Get Out

Director Jordan Peele on the set of Get Out, 2017

 

GET OUT                   B+                  

USA  (104 mi)  2017 ‘Scope  d:  Jordan Peele                       Official site

Like Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation (2016) a year earlier, this film jettisoned out of Sundance with rave reviews, but unlike Parker’s film that tanked at the box office, this is already the most successful American film in history to have been written and directed by a black artist, topping the $100 million dollar mark after just two weeks.  A black satirical spoof of horror films that arouses the worst kind of black fears about white people, even those with the best intentions, the result is a hilarious film that radically accentuates racial fears, using the horror genre to turn on its ear the well-intentioned white liberal movie, Stanley Kramer’s GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967), where the daughter of a well-to-do white family brings home a black boyfriend to meet the family, where of course he’s completely unthreatening and nonsexual, academically at the top of his class, overly perfect in every way so they can have no doubts about accepting him, fitting a requirement of moral decency in order for the film to be accepted in the South, where it was hugely successful, but a pernicious stereotype developed that led to blacks having to be better than whites at the same jobs, in the same positions, where they had to have spotless reputations in order to be accepted.  So even when blacks were initially accepted into an integrated corporate workforce, where they may have been the only black person in the room, there was not an equal standard, as blacks were required to excel above and beyond in order to justify their hiring, where in effect they became company mascots, where each business would sing the praises of their own company hire, claiming theirs is the best, where really, it was all a matter of prestige for the company.  While that was 50 years ago, things have changed considerably, as many, including a majority in the Supreme Court, believe with the election of a black President that we’re living in a post-racial America, which was their reasoning for loosening and/or gutting federal voting rights protections for minorities written into Civil Rights laws in a June 2013 decision, with Chief Justice Roberts writing “Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” suggesting blacks have grown to a sizable portion of the voting population.  Of course, immediately after the decision, many states with Republican majorities drafted legislation to suppress minority voting, which had a significant effect in the most recent presidential election, but instead of using race to justify the need for mandatory voter ID’s, reduced voting hours, and fewer polling places in minority neighborhoods, they made fictitious claims of rampant voter fraud, though it’s nearly non-existent, between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent, where it’s more likely someone will be struck by lightning, according to Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth | Brennan Center for Justice.  For example, Donald Trump won the state of Wisconsin by just 27,000 votes, but 300,000 registered voters lacked the state-mandated forms of ID to vote, according to a federal court, where voter turnout in the state was the lowest in twenty years.  Wisconsin was one of 14 states with new voting restrictions in effect for the first time in 2016, making this the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act.

Despite years of so-called social progress, Americans are as racially blind as ever, pretending it’s not an issue, yet the stereotypes and myths persist, along with segregated, impoverished neighborhoods that white Americans simply ignore, using a rabid anti-tax fervor to defund public schools, using a majority voting block that mandates fewer tax dollars will be sent into cash-strapped black neighborhood schools.  Turning a blind eye to the effects, the perpetuation of a separate and unequal underclass, this remains the standard model of addressing race relations in America.  In other words, nothing is being done to correct the obvious disadvantages of being black, where there are simply more hurdles and obstacles to overcome, yet a majority of whites believe they are all on the same playing field.  Peele has written a social satire that couldn’t be more relevant, where it is this fairy tale perception of racial harmony that lays the groundwork for this film, written and directed by a black comedian who had a television show on Comedy Central entitled Key & Peele (2012 – 2015), where Peele’s expertise was impersonating former President Obama (Key & Peele - Obama's Anger Translator - Meet Luther - Uncensored, 2:48).  While there are 400 million Americans, only 13 percent are black, which means they have a unique perspective than the rest, often the only black person in the room, especially at colleges and universities, where they quickly discover diversity is a term used for the different kinds of white people and their variety of interests, where blacks are routinely ignored, unless asked what sport do they play.  And it is here that the film excels, as it gets under the skin and into the mindset of white people who show an outward perception of benevolence toward blacks, friendly and accepting, seemingly embracing their culture, yet they are in an entirely different economic class with a completely different agenda that totally excludes blacks except in a subservient role, like nannies, cooks, or groundskeepers.  For many whites, these are the only blacks they know, overly docile and friendly, house broken, so to speak, where they’re almost part of the family, exactly as they were in the plantation era of slavery.  But these friendships never stopped the brutal and despicable treatment towards other slaves.  In this film, not much has changed, as the condescension continues.  The film opens in something of a comment on the Trayvon Martin incident, a black 17-year old kid fatally shot by an armed white neighborhood watch volunteer, where his only crime was being a black person in a white neighborhood.  In this scenario, however, the lone black kid is targeted by a following car and kidnapped, snatched and stuffed into the back seat of a car, never to be seen again.  Cue the film title.  According to the director, racial fear hasn’t been a subject in horror films since George Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968), where his Rod Serling-style aim is exploring the fears of being a black man in a white world, where you are a stranger in a strange land, with the bottom falling out before you’re done.  Key to the film are two friendships, a racial couple very much in love, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a black photographer, and his white girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams), together for five months, but also Chris and his best friend, TSA Officer Rod Williams (Lil Rel Howery, whose comic timing is impeccable), also black, who regularly communicate by phone.  As the young lovers are about to visit Rose’s parents for the weekend, Rod’s sage advice to Chris, “don’t go to a white girl parents’ house.”

Horror connoisseurs will marvel at Rose’s parent’s house, as it’s set in an isolated and remote location, a mile from the closest neighbor, who is on the other side of a lake, and surrounded by the woods on three sides.  A bit suspicious that she didn’t reveal to her parents that he’s black, Rose reassures Chris he has nothing to fear, as her parents are super liberal, that her father would have voted for Obama for a third term, which, of course, is the first thing that comes out of his mouth.  Meet Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy (Catherine Keener), who are perfectly accommodating, though both show a creepy warmth, where Dean talks in slang, slaps him on the back and keeps calling him, “My man!” while namedropping Tiger Woods and Jesse Owens.  Dean is a renowned neurosurgeon while Missy is a psychotherapist who specializes in hypnosis, working in a room there at the house, where her specialty is curing the addiction to smoking.  Her antennae are raised when she discovers Chris is a smoker, where she can’t wait to get him into her study.  Perhaps more unnerving are the black servants, Georgina (Betty Gabriel), the cook and maid, and Walter (Marcus Henderson), the groundskeeper, as neither one acknowledges their blackness, yet maintain sinister smiles as they swear a certain allegiance to the family.  Chris suspects something is up, unable to grasp why people are acting so strangely, and has trouble sleeping, grabbing his cigarettes and taking a walk outside, but he’s spooked by even more disturbing events, one of which leads him into Missy’s study where he’s hooked, as she hypnotizes him to the repetitive movements of her spoon while stirring her tea, sending him to the darkest and deepest regions of “the sunken place,” disconnected from all earthly realities, where he no longer has control over his own body.  Awaking in a fright, he thinks this might all have been a terrible dream, but the thought of cigarettes sickens him, which makes him feel even more susceptible to some strange and mysterious power emanating from an unknown force, exactly the same vulnerabilities from circumstances raised in Frankenheimer’s THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962), perhaps the ultimate in advocates of conspiracy theories, as it gives credence to all their worst fears.  Similarly, Peele ramps up the tension throughout the film, reaching grotesque proportions when a larger, extended family comes to visit, literally creating havoc, though Rose is seemingly unaffected by anything out of the ordinary, as it’s all happening to Chris.  Peele does an excellent job paying homage tributes to other horror films, writing a nuanced script that shows alarming interior perceptions, incorporating subtle truths about hidden racial agendas, decoding the mythologies and lies, making an extremely relevant social statement that is as funny as it is tragic, though black audiences are likely to find greater humor in the overly personal behavior of white people around blacks, appropriating black culture, moving the conversation to athletes or musicians, slyly suggesting they’re hip, when the truth suggests just the opposite.  The overall cast is excellent, none more creepy that Missy, where Keener played a uniquely similar role in Spike Jonze’s Being John Malkovich (1999), a wildly inventive film that left people trapped in someone else’s body with no control.  It’s also ironic that the hypnotic means to control Chris is with a silver spoon, a symbol of wealth and privilege.  This turns into a mindfuck of a film, as darker forces are doing the devil’s work, with Peele creating a queasy atmosphere of escalating tension and dread, where Chris is up against it throughout.  Constantly playing on racial stereotypes, Peele has a field day having fun with this film, where the toxically charged atmosphere can turn on a dime, revealing unusual talent and insight, producing a remarkably accomplished first film.   

Paris Blues

PARIS BLUES            B+                  

USA  (98 mi)  1961  d:  Martin Ritt

An interesting match up here featuring Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier as Ram and Eddie, two rising star American jazz musicians trying to make it in Paris, joined by two vacationing American girls in town for a couple weeks, Joanne Woodward as Lillian and Diahann Carroll, looking positively stunning as Connie, also starring trumpeter non pareil Louis Armstrong with a musical soundtrack written by none other than Duke Ellington and the uncredited Billy Strayhorn, including passages of “Mood Indigo” and “Sophisticated Lady,” along with a wild jazz session called “Battle Royal” near the end with Armstrong.  Wow—that sounds pretty much like royalty, especially considering the timing of this film, made between some of Newman’s greatest roles, THE HUSTLER (1961), SWEET BIRD OF YOUTH (1962), and HUD (1963), while for Poitier, this film came between A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961) and LILLIES OF THE FIELD (1963).  Add to this Italian actor turned French citizen Serge Reggiani, from Max Ophuls’ LA RONDE (1950) and Jacques Becker’s CASQUE D’OR (1952) as a drug-addicted guitar player.  Despite the all star lineup, the film is weakened by a somewhat predictable script about Poitier escaping from America’s racism (never developed) and Newman’s desire to become a “serious” composer (never in doubt when we hear his jazz compositions, but there are serious doubts if he wishes to make a leap to classical, which is not made clear in the film, and frankly is not really inherent in the film’s character, where “Paris Blues,” the titled piece featured in the film that he spends all night working on is a jazz composition), where even though told in a realist style coinciding with the outbreak of the French New Wave, the frenetic energy exhibited in the musical nightclub sequences puts any storyline to shame considering the jazz authenticity on display throughout.  It’s impossible not to be a bit overwhelmed by all the talent here which is kept to a cool simmer, with plenty of picture postcard shots of Paris and an outstanding musical soundtrack that provides what the film was really looking for, the love of jazz, where the somewhat contrived romance angle is purely secondary.  Newman and Poitier play trombone and saxophone, actually performed by Murray McEachern and Paul Gonsalves from Duke’s orchestra, dubbed afterwards in American studios.  

A rare treat here is also watching Newman and Woodward, who was pregnant here, married just three years earlier, working together in this their 4th of ten films together, where they display a rare intimacy, much like John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands working together, even though Newman plays something of a heel, a two-timing, egocentric musician wrapped up in his music and his career, where he always seems to have a chip on his shoulder.  In a composite of several of their scenes together Paris Blues (1961) - Paul Newman - Joanne Woodward YouTube (10:30), including one of the scenes of the film, her “You’re never gonna forget me” speech coming just before the 9-minute mark of the clip, where she displays that irresistible smalltown charm where he lets down his guard momentarily before reasserting his self-centered demeanor.  Poitier and Carroll are also wonderful together YouTube - Clips from Paris Blues YouTube (2:22), both in their prime, where Carroll never looked so dazzlingly beautiful, while also offering a piece of her mind as well, claiming it’s time for Eddie to stop running away and come back home.  Both were romantically linked during the filming of PORGY AND BESS (1959), but because both were married with families, they tried to stay apart, brought together as onscreen lovers again, which was an excruciating ordeal for Poitier, whose wife and family were present for part of the shooting.  Playing music until dawn, the two couples walk during the day through the streets of Paris, see the sights, take a river cruise, and fall in love in the City of Lights, where the picturesque backdrop couldn’t be more appealing, beautifully shot in Black and White by Christian Matras.  One of the interesting aspects is how they met by chance, as Ram initially meets Connie on their incoming train.  In something of a daring display of interracial romance, he’s actually more attracted to her, as expressed after their nightclub set when he ignores Lillian in favor of Connie.  Coming from America, Connie’s not used to this display of racial openness and is taken aback, even as she sees couples embraced on the streets everywhere throughout the city, and the nightclub has several mixed couples as well.  Given the time period, well before the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, two years before the killing of Medgar Evers, this is a major social statement in an American film, even if it is only suggested and remains undeveloped.       

Ram is also carrying on an affair with the nightclub owner, Barbara Laage as Marie Séoul, who also interestingly sings a musical number.  But Ram is the star of the show, as seen taking the lead solo on “Mood Indigo” Paris Blues "Mood Indigo" (1961) (3:30), where the subterranean nightclub atmosphere is filled with bohemian culture, almost always a packed house.  The sequence of the film is the extraordinary appearance of Louis Armstrong, where the mood turns electric PARIS BLUES (1961) - Battle Royal (6:02), jamming with each member of the band.  You can’t write this kind of exhilaration, it just happens, creating an explosive feeling within the club itself, a magical moment where everything is right in the world, exactly how Eddie feels when he realizes his true feelings for Connie.  There’s an unfortunate storyline thread about birds, where we see them on rooftops, and in cages for sale on the streets, an all too obvious metaphor for the free spirit of a jazz musician, where being caged, unable to fly is paramount to death.  This segment seems more appropriate for Ram, as he’s the one attempting to break through a barrier of free spirited jazz improvisation to composition, not at all an easy transformation, where Lillian’s affections feel like a cage for him, a stifling suffocation just when he needs to learn the art of writing arrangements.  The wall to wall jazz music is simply extraordinary, as are the two couples in a rare display of realism instead of an overblown Hollywood romance.  John Cassavetes was up for the Paul Newman role and was familiar with the script, attempting to match the music and spontaneity of this film with one of his own, released at the same time, Too Late Blues (1961), where Cassavetes wanted to throw in 17 new jazz pieces into his film, shot entirely in New York City’s Greenwich Village jazz scene, but the studio blocked his requests, forcing him instead to shoot almost entirely inside the studio.  That film feels more reserved and suffocating, while Ritt’s film lives and breathes the streets of Paris, featuring the music of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, where the feverish intensity of live music in jammed nightclubs couldn’t be more exhilarating.

 

The participation of Ellington (behind the camera) and Louis Armstrong onscreen is itself significant.  The film effectively begins when Wild Man Moore (Armstrong, one of the few times in a film where he’s not playing himself), arrives in Paris, and it ends as he departs.  Cheering throngs greet him at the train station when he arrives, where a band plays for him, leading Armstrong to join in an impromptu jazz moment.  Ellington’s first musical soundtrack was Otto Preminger’s ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959), where only part of what Ellington and Strayhorn wrote together was actually used in the film, but he had the most control over the musical soundtrack in this film, where what one hears onscreen is exactly as they intended.  Despite the overlapping careers of such great jazz legends as Duke Ellington (1899 – 1974) and Louis Armstrong (1901 – 1971), the two rarely encountered one another, but they stayed in the same hotel during the shooting of the film, discussing the possibilities of working together.  They met again upon returning back home and arranged an RCA recording session on April 3 and 4th, 1961, leading to an album released as The Great Summit, where the band was Armstrong’s, but the music was written by Ellington.  A list of some of the great Ellington musicians heard in the film:  pianist/composer Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, trumpeter Louis Armstrong and Clark Terry, saxophonist Oliver Nelson and Paul Gonsalves, alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges, drummer Max Roach, Sonny Greer, and Philly Joe Jones, trombonists Juan Tizol, Britt Woodman, Billy Byers, and Murray McEachern.  Paris pianist Aaron Bridgers, the house pianist of the Mars Club, a tiny cabaret with an openly gay clientele, which may have been a model for the club in the film, appears as the pianist in Ram Bowen’s band, though the only piano heard on the soundtrack is either Ellington or Strayhorn.  Strayhorn stuck around Paris and recorded an album with a string quartet of Parisian musicians, one of the few albums released under his own name, entitled The Peaceful Side.  Strayhorn actually arrived in Paris a month before Ellington, directing the music in earlier rehearsals, largely for the benefit of the actors who play musicians, where the musical scores used in the film are in the Smithsonian Institute.  

The film is based on a 1957 novel by Harold Flender, following the exploits of a black American saxophonist Eddie Jones in Paris who plays Dixieland or mainstream jazz, happy just to be working, appreciating the tolerance for blacks in Paris.  He meets a black American schoolteacher on vacation, Connie, and falls in love.  The novel introduces trumpet player Wild Man Moore, already based upon Louis Armstrong, who offers him a job that he at first refuses, but when he realizes he’ll be returning to America with Connie, he can hook up with the band in the States.  The Ram Bowen character, the name a variation on the French poet Rimbaud, was originally based upon Benny, a pianist in Eddie’s band, who hooks up with Connie’s roommate Lillian so Eddie and his girl can be alone together.  Benny shows Lillian the wilder side of Paris, including an all night nudist swimming club, which she finds teasingly provocative, but also crudely offensive, returning home alone.  Lulla Adler adapted the novel, while Jack Sher, Irene Kamp, and Walter Bernstein provided a screenplay for the film, changing the leader of the band to Ram, including his desire to become a serious composer, receiving arrangement assistance from Eddie.  Ellington was not aware of these script changes from the novel when he started working, believing the romantic couples would be Paul Newman and Diahann Carroll, and Sidney Poitier with Joanne Woodward, where the opening scene seems to be preparing the audience for a range of relationships from gay to interracial, a milieu intimately understood by the openly gay Strayhorn.  In a similar scene twenty minutes into the film, a pan of the club audience couldn’t be more different, as gone are the same sex and mixed race couples, as by then the United Artist Studio executives lost their nerve and decided to drop the interracial angle.  It wasn’t until 1967, well after Sidney Poitier was an established star, that Hollywood romantically linked a major black star with a white girlfriend in Stanley Kramer’s GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER.  The mix of black and white in PARIS BLUES may as well be jazz and classical, as in a late scene with a musical publisher (arranged by Wild Man Moore), Ram’s music is not accepted as “serious” enough, suggesting it needs conservatory training, a typical and somewhat condescending view of those in the (white European) classical music community, which interestingly suggests (American black) jazz is not a “serious” art form, even if written by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, a question they attempted to overcome their entire lives, though both Armstrong and Ellington’s entire discography would refute such a claim. 

Too Late Blues

TOO LATE BLUES                C+                  

USA  (103 mi)  1961  d:  John Cassavetes

When TOO LATE BLUES was over I thought I would be over too. And then Paramount asked me if I’d like to sign a long-term contract. At that point I realized that success and failure weren’t necessarily success and failure. I had heard so much about people who fail and then get enormous contracts. I never could quite believe it, until it happened to me. Paramount upped my salary to $125,000 a picture. I subsequently learned that [Paramount’s Marty Racklin] had to go to his stockholders and tell them I was a bright guy. He’d built me up, taken a gamble on a guy who wasn’t turning out very well, and he had no real option but to go with me and hope I was smart enough to learn. And I did learn. I learned all the tricks: to get a big office and to ask for anything and everything and insist on it. I told them I wouldn’t do another film unless I wanted to do it and unless I could do it my own way.

—John Cassavetes, from the book ‘Cassavetes on Cassavetes’ by Ray Carney

After the success in Europe of SHADOWS (1959) and a short-lived TV show Johnny Staccato where Cassavetes plays a private eye who sides as a jazz pianist in Greenwich Village (though shot entirely in Los Angeles), Cassavetes was offered a chance to direct his first studio film at Paramount, which the producers (specifically Marty Racklin) felt could target the youth market.  While he signed a contract to develop his own script, it was originally conceived by Richard Carr who he met on the TV show, asking if he wouldn’t come up with something, choosing to rework the third of three stories submitted, where Cassavetes wrote the first half with Richard Carr writing the second half.  He was unable to make any changes within a month of the shoot, and certainly no revisions on the set, as everything had to be worked out ahead of time for a 6-week shooting schedule. Additionally, Cassavetes wanted Montgomery Clift and Gena Rowlands for the two leads, while the studio insisted upon pop singer Bobby Darin (somewhat stiff in his first dramatic role) and Stella Stevens, a Playmate of the Year just the year before in January 1960, also considered at the time one of the ten most photographed women in the world.  Cassavetes also lost the battle to shoot the scenes entirely in New York City’s Greenwich Village jazz scene, with the Studio opting for a nearly entirely interior studio shot film.  These little differences of opinion led to a more reserved and suffocating film, as the Hollywood system itself took all the living and breathing life out of the original conception.  What remains is a downbeat story of a jazz pianist selling out his friends for his own chance at success, one that mimics Cassavetes own career move from New York to Los Angeles to star in a TV show, with hopes of breaking into the movie industry.  While Cassavetes felt the movie got away from him, unable to do any significant rewrites to correct what he felt were script flaws, he was stuck with meeting the 6-week shoot, which meant handing in a movie he wasn’t at all happy with.

Nonetheless, from a Studio’s point of view, even though the film was a critical and box office flop, the fact that the movie was competently completed on time led to their offering him a contract and a raise, which led to his second feature, A Child Is Waiting (1963), where Cassavetes had a meltdown with producer Stanley Kramer, again over the direction of the film, disowning the film when Kramer basically fired him to finish and recut the movie himself.  Despite these run-ins, they gave Cassavetes invaluable experience in shooting a motion picture which eventually led to FACES (1968), written and shot in his own way, using his own timetable, starring his wife Gena Rowlands, and is still considered one of the more groundbreaking works in American independent film.  TOO LATE BLUES, on the other hand, is purely a product of the Studio system.  Ironically released the same year as Martin Ritt’s Paris Blues (1961), starring two American jazz musicians in Paris, Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman, also the music of Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington who both make appearances in the film, Cassavetes was originally up for the Paul Newman role, so he was familiar with the script, which bears a few casting and nightclub similarities.  Like that film which was all about music, where the lurid romance was secondary, Cassavetes wanted to throw in 17 new jazz pieces into his film, all featured during the nightclub sequences using the musicians that he met on the Johnny Staccato TV show, some of whom are musicians used here, but this was not to be.  The opening two and a half minutes of the film may be the most inventive in the entire film, seen here:  Bobby Darin in Too Late Blues Part 1 of 12 - YouTube (7:57), similar to his realistic use of children in his next movie, and is one of the few natural scenes in the movie that literally feels unstaged and uninhibited. 

Bobby Darin plays a character named Ghost, who leads an undiscovered jazz quintet seen playing in the opening, which includes Seymour Cassel (in only his second picture) on bass, guys who have been working together for years but are still forced into taking whatever gigs come their way.  Hanging out in a neighborhood bar afterwards, much of the film is set after hours when the guys are drinking, dancing, playing cards, or goofing off, unfortunately featuring the loud overacting of the Greek bar owner Nick Dennis, who, like many of the cast, were brought over from the TV show, including the sleazy agent (Everett Chambers, a producer on the show), the owner of the recording studio (Val Avery), and the Countess (Marilyn Clark).  Ghost’s agent is quickly seen undermining the fragile esteem of the group’s female singer Jess (Stella Stevens), Ghost’s girlfriend, where he’s something of an oily double crosser throughout, always using underhanded tactics to either backstab or showcase his represented talent, who never seem to get a fair shake, but he’s the shady representative of the exclusively financial interests of the music industry, the kind of snake that seems to thrive in the sewer.  After a volatile trial number in a recording studio leads to a follow up recording the next day, the guys (and girl) are out celebrating, where a drunk customer (Vince Edwards) gets into a drunken brawl with the boys, challenging and humiliating Ghost in front of his girl, which sends him plunging into self pity, wanting nothing more to do with any of them.  In Cassavetes original script, there is a ten-minute dreamlike sequence where Ghost goes out and picks up a girl, spending the night together, but this sequence was cut by the Studio in favor of Jess going home with one of the other members of the band and sleeping with him, effectively ending their relationship.

Devastated by the change of events, Ghost shows up at the studio but walks out on the band, calling them a bunch of amateurs he picked up off the street, making a deal with his agent to find gigs showcasing his talent, where he is sponsored by an older women of means, the Countess, who receives sexual favors in return.  This sleazy road to stardom never materializes, sending Ghost back to his roots years later searching for his original band, playing in a dive somewhere in Los Angeles.  Also searching for Jess, where Stella Stevens downward spiral is one of the few superbly realized scenes, but one can easily imagine Rowlands and similar drinking scenes with men at the beginning of FACES, he finds her sadly working the customers at the bar of a flophouse, an intensely sad portrait of dreams gone awry, where she doesn’t wish to be reminded of her former life, creating a sense of hopeless melodrama and despair before Ghost hauls her off to confront the band.  One by one they reject him, rebuffing his attempts to reconcile their differences, until Jess, off to the side of the stage, starts singing the melody of  a song they shared together, bringing them back together again with a reunified sense of optimism and hope as the curtain falls. Once again, this is the Studio imposed upbeat ending, as originally Ghost rejoins the band and starts playing the piano, where the music immediately comes alive as Jess walks out of the club, as he had walked out on her years earlier, where the drive for success has a deep-seeded personal price.  One problem with the use of music in this film is the audience can’t tell the difference between the more creative, supposedly original, avant-garde jazz music and the more sell-out, commercial music that audiences tend to prefer listening to. Much of it written by David Raskin, it tends to fall in the middle somewhere of “pseudo-jazz” where there is little distinction drawn between the various styles, which diminishes the theme of an artist selling out for commercial success, as we never really hear what real art sounds like.  This is a stark contrast with Paris Blues, for instance, which features Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, where the feverish intensity of live music in jammed nightclubs couldn’t be more exhilarating.

A Child Is Waiting

A CHILD IS WAITING          B                     

USA  1963  (102 mi)  d:  John Cassavetes  

I've always had a sweet spot for this 1963 film, made 5 years before the release of FACES, a more conventional film using footage of handicapped children from the Pacific State Hospital in Pomona, California, one of the first State facilities for mentally impaired children.  This is a remarkable attempt at realism, using moments of documentary style in a fictional film about mental retardation that refuses to look at the children in a group home as victims, but rather as human beings, each needing the help of others.  The film attempts to give the children as much screen time as the so-called stars, which caused something of a scandal on the set.  Apparently, Cassavetes’ message was too radical at the time, as he was fired from the film by producer Stanley Kramer, who then recut the film, ordering more close-ups, making it more sentimental.  Apparently both Lancaster and Garland appealed to him for help from Cassavetes' direction, both openly defying him on the set.  In Ray Carney's book, it is described as follows:  "Cassavetes' treatment of his stars was a textbook lesson in how to alienate everyone possible."  However, in Cassavetes' view, the children were more important in this film than the stars.  Despite some overglossed musical strings on occasion, it’s still a surprisingly unflinching look at a largely ignored problem—one might say a follow up to Frank Perry’s 1962 film, DAVID AND LISA.

Burt Lancaster is appointed by the State to run the home, and at first he appears hard and ignoble with the children, especially one problem child, Reuben (played by actor Bruce Ritchey), who he believes the system has failed, but his somewhat radical intention is to treat the children as responsible individuals.  Enter Judy Garland, of all people, as a troubled, down and out spirit who is looking to find a place where she might be needed.  Having no real qualifications, other than being a Julliard Music School drop out, and having no real professional objectivity, she immediately pities the children and assumes the role of Reuben’s missing mother, so he follows her wherever she goes.  Then on false pretenses, she summons Reuben’s real mother, Gena Rowlands, as every Wednesday, Reuben gets dressed up and waits for his parents that never show up on visiting day.  This calls into question everyone’s views in an extraordinarily dramatic confrontation.  Lancaster's unbending system is challenged by Garland, whose histrionics are challenged by Rowlands, all are challenged by Reuben, enter the State bureaucrats who really want to wash their hands of the whole problem, threatening to cut finding as it’s not a feel good issue with the public.  Who wants to raise children no one wants to see? 

Largely disowned by Cassavetes for changing the entire tone of the film, the theater of the uncomfortable is really evident here with broken families, love gone awry, disturbingly flawed characters, big emotional moments, Gena Rowlands nervously smoking a cigarette while wearing gloves, as it’s hard to witness mentally impaired children being themselves, but Cassavetes raises important issues, mostly through the peppering questions of Lancaster, who refuses to let the bureaucrats decide their worth through potential employability.  The film does a good job examining society’s response to “damaged” children, where parents immediately alter their expectations, becoming disappointed, embarrassed, eventually hiding their children from public view, supposedly for their own good.   And if they allow them to interact with normal children, they’re bound to be teased and humiliated, as children can be relentlessly judgmental.  Rowlands, of course, is excellent as the disappointed parent who’s too consumed with personal anguish and shame to be able to relate with her son anymore.  Cassavetes wraps up the entire issue in a manner unique to his own particular vision, in a grand, sweeping finale that features the children in a Settlers and Indians Thanksgiving theatrical revue where they are all, at least for a moment, shining stars, continually perplexed with remembering their lines, but singing happily anyway.  In Cassavetes' view, it's the adults that label them retarded, when really, they're just children.