The Misfits (1961)

In 1928, Herbert Hoover said, "The very essence of equality of opportunity and of American individualism is that there shall be no domination by any group or [monopoly] in this republic...It is no system of laissez faire."  In the shadows of Hoover's rugged individualism is John Huston's The Misfits, starring Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Montgomery Clift, Thelma Ritter, and Eli Wallach.

Starting outside the film, Gable was happy with his performance and rated it with Gone with the Wind as one of two roles he was proud of over his lengthy career.  Monroe (who like Gable, made her last performance in the Huston masterpiece) "hated," the film, and Clift, when asked on his deathbed if he wanted to see the film on television, uttered his last words, "Absolutely not."  Possibly, Monroe and Clift were more comfortable with roles that relied on fitting into the story.

Moving inward, the film portrays its characters in black and white with on-location shooting.  Everything about it is sparse and Huston aims at capturing a humanity subject to location.  In one scene, Roslyn Taber (Monroe) is in the middle of the Nevada desert screaming in protest over the brutality of the men in capturing mustangs, only later to be ground into canned dog food.  The remarkable feature of the shot is how far away Roslyn is.  Not seeing her in a close-up, where she can lapse into her alluring poses, she seems for the first time in all of her films, deeply human.

Several pieces of dialogue involving Perce Howland (Clift) are also tell-tale.  Throughout the film, we hear, "Better than wages." The dialogue, of course, being the pen of Arthur Miller, reminds us that Perce does not wish to be a mere worker, working for another person merely for wages.  Perce will not sell himself into wage slavery.

Spiraling further into the center of this film, the scene where Gay Langland (Gable) ropes a mustang by himself says it all.  The mustang throws him on the hardened desert floor, and even drags him a ways.  He later cuts the rope, setting the mustang free, explaining that he simply did not want anyone telling him what to do.  Like the other characters, Gay is not only the misfit, he is the embodiment of rugged individualism without laissez faire.

IMDb rates this film 7.3 out of 10

Film 101 rates this film 4 stars out of 5

A selection of other films directed by John Huston:

The Maltese Falcon, The Asphalt Jungle, Wise Blood, The Night of the Iguana, The Dead, The Man Who Would be King, Fat City, and (yes!) Annie.

No Such Thing (2001)

"The modern fact is that we no longer believe in this world.  We do not even believe in the events which happen to us, love, death, as if they only half concerned us.  It is not we who make the cinema, it is the world which looks to us like a bad film." --Gilles Deleuze from Cinema 2

Hal Hartley films suggest the feeling that life is bad acting.  Perhaps this is how to best think of Hartley's direction.  The acting is stylistically presentational and the audience will make no mistake that the act of acting is contrived.  To put it more clearly, it is not that the actors are bad.  Far from it, they are superb.  But the world they create is one where life itself is bad acting.

Many reviews of the film were disparaging, probably missing the point that the world is a sort of bad acting.  Roger Ebert gave the film one out of four stars saying, "It doesn't even rise to entertaining badness."  Ebert is unable to accept Hartley's aesthetic at face value.  Too bad, because once one accepts the possibility that life is bad acting, the other elements of Hartley's film turn to genius.

For example, the Monster (played by Robert John Burke) is not only superb acting insofar as it gets to the point that life is bad acting, it is right for him to make almost no effort. He is surrounded by contingent people who come and go and he cannot get attached since he is immortal.  Another example of superb acting is the monster's pseudo-philosophical monologues.  They are ridiculous, but isn't philosophy worked out in monologues?  Philosophers seem less to speak with others than just think out loud.

The role of Beatrice (Sarah Polley) is equally absurd.  She brings the Deleuze quote to the screen by acting as if life only half concerned her.  After all, she doesn't bat an eyelash at the opportunity to take the news job her boyfriend is killed doing.  She even befriends the Monster who has killed her boyfriend and she does so with little to no reticence.

The Deleuze quote is not only more elucidating than most critics, it is oddly tied up with No Such Thing in other ways too.  The quotation from Deleuze is in a section on French playwright Antonin Artaud.  In No Such Thing, the scientist who knows how to kill the immortal Monster is named Artaud as well.

Lastly, the ending captures the feeling Deleuze expresses only a few lines later when he says, "The reaction of which man has been dispossessed can be replaced only by belief.  Only belief in the world can reconnect man to what he sees and hears."  In No Such Thing, Beatrice makes a similar transformation from "dispossessed" to "belief," precisely to the extent that she believes in the Monster.

IMDb rates this film 6.2 out of 10

Film 101 rates this film 2.5 stars out of 5

A selection of other films directed by Hal Hartley:
Trust, Henry Fool, Fay Grim, Simple Men, and Amateur

Paths of Glory (1957)

Paths of Glory is Stanley Kubrick's first of three anti-war movies (followed by Dr. Strangelove or:  How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb and Full Metal Jacket).  Though it is not publicly regarded as highly as Dr. Strangelove by film critics and historians, one might imagine Paths of Glory to be their favorite privately.

It is easy to see how Paths of Glory achieves critical success.  First of all, Kirk Douglas gave the performance of a lifetime.  As Col. Dax, Douglas is always both on the verge of insubordination and yet somehow obedient to orders.  

The long tracking shots by Kubrick are also positively unforgettable, whether it is Col. Dax's inspection walk through the trench (a personal favorite), when the army attempts to take the "ant hill," or the three young men are on their way to execution.  The sheer duration of these shots creates some of the most lingering images in movie history.

But why is the film more of a private favorite?  Simply because the last scene is not only vehemently anti-war, but touching as well.  A young German girl is brought before French soldiers who make a lot of noise and frighten her.  She is told to sing for the troops.  Scared, she cries singing "The Faithful Hussar."  The French soldiers are quieted and eventually sing the German song with the girl.  The tenderness of the scene renders patriotism beneath being human.

IMDb rates this film 8.6 out of 10

Film 101 rates this film 5 out of 5 stars (not red stars)

Roger Ebert includes this film in his Great Movies 

Kubrick and Douglas also collaborated on Spartacus

Broadcast News (1987)

1987 was a great year for movies, but it is due in large part to foreign films.  A noteworthy exception is Broadcast News.  This film, perhaps more than any in 1987, dares to ask the question of whether films can actually improve our lives morally or intellectually.  In a decade dominated by blockbusters, we have at least one film that edifies.

Broadcast News begins with what feels like an 80s comedy, moves toward romantic comedy, but finally escapes the shallow plot lines resolving in a man and woman "completing" each other.  The main characters flirt with the possibility of falling in love and living happily ever after, but what will keep them engaged with life is finding the right problem.  The right problem for the three main characters, played by William Hurt, Holly Hunter, and Albert Brooks, is their work, not a romance ending in marriage.

By avoiding the pitfalls of romantic comedy, the film is allowed to work on us.  In the typical romantic comedy, it is the conflict that keeps us engaged.  "Happily ever after" endings are a permission to fall asleep on the couch.  Here, the main characters do not want to go through their lives unengaged, so they choose their work first.  The film edifies us through just this reminder:  it is the right problem at the right time in life that keeps us engaged, not the solution to our problems.

IMDb rates this film 7.1 out of 10

Film 101 rates this film 4.5 stars out of 5

Simon of the Desert (1965)

Simon of the Desert is a film directed by Luis Bunuel.  What makes this 45 minute film remarkable is its juxtaposition of religious asceticism to pop culture of the mid-60s.

The film begins with St. Simon Stylites having been devoted to God from atop a column in the desert for exactly six years, six weeks, and six days before being asked to move to another column placed especially for him by admirers of his steadfast faith.  When he moves to the top of the new column, he is tempted by the devil in different guises.  At a certain point, Simon gives in and the film ends up in a hip club (presumably the mid-60s).

The anachronistic turn has sparked a considerable amount of criticism on Bunuel's view of religion (specifically Catholicism).  What is too often missed, however, is the reflexivity of the juxtaposition:  simply, here is the ascetic's life and here is a life given over to pop culture.

The central issue of the film revolves around this simplicity, not Bunuel's religious or political views exclusively.  To watch the film appreciatively, one has to accept the terms Bunuel has set forth.  Here is what it means to be religious, and here is what it means to be given over to our culture.  The question of the movie is how do they relate?

A feeble interpretation is that Bunuel has merely criticized religion or culture exclusively.  After all, they are both present in the film.  What seems to work about the ending is not that we have gone from Simon's world to modern culture and that is where we are today (abruptly broken away from the ghost of religion past).  It is the fact that the transition is one we see everyday:  that it is possible for a modern person to go from a place of devoted sincerity to a carefree "letting go," in the very next moment.

IMDb rates this film 8.0 out of 10
Film 101 rates this film 3.5 stars out of 5

A selection of other films directed by Luis Bunuel:
Viridiana, The Exterminating Angel, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie,  and That Obscure Object of Desire

The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979)

The Marriage of Maria Braun is widely regarded as the greatest film by German director Ranier Werner Fassbinder.  It is at least in the top three of over forty films made by Fassbinder in all of but fifteen years.  The dialogue is intelligent and refined, the acting is utterly unique, the cinematography is fluid, the auditory backdrop is unlike any other film, and the elements are carefully arranged through expert direction. 

Richard T. Jameson, film critic for Seattle Weekly (January 16, 1980), wrote, "To watch this film...is to realize how carelessly most movies are visualized.  There is not a dull shot, one that fails to catch the eye, provoke the intellect, and remind us what an invigoratingly participatory experience the watching of a film can be."  Of the sense of visual participation, the audience is addressed with immediacy from the outset.  The so called "fourth wall" between stage and audience, here with a picture of Hitler on it, has a hole blown through it so that we can see Maria getting married.  The presentational aesthetic is fully embraced.

Fassbinder is not relegated to visual presentation, though.  The radio broadcast at the end is louder than the dialogue.  The broadcast is of a German soccer match that marks West Germany coming back into conversation with the rest of the world after WWII.  The film is also graced with puns such as Maria's brief reflection on the color brown (her last name).  If a film can be said to consciously engage the audience, albeit alienating at times, Maria Braun may be the film to begin with for its thoroughgoing merits.

The subject matter wrapped in this presentational aesthetic is Maria Braun.  When we engage Maria, we get the closest thing to feminist cinema a male director can achieve.  The circumstances women found themselves in after the war were miserable.  Maria not only makes the best of it, she exploits it. Every aspect of her being, whether her feminine charm, or her drive, her naive charades for men and her business acumen, all prove fair game in making a better life for herself.  She is Rosy the Riveter, only she will not go back to quaint domesticity as men return from war.  It may even be plausible by the end of the film to regard Herr Braun as simply Maria's husband.  This is the subject matter which the audience is being addressed with, and the film not only intends to engage the subject matter, it achieves its conversation with the audience.

All of these elements are astounding:  whether it is presentational theater, alienating cues, a feminist approach by a male director, or a running commentary on post-war West Germany, the craft is apparent.  What makes the film decisively great, and essentially holds it together, is the rupture between marriage and accepted norms of love.  After all, most literature ends with marriage in an attempt to bring closure to a love story.  The result is thinking of love as what happens prior to marriage, and marriage seals the deal.  By starting with marriage, the film deviates from the pattern with the simple question of what happens now?  Marriage as an amorphous "happily ever after," is taken to be uninteresting.  What holds Maria Braun together is precisely this inversion of norms in the run of the mill love story.  Here is not the love story ending in a vague reference to marriage, but a vague love story preceding the realities of marriage in all of its contractual splendor.




IMDb rates this film 7.8 out of 10
Film 101 rates this film  5 stars out of 5 (not red stars)
Roger Ebert reviews this film in his Great Movies selection

A selection of other films directed by Fassbinder:
Ali:  Fear Eats the Soul, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Lola, and Veronika Voss

The Defiant Ones (1958)

Spike Lee has popularized the term "Magical Negro," to highlight a particular stereotype of African-Americans in American art.  Several features comprise this term beyond the fact that the character is African-American.  One, the character is disabled in some way.  Two, the character lacks any personal history.  Three, the character is responsible for transforming the white man into a better person through an almost magical power.  Four, the character would die for the white person.  And five, the character allows whites to like individual blacks while still hating black culture as a whole.

Sidney Poitier provides an oft cited example for his role as Noah Cullen in Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones.  Certainly, other Poitier roles could be given as examples (the magical transformation of Spencer Tracy in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?), but The Defiant Ones is perhaps the more obvious choice since Poitier is literally chained to John "Joker" Jackson (Tony Curtis).  

Spike Lee is right in assessing the Magical Negro as more than a tragic hero with a tragic flaw. He is also right in identifying it as a patent stereotype.  But social qualities are not synonymous with racial ones.  Why not look at the connection between Cullen and "Joker" Jackson as male bonding? Taken as a major premise, much in the same way the Magical Negro is, The Defiant Ones, unlike Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, becomes less a tale of the Magical Negro who transforms the white man than a tale of how men are at a loss to achieve any emotional depth in their relationships with one another.  At the very least, if we are to take this film as a social (not merely formal) event, the connection between men must be considered.

The thought experiment of male bonding as the major premise does not work though.  The Defiant Ones, is still subject to Spike Lee's criticism, even as a story of breaking masculine stereotypes,  since Lee could easily respond by pointing out that black masculinity is different than white masculinity. Lee would not be merely privileging race over gender in so doing.  After all, how is this movie at any moment non-racial?  How is it possible to see the film as simply about two men?  How could we take the film as if it were between two men without race, or compare it to a tale of either two black men or of two white men?  The racial element of the film is where much of its power comes from.  Two men of similar background would make the film fall flat.  Without a difference, conflict cannot be generated and there would not be a plot.  Consequently, race is the essential feature over masculinity just as class would be an essential feature if the film portrayed a rich man and a poor man (of the same race) chained together.  In this way, race is the only effective ground for a major premise.

Maybe the next question is whether The Defiant Ones represents progress over say, a D.W. Griffith film, or it is simply the same thing in a different guise.  Is this film better than brutally racist films on account of its subtlety, or is it merely different or even worse for its subtlety?  If The Defiant Ones is merely different or even worse than films filled with obvious racial hatred, there is no responsible way to enjoy it.  If The Defiant Ones is better than films with obvious racial hatred, to what extent are we allowed to enjoy it in light of Lee's criticism of Poitier as the Magical Negro?

The Defiant Ones is most likely better than a D.W. Griffith film, but there is no way to look back now without Spike Lee's "Magical Negro." However Spike Lee sees film history and whether or not film history has progressed, the continued effort to make art along the stereotype of the Magical Negro curbs the progressive in art.  Perhaps the remaining question could be directed to what constitutes "progress" at all.  If The Defiant Ones is right, blacks and whites need each other and are in this together.  If Lee is right, this cannot come at the price of cultural homogeneity, which is achieved largely in terms of subservience to white ideology.

IMDb rates this film 7.7 out of 10
Film 101 rates it 5 stars out of 5 (not red stars)

A selection of other films starring Sidney Poitier:
A Patch of Blue, The Slender Thread, In the Heat of the Night, Lilies of the Field

Love Streams (1984)

The challenge is this:  watching a film and having no essential story to rely upon.  In Love Streams, John Cassevetes sets out to direct a film that challenges the audience in this exact way, and since this film is one of his later works, it is done with a lifetime of experience in making such films.  While typical movie making allows the audience to subsume the characters into a story, here we are dealing with a director who does not privilege a story over the characters.  To be plain, the characters are not part of a story, they are the story.

In Love Streams, Robert Harmon (Cassavetes himself) plays a drunk and a womanizer.  When Sarah Lawson (Gena Rowlands) shows up in a taxi at Robert's house, she is greeted with hugs and kisses by Robert.  Are they ex-lovers?  Robert's son is also present and watches the two interact.  He later asks Robert if he loves Sarah, to which Robert replies, "Not like you're thinking."  It feels like the greeting is just an act.  Later still, Sarah mentions "their" father.  So Robert and Sarah are brother and sister.  We are still not sure that he cares for her until Sarah gets sick and Robert takes care of her as though she is more important than anything else in the world.  When Sarah gets better, she decides to leave and find her dream.  In the end, Robert lets her go, unsure that she will be okay.  Will he lapse back into his former lifestyle?  The beauty is this:  to find out, we would have to follow the character.

IMDb rates this film 7.9 out of 10

Film 101 gives this film 4 out of 5 stars

A selection of other films directed by Cassavetes:

Shadows, Faces, Husbands, Gloria, A Woman under the Influence, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.