Discussion #182: The Exorcist (1973)

Director: William Friedkin

The first time I was shown this film, roughly twelve years ago, I was assured that it was one of the scariest of all time. But as I watched the film play out, flickering on my mate’s laptop several feet away in his darkened dormitory, I couldn’t help wondering, “So, when does the scary bit start?”

I had been expecting the film to be scary right from the start, but it took what felt like an hour for any of the ‘possessed’ scenes to start – in fact it’s only forty minutes, which is still quite a while to wait if you’re in the mood for being scared. In the intervening minutes, we’re given copious backstories for the characters that aren’t really needed, including a ten-minute intro to Max von Sydow’s character which feels utterly irrelevent to the rest of the film until he rejoins the cast in the final half hour. As an aside, his make-up to look elderly was so effective that I didn’t recognise him whatsoever; I wonder why they didn’t hire an actual elderly actor for the role.

And perhaps it’s because horror films have evolved since 1973, finding even darker depths to tread, but I simply didn’t find the actual scary bits to be all that scary. The effects involving Regan, the young child who becomes possessed, are very visually effective – the most uncomfortable moments for me were when her body was being slammed backwards and forwards on the bed – but, especially during the actual exorcism, the whole thing felt quite sedate (certainly compared to other horrors).

Since then, I’ve maintained that this is one of the most overhyped movies in existence. Nevertheless, since it does have such a high reputation, I felt it only necessary to give the film a second chance, as I did with The Searchers.

Straight away, I appreciated the Georgetown setting, having lived across the river from this neighbourhood in Arlington since I first saw the film. The steps that are featured so prominently are now famous for their appearance and I have climbed them several times. Seeing the film once again made me appreciate exactly where the action was taking place, just a couple of blocks from the university, whose gothic towers can be seen throughout the film. Knowing precisely where the characters are brings the film to life just a little more.

Since I was now prepared for the film to not be so scary, I decided to analyse other aspects of the film. A worrying theme seemed to be that doctors and scientists were ignoring what was happening to Regan and coming up with inadequate theories to explain away her behaviour. If a person really started to levitate without any other forces acting on her, any good scientist would label it an unknown phenomenon and would try to investigate immediately, but the scientists in the film are portrayed as unwilling to accept new evidence; this is ironically how the Church has handled evidence of phenomena like evolution in the past.

Even the priest doesn’t want to accept that Regan is possessed, carrying out tests like pretending he has a flask of holy water and then dousing Regan in tap water. When Regan reacts, he takes it as a sign that the devil isn’t really in her, but I could also see the devil reacting just to fuck with him. It’s only when von Sydow gets involved that things get going.

On the other hand, the acting was pretty incredible, especially Linda Blair who did an amazing job differentiating between the sweet, demure child and the demonic, offensive devil. Also excellent was Ellen Burstyn, the mother who grows gradually more and more haggard as she deals with her daughter’s possession. Her look of utter despair and anguish, the bags around her eyes… she was the perfect actress for the role.

The fortunes of Mike Oldfield and Richard Branson owe a lot to the success of this film, as the intro to Oldfield’s celebrated Tubular Bells is used as a haunting theme in the film. It’s surprising that the theme became so well-remembered, however as it is used so sparingly in the film; I counted three very brief snippets in the film’s two hour length followed by a more lengthy excerpt in the credits – is this one of the first films to have credits after the main feature? I wish that Friedkin had gone a bit more heavily on the Tubular Bells as they hardly denote anything scary in the film (besides some creepy nuns) and just seem rather randomly scattered in the film. According to Wikipedia, there is only 17 minutes of music in the two hour film; I don’t see why Friedkin didn’t simply eliminate the music altogether, rather than have a couple of randomly placed themes here and there, but I suppose I should thank him for giving Oldfield a platform on which he would create the similarly brilliant Hergest Ridge and Ommadawn in the following years.

My rewatch has done little to change my assertion that this film is incredibly overhyped, but I did find it more entertaining and interesting on the second watch, so I suppose that’s something. I’d still quite like to know what this particular film holds over people that other great horror films don’t. If you love this film, please let me know why.

6/10

Discussion #181: The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Director: Victor Fleming

This director made The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind, two of Hollywood’s most memorable films in the same year. That is an extraordinary achievement no matter whether you like them or not.

Like Mary Poppins, my judgement is coloured a little by nostalgia for this film, but not to the same degree. All the same, there are so many songs, quotes and references to this film still being used today – none more than the charming opening song Over the Rainbow – that it’s perhaps fruitless to try and judge this film without considering the impact it has had.

The film is renowned for its many ground-breaking visuals, including special effects. Most notably, the film changes from sepia to full Technicolor when Dorothy steps into Oz, a seemingly magical transformation. While colour wasn’t new to cinema, it must have still been a shock to audiences to see the film transform into colour before their very eyes and it’s still a grand introduction to the strange land of Oz today. Elsewhere, we see other effects such as an incredibly realistic and ominous tornado storming towards Dorothy’s house and the face of the titular wizard superimposed over a firey throne.

These effects contrast with the rather simple sets created for the cast to move around. In each one, it’s rather easy to see the brightly painted background; when Dorothy skips away from the land of the Munchkins, for example, I thought she was going to bash straight into the wall. At first, I found these sets to look rather primitive; though highly decorated, they didn’t give the illusion that you were actually in another world. But as the film went on, the sheer number of sets the characters go through, all brightly painted with interesting features, became part of the experience and I thought the adherence to the style was actually quite impressive, especially in the Emerald City and the Witch’s Castle; I was reminded of the more expressionistic set design from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

The story is so classic as to have become unsurprising. You’re waiting for Dorothy to get to Oz – she spends a surprisingly long time in Kansas first – then meet her three companions and then the fun really begins. Somehow, I had forgotten most of the second half of the film, and on the rewatch, it became more clear why. Dorothy and her companions are made to fight the Witch; it turns out to be disappointingly easy to take her down. Afterwards, they meet the Wizard again who gives them strange advice and trinkets, before Dorothy learns some invaluable ‘lesson’ and returns to Oz. It’s not a strong ending at all and the vagueness as to the meaning of it would be hard to comprehend for a child. As an adult, however, I appreciated it in an utterly cynical way.

Ever since coming to Oz, Dorothy has stepped through unrealistic scenario after unrealistic scenario. There are plot holes and mistakes galore; why does the scarecrow state “isosceles triangle” in his recitation of Pythagoras’s theorem, for example? It gives the sense that the land of Oz and perhaps even the movie itself, isn’t meant to be taken literally. The three companions are all searching for aspects of their personality that are missing, but rather than learn that ‘they had it within them all along’ or some other tropey moral, the Wizard of Oz just spouts some meaningless gibberish that sounds like one of those morals and hands them a trinket instead. In the end, they are more happy to have the trinket than they are to have learned anything at all, perhaps a subtle dig at a consumerist society that is obsessed with having ‘things’.

And when it came to Dorothy’s lesson, I tried so hard to understand it that I actually put the subtitles on and watched it three times to try and take it in. What did she say again?

“Well, I — I think that it — that it wasn’t enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em — and it’s that — if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with!“

Every time I re-read it, I get more and more confused. Firstly, it has nothing to do with the plot whatsoever – the only reason she left home in the first place was to save Toto from her neighbour. Secondly, why would she be looking for her heart’s desire if she hadn’t lost it? Lastly, the moral of “there’s no place like home” is such bullshit, as it implies that one should never travel or settle in a new place, and it’s a bizarre sentiment to construct such an extravagant film around.

The fact that her ‘moral’ is so confusingly stated and poorly thought out makes me think that this is another element made to subvert the expectation that you’re watching a straightforward fantasy film where the character has a good, clean adventure where they learn something useful at the end. Indeed, when all the plot holes, mistakes and strange ‘lessons’ are added up, it seems that The Wizard of Oz is actually just a special effects film masquerading as an adventure with substance. It’s like the producers tried to experiment with making the film have as little practical meaning as possible, and in a cynical way, I kind of love how they pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes.

Nevertheless, as many iconic scenes as there are, there are some that are rather grating, such as when the characters are waiting to see the Wizard and they’re padding out time with the Lion musing about what he would do if he was king. Who cares? The Munchkins are rather difficult to stomach for too long as well, and are rather oppressive in their squeaky jubilation of the first Witch’s death. Then there’s also the weirdness of Dorothy saying to the Scarecrow that “I think I’ll miss you most of all”. According to Wikipedia, this was to do with some deleted scene that would hint at a romance between Dorothy and the Kansas version of the Scarecrow, but in the context of the theatrical version it just comes across as really awkward; Seth MacFarlane nailed the feeling in this clip from Family Guy.

It was a bit of a trip seeing this film after having watched Judy which alludes to all the abuse that Judy Garland went through as a young star. As always, her voice is magical, but when she breaks down crying in certain scenes, the tears seem so realistic that it’s not hard to imagine that she could be drawing on experiences that were happening during the making of this film.

Overall, this film is a monumentous technical achievement with a legacy that outshines nearly all other films. With enduring popularity, it might have been seen by more people than any other film in history and it continues to be referenced in our society. Just watching it now, I was surprised by how many quotes that tend to get thrown around like “I’ll get you my pretty!” which can be regularly heard completely divorced from the context of The Wizard of Oz. It’s incredible that such a popular film is based on such a shaky foundation with none of the main characters seeming like any sort of role model, and the morals they learn being so unsubstatial. Perhaps it’s simply refreshing not to have to learn anything at the end of a film, just to enjoy it for enjoyment’s sake.

7/10

Discussion #180: The Tin Drum (Die Blechtrommel) (1979)

Director: Volker Schlöndorff

A-ha! I’ve finally found it. A film where Ebert throws his hands up in the air and proclaims “I don’t get it!” while acknowledging that the film is nevertheless popular with critics. Having had perhaps hundreds of experiences like that on this list, it’s satisfying to see a film that has stumped Ebert too.

Die Blechtrommel is a notable film for me personally as it is the first film I watched with my daughter, when she was just four days old. Thankfully, she was asleep for most of it. As I mentioned in my review of Pink Flamingos, I’ve come to realise that I appreciate films that cause me to have strong feelings, whether it be happiness, sadness or disgust. The overwhelming feeling that The Tin Drum gives me is discomfort. For starters, our narrator is one of the most impudent little shits ever committed to film. Played by pre-teen Swiss actor David Bennent – whose physiological disorder gives him an unnerving visage that manages to make him look both 3 and 23 years old in the same movie – Oskar is an extremely entitled and selfish child; so selfish, in fact, that he simply chooses to stop ageing by throwing himself down some cellar stairs. He likes to bang his titular drum loudly whenever he’s upset by something and also finds he has the disconcerting ability to shatter glass by screaming; all adding up to make this boy a most obnoxious little brat who we then have to follow for nearly three hours.

This would have completely killed the film for me if there hadn’t been more substance to the film, and thankfully there’s heaps. Oskar is born in Danzig (now Gdańsk) which was an independent city-state at the time, before the Nazis took over. The theme of national identity remains strong throughout the film, and even the choice to speak German plays a role in the characters’ identities. Like so many other films set in this decade (such as Cabaret), we relive the rise of Nazism, which Oskar twists by magically changing a Nazi theme into the Blue Danube with his drums. We also experience Oskar’s sexual awakening through some extremely uncomfortable erotic scenes that immediately made me look up how old the actor was; I was perturbed by the answer.

In the end, this is the unique story of Danzig in the first half of the 20th Century but beefed up with the story of an impertinent imp who has a destructive magical power. It’s all really quite insane but also strangely compelling. It never ceases to be creative and the ways it will make you uncomfortable will surely surprise you. I’d dare you to eat eel after watching this.

EDIT: I just found my original review that I wrote straight after watching the film, and thought it would be insightful to include that one as well, in order to have my fresh opinions of the film displayed. I had completely forgotten that I had written this, but I reckon that fresh opinions are far better than reheated ones.

This film is nearly 3 hours long, but if there was ever a film that I didn’t mind being longer than strictly necessary, it would be this one.

Oskar is a three year old with advanced intellect who decides on his birthday that he no longer wants to grow up. So he purposefully stunts his growth by arranging a fall. From then on, we see him grow up (in Nazi Germany) as a man inside a boy’s body. He is stubborn and wants to hold onto the tin drum he received for his birthday at any cost, and develops a superpower whereby he can shatter glass by screaming.

Weirded out yet?

At the beginning, I thought this would be your normal tale of ‘Kashubians living through WW2’ or something like that. Kashubia is an area of northern Poland. I recently watched The Tree of Wooden Clogs which was almost entirely made in the Lombard language, so I was sorta expecting something similar with Kashubia-specific dialects and references. It was a lot more than that.

The first 20 minutes tell the story of Oskar’s parents (which doesn’t really play into the film later, so could definitely have been cut). However, the part where I knew things were going to get weird was when we get a shot of Oskar, fully cognisant, inside the womb, looking like the child he is rather than a baby.

Elsewhere, grotesque and mystifying images abound: eels slithering out of a severed horse’s head, a Nazi rally turning into a Blue Danube waltz, our young protagonist (played by 12 year old David Bennett) having sex with multiple women.

Which leads me to why I think this movie works so well: David Bennett. The kid just LOOKS the part. Did any of you see Hereditary? There’s got to be a special award for casting agents to be able to find kids that look (and are able to act) like psychopaths. Bennett has these giant unmistakable eyes and this permanent angry glare that no one around him seems to notice. He actually looks like a mini Donald Sutherland. When he began acting with the dwarf actors, he seemed to fit in so well that I actually questioned the actor’s age, and how they were able to perform so many risque scenes with him. At any rate, his stellar performance really sells the film.

Besides that, I can’t really tell what to think of it except that I love it. Deciding on the message of the story is hard for me. I know it’s based on a book (which I haven’t read), so I wonder how close of an adaptation it is (the Criterion Channel interviews said that the director did have to make some concessions). Some say it’s about the hypocrisy of adulthood as viewed by a child, but I didn’t really see that (at least while I was watching). This would suggest that the child is ‘innocent’ and ‘pure’, but that’s not the case at all. The kid is a fucking psycho. We Need to Talk About Kevin-level psycho.

The theory I managed to land on in the end is that Oskar is somehow symbolic of Germans living through Nazism (which is going on at the same time as he is getting older). The statement of “I don’t like the adult world and taking responsibility, so I’m going to shoot myself in the foot and remain a three-year old forever” seems sort of like Nazis declaring “fuck the rest of the world” when they came to power. Oskar is rash and impulse-driven, much like the Nazis. He has seemingly no moral boundaries and will take whatever he wants without remorse. It’s only at the end of the film that he realises the error of his ways and decides he wants to grow up after all, simultaneously getting a rock to the face, kind of like how Germany regretted Nazism after WW2 whilst having to recover from losing the war. There’s a bunch of other stuff in the film I couldn’t explain to you though.

Normally, I’m the type of person that can’t enjoy a film if I don’t understand what’s happening within it, but The Tin Drum is certainly the exception to the rule for me. I was hooked with the concept of “psycho boy decides not to grow up”, and was happy to sit through the other two and a half hours of bizarre, fantastical things that happen to him on the way.

7/10

Discussion #179: The Night of the Hunter (1955)

Director: Charles Laughton

It’s incredible to me that actor Charles Laughton only directed one film in his life and it turned out to be one of the best and monst unique films ever made. Drawing on the expressionistic style of silent films, Laughton brings an assured and powerful visual style to what could have been a humdrum thriller.

Robert Mitchum is incredible as the psychopathic reverend that is hunting the children for the stolen money they hold. He tailors his behaviour in order to get what he wants and manages to convince the naive townsfolk that he is a decent person; the meek and vulnerable Shelley Winters is easily persuaded to marry him after her husband dies. It would be easy to consider that Mitchum’s character is not truly religious as he does not seem to hold by the usual religious tenets, but an earlier scene where Mitchum is talking to the sky, apparently in conversation with God, proves otherwise. He’s simply a religious loony.

Laughton progresses the story with an incredible pace in the first half, relying on the audience’s intelligence to understand how consecutive scenes relate to each other, though he places the clues very naturally. Later, he plays with space in a way that’s not in your face but is definitely noticeable to the eye of the cinephile. For example, the camera will be so zoomed out as to hardly be in the room, creating a lot of dark space around the characters and the setting, as can be seen in the seen where Winters is lying in bed and Mitchum is about to stab her and also when Mitchum follows the children into the cellar.

These elements are the start of a surreal bend that the film begins to take. As the children escape, they float down a river that is quite clearly on a set, with stars twinkling above them. The little girl begins to sing and they pass by wild animals that are featured in the foreground. It’s easy to see that a fair amount of visual effects have had to be put in place to achieve this effect, but why? What does it add to the story? These scenes could have been deleted and nothing would have been changed, plotwise. Nevertheless, I love that they’re there; they add a level of charm and auteurism that changes this film from an ordinary thriller into a piece of art. Later, as the children hide in a barn, they see the silhouette of Mitchum riding his horse and singing his trademark song on the hill. Again, it’s very clear to the audience that these are visual effects, heightening the dreamy quality of the film through expressionism.

But the biggest surprise of the film to me was the presence of none other than Lillian Gish, some four decades after she starred in the infamous The Birth of a Nation. As I mentioned in my review of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, it’s a treat to see actors’ careers last decades and interact with other generations, so to see Lillian Gish (perhaps Hollywood’s first ever superstar) in a completely different time period, talking – because she was silent all those other times – and wielding a shotgun was beyond exciting for me. As she is also deeply religious – she mentions the story of Moses, whose journey down a river was not entirely unlike the children’s – it does seem like she would resort to violence at first, but she turns out to be extremely shrewd and can sense that Mitchum is no good. It’s wonderful to see Gish kick arse in her 60s.

The only pitfall is that, for me, the film doesn’t quite stick the ending. Though the stand-off between Mitchum and Gish is intense, the finale proves to be a little underwhelming as he runs off screaming after getting shot once and is then apprehended by the police. The boy, who has been extremely resilient despite all the trauma he’s witnessed, suddenly falls to pieces when the he sees Mitchum being taken away – you think he’d be glad, although the method in which the police take Mitchum is reminiscent of the earlier scene with the boy’s father, undoubtedly triggering his trauma. Afterwards, Mitchum is then found not guilty somehow, but there’s a lynch mob… that also goes nowhere. Then finally, we get an ultra sappy Christmas ending where Gish gushes about how children abide despite harsh circumstances. It seems to suggest that the future is bright for them, and yet they’ve experienced so much trauma in this film, from the father abusively placing the son in an impossible situation where he has to guard money and keep secrets, to losing their mother and then having to escape from a murderous psychopath hell-bent on killing them. I doubt the children will ‘abide’ for long. Why the film’s ending is so terrible compared to the rest of the film is beyond me. I’m reminded of how Brazil‘s ending was messed with by studio executives, but I don’t think that happened here; perhaps the Code is what kept Laughton from keeping the film’s tone dark at the end?

Nevertheless, this is still a triumph with a great cast, thrilling plot and imaginative cinematography. The film’s artier segments threw off audiences at the time but have since been reappraised, and I’m sure the criticism of religion didn’t do the film any favours either. It’s a shame that there has never been another film like this; Laughton certainly had a unique talent that sadly remained untapped after this film was a commercial flop. But perhaps this film’s uniqueness is precisely what makes it so special.

9/10

Discussion #178: Cabaret (1972)

Director: Bob Fosse

If the songs in Cabaret are not as instantly hummable and memorable as those found in Mary Poppins, they are certainly no less potent; in fact, a wealth of emotion can be found within Liza Minnelli’s performance as she belts out passionate performances of Mein Herr, Maybe This Time and Cabaret, channeling her late mother in the process. Minnelli’s unconventionally attractive features and slick black hair draw all eyes to her as she dominates the screen.

Acting opposite as her queer lover is… Basil Exposition? A quarter-century difference in age does nothing to dissociate Michael York from his role in the Austin Powers films for me, especially as he has the same refined English accent. While he’s not bad in this film by any means, he doesn’t carry the same emotional heft that Minnelli does and it’s hard to see them as equals in this film.

Right from the start, Bob Fosse tries to make the audience uneasy by introducing them to the seedy world of the Kit Kat Klub, presented by the extravagant MC who sings Willkommen in three different languages. The unusual love story is presented against a backdrop of the rise of Nazis and fascism which turns out to be more fascinating than the characters in the tale.

Some iconic performances from Minnelli aside, I found it hard to remember much about the plot of this film and revisiting, I didn’t think there was quite enough to hold my interest, though it is still entertaining.

7/10

Discussion #177: Mary Poppins (1964)

Director: Robert Stevenson

I find it harder to rate the films that I have known (and often loved) since my childhood, than the ones I have only seen once, in the pursuit of completing this list. Mary Poppins is such an iconic classic, one that I felt like I watched dozens of times as a child that it’s hard not to be smitten by the title alone. There would have been a time, especially in my teenage years, when I would have dismissed this film as being simple kids stuff, but I’m glad that, as an adult, I can once again see the value of it.

Mary Poppins is an entertainment extravaganza. Featuring a slew of thoroughly unforgettable tunes – ranging from the upbeat, silly Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to the sombre Feed the Birds (which still gets a tear from me in its orchestral sweep) – the film also entertains through its host of visual effects that still hold up today. Most impressively, a segment transports Mary, Bert and the children to a cartoon world where they seamlessly move through the two-dimensional world. Disney had been experimenting with these effects since the controversial Song of the South in 1946, but here they are especially clever and convincing, a triumph of editing magic.

While every part of the film is entertaining, however, it’s hardly the best-told story. I used to hate musicals as a kid, saying that the songs were stopping the story from happening, and here that’s certainly true with songs like Jolly Holiday and Step in Time adding nothing to the plot whatsoever. Indeed the inclusion of all these songs bloats the film’s runtime to nearly two and a half hours, far too long for a kid’s film. All the same, the basic story of an overworked bank clerk who learns the meaning of happiness from a mysterious magical nanny is solid and heartwarming enough to anchor the more random, floaty parts of the film – quite literally floaty, considering the hovering man in I Love to Laugh.

If it’s not the most fully focused feature, that doesn’t stop it being hugely entertaining as the cast saunter from hit to hit, rarely encumbered by plot conflict. Julie Andrews is fascinating as the upbeat yet disciplinarian nanny while Dick Van Dyke is so charming as Bert the chimney sweep that you’re likely to forgive his brutal slaughtering of the cockney accent, which he apologised for in 2017. Mary Poppins is its own thing and, at least from an entertainment perspective, it’s practically perfect in every way.

8/10

Discussion #176: Brokeback Mountain (2005)

Director: Ang Lee

From the way this film was made fun of at my school and in the media in general, you would have thought this film was wall-to-wall gay sex scenes; this was supposedly the gayest film in existence and if you watched it, you would be likely to turn gay yourself. In fact, I’m now quite sure that most of those who criticised this film hadn’t seen it and didn’t know what it was about. Looking back, I feel quite ashamed that I put off watching Brokeback Mountain for so long because I had immaturely presumed it was a film that only gay people could enjoy.

Not only is this a stunning critique on our society for its continued prejudice against gay people, it’s legitimately one of the best romance films of all time. I say that, because you really feel the longing that Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal have for each other, especially when they are inevitably driven apart. The tragedy that they cannot be together and have to lie to others around them just to have a piece of happiness is truly heartbreaking.

In the past, I’ve lamented that some LGBT romance films are only acclaimed because they depict LGBT romances, but the LGBT aspect doesn’t play a vital role in the story: if Blue Is the Warmest Colour and Call Me by Your Name had featured straight romances, I doubt anyone would’ve cared about them. Indeed, in those films, the characters simply drift through life as if prejudice against LGBT doesn’t exist in the world; while that’s certainly an ideal scenario, it doesn’t make the story any more interesting, so why do these films get so much acclaim for merely presenting a gay romance?

In Brokeback Mountain however, the mens’ homosexuality (and how society views it) is essential to almost every part of the story, from how they initially hide their feelings from themselves and to each other to the film’s tragic ending. Brokeback Mountain explores the ills of sexual repression by simply allowing a romance between two men – cowboys, who are traditionally seen as the most masculine of men – to blossom naturally despite the entrenched societal notion that homosexuality is sinful and unnatural. By the end of the film, so many people have been hurt and you have to wonder why. Because a few verses of the Bible said so? When you think about it, homosexuality harms nobody, and yet it continues to be seen as taboo in so many parts of the world. Indeed, the film makes you question what other types of unharmful lifestyles are we repressing unnecessarily, and what kind of damage are we still causing today?

Ang Lee was no stranger to LGBT causes when he directed Brokeback Mountain, having made the similarly excellent and tragic The Wedding Banquet a decade earlier, but with a much larger budget and access to some tremendous A-listers as his leads, Ang Lee makes an even more compelling case for tolerance, set against a gorgeous natural backdrop. It’s notable that the characters can only be themselves when they are far from civilisation and their surroundings are idyllic. When they are forced to hide their true identities however, the landscapes become drab and desolate. Ang Lee uses all the tools available to him to make a truly powerful story that finally put the gay experience front and centre for global audiences to see – if it wasn’t banned or censored, of course. It’s mind-boggling to think that this lost Best Picture to Crash.

9/10

Discussion #175: The Sixth Sense (1999)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Bruce Willis is an ordinary child psychologist who gets shot by a former patient. Months later, he meets a boy with the surname Sear who tells him that he sees dead people who don’t know that they’re dead and see what they want to see. Meanwhile, his relationship with Olivia Williams is going down the shitter as she doesn’t even talk to him anymore and starts to cheat on him openly. In fact, the only person talking to Willis is the boy. What could it all mean?!?!

The film is practically begging you to figure out the twist before it’s made very obvious through flashback sequences – assuming you don’t already know the twist which is about as famous as the one in The Empire Strikes Back. Conveniently, I had managed to forget the twist before I saw this film, but figured out what was going on around the halfway mark as the clues were practically screaming it. From there, it felt like a slog to make it to the end, knowing the inevitable reveal would be on its way. When it comes, it practically bashes you over the head with how many hints there were in the rest of the film and feels quite patronising.

I’m a firm believer that a good film should have rewatch value and The Sixth Sense has almost none; in fact it’s much worse when you’re aware of the twist, which – spoiler alert – I’m going to reveal now. If Willis is a ghost, then how is he operating in society off-screen? How can he not tell that his wife can’t see him at all? How does he get the alerts that Haley Joel Osment needs his intervention? The film makes even less sense once the twist is revealed, and the vague rule that “ghosts see what they want to see” is such a poor catch-all that it makes the film make even less sense. Why would he want to see his wife cheating on him? There’s also a bizarre ‘horror’ subplot of a dead girl who provides Osment with video evidence that she was poisoned by her mother. What does that have to do with anything? Just an add-on to make the film more ‘horrifying’?

Getting past all of the nonsensical plot points, the film’s ending post-twist-reveal is just shockingly generic. Osment’s mother finally accepts that he has the gift of seeing dead people after hearing information he couldn’t have otherwise known and Olivia Williams finally lets go of her dead husband. If Paul Muni’s face fading into the black was iconic in I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, then Willis’s face fading into white before the credits has absolutely the opposite effect; it’s completely and utterly cheesy.

Shyamalan has a track record of making incredibly bad films based around a supernatural idea and a huge twist at the end of it; it’s become his signature, so whenever you see his films you’re just waiting for the twist. I suppose that audiences at the turn of the millennium weren’t used to Shyamalan’s style and were impressed that he could pull off such a big twist; in hindsight, however, this was just the blueprint for Shyamalan’s later cringe-inducing films.

2/10

Discussion #174: The Paleface (1948)

Director: Norman Z. McLeod

This is a film that I feel like defending despite its unforgivable flaws. Admittedly, this is a pretty low-brow, mainstream comedy film with groan-worthy jokes, a nonsensical plot and a deeply problematic depiction of American Indians. Despite all this, I nevertheless enjoyed myself when The Paleface served as my introduction to comedian Bob Hope, who reminds me distinctively in both visage and comic delivery of the Frasier actor Kelsey Grammer, something that only warmed me to him quicker.

In this film, he plays a cowardly dentist in the Wild West who becomes emboldened when he believes himself to be a magnificent sharpshooter, gunning down Indians with minimal effort. In fact, it is his brand new wife, Calamity Jane (Jane Russell) who has shot all of his targets to make him believe he is better than he really is. Russell is ideal for the role, her rather broad features giving credence to the notion that she is a strong, dominating woman. In fact, she’s something of an early feminist icon here, more powerful and independent than all of the men around her. This was only her third film role, her first being in Hughes’s The Outlaw where the neurotic director Howard Hughes (whose life is outlined in The Aviator) had agonised incessantly over the appearance of her breasts in his film. Needless to say, she was much happier to relax into a comedic role with less pressure.

I always like to go into a film blind, with as few expectations as possible, so it’s probable that I didn’t even know this was a comedy film on my first watch. I had been expecting another dull western, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found a comedy parodying one of my least favourite genres. Moreover, some of the jokes actually got a big laugh out of me, especially the running joke that Bob Hope is pulled from his carriage and dragged on the ground by his horses whenever he yells “yee-haw”. There’s also an extremely funny effect when the Indian’s torture of Hope sends him hurtling through the air. It’s all very silly.

For such a low-brow film, I was also impressed by the chase scene at the end which seemed to have a lot of effort put into it, including a few extra jokes here and there. Of course, the protagonists were being hunted by Indians depicted as savages, which put a damper on things, but when viewed as a product of its time, it’s still quite impressive. In the film’s finale, the writers play with the running joke, having Russell whisked away by the horses instead of Hope who turns to the audience, breaking the fourth wall, and says “What do you want, a happy ending?”

My positive feelings about this film, coupled with reviews that said the sequel was even better, caused me to venture forth into Son of Paleface, made four years later. It’s… different. Set several decades after the original film, Bob Hope plays his character’s own son and Russell is now a completely different female bandit, although her character is practically the same. Unlike the original, the film features several musical numbers including, to my delight, a reprise of Buttons and Bows that is sung in the original. Hope’s character is so obnoxious as to be almost off-putting to viewers, but he treads the line carefully. Most interestingly, it features more extreme, cartoonish action that requires complicated visual effects; it’s fascinating to see how these were pulled off in the 50s. A perfect example is how, at one point, a car falls off the edge of the cliff but Hope manages to Mary Poppins the car to safety by opening his umbrella. If Son is better than the original, then it’s only by a margin.

Back to the original: I was charmed by it. It’s extremely dumb, features some rather primitive comedy and has a racist depiction of Indians that was sadly common at the time, but I like to think that some 1940s movie-goers were also so sick of Westerns that they’d rather see a parody of it. Of course, the ultimate Western parody would come three decades later…

6.5/10

Discussion #173: I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932)

Director: Mervyn LeRoy

Here’s a film that is one of the pinnacles of the short-lived pre-Code era that saw so many groundbreaking films made. In just an hour and a half, LeRoy packs in a story that has so many twists and turns that it could occupy three hours, a situation that proved to be an issue for How Green Was My Valley but nevertheless makes this film more exciting.

Paul Muni is exceptional as James Allen, the unfortunate sergeant who hopes for a better life when he returns to America after World War I. He instead finds that the jobs he hoped for are all taken and his career prospects are poor, a theme that would be returned to in The Best Years of Our Lives. I like to think that this is criticising the ‘American Dream’, especially in light of the Great Depression, since you can’t usually get where you want to through hard work alone.

Instead, Allen is locked up for a crime he is innocent of and proceeds to work on a chain gang where the conditions are brutal and inhumane. We feel the anguish as Allen gets a fellow prisoner to help free him from his shackles by hammering them with his ankles still inside. He makes a daring escape, hiding in a pond using a reed to breathe, demonstrated by some fascinatingly early underwater shots. So much has happened already and we’re not even halfway through the film.

As an aside, I’m not quite sure what Allen’s World War I veteran status has to do with him becoming part of the chain gang (it just seems to happen by chance, so why include it?) or why he’s so unsuccessful pre-chain gang, but successful post. I suppose the answers might be “So the story can happen,” but it’s not very satisfying.

Another interesting aspect of the film was hearing 1920s prices for things; an apartment goes for “$25 a month, and that’s very reasonable”. I’ll say! In the second half of the film, we chart Allen’s success through his payslip and it’s rather mind-boggling to figure out what currency from a century ago means in today’s terms. This issue is only harder in foreign-language films made decades ago where you have to do a currency conversion and account for inflation.

LeRoy’s direction is so dynamic that it’s hard not to stay at the edge of your seat. Muni, meanwhile, is so sympathetic (quite unlike his performance in the same year’s Scarface) that you can’t help but feel for his character, trying to do his best in a world that wants to chew him up and spit him out. Just when you think it’s all going to be alright for him, the rug is pulled out from underneath him and it all gets worse. The film’s ending proves that there is no justice whatsoever, and the ending shot of Muni’s face sinking into the blackness is utterly iconic. This is pre-Code perfection, a rollercoaster of emotion that will surprise and shock you by just how dark things can get if you make the mistake of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

9.5/10