The Yards

THE YARDS                  A                 

USA  (115 mi)  1999  ‘Scope  d:  James Gray

Like an offshoot from THE GODFATHER (1972), using a tense and beautifully realized naturalism with an equally impressive cast, this searingly intense story remains Gray’s best work exposing the behind-the-scenes corruption where various well connected families vie for control and power from the lucrative contracts awarded to provide repairs of the New York City subway system.  The director’s own father worked for a company that supplied parts and needed services for the New York subway, adding an autobiographical touch of authenticity to this story written by Matt Reeves and the director.  It is this close, intimate glimpse that gives the film its power, basically the story of two best friends, a young Joaquin Phoenix as Willie, an on-the-edge character in over his head, as usual, and Mark Wahlberg as Leo, fresh out of prison on car heists, where he apparently took the fall for the rest of the gang.  Shot by Harris Savides who subsequently became Gus van Sant’s cinematographer, the film opens with a welcome home party for Leo awash in warm golden tones with glowing faces accentuated by candlelight, where the restless mood showcases what’s best about James Gray films, where the everpresent food and din of voices underscores a growing sense of underlying urgency.  As Leo greets his mother, Ellen Burstyn, his aunt, Faye Dunaway, and cousin, a stunningly gorgeous dark haired Charlize Theron as Erica, the energy carries them to a nightclub where Willie wants to show off his girlfriend Erica in a dance sequence bathed in red, which grows ecstatic to the gyrating, rhythmic music of Bellini - Samba De Janeiro - YouTube  (2:48), which matches the frenetic mood of Willie who quickly gets in a jealous fight when a guy tries dancing with his girl.  From the outset, territorial boundaries are set, like neighborhoods or families or contracts, where men are willing to do battle in order to protect these invisible lines, where the perception is this is all they’ve got.      

In order to make up for the troubles he’s caused his mother, Leo intends to go straight, but all he knows are the ways of the streets, where he immediately falls back into the same crowd that got him into trouble in the first place.  He goes to see his uncle Frank, brilliantly played by James Caan as if he was the reincarnation of Sonny Corleone given a new chance at life, the guy who now runs the railway contracts, where he explains “If it's on a train or a subway, we make it or we fix it.”  But Frank is hesitant to involve his nephew in the dirty business and tries to steer him straight, but Willie who works for Frank will have none of that, believing there’s plenty of cash to go around, so he starts involving Leo in some of the petty graft, which involves the police, train employees and the local politicians, where it appears everyone is on the take.  Since this well-oiled system is so entrenched in local business practices, who is Leo to suggest it’s wrong?  This is perfectly underscored at a family dinner, where Frank is surprised Leo’s working with Willie, who is basically his bag man, the guy who pays off all the bribes and keeps everyone happy, but he accepts the situation when the women at the table start wondering what’s wrong with Leo working with Willie, since they’re such good friends?  Rather than a typical crime drama where the bad guys are clearly identified by their gun toting violence, this gets underneath the workings of a civilized society where everything is operating under the natural order of business, and when it’s family, everyone looks out for everyone else’s interests.  The character of Frank is actually inspired by Gray’s own father who was involved in a train racketeering scandal from the 80’s.   

This is an exceptional crime film that underplays and nearly eliminates macho dialogue but does place most of the interior scenes in dimly lit rooms that are nearly engulfed in shadows, where Phoenix especially wears the darkness around him like a garment, where his haunting close ups have an especially eerie feel to them.  Howard Shore chooses very sparingly to use grave, ultra dramatic music, adapting the dark and gloomy mood of Saturn from Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Based on the title, it’s inevitable that the most significant scene in the film takes place in the railroad yards, where Willie and a small group routinely damage railroad cars, which steers repair business to Frank, so he brings along Leo, thinking what harm can come of it?  But all hell breaks loose when a yardmaster refuses to play along, which sends everything spiraling out of control.  Leo gets fingered for something he didn’t do and he’s forced to go into hiding, once more taking the rap.  But on parole, he’s not afforded a second chance, so he either has to come clean or disappear.  The brain trust of the family operation works overtime on this one, as rather than someone they can simply get rid of, this is one of their own.  The moral lines are drawn, but everyone is in a quandary.  There’s a calm intelligence and seductive beauty to the way this movie is filmed, right down to the plentiful family meals, the accuracy of the speech inflections, the backroom negotiations playing out at supposedly public meetings, and the use of seedy locations, where Wahlberg’s role is reminiscent of Brando in ON THE WATERFRONT (1954), but he plays it with more quiet reserve, continually expanding his emotional range.  Erica has a spectacularly moving sequence with her stepfather Frank which could literally be an outtake from THE GODFATHER, while sisters Burstyn and Dunaway provide family cohesion with trust and believability.  The performances throughout are simply masterful and cannot be underestimated, as this has the despairing air and undignified feel of people being trapped by the system.

A NOTE OF WARNING - -  it should be pointed out that this film was originally shot in 'Scope, yet the Blu-Ray DVD releases have inexplicably been released in a 1:78 aspect ratio, compromising the look of the film, where the cinematography is one of the more stunning aspects of the film.  Quoting from this Amazon review written by purplefigment:

 

Buyer Beware.. The Yards [Blu-ray] from Echo Bridge Entertainment:

This is a product review for 'The Yards' Blu-ray release by Echo Bridge Entertainment.

Heads up that this 'The Yards' [Blu-ray] release (and additionally the 'The Yards' / 'The Lookout' (Miramax Double Feature) [Blu-ray]) from Echo Bridge Entertainment is heavily compromised (as are most everything released from their Miramax/Dimension Films partnership so far).

- It has been modified to fit your screen (because modified full screen releases were the best ideas from the VHS/DVD days) with 1.78:1 aspect ratio instead of its original intended 2.39:1 aspect ratio and of below average quality even then.

- It has had its audio mix downgraded from its original 5.1 track to 2.0.

- It is missing the extras that were available on its previous DVD release.

Consider the previous Director's Cut Miramax Collector's Series DVD release (never a good sign when the DVD equals or surpasses a Blu-ray release in areas), The Yards - Director's Cut (Miramax Collector's Series). That DVD release is in its intended aspect ratio, 5.1 audio track and contains numerous extras. 

Network

NETWORK           A-                   

USA  (121 mi)  1976  d:  Sidney Lumet

We’ll wipe that fucking Disney right off the air.                 
—Max Schumaker (William Holden)                    

That Mao Tse-Tung Hour is turning into one big pain in the ass.  
—Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway)

“I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!!”

—Howard Beale (Peter Finch)

You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today.

—Arthur Jensen, corporate owner of the Network (Ned Beatty)

Paddy Chayefsky is the story of this movie, as this film lives and breathes every word he’s written in what is arguably one of the greatest screenplays in movie history (See Tim Dirks’ web evaluation here:  http://www.filmsite.org/101greatestscreenplays4.html), although Billy Wilder was no slouch.  Always smart and cleverly inventive, this is a cynically demented yet highly entertaining bleak apocalyptic vision that reveals how the television industry is destroying the human race.  This scathingly dark satire on the far-reaching global effects of television is brilliantly prophetic, as true today as it was when it was written, perhaps even more so because so much of what seemed like hare-brained economic hypotheses at the time are more in evidence today.  In short, this is a film about wacko sidewalk preachers who for generations have stood on soapboxes in the rain and cold, perhaps with a cheap microphone, passing out pamphlets, trying to scream the apocalyptic truths from the mountaintops, usually assured that no one would listen, until someone invented the perfect platform along with a voicebox called television.  Somehow, while the whole world watches, what passes for the truth in the world is what happens to be seen on TV, historic moments like the assassination and funeral service of President Kennedy, the subsequent murder of his assassin Lee Harvey Oswald captured on live TV, brutally violent photographic accounts bringing the war in Vietnam home to people’s living rooms along with the mounting demonstrations and protests against the war, the street clashes at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago which turned into a police riot, effectively ruining any Democrats chance of winning the Presidency, or live feeds of the first man on the moon, which many today still believe was concocted in a back room television studio somewhere.  This was the TV generation raised to see and hear the daily reports of history unravel on the 5 o’clock news as reported by the network confidant Walter Cronkite, who was as wise and likeable as a friendly grandfather sharing the world’s pain with each passing day, perhaps making it a little easier to bear.  This is the unseen and untold backdrop to NETWORK, which is simply one’s familiarity with television. 

The cast of the film is impeccable, all with worthy resumé’s of note, with 3 actors winning Academy Awards that year, a distinction it shares with only one other film A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), with a storyline that features a Billy Wilder-like SUNSET BLVD. (1950) narrator, perhaps in tribute.  The focus is on aging news anchor Howard Beale (Peter Finch), a fellow of Edward R. Murrow in the glory days of television, but now a man whose ratings have fallen leaving the network no choice but to fire him.  Going out in style, he uses his last network appearance to announce his suicide on the air, suggesting that would jettison the ratings before railing against the hypocrisy in the world, like any good soapbox preacher, building up a healthy sense of righteous indignation on the air before signing off.  Behind the scenes, the television personnel are quick to pull the plug with that old standard cop out:  “Please stand by, as we are experiencing technical difficulties.”  William Holden as Max Schumacher is Beale’s best friend and the head of the News Division, who keeps Beale on the air for as long as possible, as every element of his crying anguish rings with truth, perhaps thinking it’s about time some of the network heads heard it head on.  However, in typical corporate fashion, heads will have to roll for this disastrous display of televising live an unconscionable moment.  Enter Faye Dunaway as Diana Christensen, a corporate climber with a near delirious addiction to good ratings, the life blood of the television industry, a behind-the-scenes Lady Macbeth wringing her hands with gleeful delight as someone gladly willing to step on her own grandmother in the pursuit of her own success.   Dunaway truly steals the movie with her manic joy at the chance to receive astounding ratings by broadcasting the mad ramblings of a lunatic on the air prophesizing his own gloom and doom, now himself the lead story on all the other networks and a front page news item, building a following of adoring fans who find every word he says filled with the unpredictable thrill of live television, staying tuned, wondering what craziness he’ll do next.   Diana’s mad hopes are realized as Beale becomes an overnight sensation, lighting up the airwaves with his mad rant “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more!” urging viewers to yell out their windows to spew their pent-up rage, becoming a modern day Messiah.   

Once more, Lumet has created a film with his pulse on the nation’s woes, like his previous work Dog Day Afternoon (1975), where one character carries upon his back the public outrage over unending racial strife, poverty, financial woes, urban blight, a crumbling government, a President resigning in disgrace, which subsequent President Gerald Ford just sweeps under the rug as if it never happened.  Like Al Pacino’s Sonny, Howard Beale bears the weight of the world’s ills on his shoulders.  His outrage and anger are a metaphor for the growing helplessness of those who see the world veering out of control, where even the right to vote can be ignored by as many as half the nation’s discouraged eligible voters.  But Beale is only part of the story, as this film does an excellent job stripping the veneer behind corporate excess, where behind the curtain in closed door suites are well financed billionaires pulling the levers of control not only of their giant tax-evading corporations, but also the nation’s newspapers, radio broadcasts and television airwaves, exerting a major political influence on their editorial content, shaping the view of the audience by manipulating them as they see fit.  In fact, this film itself is much like a giant full-length editorial, filled with plenty of screaming people who rant and rave over the deception of the truth through a neverending charade of lies and deceit.  The dialogue in this film is so rich with an excoriating venom of disgust over the outrageous hypocrisy of human deviousness, filled with a neverending stream of monologues that are not just devastating, but a screenplay that is overwhelming ambitious in scope, using a take no prisoners attitude while at the same time being presciently accurate, seeing the shape of the future before it happens.  Thirty or forty years later, the world very much resembles this demented vision of poorly vented outrage with steadily weakened, feeble-minded human beings who have lost all sense of power and individualism in the world except the right to vent their anger in a futile wrath of unending bitterness and disgust.  Whether this dark and scathing work is a cinema masterpiece is another story and still open to question, where the ALPHAVILLE (1965) like love story in the middle feels strangely out of place and has an eerily developing theatrical science fiction feel to it.  Despite being a work of fiction, this movie still plays like a documentary exposé filled with the bitter truths of living in today’s everchanging world.