Keyhole

KEYHOLE                  B+

Canada  (94 mii)  2011 d:  Guy Maddin           Official site

A Guy Maddin film is likely to be weird and creepy, among other things, although weirdness is his state of normalcy.  Maddin is one of the more original filmmakers working today, a highly inventive guy who thrives on Silent black & white movie techniques, where watching his films resembles sleepwalking, as his imagery is very dreamlike, usually writing his own scripts, using original German Expressionist lighting and set designs, where early in his career he actually hand painted each colorized celluloid frame.  He infuses a wonderful sense of surrealistic mystery with an audacious sense of humor, often intermixing graphic nudity with bizarre hallucination sequences, and makes frequent flashbacks to childhood.  His films often create a sense of chaotic confusion, blending fiction with non-fiction, using a stream-of-conscious, experimental style where there’s little or no narrative, no character development, rather wooden acting, where a sense of the ridiculous predominates the mood along with a heightened melodramatic hysteria.  Frequent themes include the trappings of love, murder, mental anxiety, Russia, hockey, homoeroticism, his perennially absent father, not to mention everpresent references to his hometown of Winnipeg, where all his films are shot.  His best films may be CAREFUL (1992), where the residents of a small town in a snowy mountain village have to be quiet and keep their voices down or risk being consumed in snow from a lurking landslide, so all the characters keep whispering, or his recent MY WINNIPEG (2007), which is a hilarious tribute to his hometown.  If you'd like proof of his film mastery, check out his award winning 6 minute short The Heart Of The World - Guy Maddin - YouTube (6:08) premiering at the 2000 Toronto Film Festival, where his film condenses so much into so little time, averaging two shots per second, a masterclass in film editing that literally shocked the world, many feeling it was the best film released that year.  There is no one on the planet that makes films like Maddin, an abstract modernist whose film puzzles are as intelligible as Cubist paintings, where the uninitiated often have a hard time making sense out of his highly condensed and extremely rhapsodic film expression, shot on Digital here for the first time, offering unrestricted freedom of mobility.    

KEYHOLE is largely a haunted house film, told in a murder mystery style, where a collection of oddball characters starts piling up, some obviously ghosts, but others who have the capacity to see and feel these haunting spirits who are easily spoken to, though they often disappear before your eyes.  This film does have a slightly demented narrative form that keeps challenging the audience’s reference points, as the eccentric goings-on in this ghost house don’t always make sense, though the opening is right out of John Huston’s KEY LARGO (1948), where a wanderer in the night named Ulysses, no less (Jason Patric), walks in out of an electric storm returning home where his gang has gathered and his first order of business is to have all the characters line up against the wall, the dead ones facing the wall and the live ones facing forward.  The dead ones are told they’ll have a pleasant police escort to the morgue, where they’re ushered out the door to the sound of rapid gunfire.  Gangster life was never easy.  Ulysses is the top dog who gives the orders around the house, where the film seems to be a collection of incidents that largely take place in his head, like an evolving memory piece where he wanders through various reflections of his own imagination, interacting with ghosts from his past, where it’s hard to tell if any are still living, as all have a deep connection to death.  Certainly since Maddin’s first short film, THE DEAD FATHER (1986), Guy Maddin - the Dead Father Clip - YouTube (2:00), the director has mixed absurd humor with surrealist flourishes, where mingling the living with the dead is a familiar theme, where here Ulysses actually carries around with him, wherever he goes, a bound and gagged blind prisoner strapped to a chair, who turns out to be his (very much alive) dead son Manners (David Wontner), also his own personal psychic (Brooke Palsson), who may be his daughter Denny, who walks around in a weakened and collapsing state of exhaustion from drowning, which certainly doesn’t prevent her from taking her clothes off frequently, apparently swooning from the heat. These three set out to explore the house (and their family) through a secret passageway.

Meanwhile, waiting upstairs, Isabella Rossellini as Hyacinth (his wife) lays covered in her bed with her naked father (Louis Negin) held hostage on the floor chained to the bed, “There will be no forgiveness, that's why I keep you chained to my bed,” while her lover Chang (Johnny Chang) lurks in the shadows, where at least the father offers an attempt to explain what’s going on via a recurring narration, though it’s clear they don’t wish to be disturbed by Ulysses and that racket he’s making in the house, so they have locked the door, where Ulysses can only stare in at her and speak through a keyhole.  The connections between the deadpan Ulysses and his family remain forever distant, as at times he doesn’t even recognize them, himself an absent father.  The morbid noirish atmosphere within the house is all drenched in claustrophobic detail, with other characters continually moving in and out of the scene, where there is always a new storyline to follow along with resurfacing family legend.  There’s even a Cinderella character continually scrubbing the floors, where someone gets electrocuted when they attempt sexual favors, and a brief appearance by Udo Kier as a dismissive Freudian era medical practitioner, also a James Whale FRANKENSTEIN (1931) style electric chair sequence powered by stationary cyclists, which has the effect of recharging many of the dead memory cells for Ulysses, while others who try are less fortunate.  An earlier Maddin short Guy Maddin - Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair (2009 ...  YouTube (6:53) with Louis Negin adds a familiar allure, even including the continued reference to the clock about to strike midnight.  Basically, KEYHOLE is a tour de force blitzkrieg of phantasmagorian Maddin images, often incoherent, somewhat in the manner of the infamous James Joyce stream-of-conscious novel, a masterful piece of editing that often resembles subliminal clues interspersed throughout that offer keys to Ulysses’ fragmented memory.  “Remember, Ulysses, remember,” calls the voice of the narrator, as if there is a secret code.  Forced to continually turn back the clocks, this is a conceptual exercise where in his search to get up the stairs into his wife’s bedroom, Ulysses is repeatedly frustrated by recurring thoughts and memories and has to continually contend with ghosts of the past, where often, even in our own lives, the living and the dead may feel interchangeable.     

The Hunter (2011)

THE HUNTER                        B

Australia  (100 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Daniel Nettheim                Official site

Most probably couldn’t find Tasmania on a map, but it’s located about 150 miles due south of Australia, where nearly 40% of the island is an unspoiled natural environment, a protected park and wilderness reserve and one of the World Heritage Sites.  It makes for a unique setting to shoot a film that dwells in the interior forests chasing a mythical animal, the Tasmanian tiger, the last one in the early 1930’s can be seen here:  Last Tasmanian Tiger, Thylacine, 1933 - YouTube (42 seconds), now believed extinct, though science has a vested interested in tracking one down.  It’s not science, however, but the monetary greed of a pharmaceutical company that secretly hires a mercenary hunter, Martin Davis (Willem Dafoe), to obtain evidence that such an animal still exists in the wild, which could bring in astronomical prices, as these mythical animals are rumored to have properties that can save humans from life-threatening disease.  With this in mind, Martin sets out for the outback, renting a room from a farmhouse on the outskirts of the nearest town.  While Martin is all business, keeping his emotions continually in check, he can’t help but notice the state of filth and disarray in the home, where the mother spends all her time in bed while the two children run free, the talkative Sass (Morgana Davies) and her mute little brother Bike (Finn Woodlock), decidedly more shy.  Apparently their father left for the woods on a naturalist expedition but never returned.  When Martin goes into town to seek a room elsewhere, he’s greeted with a seething hostility, where outsiders are definitely not appreciated and urged to get out of town as soon as possible.  With that in mind, he decides to clean up the place and make it minimally habitable before venturing into the wild.  Initially he is guided into the outskirts of the wilderness by Jack (Sam Neill), a local who looks in on the family from time to time, helping cross the picket line of angry loggers who guard the forest entrance, put out of work by environmental protests from “greenies,” who they actively despise, associating Martin with their camp, as he’s allegedly a university scientist come to study the habits of the Tasmanian devils, a raccoon-like animal the size of a small dog, believed to be the largest carnivorous marsupial, exceeded only by Tasmanian tigers, which are larger, wolf-like creatures.

The film is an adaptation of Julia Leigh’s first novel, the author who wrote and directed the baffling Sleeping Beauty (2011) starring Emily Browning.  Both works are obsessions of sorts, where this is more of a Moby Dick adventure, where a specialized hunter is sent in for the kill, spending all his time scouring the landscape, shooting animals for food, setting up traps, taking photos, and looking for signs of the tigers, where he makes multiple visits into the wild, beautifully shot in ‘Scope by Robert Humphreys, featuring exquisitely chosen music from Dvorak, Handel, and Vivaldi, among others, and a great sound design.  Initially Martin discovers troubling signs of cameras apparently designed to study his path, where it’s clear he was being watched as well, his vehicle’s lights and windows smashed upon his return with feces spread across his windshield telling him to go home.  With each successive visit, the wordlessness of his experience in the woods is shattered by the ever talkative Sass upon his return, where it’s impossible not to take notice of these kids, who follow him everywhere, and are extremely well developed characters, never rising to the level of stereotype.  He helps their mother Lucy (Frances O’Connor) get back on her feet, weaning her off the excessive doses of psychotropic medicine, where in a surprisingly uplifting moment, he finally gets the broken generator working again, which turns the lights and electricity on, where the sounds of Springsteen’s “I’m on Fire” The Hunter (2011) - I'm on Fire - YouTube (2:12) awakes the sleeping mother who erroneously thinks her husband has returned.  The film beautifully interweaves the intensity of each section, where he continually learns more information about each of the two worlds.  The drama here is exacerbated by the ferocity of the antagonism associated with exploring the wild, as Martin learns the kid’s father was on the same mission before he disappeared, while at the same time, Martin entered the film with no family connection, no back story whatsoever, but clearly disconnected from the family of man, where the coming to life of this little dysfunctional family awakens something deep inside him as well. 

The question of man’s disturbance of the primitive world has long been the subject of fascination, where Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may best define the lurking darkness that prevails the deeper one explores uncharted and unspoiled territory, which has long defined a darkness within ourselves as well that shadows good and evil, each a shaded reflection of the other.  Similarly, Martin’s journey has severe ramifications, where if he delivers what’s asked of him, it will only line the pocketbooks of the greedy, much like the original colonial empires that harvested riches from colonial nations, where they will pay plenty to obtain what they want, actually sending another hunter when Martin doesn’t act swiftly enough, to cover their concerns, forcing Martin to at least explore an alternative path that prevents them from ever getting what they want.  Caught in this existential dilemma, where there are continuing threats of violence at every level, as everyone associated with the forest region feels threatened, as the loggers are out of work, unable to feed their families, blaming the environmentalists who simply wish to protect the land, while corporate interests have their own invading raiders who threaten to steal the last of a possibly extinct species.  Every avenue feels slightly shortchanged by the end, as they are all blended together into the mix, but there’s a bleak road staring at him from each direction.  There’s little chance of redemption, as he’s supposedly the master thief who can outmaneuver and outsurvive any other plunderer they send into the wilderness, where the man to man battle of the big game hunters has a fairly contrived feel to it, ultimately, and is the weakest link, where after all is said and done, he still has to grapple with the ghost of a potentially extinct species staring him in the face.  Meanwhile, the journey to remain connected to the family of man is fraught with perhaps even greater dangers and risks than he has ever known, having to improvise and redefine his entire mission in life, something completely foreign to him.  The film offers horrifying consequences, where destruction is the only sure path man feels familiar with.  The rest is all unknown        

The Man On the Shore (L’Homme sur les quais)

THE MAN ON THE SHORE (L’Homme sur les quais)           A                    

aka:  The Man By the Shore

France  Canada  Haiti  Germany  (106 mi)   1993  d:  Raoul Peck

All sea animals eat up men, but only the shark has a bad reputation.
—Sarah (Jennifer Zubar)

A film on my short list of all-time favorite films, rarely screened and never released on DVD, distinguished for being the first film from the Caribbean ever screened at Cannes, where it may still hold the distinction of being the best film ever made from that region.  Peck was born in Haiti during the reign of the Duvalier dictatorship and his armed militia, the Tontons Macoute, who terrorized the population, where his father was arrested and jailed for trying to unionize farmers, so at the age of 8 his family fled the country and he was raised in the Congo, educated in France, Germany, and the United States, briefly serving (several years “after” making this film) as Minister of Culture in the Haitian government (1996–97) until he resigned his post in protest.  He currently runs the Parisian film school La Fémis and will serve as a Jury member of the main competetition entries at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.  Peck wrote the film during the brief period of optimism of Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s initial reign as Haitian president, following the U.S. led exile of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, where Aristide attempted to carry out substantial reforms, bringing the military under civilian control, firing the head of the Army, initiating human rights violations, and bringing several Tontons Macoute to trial, all of which lead to his quick ousting by the military.  Peck integrates autobiographical scenes of his childhood in this fictional but unsentimentalized period piece that tells the repressive and murderous story of the “Papa Doc” Duvalier regime in Haiti during the 60’s as seen through the eyes of an 8-year old child Sarah (Jennifer Zubar). The depth of this film is surprising, co-written by the director and André Graill as it plays out in novelesque fashion, fully developing many characters, where the camera’s constant slow pan becomes a character unto itself, as it brings the audience into full participation with a historical place and time, allowing them to non-judgmentally observe.  This also plays out as a memory piece, as these are the recollections of someone thirty years older now who survived to tell the tale.  The initial impressions are the colorful buildings painted with bright colors, giving Haiti a cheerful look, also the women’s clothing that are saturated in sunny colors.  Actually shot in the Dominican Republic by cinematographer Armand Marco, due to the continued military uprisings in Haiti where it was initially scheduled to shoot, this has the feel of Coppola’s APOCALYPSE NOW (1979), as it actually took them three years to shoot this film in what amounts to a foreign location, continually altering their schedule and having to wait for more money to continue.  But this has an extremely personal feel to it, as it could be anyone’s family.   

Told out of sequence, moving back and forth over two years time, the film details the changing behavior when the local police lose their authority to the brutal methods of the Tontons Macoute, Duvalier’s militia thugs with guns who rule the neighborhoods through intimidation and fear.  The chief enforcer is Janvier, Jean-Michel Martial, a wickedly sadistic madman who doesn’t look at people so much as stare holes through them, usually accompanied by bloody beatings, and to the extreme, shootings and disappearances.  But at least initially, he is still under the authority of the police, Sarah’s father, who doesn’t condone those methods, but when he tries to intervene, “Don’t tempt the devil” would be Janvier’s response, where he and his gunmen would resort to gangland style violence, eventually taking over, demanding blood money from everyone.  Her mother and father flee to Cuba while Sarah and her two older sisters are forced to hide in their grandmother’s attic for two years, never showing their face under fear of arrest.  Initially they lived under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church, but they soon became host to continual site inspections under the threat of guns.  In this closeted, dreamlike world, all people had were photograph albums and memories of a life they used to have.  Sarah was confused why the militia wore the same uniform as her father, thinking they must be working together, and after his extended absence, she began associating her anger over his absence with the hostility people had for the Tontons Macoute.  This is contrasted, however, with the proud and dignified images of her grandmother (Toto Bissainthe) and Aunt Elide (Mireille Metellus), both of whom are impressively dressed and have income from running their own clothing and fabric store, so they represent the educated aristocracy who are among the most intelligent citizens in Haiti, where more than 50% of the country remains illiterate and mired in poverty.  Their faces, however, are the real face of Haiti, proud, stubborn even, yet always strong and dignified, where throughout the film one thing is clear—they command respect.  The psychological power games between the crude and sinister methods of Janvier and these defiant women who refuse to back down couldn’t be more riveting, especially when it’s sexual capitulation that he’s looking for.  Rarely do films stare terror in the face like this one, where the results are shattering. 

There’s a national unity celebration filled with loud speaker pronouncements from President for Life Duvalier to his citizenry, a street procession of raw, authentic Haitian music, much like Best haitian music Webert Sicot Crab mazorey (3:41),  ORCHESTRE SEPTENTRIONAL (6:57), or even Cuban salsa queen Celia Cruz - Guede Zaina (3:10), with posters of Duvalier lining the streets, and red and black flags all around when Duvalier announces an amnesty.  All Haitians who fled are urged to return, as the country needs to generate needed capital and it was the rich that had the means to flee, where Duvalier actually brokers an agreement with the Pope where the Church and State become inseparable, where Sarah and her sisters could finally come out into the open, but what people are subjected to is continued harassment and raids by the Tontons Macoute who don’t follow any laws, but simply brutalize and murder anyone they don’t like on trumped up charges, proving repeatedly that anyone could be suspected of subversive behavior.  No proof is necessary, only guns.  There’s an interesting character, a brain-damaged invalid named Sorel (Patrick Rameau), who feels like a simpleton character out of August Wilson plays, the stuttering Hambone from Two Trains Running who continually shouts out the same words throughout the entire play, “I want my ham.”  Whenever he sees the Tontons Macoute he stands at attention and salutes, calling them chief, mimicking the shooting of a rifle, but he’s simply a street beggar who takes on the role of Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), an idiot savant, but also a protector of children.  He plays a big role in the film as the audience identifies with what he goes through, as he is arrested, beaten and sexually brutalized with a nightstick, a tortured character who is traumatized by listening to the endless machine gun shots by the shore near the police holding center. This is one of the most eloquently powerful films describing life under such a repressive regime, where it all plays out like a nightmarish dream, where one wonders how this can actually happen, where all human resistance is simply liquidated.  Unlike THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS (1966), no one is trying to overthrow the government here, yet every citizen is viewed with derision and contempt.  The finale to this film is profoundly moving, beautifully set on the gorgeous shores of the turquoise ocean, young girls riding bikes under the swaying palm trees, a picture of serenity ultimately violated in the most obscene way, but the director chooses not to sensationalize and uses a long shot, where the audience can see what happens off in the distance before that continually panning camera comes to rest on an idyllic shore.  The setting is Haiti, but we’ve seen this kind of wretched terror inflicted on citizens before by Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung’s Chinese Cultural Revolution, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, and a host of others, where genocide is a historical reality, but this film brilliantly puts a human face on the reign of terror.  THE MAN ON THE SHORE has a searing intensity that is expressed through a poetic realism, where the beauty of the island landscape and the proud dignity of the people who inhabit the country are the centerpiece of the film, where a Pandora’s Box opens wide to spoil and nearly destroy this Edenesque lost paradise.         

The Night of the Hunter

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER     A            

USA  (93 mi)  1955  d:  Charles Laughton

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.

—Matthew 7:15-16

A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

—Matthew 7:18, 20, The Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum’s) ominous introduction

But there are things you hate, Lord, perfume-smellin' things, lacy things, things with curly hair.

—The Reverend Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum)

This is another film that when released in 1955, it was maligned as hopelessly out of synch with American postwar sensibilities and was yet another film that failed at the box office, which so disappointed the director he never made another film, yet remains one of the greatest American films ever made.  The film is based on the novel of the same name by Davis Grubb, adapted for the screen by James Agee, who had a severe drinking problem and died the year the film was released, so the director finished the script, though it largely coincides with Agee’s first draft.  Unlike the uproar with the publishing of Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry (1927), which took satirical swipes at attitudes within evangelical circles in the 1920’s, denounced from pulpits across the country, where the city of Boston banned the book, this novel was based on the true story of Harry Powers, who was hanged in 1932 for the murders of two widows and three children in Clarksburg, West Virginia. Using a hybrid of different styles, the film is something of an oddity, using a German Expressionist lighting design, gorgeously filmed by Stanley Cortez, honored for his deep focus cinematography in THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS (1942), but also the manner of a Brothers Grimm children’s story, using elaborate artificialized visual fantasy with a seething undercurrent of social malaise hovering underneath.  Despite the fairy tale element, this veers into film noir territory, expressing cynical attitudes and deeply repressed sexual motivations, where God (who is spoken to directly) is literally seen as a tolerant accomplice to murder:  “Not that you mind the killings! There's plenty of killings in your book, Lord.”  Easily the most outstanding aspect is a brilliantly evil performance by Robert Mitchum as the Reverend Harry Powell (who as it turns out, directed the children scenes, as Laughton had little affection for them), a psychopathic preacher (needing no make-up) that kills unsuspecting widows for their money, who spends the film on a relentless search for hidden money that he knows is in the hands of two children, ten-year old John (Billy Chapin) and his younger sister Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce).   

So while this is a murder mystery about a serial killer on the loose, it’s simultaneously a nightmarish child horror story seen through the eyes of the children, given a strange Biblical context, including repeating refrains from a familiar hymn “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” first heard here The Night of the Hunter: The Showalter Hymn, when it is first YouTube (1:26).  Mitchum’s baritone voice was never used to better effect, and while the hymn is a song of reassurance and faith, here it is continually used to announce his menacing presence.  Set in the rural Bible belt during the Depression, Ben Harper (Peter Graves) robs a bank stealing $10,000, quickly giving it to his two young children to hide before he is arrested and hauled off to jail, but not before forcing them both to swear not to tell anyone, not even their mother.  Sharing the same prison cell, the Preacher (arrested on car theft) overhears him talk in his sleep about hidden money, which may as well be the voice of God speaking.  After Harper is executed, the Preacher, with his fire and brimstone drawl, dressed in a cleric’s black cloth and a wide brim puritan hat, pays a visit to the grieving widow Willa, Shelley Winters, who is surrounded by her overly pious community, especially Mrs. Spoon (Evelyn Varden), who keeps her nose in everybody’s business.  While the entire community is smitten with the young Preacher, it’s Mrs. Spoon (an anonymous presence of Evil hidden within the flock of Christian sheep, who can later be seen leading a lynch mob against him!) who gushes over his presence and all but throws Wilma at his feet in marriage, though John keeps a healthy distance and has his suspicions, as all this Preacher keeps asking him about is the money.  No one believes John, however, as the Preacher has everyone convinced the money was thrown in a river, especially his mother, though he keeps tightening the screws on John, especially when he terrorizes him with the thought of becoming his new father through marriage, a man with the words “love” and hate” tattooed on the knuckles of each hand, seen here:  Love - Hate: Night of the Hunter - YouTube (57 seconds), turned into a freakish circus performance told in the form of a Biblical parable. 

Wilma’s wedding night is a thing for the ages, as Powell is not interested in sex, only wallowing in all the as yet undiscovered money, where the naively eager expectant bride is belittled and humiliated to discover the puritanical wrath of God coming down upon her in the form of her new tyrannical husband who lays down the law that sex is only for procreation.  As if under the spell of his personal magnetism, we see her next sweating profusely, framed by burning torches at a revival meeting, confessing her wedding night sinful expectations as a means to arouse the crowd into a virtuous frenzy. But when she overhears the Preacher’s sinister threats to her son, this leads to a maniacally crazed ritual where her soft narration of receiving God’s salvation results in a baptism of the barbaric and the grotesque The Night Of The Hunter - Wife Killer  YouTube (2:11), leaving her at the bottom of the river.  With no one left to protect them, the children are finally at the Preacher’s mercy.  Realizing his murderous intentions, they slip away into the night and escape in a raft down the river, producing some of the most extraordinary images of the film, abandoning all pretense at realism and embracing the children’s point of view, almost like turning the pages of a child’s picture book.  The artificiality of these river sequences is dazzling, often resembling a Huckleberry Finn wonderland, where Mitchum’s foreboding presence follows them everywhere, seen on the distant horizon riding a horse.  But the real surprise is yet to come, where Laughton picks silent film goddess Lillian Gish from the D.W. Griffith era to sweep the kids up in her arms and take them into her protective custody, as she has several other abandoned young children as well, which changes the entire tone of the film.  Rooted in a strong faith in The Bible, often telling them stories, Gish as the counter opposite to Mitchum couldn’t be more intriguing, a hard-nosed woman who practices tough love.  When the inevitable occurs and the Preacher comes for the children, she knows a fraud when she sees one, leading to a delicious Good/Evil co-mingling refrain of the hymn, where Gish, rifle in hand, joins along, but includes what the Preacher leaves out, the lyric reference to “Jesus” Robert Mitchum - The Night of the Hunter - "Leaning" - YouTube  (2:12).  All set in a weird, exquisitely beautiful and eerie atmosphere that feels timeless, not at all reminiscent of the 50’s, where the subversive nature of the film recalls Douglas Sirk, this is a truly exquisite allegory of innocence, evil, and hypocrisy, selected to the Library of Congress National Film Registry as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant,” certainly influencing later directors like Martin Scorsese, Terrence Malick, David Lynch, and the Coen Brothers.

The Misfits

THE MISFITS              A                   

USA  (124 mi)  1961  d:  John Huston              The Misfits original trailer

I don't know. Maybe all there really is is just the next thing. The next thing that happens. Maybe you're not supposed to remember anybody's promises.

—Roslyn Taber (Marilyn Monroe)

It’s sad how sad sadness is, as this is easily one of the saddest films ever made, but profoundly downbeat rather than sentimentalized, where just catching your breath afterwards may feel like it comes at some cost, where the dirt and sweat of the Nevada heat never looked and felt so wearyingly bleak.  Many find that Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) most brilliantly defines the end of an era in Westerns, a portrait of the last of a dying breed, men who live outside the laws of civilization and literally make their own rules, living and dying as outcasts.  For others, it’s THE MISFITS which similarly defines a more interior portrait of men who refuse to accept boundaries in their lives, who live on their own, refuse to work for wages, and embrace a lifestyle of independence and freedom, where the open frontier remains as far as the eye can see.  Despite the extolled freewheeling cowboy spirit, what’s most devastating in this picture is the inherent cruelty within man, the hurt and pain they bring to the world, and the utter indifference it seems to make to them.  So much that was taken for granted in “the old days” suddenly comes into question when a woman is introduced into their world, where the lives of men are literally turned upside down.  This film is about the fall from that utopian vision, from the cowboy era of yesteryears, and offers us a timeless walk into the modern era.  It’s not a pretty sight, there’s nothing sugar coated, as there’s nothing familiar about the present except that in time, it leads to the future, a place of endless possibilities, but also broken hearts and dreams, and the eternal suffering of people having to live with so much disappointment.  It’s a damn shame people can’t be happier, that life can’t be easier, but no one’s learned a better way, where the struggle of hard knocks and rotten luck comprises the core of our fragile existence, where surviving life’s tribulations is the only road to understanding ourselves, where going it alone might seem easier sometimes, free from disagreement or unwanted interruptions, but feeling alone is mercilessly treacherous and an unending heartache, where nearly every minute you feel unworthy of love.  Making the choice to allow yourself to need others is a road not taken by men in Westerns, it’s an aberration, an anti-cowboy attitude filled with compromises and unwanted boundaries and seemingly predictable outcomes, but it is also the essence of joining the community of mankind, of coming in out of the cold and barren wasteland that also defines the heart of a cowboy’s eternally wounded soul.     

A distinguishing aspect of this film is the romanticized allure of bringing together such iconic screen representatives, where Marilyn Monroe was the sex symbol and archetypal female of the 50’s while Clark Gable’s star persona was based on his sexy, masculine appeal ever since his role in GONE WITH THE WIND (1939).  Pitting them together, then adding Montgomery Clift, in a script written by Monroe’s husband, the brilliant playwright Arthur Miller, has a uniquely curious appeal, especially since the film itself has so much dramatic heft.  The tragedy associated with the film is equally legendary, where Gable suffered a heart attack 2 days after the shooting ended and died 10 days later, where theories suggest he lost 40 pounds for the role, but he also performed all his own physically demanding stunts in the film, which included being dragged about 400 feet across a dry lake bed at more than 30 miles per hour in 108 degree heat, and he had to deal with the frustratingly unprofessional antics of dealing with Marilyn Monroe, who was almost always late or never showed up at all on the movie set.  Both Clift and Monroe were heavily abusing alcohol and prescription drugs at the time, where Monroe never made another film and died a year and a half later under mysterious circumstances that included an apparent drug overdose, while Clift’s career faltered and died from a heart attack six years after the filming, where ironically THE MISFITS was playing on television the night he died, where his secretary asked if he wanted to watch it, but his final spoken words were “Absolutely not.”  Adding to the personal anguish was the deteriorating marriage between Monroe and Miller taking place on the set, with Miller constantly making script rewrites as the shooting progressed, while director John Huston actually shut down production in the middle of the shoot to send Monroe to a detox facility for a few weeks, while he notoriously gambled and drank, often falling asleep on the set, where the production company was forced to cover some of his gambling losses.       

It’s an unruly romance, and a poetic farewell gesture to the things in our lives we’ve left behind, but the superior level acting and naturalistic rhythm add an emotional force that is unparalleled, especially in a Western.  Almost forgotten about the film is Monroe’s opening divorce, which in the more conservative era of the 50’s placed an unwarranted social stigma on women, effectively ostracizing them from proper society, placing them in dubious distinction, almost as if they were morally unclean, which in her case only made her more desirable by men.  But this explains why she has come to Reno in the first place, where the lenient laws of Nevada open the gates to quickie marriages and divorces, leading to a stream of brokenhearts seeking relief from their pain.  This is an appropriate introduction following an opening credit sequence featuring jigsaw puzzle pieces that don’t fit together, where Monroe is downcast, despite obtaining her so-called freedom, lamenting “when you win you lose…in your heart.”  While the title of the film refers to wild horses that remain free to roam the unreachable back regions of the mountains, as they don’t fit anywhere else, this same description describes the characters of the film, all of whom have trouble fitting in.  While the central romance is Gable and Monroe, the film literally revolves around her, where she provides the emotional center through which an interchangeable group of characters continually talk to her, saying things they wouldn’t confess to anyone else, where the intensely personal nature of the dialog runs throughout, effectively integrating an intelligent and dramatically powerful expression of honesty with an unflagging sense of realism, where one begins to suspect that what’s shown onscreen is a mirror reflection of their real lives offscreen.  As Westerns go, you’d be hard pressed to find a more fully realized script, as this sprawling work is really an intimate chamber drama exposing the burning anguish locked inside marginal lives that exist on the outskirts of society, where Miller’s stream-of-conscious theatrical flair for exposing the raw edge of humanity can feel like hell and fury at times, but few works challenge the audience’s intelligence and sensibilities like this one, which still feels highly experimental and light years ahead of its times.  

“Cowboys are the last real men left in the world, and they’re about as reliable as jackrabbits,” is the unflappable Thelma Ritter’s advice as the older Isabelle to sexy divorcée Roslyn (Monroe), as no sooner has she received her divorce papers but she’s already falling for another guy in Gay (Clark Gable), an older, bluntly speaking cowboy that still gets by on charm and good looks, who knows a woman when he sees one, and since she’s never been outside the city limits, they all agree to spend some time together near the mountains in the partially built but still unfinished home of Guido (Eli Wallach), Gay’s sometimes partner, a despondent war pilot still mourning over the loss of his wife.  Monroe exudes sensuality in an opening dance sequence, accompanied by endless rounds of drinking, until she wanders outside and swirls alone among the trees, a free spirit taking no root, but by morning, she’s in the arms of Gay.  While he might have made a once proud living rounding up wild mustangs in the nearby mountains, the numbers remaining are a scant few, where they are now forced to scrounge out a pitiful existence selling what few they find for dogfood.  Nonetheless, the sound of adventure makes them all spring to life, picking up a rodeo cowboy Perce (Montgomery Clift) along the way, where after getting brutally thrown off a bull and a horse, leaving his head stitched up and bandaged, they celebrate by carousing in a local saloon Marilyn Monroe - He Put His Hands On Her! YouTube (2:48).  By the time they reach the endlessly open landscape reminiscent of “the surface of the moon,” the futuristic picture of the modern world couldn’t be more pitifully empty, where the psychological descent into the interior road to hell comes quickly, leaving Roslyn aghast at the barbarous treatment of the horses, where Huston’s man against beast, near avant-garde approach defies belief, especially Roslyn’s helpless cries of desperation.  Beautifully mixing a modernist Alex North musical score with a visual ballet of choreography thrillingly shot by Russell Metty Marilyn Monroe in 'The Misfits' (1961) YouTube (4:07), the extended finale sequence is an exhilarating but ultimately devastating glimpse into the heartless souls of men, an utterly transfixing film given a touch of grace and poetic transcendence. 

The Ox-Bow Incident

THE OX-BOW INCIDENT           A             

USA  (75 mi)  1943  d:  William Wellman

Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It's everything people ever have found out about justice and what's right and wrong. It's the very conscience of humanity. There can't be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody's conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived?

—Donald Martin (Dana Andrews)

One of the few westerns to be selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress National Film Registry, a personal favorite of both Henry Fonda and Orson Welles, where the release date of May 1943 seems significant, as the nation was at war on two battlefronts, where the idea of fighting for freedom and justice against the forces of tyranny held a particularly prominent position in the lives of Americans.  Nominated for an Academy Award, the last Best Picture nominee to receive a single award nomination, the ultimate winner was the beloved CASABLANCA (1943), considered one of the greatest and most popular films ever made, while this film did not do well at the box office.  CASABLANCA gained all the glory, and rightly so, but the power of this little film was often forgotten or ignored until television viewings brought it attention and renewed critical acclaim.  This may also be one of the best examples of the beauty of mythmaking, as this story is so perfectly told that it’s hard to tell whether this incident is mythical or based on fact.  Spare and uncompromising, this is a haunting tale about a lynch mob’s fateful rush to judgment in Western Nevada of the 1880’s, hanging three innocent men for a murder they didn’t commit, becoming a powerful indictment against prejudice and the spread of rampant mob hysteria.  The ramifications still send a repugnant air of disbelief, where perhaps the beauty lies in the reverential pause afterwards, a self-examination and somber reflection on law and order as well as culpability.  Adapted by Lamar Trotti from Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s 1940 novel, something should be said about the novelist, a Reno writer in residence for most of his life, whose father was the President of the University of Nevada, where in the 50’s the author briefly became a professor of creative writing at the University of Montana.  The Ox-Bow Incident was his first published novel and is often considered the first modern western, as it’s concise, psychologically taut and gripping throughout without resorting to formula or cliché, a timeless and iconic story about lawlessness in the American West and the need for moral order.     

The film was actually shot directly after Henry Fonda’s career defining performance in Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (1940), receiving a deferment to make the film before enlisting in the Navy afterwards, where he served for three years, but 20TH Century Fox executives refused to release the movie, terrified of its incendiary political implications, so it sat on the shelf for two years.  Gary Cooper turned down the lead role due to the objectionable material and the somewhat radical use of a black preacher as the moral voice of reason apparently made many white viewers uncomfortable.  For such a short and downbeat film, only 75 minutes, plenty happens, where the writing and direction are near perfect, creating a grim, ultra realistic look quite ahead of its time without a touch of false sentiment, going against the grain with an unglamorous story that has little action to speak of, but could be considered an anti-Western, moving away from those immense landscapes of Indian wars, gunfights, stagecoach robberies, or outlaw shoot outs, narrowing the focus, becoming smaller in scope, literally exposing a defining moment when no heroes rush in to save the day.  It’s an unusual opening, featuring a rougher than usual Fonda along with his sidekick Henry Morgan (who is the main character in the book, reversing roles) as they hit town after a long winter’s absence from a cattle drive.  As they stand at the bar and stare at a provocative picture hanging overhead, they sip whisky while lost in thought, barely uttering a word, yet both exhibit a wry comical flair that provides a nice prelude, a calm before the storm, as news suddenly arrives that a local cattleman has been shot, where a makeshift posse, which is really a lynch mob already gathering on the street, is formed by the deputy, as the sheriff is already out of town investigating cattle rustling.   Several men attempt to quell the erupting emotions, noting the sheriff is already on the scene, but the appearance of Major Tetley (Frank Conroy) and his twisted view of events alters the balance, a friend of the deceased all dressed up in his Confederate uniform, exuding authority and leading the charge for exacting revenge.  The entire town in this desolate region consists of only twenty or so men, yet the performances all around are chillingly effective, using simple characters with plenty of dialog evenly spread around, continually establishing various points of view, where there isn’t a second of wasted time. 

Except for an exterior opening and closing, and a beautiful transition shot into the mountains, the film is shot largely on an interior set with painted backdrops, the site of the hanging tree where people sit around and commiserate about what’s to be done, creating a stifling atmosphere of impending doom that couldn’t feel more intensely claustrophobic, where humanity runs amok with the stink of its own foul deed.  There’s seemingly nothing that can change the ominous momentum of outright horror from majority rule, an expression of civilization run off its rails, yet given a certain poignancy from unexpected sources, namely the Major’s son, Gerald (William Eythe), who has a small but influential role, as he refuses to be bullied by his overbearing father and actually offers a rare smile of compassion to one of the prisoners.  The other is the older pastor Sparks (Leigh Whippet), a black man who witnessed the lynching of his brother when he was a boy, whose sole purpose in being there is praying for the men who are about to die.  His spare renditions of Negro spirituals are not pretty, but sound raw and sorrowfully rough-edged, becoming hauntingly effective, a powerful contrast to the otherwise brutally swift proceedings.  Despite the outcry of a few, including Fonda, who’s gun is taken away from him, the sentiment of the majority is bloodlust, actually led by the terrifying cackles of Ma Grier, Jane Darwell as a lynch-loving frontier woman.  A young Anthony Quinn as a Mexican is one of the captured men, who cleverly hides his long-standing criminal background behind his feigned lack of English, but once the mob’s intentions become clear, in perfect English he proudly and defiantly confesses to knowing seven languages, but resolutely refuses to confess in any one of them as he digs a bullet out of his leg by himself, muttering with contempt “This is fine company for a man to die with.”  Dana Andrews as Donald Martin is the leader of this arrested group of three, contending he has a wife and kids at a farm nearby that he recently purchased, where they allow him to write his wife a letter before they hang them.  When they run into the sheriff afterwards, their gleeful mood quickly sours when they learn the dead man is alive and well, merely injured, and the shooter arrested.  The hushed scene at the bar at the end with all of the shamed men lined up for shots of free whisky is an enshrined moment, especially the reading of Martin’s letter (Fonda, with his face blocked by his friend’s hat) which casts a poetic eloquence on their eternally damned souls.  Curiously, the contents of the letter are never revealed in the book, so it was composed by screenwriter Lamar Trotti and remains the high point of the film.

Drums Along the Mohawk

DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK    C-                   

USA  (103 mi)  1939  d:  John Ford

You’d think this was James Fenimore Cooper territory, and historically and geographically it is something of a lesser substitute, adapted from a popular Walter D. Edmonds historic novel taking place exclusively in the Mohawk Valley of upstate New York.  Ford’s first film shot in Technicolor, this is something of a prelude to the eventual victory of the Revolutionary War, a glimpse of what was at that time seen as a hard life on the frontier, hunting and farming mostly, where grizzled, backwoods types fill the landscape along with other hard-nosed Christian families, where the threat of Indians and the unsettled affairs of establishing a new nation add an element of uncertainty into their lives.  The film was a commercial success, largely due to the popularity of two big name stars, where a shocking lack of chemistry exists straightaway in newlyweds Lana and Gilbert Martin, the rich and pampered city girl, Claudette Colbert, who overacts in every scene, crying and fainting often, and the morally upright and ever understated Henry Fonda, in a film sandwiched between playing Abraham Lincoln in YOUNG MR. LINCOLN (1939) and Tom Joad in THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940).  This is one of Ford’s weaker Westerns, as the Revolutionary War has never played well in motion pictures, and this is no exception, becoming a grim, costume melodrama shot largely in the outskirts of Utah.  The on-location scenery works well, where cinematographers Bert Glennon and Ray Rennahan received Academy Award nominations, but the story itself is suffocatingly restricted, often told from the women’s point of view while the men are away at war, where one grows weary of Lana’s overreaching sense of drama, but more importantly, the demonized and stereotypical depiction of Indians as savages is overdramatized, largely because there’s no British presence to speak of, so the settlers are continually fighting Indians instead of the British, who never fire a single shot.     

The film has a heavy handed tone of black and white moral certainty throughout, where the Revolutionary War is seen as a battle between God fearing Christians and heathen Indians, giving it an annoyingly self-righteous tone, where there’s a single British character in the movie, John Carradine wearing an eye patch, a Tory who mobilizes the Indians against the “Americans,” seen early in the film burning their farms and their crops.  The one friendly Indian, Chief Big Tree (the model for the Indian head nickel) as the character Blue Back, is a Christian convert who takes on all the “Uncle Tom” characteristics, speaking that barely decipherable Navajo English, and is largely used for ill-advised comic relief, offering a few “Hallelujahs” in inappropriate places, also the gift of a whipping switch for Gilbert to beat his woman to keep her in line.  So if you can get past the Bible thumping, fundamentalist Holy War aspect of the film, which is truly a gross distortion of history, much like Victor Fleming’s similarly embellished GONE WITH THE WIND (1939) made that same year melodramatically distorts the Civil War, there are familiar Ford characteristics that play out well.  The most important aspect of living in the wilderness is the portrayal of a sense of community, where displaying courage under fire is seen as a distinctly American trait, right alongside helping neighbors by clearing their fields and collectively rebuild, sheltering the injured and the needy, where Fonda’s notable humility is particularly appealing.  Often forced to take protection from a nearby military post, the theme of the film is expressed by General Herkimer (Roger Imhof), “This is our land and it’s worth fighting for.”  Rounding up all the able bodied men, they march off to fight in General Washington’s army, presumably motivated by duty and faith, leaving their families behind to endure the insufferable consequence of not knowing, having to sit and wait, where we only hear about the war’s development when the wounded men return, where losing 400 out of 600 men is the price to pay for victory.  

What differs here from typical Ford films is the camera doesn’t follow the action, where it’s not so much about the war itself or the men, his usual subjects, but is a portrait of the evolving transformation of Lana from a hysterically out-of-place rich girl into a highly capable frontier woman.  Granted, Colbert is probably not the right woman for the role, but Ford has a fondness for her near perfect, pin-up style close ups, where he’s likely a firm believer that soldiers carry a picture of the woman they love in their pockets as a reminder of what they’re fighting for.  The woman behind Lana’s transformation is a no frills, tough as nails frontier widow played by Edna May Oliver, also nominated for Best Supporting Actress, who is easily the best thing in the movie.  Her ornery defiance is both laudatory and comical, especially when she refuses to be removed from her bed when her home is invaded and burned by Indians, forcing them to carry her bed (with her in it) to safety.  She leads a cast where many secondary characters exhibit plenty of eccentric personality.  While there is an impressive Ford-like assault of the fort, featuring cannon fire and hand-to-hand combat, Gilbert interestingly decides to make a run for it, believing he can outrun any Indian, turning this into a strange endurance run through the forests and empty landscapes of the wilderness followed closely behind by three Mohawk Indians.  His perseverance brings needed reinforcements and helps turn the tide not just for this community, but for the birth of a new nation.  Just as Lana is initially seen wearing gigantic bonnets and elaborate, fashion inspired dresses, turning afterwards into farmer attire, and later even wears a Revolutionary War army coat with a musket in her hand, the church inspired community is also shown, to the music of “The Star Spangled Banner,” recognizing the significance of the first American flag, and in a highly dramatized, ceremonial final gesture, places it high atop the church, a premonition of Manifest Destiny.      

As it turns out, nearly 13,000 Native Indians fought with the British, most coming from the Iroquois tribes, where the Seneca, Onondaga, and Cayuga nations also sided with the British.  Because the settlers built a fort directly on the banks of the Mohawk River right in the heart of their territory, the Mohawk tribe also sided with the British.  After the American Revolution, most moved northward into Canada, again fighting against the United States in the War of 1812, where they continue to live in settlements in Southeastern Canada and New York State.  Among the most notable Mohawk Indians are Hiawatha, the subject of the epic 1855 poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Full text of "The song of Hiawatha", writer Pauline Johnson, artist Shelly Niro, and musician Robbie Robertson from The Band.