Last Chants For a Slow Dance aka Dead End (1977)

In true indie spirit, both economical, ethical, and aesthetically, Jon Jost’s 1977 $3000 ninety minute road movie stands out as a great unseen example of just how little you truly need to make an intelligent, provocative, and rather engaging feature film without selling your soul. But is it entertaining?

That all depends on a personal definition of entertaining. On my own, I had seen this particular work five or six times, but I never had the experience of watching it with an audience. Nervously, I wondered if others in the room would find the same entertainment I find in this film, but as the movie began and as the first few scenes crawled across the screen I felt a bit of tension creep up my spine.

Had I never noticed the rather droll pacing? Did I overlook obvious visual flaws or was this projector just further exploiting the faults in the video transfer? Had the lead actor’s character always been this annoying? And, why didn’t I remember there being so many black screens and so much honky-tonk music?

Or was I just worried that the younger, male audience members who had grown up after Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi and the digital video revolution would not be impressed with Jon Jost’s low budget skills, that they would still expect some mirror image of a Hollywood action film, and that they would utterly hate this slow-boiling character study of a less than likable character?

Set in the upper mid-west regions of America, a landscape Jost is familiar with and one he has often used as his backdrops for many of his films, Last Chants For A Slow Dance follows the rambling life of a man who refuses to settle down, take responsibility for his life and his actions – the sort of man who thinks he sees everything, but has an inability to see just how he comes of too others. Tom Blair makes his first appearance in a Jost film and in some way he sets the stages for later appearances, each a variation on the same American male. Out for himself, willing to take what he can get, but usually by less than noble means, Tom Blair’s character is unflinchingly annoying from beginning to end, but as this is not a fault of acting or directing, but rather a character fault it is something that can be easily overlooked and even understood as long as audience members consider that Jost and Blair have constructed this character not as a role model, but rather as an example. It is never easy to watch a film where the director has chosen to make a point through an unsavory character, but in some ways this notion dates back to early fables.

If there is a lesson in Last Chants For A Slow Dance which is also known as (Dead End) it is that this mythic notion of a rambling modern day outlaw or desperado traveling across the now less than wild west is really no hear at all. Made myth through country and western music, Jost juxtaposes his well constructed long take scenes with self-penned, self-played, and self-sung honky-tonk songs that explore, if not poke fun at his main character and the events in the film. It is only upon subsequent viewing that one starts to recognize the black humor buried in this long stretches of blackened screens that connect each segment of the film.

Of all the independent directors out there, Jost might have the greatest eye for cinematography. What his images lack in elaborate lighting design – Jost realize heavily on natural light – he makes up for in his striking compositions and his innovate use of the camera. Never flashy, but always providing an original look to his film, Jost’s eye is trained not by other films, but more classically. His images resemble paintings more than frames from some other film. He’s also not hesitant to try something new as he does in a long hotel scene that stretches from day to night. The room is shot entirely in black and white, with subtle lighting changes due to variations in the light streaming in through the curtains, but at the center of his frame is a color television, droning on and on with late show banter and the traditional playing of the national anthem at the end of the broadcast day. It’s note a perfect effect, but most filmmakers would spend more than Jost’s entire budget on a special effect and most of the effects would not be as special as this one, both visually interesting, but also laced with a deeper meaning.

To my surprise, the screening went well and there was a more than enthusiastic response to the film. It leaves hope that future filmmakers may come to realize the importance of creating an film that is not just independent by means of a low-budget, but one that also dares to try something different, and not mimic Hollywood. Then again, it is much easier to just watch a film like Last Chants For A Slow Dance than it is to make it. Few people are willing to write, direct, shoot, edit, and produce their own film, even fewer will also go on to write and record their own soundtrack. It takes a real maverick to do that and do it well. But, after seeing this film at least others know it can be done.

Notre Music (2004)

The latest Godard film is just that, a Godard film. It could quite possibly be that I am still suffering from an overdose of Godard due to a class induced binge of his work during the fall months, but Notre Music lacks a freshness that one comes to expect from Godard, even after 70 years and 80 some film/video projects.

Divided into three chapters, each one’s title mirroring a section of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Notre Music finds its central focus on war and in particular, the victims of a war and the voice of those defeated. The first chapter being titled Hell is a craftily composed montage of war images culled from documentaries and Hollywood war dramas. Images of the holocaust collide with feathered head dresses straight from a studio costume shop. It’s a brief, but engaging ten minutes that leads straight to the steps of chapter two – Purgatory.

For the middle chapter, and most of the film, Godard sets up a series of situations each with its own purpose, all designed to allow Godard to make a point. From images of books waiting to be burned, to the reconstruction of a war torn bridge, to the ghostly appearance of Native American poets, the story itself revolves around a depressed Israeli film student named Olga. She is there and then she is gone, coming and going, popping up from time to time. The cast of characters and the scenes while not exactly slamming into one another as much as creating a well woven world. It’s backdrop or stage, not so real as constructed. Of course, at the center of this constructed world is Godard who makes his now expected cameo, speaking to film students in Sarajevo. Giving an example of shot/counter shot Godard bounces between images of bombed out Virginia, Palestine, Israel, and a Howard Hawks film. Just like so many of Godard’s ideas this one if brief, brilliant, but quickly replaced with a new one. While the entire film may be an exploration on the destruction of war Godard’s constant use of references, be they cultural, historical, literary, artistic, or otherwise places too much emphasis on the decoding. While it is not necessary to catch all of Godard’s many references or clues, it certainly does feel as if you are not seeing the whole picture. In this respect, the message to be culled from Purgatory is much less apparent than the images of Hell, which might be rightfully so.

For the final chapter Godard takes us to Heaven where we meet up once again with Olga. Now passed on, we are told she was shot dead in an Israeli movie theater, not carrying a bomb, but rather books – perhaps more deadly. Certainly, they are Godard’s weapon of choice; they are the bullets in his gun/camera. In Heaven there are guns as well. Portrayed as a lush riverside forest, Heaven is guarded by the United States Armed Services. Filled with youth, slightly communal Heaven looks a lot like Godard’s Weekend, sans autos and cannibals. Tracking through the forest Olga and Godard’s camera come to rest at the river’s shore.

Profoundly beautiful and full of thought, Notre Music is not to be missed, even if the film is more lecture than narrative, but that is Godard and that’s what makes his films continually unique, even if they are starting to feel very similar – they still don’t feel like anyone else’s.

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

The penultimate film school film. It’s very easy to want to beat up the beloved battleship of Soviet cinema. Didactic? Yes. Propaganda? Yes. Impressive? A resounding yes. Like so many early films, the ones that get remembered because of the technological innovations and the aesthetic ground they broke The Battleship Potemkin is more memorable for Eistenstein’s ability to work with the camera than his ability to honesty or humanity.

Without a doubt Sergi Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin use of montage creates a collision of images that are powerful, but their power is so one-sided that what it really calls into question the practical use of montage. Outside of pure propaganda, the ideas of montage give themselves not to the formation of multiple ideas but one crystal clear idea that goes without question. It is a trait of montage that is alive today as it was back in 1925 when “Odessa Steps” sequence launched itself into the pages of film history and film form books.

Famously, the sequence documents the Cossack slaughtering of the masses at Odessa. Though the event by be historically truthful and the actions of the soldiers are villainous, the emotions of this ill-fated day find themselves being ratchet upwards thanks to Eisenstein’s manipulative montage that all but removes any essence of humanity or a soul from the soldiers that goosestep their way down the staircase, slaughtering a horde of helpless women, children, and cripples. If it were not for the skillful ballet of edits the actions would appear so ludicrously over-the-top that they would be laughable, like a gross caricature of evil, like images of men kicking puppies or jackboots crushing flowers. Yet, this one sequence is not the only place where Eisenstein purposefully tinkers with emotions and concepts of good and evil so polarized that it leaves little room for an opposing opinion.

It is this one-sided form of story telling that Eisenstein really gives to cinema. It is through montage that he shows a new form of ensuring the audience’s connection with the forces of good and not those of evil. Extending from the works of D.W. Griffith, where the forces of good were sometimes hazy due to his glorification of the KKK, Eisenstein’s use of close-ups only to exhibit the pain and suffering of the masses and his dehumanizing images of oppressive forces allows an audience to side with whomever the director chooses – in this case communists.

It’s very easy to get swept up in the waves of excitement that montage can create, but it tends to only paint images in matters of black and white. When done so didacticly I find much of the movement off-putting. The shades of gray that make up the world are vastly more instersting, complex, and harder to capture. It’s probably no wonder that Eisenstein’s comrades would be come filmmakers looking for simple solutions: Lucas, Spielberg, Bay, Riefenstahl, etc. Later, filmmakers like Godard would find far more interesting and confusing uses for montage, but even in the case of Godard the montage seem to glorify films abilities to reconstruct and recreate something less than human. Mechanical and manipulative the art of montage is the art of film school students juxtaposing shots, spending too much time at the cinema, and too much time at a flatbed. While a little bit of montage is well worth exploring and understanding, without some basis in reality and a deeper understanding of human nature it is a useless tool that can only construct helpess workds of art.

The Cameraman’s Revenge

Nothing is more pleasing to me than to suddenly feel like the future is just a mirror image of the past. Society goes to such great lengths to pat itself on the back and marvel at how far it has come, but strip away the modern advances in technology and you quickly find that humans have changed very little, even if the world around them seems to be constantly in a state of flux.

The Camerman’s Revenge is an early Russian stop animation by Wladyslaw Starewicz that depicts the story of Mr. and Mrs. Beetle, who just happen to be beetles, and the jealousy that erupts from Mr. Beetle finds his wife is having an affair with a grasshopper. Like any modern man, Mr. Beetle put his camera to his bedroom keyhole and captures his wife in the act. Later, he projects the film at a theater. It’s not digital cameras and Internet movies, but it is pretty much the same then as it is now.

The stop motion animation is amazing and the use of insects in place of humans adds a second level of humor to the less than splendid behaviors on exhibit. The time and care that the animator took to create this funny ten minute film far exceeds all the time and talk that seems to surround recent celebrity sex tape and cellphone scandals. But then again, when hasn’t real art taken a backseat to shock and spectacle?

Mikey and Nicky (1976)

Without question I can go on record as saying that this is one of my favorite films and having made that public record I feel no real need to say that this piece will be unbiased. No piece is unbiased, they are all opinion, experiences but into words and while I am sure both myself and this journal’s co-author do are best to give a rather balanced account of the film, calling them as we see them, I know that I can’t speak about Elaine May’s Mikey and Nicky without excitement for the film. It is truly an emotional piece of wonder.

Far from perfect technically and not exactly the coolest film that ever flickered on a screen Mikey and Nicky has long been a closet classic, something not hip enough to be a cult classic, but one that has received a decent following thanks to it’s energetic cast of John Cassavetes, Peter Falk, Ned Beatty, and a handful of character actors. Set on the rain soaked streets of Philadelphia this gripping crime drama revolves around the title characters. Best friends since they were born they now find their friendship coming to a sad end as Nicky (Cassavetes) needs to get out of town before a hitman (Beatty) can kill him for pilfering money from some local gangsters. Mikey (Falk) is the only friend Nicky has left, but Nicky isn’t much of a friend and even though Mikey agrees to help Nicky get out of town, Mikey’s true intentions are less than friendly.

Elaine May’s interest is more in the breakdown of a male friendship than the criminal elements that give this film a familiar feel and place it a genre more comfortable with male fantasies than male psychological exploration. Her attention to the strains and struggles that complicate a male friendship dated with fond memories and modern strife brought on by one friend’s destructive urge to constantly hold the upperhand in a relationship. May’s crime drama is a rather mature film that deft deals with often hidden male emotions, obscured by razor sharp comedy, that surprisingly goes unnoticed upon first viewing. It is only after subsequent viewings, once the plot’s twist and turns are well-known May’s rapid fire comedic lines come to the surface.

Having seen Mikey and Nicky a few times, okay maybe twenty or more time, it’s hard to want to classify this film as a comedy. In some ways the mixture of comedy and crime make the film reminiscent of a more well-known film, namely Pulp Fiction. The connection are not overt, but some long stretches between the two films do help to show brilliance of Mikey and Nicky, while not wholly undercutting the cult of cool that surrounds Tarantino’s sophomore effort. First, both films find central characters in two “gangsters”. Though Cassavetes and Falk are nothing like Travolta and Jackson, the focus of each pairings conversation seems to be friendly banter. While Cassavetes and Falk have a long shared history from which they can recall many good and bad times, Travolta and Jackson appear to have dropped straight out of the stratosphere. They can only relate to one another through pop culture. Even more similar is the focus on beloved watches. In Mikey and Nicky, the watch is a gift given to Mikey from his dad, but Mikey doubts how much his father wanted him to have his watch and he has an easier time admitting that his own father loved Nicky. He can’t easily admit that his father loved him. In Pulp Fiction the watch is a favorite possession of Bruce Willis’ character and the audience sees Christopher Walken rambling some grossly funny story about the lengths that Willis’ father went to get his much cherish watch to his son. The memorable thing here is not on the love between father and son, but the over-the-top story that delivers the watch to Willis. Neither of these arguments are enough to argue that Tarantino was pilfering or homaging Mikey and Nicky, but it is enough to show that for difference between the two films is the difference between men and boys. Only men can understand Mikey and Nicky. Any boy with a basic knowledge of Pulp Fiction is capable of understand Tarantino’s glossier crime/comedy, but to understand May’s film you have had to lived a little.

The Last Laugh (1924)

F.W. Murnau’s post World War I film The Last Laugh, takes all the humiliation of defeated Germany and lumps in upon a defrocked hotel porter. Humanizing the role of post-war Germany, Emil Jannings, pathos filled performance mixed with Murnau’s free floating camera create a timely picture that pushes specific symbolism to the wayside, focusing on human tragedy thus making a momentary film a lasting, timeless piece of German Expressionistic cinema.

After being told that he is getting to old to carry bags, the joyful, pridefilled doorman is demoted to lowly and lonely bathroom attendant. Far removed from the hustle and bustle of the curbside, the hours drag and his self-importance slips. Too ashamed to attend his daughter’s wedding without his beloved uniform, the porter soaks his sorrows in alcohol, allowing for Murnau’s camera to take a subjective trip through the eyes of a sloshed, but somber man desperate to regain his post and his dignity.

The striking realism of the film, its constructed sets, and its heavyhearted story mix well with the free, expressionistic camera that records psychological states of mind more than mere actions. The shame and projected laughter that both the porter and Germany feel is well exhibited through a series of roving images of neighbors in their windows, peering and sneering. The floating camera work tracks through each neighbor as the all seeing eyes of the community begin to impact the state of being of both the porter and the audience. Conversely, the slow, static nature of the demoted doorman’s days in the men’s room express the grinding halt that has come to his once busy life. The smallest labors are time consuming and yet time seems to stand still. The only escape is the end of the shift, a pint of lager, and the memory of better days. It is not the most pleasant thought, but it is one that feels honest. Murnau’s delicate blend of realism and expressionism are so well-balanced that they can only be off-set by the bullying hands of producers’ greed and audiences’ cries for uplifting endings.

Forced to put a happy ending on a rather downbeat film, Murnau interrupts the final moments of this sad tale with a cheeky intertitle that not only sticks its tongue out at the film producers, but the audience as well. In essence, Murnau declares himself the author of the story and in being so he can do whatever he wishes since it is only a story and not reality, thus he can award the poor porter a large sum of money given to him by a man who has expired in the men’s restroom. Unrealistic for sure, but by calling itself out it makes for a great last laugh to a tear inducing film.

Pickpocket (1959)

Disappointedly, I thought this classic tale of crime and redemption would excite a few of my students enough that I would see more than one or two of the familiar faces down at the free screening of Pickpocket. From time to time I forget who I am talking to and when you openly talk about something on the Internet you can never really be sure who your audience is or if you even have one. When it comes to a considered classic work of foreign cinema such as Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket I am quick to assume that most self-proclaimed cinefiles or film-brats have already taken the time to see this staple of cinema. Of course, assuming this only adds more weight to that old adage of what happens to “u” and me when I assume something. Also, it spotlights the real trouble with the self-appointed title, film-brat. That problem I shall save for the end of this piece.

Martin LaSalle plays the lead role and in traditional Bressonian style he goes through the entire film expressionless. Unfunctional and futile his existence has been reduced to one thing – pickpocketing. While his mother dies alone and his friends attempt to help him, LaSalle only seems interested in learning better techniques from other pickpockets. With his earnings LaSalle does not spoil himself for it is not the rewards of his crimes that excite him. It is the experience.

Pickpocket falls under the category of experiential film. To sum up the plot or even the filmic techniques that are used to tell the story robs the film of its beauty and power. The real experience of the film is not in the swift, almost symphonic display of pickpocketing techniques, but in the moment of enlightenment that final arrives a bit too late. With its simplistic narrative, its blank canvas acting, and its graceful balance between the glamour and gravity of sin Bresson is able to craft a redemption story that I fear only get lost in a world of crime. The err is not caused by Bresson’s choice in subject matter, but rather through a growing desire by audiences to see criminal activity glorified. The experience of self-awareness or even salvation is not as exciting as the sinful act of stealing. So, it should be no wonder to me that most of the attention that gets placed on this film by the general audience is the magical techniques and the masterful precession of the petty thieves in this film. Movies are illusions and pickpockets are slight-of-hand artists, but neither seem to be the real reason Bresson made this film.

Like so much of his work the message is subtle in a Bresson film gets shoved beneath the story, in a place that your average film-brat is not willing to look. There is no new twists in story telling or highly innovative camera work or editing form to entice film-brats to watch Pickpocket. Again, it can’t be summed up that easily. Just as no experience can be summed up and told to another person without them losing some part of the experience, Bresson’s films demand that you receive them from beginning to end, for it is only through the experience that you can truly understand and enjoy the reward as you share it with the character in the film. Dedicating time and energy to the cinema is one thing, but dedicating emotions is wholly different. I’m not talking about weeping when a deer dies or getting mad when the bad guy ties a girl to the railroad tracks, but real emotions the kind that come from self-realization – a personal connection, not something animal. Sometimes this can be hard work. Of course movies that require hard work, hardly works for the film-brat. But, Pickpocket is not that hard and on this night it was free. What film lover doesn’t get excited when they see the word free?

I do not imagine that I’ll ever understand the mind of the self-proclaimed film-brat, but perhaps I might take just a peek to see what is going on in there. First, the mind of the film-brat looks for a story. Not any story, but a story unlike all the other stories they have ever seen, even if it’s only marginally different. Next, the film-brat is conscious of film technique. This is what separates them from the rest of the animal kingdom. They can spot camera movements, editing styles, and lighting methods, but they notice these aspects most of all when they are flashy and new. Subtlety is not cinematic, at least not to film-brats. Finally, film-brats appear to prefer that the emphasis fall on brat, not film. Infant terribles, they are more than willing to summarily dismiss, disregard, and denounce the medium they swear they adore, especially if a film challenges their preconceived notions. Worst of all, if a film cannot be hyped or sold to them through mention of its innovative techniques or its fresh narrative a film is not worth the experience. Like your typical brat, even the non-film ones, film brats do not want to watch something just because others tell them should. They need a reason, a really good one that excites then the same way a modern day coming attraction trailer excites them. Begrudgingly, the approach most older and classical films as “must-sees”, things they need to see just to get a monkey off their back or to check off some imagined list. They do not run to these films, but rather, like brats, go in kicking and screaming. If they go at all.

Of a Feather (and other bird films)

The Milwaukee Art Museum, the iconic city structure topped off with a kinetic sculpture known as “Wing Span”, seems like the perfect place to host an evening of short videos and films that all have to do with man’s feather friends. For one evening the whole place went to the birds and I was glad I went, but a couple of the films just ruffled my feathers. Here’s the pecking order.

The Carnaries Jerome Hill, 1968, 4 mins.

People on a beach. Birds in a cage. Paint on film. A very poor print. A very dated film. Perhaps it once felt fresh. Today it seems like old news, best laid out on the bottom of a birdcage.

Vogels Gerben Kruk, 2003, 1 min.

As close to a flicker film as a video can get, this pieces breezes through a field guide of birds and their names at breakneck speed, but one gains little knowledge – only a spliting headache.

Disperse, Paul Dickson, 2004, 15 mins. I wasn’t sure if I should hug the maker of this video or shoot him. With a single static shot of a tree populated by a colony of crows Dickson captures a maddening study of birds and bird watchers. As we sat in the theatre one could audibly hear the agony and ecstacy of the audience as blackbirds came and went. We all began to believe that the film would end as soon as all the birds dispersed. We cheered when one took flight. We groaned when one returned. We all wished that these damn birds would just go or that the filmmaker would have fired off a round to scare the crows away. Instead we just sat their, prisoners to the actions of these damn birds. A very interesting study and a fascinating exploration of patience.

Why Not A Sparrow, Cecelia Condit, 2002-05, 12 mins.
One needs to be carefull when talking about their professor’s work, but this mixed bag of images, some delightful and some in dire need of reworking left me wishing not that this film had never been made, but rather than it had been shot in a better fashion, something more suited to the wonderful messages that laid buried beneath a quiltwork of mis-matched footage that distracted more than it enchanted.

The Walking Pigeon, Guido van dere Werve, 2001, 1min. 42 sec.

The yellow half of puppet odd couple Bert and Ernie used to dance and sing. He called it “Doing the Pigeon” this is humanized variation where a man in a wooden contraption struts about like a pigeon. This video from the Netherlands is neither aesthetically interesting nor amusing as a performance…only in the Netherlands.

Chick Running, Sam Easterson, 2004, 2 mins.

Here’s an interesting idea that may have produced interesting results, but instead the idea came across as rather tepid and something that felt like a patch of ignorance amongst the art community. The filmmaker took small cameras and mounted them to the farm animals via a tiny helmet. This particular piece was produced with a baby chick wandering around a farm with such an apparatus. Like I said, it could have been interesting or haven’t I seen this sort of thing on the David Letterman Show? Nothing new and nothing too exciting.

The Peckers, Ron Tran, 2003, 9 mins.

Art, amusement, and absurdity collide in what maybe my favorite piece of the night – at least my favorite title. The artist laid out a collection of musical instruments and then covered them with birdseed. A flock of pigeons begin peck and pluck the seeds from the instruments creating an improvised soundtrack. They are nothing astounding as a musical group, but they fall somewhere between The Byrds and The Partridge Family.

9 is a Secret Vanessa Renwick, 2002, 6 mins.

Shock and awe in the art world is just as lame as shock and awe in the real world. This video about the filmmaker’s attempts to help an ill friend take his own life seems like a desperate cry for help. Just like the crows in the film, the cry is loud, obnoxious, and one wishes for it to simply go away.

Of a Feather Rob Yeo, 2005, 10 mins.

The title piece from the entire show was a debut work by yet another professor of mine. However, I found myself not needing to worry about saying anything negative as I found the entire piece to be very pleasant, if slightly imperfect. While nothing life changing, this intimate look at a nearby marshland the bird life that inhabits it left many of my classmates upset because it was not full of shocking or revelatory material. This is exactly why I enjoyed it so much. Must every piece be dark, taboo, or scandalous to merit praise? Can’t some films just revel in the beauty that abounds us? Why do some people think art has to be hard, difficult, or impossible to understand? If you ask me that’s bullfeathers.

Cries and Whispers (1972)

It’s not just Liv Ullman’s heaving cleavage, and it’s not exactly and insult as much as a personal connection, unclassified and in need of exploration, but Cries and Whispers always makes me think of 1970′s issues of Playboy magazine. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ingmar Bergman, but there is something about this film, one of his most well known and well respected films, that reminds me of the glossy defused images of that gentleman’s magazine, not so much the pictures of naked women as much as the images of the Playboy lifestyle. There is just something about that period in time, the filmstock they used, and the image of sophistication seems synonymous with the 70′s.

Made in 1972 Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers tells the story of two sisters (Liv Ullman and Ingrid Thulin) who watch over their dying sibling (Harriet Andersson). While on vigil each sister recalls her rather disappointing life, full of unsatisfactory marriages and self-inflicted heart ache. Ingmar Bergman uses vivid cinematography, well composed images, spare, but tense dialogue, and an overly serious tone to create a classic work of foreign cinema punctuated by harrowing flashbacks and haunting dreams.

When I think of a classic foreign film, Cries and Whispers is the first to come to mind. Perhaps this title springs forth because it was one of the first foreign films I ever saw, but even seeing it today there is something distinctly European/Foreign about the film. The brilliant, but limited color palette reduces the film to thee simple colors – those blood red walls, those black and white costumes. The significance of each detail, of every gesture, every line, every breathe of silence punctured by the ticking of a clock demands that it be taken seriously. Cries and Whispers stands as a heart wrenching piece of art attempting to squeeze its way into a medium more known for lighthearted entertainment. Taking cues from painting and theatre, this somber chamber pieces seeks to legitimize film as a classic art form.

Yet, there is whiff of pretentiousness that makes Cries and Whispers teeter towards inflated self-importance. The film never goes so far as to fall completely into a realm con artistry, but Bergman’s full-tilt effort to validate film as art nearly removes it from the touching heartache that is so central to his story. To his credit he errors in the proper direction, lathering his film with overindulged style and emotional gravity that nearly crushes the fragile work at hand. Yet, there are moments when I want to decry everything in the film as being bogus. Just as I cannot look at advertisements in 70′s and even 80′s Playboy magazines without feeling that each advertisement projects a false image of enlightened elegance. Hi-fi systems, well lit glasses of Scotch, a neatly tailored pair of slacks, and the latest model sports car they all mix with interviews, articles, and reviews that help the reader exhibit an air of refined class, yet it ultimately feels quite translucent and tacky. Yet, I would not be surprised if a lot of 1970′s Playboy readers took their dates to see Cries and Whispers – if not to show off their sophistication than to at least ogle Liv Ullman.

Sommarlek (1951)

By the end of this month I’ll probably need to check into a Ingmar Bergman rehab facility. Between the pile of DVD’s sitting on my shelf waiting to be watched and the abundance of films getting screened here in town, I’m in for one depressing winter month. Thankfully, February isn’t that long.

Sommarlek begins with the delivery of a diary, a mysterious gift that sends one prima ballerina into a depressive downward spiral. Having the afternoon off Maj-Britt Nilsson travels back to her family’s summer home. The location is haunted with memories as well as her Uncle Erland, a lecherous old man who not only takes pleasure in Nilsson’s pain, but has sent her the diary that has brought her back. Through flashbacks Bergman clues us into one particular summer where Nilsson first lost her heart to a young man. Though these scenes have some atypical moments of felicity and even a humorous animated sequence, any scene is capable of turning on a dime and diving deep into tragedy and depression. Of course, Nilsson’s summer fling falls victim to a characteristically Bergman conclusion. Uncle Erland and tragedy force Nilsson to harden her heart.

The world through Bergman’s eyes is never the happiest of places, and at times he almost seems to punish those who go seeking happiness. Like so many of Bergman’s films, he relies on excellent black and white cinematography, well framed shots, and strong visual contrasts decorate his rather downbeat stories. His use of coastal locations never seems to grow boring or repetitive, nor does his continual exploration of the human soul. I suppose that is one luxury a master is allotted. Call it variations on a theme or the gentle art of subtle changes. In the case of Sommarlek Bergman surprisingly ends his film on a rather happy note. You have to traverse rocky shores to get to this wonderful conclusion. But, it wouldn’t be a Bergman film without a little bit of pain.