Length 84 minutes.

Seen at home (Blu-ray), Wellington, Thursday 6 October 2022 (and earlier on VHS in the unversity library, Wellington, September 1998).

Criterion Sunday 568: Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

One of the great 1950s noir films, this fits neatly into the wave of post-atomic paranoia films that were popular at the time (many being in the science-fiction and monster movie genre), though for much of the running time you wouldn’t really suspect it was anything outside the usual kind of setup. Hard-nosed detective Mike Hammer gets caught up with a mysterious lady (Cloris Leachman in her film debut), who happens across his sporty little car late one night on the California roads. The next thing he knows, they’ve been captured, she’s tortured to death, and he’s pushed off a cliff in his beloved car and comes to in a hospital. The rest of the film is him piecing together the mystery, visiting the kinds of people and places that are largely lost now (it’s set in the Bunker Hill neighbourhood), a shady underbelly of ordinary Los Angeles and its assorted characters — like the Greek car mechanic whose catchphrase is “va va voom”, or various denizens of the city’s nightlife. Hammer’s quest is all filmed in a typical noir style, and much of the film’s denouement has been cribbed for many other famous movies over the years (it will all seem very familiar), but this is a hard-boiled detective story that still very much holds up.

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FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director Robert Aldrich; Writer A.I. Bezzerides (based on the novel by Mickey Spillane); Cinematographer Ernest Laszlo; Starring Ralph Meeker, Wesley Addy, Maxine Cooper, Gaby Rodgers, Cloris Leachman; Length 106 minutes.

Seen at National Library, Wellington, Wed 6 June 2001, and at a cinema, London, Wed 10 February 2010 (and most recently on Blu-ray at home, Wellington, Thursday 8 September 2022).

Criterion Sunday 529: Underworld (1927)

Josef von Sternberg’s silent crime movie is generally considered to be the one that laid in place a lot of the tropes that would persist (and continue to do so) in gangster films over the years. We have the gregarious mobster “Bull Weed” (George Bancroft) who shows pity on the alcoholic “Rolls Royce” (Clive Brook), helping him to clean up and work again as a lawyer, in which role he’s able to help Bull while also getting close to Bull’s girl “Feathers” (Evelyn Brent), a classic three-way love story that motivates the divided loyalties of the film’s climactic shoot-out with police (because there’s always got to be a shoot-out). Despite being pre-Code, there are still strong moral lessons that bad guys need to learn, but the film keeps what now comes across as pretty hackneyed content relatively fresh. The camera doesn’t move too much, but somehow the film gives the impression of a whirl of action and movement, with pools of murky darkness befitting the setting. In short, it still holds up.

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FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director Josef von Sternberg; Writers Ben Hecht, Charles Furthman and Robert N. Lee; Cinematographer Bert Glennon; Starring Clive Brook, Evelyn Brent, George Bancroft; Length 81 minutes.

Seen at a friend’s home (DVD), Wellington, Monday 21 February 2022 (and earlier on VHS in the university library, Wellington, June 2000).

Criterion Sunday 502: Revanche (2008)

I was impressed by this film so it’s no surprise to read — on doing a little research — that Austrian director Götz Spielmann had been working for some time before he made this (although surprisingly hasn’t really made a big splash since then). He shows a fair bit of control over his subject and the performances, with a steely gaze to his camera that adds an edge to the moral drama playing out on screen, between a (fairly low-level) criminal and a police officer who has, shall we say, caused quite a lot of pain in his life and to whom he finds himself unexpectedly living next door. That particular setup seems a bit far-fetched, as does a relationship with the police officer’s wife, but yet somehow it all seems to make sense in the universe that this thriller plays out in. It’s a world of small towns, close-knit communities, and which even allows for a modicum of hope amongst all the bleakness. It’s a shame that it boils down to essentially a film about two men confronting one another over the women in their lives, but the way it’s handled is excellent.

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FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director/Writer Götz Spielmann; Cinematographer Martin Gschlacht; Starring Johannes Krisch, Ursula Strauss, Andreas Lust, Irina Potapenko Ирина Потапенко; Length 122 minutes.

Seen at home (DVD), Wellington, Sunday 30 January 2022.

Criterion Sunday 493: Gomorra (Gomorrah, 2008)

This film about the Camorra, a criminal organisation operating around Naples and Campania, harks back to those films so popular in the 1990s, in which multiple different strands cohere into a full narrative picture. There’s not much in the way of overlap in terms of the characters between these five stories, but together they give a sense of the grunt work involved in propping up the business interests of a gang. There’s the expendability of the foot soldiers, especially when they become damaging to the organisation, but also the limitless resource of workers disaffected through poverty and urban alienation; there’s the middle managers, guys just trying to keep their heads down and get by but who nevertheless get dragged into violence and revenge; and then there are the artisans (like the tailor Pasquale) who have little interest in the vested interests, but cannot help but be pulled in and affected by the control wielded by those with power. We don’t see any kind of coherent power structure, just a bunch of loud older guys with guns in the background, and a lot of meek and young people up front in this film, which ultimately seems to be about the corrosive effects of corrupt government and poverty leading to few available choices for its protagonists. And for all its multiple strands, it manages to cohere nicely by the end with a lot of small character-based touches that deepen the film’s interest and reach.

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FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director Matteo Garrone; Writers Garrone, Roberto Saviano, Maurizio Braucci, Ugo Chiti, Gianni Di Gregorio and Massimo Gaudioso (based on Saviano’s non-fiction book); Cinematographer Marco Onorato; Starring Gianfelice Imparato, Salvatore Cantalupo, Toni Servillo, Salvatore Abbruzzese, Marco Maror, Ciro Petrone; Length 137 minutes.

Seen at the Ritzy, London, Friday 24 October 2008 (and on DVD at home, Wellington, Thursday 30 December 2021).

Criterion Sunday 486: Homicide (1991)

There are definitely things I like about a Mamet film. It looks great for a start (Roger Deakins shot this), moody in just the right ways. The characters are strong types, generic in a way, but in a rather pleasing way, but that’s partly the familiarity you have with policiers. There’s definitely a format by which crimes get solved. The cops aren’t exactly heroes, but they are apparently more effective than the FBI. Still, the ones we see here know how to get stuff done, none more than Joe Mantegna’s Bobby Gold (he’s playing Jewish American here). Still, you have to have a real love for Mamet’s dialogue to get with his films fully, and perhaps I just lack that. It’s distinctive I admit, but it has a musical patter to it that pulls me out a bit (if there had been dancing, then… maybe I’d be fine). In any case, there are fine performances and a lot to like here, even for those who don’t love their Mamet.

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FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director/Writer David Mamet; Cinematographer Roger Deakins; Starring Joe Mantegna, William H. Macy, Ving Rhames; Length 101 minutes.

Seen at home (DVD), Wellington, Sunday 12 December 2021.

NZIFF 2021: @zola (2020)

The first film I saw at Whānau Mārama – New Zealand International Film Festival is probably the most ‘commercial’ of the lot, though it still fits in a lot of darkness to its otherwise gaudily-toned story of… well, of Florida. It’s a setting that’s been done many times before (think Magic Mike for a start), but I can’t deny that there’s an energy to this setting that energises plenty of films, this one no less than any other.

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Nobody’s really out there adapting Twitter threads and I can only applaud the ways the filmmakers here find to transfer some of that era-specific energy (Twitter, Facebook and… Tumblr all get a mention, because of course). There are bravura touches (a lot of toilet-focused exposition that’s revealing without being gross), a lot of humour (Cousin Greg!! sorry I mean Nicholas Braun, best known for his role in Succession) and the constant presence of Taylour Paige as Zola, being cool under pressure and rolling her eyes back into her head at Riley Keough’s character Stefani. Keough has played this type before but yet I didn’t recognise her; Stefani feels like a different character and a very specific one. It’s not all jolly laughs — there’s some very credible terror and some nasty men (okay those things are somewhat related) — but it is pulled through by the narrative voice and a sense of self-mythologising that’s ongoing and inherent to the narrative itself.

CREDITS
Director Janicza Bravo; Writers Bravo and Jeremy O. Harris (based on the Rolling Stone article “Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted” by David Kushner and the original tweets by Aziah King); Cinematographer Ari Wegner; Starring Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, Colman Domingo; Length 90 minutes.
Seen at Embassy, Wellington, Friday 5 November 2021.

Criterion Sunday 475: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

It’s not as if I don’t feel that I’ve seen variations on this film before, but somehow this film, from this particular era of the 70s — with its slightly washed out, grainy look, its desolate landscapes, its lack of the glamour you might get from a more photogenic locale (this film is set in Boston I believe), and its world-weary acting — all combine to elicit something somehow more affecting. Robert Mitchum is towards the later years of his career and so he shuffles about with the sense of being someone who’s a lifer, who’s never going to get out despite all the young feds (like Richard Jordan) telling him to reform his ways. He continues to supply guns to criminals, and it’s weighing him down and he never quite gets out from under it. Along the way we get hints at the vicious younger kids under him (like Steven Keats as his contact for the guns), but the film doesn’t try to give a sense of an older generation with more scrupulous morals: everyone in this racket is living on borrowed time and can be vicious when they need to be, criminals, cops, the lot. And by sticking to Mitchum’s character for the most part, it keeps it anchored in something human and approachable, rather than being about the process — the thrill of the heist or the satisfaction of piecing it together via policework. In that sense, it reminds me of Melville’s flicks with Alain Delon, just him and some glum streets and the choices he needs to make to keep himself alive moment to moment.

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FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director Peter Yates; Writer Paul Monash (based on the novel by George V. Higgins); Cinematographer Victor J. Kemper; Starring Robert Mitchum, Richard Jordan, Peter Boyle, Steven Keats; Length 102 minutes.

Seen at home (Blu-ray), Wellington, Wednesday 27 October 2021.

Criterion Sunday 469: The Hit (1984)

Stephen Frears directed his first movie at the start of the 70s and then spent most of the next decade working in TV, though this is the era when Ken Loach and Alan Clarke were creating distinctive visions on the small screen, so by the time Frears returns with The Hit, you can’t really accuse him of not having some style. It’s set in Spain, so it doesn’t lack for beautiful light and arresting backdrops; at times Frears seems to be going maybe even a little bit too hard on the quiet, empty shots of these locales, though he matches it with striking framings (such as an unexpected overhead shot during one tense encounter). Still, there’s a lot that feels very 80s here, and it’s not just Tim Roth being a young hard man (not as fascist as in Alan Clarke’s Made in Britain, perhaps, but still a thug) but also some of the patronising attitudes (towards women, for example, or the Spaniards they encounter). Of course, that’s as much to do with the characters, who are after all small time criminals. Terence Stamp isn’t a million miles from Ray Winstone’s retired criminal in Sexy Beast, a man who may be retired but is aware he’s never going to be fully out of the racket, and when John Hurt pops up to carry out the titular action, he puts across a weary indefatigability. Ultimately this is a strange blend of genres, with black comedic elements and a strong road movie vibe (a saturated Spanish version of what Chris Petit or Wim Wenders were doing in monochrome, perhaps). I admire it more than I love it, but it has its moments.

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FILM REVIEW: Criterion Collection
Director Stephen Frears; Writer Peter Prince; Cinematographer Mike Molloy; Starring Terence Stamp, John Hurt, Tim Roth, Laura del Sol; Length 98 minutes.

Seen at home (DVD), Wellington, Monday 11 October 2021.