2012 Viewing Journal

Discoveries are films released in previous years that I saw for the first time in 2008. Often, they form the bulk of my best film experiences. These were my ten favorite discoveries from last year.

10) Sansho the Baliff (1954) -- Kenji Mizoguchi

One mark of a newbie cinephile is that you tend to think that all world film is alike. That Kurosawa is the same as Ozu is the same as Naruse is the same as Koreeda is the same as Misoguchi. I had heard good things about Mizoguchi's film, but I had resisted it because my response to Japanese films in the past has been very spotty.

This film is very accessible, and it is easy to follow for those (like me) who tend to get restless without any narrative. While the film is structured more around theme than plot, it is easy enough to keep the characters separate and to understand how their respective stories contribute to the larger theme.

If I had to articulate that theme, I would say the film is about the influence of one man. The plot isn't so much about Sansho but about his legacy, primarily on his children and particularly on his son. It is about the difficulty of doing the right thing--or, rather, the ease in going along with everyone else in doing the wrong thing.

Plus, the film is a treat to look at visually.

9) Mogambo (1953) -- John Ford

Okay, the plot is pure melodrama, but talk about star power...

The story is essentially a love triangle, with Clark Gable playing a big game hunter who is sought both by the free spirited Honey Bear Kelley (Ava Gardner) and the less acclimated but still smoldering Mrs. Nordley (Grace Kelly).

MGM apparently made a lot out of the fact that they made the film on safari, and, yes, the jungle is a character unto itself. But the real scenery here is the leading ladies. I've had a major crush on Grace Kelly ever since I saw Vertigo when I was sixteen, so I say it is no small accomplishment that Ava Gardner makes Gable's choice seem like anything but a no brainer. This is in spite of the fact that the script really makes it clear that the big game hunter is supposed to prefer the blond housewife on safari. Gardner is relegated to a supporting role, but Honey Bear is full of the life, energy, and spirit that Mrs. Nordley lacks.

Given that this is a John Ford film, I can't help wonder if the director shared my preference for Gardner's character--preferring a strong-willed woman to a meek and mild one. I thought I read somewhere that in some foreign or dubbed versions of the film, the audience was told that Gardner and Gable were brother and sister, ostensibly to make the film less shocking in or for cultures with taboos about what you could show on screen. I like to think that the real reason, though, is that even censors realized that there had to be some other reason that Gable preferred Mrs. Nordley to Honey Bear!

Both Gardner and Kelly were nominated for Academy Awards, though, inexplicably Kelly was placed in the Supporting Actress category. They really are both leads, but I guess even in the 50s there was some fudging of the categories to increase one's odds of victory. Kelly snagged the Golden Globe, but lost out on the Oscar to Donna Reed (From Here to Eternity). Gardner lost to Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. I like Audrey Hepburn as much as the next red-blooded American male, but seriously...

7) Beau Travail (1999) -- Claire Denis



There is no way this film should be this good. A retelling of Herman Melville's "Billy Budd" set in the French Foreign Legion, directed by a woman born in France, and culminating with an electric break dance by the Claggart character (Denis Lavant as Galoup)? Are you kidding me? Nor should the film be this beautiful to look at. It's set in the desert, for crying out loud.

But if you doubt that film is a visual medium, check out this film, where little is said but most everything is understood. I suppose it is inevitable, given the source material, that some people might or have dismissed this as strictly a gay film. That strikes me a little bit like saying that And The Band Played On is a medical mystery. I've always thought that the Melville novella was as much a meditation on chance and circumstances and the way they contextualize moral decisions as it was about repressed sexual orientation, but what do I know?

7) Lust, Caution -- Ang Lee (2007)

Admittedly not for all tastes, this deliberately paced meditation on what, if anything, distinguishes love from desire requires the sort of work from the viewer that many modern viewers are uninterested or unable to practice--patience during a screening and thought after it.

Lust, Caution's plot centers around the task of a young woman (Joan Chen) to seduce a powerful and dangerous political figure (Tony Leung) in Shanghai during World War II.

Things happen in Lust, Caution, it's just that director Ang Lee doesn't feel the need to explicate each thing that happens as it happens. Perhaps she is awakened sexually and falls in love with the man she is supposed to seduce. Perhaps he falls in love with the woman he suspects is a spy, but can't help himself. Even after the characters make their final decisions, we still aren't sure, because like much of the best poetic ambiguity, there are hints that support both interpretations.

I don't necessarily value ambiguity for ambiguity's sake, though. What makes the film's ending so sad and tragic is that I'm not sure that the characters themselves know. One can only spend so much time trying to keep truth hidden before one begins to lose the ability to recognize what it is.

6) Lars and the Real Girl (2007) -- Craig Gillespie



Not much to add to what I've written previously, so I'll just link to what I wrote about this film at my blog, All Things Ken.

5) Julius Caesar (1954) -- John Houseman

By the time I was old enough to get into "R" movies, The Godfather was over a decade in the rearview mirror, meaning I knew Marlon Brando primarily through The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Freshman.

Question: What do the following actors have in common?: Jack Lemmon, Billy Crystal, Keanu Reeves, Nathan Lane, Robin Williams, Alicia Silverstone.

Answer: They were all exposed trying to do Shakespeare.

Brando was in a Shakespeare film with James Mason and John Geilgud and was still able to command the screen.

Peter Saccio once said that Julius Caeasar is the Shakespeare play we think we all know, since it is introduced to students so early in their academic journey. As a result, we don't tend to see productions of it. Houseman's film is an unqualified success--as an acting showcase, as a transfer of Shakespeare to film, and as an entertaining film.

4) Taxi to the Dark Side (2007) -- Alex Gibney

A well deserved Academy Award (for best documentary) went to Gibney's investigation into the policies and practices that created the Abu Ghraib scandal. Eschewing sensationalistic tactics and avoiding an over-reliance on the photos themselves (which appear but aren't the final word), Taxi builds persuasive force until the viewers amazement reaches a level of disbelief.

Take a good look at the photo to the right, because this man died of homicide at the hands of the American government. That is not my opinion, or Gibney's. It is what it says on the death certificate given to his family by the representatives of the government that killed him.

3) Love in the Afternoon (1972) -- Eric Rohmer

My favorite of Eric Rohmer's Six Moral Tales is probably whichever one I've seen most recently, so at one point or another this list probably had five Rohmer films on it.

I wrote some notes about Love in the Afternoon last March, comparing some of its themes to Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.

Pauline Kael once famously compared screening a Rohmer film to watching paint dry. Yeah, paint on the wall of the Sistine Chapel, maybe.

2) The Great Dictator (1940) -- Charlie Chaplin



Another film everyone thinks they know. You know, by the time you get through childhood, you've probably seen so many clips of Chaplin films that you feel like you've actually watched Chaplin films. I never had much interest in Chaplin until I screened The Pervert's Guide to Cinema at the 2007 Toronto Film Festival. Early in the year I also screened Monsieur Verdoux and A King in New York for the first time.

A lot of critical ink has been used to talk about how politically brave the film is, given that the outcome of the war was in no ways assured in 1940. So I was ready for the political satire and the humanistic speech at the end. Here's what I wasn't ready for--how darn funny the film can be. The embedded pudding scene, above, isn't dark humor, exactly. The participants have agreed that whoever gets the cake piece with a coin in it has to take the dangerous mission. The tone is one of desperation. And in spite of the circumstances there is a joy that breaks through that is essential to all comedy, because the desperation stems from the love of life.

1) Les Miserables (1934) -- Raymond Bernard

Every now and then when teaching film, you get to introduce a budding cinephile to Citizen Kane for the first time. It is not uncommon in my experience for their initial response to it to be one of slight confusion. The techniques don't seem particularly new and innovative to them. That, I suggest, is exactly the point. They are comparing the film to all the films they've seen since Welles's masterpiece, not to films that were made at or around the same time.

You could have told me that Raymond Bernard's three part adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel was filmed in 1994 and I would have believed it. It was, however, filmed in 1934.

I wrote some notes about my initial response to the film at Cinevox, so I'll just link to them here. My write up also contains a link to Doug Cummings's excellent review at Filmjourney.

Victor Hugo's novel is a timeless classic which has been retold and well loved since its inception, in part because it tells the story of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. The contemporary stage adaptation focuses on the antagonistic relationship between Valjean and Javert, but Bernard's film really focuses more on Valjean's spiritual development, echoing the novel's emphasis on his experience of grace and the way that it changes him gradually. Valjean is one of the great characters in the history of literature, and Harry Baur is totally up to the task of bringing him to life. The film feels less like an adaptation than a translation, and every time I assumed there would be a concession to staging or special effects--the barricades, the sewers--Bernard is able to take us there without drawing attention to the effects for effects sake.

Les Miserables is story the celebrates goodness. It is a joy to watch.