December 2021 Viewing Diary

Nightmare Alley (2021; d. Guillermo del Toro)
I will re-post here the thoughts I jotted down on Facebook after I saw it for the first time. I absolutely loved this film.

Nightmare Alley is gorgeously shot, with an ominous moody gloom. There is nothing sadder and more secretive than a carnival in the middle of a muddy field on an off-day.

It appears to me that this version is aligned with the book more closely than the Tyrone-Power original (no shade on the original film, just mentioning it). The book is so nihilstic and bleak it leaves no opening for hope of transformation. In fact, Stan trudges towards his ultimate destiny, all while (for a time) believing his own hype, and investing in all the wrong things, trusting the wrong people. For all his wily cunning, for all his canny sense of what people want and how he can give them what they most desire, he is, ultimately, the perfect “mark”.

Bradley Cooper (my old schoolmate! I remember you well, Bradley) is amazing. Farran and I discussed how he has such a great handle on the period that he seems like he actually comes FROM that period (unlike a lot of actors in period pieces and/or stylistic period pieces, let alone stylistic period GENRE pieces – often actors who appear in these things don’t have a handle on the period OR the style, and even during their performances, you get the sense that they are aware of their cell phone vibrating with messages off-screen. Even if they’re playing a character who lived in 1854. Different eras require different behavior. If you live in a time where hats are ubiquitous, you will be familiar with hat behavior. It will be second nature. Same with smoking. Same with corsets. Corsets aren’t just an item of clothing. Corsets determine posture, movement, breath control, comfort: corsets are everything. So are shoes. Same with body movement and body style. If you’re strong and muscular, and the movie takes place in 1935, your body looks like that not because you’re hanging out in a gym. Maybe you have barbells, or maybe it’s because you do hard labor. Bradley Cooper’s body here – how he moves and how he looks in a suit, a hat – all feels like it emerges from the period. His cell phone offscreen is not a phantom presence. He’s a big barrel-chested man, who is rarely without a hat – the hat is an extension of his head – and his cigarettes an extension of his fingers.

I also must reference Jim Beaver’s small role, which is key for a number of reasons. He is only in one scene. But the scene serves a purpose, and Jim – like all great character actors – understands story in his bones, and understands his function in the story. The scene is where Stan “tries out” his mind-reading chops for the first time, taking a risk because Beaver plays a local sheriff about to shut down the carnival. Stan goes to work on him, and in a matter of one short exchange, Stan strips this gruff authority figure of not only his authority but also his emotional defenses. Stan skillfully breaks this man down, leaving him naked and unprotected before his own inner world of carefully hidden grief and loss (and maybe even shame about his Mama’s Boy tendencies. No one must know, no one must see. But this carnival mind-reader sees.) The scene must show all that, and the burden is on Jim’s shoulders, not Cooper’s. We must see the effectiveness of Stan’s gift, we must understand that this is the first moment where Stan gets a real taste of power and domination, his ability to shatter a human being’s psychological structure. Watch the moment when Stan brings up the sheriff’s mother. Beaver crumbles, and the mask falls away in a sudden “whoosh” – leaving him exposed and devastated. The moment is as deep as it gets and Stan sees it and capitalizes on it, a shark smelling blood. After this scene, the sheriff exits the picture, but you know he will never EVER be the same again. He has been broken down in less than 5 minutes.

There is much to say about the screenplay too, co-written by GDT and my pal Kim Morgan. There are the familiar set pieces of the book, with major character actors filling out key roles – Toni Colette, Willem Defoe, David Straithairn, Richard Jenkins and Holt McCallany (another actors with a small role but it’s so key. He says he is “fond” of his boss. In that word “fond” is a threat: “You mess with my boss, Stan, I’m coming for you, and you need to know that.”)

The script does not shy away from the degradation and dark ugliness of this world. In fact, it’s the point. After I watched the film, I re-read the book, to familiarize myself again with the story, and to study the script, its similarities to the book, AND a compare/contrast with Tyrone Power’s version. The book is a tough read. It shows the inevitable grim march of a man towards his own destruction. He can’t see it. But deep down he already knows it, he knows his own end. More on that in a bit, and what I am about to say is leading up to it:

There are two lines in the film that (as far as I can tell) are not in the book. One is spouted by Cate Blanchett’s icy femme fatale in her final confrontation with Stan. In a mirror image with Stan’s breaking down of the sheriff, this line strips Stan of his defenses, showing him that his carefully erected artificial personality is transparent. She sees right through him. He has fooled no one. When she hisses this line at him, he is destroyed. It only takes 2 seconds. The contempt she breathes into the line – I gasped when I watched the film.

The fact that this line does not appear to be in the book says all I need to know about GDT’s and Kim’s gifts as screenwriters, and their understanding of the meaning of that confrontation AND their understanding of Stan’s psychology (the artifice and its underbelly). It’s the mean-est most upsetting line in the film, and it NEEDS to be there.

The second line not in the book is Stan’s final line, the line that closes out the film. I will not spoil it if you have not seen it, or do not know the story.

Yet again: the line is breathtaking, building on all that came before, and speaking out not just Stan’s experience in the moment but revealing the deep knowledge I mentioned before: his deep almost unconscious knowing of where he has been going all along. In this devastating moment … he steps into his destiny, he owns it. It is a terrible unforgiving spotlight.

Which leads me to my final observation.

Bradley Cooper’s performance of that final line is not only his best work – maybe ever – it is one of those moments where I thought, in awe, “Jesus, how does an actor even begin to perform a moment like that? What preparation is necessary for him to get INSIDE a moment like that?” It’s theatrical and stylized, but Cooper understands that style sets you free. (A lot of actors do not get that. They are inhibited by style. It freezes them up.)

I was blown away by what he does in that moment … AND now that I have re-read the book and know that the line comes from GDT and Kim – and is not in the book – I am even more impressed. This gets to theme:

In every scene leading up to the final moment, that line is present. The final line drives the whole thing, it is the engine on which Stan – even at his apex – is running. It’s like an illness, a darkness, a shadow self, lying in wait for him.

In the final moment, the shadow self engulfs him.

ON TO THE REST.

Agnes (2021; d. Mickey Reece)
Some interesting stuff here. I reviewed for Ebert.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (2021; d. Radu Jude)
In my Top 10. The film defies description. It is the most Right Now movie I can think of. It lampoons every single stupidity flooding our collective world right now, every idea, every half-baked cockamamie behavior, and it’s fast, furious, hilarious, sharp as a dagger. Its brilliance has to do with its unique format, as well as Jude’s ability to skip lightly from outrage to outrage, while also addressing Romania’s political history, making BIG connections between totalitarianism and the ridiculous ignorant shit we’re all drowning in now. It’s like a magic trick, I have no idea how he pulls it off. Bad Luck Banging was filmed at the height of the pandemic last year. Be warned there is hard-core un-simulated pornography in it. It is relevant to the plot. It’s what starts the whole debacle.

The Lady From Shanghai (1947; d. Orson Welles)
Classic. I’ve seen it so many times it’s weirdly comforting to sink into it again.

State of Siege (1972; d. Costa-Gavras)
Costa-Gavras makes paranoia seem like the only logical response to the world.

OKAY so out of a clear blue sky, I decided to watch Godard’s filmography in chronological order (as best I could – some is not available. But I covered most of the bases. I watched one a day. It was a fascinating experience. The progression from 1960 to 1968 is just extraordinary. You watch him throw off the bonds of narrative. He’s not interested in people, really. He’s all about ideas and ideology – and language.) This was very fun. Of course he is still making films – and for this phase of my little Godard viewing party I stayed within the 1960s, and I do plan to go further. I’ve seen most of these – in some cases multiple times – Band of Outsiders is an obvious missing piece. It’s one of my favorites of his, and I own it, but everything is still a shambles in my little abode, with stuff packed up – and I couldn’t find the DVD. It doesn’t appear to be streaming anywhere. Anyway. Onward.

Breathless (1960; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
What’s fascinating here is how easily she goes with him, how easily she cuts the ties with civilized life. Reminsicent of Sissy Spacek’s character in Badlands. It’s incorrect to look at this as an innocent young girl being hoodwinked by a charismatic criminal type. No. The girls’ willingness to throw in their lot with these guys is, in many ways, THE story. Nobody twisted their arms. They are INTO. IT.

A Woman is a Woman (1961; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
This is Godard’s version of a light-hearted romantic comedy. With musical numbers. Starring Anna Karina (his first and best muse).

Vivra sa vie (1962; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
Here is where we really can see what Anna Karina can do. A young woman is eventually – through a series of events – drawn into prostitution. This was a big subject for French New Wave guys, Godard in particular. But it shows up repeatedly. The dehumanization in capitalist society, sex as just another product, but also a fascination with women and how they make it (or don’t) in the world. It’s not woman as “other” so much as it is Woman as Central Interest in Godard’s world. He’s fascinated. And of course spurred on by his fascination with Anna Karina, his wife. Who ISN’T fascinated by her?

The Lost Daughter (2021; d. Maggie Gyllenhaal)
Incredible performance from Olivia Colman. I loved the MESS of this. I reviewed for Ebert.

Le Petit Soldat (1963; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
For the first time, explicit political critique comes into Godard’s work, or, more accurately, it moves center stage. It’s a film ABOUT the critique. The film is so pointed in its critique of the use of torture in the Algerian war that even though it was made in 1960 – in other words, right after Breathless – it was banned in France until 1963. The torture scenes are brutal. There are a couple scenes where it’s clear there’s no fakery going on. People really do seem to be being waterboarded, for example. Like, how did they do that? There’s also an absolutely extraordinary scene – so sad – where Anna Karina dances around a bar. It seems like it would be a happy scene, but it’s not.

Contempt (1963; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
A fave. After Le Petit Soldat, people must have been like “…Quoi?” in response to Contempt. It’s a melodrama, classic-Hollywood-style, about marriage and art, infidelity, fame, dissatisfaction. There’s a long scene between Michel Piccoli and Brigitte Bardot, who play a married couple, where they wander around their hip-mod apartment, taking baths, fighting, talking … and the later section, at the extraordinary house on the coast of Italy, may be what people remember – since the scenery is so stunning … but for me, that lengthy scene of conversation is the center of the film. Jack Palance as a movie producer, and Fritz Lang … as himself! Speaking of Fritz Lang …

All the Boys are Called Patrick (1959; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
I decided to go even deeper into my deep dive, and watch all of Godard’s early shorts. Or, as many as I could find. Most are on YouTube. All of these were new to me, and it was so much fun to see all of these. This is a rom-com with a twist: Two young women, roommates, have separate encounters on the streets of Paris with a guy named Patrick. Both go on identical dates with him. They discuss him, only they have no idea it’s the same guy. I love their bathroom decor.

Charlotte et son Jules (1958; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
Hello, Jean-Paul Belmondo, pre-Breathless! Anne Colette, as well. Belmondo plays Jules, who shows up in his girlfriend’s shabby hotel room, and proceeds to tell her everything that’s wrong with her. He’s a laugh riot. She barely seems to care. Good riddance, is her general attitude. Belmondo’s voice is actually dubbed in by Godard himself. This is based on a Jean Cocteau one-act, but the roles are reversed – again, showing Godard’s interest in women, in who they are, and … basically, how do they even deal with the self-absorbed men who want to get into bed with him? He includes himself in that critique.

Une histoire d’eau (1958; d. Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut)
An interesting short film, shot in two days, during an actual flood. Dedicated to Mack Sennett, famous director/producer of silent film at Keystone. A woman, in the midst of a flooded countryside, tries to get to Paris, hooking up with a man along the way. They wander through the flooded fields after they can go no further in their car. There’s a voiceover, no dialogue. Amazing footage, some of it from a helicopter. Film nerds collaborating! They were about to take over the whole damn world.

A Married Woman (1964; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
Here’s what I find so interesting and captivating in Godard’s work (and not just in his work, but we’re talking about Godard here). The mix of politics and romance/sex … the way sex is backgrounded by radical revolutionary politics – and vice versa. Almost like they go hand in hand. This is one of the things that Warren Beatty captured in Reds, although on a much grander scale, but overall he did make the point about the *sexiness* of being revolutionaries together: that it’s almost one and the same. I don’t mean to trivialize. Here, a woman is having an affair. The affair is shown in a surrealistic abstracted almost dehumanized way – shots of hands, and shoulders, and bellies – like portraiture, or sculpture. You can feel Ingmar Bergman’s influence here. All those close-ups. Meanwhile, though, there’s other stuff going on in regards to the Holocaust, and the trials going on in Berlin at the time. The horrors of the Holocaust – only 20 years prior – rising up out of the abyss, an unavoidable “background”, or … if not background, then overall atmosphere. The destruction of Europe. How do you even re-build after something like that?

Alphaville (1965; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
Godard’s foray into dystopia. Dystopia seems like a natural fit for someone of Godard’s paranoid-realistic-angry sensibility. The technocratic inhuman totalitarian bent of the world … snuffing out human warmth, and all possibility. Language is also featured prominently, similar to Orwell’s “newspeak”. Words have been eradicated. There are certain words you can use, other words you can’t, and those words have vanished from view. Dictionaries are placed in every room, so people can look to see if the words they say are “approved” or not. Starring Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina. Godard doesn’t do much to “world build”. It’s all filmed in Paris. Which is even more chilling. Paris looks the same but it’s not the same at all.

Pierrot le fou (1965; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
Another fave. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, criminals on the run, criminals in love, what could be better.

La Paresse (1961; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
Another short film on YouTube, this one also with Eddie Constantine, who plays a movie star, who is hit up by a hopeful actress, looking for a way in to the business. Nobody does driving-around-in-cars scenes like Godard. Okay, Kiarostami does. But Godard got there first.

The New World (Godard’s segment in Ro.Go.Pa.G.) (1962; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
The larger film is made up of four segments, each from a different director (Roberto Rossellini, Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Ugo Gregoretti – the title of the film is an acronym of their last names). Godard’s segment is haunting and eerie. It takes place in Paris (of course), and an atomic bomb has exploded in the air above the city. Nothing has changed on the ground, seemingly, but the lead character notices people behaving strangely, and his girlfriend seems to have lost coherence. Nothing’s the same.

Masculin Féminin (1966; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
God, I love this film. It’s interesting: Godard came out of the gate with Breathless, which has to be one of the most startling – and influential – directorial debuts of all time. He changed everything. His following films didn’t so much build upon Breathless as slowly break away from it. Godard was (is) a highly self-conscious director. He is aware of what he is doing, he is aware of his references, he was Meta from the jump. He wore his references on his sleeve: John Ford, Howard Hawks, film noir. This remained the case, although his interest in linear narrative – not strong even in Breathless – began to break apart. His obsessions remained the same, though. Masculin Féminin is not a “return to form”, not really, since form was always in a state of flux. Only 6 years after Breathless! Masculin Féminin is about a young man – so serious he can barely smile, so serious he never lightens up – played by Jean-Pierre Léaud, who’s obsessed with a young black-haired woman (Chantal Goya: I LOVE HER), who’s a hopeful pop singer, releasing her first single. Breathless takes place in an iconic and almost mythic space, disconnected from the real world, where movies are the most important influence. Masculin Feminin is pure cinema-verite, where all these young people living their lives – are also interviewed, documentary-style, about their thoughts on things, art, politics, sex, prostitution, love. It’s filled with references to current-day events, current-day artists. You really feel like you are fully immersed in that time and that place. It’s an amazing film. Godard was using his interstitials almost from the start, those giant letters and slogans interrupting the action. The most famous one of all comes from Masculin Féminin: in the middle of a scene, suddenly an interstitial, giant letters: THE CHILDREN OF MARX AND COCA-COLA.

Caméra-oeil (1967; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
Godard’s segment from the larger film Far from Vietnam. His segment is on YouTube. Vietnam was the first televised war. Those images burned into the brains of the entire world, impacting everything. Godard was, of course, interested in images – and how they don’t so much reflect reality, as CREATE reality, or – at least – create the dreamspace where human beings operate. The lines blur. There are no lines. His approach here includes himself, repeat shots of a giant camera, himself behind it … suggesting the strange distancing effect of film, particularly when it comes to war. It turns reality into un-reality. I’m just riffing here. I have done no research. Godard fans get kind of particular about how you talk about him. And that’s fine. But Godard’s for everyone! I’m doing my best.

Niagara (1953; d. Henry Hathaway)
A break in the Godard catalog, for this fave. Marilyn Monroe at her most impossibly glamorous – she literally does not seem real – but, as always, still photographs – or even gifs – don’t give a proper impression of her, and what she did as an actress. She’s very good here. Adorable, sexy, troubled, and totally high-maintenance for the poor couple who’s just trying to enjoy their honeymoon.

2 or 3 Three Things I Know About Her (1967; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
Back to the project at hand. The fracturing of narrative doesn’t reach its apotheosis here – Godard had even further to go – but this is a prime example of how Godard found appropriate forms to react to the fracturing world around him. It’s an amazing film. Godard was seen as a prophet in the 60s – not THE prophet – but one of them. People went to him to ask the questions he was asking: How do we think about ourselves? How do we interpret the world? A woman (Marina Vlady) goes about her daily life, taking care of her kid, going shopping, and – intermittently – working as a prostitute. She’s deadpan about it all, distressingly deadpan. The suburbs of Paris are under construction, the world turned into a maze of gigantic pits and moving cranes and buildings going up – or being torn down – this is the landscape through which she walks. Godard keeps going back to the construction sites. Throughout, Godard himself does a voiceover, a fretting anxious ongoing monologue, about all of the things that concern him: dehumanization, the Vietnam war, consumerism (interstitials here show commercials, advertisements, closeups from catalogs, billboards, sell sell sell). He whispers it all. 2 or 3 Three Things I Know About Her is not commercial, or ingratiating. It seems to emerge fully intact – whole – direct from Godard’s mind. It’s a major major film.

Opération ‘Béton’ (1955; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
Moving back to his first (I think?) short film, a documentary showing an isolated site in the mountains where concrete is made.

Une femme coquette (1955; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
Directly after Operation Concrete comes this, his first narrative film. It’s 1955 and the footage is super rough (the film is on YouTube). But you can already see Godard’s interests and his obsessions, which would then carry him through the great films he made in the ’60s. Based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant, Une femme coquette is about a young woman who observes a prostitute on her block, signaling to men from out of her apartment window. It’s intriguing. (The interest in prostitution is here from the jump.) The young woman decides to imitate the prostitute, and see what comes of it. The film is about a young man who responds. Lots of Paris street scenes.

La Chinoise (1967; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
The full title is La Chinoise, ou plutôt à la Chinoise: un film en train de se faire, or: The Chinese, or, rather, in the Chinese manner: a film in the making. There’s so much to unpack in that title. I love the “or, rather” … this indicative of the film’s (and Godard’s) obsession with language, and clarity of language – the desire for a pure language, a language devoid of euphemism (and/or creativity, warmth, humanity). Shit’s getting real serious. No more cavorting around the streets of Paris, smoking cigarettes and having fun, all while discussing politics, like in Masculin Feminin. It’s one year later. Shit’s way too serious now for any of that KID STUFF. Here, six kids – college students – middle-class, all – hole up in an apartment (belonging to the parents of one of the kids. The parents are out of town for the summer), and form a Maoist cell. They put themselves through rigorous training, for the upcoming war, which they believe will topple society allowing it to be re-formed, along the lines of the Cultural Revolution in China. Which killed untold millions, but you get the sense that that doesn’t matter to the six kids holed up in that weird white-walled apartment. The atmosphere in that apartment is forbidding. They give lectures on different topics, they cover the walls with slogans, they fill the bookshelves with copies of Mao’s little red book. Two of them are in a relationship, but … you get the sense there’s no room for the personal anymore. The weird thing is, these kids are not connected to a larger movement, they don’t go to meetings, they don’t go out and protest things, they are completely isolated, living in an increasingly paranoid state, training themselves in guerrilla warfare. I love this film. Love it love it love it. It was hard to see for a long time. It didn’t come out on DVD until the mid-late 2000s. It came out in 1967, one year before the student protests broke out all over France, student protests which shut down Paris, and generated international headlines. Godard saw which way the wind was blowing. There’s a sense of lampooning in much of La Chinoise … these kids are ridiculous, college kids playing at being revolutionaries during their summer vacation … but he also takes them seriously.

Weekend (1967; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
There’s a very famous shot in Weekend of a traffic jam on a narrow country road. The camera moves along the road, and at first things seem pretty realistic – people beeping, peering out of their windows to see what the holdup is, etc. But then … things take a turn. As the camera keeps moving, the sights seen become more and more violent, more and more out of control. There are things up ahead on the road more terrible than you could possibly have dreamt, stuck in the jam a mile back. The amount of coordination it had to take to pull off this shot is dazzling. Overall, the film is about a couple of city-folk – both of whom are cheating on each other – going away for the weekend into the country, where they find that civilization has totally broken down. Nobody blinks an eye. This was the final so-called “narrative” film Godard did for a long while. I think it’s a masterpiece. But so is La Chinoisie, 2 or 3 Things, Masculin Feminin, Pierrot le Fou … it was mind-blowing to watch all these films back to back. The scope of the accomplishment is hard to grasp.

Cyrano (2022; d. Joe Wright)
A new musical adaptation of the play, with Peter Dinklage as Cyrano. I’ll be reviewing this one (it comes out on the 21st), so I’ll refrain from discussing.

Sympathy for the Devil (1968; d. Jean-Luc Godard)
This very strange film shows 1. the Rolling Stones, in a London studio, putting together the song “Sympathy for the Devil”, a group event. 2. Black Panthers hanging out in a junk yard, taking hostages, stockpiling guns, and proclaiming revolutionary slogans. 3. A bookstore where two bloody hostages sit over to the side, a guy in a purple velour jacket stalks around reading from Mein Kampf, and in order to buy a book you have to slap one of the hostages and then give the Nazi salute. Everyone complies. Even a small child. And then you go back to the Rolling Stones in the studio. The film is a hodge-podge of ideas and ideology (Godard was in London prepping for another film, which he decided not to do, and the Rolling Stones happened to be recording, so he requested permission to film the process. Those who are only in it for the Stones are in for a tough road.) It’s interesting though to think about the lyrics of “Sympathy for the Devil” in terms of the time from which it emerged. Dark scary times.

His Kind of Woman (1951; d. John Farrow)
Even though I’ve watched His Kind of Woman so many times, sometimes I forget just how strange this film is. I want to stay in those low-ceilinged bungalows with creepy over-designed curtains, open to the sea breezes. I want to stroll around in that open-air resort, meeting all those weird eccentric people. And occasionally go down to the beach on a windy stormy night to make out with a hot stranger I met half an hour before. The whole SCENE is so attractive.

But … the strangeness!!

It’s almost 2 hours long, and the final hour is an extended shoot-out happening on multiple fronts – on land and on sea – and these are not bang-bang let’s move on shoot-outs. These are detailed intricate operations. It goes on FOREVER.

Meanwhile, the first half is a languid semi-tense story where an outsider, a “mark” (Robert Mitchum) finds himself in this weird resort in Mexico, forced to go down there, really, and on the way there he meets a lounge singer (Jane Russell), who paints herself as the daughter of a rich man, who spends most of her time “on the continent.” “Europe,” she adds, helpfully. The two of them have SIZZLING chemistry. Once at the resort, they meet all the weirdos assembled there, people who seem unable to go home:Jim Backus, a gregarious businessman running a cut-throat poker game, a couple on their honeymoon, roped into the poker game, the husband’s losses too great for them to get a ticket out of there, the bride leered at by Backus as he takes the groom for all he’s worth (hoping the bride will “pay him back”, you understand.) There’s a white-haired man in sunglasses playing chess by himself – an eccentric? Yeah, no, he is actually a shady and possibly Nazi plastic surgeon, who uses his skills with the surgical knife for evil purposes – and then there’s Vincent Price, who plays a star of B-movies, in the process of chasing Jane Russell while simultaneously trying to get a divorce from his nagging wife, while also being dogged by his infuriated agent who wants him to come back to Los Angeles and live a moral life. What Vincent Price really wants, though, is real-life glory as opposed to on-screen sword fights. He eventually leads the charge into the second half, wearing a cape, wielding no less than 5 shotguns at a time, to go and save Robert Mitchum, thrilled that he can finally display real bravery.

There’s one shot where he hustles a whole crowd of reluctant Mexican policemen into a small motorboat, while he stands in the bow. He whips his cape around, and points out his gun – like he’s Washington crossing the Delaware – and the boat pulls away from the dock, and promptly sinks like a stone, everyone on board disappearing under the water (it’s an amazing stunt).

But … what IS all this??

Meanwhile, Robert Mitchum is kidnapped and brought on board the shady ship lingering in the bay – where he is
1. beat up
2. stripped to the waist (rowr)
3. whipped by a belt – lashes showing up on his back
4. locked into the steam room where he staggers around in half-naked agony
5. threatened by the Nazi plastic surgeon with some kind of serum that will wipe his memory clean

all as Vincent Price and the Mexican police force sink to the bottom of the ocean.

Robert Mitchum spends an hour of this movie half naked, writhing, wet, sweaty, in pain. Talk about fan service.

This movie is wacko! I love it so much! With a final shot of a sizzling iron, burning up a shirt, as Jane Russell and Robert Mitchum fall into an embrace.

I love the resort section and always forget the shootout that takes up the final hour. It involves sailors, gangsters, Mexican policemen, a B-movie-star, a Nazi plastic surgeon, and various frenzied resort dwellers, who crowd down onto the beach to see what is going on.

I love a movie that has no point. There’s a plot, but what’s important is the dynamic of the actors. That’s it.

Noelle (2019; d. Marc Lawrence)
The kids wanted to show me this one. It’s so cute! I loved it! Anna Kendrick plays Noelle, a descendant of Santa Claus. Her cousin, played by Bill Hader, is next in line to take on the role of Santa, but his heart isn’t in it. He flees to Phoenix, where he opens a yoga studio and wears tie-dye shirts and talks about the “sacred feminine”. lol Noelle goes off on a mission – with an elf in tow (Shirley MacLaine) – to bring him back to the fold. I really loved it.

Far from the Tree (2021; d. Natalie Nourigat)
The kids wanted to show me this one too. I was not expecting to be so moved I almost had to leave the room. I was in tears. What a great message, too! You can learn from the mistakes your parents made, and make better choices with your own kids. Bah, it was so good!! Playing on the Disney channel.

Destino (2003; d. Dominique Monfery) – a collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali
Right after seeing “Far from the Tree”, this one popped up on the main page of the Disney channel, so William – in charge of the remote – clicked on it. I had never seen it before. A collaboration between Walt Disney and Salvador Dali – which had been left unfinished, and was finally finished in 2003. And now we have it. As we started to watch it, me and the three kids, I felt slightly apprehensive. I mean … Salvador Dali. What if it was disturbing? But the kids were RIVETED. They all fell silent, watching. When the short film stopped, we had a brief discussion about it. This was on Christmas Eve. Pearl was sitting next to me on the couch, and she said, slightly sleepy, “Can we watch it again?” I said, “Did you like it, Pearl?” “Yes.” I was very moved. So we watched it again. Pearl watched in silence. I didn’t know what she was thinking. I didn’t ask.

Encanto (2021; d. Byron Howard, Jared Bush)
We moved on from Destino to Encanto. I hadn’t seen it. The kids were very excited for me to see it. I loved it! Pearl busted me crying at the end. She said, comfortingly, “I cried the first time I saw it too.” Thanks, Pearl.

Macao (1952; d. Josef von Sternberg)
The majority of the film was directed by Josef von Sternberg – Nicholas Ray came in at the end to do re-takes of one big fist fight, which wasn’t really von Sternberg’s wheelhouse. Josef von Sternberg got full credit (although IMDB lists both directors), but he did credit Nicholas Ray with his participation (which was big of him). Capitalizing on the sizzling-iron-hot chemistry of the two stars – Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell – Macao takes place in the no-man’s-land-wild-west of Macao, where anything goes. Gloria Grahame shows up as does William Bendix. Russell is so great as the tough-as-nails – and not just tough, but HARD – singer, who – in her first scene – is nearly raped (by someone who obviously was already a “customer”, if you get my drift), before being “saved” by Robert Mitchum. She is not grateful. She’s too tough for that. Mitchum is a man with a shady past (of course), trailed by the United States government, the police, as well as a couple of Chinese assassins who will not be stopped. The film features one of the hottest non-euphemistic lines ever.

My God.

Ciao! Manhattan (1972; d. John Palmer, David Weisman)
Haunting. I don’t know why I put myself through this. The film is BURNED into my brain. I first saw it in high school on a battered VHS tape. When video stores existed and you could actually find a film like Ciao! Manhattan on the shelves, even in my small beach town. I sought it out due to my OBSESSION with Edie Sedgwick, because I read that Jean Stein oral biography. That book was how I “met” so many people: Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, George Plimpton, and all the Factory people. I was 16, 17. The book changed my whole world. I was Edie Sedgwick for Halloween one year. Of course. So naturally I had to get my hands on Ciao! Manhattan, created for Edie, based on Edie’s life – heiress turned It girl turned Warhol’s silver-haired muse. She died 3 months after the shoot was over. And, conscidering the footage, her death is not a shock. Her deterioration from her gleaming New York gamine days is so dramatic that 1. you can’t believe it was only 5 or 6 years before – WOW – and 2. the film is a PSA for “Don’t Do Drugs”. It’s horrifying. Upsetting. Is she being exploited? Does she even know what’s happening? Either way, she is a riveting subject. Warhol wasn’t dumb. You cannot take your eyes off of her.

The Novice (2021; d. Lauren Hadaway)
See this film. Now. I was REALLY rattled by it. Written and directed by Lauren Hadaway, based (loosely, of course) on her time rowing crew in college. Isabelle Fuhrman gives one of the best performances of the year as a young woman who joins crew in college, and becomes obsessed to an unhealthy degree. I’ve seen this compared to Whiplash. No. That’s lazy. Or, the similarities are surface-level. I can’t say enough good things about this film. This is Hadaway’s feature debut. Extraordinary. It’s extremely accomplished in terms of establishing a mood, and exploring the mood, making the mood omnipresent, so much so that you feel trapped in the mind of the lead character. You so want to step in and intervene. Unbelievable film.

Bright Star (2009; d. Jane Campion)
This was streaming on the Criterion Channel. I saw it in the theatre when it first came out. It wrecked me. John Keats and Fanny Brawne are such a famous couple – his letters to her are legendary (rightfully so), and Campion’s exploration of this is exquisite and PAINFUL. If you’ve loved and lost, well … you know. It’s a club you do not want to join. The way Abbie Cornish doubles over in physical pain when she gets the news that Keats died – it’s a physical assault, not emotional. Her wails are heart-wrenching, horrifying, scary. But that’s what it’s like. Ben Whishaw is phenomenal. I love this film so much.

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4 Responses to December 2021 Viewing Diary

  1. mutecypher says:

    Isn’t Destino wonderful? I love that Uncle Walt signed as Walter E. Disney in the intro, rather than his usual Walt Disney. I’m not sure “formal” is the right way to deal with Salvador, but “A game” definitely is. I loved the bell to dandelion to ants to bicyclists with loaves of bread on their heads transition. And in the midst of all the surrealism, adding baseball seems even surreal-er. I was assuming Disney tossed that in, but I found this quote from Dali “About the game, I know nothing, but as an artist, I am obsessed.”

    I feel something different each time I watch this. It’s just magic.

    After rewatching this, Dali’s appearance on What’s My Line came up on YouTube. The man contained multitudes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7SSkVpM4lE

    He didn’t say “I don’t do drugs, I am drugs” on this, but it would have been within character.

    • sheila says:

      // I loved the bell to dandelion to ants to bicyclists with loaves of bread on their heads transition. //

      This was one of Pearl’s favorite parts. And baseball!! William, my baseball fanatic nephew, loved this part.

      // “About the game, I know nothing, but as an artist, I am obsessed.” // lol a worthy obsession.

      It is total magic. I was so touched when Pearl wanted to watch it again, right after it ended. Something in it spoke to her, or soothed her.

      I dont know how I missed it before, but I am very glad Ive seen it now!!

  2. JessicaR says:

    Still thinking about the end of Nightmare Alley and how I literally couldn’t look at Cooper laughing. I had to close my eyes like it was one of the head biting scenes, it was unbearable seeing that level of desolation in his eyes. Incredible work, just the volcanic ruin pouring out of his face as he sees what the rest of his life is going to look like.

    • sheila says:

      Jessica – hey! so happy to hear your comments on this film!

      // volcanic ruin // This is such a perfect way to describe that moment. Like you, when he started to laugh, I winced, I could barely watch. At the same time, I’m thinking, “Jesus GOD, how is he even DOING this?” (He meaning BC.)

      It was an unbelievable moment and – best of all – it was earned. Even if you knew where the film was going, the moment still comes as a terrible surprise – but it also makes total sense. You can see … this is his real destiny.

      There was some headline after the GG noms came out – and it said Kristen Stewart was “snubbed” and BC got a “surprise nod.” Sigh.

      Why a “surprise”? It’s a fantastic performance.

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