Author: SceneByGreen

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Robert Wise | 2hr 11min

Though the primary antagonist of The Andromeda Strain may be the extra-terrestrial organism described in its title, it isn’t too hard to see the wariness towards world governments lingering beneath the film’s doomsday warnings. As the scientists of the secret underground facility Wildfire note early on, the Andromeda bacteria may not even necessarily be deliberately hostile in its native environment, and its harmfulness to terrestrial lifeforms could very well be an incidental mismatch between their biological codes. Until it is brought into contact with humanity, its nature is not inherently good or evil. It only becomes a global hazard through its exploitation by political leaders, and our own arrogant belief that we can keep such unknown forces as these under control.

In short, The Andromeda Strain offers the perfect metaphor for widespread nuclear warfare at the dawn of the 1970s, falling into the same subgenre of paranoid political thrillers as so many other films of the era like The Conversation and The Parallax View. Though the atomic detonation built into Wildfire was designed as a safeguard, the eventual discovery that it may in fact fuel Andromeda with enough energy to end all life on Earth effectively turns a protective countermeasure into an apocalypse waiting to happen. That the lead scientists behind Wildfire believe this newly discovered organism can be used as a biological weapon is pure hubris, leaving only a small team of contracted experts to unravel Andromeda’s mysteries and defuse a potentially world-ending threat.

Haunting scenes at the town of Piedmont, where all but two citizens dropped dead in the middle of everyday activities – a horrifically intriguing start to this scientific mystery.
Wise’s staggering of bodies throughout shots is executed with clinical precision, using the full breadth of his wideframe and an incredible depth of field.

The realism that Robert Wise applies to The Andromeda Strain also speaks to a far more authentic feeling of insecurity too than the sensationalised Cold War allegories that pervaded the cinematic landscape up to this point, including his own 1951 adaptation of The Day the Earth Stood Still. Having been well-established in the industry since the 1940s, he is essentially a bridge between Old and New Hollywood, applying his talent for deep focus cinematography learned from Orson Welles to a more naturalistic aesthetic. More specifically, it is the split diopter lens that becomes the foundation of so many Wise’s greatest compositions, applying two different focuses at once to effectively allow for a close-up and wide shot within the same frame. Brian de Palma would be the director most associated with this technique in years to come, but not even he was so rigorously bound to the stylistic device as Wise is in The Andromeda Strain, which barely goes a minute without underscoring the dramatic irony disconnecting subjects in the foreground and background.

Many directors have mastered the split diopter lens, but none have made a film that uses it so perfectly and consistently as The Andromeda Strain which turns it into a fully realised aesthetic. Close-ups and wide shots are effectively achieved within the same shot, imparting a great deal of visual information and dramatic irony.

In this way, Wise uses the split diopter as a tool for suspense, particularly in the early scenes when we learn about the small, rural town of Piedmont whose entire population suddenly died without warning. When military police officers arrive at Dr Jeremy Stone’s home and urgently summon him to ground zero, the two greeting his wife at the door evenly frame the third restlessly pacing by the car behind them, astoundingly dividing the lens’ focus into three individual segments. Later when Stone arrives on site with Dr Mark Hall, their investigation is eerily laced with more of these shots, pressing the profile of a dead man right up against the camera while they anxiously observe from a distance.

An inventive twist on the split diopter – segmenting the frame into thirds rather than halves, and framing the police officer in the background with two more on either side.
Chilling scenes in the town of Piedmont, viscerally captured with Wise pressing a dead man’s face in close-up against the camera while scientists investigate from a distance.
The two survivors of the ghost town make for a compelling mystery – a crying baby and the local drunk, both seemingly unaffected by the lethal bacteria.

The other purpose this deep focus serves during Stone and Hall’s reconnaissance mission is purely economical, loading the visuals with a great deal of information without needing to cut between multiple shots. The pacing here is slow but gripping, thoroughly earning each puzzle piece that gradually slots into place – the satellite that recently crashed in town, the clotting of human blood into a powdery substance, and the two sole survivors being a crying baby and the town drunk.

The mosaic use of split screens during this sequence consequently feels like a natural extension of the split diopter technique, drawing our eyes to multiple subjects in the frame while abundant evidence of an invisible alien invasion stacks up. On the left, Stone and Hall peer through windows of quiet houses, while on the right we are given the view of dead bodies inside. Similarly, their studies of Andromeda in the depths of Wildfire use these split screens in place of conventional montages, methodically drawing connections between different parts of their experiments without impatiently rushing through their painstaking processes. Along with the time stamps frequently marking the date and time of significant events, Wise’s precise visuals are effectively cataloguing this scientific study into a detailed presentation of exacting focus, desperately trying to apply hard logic to what remains impenetrably enigmatic.

Wise approaches his narrative with clinical precision, formally marking its progression with timestamps that help to sort through its sheer density.
Wise’s mosaic split screens serve a similar purpose as his split diopters, connecting disparate points of the investigation to reach a firmer conclusion.
The colour red punctures Wise’s sterile sets with jarring urgency.

With such remarkable formal precision guiding Wise’s direction, the Stanley Kubrick influence is clear, especially given the release of 2001: A Space Odyssey just three years prior. Just like that science-fiction masterpiece, accusations could be levelled at the dry jargon and cold characterisations of Nelson Gidding’s screenplay, though the clinical restraint displayed here is merely part of Wise’s sterile atmosphere. Instead of a small crew journeying into outer space, we watch four scientists descend deep into the Earth, yielding their humanity to the artificial technology that keeps them alive. To reach the main laboratory at its base, they must first pass through four sublevels of decontamination, with each room possessing the sort of intricate production design that wouldn’t be out of place in Kubrick’s spaceships. The crimson, silver, and yellow uniforms worn by these scientists vividly match the metallic walls of their respective floors, while the red warning lights on the bottom level pierce its polished grey surroundings with jarring urgency, though it is the laboratory’s central core which proves to be the most impressive set piece of them all in the heart-pumping climax.

The 2001: A Space Odyssey influence is distinctly felt in Wise’s uniform production design and blocking, making for some particularly striking imagery as the scientists descend ever deeper into the Earth.

To draw that 2001: A Space Odyssey connection even deeper, Wise’s decision to hire special effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull pays off in the green computerised depictions of Andromeda itself, dynamically visualising its mutations into different variants. This rapid evolution may be its greatest weapon against human analysis, granting itself the power to disintegrate the plastic and rubber keeping it contained, though it is equally the fast thinking of scientists which at least temporarily defuses the situation. The threat in the film’s final act is a little contrived, counting down to an apocalyptic nuclear detonation, but Wise’s deft editing paces the tension perfectly right to the final seconds. An uneasy stalemate is the only solution which guarantees survival for both species, and may be the best anyone can hope for given their immense powers of mutual destruction. In an era so fraught with mistrust between neighbours, the pursuit of greater knowledge is nothing more than a path to existential insecurity in The Andromeda Strain, forcing civilians to grasp the fragility of their own blissfully ignorant lives.

Even 2001: A Space Odyssey’s special effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull contributes to the morphing design of Andromeda itself, rendered digitally as a green, mutating prism.
The measured pacing ramps up in the final act with a climactic countdown to the end of the world, but Wise continues to wield an excellent control over his camera angles and tension.

The Andromeda Strain is currently available to rent or on Apple TV, YouTube, and Amazon Video, and the Blu-ray can be bought on Amazon.

Vampyr (1932)

Carl Theodor Dreyer | 1hr 15min

Caught in the transition from silent to sound film, Carl Theodor Dreyer constructs a peculiar aberration of a horror film in Vampyr, absorbing us into a waking nightmare that only occasionally disrupts its eerie quiet with isolated lines of dialogue. Though it is a work of primal, symbolic imagery, it still presents exposition to us through intertitles, lifting passages from the book that occult fanatic Allan Gray is given at the start of the film – “The Strange History of Vampires.” Accounts of these creatures’ enslaved victims and mortal weaknesses are divulged here, guiding Allan through a supernatural conspiracy located in the castles and villages of rural France, and weaving an astoundingly cryptic allegory of European fascism.

Still, Vampyr cannot be so easily reduced to its plot or politics, both being relatively minimal compared to Dreyer’s hallucinatory dreamscape of shadows and shapes. While directors like James Whale and Tod Browning were establishing genre conventions within 1930s Universal monster movies, Dreyer’s horror was holding his audience at an obscure distance, calling on existential fears of violated self-agency repressed deep in our subconscious. If any stylistic comparison is to be made, then Vampyr draws on a heavy influence from F.W. Murnau’s silent expressionism, referencing the Gothic iconography of Nosferatu and traversing intricate sets in steady, measured camera movements like Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Conversely, the dark spirituality interrogated here would also prove foundational to Ingmar Bergman’s severe minimalism a couple of decades later, sinking the warped souls of humanity into a lifeless, misty greyscale.

Vampyr was caught in the transition from silent to sound film, and with such little dialogue Dreyer’s visual storytelling excels, following Allan Grey through his investigation of supernatural conspiracies.
There is an air of historic French nobility in the paintings and wallpapers of Vampyr’s interiors, using iconography as backdrops to the horror.

As for Dreyer himself, Vampyr marks an odd follow-up to The Passion of Joan of Arc, shifting from an aesthetic primarily consisting of close-ups to intricate wide shots composed with haunting precision. Interiors come alive with dancing shadows cast by invisible beings, while spoked wheels, curved scythes, and clawed angels imprint geometric shapes on giant canvases of negative space. Being shot on location in the pastoral commune of Courtempierre, much of the architecture here is authentically carved from stone and wood, and the sparsely patterned wallpaper of fleur-de-lis subtly infuses the setting with an air of historic French nobility too.

Shadows are like ghosts, moving independently of humans as if with lives of their own.
Dreyer’s stark, minimalist mise-en-scène is an enormous visual achievement, using simple shapes and lighting to compose his frames.
Expressionism in darkened silhouettes and angular shapes, setting in a psychological horror through haunting iconography.

Even Dreyer’s characters frequently appear ornamental to his mise-en-scène, striking vivid poses and expressions in true silent cinema fashion. Our two main villains, the vampire Marguerite Chopin and the ghostly Lord of the Manor, are both withered old crones preying on the vitality of youth, which Dreyer archetypally represents here in the innocent Léone and her virginal white robes. After she is found wandering the castle grounds in a daze with a pair of bite marks on her neck, she begins acting erratically, baring her teeth in a sinister grin as her gaze mysteriously drifts across the ceiling. For our leading man Allan, it is his wide, curious eyes that capture our attention, and which also become the filter through which Vampyr’s second half is distorted into surreal visions of skeletons and corpses.

Quite unusually, Dreyer’s primary vampire is not a man but an old woman – a decrepit being preying on the vitality of youth
It’s not quite The Passion of Joan of Arc, but the close-ups used here are powerful, lingering on the possessed Léone’s face as her eyes drift across the ceiling with a creepy, toothy grin.
A landmark of early surrealism, bringing the dead to life in Allan’s dreams.

It is here that the influence on Bergman becomes even more apparent, particularly in Allan’s nightmarish discovery of his own body in a coffin which mirrors a strikingly similar dream in Wild Strawberries. Dreyer’s avant-garde experimentations express a deep mortal terror, lifting our hero outside of his body through an eerie double exposure effect, and directly taking his point-of-view from inside a coffin as he is carried to a grave and buried.

A clever and fitting use of double exposure when Allan undergoes an out-of-body experience, encountering his own corpse as it is carried away in a coffin.
Heavily subjective camerawork as we peer out the top of Allan’s coffin from the point-of-view of his dead body.

If there is any hope to be found in this bleak scenery, then it is smothered by the dense, grey clouds observed in Dreyer’s formal cutaways, holding back the daylight from reaching the village. Only when Allan eventually drives a large, metal stake through Marguerite’s heart do sunrays begin to pour through, beckoning him across a foggy river with a rescued Léone to a bright clearing on the other side. At the end of a long, dubious path of existential horrors, Allan finds love, heroism, and salvation, and yet it is only by exploring his nightmares that any of this was made possible to begin with. Whether Dreyer’s horror is to be interpreted as a political allegory, a spiritual fable, or merely a hypnotic progression of expressionistic images, Vampyr is designed to lull us into the same impressionable state as its victims, eerily calling upon our own subconscious desire for complete, psychological submission to the darkness.

Excellent parallel editing in the climactic defeat of the villain, evoking the torture room scene from The Passion of Joan of Arc with the spinning wheels and cogs.
Formal cutaways to a cloudy sky, concealing the sunlight trying to break through.
Allan finally makes it to a bright, sunny clearing – a holy sanctuary within the natural world.

Vampyr is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and the Blu-ray can be purchased on Amazon.

Fair Play (2023)

Chleo Domont | 1hr 53min

When corporate analyst Luke first discovers his co-worker and secret fiancée Emily has been promoted, his show of support can’t mask the disappointment in his eyes. Rumours whispered around the office suggested that he would be the one to take the place of the previously fired portfolio manager, and the hierarchy at the Manhattan hedge fund they work at is not an easy ladder to climb. It isn’t just the cutthroat executives and their exceptionally high expectations that feed the competition, but the white-collar workers beneath them are constantly undercutting each other’s successes as well. At least Luke and Emily share an emotional security that views individual successes as victories for both – but only really if Luke can use his future wife’s new position as a guaranteed leg-up for himself.

Power is both the end goal and the means to achieve it in Fair Play, enticing each character to the higher echelons of One Crest Capital, though this scheming is not merely contained to fraught office politics. It is deeply intertwined with Luke’s masculinity in his sexual relationship with Emily, keeping him from getting hard when his feelings of emasculation rise to the surface, and reinvigorating him when he takes forceful control. On one level he knows that she would never compromise her integrity, but he still can’t help letting nasty rumours about her sleeping with executives feed his insecurities. For Luke, this erotic thriller thus becomes a quest to assert his dominance in both the office and his personal life, while Emily gradually realises what compromises must be made to keep her position.

First-time director Chloe Domont winds up her spring-loaded narrative with careful control in Fair Play, mounting its tensions to a point that can no longer bear the weight of Luke and Emily’s mutual disdain. The passionate sex scenes drawn through so much of its first act gradually grow more strained with their increasing discomfort, and it certainly doesn’t help that they must subjugate their private romance every day to the sterile scenery of glass cubicles, pressed suits, and fluorescent lights.

Whatever seeds of intimacy are planted between colleagues here simply cannot survive the sexless brutality of corporate America and the competition it thrives on. As a result, primal desperation is the only instinct left in them, seeing Luke flail between expensive self-help gurus and publicly begging the CEO on his knees for a promotion. Conversely, Emily grounds her political manoeuvring in a keen self-awareness, navigating the gender dynamics of the workplace by involving herself in its misogynistic culture and thereby marking herself as an exception to its prejudices.

Anxiety only continues to climb beneath this main narrative as well in the constant phone calls from family members finding out about Emily and Luke’s secret proposal, and their frustrating insistence on an engagement party. Should news of their relationship make it back to the office, then the discovery would implicate them both in an extreme conflict of interest, and raise questions around whether she is leveraging her position for Luke’s benefit – which of course she is. The collision of personal and professional lives is inevitable, and when it finally does unfold, Domont delights in staging a savage, public display of contempt and humiliation. The struggle up the corporate ladder has a long list of casualties in Fair Play, and when gender roles are thrown into the roiling mix, intimate relationships and fragile egos are the first to be sacrificed.

Fair Play is currently streaming on Netflix.

Lola (1981)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder | 1hr 53min

The image of post-war Germany that Rainer Werner Fassbinder composes in Lola is remarkably distinct from the 1905 novel that provided its source material, and yet the tragic romance at its centre nevertheless carries across the twentieth century as a timeless fable of sacrifice and degraded honour. For the original author Heinrich Mann, schoolteacher Raat is an authoritarian figure falling to the liberal values of cabaret singer Lola Lola, rigidly abiding by conservative beliefs that are more likely to break before they bend. Josef von Sternberg remained largely faithful in his 1930 adaptation The Blue Angel too, even as he shifted the time frame forward 20 years to the Weimar Republic. Within his 1981 reinvention of the modern fable though, Fassbinder shows no interest in such black-and-white morality, grinding the steadfast integrity of our righteous protagonist down to a weary resignation through a slew of moral ordeals.

Can the prosperous reconstruction of West Germany in the 1950s justify the corrupt dealings making it possible? Is noble building commissioner Herr von Bohm right to stand in the way of those crooked bureaucrats if their long-term goals are effectively aligned with his? At what point should one place their personal desire for love and security over their code of honour, and is such a sacrifice truly worth it? As complications arise within this tangled web of politics, Bohm and his sweetheart Marie-Luise find that they all come down to a single, inevitable decision – to remain loyal to one’s convictions and lose everything, or to submissively fall in line with the status quo.

We have seen variations of Lola through cinema history, but it is Barbara Sukowa’s modern take on cabaret performer that elevates the character into delicate, modern melodrama, caught between two lives.
Lola is one of the 1980s’ greatest displays of colour cinematography, and a large majority of that is achieved through Fassbinder’s versatile lighting, striking incredible contrasts in warm and cool hues.
Right next to Fassbinder’s lighting, his use of frames within frames is a visual highlight of Lola, hemming Bohm into tight spaces made all the more claustrophobic by Schuckert’s large, domineering presence.

For as long as Bohm remains ignorant to the truth of Marie-Luise’s secret identity as Lola, a high-end escort, nightclub performer, and mother to the child of corrupt property developer Schuckert, the choice is easy. Being a refugee from East Prussia and a grieving widower, he has proven his spirit’s endurance, and through Marie-Luise he can see a path to rebuilding his own life. On her end, Bohm’s sincerity and optimism is incredibly refreshing, and sets him apart from the deceitful, self-serving creatures she has known all other men to be. Like her, he works in a profession that can all too easily erode one’s faith in humanity, and yet his honour has remained intact. As a result, Bohm becomes a beacon of hope to Marie-Luise, as long as she can hide her shame long enough to shed it altogether.

Even when Fassbinder strips back the visual artifice to shoot exteriors on location, he is still proving his absolute dedication to the frame, narrowing this shot through stained glass doors.
Fassbinder’s creativity with his shot compositions only increases as the film goes on, using the colourful decor of regular households to trap his characters in domestic settings.
The added layer of glass and reflections when Fassbinder frames Lola obscures her even more in his oppressive mise-en-scène.

Under Fassbinder’s vibrant direction, the sleazy exploitation that infects Lola’s post-war setting does little to dampen the incredible joys and tragedies of this central relationship, spilling out into a colourfully heightened world. No doubt there is an element of realism to the exterior streets and rundown brothels of this city, but the candy neon lighting that Fassbinder sheds over his scenes belong in the world of elevated sentimentality, composing images of astonishing beauty. There is no diegetic reasoning behind the green illumination of the room that sits behind Bohm’s office, and yet it visually sets his domain apart from the orange, red, and pink lights of the nightclub where Lola performs and Schuckert conducts his business dealings.

Green lighting is reserved for Bohm’s office, while splashes of colour rupture that coolness with orange and red lampshades, and yellow and pink flowers.
Bohm’s association with green palettes sets him far apart from the purple and red lighting of Lola’s nightclub, blazing with passion and sparkling with sexuality.
An oval window, an obstruction of foliage, and candy-coloured lighting simultaneously confines Lola to a small portion of the frame on her wedding day, and sweetens the image with sickly pink hues.

Where Dario Argento used similarly fluorescent lighting to craft a vibrant, expressionistic horror in Suspiria, Fassbinder melds them with the delicate romanticism of Douglas Sirk’s melodramas in Lola, framing his characters within the drastically narrowed borders of doorways, mirrors, and windows. Coloured lights bounce off glass panes, behind which Bohm and Marie-Luise frequently find themselves visually trapped, though Fassbinder doesn’t stop there either with his brilliant shot obstructions. The interior mise-en-scène of each set is designed with inventive precision, using the legs of upside-down bar stools to split the frame into triangular segments and isolate Marie-Luise from the rest of the ensemble, while tinsel runs along the club’s glittery walls and ceilings. Fassbinder’s staging of actors is incredibly evocative in these moments too, sending Marie-Luise dancing on top of a table as she dances wildly at her lowest point, while Bohm sinks to his knees in a mess of papers back at his office having learned of her second identity as Lola.

One of Fassbinder’s single strongest compositions is arranged simply through the upturned barstools of the club, segmenting the shot into triangles and trapping Lola in their midst.
Chaos spills across Bohm’s usually tidy office after discovering the truth about Lola, and even here Fassbinder doesn’t let the colour of his papers go amiss.

In two significant scenes where there is conversely little movement from the actors, Fassbinder compensates by dynamically circling his camera around the table where bureaucrats discuss new construction projects. In the first instance, the meeting runs smoothly, but with Schuckert and Marie-Luise’s secrets revealed to Bohm just prior to the second, a new tension hangs in the air. Our virtuous building commissioner is on a self-destructive path of righteous judgement, declaring war on Schuckert and his cronies by withdrawing the project proposal and approaching journalists with news of their dishonest exploitation. “The whole is rotten, not just parts, so the whole must be tackled,” he furiously resolves. “How could I make peace with a world that makes me sick?”

Bohm is absorbed into Lola and Scuckert’s world of red and pink, falling to despair.

The answer to Bohm’s question comes through two bitter realisations. Not only does the media’s equal corruption make any prospect of justice impossible, but when he is at his most despairing, Schuckert makes him one final offer to at least live comfortably within this dishonest system. Marie-Luise is his prize, released from the constraints of her employment and free to marry him if only he falls in line. If Bohm is aware that Schuckert is still bedding his wife, then that knowledge has been deeply repressed for the sake of his new, comfortable life of dishonesty. This is the culture that West Germany’s future is to be built on in the wake of World War II, and it is scarily similar to the nation’s recent past of totalitarian conformity – it has just softened its harsh edges with bribery instead of threats. In the colourfully modern world of Fassbinder’s Lola, tragedy does not end with death or heartbreak, but with a poignant, quiet resignation to the loss of one’s moral character.

Fassbinder’s pink and yellow palettes are deceptive in the film’s final scenes, softening the betrayal captured in this mirror as Lola kisses Schuckert on her wedding day.

Lola is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and the Blu-ray is available to purchase on Amazon.

My Darling Clementine (1946)

John Ford | 1hr 37min

Even before directing My Darling Clementine, it was clear that John Ford never had any qualms around twisting historical truth into cinematic reconstructions, especially putting his talents to use as a documentarian and propagandist in the United States military during World War II. When he returned to Hollywood in 1946, the focus of his storytelling shifted, but his intentions did not. In his skilled hands, the famous western shootout at Tombstone’s O.K. Corral between lawman Wyatt Earp and the nefarious Cowboys becomes a tale of heroic courage and sacrifice, departing from the truth in too many ways to count. The fact that the Earp brothers were never cattle drivers, that Doc Holliday actually survived the climactic gunfight, and that our main antagonist Old Man Clanton had been killed several months before is negligible to Ford’s proud mythologising. As James Stewart would be told many years later in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, “When legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

This is the central tenet upon which Ford establishes his belief in America’s tenacious spirit, recognising the necessity of these folktales to revive the cultural identity that was slowly losing relevance in a cynical, post-war nation. Through this lens, the rambunctious rural town of Tombstone becomes a landscape of America in disarray, needing a strong leader to restore order to its chaos. As such, My Darling Clementine does not centre a hot-headed maverick like John Wayne, but rather a stoic, reserved Henry Fonda who faithfully abides by laws greater than himself.

Wyatt Earp is one of Fonda’s greatest characters – a lawman with an unwavering commitment to order, peace, and justice, watering the seeds of civilisation.
Ford uses Monument Valley as a gorgeous backdrop to his drama, imposing rough landscapes on his characters as they try to carve out order from the chaos.

With his Chevron moustache and humourless demeanour, Fonda characterises the famed Wyatt Earp as a quiet, pragmatic introvert, only taking up the position of town marshal when his brother is murdered in cold blood by unknown assailants. His gaze is intensely focused, refusing to make eye contact with local saloon singer Chihuahua when she briefly directs her performance to him, and often surveying the dusty rural plains from his porch as he leans back in a wooden chair. Here, Ford frames him as a guardian of civilisation, drawing a visual divide through the vertical posts separating the rustic town from Monument Valley’s wild landscapes of colossal sandstone buttes.

Civilisation and wilderness in Ford’s blocking, stationing Fonda on the precipice of both as a guardian.
Earp’s relaxed pose leaning back in his chair becomes a repeated character trait, echoing throughout the film.

Wyatt is unyielding in his defence of civil order, holding his neighbours to a rigorously high standard, and regarding those morally ambiguous troublemakers like Doc Holliday with suspicion. Right from their first meeting, tension underlies almost every interaction between these two rivals, with Ford using a row of gaslights in the local saloon to split them right down the middle. Behind them, the town watches on with nervous anticipation, vividly captured in a crisp depth of field while slightly obscured by the thick smoke hanging in the air.

The tension between Earp and Doc Holliday is set up magnificently from the start, dividing them through the framing and blocking of their encounter in the local saloon.

It is the Clanton family who Ford reserves his most daunting staging for though, uniting them as an indomitable force when Wyatt begins pursuing a clue to the identity of his brother’s killer. As Fonda questions the saloon’s owner, five Clanton brothers silently enter the foreground and line up along the bar one-by-one, piercing Wyatt with silent, threatening stares. Ford’s lighting frequently verges on expressionism in compositions like these too, casting characters in shadow to cynically illustrate the dark corruption that thrives in Tombstone’s shady establishments.

Dynamic staging as the Clanton brothers enter the shot one by one, posing a silent threat to Earp in the background.
Tremendous manipulation of light and shadows in Tombstone’s interiors, sinking the town into darkness.

Of course, this is only one dimension of a complex, dynamic town, layered with colourful personalities and cultural traditions. At night Tombstone is rowdy with gamblers and outlaws, but there is also a robust community living here that Ford relishes blocking through every corner of his frame, using its height as flamboyant stage actor Mr Thorndyke recites Shakespeare atop a table, and gathering eager crowds at the base of a tall, scaffolded structure – the town’s first church established by Wyatt himself. Its meagre facade does little to dampen the spirits of its excited parish as they join together in a hymn, celebrating the unity that their new marshal has cultivated.

Strong community in Ford’s use of large crowds, gathering in the local saloon and at the opening of Tombstone’s first church.

Like a gardener reaping the rewards of his own efforts, Wyatt also begins to sprout a mature vulnerability from the same fertile environment he has been tending to, motivated by the arrival of outsider Clementine in town. The significance of their romantic musical motif is instantly apparent. All through the film, instrumental variations of ‘Oh, My Darling Clementine’ are weaved naturally through strings, flutes, and Fonda’s whistling, immortalising his love in a ballad which would spread across America in years to come.

By linking Wyatt to a nostalgic, recognisable piece of Americana, Ford is effectively offsetting the more violent nature of his real legacy. Historically, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral encapsulates the tensions between law enforcement and outlaws during the United States’ formative years, and Ford’s staging of it here certifies Wyatt as an icon of cultural progress. As he strides down the main road of Tombstone towards the location of his great victory, the camera captures him at a low angle that radiates power, though this is not a conflict he gladly embraces. Wyatt gives Old Man Clanton multiple chances to avoid bloodshed, announcing the warrant for his arrest before the inevitable gunfight, and only landing the killing shot when his adversary tries to shoot him in the back.

A climactic showdown that centres Earp in a low angle beneath a vast, cloudy sky, later to be echoed in Kurosawa’s samurai film Yojimbo.

Whether or not this is true to the character of the real Earp is completely irrelevant to Ford. As far as he is concerned, Earp not only brought order to chaos in the Old West, but also originated a romantic folk song that has since become a famous expression of romantic love. The Greeks had Achilles, the Anglo-Saxons had Beowulf, and through Ford’s cinematic storytelling Wyatt Earp becomes a mythical hero of the American frontier, paving the path of moral virtue and honour to our modern civilisation.

My Darling Clementine is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, is available to buy on Apple TV, and the DVD or Blu-ray can be bought on Amazon.

Afire (2023)

Christian Petzold | 1hr 43min

There is no need to worry about the wildfires spreading through the surrounding forest, Leon and Felix are frequently told during their stay by the Baltic Sea. They are a safe enough distance away that their getaway can continue uninterrupted, simply letting the sea breeze blow the flames inland. Even as Leon tirelessly works on his manuscript and Felix builds his photography portfolio though, the blaze of summer romance proves to be alarmingly volatile. Incidentally, the small holiday home that they are staying in also happens to be occupied by another vacationer, Nadja, whose fling with local lifeguard Devid intertwines with the dreams and hormones of her fellow occupants. For the time being, all four are happy assuming that the distant danger won’t interfere with their tiny bubble, and yet it is only a matter of time before this inferno shifts direction and wreaks havoc on their delicate lives.

Following on from Christian Petzold’s subaquatic fantasy-drama Undine, Afire marks the second in the German filmmaker’s proposed elemental trilogy. He wears the parallels to Eric Rohmer’s thematic series of seasons and proverbs with pride here, displaying similar fascinations in those casual interactions between friends and lovers that belong to the idyllic days of youth. Romance, drama, and comedy airily float around characters with only the slightest hint of foreboding menace, all while Leon isolates himself from the others as a brooding loner.

To be fair, the start of this holiday has not been particularly pleasant, with a broken-down car, a water damaged ceiling, and Nadja’s noisy trysts keeping him up at night. Stoking Leon’s discontent even further is the complete inadequacy of his own writing, drawing criticism from his publisher Helmut, as well as Nadja herself. At least in the latter case, he can easily brush off her comments as uneducated – she only works as a lowly ice cream vendor down by the beach after all. It is exactly this dismissal though which exposes his intellectual arrogance, as well as his readiness to leap to false conclusions about her academic background.

Leon’s jealousy towards the easy-going Felix comes from a similar place too, as he watches the myth of creative success only being earned through painstaking obsession crumble before his eyes. While Leon sulks over his tortured genius, Felix approaches his photography with an open-minded spontaneity, attracting the praise from Helmut that his friend desperately desires, and still finding the time to effortlessly form new relationships. So self-absorbed is Leon that he doesn’t even notice sparks of romance igniting between Felix and Devid until Nadja directly tells him that they are sleeping together, not even slightly bothered by the fact that her fling has found another lover.

Perhaps this trio is blinded by their shared joy as they play games and make love into the night, but so too is Leon’s vision clouded by his bitter insecurity. When all four are finally forced to confront the pressing danger of local forest fires, all they can do is stand on the roof and gaze at it from a distance, hypnotised by its brilliant orange glow illuminating the night sky. The contrast it strikes against the soothing blue hues of Petzold’s day-for-night wash is vividly realised, threatening to disrupt the status quo even as characters naively express relief that the blaze won’t come any closer. Neither is the trance disrupted by the arrival of white ash fluttering down from the sky like snow, casting an enchanting thrall over this quiet retreat. It takes a sudden medical emergency to snap these vacationers back to reality, only to realise on their way out of the forest that they may have left their evacuation far too late.

It is here in this climax that Petzold delivers some of his most compelling symbolism, foreshadowing a destruction of innocence as he lingers on the burnt remains of a baby boar and deer that have been abandoned by their families. Much like the clash of warm and cool hues in his natural lighting, these fiery visuals are harshly juxtaposed against the calm ocean setting which Felix photographs, Devid patrols, and Nadja works by. Leon does not quite appreciate the beach in the same way, and yet it is exactly where he finds himself wandering to in the wake of tragedy, watching its bioluminescence light up the water with tears in his eyes. If only he had accepted Nadja’s earlier invitation to see what he sees now, he quietly regrets. If only he recognised the futility of his work, shed his inhibitions, and opened himself up to new possibilities. His confession of love ultimately comes far too late, and has the worst possible timing one could imagine.

But then if Leon did submit to the heated throes of passion, would he have been among the unlucky ones to succumb to its flames, burning to death in a tight lover’s embrace? Petzold wields his metaphor here with a haunting elegance, alluding to those two bodies uncovered at Pompeii that were locked in a similar position, and imbuing Afire’s resolution with an almost mythical quality. Young love requires a certain vulnerability that those looking in from the outside might be terrified to submit to, and yet once consumed by the blazing euphoria that Petzold so delicately depicts in its raw, elemental form, anybody can see that it is worth the peril.

Afire is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Extraction 2 (2023)

Sam Hargrave | 2hr 3min

In recent years, the upward trend of Hollywood stuntmen picking up cameras and becoming directors has reinvigorated the action genre with a visceral practicality. While Chad Stahelski and David Leitch have been revolutionising the art of the set piece, Sam Hargrave’s career has been relatively quiet, though this is in part due to his late emergence on the scene. After working as a stunt coordinator for both Marvel and DC Studios, he made his debut on Netflix in 2020 with Extraction, an introduction to black ops mercenary and sullen action hero Tyler Rake whose return in the sequel gives him even more to brood over. Much like the first instalment, Extraction 2’s visuals are as ambitious as its narrative is thin, revealing a confidence behind the camera that thrillingly elevates Joe Russo’s otherwise mediocre screenplay.

Tyler has barely had any time to settle into retirement and rehabilitate from prior injuries when a new job comes knocking at his rural Austrian cabin, drawing him back into the business with mysteriously personal stakes attached. Davit Radiani, co-founder of Georgian drug empire the Nagazi, has been imprisoned with no hope of bribing his way out, and so he has also moved his wife Ketevan and two children in to keep them under his control. Tyler’s task to stealthily infiltrate the jail and rescue the family is straightforward enough, and yet there are three main complications which lengthen Extraction 2’s conflict into a feature-length narrative.

The first is the nature of Tyler’s relationship to Ketevan, having previously been married to her sister Mia. The tragic backstory of their child who passed away from cancer often stops the film’s narrative momentum dead in its tracks, and although Chris Hemsworth carries magnetic star power and a strong physical presence, he plays the emotional beats here without a great deal of variation. Still, the groundwork is laid out for a redemption arc that broadly examines the responsibility fathers have for their children, thereby leading into the second primary complication – kingpin Davit’s relationship with his son Sandro.

Though the teenager is effectively a prisoner within his family, Sandro’s total belief in Davit’s goodness blinds him to his selfish manipulation, and motivates him to follow in his father’s footsteps as a Nagazi. As a reluctant participant in Tyler’s rescue, he is also torn in his wavering loyalties, frequently threatening the safety of his sister and mother as he tries to reach out to their pursuers. Besides the success of the mission, the moral goodness of this young man is also at stake, ultimately testing Tyler’s patience, compassion, and guidance during his temporary substitution as the family’s surrogate father.

Even with all this in mind though, it is clear that Extraction 2’s narrative and character development is not where Hargrave’s passion lies. It is the moment-to-moment development of individual set pieces that becomes the third main source of tension in the film, and which reveals his greatest talent as an action director. The impressive 12-minute take from Extraction that followed Tyler’s rescue of a drug lord’s child is topped here by an even more remarkable 21-minute take through multiple locations, keeping us in the grip of a prison break, riot, and chase that all unfold in real time with heart-pounding urgency.

It matters little that this shot was simulated by stitching together 49 individual cuts – there is no faking Hargrave’s skilful manoeuvring of the camera through frenzied environments, often with extras, searchlights, and falling snow filling the frame with movement. Inside the prison, we navigate several perspective shifts between our heroes and a small force of armed guards confronting rampaging inmates, even briefly entering Tyler’s dazed perspective after his head is smashed with a brick and tethering us to his face in close-up. The spectacle is marvellously paced in waves too, drastically raising the stakes as fences between both sides of the conflict are violently torn down, and yet also pulling back in quiet pauses that allow a moment to breathe between fights.

With no visible edits, this long take makes for the perfect showcase of practical stunt work, carrying a creative yet visceral brutality as loose rocks, shovels, a furnace, and even an arm lit aflame by a Molotov Cocktail become improvised weapons. It is too bad that the handheld camerawork somewhat obscures this at times, lacking the smoothness of Alfonso Cuarón’s direction in Children of Men’s car chase scene which clearly inspired its dextrous weaving in and out of moving windows.

Unlike lesser action filmmakers though, Hargrave’s set pieces in Extraction 2 consistently advance the narrative with great momentum, frequently pushing Tyler to adjust his tactics to new terrains and threats. As he fights off an enemy inside a giant glass tower, his associate’s unconscious body slides down a glass platform just outside, thrilling driving up the tension with added time pressure. The old stone church of dusty scaffolding and angel statues where the Nagazi have set up base similarly makes for a grand climax, seeing Tyler pivot when the immediate danger of their hostage situation comes to light. It is often where the film’s blocking, editing, and camerawork takes a step back that its plot falls back on weak exposition, though fortunately these passing moments are more forgettable than outright awful. Hargrave is a far more talented director than Russo is a writer, and it is through his dynamic set pieces that Extraction 2 pushes its reluctant fathers to confront their paternal responsibility with electrifying tenacity.

Extraction 2 is currently streaming on Netflix.

Anatomy of a Fall (2023)

Justine Triet | 2hr 32min

The events leading up to Samuel Maleski’s fall from the third-floor balcony of his French chalet are clouded with uncertainty. Though he has been making his presence known through the Caribbean music rudely blasting throughout his wife Sandra’s interview with a graduate student, it isn’t until we see his body lying on the snow outside that we meet him face to face. Their blind son Daniel and his guide dog Snoop are the first to find him after returning from a walk, and given that the fall took place after the student’s departure, there is only one suspect left. “I didn’t kill him,” Sandra asserts to her lawyer Vincent when the forensic evidence starts to point towards murder. His reply is blunt.

“That’s not the point.”

Indeed, the matter of whether Sandra is responsible for physically sending Samuel toppling over the edge is merely a distraction from Anatomy of a Fall’s real investigation. Both are guilty of letting their marriage slip into mutual disdain, as are so many troubled spouses heading towards a breaking point. While the jury of her court trial endeavour to dissect the facts of the criminal case, Justine Triet positions us as the jury of Sandra’s conscience, unburdening the viewer with the legal necessity of arriving at an unequivocal verdict.

It is through this ambiguity that Anatomy of a Fall also develops such a psychologically compelling narrative, layered with doubts around specific details and theories. Was the blunt head trauma that Samuel suffered before dying from a weapon, or from hitting the shed roof on the way down? Were the secret recordings he was making of his and Sandra’s arguments part of his creative process, or a premeditated effort to frame her as his murderer? Was his guilt over Daniel’s crippling accident really enough to drive him to a second suicide attempt?

As pieces of evidence as they are brought to the court’s attention, Triet fluidly weaves flashbacks and cutaways, though whatever certainty they grant us in the moment are frequently dispelled by equally convincing cases against them. When the dirty details of Sandra’s dark writing and previous affairs are dredged up by the prosecution, the humiliation she suffers is akin to that of a divorce hearing, only without a living target for her to deal it back to. She is alone in her shame, unable to perfectly express herself in her second language of French, and even being separated from her son over the final weeks of the trial.

Though Triet’s documentary-style zooms, whip pans, and handheld camerawork are intended to compound the indignity by hinting at the media presence in the courtroom, they ultimately mark a weakness in Anatomy of a Fall’s visual form. The first act’s setting around Sandra’s home in the French alps is pristine, and recurring overhead shots of the frozen ground where Samuel fell are impactful, especially when capturing the chilling sight of his blood mixing with pure white snow. There are still some sharp visual flourishes later on, such as when Triet places us in Daniel’s overwhelmed perspective on the witness stand by swinging a close-up from left to right around his head, but the camera’s spontaneous naturalism does not always match the iciness of her narrative and characters. 

As much as we find great empathy for this widow whose insecurities have been relentlessly picked apart by strangers, both Triet and actress Sandra Hüller are careful to keep us at a cold distance from the truth. If we are to accept the student’s description of her semi-autobiographical novels as mixing reality and fiction, then perhaps there is a version of Sandra who harbours dark thoughts of murder, but whether she is capable of acting on them is another matter. Even if she was not the one to physically push him, there is still the question of whether their broken marriage is at least partly responsible, and by the time Anatomy of a Fall has thoroughly autopsied its lifeless remains, there is at least no doubt as to who is responsible for its slow, agonising death.

Anatomy of a Fall is currently playing in cinemas.

Priscilla (2023)

Sofia Coppola | 1hr 50min

So intoxicating is the allure of fame in Priscilla that by the time its young, naïve schoolgirl is trapped behind the white iron gates of Graceland, she can barely distinguish between its privileges, constraints, and everyday banalities. Whether she is bribing classmates with her intimate connection to Elvis or being forced to dress according to his tastes, everything seems to blend into an uncritical acceptance of her strange new life, floating by on musical montages and dreamy vignettes. Watching these incredible contradictions of extravagance and mundanity inhabit the same space is a surreal experience, begging the question that Priscilla never consciously ponders in fear of losing all that she has been given – why her?

Perhaps this is the reason that Sofia Coppola washes Priscilla out with such a muted colour palette and low contrast lighting, lulling her guileless protagonist into a subdued state of passivity, though visually the cinematography is a missed opportunity. The curated mid-century American décor deserves to pop onscreen with a vibrancy that reflects Priscilla’s colourful obsession, and which heightens the pristine world of Graceland into the same fantasy realm as Marie Antoinette’s Palace of Versailles where Coppola drew flourishes of gold and pink through elaborate French interiors.

Still, both these films make for fascinating companion pieces in her filmography, reframing historical figures through introspective studies of female celebrity, youth, and exploitation. Where Marie Antoinette is born into royalty and thus doomed to suffer the consequences from birth, Priscilla’s ascension to widespread recognition is rapid and unexpected. Anachronistic pop music from across the late twentieth century give way to some excellent needle drops in both their soundtracks, but it is especially notable in Priscilla that Elvis’ music never makes an appearance beyond his diegetic performances. For once he is not the centre of the story, and we are finally given the chance to explore Priscilla’s identity outside of his shadow.

Next to Jacob Elordi’s tall, swaggering rockstar, Cailee Spaenee inhabits Priscilla’s tiny frame with an awkward innocence, and yet the transformation she makes from a 14-year-old teenager to a grown woman in her late 20s is extraordinary. Even when she isn’t speaking, close-ups narrow in tight on her awestruck face listening to the conversations bounce between Elvis and his friends, while anytime she comes forward with her own contribution she is sent back into her quiet shell. Besides the extreme limitations imposed on her freedom, there is little that distinguishes her from her peers, making this miraculous fulfilment of a teenage girl’s fantasies all the more tragic.

Still, as Priscilla ages she also discovers desires that she had always denied, and which don’t always align with Elvis’. He places her on a pedestal, elevating her as a bastion of purity while sleeping around with movie stars in a prime example of the Madonna-whore complex. For Priscilla though, this neglect simply leaves her sexually frustrated and emotionally demoralised, forcing her to adopt the image of the faithful, virginal wife he has crafted for her in the public eye. Only when she storms off in an argument for the first time and Elvis comes chasing after her does she realise just how important this is to him. Suddenly, the power she wields in this relationship comes into focus, and the seeds of future rebellions are planted in her mind.

Priscilla’s newfound confidence in her femininity does not immediately free her from the prison of the public eye, as even right before she heads into hospital to give birth, she applies fake lashes and makeup for the paparazzi. Nevertheless, it does empower her to begin carving out her own future and identity, while Elvis’ disappears into a haze of substance abuse. Had she not been randomly picked from the crowd as a teenager, perhaps she would have been among those swathes of fans crowding Graceland’s gates as she drives out of his life, and yet she is the one with the wisdom and perspective to free herself from the patriarchal cult of celebrity they have all been caught up in. All of a sudden, Priscilla’s lonely, insulated world of normalised frivolity doesn’t seem so unique, as Coppola’s languid tone poem of passive obsession reveals its hypnotic hold over western culture at large, and finally offers this grown woman the agency that she was denied in youth.

Priscilla is currently playing in cinemas.

Maestro (2023)

Bradley Cooper | 2hr 9min

To work as a conductor and composer is to live two separate lives, according to Leonard Bernstein in Maestro. Within the privacy of his studio, he sits alone and crafts eloquent musical expressions that allow a self-examination of his own soul. This is the grand inner life of a creator, he explains to the journalist interviewing him, in direct conflict with the majestic outer life of a performer who stands on stages in front of enraptured audiences. This is where his polished genius is displayed without the trial and error, inviting people into a world that is constantly evolving according to each new note, rhythm, and shift in dynamics.

To carry around both personalities is to virtually become schizophrenic, Bernstein jokes to the journalist interviewing him, and yet the conflict between both identities is clearly a point of reckoning. “I love people so much it keeps me glued to life even when I’m most depressed,” he elucidates, putting his overwhelming dependence upon the company of others into words, though he almost immediately follows that up with the darker side of the same statement.

“I love people so much that it’s hard for me to be alone.”

Interviews with radio, television, and newspaper journalists are formally scattered throughout Maestro, giving Bernstein the chance for self-reflection at different ages.

Perhaps this is why Bradley Cooper sees Leonard’s complicated relationship with his wife and muse Felicia as the key to uncovering his creative essence, where both private and public lives chaotically collide. His affairs with other men become temporary antidotes to that haunting fear of loneliness, and within his marriage to Felicia, they also become an open secret. The bitterness that mounts behind closed doors and within resentful glances can only stand to be contained so long, and erupts in one particularly nasty exchange when he brings a younger boyfriend home for Thanksgiving.

Cooper adopts a classical Hollywood style in his lighting and staging, and continues updating Maestro’s aesthetic as the decades pass by.

Drawing visual inspiration from Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage, Cooper stages them at the extreme edges of a wide shot in the New York City apartment where they quarrel, and hangs on the frame for several minutes. As Felicia points out his habit of framing affairs as intellectual nourishment, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade passes by the window in the background, taunting Leonard with views of a joyful public celebration that he would much rather be at. He can’t help but love people, he weakly asserts, and yet he too can see the future she predicts where he simply dies “a lonely old queen.”

Remarkable precision in Cooper’s framing and blocking, hanging on this shot for an entire argument – Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage is a clear inspiration, and the Thanksgiving Day parade floating through the background is a nice touch.
Cooper’s decision to hang on shots for several minutes without cutting or moving his camera is a dominant visual choice in Maestro, and one that is rare in so many modern films.

Cooper shows an impressive restraint in many domestic scenes like this, using slow zooms and static shots on beautifully staged compositions that continue long past the point most contemporary directors would have cut to a reverse shot or close-up. By opting for longer shot lengths and a steadier pacing, he is specifically styling Maestro after the pristine, glossy look of classical Hollywood films, even using the narrow Academy aspect ratio and a sharp shift from black-and-white to colour photography with the dawn of the 1960s. At its absolute strongest, he uses the lighting and framing of this polished aesthetic to craft cinematic paintings of Felicia and Leonard’s troubled relationship, brightly illuminating her as she stands in wings of the theatre while consumed by her husband’s giant shadow conducting the orchestra. Carey Mulligan’s performance is undeniably strong, but there is more conveyed through images like these than much of her dialogue.

Carey Mulligan continues to prove why she is one of the best actresses of her generation, often stealing scenes from Cooper who is already tremendous.
An incredibly evocative shot of Bernstein’s dark impression conducting across the wall and curtain of the theatre, while Felicia quite literally lives in his shadow.

When Cooper does kick the energy of the film up a notch, he does so with formal purpose, separating these bursts of theatrical vigour from his home life. Overhead shots keep pace with him as he excitedly runs to take his place on a stage, and when he stands in front of an orchestra, he throws his entire body into the act with magnificent passion and control. This is the image of Leonard Bernstein that the public recognises and that the maestro himself indulges in, engaging with the souls of audiences stirred by his evocative musical expressions, and Cooper has rarely been better than he here as he disappears into the role.

Energetic tracking shots sitting overhead and speeding through hallways, imbuing the visual style with the zest and passion of a young Bernstein.
Cooper absorbs us into Leonard and Felicia’s theatrical dream ballet set to ‘New York, New York’ with magnificent choreography.

At the peak of both his performance and direction, he smoothly navigates his camera in a majestic six-minute take through the orchestra during Bernstein’s famous conducting of Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony at Ely Cathedral, tracking in on his sweaty, grinning face and lively movements before travelling around the edges of the stage. It is nothing less than a demonstration of virtuosic brilliance, capturing a magnetic presence that the camera can’t seem to tear itself away from, while elsewhere Cooper interprets his passion with greater abstraction in a romantic dream ballet set to the song ‘New York, New York.’ Even when he is at home or in a restaurant, the theatre is apparently never far away, as Cooper’s transitions between locations are so slick that they virtually become invisible within unbroken shots.

Bernstein’s conducting at Ely Cathedral is one of the great scenes of 2023 – a showcase of camera movement and method acting from Cooper who throws his full body into the music.

Where Cooper’s vision for Maestro begins to falter is in the same place as many other biopics, as he covers such a large span of the musician’s life to the point of stretching the narrative thin. Fortunately, there is just enough of a focus on his and Felicia’s relationship to hold it together as a decades-spanning study of his deepest loves, addictions, and insecurities, none of which really fade over his lifetime but rather take different forms in shifting circumstances.

The sensitivity and support that Leonard unselfishly gives to Felicia as she battles cancer might be surprising given his past unfaithfulness, and yet it is also entirely consistent with his claim that his overwhelming love of others is also his greatest struggle. On the darker side of this, he also never quite breaks his habit of grooming young male students following her death, as he instead runs even faster from the loneliness that threatens to consume him in his old age. The genius that Cooper so vividly captures in Maestro is one that can see no other option than to lead double lives of a conductor and composer, a family man and philanderer, a heterosexual and homosexual – yet whether by the pressures of social convention or personal inhibition, even he cannot reconcile the contradictions of his own humanity.

The contradiction of Leonard Bernstein in two scenes – the loving husband who cares for his wife on her deathbed, and the promiscuous philanderer who kept sleeping with his students long after she passes away. Cooper does not shy away from his complicated legacy.

Maestro is currently streaming on Netflix.