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The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

Jay Antani — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 05:23:21 +0000

Everyone knows the plot by now: Three down-and-out gold prospectors slumming in a small Mexican town venture into the titular mountain range and strike the mother lode. But that’s when trouble starts brewing as one of the men, Dobbs (played by Humphrey Bogart in one of his career-defining performances) becomes completely dominated by his greed and murderous suspicions towards the other two men — the easygoing Curtin (Tim Holt) and the seasoned, wisecracking Howard (Walter Huston, who won an Oscar) — till everything they’ve worked for and accumulated is jeopardized.

Huston’s crackerjack screenplay is a study in karmic justice as the men follow their separate paths, destined to meet their separate fates. Six decades since its release and counting, the performances by the three leads continue to exert a raw moral power, especially Bogart’s. He really goes full-tilt in a bold, unapologetic turn as the unhinged Dobbs. Holt makes a sturdy counterweight to Dobbs’ excesses while Huston holds his own as a grizzled prospector who’s seen a thing or two. His foreboding look as Dobbs begins to unravel reveals that Howard is the movie’s oracle, our resident wise man and the jokester we badly need by the time Treasure pitches and storms to its close.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is an all-time masterpiece of characterization, structure, pacing and storytelling in general. While the outdoor photography could have been more expressive and textured (the early interiors are gorgeously filmed), and Huston’s early inspiration flags in the third act, the sheer narrative force of the whole thing — and Bogart’s indomitable performance — carry the film through. Among the most unforgettable action/adventure movies ever made.

Grade: A

Directed by: John Huston
Written by: John Huston
Cast: Humphrey Bogart, Tim Holt, Walter Huston

The Testament of Dr. Mabuse

Jay Antani — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 06:13:47 +0000

Lang’s technically dazzling thriller about a criminal organization operating out of an insane asylum treads that fine line between horror-movie sensationalism and the brass tacks of the shrewdest policiers. The tautly structured script weaves together three storylines all of which knot together over the question of the late madman hypnotist, Dr. Mabuse (Klein-Rogge), whose criminal scribblings still exert a maniacal influence over asylum chief, Prof. Baum (Beregi). While Baum presides over his cabal of terrorists bent on destabilizing world order, one of his lackeys–the earnest, romantic stalwart Tom (Diessl)–decides to throw a wrench in Baum’s proverbial machine, and Lohman (Wernicke), a local detective, comes snooping around, investigating the disappearance of a colleague. Lang’s entire cast shines, particularly Wernicke, as the sour-faced, distempered Lohman, and Beregi as the crazy-eyed Baum, but it’s the director’s ambitious command of the medium that keeps us rooted to our seats from start to finish.

Among the greatest thriller-makers ever, Lang was also ahead of his time in the way he exploited off-screen sound (catch the even earlier, groundbreaking M) and the knowledge that it’s what you don’t see in the frame that grabs your audience. Mabuse is technically a marvel: its editing and story rhythms suggest a modern, sophisticated filmmaker, full of ingenious visual touches, all with a meticulous eye for realism (the siege on the crooks’ hideout and the climactic car chase both feel intensely palpable) and always with a wink and a nod towards the bizarre (the spectral Mabuse is unforgettably creepy). By the way, 1932-33 marked a quantum leap forward in the artistry of both cinema sound and of visual effects, as evidenced in the triple whammy of Mabuse, King Kong, and I’m a Fugitive From a Chain Gang. All are must-sees.

Grade: A

Directed by: Fritz Lang
Written by: Fritz Lang, Thea von Harbou
Cast: Oscar Beregi Sr., Paul Bernd, Henry Bless, Gustav Diessl, Paul Henckels, Oskar, Otto Wernicke, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Adolf Licho, Theodor Loos

Stray Dog

Jay Antani — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:00:19 +0000

Mifune, young and charismatic, plays the rookie Detective Murakami of the Tokyo police. On one sweltering summer day, Murakami gets his gun stolen, an incident that leads him into a twisting and turning investigation through the underbelly of post-war Tokyo. The crook into whose hands the gun eventually falls into proceeds to use it in robbing and shooting his victims. Kurasawa uses this detective’s odyssey as a framework to depict about how some soldiers in post-war Japan became screwed-up and hopeless, turning to crime after their wartime experiences. The film’s pacing is typically slow (for Kurosawa), and Mifune is magnetic in the lead. Quite lurid and sentimental at times, Stray Dog also fascinates with it terrific visual touches and as a document of life in post-war Tokyo.

Grade: A

Directed by: Akira Kurosawa
Written by: Ryuzo Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa
Cast: Toshiro Mifune, Takashi Shimura, Keiko Awaji, Eiko Miyoshi

The River

Jay Antani — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 06:55:44 +0000

I was lucky enough to see a pristine print right off the 3-strip Technicolor elements of The River on the big screen. It was the first time I saw it, and I’m so glad I waited for just this occasion to catch it. Renoir adapted a novel by Ruth Godden, who grew up in Bengal, East India, and it’s really a scrapbook of reminiscences of her coming-of-age amid the spiritual and pastoral tranquility of the Ganges. Renoir’s movie is a respectful ode to India, never condescending or cynical or ironic — all those things that make up the ugliest qualities of Western thinking. His film coalesces into a delicate tapestry of images that evoke a different way of life, of thinking, and of relating to the world.

Centering the story is Harriet (Walters), a gawky teenager going through an awkward phase of pubescence, who develops a crush on Captain John (Shields), an American army veteran who arrives at their Bengali estate on a visit. Captain John, one-legged thanks to a war injury, has demons of his own to exorcise and seems on a kind of spiritual journey to do just that. While the Captain is drawn to Harriet’s older and prettier sister Valerie (Corri), he feels a deeper attraction to Melanie (Radha), the reserved Hindu daughter of his white cousin.

You might be thrown off by the awkward, amateurish performances (I think Renoir went with non-actors for this movie) but that, I feel, is part of Renoir’s intention to draw you into this exotic land where everyone relates awkwardly to each other as they try to understand the mysteries of life and of the world around them. Overall, The River is exceptionally honest about itself, made by a director who — like all great artists — knows enough to subordinate his ego to the demands of the material at hand.

Grade: A-

Directed by: Jean Renoir
Written by: Jean Renoir, Rumer Godden
Cast: Nora Swinburne, Esmond Knight, Arthur Shields, Suprova Mukerjee, Thomas E. Breen, Patricia Walters, Adrienne Corri

Pather Panchali

Jay Antani — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 07:21:50 +0000

Pather Panchali inaugurates Ray’s legendary Apu Trilogy. This first installment introduces us to Apu, an innocent, sensitive Bengali boy born into a poor family, who, not long into his young life, must deal with issues of death, grief, dislocation, yearning and heartbreak. As the trilogy goes, it builds in narrative power. Pather Panchali is concerned mainly with the travails of Apu’s family, in particular his relationship with his sister, Durga — pretty, resourceful, and who slowly climbs out of her tomboy shell and comes of age in the course of the story. The second installment of the trilogy, Aparajito portrays Apu’s budding adolescence, and his curiosity about the wide world as it conflicts head-on with his duties to his mother and family after the death of his father. The most emotionally magisterial of the three, The World of Apu shows Ray in a form so sublime few in the history of cinema have ever equalled it. I’ll talk more about it separately, in the World of Apu section.

I’m glad I took in a recent screening of Pather Panchali at L.A.’s American Cinematheque, because it re-confirmed to me what a genius Ray was. I recall watching Panchali on tape (after I’d seen a 16mm print in college), and thinking it was somewhat slow and unfocused. But, as is so often the case in experiencing Ray’s movies, the problem is one of immersion and resistance: If you’re not going to allow yourself to flow along to his cinema’s gentle but majestic currents, you’ll be left dead in the water or twiddling your thumbs on the shore. Thankfully, I gave myself in this time.

First time out of the gate, the then-novice filmmaker Ray already wields a sure and steady directorial hand. The performances are at once naturalistic, in the Neo-realist vein, and stylized in that Soviet-Eisenstein way. Ray’s imagery, as photographed by Subrata Mitra, has a pure poetic beauty whose rhythms he modulates precisely. He paces his sequences out slowly and surely, then ramps up their emotional wattage, using sound, music and composition in raw, genuine, expressive ways. Ravi Shankar’s music score throughout the trilogy is sweet, simple, and devastating.

There is no room in Ray’s cinema, especially this trilogy, for flashy razzle-dazzle or twists of irony. His concerns are humanist and his art transcends both the medium and even the moment in which you’re experiencing it. The effect of his work goes deeper and stays with you for a lifetime. It’s something to go back to, nourish yourself with every now and then in your life.

There is a faith in the art form here, a pure, loving, embracing faith that really restores my own faith in movies. Fellini, Kurosawa, Bergman, they all made great movies. But none of them made movies quite like Ray. Unfortunately, due to weaker distribution links in the West, he does not share their awesome reputation here in America. The Apu movies are small, exquisite gems whose emotional power will knock you out and haunt you long after you’ve seen them. That no other filmmaker has ever achieved anything of their power is testament enough to Ray’s quiet greatness.

Grade: A

Directed by: Satyajit Ray
Written by: Satyajit Ray
Cast: Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Subir Bannerjee, Uma Das Gupta, Runki Banerjee

Nights of Cabiria

Jay Antani — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 01:46:30 +0000

Giulietta Masina’s performance as a prostitute trying to find happiness and true love is easily one of the best in the history of screen acting. Just her expressive face can speak volumes without her having to utter a single word. She’s much like those great silent screen actors, and there’s a spunk to her delivery that perfectly matches her physical energy. Her performance is pure heart and soul, fearlessly vulnerable and free of cynicism. This is pre-8½ Fellini, the Fellini of La Strada and I Vitelloni, the bridge between the Neo-Realists of the ’40s and the European Art Cinema of the ’60s. In that sense, Fellini is an absolutely fascinating stylist: You can see DeSica and Rossellini’s naturalism in the imagery, but Fellini’s lighting and cutting are too “arty,” i.e. too refined and thought-out, verging at times into pure lyricism. The wide shot, for instance, towards the end of the film is a prime example: It tracks forward to show Cabiria’s fiancé, his back to the camera, as he perches over a cliff overlooking the sea. Tonally, that image is so gorgeously lit and composed, it feels right out of Murnau’s Sunrise. Nino Rota’s score is phenomenal, complementing Masina’s performance impeccably. Flaiano and Pinelli’s beautifully structured script juxtaposes the church’s promise of redemption with the devil’s temptation of love and dreams as Maria (aka Cabiria) struggles to find a good man and, otherwise, tries not to dwell on the misery and shame that hounds her. An all-around masterpiece.

Grade: A+

Directed by: Federico Fellini
Written by: Ennio Flaiano, Tullio Pinelli
Cast: Giulietta Masina, François Périer, Amedeo Nazzari, Aldo Silvani, Franca Marzi

Nanook of the North

Jay Antani — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 01:32:21 +0000

Robert Flaherty’s first film is also a pioneer of the documentary form. This is about as pure and revelatory as the documentary form could get in the days of bulky camera equipment. Flaherty took repeated trips to Baffin Bay in northern Canada where he tried to document the daily hardships of an Eskimo family. It was only after a good 7 or 8 years on the project that Flaherty thought he had the makings of a coherent and effective film. His technique was painstaking and, because of technical limitations, he had to re-stage and re-create the movie’s events just so he could capture them on film properly. Before the age of hand-held cameras, this was really the only technique available to the documentary maker — who we must distinguish from the so-called “actuality” makers from the turn-of-the-century who would shoot travelogues of exotic locales for mass consumption; unlike Flaherty, they did not have an educational component to their work. Flaherty wanted to transcend this simple point-and-shoot entertainment aesthetic and delve deeper into the cultures he was exploring as well as the possibilities of cinema itself.

Nanook is absolutely brilliant not just for the incredible bravery and tenacity it took to make it, but also for the inspiring resilience of its titular Eskimo subject and his clan, struggling against nature to survive. The Criterion DVD of Nanook also features a gorgeous music score to accompany this lyrical and haunting film, perfectly underscoring what is a real milestone in the evolution of cinema. If you like Flaherty, I also recommend Man of Aran and Tabu (the latter being a pseudo-narrative/ethnography about South Seas islanders, and a project he collaborated on temporarily with F.W. Murnau).

Grade: A

Directed by: Robert J. Flaherty
Written by: Robert J. Flaherty

La Strada

Jay Antani — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:55:41 +0000

If you’re seeing this on the small screen, be sure to watch the Criterion DVD, which begins with a heartfelt and informative introduction by Martin Scorsese. Fellini’s greatest period falls between the mid-50s and the mid-60s during which time his cinema, almost by itself, became a bridge between the Italian neo-realism of the ’40s and the art cinema of the ’60s. La Strada leans into the neo-realist half of Fellini’s great decade, but, in my opinion, it’s not as mesmerizing or as heartbreaking as Nights of Cabiria. The two lead performers–Quinn and Masina (one the best actresses of 20th century cinema)–are marvelous and the imagery is gorgeous, with Fellini’s precision cutting and dramatic lighting pointing the way to 8½. Still, it doesn’t have the profoundness of Cabiria–for my money, Fellini’s second best movie (after 8½). Basically, this is a road movie about Zampanò, a carnival strongman (Quinn) and Gelsomina, his waif-like sidekick (Masina). Zampanò is too bedeviled by his own demons to respond to the Gelsomina’s sweetness, to show how much he cares about her. Eventually, she falls for another man–a clown (Basehart)–much to Zampanò’s chagrin. It ends as it should, surely and gently, winding its dusty way through the Italian countryside without plot gimmicks or false hopes. In some ways, this is De Sica material in Fellini’s hands, and it makes for an awkward fit. Yet, for its performances and for the obvious passion behind the filmmaking, this is must-see Fellini.

Grade: A-

Directed by: Federico Fellini
Written by: Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano,Tullio Pinelli
Cast: Anthony Quinn, Giulietta Masina, Richard Basehart

Knife in the Water

Jay Antani — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 19:46:53 +0000

Roman Polanski’s debut feature is a sharp, masterful social satire and psychodrama that pits two disparate males on a boat in the middle of a lake along with a luscious female. The female’s husband is a brutish, chauvinist bourgeois bully while the other is a feckless, rootless rogue. Polanski delicately dissects a gossamer-light script in hewing his portrait of class and societal breakdown. Knife In the Water is hypnotic, by turns dreamy and thought-provoking. Male sexual politics ramp up once this middle-class couple pick up a hitchhiker and take him along on their sailing excursion. The bully, Andrzej (Niemczyk), immediately feels his alpha status vis-à-vis his wife Krystyna (Umecka) threatened by the handsome stranger (Malanowicz). Andrzej challenges him to silly trials of manliness while the latter snaps and bites back with taunts and jibes. A storm comes up, the three retire to the galley where they play games, listen to a boxing match on the radio, the woman sings a song and the hitchhiker recites a poem (much to Andrzej’s disgust and chagrin). At dawn the next day, push comes to shove and what starts off as a suspenseful disaster takes on sexual undercurrents. There are depths of class, sexual and social mores that Polanski effortlessly and beautifully dives into, coming up with provocative pearls every time. The acting, music and camerawork all weave together to create an unexpectedly magical, brilliantly crafted, intensely sensuous experience.

Grade: A

Directed by: Roman Polanski
Written by: Roman Polanski, Jerzy Skolimowski, Jakub Goldberg
Cast: Leon Niemczyk, Jolanta Umencka, Zygmunt Malanowicz

Ingmar Bergman Trilogy: Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence

Jay Antani — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 18:59:20 +0000

The trilogy comprises Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence. Each is haunting and cinematically mind-blowing in different and distinct ways. I guess what ties these movies together is the theme of love — what happens in its absence mainly and the strength derived from even a glimpse of its presence.

In Through a Glass Darkly, a self-obsessed writer goes on holiday to a remote island with his son (an emotionally deprived young man, yearning for his father’s affection), his daughter–just released from a mental institution–and his daughter’s compassionate but frustrated husband. Visually gorgeous and dramatically stark, this one will rake you over the coals a bit but leave you in the balm of its poetic beauty when it’s all over. The movie is just a quiet, moody chamber piece as the daughter’s husband, her father and brother all attempt to deal with her deteriorating mental state, and, unable to quell it, can only look on and grieve. Bergman’s mastery with actors (there is absolutely never a bad performance in a single one of his films) and with the cinematic form (using space and mood to communicate his theme) is abundantly clear here.

The Silence, tonally bizarre and understandably controversial for its time, comes closest in the trilogy to Bergman’s penchant for surrealism and sensuality. Here, we’ve got a mother–a voluptuous woman who makes the frame sweat every time she’s in it–her curious, innocent young son, and her sister–a rather severe lesbian who’s a working definition of the word “repressed.” The trio travel into this strange country–they don’t understand the language and no one there understands them–and hole up in a large, baroque hotel, mostly unoccupied. There, the mother goes off looking for a fling, witnesses cheap sex and a lot of in-the-dark groping inside a seedy cabaret. She has a one-night stand while the sister, suffering from a severe illness, coughs, wheezes and begins to falter. The son simply drifts–observing and playing with a troupe of dwarfs at one point–and holds out hope that all will be well with his aunt. Of course, all is not well–not by a long shot. Bergman’s imagery is incredible–for this movie’s bold sensuality, it ushered in a more mature era of European and Hollywood moviemaking and for its bizarreness, it has a direct kinship with the cinema of David Lynch. Truly intense and cinematically arresting.

Winter Light is my personal favorite of the three. In it, a priest’s relationship with God is sorely tested. He can’t get over the death of his wife and the anger at God he feels over it. Meanwhile, his lack of faith makes him rather impotent as a spiritual healer in his community–one of his congregants, in particular, despairing over man’s imminent self-destruction is walking on thin ice–and his emotional barrier deflects away the genuine affection given to him by a woman, a spinster who’s fallen in love with the priest. Visually, Bergman made this one grainy, very ugly and raw. It consciously does not have the resplendence, the gorgeous compositions of Through a Glass Darkly because Bergman wanted the film to be absolutely stripped-down–a no-nonsense rant to God. In how it conveys itself and its message, this is a perfect film.

Grade: A+

Directed by: Ingmar Bergman
Written by: Ingmar Bergman
Cast: (Glass Darkly) Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Max von Sydow, Lars Passgård/ (Winter Light) Ingrid Thulin, Gunnar Björnstrand, Gunnel Lindblom, Max von Sydow/(The Silence); Ingrid Thulin, Gunnel Lindblom, Birger Malmsten, Jörgen Lindström