21st Five Films, 2007
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Donovan's Reef (John Ford) as part of MoMA's John Wayne series. A rather old Marcel Dalio appears in one of the most boring minor roles ever written for the screen. Lee Marvin has a similarly, shamefully small role, but plays it to the hilt and steals every scene he's in, relishing the mayhem he causes every bit as much as when he plays the titular villain in Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Wayne's just a bit too crusty and old to be wooing anyone, particularly a 22-year old. If you feel like seeing a John Ford film depicting shenanigans in the south Pacific, choose Mister Roberts instead.
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El Dorado (Howard Hawks) as part of MoMA's John Wayne series. My second favorite John Wayne role (see below), and fine support from Robert Mitchum, one of Hollywood's great voices, and a very young James Caan. I really like the tone Hawks takes here, witty and at times hilarious, but not goofy. Everybody plays it cool, even when getting shot, but the acting isn't really ironic or cynical. Even the theme song is pretty great.
Also, it's been dawning on me as I see more and more westerns how nice it is to have so many common generic conventions, as it lets the story move much more quickly. We don't need a whole back story telling us that the cowboy and the lonesome woman once had a relationship and, though they rarely see each other anymore, the torch still burns. We know the town is rife with outlaws and the sheriff is fallible but good at heart. A filmmaker can jump right into specifics without taking the time to construct psychological support for the actions his characters will take later, because we already understand the psychology of the prototypical hero, anti-hero, deputy sheriff, cattle rustler, etc.
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The Last Sunset (Robert Aldrich) at BAM. I'm conflicted about whether this is really a top-tier western for me or not. Kirk Douglas is awesomely tough as always, and the uncommon poetic interludes come off far better than I'd have guessed. But I really don't get the appeal of Dorothy Malone, and in general the story feels slightly sparse, maybe because the focus here is more on the love story than on the specifics of the cattle drive. The programmers praised the cinematography in their introduction, but it didn't seem that special. Maybe a restored print would better reveal the director's handiwork, but then I really didn't like Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly nearly as much as I'd expected from it's critical reputation either.
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The Searchers (John Ford) as part of MoMA's John Wayne series. I've read and heard so much about this film that, while it was apparent throughout that this was one of the greatest films I've ever seen, I also failed to register much of a personal reaction. Visually striking in incredibly lurid Technicolor. The domestic scenes are far more interesting and funny and real and fleshed-out than a lot of what you get in most westerns, for a variety of reasons. I have no problem with the assertion that this is not only John Wayne's greatest role, but one of the classic American performances of all time. Not that it's necessarily that different from what he does elsewhere, but his stubborn, reactionary sarcasm, masking a more complex set of inner drives and feelings that he's violently unwilling to discuss or perhaps even consider himself, just seems exactly right in every scene. I recall thinking that this was supposed to be unremittingly dark and savage, but for the most part it's good-natured with a lot of humor, though there are dark spots.
As an afterthought, I'll add that John Wayne's good friend and arch-conservative Ward Bond (here he plays Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton) is one of my few very favorite character actors, although he has the unfair advantage of being in basically everything. He has 271 credits on IMDb over a span of 30 years and apparently appeared in 30 movies in 1935 alone.
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The Show Must Go On (Han Jae-rim) at the IFC Center for the New York Asian Film Festival. Song Kang-ho here exhibits the same brilliant befuddledness and inner frustration that mark his performances for Bong Joon-ho (Memories of Murder, The Host). He plays a hapless gangster trying his best to provide for his family despite inept and ungrateful associates and several dangerous rivals. A plot synopsis would probably look pretty bleak, but Han plays the hardships for laughs, albeit tastefully--we're not talking Todd Solondz here, or anything.
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Donovan's Reef (John Ford) as part of MoMA's John Wayne series. A rather old Marcel Dalio appears in one of the most boring minor roles ever written for the screen. Lee Marvin has a similarly, shamefully small role, but plays it to the hilt and steals every scene he's in, relishing the mayhem he causes every bit as much as when he plays the titular villain in Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Wayne's just a bit too crusty and old to be wooing anyone, particularly a 22-year old. If you feel like seeing a John Ford film depicting shenanigans in the south Pacific, choose Mister Roberts instead.
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El Dorado (Howard Hawks) as part of MoMA's John Wayne series. My second favorite John Wayne role (see below), and fine support from Robert Mitchum, one of Hollywood's great voices, and a very young James Caan. I really like the tone Hawks takes here, witty and at times hilarious, but not goofy. Everybody plays it cool, even when getting shot, but the acting isn't really ironic or cynical. Even the theme song is pretty great.
Also, it's been dawning on me as I see more and more westerns how nice it is to have so many common generic conventions, as it lets the story move much more quickly. We don't need a whole back story telling us that the cowboy and the lonesome woman once had a relationship and, though they rarely see each other anymore, the torch still burns. We know the town is rife with outlaws and the sheriff is fallible but good at heart. A filmmaker can jump right into specifics without taking the time to construct psychological support for the actions his characters will take later, because we already understand the psychology of the prototypical hero, anti-hero, deputy sheriff, cattle rustler, etc.
+ + +
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The Last Sunset (Robert Aldrich) at BAM. I'm conflicted about whether this is really a top-tier western for me or not. Kirk Douglas is awesomely tough as always, and the uncommon poetic interludes come off far better than I'd have guessed. But I really don't get the appeal of Dorothy Malone, and in general the story feels slightly sparse, maybe because the focus here is more on the love story than on the specifics of the cattle drive. The programmers praised the cinematography in their introduction, but it didn't seem that special. Maybe a restored print would better reveal the director's handiwork, but then I really didn't like Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly nearly as much as I'd expected from it's critical reputation either.
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The Searchers (John Ford) as part of MoMA's John Wayne series. I've read and heard so much about this film that, while it was apparent throughout that this was one of the greatest films I've ever seen, I also failed to register much of a personal reaction. Visually striking in incredibly lurid Technicolor. The domestic scenes are far more interesting and funny and real and fleshed-out than a lot of what you get in most westerns, for a variety of reasons. I have no problem with the assertion that this is not only John Wayne's greatest role, but one of the classic American performances of all time. Not that it's necessarily that different from what he does elsewhere, but his stubborn, reactionary sarcasm, masking a more complex set of inner drives and feelings that he's violently unwilling to discuss or perhaps even consider himself, just seems exactly right in every scene. I recall thinking that this was supposed to be unremittingly dark and savage, but for the most part it's good-natured with a lot of humor, though there are dark spots.
As an afterthought, I'll add that John Wayne's good friend and arch-conservative Ward Bond (here he plays Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton) is one of my few very favorite character actors, although he has the unfair advantage of being in basically everything. He has 271 credits on IMDb over a span of 30 years and apparently appeared in 30 movies in 1935 alone.
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The Show Must Go On (Han Jae-rim) at the IFC Center for the New York Asian Film Festival. Song Kang-ho here exhibits the same brilliant befuddledness and inner frustration that mark his performances for Bong Joon-ho (Memories of Murder, The Host). He plays a hapless gangster trying his best to provide for his family despite inept and ungrateful associates and several dangerous rivals. A plot synopsis would probably look pretty bleak, but Han plays the hardships for laughs, albeit tastefully--we're not talking Todd Solondz here, or anything.
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Posted on Saturday, June 30, 2007
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