Rants and Ruminations

2019 Farewells: Behind the camera

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D.A. Pennebaker invents the music video in BOB DYAN: DON’T LOOK BACK

The filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker made the best ever and most influential concert film (Monterey Pop) and the best political campaign documentary (The War Room). And he invented the music video at the opening of his Don’t Look Back, as Bob
as Dylan holds up cards with the lyrics for Subterranean Homesick Blues.
The pump don’t work
‘Cause the vandals took the handles

Has there been a greater director of movie musicals than Stanley Donen, the director of Singin’ in the Rain?  I’m generally not a fan of musicals, but I love his first film; in the 1949 On the Town (Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra and Jules Munshin are sailors dancing away their shore leave through NYC) and his 1958 Damn Yankees (the Gwen Verdon version).  Seven Brides for Seven Brothers in 1954 wasn’t bad, either.

Writer-director John Singleton was the youngest person ever nominated for the Best Director Oscar (for Boyz in the Hood) and the first African-American.

Bernardo Bertolucci, the Italian writer-director was most renowned for The Conformist (1970), Last Tango in Paris (1972) and the 9-Oscar winner The Last Emperor (1987). I actually prefer Bertolucci’s more recent work, beginning with the underrated The Sheltering Sky (1990) with John Malkovich and Debra Winger. I thought that his The Dreamers was the best film of 2003.

Director Franco Zeffirelli is best known for his Shakespearean adaptions, especially the lushly romantic 1968 hit Romeo and Juliet, in which he cast actual teenagers in this story of impulsive teen love.  I think his most everlasting achievement should be the 1977 TV mini-series Jesus of Nazareth, which remains the screen narrative that is closest to Biblical accounts of the life of Jesus.  Jesus of Nazareth may be streamed from Amazon (included with Prime), iTunes, YouTube and Google Play.

The composer Michael Legrand, who won three Oscars, should be best remembered for his work in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a film where every line was sung. Legrand wrote the music for Umbrella’s iconic song I Will Wait for You.

Robert Evans began his Hollywood career as an actor in pretty boy roles, but was astute enough to see his future as a Suit. He was the studio exec who greenlighted The Godfather and produced Chinatown. He even narrated an irresistible documentary about his career, The Kid Stays in the Picture, which can be streamed from Amazon, Vudu, YouTube and Google Play.

Mark Urman, a publicist and the executive producer of Monster’s Ball, founded the indie distributors ThinkFilm and Paladin.   Urman gave mainstream audiences the chance to see the Oscar-winning documentaries Born into Brothels and Taxi to the Dark Side.

Musician Dick Dale, known as the King of the Surf Guitar and the Father of Heavy Metal, contributed his Misirlou to one of the most iconic opening sequences in cinema: Pulp Fiction.  His music also underscored the crazy surf scene with Kurt Russell, Peter Fonda and Steve Buscemi in Escape from L.A.

Best Movies of 2019

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Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio in ONCE UPON A TIME…IN HOLLYWOOD

It’s time for my Top Ten list.

To get on my year-end list, a movie has to be one that thrills me while I’m watching it and one that I’m still thinking about a couple of days later. I usually end up with a Top Ten and another 5-15 mentions. Here’s last year’s list. This year, I’m still waiting to see Uncut Gems and Little Women.

It was difficult for me to rank the top three films, very different from each other as they are. Here goes:

  1. Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood: masterpiece.
  2. Parasite: social inequity – what’s really at stake.
  3. Marriage Story: the comedy helps us watch the tragedy.
  4. The Irishman: gangsters – an epic reflection.
  5. The Last Black Man in San Francisco:  the most stark reality, only dream-like. 
  6. Ash Is Purest White: a survivor’s journey.
  7. Jojo Rabbit: a joyous and hilarious movie about the inculcation of hatred.
  8. Long Day’s Journey into Night:  obsession and a vivid darkness.  
  9. They Shall Not Grow Old: a generation finally understood.
  10. 63 Up: a generation faces mortality.

The rest of the best are Amazing Grace, Knives Out, Booksmart and Midnight Family.

Three of my top eight are from Asia; two of my top four are from Netflix. You can read more about these films, including how to stream most of them at Best Movies of 2020.

Yeo-jeong Jo and Kang-ho Song in PARASITE

ANNA KARINA

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Anna Karina, the Danish-born model who became a primary leading lady of the French New Wave, has died at age 79. She was married to Jean-Luc Godard, her first director, when he was still making good movies in the early 1960s. Later, she made films for iconic European directors like Rivette, Visconti and Fassbinder.

I love her in the dance scene in Band of Outsiders (Bande à part), especially at the very end, when she suddenly veers from frivolity to confusion. Here it is, and, just for fun, here also is the band Nouvelle Vague’s video of their song Dance with Me, set to the images of Band of Outsiders.

ROBERT FORSTER

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Robert Forster as Max Cherry in JACKIE BROWN

The actor Robert Forster has died at 78. Amassing 186 screen credits, Forster was a stalwart of 70s and 80s TV, starring in his owned short-lived period detective series Banyon and then Twin Peaks. But thank God for Quentin Tarantino, who revived Forster’s career with the character of Max Cherry in Jackie Brown; Max’s streetwise strength and basic Midwestern decency was a perfect fit for Forster. Forster went on to close his career with excellent material, worthy of his talent, including The Descendants and last year’s What We Had.

GASLIGHT, GASLIGHT and gaslighting in domestic violence

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Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer in GASLIGHT

On September 10, Turner Classic Movies will air Gaslight (1944), a classic suspense thriller that still has a lot to say about domestic violence and abusive power in relationships.

In Gaslight, an evil husband (Charles Boyer) isolates his wife (Ingrid Bergman) and uses manipulation to convince her that she’s going crazy. He’s seeking to conceal his crimes and gain unfettered control of her house and fortune. He’s also dallying with the maid (a nubile 18-year-old Angela Lansbury). Fortunately, the wife’s longtime admirer (Joseph Cotton) works for Scotland Yard and starts to investigate…

Domestic Violence is abuse of a partner, generally characterized by asserting power and control over the partner. Not all domestic violence is physical, and this phenomenon of abuse by manipulation takes it name – gaslighting – from this movie.

The Film Noir Foundation recently screened Gaslight to an audience of domestic violence survivors and support professionals. I recommend Noir Talk, the Film Noir Foundation’s excellent podcast on iTunes. Search for Gaslight and domestic violence in Episode 10. Here’s one of the tidbits from the podcast: Ingrid Bergman thought she was too vibrant and healthy-looking for the part; but that works to show how the manipulation can work on a woman who doesn’t look like a victim.

This famous Gaslight is actually a remake of the original 1940 version, which is also especially well-acted. Anton Walbrook is suave and evil as the hubbie and Dyana Wyngard is unforgettably haunting as the wife. Only 19 minutes in, we see his duplicity, manipulation and control. Frank Pettingell is very good as the detective, and the cast includes Robert Newton (Long John Silver in the 1950 Treasure Island). Cathleen Cordell plays the oversexed maid Nancy in a less nuanced performance than Angela Lansbury’s. This film version is reportedly the most faithful to the stage play source material. (Oddly, there’s a very good can-can dance in this 1940 movie, too.)

TOWN WITHOUT PITY – the song, not the movie

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Turner Classic Movies is airing Town Without Pity (1961) on Saturday – and I don’t think much of it.  It’s a postwar drama in which Kirk Douglas defends four GIs from rape charges in an Allied-occupied German town.  But the great Dimitri Tiomkin wrote the score, and, like he did with his Oscar-winning High Noon, he came up with a pretty good title song.  The song became a Top 40 hit for Gene Pitney.  Here’s Pitney performing the song on TV.

(For a total change of pace, the song was also featured in John Waters’ 1988 Hairspray.)

Peter Fonda

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Peter Fonda in his THE HIRED HAND

Peter Fonda has died at age 79. Fonda, well-known as a son and brother of film mega-stars, had a prolific career (116 screen credits) dotted with some spectacular successes.

Fonda’s most eternal legacy will be Easy Rider, a film he wrote and starred in, which was the seminal film of the Counter-culture. Most importantly, Easy Rider propelled the staggering movie studios into empowering a new generation of auteur filmmakers.

Before Easy Rider, Fonda had moved from traditional Hollywood male ingenue roles into a couple of Roger Corman exploitation films, The Trip and Wild Angels. In a rich third act, Fonda was deservedly Oscar-nominated for his starring role in the 1997 indie Ulee’s Gold. He also delivered fine supporting performances in The Limey (1999) and 3:10 to Yuma (2007).

Fonda also directed three films, including his grievously underrated Western The Hired Hand (1971). Verna Bloom, who also died this year, plays a woman abandoned on her hardscrabble ranch by her roaming husband (Fonda). When he returns with his trail buddy (Warren Oates), she will only allow him back as a hired hand. It’s a moody and captivating film, beautifully shot by Vilmos Zsigmond.  The Hired Hand is available on DVD from Netflix; the DVD is also available for purchase.

D.A. PENNEBAKER – giant of documentary cinema

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D.A> Pennebaker invents the music video in BOB DYAN: DON’T LOOK BACK

The influential filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker has died at age 94. Among Pennebaker’s innovative achievements:

  • His 1968 Monterey Pop is in the conversation as the best ever concert film, and it undeniably influenced the other great concert movies that have followed (Woodstock, The Last Waltz, Stop Making Sense). This is one of the few DVDs that I still own, for the performances by Mamas and the Papas, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, Canned Heat, Simon and Garfunkle, Jefferson Airplane, Eric Burdon and the Animals, Country Joe and the Fish and The Who.   Pete Townsend and Jimi Hendrix had a guitar-destroying competition, which Hendrix, aided by lighter fluid, undeniably won. The Otis Redding set is epic.
  • Pennebaker’s 1993 The War Room, about the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign, sets the standard for the insider political campaign documentary.
  • Pennebaker directed Bob Dylan: Don’t Look Back (1967), the story of Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England, when he was transitioning from an acoustic to an electric artist.  In the film’s opening, Pennebaker invented the music video, as Dylan holds up cards with the lyrics for Subterranean Homesick Blues.
    The pump don’t work
    ‘Cause the vandals took the handles
Otis Redding in MONTEREY POP

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL is here.

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WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL

It’s time for one of the Bay Area’s top cinema events: the 39th annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), which opens this Thursday, July 18, and runs through August 4 at five locations throughout the Bay Area. As usual, the fest presents a broad range of feature films from 17 countries (but mostly from the US and Israel), plus 2 programs of short films (Jews in Shorts).

My top recommendation is Rob Garver’s What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, a remarkably thorough and insightful biodoc of the iconic film critic and her drive for relevance. It’s illustrated with clips of the movies that she loved and hated. I’ll publish my long form review when What She Said is released in the Bay Area.

Two more SFJFF entries about the movies are Curtiz, a narrative film about the prolific director Michael Curtiz and Carl Laemmle, a documentary about the pioneering movie impresario

SFJFF always presents an excellent slate of docs. This year’s batch includes Golda, with footage from Golda Meir’s last interview.

There are also comedies. The sibling roadtrip comedy Dancing Dogs of Dombrova looks promising. I’ve seen the comedy of manners How About Adolf? – a family provocateur trying to get under his brother-in-law’s skin unintentionally ignites an eruption of family resentments and revelations.

I haven’t seen it, but my favorite SFJFF title this year is the animated film Seder-Masochism.

One of the most appealing features of the SFJFF39 is that, wherever you live in the Bay Area, the fest comes to you. SFJFF39 will present films at the Castro in San Francisco, CIneArts in Palo Alto, the Albany Twin in Albany, the Rafael in San Rafael and the Piedmont in Oakland. You can peruse the entire program and buy tickets and passes at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

Jut for fun, here’s the delightful trailer from the 2016 version of SFJFF.

WES STUDI gets an Oscar

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Wes Studi in THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS

Wes Studi is getting an honorary Oscar, and I’m all for it. Slated for a Governors Award, Studi is being honored, along with David Lynch, Geena Davis and Lina Wertmuller by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Wes Studi has an uncommon gift of being compelling. I first noticed him in Dances with Wolves, but he’s compiled 97 screen credits from Geronimo: An American Legend to The New World to Heat to Avatar.

Undoubtedly, Studi’s greatest (and most searing) performance was as Magua in The Last of the Mohicans, a movie that he absolutely stole from the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis, Madeleine Stowe and Russell Means.

Studi, of Cherokee descent, is the first Native American actor to receive an Oscar.

Wes Studi with Al Pacino in HEAT