Aaron Sorkin hasn’t been doing himself a lot of favours recently in insisting on directing his own screenplays, but for all of the structural flaws that seem to tug Being the Ricardos in multiple narrative directions at once, it is tough faulting the electric dialogue that keeps us glued to Lucille Ball’s behind-the-scenes television troubles. It snaps and crackles with the sort of energy that Sorkin specialises in, revealing an intelligent, cynical wit to the comedienne that underlies her physical slapstick abilities, further lending an acute insight into the construction of each joke that plays out on her hit sitcom, I Love Lucy. In this way, the role she takes is revealed to be much more than a performer – the Lucille that Sorkin captures here is a comedic virtuoso, possessing an instinct for setups, punchlines, staging, and character that might justify her talents as being more directorial than purely performative, much to the chagrin of her crew.
As Lucille works through gags in brainstorming sessions and table reads, Sorkin lets his film enter her mental processes via black-and-white reconstructions. Out in the “real” world we can see the poise and confidence in Nicole Kidman’s performance, but within these internal worlds she backs it up with a tangible genius, both bound together by Sorkin’s skilful intercutting.
Elsewhere, his sharp style of editing complements his crisp, loquacious dialogue, rhythmically ticking along to the pace that he is constantly challenging his cast to keep up with. We find Kidman to especially be a natural fit for Sorkin’s meticulous writing, bringing a hyper-focused attitude to Lucille’s creative nit-picking and confrontations with conservative television producers.
“I navigate male egos for a living.”
It is in Sorkin’s insistence on spreading his narrative so thinly across so many parts of Lucille’s life that Being the Ricardos begins to tear at the seams. In the lead-up to the live filming on Friday, troubles emerge on set – instability in Lucille and Desi’s relationship, a pregnancy announcement, a struggle with creative integrity, and even an FBI investigation probing into her past ties to communism, planting this story firmly within its Cold War historical context.
Had Sorkin stopped there, then he might have maintained a more present sense of urgency in his story, laying the multiple pressures of fame within a confined time frame. It is in the additional flashbacks to Lucille’s rising stardom and the flashforwards to staged interviews that the strain in his storytelling reveals itself plainly, offering little to the narrative other than distractions and bumps in the pacing.
Flawed as Sorkin’s screenplay may be, Being the Ricardos still at least holds firm to its empathetic understanding of Lucille Ball in all her struggles, from her public reputation to her most personal relationships. His writing often thrives in idealistic settings where integrity is the greatest virtue of all, and in centring this mid-century television icon whose face was broadcast weekly to screens all across America, he frames her as a woman who stands for exactly that, whether she is being questioned on her politics or pushing the creative boundaries of comedic entertainment.
Being the Ricardos is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
The early Cold War paranoia of 1950s America pervades Pickup on South Street, where a pickpocket, former prostitute, and street-smart tie-seller unassumingly collide with a Communist plot to secure confidential government information. Much like North by Northwest which would come six years later, the MacGuffin here is microfilm, upon which this data is stored. Beyond this, the stakes of national intelligence barely matter. It is Samuel Fuller’s storytelling around these three ordinary people who come from the pits of society which crackles with chemistry and tension, letting each one use the skills they have honed in their individual professions to navigate tricky negotiations, duplicitous dealings, and sensual seductions.
Fuller is a skilled visual storyteller, often using the staging of his actors and lighting to create superb compositions like these.
Perhaps it is chance which first brings Skip and Candy together on a New York subway train, but his theft of her wallet is all it takes to send them both tumbling down a rabbit hole of spies and secrets. It is a silent opening of superb visual setups that Fuller commands here, drawing the thief out of a dense crowd before moving into close-ups, cutting between their shared glances and the main target of his desire – her white, ornate purse.
One wouldn’t suspect from this skilfully staged opening that Pickup on South Street would be a film especially notable for its bubbling, effervescent screenplay, and yet that is exactly what Fuller delivers, especially once Thelma Ritter enters as police informant, Moe. Though she has always shone in supporting roles, her impact here is sizeable enough to stand next to Richard Widmark and Jean Arthur as our romantic leads, lifting what could have almost been a throwaway character to a career-best performance. She is confident, chatty, and fully understands the savvy power that Moe holds over everyone else, and it is through this marvellous characterisation that her death packs an even greater punch than it might have otherwise, setting up tremendous stakes for our surviving couple.
One of Thelma Ritter’s best performances – she is confident, chatty, and street-smart, selling ties as a front for her work as a police informant.
It is upon those unlikely lovers, Skip and Candy, that Fuller absolutely delights in hanging his camera, recognising the power of both these actors when left alone together. All throughout the film Fuller’s camera moves like its own character, tracking in and out of close-ups and weaving through scenes with intrigue, though in Skip and Candy’s first official meeting after the subway incident he lets it linger on their nuzzling faces for two straight minutes. Skip’s intimate seduction only thinly masks his sly interrogation, though with soft murmuring and sensual kissing like that, we can’t blame Candy for falling right into his trap. Meanwhile, Leigh Harline’s smooth, jazzy score lays the eroticism on thick, lending an extra salacious edge to these stakes of life-and-death.
This film is just burning with passion in the dialogue, performances, and blocking.An excellent frame here, using the bars of the bedhead to isolate Skip.
Though there are other characters floating around this story who make their own mark, it is predominantly through Skip, Candy, and Moe that Fuller drives his powerful narrative, even bringing it full circle back to the opening subway train where Skip’s pickpocketing skills once again prove useful in lifting a handgun from a Communist spy. Pickup on South Street is a triumph of writing, character, and stylistic camerawork for Fuller, and it is in the marriage of all three that he crafts a compelling thriller soaked in the fizzing tension of Cold War stealth and espionage.
Mirroring in the narrative bookends, bringing this scene from the beginning……back into this story at the end. Skip’s pickpocketing skills are both the cause for this narrative’s complications and the resolution.
Pickup on South Street is not currently available to stream in Australia.
There is something lost in the reconstruction of old memories that can be difficult to put your finger on, but in Flee, Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s animated documentary about the escape of his friend, Amin, from Afghanistan as a young man, it is often what is left missing that evokes more powerful emotions than anything else. The interviews that Rasmussen conducts often look more like therapy sessions, as he asks Amin to lay down and close his eyes to try and piece together the sequence of events that, in the years since, have tangled around each other in threads of confusion, grief, and regret.
The two provide their own live-recorded voices in these scenes, speaking authentically as friends with years of history behind them, though like every other character in this film they are animated, purposefully concealing Amin’s identity. It is this persistent dedication to a hand-drawn style that lets the few glimpses of live-action archival footage hit particularly hard, momentarily lifting us beyond one man’s perspective to ground this piece in the raw, unfiltered reality of 1990s Afghanistan.
Interviews framed almost like therapy sessions between Rasmussen and Amin.
There is an inherent clash between animations and documentaries in their distinctly divergent approaches to depicting truth on film, and as such there is good reason that few filmmakers have attempted to combine the two. Waltz With Bashir is the big one in this niche genre, within which documentarian Ari Folman attempted to recover lost memories from his time fighting for the Israeli Defence Force in the Lebanon War, and in similarly blending both subjective and objective understandings of the past, Rasmussen manages a comparably fluid examination of historical truth.
Contained within Amin’s story are smaller narratives, some passed onto him through second-hand sources, some he has tried to suppress, and others which he fabricated for the purpose of disguising his identity as a refugee. It is in these moments that the film’s dominant graphic-novel style of animation seeps away, and is replaced by rough black-and-white sketches, swirling around as faceless figures and abstract formations that seem to come from a dark, traumatised subconscious. As the frames flip by at a lower, jittery rate and strokes of paint run across the screen, Rasmussen creates a visual evocation of an unsettled psychological state that could never be captured through live-action footage alone, sending us to those same dark places that Amin is verbally recalling.
Formally experimental documentary filmmaking with the two styles of animation distinguishing between which parts of Amin’s memories we are accessing.
As emotionally caught up in his past as Amin often is, we also find a clear-minded perspective in his storytelling when it comes to the process of discovering his own sexuality. Being queer in 90s Kabul was not just considered sinful, but was not spoken of at all, and when he was running for his life there was barely time to consider how his sexual attractions fit into any broader social context. In the present day though, Amin lives openly as a gay man, and even as he recognises the disadvantage that he was put at growing up, he also possesses the ability now to look back and laugh with affection at his younger self’s confusions.
Within the present day, Rasmussen chooses to pick out a very specific section of Amin’s life to follow alongside his personal recounts, eavesdropping on conversations with his partner about house hunting. Their petty squabbles and shared joys become part of our understanding around who Amin has become today, but even more significantly they become the basis of direct narrative parallels between his past and present. Where he was once forced to move as a necessity of survival, now it is entirely his own choice, giving him the sort of power over his future that he once considered unimaginable. Not all memories are depicted as being equal in Flee, though in Rasmussen’s efforts to piece them together through animated reconstructions, we gradually begin to see Amin as a complex accumulation of his stories in all their varying degrees of subjectivity.
A quiet but significant story being told in the present day around the interviews, running with the motif of moving between locations.
It is hard to tell at first how genuine drug lord Frank White is in his desire to “fix” New York, but we can at least gage that he is resolute in his ambitions. In his transition from prison back into society, a luxurious limousine is his ferry, and coinciding with this return is his second-hand assassination of past associates, evoking the climactic murders of The Godfather. Frank is our Michael Corleone figure here, though he evidently has far more years of experience in the criminal underworld behind him, commanding an aura of intimidation and respect in his imposing presence. As Christopher Walken stares out the window of the limousine with a stoic gaze, the radiance of passing street lamps fade up and down upon his face, and immediately Abel Ferrara brings us into King of New York with a deep, fearful reverence for this man.
There is also something so solemn and poignant about Walken’s eyes that speaks volumes about Frank’s love of the city. As he admires its beautiful lights and architecture from afar, we begin to believe that his motivations might go beyond mere selfishness. Perhaps it was those years he spent behind bars that has made him reconsider his own place in the world, as he searches for ways that he can contribute something positive, eventually latching onto a struggling children’s hospital in desperate need of private assistance. Still, it is difficult to remove the man from his ego, as it is in these aspirations that he also misguidedly sets his sights on becoming the Mayor of New York, viewing the office as his chance at some vague sort of redemption.
“If I can have a year or two, I’ll make something good. I’ll do something.”
A landmark performance for Christopher Walken. His tired, anguished eyes serve this character perfectly as he gazes out at views of New York at night.Ferrara creating a wonderful frame here capturing Frank’s love for this city, though also his immense loneliness.
The gritty realism of Ferrara’s location shooting in real New York streets and hotels is a perfect fit for this character study of urban grit and power plays, with The French Connection especially coming to mind in the use of this imposing city as a set for the thrilling cops-and-criminals battle at its centre. The authenticity of Ferrara’s style especially takes hold in his dim lighting, gorgeously diffused through the smog and mist of dark exteriors, and in one pivotal club shootout, drenching the room with a dark blue neon glow. A diegetic hip-hop track underscores the slow-motion deaths of criminals and police officers here, until eventually it spills out into the streets in a high-speed car chase.
Gorgeous mise-en-scène and lighting within this nightclub, setting a moody scene for the imminent shootout.
It is within this extended sequence of moving the violence from one location to the next that King of New York reaches its stylistic apex. As Ferrara’s heavy rain beats down upon cars speeding down wet roads and their headlights beam through the deluge, the combination of his lighting and weather elements effectively heighten the dramatic stakes of this spectacular set piece. Eventually this loud, bombastic showdown turns into a cat-and-mouse contest of stealth and reflexes, with the few straggling survivors from both sides seeking refuge from the rain in a fenced-off construction site beneath a bridge. As it continues to pour down buckets in the background, Ferrara brings a visual texture to the muddiness of this confrontation, pulling both sides of the law into a dark, drab underworld of corruption and bloodshed.
Ferrara reaching the stylistic apex of his film in this dark, rainy car chase and shoot out. The heavy rain brings another layer of texture to the action, lit beautifully by the harsh street lamps of New York City.Cops and criminals facing off beneath this bridge, both brought to their knees in the mud and rain. Ferrara’s choice to shoot on location and capture these magnificent structures in the background is integral to this set piece.
Though we spend more time with Frank and his associates than the police officers, it is hard not to feel some sympathy for both. The antagonism they hold towards each other is devastating, obliterating each other’s dreams in a feud of mutual destruction. It is this hopelessness which settles in Frank’s minds in his last moments as he is faced with two options, both of which he realises will ultimately lead to the same result. Bleeding out in the back of a taxi with swarms of cops closing in, he could choose in this moment to go out fighting. But with his hopes of bringing something positive to the world dashed, perhaps it is his love for New York that holds him back from wreaking further destruction, recognising that a quiet exit might be the best thing he could really do for it. Really, Frank was never going to be the one to reform this city. It is rather in Ferrara’s skilful twisting of a traditional redemption arc that we see the true tragedy of this man bound by choices he made long ago, and who only is only willing to accept his true purpose when it is his turn to join the list of people killed in his name.
Ferrara bouncing the city lights off windows and surrounding Frank.
King of New York is not currently available to stream in Australia.
According to the 17th-century Catholic Church, it was demonic possession that drove Italian nun, Benedetta Carlini, to lesbianism and unearthly miracles. This is not the version of history that Paul Verhoeven is interested in though, as his demystification of her legacy instead strives to pick apart the shrewd, disturbed mind of a woman who effortlessly disguised her cons behind a façade of piety. Perhaps in the hands of a director with a more sensitive touch, Benedetta might have positioned her as a wronged woman acting out in righteous vengeance, but Verhoeven is not one to glamourise the complexities of history. This is far more akin to Game of Thrones or Luis Buñuel’s surrealist critiques of religion than any traditional historical romance, foregrounding sex, violence, and power plays as the keys to navigating a culture of deep-rooted hypocrisy.
For quite a while in Benedetta, we too are led on by the strange visions and coincidences that seem to hold deeper spiritual significance to the young Catholic novice. When she is confronted by a group of men on the roads of Tuscany as an eight-year-old girl, a bird flying overhead unexpectedly lets its droppings fall in one of their eyes. While admiring a statue of the Mother Mary at the convent she has joined, it appears to dislodge of its own accord and land on top of her without leaving so much as a scratch. Perhaps such incidents would be meaningless to anyone else, but for a young Benedetta, they signify blessings from God. When she is older, dreams begin to plague her through days and nights, most of them depicting Jesus rescuing her from danger, beckoning her towards him, or kissing her, and thus begins the start of what she believes is her romantic marriage to Christ.
Visions of Jesus manifesting as romanticised dreams, Verhoeven drawing heavily on Buñuel’s biting, surrealist critiques of religion.
When another young woman, Bartolomea, arrives at the convent begging to be taken in to escape her cruel father, Benedetta slowly finds herself drawn into her playful flirtations. Soon enough, her spiritual and sexual awakening begin to feed off each other, individually intensifying until both explode in full force. Not long after Benedetta begins to bleed from the hands, feet, and sides in a holy display of stigmata, she submits to her lustful longings, revelling in two separate relationships she views as being roughly analogous, to the point of calling Bartolomea “my sweet Jesus” after having sex.
It is only natural for a provocateur as uncompromising as Verhoeven to take this narrative in such a transgressive direction, following in the footsteps of Buñuel with the use of sex and religion to interrogate the human pursuit of transcendence. Perhaps this is most tangibly captured in one wooden figure of the Virgin Mary, the bottom half of which Bartolomea carves into a dildo, thereby creating a sacrilegious symbol of two conflicting human desires reconciled as one. This item might as well be a stand-in for Benedetta herself, whose embrace of both her lust and faith becomes a destructive confusion rather than a harmonious union.
Between the nuns, a figure of the Virgin Mary carved into the shape of a dildo – Verhoeven’s symbolism is scornfully provocative in binding together sex and religion.
Accompanying Verhoeven’s shocking narrative is a thorough absorption in the natural lighting of its setting, basking in the golden sunrays filtering through church windows, as well as the dim glow of candles, lamps, and torches illuminating the dark rooms of the convent. It isn’t until the red blaze of a comet passing overhead casts its demonic light upon the town of Pescia that his stylistic visuals catch up with his characters, transforming this holy site into an unnatural, apocalyptic landscape. While religious figures point to it as an ill omen, Benedetta takes it as an opportunity to assert her prophetic ability, claiming it as a sign that Pescia will be spared from the plague spreading through Italy.
The red light of the comet breaking up the natural lighting of the rest of the film, bringing about an apocalyptic vision of Benedetta’s rule.
Benedetta goes to some truly wild places from here, and Virginie Efira proves to be more than up to the challenge of capturing every contradictory facet of the nun’s elusive identity. Each time her exposure or defeat seems imminent, it is her guile and charisma that can flip the power dynamic in an instant, often adopting a deep, harsh voice that claims to speak directly from Jesus. Even as we begin to see through her pretence, we still can’t help but side with her in many scenes that expose the equal hypocrisy of the Catholic Church, defined by its own dissonance between vicious brutality and self-important incompetence. It is in this war between two forms of religious corruption that Verhoeven’s irreverent provocations lend themselves perfectly to a compelling piece of Italian history, each one gradually building Benedetta towards an outburst of wrathful vengeance, and violently bringing the church to its knees.
The kung-fu of The Grandmaster is more than just a kinetic explosion of violence aimed at bringing an opponent to their knees. For Wong Kar-wai, it is about the precise impact of every tiny motion. A punch landing on a concrete pillar, shaking the snow off like a mini earthquake. Raindrops bouncing up off dark puddles. The swift draw of a blade to land exactly where it is intended. In one conflict between rivals Gong Er and Ip Man, the contest comes down to who is the first to break a piece of furniture, the latter eventually losing when he accidentally splits a staircase. Wong has rarely indulged so much in the fast pacing and fierceness of action cinema, and yet the delicate attention to detail in his slow-motion cinematography, extreme close-ups, and elegant choreography also ties The Grandmaster to the brooding, lyrical style that he has spent decades honing with such meticulousness.
Wong is more in tune with his Akira Kurosawa influence than ever in The Grandmaster. His use of weather to bring extra layers of movement and atmosphere to his action scenes is gorgeous. So much of this film is just drenched in rain, bouncing off pavement, bodies, and architecture.
The rise of Chinese martial artist Ip Man to the position of Grandmaster is the subject of Wong’s fascination here, and his regular collaborator Tony Leung draws on an entirely new skillset in taking on the role of the Wing Chun expert. His composure exudes authority, and when he wears that wide-brimmed fedora in dimly lit scenes of rain and smoke, he even strikes the figure of a film noir hero, finding a balance between the light and dark that resides within him. In his pairing with Zhang Ziyi as Gong Er, there emerges something subtly mystical that transcends the traditional biopic format – across decades of their lives, neither seem to age.
Though there is a mutual affection and trust that is revealed between them over years of war and political turmoil, the two move in very different directions, with Ip Man starting a family and Gong Er choosing to seek vengeance on her father’s back-stabbing student, Ma San. Perhaps these experiences are the foundation for their attitudes towards elitism in martial arts, with him hoping to teach younger generations the techniques of Wing Chun, while she refuses to divulge her father’s secrets of the Baguazhang to anyone else.
The scope of this narrative is huge, and Wong proves he is more than capable of imbuing each setting with its own texture, from the rainy alleyways to the grand manors and snowy landscapes.
In stretching his narrative across the 1930s to 50s, Wong gradually expands its scope to epic historical levels, and the visual splendour of Wong’s snowy landscapes, dark alleyways, and sumptuously designed manors more than matches its grandeur. Just as significant as his gorgeously staged wide shots though are those close-ups that tune into the sizzle of a cigarette or the graceful swish of a foot through a puddle, bringing a visceral impact to every single movement and strike amid scenes of otherwise fast-moving combat.
Close-ups of fights and ordinary actions caught in slow-motion. The impact is visceral and key to the texture of this film, heightening every tiny impact and sound effect.
It is especially in the train station scene where Gong Er finally take her vengeance upon Ma San that we see Wong at the height of his stylistic powers, diffusing dim, golden light through the smoke and snowflakes that gently blow across the platform. His camera dances with the opponents in dazzling whip pans and slow, deliberate motions, while right next to them a train picks up its speed, its moving lights, ringing bells, and clacking sounds underscoring their conflict with its own dynamic, accelerating rhythm.
A highlight of the film and of Wong’s entire filmography. This train station combat is kinetic, with the movement of the snow, smoke, and train heightening the choreography, all within this perfectly lit golden space. Easily one of the best fight scenes of the decade.
Even without his regular cinematographer Christopher Doyle beside him, Wong proves that he not only has the eye to capture jaw-dropping imagery, but the editing skills as well to bring us deep into the art of combat. Ip Man himself would go on to teach Bruce Lee among other skilled martial artists, though it is through the struggles and remarkable feats of combat captured in such delicate detail in The Grandmaster that Wong delivers a beautifully artistic impression of the man beyond the lessons he left behind.
The action scenes may move fast, but Wong still takes the time to indulge in his soft lighting and ornate architecture.
The Grandmaster is currently available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.
There is an invitation built into both the title and story of C’mon C’mon, beckoning us to join a radio journalist and his nine-year-old nephew on a road trip across the United States. At one point in the film these words manifest in young Jesse’s dialogue as he records himself on his uncle’s microphone, putting his own thoughts towards Johnny’s audio project which involves conducting interviews with children from around the country. Their optimistic, cynical, pensive, and unconstrained ideas about the future of the world make up the connective tissue of C’mon C’mon, marking Johnny’s episodic journey from city to city like a path to understanding his own identity in relation to others.
When Jesse’s mother, Viv, finds herself needing to care for her estranged husband, Paul, the responsibility of child-caring is thrust onto Johnny for a few months, the joys and hardships of which are quick to reveal themselves. Even through his fights with Jesse though, the tenderness between them is pervasive. When Johnny briefly loses his temper after Jesse hides from him in a shop, he takes the opportunity to learn from Viv how he can do better, bringing himself to apologise to repair the relationship. These are flawed, complicated people who have suffered through much, but there is also a joy in realising that they are taking this journey together, maintaining their individuality while endlessly learning about others. Reflecting on his mother’s words, Jesse finds comfort in this perspective.
“She says even though we love each other she’ll never know everything about me, and I’ll never know everything about her. It’s just the way it is.”
A breath-taking shot framing Johnny and Jesse beneath the long-reaching branches of oak trees – an image of tender nurture.
It is no coincidence that this is the project Joaquin Phoenix has chosen to move onto after starring in the heavily cynical thriller Joker. In its sentimentality, C’mon C’mon may as well be that film’s polar opposite, and only continues to prove his range in offering him voiceovers and absorbingly naturalistic dialogue to mumble and stutter through. Jesse’s bluntness makes for an excellent and often hilarious contrast to Johnny’s verbal clumsiness, telling him without inhibition that “Mum said you would be awkward.” Later when the boy brings up an abortion his mother had years ago, an uncomfortable silence fills the air, broken only by Johnny’s voiceover.
“What the fuck do I say to that?”
This is not an uneasiness that Johnny will completely overcome by the end of the film, but there is a joy in seeing him accept those moments as demonstrations of Jesse’s unique character. Mills smooths over these bumps with a lyrical elegance in his cutting, bringing scenes to an end by fading out the dialogue, and wandering through flashbacks and cutaways with the same stream-of-consciousness flow as those unscripted interviews interspersed throughout. There is a distinct impression that we are watching a skilled editor and formalist at work here, passing through rhythms with Dessner Brothers’ floating, ambient score, and bringing each piece together to paint a portrait of a relationship as sweet and unhurried as this narrative’s languid pace.
Mills’ picturesque long shots identifying the distinct characteristics of each city, the soft black-and-white cinematography lending a gentle air of nostalgia to each.
There are certainly traces of Woody Allen’s Manhattan in the way Mills gives character to bustling American cities through long shots and montages, setting up the metropolitan bustle of New York streets against the quaint Creole architecture of New Orleans, but the influence becomes even more evident when we escape inside houses, hotels, and stores. There is particular attention that Mills pays to how his actors are blocked against interiors within his black-and-white cinematography, fracturing Johnny and Viv’s connection in one shot that splits them across the room through the precise placement of a mirror. In moments of unity though, they are brought together in tight frames through doors and hallways, emphasising the physical affection between family members living under a single roof.
Superb blocking within interior sets, capturing this family through doorways and mirrors.
In this way Mills finds an emotional vulnerability growing inside each of his characters, but it is especially in Johnny that we see the greatest transformation of all. As a journalist, he feels “a sense of invincibility, a sense of invisibility,” as he passes through others lives, experiences a taste, and then leaves without any major commitments. But just as Jesse quickly learns how to use the microphone, so too does he become an interviewer of sorts, encouraging his uncle to turn inwards with often awkward questions. “Why don’t you and mum act like brother and sister?” he asks. “Do you have trouble expressing your emotions?” It is no wonder that Johnny finds himself overwhelmed, and yet this push from passive observation to actively examining his identity in relation to loved ones and strangers is a subtle but impactful development.
When all is said and done though, it is not Johnny’s words that Mills leaves us with. Instead, he ends on the voices of those children that Phoenix interviewed, playing out over the credits in place of music – each one distinct in its perspective, finding the words to express ideas they have never had to articulate before, and together leaving a sweet, lingering taste of hope for their futures.
Before Monsieur Hulot took over as Jacques Tati’s silent character of choice in the 50s, we had François the postman – not quite as a distinct a comedic icon as the lurching, overgrown child that would appear in his later films, but still operating on a clever enough level to send up western modernity through a Keaton-esque, full-bodied commitment to visual gags. As the small French village where he resides is setting up its Bastille Day celebrations in Jour de Fête, talk of America’s efficient mailing system has also arrived in town, and with it, François finds a new challenge: keep up with the times, or be left behind.
Along with being a skilled director of silent comedy, Tati has also proven himself to be a master of magnificent set pieces, reflected in the architecture of his later films ranging from quirky sculptures to monstrous dioramas. Perhaps he did not yet have the budget for these fantastic displays of visual grandeur, or maybe he had not developed his own artistic voice yet to understand their potential, but at times Jour de Fête feels slightly limited without bouncing Tati’s hilariously physical performance off these constructions. As it is, what we get is something a little more modest in ambition, yet also remarkably resourceful, making jokes out of a fence coming between a drunk François and his bike while he tries to mount it, or later a boom gate incidentally lifting it up out of sight.
Who would have guessed how many gags you could get out one bike – Tati’s style of comedy is endlessly inventive.
In true silent fashion, dialogue is kept to a minimum so that music and sound effects can take over, leading us lightly through comedic episodes with accordions, vibraphones, trumpets, and a chamber of jovial strings. Within this soundscape, François is given his own motif in the form of the rattling bike bell, announcing his presence like his own whimsical, ringing musical theme.
Though he is hopelessly devoted to his neighbours and is always sure to offer a helping hand wherever he can, François is also the butt of many jokes, and thus feels that he has something to prove. With the American post office setting an example of efficiency in the western world, he takes it on himself to match their productivity on his own, leading into a directly Buster Keaton-inspired sequence that allows Tati the chance to prove his own talents as both an incredibly physical actor and director.
François rides in with his bicycle, and emerges on the balcony a few second later as the restaurant owner tosses it out – all playing out in a single wide shot. This isn’t a silent film, but Tati is very much following the footsteps of Keaton and Chaplin with these kinds of visual gags using different levels and doorways creatively with minimal cutting.
In superbly staged wide shots we watch a series of elaborate pratfalls play out, each one escalating with François’ struggle to keep up with himself, overtaken by the “American style” of mail delivery. When one recipient doesn’t take their letter in time, he simply leaves it wedged underneath their horse’s tail before speeding off again, and at one point it looks as if his bike takes on a life of its own, zooming down the street while he is left chasing it from behind.
Much like Keaton, Tati puts his full body into his stunts as he rides full-speed into a river.
The sheer velocity with which Tati moves through his gags in this fantastic sequence can only be halted with a stunt that sees François ride full speed over the edge of the road into a river, finally capping his mad dash with an obstacle he cannot overcome. There may be plenty of cynical directors out there who dissect the industrial march of capitalistic progress with a much sharper blade, but Tati has no such aspirations with this sort of subject matter. In Jour de Fête, the most we can do is point and laugh at the absurdity of such grand ambitions, before falling back on the reliable affability of one humble postman.
Tati’s camera dollying forward into this window frame as the fair leaves town, delivering a sweet farewell.
Jour de Fête is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel and available to rent or buy on iTunes.
It isn’t always easy to fully conceptualise what we are seeing in Passing. It is a very deliberate choice from debut director Rebecca Hall to shoot much of the film with an incredibly shallow depth of field, letting everything but the target of her camera’s attention meld into a blur, but then she also takes this a step further in frequently letting her shots drift in and out of focus. The effect is obscuring, taking a dreamy hold over this interrogation of racial assimilation in 1920s New York where two old childhood friends who have taken separate paths find themselves back in each other’s lives. At the core of their relationship are thorny questions of identity, about as blurred as Eduard Grau’s hazy black-and-white cinematography or as fluid as Dev Hynes’ exquisitely jazzy piano score, where both Irene and Clare are uncomfortably pushed to consider the complicated realities that they would much rather avert their eyes from.
A splendid use of soft focus all through Passing, peering down indistinct hallways and looking up at the sun through tree leaves.
The choices these women take in how to present themselves are intrinsically wrapped up with matters of pride and insecurity, as even the decision to not “pass” as white is still inherently active. Irene is granted freedom of expression in choosing to live her life as a Black woman, but this is at least initially a far less tangible liberty than the wealth and class privilege Clare finds in choosing to suppress her African-American roots. Still, both are making sacrifices in following these paths, as we learn that Clare has married a white racist with no knowledge of her true heritage. If he were to discover the truth, the consequences might just be unbearable, and the fear of that hangs heavy over her lie.
In representing Irene and Clare as formal counterpoints, Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga put in a pair of superbly mirrored performances, moving around each other like reflections of alternative lives either character could have had. Hall takes the time to capture the subtle glances and movements of both actresses, especially in Thompson’s shaking hands that reveal Irene’s underlying anxiety as a mother of young Black boys. Unlike her husband, Brian, she is reluctant to educate them on the prejudices of the world, and it is also with this sort of denial that she is able to handle her oppression. Clare’s decision to pass as white acts as a similar sort of denial to afford herself certain privileges, though every now and again Negga’s frivolous demeanour reveals small cracks in its façade, suggesting a far more sensitive understanding of the situation than anyone might expect.
A pair of duelling performances, possibly the best we have seen from both Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga.
In Hall’s delicate framing of these women within an unusually boxy aspect ratio and monochrome palette, there is a stylistic evocation of Polish director Paweł Pawlikowski, whose films Ida and Cold War wrestle with similarly complex relationships subjugated by historical tragedies and divisions. When Irene or Clare are centred in the composition, they will often be surrounded by masses of negative space blurred out by the camera’s focus, or otherwise pushed to the bottom of the shot where this graceful minimalism imposes on their visual presence.
Few directors have revealed such a striking talent for blocking in their debut film, but Hall infuses such an existential sense of isolation in compositions like these.
Perhaps the most sharply captured shots in this film are those recurring parallel tracking shots that follow Irene out the front of her brownstone apartment building, always travelling in the same direction as she returns home. In this formal repetition Hall grounds her character to a specific location, though such clear-cut definitions are not so easy to determine elsewhere as she deliberately destabilises our perception of relationships and events. Irene’s insecurity about a potential affair unfolding between Clare and Brian might seem to imprint itself on a mirror capturing the two standing unusually close to each other, though as she gains a better view it is revealed to be little more than a trick of the light.
A formal use of parallel tracking shots out the front of Irene’s apartment, repeating at least half a dozen times through the film.
Such uncertainties continue to plague this narrative right up until the devastating finale that leaves three separate possibilities in our minds as to how exactly we reached this point, each one carrying implications for different characters as to the extreme lengths they would go when faced with the exposure of one’s true identity. As Irene states matter-of-factly at one point, “We’re all of us passing for something or other,” and it is in these attempts to reconcile who we are and how we wish to be seen that Hall tragically recognises a challenge which may not contain a singular, objectively beneficial solution.
Hall’s creation of 1920s New York through such elegant decor is astounding – the chairs, the indoor plants, the windows letting through bright light, all coming together to form a gorgeous interior.
Passing is currently available to stream on Netflix.
It only took one year following the resounding success of Citizen Kane for Orson Welles to follow up what has oft been dubbed the greatest film of all time with a project that could have equalled it in artistic grandeur, had it not been snatched from his hands in post-production. The Magnificent Ambersons floats along like a whispered echo of a bygone era, recounting the downfall of an entire family empire brought about by one man’s obstinate resistance to progress, fitting neatly into the string of Shakespeare-inspired tragedies that defined his early film career. Perhaps this might feel more like an epic family saga had RKO Pictures not hacked away at it without his permission, and even more disappointing is the tacked on happy ending forced by the studio. Considered as a whole though, these flaws are but minor taints on Welles’ beautifully elegiac narrative, and no amount of cutting can erase the visual bravura on display.
Where Charles Foster Kane’s manor Xanadu acts a tremendous inflation of man’s ego to ludicrous proportions, the Amberson Mansion has the look of a Gothic tomb, rich with period décor and shadows crowding out every single frame. Or at least, that is what George Minafer transforms it into after selfishly taking control of his family’s future. Our first introduction to it comes after a prologue built heavily on montages and a sombre voiceover from Welles himself, running through the history of the Ambersons who prospered as the wealthiest family in their late 19th century Midwestern town. These people are socialites and aristocrats around whom a grand mythology is built, with the narration and dialogue of gossipy neighbours forming a sort of conversation together in a storybook call-and-response manner. A vignette effect often hangs over the exteriors of the mansion here, relegating this period of great fortune to an antiquated era, but it is only when we catch up to the present that Welles finally blows open its doors and tracks his camera forwards into its bright, ornate halls, where parties gather to bask in the opulence of its gorgeous architecture.
A vignette effect applied over this prologue bringing us into the late 19th century, unfolding like a photo album beneath a sombre voiceover.
From a visual perspective, there is little that separates The Magnificent Ambersons and Citizen Kane. The detailed décor that clutters visual compositions and frames characters within classic Wellesian low angles brings a majestic weight to the family’s historical and cultural presence, and most spectacular of all its set pieces is that mighty octagonal staircase that looms over the main hall. From the ground floor, Welles will occasionally tilt his camera up to catch sight of characters standing atop it like an imposing tower, but from the inside it feels more like a strangely twisted labyrinth, trapping the Ambersons across different levels and between bannisters.
Superb staging within the Amberson Mansion and especially around the staircase, offering the perfect opportunity for Welles to shoot these imposingly staged high and low angles. They are encased within its boundaries which wind through the layers of the frame.
At the centre of this family is George, son of Wilbur Minafer and Isabel Amberson, and heir to the estate. The irony that he does not even carry the surname of the legacy he is trying to uphold is hard to ignore, as he instead takes the name of his dull, unextraordinary father who passed away after losing a great amount of money. When a lover from Isabel’s past, automobile manufacturer Eugene Morgan, re-enters their lives, the biggest blow yet is landed to the family’s legacy – not from Eugene, who may be able to secure the family’s financial future, but from George himself, who detests everything this upwardly mobile entrepreneur stands for.
The layers to George’s hatred are multi-faceted. He states that his mother remarrying would be an insult to the memory of his father, though we know that he never exactly held Wilbur in great esteem either. On a more psychological level, there are Oedipal undertones to George’s objectives, wishing to be the sole man in his mother’s life to prove his own value. In terms of social attitudes towards the shifting technologies of the world, his beliefs are purely regressive and clouded by emotion, as he prefers the nostalgia of the past to whatever future Eugene is involved in bringing about. From atop a horse-drawn carriage, he laughs at his mother’s suitor trying to get his automobile out of a thick patch of snow, though when he finds himself tossed from his sleigh it is the “horseless carriage” which comes to the rescue – an unintended slight which George doesn’t forget.
It isn’t just the mansion which makes for wonderful compositions, but this snowy landscape sets the perfect scene for George and Eugene’s first major disagreement.
Eugene though does not possess the same arrogance as George, even going out his way to avoid arguments over matters of ideology. He does not reject the idea that automobiles will be nuisances to society, but he does take a more nuanced perspective, recognising that their presence will inevitably change the world in subtle ways. It will not be a utopia, but it will be an environment one must participate in to survive, and therein lies the primary difference between these two men fighting for Isabel’s heart. After Eugene is locked out of the Amberson Mansion and barred from seeing his ailing lover on her death bed, it descends into sombre darkness, each beautiful piece of furniture covered with white cloths to obscure the pride of a family that can no longer hold claim to its great reputation. Major Amberson, George’s grandfather, soon passes, and Aunt Fanny sinks into hysteria, leaving the family a mere shadow of what it once was.
Stark expressionism emerging as this tragedy unfolds. The Magnificent Ambersons may very well be Citizen Kane’s equal in visual prowess.
As George wanders the streets of the town that now looks entirely foreign to that which he grew up in, the whispering voiceover returns, luring the man towards his eventual comeuppance that, in Welles’ original vision for the film, might have brought about his death. It is certainly fitting that it is an automobile which brings about the downfall he has been defiantly heading towards for a long time, but it is saddening that what follows is a contrived, abbreviated conclusion that lets George survive and make amends with Eugene offscreen. To put this in perspective though, this is but one flaw in a film that it is otherwise virtually perfect, and there isn’t much of an argument to be had that it completely undercuts the success of the rest of its success – the crisp, deep focus cinematography, the expressionistic lighting, or even the quiet ruminations over progress and those who are left behind. The Magnificent Ambersons would be the first of many films Welles would struggle against studios over to maintain artistic control, but it speaks to the power of his directorial voice that it remains such a compelling elegy to historical eras, lost and forgotten.
Crisp, deep focus cinematography and remarkable blocking. The weak ending can’t erase the rest of Welles’ monumental cinematic achievement.
The Magnificent Ambersons is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
