Seventies Cinema Revival: Nashville (1975)

by Tony Dayoub

"Only time I ever went hog-wild... around the bend... was for the Kennedy boys. But they were different."

In a way, Robert Altman's Nashville is a bookend to 1970's M*A*S*H, which addressed the country's misgivings about Vietnam behind the smokescreen of the Korean War and a madcap mobile surgical unit operating in Southeast Asia. While the city of Nashville is a much smaller canvas, it stands in for a more expansive concept, contemporary America at its Bicentennial. The memorable cast of characters—sycophantic lawyer Delbert Reese (Ned Beatty), womanizing folk singer Tom Frank (Keith Carradine), Napoleonic country star Haven Hamilton (Henry Gibson)—rival those of M*A*S*H in terms of eccentricities and surpass them in number. They form a microcosm of the country after the disillusionment of Watergate, the collapse of the idealism of the 60s, the assassinations that marked that era, a satirical apotheosis of all of the critiques Altman and screenwriter Ring Lardner, Jr. first lobbed at the country in M*A*S*H.

Blu-ray Review: ¡Alambrista! (1977) and Conversation Piece (Gruppo di famiglia in un interno) (1974)

by Tony Dayoub

Let's look at a couple of April Blu-ray releases that should be of interest to those who read this blog. The first is the Criterion Collection's ¡Alambrista!, directed by Robert M. Young (Dominick & Eugene). Originally a documentarian, Young didn't move into narrative filmmaking until 1977 with this film on the undocumented Mexican immigrant experience. Using realist techniques like hand-held camera-work and recording ambient audio while eschewing manipulative music cues, Young places the viewer close to Roberto (Domingo Ambriz). ¡Alambrista! follows Roberto as he makes his way from Mexico to Stockton, California and beyond in hopes of making enough of a living to support his family.

The Assassination of Sterling Hayden by the Auteur Francis Coppola

by Tony Dayoub

This morning, I was pondering the mini-movie-marathon TCM will be dedicating to one of my favorite actors, Sterling Hayden, on his birthday, March 26th. The tall, Nordic-looking blond was often relegated to heading up B-Westerns and crime stories in the '40s and '50s, like Arrow in the Dust and Suddenly, before finding a fan in director Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick first used Hayden in just that type of film, 1956's The Killing, an early genre piece that really didn’t set the box office on fire. Hayden's reputation didn't really begin to attain a certain stature until a few years later. By then, Stanley Kubrick had become Kubrick™, the reclusive, one-named auteur who’d buck the Hollywood establishment and direct Hayden in the slightly bent role of Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). This atypical, blackly comic role helped Hayden get darker, pivotal roles from many of the top auteurs who'd come after Kubrick, as they ascended in the New Hollywood's director-led artistic revolution, filmmakers like Robert Altman (The Long Goodbye), Bernardo Bertolucci (1900) and most notably, Francis Coppola. It was then, while thinking of Hayden’s role in Coppola’s The Godfather, that something wild occurred to me.

CONTINUE READING AT PRESS PLAY

American Movie(s)

by Tony Dayoub

Criterion's latest box (available on Blu-ray and DVD), America Lost and Found: The BBS Story, is a wonderfully curated set that rewards both those unfamiliar with Seventies-era American cinema and those well versed in its behind-the-scenes accounts of the near incestuous repertory company which was at its vanguard. BBS Productions was led by producer Bert Schneider, director Bob Rafelson, and former booking agent/manager Steve Blauner. As the studio system quickly faded away, and America's youth counterculture began to take hold, the independent BBS had virtual free rein from their partners at Columbia Pictures to produce films that often captured the malaise of the period, opening the door for mainstream cinema to incorporate an unprecedented realism. This freedom was earned chiefly by BBS's success with some unlikely films like the existential biker film, Easy Rider, or the elegiac The Last Picture Show.

CONTINUE READING AT NOMAD EDITIONS: WIDE SCREEN

Seventies Cinema Revival: Brewster McCloud (1970)

by Tony Dayoub

You've got to love a movie in which The Wizard of Oz's Wicked Witch, Margaret Hamilton, stops the opening credits, which then only restart on her command. Robert Altman's anarchic trifle, Brewster McCloud makes its long awaited debut on DVD Tuesday, July 13th, in an improbably nifty looking edition from the manufactured-on-demand Warner Archive label. Long one of the holy grails of many DVD collectors (I addressed its absence from DVD way back in 2008), Warner does right by the film, remastering it to just about the best I expect this forty-year-old oddity to ever look.

Seventies Cinema Revival: Walkabout (1971)

by Tony Dayoub

As I tweeted earlier this week (you may follow me on Twitter here, if you wish), Walkabout is very difficult for me to approach critically because of the personal significance it holds for me. This is the first film I remember ever seeing, a strange one to be sure. With its sexual subtext and copious nudity, it is not a film I would expect my parents would have exposed me to before, say, the typical Walt Disney cartoon. Yet, it was a different time, and my parents were liberal for even that era, the mid-seventies. How else could I explain the clear memory of Jenny Agutter's nude swim in an edenic oasis located somewhere in the Australian outback?

Seventies Cinema Revival: Le Mans (1971)

by Tony Dayoub

This is my contribution to the Steve McQueen Blog-a-thon hosted by Jason Bellamy at The Cooler.

What's amazing about Le Mans, a film which was branded as McQueen's Folly even as it was being made, is how well it still holds up today. Racing films always seem so full of cinematic potential, speed being the most attractive factor. Yet with rare exception does it ever pan out. I'm speaking strictly from a cinephilic perspective since I am not qualified to render even the most basic opinion about auto racing or even cars (so this is your opportunity to take me to task in the comments section if you have a stronger argument). But contemporary auto racing films like Days of Thunder (1990), Driven (2001), even Pixar's Cars (2006) seem to place a priority on artificially raising tension through camera placement; if one's point-of-view resides amongst the vehicles jockeying for position, then one should get the feel for what it's like to be a driver in one of these competitions. It's just a bunch of horseshit, if you ask me.

Seventies Cinema Revival: The Brood (1979)

by Tony Dayoub



Is there a more terrifying sequence in the last 40 years of cinema than the climax of David Cronenberg's chiller, The Brood? In it, Oliver Reed—that handsome rake who (according to Derek Armstrong) once received 36 stitches in the face after one of his numerous bar fights—walks into a dormitory full of sleeping, monstrous, children to help another traumatized innocent escape her captors. And as the evil little devils begin to wake up, and jump down from their bunk beds to surround Reed (Tommy), it is he who we are afraid for.

Seventies Cinema Revival: M*A*S*H (1970)

Attention. Captain Banning... er, Captain Bandini. [exhales] Attention. Captain Bandini is now performing a femoral po... a popli... a p... a femoral P-O-P-L-I-T-E-R-A-L artery exp... exp... exploration and possible graft.

-P.A. Announcer

When screenwriter Ring Lardner, Jr., another member of the blacklisted "Hollywood Ten," adapted Richard Hooker's satirical novel MASH, no one expected the film's virtually unknown director to bring anything unusual to the table. Robert Altman had been toiling in Hollywood for years on TV shows like Bonanza, and Combat! But it wasn't until he accepted an offer to direct Lardner's script that he began making his mark in cinema. Most only know of M*A*S*H from its long-running television series incarnation starring Alan Alda. Very few realize that it was originally a film directed by the now legendary director. The dark comedy is a lot zanier and looser than the comedy-drama that ran on TV. It follows the medics of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. Two of the principal protagonists, Captain "Hawkeye" Pierce (Donald Sutherland) and Capt. "Trapper" John McIntyre (Elliot Gould), lead the charge in creating madcap pranks that help ease the natural tension and monotony that can arise in the hurry-up-and-wait environment of a mobile military hospital. The objects of their comedic torture are usually straight-laced career military officers that condescend towards them or their cohorts, people like Major Frank Burns (Robert Duvall) or Maj. Margaret Houlihan (Sally Kellerman). Fans of the series who always wondered where the beloved "Hot Lips" Houlihan got her nickname would be surprised by its obscene origins as presented in the film. During a nighttime tryst with Burns, which ends up being broadcast over the P.A. by Trapper John, Houlihan is heard passionately telling Burns, "Oh, Frank, my lips are hot. Kiss my hot lips." This is but one of the taboos the film so deliciously revels in poking fun at. But surgeons Trapper John and Hawkeye are as talented in the OR as they are at busting chops. Scenes of hilarity are mashed up (pun intended) next to blood-soaked scenes of operating room carnage. Altman's aim is to demonstrate that as undignified or downright profane the doctors' antics are, all of it pales in the shadow of the war that serves as the story's backdrop. The ultra-liberal Altman hoped to comment on the war raging in Vietnam at the time of M*A*S*H's release, largely by ignoring its Korean setting in anything but a handful of references. He attains a level of realism seldom found in even dark comedies by applying techniques which would later become the director's hallmarks. Verisimilitude is achieved by having the characters step on each others dialogue the way natural conversation occurs in life. Performances (by many of Altman's repertory cast working with him here for the first time) are obviously improvised, but still directed to support the story, giving the comedy a streak of insanity that never descends into chaos. And his innovative use of the zoom in the otherwise dull-looking cinematography helps the director focus our attention on any of the multiple goings-on taking place in each densely layered scene. Tying all of the nonsense together are non-sequitur P.A. announcements reportedly transcribed verbatim from real announcements made during the Korean War. M*A*S*H is the type of film that has so much going on that one can always find something new in the margins. M*A*S*H made its debut on Blu-ray earlier this month. While most of the Special Features are direct port-overs from the original 2001 two-disc DVD, there is a great interactive guide one can play during the film to keep its voluminous cast of characters straight. Don't expect any edge enhancement because the Blu-ray is honoring Altman's original vision. The dull-edged cinematography with its hazy lighting was restored for the 2001 DVD, but it has never looked better than it does on Blu-ray. As one of the most important and beloved of American films, M*A*S*H is worth adding to your Blu-ray collection.

Seventies Cinema Revival: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

by Tony Dayoub


[This is a contribution to the Robert Wise Blog-a-thon currently running at Octopus Cinema from September 1st through the 7th.]

Almost thirty years ago, on December 7, 1979, Paramount released the long awaited Star Trek: The Motion Picture. One of the last films Robert Wise would direct, it followed the reunion of the intrepid crew of TV's starship Enterprise as they head out to confront an enormous cloud of energy threatening Earth. Once referred to as "The Motionless Picture" in Harlan Ellison's 1980 movie review for Starlog, the film was definitely a sober, more restrained version of the kaleidoscopic-paletted science fiction adventure series it was based on. But the story behind the making of the movie is full of the kind of gossip and intrigue that is the stuff of Hollywood legend.

Seventies Cinema Revival: The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is out on DVD today in a wonderfully restored digital transfer by the Criterion Collection. The story of Eddie "Fingers" (Robert Mitchum), a gun-runner for the Irish mob facing another stretch of jail time in late middle age, is based on a popular novel of the same name, by George V. Higgins, a former Assistant District Attorney. Rumored to be a roman à clef describing some of the Boston area mobsters he encountered as an ADA, Higgins' tale captures the furtiveness and paranoia that many convicts live with on a daily basis. With morally ambiguous characters in an equally shady milieu; deceptively naturalistic photography that is still elegantly composed; and the conflux of different generations of actors unique to the era of its release, the movie represents all that I love best about seventies cinema. A crew led by Eddie's friend, Scalise (Alex Rocco), is knocking off banks using guns Eddie purchases from upstart gun dealer, Jackie Brown (Steven Keats). But Eddie's distracted by an upcoming sentencing for a crime he committed based on the recommendation of another associate, Dillon (Peter Boyle). As Eddie tries to string a young cop, Dave Foley (Richard Jordan), along with information - hoping to get the cop to speak up for him in court - he spirals down a path that will ultimately box him into a corner. Director Peter Yates (Bullitt) and cinematographer Victor J. Kemper seems to be utilizing the natural light when shooting most of the movie, grounding the film in a "true crime" sort of aesthetic. But this film is a noir if I've ever seen one. With Eddie desperately running out of time as the sentencing approaches, look at the shot above and how it is framed. Eddie is flanked by bars on one side, and the autumn landscape on the other, both reminders of the dilemma he faces. Cop Foley may be in the same shot, but he is separated from Eddie by the clear line of demarcation where the bars meet the wall behind him, demonstrating Foley's detached attitude towards Eddie's predicament. Jordan's Foley is just as seedy as the snitches he often deals with. Jordan (Logan's Run) was a dynamic young actor able to hold his own with screen heavyweight Mitchum. They would soon work together again in Sydney Pollack's The Yakuza (1974). But the casting of these actors, along with Boyle and Rocco, highlight the flashpoint that was the seventies, a moment in time when one could have talented new up-and-comers like Jordan paired with veterans like Mitchum, with stalwart character actors backing them up. Rocco had already famously appeared in another seventies film that benefited from the same approach to casting. In The Godfather (1972), he played the part of Moe Greene alongside a cast of rising thespians, led by Al Pacino, which competed with veterans, like Marlon Brando and Sterling Hayden, for the audience's attention. The conflicting acting styles, the younger generation's Method versus the older generation's classic stagecraft, with the character actors at their most naturalistic, created a verisimilitude that was characteristic of seventies American cinema. Coyle's conclusion displays a certain symmetry that is rarely attempted in today's films. As Eddie tries to run a shell game on the cop, playing confidential informant only insofar that it gets him a get out of jail free card, he has no guilt over making his competition, gun dealer Jackie Brown, the fall guy in the situation. Little does Eddie know that another of Foley's far more experienced informants has the same in mind for him.

Seventies Cinema Revival: The French Connection

by Tony Dayoub

One of the great, iconic films of the 1970s, The French Connection (1971), finally makes it debut on Blu-ray this week with a little bit of controversy. But this does not change the impact the film still has today. A gritty, realistic look at all angles of a huge heroin deal by its then young film director William Friedkin, it also made a star out of its lead actor, Gene Hackman. It also went a long way towards romanticizing the seamy underbelly of New York City.

 

New York crime films became a staple of seventies cinema due in no small part to films like Gordon Parks' Shaft (1971) and The French Connection. Movies like Across 110th Street (1972), Serpico (1973), The Seven-Ups (1973), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), and Dog Day Afternoon (1975) were all subsequently inspired to employ the washed out color and grainy look of fast film stock that was so often utilized by documentarians for its flexibility in shooting in low-light situations. The jittery hand-held camera in such films signalled a "spontaneous" stolen shot and an immediacy that was rare before Friedkin's film. And the littered streets of New York's backalleys were often spotlighted, rather than glossed over, in an effort to heighten the raw intensity of the docu-inspired dramas.

New York City cops Eddie Egan (pictured, above) and Sonny Grosso had participated in just such a takedown of a heroin smuggling ring a decade earlier, with much the same outcome; the alleged kingpin got away with the crime. But it was still the largest drug arrest of its time. And Egan and Grosso were exciting personalities to base a film on. Egan was a bigoted hothead with a cagey way of throwing his perps off by interrogating them about an incident unrelated to their arrest, "Ever pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?" Grosso was a methodical cynic who helped rein his partner in. Egan harbored the ambition that actor Rod Taylor would play him in the cinematic adaptation of their story. So, as Grosso recounts in a documentary on the Blu-ray, he was very surprised when he was introduced to the mild-mannered man who would ultimately win the role of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle (based on Egan), Gene Hackman.

As Hackman tells it, even he wasn't sure he could sell the crude facets of Egan's personality. Doyle is a cop with no personal life, save for a predilection for women that might be too young for him. He's an alcoholic, frequently waking up from a bender; in one scene, cuffed to his own bed by a young woman he picked up off the street. In a warning to his partner, Buddy "Cloudy" Russo (Roy Scheider), his deep-seated racism is more than evident:

Doyle: You dumb guinea. 

Russo: How the hell was I supposed to know he had a knife? 

Doyle: Never trust a n****r. 

Russo: He could have been white. 

Doyle: Never trust anyone!

But he does have an instinct and drive that suits the case that falls on his lap, a drug deal involving a supplier from Marseilles, Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey). Together with his partner, he relentlessly tracks all angles of the case, even on his off-hours, to the point of obsession and exhaustion. This obsession ultimately endangers anyone - cops, innocents - that get between him and his quarry.

Hackman gives us a nuanced take on what, according to Grosso, was the emotionally one-note Egan. Rather than play the constant intensity of the type-A cop, the actor instead leavens it with a world-weariness that humanizes the driven supercop. The dynamism in his performance makes it even more chilling when Doyle is able to spring into action after an exhausting night, as a sniper tries assassinating him on his way home. This leads to a nerve-wracking chase in which Doyle drives a car recklessly in pursuit of an elevated train.

Credit Friedkin for that inspired setpiece, which he hyperbolically insists that he shot from inside the car himself, an assertion disputed by the film's cinematographer, Owen Roizman, in a recent interview with Aaron Aradillas on Back by Midnight. He also admits to daring his stunt driver, Bill Hickman, to drive the car (with only a siren on top to warn oncoming traffic) as fast as possible even though no permits were secured to close off the street for the shoot. The driven Friedkin obviously saw a kindred spirit in Egan (and the character of Doyle). The manipulative director, by his own admission, was prone to yelling at Hackman in order to keep him in a constant state of stress. The results are on the screen, though. The French Connection wound up winning Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, Best Film Editing, and Best Adapted Screenplay.

While much of the controversy concerning Blu-rays of older films has to do with the elimination of grain in the film, the debate over this one is over the opposite. As Friedkin illustrates in a documentary on the disc, he has color-timed this new addition by starting with a sharper, grainier black and white base element and slowly bled in a little color. As Glenn Kenny observes in a recent posting, ironically titled What hath Friedkin wrought? , "...considerations of cinematic ethics aside, Friedkin's re-visioning of the picture really is a radical one." While I agree with him that a copy of the original iteration should have been included in the Blu-ray, especially for archival purposes in what is probably an "ultimate" edition, I am not averse to the film's new look. Essentially, the blacks are darker, the film grainier, and the color less intense, all qualities that enhance the look he was aiming for in his movie originally. And the change is nowhere near as eviscerating as what he did to The Exorcist(1973) in his "Version You've Never Seen" (2000). Great new documentaries shot with Friedkin at the original locations make this Blu-ray worth purchasing (one dedicated to Scheider, who died last year, is sorely missed), and for those wedded to the film's original look, make sure you don't throw away the original DVD.

Update 3/3: Among other things, director William Friedkin responds to Roizman's opinion on the new Blu-ray, and critic Glenn Kenny gives his take on the debate, on this week's Back by Midnight.

The French Connection and French Connection II are both available this week on Blu-ray disc. Stills provided courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment.

Seventies Cinema Revival: The Godfather Part II

It may be bold to say this, but I believe The Godfather Part II (1974) to be the best American narrative film ever made. Even among its fans, many prefer the first film. But I would hasten to point out that without the second film, The Godfather (1972) is simply a well-cast genre picture. Part II's double-pronged storyline, with Robert De Niro playing Vito Corleone in his early days, and Al Pacino continuing his portrayal of son Michael, enriches and adds complexity to the story begun in the first film. Director Francis Ford Coppola, who cowrote the screenplay, fleshes out the family's travails by bringing his own experience as an Italian American to Mario Puzo's original story. His deft ability to enhance the Corleone saga with actual historical events further frames the saga as the ultimate immigrant's tale, and adds a distinctly jaded viewpoint to what it means to be an American. Thus the film, released in the Watergate era, the height of Americans' disillusionment with their country, is both timeless and of its time. The film begins in the 1900s, with a young and near-mute Vito Andolini, of the town of Corleone, Sicily, taking flight to America after his family has been slaughtered by local Mafia chieftain, Don Ciccio. In Ellis Island, the boy is mistakenly renamed Vito Corleone, becoming first in the family line in a symbolic sense. The story then jumps to the late fifties, where his son, Michael, happily married to Kay (Diane Keaton), has moved the family to Lake Tahoe, a place he hopes will serve as the jumping point for his goal of achieving legitimacy for his family. Coppola consciously parallels events in the first film to highlight the differences between the father and son. For instance, while we meet Vito, in the first film, urgently conducting Family business in order to enjoy his daughter's wedding, in the second film, Michael is eagerly exploiting his son's communion celebration to establish political ties with the powerful Senator Geary (G.D. Spradlin). Though Vito is quick to consider the price he pays after his eldest son is murdered, calling for a truce, Michael seeks to incite infighting within his ranks, and mentor Hyman Roth's (Lee Strasberg), in order to pick through the remains and consolidate his power in the aftermath. Coppola also highlights the difference between Vito and Michael as he segues between the respective storyline for each. Vito is warm, and generally holds court with his caporegimes, Clemenza (Bruno Kirby) and Tessio (John Aprea), at his kitchen table with his wife nearby. The increasingly distant and paranoid Michael conspires, sitting as if on a throne in a darkened den at the family compound, with only his closest bodyguards, Al Neri (Richard Bright) and Rocco (Tom Rosqui), present. Kay is never privy to his dealings, and often times even the consigliere, adopted brother Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) is left out of the loop. Vito's primary concern is always the protection of his family and his neighbors, as when he eliminates the neighborhood extortionist, Don Fanucci (Gaston Moschin), in this exciting setpiece that precedes the film's intermission: Michael's desire to protect his family is supplanted by his capitalistic desire to acquire power and control, vanquishing all of his enemies in the process, even if it may include his own misguided brother, Fredo (John Cazale). Coldly setting a calculated series of traps to ferret out the person in his Family who is supplying Roth with inside information, it is only on the eve of Castro's revolutionary victory in Cuba, New Year's Eve 1958, that Michael discovers who it is: After the intermission, Michael becomes embroiled in scandal, as a Senate committee starts to investigate his dealings with organized crime. He is ultimately exonerated, but his alienation from his family accelerates with the one-two-punch of Kay's request for a divorce followed by her revelation that she had an abortion. After the additional blow of his mother's death, which serves to bring his sister Connie (Talia Shire) back into the fold, the stage is set for Michael to retaliate against Fredo. Contrast that personal vendetta that propels Michael into ruthless solitude, with the one that Vito must exact to become the Corleone patriarch. Where Michael's fratricide dehumanizes him, leaving him a deteriorating husk of a man by the end of Part II, Vito's revenge on Don Ciccio is depicted as a necessary archetypal rite of passage. Vito must assassinate the man who murdered his father to truly become a man. By killing the patriarch that rules over the town of Corleone, Vito solidifies his ascension as patriarch of the Corleone family. It is said that Puzo, author of the novel on which the two films are based, said that if he knew both films would be so popular, he would have written a better novel. A lot of credit for the story's enhancement belongs to Coppola. A second generation Italian American, Coppola directed the first film as a gun-for-hire, but was sure to bring enough personal touches to give the film credibility. A pretty faithful adaptation, his influence was strongest in its strong casting of what were, until then, predominantly character actors. Choosing a decidedly ethnic looking Pacino to play the All-American boy was his coup-de-grâce. The Godfather Part II validates Coppola's instinctive auteurial talents. He was able to again cast an ethnic looking up-and-comer in a pivotal role by choosing the gifted De Niro for Vito. He was able to exercise greater artistic freedom by using a nontraditional story structure, and a roman-à-clef bent on historical events, to give texture to the story, deepening what was a commercially successful gangster story into a mythic family crime saga about power in America. For Vito, the story ends here, when we realize that the greatest price he paid is one which he won't live to see: the ironic alienation of his youngest son Michael from his precious family, the loss of his very soul, as the sins of the father visit the son. At the conclusion of The Godfather Part II, as he exacts revenge on all of his enemies, the diseased Michael looks significantly older than his years. Michael then recalls a simpler time that devastatingly foreshadows his fate in regards to his family, with his father's presence hanging over the scene like a ghost's: For more on the Godfather films, see: Seventies Cinema Revival: The Godfather DVD Review: The Godfather Part III - Operatic Film Deserving of Reappraisal Stills courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Seventies Cinema Revival: The Godfather

Last month, I had the opportunity to catch screenings of the newly restored prints of The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather Part II (1974) at the Film Forum in New York. These versions have been released on DVD and Blu-ray along with the unfairly maligned Godfather Part III (1990) in a boxed set, "The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration." If there has ever been a reason to justify upgrading to a Blu-ray player, it is the release of this classic saga in that format. I don't think the films have ever looked this good on home video. I certainly can't compare it to the original theatrical release because I was a newborn at the time of the first movie's debut. But seeing the first two parts both theatrically and at home, I can assure you, has been revelatory. While these films have been covered extensively in film journals and elsewhere in the past, I plan on sharing some of my impressions of each movie in the next three posts, and invite you to share yours. One of the most fascinating and unusual effects of art is how its meaning can differ based on the relative life experience one brings to it (there's a name for this effect and I can't quite find it, so any readers who know this please let me know). In film, it can be observed in oneself in relation to the passage of time. A film like The Godfather is one which can mean something when you are younger, then mean something very different when you are older. As a relatively new father, one of the specific chords the film strikes in me is found in the complicated relationship between the old family patriarch, Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando), and his unexpected successor, youngest son, Michael (Al Pacino). Don Vito is the chieftain of the Corleone Mafia Family, a role we'll later learn (in Part II) he fell into as a matter of survival in the days when new Italian immigrants had few viable options in their quest to succeed in America. He always expected his oldest son, Santino (James Caan), to be his successor, but midway through The Godfather, Sonny is mowed down by the Family's criminal rivals. Middle son Fredo (John Cazale) is too dim-witted to be considered as an alternate. And tradition precludes "adopted" brother, Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall), the shrewd Family consigliere or lawyer, from taking the post. So when the fading Don starts firming up his legacy, the burden falls on the only son he never hoped would be involved in the nefarious enterprise, war hero Michael. By all outward appearances, Michael is the All-American son in the immigrant family, an outsider. When we first meet him, it is 1945 and he has just returned from the War. He is attending the wedding of his sister, Connie (Talia Shire), with WASPy girlfriend Kay (Diane Keaton), clad in red as if further underlining her inherent incongruity. It is telling that they are not part of the wedding party, and sit apart from the rest of the Corleone family. But Michael only seems to live outside his family's violent sphere of influence. It soon becomes clear that he is not oblivious to the family's notoriety. Describing an associate of his father's, Luca Brasi (Lenny Montana), to Kay while hearing a singer at the wedding:

Kay Adams: Michael, you never told me you knew Johnny Fontane! Michael: Sure, you want to meet him? Kay Adams: Well, yeah! Sure. Michael: My father helped him with his career. Kay Adams: How did he do that? Michael: Let's listen to the song. Kay Adams: [after listening to Johnny for a while] Tell me, Michael. Please. Michael: Well when Johnny was first starting out, he was signed to a personal services contract with this big-band leader. And as his career got better and better he wanted to get out of it. But the band leader wouldn't let him. Now, Johnny is my father's godson. So my father went to see this bandleader and offered him $10,000 to let Johnny go, but the bandleader said no. So the next day, my father went back, only this time with Luca Brasi. Within an hour, he had a signed release for a certified check of $1000. Kay Adams: How did he do that? Michael: My father made him an offer he couldn't refuse. Kay Adams: What was that? Michael: Luca Brasi held a gun to the bandleader's head, and my father assured him that either his signature or his brains would be on the release. Kay Adams: ... Michael: That's a true story. [cut to Johnny singing again for about 10 more seconds before going back to Michael] Michael: That's my family Kay, that's not me.

Michael's war medals also emphasize that given the right circumstances he is prepared to kill. After his father is gunned down, and with Sonny's hotheaded and ill-advised retaliations threatening the family's survival, Michael is forced to confront that he may be the last best hope for the family, and tangentially, the Family. Michael's life takes a turn when he commits to the execution of Sollozo (Al Lettieri), the man responsible for his father's attempted murder. This event leads to Michael's exile to Sicily, where fate intervenes in so many ways that he never expected. He falls in love with, and marries a local, Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli), who eventually falls victim to the Mafia war his execution of Solozzo precipitated. His brother Sonny is also executed in the States while Michael is away. The man that returns from exile is devoid of any warmth, a coldly calculating pragmatist, eager to eliminate any and all who stand in his family's way. This conversation with his father illustrates the divergent paths each patriarch has taken. Vito's motivation has been protecting his family. The death of his eldest, Sonny, coupled with Michael's increasing involvement with the Family business, drive Vito to the realization that attaining power does not afford control over his family's safety. In fact, it lays the seed for the ultimate destruction of the Corleones.

Don Corleone: So, Barzini will move against you first. He'll set up a meeting with someone that you absolutely trust guaranteeing your safety and at that meeting you'll be assassinated. I like to drink wine more than I used to. Anyway, I'm drinking more. Michael: It's good for you, Pop. Don Corleone: Ah, I don't know. Your wife and your children, are you happy with them? Michael: Very happy. Don Corleone: That's good. I hope you don't mind the way I keep going over this Barzini business. Michael: No, not at all. Don Corleone: It's an old habit. I spent my life trying not to be careless. Women and children can be careless but not men. How's your boy? Michael: He's good. Don Corleone: You know, he looks more like you everyday. Michael: He's smarter than I am. Three years old and he can already read the funny papers. Don Corleone: [laughs] Read the funny papers... Oh, I want you to arrange to have a telephone man check all the calls going in and out of here because it could be anyone... Michael: I did that already, Pop. I took care of that. Don Corleone: Oh, that's right, I forgot. Michael: What's the matter? What's bothering you? I'll handle it. I told you I can handle it, I'll handle it. Don Corleone: I knew Santino was going to have to go through all this and Fredo... well, Fredo was... But I never wanted this for you. I live my life, I don't apologize to take care of my family. And I refused to be a fool dancing on the strings held by all of those big shots. That's my life I don't apologize for that. But I always thought that when it was your time that you would be the one to hold the strings. Senator Corleone. Governor Corleone. Something. Michael: I'm not a pezzonovante. Don Corleone: Well, there wasn't enough time, Michael. There just wasn't enough time. Michael: We'll get there, Pop. We'll get there.

Michael's mistake is in modeling himself after his father in order to achieve the results Vito couldn't. Believing in the false notion that he has lost enough to stay detached in the grand chess game he is playing, Michael does not foresee how history will repeat itself, and may even exact a higher price from him than it did from his father. The climax of The Godfather has Michael consolidating his power after Vito's death facilitates his ascendancy to the Corleone throne. In the last line of Michael's earlier exchange with Kay lies the crux of Michael's identity. It is the question that hangs over all three films. Many have made the assumption that it is answered by the end of Part II, but I would offer that the first two films simply show us the similarities and differences between father and son, Vito and Michael. Part II finishes the first patriarch's story, emphasizing the final price that Vito's life of crime exacts on his family, and more specifically, his son Michael. Michael's story is not concluded until we see the retribution destiny has in store for him in Part III. For more on the Godfather films, see: Seventies Cinema Revival: The Godfather Part II DVD Review: The Godfather Part III - Operatic Film Deserving of Reappraisal Stills courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Seventies Cinema Revival: The Boys From Brazil

by Tony Dayoub



Ira Levin, author of such high concept novels as Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives gave us an interesting bit of science fiction with his novel The Boys From Brazil. The 1978 film adaptation attracted no small amount of talent. Starring film greats Sir Laurence Olivier (Wuthering Heights) and Gregory Peck (To Kill a Mockingbird), and directed by the once great Franklin J. Schaffner (Patton), the film is a guilty pleasure that has stood up surprisingly well thirty years later.



A frail looking Olivier, who had only two years prior played a sadistic Nazi torturer in The Marathon Man, now plays a Simon Wiesenthal-like Nazi hunter named Ezra Lieberman. Tipped off by young Barry Kohler (Steve Guttenberg in a very early role) that the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele (Peck) is alive and well in South America, Lieberman chooses to dismiss the man as a crank. For Lieberman, this is not new information. But when Kohler disappears after uncovering a meeting between Mengele and some of Hitler's top officers (one played by James Mason), he decides to investigate. Starting from Kohler's preposterous premise, that Mengele and his associates plan to assassinate 94 civil servants throughout Europe and North America, Lieberman goes on to discover a much more frightening conspiracy.


Mengele has implemented a plan, years in its formulation, to create another Hitler. Through cloning, and attempts at duplicating the Nazi leader's family environment (hence the assassination plans, since Hitler's civil servant father died when he was only 13), Mengele hopes at least one of the offspring will become the Führer of a Fourth Reich.


Lieberman starts grasping what is occurring at a gut level. This after he visits two unrelated women (played by Rosemary Harris - of Spider-Man fame - and Anne Meara - Ben Stiller's mom), in different parts of the world, whose husbands met an untimely death, and finding that their sons (Jeremy Black in multiple roles) look identical, while bearing a strong resemblance to Hitler himself.

Levin based his novel on extrapolations he made of some facts regarding Mengele, for example, his fondness for hideous experiments with children, particularly twins, during his tenure as Chief Medical Officer in Auschwitz, where he was known as the "Angel of Death". Another example was the plot point based on rumor that Mengele was hiding in South America, a rumor later proven to be true when Mengele died in Brazil in 1979.

Schaffner brings the same epic yet gritty flavor to the movie that he was known for in films like The War Lord (1965), Patton (1970), and Papillon (1973). Like in Papillon, which starred two film giants, Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, he benefits here from the tension created between Olivier and Peck. One feels the world turning topsy-turvy in Brazil just as it did in Schaffner's earlier sci-fi classic, Planet of the Apes (1968). Add to that, a wonderful score from Jerry Goldsmith, who collaborated with him so successfully in Apes, and you've got a thriller that flirts with, but never falls into parody. Listen to the score:



Peck is especially impressive as a black-hearted villain that so perfectly embodies the basest evil found in humanity. Well-known for his ability to portray decent human beings such as Mockingbird's Atticus Finch, Peck brings a particular exuberance at the chance to play such a role reversal from the parts he's been known for in the past. His ferocity is on display in the final confrontation between Lieberman and Mengele. Anyone who thinks you can't have a suspenseful fight scene between two elderly men has not seen this film. Olivier and Peck grapple on the floor while barking dobermans surround them, ready to attack the fight's victor. But Peck's vicious streak is most evident in the scene where he attacks a crony at a Nazi banquet, for failing to assassinate one of the men he's been assigned to. When the henchman's wife starts wailing in fear, Mengele growls, "Shut up, you ugly bitch!"


With other notable actors such as the legendary Uta Hagen (she taught both Pacino AND De Niro), Denholm Elliott (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Prunella Scales (Fawlty Towers), and Michael Gough (Batman), the film should be of interest to young performers.

At the Oscars, Olivier was nominated for Best Actor, Goldsmith for Original Music Score, and Robert Swink for Film Editing (the 123 minute film moves at a brisk pace).

A remake by New Line Cinema, to be directed by Brett Ratner (Rush Hour), was in the works for 2009, but with New Line folded into Warner Bros., the production is now in question.

Seventies Cinema Revival: McCabe & Mrs. Miller

by Tony Dayoub

Perhaps it was the disillusionment with Vietnam, or the revolutionary assault of American society by it's younger generation that led to the marked change in film from the sixties into the seventies. One thing is certain, westerns had up until then been the dominant genre in American film. And as the realities of the civil rights movement, anti-war movement, and feminism started encroaching on our lives, movie audiences started turning their back on these, and other "fantasies" that existed in American film.

Musicals were dying at the box office... just look at Doctor Dolittle (1967) as Mark Harris discusses in his excellent book, Pictures at a Revolution. War movies were becoming less Dmytryk's Back to Bataan (1945), and more Boorman's Hell in the Pacific (1968). Even John Ford was redefining his own depiction of Native Americans with the extremely sympathetic take in Cheyenne Autumn (1964), his last western. With Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah now becoming the torchbearers of the genre, cowboys were taking on a distinctly antiheroic role. The time had come for an outsider, like Robert Altman, to subvert the western, which he did in McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971).

Altman was by no means a young novice when he hit it big with M*A*S*H (1970). Already well into his forties, he had made a few less than notable movies like Countdown (1968). And like Peckinpah, he had been a prolific TV director, having directed some of the popular shows of the day, like Route 66, Combat! and Bonanza. But M*A*S*H was the first indication that he was destined for more than the journeyman directing he had done thus far. Ostensibly about the Korean War, Altman admitted that the reason it was such a hit was because it really spoke of Vietnam at a time when few other films were. And while it had many of his hallmarks, like the overlapping dialogue, ensemble cast, and naturalistic approach to shooting, his unique style arguably didn't solidify until McCabe.


The film opens to the haunting sound of Leonard Cohen singing "The Stranger Song" as a man enters frame left riding a mule in the constant drizzle of an unmistakeably northwestern town called Presbyterian Church. It is a mining town slowly drifting into modernity with the building of a church. The man enters Sheehan's, a bar where he sets up a game of poker, introducing himself as John McCabe (Warren Beatty). When the proprietor, Paddy Sheehan (Rene Auberjonois), asks him if he's "Pudgy" McCabe, the man who shot down Bill Roundtree with a Deringer, McCabe doesn't deny it. He just grins as Altman zooms into his gold-toothed smile.

As the myth of McCabe the gunfighter starts spreading, he starts to promote a new enterprise, a prostitution camp. Attracted to the new endeavor, Mrs. Constance Miller (Julie Christie), an opium-addicted madam, arrives in town. Mrs. Miller is the only one to see through McCabe's phony facade to the hard-drinking, charming con-man hidden beneath. She bids to go into business with McCabe to turn the camp into a luxurious brothel. The establishment of the brothel, and the church, accelerates the town's development, bringing both the God-fearing and the corrupt together to form a community.

Soon, the Harrison Shaugnessy Company, in the form of a man named Sears (Michael Murphy), comes calling on McCabe to buy his business. McCabe's response, "Well, Sears, I'm Roebuck. Who'd you leave minding the goddamn store?" McCabe's folksy humor falls on deaf ears, as does his haggling for a greater bid when Sears shows interest in buying McCabe out. Sears leaves, and his company sends out three hired gunmen, a British giant named Butler (Hugh Millais), a kid, and an Indian half-breed, to kill the brothel owner.

When Sheehan tells Butler how McCabe is really the outlaw "Pudgy" McCabe, Butler says, "That man never killed anyone in is life." But as he trudges through the snow, hunted by the gunmen, McCabe has an ace up his sleeve that brings that denial into question, a Deringer pistol.

Altman spends the first hour of the film setting up the house of cards on which McCabe, and Presbyterian Church, is built on. The legend of McCabe is given a lot of credence in the iconic style used to shoot his entry into town. Vilmos Zsigmond's then innovative soft focus cinematography creates a warm, nostalgic, almost historic mood. The haunting Cohen folk songs, heard throughout, serve the same mystical function as a Greek chorus, commenting on the tale and enhancing its archetypal relevance to traditional myths. The silence McCabe adopts when interrogated about Bill Roundtree plays into our expectations of western outlaws and their stoicism when referring to killing.


But once Sears and his company appear, the film shifts into a second hour where Altman explodes the western myth. The outlaw hero, McCabe, is visibly shaken by the quiet departure of Sears. The sun-dappled greenery of the northwest turns into a bleak snowy landscape. When questioned about a gun he carries, an innocent young cowboy (Keith Carradine) explains how he wears it mostly for show, and doesn't know how to shoot it. Goaded into unholstering the gun by one of the hired guns, he is brutally murdered while atop a bridge, falling into icy water, and demolishing the cliche of the honorable gunfight on a dusty street.

Altman's style is never more evident than in this film. His penchant for naturalism comes to the fore in this film, which was shot chronologically as the town was erected. The early scenes are abundant with overlapping dialogue, designed to confuse one's opinion of McCabe. But as his backstory becomes clear, so does the soundtrack, until almost the only sound heard in the climactic 20 minutes is that of snow falling. The cast consists of several actors that had been or would become part of his repertory, including Auberjonois, Murphy, Carradine, John Schuck, Bert Remsen, and Shelley Duvall. And like in M*A*S*H, he uses the setting to reflect his personal views, here the formation of a society.

Altman acknowledges the unimpressive plot in his commentary for the film's DVD. A stranger comes into town and gets together with the hooker-with-the-heart-of-gold to defend the town from a gunslinging kid, a giant, and a half-breed. But he isn't as interested in the cliche plot as he is in what fuels each character's motivation. He is cognizant that societys evolve much the same way the town does in this film, through the push and pull of conflicting moral extremes, as represented by the church and the brothel. Big business generally comes in once the pioneering has been done by the little man, and may sometimes use unethical means to push him out.

Despite just an average box office gross at the time of its release, McCabe & Mrs. Miller has become a cult favorite. It's influence can still be felt today in films as recent as Michael Winterbottom's The Claim (2000) and Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood (2007).

This entry first appeared on Blogcritics on 9/7/08.