The Long Day Closes

THE LONG DAY CLOSES            A

Great Britain  (85 mi)  1992  d:  Terence Davies

No star is o'er the lake,
Its pale watch keeping,
The moon is half awake,
Through gray mists creeping,
The last red leaves fall round
The porch of roses,
The clock hath ceased to sound,
The long day closes.

Sit by the silent hearth
In calm endeavour,
To count the sounds of mirth,
Now dumb for ever.
Heed not how hope believes
And fate disposes:
Shadow is round the eaves,
The long day closes.

The lighted windows dim
Are fading slowly.
The fire that was so trim
Now quivers lowly.
Go to the dreamless bed
Where grief reposes;
Thy book of toil is read,
The long day closes.

—Henry Fothergill Chorley and Arthur Sullivan, 1868, The Long Day Closes by Arthur Sullivan 2008 Prom ... The King Singers at Royal Albert Hall (2008) on YouTube (4:21) 

A heartbreakingly beautiful work, a memory play turned musical theater, where this impressionistic, Joycean stream-of-conscious Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man piece is unlike anything else you’ll see, though J. Hoberman from The Village Voice called it a “Proustian musical,” it is a follow up to the director’s earlier autobiographical work, DISTANT VOICES, STILL LIVES (1988), the difference being that this is a few years after the death of his father, whose absence allows a wistful happiness.  While it is a family portrait of a distinct period in time in the director’s childhood, namely the mid 1950’s in Liverpool, shown as still life painting over the opening credits, it has an experimental feel, as there’s no real narrative to speak of, while nearly every scene is accompanied by either a TV, movie, or musical reference.  The camerawork by Michael Coulter, however, is near unforgettable, where the transitions between shots, visual and audio are spectacular.  One could easily mistake this for a Michael Powell film, as the meticulous art design is so perfectly rendered, but the yearning, atmospheric mood is all Terence Davies.  While something of a nostalgia piece, the film is more complex, mostly shot in the gloom of the everpresent rain, with 11-year old Bud (Leigh McCormack) staring listlessly out the window, the film reflects his inner thoughts and is a tribute to his recollections.  What’s surprising about this film is how much of it is an audio experience, reflective of an era when so many listened to the radio, when this experience was literally a post-war national pastime.  It’s no accident that even in pubs today one of Britain’s most unique traditions are its own citizens singing popular songs in unison, where seemingly everyone knows the words. 

As the film moves along with elegant dissolves from shot to shot, song to song, sequence to sequence, the audience is following along the interconnected, interior thoughts of Bud, where the screen is aglow with a cinematic visualization of his imagination, literally using 35 different pieces of original music, some in their entirety, where the film received a 10-minute standing ovation when it premiered at Cannes in 1992.  Jam packed with movie references, seen here on IMDb: connections, Davies uses various songs like time capsules, or personal markers in his life, where we hear opera singers Isobel Buchanan Ae Fond Kiss from The Long Day Closes - YouTube (3:32) or Kathleen Ferrier Blow The Wind Southerly by Kathleen Ferrier 南の ... YouTube (2:23), but also Judy Garland from MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS (1944) Judy Garland - Over the Bannister (Meet Me in St. Louis ... - Youtube  (1:15) and Doris Day from LOVE ME OR LEAVE ME (1955) Doris Day - At Sundown - YouTube (1:44) singing popular songs from movies.  In one of the more beautiful sequences, his family poses for a WHITE CHRISTMAS (1954) picture postcard, where people are constantly in motion, and even though they’re all sitting inside, snow continually falls behind them.  The imaginings of things past have such a haunting immediacy that the film recalls the inner segment of the recent magisterial Terrence Malick work THE TREE OF LIFE (2011), where both blend visual poetry with personal intimacy.

What also stands out is what a perfectly behaved and obedient child Bud is, a Mama’s boy who idolized his mother (Marjorie Yates, a member of London’s Royal Shakespeare Company), often seen holding hands or sitting in her lap as she sings to him, a guy who follows all the rules and does everything he’s supposed to do, yet begins to have second thoughts early in life about the rigidity of Catholicism, where the church shows an extreme intolerance and inflexibility for homosexuality, at odds with his own budding sexual nature.  Rather than receiving a reward for his efforts of devout obedience, the scriptures all but leave him in eternal damnation.  Is it any wonder he would turn to the movies and popular songs for personal refuge?  The evidence of conformity in British life is stunning, where in school or in church they are all expected to play by the rules, as if there’s something to be gained from that.  But there’s no evidence of any reward, nor is there any sign of the insolence and rebellious disobedience seen in American films that suggest a cultural break with the past.  Instead in Davies dreamy but orderly world, being smart, respectful, and polite creates a certain inner harmony, the perfection of which is not matched by the bleak world outside where it’s constantly raining, where young men are sent off to war, and where Catholic boys fall in love with Protestants on the road to both becoming atheists. 

Davies remarkably demonstrates how each of the various social institutions from school, church, home, pub, and theater shaped and changed his life, actually framing his consciousness, where the ingenious way of introducing each sequence is like showcasing a new Broadway number with music, lighting, and elaborate camera movements, with brief pauses between sequences, shot in a sepia tone, where the colors are washed out.  Using snippets of an instantly recognizable Orson Welles narration from THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942), itself a modern exercise in nostalgia, “Back then they had time for everything,” Davies shows how the combining forces of art illustrate the power of the past as a living and breathing force in our lives.  While the movie is not chronologically ordered, it makes sense if one can imagine how the mind can travel from thought to thought, often on emotional impulse, where perhaps the most remarkable scene of the movie is set to Debbie Reynold’s rendition of Tammy:  The Long Day Closes with Debbie Reynolds' Tammy  YouTube (3:51), an extended overhead tracking shot where the constantly inquisitive camera passes Bud alone at home before moving to a crowded movie theater, to a packed church, dissolving into a classroom with an amusing snippet from KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949), coming full circle before the camera finds its way back to where it started, as if its gone all the way around the world where poor Bud is once more isolated and alone, much like he spent a good deal of his childhood.  Davies has a way of bookending his film, where the elegiac opening song lyric “the music of the years gone by” from Stardust - Nat King Cole - YouTube (3:16) seems to match the lamenting tone of the gloriously lyric final sequence, The Long Day Closes (1992) Closing Sequence (4:18), a part song bringing a high minded sense of seriousness to a setting from an earlier epoch.

The River (Renoir)

THE RIVER                             B+

France  India  USA  (99 mi)  1951  d:  Jean Renoir

As literary an adaptation of a movie as you’re ever likely to see, quite unlike anything else, the last of Renoir’s American films and his first in color, an extraordinarily colorful film shot by the director’s nephew Claude on location in India using a documentary style, but also a rather stiff dramatic portrayal of the characters.  Son of the great impressionist painter Auguste Renoir, this is a family that thrives on art and its observant portrait of class in society.  An adaptation of Rumer Godden's adolescent coming-of-age novel of a young 14-year old girl growing up on the banks of the Ganges River in British colonialist India, this entire film plays out like a poetic reverie, a memory play narrated by the author’s thoughts, giving this a feeling of impressionist exploration of the nearby locale.  Harriet (Patricia Walters), is a plain girl who is not particularly attractive, a kind rarely seen in the movies, yet she’s fond of writing in her diary, knowing much of it is actually well written despite her youthful age, describing her interior thoughts along with revelatory descriptions of the river, including the boats, the crowded marketplace, and people washing their clothes, all in harmony with the timeless quality of the river.  This is her secret world, introducing European culture into the more Eastern philosophy of India where Buddha reigns supreme.  Harriet lives with a large family where she is the eldest of 5 children, where her world changes with the arrival next door of a wounded war veteran, Captain John (Thomas E. Breen), who lost a leg in combat.   His presence captivates the interest of not only Harriet, but her slightly older, more spoiled best friend Valerie (Adrienne Corri) and a mixed race daughter about the same age, Melanie (Radha), who has returned home after being educated in the West.    

Looking very much like a Powell/Pressburger film, using plenty of close up shots, where all the principals but Melanie have blazingly red hair, this is largely an idealized portrait of a family, where the idea of happiness in a colonialist country must undergo some alterations due to the complexity of the experience, as British freedom is not Indian freedom.  Without ever addressing the political divisions, Renoir instead simply shows a chilly relationship between the two cultures, where they don’t exactly mix despite living side by side with one another.  Indians are the British servants, while others are neighbors, but none are featured players.  Instead this plays out like a Vicente Minnelli production, where the highly colorful compositions are first and foremost, accented by Indian music constantly playing in the background, with a continuous stream of everpresent shots of boats and people on the river.  Harriet’s coming of age is paralleled with India’s push for freedom as well, though never overtly, as Harriet’s father (Esmond Knight) is a local industrialist, obtaining his wealth and position by exploiting colonialist labor.  But Harriet knows nothing about that, and instead has fallen head over heels in love with the Captain, as has Valerie and Melanie, though each perceives their future with him quite differently.  Harriet is the most obvious, as she reads long expository passages from her diary which unravel in dreamlike sequences, much like a play within a play, where her vision of first love has a spiritual transcendence about it.     

Using Satyajit Ray as an assistant director, the film is slow with long descriptive passages read aloud by the narrator as an adult looking back, which takes some getting used to, as the overall style of this film is otherworldly, where it all plays out like a dream.  There are few films that present positive images from colonialist settings, but this is such an idealized family setting that it could just as easily be Judy Garland’s family in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944).  This personal intimacy adds to the overall appeal of the film, as it allows the poetry of the narrative to register with the audience, along with the supremely lovely shots of the river and of life in India, reflected as a time capsule in dance, ritual, song, and the colorful costumes, adding an exotic element to their ordinary lives. Harriet’s mother (Nora Swinburne) couldn’t be more supportive and loving towards her children, where her nurturing role appears very much like the way mothers were portrayed on American TV in the 1950’s, safe, comfortable, wise, and all-knowing, but certainly playing the supportive role to the husband.  Melanie’s confusion with her identity of being a dark-skinned Indian but educated in the West is never fully explored, as despite her noticeable intelligence, she obviously remains troubled.  Valerie is the most impulsive, while Harriet wins our hearts largely due to her age, as nothing is as it seems at 14, where she’s temperamental, subject to turbulent mood swings, crestfallen at the least little disappointment, where her entire world feels like it’s crumbling apart.  Little does she know that in a short period of time, her mind will be elsewhere, beautifully describing the poetry of the world around her, where as her mother points out, life goes on.  This is a love letter to India where her romanticized visions will once again explode with the personal detail of the seething humanity surrounding her.