Schindler's List

 No quips on this one.

 Reviewing the National Film Registry, I've seen a lot of films pitched towards the Male Gaze. I've seen a handful pitched towards the Female Gaze. Schindler's List is probably the only movie I've ever seen that I could classify as being pitched towards the Gentile Gaze.

  What I mean by that isn't any sort of betrayal of the fact that this is a film about the unspeakable tragedy that fell most heavily on the Jews of Europe, under the direction of a Jewish man. What I mean is that this movie didn't strike me as being about how people of Jewish heritage should reflect on the Holocaust period, but instead it feels like a film directly challenging the Gentile audience to really look. We spend most of our time with the imposing, booming-voiced opportunist and the fiercely handsome, winsomely childlike sadistic murderer. Other film critics have pointed out that the Jews in this film tend to be physically tiny. Liam Neeson towers over his workforce with more than a hint of paternal protection. But watching as a Gentile, I feel that is the challenge of the film. To see such large scale dehumanization and to see the desires of our worse natures dangled in front of us (the Nazis are almost always seen partying, enjoying expensive things, having sex with beautiful women, raking in piles of cash), and to make the right choice anyway. The breakdown at the end of the film has been criticized as maudlin, but it seems more realistic. This is a man who spent the first half of the war living large, and he saw his money transform into human faces. The pardon is in the fact that his "wasted" money got the Nazis to trust him, which enabled lives to be saved.

  It's not a film with easy answers about what makes people wake up and decide that some people are far less deserving of life... or even truly a film that answers what makes some people realize the "untermensch" are actually human beings and become willing to risk everything to save them. At three harrowing hours, what we get is a documentary-like focus. This is Spielberg's tightest film from a narrative point of view, and is his quietest film, as he rarely spells anything out for the audience.

 This is a movie that should be required viewing, but it's an experience above being a film.

Rear Window

Another National Film Registry post. I'll tell you exactly what I saw and what I think it means.

So, here's another Hitchcock masterpiece, starring Jimmy Stewart being kind of a grump that everyone treats as way younger than he clearly is, and an ethereally lovely blonde, costumes by Edith Head. I guess why tamper too much with a formula that works (though Rear Window predates Vertigo by four years)? Especially since the plots manage to be different enough that you aren't constantly comparing L.B. Jefferies and Scottie Ferguson - even though you can tell some of the shots here were the forerunners of the later film.

Most people look at this movie through the lens (har) of voyeurism and lack of connection in urban spaces. Jeff feels justified in spying on people and having gossipy conversations with his nurse about what he suspects based on his observations, using the justification that they could watch him right back. This isn't the first time that Jimmy Stewart has been given a role more traditionally suited to a female character - in It's a Wonderful Life, we got him as the perennial martyr. Here, he's a Yenta, who is only missing trying to matchmake his neighbors and moaning that his kids never call. For a rather unusual twist, the women in this film are the active agents, doing for Jeff because he simply can not do for himself.

Which brings me to what I really want to talk about: disability. We're introduced to Jeff as a man suffering the burden of a painful and deeply hampering temporary disability. He is swathed from hip to toes in plaster and can barely move out of his wheelchair. He is chafing at the restrictions of his formerly active life, and is angry that he has been dealt such an unfair blow as to have to spend seven weeks in a wheelchair. Our murder victim is also disabled - a chronic invalid who is rarely shown out of bed. She's also shown to be argumentative and probably rather shrewish. This is a parallel you don't often see when disability is represented on film: our hero is ticked off and snappish because he is dealing with a temporary disability, and no one faults him overly for it. Our disabled victim is not a suffering saint either - she is likely in pain and is as quarrelsome as the guy who is laid up. Yet at no point are we asked to feel sympathy for a murderer who kills disabled people... though rather tellingly, our for-sure turning point is when he murders a friendly little dog.

This is rather revolutionary, even now, where depictions of the disabled tend to indicate that we are much better off being dead and that no one will miss us. While Jeff may not feel much besides curiosity for the life of Mrs. Thorwald, he becomes as involved as possible in her death. I couldn't help but think of a connection from one crip to another. Our stories are so often overlooked and so little told that there's a spark of recognition when a disabled person on screen, even if that person has nothing in common with us, not even the same disability. I don't know if Hitchcock knew about that. I don't know if he was going for the connection between Jeff feeling disposable (we're introduced to him getting turned down from an assignment he had been cultivating because his disability will lay him up slightly longer) and Mrs. Thorwald being literally disposed of for her inconvenience. But society was having the conversation about whether the disabled have any rights worth speaking of, including the right to live, that we are still forced to have. Here, there's no excuse. A jerk of a disabled woman didn't deserve to be strangled and dismembered any more than the clever, kind, and beautiful Lisa Fremont deserved to be strangled by Lars Thorwald. Lisa is saved by the timely intervention of the police, but Mrs. Thorwald is ignored by all except the one disabled figure across from her bedroom window.

Even if this movie doesn't give you the same feels it gave me, I have no hesitation in strongly suggesting it. I'm a Hitchcock fan, true, and this is one of his A-Games.

Psycho

We all go a little mad sometimes. And sometimes that means we take an extremely long hiatus.

So.... I once again find myself asking the question of how honestly can a film be judged by its own merits when it has reached saturation levels of cultural osmosis? Psycho did what it did so well that it spawned countless parodies, references, and homages. If Jaws made you afraid to go in the ocean, Psycho had already made you terrified of the shower. It's a powerful image to see a young woman brutally murdered in the shower, even if the "graphic" shots of the murder now look comical. Especially since Janet Leigh's Marion Crane looks as happy as those weirdos in the Zest commercials until suddenly the curtain is ripped back. You genuinely believe this is the most refreshing shower ever, and then BAM! Murder time. It also helps that the shot of her unblinking, dead-eyed stare while slumped on the tile floor is genuinely chilling.

Since everyone knows the steps of the plot, the big question is can this movie still function well as a psychological thriller. In this case, it really can, but that's largely due to the bits left out of the re-treads. Anthony Perkins plays Norman Bates as a shy, golly-gosh-gee-whiz awkward guy who you could imagine being the nerdy friend in Leave it to Beaver. His almost aggressive wholesomeness is what makes all of his behavior off-putting. He kindly brings Marion a sandwich, then peeps on her through a spyhole. He makes nice conversation, then starts going down the road into creepy territory. Every woman has known a guy like this, who seems sweet and innocent, then starts speaking violently or getting agitated to the point of frightening when a particular button is hit. It also makes the central question of the film much deeper - which personality is actually the killer? Norman says Mother is violent and controlling, Mother says Norman is a cold-blooded murderer. Hitchcock doesn't think we need that questioned answered, any more than Ford thought we needed it confirmed who actually shot Liberty Valance. As a person who has been soaked in this film since childhood, but never actually seen it, I wasn't ready for that to be a question. It somehow gets skipped over in the parodies, which prefer to focus on "Haha, this man is wearing a dress".

On the front of disability activism, this movie does have problematic elements. Norman isn't a psychopath, and the portrayal of mentally ill people as killers is... well, it's a well-worn trope. But the movie does do a better job with dissociative identity disorder than could generally be expected from a film made in 1960. But while Norman's mental illness is shown as the reason behind the murders, it's also explained as a function of an abusive co-dependent relationship with a parent. While "Controlling Mother" is another well-worn trope, I'm not familiar with many earlier films that pushed the idea of abusive parents causing extreme reactions in their offspring. In the 80's, of course, we suddenly became obsessed with abusive parental figures, and I'll address that trope in some of the later films.

Overall, I'm really glad I finally watched this movie. In my opinion, it works better than some other films that have achieved a similar level of saturation precisely because the blend of cinematography and acting are ignored in the parodies and homages. Both are what make the story work, and without it, it's simply shorthand for a slasher film. The whole movie is needed to be a psychological thriller.

Night of the Living Dead

     Is reviewing the National Film Registry right? Well... the television said it was the right thing to do.

     So... Night of the Living Dead. I've been putting this one off, because to my ever-lasting nerd shame, I really, really hate zombie movies. Even though what we now call zombies are more properly termed "ghouls" (like they're called in this film) or "revenants". But the term zombie stuck, and now we've got a bonanza of the damn things chowing down on grizzled survivors, shrieking women, or trying their luck on eating wacky character types in the Zom-Rom-Com. But it really all started here, since the only earlier zombie film I know of is the obscure Bela Lugosi flick "Zombies on Broadway" (highly disappointing - while there are traditional Voudon zombies, they only show up on Broadway in the last scene). And this film didn't just make zombies a mainstream scare factory, it ushered in just how graphic a horror movie could get with its content!

     The film stars Duane Jones, Bill Cardille, and contains various other people. Duane Jones is really the only one to turn in anything resembling a performance, while Bill Cardille had actually been a reporter. The others... well, they help show just how low the budget was! They kind of lurch through the picture like extras in a high school play, occasionally reaching the level of first-time community theater performers. The camera effects are generally amateurish, with cuts especially being handled generally badly, and the camera choosing weird things to focus on (my favorite being the mincing zombie with the bob cut - she looks more concerned about dirtying her shoes than finding brains). But there is a certain effectiveness in the general lot of the film being amateur hour... especially since it was mixed with some very well-thought out practical effects and some amazing make-up work. The generally bad acting can feel a lot like random people facing this completely beyond the pale situation, and when the camera is focusing on the practical effects, it gives loving detail to the guts and gore.

     There's also the revolutionary casting of Duane Jones as the hero in a horror picture, and interestingly, the last to die. While everyone involved in the picture swears it was just because Duane Jones gave a really good audition, a black man keeping his head in a horrible supernatural situation, let alone being generally heroic, was pretty much unheard of. Here I'm thinking of the myriad of media from the era showing various black people being terrified of "haints", as an extra little nail of them being inferior to whites because they're so full of silly superstition! Ha! I take George Romero's word that he wasn't trying to do anything revolutionary with racial politics in film, but unconsciously achieving something is still an achievement. Even if that revolution was short-lived enough that "The Black Guy Dies First" is a standard horror trope.

     As you might surmise, my feelings on this film are mixed. It ushered in the era of everything I hate about horror films. I hate bloodfests and gore. I hate zombies. As a piece of entertainment that I was expected to find pleasing in some way, I hated this movie. But from the detached portion of me that is trying to engage these films on the level of "cultural, historical, or aesthetic significance", I have to admit this movie had all three.

Patton

Sometimes people don't know when I'm reviewing. It's not important for them to know. It's important for me to know.

In other words, sorry for the hiatus.

In other other words, let's get right into Patton.

Patton functions well as a straight war picture, with some great battle shots and a good general sense of history. But it primarily functions as a character study of General George S. Patton - a man who seemingly lived his life as if he was a character written for a movie. Equal parts bombastic and sentimental, foul-mouthed and strangely delicate about particular matters, if Patton hadn't been a real person, you could probably confuse him with a character who wandered off the set of Catch-22. How can a man who has just given his men a vulgar speech full of fire, brimstone, and curses, then insist on being driven out to an ancient battlefield and quote his own poetry with misty-eyed rapture? Especially poetry that is actually rather good. The Roger Ebert review from 1970 points out that George C. Scott as Patton in the opening scene is wearing perhaps two fewer medals than Groucho Marx would have worn to play the parody of the character. Yet the medals are worn in all seriousness, without even a hint that they might be considered excessive. The whole movie functions on that level. It is undeniably the Patton Show, and when the camera goes off to focus on someone else - whether Americans, British, or German, Patton is still the subject of conversation.

Even many other biopics allow the subject a little more room, maybe some discussion solely of events that we know will affect the subject, but that they have no knowledge about. Yet here, if Patton is not directly involved, he is the subject of conversation. The Germans admire him as a romantic throwback, the British despair of him as a glory hound, and the Americans go between adoring him as a plain-spoken warrior and despising him for being a blunt old bastard. The thing that keeps him being likable as a character is that he is all of these things, and is fully aware of it. The problem comes in that he has to exist in the world with other people. He doesn't understand people who are not like him, and makes no real effort to try.

We've all known people like this, and they are generally exhausting in real life. But on the screen, especially as a central figure in a mesmerizing biopic, they can become irresistible. As a film, this functions as one of the truly great biopics, both by completely centering its subject, and by not attempting to whitewash any flaws. Lawrence of Arabia is another of the great biopics, and is also a Registry film, which I will get to eventually. But the difference between the two is that Lawrence of Arabia makes sure that the viewer never fully forgets that T.E. Lawrence is playing a part between two great dramas: WWI and the break-up of the Ottoman Empire. In Patton, WWII might as well have just been fought to give old George something to do in his twilight years. But judging by the characters of the two men, that's precisely how both of them saw themselves in relation to their conflict. And that's what makes Patton memorable as a war epic and as a biopic.

The Empire Strikes Back

National Film Registry.... I am your blogger.

Okay, considering the reaction that gets in the movie and the fact that the personal pronoun is a totally separate line, maybe it's not the best thing to open up with. But when am I going to have another chance to make that joke?

Happy Star Wars Day, my dearest readers. I have to swallow my chagrin that my April Fool's Day post is the most viewed on my blog, but hopefully the new readers went beyond that. But hey, I'm in time for the only other Star Wars film on the National Film Registry. And, in my opinion, it's the best Star Wars film. A New Hope is incredibly important for reviving that sense of fun sci-fi space opera serial. It gave and continues to give new generations that whole wriggling in your seat anticipation.

So if the entire point of A New Hope is how fun it is, why do so many people consider the much bleaker Empire the superior film? I think that's a particularly relevant question now, when so many movies and series are going dark and ending on downers just for the point of being dark. There's been a kind of Kafka-esque gloom suffusing our fantasy and science fiction entertainment, especially over the last 20 years. Is The Empire Strikes Back where it started? I honestly don't know the answer to that. Maybe it started with Alan Moore and with Tim Burton's Batman. We got to like the darker, more frightening style. And yet, The Empire Strikes Back has a different tone than the current crop of "Life sucks so I brood in a barely lit scene" films. Instead of being dark for the sake of darkness, the darkness and doubt feel purposeful. Life isn't going badly for the Rebel Alliance because life itself is pointless and horrible, but because they are in a horrible situation. The downer ending isn't to make us feel like we're more clever for expecting it - it's raising the stakes.

Of course not every science fiction story prior had a hero who won. After all, the movie was made 15+ years after The Twilight Zone. But there's really the rub in this film - the center of a serial is always supposed to raise the stakes. You aren't supposed to believe the heroes could possibly make it out of this alive. In Flash Gordon and Captain Video, the heroes didn't only escape alive, but relatively unscathed. As Annie Wilkes says in Misery, "That's cheating". I think that's where the success of The Empire Strikes Back as a film really comes into play. You can talk about the Zen Buddhist elements, the deepening of the universe, or the storyline that mimics Greek tragedy... but for me, the strongest feature of the film is the lack of cheating. No one escapes unscathed. Leia finally allows herself to unbend a little from the pillar of strength she always has to be... and instantly her lover is forcibly taken from her. Han really finds the core of altruism and selflessness within himself... and is tortured and experimented on. Lando gives up his honor to protect his people... and loses anyway. And of course, there's Luke. Poor, poor Luke. Even Vader gets his first spark of real humanity in this film, where he proposes that instead of murdering his son, he can turn him to the Dark Side... and he is then rejected by a son who chooses death (even if he wound up surviving the fall) over him. I guess that's why the first half of Return of the Jedi feels like it has lower stakes. The Empire Strikes Back is all about these life-changing, often shattering events happening to the main cast, and then you don't see the recovery. Just a moment of hopefulness (though is anyone else bugged by the fact that Lando is wearing Han's clothes in the final scene?), set against that unforgettable backdrop of stars.

Maybe it's not a perfect film and maybe the next film weakens it a bit, but The Empire Strikes Back is space opera at its best.

And remember: the Fourth will be with you. Always.

The Room

O hai, National Film Registry Project! How's your sex life?


What can one say about Tommy Wiseau's The Room? This cinematic masterpiece is truly destined for the National Film Registry. I might as well jump the gun on this one and be truly prepared, so I can be duly praised for my foresight and vision in hailing this as one of the most highly artistic films of all time. What can one say about unforgettable characters like Johnny, Lisa, Denny, Mark, Lisa's Mom, the wormy guy in glasses, Mr. "Me Underwears", Nuclear Bomb Lady, and Who the Hell is This Guy? Each turns in a stellar performance in this tour de force.

This is a movie that best captures the post-modern angst of the big city, combined with the aimlessness of the Gen-Xer's facing full adulthood - complete with a mentor role over a Millenial and conflict with a Baby Boomer, mixed with a masterful use of neo-medieval Christian symbolism. It is not that Johnny has absolutely no idea how to play football: his repeated tossing of a football without ever scoring a goal of any sort is a powerful visual metaphor of his lack of direction. Mark doesn't repeatedly forget that he has already had sex with Lisa because he's an idiot: instead, he is showing a Joyce-like ability to shift between the facets of his experience. What is not acceptable to one side of his personality (helping Johnny's future wife cheat), is acceptable to his baser nature. This then becomes a tragedy of Miltonian proportions, as the figure of Lisa - who can be equated with "Sin" in Paradise Lost or a masterfully crafted Eve figure from medieval drama, causes such severe temptation to the lower instincts of Mark as to cause him to "fall from heaven" (or Johnny's close friendship), while at the same time, making Earth unbearable to the pure soul of the Christ-figure of Johnny, who has no choice but to sacrifice himself rather than continue living in the depravity of this world. Because of this, the whole film culminates in the loss of Denny's innocence, which gives such powerful symbolism of the previous generation moving aside so that a new generation can be completely screwed by the system.

The world of The Room has touched a generation in a way that few films have before. Tommy Wiseau joins such luminaries as Ed Wood and M. Night Shyamalan as a by-word for quality film. Few will ever top the brilliance of this performance. except perhaps the geniuses of RiffTrax.  https://youtu.be/oCO64CA2MkA