The List So Far

• Duck Soup
• Taxi Driver
• Scarface (1983)
• Network
• Dr Strangelove
• Chinatown
• To Kill A Mockingbird
• The Seventh Seal
• City Lights
• Grave Of The Fireflies
• On The Waterfront
• The Godfather
• Django
• Ikiru
• The Godfather Part II
• Solaris
• The Bicycle Thief
• The Rules Of The Game
• Breathless
• Stalker
• Persona
• Seven Samurai

What The Film Challenge Has Taught Me

Writing reviews is hard work, and writing reviews with the added burden of the alleged significance of the work in question is even harder. How can I understand or appreciate the historical, cultural, and aesthetic milestones retrospectively without the requisite knowledge to do so? Even being cognisant of my own ignorance, the task was too monumental.

The film that tripped me up what Chaplin's alleged masterpiece City Lights. I say alleged because while I enjoyed the film, I really cannot place it in a historical context. The shift from black & white to colour makes for more visually spectacular films, but going from silent to spoken films is a major change in how films are presented. 2 weeks of failing to get my thoughts together led me to abandon writing reviews.

But I haven't given up watching the classics, only trying to assemble my thoughts about them into some coherent structure. There's a difference between the challenge of interpreting a symbolic film like The Seventh Seal, and the challenge of contextualising a film made for a different time. The Battleship Potemkin may be a historic achievement in filmmaking, but I'm at a loss to comprehend it.

The retrospective glance at the history of cinema isn't helped by the derivation of what came after it. Breathless was meant to be a big leap forward in the feel of cinema, but what it (allegedly) contributed is now overdone that it's barely noticable looking back retrospectively. If I didn't have Roger Ebert's review, I'd be utterly lost. Watching Persona, I was immediately struck by how Lynchian it felt - of course, I have that backwards...

On The Waterfront felt a little too one-dimensional for me, while The Godfather shone as much as its reputation would suggest. The Godfather Part II didn't quite have the punch the original had. Solaris made for patient viewing, yet gave more than enough to contemplate. Stalker felt confused and then deeply unsettling. Django didn't sell me on westerns, even of the spaghetti variety.

The Bicycle Thief was downright depressing (and touching in moments), while The Rules Of The Game was very clever (though I wonder what was lost in translation) - though I felt I was missing most of the context. Ikiru was frustrating to watch in parts, but affected me more than any film I can remember. Grave Of The Fireflies was sad beyond words, made even worse by the fact the original story was partly autobiographical. Seven Samurai was epic storytelling done expertly.

The whole problem with these films is by virtue of them being labelled classics, it sets a lofty expectation. Many of the films have been enjoyable, yet very few have blown me away. City Lights had some of the funniest moments on film I've seen (the boxing scene), yet other parts felt forced (the attempted suicide). I'm not able to grasp whether particular aspects of the film (like the speed of the sequences) were due to technical limitations or Chaplin's vision. Viewing it 82 years after it was released makes for a very anachronistic experience.

One lesson I've learnt from this so far is that films and technology have gone hand in hand, and this notion that special effects has somehow cheapened cinema is nonsense. Directors have always used tools they have to the best effect in order to tell the best story.

Classic Films: The Seventh Seal

"You're lucky to have such a fluid tongue that you believe your own twaddle." - Blacksmith Plog

I worry that I'm not qualified enough to deal with literature heavy in symbolism. I always wonder whether or not I'm taking the right messages away, or whether I'm simply projecting, or even if I'm too dumb to get it. Or perhaps I am meant to inject myself into art, in which case I worry any such interpretation will come off as primitive and shallow.

Det sjunde inseglet is a film about a man having an existential crisis in the face of his imminent demise. More specifically, he wants to overcome the problem of divine hiddenness, for he foolishly seeks meaning in God. If there is no God "Then life is a preposterous horror" the knight Antonious Block laments. This quest for God manifests itself mainly in conversations with a personification of death, which no doubt carries far more symbolic significance than I can project onto it. It's a Faustian bargain sans bargain, though the cynic in me writes this off as a way of sparing us (the audience) an internal monologue.

Setting the film during the plague - and having the protagonist serve in the crusades - adds a sense of authenticity to the struggle. While Woody Allen might craft out meaning through opining into a camera in modern-day Manhattan, a conversation with death while surrounded by plague victims and repenters engaging in self-flaggelation really hits home. It's a cruel and vicious world; a world normally far removed from what modernity has given us, but the great existential questions are still the same.

It felt more like reading philosophy than watching a film; with characters and events merely serving as vehicle for exploring underlying themes. The dialogue was clever in a profound way, giving much for the willing viewer to contemplate. In the week or so since I watched the film, I've found myself going back over certain scenes in my mind; and rereading the "memorable quotes" that people put on the Internet. Yet it feels like I've only scratched the surface.

Not having a strict religious upbringing, I felt that a lot of the symbolism of the film was lost on me. I found myself confused at the knight's dilemma; nodding along to the squire, laughing at the fools whipping themselves, pitying the plight of the blacksmith, and (like the knight) finding comfort in the familial. And if I were to draw a conclusion of what the film-maker wanted the audience to come away with, it was the most important move the knight made in his game. It was that same lesson that Ridley Scott masterfully portrayed at the climax of Blade Runner. The Danse Macabre is our eventual fate, and there's no escaping that. Until then there's life.

Classic Films: To Kill A Mockingbird

"I swore never to read again after 'To Kill a Mockingbird' gave me no useful advice on killing mockingbirds. It did teach me not to judge a man based on the colour of his skin, but what good does that do me?" - Homer Simpson

I've never seen a Hollywood film, or any other film for that matter, that makes the case for racism. Perhaps they exist, but I do not know of them. It's not to say that films have no racist elements to them, or at the very least don't help the case against racism by their (ab)use of stereotypes; but as far as films go, the anti-racism message is one of those things one can explicitly preach without it being derided as propaganda.

It doesn't (shouldn't?) need to be said that the message of such films is a very socially important one. And as far as films go in the genre, To Kill A Mockingbird is the most powerful I have seen. It was, I think, because of it telling the story through the eyes of innocent children. The simple plea for empathy combined with Gregory Peck's excellent articulation of the cultural norms, were points well made.

I'm used to modern courtroom dramas where there's always doubt put on the circumstances. There can never be a clear-cut case anymore, probably because it feels contrived. This being a clear case of injustice wouldn't make for good TV today, but it was important for the message about the prejudices of the time. It struck me as really odd that only one side of the closing arguments was presented, but given what the film was trying to say, it was the right decision to do so.

While later films directly addressing race like Mississippi Burning or American History X tried their hand at realism, To Kill A Mockingbird was fantasy. By telling the story the way it did, it seemed to represent a hope for the future - a future in which people would look beyond their own prejudices and those of their society and towards what makes each of us valuable as humans. Maybe it was a naive hope (certainly a hope that looks hopelessly anachronistic from my 21st century perspective), but it's hard not to feel moved by that hope.

Classic Films: Chinatown

"You're a very nosy fellow, kitty cat. Huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay. They lose their noses." - Thug

I'm in two minds about Chinatown. In its favour, the film was well made, had great performances, interesting characters, and kept up the tension and mystery. On the other hand, the red herring twist was reminiscent of M. Night Shyamalan at his worst. The movie begins innocuously as a murder mystery, gradually building into a political conspiracy. But with 20 minutes to go, the film reveals that the real dirty truth was an incestuous relationship. After that, it was hard to concentrate on anything other than my disappointment with the film.

Yet over the last few days, I've had a chance to digest the film. And as I thought about it more, the more that grievance seemed insignificant. After all, the reveal is not the journey, and the journey was (otherwise) masterfully done. The whole film being told from a single perspective, including occasionally jumping into the first-person, made for captivating viewing. We saw the events unfold as they appeared to the private eye, where Jack Nicholson's performance as J.J. Gittes made every scene. It was captivating, it was mysterious, and it was very unexpected that LA in the middle of a drought could make for a good location for film noir.

Some of the choices in cinematography surprised me in a good way. One thing that really impressed me was how unchoreographed the fight scenes were. It was ugly to the point of being almost humorous, and very refreshing to see a leading role with someone who hasn't spent his nights secretly training for hand-to-hand combat.

Beyond that, I really don't have much to say. The film was intriguing enough that the incest twist angered me rather than made me pity the film (like I did with The Village), so that to me suggests the story really captivated me up until that point. And I have no complaints about the dark ending, especially after what difference removing the feel-good ending did to Blade Runner.

Classic Films: Network

"We're talking about putting a manifestly irresponsible man on national television." - Frank Hackett

When I first heard that quote uttered, my mind immediately leapt to Glenn Beck. Of course that name could be filled by any number of pundits on TV today, and my mind jumped to the conclusion that this was going to be a smart drama about the effects of commercialism on news networks. And that message may have been in there, for all I know, but it was lost among heavy and relentless preaching about the evils of television and its effect on last generation. Paranoid preaching that grossly exaggerates the problem, leaving this film not as a smart look at the way ratings drive news and content, but as a blanket condemnation of television on us as individuals.

Perhaps I have Network to thank (blame) for the widespread condemnation of television as a medium. The message was something that's been distributed for as long as I can remember, yet I think the film missed the mark by contrasting the frivolous with the former respectability of the newsroom, instead of going after the pernicious masquerade that the News is. Yes I know this is meant to be a satire, and I know I'm judging the film from a post-FOX era, but the exaggerated news-as-entertainment isn't much of an issue. The moment Peter Finch went to being a newsroom preacher was the moment I lost interest.

But it wasn't enough to have a preacher on TV preaching its ills, but the second half of the film was largely devoted to an old man telling off his mistress with far too many speeches of "back in my day..." It's made worse by the virtue of assuming that TV has taken the humanity out of humans, where now everything is merely acting out a script, and there's no true feeling any more. One scene where the woman's sexual climax comes from listing off ratings was just painful to watch.

The film started with such promise - a fired anchor promises to kill himself on air. While the actual ending could have been a lot worse, the film could have redeemed itself by fulfilling that promise made at the beginning. By that time, the character had shifted from depressed, through outraged, onto borderline insane, then finally into a puppet. Was I meant to care that he was killed for ratings by that stage? He was taken out of all believability long before then. When he implored us to turn off our televisions, I nearly did.

Ironically, it's a TV show that has best captured the ideal of TV news. HBO's The Newsroom does a much better job of it. It too is preachy, but is on the mark. Likewise, the satire that The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, or Australia's CNNNN all hit the mark with brilliant satire. Compared to those, Network comes of as elitist and condescending.

Classic Films: Dr Strangelove

"Based on the findings of the report, my conclusion was that this idea was not a practical deterrent for reasons which at this moment must be all too obvious." - Dr Strangelove

One of the most memorable passages out of Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stared At Goats was his description of a military general who reasoned himself into his ability to walk through walls. The book, full of wacky antics of men in uniform, loses its hilarity when I stop and reflect on the destructive capacity they have at their disposal.

While it's easy to get moralistic and preachy about nuclear weaponry, I'm glad that Dr Strangelove went the black comedy path. Anything less wouldn't capture the insanity of the proposition at hand. Perhaps the screwball moments were a little too light, but the satirical comedy shone like a nuclear blast.

The real humour, though, was the same humour that Kurt Vonnegut captured so well in Cat's Cradle. The utter disbelief that these events could possibly transpire, not for its implausibility but precisely the opposite. The strive for power, the dehumanisation of the enemy, and the fear that the opponent will do the same - it all seems jaw-droppingly real. Indeed, that's where my jaw was for the final 20 minutes of the film.

The film is soon to turn 50, and I have never known what it's like to live in cold war conditions. The Soviet Union dissolved when I was 7. The nuclear threat, for me, has been what a terrorist network or state hopes to acquire, or (even worse) a proposed solution in the war on terrorism. We're meant to be frightened that North Korea and Iran have nuclear ambitions, but it's odd that we're at 5 minutes to midnight on the Doomsday Clock now, while this film was released at 12 minutes to midnight.

The anti-communist rhetoric of the film (especially Jack D Ripper's speech on base) is something that sounds like the anti-Muslim rhetoric of today. Likewise, the paranoid conspiracy ranting of General Ripper sounds quite normal compared to the insane conspiracies of today. The Orwellian message on the military billboard "Peace is our business" was a nice touch.

The imagery of a cowboy riding a nuclear weapon to Armageddon is perfect. If it were an argument, it's the ultimate reductio ad absurdum to the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. Rational self-interest is a dangerous thing to gamble on, and with countries still harbouring nuclear ambitions, is there anything to do other than laugh at the insanity? If we didn't laugh, that would be grounds for insanity.

So, yes, I enjoyed Dr Strangelove. Though given I was already a fan of Kubrick, I expected to enjoy it.

Classic Films: Scarface (1983)

"[Y]ou asked me if I was in the meth business or the money business. Neither. I'm in the empire business." - Walter White (Breaking Bad)

Recently I was watching the Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator, where I learned a lot about Howard Hughes - including the fact that he was responsible for the original Scarface. As much as I tried to look for the original, I was not able to find it on DVD. So I settled for the 80s remake; though given it was also on the AFI's list of top gangster films, settled might be underselling it.

The first thing that struck me about the movie was how 80s it was, even down to a montage set to pop music. For better or worse, the film definitely lets you know where it sits. It's an ambitious film, as such a story demands, though the runtime made the film feel like it had slightly overstayed its welcome. Did it really need to be near 3 hours to tell that story?

The film centres around the anti-hero Tony Montana (brilliantly played by Al Pacino); a character that through sheer determination drives the world to change around him. A ruthless despicable man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants, which was both his path to glory and to his eventual downfall.

This leads to what feels to me as cliché. We cannot root for the anti-hero, we cannot condone what he has done. His downfall is set by his moral trajectory. Otherwise we are rooting for a monster. Here I feel the film did something interesting; it recast the character into a somewhat sympathetic light. He needed to die, but he was broken long before his final breath.

But what lesson are we meant to take from a film where the downfall of a monster was one last shred of humanity? Perhaps its a statement of the inhumanity of the drug trade, and that what we are meant to understand is how ruthless the drug trade is. Indeed, this is what I read the filmmaker argued to avoid censorship, and something entirely understandable by looking at what's happening in Mexico today.

While the film is violence and full of profanities, the film doesn't seem in any way shocking because of them. Maybe in 1983 it was one film that raised the bar, but doesn't stand out today. It's a reminder of how desensitised I've become.

I want to say I enjoyed the film, but I'm not sure how accurate that would be. While it was epic in ambition, and the portrayal by Pacino was mesmerising, it was let done by excessive length, a simplistic plot, and very little in the way of character development. When Walter White explains on Breaking Bad that he's in the empire business, we have taken the journey with him and can see and understand why he's done what he's done. Scarface by contrast was quite hollow - an immigrant who wanted the world, but miscalculated what that actually meant.

Classic Films: Taxi Driver

"I'm not Bertrand Russell. Well what do ya want. I'm a cabbie you know." - Wizard

One would think that a moralistic misanthrope would not be well-suited to life as a taxi driver; especially not on a night shift in a big city where there are so many triggers. I'm not sure whether moralist or misanthrope are completely accurate descriptions for Travis Bickle, but I do feel it captures something about the character.

Immediately, through narration and fascinating cinematography, I was drawn into the isolation and loneliness of Travis Bickle. The city was alive, yet he was detached. He carted people around whom he despised, took fares that a sane person would turn down for risk to personal safety. While other cabbies prompted him to buy a gun to protect himself, he bought one after a fare insinuated what it would do to a woman's pussy.

The film reminded me in many ways of The King Of Comedy, especially that the main character was driven by his own delusions. De Niro was perfect for the role. Reading up on the film after, the scenes where he nailed aspects of portraying the delusions of the main character were not scripted. Don't know how many takes they did, but the ones there were sublime. The scene in the restaurant trying to justify why the women he was semi-stalking should go out with him was just perfect.

If there's one issue I have with the film, it was the ambiguity of the final act. Why was it that he was going to kill the presidential candidate? Was the ending real or a delusion? Perhaps these questions are better not answered, or perhaps a 2nd viewing is warranted (a 2nd viewing is most definitely on the cards anyway). It was fascinating that Bickle was such an antihero that his effort to rescue a child prostitute is not heroic in the slightest, let alone fully appreciate just what the consequences of his actions were. It was brutal, surreal, and almost sociopathic. But as I think the point was, we were looking at the situation through the eyes of Travis Bickle, as the contrast with the media reaction demonstrated. What a film!

Classic Films: Duck Soup

"He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Groucho Marx

Comedy is something that really doesn't seem suited to the feature length presentation. Looking through the AFI's list of top 100 comedies, of the films I've seen on that list, very few I would consider good because they were funny (that's not to say they weren't good films). Aside from Monty Python's Holy Grail and Blazing Saddles, there's very few comedies I'd watch for their comedic value. For me, a stand-up show or TV are better avenues for laughs (I write this as I'm rewatching Seinfeld for the Nth time).

Comedy was at the focus of this film. Jokes were coming as quick as they could be delivered, especially when Groucho was talking. And if one joke fell flat, there was always another on its way. Some of the jokes did indeed fall flat, but there were quite a few hilarious ones too. The delivery of the final confrontation with the ambassador was superb. The visual gags were more hit than miss, including the wonderful mirror scene. I was surprised that they could get away with an implicit reference to bestiality in 1933!

I might blame sitcoms for modern films trying to do comedy with facile attempts for plausibility, and I think they suffer for it. Duck Soup didn't leave us wondering how on earth someone like Mr Firefly could just get put into a position of power, or why two incompetents (including one who turned everything into a visual gag) were given the task of being a spy. Nor were we wondering why that poor vendor needed to have his hat set on fire twice.

I was curious to find out after seeing the movie that the Marx Brothers first began in the Vaudeville and on Broadway before making films. The film, especially early on had that theatrical flavour to it - complete with a musical number or two just for the sake of it. Entertaining, but something that seems largely lost to modern cinema outside of Mel Brooks films. I do wonder if the film's comedy was partly a relic of the silent film era, or that comedy of this style is better suited to stand-up routines. In either case, modern comedies don't resemble this apparent historically significant comedies, and in my opinion that's a pity.

Classic Films - The Challenge

Last year, I was able to work my way through a different album each day. Towards the end of the year, I realised that this was an opportunity to be able to listen to some of the culturally and historically significant albums. While I managed to get a few in, a large portion of the new music I heard were from unsigned or underground metal acts whose music was on Bandcamp.

About 6 months ago, after reading another one of those "greatest films of all times" list of which I had not even heard of most of the films listed - let alone seen any - I decided that for this year, I would watch a classic film each week. I made a list and started watching films on it (Annie Hall, Vertigo, The Maltese Falcon, Lawrence Of Arabia, The Battleship Potemkin, etc.), but this year I've decided to make a regular thing of it.

I use the term classic a bit loosely, so I can incorporate films that are of cult status, or classic for all the wrong reasons. My experience of doing this in the past is I see the things that shows like The Simpsons or Family Guy referenced/ripped-of/paid homage to. In any case, I hope to better understand the magic of cinema as Scorsese brilliantly conveyed in the delightful film Hugo. Week 1: Duck Soup Week 2: Taxi Driver