1950

Sunset Boulevard Review

May 29, 2017 by JD Hansel

Every now and again, I’m quite surprised which members of my family decide to sit down by the TV and join me in watching a movie that I wouldn’t think is his/her kind of thing. This happened most recently when I was spending a weekend at my parents’ house and I put Sunset Boulevard on the big screen. This is a dark, dramatic satire of Hollywood mixed with Gothic chills and romantic comedy from 1950, yet my 12-year-old sister decided to watch it with me. What made this so special is that Sunset Boulevard happens to be not only a great film by one of my favorite directors, but also a very useful teaching tool.

The first reason why this film is helpful for learning about film history is that it concerns icons of silent cinema, so it re-introduces its viewers to the era with a focus on Cecil B. DeMille, cameos by actors from the time, and an impression of Charlie Chaplin (a very good one, I might add). Oddly, this actually makes it a very good example of 1950s cinema as well. The films of the 1950s generally seem to show an awareness of the fact that Hollywood was in a state of crisis as its studio system was falling apart and its Code was weakening, and this film, much like 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, parallels this with the crisis actors from the silent era faced when they had to learn how to succeed in the sound era. This film, then, offers the flip side to Singin’ in the Rain, showing how tragic it was for the stars (like Lena) who couldn’t keep shining through the 1930s. The one thing that makes this a poor example of 1950s film is that it can be seen as a film noir (a relatively small genre) due to its uncommon traits and tropes – voice-over narration explaining the story of how a man died, chilling exploration of the psychology of madness, a narrative about choosing between the good girl and the intimidating woman, deep, jagged shadows and wild chiaroscuro lighting, and general sense that everything is spiraling down towards a gloomy, unsettling end.

Best of all, Sunset Boulevard is a good example of a great film. This is Billy Wilder at his best, bringing together a great cast and working through serious psychological subjects with a a healthy dose of comedy. The script is smart, carefully setting up its rather forced story in a way that somehow still feels natural and giving nearly every significant character some wonderful, clever dialogue. Gloria Swanson, of course, steals the show as Norma Desmond – I could taste the scenery she was chewing – and the performance she gives is surely one of the finest (and one of the most over-the-top) in all of cinema’s history. The film is made that much better by its stunning visuals, which could have simply been there for the heck of it, but Wilder puts them to good use aiding the story, defining the characters, and saturating the drama. The film that results may be rather slow and boring at times, but it is still one of the best introductions to Classical Hollywood cinema I know, and I hope to watch it with the rest of my family someday. If Norma Desmond ever needed proof that the pictures didn’t get small, this is it.

Gun Crazy Review

November 28, 2016 by JD Hansel

SPOILER WARNING

In my last review, I wrote a bit about how I’m currently fascinated with génial–nanar blends – films that are very impressive and enjoyable in some scenes, yet are so stupid, bizarre, or unimpressive that they become enjoyable in other scenes. One of the best examples of this type of film is unsurprisingly found in the film noir genre: Gun Crazy, also known as Deadly Is the Female. While I don’t think it’s meant to be a comedy, many scenes are so strange or absurd that they seem laughable, giving me a feeling that’s no so different from what I get when I watch Duck Soup in that it feels almost like a child’s idea of how to make a movie rather than a rational adult’s. What I think Gun Crazy demonstrates is that this group of films, in which I would include Gun Crazy, often achieves this state by trying to be completely interesting, surprising, or unique.

First, consider the strange aspects of this film. The protagonist is obviously a very odd choice for a romantic lead in a crime drama because of his tall, lanky, silly appearance, which is only made sillier by his awkward smile and his unexplained obsession with guns. Towards the beginning of the film, two characters are presented as children – Clyde Boston and Dave Alastair – who are dressed as adults and look exactly the same when they grow up. Towards the end, Annie is randomly crazy enough to steal the baby from Ruby’s house to keep herself (and Bart) from getting shot by police. The foggy, swampy environment of the ending looks nothing like the rest of the film, and wouldn’t naturally occur in that location, breaking what little sense of realism the film had maintained. Best of all is the line that was nominated for inclusion in AFI’s 100 Movie Quotes: “We go together, Laurie. I don’t know why. Maybe like guns and ammunition go together.”

Now consider just how much of Gun Crazy is clever and creative. The opening titles are presented over the background that becomes the first scene, meaning the cast and crew held on that shot for a few minutes before they started moving – nothing novel, but certainly something rare and interesting. As far as the storytelling goes, there is great irony in the fact that the protagonist first encounters his lover when she shoots him and their relationship ends when he shoots her. The bank robbery scene that was shot all in one take is highly impressive from a technical standpoint, not to mention how difficult it must have been for the performers to time everything properly and improvise any needed dialogue. Even some of the weirdest things can be viewed from a perspective that makes them seem clever. For example, one might see the representation of young Clyde and Dave as miniature adults as an indication that much of the film (or at least the opening scene that takes place in the past) is being presented from Bart’s perspective according to his memory.

Ultimately, all of these positive elements and bizarre elements seem to come from the same directorial approach: making the film as interesting as possible – striving to make things unique at all costs. Trying things that people have never done before in cinema can lead to the greatness of Citizen Kane or the ridiculousness of a Joel Schumacher film. In spite of its resemblance to other film noir, it clearly strives to be very much its own film, refusing to let anyone say that it is not unique. This isn’t the greatest answer to my question of how we get génial–nanar blends, and it is not my final answer – in fact one professor of mine found it very inadequate, arguing instead that it has something more to do with affect. Still, the desire to make something very different from what everyone’s seen before, something that’s very captivating and memorable at all costs, does seem to be at least a preliminary requirement for the génial–nanar. I don’t think anyone else would have thought to make a film noir with a tiny touch of the western and a big load of goofiness, but the fact that this mixture was somehow able to get produced in the height of the studio system’s panicked identity crisis is enough to make it the unique novelty that audiences never knew they wanted.

The Asphalt Jungle Review

November 17, 2016 by JD Hansel

(SPOILER ALERT)

It’s surprising to me just how much better this film is on my second viewing – how much easier it is to follow and enjoy watching it after having already seen it before. That’s not to say I really liked it the second time I watched it – in fact I never finished watching it a second time – but it is easier to appreciate. The film has a structure that’s hard to work out on the onset, and the first few minutes of the film give the impression that the story will follow the perspective of the police officers more than the criminals. Without any clear protagonist, and with an ensemble cast with intricate relationships, it’s easy to get lost in the story, as I did when I first started watching it. There’s also the fact that I generally have little interest in crime and heist films, which made me hope for better motivations behind the characters’ actions so I could have an easier time getting invested. On the second viewing, however, it has become clear to me that this film is very careful and detailed, making it rather fascinating. I’m particularly fascinated by the role of women in the film.

I think it is quite safe to say that the filmmakers planned on having a mostly male audience, seeing as how the main characters in the film (or at least the ones who push the plot along) are men, so the film looks at women from a few male perspectives. There seems to be a dichotomy presented between the “good life,” represented by adhering to domestic norms, and the wrong way of living, represented by inappropriate lust (or, to a lesser extent, greed). The professor seems to have no interest in settling down with a wife – his ideal retirement is chasing the pretty Mexican girls around in the sunshine. The film seems adamant about making the point that greed, lust, and criminality are all in the same family of things that ought to be avoided, and it is no surprise that Doc’s lust becomes his undoing. Similarly, Emmerich’s affair seems to be at the very least related to his unhappy ending. When Bob Brannom suggests that Emmerich went broke because of Angela (Marilyn), Emmerich denies it, saying it was his extravagant way of living, but I argue Emmerich would have no need for his many properties if he didn’t need places to have his affair. “Doll” tries to pull Dix into the conventional, domestic, married life, but he inexplicably resists, instead pining after the horses of his home.

Interestingly, the film only touches on the subject of how crime can hurt one’s family. The brief memorial service scene seems to mostly serve the function of reminding the audience of the consequences of criminal behavior, which is a message the film probably needed to drive home quite severely in order to get approved. If a big proponent of Sobchack were to try to figure out why a family would be brought into this film, it seems that the reasons would be purely functional: to raise the stakes so the drama of the heist is more interesting, and to help the film get its approval. I can’t help but wonder how entirely different the film would be if one woman had been involved in the heist itself and how the perspective on women the film presents might completely change.

Unfortunately, a film that’s fascinating in hindsight is not the same as one that’s entertaining from the start, which is really what I was hoping to see. Some of the characters are really good and leave a strong impression, and I think that’s largely due to the great performances from Sam Jaffe, Jean Hagen, and of course Marilyn, but somehow this isn’t enough to keep the film interesting. I recognize that it’s a well-made film in many respects, but it’s not my kind of thing. I think I’ll have to finish my second viewing sometime, or maybe even watch it a third time, because as of right now, I’m wondering if I’ll ever decide if the film’s ending is an unsatisfying bummer or a work of poetic genius.

Rashômon Review

April 5, 2016 by JD Hansel

I like stories. I especially like stories when they are delivered with the standard Hollywood three-act narrative. It’s a good structure for movies, and I think that’s because of the logical form at play in the medium. Nearly every film that’s ever been screened – or perhaps every fiction ever invented – has built its story, whether or not the writer(s) realized it, on the following idea: given this fascinating set of circumstances, these fascinating events are what would/could follow (or, to express it in propositional logic, “C → E“). It makes sense that the first act would establish the circumstances and the main character that will be used to express their consequences, followed by a second act in which several chaotic events take place as a result of the established circumstances, a climax with the culmination of all of the chaos thus far, and finally a conclusion that sorts everything out into some sort of inevitable, orderly result. Naturally, I always get nervous when a director decides to break this form in favor of his/her own idea of whatever would be interesting to present on film. For this film, however, Kurosawa somehow managed to use the same logical principles, but with a different form than Hollywood’s, that strangely works beautifully for this story.

From the beginning, the tone of the film puts the audience in a mood to hear a story, as we see what almost seems like an equivalent to a man walking into a bar our of the rain to tell a story to the bartender. We know right away that we’re about to hear a dreadful tale, and the flashbacks are no surprise. Flashbacks had been long-established by this point, so everyone knew what they were and how to “read” them. We also understand the cinematic grammar of a court hearing, so the way that the flashbacks are organized and presented makes sense. Ultimately, the form of this film still retains the basic concept of presenting circumstances and the events that would follow from them, but if Hollywood’s form is a bowling ball hitting the pins, Kurosawa’s form is a cue stick hitting the triangle of object balls – the point isn’t to push everything in one direction, but to scatter in every direction. In other words, Kurosawa uses a structure that shoots various mutations of a story in different directions, and we are meant to make sense of the general ideas running throughout all of them in order to make sense of the conclusion.

What is perhaps most impressive about this movie is that it offers satisfaction without answering the film’s main question. While I do not wish to give too much away, I will say that the ending is a hopeful response to the events of the film . . . in a way. Rather than having a conclusion that is set up directly by the events that take place in the story, this film ends with more of an Our Town ending by ending on an answer to the film’s theme, and even the film’s form. The form of the film is inseparable from the plot, so both the form and plot keep the audience curious about what’s to come. We can still play “the movie game” of trying to guess where the plot will go because the grammar of the film is intuitive enough, but the ending makes one realize that the game is not the point. The point, like with most stories, is the moral we learn from the fable, which makes Rashomon a very fascinating sort of fairy tale.

Harvey Review

April 23, 2015 by JD Hansel

It’s been weeks since I watched Harvey. I thought it was fitting to watch it on Easter, but then I never got around to reviewing it until now. So I’ll just review it now, and hopefully I’ll remember most of it.

Harvey, the third film in my unexplained series of reviews of movies that start with “Ha,” is a pleasant film. The plot concerns a man who repels most people he meets because he has a large invisible rabbit for a friend. It is based on a play, and it feels like watching a play the whole time. It is clever and funny, but since the main character (played by James Stewart) isn’t very real or relatable to me, the film didn’t totally hold my attention the whole time.

The plot was structured well in my opinion, and sort of reminded me of Shakespeare’s style. The ending was a little weak, but it was still nice. There were a few shots in the movie that looked pretty good, and some shots that were somewhat of impressive from a technical standpoint, but it’s a rather ordinary-looking film on the whole. Some of the lines are good, but the humor is by no means brilliant since it’s nearly all relying on the same joke: no one knows how to handle this crazy guy’s invisible friend Harvey. Still, it’s certainly a decent comedy film that will get a few laughs from its viewers.

So, in the end, it’s probably worth seeing. It’s not necessarily a must-see, but it’s a cute movie that is nice to watch every once in a while.