Sunset Gun

A Good Cop Is Hard To Find

Werner Herzog's approach to "the truth" has always been fascinating, fearless, at times ferocious and to continue in this alliterative vain, faithful.  Faithful to life -- to its wonderful or horrifying craziness, to its lyrical splendor, and to its appalling ugliness that in turn, can often reveal a deep, multi-faceted beauty. Life is unclean. Life is violent. Life is corrupt. Life is fantastical. Life is chaos. Life is, yes, beautiful.

Watch his Lessons of Darkness, concerning the Kuwait fires and you’re left breathless by their destructive magnificence.  As the oil wells burn we hear Prokofiev, Verdi, Wagner, Grieg and gloriously, Mahler’s "Resurrection" (2nd) Symphony. Interestingly, Mahler conceived the second Resurrection as recalling positive remembrances for the dead. Yes. Laudable thoughts. Burn baby, burn -- in a wonderfully optimistic and exalting pitch. This feels like Herzog.

And Herzog feels like Herzog. When meeting him, I was so inspired by his presence, his intelligence, his realness, his voice, that talking to him made me feel (and please excuse me for sounding hyperbolic but I’m being honest here) like how Marlene Dietrich described Orson Welles, like “a plant that’s been watered.” And I thank god I’ll never forget our meeting because, perhaps not surprisingly, after one of the most interesting and fulfilling interviews I’ve ever conducted, the tape jammed. Sitting late at night in my bedroom, ready to transcribe this fascinating talk, my heart stopped when I heard that awful sound of tape being sucked into machine. Broken. Fearful of pulling it out of the recorder, I stared at it in disbelief. Unspool and possibly repair? Or leave it? I decided to leave it there. I suddenly felt like Herzog was telling me I must never listen to it. 

This disappointing reality caused further reflection of Herzog and his movies. You don’t go to a Werner Herzog picture and think: “That’s not realistic.” Because, really, what does that mean anyway? This is his truth. This is their truth. Or your truth. Or an iguana’s truth. It’s part of Herzog’s grand yet entirely grounded theories about "reality" -- what he calls "ecstatic truth." Herzog claims that his approach toward filmmaking, whether in his documentaries (like Little Dieter Needs to Fly or Grizzly Man) or biographical pictures (like Aguirre: The Wrath of God or Fitzcarraldo) reveals, as he has said: "Something deeply inherent, where you recognize yourself as a human being again, where you find images that have been dormant inside of you for so many years and all of a sudden it becomes visible and understandable for you -- you read the world differently, your perceptions change."

A true auteur and a true adventurer, Herzog  understands (instinctively and intellectually) just how much we take for granted when not looking out of the corner of our eye -- when we only see what’s right in front of us. “Reading the world differently” is an important element to his filmmaking, and as he braves Antarctica, or walks hundreds of miles, or drags boats over mountains, or contends with true forces of nature -- the jungle, the cold, the animals and Klaus Kinski -- Herzog is adept at tackling any type of movie, any type of obstacle, any type of eccentricity.

And now he’s taken on Nicolas Cage.

With his un-hinged, gloriously debauched, hilarious, and uniquely gorgeous The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (one of the best films of the year so far), he’s dazzlingly in synch with his subject --  the portrait of a man, a crooked cop (Cage) rotting and raving in a decimated land.  That’s post-Katrina New Orleans, a place that well covers Herzogian themes -- the violence, the beauty, the destruction of nature, the warped passion of a fanatical man. Cage’s Terence McDonagh -- drug impaired, dishonest, abusive, and yet, often kind and certainly conflicted is a jangly, imbalanced creature of inspired madness. What’s brilliant here is that Herzog, not one to create a standard police procedural, places Cage in something like that:  there’s a an internal affairs investigation, a murder mystery and strangely sweet complications with a prostitute (Eva Mendes) and a drug dealer (Xzibit). There’s also gambling and drug addiction, inappropriate pat-downs, lucky crack pipes and relations with his impaired dad and stepmother, that recalled a Flannery O’Connor story or Rip Torn visiting his pill addicted mother in the brilliantly brave Payday.

And like Mr. Torn, Cage is absolutely fearless in his approach to character. Throw out all the rules and just be. Be crazy.  But be real. He's true to his own style -- that of Nicolas Cage -- but Herzog must cast magical spells on actors because as the movie goes along, Cage begins to resemble a Nosferatu or an Aguirre -- he even walks with a slight hunchback. And then, he tops it by throwing in some Edward G. Robinson. It's a diabolically mythical performance.  To describe his rhythms and humor and in the end, his humanity isn’t easy -- Cage is almost musical in his approach, and he stirs mysterious,  complicated emotions that will yes, make many people laugh. At him, with him, and with the very things that make him laugh. When we are looking at iguanas from the perspective of the animal and the perspective of drugged out Cage considering the animal, the hallucinatory power borders on hilarious and yet, remains honestly poetic (it reminded me a bit of the chicken at the end of Stroszek).

Which comes to the question: what kind of movie is Bad Lieutenant? It’s a noir, it’s a comedy, it’s a character study, it’s a southern gothic, it’s a police story. Yes, it’s all those things. But really, it’s a Herzog picture. Real, unreal, maddening, inspiring and utterly sincere.

Ten Years Of Fight Club

If any picture was the movie to usher in the new millennium, it was David Fincher's Fight Club. To me, it was the movie of the 1990s -- as prescient as Network was in the 1970s towards the future of “news,” and as equally misunderstood. As Fight Club revealed and essentially, proselytized, we live in a world where we seek to express ourselves, either through conspicuous consumption, or following philosophies for supposed betterment, or to simply remember what it was like to actually feel like a man after the world has feminized us so (something as a woman I find frustrating and heartbreaking -- let men be men again). 

But Fight Club isn't saying something as simple and inane as men are pussies. It's not a dumb jock statement of  being a "man." Rather, it shows how through the alienation of social institutions, and the de-masculination of culture, the rugged individualist is rare. How to tap into being a man, fast? "Punch me as hard as you can."

Based on the diabolical novel by Portland's Chuck Palahniuk (skillfully adapted by Jim Uhls), Fight Club is a multifaceted satire. It attacks not only the dehumanizing, corporate Starbucks/Ikea world we inhabit (and still inhabit -- even more), but also self-help philosophies, men's movements, commercials, TV and, interestingly, movies, but oh-so cleverly. The way cinema is blamed for contributing to real-life violence is not only woven into the picture, but it became a reality lobbed at the movie upon release. Like A Clockwork Orange, Fight Club was considered fascist by some critics, that it would encourage men to fight (not always a bad thing), and that it might actually create fight clubs (which it did -- not always a good thing).

A movie that ends on man and woman watching two high rise office towers tumbling down from the skyline before the World Trade Center's collapse is creepy, scary prophetic. As Tyler Durden proclaims: "Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our great war is a spiritual war. Our great depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won't. We're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." And...then through the 2000's? A war. And an economic crisis.

Then, to a certain extent, Fight Club took on Generation X, but it also applied to the onset of the next generation. Challenging so many silly articles, books and movies that have attempted to label "Generation X" as listless, flannel-wearing, grunge-listening slackers, the film argued that it's not a lack of passion that kept those in their late twenties to early thirties befuddled, but a lack of personal power, a lack of freedom -- the impotence of not knowing your real soul.

Revealing the absurdity, hilarity and sadness of the type of man who, for example, would sit at home and listen to self-help Guru Anthony Robbins instructing him on how to "awaken the giant within," then go through the motions, and achieving nothing -- Fight Club asks: Do you want to awaken your giant? Do you really want to look inside yourself? What if your giant turns into a monster?

Fight Club begins with a character who is always awake (in fact, he can never sleep) but is certainly no giant --not yet, anyway. The film's insomniac narrator "Jack" (Edward Norton), like so many of his generation, is full of cynicism but mild-mannered and desperately searching for something -- anything. When he becomes fed up with sleepwalking through his job at a major automobile manufacturer (where, he says, everything looks like "a copy of a copy of a copy"), Jack finally goes to a doctor and begs for sleeping pills. The doctor tells him to quit his whining -- if he really wants to see suffering, he should go to a support group for testicular-cancer survivors. Good idea? Not really for Jack. He soon becomes addicted to every support group he can locate. They become the outlet he’s needed for his confounded emotions; he does receive the attention he craves, and he can finally sleep, but he’s really just a support group tourist.

His warm fuzzy, self help universe spell is broken when another tourist enters. That’s Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), a chain-smoking accidental-overdose-waiting-to-happen who attends meetings because (as she says) "it's cheaper than a movie, and the coffee is free." Jack sees himself reflected in her perverse presence; he hates her, which means he hates himself. They are both fakes.

And then the epiphany: During a plane trip, he meets eccentric soap maker Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), he returns home to find his condo has blown up and, desperate, he rushes to, of course, Tyler.  He lives in the "dilapidated house in a toxic-waste part of town" -- and never leaves.

In Tyler, he finally finds the "power animal" that his original cancer-support group instructed him to get in touch with. Tyler teaches him Nietzschean ideals of freedom and puts him in tune with his manly center -- his hunter. And even more importantly, Jack and Tyler fight: Their fights are sweaty, bloody, I want-to-throw-my-desk-at-my-boss releases of rage, submerged eroticism and enlightenment. And men are intrigued. Watching Tyler and Jack's parking-lot brawls creates a new form of therapy for men, and as we well remember, they organize their beat-downs into the movement and philosophy of "Fight Club.” As members grow and chapters sprout up in different cities, the club morphs into something called "Project Mayhem" -- a terrorist revolution that encourages members to spread to the outside world -- vigilante/philosophical style with charismatic Tyler as leader of the revolution. In Tyler they trust. His leadership, their trust and their acts become morbidly funny, increasingly frightening and oddly inspiring.

Fincher’s brilliant fusion of style and substance, created an exciting, thought-provoking, bloody experience that was worshipped, studied and criticized for its controversial takes on moviemaking, manhood, violence and corporate culture. Again, like Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange, Fight Club articulates the darkness (and humor) of those who don't want to feel numb anymore while, simultaneously, commenting on the powers that made them numb in the first place. And like Kubrick's picture, Fight Club was considered dangerous, a film that incites violence or promotes nihilism.

And this seemed to be exactly what Fincher wanted. The more fingers wag at him, the more his point is proven: It’s easier to pin society's ills on entertainment, then look out into the real world or (gasp) within oneself. (Even if our therapist continues to say: "you’re doing great….you’re doing great").  Fincher’s other masterpiece, Zodiac, also touched on this -- defying what was expected of him, Fincher made a movie about obsession and didn’t simply satiate our desire to watch yet another serial killer movie.

But, like all of Fincher’s movies, the picture also works as supreme entertainment -- especially because master prankster Tyler is "form of"… Brad Pitt. Does the picture take Tyler's side? In many ways, yes. Though the movie pokes fun at the men who join Tyler, it understands their pain, and it understands that their pain has been sold out to self-help groups that do them no good. In the transformation from "Fight Club" to "Project Mayhem," the members merely shift their anger from each other to the outside world -- the soul-deadening culture that has merged New Age spirituality with consumerism, hiding dehumanization behind politically correct calm. As Tyler explains, "Self-improvement is masturbation...self-destruction might be the answer."

And yet, the picture understands that the answer is too simple; it can only lead to further confusion. Because Fight Club is essentially a satire, it knows that though Tyler's eloquent assertions make sense, and are emboldening, they will become borderline fascistic and not entirely reliable. Still, I couldn’t help feeling moved by its muscular assertions. When Tyler declares to a terrified fat cat, whose face has been duct-taped courtesy of Project Mayhem: "We are the people who take out your garbage...we watch over you while you sleep...DO NOT FUCK WITH US!" I’m all Kick-out the-Jams-motherfucker, Fight-the-power exhilarated.

What I admire about Fight Club, is that it never denies that violence can be glamorous. Fincher shows that a fight can be a crucial part of life, that a violent act can be horrifying, but weirdly fun and sometimes necessary. It can be a soul-altering experience, it can liberate. But it can also, as the picture artfully complicates by not strictly advocating violence, destroy and entrap one with feelings of paranoia and pain.

Fincher reached new levels in filmmaking, not only by his wink-wink take on violence, but also his wink-wink take on exploiting his own arena of expression: cinema, or rather the corporate world of cinema. Like the pranksters he's chronicling, Fincher had bitten the hand that fed him. He knows the commercial Hollywood system. He knows how to take a successful franchise like Alien, or an ideal hunk like Pitt (something he also deconstructed in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) and turn it into something subversive, because, as much (or more) than any traditional "indie" director would, he understands the system he mocks. When Tyler yells at his Project Mayhem recruits that they will never be movie stars, the scene works as both a hard truth and as a deconstruction of the movie ideal. Tyler/Pitt is the ideal movie star we all want to be, but should we listen to him?

Yes and no. The film is cynical enough to show that a New World Order like Tyler and Jack's can lose control of itself. Yet the movie doesn't deny that such a "second coming" is attractive and, in ways, beneficial. After all, what is more powerful: movie stars putting knuckles to skin, or fleshy nubs munching scones and itemizing reports? And watching Fight Club, ten years later, with all that we have available to us, it seems even more prescient. For better and often for worse, we’ve become even more disconnected from ourselves. And even more narcissistic. People text, they twitter, they communicate online instead of talk on the phone or in person. They create alternate identities and pretend to be tough in, of all places, chat rooms, and blogs. Can you imagine a flame war in a biker bar? It's no surprise Fincher’s making a movie about the social networking site Facebook. Tyler Durden would now be a viral creation.

Filled with so many potent comments on society that it demands more than one, two, three viewings, Fight Club is a challenging and powerful work of art that sticks in both the primal and the intellectual parts of one's brain and, for many of us, will never be dislodged -- not even by a sucker punch.

Got To Be Free: Il Posto

Sometimes it’s all in a face. Young Sandro Panseri‘s visage relays so many subtle, unsure, gentle, poignant emotions that you can’t believe he’s acting.  Perhaps he wasn’t.  He wasn’t an actor. Not professionally anyway.  Director Ermanno Olmi aptly understood Panseri’s vulnerable power, and worked the youth’s already wistful eyes within his stunningly composed frames.  As a result, Il Posto remains one of the most thoughtful, affective and timeless studies of alienation among the drones. The Office, Italian style.

And yet, Italian Neo-Realist Olmi isn't typically the first name to pop when the average viewer thinks of postwar Italian cinema. De Sica, Antonioni and Fellini are the names we hear.  Regardless, Olmi was a highly influential and, in his own quiet way, highly infuriating director among the New Wave cinema of the '60s and into the '70s. An auteur whose attention to the small details of everyday life created quiet character studies of tedium, irony, hilarity, and sadness, he had a marked quality of making the hum-drum almost fantastical. Reality depends on how you look at it, and his aggressively common depictions also contained an element of Kafkaesque torture.

Again and again, in films like, Tempo si E Fermato (1959), Il Posto (1961) and I Fidanzati (1963), he displays those little heartbreaks that lead people to inspiration or desperation with a beguiling combination of warmth and melancholia. Such is markedly apparent in Il Posto, a film that observed a job ("Il Posto" means "The Job") through the eyes of a teenager just entering the work-force. Saucer-eyed and languid Domenico (Panseri) endures a series of tests to land a position within a company in an Italian city. The tests include fractions, but also physical dexterity, like how well one can deep-knee bend. He also must answer personal questions, like "Does the future seem hopeless to you?" Domenico is too young to know (though you see a poignant mixture of simultaneous hope and doom in his eyes), but the other figures around him would answer a disheartening yes.
 

In Olmi's world, sitting at a desk all day is no life to live. Domenico gets the job, but he's not excited by the work -- instead he's hopeful that he'll see pretty Magali (Loredana Detto), the girl he shyly spent the day with, playing grown-up while drinking an espresso together. The next day (there's an extraordinarily visceral scene where Domenico, at dawn, walks to the train with his father -- new hopes, but with dad at his side, a reminder that the grind has begun) he's happy to see Magali got the job as well, only she's in a different department. Revealing how alienating and open-ended a workplace can be (this place is sprawled out like a campus, or a prison, a veritable city of work), Domenico is assigned to a separate building as an apprentice messenger. Company policy enforces different lunch breaks and time-outs, so Domenico almost never gets a chance to even talk to his prospect. She appears once in the hallway, and they chat briefly, but her supervisor gives her the evil eye. And on a rain-soaked day, Domenico sees her leaving, laughing and happy with a group of kids -- they've got umbrellas, but Domenico must share one with an old lady at the work cafeteria.

In one of the picture’s most touchingly sad, yet strangely hopeful moments, on New Year's Eve (perhaps one of the saddest celebrations of the year), Domenico ventures out alone, hoping once again he'll meet up with Magali. But he instead shares a table with an older couple, and as the evening opens up he lets himself go in a dance. The fact that he's momentarily happy, widening his usual placid face with toothy grins and jumping in a circle with other party-goers, makes the sequence all the more moving. The New Year brings a new position, as well as a potentially endless life of staring at a co-worker's head in front of him.

Olmi's genius in Il Posto is in his beautifully composed, lingering shots. Whether in a medium, hand-held, or close-up, Olmi studies a face or a scene long enough for us to see its platitudes with subtle power. Domenico's face is a landscape of emotion, though heavily suppressed -- in small smiles, dejected eyes, and embarrassed blushes, we virtually watch him grow before our eyes. Some critics couldn't stomach Olmi's passive Domenico, but there's nothing pathetic about him, he's just a shy, confused person right at the start of life. He’s like the embodiment of a plaintive song by The Kinks: "I've got to be proud and stand up straight and let people see I ain't nobody's slave. I've got to be free before it's too late. I've just got to be free. Got to be free to do what I want. Walk if I want, talk if I want."

There's a lot of De Sica in Olmi (whom Olmi acknowledged as an influence) but we also see what came after. As stated in Kent Jones's essay included with the Criterion DVD, Martin Scorsese borrowed shots from Il Posto for Raging Bull, and there are similar echoes in Clockwatchers (director Jill Sprecher credits Olmi as an influence on that film), Office Space, The Office, Time Out and even Fight Club. So, it's startling, but then I suppose, not surprising to notice that, before computer cubicles, endless streams of useless emails, hours of data entry, multi-phone conference calls with faceless bosses, and whatever else, desk jobs were just as dismal 40 years ago as they are today.

I do hope Domenico got the hell out of that place. But I’m pretty sure he doesn’t. And yet, just as he discovers at the New Year’s party, maybe he’ll find happiness in the small (and bigger) things, no matter how fleeting. After all, one’s life should never be defined by their desk.

Al Green, Soul Survivor

I'm feeling blue. I need Green. From my archive of Al...

Otis Redding, Marvin Gaye, Jackie Wilson, Curtis Mayfield, Ike Turner…they are all gone dammit. Gone.  How any self respecting (or self flagellating) Christian thinks I should believe in God is beyond me. Not that I need God necessarily, or that I don't believe (in something), and yet, when I hear that true soul survivor, Al Green, I start thinking…Jesus Christ…maybe I do need the Lord. Green, one of the greatest soul singers ever placed on this God-forsaken planet (yes, thank God again, apologies Christopher Hitchens) is still living, still putting out records (Lay it Down is superb) and still performing live. One of the last real soul singers blessing our landscape -- especially a musical landscape populated by lip-synching video vixens, pop punk whiners and the very allowance of Kevin Federline cutting a rap record those few years ago, Al Green will make you believe.

The Arkansas–born, Michigan–raised, Memphis-living Green made brilliant albums during his Hi Records heyday (Al Green Gets Next to You, Let’s Stay Together, I’m Still in Love With You, Call Me), his live performances (which I’ve fanatically collected over the years) were something to behold -- sexy, inspirational, transcendent experiences that weren’t simply swoon-worthy (though the ladies love Al Green), but genius examples of tightness and improvisation. Al Green can riff out of the margins, break from his sensuous midrange to talk to the audience and then lift to falsetto only to bust into a goose-bump–inducing raw growl that comes from a place so deep it’s nearly impossible to describe its power.

To use simpler terms, Green performs with raw, soulful intensity in its purest form. And where do you see that anymore? Excuse the easy takedowns, but seriously, Beyonce, Rihanna? Not bad, I know. But give those girls some Al Green Midnight Special performances simply to remind them not, what only a real singer is, but a real entertainer, and a real interpreter of song.

And Green’s realness can be achieved anywhere, from the soundstages of Soul Train to still-packed concert halls to his Full Gospel Tabernacle where the soul icon remains the residing reverend. If you’re ever in Memphis, don’t miss the chance to possibly catch Mr. Green presiding over worship -- an experience that, years back, one of my atheist-leaning friends caught and was so significantly inspired by, the tough guy was moved to tears. If you’ve ever watched Green perform the baptism-by-orgasm “Take Me to the River,” you’ll completely understand my friend’s reaction.

And further, if you’ve ever suffered through many of our current pop stars, you’ll feel a little sadness that performers like Al Green barely exist anymore in popular entertainment. I mean, really. What the hell happened? There’s plenty of gritty soulful artists out there (thank you Andre Williams, thank you T. Model Ford, thank you Black Keys -- and thank you for almost recording an album with Ike Turner) but gone are the days when you could actually turn a large clunky dial and see these kinds of geniuses on the five channel boob tube. I hate to say this, but our parents were lucky. No wonder my father went through that leather vest, leather cap, butterfly collar phase. I always thought it might have been some Charles Bronson Death Wish nervous breakdown situation. (Remember when Bronson remodels his apartment all swinging '70s garish in the movie? That's what divorce did to some men, even without the murder and vigilantism -- but I digress.) Anyway, it was probably all that Al Green on his, even then, out-moded, old school 8-track. That’s some potent stuff.

And I do mean stuff, since Green makes me want to pop a doll and worship God at the same time. Especially when he sings the sexy haunting “Jesus Is Waiting” -- and with a sling!  You can interpret this Soul Train performance as pure holy high or, pure holy high-high (check out Green's eyes) or whatever kind of godliness you apply to your Green, but one thing’s for sure, it’s on a holy high mountain of silky hot brilliance. That's religion.

Words From The Saint, Eva Marie

In her first movie, she kissed Marlon Brando. And then she won an Oscar. How many actresses get that kind of a debut? But then, how many actresses are as wonderful as Eva Marie Saint?  A performer (and woman) of elegance, vulnerability, charm, beauty, intelligence and great wit, Miss Saint remains, not just a movie star, but a real actor, one of the innovators. And she's still a powerful presence on screen.

A woman who has worked with talents ranging from Kazan to Wenders, Brando to Shepard, Preminger to Mulligan, Frankenheimer to Singer, Hope to Segal, Clift to Beatty, Grant to Grammar and then, a man named Hitchcock, Miss Saint has enjoyed sixty years of experience, and more to come. With the 50th Anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's suspense, action, sex-tastic classic North by Northwest, the funny, personable Miss Saint took the time to talk to me about her beautiful, brilliant career. And shopping with Hitchcock. Now that would be something. 

Where do I start, Miss Saint?

“Take a deep breath...”

On North by Northwest remaining so timeless:

“When I think of North by Northwest as 50 years old, I just can't believe it. It seemed to me, 20 years ago. But 50 years ago is half a hundred!  One reason it seems timeless: Hitch had this thing with not coming to work with what people were wearing at the time.  He thought that it dated the movie. And at the time, we were wearing these dresses without any belts; I think we called them sheaths.  I went to rehearsals, went to the studio that way.  And he sent everybody home. I think it was the auction scene, and they scheduled that day for another shooting and another scene because it dated the film. He said, ‘Come back with a more classic look, a suit, a sweater, a skirt.’ Ladies were wearing trousers…so anything that I wore, even the red dress or the black dress with the roses could be worn today. People ask me, 'Did you get that black dress?’ I said, ‘No. It’s a little like maternity clothes -- once you get out of them, you don’t want to go back and I was in that dress a long time.’  [There was hair and costume] but Hitchcock, he did oversee everything, of course.  And the makeup, and the jewels and the shoes and the bags, and the dresses. I loved it! Because he had this idea about this sexy spy lady and it helped me compose my character and all of that. It’s not only the internal, but the external always helps. Costumes are of such importance to an actor."

Working with Hitchcock:

 “I’m not sure what he saw me in, where he saw me as a sexy spy. I don’t know…well she’s a human being first… I did a program a few years ago; they should have taped it or filmed it, and all the Hitchcock blondes were there, and Suzanne Pleshette too [from The Birds]. And all of us were on the stage taking questions and talking about him and our experience working with him. And everyone had a different story. I couldn’t believe we were talking about the same man!  And I remember in the middle of the discussion, saying to the audience: ‘I really feel like we’re all talking about the same husband -- and all of us are the different wives.’ And you know, Tippi was very vulnerable at the time when she was shooting with him, but I was married. I had just given birth a few weeks back, it was my second child. I was very happily married, still am (I just had my 58th wedding anniversary last night). And so I was at a different place from the other actresses."

Shopping with Hitchcock, Vertigo style:

"I called him my sugar daddy. I did! I’ve never called anyone my sugar daddy, not even my husband. [Laughs]. He wasn’t happy with some of the clothes they had given me [on the movie] so he took me to New York, took me to Bergdorf Goodman and we sat down and he had arranged some clothes he had seen and picked them out. The beautiful models came out and I’d say [in an excited hushed voice]: ‘Oh I do like that black dress with the red roses!’ And he’d say [imitates Hitchcock’s famous voice]: ‘Fine. Wrap it up in this case.’ And that was the beginning of that famous dress. [Laughs] That was quite a shopping trip. I have never had it before and I have never had it since." [Laughs]

On working with so many different actors through the years:

"I’m from the Actor’s Studio. You don’t depend on anyone else but yourself and all the other actors you’re working with. With On the Waterfront, the Kazan set was pretty much closed -- it was very quiet. He would whisper in your ear when he had a bit of direction which was very precise and just the perfect few words. You never heard him talk to other actors, he would whisper in their ears.  But then I stepped on the Bob Hope set [for That Certain Feeling] and the first day we were filming, I saw a whole football team watching [laughs]. I mean, right on the set. I saw this out of the corner of my eye and sort of swallowed hard and thought, ‘OK, this is going to be a challenge.’ But it was fine! And the days we didn’t have people watching, I missed the audience!  But I went from Marlon to Bob Hope and that’s what you’re supposed to. You’re supposed to work with different people, you’re supposed to find what you like about them, what you don’t like about them and just work with them. Now, with Cary Grant, it was hard to not find things to love about him."

So...working with Cary Grant:

"Whatever you think about him is correct. He was larger than life and beautiful and wonderful. And he was very, very kind and sweet. He himself said he created himself, he started in the circus! He created Cary Grant… Before he died, he was giving back. He was going around the country with his wife to little theaters and wonderful audiences would clamor to see him in person. He wasn’t living somewhere on a hilltop, he was giving back. He was an amazing man."

Her famous ingénue debut as young Edie in Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront:

"I had done theater and mostly live television and again, I was from the Actor’s Studio, so I wasn’t intimidated. I was intimidated by making a movie because I had never made a movie. And I remember, my husband and I, we lived on 29th West 9th Street in the village, and as I was leaving, they were picking me up to go the set -- I was crying! Because I had never made a movie. It all seemed a little overwhelming. And my dear, sweet husband put his arms around me and said: ‘Honey you’re in good hands. Kazan is directing. Marlon is in it. You know all of these people. Lee Cobb, Karl Malden, Nicky [Nehemiah] Persoff, you know them, you’ve seen them at the Studio, you’re going to have a wonderful time!’ So by the time they opened the door and whisked me away to Hoboken, I was feeling really good about it all. My husband was absolutely right, and so the first day I felt very comfortable and had a wonderful time." 

On winning an Oscar for her first movie role:

"Young actresses ask me ‘Oh did you know that you were going to get an Oscar?’ And I  say, ‘My God, you’re just there to do a job and do the best you can and you don’t think about those things!’ And no one does."

That glove scene with Brando and how it remains of cinema’s sexiest moments:

"I know, I know, I know! I could just see Marlon and hear him right now. The way Kazan worked, you were always rehearsing on set, so none of the actors were left to their own devices….we were always rehearsing in another room for the next scene up. And Kazan would still be filming a scene. And when they were doing the lights, he would leave that scene and watch what we were working on for the next scene. It was a difficult scene. Why the girl from the Waterfront? Why the girl from the convent, the Catholic School and all that? Why would she stand there?  Well, in the rehearsal, I dropped my glove.  [Says slowly and delicately] Marlon picked up the glove, put it on his hand, started sort of fondling the glove, and it was very sensual. Edie had to get the glove, she had to go on her way, and so that sort of detained her.  We could play the scene. We told Kazan how it happened and he loved it, and so he said ‘Keep it in.’"

On Brando the actor:

"He was always in the moment, while rehearsing or on the set. We both were. And that’s from the workings of the studio. It really is. [The glove scene], it showed what a brilliant actor Marlon was. Most actors would have picked it up in rehearsal, given it back to me and then we would have started from the beginning. He didn’t do that. You just use all of these wonderful things that happen -- you don’t disregard them. You don’t take the straight line.  He was one of the best actors we ever had. I don’t know what happened. I think he was in wonderful spirits when we made the movie. And some people change, and things happen in your life, and I think he lost the joy of acting. I still have it. Even at my age, after all these years. But he seemed to lose it."

The great, under-seen movie, John Frankenheimer’s All Fall Down:

"It’s one of my favorites!  And when people come up to and say ‘Oh! Miss Saint. There’s a movie…’ And I always say, ‘I know. All Fall Down.’  Everything is timing in this business and I guess we had competition for bigger, more money making movies, whatever they were. And so it didn’t get the publicity. But look at the cast! I mean Angela Lansbury, Karl Malden, Warren Beatty, Brandon DeWilde. Johnny Frankenheimer directed us in that (I also worked with him in Grand Prix), and it’s such a dear, sweet movie. He was a very nice man, he died too early." 

Montgomery Clift in Edward Dmytryk’s Raintree County...his shyness, his eyes:

"He was very, very quiet. Except when we had the dialogue on the set. And I remember in one of the dressing rooms over at MGM (we all had our own dressing rooms) and so I invited him to lunch and to go over lines. And we were sitting there waiting for them to bring the lunch from the commissary. He didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. It was very quiet. He was so shy. And I used to be shy….but I’m Episcopalian and Quaker and I can be shy. So we didn’t say a word. I didn’t get to know him. I didn’t get to know anything about him. With someone at that time who was that painfully shy, I would fall right into being painfully shy too. And nowadays, if someone is shy, I try to help them and to bring them out. However, Elizabeth [Taylor] and Monty were very close, and they were such a beautiful team. She adored him, he adored her. If Elizabeth had been there for the lunch, it would have been a whole different situation.  Although, when we were working, and I looked into his eyes, he looked a little frightened.  Not from a scene, not from acting. But, as a person…maybe he had demons.  His eyes. Haunted. I can see it in my mind’s eye right now as we speak. Haunted. Maybe not troubles, maybe not demons, haunted is the word."

The notorious Otto Preminger:

"I only worked once with him in Exodus and that was a huge undertaking…all those people! Preminger did do an incredible job keeping it all together, and it was not easy because it was like 115 degrees. I have never been so hot. But he had a temper and it would come maybe once a day, so before it came, people were a little nervous and then after the explosion, people were nervous. He never yelled at the stars (Paul, yes his eyes were that blue…). He would scream down at the extras if someone was doing something incorrectly, or not the way he liked. There were a lot of extras and many of them had been on the real Exodus and they said that that was easier than working with Preminger!" [Laughs]

Sam Shepard’s tooth:

"Oh yes, I loved playing that lady [In Wim Wenders’ Don’t Come Knocking]. I met Sam and Wim and he said, ‘Well do you want to do this?’And I said, 'Sam Shepard, I’m so happy but I don’t feel like your mother!' He’s so attractive. [Laughs] And one day at set, he was smiling and I said, ‘Now about that tooth.’ And he said, ‘What about that tooth?’ And I said, ‘Oh come on! What do you mean about that tooth? That’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen!' [Laughs] and it is! I said, ‘Don’t ever have that fixed!’ He’s a very interesting man."

How have movies changed?

"I don’t want to sound cranky. Once in a while, there are some wonderful movies but I think the menu has changed. I loved Up.  Look how brave they were to have a wife die. And the movie had so many qualities of real life, and yet it was funny and visually it was exciting. As far as dramas, you know once in a year, maybe there will be one or two that are really wonderful. But there’s just so much violence. I don’t know which comes first? Does the audience want the violence? Or do they accept the violence because that’s what the studios want? It’s the chicken and the egg. There’s so much violence in the world now. You pick up the paper and you just shudder before you read the headlines. The violence. Our boys being killed. Oh my god almighty how awful that is! There’s so much violence, why do people want to see that in movies? Especially when we’re just trying to find a little peace?"

Watching movies as a girl:

"My parents loved going to the movies! When I was younger, every Saturday night that’s what we did. I loved Charles Boyer and Ronald Colman, those were my heroes. But those were movies we could all go to. Now the world has changed, I know, and you can’t go back…"

Words of wisdom based on her mentor:

"My mentor was Lillian Gish. We did The Trip to the Bountiful together, we did the play, that’s where Kazan saw me and thought of me for On the Waterfront. Lillian, she never married, she loved my husband, and she loved my children. And when she was getting older and frailer, she said she was proud of me for handling a career and family and she was never able to do that. But she always looked ahead, she never looked back, she was never cranky about, 'Oh my God, it’s not like it was in the silent movies!' That’s why I say, I don’t want to be pessimistic. Today is a beautiful day -- in California anyway."

Marlene, Some Kind Of A Woman

She was some kind of a woman. Josef von Sternberg may have crafted his own goddess in the form of leggy, sunken-cheek-boned and languid Marlene Dietrich, but Marlene took his tutelage and made herself...Marlene. With classic, otherworldly, baroque beauty (blonde beauty -- which functions almost as its own cinematic genre for me) the Sternberg Dietrich duo created their iconic masterstrokes The Blue Angel, Dishonored, Shanghai Express, The Devil is a Woman, The Scarlet Empress and Blonde Venus. Though I love them all (all of them), Blonde Venus always stood out as the ultimate blonde-semble with Dietrich playing the full spectrum of dar superblondine.

Here's the flaxen facts: She's an ex-German café singer who marries a good-hearted Englishman. She's a happy hausfrau and adoring mother. And then she's a cabaret star and harlot (but of course!) who dances in a gorilla suit and becomes incredibly famous. You know, the whole blonde journey. The picture features two iconic blonde numbers with Miss Marlene in her famed white tux, tails and top hat and, quite unforgettably in a gorilla suit. In one of the movie's most gorgeously surreal moments, Marlene removes her gorilla head to reveal her blonde-haloed face, grabs a handy golden Afro wig, places it on her head and sings "Hot Voodoo." Describing this moment requires two words you don't often see together, but should: blonde genius

Since Maximillian Schell's brilliant documentary, Marlene was finally released on DVD, I have been in the midst of a kind of Marlene mania, which usually consists of me re-watching everything Dietrich (from Desire to Destry, Rancho to Evil), breaking out her numerous albums (I love how she announces "Burt Back-RACK!"), and reading the uber Blonde's own personal dictionary entitled Marlene Dietrich's ABC. This is a keeper. I came across the "wit and wisdom of one of the world's most wonderful women" (say that like Marlene) while working at a book store so many years back and it's become a bible.Originally published in 1961, the reference book (and it really is a reference book) contains random, but important words or terms met with Marlene's own special, specific definition.

And it's all great stuff. You're not going to find the meaning of say, impugnable or dislogistic but you will find Suave: "I can get along very well without the use of this word." You'll also flip through to find Morocco: "Looks better in films"; Credit System: "The American Tragedy"; Hardware Store: "I'd rather go to the hardware store than the opera. And I like the opera"; Medical Ethics: "They make me sick"; Pouting: "I hate it, but men fall for it so go on and pout" and Necking: "a dirty pastime." (Oh Marlene, surely you mean good fun dirty?)

 

 

But within her specific list is this oh-so-true statement regarding my own personal junkie paradise, Stationery Stores: "People who adore stationery stores are like dope addicts about paper clips, paper clamps, felt tip pens...paper...thick stiff, hard, soft, rough, large like canvas, surfaces like linen or pigskin... I remember buying the most beautiful pale blue legal paper, which almost felt like silken blotting paper...I look at it every once in a while and it sends me." Oh, Marlene. I'm actually a little hot. How she makes me long for carbon paper, manila envelopes and according files. Proof positive of her simultaneously mysterious and down-to-earth erotic potency, Marlene manages to make felt tip pens sound sexy.

 

 

This gem has been long out of print but look for it. Forget so many insulting self help tomes pandering to weak women (and men) and simply turn to Miss Marlene --  her movies, her records, her dictionary. You never know when you might need to quote, say, Dietrich's take on soda pop: "The gooey, bubbly sea drowning our American children." The charming, alarming blonde woman...she's still right.

 

Happy Halloween: Rosemary's Playboy

Halloween viewing at Hugh Hefner's movie night was quite perfectly, The Exorcist. We will all one day, sing together in the white clouds of heaven or rot in hell, I think quite comfortably, in the wonderfully balmy Grotto. Either way, I think we'll be OK -- everyone was sufficiently terrified and moved by the picture to ensure this will happen.

So...naturally, the act of watching Regan stab her privates with a crucifix turned me back into that nice Catholic girl buried deep inside of me (the Catholic girl barely raised Lutheran, but familiar with the church of excessive, sometimes beautiful guilt). That girl.

That Vidal Sassoon sporting, tannis root wearing, black crib rocking girl who makes me long for ritual.That girl who would never, like Ellen Burstyn, abandon a child, even if he had "his father's eyes."

Roman's girl (that's Castevet, and yes Polanski too) and favorite Catholic -- Rosemary Woodhouse.

Naturally.

With that, Happy Halloween... and with some Rosemary antics at the mansion. (Also, please check out this entire series of photos, in slide-show higher resolution here.) And thank you for your hospitality Mr. Hefner.

And...watch my above mini Max Fischer production in wide-screen here.

And finally, if you like, watch me cuddle in a coffin here. That was somewhere else...

Drive She Said: Auto Slaughter

I think my car is trying to kill me. Not in any cinematic supernatural way, a la Christine or The Car. It’s actually far worse than that -- my car is torturing me like an abusive boyfriend or, in the case of this crazy year, a deranged psychopathic killer. Though my sturdy muscle-mobile -- my 1971 Ford Torino, has rarely steered me wrong, my deceptively adorable Datsun has, quite suddenly, become a holy terror. But why? For years, I’ve tended to the thing/bad seed/cute little “Shape of Rage” Brood creature like a spoiled child and it has remained well behaved, reliable, an absolute angel. But one, two, three, four (five?) dark and desolate nights later, everything changed and that devil in disguise has turned against me -- Henry Lee Lucas style. Breaking down repeatedly, stranding me on scary streets, leaving me in high desert dereliction, and fending for myself in gas stations that make the Texas Chainsaw Massacre family pump look like a cheery Travel Center of America truck stop, life with my car has become a real horror show.

And I don’t mean horror show the way Orange’s Alex proclaims the dark wonders of life -- those bizarre, deviant, wonderfully perverse moments that strike you in the most unusual or, sometimes, the most banal of circumstances (and I’ve encountered some strangely intriguing situations while stranded on the road -- namely taking in the weird beauty of the Alien-inspired Integratron dome in Landers, California). No, I mean quite literally, the cliché of slouching towards civilization, in the black of night, losing cell phone reception, and only finding aid in a man turned aggressive creep. 

Note to self: When suffering intense second degree burns on your hand (and no, gentle gear-heads, I didn’t pull off the radiator cap, I’m not that stupid), make sure your passenger door is locked after that “nice” guy helps you. Also, always wears jeans when driving at night, no matter how hot (it was 105 degrees that day).  A casual halter dress perilously close to dropping off your melting frame, mixed with a useless burned hand, and a guy thinking he stepped into either a Penthouse Forum cream dream, or a 1970’s Charlene Tilton made-for-TV hitch-hiking movie, are all a recipe for disaster.

And yet, when you’re almost amused by how ludicrously cinematic your life has become, you nearly forget to be scared. Nearly. Because oh, that night was terrifying.  But that’s a slice of my real life, and though I’m being cagily candid here, I don’t want to mine that matter any further.  After all, I could not pull a Last House on the Left and repeat, “It’s only a movie. It’s only a movie.” I was more like Rosemary Woodhouse exclaiming, “This is no dream! This is really happening!” But there I go into movieland again -- which is quite therapeutic.  Through all this personal vehicular peril, I’m convinced my year was actually laid out by The Hitcher’s John Ryder (the Rutger Hauer version), so naturally my thoughts have turned towards horror movies, and more specifically, the car in horror movies.  This settles my nerves.

In horror cinema, the car is a fierce force -- an angel of mercy, an agent of doom or a ghastly, terrorizing, torture trap -- sometimes all in one movie.  Though there are numerous pictures to discuss here, films from Night of the Living Dead (those fucking keys!);  to Race with the Devil (the great Warren Oates’ line,  “I don’t believe a school bus on a Sunday!” has become my mantra towards anything unusual on the road);  to Zodiac (the opening scene, set to Donovan's “Hurdy Gurdy Man” remains one of the scariest auto slaughters in cinema);  to Psycho (even the police officer is creepy towards desperate Janet Leigh, who will meet her demise at the Bates Hotel  -- and have her car ditched in a large pool of water);  to the family vacation gone to mutant hell in The Hills Have Eyes (I honestly think I saw some of that clan while driving through rural Pennsylvania a year ago --  no offense to the state);  to the astonishingly beautiful, yet horrific auto water grave Shelley Winters suffers, seaweed entwined in her hair, in the brilliant The Night of the Hunter (not technically a horror movie, but fulfills enough monster moments of the genre);  cars are a killer’s dream.

There's more to this piece, and most especially The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, a picture that achieves the auto horror trifecta of vehicular rescue, ruse and ravage. But you'll have to purchase the latest issue of Jesse James' Garage Magazine (out November) to read it. The Vanity Fair for gearheads features my latest piece and layout for my column, "Drive, She Said."  You can pick up Garage Magazine at your local newsstands and various stores including Barnes and Noble and 7 Eleven. Thanks to Jesse James and Amy Norris for putting together my layout. Pictures by K. Morgan (me). Happy Halloween! And be careful on the road...

An American Tragedy: Monty's Eyes

No one has Montgomery Clift’s eyes.

Those haunted, sensitive eyes that gazed at the viewer with method modernity and timeless emotion -- pleading and gentle, but with the potential for reckless selfishness. He wasn’t the sweet bad boy; he was the conflicted, tortured bad boy who wasn’t even sure if he wanted to be so virtuous in the first place. In this disappointing, alienating world, what’s the point of being the good guy? But then, cruelty isn’t necessarily the answer either, even when he spurns an Heiress.

Clift’s eyes held secrets, and not merely the secrets we know about after discovering his real life. There’s more to Clift than hiding homosexuality, there’s pain and romance and passion and hopelessness mixed with bursts of happiness that will never grow towards contentment.  For a man so beautiful, his inherent existential angst almost seems perverse. But it also draws us to him --  we want to help Monty Clift, and I have a feeling, no matter what that man did, I would forgive him anything, even if he’d surely become one of the most unreliable presences in your life. In movies, he’s the man who’d promise to do anything for sad-eyed sister Marilyn in The Misfits, but, in the end, he probably wouldn’t stay. Though I love their chemistry in that picture, and their bond feels real and strong (and apparently, off screen, they understood one another), you know his cowboy was too damaged, too self destructive to take care of anybody but himself.

And yet, damn if he doesn’t untie those Mustangs for Monroe. I think because it’s Clift who performs this noble gesture, that the moment becomes so overwhelmingly moving, so eloquent. Yes, it’s a movie, but I will eternally love Monty for saying fuck the money, honoring Marilyn’s humanity, and letting those Mustangs free. It’s one of his most touching acts on film.

Today is Clift’s birthday. The man who influenced Brando and Dean would have been 89-years-old. Of course he would never have lived that long -- alcoholic, drug addled, unhappy, he died in 1966 at the age of 45 (though he was quoted that he wished to direct in his later years). There are many performances I could discuss here, since I love him so,  (Red River,  The Heiress, The Big Lift, A Place in the Sun, I Confess, Terminal Station, Raintree County, From Here to Eternity, Lonelyhearts, The Young Lions, Suddenly, Last Summer, Wild River, The Misfits, Freud  and Judgment at Nuremberg) and yet not enough performances -- he died too soon. Instead I keep thinking about his eyes -- an Avedon Into the West character (particularly after his accident -- and he was still gorgeous), a Dorothea Lange Dustbowl Farmer, a Bruce Weber beauty and then, like Bette Davis, quite simply Montgomery Clift. He was his own masterwork. 

Interestingly, I had almost forgotten that today would be his birthday, but late last night, I had the desire to watch A Place in the Sun with a friend who’d never seen it before. And I couldn’t stop talking about Clift's eyes.  My god, every scene is almost too much to bear. His insecurity (in that tweed suit), his desire to make something of himself, his loneliness with Shelley Winters, his criminal, terrible, and yet tragically human act in the boat, his rapturous love for Elizabeth Taylor, his fleeting moments of happiness and then his final, failed understanding of himself -- director George Stevens got his eyes. Adapting Theodore Dreiser's masterful An American Tragedy, Stevens’ vision of Liz and Monty’s heart-stopping beauty immediately puts the viewer in the lovers' corner, no matter what they do. But it isn't just their looks that make you swoon; it's the chemistry and fragile performances, most especially by Clift.

And that dance scene -- Stevens’ close-ups. They obviously reveal the actors' beauty, but also how much they, and particularly Monty, could say with their faces. Clift may be blurting out that he loves Taylor, but his beseeching, poignant eyes reveal so many layers of desire, you know something is haunting him even if you don't fully understand the circumstances (he has just witnessed his pregnant girlfriend drown and, frantically in love with Taylor, he's chosen to do nothing about it). It's a dance macabre, and it scares Liz (it would scare me too) but one of the most romantic of all time.

Again, no one had or ever will have those eyes.They were beautiful, but even Dreiser couldn't have written the power they conveyed. They were a sublime American Tragedy.

Let The Wild Rumpus Start

This is art.

While conducting interviews for his newest picture, Spike Jonze was pleased when I called his work a children's art film, stating that art films are considered a "dirty word" to studios. He thanked me. He didn't need to. We should thank him. Jonze's masterstroke, Where the Wild Things Are isn't just a children's art film, it's an art film in itself. It's a lovely, emotional work of masterful mayhem that taps right into the spirit of growing up. How conflicted we feel. How happy, how sad, how crazy, how rambunctious and of course, how wild we are. And that can be frightening. Jonze didn't shy from any of this. Ever gracious (and knowing the certain pressure he received from studios to create a more mainstream kiddie film), Jonze extended pleasure when I cited other kid's "art" films, including "Bambi" -- which is so spare and primal and beautiful, there's no way in hell it would be made today. But spare and beautiful and primal all describe Jonze's gorgeously profound, Wild Things -- adapted from Maurice Sendak's beloved children's book, published in 1963 -- a picture book read by generations of kids and grown up kids.

Talking to the art team, Sonny Gerasimowicz, Lance Accord, and KK Barrett, I also remarked how it evokes more adult art fare from Michelangelo Antonioni's Zabriskie Point, to NicolasRoeg's Walkabout, which, as shot in the Australian desert -- it truly does. Watching a wild thing run down a sand dune in emotional distress was surprisingly moving. The earnestness, the playfulness, and the beauty touched me on an aesthetic level (how could it not?), but also moved me in deeper ways -- ways much more mysterious, and ways that made me think about the image. Why do I feel so much? Taking Sendak's classic, Jonze, working from a screenplay co-written with Dave Eggers, changes things a bit, but never loses Sendack's anarchic spirit. Max Records plays (aptly named) Max, a kid who loves his mother (Catherine Keener), but who runs around the house with abandon -- resulting in some power struggles with a mom who, though, appreciates her son's creativity, becomes exasperated with his rebellion. I loved how the film moved with Max -- and we experience quiet moments, like the simple tug of his mother's nylons to his extreme rough-housing. After all, kids are filled with a multitude of instincts and feelings, but unlike adults, they often display them more freely.

Max angers his mother, and upset, flees to Sendak's world in his king beast costume complete with whiskers, ear hoodie and eventual crown, setting off by boat to soon meet those "Wild Things." These are a mixed group of varied personalities (in wonderful costumes) including vulnerable Carol (James Gandolfini), the patient KW (Lauren Ambrose), funny, stubborn Judith (Catherine O'Hara), complicated Ira (Forest Whitaker), goatish Alexander (Paul Dano), and bird-like Douglas (Chris Cooper). Within those lovely sand dunes, and lush jungle, we watch unleashed, sometimes scary thoughts, instincts, actions, making the movie feel more like a tone poem over a simple and-now-to-that-big-scene experience. No typical high fives, no dumb games (aside from throwing dirt clods, a wonderful moment), no silly eyes-agog "all right!" movie kiddie moment (and thank god Jonze had the sense to never play "Wild Thing" by The Troggs, something a studio probably suggested. Instead we get the great Karen O.), Jonze made an authentic kid's movie.

It's a gritty, gorgeous hero's journey that's oddly real, truly childlike and yet uniquely adult while remaining fantastical all at once. Not an easy feat, but one Spike Jonze conquers brilliantly. This movie is personal, and though I sense many critics will be disapointed by the places it doesn't go, I loved the movie for its elusive, human and animalistic beauty -- a beauty that will occasionally make you gasp and, in certain moments, cry. And not because you feel sappy, but because, quite perfectly, you feel wild.

Read more Kim Morgan at her picture and video page, Pretty Poison.

Psycho Stepfather Supreme

A re-do of The Stepfather? It only led me to my archive of demented dads, a movie (and real life) character I'm fascinated by. From the anti-Atticus Finch figures of Bigger than Life to Lord Love a Duck to Paper Moon, varied degrees of problematic parenting are always interesting.  But for those special psycho stepfathers, however, no one should ever forget the biggest, baddest, most brilliantly baneful stepdad of all time: Robert Mitchum's Harry Powell in Charles Laughton's genius, Night of the Hunter.

A man's man and a hep cat who projected a natural-born charisma entirely his own, Robert Mitchum was, and still is an American original. There is no actor or man quite like Robert Mitchum. Brimming with understated talent (the kind that’s always underrated), the actor could run the spectrum from gorgeous leading man (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison) to light comedian (What a Way to Go!) to war hero (The Story of G.I. Joe) to Western existentialist (Pursued) to flawed noir antihero (Out of the Past, Angel Face, Where Danger Lives) to aged gumshoe (Farewell My Lovely) to sexy psycho (Cape Fear) to hillbilly moonshiner (Thunder Road) with nary a trace of effort. Though he was quoted as saying he sleepwalked through many of his roles (and that heavy-lidded, laconic demeanor was a large part of his barrel-chested appeal), he did work at some (or many) of his big-screen characters. Nowhere is this more evident than in one of the actor’s greatest and most terrifying roles -- as the demented preacher and scariest stepfather who ever lived, Harry Powell in Charles Laughton’s masterpiece, The Night of the Hunter.

Adapting Davis Grubb's novel (with film critic James Agee as screenwriter) into an expressionistic children's fairy tale/nightmare, Laughton not only directed a movie, but cast an elegiac spell over the audience with dreamlike, angled compositions (by cinematographer Stanley Cortez), chilling religious motifs, dark humor, disturbed perversity and pure horror. And casting the frequently flawed but lovable, romantic Robert Mitchum was just another of Laughton's ingenious moves -- the actor took viewers aback with his inspired, demonic weirdness, creating an unease that’s still palpable today.

From his first moment on-screen, there’s something off about Mitchum’s preacher -- and that creepiness grows and expands with each succeeding scene (the switchblade popping from the pocket while watching a dancer is a terrific moment of phallic sex and death). He’s a handsome hunk of man (which makes him even more frightening), he can sing hymns, he can preach the Good Book and he can seduce -- particularly the weaker of the fairer sex.

The weaker one here is an easy catch and he quickly ensnares lonely, vulnerable Shelley Winters (poor, sick Shelley) with the intent of stealing the money her late husband recently lifted (the money is hidden in her daughter’s doll). After disposing of Winters (her underwater death scene is one of cinema’s most startling, yet beautiful, moments), Mitchum's faux reverend hunts down her two children (wonderfully played by Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce) with big talk, questioning threats ("Where'd you hide the money, Pearl?") and finally just plain murderous intentions.

From the picture’s famous scene involving Mitchum's love-and-hate speech using tattooed knuckles, to the poetic shots of the children fleeing their pursuer down a dreamlike river, to the frightfully gorgeous way Mitchum sings "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms," especially with pure-hearted Lillian Gish -- every moment of this picture and especially Mitchum’s performance is scary, stunning and paternally demented. What's so powerful here is that, even as he loses himself in the role, you constantly fight a bizarre attraction to this animal (think of Lillian Gish's teenage orphan who can't resist) and then recoil from his unadulterated evil (it is a hard world for little things, dammit). Mitchum is a monster, a beast of a daddy, but one of bad, beautiful brilliance.

Fire Is Inspirational: Richard Pryor

With the buzz that Marlon Wayans has replaced Eddie Murphy in the upcoming biopic, Richard Pryor: Is It Something I Said? I was brought back to one of my favorite comedy show, album, and film of all time: Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip.

The year was 1981 and the late, great Richard Pryor, that groundbreaking genius, that innovative, influential, trash talking/truth telling original King of Comedy was already a star. He’d released numerous inspired comedy albums, enjoyed big screen success, most notably with Gene Wilder in Silver Streak, and Stir Crazy, and his stand-up concert, Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (released as a film in 1979) had sealed the proverbial deal  -- this guy was not only beyond brilliant, but one of the most important comedians/philosophers of the 20th century. 

But back to 1981, back when he strode onstage at the Hollywood Palladium in his red suit and black bowtie and, at the start of his routine, exhibited something of a nervous disposition, and then…just went there. And not just there, as in, all of the bold areas Pryor was known to examine with brash humanity and riotous hilarity (racism, sex, politics and then some) but to the incident -- the “accident” that not only left 50 percent of his body covered in burns but nearly killed him. “Have you ever heard of a motherfucker burning up freebasing, other than me? If nobody else burned up freebasing, why do you think it happened to me? I did not burn up freebasing; I burned up because I quit freebasing.”

By covering his monumental act of self destruction, by delving into that day on June 9, 1980 when the comedian lit himself on fire while, yes, freebasing a whole lot of cocaine, and the drug addiction leading up to that infamous moment, Pryor created a routine of such self confessional brilliance, that, to me, it remains unsurpassed to this day. Comedians then and now, delve into the real, for sure. Comedians shock us, yes. Sometimes with hilarious profundity, but frequently for simply the sake of shock --  the kind that makes me roll my eyes and think dryly, “Oh, I’ve been duly shaken. What will I ever do with myself?” Boring. Not boring? When Pryor professed: “When that fire hit your ass, it will sober your ass up quick! I saw something, I went, ‘Well, that's a pretty blue. You know what? That looks like fire!’ Fire is inspirational. They should use it in the Olympics, because I ran the 100 in 4.3.”

Fire, drugs, demons, women, money, Richard -- it's all inspirational the way he tells it. Even if he'd struggle with addiction his entire life, during Live he was shaking that shit off,  at least for that moment, and damn it is powerful. But what makes Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip (released as a movie and album in 1982 -- the album I stole from my big brother at far too young of an age and listened to repeatedly) so exceptional and important isn’t simply Pryor’s discussion of his inner demons lit up for the world to see, but how he approaches such searing self examination.  Discussing topics ranging from prisons to the mafia to messy relationships to an extraordinarily moving epiphany while in Africa (Pryor decided never to use the “N” word again), Pryor wants his audience to laugh, but he wants them to hold their breath in for a second, to stop for a moment and to think.

Like, really think. And with his unflinching and at times, heartbreakingly honest vulnerability, Pryor not only makes one think about the emotional and moral shakiness of the human condition, but the shakiness within our own selves. How many comedians can make you laugh until you cry, and then genuinely, make you cry? And then, cause you to laugh again? Jesus, and laugh and cry at the same time? Richard Pryor could. There may be funnier Pryor shows, but Live on the Sunset Strip isn’t just funny, it’s a profoundly moving, historic experience.

The Number One Third Man

Today I was asked a question I can never answer -- "what's your favorite movie?" When pressed to choose, the same picture always rises to the surface --  "The Third Man." It haunts me. No matter how many films I have seen and will see in the future, I'm fairly certain "The Third Man" will remain my eternal, instinctual favorite. With that I'm revisiting my adoration of the Carol Reed classic.

In 1948, British novelist Graham Greene wrote this bit of character description for a movie treatment on which he was working: "Don't picture Harry Lime as a smooth scoundrel. He wasn't that. The picture I have of him...is an excellent one: he is caught by a street photographer with his stocky legs apart, big shoulders a little hunched, a belly that has known too much good food for too long, on his face a look of cheerful rascality, a geniality, a recognition that his happiness will make the world's day." A year later, that rascal later turned out to be an oddly gorgeous Orson Welles, and the movie became The Third Man, a picture that in spirit matches the lilting recklessness of Greene's character.

The Third Man is an exquisite work of discordant power crammed full of shifting moods. An expressionist film noir, it reveals a dark, unsettling pessimism in its ravaged night atmosphere. A jaunty, bittersweet comedy, it conveys a soulful playfulness among its likable characters. A stylistic achievement, it is a baroque composition of the absurd, a tilted wonder of visual anxiety. It is dreamlike and sensible, seamless and jagged, heartbreaking and hilarious and oddly, mockingly wistful, despite its sad ending. Greene's words that Lime's happiness "will make the world's day" are key. It isn't simply that Greene wrote a likable villain; he wrote a lovable story -- even though it revealed the paranoia and unease that would later characterize the Cold War.

Directed by Carol Reed (who also directed Greene's masterful The Fallen Idol), photographed by Robert Krasker and beautifully scored by Anton Karas, The Third Man is a rare work of art that tickles as much as it torments. The story takes place in Allied-occupied Vienna. During the film's opening moments, a narrator (voiced by director Reed) states it's "the classic period of the black market when the city is divided into four zones, each occupied by a power -- the American, the British, the Russian, and the French. But the center of the city--that's international, policed by an International Patrol. What a hope they had, all strangers to the place and none of them could speak the same language. Vienna doesn't really look any worse than a lot of other European cities, bombed about a bit." Enter an American into this rubble of sadness and crooked opportunity: American hack novelist Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten), a jobless "poor chap, happy as a lark and without a cent," seeking out his old friend Harry Lime (Welles), who has promised him a job. Unfortunately, Holly learns that his school chum was run over by a truck, a death that seems increasingly unlikely to the American.

A conspiracy emerges -- that of the mysterious "third man," who supposedly helped carry Harry's dead body out of view -- and the naive Holly is impassioned (or stupid) enough to become entrenched in it. In an odd, unconventional teaming, Holly develops a relationship with both Harry's lover, Anna (Alida Valli), to whom he's sexually drawn, and a British investigating officer named Calloway (Trevor Howard), who wishes the hayseed American would mind his own business. Holly also meets an assortment of exotic characters -- friends of Harry's -- and they aid in developing the film's humorous predicament of Western writer Holly attempting to work with such bizarre Kafkaesque visions. Crooked, gargoyle-like and most certainly not American, these multilingual characters further exemplify how ridiculous Holly's American optimism is. Externally and internally there is a cynicism presented to Holly, who, like the characters in his pulp novels, attempts to work on basic levels of good and evil. However, the complexities that Holly faces are neither black nor white.

The movie makes sure to display both character and situation with a jaunty and jaundiced flavor. There is no such thing as simplicity in The Third Man, a concept that's continually underscored by the film's style. Visually, it is an off-kilter intersection of vertical and horizontal lines (some scenes feel framed by the tilt of a man's hat) and a textured variety of high-contrast, low-key lighting techniques. Characters emerge from and duck back into shadows, a visual device Reed uses metaphorically to represent moral complexity. Karas' score is also wonderfully unpredictable. Bouncy, beautiful, ugly and panicky, the music follows and responds to the action like an id let loose. The score also conveys the irresistible, crooked charm of Harry Lime -- a figure so prominent that you forget he is in just a half-hour of the film.

But then Reed gave Orson Welles one of the most famous entrances in movie history: A cat walks down the street, spies a man's shoes in a darkened doorway, curls up at his feet and meows loudly enough for Holly to notice from across a street. A window opens, and light flickers on Lime, and the camera holds a mysterious, mischievous and disarmingly smiling face. Welles (as Lime) looks back at Holly with eyes that silently return the two men back to childhood. Seductive, playful and enigmatic, this moment is suspended with an overwhelming sense of rapture (I get chills, and sometimes tear up every time I watch it) and makes you understand what Anna later says about Lime: "Harry never grew up. The world grew up around him." You forget about the terrible things he's done. You just want to follow him, anywhere, no matter what the repercussions.

These complicated emotions might cause anxiety and hardship, but they may result in delight, which is what makes The Third Man so unique among movies. The film is about expressing the inexpressible feelings that are gnarled in our psyches as fantasies or nightmares. It gets to the heart of that "obscure object of desire" without ever delineating just what it is we yearn for. A timeless masterpiece, The Third Man both restores your hope and breaks your heart.

 

"Harry never grew up. The world grew up around him."

Rage, Roman and Repulsion

Upon hearing the news of Roman Polanski's arrest Sunday, and after arguing, discussing and thinking about the horribly mishandled case, especially by the late Judge Laurence Rittenband, and of course, the wrongful actions of Polanski towards young Samantha Geimer in 1977, I posted my take on Polanski's brilliant Repulsion at the Huffington Post. From Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Chinatown, Tess, Death and the Maiden, Bitter Moon and other pictures, I've always contended that Polanski has depicted women with complication, humanity, ugliness and most important, empathy. Polanski is an artist, an acute observer of life's darkness and absurdities on the level of Dostoevsky or Nietzsche. I write this not to defend statutory rape, I write this to study the visions of a troubled, talented human being, a human being who has gone through real horror himself and a human being who also happens to be one of the greatest filmmakers alive.

But before discussing Repulsion, I wrote this, very briefly at the Huffington Post: "I'm not going to go into my Roman Polanski defense. I've been doing this all morning, nearly ranting and raving over my views on the matter, and have grown frustrated and depressed. But in short, I'm not happy about his arrest. So, I would rather discuss one of his greatest pictures, a brilliant portrait of female sadness, alienation, sexual neurosis turned to psychosis. A movie all women should watch -- his masterpiece Repulsion."

This caused a flurry of outraged comments. Though many readers appreciated my essay, many slammed me for what they thought read as a defense of Polanski through his movies, Repulsion in particular. The Washington City Paper's blogger The Sexist wrote: "Congratulations, the Huffington Post’s Kim Morgan:You win the prize of penning the most disgusting defense of Polanski I’ve read to date!"

Well if I get a prize, I'll hand a gold statue to The Post News blogger who wrote a bizarre, creepy take on my piece: "Kim Morgan claims she’s setting aside her arguments for the right to rape children, and instead does some film criticism of Repulsion in an effort to suggest that Polanski can’t be a rapist, because he understands women , and their dark desires -- hint, hint, his 13-year-old victim was asking for it when she cried and said no and begged to go home.  Polanski knows women better than they know themselves, she says.  He knows, apparently, that 13-year-olds are dying to be raped, even if they continue to say no after the fact by pressing charges... Morgan’s insinuation that rape is some secret desire of women everywhere, and especially of junior high school girls."

I'm not sure how to respond to this this Andrea Dworkin-style foaming of the mouth, other than, I'm happy that she actually dug into my piece this deeply and at least saw some of the dual desires of women. Or, rather, what she views what I see. Even if she erroneously believes I'm saying Polanski can't be a rapist, because he understands women. And even if she thinks I'm a sick fuck. 

And here from, Wet Asphalt: "Frankly, this argument is the most blatant example of starfucking to be found and that Repulsion is in fact a piece of shit has no more bearing on the argument than does the fact that Chinatown is a masterpiece. The ONLY reason a 'film and culture' writer like Kim Morgan would be 'ranting and raving' at all about anything related to this case is because Roman Polanski is a famous person and Kim Morgan is a starfucker."  Yeah. I've got no response to that one.

Though I understand the sensitivity and complexity of the matter, I find some of the hysteria bordering on insane. The emails I've received range from polite disagreement to articulatete salvos, to bizarre wishes that I should be or had been raped for my current defense of Polanski. Since I was 13 many years ago, and a woman myself, it's interesting to me that defenders of rape don't stop to think that perhaps, I might actually know a thing or two about such matters.

My stance has been that I believe the case should have moved along as originally settled by all parties, and not turned into the witch hunt it has become. Even, Roger Gunson, the Assistant DA who led the original prosecution, has expressed his problems with Judge Rittenband's conduct and stated that "under those circumstances" he wasn't surprised that Polanski fled. And I think that, for the sake of Samantha Geimer, this should have been laid to rest decades ago.

I'm re-running my piece on Repulsion, a movie I have deep, personal feelings for, again (I've written about it many times here) and not to defend the man's original actions, but to explicate his art and empathetic depiction of women. Here, again, Repulsion.

Erotic Rotting Rabit:

Roman Polanski knows women because he understands men. He knows both sexes because he understands the games both genders play, either consciously or instinctively. He understands the perversions formed from such relations and translates them into visions that are erotic, disturbing, humorous and, most important, allegorical in their potency. One should not (as so many did with his misunderstood Bitter Moon) take Polanski's films literally, for they are often heightened versions of what occurs naturally in our world: desire, perversion, repulsion.

Film writer Molly Haskell said that at the core of Polanski's work is the "image of the anesthetized woman, the beautiful, inarticulate, and possibly even murderous somnambulate." Her observation is astute, but it's followed by the tired criticism that in all of Polanski's films, including Repulsion, "the titillations of torture are stronger than the bonds of empathy." Of course. Polanski's removed morality is exactly why he is often brilliant: He is so empathetic to his characters that, like a trauma victim floating above the pain, he is personally impersonal. He insightfully scrutinizes what is so frightening about being human, yet he doesn't feel the need to be resolute or sentimental about his cognizance. He is also, consciously or subconsciously, aware of the darkness he explores, especially in his female characters, who could be seen as extensions of himself. 1965's Repulsion proves as much.

Starring ice goddess Catherine Deneuve, Repulsionis one of the most frightening studies of madness ever filmed. Deneuve plays Carol, a nervous young manicurist who shares an apartment with her sexually active sister (Yvonne Furneaux). At first Carol goes about her days in the salon, where she quietly tends to bossy old ladies' fleshy cuticles; walking outside, where she unsuccessfully avoids the leering glances and advances of men; and languishing about the apartment, where, with disgust, she listens to the noises of her sister's lovemaking and silently despises the men who visit. She exhibits a pathological shyness and repression that slowly spiral into madness after her sister leaves on holiday. Carol's dementia creates perplexing hallucinations: sexual acts with a greasy man whom she simultaneously loathes and lusts after; greedy hands poking through walls and kneading her soft flesh; and the moving and cracking of walls. Left alone, she is able to act out what she is so afraid of: the dark sludge of desire.

The obscure, slippery and decayed complexities of such desire are conveyed brilliantly in Repulsion. The diseased atmosphere of Carol's womb is meticulously created with Polanski's use of camera angles, sound effects and images of clutter. Though music is used effectively, Polanski relies more on amplifying the sounds of everyday life -- the ticking of a clock, the voices of nuns playing catch in the convent garden, the dripping of a faucet -- to convey the acute awareness Carol acquires in response to her fear. Polanski also dresses the film with pertinent details that further exemplify both Carol's madness and the aching passage of time: Potatoes sprout in the kitchen, meat (rabbit meat, no less) rots on a plate and eventually collects flies, various debris of blood, food and liquids form naturally around Carol. The film's inventive use of black-and-white film, wide-angle lenses and close-ups creates an unsparing vision of sickness, and Deneuve's performance is effectively mysterious. The viewer, however, is able to empathize with Carol, which is how she lures us into her web in the first place. As Polanski cameraman Gil Taylor muttered during filming, "I hate doing this to a beautiful woman."

And yet, one lovesdoing this to a beautiful woman, especially one like Deneuve. Deneuve's loveliness makes Carol's madness more palatable (her unfortunate suitor thinks she is odd, but he can't help but "love" this gorgeous woman), but eventually it becomes horrifying. Carol is not simply a Hitchcockian aberration of what lies beneath the "perfect woman," she is the reflection of what lies beneath repressed desire -- in men and women. Polanski has a knack for casting women who are nervously exciting (Faye Dunaway in Chinatown is a blinking, twitching mess), and therefore dangerous to desire. He makes one insecure about longing for them.

And Deneuve is certainly nerve-racking. She is so physically flawless that she often seems half human: An anemic girl, she can barely lift up her arm, yet at the same time she is highly sensual, an ample, heavily breathing woman with more than a glint of carnality in her dreamily vacant eyes. Deneuve makes one feel the confusion of a corrupted child: She is an arrested adolescent who, like an anorexic, cannot face her womanliness without visions of perverse opulence and violence. Carol is the personification of sexual mystery -- she is what lurks beneath the orgasms of pleasure and pain. What Polanski finds intriguing and revolting is perceptively female, making Repulsion a woman's picture more than women may want to know, or care to face.

You Have 30 Seconds To Leave The Theater: I Stand Alone

I haved missed Gaspar Noé.

The French enfant terrible who helmed one of the greatest pictures of the 1990’s, I Stand Alone, and who, with Irreversible, placed Monica Bellucci in a situation that angered even those OK with Susan George’s episode in Straw Dogs, had been absent from the screen far too long. Yes, he made a short for the sexually explicit Destricted project, and yes there are the condom commercials from years back, but Mr. Noé needed another full length feature under his (whipping) belt. To say I'm greatly anticipating his newest, Enter the Void would be an understatement.

The director, heavily influenced by '70s cinema, William Castle shock-a-tude, pornography, Godard, Céline, Nietzsche and (as I have argued, whether he knows this or not), even Thomas Hardy, was the great Gallic hope for a new generation of savage filmmaking. Unlike some current filmmakers who traffic in mere shock, or art house directors striking a transgressive pose, Noé is a genuine artist, but unpretentious -- a man who loves nothing more than upsetting his audience (or, in the case of Irreversible, making some faint), while injecting his screaming compositions with substantive thought, intelligence and philosophy.

So hearing that Noé will be releasing a new Noé vision got me excited, and in the mood to re-visit his debut blast of brilliance, over ten years later, 1998’s I Stand Alone.  This is the movie that caused a daily critic to walk out during the screening I attended, this is the movie that bonded me with my sister (long story), and this is the film that I told a colleague to see on a date. That advice didn’t work out so well.

When first reviewing the blisteringly brilliant picture, I quoted an anecdote by director Paul Schrader. Schrader said:

“I had an interesting lunch recently with a French director named Gaspar Noé who wanted to do a film with me, something with violence and pornography and all that. And I said to him, 'I don't think anyone's shockable anymore.'"

Now I admire, sometimes revere Paul Schrader, and I would probably agree with him at that moment, but with I Stand Alone (and the latter Irreversible) he was positively wrong.  For Noé had not only made one of the most shocking pictures in decades, but also one of the most stylistically impressive, emotionally challenging, thematically intimidating, astoundingly touching and, in its own warped way, weirdly funny. I Stand Alone, or Seul Contre Tous (Alone Against All) is a hair grabber that drags you around the muck and pushes your face into its world so far that -- and this is rare with such hard cinema -- you’ll experience moments of such bizarre, hideous beauty that you’re left significantly moved. It attacks one's senses with such transgressive power that by its end, one feels flustered, simultaneously full and empty. I Stand Alone rattles in your brain long after the movie's disquieting end. 

As I mentioned before, with nods to Céline, Dostoevsky, Schrader, Godard and even William Castle, I Stand Alone chronicles, as the film's titles claim, the "tragedy of a jobless butcher struggling to survive in the bowels of his nation." As the picture opens, the nameless butcher's entire life is inventively, humorously revealed via a slideshow. It describes how a French World War II orphan became a butcher, and is sent to prison after stabbing a guy he thought raped his daughter. The movie jettisons us to 1980 and into the head of said butcher (embodied magnificently by Philippe Nahon), who, now released from prison, is living an emasculated life with his pregnant girlfriend and her obtrusive mother in a depressing housing tract in France. His current domestic predicament only escalates his alienation and rage, feelings made clear in angry interior monologues that grow more bile-ridden as the film continues (the man, like the film, isn't subtle). When his refusal (or inability) to smile causes him to lose a job at a supermarket deli (have we felt this? I sure have), the butcher becomes a night watchman at a home for the elderly, where in one stirring moment, he assists a woman's euthanization. Afterwards, he visits a porn theater and, during a hardcore penetration close-up, he muses inwardly, "If you're a cock, you gotta stay hard to be respected; [otherwise] your only role and purpose is to be reamed." (Oh Gaspar, you're such a romantic! Sigh).

Soon after, he argues bitterly with his mistress and, in one of the film's most brutal moments, beats her, kicking her pregnant stomach (this is when the aforementioned female critic left the theater). This sick underbelly we have witnessed with amusement and detachment has, now, in fact been literally reamed. And it is at this point, that the film's existential loathing gives us our first challenge: The man we felt immediate sympathy for, the cantankerous oldster who has made us laugh with his stark philosophical observations, has finally committed a sickening act of violence. And he doesn't regret it. Confronting his modern audience, hardened from years of on-screen violence, Noé essentially asks: How do you like your underground hero now? Are you still cheering him on?

Somehow, in many ways, we are -- which points to the film's mind spinning, confusing power. With dwindling money, no job prospects and a gun, the butcher grows increasingly disgruntled over everything -- class, race, love, sexuality -- and his thoughts become both clear-headed and garbled. In the hands of a more simplistic filmmaker, this could be tedious or predictable. Noé , however, is not here just to shock. Like Taxi Driver, I Stand Alone represents a national reflection, here it’s France entering the 1980’s, personifying such unease with an unrelenting, furious protagonist. And Noé crafts a film that is so aesthetically violent--sharp gunshot sounds are used as jarring, disarming tangents, illustrating a shift in scenery or thought--that it’s surprising to realize just how little blood is actually shed onscreen. The movie deals almost entirely in thoughts of violence, rather than acts. The butcher rattles on about this or that problem, but mostly remains stuck in states of fantasy or inertia.  But he is so potently angry and the filmmaking so unyieldingly ferocious, it simply feels violent.

And Noé never slips once in this assault, even testing the viewer’s typical film sensibilities. In the picture's most infamous moment, a title card flashes on screen and cautions: “You Have 30 Seconds to Leave the Cinema.” It's a bold move, one filled with humor and horror (one part Godard, one part Castle), and despite the shocking images and words that come before it, Noé manages to back up that warning with a sequence that sent my emotions into a tailspin of sadness, distress and an unsettling amount of confusing compassion (you just have to see the ending).  I Stand Alone is true savage cinema -- a grim, exciting, nerve-wracking work of art that doesn’t just stick in your brain, but finds a way to get all five fingers up there too. Seul Contre Tous? Sous le soleil exactement, Mr. Noé.

Actress, Interrupted: Frances

 

I've returned to the scene of Frances. Based on how many times I've watched the picture, I'm beginning to believe I harbor some kind of frustration fetish. I've viewed the movie more than necessary, in spite of its flaws and I finally had to concede that, even with Jessica Lange's genius, kick-you-in-the-gut performance, the movie is not going to change through time. I'm never going to be happy with how it fully depicts Frances Farmer, I'm never going to accept its romantic side story, and I'm never going to know the truth anyway (whatever that is), so why be frustrated? See, the frustration turns into questioning frustration. Which is...frustrating. 

But my god, how I love when Jessica Lange loses her composure and understandably smacks that bitchy hairdresser ('Your hair's so thin, you're gonna lose it if you're not careful.") in the face. And the intense power and pain I feel when she screams "You got no fucking right" as the police wake her up naked, and drag her out of the Knickerbocker Hotel. That hotel isn't far from my apartment and every time I pass by, I not only think of Frances, but of Jessica spitting out her rightful invective. That moment comes to me with such immediacy that I've uttered "You got no fucking right!" spontaneously, perhaps disturbingly, aloud. (And thanks to the bluetooth, which I don't even own, we are now allowed to walk around like lunatics, muttering lines from Frances with nary a raised eyebrow.) But this is my instinctive duty as a fellow native Seattleite. For some of us hailing from the soggy, boggy PNW, Frances is our girl, and not our original riot girl, but our patron saint of "don't fuck with me fellas!"  -- and the tragic aftermath her kind of behavior creates. No Pepsi for her.

And Jessica Lange gets this. Her ferocious, fearless beauty saved what could have been yet another studio mangling of the life and legend of a notorious woman. Miss Lange reminds viewers that once upon a time there was this actress named Frances Farmer, a gifted but troubled actress from the 1930's who was not just crazy, but superb. And was she even crazy? Certainly no more, and probably a lot less, than many a young, intelligent woman struggling in the often alienating business of show. Frances Farmer had a soul, natural born talent, a real, thinking, searching brain, an outspoken temper, inner demons and pure beauty. You're not allowed to have all of those things at once.  

And that is presented in the picture, though not as skillfully as it should have. A chance to really tell her story, a tale straight from Nathaniel West or Horace McCoy, was clearly at hand when the film was conceived (read Farmer's autobiography "Will There Really Be a Morning?"--  never mind its questionable veracity, read it -- and you can see why), but through script problems, studio requests, and one strange association with the conspiracy-obsessed ex-convict and probable liar Stewart Jacobson (played in the film as "Harry York" by Sam Shepard), Frances veers into fantasy -- a fantasy Frances Farmer would not have appreciated.

Many fine films based on real lives or events stray from facts, add characters, or reinvent history (JFK and Nixon are supreme examples. Inglourious Basterds, brilliantly creates its own collage, it's own insane, inspired mixed tape), but that's not what makes Frances suffer. It's more that the movie, though lovely period detail and certainly good, isn't entirely focused, and so never creates a strong case about just why Farmer had to endure such torment -- Harry York is an easy character to throw in. And as harrowing as many scenes play out, it also soft-pedals the core story -- about one woman's fight against both the indignities of Hollywood and the abuse of the mental profession. What happened to Frances Farmer is an abomination, and not because we'd never see her again shine as an actress but because her life was, in some cases, perversely and hideously stolen from her.

In the hands of Lange, Frances is weirdly, thoroughly watchable while becoming an almost traumatizing experience. Lange not only looks like Farmer, but also embodies everything we've ever read about the talented star: The understandable drinking (who didn't tear it up in Hollywood?), the rage (how many stars were under studio control? Farmer was just too strong-willed to take it), and the desperation to find freedom. But the powers that be -- Mother, Hollywood, and the Mental Institution -- helped keep this intelligent woman from getting healthy and continuing her art. Though much of Frances Farmer's biography is speculative (including the book "Shadowland"), I'm not with those who believe she deserved to be incarcerated. She was a drunk, she was hard to work with, she was, to some, really crazy. So what? Some even think her stay in the mental ward has been over-dramatized. I'm not certain.  My great-grandmother was sent to the literal Cuckoo's Nest (the State Institution in Salem, Oregon) at an early age and she died there. She should have never been in that awful place.  

And like the young ones who exhibit more "eccentric" free-thinking thoughts, Frances would both be ostracized and praised for her precociousness. The picture begins in 1931 when a 16-year-old Farmer writes a high school essay entitled "God Dies" (At 16? In 1931? How fucking great is that?). This is just the first of many cases where she enrages Seattle's moral majority, who later branded her a communist (her trip to Russia doesn't help). A talented stage actress in college, Farmer lands in Hollywood, where she declares "I'm not a glamour girl." Nevertheless, she marries a young actor and makes movies (mostly to her chagrin), including Howard Hawks' Come and Get It (a film she was proud of, despite what this movie wants us to believe).

Exasperated with Hollywood, Farmer ventures to New York and finds a home in the Group Theater, and (to her downfall) has a torrid affair with the married playwright Clifford Odets. After he dumps her, she returns to Hollywood and gets into the legendary trouble that would land her in horrifying mental institutions -- where she underwent experimental medication, shock treatments, rape, disgusting facilities, and finally (and this is speculative) a lobotomy until her release in 1950.

Lange carries us through this hell with brilliance, but Frances decides to shift the focus of the relationship with Farmer's deranged mother (perfectly played by Kim Stanley) to the more romantic overtures of Harry York. Lange and Shepard have wonderful chemistry, and he's charming, but the poetic license here bothers me. According to the film, York tried to reach out to Farmer after her inconceivably unfair and colorful court appearance (well-documented in Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon in which we learn Farmer wrote her profession down as "cocksucker" -- thankfully we see that in the movie as well). 

Nice thought, but I'd rather see the entire courtroom dramas played out in their ball-busting, gory detail. Frances kicking and screaming in her sensible, disheveled suit is as iconic to me as Marilyn Monroe standing on the subway grate in The Seven Year Itch. The hair, the cigarette, the smirk -- this is some woman, goddammit. I want more of her. Not some guy attempting to save the damsel in distress. But according to Frances, York was responsible for Farmer's first escape from the sanitarium and the reason she was presentable for a hearing that excused from her first asylum (the film contends Harry sneaks into her ward and gets a doctor to inject her with a drug that would make her more lucid). He also asked her marry him when she was under the legal guardianship of her mother, and he loved her until the end of her days.

Bitch, please. I would burn down every rotten, abusive, mismanaged mental institution to bust Frances Farmer out of the cuckoo's nest, so I understand the romantic impulse. But the idea that, despite everything written to the contrary -- Farmer may have had a chance at a decent life had she just ran away with this Prince Charming (this "Libra man," as Little Edie would say) is an ill-conceived cinematic conceit, and an insult to Farmer's memory.

It's the ultimate irony that the story of "the bad girl of West Seattle," the troubled non-conformist Hollywood star who rarely censored her thoughts, was under the control of a major studio who deemed her real life too depressing. As director Graeme Clifford states in the commentary on the DVD, you don't want to "nickel and dime the audience with facts." Pity. Farmer's "facts" were never boring. And the movie isn't either thanks to Miss Lange. Had she been given a little more control, or maybe had she been allowed to smack Stewart Jacobson in the mouth, hell even the hairdresser (without getting arrested) she could have directed this film -- she's the picture's real auteur.

This is some way to quit a job: "Bastards! Fuck you all!"

They're Gonna Make A Big Star Out of Me

Vince Vaughn loves Buck Owens. He likes Gram Parsons and the Burrito Brothers. He reveres the work of Robert Plant with Alison Krauss. He has stories about George Jones and Merle Haggard – current stories. He's hung with Willie Nelson. And he took the time to talk about all of this rather than simply discuss his newest movie, Couple's Retreat. 

I've been a Vince Vaughn booster since his beginnings, and even defend him in Psycho, so I was more than happy to learn that this tall glass of water isn't just one of the most talented and funniest actors working, he also has incredibly good taste in music  -- and not just good taste but an impressive and extensive knowledge of music. And he thinks about it, he makes historical connections, he’s moved by it.

Here was our exchange while he was promoting his movie, all started from a reporter’s question about a scene involving an uptight British guy playing Guitar Hero, and what the actors were listening to while filming. I love that he waxed so rhapsodic about such great music -- some of my favorite music. It makes one feel better about the world. Vince, acting naturally:

Vaughn:  A lot of the English guys really like country music or old blues music, like The Stones always liked Buck Owens and they liked all the old blues singers. I always thought when English bands sang, you'd hear them talk and they sound very English and then they'd sing about honky-tonk. I always thought that there was a fascination on their end with cowboys and that. So I thought it was a funny backdrop, that it'd be unexpected to put him there. Then just with the dialogue we'd own that motif and Joseph Campbell's, like, "The Writer's Journey" or any sort of mythology type of quest. So this movie actually has two different structures.

Just for us, on the day on the set we just started having fun, saying, "Let’s really embrace this and make it really western like a gunfight because it's just ridiculous because it's 'Guitar Hero'. Lets really make it mythological –' like this is an unbelievable honesty that we're about go for'."

Morgan: I don't think I've heard anyone go from Buck Owens to Joseph Campbell.

Vaughn: Buck was one of my favorites... I think that a lot of people's musical history, like she mentioned, starts with Led Zeppelin and The Stones. To me, the thing that I liked about the tour that Robert Plant did with Alison Krauss was that he really went out of his way to talk about American roots music. They were trying to sound like the old Appalachian singers and a lot of the blues singers and that's really who their idols were. What was wonderful about that show is that they played a lot of those Led Zeppelin songs Appalachian style. It was really, really beautiful. I can't listen to a lot of the modern stuff because I've been so exposed to and so in love with a lot of the older storytellers and I've always said that I think that music is the highest art form.

Music can take you the farthest and the fastest emotionally. There's sculpture, there's painting, there's acting, all these wonderful things -- but sound and song. You can be driving your car and that song comes on and you're like in tears depending on what it is. I think there's something that's happen in music, probably in all things, where when Buck or Johnny Cash, these guys, [when they] were coming up there weren't albums. Like, "Hey, I have to make a record. I'm gonna do this stuff." They [all] really had some difficult life experiences. They were telling the stories of their lives through music.

[And] there was no end game necessarily. And then of course, with Elvis and people started buying phonographs in order to listen to those records and it became a whole different thing. And now again, music is back to the '50's where it's singles. There's no longer albums. You buy one song, which is like what the '50's used to be...But like the murals in Belfast, in those neighborhoods, they would paint about the conflicts that they've gone through, both the Protestants and the Catholics. That was political. That came out of, like, "People were shooting my family and I want people to know that this isn't right." [Much like] a lot of those slave songs or plantation songs. [And] lBuck was from Texas – He ended up in Bakersfield but he came from Texas. Sherman, Texas is where he's from. Like "The Grapes of Wrath," they migrated for work and he ended up in Bakersfield.

Morgan: And created their sound.

Vaughn: Him and Merle Haggard. Merle Haggard is the only person in The Country Music Hall of Fame who was born and raised in California which is Bakersfield.

Morgan: He's still alive, too.

Vaughn: He is still alive. I heard a rumor that George Jones asked him to move next door to him and I think that would be interesting [Yes that would be interesting]. I loved George. He was great. But their songs came out of their life experiences and so there was such depth to them that it was unbelievable... I won't name some of the people that you have mentioned in those bands and all they want to talk about is Merle and Buck and a lot of the Chicago blues artists which was that early Chess Record stuff.

I think Chuck Berry punched Keith Richards the first time he met him, like, 'That's for stealing my licks –' or something like that…But when you hear that stuff and a lot of people just really haven't heard a lot of the old stuff, when you hear the other stuff I kind of go, 'God, it kind of sounds like this.' But what I think always made the English bands better than a lot of the American bands was that they really started with where the music began. That's who they were trying to sound like. So when you start to look at [classic rock] bands, a lot of the times the band that they'll mention are more the English bands because they were really trying to sound like the Bakersfield sound.

Morgan: Gram Parsons...  

Vaughn: Gram Parsons and the Burrito Brothers.

Morgan: Have you thought of doing a music biopic? You know a lot about it.

Vaughn: I would play the guy in the front row who goes like this [starts clapping]... [He ends the interview with this] I'll tell you, Willie Nelson said this to me. He said, "What is the world's shortest fairy tale?" I said, "What?" He said, "A man asks him his sweetheart to marry him. She says no and they live happily ever after." [Vince laughs happily. This makes me happy. And we didn't even get to his take on Waylon Jennings].

There was so much more I wanted to ask him about music. I didn't query, but Vince has to own a Nudie suit. If he does, he should wear it proudly.

71 Année Érotique: Don't Deliver Us From Evil

Suffering a wicked deadline, and "Jennifer's Body" to disapoint, I'm dipping into the archives of evil with a better "Body'"-- the dramatically titled, "Don't Deliver Us From Evil." A 1971 French picture that's the true blue (and blood red) of bad girl movies. And one so artistic, so subversive, so poignant, so perverse so...freakishly lovable that my ardor will never wane.

Thank heaven for evil teenage girls. Or rather, complicated teenage girls. A sub-genre of cinema I'm especially fond of, I find myself continually returning to all those sexy, young, bad girls with a certain amount of personal wonder. Why, for instance, do I love Tuesday Weld in Pretty Poison so much? Or Pattty McCormack's foot stomping brilliance from The Bad Seed? Or all those other precocious teens -- the grumpy girls from Ghost World, the swoony swans of My Summer of Love, the suicidal virgins, the Jolie/Frances amalgamation of Girl, Interrupted, those murderous heavenly creatures, that smirky, Humbert temptress Lolita, that little girl who lived down the lane...and more. I see something in myself in these young ones, of course (many women do), and I admire their individualism, I'm empathetic to their struggles, even if unhealthy and tragic. After all, as Black Snake Moan professed, it's hard out there for a nymph.

Proof positive lies in one of my favorite "evil" girl movies, Don't Deliver Us From Evil, a potent dose of pretty poison presented in a wonderfully deceiving package. Never released in the United States and "banned" for blasphemy, the story of two teenage convent girls who "dedicate ourselves to Satan" could have been some dippy horror movie -- a T&A fest with demons and multiple slayings and loads of sex. It could have been one of those '70s horror films that make you run for the shower directly upon watching because even your soul feels soiled (which isn't always a terrible thing).

But that's not what Don't Deliver Us From Evil is attempting. Really about the obsessive nature of female friendship, of girls suffering a tedious, square world filled with hypocrisy and becoming hopped up by literature and the forbidden and hellfire and all the stuff that's so intense when you're 15, the movie is a fiendish paean to the freaky bad girl -- girls who, when staring into that bland void would rather, quite literally, burn out than fade away.

Inspired by the original Heavenly Creatures -- Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme -- two girls whose close friendship resulted in murder, Mais ne nous délivrez pas du mal (if only Serge Gainsbourg would have written their theme song) studies a female bond that twists into Sapphic love, sadism and death. More subversive than Heavenly Creatures, first time director Joel Sera considers blasphemous ideas and sequences with heroines who spit out their Communion wafers like bubble-gum and glare at their Priests while giddily spying on creepy Nuns making out in locked rooms. Heavenly? What, pray tell is that?

Gorgeous raven-haired Anne (Jeanne Goupi -- who represent ssullen, narcissistic, teen power in all its selfish glory) and her best friend Lore (Catherine Wagener -- the shyer of the duo), are two beautiful but curious girls marking their time at Catholic School by sneaking into bed with each other and reading erotic literature under the sheets. And as mentioned, they're especially fascinated by evil, which, isn't that strange considering their Catholic environment. But when they renounce Jesus Christ and all his works to become baby brides of Satan, they one-up the typical Catholic schoolgirl sacrilegious naughtiness.

On Summer break, the girls stick together, staying at Anne's parents home while her family is conveniently away. They ride bikes and flit around in those short cotton summer dresses every guy wishes for when the sun comes out and they laugh -- they laugh a lot. Considering that they're Satanists, the girls are a lovely pair of Beelzebub budies. Thank goodness they lived in the early 1970s. No manic panic hair, no PVC mini-skirts, no cheap fetish boots and tired, sullen expressions for these best friends. These girls are enjoying their evil. So much that they put together a crafty, dainty black mass in an abandoned chapel (you can feel fellow bad girl Martha Stewart heartily nodding her head in approval). With the dim groundskeeper serving as "Priest," they seal their Satanic deal and drive the man nuts while sitting in the rowboat in the thick of night -- he can see through their cotton Communion gear.

Which is their intention -- the girls get off on torturing men. Not in an overtly predatory, sexual way (they seem to hate men and only love each other), but with abject, albeit adorable sadism (yes, I really mean adorable sadism). But like all cheek pinching evil, these Bad Seeds push it too far. First they tease a cow herder leading to the near rape of Lore (Rhoda Penmark would never let that happen, even with the cagey maintenance man LeRoy up in her face). Next, they murder the groundskeeper's bird (a truly startling, tragic moment) and then laugh at the poor man when he weeps over one of his only companions. (In an interesting twist, they feel conflicted as well). And still next, they take in a stranded motorist, strip to their panties and...well, that guy is not about to take no for an answer. Like every good bad girl they take it five, six, lucky number seven steps over the line.

If this all sounds like a bunch of exploitative crap, it's not. Filmed with a painterly touch, the picture's lush cinematography is startingly beautiful -- from the pastoral shots in the country, to the lanterns lighting a night time boat ride to the unforgettable, disturbed final scene which, I can't discuss -- I'll just say it involves Baudelaire, and one hell of a school talent contest. The poetic impact is unforgettable.

The girls are natural and sympathetic and truly sexy and would be too good for this shit if the shit wasn't so good. And if their youth appears troubling, they are indeed of legal age. But the movie knows what it's doing -- it knows the unsettling nature of watching a girl who looks like she could use a few more years to develop getting her clothes torn off. And yet these actresses never feel like they're taken advantage of. Since this story is for them, and really, for anyone questioning faith and rules, the director seeks a deeper aim than mere titillation. And while I've discussed a lot of sexy moments, the picture never revels in sex and violence (it's almost bloodless, in fact). Instead, it's about teenagers alienated by their parents and stultifying systems of morality and the confusion of adolescence. Sometimes our body tell us to do bad things -- in this case very bad things -- and religion makes them even worse. Or better. I can't imagine how these girls would function under some good, old fashioned, twisted American Pentecostal.

I love movies that can balance perversion with ample helpings of thought and in the case of this picture, crawl under your skin just enough to make you feel guilty, complicit, even, with the character's intentions. While giving a big fat sacrilegious middle finger to the Church, the movie's general ambiance is oddly delicate -- disturbed in an intoxicating, magical way. You really fall in love with these girls. And that, quite simply and subversively, makes you feel evil.

Track down the lovingly restored, extra-laden Uncut Special Edition from Mondo Macabro.) Watch and learn Jennifer. 

 

Patrick Swayze: 1952-2009

"Nobody puts Baby in the corner."

How many young girls (and older women, and many men as well) swooned when that rough-hewn handsome yet sensitive, yet beautifully graceful Patrick Swayze stood up for the awkward,  nerdy Jennifer Grey in the admittedly cheesy but now classic Dirty Dancing? Legions. Legions. I remember sitting on the school bus in 1987, wondering what these girls were excitedly yammering on about like middle-aged housewives -- a 1960s-era story of the mismatched but eventual love between a Catskills dance instructor/bad boy and a sweet, smart but insecure vacationing teenager? OK. When I finally got around to seeing the movie later, I thought, wow, kind of cornpone, and …“She’s like the wind?”

But there was something -- a definite "it" quality that spiked directly into the world's romantic fantasy jugular. But for me, that "it" was Swayze himself. He was the movie. He could dance. And was, perhaps, one the last tough guy dancers who could reveal his significant talent without worrying about being feminized by it. In many ways, and through many pictures, Patrick Swayze is the perfect example of pre-1990s irony. It’s not funny he can dance -- it’s goddamn lovely he can dance.

His dancing was not only erotic swagger; he brought the heart and soul and heat and sexuality and even a wounded vulnerability to his part (and the music, particularly the Otis Redding, helped). Much like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, this was a man, not a little boy, not Zac Effron, but a man, dancing with such impressive athleticism and grace that, no matter what you thought of the movie itself, you could not take your eyes off of him.

Born in 1952 in Houston, this rough-around-the-edges Road House toughie was actually (and perhaps, not surprisingly) the son of a choreographer/dancer mother, who influenced young Swayze toward dance. Rounding out his abilities nicely, he took up ice skating, classical ballet, gymnastics and acting. But it's the dancing that stuck, so, in 1972, he completed his formal dance training in New York at the Harkness and Joffrey ballet schools.

But, in spite of his training, it wasn’t the dancing that gave him his Hollywood breakthrough. It was the movie in which I first saw him: Francis Ford Coppola's lovingly made, bad boy teen melodrama The Outsiders, in which he played Darrel -- the older, greaser brother and concerned surrogate parent for his troubled Tulsan siblings Ponyboy (C. Thomas Howell) and Sodapop (Rob Lowe). Lecturing his brothers with a rugged, likable and stern quality (he had that kind of face), this somewhat odd looking yet severely handsome man could rumble, carry heavy artillery and fight. And we knew it especially in works like the spectacular Red Dawn, Youngblood and his acclaimed Civil War TV miniseries North and South. He was well on his way to becoming a huge star. Who even knew this guy was a dancer? By 1987, everyone.

And then, there was the absurdly entertaining Road House.  Though considered trash by those who should know better, the picture is another  un-ironic tale (and truly, one of the last serious good ol’ boy type movies) that finds Swayze's bar "cooler" taking on crazy drunks, a hot blonde and a town run by a ridiculously, yet hilariously neofascist Ben Gazzara.  Road House has since (and deservedly) become a cult classic and it’s rather surprising, refreshingly shocking line (“I used to fuck guys like you in Prison”) spat to Swayze,  is among Road House fanatics just as famous that "Baby in the corner" business. Or “Ditto.” (I personally like the simplicity of “left boot” but I love watching people excel at their job).

But back to “ditto” -- the enormously successful Ghost would provide Swayze a colossal hit. The movie was nominated for Best Picture, Goldberg won Best Supporting Actress, and Demi's pixie haircut became as famous as "the Farrah" or "the Rachel." It seems like Swayze was left out of the accolades, which is a shame. Among all of the picture’s sappy "Unchained Melody," pottery wheel spinning eroticism, it was Swayze who provided the picture’s emotional weight. Carrying the universal understanding of sadness, love and regret – and in particular, the regret of not saying those things we should have said to loved ones, he was the film’s center. No matter how schmaltzy the movie was, Swayze always seemed real to me. 

And he had range. After Ghost, a tanned and coiffed Swayze starred in Kathryn Bigelow’s undeniably entertaining Point Break, playing the guru villain opposite Keanu Reeves. And watch it again. It’s so giddily entertaining and he's so yes, magical here, that you’re sad movies like this, really, don’t exist anymore. Again, Irony. Oh the irony of movies these days.  Not that Swayze didn’t allow self humor -- he did. But he also, wonderfully, memorably played it straight. God bless him for that.

After a riding accident in which he fell from a horse and broke both of his legs -- not good for an actor, and especially a dancer -- his career was on hold for a while. He was depressed. He was reportedly drinking. I have to think that his bouts with darkness were always in him, making him a lot more interesting than he was given credit for. I loved that Richard Kelly recognized his varied sides and so brilliantly cast him as a motivational speaker/secret pedophile in 2000's Donnie Darko. What a bold move for Swayze. And what a complicated performance. He plays it as a joke at first (that scale of fear and love), and then becomes a monster, and then…an oddly heartbreaking human being  -- and in one brief moment.  During a beautifully filmed sequence set to Gary Jules' cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World," he conveys such intense anguish it’s hard to not gasp by how intensely moving he is.

And his face, his tough yet pleading face, filled with such mysterious need that, combined with his body, a body that understood dance, made him a unique, underrated creature. He may have become typecast as a kind of cheesy relic of the 1980s, but, really, he was so much more than that. He had a great career, certainly, but it could have been greater. Had he’d been allowed to stretch, been allowed to express his natural poignancy (think of that oddly touching Chippendale’s comedy sketch with Chris Farley), and been allowed (or able) or to extend his dancing, Swayze could have soared even higher.  Since early dance training may have caused Swayze to fight against any labels of “sissy,” he exuded a touching empathy while looking like a guy you’d want on your side in a bar fight. 

Ah, I’ll state the obvious here, but it’s damn sad. Quite simply, I liked him. And I’d love for him to come back, if only for one moment, and even just to say that one corny line: “Ditto.” Or better yet and without a trace of irony, “Left boot.”

Motor Meltdown: Crazy Cine-Car Scenes

 

Cars usually offer me solace, a place of escape.  Speeding microcosmic shelters where I can go, as the great Ike Turner wrote, “oozin’ and cruisin’ along.” But on a recent trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles, I did something that occasionally happens inside a car -- I freak out. My friend was driving along the 1, and after we stopped off in Big Sur everything seemed fine. Beautiful stretch of highway, the sparkling ocean, the lovely curvy cliffs and…the dulcet tones of my irritated voice asking… “Can you speed this thing up just a little more?” My heart was beating a mile a minute, my hands were trembling -- I was entering a full scale level ten anxiety attack. For no reason.

With a little more thought and little less freak, maybe there was some reason. I wasn’t driving. I told my friend to pull over -- surrender the wheel. He complied but soon regretted this decision. Driving as fast as that stupid rental (I blame the rental) could take me, screeching around the high cliffs and stating over and over that police didn’t patrol out here anyway,  and I’m gonna pass any selfish slow-poke in front of me (how dare they enjoy the scenery, Christina!), I glanced at my friend who was as white as a sheet, bracing himself for dear life. He knew I was having a moment, and he didn't say anything lest I motor us off the cliff (but come on...I know how to drive a car). And yet, the nutty focus helped -- my rushing adrenaline became one with the accelerator -- if I couldn’t run this damn panic attack off, I was gonna drive it off.

But suddenly I thought -- what if Robert Loggia (Robert Loggia from Lost Highway) was rolling in front of me? I’m not one to tail gate, but god forbid two motorized mental meltdowns collide (if you’ve seen the movie, you know what I’m talking about). Which got me thinking further about something I’m always pondering on -- movies -- specifically, movies in which characters suffer similar vehicular flip-outs. There are so many: Lana losing her cool in The Bad and the Beautiful, Lana and John Garfield losing their nerve in The Postman Always Rings Twice, Alice enduring Tommy's endless joke in Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Bette drunk driving with her Oscar atop the dash in The Star (drunk driving laws should be exempt if you're clutching an Oscar you won 15 years ago), Anthony Perkins scaring the shit out of Diana Ross (and taking Helmut Newton meets Wegee meets mental hygiene photos at the same time  -- in the car) in Mahogany, Kurt Russell's Cowardly Lion bawling in Death Proof, Rip Torn chucking that woman out of his car, throwing money at her, then backing up and snatching the money back in Payday, Max doing essentially, anything in Mad Max or Ann Savage and Tom Neal simply breathing behind the wheel in Detour -- movies can express motor-psycho moments perfectly. So with that (and among many others, there are too many to list all) here are six big screen freak-outs I especially love.

The Longest Yard (1974)

Robert Aldrich’s The Longest Yard contains one of cinema’s greatest opening sequences of supreme speed demon self destruction. Here’s how it goes: Washed up pro football player Paul "Wrecking" Crewe (Burt Reynolds) who was banished from the sport for point shaving, staggers out of bed with a woman who's clearly (and very loudly) keeping him. As Crewe reaches for a drink, she storms out of the bedroom hollering at him for being a loser, how she paid for his new teeth -- essentially emasculating ol’ Burt. In a move that would never, ever happen in a movie today, Crewe shoves her, he shoves her hard, and with the rage of a man who's ego's been bruised one too many times. And then he jumps into her fancy Citron. Oh this is so great. Speeding down the street, with drink in hand and Lynrd Skynrd tune blaring (no less), cops are in pursuit. But does he care? Nope. When he does stop the madness, he doesn’t turn himself in; he simply kicks the car into a watery grave. But that's just the half of it. Waltzing into a bar for more drinks -- he then casually insults the dispatched officers (to the delight of both the bartender and the cop escaping his barbs) and finally slugs the fuzz. A wonderfully hilarious, transgressive scene with Reynolds at the top of his dangerous cinematic charms, all this happens before the opening credits come to an end. Ah, the '70s.

The Hitch-Hiker (1953)

In the 1930s and '40s, Ida Lupino earned deserved esteem as an actress with her tough, sensitive performances in movies like High Sierra, They Drive by Night and Road House, and would continue her talents into the 1950s with The Big Knife, While the City Sleeps and On Dangerous Ground. But the intelligent, unique and creative actress spent time studying the mechanics behind the camera, resulting in her directorial debut, Outrage, in 1950, a thoughtful, emotional B-thriller that took on the controversial subject of rape. Throughout her career as a director (she made seven pictures), Lupino would continue to approach taboo subjects with sensitivity and grit (The Bigamist is another interesting standout), but her greatest film is the intriguing psychodrama and wonderful auto-terror, The Hitch-Hiker, starring Edmond O'Brien, Frank Lovejoy and a brilliant William Talman. Chronicling a horrifying road trip in which two fishermen (O'Brien and Lovejoy) pick up a completely deranged hitchhiker (Talman), Lupino directs with shadowy menace and intense nervousness (mirroring postwar anxiety -- especially in a car) in this tight character study/thriller that rivals the car insanity of Detour. Though she called herself the "Poor man's Don Siegel," she was dubbed the "Queen of the B's" and enjoyed a successful career (especially for a female director), making a string of entertaining, thought-provoking pictures that stand the test of time. Bigamists are fine, but hitch-hiking is always creepy.

Duel (1971)

Before he struck fear in the heart of every beach-loving, ocean-swimming New Englander, Steven Spielberg crafted one of his greatest pictures with the non-stop nervous breakdown Duel, a movie that struck fear in the heart of every mid life crisis suffering traveling salesman just trying to get down a California highway. Dennis Weaver is the nebbish, Joe-Blow salesman whose life becomes a vehicular nightmare when a mysterious, ominous truck will not stop following him. But why? Well, we assume the truck wants to kill him (or just completely mess with his head) in some kind of existential sanity test the poor schlub did not need that morning. Or maybe the truck really hates his car -- a Plymouth Valiant. Whatever the case, the deranged semi vs. Plymouth makes for a superbly tense 90-minute chase film that's equally disturbing for Dennis Weaver’s absolutely (and understandably) terrified, paranoid performance.

Jeopardy (1953)

The John Sturges directed daylight noir thriller is not only a tense, daring ride, but a deliciously, devilishly, weirdly hot good time. Here's the predicament: While vacationing in Mexico with hubby Barry Sullivan and their young son, Stanywck is put to the test after Sullivan is trapped in the surf and she must find anyone (anyone) to help her. Aid arrives in smarmy Ralph Meeker (ohhhh...Ralph Meeker) a fugitive who has a few other things on his mind. He professes to help, grabs Babs, and takes charge of her car and off it goes. A lot of arguing, sexual tension, slaps, cracker eating, everything happens in that nutty car ride. And the repartee between Stanwyck and Meeker is angry, sick and erotic with standouts involving the triple slap Meeker lays on tough Babs (triple!) or Meeker’s proud preference for cheap perfume: “It doesn’t last as long.” Or my favorite moment  --  when Stanwyck realizes she must make the ultimate sacrifice. She stands near the car, faces Meeker all hard and seductive and says: “I’ll do anything for my husband. ANYTHING.” And she does. Hard-core Babs.

Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Sam Peckinpah's brilliantly bizarre, fantastically bloody yet strangely beautiful  1974 masterpiece (underrated masterpiece), Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpah's most personal picture), is not only essential viewing for Peckinpah-philes, but required viewing for every gear-head whose endured a long, tumultuous road trip - chiefly through Mexico, and with a rotting head in the car (but I’m getting ahead of myself).  The picture stars one of my favorites, Warren Oates as Bennie, an American ex-pat/small-time hustler/piano player who claims to know where Garcia can be found. For various reasons I won’t get into, once involved, Bennie's up for a major dinero if he brings in Garcia -- dead. All he needs is the head. Coincidentally Bennie's girlfriend (the great Isela Vega) was once Garcia's lover, and after informing Bennie that Garcia is already dead, he thinks, easy:  find the grave, dig up the corpse, chop off the noggin, cash in, and start anew. Well…not so easy. As the road trip progresses, Peckinpah’s realism churns into this existential hyper-real horror show that manages to be poetic, grisly and oddly romantic. When deranged avenger Bennie, be-decked in that glorious white suit (Warren Oates has never looked better), now covered in dirt, sweat and blood, drives with what will become something of a friend  -- the rotting, severed head of Alfredo Garcia -- the adventure spirals into violence, poignancy, and madness. Swatting the flies out of the car, and confiding thoughtful, sometimes angry diatribes to his newest buddy, that head becomes a body part he can trust– the one person he can actually relate to. Showing an auteur and actor at the height of brazen, violent eccentricity, the picture is highly personal and daringly touching. A movie I make sure to watch every Valentine’s Day. No, really, I do. I’ve even watched it in a car -- on Valentine’s Day. More on Alfredo Garcia later.

Kiss Me Deadly (1955)

Another Robert Aldrich picture (another Meeker), but damn if the director didn’t have a way with characters going batty in their bucket seats -- and directly at picture start. With this seminal, sleazy noir Kiss Me Deadly, he opens the picture with a pair of naked feet running down the middle of a highway in the black of the night.  The feet belong to a hysterical, heavily panting blonde/psychiatric-ward escapee (Cloris Leachman) wearing only a trench-coat. Desperate for a ride, she places herself in the middle of the road and finally, a cool little Jaguar sports car comes to a screeching halt. The driver, Mike Hammer (the ultimate sexy shit-heel Ralph Meeker) is agitated by this mystery woman/potential loony, begrudgingly “rescuing” her with a sneer. He spits:  “You almost wrecked my car. Well? Get in!” With the camera placed behind our two characters (one absolutely frantic, the other as cool as a cucumber), the credits roll upside down against the highway’s white lines (so brilliant), and the only thing you hear is Nat King Cole’s elegant “Rather Have the Blues” co-mingling with woman’s hard, almost sexual sounding hyper-ventilating. So totally perverse and subversive, Aldrich’s kick start plays shocking even today. How many pictures would have the balls to place a viewer on this kind of edge? But Aldrich’s not playing simply for shock -- the director (and cinematographer Ernest Laszlo) instantly address the expressionistic, off kilter and monstrous universe we’re about to enter -- but in a car. Un-relenting, sleazy, mean, disorienting, neurotic, psychotic and hopeless, Leachman’s panting pick-up is the crazed conscious inside all of the film’s characters, maniacally running from a world that could explode (literally) by the opening of a suitcase, or simply your car door.