Film Scratches

born to run

2006-08-16T20:54:00.000-06:00

It is possible for an album to be cinematic. Bruce Springsteen's immortal Born to Run is proof of it. Here are the final lines of the epic Jungleland:

"Outside the street's on fire
In a real death waltz
Between what's flesh and what's fantasy
And the poet's down here don't write nothin' at all
They just stand back and let it all be
And in the quick of a knife
They reach for their moment
And try to make an honest stand
But they wind up wounded
Not even dead
Tonight in Jungleland"

It is poetry. The poetry of New Jersey. It is poetry for all of us who grew up thinking we had to make excuses. Bruce articulated our dreams, our struggles - the issues we still struggle with - identity, freedom, self-respect. And his poetry spawned indelible images - Mary's dress, Bad Scooter, Eddie and Cherry, The Magic Rat. It could have been a movie, the images had that much life; the music reached that far into your soul.

I can picture them all in my head, so vividly that I would never want anyone else to create images that might interfere with the ones I've carried in my imagination for thirty years. This is a love affair that non-Jerseyites may never understand. Bruce redeemed us. And he redeemed us in 40 sublime minutes. Words fail me. I cannot thank him enough for making my reality operatic. It may have been that he was only freeing himself from the confines of Freehold, but in doing so, he freed us all.

cleopatra

2006-07-28T20:27:00.000-06:00

Cleopatra: the four-plus hour epic of epics, famous and infamous for any number of reasons. The first film Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton made together, it sparked the dramatic love affair that spanned two marriages and divorces, effectively lasting until Burton's death.

I admit I have never watched the film all the way through. Last night, I did see more of it in one sitting than I ever have. I had the most fun watching many of the actors chew the scenery in spectacular fashion. Particularly notable was Roddy McDowall as Octavian. Watch his address to the Roman senate and see if you aren't frozen between laughter and admiration as I was. Burton has some hyper-melodramatic moments as Marc Antony, and 'ole Liz herself has a fantastic scene where she screams, throws things and shreds clothing after she's learned that Antony has married another woman.

The film may be a dubious artistic achievement, but it endures because of its fortuitous casting. Joan Collins was originally slated to play Cleopatra. It wouldn't have been any more than a b-movie if she had been available. The most modulated performances come from a trio of fine actors: Rex Harrison as Julius Caeser; Martin Landau as Rufio; and Hume Cronyn as Sosigenes. Burton took the place of Stephen Boyd, an actor who is mostly forgotten today. And to say that anyone chewed the scenery is, in reality, quite a compliment. It is some of the most imposing, lavish and detailed set dressing in the history of Hollywood.

There were also the thousands of extras, a record (on film) of 65 costume changes for Ms. Taylor, and the requisite directorial changes. Rouben Mamoulian began the film, to be replaced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. He was fired, then brought back when, during editing, the studio realized he was the only one who knew how the film fit together.

In Hollywood, maybe what endures most of all is the drama of bringing a film to the screen.

gentlemen prefer blondes quote

2006-07-28T20:19:00.000-06:00

The scene: Nightclub singers Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) and Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) are boarding the Ile de France to sail to Europe. Lorelei has just become engaged to Gus Esmond (Tommy Noonan). Dorothy is expected to protect Lorelei's virtue during the trans-altlantic crossing.

As they board the ship, Dorothy heartily admires a group of Olympic athletes.

Gus: Dorothy Shaw, you're supposed to be the chaperone on the trip!
Dorothy: Now let's get one thing straight, Gus: The chaperone's job is to make sure nobody else has any fun. But nobody chaperone's the chaperone. That's why I'm so right for this job.

connections

2006-07-25T14:39:00.000-06:00

Last night, I needed a Turner Classic Movies fix. After a nearly a week's vacation sans television of any kind, I was jonesing for a little of the good stuff. As I switched it on, the opening credits of the original 1942 version of To Be or Not to Be were running. I was both delighted and disappointed; a comedic gem with which to re-immerse myself in classic Hollywood accompanied by traveler's exhaustion that wasn't going to allow for a full viewing.

As To Be or Not to Be begins, the viewer believes they are watching a scene set in a Gestapo office. After "Heil Hitler's" are generously bandied about the fuhrer himself enters - whereupon he says, "Heil myself." At that moment, the camera pulls back to reveal a cast of ham actors arrayed on a stage, while the director rushes up to "Hitler" demanding to know why he ad-libbed the line. It's funny for a number of reasons, not least of which is the hilarious exchange between the actor and director as they argue about the actor's questionably creative addition to the script.

"Heil myself." It immediately echoed in my brain. I scanned my memory of Mel Brooks' 1983 version of To Be or Not to Be, but I couldn't immediately remember if the line was used (the remake featured much of the original script). Then it dawned on me - Brooks did use "Heil myself" years earlier, in The Producers. As uttered by the incomparable Dick Shawn as Lorenzo St. DuBois, playing Hitler, it seemed an inspired moment of lunacy. Now I knew, in an instant, that it was an inspiration of a different order.

With two words, Mel Brooks paid homage not only to Ernst Lubitsch, the German expatriate director of the 1942 To Be or Not to Be but also to screenwriter Edwin Justus Mayer, and star Jack Benny. They were the first to satirize Hitler and The Third Reich on film; Brooks' The Producers takes that satire to untested heights. What should be both bad and patently offensive - a musical about the Third Reich starring a hippie Hitler - is, instead, a huge hit.

"Heil myself." Two words that sum up one man's evil ego yet leave a smile on your face. Two words that symbolize for me the labrynth of connections that are a continual source of fascination. Two words that justify the repeated viewings that eventually reveal such insights.

the beautiful people

2006-07-14T19:46:00.000-06:00

1958's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - have two more beautiful people ever shared the same screen?

Sorry, but Brangelina just don't cut it up against Taylor and Newman.

But then again, these two might:

gone with the wind

2006-07-12T17:15:00.000-06:00

Gone With the Wind has been an obsession within an obsession since I was twelve years old. I did read the book first. It seemed like a Harlequin Romance on 'roids, and I was quite a fan of that achingly formulaic series of books in my early adolescence, gorging myself on sad fantasies of romantic rescue. GWTW turned out to be something more than a bit of fluff; it was a grand, sweeping historical romance with a compelling cast of characters and a backdrop of societal upheaval.

Then I saw the film. I was a goner. Transfixed for nearly four hours, I felt as though the filmmakers had projected the images from my head directly to the screen. Producer David O. Selznick may have been a manic micro-manager, but it cannot be denied that he oversaw the creation of an immortal piece of film art. It was, ultimately, his vision and drive that guided the production through three directors, endless script changes, unhappy actors and a dangerously overblown budget.

So fascinated was I by GWTW that I needed to get beneath the surface and beyond the artifice. I wanted to smell the stale smoke and sour alcohol of the scriptwriter's room. I wanted to see the original sketches for set design. I wanted to read some of Selznick's legendarily voluminous memos. And I did. I scraped together babysitting money to buy books, and more books. They were a gift to myself not only because I learned nearly everything there was to know about GWTW - from the purchase of the book rights all the way through subsequent re-releases and restorations - but also because I gained an appreciation of every aspect of the filmmaker's art. I now understood that a film was the product of many fertile minds, many dextrous hands.

After I had thoroughly blown the lid off Pandora's Box, after I had learned the unlovely truths and seen the egotism and madness involved in the creation of Gone With the Wind, I treasured the sublime illusion of it all the more. What ended up on the screen was - and is - magical in spite of the fact that there's nothing magical about making movies.

bogie and oscar

2006-06-26T16:46:00.000-06:00

Humphrey Bogart won his only Best Actor Oscar for his performance in The African Queen. After re-watching the film the other night I couldn't help thinking it was almost a shame. I've always felt he was a bit 'hammy' in the role of Charlie Allnut. It is a fine performance but doesn't nearly match the subtlety and power of his portrayal of Rick Blaine in Casablanca (for which he was also nominated, but lost to Paul Lukas in Watch on the Rhine).

What is more stunning is that Bogie was nominated only once more - in 1954 for his masterful performance as Lieutenant Queeg in The Caine Mutiny. He lost to Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront. Such were the embarrasment of riches in the Best Actor category that year. Ironically enough, when Bogart won in 1952 for The African Queen, he had bested Brando's definitive portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. One could call Brando's '54 award payback if it were not one of the most inarguable outcomes in Academy Award history. I could even go so far as to speculate that Bogart got the nod in '52 because Academy members were atoning for passing him over for Casablanca. Likelier still, the notoriously conservative Academy was suspicious both of Brando's "Hollywood newcomer" status when he made Streetcar and his technique of of Method Acting, which was still confined almost exclusively to the stage. Though since BAFTA also awarded Bogie a Best Actor for The African Queen, maybe I doth protest too much.

Were I handing out Oscars, I surely would have added Key Largo and The Big Sleep to the films for which Bogart was recognized.

quote

2006-06-26T16:34:00.000-06:00

"Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars."

--Charlotte Vale (Bette Davis) at the close of Now, Voyager

the why and wherefore

2006-06-20T19:52:00.000-06:00

When did it all begin? When did I stumble into this passionate love of film? It goes back nearly as far as I can remember - rainy Saturday afternoons watching Chiller Theater, Sundays with Abbott and Costello, whizzing through my homework so I could catch the 4:30 Movie with its themed weeks: Edgar Allen Poe week, featuring those deliciously lurid Vincent Price/American International horror flicks; Godzilla week, always capped spectacularly by Destroy All Monsters, the Superbowl of nuke-mutated giant creature battles; Gidget week, from which I learned, above all, that I did not want to be Gidget. There was also The Million Dollar movie, so named because it presented (mostly) true classics from Hollywood's golden years.

I was fortunate to have grown up in the New York Metro area, where there were three independent tv channels - WPIX, WOR and WNEW - all of which relied on Hollywood's vast film catalogue for significant portions of their programming. The mere presence of a variety of choices doesn't quite explain my attachment. I was a very dreamy child, an introvert, always drawn to things of the past. When I went into an old building it was as if I breathed in the soul of the place, feeling a subtle but very real connection with its former inhabitants, hearing faint echoes of the rhythms of those lives. All those old movies, then, gave shape to these flights of fancy, telling the glamorous and gritty stories of a past that had previously only lived at the edges of my imagination. I've since come to understand that it was a past that only existed on screen, flickering reflections of modern-day myths that were sometimes modest, sometimes magnificent, illuminating something of both human failing and triumph, the mundane and the transcendent, impossible suffering and pure joy, slapstick silliness and utmost seriousness.

As I grew older, I gradually became more educated in the history and art of filmmaking, courtesy of the local PBS station. (I should write to Congress. Please let PBS do their job. You might see a blog come out of it in thirty years.) There I was exposed to the great Universal horror films of the '30's, musicals of every stripe but most especially Astaire and Rogers, the delightful Charlie Chan series and the screwball comedies of the '30's and '40's. Not only did I begin to appreciate specific actors and actresses, but also directors, costume designers and art directors.

My love of film grew exponentially, spreading in many directions and encompassing an ever-larger circle of interest. I'll watch every genre of classic film, though I was late in coming around to Westerns and still don't much like war films. I can be just as thrilled by a cast of supporting actors as I am by major stars. I don't only watch movies made before 1960, nor do I limit myself to American films. Jim Jarmusch has something new coming out? I'm there. I can derive as much pleasure from a viewing of Pee Wee's Big Adventure as of The Seventh Seal. I find something new to appreciate every time I watch a well-loved film, and it is exhilarating. It's like turning a jewel over and over, discovering new facets, appreciating the ever-changing ways in which it reflects light.

To borrow a wildly famous quote from Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon, film is "the stuff that dreams are made of."