Transformers Cause Head to Hurt

Transformers (U.S., 2007) * 1/2
D: Michael Bay

What caused me to rent Michael Bay's Transformers? Was it nostalgia for my childhood toys and cartoons? Was it the exposure to too many Oscar films at once during this Oscar season, that I needed a lowbrow, big budget chaser to clear the palate? Was it just the sheer number of boxes on the shelf at the video store, that seemed to insist that my only real choices were either this or 30 Days of Night? Was it a morbid curiosity to see if Michael Bay is really as bad as all his detractors claim, since I've seen none of his films? The film does not start promisingly. The opening image is of a cube standing still in some distant galaxy, a narrator explaining that this object, called, imaginatively, "The Cube," is at the center of an alien war. At this point I am given to wonder if Uwe Boll has been handed a budget, and these are the results. What follows is one scene after another, each compressed so tightly that it might almost form a diamond, or a mushroom cloud, although the actual result is just a lot of frenetic camera-whippings and Shia LaBeouf, not entirely unappealing, reduced to sweating a lot and desperately delivering his lines before Bay cuts to the next scene. Sometimes he manages to get all the words out. Sometimes Bay is forced to interrupt him to cut to an unrelated comedy bit by Bernie Mac or John Turturro, or to leer at the hopelessly tanned Megan Fox, or to show a helicopter or tank or truck turning into a giant robot and smashing the bejeezus out of things. It is not enough that the robots stand around and look mighty. They must also behave like wacky Jim Henson Muppets, as a stealthy Decepticon spy does, or like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as most of the "heroic" Autobots do. I place "heroic" in quotation marks because I'll be damned if I can isolate a single scene in which one of the Autobots does anything remotely admirable. True, "Bumblebee" does try to help LaBeouf score with Fox, but my memory of this scene is almost entirely erased by the moment in which the adorable Transformer pisses on Turturro's head. While the score by Steve Jablonsky ("Desperate Housewives") shamelessly steals from The Terminator, we watch the Autobots slowly form an allegiance with the two teens in an effort to battle the Decepticons for control of the Cube. Can you think of a nobler cause? Meanwhile, in War Games (1983) as well as this film, another group of attractive young hackers match wits with the military-industrial complex, leading eventually for all these story threads to sort of collapse into the shape a cat makes with a ball of yarn after an hour of effort. Like climbing a mountain, this film exists because it's there.

But I'm worried. What if Bay has made his film so impatient, so childish, so tightly-edited, so Ritalin-deprived, that it will, if watched too often, actually open up a black hole in the fabric of the universe, sucking into it all that we hold dear (reality)? What if it is creating some kind of cosmic imbalance that must be dealt with as though it were equivalent to the global warming crisis, only more urgent? I see only one solution. Michael Bay is 43. We must find a 43-year old director the equal of a Michelangelo Antonioni. This director, who may or may not exist, must immediately set to work on a feature film adaptation of Gobots. However, unlike Transformers, this Gobots film will be set to the pace of a L'Avventura, a L'Eclisse, or a Blow-Up. The takes will be extended, and the camera will glide slowly. For God's sake, we must not be in a hurry. The plot will revolve around the mysterious disappearance of Cy-Kill, the villainous motorcycle. Fitor, the jet-robot, tries to discover if he was murdered, kidnapped, or simply wandered off in a fit of existential ennui. Although it is equally important that the viewer must work to discover that this is even the plot, and no resolution must ever be found. Despite the fact that almost all the characters will have wheels on their backs or windshields on their chests, none of them ever transforms into anything, reflecting the state of psychological and emotional stagnancy in which they are trapped. If we can get this film in production quickly, equal the budget of Bay's film and get it into the theaters before the end of this summer, we might be able to prevent cosmic collapse. Get to work.

2007 Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films

This year the Oscar category for Best Animated Feature Film is unusually strong, with two extraordinary animated films, one CG and aimed at families (Pixar/Disney's Ratatouille), the other 2-D, and a personal film intended for adults (Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis). I'd be pleased to see either win. But let's not forget the animated short films, and it's worth noting that if you live near a major city, there's a good chance that you can catch Shorts International's program of the 2007 Academy Award Nominated Short Films. In Madison, both of the Shorts International programs (for live action and animation) are playing at the Sundance 608 Theater through tomorrow night. Unfortunately, the animated films I watched this evening were screened via DVD instead of film (and it was a bit contrasty and blurry), but you take what you can get. The selection of nominees this year is definitely a step up from last year's, since the 2006 crop featured only one excellent film ("The Danish Poet," which thankfully won), and this year's features two. "Only two?" Well, I'm also consoled by the fact that only one of the five shorts is generic 3-D CG, the others using digital animation only to augment more traditional techniques. Canada's "Madame Tutli-Putli," by Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, is a semi-parodic tale of pulpy horror, as the title character--a puppet with what appears to be live-action eyes, overlarge and filled with terror--boards a train and witnesses bizarre, otherworldy events. The technique is interesting, but apart from a few, scattered clever ideas, the piece is aimless and disappointing. "I Met the Walrus" (Canada) is better, if slight; it's a 1970's audio interview conducted with John Lennon by a 14-year-old boy, with Lennon's twisting language (about peaceful protests and the Beatles) artfully illustrated in black-and-white collage. The clunker of the program is "Even Pigeons Go to Heaven" (France), with dreadful CG animation and a story (a huckster pitches a machine that can transport you to Heaven) that is under-developed, with a cheap, unfunny punchline. Nevertheless, your attendance will be rewarded by the two longest films in the program, which are mini-masterpieces. Russia's "My Love," directed by Alexander Petrov, utilizes gorgeous animation which looks like living, swirling oil paintings. A rarity for animation, the story lives up to the technique, telling an unexpectedly mature tale of a 15-year-old Russian poet wrestling with his first loves--for an earthy, impetuous servant girl, and a mysterious, bespectacled older woman--and struggling to maintain a "pure" love despite all that might compromise it. It's the first animated film I've ever seen that aspires to something akin to A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and it mines emotionally and intellectually rich material. It's deserving of the Academy's recognition, yet I would be also pleased to see Suzie Templeton's "Peter & the Wolf" win. This UK/Polish production uses charmingly simple stop-motion animation, but with a wit and humanity that elevates the approach, even while poking fun at the familiarity of the Prokofiev source material. I guarantee that when the familiar theme music finally, belatedly kicks in, the film will hold you captive. Too often animated films look like resume-builders; talented or proficient artists with nothing to say and workmanlike results. "My Love" and "Peter & the Wolf," like "The Danish Poet," are the work of artists expressing themselves by any means necessary. They're beautiful works of animation, but they're also vital pieces of art.

Two by Haneke

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (Austria/Germany, 1994) * * *
Benny's Video (Austria/Switzerland, 1992) * * *
D: Michael Haneke

The Madison Cinematheque on Saturday night continued its Michael Haneke series, A Cinema of Provokation, with two films from the director's "Glaciation Trilogy," oddly enough shown backwards. (The first film from the trilogy, The Seventh Continent, will be screened on March 8.) All three films are connected thematically, and it would be premature for me to comment on exactly what those themes are since I've yet to see The Seventh Continent - but judging from the second and third films, most evident is Haneke's preoccupation with how families negotiate and respond to violence in contemporary culture, and how television and video package it. Even more than David Cronenberg, Haneke's "thrillers" function primarily on an intellectual level; he is not interested in manipulating the audience per se, but in making the audience aware of the manipulations of cinema (and, by extension, the media). His films are self-reflexive, at times postmodern (as with Funny Games), but they nevertheless seek to restore the impact and trauma of violence, with visceral results. Perhaps the loudest and strongest reactions I've ever witnessed from a theater audience were during two Haneke films, Cache and Funny Games. For the former, it was in horror at a sudden act of violence - the audience had been lulled into a passive state by the carefully-paced film before it was jolted by Haneke's hand, and one woman screamed. In the latter, the reaction was a cheer for a long-awaited vengeance against the film's villains - a gesture swiftly revoked and negated by Haneke (which brought about another loud cry from a few viewers). Haneke's manipulation is more subtle than one at first realizes; although he makes you aware of the manipulation, it nonetheless is functional. His films are absorbing. Yet in many cases they are as absorbing as studying a surveillance monitor. There is an untraceable moment when boredom switches over to hypnosis, before he slaps you into a sharp sense of awareness.

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance is the final film in the Glaciation Trilogy, and it begins with an announcement of its ending: that on Christmas Eve, 1993, a 19-year-old student will go on a shooting spree in a bank before putting a bullet in his head. Haneke then cuts to the evening news, which we watch for several minutes, and which will recur throughout the film: massacres in Kosovo, organized protests against United States policies, the immigration problem in Austria, the child abuse case against Michael Jackson. The 71 scenes cut between the news footage vary dramatically in length, and follow seemingly disconnected characters: a homeless child eating from the trash and stealing from train station vendors, an unhappily married couple, a couple looking to adopt a child, a grandfather scorned and isolated by his family, and a pair of students working on a puzzle for a computer programming class and handling a stolen weapon. The moments seem to be selected at random, but we become slowly aware of the rhyme and reason: all of these characters are ultimately headed toward the fateful encounter in the bank - though Haneke refrains from commenting. We focus our attention where we like, although some characters prove more compelling than others. Most naturally one will be looking for "warning signs" in the student who will become the killer, although we're given scant clues; he holds up a cheery veneer to friends and family, although we know he's stressed by his training to be a table tennis champion (there is an exhaustive four-minute, uninterrupted sequence of the young man robotically smacking at the ping pong balls launched by a ball machine, and later his coach forces him to watch repeated video playback of his loss in a game). When the act of violence finally comes, at the very end of the film, we are unsurprised but nevertheless feel unprepared. The shooting now seems senseless because we see that it didn't have to happen; there is no real motive. We may be conscious, in the 90 minutes leading to it, that Haneke wants us to see that it's pure chance that these characters would be victims - that they would arrive at the bank at just the wrong moment. But once we have seen it unfold, we realize it was chance that the shooting happened at all. Nevertheless, those 71 scenes depict a contemporary culture that effects an intense psychological strain against its populace. One gets the feeling that random acts of violence are inevitable when society creates barriers to leave every person in a state of emotional isolation. The film's trump card is its final scene, when we see the bank shooting as processed (like a McDonald's hamburger) into a brief thirty-second snippet on the evening news.

Haneke's earlier film, Benny's Video, has a more linear narrative, as well as a structure like a Hitchcock film, although it is more disorienting and disturbing than 71 Fragments. The title character is a spoiled middle-class adolescent who spends night and day watching rented videos and maintaining a surveillance of the outside street through a video monitor. (The central ironic metaphor of the film is that Benny watches a video of the outside rather than simply looking out the window; it is somehow more important that reality get processed into pixels.) He is obsessed with video he took on his parents' farm of a pig getting executed. It's this footage, played once at regular speed, then rewound and played in slow motion, which opens the film, initiating a series of re-viewings which are threaded through the film. When Benny's parents leave him alone for the weekend, he invites a teenage girl over to his place to watch movies. With a strange fascination he shows her the pig video, and then the gun used to shoot the pig, which he keeps in a drawer. He dares her to pull the trigger. She won't, so he does, shooting her multiple times in an extended, agonizing sequence whose brutality is expressed from the point of view of the video monitor, where we can only get brief flashes of movement while the sounds of the girl's screams and pleas burn into our ears. It's a violent scene, but the paradox is that although Haneke places it within a doubled frame - within the video monitor, within the film we are watching - it is somehow even more disturbing than if he had just shown everything to us directly. True, the best suspense directors know that sometimes it's more effecting to not show, but to imply. But Haneke is not after suspense. He is after "nausea," to use one of the key words spoken in the film. And somehow to watch this scene as filtered by the imperfect eye of the video monitor is to render the action more real. It becomes a documentary.

Haneke is not interested in "torture porn," a trend that wouldn't emerge for another decade, and what's most surprising about Benny's Video is that there's so much left once the murder has been committed. Benny cleans up after the body (but not until he's videotaped the corpse, to complete his snuff film), then attempts to resume his normal life. He almost tells a friend, when he sleeps over at his house that night, but resists; he goes to his sister, and we're not certain if he would have told her if she'd been in that day. He defiantly shaves off all his hair. He gets into an altercation with his friend at school. If his rebellion seems like a cry for help, it's blunted when he actually sits his mother down and shows her the video of the murder. Her reaction--and his father's, when he enters the room--is the film's centerpiece. She is watching with horror and fascination. Her expression suggests that she is watching it as one might watch a thriller--as a passive viewer held in suspense; she is struggling to grasp that what is on-screen has actually come to pass. She doesn't switch off the video and call the police. She and her husband watch it to the end. And in the interest of double-framing everything, Haneke has us watch the footage for the second time, but the conditions upon which this video is being viewed seem to transform what we are seeing and how we react to it. We are watching the film through the parents' eyes, and we are also watching the film through Benny's eyes, watching his parents watching the video. This might all seem hopelessly intellectualized if it weren't for the visceral reaction the scene provokes. It's as though Haneke isn't just interested in indicting the viewer's voyeurism; he wants to study the texture of it.

There's more to Benny's Video, which I won't spoil, except to say that it may sacrifice believability for the sake of making a point about the fractured values of the contemporary family. Ultimately, what the film might present most successfully is a portrait of an emotionally disconnected youth (the parents are less convincing). It certainly has a lot more plot than 71 Fragments, although both films are more interested in theoretical explorations than storytelling. As cinematic sticks of dynamite, they're noteworthy: angry, shocking polemics which avoid the sensationalism of directors like Todd Solondz and Lars von Trier, substituting instead pungent doses of reality. Or Reality TV.

In Bruges

In Bruges (U.K., 2008) * * * *
D: Martin McDonagh

There are a number of points upon which In Bruges places great emphasis. A bottle is a deadly weapon. Bare hands can be deadly weapons, too. Many famous dwarfs have committed suicide. You cannot be held responsible for what you say or do under the influence of cocaine, but neither can those actions be easily forgotten. But most of all, it is stressed that Bruges is in Belgium. If you didn't know that, you could take (small) comfort that neither did Ray (Colin Farrell), a novice, Irish hitman who's been sent there with his partner Ken (Brendan Gleeson) for reasons unknown to either one of them. They suspect they're on a job, but they won't know until their short-tempered boss, Harry (Ralph Fiennes), calls them at their hotel. In the meantime, Ken is intent on showing Ray the local medieval architecture, although Ray thinks Bruges is "a shithole." While they wait for that fateful call, and sightsee, we see Bruges from Ray's point of view: as a dull tourist-magnet whose most promising attributes are (a) a film production in progress "with midgets," and (b) the drug-dealer servicing the Belgium film crew, attractive and, inexplicably, romantically interested in him. While Ray becomes entangled with the locals, Ken is alone when he receives the call from Harry--which will change everything.

As In Bruges is a black comedy about hitmen, you might suspect you've walked down this path already. Grosse Point Blank (1997), for example, or Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). What's refreshing and remarkable about In Bruges is that, despite its basic plot structure, the individual scenes are unpredictable, playing to the rhythms of the characters--characters you have not seen in films before. In Bruges is a black comedy aimed at intelligent adults; it expects you to keep pace with its imagination, while understanding when it's appropriate to laugh and when it is not--and why some key scenes play to both ends. It's written and directed by playwright Martin McDonagh, and the script sharply uses the characters to drive the action. So diverting are its characters that although you know guns will eventually be brandished, and bullets will fly, you'd rather they didn't; you like these people too much to see them go down in a bloody battle. Thus, murder carries a weight rare in black comedies of this vein, although violence of other sort is dished out with abandon. After all, if someone comes at you with a bottle, however you react is just self-defense.

The cast is perfect, Farrell in particular a revelation as Ray, whose childlike qualities are pivotal to the film's major theme (never kill a child). Ray has all the depth of a thinly-sliced piece of sandwich cheese; when he struggles to come up with a clever scheme to convince Ken to let him leave the hotel room, you can see the thoughts working across his face as though pulled by slave labor. The real wonder is why Farrell, with talent like this, keeps getting typecast in films like Alexander (2004) and Miami Vice (2006). He seems more at ease playing the fool, and here he's a fool so instantly iconic that you could slap him on a Tarot card. Gleeson has been granted a more versatile career as a character actor, best known lately as "Mad-Eye" Moody in the Harry Potter films (there's a nod to the Potter films here that may make you weep with laughter). Like Farrell, he's exceptionally funny, and has a pair of scenes with Fiennes late in the film which are so good that you can rest assured he will not be recognized come Oscar time 2009. Fiennes essays a low-class crook chafing at the high class his money has bought him; he's quick to offense, with an impeccable since of honor and pride. It's the sort of role Bob Hoskins used to play, but since it's Fiennes--a man who could have had a career like Farrell's, but has instead played fat Nazis, disfigured sorcerors, and shy gardeners--the result feels like something completely new. It may be that Harry feels like a unique human being, even though his character--in this kind of film, in this genre--doesn't have to be. That's what's brilliant about In Bruges. It didn't have to be, but it's a deeply soulful and human satire. Plus it has the range to make dwarf jokes and Bosch references, sometimes in the same breath.

The Best Films of 2007 (Hers)

Because she is married to a film buff, my wife is a film buff by proxy. This is her list of the best films of 2007 (mine, previously posted, is here).

1. Paprika (Satoshi Kon)
This is a film made for me. A female scientist creates an alternate personality to interact with patients in their dreams. The imagination in the dream worlds results in really beautiful scenes, and the philosophy that allows dreams, the internet, and movies to intertwine is fascinating.

2. Once (John Carney)
A musical for the indie crowd. A street musician meets up with a struggling mother with a good voice. I loved the music and the bittersweet tone of the film.

3. The Brand Upon the Brain! (Guy Maddin)
The second film in Guy Maddin’s "Me" trilogy. We saw this in Chicago performed live by Crispin Glover, a castrato, and orchestra, and several foley artists. We saw it again in the recorded version with Isabella Rosellini, but unfortunately it wasn’t quite as good that way. I love the silent-film-era effects and the confused sexual expression.

4. No Country for Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen)
I agree with the critics on this film, as it is very good. A film about a man who finds some money and becomes hunted, but it's really about how the characters in the film deal with life, death, their ideals, and their responsibilities.

5. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Sidney Lumet)
This is one of those films about a perfect crime gone horribly wrong. It’s also about dealing with life and death, but from the coward’s perspective.

6. The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson)
A Wes Anderson movie. Three brothers go on a pilgrimage to India to speak to their mother. The film has wonderful comic moments and is held together by the belief that the brothers really do love each other and depend on each other no matter what their actions might show.

7. Zodiac (David Fincher)
A crime movie without a solution. I loved the inside look on how these brutal murders, with so much evidence, could go unsolved. The film has gone out of its way to be accurate down to what the characters are wearing and even where the trees are located, and while several theories are presented, the audience is left to figure it out for themselves. I’m working on my own theory about the killings (I think there was more than one Zodiac).

8. Across the Universe (Julie Taymor)
Another of those films that is made for me. This musical uses Beatles songs as a base, then re-imagines and re-records the songs adding beautiful, often fanciful imagery. The songs turn out wonderfully (and this is from a person who hates most Beatles covers). The story is done well, but the film could have fleshed out the minor characters more.

9. Juno (Jason Reitman)
This is a comedy about teen pregnancy. The pregnancy is actually treated rather seriously as it deserves, but allows humor to mask some of the pain and fear that comes with being pregnant so young.

10. King of Kong (Seth Gordon)
This movie made me care about who has the high score in Donkey Kong. That is a major accomplishment. The documentary proves that real life can be funnier and more outrageous than fiction (although for some reason, probably involving a lot of money, they are remaking this as a fiction film).

Next 5: Sunshine (beautiful, but serial killer plotline is uninspired), No End in Sight (very informative look at exactly how close we came to getting the Iraq war right, and how much better everything could have been), Ratatouille (a story about being yourself no matter how impractical it may be), The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (legend vs. reality of two very complicated men), Eastern Promises (such a great fight scene)

Note: I have yet to see Michael Clayton, Persepolis, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, or Atonement. And I'm not sure I will see all of those.

***

Okay, enough of letting my wife write on my blog. Back to my reviews...

Funny Games

Funny Games (Austria, 1997) * * *
D: Michael Haneke

A bourgeois couple, Georg (Ulrich Mühe) and Anna (Susanne Lothar), with their young son Georgie and their dog, are staying in a lakeside home, with all the luxuries that entails, including a dock for their boat and an impenetrable fence. But Georg opens that fence for two unfamiliar faces, nondescript, white-gloved fellows who claim to be staying with the neighbors. Calling themselves Peter (Frank Giering) and Paul (Arno Frisch)--and, later, Tom & Jerry and Beavis & Butthead--they proceed to ingratiate themselves into the home, which they refuse to leave. This quickly escalates into violence: when Georg tries to throw them out, he gets a leg broken by a golf club. Their dog is killed, and the family is held hostage for an evening of sadistic "games," the principal one being a bet that they won't survive the next twelve hours.

Since this film was released in 1997, Haneke has gained an international reputation as an art cinema provocateur, a Hitchcockian master of suspense as self-reflexive as Jean-Luc Godard. Indeed, both directors would love the film: Hitchcock for its open manipulation of the audience's fears and expectations, Godard for its playful violations of cinematic convention: "Peter" looks directly into the camera, winking at the audience, sometimes addressing us or, at one point, admitting to his hostages that they have to keep on with the games to pad this out to "feature length." At one point he even seizes a TV remote control to rewind time when one of the hostages gains the upper hand. The biggest tension of Funny Games is between these bursts of cartoonish irreality and the extended harrowing and grueling scenes of torture and grief that constitute the bulk of the film--the faker-than-fake and the realer-than-real.

We have seen home invasion and hostage films before. We anticipate the family gaining the upper hand on their tormentors at some point. When young Georgie escapes from the house, fleeing to the neighbors' to look for help, we're gripped with suspense, in fear for the boy's life, just as we expect that all of this will come to something fruitful; even if he's recaptured, we think, he'll leave some clue behind that will eventually lead to his family's deliverance. That's how these movies work. Certainly Haneke wouldn't have this whole setpiece be for naught. Similarly, when Anna escapes late in the film, after the captors have seemingly left for good, we're convinced their torment isn't over yet, simply because the film is still happening. And there has to be a point to all this, right? The bad guys have to get their comeuppance, a la The Virgin Spring or its grindhouse equivalent, The Last House on the Left. Perhaps Anna will find the villains at a disadvantage, and wreak a horrible revenge?

But as soon as we see that Peter & Paul can even reverse time to reconfigure reality to their advantage, Haneke might as well step into the frame to gloat over how he's stacked the deck. At this point, near the end of the film, all suspense is drained and we're left with either (a) blackest amusement, or (b) bottomless dread that Haneke can now subject us to anything. Actually, of course, there isn't really anywhere else to go, and the film settles with a rather obvious circular conclusion. But although you're struck by the style, you're left wondering what it was all about.

It's about movie violence vs. real violence, movie catharsis vs. real catharsis, movie characters vs. real human beings. Tom & Jerry and Beavis & Butthead are violent cartoon characters (famously, one five-year-old who watched those MTV arsonists Beavis & Butthead burned down his family's mobile home; whatever the real connection, his mother sued the network). Funny Games is an angry attack on the media's trivialization of violence. It restores the weight and tragedy of violence while contrasting it with the phony expectations of the thriller genre. The hostages in Funny Games are "real" people; when they grieve at the loss of a life, in one astonishing extended take that seems to last for ages, it's heartbreaking and also convincing. But the two antagonists are "movie" characters. Their motives are nonexistent, and the plot manipulates itself to their advantage. (Also notice that when one of them stalks little Georgie through the neighbors' house, he seems to be everywhere at once; that's because he is, probably watching the film just as you are.) At one point, they even address the difference between fictional characters and reality--Peter insists there's no difference, since what you see on the movie screen is as real to your eyes as anything else. At that moment, it's the last thing you want to hear, since events have become so sickening that you want to believe it's just a movie.

For all its effort, Funny Games is a film which pushes you away from it just as strongly as the deliberately artificial suspense pulls your emotions and sympathies back in. As a cinematic thesis, it's clever, if a bit too smug (and honestly, someone like Jacques Rivette would have gone even further in exploring the meta-fiction and the ideas beneath). As a film, it's almost unbearably suspenseful, but all of this is ultimately undercut. Haneke is a hell of a filmmaker, and the filmmaking on display is master-class. I'm not quite convinced that this anti-thriller thriller avoids collapsing beneath its own paradox, but on the other hand I admire what's on the screen. I recommend it by saying that if you've read this far, you know if you'd like it. It's essential viewing for film buffs with a strong stomach.

[As a footnote, I should mention that Haneke has just remade this film as an American production with Naomi Watts and Tim Roth in the lead roles. Due for release shortly, by all accounts it is a faithful adaptation of the original film.]

Funny Games is the first film in the series, "Michael Haneke: A Cinema of Provocation." Subsequent Haneke films will be screened for free at the University of Wisconsin's Cinematheque through the rest of the spring semester. Check their website for details.

Cobra Verde

Cobra Verde (West Germany/Ghana, 1987) * * * *
D: Werner Herzog

Herzog's last film with Klaus Kinski is a forgotten epic, a rewarding spectacle that's often misunderstood by those who've only viewed it once. A notorious bandit, "Cobra Verde" (Kinski), after impregnating the three daughters of a plantation owner in Brazil, is sent away on a suicide mission to re-establish the slave trade with a kingdom situated in Ghana, West Africa, around the fort of Elmina. The King has been deemed insane, and is said to kill any white man who sets foot on his land. Cobra Verde accepts the title of viceroy and sails across the ocean. At first he seems to meet with success; although the only white man he meets is a corrupt bishop tolerated by the locals (the slave-trading fort of Elmina has been sieged and abandoned), the fast-firing rifles he offers are highly valued by the local government, at war with a neighboring tribe. But his business venture is only briefly successful. The King orders Cobra Verde seized and brought to him, then orders his face painted black, since it's still considered forbidden to decapitate a white man. That night, Cobra Verde is rescued by men in service to the prince, who, it seems, is twice as insane as his father. His eyes always wild, he speaks in nonsense declarations, although we might be wary that when a leopard is heard roaring, he calls it "My father!"--for the royal family associates themselves with leopards. Soon after, he proves more wily than he seemed, double-crossing the bandit just before the slave trade itself is banned in Brazil. Cobra Verde, marked for death and finally abandoned by all, flees toward a hopeless fate.

Although the film has earned its place in cinema history as the last collaboration between the infamous savages Herzog and Kinski (for more on their troubled relationship, cut to the chase and rent Herzog's documentary My Best Fiend), Cobra Verde is also somewhat of the bastard child of that output, ranked below the more admired Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Nosferatu (1979), and Fitzcarraldo (1982). Though it is probably remembered more vividly than their Fassbinder-esque meltdown melodrama Woyzeck (1979), Cobra Verde is a difficult film: somehow both ambiguous and direct, morally complex but with a simple, straightforward narrative. The main dilemma is Cobra Verde himself, who is in almost every scene of the film but hesitates to reveal himself to the viewer. At the outset, in South America, he seems to be a Man with No Name from a Sergio Leone Western--a scowling rascal whom no one can defeat single-handed (although, this being a Herzog film, there are no duels, just lingering shots of desolate towns occupied by vermin and hogs). He is an outlaw, but he has no compunction about cornering a slave and ordering him back to the whipping-post. The narrative sets him with such an impossible task--not pulling a boat over a mountain, perhaps, but just as futile in nature--that he automatically is lent sympathetic qualities. He doesn't earn them, but he has them to a certain degree, because this is how the story is structured and he is, after all, our protagonist. When we're quickly reminded as to why he's there, and we see the almost taboo image of Africans bound together by chains at the neck, we're repulsed. Yet Kinski still marches through, overseeing it all, scowling, and Herzog's camera follows him in fascination. We want to think there's more to this man because Herzog believes there is, and we indulge. At one point Kinski plunges amidst the slaves to help them bear the weight of a giant trunk through Elmina's gates, and he shoves one of the slaves aside so that he can take the lead. It's like a parody of Jesus' march toward crucifixion, except that he doesn't relieve the burden out of empathy, but rather because he thinks he can do better. Like all Herzog heroes, Cobra Verde has his wild eyes fixed upon an insurmountable goal, and sets himself resolutely against all the forces arrayed against him in a manner that isn't noble but unnerving, frightening.

A simpler story might have had Cobra Verde find redemption once he leads his Amazon warriors to overthrow the King--the man would repent his crimes, and work to overthrow the slave trade. But he only works to build the slave trade up again; this, after a spectacular setpiece in which he trains the warrior women by hurtling himself into their midst, picking up a spear alongside them howling, and then, perhaps the most memorable scene in the film, he leads his female army to storm the walls of the King's court at Abomey, at one point hurling a venomous snake out of his path with bare hands in his frothing stampede. Cobra Verde's evolution, his character arc, is less obvious, and on the initial viewing it might be invisible. He's a cutthroat admirable only for his determination. On the other hand, a second viewing makes his progression more clear. The first major scene in the film is a long discussion between Kinski and a dwarf about the snow high in the mountains; the dwarf describes it as a wintry heaven, where the snowflakes fall like feathers and the ice glistens. Kinski listens expressionlessly, but for once he lacks his scowl. That's a clue. Later, while awaiting execution in the King's camp, lying in the dirt and with no one around to hear, he cries out in longing for that mystical snow. And amidst the quiet, lyrical scenes following the battle, he provides only one full glimpse into his psyche, in an aborted attempt at a diary or a letter (if the latter, presumably to his lover, a slave on the plantation in Brazil):

I cannot begin to describe this cretinous existence of mine, nor how lonely it is to be without family or friends, the only white man in this country, perhaps the whole continent. Meanwhile I have become the father of sixty-two children, but this gives me no satisfaction. Perhaps next year I shall come back and marry. I would live in the lands of ice and snow, anywhere to be away from here. The heat here is mean and inescapable. It courses through the bodies of the people like a fever, and yet my heart grows colder and colder.

Cobra Verde is damned, and he knows it. He is a prisoner and a slave to the existence he is pitted against, and although he fights against the odds as soon as he arrives in Ghana, to succeed in his almost insurmountable task strips him of his soul. After all, should Sisyphus finally push his boulder (or riverboat) over the hill after countless attempts, how much humanity would he have left, and would he be able to appreciate his accomplishment? Our bandit has been handed an evil task, and though he dutifully follows it, inspecting the teeth of his slaves, rounding them up for the slave ships--when he asks to ventilate their holding cells, it's only because he wants to cut down on the casualty rate--ultimately, near his end, hunted by the English and facing a life in in the shadows, he becomes sharply aware of his condition.

It was no misunderstanding. It was a crime. Slavery is an element of the human heart. [Toasting] To our ruin!


In Herzog's typically cynical fashion, he implicates everyone in the slave trade, including the viewer. We buy and sell each other. (Cobra Verde has been, after all, slave to the company that he sent him here, slave to the King of Abomey, and now he has been sold to the English.) But if that final exchange is atypically spelled-out, the final images of the film summarize the point more poetically. Cobra Verde has fled to the beach, approaching a canoe that he hopes will bear him across the ocean. When he sees one of Elmina's cripples following him, his stride quickens, and he seems panicked. He arrives at the craft and tries to push it into the water. It doesn't budge. Desperately, he grabs a mooring-rope and pulls with all his might, yet it still doesn't budge. Eventually, exhausted, he collapses into the sea, rolling with the surf until all of his movements finally cease, and the water rolls over his head, burying him into the sand. This might be considered Herzog's most existential moment. I see it as so pure and straightforward that it is almost devoid of philosophy. Here is our end; but here also is this man's specific end, as all his efforts have come to nothing. Why is it that although the viewer cannot fully empathize with him, and though he remains a deep mystery, this ending--in which he really becomes a pathetic wretch--remains devastating? We are in the realm of Shakespearean tragedy, the realm of Macbeth, but transformed and given a slightly different resonance. Herzog has once again touched an invisible realm, that ecstatic cinema he's always sought, and Cobra Verde deserves to finally be recognized as one of his best films.

Cinematic Titanic

As a follow-up to my story on Mystery Science Theater 3000, I wanted to offer some thoughts on the latest venture from the original creator of that show, Joel Hodgson (aka Joel Robinson). Hodgson, in the 80's, was the thinking man's prop comic, who could have moved to Los Angeles to work in television but instead launched a homegrown public access comedy show in Minneapolis. MST3K ran a year before The Comedy Channel picked it up, and from there the program, with its "movie riffing" from Joel and his robots in silhouette from the bottom of the screen, became a cult classic. Well, after a few seasons Joel did leave the show for Los Angeles, and most recently was working on the Jimmy Kimmel show as a staff writer; J. Elvis Weinstein, the original Tom Servo, had already left for L.A. to pursue a comedy career, and eventually Trace Beaulieu (Crow T. Robot) and Frank Conniff (TV's Frank) followed suit. After Joel's departure, the show nevertheless continued for five seasons with head writer Michael J. Nelson taking over hosting duties. It's been seemingly ages since MST3K breathed its last, cancelled by the Sci-Fi Channel, and Nelson has written a novel, Death Rat, and brought his movie riffing to audio commentaries and the podcast-commentary series Rifftrax, with its money-saving notion of providing only the riffing--the listener has to rent the film on his own. Nelson, with Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo #2) and Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot #2), also started The Film Crew, a movie-riffing group who have issued a handful of DVDs in which they tackle such films as The Wild Women of Wongo. This latest project was the closest approximation to the MST3K of old, but has met with mixed reviews, as some fans have lamented that it just wasn't the same.

Enter Cinematic Titanic, which finally sees Hodgson returning to the format which made him famous. His movie-riffing team also includes Weinstein, Conniff, Beaulieu, and Mary Jo Pehl (MST3K's Pearl Forrester). Cinematic Titanic debuted as a live show performed for members of Lucasfilm on the Skywalker Ranch, a warm-up to their first episode now released on DVD exclusively through the CT website. What you get when you order the DVD is just a disc in a small, square carboard sleeve, with little protection - luckily, mine arrived unscratched. The mastering of the DVD includes the most basic of menus with, head-smackingly, only an image of the DVD you were just holding in your hand a second ago. There are no pretty dressings, perhaps because the website wants to ultimately set up a pay-to-download service so that fans can burn each episode on their own; this is not yet available. The play's the thing, and in this case it's Al Adamson's atrocious 1972 film Brain of Blood, here retitled The Oozing Skull as part of an agreement to allow CT to distribute the film. There are no "hosting segments" such as MST3K had, and copyright infringement with MST3K owners Best Brains prevents Hodgson from using the familiar theater seat silhouettes at the bottom of the screen; instead, through the entire length of the film we remain in the theater with scaffolding at the right and left sides, all 5 members of CT standing or sitting upon it while they address the film. No introduction to the premise: you just plunge straight into the sheer awfulness of the film. And it is a really excruciating work. Adamson, direct of Dracula Vs. Frankenstein (1971) and little else you'd remember, made a string of Z-budget horror films through the late 60's and 70's, all of which were directed with maximum incompetence. Brain of Blood--er, The Oozing Skull--has an utterly stupid plot about the leader of an imaginary Middle Eastern nation becoming critically injured, and rushed to a mad scientist who plans to move his brain into another body. But the mad scientist, being mad and all, has plans of his own: he moves the brain into the body of a disfigured simpleton. Why? Because he can! There are lots of footchases and one car chase, and one footchase which ends with the pursued leaping into a car and turning the keys, whereupon the car blows up and a nearby dwarf laughs. Brilliant.

One of the things about MST3K is that half the time you're laughing at the film itself, not just the jokes in the foreground. CT has the same pleasing effect. Ultimately, you're just enjoying watching a bad exploitation movie from the 70's. But the riffing is quite good, if a bit stiff at times, as the team hasn't yet developed the intangible chemistry which comes with doing a dozen of these things together. If anything, it feels a little too rehearsed (which of course it is); it needs more of an improv feel. But it's still Joel, Josh, Trace, Frank, and Mary Jo. It is good to have them back together again, even if they were never together quite like this. And Weinstein's CT theme song, hot jazz in the style of "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," is terrific. This is by far the most promising product of the post-MST3K projects that have been offered to fans, a highly entertaining hour-and-a-half if you're willing to spring for the DVD sight unseen (it's $15.94). I'm not sure how often these episodes will be issued, but if there's a Cinematic Titanic-of-the-month club, sign me up.

The Best Films of 2007

1. The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson)

It seems absurd to call Wes Anderson underrated, since his films have been routinely flagged for release by the Criterion Collection, and his fan following (particularly strong for people in their 20's) has extended to a viral Team Zissou MySpace account. And certainly Anderson doesn't seem to feel any pressure to make changes to his distinctive style: austere uses of the widescreen mise-en-scene, thematic color coding, familiar themes of dysfunctional families, a recurring company of players. Nevertheless, critics seem baffled by Anderson's films upon the first viewing, and only those critics who revisit his earlier films find them more rewarding. This is key: Anderson and his co-writers place a great deal of character detail in compact scenes, so that if you're not paying attention, or tracking certain clues dropped in each scene, the final payoff may not have the emotional impact intended. Attentive and receptive viewers have a different experience. The Darjeeling Limited is blessed with a gifted and game cast--Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, and Jason Schwartzman on a misguided and hysterical journey for enlightenment on a train travelling through India--but the real wonder of the film is the screenplay, which is bitingly satirical and subtly moving at the same time. If Preston Sturges were alive, this is the kind of film he'd be making.

2. Zodiac (David Fincher)

I was never a David Fincher acolyte, but the famously stylistic director showed such restraint in his crime epic, Zodiac, that I was instantly won over. The trick he pulls off is formidable: despite the fact that the murders take place early in the film, and much of its three-hour running time is given over to talking and thinking--questioning of suspects, digging through boxes of paperwork, and other believably mundane procedures--the viewer is nonetheless gripped with suspense and growing fascination for its entire length. Perhaps Fincher's biggest challenge of all was constructing a true crime mystery in which no answer can be provided. Going into this film, the only thing I knew about the Zodiac killer was that he was never caught. That doesn't ruin anything. The film's real subject is not crime but obsession, and the lengths to which a person will go searching for answers that may be impossible to acquire. Although there is a prime suspect, the fact that there remains as much convincing evidence in favor of his guilt as well as his innocence turns the film into a philosophical puzzle worthy of Borges.

3. No Country for Old Men (Joel & Ethan Coen)

When reviews from the Toronto Film Festival began pouring in for No Country for Old Men, it was frequently observed that this was a Coen Brothers film like no other--a reserved, spare, cold-blooded, straightforward and devastating piece. Perhaps because my perception was colored by these early reviews, when I saw the film I was struck by all of its trademarks from the Coen canon: there's Stephen Root's "Man Who Hires Wells," a grinning, perversely bizarre businessman, and the beaming Wells himself (Woody Harrelson), cocksure, thinking himself smarter than the audience knows he is. There's the fact that the Coen Brothers have always been accused of being a little cold-blooded. And there are the elaborately conceived setpieces, focused on the details: how the assassin Chigurh (Javier Bardem) uses his pressurized air-gun to blast open the locks of doors; Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) watching his car on the horizon sink a few inches, realizing that the tires have been shot out and that he has no escape; the trail of blood left by a wounded dog in the desert; the desperate attempt to convince a teenager to surrender his jacket so Moss can cover his bloody shirt. In fact, one of the things that makes No Country for Old Men so wondrous is that every single scene would be suited to a Coen Brothers career highlight reel. But ultimately, like Zodiac, it's the sting of its no-resolution ending; life moves on, while evil remains on the loose.

4. Grindhouse (Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino)

The proper way to experience Death Proof and Planet Terror was in the theater, preferably a packed one on the Friday night it opened. With a scratched, beaten-up print (a sign posted next to the theater entrance warned moviegoers that the film was supposed to look this way), custom-made exploitation movie trailers directed by the likes of Rob Zombie, Eli Roth, and Edgar Wright, a restaurant ad, and missing reels, it managed to both recreate a night at a sleazy Bronx grindhouse circa 1972 and a raucous night at one of Quentin Tarantino's movie festivals in Austin. Much of the audience used the "intermission"--when the fake trailers were showing--to run to the bathroom or the snack bar, which only added to the simulation. But honestly, few grindhouse movies managed to be as funny and entertaining as Robert Rodriguez's sustained John Carpenter parody and Tarantino's genre-twisting, Cannes-pleasing slasher film. This was easily the most fun I had in a theater in 2007.

5. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Tim Burton)

A grand, old-fashioned musical, adapted from Stephen Sondheim's grand guignol hit from decades ago; it just so happens that it's also one of the goriest films of the year. (Should I recommend it to my mother? The jury's still out on that one.) But Johnny Depp is spectacular as the title "demon barber," avenging the wrong done him years back by a corrupt judge (Alan Rickman, naturally)--when he can't mete out his justice, he takes out a misanthropic rage against the populace of London, assisted by Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), who offers to bake the bodies into her infamous meat pies. The songs are memorable and strikingly beautiful, the violence is alternately comic and frighteningly savage (and often both at once), and it's all a tour de force for Tim Burton, in his finest form since 1994's Ed Wood. So much fun.

6. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik)

Andrew Dominik's spellbinding Western reverie calls to mind the work of Terrence Malick, as well as McCabe & Mrs. Miller and the best moments of Heaven's Gate. It's an exploration of the gap between legend and reality, the tall tale and the human, as Robert Ford (Casey Affleck) infiltrates the gang of Jesse James (Brad Pitt)--not to kill him, but to worship him, imitate him. The homoerotic undertone almost seems beside the point; it's present almost out of obligation, but it's the least interesting aspect of the story. What seems more important is the extended, tranquil moments that precede violence, the sacred space before a life meets its end. And so Dominik lingers on the ghostly light of a train passing through the woods, casting its beam across the faces of the hooded men about to rob it; or one outlaw's fateful ride on horseback with James at his back; or that last self-scrutiny in a mirror, as James catches the reflection of someone coming up behind him. The film also dwells critically on what follows violence, whether it be Ford's embracing of his own legend as re-enacted on a stage before a paying audience, or a hole in the ice, opened by James' gunshot, revealing fish swimming obliviously in a frozen lake.

7. Ratatouille (Brad Bird)

Next to Hayao Miyazaki, Brad Bird is the best of the modern animation directors, although being an American, he's been forced into abandoning cel animation and embracing CG. Not against his will, mind you, but out of necessity. Disney shut down their traditional animation studios, as former CEO Michael Eisner decided that CG was the wave of the future--in the most short-sighted of predictions. But Eisner's now gone, and Pixar, which once threatened to break their partnership with Disney, is now practically running the show. Their two star directors are John Lasseter (Toy Story, Toy Story 2) and Bird, former director of the short "Family Dog" as well as various episodes of The Simpsons, and whose first film was the critically lauded--and beautifully cel-animated--The Iron Giant (1999). When he made The Incredibles in 2004, it was obvious that he had found a way to work his charming designs into the CG format, while exploiting CG's potential for eye-popping effects. Better still, his storytelling was as precise--and as full of heart--as ever. Ratatouille is at least the equal of the former film, although it is notably scaled down. Remy the Rat (Patton Oswalt) pursues one goal--to become a great chef, despite his species--and to accomplish this, he befriends a human co-conspirator, Linguini (Lou Romano). That the great majority of the film takes place in a single location, the kitchen, almost passes one's notice. It is within this kitchen that great adventure and romance unfold, with the manic energy of a Chuck Jones short tempered by Brad's signature emotional sincerity. When I was a kid, the Disney offerings were The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron. These days children don't know how lucky they are.

8. The Host (Joon-Ho Bong)

This South Korean horror film is the best monster movie to come along in years. Chemical pollution causes a giant amphibian to grow beneath Seoul's Han River, arising one day to stampede through a public park, swallowing any men, women, or children who get in his path. Strikingly, this happens within the first minutes of the film, revealing the whole horrifying creature at once as it begins to gobble up people who are just as stunned and stock-still as you are; the sight is both horrifying and comically absurd. With the big reveal given right at the outset, you might wonder what's left for a monster film to do. Joon-Ho Bong's answer is to focus on hapless father Gang-Du as he and his family try to find his daughter, stolen by the monster; they battle the South Korean Army's bureaucracy and eventually the creature itself, hidden deep in the labyrinthine sewers of a quarantined zone. It's astonishing to find a monster film that is incapable of cliché, and there is not a moment of The Host which meets your expectations. It surpasses them.

9. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (Seth Gordon)

The most important documentary of the year might be No End in Sight, which details all the wrong-headed decisions which led to the disaster in Iraq. That's the most important documentary. But I'm not ashamed to say that my heart belongs to The King of Kong, chronicling the attempt of Steve Wiebe to break the Donkey Kong record held by arcade champion Billy Mitchell. While it's clear that director Gordon was hoping for a quirky take on "nerd sports" docs like Spellbound (2002) and Wordplay (2006), the subjects took his film in completely unexpected directions, with conspiracies, petty rivalries, cowardly decisions, brave decisions, and modest victories and failures. Better still, the players in the world of competitive arcade playing prove to be worthy of a Christopher Guest mockumentary--only truth proves to be more funny than fiction. That said, I love Wiebe, and he proves to be the perfect sympathetic underdog as he steps into this curious, bizarre world of middle-aged men who keep the 80's alive. See the original before the upcoming remake (directed by Gordon) has a chance to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

10. Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright)

British director Wright is quickly becoming a master of contemporary comedy, cutting his teeth on the wonderful sitcom Spaced before helming 2004's cult hit Shaun of the Dead. I loved Shaun, but Hot Fuzz is twice as good, as Wright has learned a thing or two about sustaining a 90-minute comedy. While Shaun spent its biggest laughs in its first half, Hot Fuzz builds slowly until it reaches a breathlessly funny fever pitch, and one of the most hysterical climaxes since the Coens raised Arizona. Hot Fuzz has a simple premise, a parody of Hollywood buddy-cop films which transplants a tough-as-nails officer (Simon Pegg) into a sleepy little town, where he uncovers a murder spree. At a certain point, running gags break into a sprint. Endlessly quotable and re-watchable, this might be the best British comedy since Life of Brian.


Other great enjoyments to be had in 2007:
There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson) - like all of PTA's movies, a thunderous work of intense passion, and another treatise on his favorite subject, the troubled relationship between fathers and sons
Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg) - better than A History of Violence, David Cronenberg's follow-up delivers more believably human characters and a less aloof and theoretical approach, but with a permeating, gripping unease
Once (John Carney) - a charming, anti-romance, anti-musical romantic musical
Juno (Jason Reitman) - great performances by Ellen Page and J.K. Simmons highlight the best pro-unexpected-pregnancy movie of the year
Rescue Dawn (Werner Herzog) - Herzog at his most mainstream is still unique and compelling
Paprika (Satoshi Kon) - mature, intelligent science fiction from an acclaimed anime director
Brand Upon the Brain! (Guy Maddin) - a delirious cinematic poem to repressed sexuality, and a spirited revival of silent cinema
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (Sidney Lumet) - pitch-black neo-noir with a memorably cruel performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman
Red Road (Andrea Arnold) - a mysterious thriller in which the protagonist hides secrets from you, so that you're never quite sure what's at stake until very, very late...nevertheless, you're gripped by suspense
Son of Man (Mark Donford-May) - vivid and vital filmmaking retells the Christ story in a contemporary South African city
Tideland (Terry Gilliam) - misunderstood, morbidly comic fairy tale that keeps its heroine innocent amidst the most corrupt decay
Sunshine (Danny Boyle) - slightly marred science fiction epic with at least an hour of brilliant material, from the always-fascinating director of Trainspotting and Millions

A Gallery of Picture Players: The Women

My wife's grandparents gave me an interesting Christmas gift this year: a book from 1914 (or earlier - there's no copyright page, only a pencilled inscription) called Gallery of Picture Players. It consists entirely of portraits, male and female, across hundreds of pages. They are stars of stage and screen, but almost all of them are forgotten today, apart from Charles Chaplin, Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Lillian Gish, and a few others. Below I've created a gallery of some of the women. Essentially these are among the earliest Hollywood glamor photos, and while standards of beauty and fashion may have changed--and the idea of a bona fide "movie star" hadn't yet come to full fruition--within each picture you can see aspirations, ambition, and self-idealization written in the eyes. All the facts below were taken from the IMDB, so any inaccuracies can likewise be attributed to them.


Alice Joyce.
1890-1955

Starred in at least 199 films, by the IMDB's tally, beginning in 1910 and ending in 1930. She married three times, once to the director Clarence Brown (Flesh and the Devil, Anna Christie). There are numerous portraits of Ms. Joyce in the book, and she is quite ravishing.

A lengthy bio can be found here.












Dorothy Bernard.
1890-1955
Starred in numerous films from 1918 to 1921.




















Ethel Grandin.
1894-1988
Starred in films from 1911 to 1922.




















Fan Bourke.
1886-1959

Her career ran steadily from 1914 to 1920, with an additional appearance in Lummox in 1930.

















Irene Boyle.
No info on her date of birth or death, but the IMDB credits her in films falling between 1913 and 1923. I love this photo. She must have been very proud of her bearskin rug.


















Leah Baird.
1883-1971

Appeared on the stage with Douglas Fairbanks (who also appears in this book), and had a short moment in the limelight of cinema.

















Lillian Gish.
1893-1993

Easily one of the biggest stars of her era, and one of the first bona fide Hollywood celebrities. She appeared in Birth of a Nation, Intolerance, and Broken Blossoms for D.W. Griffith, and in later years was in Portrait of Jennie and The Night of the Hunter.















Louise Huff.
1895-1973

Her film career ran from 1913 to 1922.



















Margaret Gibson,
aka Patricia Palmer, Marguerite Gibson.
1894-1964

Now we're in Kenneth Anger/Hollywood Babylon territory. Gibson was arrested for blackmail and extortion in 1923 (charges were later dropped), ran away to Singapore in the 30's, and on her deathbed confessed to the murder of actor/director William Desmond Taylor. There's a good bio at Wikipedia.












Marguerite Courtot.
1897-1986

Star of comedies, action films, and serials between 1913 and 1924.


















Mildred Harris.
1901-1944

Charlie Chaplin's first wife - he married her when she was 17 and he was 29. A child star who grew up to appear in numerous films.

















Rosetta Brice,
aka Betty Brice.
1892-1935




















Valeska Suratt,
aka "The Vampire Woman."
1882-1962

Starred in The Immigrant and the original 1917 adaptation of H. Rider Haggard's She, as the title character. Seen here adhered to a vase.
















Vivian Martin.
1893-1987

Appeared in "The Little Dutch Girl," "Jane Goes A-Wooing," "An Innocent Adventuress," and "Pardon My French." And look out boys, she cooks too!

Eight Arms to Hold You

Help! (U.K., 1965) * * * 1/2
D: Richard Lester

Help! is a very, very odd film, but one-of-a-kind in the best of ways. It is the Beatles' second, and the last big production with their full involvement. American Richard Lester had directed their prior hit, A Hard Day's Night, and had made that film a quasi-documentary about their life in and out of hotel rooms, clubs, trains, cars, and concert halls (with one liberating moment in the open daylight, set to "Can't Buy Me Love"). When he was asked to do a follow-up, every bit the quickie as the former film--since the Beatles might be just a temporary fad--his own artistic restlessness led him to make not a carbon copy but a completely opposite work. A Hard Day's Night is cinéma-vérité, loose, rough around the edges, realistic with a satirical sensibility, with a script that sounded improvised, and cinematography in stark black-and-white. Help! is in bright, beautiful, color, rigorously scripted and structured, resolutely absurdist, a piece of pop art. It is set almost entirely outdoors, whether outside Stonehenge, in the Alps, or in the Bahamas.

If A Hard Day's Night is smothered in cigarette smoke, Help! has the cannabis aroma of the Beatles' new drug of choice, recently introduced to them by Bob Dylan. The Dylan influence is even evident in "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," John Lennon's Dylan homage, and veiled ode to closeted manager Brian Epstein. While John strums that song in the band's London flat, which looks like something out of Yellow Submarine (1968), Paul leans against a bookcase with a secret panel that only reveals more books (some of them copies of In His Own Write by John Lennon), Ringo hits a tambourine from inside a pit in the floor, where sits his sunken bed, and George lounges on the couch next to Eleanor Bron, purse in her lap, ever dignified while George makes cartoonish bedroom eyes at her. Leo McKern peeks out from under a manhole, still hunting the Beatles down. It's really one of the first music videos, although that line's a blurry one as rock musicals overtook Cole Porter and Rogers & Hammerstein; in the supplements to the film's latest DVD release, Lester says that in the 80's he was sent a "scroll" pronouncing that he was the father of MTV--and he sent it back to the network demanding a blood test. But it's hard to argue that Lester wasn't brilliant at shooting the Beatles in performance. Each song in Help! sits comfortably on a velvet cushion; the plot is secondary and the music's the thing. The title song is performed by the band in traditional Ed Sullivan Show-stance, in a white room with Ringo at the famous logo-adorned drum kit, but the black-and-white is interrupted by red darts flung at the screen by the crazed cult led by McKern; sublimely, we briefly see their female human sacrifice pining on the altar like any teenage Beatles fan. (I almost wish that the brief prologue had been excised so that this would be our introduction to the color of Help!, presenting a neat transition from AHDN's B&W.) Shortly thereafter, the band steps into a mock-up of their Abbey Road studio to perform "You're Going to Lose That Girl"; the lights are dimmed, and the band sings through rapturously filmed lens flares and spotlights, singing into the mic in extreme close-up. Rather than pulling back to see the full band and the entire studio, Lester concentrates on fractioning the performance into these close-ups, as he slips in and out of focus. It's one of the most intoxicating and inspired pieces of musical filmmaking you'll ever see. But "Ticket to Ride" is the most famous sequence, a hit single performed while the Beatles literally tackle the slopes on skis. The band had never been on skis before, and Lester filmed them while they were learning--going sideways down the bunny slopes and tripping forward into the snow. The props are limited to a piano set up in the snow, which the Beatles climb into and around, but the most innovative moment comes when musical notes are projected onto telephone wires that frame the top of the screen.

There is a plot, it should be mentioned, which takes this long to describe: a cult and a duo of mad scientists are after Ringo's ring. It's an excuse for obvious gags--Rube Goldbergian plots by the cult to sever Ringo's finger, hand, or arm--and James Bond parodies and pastiches, the trend of the day. The gags, in particular the final one in which the film is dedicated to the Singer sewing machine, anticipate Monty Python's Flying Circus, although there was already a rich tradition of dry, surrealist humor in British stage, radio, and television. From the tradition comes Bron, who plays Ahme, one of the cultists who infiltrates the Beatles' inner circle; she's a gifted comic actress, but is tasked with playing it straight against the non-sequitur-spouting Fab Four, who are a bit too bizarre to be the Marx Brothers surrogates that contemporary critics envisioned. Is Ringo, as so many have asserted, the best actor of the group? Perhaps, although he's given a "type" to play in both films--the hapless schlub who doesn't understand why everything bad has to happen to him. (Worse, even his fellow Beatles try to pursuade him that he doesn't really use that ring finger very often, and could stand to miss it!) Every time I watch a Beatles film I'm impressed by John, who doesn't so much "act" as confidently deliver his sarcastic one-liners. It's the confidence that impresses me; he has none of the awkwardness of Paul and George, and convinces that this is who he really is. Which must be acting. To their credit, George allows his shirt to be ripped right off in one scene, and later Paul is shrunk straight out of his clothes, taking a nude bath in an ashtray. Teenage girls, take note.

The only real flaw in Help! is that there isn't more of their music: a whole side B is missing from the film, which includes "I've Just Seen a Face" (belatedly receiving its cinematic bow in Julie Taymor's Across the Universe), "Act Naturally," and "Yesterday." Not that "Yesterday" could really work in a film stuffed with sight gags, car chases, and bad puns. The real wonder of Help! is in the joy the film exudes. There's one moment, during a performance of "The Night Before," when Ringo shivers from the cold and then smiles widely at someone off-camera. That these couple of seconds remain in the film is no coincidence; this is what Lester was after. During the musical sequences he wanted to show the band's charisma, their real personalities, their real joy in performance, how good these songs are, and just why we love the Beatles so much. As a result, Help! and its companion film are the best possible document of the band, however fictionalized and glued to paper-thin plots. Here you can see them performing for each other, not for an auditorium filled with screaming girls who drown out their music. Shortly after this, the band would begin to tire of each other, and jealousies and bitter feelings would begin to intrude and drive them apart. Later, John would say that the song "Help!" was meant to have a slower tempo, a more serious tone; it was a song about a nervous breakdown. Instead, it's a marvelous pop song, a pinnacle of the art. Whatever the reality, the fiction of Help!--Richard Lester's Help!--is a snapshot of the band as we'd like to remember them.