Billy Liar (1963) Directed by John Schlesinger

Astrid:
Back from Christmas hibernation. And I'm back from suffering fever in bed after the Christmas stress got the best of me. Today I even ventured out for a walk and discovered the world pretty much the same as before. So here's one more review for the year 2010.

I don't think Billy Liar is Nick's favorite, although we are supposed to be reviewing the favorites still and this was his choice. This time is a special transition period between Christmas films (such as Home Alone 1 and 2), over-watching movies in general, and the new year with a return to routine. It's a strange time I have to add, somehow this roaming routineless makes me restless. I'm two paragraphs into this review and still have not mentioned Billy.

Well, I thought I was in for a light stylish fun time. What I got was a depression induced by Billy's lying, Julie Christie's annoyingly effortless beauty and edge, and the perfect duffel bag on the train table. The worst thing was that Billy was a very talented and creative person who was obviously never going to come to nothing because he was afraid to take any risks. Something in me feels too fragile to really analyze what made me so uncomfortable here, but I certainly wasn't in the mood.

Nick:
Living in an alternative reality to the everyday humdrum existence we call life is something I often resort to. Yes, I'm a daydreamer, and a put-offer of doing things. But still,  I get round to the essential things in the end. What I don't do is create yarns about myself and others that don't pertain to reality, like Billy Fisher does as the main protagonist of Billy Liar.

Schlesinger's debut film looks amazing, and you certainly get a sense of the 'swinging 1960's' from some of the fish-eye shots and imaginative use of camera composition. Julie Christie's 'It Girl' stroll down the street is groovy and fab. Tom Courtney is smug and self involved enough as Billy, but his smart arsed demeanor leaves me with little sympathy for the boy who hasn't the courage to follow his dream of the big city lights. Keith Waterhouse's script still tickles the funny bone, it's just that's not enough to carry the movie.

England (West Bromwich to be exact)  looks marvelous in the 60's and it does leave pangs of nostalgia for a life that once was from this self exiled Brit. The scene with Billy at the breakfast table and the HP Sauce bottle in the foreground pulls the heartstrings. The British New wave of the 60's has aged badly. The lunges into seriousness towards the end of Billy Liar feels hollow. So, It's style over substance for Billy Liar. An enjoyable romp, just don't take the misplaced social commentary very seriously.

Gone With The Wind (1939) Directed by Victor Fleming

Nick:
I've lost my mojo. I mean this in the respect that here we are, watching some of our favorite films, and I have not been able to put much personal perspective in the reviews on this blog. So, Astrid's latest pick is the never ending Gone With The Wind. I don't have much personal connection with this picture. It used to be a Christmas staple on British TV. I actually remember the British TV premier, some time in the 1970's I think. That's it. No more connection to my soul for Gone With The Wind.

But wait a minute. What do I experience when I watch this picture? What hits me always is how well shot this movie is. From the opening scene with Scarlett on the veranda of family home Tara with the twin beaus who dote on her every word (it's almost 3D!), to the last act, splendid in its dark Gothic intensity. It's the main thing I take away with me here. Is there such a well composed old movie as this one? I also find it fascinating that such a celebrated piece of popular culture has such an unlikeable central character as Scarlett O'Hara. Gone With The Wind can be thanked for giving us such an empowered female lead, but every opportunity to feel empathy towards Vivien Leigh's character is taken away from us. Was this the film maker's attempt to give extra depth and meaning to Clark Gable's final utterance "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn"?

So amongst all that happens in the gossipy lives and war torn extravaganza that is Gone With The Wind, it doesn't move my soul. So why do I enjoy this four hours of over-the-top soap opera so much? Is it really the fact that despite my punk attitude, despite my allusion that cinema should be artful and have meaning, Gone With The Wind satisfies me as top class entertainment and nothing more? Yes, and sometimes that's enough.

Astrid:
When I first watched Gone With The Wind I was under ten years old and I kept falling asleep. I did not understand much of the story but still the film had a magical influence. I was fascinated by the rudeness and the passionate feelings of Scarlett and Rhett. Also, the clothing and the look of the film spoke to my romantic heart. This was what I thought adult life is like – something to look forward to.

As a teenager I loved the film but found Scarlett O'Hara somewhat unsympathetic. I judged her capitalist greed, anger, cunning plotting and her love for Ashley as faults, which she could exorcise if she wanted to. I also found Rhett completely repulsive!

Life seems more complex the longer I live it. Now I have had to realize that Scarlett is the most realistic portrayal of a person here, while the perfect saintly Mel seems rather boring and uninteresting as a character. Scarlett enjoys a bit of sex after her arguments, she openly longs for a man while marrying others for financial benefit, she appears driven and self-protecting in public, she speaks her mind, shows her anger, drinks too much alcohol and gives the occasional slap on the face. She appears to go trough post-natal depression too, she kills a man to protect her land, she plays mind games with her husband and makes a lot of mistakes. But aren't these the factors that make her such a fascinating leading lady? Even in December 2010 these traits in a woman bring up the emotional question of femininity or the lack of it.

Gone With The Wind was filmed and finished in 1939, the same year as The Wizard of Oz. Cinema was a very new art form then (especially the use of color), yet, there haven't been many films since as full of movie magic as this one. Happy Holidays everyone!

The Manchurian Candidate (1962) Directed by John Frankenheimer

Astrid:
I have spent time rummaging through my memory lately thinking of things that have happened to me and that I have done. But what about the things that have happened to me and I've done without having a memory or knowledge of them? Do those things matter? What about sleep, dreams, being a baby, too drunk to know, too scared to know? What about the subconscious, can I know on another level while not knowing at all in my usual daily consciousness?

The Manchurian Candidate claims that it does matter what we do and experience. It becomes dangerous to forget or to not connect to all sides of ourselves, because the fragmented consciousness can be used as a weapon. In the film this issue is presented with connection to war crimes, spying, and political assassinations, but the most disturbing aspect of this intra-personal disconnection is closer to home. A mother hypnotizing her son in order to use him as an assassin is an over-the-top example of the power family members have potentially towards each other.

Our common sense of self-identity is largely based on the ability to master a coherent image of the different levels of consciousness. The Manchurian Candidate shows how fragile and fluid the coherence actually is. It's one of those movies where I get a little bit bored watching it, but come away with a lot of ideas and inspiration.

Nick:
The Manchurian Candidate is easily in my top 20 films of all time. I have a special relationship with this film. When I first got into films seriously (I was around 13),  The Manchurian Candidate was a film you couldn't see. I had read about it, it had legendary status. It was a Holy Grail kind of film that was not in circulation in any form. Just stills in some movie books.  Frank Sinatra owned the movie rights and after the John F Kennedy assassination of 1963 withdrew the film from circulation due to US government pressure. Turns out that this was pie in the sky and that distribution issues were at the root of the films disappearance. Of course, such speculation only added to the picture's legend in my mind. Anyway, a restored version was cinema re-released in 1988. This was when I finally saw the picture and fell in love with the film.

The Manchurian Candidate comes across like something that you may read about on Wiki Leaks in 2010. Son of prominent right wing family is brainwashed in the Korean war to become a post-war assassin for Communist sympathizers operating in the USA. The genuinely weird Laurence Harvey plays Raymond Shaw, the would be assassin. Frank Sinatra plays Major Marco, who fought with Raymond in Korea. Marco faces his own personal demons, which he thinks somehow relates to Raymond. Janet Leigh plays Rosie, who helps Marco get his confidence and focus back. The scene on a train where Leigh seduces and consoles Sinatra with small talk is very moving. Yet, Angela Lansbury, playing against type as Raymond's evil mother steals the film. Manipulation, murder and incest all come into her chilling orbit.

I'd make the claim that The Manchurian Candidate is the mother of all conspiracy thrillers. It's sophisticated film making with a pinpoint narrative, where it makes the audience think to get a true understanding. The Manchurian Candidate displayed a style that the film making that was to follow in the late 1960's picked up on and ran with. For me, this remains a found masterpiece and a true original.

Wild At Heart (1990) directed by David Lynch

Nick:
Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) passed away a couple of days ago. A very sad loss. Not just for some of the great records he made, but also for the attitude behind his music. No compromise, just inspiration. I see David Lynch as cinema's version of the Captain, always pushing the envelope, yet each frame of his films undeniably his work. Astrid's latest pick of her favorite films is Lynch's Wild At Heart, often overlooked nowadays when compared to say Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive, Wild At Heart in some ways encapsulates all the aspects of Lynch's cinema, the good and the bad, all in one handy bundle.

Violence, sex, Rock 'n Roll, The Wizard of Oz and an obsession with the 1950's iconography run through Wild At Heart, the energy on screen is breathtaking. Laura Dern and Nicolas Cage (as Lula and Sailor) exude a certain empty chemistry that really works in the film's favor. Great support from Diane Ladd, Harry Dean Stanton and Willem Dafoe means that Wild At Heart is one of the most character-built Lynch movies. Two thirds of this picture is so on the money, it's almost intensely faultless. At times it's very funny. It's also strong visually, with many stand-out shots and a great use of color. Crispin Glover's cameo and Sherilyn Fenn's car crash victim live long in the memory. Isabella Rossellini's face has never been so well captured. The soundtrack mixes Elvis and kung-fu style metal, invents Chris Isaak along with some great work from Angelo Badalamenti.

For me, Wild At Heart really falls down in the last third, when Sailor and Lula stop following the Yellow Brick Road and end up in Big Tuna.

Despite the introduction of Dafoe as the rotten toothed and slimy Bobby Peru, Lynch's abrupt end to the films road movie sequences zaps all the energy. It's a minor quibble of course, there's more than enough on display here to fill 100 movies. Plus, genuine weirdness abounds to satisfy Lynch die-hards. I prefer Blue Velvet if I was going to compare, where I think Lynch captured the essence of a 1950's utopia in a subversively sly, creepy and dark modern suburban surrounding. But Wild At Heart is Lynch in almost mainstream mode, and it's still exhilarating if ultimately flawed.

Astrid:
Once when walking in Beachwood on the Hollywood Hills I was stopped by an old man in a suit who wanted to say that I look like someone in a David Lynch film. He could not remember who, but I suggested it was Laura Dern and he did not deny it. I guess it doesn't take that much imagination there to make this arbitrary connection with Mulholland Drive close by, but it was a great LA moment for someone who loves Wild At Heart.

In my opinion, I don't much resemble Laura Dern, but I do admire her portrayal of Lula. Wild At Heart depicts the need to break free from entanglements, tormenting familial relationships, nightmares, and traumatic past events into a self-defined reality. It is a heart-wrenching mother-daughter story too. Being Lynch, it is stylized to the point of being like a fairytale. Funnily enough, Wild At Heart also references The Wizard of Oz, as did Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (the other movie I have chosen as my favorite so far).

Being on the road, driving away from something, running away – how ever you want to see it – I have experienced moments of exhilarating freedom in a moving car myself, and can therefore always relate to cinema that depicts this specific kind of disentanglement. It could be that I got this romantic notion from watching movies, but it certainly has come to good use on tour buses. On the last stretch of my latest tour, the bass player decided to play Love Me Tender maybe five times in a row on his DJ-turn. Watching Wild At Heart again now, I remembered why.

So I'm not the only one who gets romantic ideas about being on the road based on this film. Sailor Ripley (Nicholas Cage) is a great characterization of a simple young man who gets into a lot of trouble for following his romantic notions of love, identity, individuality and freedom. I'm not a huge Nicholas Cage fan, but I'm a fan of Sailor and his snakeskin jacket.

Jaws (1975) Directed by Steven Spielberg

Astrid:I did not swim in a lake for at least a whole summer as a kid because some boy in the daycare had mentioned the word killershark to me. As an 8-year-old I saw a couple of scenes from Jaws with my 18-year-old second cousin and was freaked out again. Then again, I used to be afraid of little fish too, not just sharks – I did not want to touch any fish skin. 

When ever I go on tour or somewhere, Nick watches Jaws – for him it's like Woody Allen for me, reliable and comfortable and you need the annual doses. But Jaws? Really darling?

What kind of a film maker spends the first half of the film developing tension with the main character's family in the picture but then chucks the whole story line and goes shark hunting? Are we supposed to experience a natural transition to the second half of the film through Richard Dreyfuss' shark expert? It's baffling. 

Whereas the part of Jaws that happens on the island at least has some entertaining 1970s New Hollywood appeal in the way it portrays people, once we are on the boat I am bored. I cannot get over the insulting way this picture does away with continuation in plot and replaces it with the shark.

Shark shark shark. A symbolic animal for the mindless garbage-eating monsters that Hollywood has churned out ever since.

Nick:
I have a special relationship with Jaws. When I was 9 I went to the cinema with my sister to watch Jaws. It was PG (parental guidance) at the time. Well, the film scared me stiff, and I had nightmares for quite a few months after.  But as I grew up, I kept going back to the film to see why it had such a profound effect on me as a child. I never really found the reason why, other than I was probably too young to take in some of the nowadays pretty tame violence. But Jaws is a film I've revisited many times now as an adult, and it keeps getting better.

What fascinates me now about Jaws is how this picture became so huge. It smashed box office records at the time. The film debuted at a time when the realist New Hollywood was beginning to fade, and a more populist cinema was about to take over and influence modern cinema forever (Spielberg's buddy George Lucas was two years away with Star Wars). In reality, no one has ever forgiven Spielberg for this influence. Yet Jaws is definitely a New Hollywood picture with a budget and a  heavy debt to Hitchcock's Psycho.

Spielberg shows very little in the first hour, with John Williams now legendary stabbing theme (Psycho again) giving us advance warning of a pending shark attack.  But believable turns from Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and the excellent Richard Dreyfuss give credence to a lot of the dumb plot turns on screen which in essence lead us to a very poor looking mechanical rubber shark! The last hour of the film is a three men in a boat play, with some great dialogue and interplay.

Spielberg never gets much critical credit, seemingly portrayed as a maker of kids movies and over sentimental rubbish. Yet as director Spielberg has made quite a few gems: Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Raiders Of the Lost Ark, E.T., Empire Of the Sun, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan and more than a few other good films. Jaws was where his personal style came through for the first time. That style has been founded on solid storytelling and a remit to entertain. And cinema does not get much more entertaining than the mechanical rubber shark picture.

Manhattan (1979) Directed by Woody Allen

Nick:

I know for Astrid, Woody Allen supplies the definitive spark of cinema excellence. She could easily pick ten Woody movies as some of her favorites. Manhattan represents Woody's most idealized portrait of New York, something that Astrid also relates to. Gershwin and that Skyline.

Sometimes, what we need and what's best for us is right under our noses. Things often look better than they really are from an observational vantage, yet intimate involvement can lead to disappointment. Isaac (Allen) has a good thing going with the young Tracy (Mariel Hemingway), but his own doubts, narcissism and self indulgence leads him to get involved with the troubled Mary (Diane Keaton) and dump the supportive Tracy. It's no surprise that the 17-year-old Tracy is the most level headed, astute and mature character on display in Manhattan. The middle aged characters of Manhattan have all lost their way and breed cynicism.

Manhattan displays some of Allen's sharpest lines, it's a witty picture. But it is the look of the film, wonderfully photographed by Gordon Willis in chromatic black and white that improves this film with every viewing. It's easily Allen's most cinematic picture, some of the images here have seeped into popular culture (Allen and Keaton sitting on a bench by Queensborough Bridge for example). So amongst the pondering, broken relationships, the absolute sense of doing good by our friends, Manhattan adds the pleasure of letting us dream. That dream is a picture of New York that only exists in the director's head, and spending time in that dream is a joy.

Astrid:
I'm finding it difficult to have anything interesting to say about my favorite films. The problem is that when I love something it is such a non-verbal experience of emotions. Seriously though, I am more ambitions than simply exclaiming: it's just fantastic! I just love it! There has to be a reason why I relate to Manhattan, Allen and Keaton. I even spent ten years playing the clarinet – but never got to swing or ragtime (which is probably why I no longer play).

So here we go: I like depictions of neurotic people. I like quirks, fears, faults, awkwardness, messiness, particularity, inconsistency and the incredible human capacity to survive and make jokes.
Note that I like depictions of these things. In my everyday life I find myself often quite unsympathetic to the above human qualities.

Yet, there is something endlessly familiar in Allen's perspective to exploring the human condition. I relate to his concern and anger about death, his obsession with romantic love, and art as the content that makes life worth living.

I used to take life very seriously and humor tended to make me uncomfortable as it usually poked lightly at issues I deemed serious. Woody Allen's humor, though, I have learned to enjoy. Watching Manhattan I laughed out loud many times and felt safe in the laughter.

Manhattan portrays New York City more beautifully than many other iconic films located in the city. Here, the city is not only a set but a character. Allen is even able to further plot by showing us landscapes of the city while we hear the main characters talking to each other.

I'll end with the most personal point:
There are two male characters who act as points of comparison to any male that appears in my life in whatever role: Muumipappa (Moomin Papa) and Woody Allen. My grandfather, father, boyfriend and everyone else can score points by bringing to my mind either Muumipappa or Woody. I'm not sure how much they have scored over the years, if at all. It is just my projection of the ideal.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) Directed by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

Astrid:
Here we go again: another Nick's favorite turns out to be an old film about a gentleman at war (yes, there is a bit of dueling too). The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is a sort of 1940s English war effort support film. While watching it, I feel distinctly un-English – it is not my story in any way.

Yet, this is a film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. There is the art of sets, photography, and detail to look at all through its epic length. Despite my initial boredom, the film holds some of the early movie magic (best experienced as a child); it looks better than most other films from any time, and it connects with its characters and feels genuine feelings. Martin Scorsese has lifted more than one scene and a way of shooting straight out of here.

Tragedy is often born out of dedication. Deborah Kerr plays almost all the women in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. Powell and Pressburger must really suffer from the obsession here described as Colonel Blimp's obsession. They all love her ginger hair and the fast talk that seems to come with it. This one-girl craze is a tad scary in the film and in the work of Powell and Pressburger at large. But I guess it is also romantic – it is the kind of dedication rarely portrayed as admirable these days.

Nick:
Sometimes you just want to savor the most special things. Rationing helps. I left England 12 years ago for Helsinki, Finland. My reasons for leaving were certainly personal mixed with a general weariness about the place. I miss certain aspects about England very much.  A certain kind of gentile behavior, humor, earnestness, naivety, that sense of goodness and reasonableness that is very British. The stiff upper lip mentality even. Ironically Finns often display the same attributes.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp displays this Englishness more so than any other film I can recall. It always reminds me of my youth when people who actually fought in the World Wars were still around, those attitudes were still the order of the day. Of course, that sense of fair play was lost years ago. But you can go back to it in this picture. Not only does The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp give us some notions of nationality, it's also one of the most artful and subversive films I've ever seen. Lets not forget, no one ever used color like Powell & Pressburger.

Powell & Pressburger  capture a certain English attitude in their cinema, but they also bought their amazing eye for detail and strong political conviction to bear. To think The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp was supposed to raise moral during the Second World War, the message here is so anti-war, yet beautifully subtle in its execution. In any context or age, this is certainly a strange original ride. But let's not forget this is a love story. You can fall in love with Deborah Kerr as three amazing women over and over. The great Roger Livesey and Anton Walbrook show us the true meaning of the words noble and gentlemen.

Like I said at the start. I ration the amount of times I will watch this film, just to keep it special. No more to add, all life is here.

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) directed by Martin Scorsese

Nick:
We're choosing some of our favorite films leading up to the New Year. Today's pick is one of Astrid's.

I love the idea of misconception, when  people don't seem to be what they are, or they somehow refuse other people's conception of themselves as human being or artist. Martin Scorsese has often achieved this in the most subtle ways. We know him as the film maker who chronicles gangster lives so well. He has an instinctive feel for the murkier depths of the street, especially those of NewYork between the 60's to present day.

But if you scratch the surface of Scorsese a little, and clear away the bluster, and more importantly, the cinema he's known for, you'll find the real beating engine beneath the bonnet. It's when dealing with the idea of creativity that for me Scorsese makes his best and often more original work. The King Of Comedy, New York, New York, The Last Waltz and No Direction Home. Add Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore to that mix and you get a thoughtful and sensitive film maker that counter balances the recognized gangster spats.

So what makes Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore so special? Well there's the opening twisted spoof of Wizard of Oz. The underrated Ellen Burstyn's brilliant central role. The creepiest Harvey Keitel performance, the best Jodie Foster cameo ever, Alfred Lutter's stellar childish humor. Add Kris Kristofferson to the mix, reliable and steady as the love interest and Diane Ladd as a foul mouthed waitress. I love the way Kristofferson's beard has the same gray patches as my own. The usual excellent soundtrack features T Rex, Mott The Hoople, Elton John and other 70's delights.With Scorsese showing his flair for the visual for the first time, what you end up with is one of Scorsese's least celebrated pictures and romantic comedy gold. This is a genuinely funny, touching film.  Go see!


Astrid:
It was a revelation to me about a year back to discover that Martin Scorsese has directed a film such as Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore in the middle of his portrayals of violence and his dedication to male characters. This is a film about a woman.

As I am writing, it occurs to me that it is still rather rare to see movies about women in an empowering, empathic, yet unsentimental light. For example this year's 'women's film' Eat, Pray, Love (2010) is simply embarrassing and patronizing in comparison. Still, I must mention it here, because I believe that both films cater to the same need of making sense of what it is to be a heterosexual 35-year-old American woman in a particular time and place. What is liberation, sexual freedom, free will and what is responsibility? Erica Jong's bestseller Fear of Flying (a novel) from the 1970's also belongs to this same discussion. My point being that the question of women's identity sells each decade in slightly different packaging. But it sells a ton.

Now to the personal: I am a woman and I happen to be a piano playing singer too. So is Alice. And if it is rare to see a film about a strong woman, it is even rarer to see a movie about a woman with artistic aspirations, but not much success. Alice is flawed, tired and disillusioned, then she is let down by the men in her life and so she takes her son and gets on the road to return to her home town and to resume her musical career (which she left 15 years earlier). Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore describes a woman of the 1970's waking up to the notion that she does have the right to ask herself what she wants. What happens when she finally dares to ask? I won't tell you because you have to watch this film.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly (1966) Directed by Sergio Leone

During December we have decided to watch and review our favorite films, which for a reason or another we have not yet discussed here. The first pick is Nick's.

Astrid:
My relationship to Leone and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is comparable to my relationship to beetroot (the vegetable): after the initial heartfelt dislike and unease comes forcefeeding and through that a new voluntary relationship. Now I am full of wonder and curiosity when it comes to beetroot – and Leone.

It is annoying to have to admit that something so square and simplistic, so male-oriented and nostalgic can indeed be more than it appears at first glance. At first the use of landscape and photography win me over, then the beauty of Clint (so obviously in love with himself), then Ennio Morricone's score overwhelms me. Finally, in this particular movie, Eli Wallach adds some high-class acting to the soup.

A truly enjoyable Borsch is ready.

Yet, I cannot review this film without mentioning Leone's disregard for women. There it is as a matter of fact. How can we watch these movies in the 21st century as anything else than masterful caricatures of the ideal masculinities in the past-and-gone century? Is this why my boyfriend loves these films so? What is he nostalgic for, his childhood or something else?

Nick:
When it comes to picking all time favorites, does over-familiarity breed contempt? Not in this instance. Whichever way I look at Leone's picture (and it is a film I've watched over 30 times), there are always new details to find and every viewing brings more to admire. I first saw this movie when I was 12 years old. At the time Leone and the Dollars Trilogy were not as iconic as they are now and these films did not have the critical favor that they now possess. Time and culture have given Leone's picture a rare standing of being both popularist  and critically loved.

Viewing The Good, The Bad & The Ugly this time round it was easy to acknowledge that Eastwood doesn't feature in this movie so much, yet he walks away with the candy. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly is Leone's first picture to delve into the use of substantial character, Eli Wallach's Tuco steals the film from Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef (the Good & The Bad respectively to Tuco's Ugly). Tuco is a character that Leone revisits to some extent in the later Duck, You Sucker with  Rod Steiger showing similar crudity as Juan Miranda. Eastwood drifts in and out of The Good, The Bad & The Ugly like a ghost, only assuming his Man With No Name  figure in the final reel when he don's the famous poncho.

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly ultimately blows me away with its vision, Morricone's score still surprises, and the humor works in not making me take this film so seriously. What followed from Leone had more depth and an even greater sense of what cinema could do, and I know I will revisit all those films over the course of my life. But let's just say that The Good, The Bad & The Ugly is a lot more fun.

Christmas In Film Land

Nick:
So, as we approach the time of year when capitalist avarice goes into overdrive, here are some  Christmas recommendations to blow some of your hard earned loot, drug money, Lottery winnings ....delete where applicable. Being a greedy, spoilt Westerner, I'm hoping Santa will bring me some of these.

1.The New Biographical Dictionary of Film (5th edition) by David Thomson.  These come by once every 7 to 10 years. The previous edition is probably the best book on Cinema I've read. Thomson waxes lyrical on cinema and you just indulge in his insights.

2. At this time of year I have a real yearning to watch a few musicals (On The Town & Anchors Aweigh, both similar spring to mind). But High Society is the kind of star studied musical comfort to snug up to on a Christmas holiday. It's always a joy to watch how the other half live.

               

3. Staying on a musical tip, a good soundtrack collection is always a fine stocking filler. A recent budget find was this great collection of John Barry's cinematic theme's from over the years. You get some of his excellent Bond tracks and a lot more besides.

4. Frank Capra's  It's A Wonderful Life is probably recognized as the Christmas picture nowadays. But through a series of films Capra captured a certain feel good feeling with a social conscience that's unbeatable. This collection has the rest of the best.

 
5. A book which comes around at this time of year every year, is perhaps the best movie guide on the market. The Time Out film guide is on it's 19th edition this year. Short, sharp, intelligent reviews, this is one of the great dip in and out of reads.

                                                                      
Astrid:
1. Fanny och Alexander (1982, directed by Ingmar Bergman). Growing up, we did not watch movies in my house but somehow I managed to catch this (and many other magical films) as a child somewhere. This film depicts the mystery of Christmas and the mystery of the life of adults as seen through the wondering eyes of children. Many of my aesthetic ideals for what a real Christmas looks like come from this film.  
                                               

                                                 
2.  Fragments by Marilyn Monroe, is a collection of her journal writing, notes and other personal material. The Guardian sees the publishing of her personal writings as an attempt to broaden our view of the last century's most idealized 'sex symbol' (I don't like the term).

                                              
3. Reds (1981, directed by Warren Beatty). This is for lovers, and for writers, lovers of Diane Keaton, Helsinki in the snow and Russia.

This is for those who think life is tragic and unfair but who value its beauty. And it's for those who love historical epics.       
           

                                                      
4. Annie Hall (1977), Play It Again Sam (1972), Manhattan 1979). This is a golden trilogy (it's that only by my definition) for someone in love with New York, Woody Allen, the 1970's, Diane Keaton (again) and who wants to laugh and be entertained while totally not willing to let go of the intellectual pursue of answers to why we are here and alive. A survival kit.

                                                        
5. Woody Allen's movie music CD, a soundtrack to a life. What more does anyone need for Christmas?

                                         

Henry Fool (1997) Directed by Hal Hartley

Astrid:
This is a genius film. It tells a very followable story about a family in Queens and how everything changes for them when one stranger enters their lives. Simplistic enough. But while I am watching the plot unfold, Henry Fool asks many important questions and takes a stand for creativity.

There is nothing wrong with being a garbage man, but if you are a garbage man with poetry inside then you can count yourself lucky that a certain Henry Fool straight from prison is going to get you writing.
And as happens in this movie, finding a creative outlet can be a question of life and death. It can change everything.

But once you have found your outlet, it does not mean that you are good at writing, or playing the piano for that matter. The question of quality, standards for art and the relationship one's creative product has with the existing cultural structure all become real and threatening to those who dare to try expressing themselves. It can be so dangerous and damaging to be criticized that we never recover from it, as the mother in Henry Fool shows.

Yet, there is something very powerful and all-conquering about finding creativity within oneself. What happens to Simon in this film is that through finding his creative outlet he also finds ways of being kind to others, and ways of communicating his true feelings in any given situation. It is as if people around him only really get to know him once he becomes a poet.

Finally, this movie is named after Henry Fool so it must matter who he turns out to be. People who have done bad things can also do good. That is the message.

I might give this as a Christmas present to all my friends.

Nick:
Here's some questions for you to consider:
What is the value of creativity to us as a society?  Should artists earn revenue from other sources other than their art? Could rich patrons be a way for artists, filmmakers, writers and musicians to survive in increasingly frugal times? Or should we support the arts and put our money in our pockets? Do we expect people to write a novelistic masterpiece while holding down a day job in McDonald's? Can they, or should we ask ourselves will they be able to do that? Would artists believe more in the value of what they were doing if the public supported their art through financial means?  It's obvious the arts play an increasingly essential role in our lives, so why are we so unwilling to support this? Why do we want a free ride from our music and increasingly our movies and books? Would we support a director as great as Hal Hartley to keep making pictures? What value is there to artistic control? Let me know the answers please, I want to know.

Henry Fool touches on some of these issues as regards creativity. Where it comes from, what we need to do to harness that talent and so on. Henry Fool also looks at how magic and inspiration can come out of the mundane and that expression and honesty can always hit a raw nerve with all kinds of people. It's also a film about support and loyalty and doing the right thing by your friends. Henry Fool  deals in varying degrees with mental illness, pedophilia, literary frauds and poetic geniuses,  suicide, mass media communication through the internet, commerciality and domestic violence.  It's a movie about love. It's also sardonically and blackly funny.

I so miss the cinema of Hal Hartley. Amateur, Simple Men, Trust & The Unbelievable Truth were all startling and original films.  Henry Fool has a sequel in Fay Grim, I'd love to see it. Hartley's movies don't come to Europe anymore.

Henry Fool is a movie about ideas, from a master movie maker that we don't hear enough from nowadays. Hal Hartley come back.  Henry Fool is a very convoluted picture. Over the years it may have become Hartley's masterpiece.

Get Carter (1971) Directed by Mike Hodges

Nick:

 "You know, I'd almost forgotten what your eyes looked like. Still the same. Pissholes in the snow"- Jack Carter.

Real life gangsters, I've seen a few.  They say there is something exciting about being in the same room as a gangster. Not true, it just breeds fear. Glamor will always seem attractive to those who don't have it or never see it. Michael Caine plays Carter, a stylish, Burberry wearing, pill popping gangster assassin out to revenge the murder of his brother. He kills with a nonchalance that is disturbing.

Throw in this mix a hyper sexy Britt Ekland, Roy Budd's ultra cool soundtrack, Hodges realist direction and you have an iconic film. Hodges also manages to capture the spirit of Northern Britain in the early 1970's. Newcastle looks barren, not a place you'd like to visit, this dead end seems like a big empty wasteland. 

Get Carter shows the sordid details, this ain't no Hollywood. Two fat ladies cat fight in a working men's club. Over-the-hill landladies flirting with the customers. Dodgy council men involved in porn and  extortion. It's grim up North! Get Carter has much in common with that other groundbreaking British gangster picture Performance. Both films share a seediness and sexual tension you don't normally associate with the gangster genre. Get Carter has the Northern grit as a bonus. This film is no nonsense.

Astrid:
It took me a while to be in the mood for Get Carter. I am bored by the idea of a gangster movie because they normally seem so far from my sense of reality. Then again, some days it is a best choice to opt for something far removed and emotionally outrageous. So the evening finally came when I was willing to see why Carter has to be found, had, and killed.

England looks great in the early 1970s, and this film describes the claustrophobic combination of the rural way of life with the grit of city living. It passes the subject of South versus North, poor against the rich, and shows how the new corrupts the old. The soundtrack is unbelievably modern and goes with the main characters' outfits (notice the impeccable black trench). In fact most of the gangsters in Get Carter look like indie rockers of today (although some of them are too old to rock).

What usually disappoints me with this genre of film is the lack of believable justification for action. Here again, Carter's motivation for a killing spree is not so much the murder of his brother, but the fact that his niece has appeared in a porn film made by the local gangsters. For the swinging London gangster, this is supposedly too much. Yet, in his own life he is happy to go to bed with any woman half willing and available...

I am interested to go and see The American, because from what I have read it belongs to this genre of film. And, yes, some revengeful gangsta action isn't that bad from time to time when mixed with style, slow tempo and European landscapes.

Love Actually (2003) Directed by Richard Curtis

Nick:
I will always have a deep love of the films of Jodorowsky, Godard, Leone, Penn, Hartley, Scorsese, Welles, Hitchcock and many other so called critics' favorites. I can revisit films like El Topo or Once Upon A Time In The West many times, and a rewarding feeling comes over me. New details open up with every new viewing and I feel culturally enlivened and inspired. But the need to re-watch Hitchcock's Vertigo or any other classic movie is often tempered by once's feeling of having to be able to concentrate fully. It's about timing when watching one's favorite films.  This opens up avenues for pictures that I can put on at any time and just enjoy whatever the situation.

So, in that respect Love Actually is in my consideration a masterpiece. Yes, it's episodic, sentimental, trashy, almost complete rubbish. But it makes me laugh out loud. I mean real laughing. Not some closet intellectual 'oh aren't they clever and subtle and witty' laughing. I mean belly laughing. So, put your snobbish cinema aesthetics aside. There is much wrong here, if you care to analyze. But I will instinctively reach for this off the shelf on more occasions than The Manchurian Candidate, which is such a favorite picture of mine.

Of course, The Manchurian Candidate does not have a middle-aged/class consideration on pop music, embarrassing story lines, infantile treatise on juvenile romance or many a "past their sell by date" British thespian on board. It's also lacking Hugh Grant dancing to the Pointer Sister's Jump. A genius moment. Hugh Grant is comedy gold with the right script, and this is one of those great roles for him.

Love Actually is something you don't want to admit to liking. I won't admit that. I'll just report that I love this movie, for all the right reasons.

Astrid:
I found this article on a cool blog (You Are Not So Smart) the other day on procrastination. The way we choose what films to watch and why we go usually for the unintellectual, emotionally comforting is somewhat explained there through the concept of present-me versus future-me. Those two are usually locked in a conflict inside us. Read the blog.

Anyway, we watched Love Actually for the millionth time. Just like we have watched Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, You Got Mail, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and countless other cinematically poor but emotionally comforting films many many times. They make me feel good.

Love Actually is made out of so many strands of stories that I forget how they relate to each other. It is attempting to cater a romantic, tear-jerking plot for everyone to identify with. Being eight years old now, the movie is beginning to glow with my nostalgia for the early Noughties, when I had the guts to wear red, pink and green in the same outfit. Even the then-hit-songs by Sugar Babes and Justin Timberlake (help!) are starting to sound classic to my ears...puke.

I cannot defend Love Actually. The more I think of it the more appalling it appears in hindsight.
But in the end it just comes down to needing unchallenging entertainment with the sloppiest most optimistic message: love is everywhere, humans are capable of love after all.

Come Christmas time, we can only hope that this year's Holiday pic is something as good as this once was.

Other Blogs and The Young Lions (1958)

Nick: We dug into a movie last night that had been sitting on the shelf for awhile.

Astrid: Yes, on the DVD sleeve The Young Lions looks like it's going to be a classic. Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, 1958 – usually this recipe is certified entertainment.

Nick: My reasons for getting a copy of The Young Lions was my mid-80's crush on Monty Clift. I had seen the movie at that time, and probably combined with copious amounts of marijuana, I had felt the picture was great.

Astrid: Already 36 minutes into the 3-hour film, I was yawning and giving Nick meaningful stares.

Nick: It must have been strong weed back in the day, because in the cold light of 2010 this was dreary and sleep inducing like cyanide.

Astrid: So in fact, at exactly 1 hour we agreed to give up watching the movie. For a war epic, there was a spectacular amount of time spent on developing one-on-one hetero relationships which appeared as stiff as wood. To digress into the one-on-one relationship between N&A: I never buy the DVDs that we review on this blog.

Nick: Yes, the holes are in my pockets! We didn't finish the film, but I will one day. Monty was really wired in this picture, which is good enough reason to revisit. We did discuss at some point last night other blogs we read.

Astrid: Yes, and although a sort of power position is constructed by my not committing to the purchasing of these DVDs I am seriously interested in interaction I imagine possible online through our blog.

Nick: I revealed to you that I read other Finnish blogs (Google Translate is a big help here!), mainly music ones such as 1000 Sparks, Slow Show, Ääniä, Katosblog, Echoes and one that covers music and movies No You Girls Never Know.

Astrid:  One of my favorites from the States is Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist, which manages to make business talk, farming and blogging advice personal and inspiring. It is the freedom to engage in serious and often boring topics with thriving subjective perspectives that makes blogging potentially radical.

Nick: I sometimes struggle to find a personal context to put my film reviews in. Being a film geek means I could tell you about many boring facts and related trivia of the pictures we review. For example, Hope Lange from The Young Lions also plays Laura Dern's mum in David Lynch's Blue Velvet.

Astrid: Can you tell me how this 'boring fact' becomes interesting to you?

Nick: In a scene from the movie, when Lange is chatting with Dern's character, a Monty Clift photo is hanging in the background. To me, this is Lynch giving credit to Hope Lange's appearance in a Monty Clift potboiler from 1958. It's David's little nod of respect to Hope. But maybe my personal input comes from movies I buy to review on this blog.

Astrid: Interestingly, I think that your insight is specifically that kind of random connection making, which David Lynch is a master at in cinema, and us bloggers should feel free to develop more and more.

NB: We will be shortly updating our blog roll call on the side of the page.

Adam's Rib (1949) & Whatever Works (2009)

Astrid:
We surprised ourselves in double-billing a genius 1940's romantic comedy and Woody Allen again. Are we becoming predictable yet? To defend the repetition, we just happened to watch these two close to each other without any intellectual choice. What film suits which evening is a question of comfort zones.

Choosing what we watch in this house is a balancing act. There is my mood and there is Nick's. When I am feeling unsafe and in need of comfort, I want to watch real-life-like drama or comedies or very romantic films. In fact, to watch anything else I need to feel either completely bored or so vivacious and daring that I can handle a bit of action, cinematic violence, being afraid or floating in space. Movies about cowboys are entering a new territory on my map – as you may have noticed – they are beginning to comfort me more and anger me less. I'll tell you about my relationship to epics some other time.

Adam's Rib and Whatever Works are both essentially great scripts where what the characters say actually makes one think and feel. Both films are also ambitions, they want to comment on the big life questions. We can be entertained while thinking about dying or pondering on women's rights. Woody Allen may be one of the only directors left these days who still trusts in this old-fashioned cinematic storytelling. In fact, I don't really understand how in 1949 a film could be so daring, full of content and still entertaining, while in 2010 cinema is mostly saying nothing daring, upsetting, questioning or new.

If I continue this way, I have to admit that Whatever Works is mostly good because of my personal nostalgia. I miss and continue to love the 1940's Hollywood comedy and I miss and love the 1970's Woody Allen films. Whatever Works is like a faded memory scratched to shine in color for a short while.

What has made us so culturally dummed-down and bored? Where is the next artistic platform where we dare to explore and be radical for the sake of change? Tell me someone. 

Nick
Romance? Laughter? Is life's eternal quest for satisfaction and gratification simply down to these two factors? Is there more? Death plays a big part in the narration of most Woody Allen films. Our ultimate destiny perhaps. Sharing deep friendship with someone is not to be confused with love or the thrill of the chase. Companionship for me comes from somewhere else.

Here are two films that share a focus on relationships and the needs those relationships demand. In Adam's Rib, it's a taking for granted of one partners intelligence. It is also expecting sympathy and understanding to ideals the other half possibly does not understand or agree with. In Adam's Rib, these ideals work both ways.

Whatever Works finds Woody Allen in sharp cynical form, a return to New York no less. Larry David is perfectly cast as the know-it-all grump who educates Southern bimbo Melody (Evan Rachel Wood) on the depressing nature of human existence. Although the picture ultimately deals with cliché and unfeasible plot twists, the presence of David insures that the laughs are subtle and the quality high. It's worth noting that Allen actually says something through David in this picture, philosophizing on various issues during his straight to camera addresses.

Adam's Rib is a lesson in onscreen chemistry, Hepburn and Tracy's very public battle of the sexes, given credence by the couple's genuine affection for each other. It's almost embarrassing to watch the intimacy on camera, but it convinces all the same.

I don't know if  I laughed much during either film, or felt pangs of romantic feeling overwhelm me (actually I  know I didn't). But both films left me thinking in different ways, at their core they carried different views on how this relationship business works. The ultimate message? Keep trying.

Open Range (2003) Directed by Kevin Costner

Nick:
I'm a pushover for a good Western. The Western represents for me a true picture of American attitudes and values that are still relevant to American life and culture. Of course it's often from a male perspective, but once a female character is introduced, it always adds extra depth to the vision . Once Upon A Time In The West and Red River being good examples of this.

Open Range brings nothing new to this genre, in fact it owes a big debt to the Clint Eastwood western, especially Eastwood's autumn years classic Unforgiven. Despite the familiarity and casual cliche, Open Rage works due to a great script, smart pacing and terrific performance from the central cast. Robert Duvall is masterful as the wise cattle crew leader Boss, dispensing orders with gruff realism. Costner directs with a lazy efficiency (again in an Eastwood style), letting the story open up gradually. It draws you in. Tension builds, and if the shoot out at the end is overly long, its visceral impact is still effective.

What impresses here are the small details. The sense of men spending years together in open plains, living a fairly boring existence. Male bonding through little knowledge, but doing the right thing for each other is never questioned. It's an old fashioned picture of male friendship for sure,  however a sense of homoerotic knowing still sneaks in. But Costner's trump card here is the introduction of the sublime Annette Bening.
She almost spits her lines with disdain, so patronizing is her role of the unmarried middle aged nurse. You know she doesn't believe the bullshit of what her part is defined as, so she adds some modern perspective as to what she requires from her killer lover prospect (Costner's Charley Waite). Costner and Bening's romance is unbelievable in so many ways, yet you want it to happen and this adds extra tension to the story.

Open Range is a worthy late western, great storytelling compensates some of the films obvious flaws. Watching Bening here, you realize that Warren's luck has never really run out.

Astrid:
Cowboys in the Western film genre signify the outsiders. They question forming and existing social structures and their stability both internally and externally. Open Range so purely sets its drama around this outsider/insider issue that there is almost nowhere left to go from there.

Yet, I have to admit, Open Range was a thoroughly enjoyable film. And because it was not a Clint Eastwood picture, women did not need to get raped and nearly killed for the leading man (actually there were two) to get a justification for his violence. There is a simplistic grace here of not needing to go too far in depicting the cruelty of the fight.

But there is a fight. The town's rangers do not like free grazers passing through their land. Why? Because they move their heard onwards, they are always moving on for more grass, better weather, finer landscapes and so on. These cowboys remind the town that their stability and location is actually fluid and their borders are penetrable and changeable.

I have noticed that a band on tour has this same effect. We are only passing through your town, we upset the existing order by creating a small corner with our performance and our funny clothes. There is always someone who would like to come with us. There is always someone who feels aggressive towards us. And all the while the true battle is the internal one within each band member about missing a home and loving the road at the same time.

Being a cowboy is a question of degree. In my opinion, Kevin could never have Annette because she has Warren.

A Taste Of Honey (1961) Directed by Tony Richardson

Nick:

Shelagh Delaney's A Taste Of Honey was a play I read on the school curriculum when I was entering my teenage years. In the 70's a lot of the themes of the play were still relevant, perhaps one could argue more so today. Teenage pregnancy, mixed race relationships, homosexuality, contraception, the creativity of the poor and the working classes  Because of my association of A Taste Of Honey with school, I always pulled back from the film. Interest in later life was fueled by Morrissey's love of Delaney (she adorned the cover of The Smiths compilation Louder Than Bombs).  Morrissey also drew inspiration from the film for one of my favorite Smiths songs, This Night Has Opened My Eyes.

So after all this association with A Taste Of Honey, how does it feel to return to the film now? The script is simple, yet effective. People might find the dialogue dated today. For me, it recalls a time and place. Richardson evokes the beauty of Salford with some amazing shots, yet still showing working class squalor and post-war decay.  Rita Tushingham (a dead ringer for Alex Turner) and Murray Melvin are excellent. Dora Bryan (famous as a variety performer in my youth), steals the film as the uncaring 'tart with a heart' mother.

So, this was/is a breakthrough picture. I enjoyed A Taste Of Honey so much this time. Geoffrey (Melvin), the gay textile student who befriends Jo (Tushingham), is one of my favorite screen turns. Morrissey was right all along. Sweet as.

Astrid:
It is important to wonder why a movie or a book or a poem or a song has the title that it carries. They matter. I am therefore embarrassed to admit that even after two days of thinking, I have no idea why this film was named A Taste of Honey. I love the title but it seems to be a description of everything that the film is not.

There is no sweetness at all. There is no softness and there is not really much hope in everything turning out well either. This is the most elegant and tragically beautiful way of telling the audience that life is in fact unfair and unromantic. Life is random and ugly with some haphazard beauty and pleasure here and there. I'm not sure if I want to believe this myself, but that is the poetry of A Taste of Honey.

There used to be a masterful way of seeing and capturing the mundane, poor surroundings of cities and their people in the English kitchen sink drama. The industrial docks, the yet not built lots, shabby estates and the rain, all look more beautiful and meaningful than anything captured today with brilliant focus lenses, lights and precision. I'm not sure if we have just lost the eye to see the present as aesthetically meaningful or if the good photographers have simply died.

I have returned to drinking my evening cup of tea with honey. I figured in case life really is mostly tragic, I have to add the honey myself.

Scarface (1983) Directed by Brian De Palma

Astrid:
To be honest, I don't really have a clear idea of what has gone on with Cuba and the USA, but even though Scarface pretends to be political for its first five minutes don't be fooled. Hollywood doesn't care either, Cuba is just the backdrop for their favorite subject: cocaine.

Throughout this excruciatingly long rerun of Al Pacino's version number#100 of Richard III, I cannot shake my personal annoyance at the idealization of cocaine by the film and by people in general. I have the sense that the crew making this film were so high all the time that there is a glittering white dust of cold distance between me and the story. I'm sorry friends, cocaine trade is evil.

Scarface is essentially a movie about idiots in varying degrees. Usually we can learn something from watching these cruel, maniac psychokillers but in De Palma's direction there is no soft underbelly to the shining shield. There is just emptiness. In some Foucauldian sense this might be a genius revelation in the 1980's movie making, but I refuse to develop that thought.

The ending of the movie is an insult. Was I really not watching Rambo?
One good thing though: Steven Bauer as Manny. He epitomized the film: hunky but vacuous.

Nick:
I was born with a birthmark above my lip.  When I was a child this caused some ridicule at school (kids can be so cruel).  But as I've got older, the birthmark has come to distinguish me from anyone else. I think people recognize me instantly. It's a sign of my difference. I've grown to respect my birthmark.  As I've got older, the birthmark has got bigger. I should have it removed. But will I lose my sense of identity?

Scarface, otherwise known as Tony Montana,  is played by Al Pacino. His scar only gets referred to a couple of times in the whole movie, but it is the sign by which others recognize him. It's his individual stamp. Scarface is Brian De Palma's over the top look at the 1980 Miami drug scene. De Palma's film follows Montana's rise and fall from Cuban immigrant street thug to cocaine snorting drug lord. There is no subtlety here. The script by Oliver Stone is crude and De Palma's direction shows little inventiveness. Set design, costume and Miami itself give the film what is now an iconic look. Giorgio Moroder supplies the cheesy disco score.

But Scarface is ultimately a winner because of Pacino. Yes, this is Pacino in cliched shouty mode. But his Montana is a monster filled with great abusive one liners, intentionally or not, Scarface is very funny. The bathroom scene and the  restaurant scene show Pacino deconstruct his earlier Michael Corleone gangster character from The Godfather with great humor. The ending, showing a coked-up Montana taking a hail of bullets has become iconic.  I think Astrid really hated this picture. I enjoyed this film lots, it's heaps of fun. It's the bling reference book. Just don't call me Scarface!

The Graduate (1967) Directed by Mike Nichols

Nick:
One's standing or stature is a strange thing. Personally, I really don't care about such distinctions. I rarely judge people on where they fit into the scheme of any given situation. Yet people's behavior is effected by success or a fall from grace, it's usually a signal to disengage. I have experienced this on a few occasions. It can leave you bruised and confused.

This dilemma faces Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) in The Graduate. He starts out as a very popular and successful student who's future seems bright. Loved by family and family friends, the expectations for Ben's future are high. Ben can't take the laurels, the pressure throwing him into anxiety. During the course of The Graduate Ben loses his stature and the respect of those closest to him. Ben goes from winner to loser to what exactly?

The standing of The Graduate as movie gold over the years is beyond question. The Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack, the innovative editing, the picture of wealthy middle class suburban youth rebelling against their parents all introduced something new to the cinema. Ann Bancroft as Mrs Robinson, the family friend who Ben starts an affair with is excellent here.  But I've watched this 'perfect' picture many times and it still end's up feeling hollow. Implausible character and plot twists lessen the impact. Bored and cynical housewife Mrs Robinson turns into a monster. Elaine (Katherine Ross), Mrs Robinson's daughter, forgives Ben his extra marital affairs too easily. Ben falls in love with Elaine after two meetings.

The Graduate is entertaining, its role as iconic cinema beyond doubt. Its influence can be seen in the cinema of Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach and many others. But this film  has holes as big as Swiss cheese. Flawed.

Astrid:
The Graduate is undeniably good looking and stylistic cinema. The choice of making Simon & Garfunkel music so central to the atmosphere also serves to create a high-class continuity throughout the story. I feel like I'm watching an old 'how to' -guide for years to come.

This time around I was surprised by what actually creates the storyline for The Graduate. It is a psychological drama with the biggest shifts and changes happening inside the characters' minds (off-screen). The portrayal of emotions, the development of infatuation or hatred, or the internal conflict of the main character to begin with are all understated. This choice of distance runs through the film from style to the distanced acting. A numbness has set in. In my opinion the film suffers from a psychological condition.

Dissociation is the word I am looking for. The Graduate is dissociating on many levels: Dustin Hoffman's Ben is often found in states of blank staring, in various degrees of disconnectedness to his surroundings and people close to him. His response to his emotional impulses seems more compulsive than anything else.

I also claim that the whole story of the film dissociates because it chooses to tackle purely emotional content but then it remains so distanced from the causes and effects that everyone and everything seems to be covered by a bell jar.

In the end my biggest complaint is that I do not know why Ben fell for the daughter of the Robinsons and I have no explanation as to why she cared for him. The ending scene with the run-away bride is forever imprinted in my dreams though; when sleeping, I sometimes rerun it to feel the exhilarating sense of freedom on the back of the bus.

The Long Goodbye (1973) Directed by Robert Altman

Elliott Gould

Astrid:
I don't really like the poster for this movie. It doesn't advertise the snotty grimy sophistication of 1970s LA. It cheapens the lush contradictions.

We were only as far in as the titles of The Long Goodbye when I needed to ask Nick:
–Is this the kind of man that you somewhat relate to? Elliott Gould, (or Jean-Paul Belmondo); the suspicious detective or an incompetent petty criminal always in a suit. Always in the same suit.
I think the answer was a Yes. Obviously, that is why we have spent the last couple of years getting more and more obsessive about  the 1970s Hollywood. Together, I must admit.

Watching The Long Goodbye for the second time (the first time I did not make much of it) I focused on the portrayal of Philip Marlowe. I attempted to see him through the eyes of my boyfriend.

First of all, this is a legendary private eye known in literature and cinema and epitomized by Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (see also the main picture in this blog). I say this, because I claim him to be a silent constructing vision in my boyfriend's imagery of the ideal male. (only speculation of course)

In The Long Goodbye, Marlowe has updated himself for the decade. He is still chain-smoking, drinking, driving and mumbling and wearing his suit, but he carries himself with a certain hipness. He has a rock'n'roll edge. Yet, Gould's Marlowe is not overtly sexual, passionate or crazy. He is slow, endlessly sarcastic, superficial and right-on (permanently stoned?).

I'm not sure I cracked the code of my boyfriend's masculine identity right here, but I sure prefer these guys to Lemmy.

Nick:
Philip Marlowe: "It's okay with me".
Cats, of the furry kind or cool cats, Elliot Gould's chain-smoking take on Raymond Chandler's  Philip Marlowe is one of cinema's wisecracking top draws. As I watch this film for the umpteenth time, Astrid asks me if I relate to Gould's Marlowe. I'd like to say now: I wish I was as rubber-faced, as able to let the cigarette dangle so tantalizingly from my lips, so smart at solving cases and could drive as cool a car.

As an ideal, we may dream of being a Marlowe, or a Gould. The reality is far more mundane. That's why even this kind of dry cinema thrills. It's an escape. But before drugs and booze took their toll, there was never anyone as droll or cool as Gould in American cinema. He could have been the US version of J-P Belmondo, or maybe he was.

So, let's clear this up. The Long Goodbye is one of my favorite films ever. I also love Raymond Chandler's source novels. Of course, Altman's take on Marlowe is infused with his usual dry take on LA laziness, everyone conceivably in this picture is stoned or drunk. But it's also a different kind of Altman picture, not so focused on the group, this is more individualistic fare. Vilmos Zsigmond's photography is stand out and enough reason to fall in love.

As ever with Chandler and Marlowe, it's not so much about the case he's trying to solve but about Marlowe himself, the character and what we learn from him. This Marlowe has the same principles as say a Humphrey Bogart variety, but the world he inhabits is the 70's and not the 40's, so attitudes have changed. It's all roundabout routes, taking the long road round to solving, rarely being direct, observations are essential. So yes, The Long Goodbye, It's OK with me. This film represents a certain aesthetic that in my mind is key.