No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos

Posted on February 27, 2012 by James McNally
No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos

No Subtitles Necessary: Laszlo & Vilmos (Director: James Chressanthis): Only appearing on DVD now, this 2008 documentary explores the work of and friendship between two giants of cinematography. Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond first met as students at film school in Budapest in the 1950s. Soon, they were caught up in the events of 1956, when Hungarians briefly revolted against their Communist government. As Soviet tanks rolled in to crush the rebellion, the two men took to the streets with their cameras to document events. When things calmed down, they knew they had to escape from Hungary, and their recollections of heading for the Austrian border with their film are harrowing, even though we know they made it.

Upon their eventual arrival in America, they headed for Hollywood expecting to join the ASC (the cinematographers’ union) easily. When they were turned away and told cheekily to “come back when you can speak English,” they were undaunted. They quickly found work on all kinds of low-budget independent films, including those of Roger Corman. So when Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper decided to make Easy Rider (1969), they hired Laszlo based on his previous work (including Peter Bogdanovich’s debut film Targets), and on his cheap (non-union) wages. The film’s success lifted all its creators, including Kovacs, out of obscurity, and he soon found work on other films of the burgeoning New Hollywood movement of the early 70s. When Peter Fonda wanted him for his next film, The Hired Hand (1971), he was already working on Paul Mazursky’s film Alex in Wonderland (1970), so he recommended his friend Vilmos Zsigmond (“call him Ziggy,” he told Fonda.) It was only after Fonda hired him that Vilmos confessed he’d never shot a colour film outdoors before.

It didn’t matter. Both men quickly developed a signature style working with the expressive light of the American landscape, and many of the great 70s films were shot by one of the two. Here’s just a partial list:

Laszlo Kovacs

  • Five Easy Pieces (1970)
  • The Last Movie (1971)
  • The King of Marvin Gardins (1972)
  • Paper Moon (1973)
  • Shampoo (1975)
  • New York, New York (1977)

Vilmos Szigmond

  • McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
  • Deliverance (1972)
  • The Long Goodbye (1973)
  • Scarecrow (1973)
  • Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
  • The Deer Hunter (1978)
  • Heaven’s Gate (1980)

And this was only work they did in one decade! Remarkably, only Close Encounters of the Third Kind was recognized with an Oscar, for Zsigmond. It’s fitting that the film spends a lot of time on his experience on this film, since it was a tremendous lighting challenge, and he was allegedly fired five separate times. He says the only reason he finished the film was that no other cinematographer wanted to step in, such was the difficulty of getting the lighting just right.

As films retreated from the innovations of the 1970s, both Zsigmond and Kovacs continued to get steady work, but as the paucity of clips from their later work indicates, never would they work in such innovative and creative ways again. Kovacs died in 2007, and the film ends shortly afterward.

Though I enjoyed this documentary’s generous selection of clips, I found the interviews with both the men themselves and their admirers a bit lacking. We get very little insight into their ideas about working with images and light, or how they worked with different directors. And as with many talking head films, it’s the interviews that aren’t included that leave us wanting more. Because Close Encounters of the Third Kind was such a significant achievement for Zsigmond, it’s disappointing that the filmmakers couldn’t get an interview with Steven Spielberg. And though there is a very short interview with Haskell Wexler, surely there could have been more discussion of the mutual influence between the two Hungarians and other pioneering cinematographers of the time, like Wexler and Néstor Almendros.

Another maddening thread is the teasing discussion of the marriages and family life of the two friends. Kovacs actually returned to Hungary shortly after their escape to rescue their girlfriends, whom they married immediately afterward. But these women are never mentioned again. Brief interviews with their current American wives aren’t enlightening on this front. Then there is the matter of Kovacs’ “secret” daughter, with whom he reconciles, but we never really hear the details of where she came from. If anything, these sections could have been edited out if they weren’t going to contribute to our understanding of the two subjects.

As an appreciation of the work of two master cinematographers, the clips speak for themselves, but I wanted more from this documentary. As it stands, it does a good job of making the viewer want to seek out some of their lesser-known work, but it doesn’t shed much light on what made these two so special, or on the obvious and unshakeable bond between them.

Official site of the film


oehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBy74OhTdPs
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Apparently, Grease Is The Word

Posted on February 22, 2012 by James McNally

There seems to be something in the air these days, and it smells a lot like Grease! There are two big Grease-related events happening over the next few weeks.

First off, this upcoming weekend features Sing-a-Long-a Grease at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. The 1978 musical will be screened while the audience, many of whom will be in 50s costume, sings along at the top of its lungs. I saw this film many times the year it came out, mostly with girls I had crushes on, so there’s definitely some nostalgic appeal for me. And it appears that I’m not alone. Two of the four performances are already sold out.

More intriguing (to me, in any case) is #SEQUELSERIES, a group of events being organized by local duo Tegan and Holly. On March 9th, they’re screening Grease 2, the 1982 sequel starring Michelle Pfeiffer (and written by Canadian Ken Finkleman). It was directed by Patricia Birch, the choreographer from the original Grease (and who more recently has choreographed several episodes of the television series Boardwalk Empire). They’ve also lined up surf-rock band The Space Dusters to play afterward, so you can dance the Frug wearing your saddle shoes and bobby socks. Tickets are a very reasonable $7 at the door (or $5 in advance, plus fees) and the venue is the very cool Cinecycle, which is also licensed.

I’ve never seen Grease 2, and I love the idea behind #SEQUELSERIES, so I’m seriously tempted to check it out. Small and innovative events like these make Toronto the greatest city in the world for movie lovers.

Upcoming screenings in the #SEQUELSERIES include Short Circuit 2 on May 11th and Troll 2 on July 13th. Unfortunately, the latter conflicts with my own Shorts That Are Not Pants screening, but don’t let that stop you!

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The Lady Vanishes

Posted on February 14, 2012 by James McNally
The Lady Vanishes
I watched The Lady Vanishes on Netflix Canada. I cannot guarantee its availability on Netflix anywhere else.

The Lady Vanishes (Director: Alfred Hitchcock): For at least the first twenty minutes or so, I was almost certain that I was watching the wrong film. Far from being the chilly Hitchcock thriller I was expecting, this seemed almost like a slapstick comedy of manners closer to Lubitsch or Preston Sturges. The action begins at an overcrowded inn in a snowed-in mountain village in a small fictional European country. As the guests wait for the following day’s train, we have time to observe them each at length. There are the two upper-class English twits, desperate to get back to Blighty so they can catch the last stages of an important cricket match, and the group of young English lovelies, one of whom is returning to London to get married, somewhat reluctantly. There’s an older governess, also English, returning home after several years living in this small country. And a couple carrying on an affair, eager not to be discovered by their fellow travellers. Then, most dramatically of all, we meet a rather obnoxious young Englishman who claims to be a musician but who seems to be the late 1930s equivalent of a rich hippie.

I’d have happily watched a film of all these characters simply passing the time in the hotel. There’s some great business with the cricket fans taking the room of the maid, who keeps coming in to retrieve her things. They’re not quite sure if she’s flirting with them or offering some sort of “room service.” And when young fiancée Iris and musician/hippie Gilbert meet cute, we know the sparks will continue to fly, to the detriment of Iris’ unseen beau waiting at home.

But once they do all get on the train, the mystery begins almost immediately. After Iris is hit on the head by a falling package at the station, the kindly governess Miss Froy helps her onto the train and offers to sit with her to make sure she’s alright. After a cup of tea together in the dining car, they return to their compartment where Iris falls asleep. Upon awakening a short time later, Miss Froy has vanished, and nobody else on the train claims to have seen her at all.

While the mystery drives the plot forward, the overall tone remains light and almost slapstick in places. This is much less dark than a lot of Hitchcock’s later work, and I found that rather refreshing. The only real issue is that it seems to present a rather xenophobic picture of Europe. All the English characters are painted in a nobler light than those whose first language is not English. Considering that Britain was on the verge of war with Nazi Germany, it’s both understandable and a bit disturbing at the same time. There is even a not-so-subtle jab at Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement, with one character coming to an unhappy end after believing the enemy will “do the honourable thing.”

I enjoyed the first hour much more than the last act, which devolves into clumsy war metaphors and drags on far too long. But the performances of Margaret Lockwood (Iris) and Michael Redgrave (Gilbert), as well as of Dame May Whitty (Miss Froy) kept the whole thing quite jovial throughout. And even though Hitchcock does show “foreigners” as generally suspicious, he tends to portray his countrymen as either pompous fools or stubbornly naive.

Although The Lady Vanishes was remade in 1979, I can’t imagine it would be half as interesting without the actual anxiety bubbling throughout Europe in those days, at the very edge of a war that would consume the entire continent within the next year.


oehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YihbNGUNQmU
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Sailcloth

Posted on February 7, 2012 by James McNally
Sailcloth
SPOILER ALERT: I usually don’t make a point of alerting readers to spoilers, but it’s pretty hard not to in writing about this film. At just 18 minutes, though, you figure out pretty quickly what’s going on. Nonetheless, fair warning.

Sailcloth (Director: Elfar Adelsteins): John Hurt stars in this wordless tale of a man who stages a “jailbreak” from his seaside retirement home, steals a sailboat, and takes control of his destiny. Icelandic-born director Adelsteins dedicated the film to the memory of his own grandfather, the circumstances of whose death I have no knowledge of, but I do suspect that like most Icelanders, the sea was an important part of his life.

Hurt has always been one of my favourite actors, and his deeply-lined face is even more expressive than usual, considering it has to do all the dramatic work here. There’s an impishness about his escape that initially had me wondering if this was just to be a boyish lark, but we soon come to know that his prank has a more grave purpose, and that this journey is to be his last. And that disappointed me, because I feel like I’ve seen too many of these sorts of stories lately, of older people “taking back” their sense of agency over their fates. I suppose the director would argue that this is about dignity, but somehow it feels like we’re being told it’s heroic for older people to take their own lives.

My discomfort with the theme doesn’t make the film any less riveting. Hurt is excellent, and the cinematography is lush, with an excellent focus on details. It certainly conveys the freedom and joy of being out in a sailboat on a sunny day. However, I do have an issue with the music, whose syrupy sentimentality is simply unnecessary. Hurt’s performance does all the work here, and doesn’t need boosting of any kind. For me the most affecting scene is when, enjoying the sea and the sun, he looks out toward the open sea and has to choose: will I steer toward the horizon or let the horizon come to me? As in many short films, the metaphorical weight can be crushing, but Hurt never overplays things.

Sailcloth was shortlisted for an Oscar® in the category of live-action short, but in the end did not make the final list of five nominees. Nevertheless, I hope that more people will have the chance to see Hurt’s performance. And despite my reservations, I look forward to seeing the development of Elfar Adelsteins as a filmmaker. This is only his second short film, and reading about his work with other Icelandic filmmakers like Valdís Óskarsdóttir and Friðrik Þór Friðriksson, I am sure he has a bright future.

Official Facebook page of the film


oehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npf63U8nhQk
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Blind Spots: Psycho

Posted on January 31, 2012 by James McNally
Psycho
This post is part of the Blind Spots 2012 series. For background on the series, read the original post

Psycho (Director: Alfred Hitchcock): One of the first things I noticed about this classic horror film is how Hitchcock works hard to portray “victim” Marion Crane (a gorgeous Janet Leigh) as anything but innocent. Her first scene is with her lover in a hotel for a lunchtime tryst. When she returns to the real estate office where she works, we know that his money problems are what’s preventing them from being married. And then when a boorish client flirts drunkenly and leaves $40,000 in cash with her, it’s not a huge stretch for us to see her as the kind of woman who might take this chance to escape her everyday life.

She impulsively decides to leave town with the money and go to Sam, her boyfriend, who lives a few hours’ drive away. In the middle of a downpour, she pulls off to spend the night at the Bates Motel, leading to one of the most famous shower scenes in cinematic history. I noticed a few things in the film which might be obvious to anyone who has seen it, but as a newcomer to Psycho, I’m hoping you’ll indulge me.

Marion’s surname is Crane, which made creepy sense during her conversation with the motel’s proprietor Norman Bates. He tells her his hobby is taxidermy and that he likes to stuff birds rather than beasts because they’re “passive.”

Hitchcock seems to imply that Marion is killed as a punishment for her trangression. Even though she has decided to return the money, the first cut away from Marion’s lifeless body is to the money, hidden inside a newspaper. Even the rest of the violence that follows from Marion’s murder seems to lead back to her single impulsive act.

The obsession by Marion’s employer, sister and boyfriend to keep the police out of things makes it that much harder to actually figure out what has happened. Arbogast, the private investigator hired by her boss to recover the money seems to have his own motives that are not as purely “civic” as the police department’s would be. This understandable desire to cover up or hide crimes leads only to bad things for everyone.

Even though I was always aware of the film’s big “reveal,” Psycho still manages to hold up as an effective thriller, but I must confess that after Marion’s departure, it’s a far less interesting film for me. Her motivations, and her interactions with Norman Bates, are more substantial than anything and anyone that follows her demise. Her sister and boyfriend are two-dimensional, and exist simply to solve the crime. I especially found the last few minutes, with Simon Oakland’s psychologist character explaining everything, disappointing, though I understand that spoon-feeding the audience would make sure nobody missed the point.

Finally, I was never sure where exactly the shower scene occurred in the film. I always thought it was quite close to the beginning, and that Norman Bates was the real focus of the film. I was pleasantly surprised that Marion Crane’s character survives until just about the middle, though as I mentioned, the rest wasn’t quite as enjoyable.

Psycho definitely established the style of many horror films in the decades to come, and technically, as far as editing and camera work goes, it’s brilliant. However, even though I have only seen perhaps half a dozen Hitchcock films, it doesn’t seem to me to hold up as well as, say, Rear Window or Vertigo.


oehttp://youtu.be/HjI1Of2lfhs
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