Cinema Talk

I watched this less than week ago. Upon my initial viewing, I was more than confident that it was one of the greatest things I had ever seen. Now that a couple of days have passed, I’m sort of seeing that’s not exactly true. It’s still an amazing piece of art, one whose influence is immeasurable to Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s the type of picture that is so unique and bizarre, that it’s often a wonder that it was able to be made in a time when Hollywood was focusing on making either pro-war pictures that justified the country’s involvement or films that intended to make audiences forget about the war.

Hellzapoppin’ arguably falls into the latter category. After all, it is a comedy and carries an extremely playful tone of self-awareness for its entire running time, but that’s the sort of thing that elevates it from being a piece of mere entertainment. This is the definitive “movie about movies” from Hollywood, if only because it is constantly cross cutting from the movie to the movie with the movie, and the characters from both seem to be able to communicate with their opposing story. It’s textbook self-reflexive film theory. It seems frivolous, but the film is immensely more intelligent that just simple entertainment.

The story itself was birthed from the original Broadway production of the same name. It was enormously successful, thanks in large part to the charisma of the emcees Chic Johnson and Ole Oleson, who act as the self-conscious narrators in the film version. Much like the stage production, the film incorporates a satirical tone of self-awareness. The most notable example in the film being the skewing of Citizen Kane, which had been released only earlier in the year. It’s a perfect embodiment of Potter (and more importantly Johnson and Oleson’s) motive, that is to relate the audience to the form they’re already experiencing and commentate on it at the same time.

Speaking of commentary, there’s an especially groundbreaking sequence in which Ole, Chick, and the film’s producer watch dailies while providing their own commentary, dialogue to mask the actual audio from the “film within the film.” Maybe I’m giving the film too much credit but the way in which it (perhaps) unintentionally references the practice of benshi narration in Japan and then forms it into comedy is something that bears a remarkable similarity to the entire premise of Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s a less polished example, sure, but the foundation is certainly there.

Hellzapoppin’ is a movie that is impossible to describe if only because it is layered in so many levels of filmness that opening them up in words seems futile. Perhaps the best description I can use is Sherlock Jr. but on a broader level. It teases film and filmmaking as much as it teases the audience and film-watching. It’s a complicated process and even though the film might not have the longevity I would like it to, it is still a remarkable experiment, and an insanely entertaining one at that.

These are the two earliest von Sternberg films I’ve seen (the only other silent of his I’ve seen is The Docks of New York, my personal favorite) and with that in mind, they both represent very interesting progressions in the filmmaker’s career. The first, Underworld is more of an impressive formal exercise than anything else, but it does deserve some credit for anticipating one of the most popular genres in all of Hollywood, even though it was most certainly not the first gangster movie. As it is, it provides very few conventions for the gangster films of the 1930s, but that’s part of its charm. The latter, though, is much closer to being a full-on masterpiece. Emil Jannings’ performance is exaggerated little (both on screen and in film history, calling it “subtle” is a bit too much) but there’s something so painfully heartbreaking and that’s before the film even becomes a redemption story for and against its protagonist.

In Underworld, George Bancroft plays “Bull” Weed,  an extremely successful gangster, who likens himself to Robin Hood. “No one helps me, I help them” he explains when Rolls Royce (Clive Brook) offers some sort of repayment for all the help he has received from Weed. Weed has taken Royce from being the janitor of the local bar to something, at least superficially, much more respectable. Royce, however, is something of a self-loathing individual, who tends to think in a more philosophical way than anyone else in the film. Of course, Royce becomes infatuated with Weed’s sidekick female, Feathers.

If it’s not obvious by now, the underworld depicted here is one that is indeed gritty and realistic, but like Docks of New York later, there is a romanticism that underscores all the poverty and shady dealings taking place. It might be simply be the visual splendor of von Sternberg’s world, but there’s definitely a sort of appreciation for the unsavory reality being presented. This might be the single element that most resembles the gangster films of the 1930s. Unlike many of said films, this doesn’t really have a central premise – a big problem or heist or something. It just sort of flows around with Weed falling further into a depression and Royce and Feathers falling further in love. It’s odd, we feel for all three. There’s no real “bad guy” (except for the faceless police and Buck Mulligan character) to help improve the tension. It’s more of just a sad movie that happens to have gangsters.

If Underworld is setting up the foundations of von Sternberg’s stylistic tendencies and emotional motifs, then The Last Command is close to being a perfect second model. We’re thrown into the contemporary Hollywood scene and we follow a hopeless extra, who, as we quickly learn, was a affluent Tsarist officer in Russia barely a decade earlier. Even with the political weight that immediately arises from depicting pre-Revolution Russia, von Sternberg avoids all the traps and steers his film away from providing a ideological statement that is specific to the time. Sergeus Alexander  fully embraces Tsarist Russia, but he is not a bad guy. In fact, there is an immediate sadness when we realize his current occupation is one that is so pathetic it seems to dissolve the past.

Alexander captures revolutionary Leo Andreyev, while keeping his female accomplice, Natacha for his own personal enjoyment. Natacha’s intention is to kill Alexander, but she gets soft when she sees his loyalty and dedication to the country. They remain together, but are ultimately torn apart following a violent protest, which transforms into a full scale riot. All of this occurs in a flashback that is triggered towards the very beginning as Alexander waits for another job as an extra. It’s difficult to explain, but there is something so troubling and hell, just goddamn sad about the way von Sternberg juggles Alexander’s chaotic, exciting, and meaningful past with his painfully mundane present.

Adding insult to injury, the film in question’s director is, of course, Leo Andreyev. Who, in a picture perfect set up for redemption, decides to cast Alexander as a general in his war film. I don’t want to say more about what happens from here, but I’ll say that the film ultimately manages to collide all the feelings it was built on into one truly heartbreaking finale. The Docks of New York probably remains my favorite, if only for its visual excellence, but this is a worthy runner-up. Calling a movie “emotionally unique” seems really vague, but this is the sort of experience that makes film-viewing worthwhile. It’s a different form of resonance and it is more than enough to validate Josef von Sternberg’s excellence. His first true masterpiece, and from what I’ve seen, his most Sternberg-ian work.

Pretty standard Shindo fair here, in so much that he is able to show off his technical chops while also telling a pretty mundane story. Don’t get me wrong, ghost cats seem like they could be interesting (I guess?) but the mythology and folklore elements are all sort of lost on me due to the silly (if not simplistic) morality complex and just the fact that Shindo just seems to tell the same story over and over again. It would be reductive to call this a rehash of Onibaba but the similarities are staggering. Sure, that’s what autuerism is, but in this case, Shindo seems to go through the motions and just reiterate the visual motifs he likes.

I’ll give Shindo some credit because he really does manage to make all his movies look really good. He’s not the best of his peers, not by a long shot but he definitely holds his own ground. His films lack the extreme sensuality in say, a Yoshishige Yoshida film, as well as the jolting editing of Hiroshi Teshigahara, who is probably the single filmmaker most like him. Both seem to embrace content that should be below them, in all honesty. Teshigahara has his sub-Twilight Zone “surrealism” and Shindo has his folklore horror stories. I really don’t particularly care for either. In Teshigahara’s case, the form sort of overwhelms the content. He’s a bit more creative with the camera, and a lot less concerned with presenting a linear narrative.

It’s kind of fitting then, I guess, that this film is at its best when Shindo decides to focus less on exposition or any dialogue for that matter, and tries to make the film one extended montage. For at least 15 minutes or so, he manages to collide a series of images which repeat the routine of the daughter-in-law, played byKiwako Taichi. We see her confront samurais, lead them through a forrest, and then seduce them once they arrive at her place. It’s a bit repetitive and probably exhausting for the viewer looking for some “J horror” but represents Shindo at his sharpest. He manages to repeat this exercise but still produce new images. Sure, from a pure narrative standpoint, it’s easy to “get” but it is one of the few times he is not chiefly concerned with progressing the story. It’s the film’s most self-consciously artistic sequence, but it is also one of its best.

I’m not saying that the content here is completely boring, in fact, towards the end it actually becomes a little poignant. The encounters the hero has with the ghost version of his wife is heartbreaking despite the fact that it shouldn’t be. It’s weird, I get the impression that Shindo wanted to tell a story about losing loved ones and based on sequences like the one I mentioned, he would have nailed it. Unfortunately, there’s an excess of the folklore stuff, which really just reinforces the silliest and most negative stereotypes of the genre. The whole bit at the end with the giant cat paw is just ridiculous. It’s really a shame too since it comes off the heels of by far the most emotionally resonant stretch in the entire movie. Oh well, some good stuff here.

Well, where the hell did this come from? Just when I think the disgruntled youth in high school movie had long worn out its welcome, something like this comes along and sort of blind sides you into a new experience. Perhaps I’m embellishing it a little bit here, but this is definitely how one should execute such a movie. As far as I’m concerned, this, along with Paranoid Park represent the (faux) genre at it’s highest piece both in terms of form (though Van Sant’s film is definitely superior in that category) and intimacy.

The plot synopsis I read before hand described the story as that of a trouble young boy who gets beat by his mom. While this is certainly true, it is a pretty false representation of what the film is presenting. The film’s titular character is abused by his mother in a few instances, but it’s not some parental figure devoid of character, Sebbe’s mom is not a villain in any stretch. She has her unsavory traits to say the least, but she still manages to display something that resembles an affection for her son. In a weird way, this is almost like 35 Shots of Rum at least in the fact that it is one of the few modern films to actually attempt to look at the relationship of a parent and their child and to do so in a way that isn’t just about forwarding the narrative.

Truth be told, there’s nothing remarkable about the narrative itself. Sebbe is a resourceful boy, he spends his time collecting leftover electronics which he uses in the help of building various projects. He’s quiet and bullied at school. Sound familiar? I’m not riding the film off for being unoriginal just in it’s content. Even if it is unoriginal, it is concerning an issue that pretty much everyone is vulnerable at – the age of high school. Sure, perhaps not to the extreme it is depicted here, but it’s the sort of pathos that is difficult to just feel indifferent towards.

Speaking of being extreme, this does hold something of a tonal relationship with Lilya 4-ever in the sense that it’s about being young and it’s Swedish. Okay, there’s probably more but the comparison is vital in making my point. In that film, everything that happens is essentially bad, it’s a tragic film. I’m not saying it isn’t a moving story, but it’s the one that seems to have been staged with characters that are bordering on being interesting characters and just being chess pieces for the story.

This is pretty groundbreaking for myself seeing as how Lilya 4-ever use to be one of my favorite movies. I still like it, but I think the experience here manages to capture the same tragic tone, but apply it to something with less severe consequences. There is one extremely crucial scene towards the end that skirts the line of going into the over-the-top sadness of someone like Lars Von Trier, but it dodges all the dramatized “tragic” bullshit and ultimately becomes a story that is equally moving but manages to keep the audience grounded in a reality that is closer to them. Thus, the pain of the protagonist is all the more resonant.

The consensus on this seems to be that it’s purely vapid garbage that signals the death of modern American independent cinema. While I understand why this sentiment is expressed, I, none the less, can’t say I can disagree with it anymore. While it’s far from a masterpiece, it’s even further from being a completely empty and useless experience. Sure, there’s hardly a story and sure, there’s nothing really revealed about the protagonist but it ultimately works under the umbrella of “pragmatic” cinema, which is to say, it captures the essence of life.

In what was perhaps inevitable, this film gets lumped together in the “mumblecore” pile, but it (nor any film really) deserves that simplistic classification. Sure, it’s a movie about wayward youth and has plenty of awkward interactions, but unlike the films of Swanberg and company, this one isn’t driven by the dialogue. In fact, the talking that we do get is hard to really hear and even then, it’s mostly characters just making conversation. This probably sounds mind-numbing to some. To those people, don’t watch this movie. You’ll only be proving yourself right.

Even in defending the movie, I have to admit that it is too low-key and uneventful to really hit any sort of emotional home run. Being a pragmatic movie would imply that the surface is only given. There’s certainly no monologues about the chaos of the human soul or some cumbersome bullshit like that. Even though it lacks the tension (and critical acclaim) of say, Ozu’s work, it works in the same sort of way. It’s a personal movie, but it’s one in which we ultimately know nothing about the protagonist except that she likes to steal and that’s she (possibly) sort of stupid.

This brings in perhaps the film’s biggest (and/or best) selling point and that is its lead, Eleonore Hendricks. It probably says more about me than the film itself that something so plotless can be so enthralling as long as the girl is pretty. She’s still fascinating, though, what with her naive child-like perception of things. She’s an “it” girl in the truest sense, but she’s been relocated into a movie that doesn’t have the whimsical charm of her personality.

It’s a tough movie to put into words. The soundtrack is provided by the Beets, a Captured Tracks band that seems to produce music that is simultaneously beautiful and awkward. I think that’s the best way to describe Safdie’s film. It’s a bit uncomfortable (just read any review at imdb) but for those that can take a movie devoid of the conventions of storytelling, they’ll see something beautiful. It’s not a masterpiece, but it is a solid effort and about a hundred times more interesting than whatever its naysayers are championing.