American Gigolo (1980)

“Why would anyone watch this?” read the note attached my American Gigolo DVD case. It was probably left there by one of my students. At this point I should no longer be shocked by the rather flip, blatantly ignorant statements of my younger students. In defense of this anonymous commenter, I will say the following. Perhaps, they were joking. Sarcasm, especially veiled in anonymity, never reads well. If they were not joking I might dismiss their hasty scribblings as a mis-reading of the DVD’s cover art. Even I will admit that the packaging mis-represents the film and does it little justice. I am sure, to the eyes of a youngster raised on knee-jerk reactionary comments such as “That’s gay” or “How gay”, this DVD looks quite, well, gay.* The title doesn’t help much either. However, just look at that border, all two-tone and day-glo. It even says “I love the 80′s” and what young hipster today doesn’t love the 80′s?

So, why comment rather than investigate? I would hope that by doing some research (aka Googling) or turning over the dvd case they would discover that this film was written and directed by Paul Schrader, the man who wrote the screenplays for Taxi Driver , Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ. Maybe they’d even recongize his name as the director behind Blue Collar,  Hardcore, or Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters. He’s also the author of Transcendental Style in Film a must read for any film student. However, I am not holding my breath on that second or third part. Still, these are film students coming in and out of my office, these are people who should be excited by films they have not heard of and curious to learn more about important, if not under-valued, historical film makers like Paul Schrader.

Of course, I’m saying all of his under the assumption that whoever left that note has not seen this film. Maybe they have seem American Gigolo. Maybe the just don’t like it. If this were the case I’d at least wish they had the conviction to sign their name. But, such is a generation who does no criticizes because they have a great fear of being criticized. They only speak when they know there words can’t be traced.

Well, I am speaking back to this unknown soul. American Gigolo is a wonderful character study of a rather shallow and naive individual who also serves as a wonderful doppelganger for the 80′s themselves. Schrader is a masterful American director trying to work in the same spirit as Bresson, Ozu, and Dreyer, all those artists he wrote about in his book. Does he ever fully achieve their levels of transcendence? Not really, but that might have more to do with his choice in subject matter and setting. It takes a lot of power to transcend the trappings of the 80′s.

When I think of the quintessential 80′s films, the one that speak most to the zeitgeist of the 80′s, to the attitudes that really defined that era, American Gigolo is most certainly one of the first films I reference. It does a far better job of depicting the rather cool, yet vapid mindset of the yuppie culture. Forget those John Hughes films or St. Elmo’s fire, the only speak to the immature dreams and anxieties of people growing up in the 80′s. You need to watch things like American Gigolo or Wall Street to understand the vileness of that decade. For something more scathing and way off the beaten path find Mark Rappaport’s Chain Letters. The 80′s was not all one big teenage, new-wave dance party. It’s also not something that can be understood from watching that other ‘American’ 80′s movie, American Psycho that film is far more of parody than a portrait of life in the Reagan years. That film has too much fun with itself. It is more in the spirit of coolness that you find in Top Gun or Ferris Bueller Whereas, American Gigolo is not a fun movie. Richard Gere’s  takes women out, shows them a good time, but he himself seems incapable of enjoyment. His character is good looking. He can put on a decent act. He can, shall we say, entertain, but deep down his character is not a fun guy. He is good looking, but he is all surface, a pretty empty underneath. Pretty much like the 80′s.

*Not that there is anything wrong with gay films.

Network (1976)

If the revolution is something that won’t be televised then I hold little hope that the constant airing of Network on America’s airwaves would get people mad enough to stand up and really do something to save their country. I would hope that here in Network America could find a distilled, somewhat enjoyable, but slightly bitter pill easily swallowed. A pill that could open their eyes, more so than anything they’ve seen in The Matrix. We presently sit in the middle of an oil crisis, a recession, corporatism, corruption, terrorism, war, in a word, madness. So it was back in 1976. The more things change the more they stay the same.

For all those who really think a film has the power to change the world I ask, “Then why didn’t Network change the world?” While Howard Beale’s angry-everyman tirades (evidence A) tap into the frustration most middle class American’s presently fell, Jensen’s Corporate Cosmology (evidence B) speech clearly explains what ails us. We think in nations and political parties, not in terms of dollars. If films really had power than why wouldn’t an Academy Award winning film like Network open America’s eyes and see that we don’t have a democratic choice in this country. We aren’t voting for right or left, red or blue, black or white. We vote for one of two evils and forget that the root of all evil is money and both of our two primary parities are deeply rooted in corporations.

Evidence A

Evidence B

and now…

5 Random Thoughts

1) Along with Americathon, Network stands as a brilliant piece of socio-economical comedy. They would make a great double feature.

2) Wardrobe maybe the first striking difference between 1976 and 2008, but listen to the audio. Typewriters, landlines, these are the sounds we no longer hear. They have a weight to them, quite different then the light plinking of laptop keys and the personalized programmed ring tones.

3) Where are all the young dudes? This is an old man’s film. You’ll find no brash young love interest drawing box office receipts. Lord only knows who they’d put in a remake.

4) Early in the film you hear mention of two attempts on President Ford’s life. I nearly had forgotten about these. At the same time, I find it wild that twice someone tried to take Ford’s life and we never hear about anyone gunning for Bush. Even Reagan got shot. Has secret security gotten better or have the nuts of this country grown complacent?

5) I don’t hear film lovers, especially younger ones, talk about Network. It won a slew of awards, but has been somewhat forgotten to time. It’s not the film’s fault. Most Hollywood cinema is perishable. I wondering if Paddy Chayefsky predicted that his film would be replaced by something new. This mindset is such a huge part of television programming. What’s hot, will be cold before too long.

Amazing Grace (2006)

The film is neither amazing nor does it possess any grace. Simply put, the film reduces Britain’s abolitionist movement to one man and one song. As if it were that simple. Worse yet, the tale of William Wilburforce’s crusade to ban the slave trade across the British Empire plays out amongst the hokiest of Hollywood cliches. Must all great men be inspired by beautiful women? By film’s end Amazing Grace feels like Braveheart sans warfare. That’s not a compliment.

What’s so wrong with the film?

Let’s break it down. First off, this is a film about the horrors of slavery. Yet, we are never shown these horrors. Outside of one feverdream where Wilburforce envisions a young black male – more shadow than human – being consumed by the flames of a sugar refinery fire. Being of a dream, the moment is already disconnected from reality. The fiery imagery and the horrible special effect of this soul being lost to the flames fails to terrify. It’s actually laughable. This however, is the extent to which director Michael Apted feels he should show what slavery was like. Occasionally, characters read letters or retell what they’ve seen, but cinema is about images and those images have power. So, where the heck are the images of slavery?

There aren’t any because there don’t need to be anyone. Today, we are enlightened and we all know slavery is wrong. This knowledge gives us comfort because it reduces the film to Us vs. Them. Not approving of slavery, we can fight the good fight right along with William Wilburforce and feel ever the better for being a good guy, right there with him. We can tell ourselves that were we living during that era, we too would have said no to the slave trade.

That’s total hogwash. Guys like Wilburforce are rare, as are those that helped him see the light. And yes, the pun is intended, as it were Quakers who really helped bring about the change, but they are reduced to shadowy, unexplained, strangers. If Michael Apted had any balls as a filmmaker he’d have presented the story in such a way that we might have actually sided with those that opposed Wilburforce. Apted might have taken this as an opportunity to show how a majority of people can back something that in hindsight appears so blatantly heinous and morally wrong. That or he might have managed to comment on how people today are still fighting slavery issues, be them physical or economical. Rather than pay mere lip service to the fact that slavery exists because of economical greed, Apted might have really shown how much of Britain and even America’s Empires have been built with the slave labor of others and how by giving up this cheap labor they are forced to now ship there dirty work out to other countries who care less about human rights. But, he didn’t do any of these things because when it comes down to it, Michael Apted is chickenhearted. He’s no William Wilburforce. He’s just a filmmaker transforming a heroic story into a inspirational comic book easily understood by anyone with a fourth grade education.

If you want to know how awful slavery is, go watch Addio Zio Tom. Yes, it’s an exploitation film, but you know what, slavery is exploitation. So, it’s no wonder that the horrifically graphic images in that film can turn your stomach in ways that make Roots look like a Thomas Kinkade painting. A film like that doesn’t make you feel good, but it might inspire you to not let anything like that happen again. Where as I’m sick of hearing people say that Amazing Grace is an inspiring film. How? Did it send people rushing out to protest their own countries endorsement of slave labor over seas so they could buy cheap good here at home? Did it have them writing petitions to stop torture? Were people compelled to ask their congressman why they continue to fund a phony war? Probably not. Heck, I’d be surprised if Amazing Grace even gave most white folks the courage to smile at a black stranger. All this film did was make people feel good about themselves. How selfish is that?

We don’t need this. We need films that really challenge people. One’s that use records of past heroics and civic leadership to show how today we still have issues that need to be fought for and prejudices that need to be fought against. Where is the film that questions gay marriage or lack of health care for the poor? Let’s not leave these films up to Michael Moore. Instead, let’s find a filmmaker willing to show us how cruel and ignorant we have been in the past, how we could treat each other as less than equal, or simply go along with this hate without saying anything. Let us not rest on our laurels and feel confident that if given the chance to do the right thing, we would. I look around and it’s apparent that we don’t. Just open up a newspaper if you don’t believe me.

Phantom of the Opera

To a packed house, of mostly older filmgoers, the Alloy Orchestra performed musical accompaniment to the classic Lon Chaney version of The Phantom of the Opera. Personally, I am a bit confused as to which version of the film was played. Perhaps it was the 1925 version or the 1929 version. Rumors were spread that perhaps the Boston based band had re-worked the film to best suit their music, but I could find no proof of such speculation, nor do I have the time or desire to track down the real story or compare multiple versions of the film. I have always found the Phantom of the Opera to one of my least favorite horror/macabre stories. Brian DePalma’s tongue-in-cheek rock opera Phantom of the Paradise is my favorite reworking of this much told tale. I could personally care less which version of the film was being projected or if the band had tinkered with the editing. I’m normally a purist, but I know that most film historians will agree that there is no definitive version of this film.

Telling the story of a ghoulish figure that lurks beneath the Paris Opera house in a lair of catacombs dating back to a less civilized time, this early version of the film does little to explain the Phantom’s origin or to portray him as a spurned musician – a characterization that has now become classic. The Phantom’s support and longing for a young understudy propels the plot. First he eliminates her professional competition and then he strong arms her into ditching her lover. Of course, once she learns what lies behind the Phantom’s mask she’ll do anything to free herself from his grasp. The Phantom has some right to feel spurned, having helped this woman with her singing and getting her the lead in Faust only to find out that love is not blind. Of course, the Phantom’s evil ways, his the deadly traps and torture devices make him patently evil and Lon Chaney revels in this sinister portraiture.

The films use of Technicolor, the two-strip variety, for one particular sequence makes for an interesting, if not flawed moment. During a masquerade ball the Phantom, dressed as red death makes his way down the grand staircase of the opera house. Today, the sequence seems showy and out of place, pure spectacle. Far more effective are the moments when only a portion of the image has been hand-tinted, like the Phantom’s cape as he stands a top the opera house’s roof. The bold use of Technicolor comes as a abrupt shock, especially to an audience so familiar with color. Once it might have been reason to get people into the seats, now it just makes people fidget in their seats as they wonder why the film jumps to color for one brief segment. Today, it takes musical accompaniment to get people to pack a theater.

The Alloy Orchestra does a very good job of adding their own touch to a film and bringing a silent work to life. Purists may complain that they are deviating too far from an original score, but most people in the audience are not purists and Alloy Orchestra never proclaims to be pure. They are performance and their performance packs the house. I am certain that a simple projection of The Phantom of the Opera would not draw such a crowd, not even over a week long run. That’s the sad state of silent cinema in America. For all the purists in the world and all the so-called film fans who decry the death of cinema and the death of film, few are willing to venture outside their home to see a film projected.

Then there are those who come out, but seem to have little or no respect for old films, performing artist, or other film-goers. I’m a huge fan of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, mainly because I had already seen a lot of the films they tear to pieces and I’m continually impressed with the depth of their pop-culture miscellany. However, I cannot stand it when someone feels that the only appropriate response to any old film is to pretend that they are trapped aboard Satellite of Love. These yuckity-yucks forget that the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) have watched a film many times over, they have worked and reworked jokes, and they have scripted everything out, timing it all perfectly. They are not just trying to impress their knucklehead friend with a breadth of cultural knowledge that extends back to 1982 and doesn’t stretch past television, movies, or music. Still, this seems to be the general response of so many attention starved yokels. I’m all for this sort of fun, inter-active film viewing when it’s you and your friends in the comfort of your own home or maybe at a dollar theater (if any still exist) where you are willing to pay back everyone else in the theatre who may not want you ridiculing the latest Ashton Kutcher masterpiece. But, why would anyone do this during a classic silent film, especially one with live musical accompaniment? You had to pay extra for the ticket. Sure, nine dollars isn’t much, so maybe they should up the ticket price to persuade people to shut up or stay at home. You don’t hear people heckling the opera. Hell, you don’t even hear people heckling a high school performance or a kid’s ballet recital and those are full of laughable events. So, why the disrespect for old films? Is MST3K to blame? Or are the idiots who can’t tell the difference between live performance and recorded television program to blame?

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.