Whether they were abandoned, lost, or orphaned, young children were among the most impacted civilians of wartime Japan, making seven-year-old Kōhei one of many stranded without parents in Record of a Tenement Gentleman. Every survivor is dealing with their own struggles though, so when O-tane’s neighbour picks him up off the street, the question arises – why must this middle-aged widow be the one to take him in? If you ask her, it is because her friends agreed to randomly select who should be his carer, and she unfortunately drew the lot with an X on it. If you ask Tashiro or Tamekichi, the game was rigged so that all the lots were marked with an X, and she simply revealed hers first. To Yasujirō Ozu though, there is a maternal warmth beneath her spiky exterior that she might refuse to acknowledge, yet which predisposes her to the enormous responsibility of raising Kōhei.
Record of a Tenement Gentleman may be the closest this director of domestic dramas ever got to shooting a war film, rejecting the spectacle of battle for the quiet struggles of those whose homes were torn apart by bloodshed. Death and violence takes place entirely offscreen, never clarifying what led to the demise of O-tane’s husband, and only relaying the backstory of Kōhei’s bombed-out home through a neighbour’s brief exposition. The child’s father left for Japan to find work, we learn, and at some point along the way they were separated.“Your dad’s cold-hearted,” O-tane cynically reasons as they share food together atop a dune, overlooking a breezy, grey ocean.
“You didn’t get lost. You got abandoned.”
Grey skies and oceans form the negative space upon which O’tane and Kōhei’s figures are imprinted, bleakly looking out at the horizon as this middle-aged woman breaks the tragic news to the boy.
Perhaps this is her lack of faith in humanity speaking, or maybe it is her own justification to keep him by her side – not that she is terribly well-equipped as a mother. He is little more than a nuisance to her, earning her ire for failing to win a lottery draw, and repeatedly wetting his bed. Ozu’s storytelling through pillow shots is strong here, not only using his characteristic laundry montages to transition between scenes, but also frequently returning to the wet patch on his hanging sheets to reveal the chronic nature of this issue.
Unusually for Ozu, the narrative progresses through his trademark laundry shots, returning to this hanging blanket to reveal the chronic nature of Kōhei’s bed-wetting.Ozu patiently builds out postwar Tokyo’s rundown districts, composing long shots littered with junk and debris as O-tane navigates its streets.
Through its elegant union of style and character, what is largely underrated as a minor Ozu film displays graceful, minimalist sophistication, building out Tokyo’s rundown districts and the people that inhabit them. His path may have never crossed with the Italian neorealists of the time, but his ability to find tenderness in mundane suffering certainly aligns with theirs, compassionately studying behaviours as simple as O-tane’s discontented grinding of flour. Hanging kitchen utensils clutter the ceiling in her home too, pressing down from above in isolating wide shots as she smokes alone, and serving a similar purpose as the obstructions so often framed in the foreground.
O-tane’s state of mind is expressed through everyday motions, comparing her slow grinding of flour to the rapid, frustrating grinding later on.Hanging tools and utensils from the kitchen ceiling, pressing down on O-tane from this isolating wide shot.
When Kōhei runs away one day out of fear of wetting the bed again, Ozu’s focus turns to the rundown streets of O-tane’s neighbourhood, joining her silent, uneasy search for this regretfully mistreated child. There, he lingers on street litter as it is lightly tousled by the breeze, as equally disregarded as those young children who pass their days fishing from the bridge. Their featured presence in cutaways all throughout Record of a Tenement Gentleman is impactful – they live on the periphery of society, yet they are crucial to Ozu’s portrait of innocence in mid-century Japan, particularly centring Kōhei as a generational symbol of resilience.
A very fine montage as O-tane searches for a missing Kōhei, as Ozu cycles through shots set up earlier in the film.The theme of society’s forgotten children echo poignantly through the scene, ending in this shot of litter blowing in the wind – sharp parallels drawn through imagery.
Upon this child’s safe return home, we see something shift in O-tane, lovingly spoiling him with a day trip to the zoo. “I’ve never felt like this before. Motherly love?” she wonders aloud to her friend, who humorously jabs back that she is more like a grandmother. For all the severity of these characters’ circumstances, Ozu maintains a gentle humour and levity in their interactions, making the unexpected arrival of Kōhei’s father to take him home all the more bittersweet.
Warmth and joy emerge in this surrogate mother-son dynamic, cracking O-tane’s stone heart and providing Kōhei a source of stability.Ozu knows how to design a frame at this point his career, imbuing the scenery with hypnotic, repetitive motions.
No longer does O-tane find the same satisfaction in her solitude as she did before, and in Kōhei’s absence, the world again becomes a cold and lonely place. Ozu would later refine the conclusion of his character arcs, delivering emotional gut punches in a single, devastating composition rather than a monologue as he does here with O-tane’s explicit moralising, speaking to the life-changing marvel of children. It is fortunate indeed then that Record of a Tenement Gentleman does not give her the final say, but rather returns to the children of Tokyo, this time playing in Ueno Park where she plans to adopt one. There, a statue of Takamori Saigō watches over them like a vigilant protector, connecting this dark period of Japanese history back to one of its greatest icons of honour. O-tane may not strike nearly impressive a figure as this noble samurai, yet as her broken nation emerges from the darkness of war, so too does she embrace a quiet, compassionate heroism of her own.
O-tane’s world is once again a dark and lonely place to be, sinking her into shadows when Kōhei is taken back home.Takamori Saigō – a symbolic, silent protector of Japan’s children, who smoke, talk, and play at his feet in the film’s closing pillow shots.
Record of a Tenement Gentleman is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
The emotional bond between Shuhei and his son Ryohei may be strong in There Was a Father, yet there is a wistful sorrow in the past tense of this title which suggests the memory of some earlier, tragic loss. That patriarchal title of honour is one Shuhei struggles to lay claim to after failing in his duty as a teacher, inadvertently letting one student drown during an excursion under his supervision. In his eyes, a father is a role model, an educator, and a protector, so a man who cannot fulfil his most basic duty for any child in their care has no business looking after them.
Shuhei’s grief reverberates far beyond his resignation though, sending Ryohei to a boarding school and thereby placing a physical distance between them. He may never truly stop being a father, and Yasujirō Ozu even recognises the undeniable harmony of this relationship through the recurring shot of their fishing lines being cast in perfect unison, yet Chishū Ryū’s performance nevertheless resonates a stoic self-pity for his negligence. Guilt requires atonement, and atonement is a duty to be undertaken in meditative isolation. Having lost his wife some years ago too, Shuhei’s one shot at redemption now seems to be through the professional success of his only living family member.
Ozu illustrates harmony across generations through the simple motion of fishing lines cast in unison, mirrored between father and son.A beautifully devastating detail – setting up the neat row of umbrellas, and then knocking one down as students rush out to learn of their drowned classmate.
Prior to the instigating tragedy, Ozu is meticulous in setting up Shuhei’s ordered, untroubled world. Symmetrical rows of students impeccably frame their teacher in the classroom, and even when they leave for a lakeside retreat, static pillow shots linger on their perfectly aligned umbrellas resting against a wall. Nevertheless, the peace is soon disturbed by the news of one boy’s boat capsizing, and the toppling of a single umbrella in the subsequent rush makes for a devastatingly symbolic detail. Before reaching the overturned rowboat though, Ozu neatly inserts a single cutaway to a nearby stone pillar, as if to punctuate the disaster with a reflective, melancholy sigh.
Ozu resists the sensational and grotesque, letting the death of this student sink in through pillow shots that show everything but his body.
Even amid dire misfortune, chaos is simply not part of Ozu’s cinematic language, and There Was a Father especially asserts his proclivity for ritualistic repetition to smooth over emotional disruptions. When Shuhei breaks the news to Ryohei while fishing that he will be sent to a boarding school, the scene is bookended by two shots of another stone pillar near the river, and when this young boy eventually grows up, another pattern is established as he follows in his father’s occupational footsteps. “Your duty is to study hard,” this young teacher advises one homesick student, echoing the ethos he was raised with, though his dedicated diligence does not come at the expense of long-distance visits to his father in Tokyo.
Ozu uses this stone pillar as a sort of bookmark to his scene, turning cutaways into visual punctuation bridging one moment in time to the next.Further mirroring between Shuhei and his son – both taking the role of teachers, and appearing almost identical in their suits and ties.Wayward students perched atop stone pillars like crows, letting time drift away.
Shuhei and Ryohei’s reunion dominates the second half of There Was a Father, frequently leaning into wide shots of the two relaxing in carefully composed interiors. Within the grand view of Ozu’s career, this is where his thorough layering of shots through shoji doors begins, capturing frames within frames which draw our eyes to characters in their domestic habitats. Here he continues to quietly underscore the parallels between generations of men, beginning one scene with Ryohei smoking on his own, joining them together in a discussion of marriage prospects, before ending with an almost identical shot of a lone Shuhei taking his son’s position.
Ozu relishes the reunion between Shuhei and Ryohei, returning to this fishing motif which carries across years in their lives.Again, astounding parallels drawn in the framing, bookending a scene by isolating both in identical shots.
Loneliness is inevitable in any relationship strained by distance though – in this instance, giving way to a tension which arises over Ryohei’s desire to quit his job and move closer to his father. “Do your duty for both of us,” Shuhei demands, longing for Ryohei to become the teacher he believes he never could be, and revealing how profoundly his past failure still weighs on his parental expectations.
It is also during Ryohei’s trip to Tokyo though that Shuhei finds companionship in an even more unlikely reunion, organised by his now-grown students. It has been a decade since their graduation, and while their teacher has spent the interim living in reclusive guilt, they have held onto nothing but positive memories of his mentorship. He continues to visit the deceased student’s grave out of a sense of remorse, he tells them, but is evident that his impact on their lives far outweighs this single tragedy. Through the low perspective of Ozu’s tatami shots, we become part of the seated celebration too, observing how its demonstration of enduring appreciation begins to heal the ex-teacher’s wounded soul.
Healing through reminiscence, celebration, and Ozu’s tatami shots, giving Shuhei the closure he needs from old students whose fond memories far outweigh any consideration of his failures.
If Shuhei’s guilt was keeping him clinging to a lonely life of penitence, perhaps this is just the closure he needed to finally escape it once and for all. Growing disorientated and weak, he collapses one morning as he gets ready to leave for work, struck by a heart attack. Ozu once again uses a cutaway to pause before we move to the hospital, this time meditatively lingering on an array of flowerpots, a clothing horse, and a watering can sitting in the garden, each item never to be touched by Shuhei again. Ozu creates a sort of temporal negative space in moments like these, not quite part of one scene or the next, but rather offering a soothing transition to prepare us for significant changes in the lives of his characters.
The stray garden items of Shuhei’s home, left exactly where he last put them down – his absence is painfully felt in this pillow shot.
Lining the corridor outside Shuhei’s hospital room, his past students gather, honouring the man who became a father to each of them. “It’s nothing to be sad about. I did the very best I could,” he mumbles with his dying breath, finally finding forgiveness within himself. As for Ryohei, this final week spent together was the happiest of his life, he admits, having always wanted to live with his father since being sent away to boarding school. This is a man who died with his dignity intact, and the teary crowd which gathers around his deathbed in the final minutes of There Was a Father pays thankful testament to that, recognising a remarkable, resilient legacy which transcended the grief etched deep in his soul.
Students gather round the deathbed of their old teacher, mourning and commemorating a life which touched far more people than Shuhei ever realised.
There Was a Father is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
When the rock at the centre of the Toda family is lost, there is little that remains to hold its fragments together – though the enthusiastic attendance of Shintarō’s 69th birthday celebrations might originally suggest otherwise. Surely his children would loyally support each other after his passing, and they would certainly never try to palm off their now-homeless mother and youngest sister Setsuko, effectively washing their hands of responsibility. For those who comfortably belong to Japan’s upper-class though, family ties are diminished by their lack of interdependence, and Yasujirō Ozu’s filmic foray into the stratosphere of the elite exposes the true weakness in their relationships.
With his focus shifting away from society’s disenfranchised, the personal conflicts in Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family stem more apathy than the insecurity of Ozu’s previous characters, marking a notable departure from the industrial wastelands of The Only Son or the provincial streets of A Story of Floating Weeds. Perhaps this break from rundown locations is partly why its visuals are a little more muted, but it’s tough to criticise his mise-en-scène too much when it still bears the markings of his carefully set interiors. Here, patterned wallpaper forms delicate frames around doorways, while abundant flowers densely crowd out compositions at Shintarō’s funeral, commemorating his life through immoderate displays of wealth.
It is at Shintarō’s birthday party though where we get our first taste of this family’s decay, revealed in pillow shots which follow his initial collapse and move into an empty doctor’s office. There, a grandfather clock rhythmically swings its pendulum with the repetitive, ringing telephone, marking the first of several instances that Ozu calls upon this symbol of time and mortality – not that the Toda children necessarily consider the weight that either bear on their lives. Apparently the cultural tradition of honouring one’s elders only applies to the underprivileged who continue to lean on them, and even after being wracked by Shintarō’s post-mortem debts, still these siblings dedicate the bare minimum to looking after their mother.
When Mrs. Toda and Setsuko move in with the eldest brother Shin’ichiro, disharmony finds fertile ground, eventually sprouting into a confrontation between his wife Kazuko and Setsuko. Quarrels in Ozu films are rarely impassioned, yet resentment simmers in glacial accusations, beginning with Setsuk’s simple request that Kazuko avoid playing piano while she and her mother are sleeping. Kazuko is seemingly happy to oblige, but not without questioning why they didn’t greet the guest they had earlier that day, openly laying out her disdain for all to see.
Perhaps then peace will be found living with the eldest sister Chizuko, but when Setsuko expresses her desire to get a job, she is chastised for even considering the disgraceful notion of joining the working class. Elsewhere in this household, Chizuko’s resistance to disciplining her rebellious son sparks a clash with her mother, and ends in Chizuko sharing perhaps the harshest words of the film.
“Just stay away from my son.”
With this arrangement failing as well, Ayako is next to reluctantly offer her home, so she is relieved indeed when a frustrated Mrs. Toda resolves instead to reside in the family’s only remaining property – a rundown house by the sea. If there is any redemption to be found among the Toda siblings, then it is through the final sibling Shōjirō, whose move to China shortly after his father’s death has largely insulated him from these affairs. Upon his return for the one-year anniversary of Shintarō’s passing, he effectively becomes Ozu’s mouthpiece, scolding each of his siblings for neglecting their gracious mother. His home in China is not ideal given its distance, but it is nevertheless a safe place for his mother to relax and Setsuko to find work, free from judgement.
Rarely does Ozu take so firm a stance on the tension between tradition and modernity as he does in Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family. Shin’ichiro, Chizuko, and Ayako may not be villains, but the shallowness with which they approach their personal responsibilities brands them hypocrites in his eyes, holding the foundations of their privilege in little esteem. Prosperity is evidently not the measure of family bonds in this cutting class critique. Through grief and adversity, the hollowness of their affluence is laid bare, and reverent devotion for one’s roots holds on by a single, resilient thread.
Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
Ossessione’s derelict inns, sweaty singlets, and messy kitchens are far removed from the glamour of Hollywood’s film noirs, yet its forbidding tale of lust, murder, and fatalism nevertheless runs parallel to those expressionistic fables. When Gino’s hitchhiking lands him in a roadside tavern, the contempt that its co-owner Giovanna holds for her husband and business partner Giuseppe is revealed to be as strong as her attraction towards this new visitor. From there, an affair that maliciously seeks to remove Giuseppe from the picture unravels, revealing the dark hearts of those involved. Luchino Visconti’s camerawork is elegant here, navigating this conspiracy with intrigue as it turns towards a mirror during their nefarious plotting, and wanders through lives bars where secrets lurk between lovers.
With that said, Ossessione’s narrative is also impossible to remove from the social context it was made in. With Italy still under Fascist occupation in 1943, the hardships of the working class were at an all-time high, significantly deteriorating the nation’s sense of cultural identity and moral clarity. Neorealism was not yet a full-fledged movement, yet Visconti is thoughtfully sowing its seeds here, offering an unrelenting window into the life of the poor and the extremes to which they go simply for a taste of pleasure. His location shooting along provincial roads and in the seaside city of Ancona serves to underscore that authenticity as well, even as the narrative veers beyond the mundane and into gritty crime drama.
A crane shot lifting us above the truck, and introducing us to the roadside tavern where love and resentment will equally bloom.A murder conspiracy unfolds in this reflection, catching Gino and Giovanna’s doubles as they sink to new, nefarious depths.
Still, Visconti’s merging of naturalism and fatalism was not exactly unheard of before his remarkable directorial debut. France’s poetic realism gracefully merged the two in the 1930s, seeing directors like Jean Renoir and Marcel Carné navigate tales of moral corruption with a floating visual style that no doubt influences Visconti here. Meanwhile, the fact that the film is based on the 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice binds its roots close to American noirs, even as it introduces a devious femme fatale whose screen presence is far removed from the allure of Barbara Stanwyck or Mary Astor. Clara Calamai is no doubt a beautiful actress, but Visconti does not shroud her in soft lighting and trendy outfits. Giovanna’s lonely dinners in a grimy kitchen reveal a far sadder existence than her Hollywood counterparts, surrounding her with towers of dirty dishes as she reads from a newspaper and eats a bowl of pasta.
An early progenitor of Italian neorealism, using stone streets and buildings to imbue this tale with an unrelenting authenticity.Visconti using the littered ground as his mise-en-scène in this high angle, composing a sparse yet messy shot.Poverty encompasses Giovanna on every side with these stacked dishes and bottles – a beautifully crowded shot.
When two young, attractive people such as Gino and Giovanna fall into each other’s orbit then, it is plain to see just how easily their dreams of escape escalate into destructive delusion. After initial talks of murder lead to their first breakup, destiny seems to draw them back together in a bar, coaxing the lovers to believe in a greater force at play. “Before, the world seemed a big place. Now, there is only your shop,” Gino romantically murmurs as an oblivious Giuseppe performs onstage. Putting off their plans any further seems pointless – the time to strike presents itself when all three drive home together, and the two conspirators ultimately find the perfect opportunity to stage a deadly car accident.
Visconti’s camera is truly free as it drifts through this lively bar.A secret affair hiding in plain sight, drowned out by drunken crowds and live singing.Darkness wraps around the murderous lovers and their oblivious victim as they approach the point of no return.
Upon Gino and Giovanna’s return to the tavern, its atmosphere is more unwelcoming than ever, as if recognising the violence that has been inflicted upon its owner. It is dark and quiet inside, resurfacing Gino’s feelings of guilt as he realises what he has done. Giovanna’s desire to reopen shop with him is met with harsh rejection, which is only aggravated further by the discovery that she took out a life insurance policy before the murder. The more distance he places between them though, the greater her jealousy becomes, and Visconti’s camera soaks up the emotional drama as we follow her stalking him through streets. When Gino goes even further and confesses a heavy conscience to his new lover Anita, he is visually trapped behind his bed’s mesh netting in one aptly framed shot, effectively caught in Giovanna’s web while the police close in.
The tavern is dark and lifeless upon their return, the chairs stacked upon tables and visually imposing upon this shot.The camera attaches to Giovanna as she stalks Gino through the streets, obsessively tracking his movements.Mesh netting suffocating Gino as he begins to feel the consequences of his actions.
Clearly Gino is not the sort of man to learn from his mistakes though. When Giovanna comes forward with news of her pregnancy, he reconsiders their future together at an empty, overcast beach where they ultimately reconcile. As shallow pools of water catch their upside-down reflections, Visconti composes a scene of meagre romance in this lifeless locale, and even Giuseppe Rosati’s score continues its tense, foreboding melody. Giovanna may finally agree that leaving town is the best course of action, but they are fools to believe that they can simply start a new life together after all they have been through. Besides, that wicked hand of fate isn’t quite done with them yet, drawing Ossessione closer than ever to its film noir contemporaries.
Bleak, miserable romance on this wet beach, the lovers’ reflections caught in its shallow puddles.
The moment these lovers hit the road, we see inevitable tragedy take ironic shape and finally solidify when Gino tries to overtake a truck passing by an embankment. Just as Giovanna killed her husband by veering his car off-road, so too does her own story end at the hands of another driver, nudging her vehicle down a steep drop and into the water below. That the police should arrive a few moments later as Gino pulls Giovanna’s limp body from the wreckage only twists the knife deeper, delivering a far more degrading punishment to the man who blatantly ignored his own conscience on multiple occasions. Redemption is a luxury that the poor cannot afford in Ossessione, and through Visconti’s unvarnished, cynical naturalism, he adeptly delivers a solemn condemnation of moral decrepitude that cannot be swayed by fleeting hopes or half-hearted regrets.
Bitter justice is served twice over, both by the police and the invisible hand of fate.
For the residents of this 17th century Danish village, the end times are near. Suspicions of witchcraft have escalated into full-blown trials and executions, sentencing women like the elderly Herlof’s Marte to burn at the stake, while more fortunate suspects are spared only through deals made with local authorities. Meanwhile, the ominous ‘Dies Irae’ motif reverberates through choirs of young boys, echoing the sinister poem which opens this tale.
“Day of Wrath, dreadful night,
Heaven and earth in ashes burning,
And the sun beset by dead of night.
That Day of Wrath, that sulfurous day
When flaming heavens together roll,
And earth’s beautiful castle shall pass away.”
These portentous warnings bear strong resemblance to those in The Seventh Seal, and the gale which at one point fills the soundscape with howling chaos may very well be the same which haunts The Turin Horse, yet Day of Wrath precedes both films. This apocalypse is one of forsaken marriages, religious paranoia, and helpless scapegoats, crushing whatever glimmer of passion might emerge between forbidden lovers. Still, this portentous drama never truly rules out the question of whether some unknown, transcendent power holds sway over the fragile lives of humans, sending the damned to early graves while the living remain in its grip of mortal terror.
Hymnal lyrics of doom and despair lay out the apocalypse at hand, damning the people of Earth to perish in their own cruelty.Choirs of young boys sing of the condemnation which awaits humanity on the Day of Judgement, chilling echoing the iconic ‘Dies Irae’ motif.
Young housewife Anne knows this feeling of dread too well. Her marriage to the local pastor Absalon was part of a bargain to save her late mother from accusations of witchcraft, and has since placed her under the thumb of Meret, her domineering, antagonistic mother-in-law. With Anne’s elderly neighbour Herlof’s Marte now knocking on her door, hoping to find refuge from similar charges, she can’t quite seem to remove herself entirely from the shadow of suspicion falling upon her either. Her eyes burn the same way as her mother’s did, Meret sombrely remarks, forewarning Absalon that one day he will find himself confronted with a choice between God and his wife.
Trapped within the confines of her husband’s home and subjected to her mother-in-law’s cruelty, Anne is set up as a victim of society – yet there resides an ambiguous power in her which underlies the spiritual mystery of Dreyer’s film.
Though it is apparent that the pastor has somewhat of a conscience, we can see in his rejection of Marte’s pleas for mercy that it is his passivity rather than any innate malice which lands him on the wrong side of these witch trials. Still, the same cannot be said of others in this town, who are spurred on by their need for a scapegoat to blame for their misfortune. The camera passes by spectators at Marte’s public torture as they lean forward in their seats, eager to see a confession drawn from her lips, and drawing strong parallels to another totalitarian regime occupying Dreyer’s homeland at the time of production. Just as he once aimed a critical lens at Joan of Arc’s political persecutors, here he angles his allegory towards the spread of Nazism, bitterly lamenting the grip of paranoid terror it held over Europe at large.
A slow, panning camera drifts past the faces of Marte’s interrogators, eager for her to break under physical and psychological pressure.Scenes of brutal torture underscore the sadistic malevolence of man, stripping it of spectacle.
As such, Dreyer’s slow, severe storytelling is an impeccable formal match for his chilling indictment of authoritarianism. Set and costumes designs are as starkly minimalist as ever, using bare stone walls as backdrops and imposing geometric arches and columns upon interior spaces. His roving camerawork is equally rigorous, often combining panning and tracking shots to explore thoroughly blocked tableaux, and particularly inviting our curiosity as we follow Anne through a hall of pillars where she eavesdrops on Marte’s futile plea for mercy. It is no wonder then that Anne wishes to escape these oppressive, greyscale chambers, making the arrival of Absalon’s son Martin all the sweeter for his romantic companionship.
Among Dreyer’s strongest shots, tracking through the columns of this hall before framing Anne within the funnelled archways.Stark, Gothic minimalism in Dreyer’s architecture, baring a stern facade.
Dreyer’s shift away from the harsh, Gothic architecture of the village and towards the natural scenery of Anne and Martin’s passionate affair is sharp, and further underscored by his deliberate intercutting between both locations. While Absalon visits the darkened home of a sick parishioner to deliver his last rites, we simultaneously join the lovers drifting down rivers and laying together in long grass, free from the rigid lines of their oppressive, austere home. Dreyer’s editing is not defined by quick rhythms here, but rather a slow, deliberate alternation between scenes, breaking through the dour monotony of emotionally restrained performances with warm smiles and tender affection. Still, even as Anne romantically poeticises about a tree on the riverbank, Martin’s guilt quietly impedes on their happiness.
“It is bowed in sorrow.”
“No, in longing.”
“In sorrow for us.”
“In longing for its reflection in the water. We can no more be parted than the tree and its reflection.”
Soft scenes of romance set among trees and rivers, contrasted against the harsh stone interiors of the village.
These lovers may be bound together emotionally, yet as Day of Wrath’s parallel editing so suggestively illustrates, they are also subject to a far more powerful bond metaphysically linking them back to Absalon. “Whosoever believeth shall live, though he die,” Absalon prays over his parishioner’s body, right before Dreyer cuts to Martin’s own pensive meditation on death.
“If we could die… together, here.”
“Why?”
“To atone for our sin.”
Absalon tends to a dying parishioner in this bleak frame, his meditations on death fatefully intercut with Anne and Martin’s.
It is not the disloyal son nor the unfaithful wife whom death shall ultimately visit though. Back at home Anne ponders aloud what their lives may look like if her husband were dead, and at that moment, we visit Absalon making his way through a vicious gale. He falters, proclaiming to have felt Death brush by him, before anxiously continuing his journey home. Dreyer is certainly no believer in witchcraft, and yet just as the climax of his later film Ordet is marked by the unexplained miracle of resurrection, there is a frightening ambiguity surrounding Anne’s apparently supernatural power. After derisively unleashing years of repressed anger over her stolen youth, she need only speak her desire aloud to strike him down.
“Therefore, I now wish you dead.”
A gale whips up on Absalon’s journey home, and death brushes by him.A vicious turn in Anne’s character unleashes a bitter wish for death, revealing what may or may not be a hidden power as her wish immediately manifests in reality.
Frightened by her words made real, Anne escapes the thick shadows of Absalon’s office and runs outside, hoping to find Martin in those gorgeous landscapes which once hosted their passionate affairs. Now shrouded in mist though, both are rendered as silhouettes, drained of light and warmth. There is no more room for love in this relationship, and therefore no hope for Anne’s salvation. She is not some defiant individualist, seeing through the narrow beliefs of an unjust society, but simply a woman who has internalised its prejudice so deeply that she confoundedly professes to aiding the “Evil One.” After all, how else could such a terrible catastrophe be arbitrarily visited upon one of God’s holy servants?
Dark silhouettes in misty landscapes as Anne seeks salvation with Martin, only to find their romance dissipated.
Above all else, it is the haunting ambiguity of Dreyer’s Gothic fable which lingers long after he has faded from Anne’s teary, smiling face. Very gradually, our doubt in the existence of witchcraft is twisted into vague hesitancy, even as we remain sympathetic to her tribulations. Perhaps it was a supernatural manifestation of an emotional outburst, or maybe it truly was incredibly unfortunate timing. Regardless, Day of Wrath reserves its ire not for the women of this village, but those who shape reality around their own fear and cruelty. Where Anne is a sinner, a victim, or both, Dreyer’s greatest anxiety lies in a prejudiced culture beyond moral redemption, masquerading its darkest impulses as divine, heavenly will.
Dreyer holds on Anne’s teary, smiling face as she confesses her sin, submitting to the persecution and accusations levelled at her.
Day of Wrath is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
The covert, labyrinthine path through Tokyo’s seedy underbelly that police officer Murakami follows in Stray Dog is a strenuous enough journey on its own, even without considering the sweltering heatwave bearing down on the city. That this quest to recover his stolen pistol lands right in the middle of summer only makes it that much more exacting, dialling up the pressure to find the man who has bought it off the black market, and is now using it to commit a string of crimes. While the rest of the city is watching baseball games and relaxing, both sides of the law remain restless in their isolated pursuits, drawing ever closer under Akira Kurosawa’s sharp, observant gaze.
Handheld and electric fans are constant motifs here, cooling down those desperately trying to escape the heat, though the crowded blocking doesn’t help to ease the discomfort. When Murakami descends into the decadent nightclubs of Tokyo, Josef von Sternberg’s influence emerges in Kurosawa’s cluttering of the frame, filled with lights, smoke, décor, and bodies dripping with sweat. This is a world inhabited by illicit arms dealers and violent gangsters, and if Murakami is to find this disturbed gunman, he must fully immerse himself in its sleazy, lawless decadence.
Electric fans obstructing frames, becoming a visual motif in the sweltering summer heat.Hand fans too are used by the characters, but do little to ease the pressure off of the smothering mise-en-scène.Josef von Sternberg style designs in the cluttered clubs of Tokyo – a world of lawless excess.
Kurosawa’s methodical approach to unravelling this investigation is a stepping stone towards the sprawling procedural he would later conduct in High and Low, yet Stray Dog nevertheless remains an immense accomplishment in his early career. Tokyo takes on vibrant textures as Murakami navigates its streets and buildings, giving way to marvellously edited montages of a city scrutinised beneath his watchful eyes in a double exposure effect, and traversed in patient tracking shots. The visual storytelling is tremendous as he tails the pickpocket for several days, wearing her down until she points him towards Honda, the notorious gunrunner she sold his weapon to.
There is real texture to Kurosawa’s world, exploring every hidden corner of Tokyo in preparation for High and Low.Crowded blocking and silent visual storytelling as Murakami pursues a suspect through trams and streets.An intense double exposure effect imposing Murakami’s eyes over montages of the city – little escapes his piercing gaze.
When Honda’s girlfriend is taken in for questioning, she proves much tougher to break, and so the arrival of veteran detective Satō is timely indeed. In his playbook, charm is a far greater tool than intimidation, casually winning her over with ice blocks and cigarettes. In one superbly blocked composition, Kurosawa mirrors this new hierarchy too by pushing Murakami behind his older colleague, and foregrounding the girlfriend’s guilty profile as Satō interrogates her.
Satō’s gentler interrogation tactics become the focus of the scene through Kurosawa’s staggered blocking, pushing Murakami to the background as an observer.
The buddy cop dynamic which emerges here would later set the stage for David Fincher’s Se7en, similarly playing on the contrast between a fresh-faced detective and his older, wiser companion. Kurosawa’s casting of the highly-strung Toshiro Mifune and unflappable Takashi Shimura is incredibly inspired here, drawing an ideological divide which separates those younger generations directly affected by the traumas of World War II from those whose views are rooted in Japan’s traditional, stoic values. The more that both learn about their target Yusa, the more the cops’ differences come to light as well, making for a compelling discussion one night when Satō invites Murakami over for drinks.
Two men of different generations mirrored, their worldviews colliding.
“They say there’s no such thing as a bad man. Only bad situations,” Murakami deliberates, reflecting on the disturbed diary entries they found in Yusa’s shabby, filthy home earlier that day. Men become monsters in war, he believes, warped by inhuman orders from a government that neglects them as soon as they return home. He is not surprised that such a man has now fallen in with the yakuza, though seeing how this sort of nuance wracks Murakami with self-doubt, Satō is not so forgiving. “You can’t be this tense all the time if you want to be a cop,” he responds. War may have turned Yusa into a wild, untamed beast, but now that this monster is loose in society with a gun, it is up to them to capture him. “A mad dog sees only straight paths. Yusa sees only straight paths now,” Satō expounds, clinically reasoning that the only way to get to him is through his girlfriend.
“He’s in love with Harumi Namiki. She’s the only thing he sees.”
The titular stray dog is an apt metaphor for both Murakami and the man he is pursuing, set up in the film’s very first shot.Kurosawa’s compositions are outstanding, using his depth of field to draw our eye to characters further back in the frame.
When applied to Murakami as well, this metaphor continues to ring true. He is blinded by his focus on Yusa, which itself is fed by his guilt over losing that gun in the first place. This rookie cop acts on impulse, often heading straight into danger without backup and hoping that he might stop Yusa from wreaking further devastation across Tokyo.
It is only inevitable that the heatwave that has accompanied this investigation should eventually break, and being a master of using weather as symbolism, Kurosawa carries it out with incredible formal purpose and style. While Satō is following a lead to Yusa’s hotel, Murakami is pressing Harumi to give up her boyfriend, wearing away at the worldly bitterness which he has imparted on her. It’s the world’s fault he has resorted to theft, she asserts, while slipping into a dress he has stolen for her – yet the guilt she suppresses is too strong. As she begins to cry, the skies finally open up, and Kurosawa traps her and Murakami within a confining, melancholy frame behind the falling rain.
Melancholy hangs in the air of this shot, isolating Murakami from those around him.A master of using weather patterns for cinematic power, Kurosawa breaks the heatwave with a violent downpour at a key narrative turning point, and weaves its texture into this poignant frame.
Meanwhile, as the distance Satō and Yusa narrows, so too does the furious deluge mark their meeting with dramatic tension. While trying to call Murakami from the hotel phone booth, Satō remains unaware of an armed Yusa standing just outside, who fearfully realises that he is a police officer. The outlaw’s attempt on his life is fortunately non-lethal, though his shoulder wound is enough to tip an inconsolable Murakami over the edge, and ultimately convince Harumi that her boyfriend must be stopped.
Satō and Murakami pushed to their lowest points yet, their faces shielded from the camera as they slump on the floor and stairs.
As our bold, young protagonist sets out on his own one last time to confront the dangerous gunman, Kurosawa displays supreme confidence in his visual storytelling. The weather has stabilised – no longer is Murakami caught in the stifling grip of a heatwave, and neither does rain douse his spirits. “Don’t panic. Calm down,” his inner voice instructs him, taking on Satō’s cool composure as he searches the train station for a 28-year-old man in a white linen suit and muddy pants. Kurosawa’s camera possesses the patience of Hitchcock as it slowly passes across a line of legs, before eventually settling on a pair of filthy shoes and tilting up to the rest of the body. His taut editing soon comes into play as well, cutting between both their faces until Yusa confirms Murakami’s suspicions by using his left hand to strike a match – and from there, the final stand begins.
A suspenseful, continuous tracking shot along a row of feet, searching for muddy white trousers – and eventually landing on them.Cop and criminal in a frame – the stalker and his subject locked in his sights.
Through the train yard and into a forest, Murakami daringly chases his target, though for now he holds off from shooting. He remembers exactly how many bullets were in his gun when it was stolen, and by deducing clues from each crime scene, he knows how many have been used. It is immensely satisfying seeing his sharp wits play into this set piece, and even more so knowing that it is Satō’s influence that has taught him self-control, further demonstrated in a close-up of his unshaken, bloody hand after his arm is shot. Two more wasted bullets from Yusa’s pistol, and Murakami is ready to bet his life that the barrel is now empty, rushing forward to apprehend the panicked, defenceless outlaw.
The forest makes for a superb set piece, standing both sides of the law off against each other.Leone-style editing long before Leone even made his first film, seeing Murakami patiently wait for the right moment to shoot.
It isn’t that Murakami no longer understands Yusa’s trauma, nor that Satō completely disregards empathy, but he is right that these feelings must be put aside in their line of work. “The more you arrest them, the less sentimental you’ll feel,” he remarks – not that this pragmatism necessarily fixes the problem at the heart of a troubled society. Even with Yusa and the illicit arms dealer Honda brought to justice, Kurosawa’s cynicism lingers in his ending, acknowledging the countless disturbing cases that Murakami will continue to face throughout his career. For better or worse, this line of work allows little room for moral ambiguity, yet Murakami remains fully conscious of the bitter, underlying irony – the stray dog that finds purpose in saving lives is not so dissimilar from the one which takes them away.
Two men reduced to exhausted heaps on the ground – mirrors of each other, alike yet morally opposed.
Stray Dog is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
The villagers of Aci Trezza do not speak Italian, La Terra Trema’s opening text is sure to inform us. Theirs is a Sicilian dialect which most people would have trouble comprehending, but Luchino Visconti is not interested in rounding off these rough edges for the sake of his mainland audience. His ensemble is made up of real townsfolk rather than professional actors after all, so why compromise on those details which give their insulated community such character and complexity? Moreover, why not use its rugged coastlines and bustling marketplaces in place of artificial studio sets, capturing their lives with even greater authenticity?
Visconti was not the only neorealist pushing these innovations forward in the 1940s, though where Vittorio de Sica and Roberto Rossellini used real locations to tell the stories of individuals, La Terra Trema leans into the story of its setting. The omniscient Italian voiceover which describes Aci Trezza’s daily routines and power structures does not compromise the naturalism on display – rather the opposite in fact, effectively shaping this literary adaptation into a work of docufiction which observes the village with a distant curiosity. It speaks in present tense, underscoring the spontaneity of each narrative development, but there is also no doubt regarding Visconti’s meticulous craftsmanship. This tale of one fisherman’s attempted revolution against the greedy local wholesalers is given an epic stage here, tracing the sort of rise-and-fall archetype that once belonged to Roman mythology, yet which Visconti transposes to a microcosm of modern Sicily.
Leading lines into the background, using blocking of actors to design the frame while remaining completely organic.La Terra Trema is a family saga, and Visconti matches his visuals to the epic scope – not so much with vast landscapes than the sheer density of his crowded shots.
As is typical of these grand sagas as well, we find a family at the centre of its drama, rich with history and traditions which have thrived for generations. “The women always worry about the men at sea, as the family has always had a boat at sea, ever since the name Valastro has existed,” the narrator informs us, introducing the clan to whom our working-class hero Antonio belongs. Long have they been exploited by the wholesalers, but now that he has returned home from war, he has also brought with him radical new ideas. Uniting his fellow fishermen, he encourages them to resist budging on their prices, and ultimately claims victory despite the violence which breaks out. With the wholesalers temporarily out for the count, Antonio has the whole town on his side, yet this is only the beginning of his grand ambitions to reform Aci Trezza’s fishing industry.
Revolution among workers, using Eisenstein’s ‘monistic ensemble’ to transcend individualism.Staggered blocking of the wholesalers’ faces in this frame – a wonderful composition imposing smug superiority.
It is no surprise that Visconti was commissioned by the Italian Communist Party to create this film, even if he diverged a little from their instructions to shoot a documentary. The product is ideologically akin to the Soviet Montage films of the 1920s, though formally the only significant influence here emerges from Sergei Eisenstein’s theory of the ‘monistic ensemble’, blocking large crowds as single units that transcend individualism. When it comes to the pure visual composition of bodies in the frames as well, few are Visconti’s equal. The full depth and scope of his frame are used to build out social hierarchies within the Valastro family and beyond, staggering actors in dynamic tableaux that seem to emerge organically from their weathered environments. Even when his camera is tracking through masses pulling boats ashore or haggling at the market, still these hundreds of people are staged with a piercing clarity, revealing the unity and tension which pervades everyday life in Aci Trezza.
Intricate staging within the Valastro home, distinguishing men, women, and children.Masterful work with crowds, amplifying the scope of this saga.Incredible complexity and desnity in Visconti’s composition, filling the frame with bodies in different poses as the Valastro family hits rock bottom.
Perhaps just as impactful in characterising these people are the textures of the village itself, its rough stonework worn to debris and rubble by decades of exposure to the elements. Upon walls tarnished by discoloured stains, we also occasionally find the hammer and sickle symbol, blatantly pointing to the rising Communist sentiment in the area. Despite the complex social structures which see military officers perversely leer over impoverished women, it is clear that no one here is truly wealthy. These people are trapped by their unfortunate circumstances, ravaged by a capitalist system which equates them to their economic value and condemns them to squalid living conditions.
Weathered textures framing Visconti’s actors, encompassing them in destitute poverty.Much of this village has collapsed into debris and rubble, and Visconti’s location shooting does not shy away from exposing this side of Italy.Communist symbols graffitied on walls, pointing to rising anticapitalist sentiments in the region.Class and status depicted through height, with military officers often leering over the women of the town.
This is not to say that Aci Trezza lacks beauty, though its magnificence is entirely inseparable from the greyscale austerity of its land and seascapes. From the hours spent gazing longingly at the Mediterranean Sea and waiting for their men to return, the Valastro women may know this better than anyone too. Visconti’s low angles capture their black imprints against grey skies with great severity, their flapping cloaks giving the impression of crows as they brave the wind on the rugged headland. Jutting out of the water, craggy outcrops obstruct our view of the horizon, yet these also stand as familiar, welcoming landmarks to departing and returning sailboats. Meanwhile, high angles of the shoreline itself crowd the mise-en-scene with these wooden vessels resting between trips, blending in with the coarse sand and rock.
The Valastro women stand upon rocks in flapping, black cloaks like crows, gazing out at the sea – a masterfully bleak composition in this low angle.Craggy outcrops beyond the shore interrupt the horizon, standing as familiar landmarks to sailors.Rocky shorelines and wooden boats – Visconti loves setting these elemental textures against each other.
So bleak is this environment, it is difficult to see how Antonio’s success could ever be sustainable here. His dreams of becoming independent, buying a boat, and cutting the wholesalers out of the supply chain manifest through pure willpower and effort, yet still the narrator foreshadows an inevitable downfall. “Well, Antonio? You have everything. All you dreamed of is yours,” it sardonically reflects, moving beyond its once-detached tone. As much as we remain at a distance from these events, we can’t help but feel some resentment towards the cruel hand of fate which unleashes a destructive storm upon Antonio’s work, as well as the unforgiving capitalist system which kicks him while he’s down.
Antonio ostracised from his community, one man against the crowd.
Pressure mounts on the Valastro family when the bank comes to repossess their house, and soon even the town turns on them, effectively cutting Antonio’s sister Lucia off from any prospect of marriage. No longer is he a hero of the working class, but a reckless pariah who tried to enact change too quickly, and Visconti’s blocking continues to evolve with these new dynamics as the fisherman finds himself isolated among his own people. “One by one, the tree’s branches wither and fall,” the narrator laments, watching a once-respected clan collapse by the actions of one man who gambled their possessions away on a brighter future. Desperate and hungry, he returns to the smirking wholesalers in a moth-eaten shirt, and resigns himself to working under them once again as an underpaid labourer.
Antonio remains isolated even within his own fractured family.
It takes solidarity to spark revolution, and although it is this missing ingredient which sinks Antonio’s economic ambitions in La Terra Trema, the narrator does not lose hope in the slow wheel of progress. “No one will help him until they all learn to live and support each other,” it reflects, “and within himself he’ll find courage to start a new life.” Its impression of neutrality has faded, yet Visconti’s writing maintains a sincere conviction in the spirit of Aci Trezza – even if it continues to lie dormant beneath the cumbersome weight of inequality. For as long as these progressive ideals remain alive as a mere thought or feeling, human dignity endures in La Terra Trema, ingrained in the very fabric of a society sustained by its indispensable, tenacious working class.
A humiliating return to the status quo, meeting the wholesalers in a moth-eaten shirt and no bargaining power whatsoever.
La Terra Trema is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
When the niece of Major Allshard first dons a yellow ribbon in her hair, there is much chatter among the men at Fort Starke regarding who it is for. As lyricised in the folk song which gives this film its name, it is traditionally worn as a symbol of love and loyalty to a man fighting in war, although Olivia is not so open about the identity of her sweetheart. As such, a rivalry is born between Lieutenants Ross and Flint, incidentally tempering the harsh nature of their larger mission at hand with lighter touches of romance and humour.
For a film that places such a great emphasis on duty and honour, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is brimming with warmth in its side characters and subplots, though this should be no surprise to those familiar with John Ford’s mythos of America. After all, what are these Frontier Army troops really fighting for, if not the prosperity of their families back home? As for honourable men like Captain Nathan Brittles who have suffered great loss, grief does not wither their hearts, but rather gives them even greater reason to fight for the happiness of others. Consequently, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon meets him during a significant time of his life indeed – ruefully facing down retirement from the only thing that gives his him purpose.
A yellow ribbon in Olivia’s hair hints at a sweetheart among the young cavalrymen, weaving romance and humour into this otherwise high-stakes tale.Blue and yellow uniforms stand out against the red, earthy tones of the desert, and even more so thanks to Ford’s rigorous blocking.
Brittles’ last detail comes in the wake of 1876’s Battle of Little Big Horn, which saw Native American warriors overwhelm the United States Army and break free of their reservations. War is brewing in the West, and Fort Starke is no longer the sanctuary it once was. Not only must he and his troop of cavalry soldiers drive them back home, but they must also escort Olivia and her aunt Abby to an eastbound stagecoach, which will take them to safety. The stakes are immense, and with Brittles’ last day of service approaching, there is an acute pressure to fulfil his assignment before bidding farewell to the only life he has ever known since his wife’s passing.
Brittles’ backstory lends his final mission personal stakes, as he prepares to farewell the only life he has known since his wife’s passing.Ford and his cinematographer Winton C. Hoch are laying the groundwork for The Searchers, shooting Monument Valley in Technicolor for the first time and crafting these stunning landscapes.
Besides the native tribes and the petty divisions among his own men, there is another adversary the ageing captain must contend with, taking the form of America’s rugged wilderness. This was not the first time Ford shot among the astounding vistas of Monument Valley, and he was already well acquainted with colour filmmaking by 1949, yet She Wore a Yellow Ribbon marks the union of both. Much of the bold beauty here is thanks to the genius of cinematographer Winton C. Hoch, whose proficiency in Technicolor photography far surpassed his peers in 1940s Hollywood, though Ford’s own eye for composition should not be underrated. Blood-red sunrises silhouette the company’s bugler as plays a brassy melody to herald the new day, while the land of vast plains and towering buttes draws deep, earthy tones through the mise-en-scène, swallowing up armies of blue-uniformed specks in spectacular establishing shots.
A blazing red sunrise cuts out the bugler’s silhouette – an image of patriotism and remembrance.High horizons use the red rock valleys as mise-en-scène, here situating us behind a Native American surveying the view.Low horizons stretch the blue, cloudy skies out over the cavalrymen, putting them at the mercy of the elements.
Perhaps most breathtaking though are those visions of Monument Valley that impressionably shift with the weather, beating down the travelling cavalry beneath the scorching sun and later shrouding its rocky outcrops in grey, ghostly clouds. Even after spotting a thunderstorm brewing in the distance, Ford reportedly demanded that they continue rolling, forcing both his cast and crew to trudge through slurries of mud. It is surely no coincidence that this led to one of the film’s most memorable and visually striking scenes – there is a raw, practical authenticity to such imagery which connects Brittles’ quest to the land itself, accordingly revealing the sheer perseverance of those who seek to navigate its formidable challenges.
Fog hangs low around the buttes of Monument Valley, offering an unusually ghostly atmosphere.Lightning strikes and rain pours during this thunderstorm, yet Brittles’ men and Ford’s crew persevere through the natural challenges thrown their way.
This admirable quality is perhaps most plainly illustrated though in Brittles’ attempted peace talks, careful manoeuvring, and resistance to unnecessary bloodshed. Nonviolent offence is clearly the preferred tactic here, especially given that hostile conquest would only spur on further aggression, but even then victory is not guaranteed. The burned-out remains of another military fort shake Brittles’ men to their core, and their failure to keep firearms out of the hands of Native Americans drastically shifts the odds against them further, eventually driving the entire troop back to Fort Starke in shame-faced defeat.
Excellent blocking of actors in this expansive landscape, trailing these Native Americans along the top of a hill and against the sky.Ravaged villages and innocent lives lost – this is a mission of many failures, testing Brittles’ mettle as a leader.
Brittles’ final hours as Captain are approaching, yet the prospect of letting his men continue this mission without an effective plan or assured leadership is difficult to stomach. The silver pocket watch they gift him as a farewell present certainly doesn’t help to ease the sorrow either, earning a moment of genuine poignancy as John Wayne tears up – a rare sight to behold in any Western, let alone one directed by Ford.
Still, when else does one’s dutiful commitment shine brighter than at one’s lowest point? Against all else, this is the American ideal that She Wore a Yellow Ribbon holds in greatest esteem, especially when Brittles resolves to launch one last campaign before he is officially retired. At 12 minutes to midnight, he orders his bugler sound the charge and leads his troop into the Native American camp of renegades – not to inflict violence, but to scatter their horses into the wild. Silhouetted against the clouds of dust being kicked up behind them, Brittles’ cavalry rides swiftly with the stampede, grounding what is one of Ford’s finest set pieces in peace rather than subjugation. With no herd, these tribes have no means of mounting attacks, and are consequently forced to return to their reservations on foot rather than stoking further conflict.
A grand set piece in the dead of night – no blood is spilt as Brittles and his men drive the renegades’ horses into the wild, accomplishing their mission with peaceful diplomacy and tact.
Even in the aftermath, Ford continues to flex his mastery of sweeping landscapes as Brittles riding off into a red and purple sunset and towards new settlements in California, though this new civilian life is fleeting. As an officer delivers a letter recalling him to duty as Chief of Scouts, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon optimistically upholds that those who seek to serve their country will always find a place among the ranks of their fellow soldiers. After all, there is still much joy to be found in this community at Fort Starke, especially with Olivia and Flint finally announcing their engagement and becoming a perfect picture of an American idealism worth defending. “Wherever they rode and whatever they fought for, that place became the United States,” the closing voiceover proudly proclaims – and for all its dewy-eyed patriotism, Ford’s grand mythologising of historic archetypes cannot be criticised for a lack of sincere, rousing conviction.
Riding off into a jaw-dropping sunset, painting the frame with shades of red, orange, and purple that all bleed into each other.
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is currently available to purchase on Apple TV and Amazon Video.
Sergei Eisenstein | 2 Parts (1hr 40min, 1hr 26min)
So rapturous was the reception that Ivan the Terrible, Part I received from Joseph Stalin, it is hard to blame Sergei Eisenstein for recklessly pushing the boundaries of state censorship in its sequel. Both films are mirrors of each other – the first revealing an idealistic ambition in the young Ivan IV which Part II withers into paranoid cruelty, and together painting a vivid portrait of Eisenstein’s own shifting relationship with the Soviet Union. This was no longer the filmmaker who sought to reflect revolutionary principles in his experimental montage theory, but rather a disillusioned artist simultaneously defying and reluctantly cooperating with Stalin’s regime. It is a little ironic that the Communist dictator should see so much of him himself in the first Tsar of Russia, yet Eisenstein nevertheless took the metaphor as a creative challenge, risking his life and liberty to compose a vision of oppressive tyranny that stands true across centuries.
The casting of Nikolay Cherkasov as the imposing central figure here is particularly fascinating given his previous role in Alexander Nevsky, where he portrayed the titular 13th-century Prince of Novgorod. As a young, newly-coronated Ivan proudly declares Moscow a “Third Rome,” his eyes glisten with tears and hope, sentimentalising a vision of Russia’s future which doesn’t sound so different from Nevsky’s own utopian promise after vanquishing the Teutonic Knights.
Meticulous attention to detail in Eisenstein’s staging – this could very well be one of those images painted on the walls surrounding the young Tsar at his coronation, immortalised in history.
This is the ruler that Stalin admires, yet who is never viewed in such a pure light again after this moment, soon developing a distinctively hunched posture and angular facial features that become living extensions of Eisenstein’s majestic production design. Ivan’s bushy eyebrows, pointed beard, and crooked nose are virtually made for close-ups, and when his distinctive profile is cast in giant shadows upon the walls, he becomes a dark, physical embodiment of 16th century Russia’s formidable spirit.
An extraordinary performance from Nikolay Cherkasov, physically transforming into a hunched, crooked tyrant.Meticulous framing in Eisenstein’s deep focus, imposing Ivan’s visage upon the Russian people.An incredibly recognisable profile, cast against walls in darkened shadows.
Only the Kremlin’s lavish interiors can match his awe-inspiring majesty with religious iconography painted across arches and columns, reliefs carved from its stonework, and collectively resting the Tsar’s legacy upon centuries of culture and history. Eisenstein’s rich depth of field especially flourishes here, sinking the masses to the bottom of frames that revel in the overhead architecture, and symmetrically positioning Ivan at their centre. These vast, intricate halls of power may very well mark Eisenstein’s greatest achievement in mise-en-scene, borrowing heavily from F.W. Murnau’s expressionistic imagery to cloak characters in chiaroscuro lighting, and underscoring their constant psychological tension between good and evil.
Remarkable achievements in production design, sinking his actors to the bottom of the frame to bask in the murals painted all across these halls and arches.Wonderful symmetry through framing, blocking, and production design, projecting power and control.In the absence of formally innovative editing, Eisenstein turns his focus to composing magnificent shots like these through lighting and staging, marking Ivan the Terrible as his most beautiful work to date.
It is evident here that Eisenstein is far more than just an editor, though he nevertheless showcases those talents as well in the explosive siege of Kazan, where Ivan and his sprawling armies claim a stunning victory against the Khanate. As soldiers wait patiently upon hillsides with their cannons and banners, sappers furiously dig tunnels beneath the walled city to plant gunpowder, and Eisenstein clearly relishes the practical effects granted by his enormous budget when the time comes to blast brick, mortar, and smoke into the air. Rather than wielding his editing for intellectual purposes, here he dedicates it purely to the vast scale of his action, building Ivan’s grand authority upon the conquest of those who dare oppose his rule.
Eisenstein uses the natural terrain to block huge crowds of extras across hills, stretching their formations deep into the background.Eisenstein proves he still has his knack for action editing, lingering on the burning fuse before unleashing a series of spectacular explosions around the city walls.
For the most part though, the greatest political threats to the Tsar are located within his own ranks, as conspirators plot to install his simple-minded cousin Vladimir as Russia’s true sovereign. The political intrigue carries a Shakespearean gravity to it, modelling Ivan after the likes of Macbeth or Richard III, and watching his games of manipulation unfold with treacherous delight. When he falls deathly ill and names his son Dmitri as heir to the throne, his aunt Yefrosinya is quick to whisper into the embittered Prince Kurbsky’s ear, perniciously encouraging him to announce her son Vladimir as the rightful successor instead. Kurbsky is smart to sniff out Ivan’s test of his loyalty here, as almost immediately after carrying out his wishes, the recovered Tsar emerges from his chambers and rewards his allegiance.
Shakespearean power struggles, treachery, and intrigue – perhaps Eisenstein’s strongest pure narrative to date.
Yefrosinya, on the other hand, is not so restrained. Though she prefers to pull strings from the shadows, she isn’t above getting her hands dirty, going so far as to weaken Ivan’s rule by poisoning his wife Anastasia. Later when he makes an enemy of Metropolitan Philip by overruling his religious authority, Yefrosinya again leaps on the opportunity to stir dissent among his followers, only this time rallying them behind an assassination plot that targets Ivan himself.
The murder is to take place after a banquet and theatrical performance, where Ivan the Terrible suddenly departs from the black-and-white photography which has dominated Eisenstein’s career thus far and catches aflame with hellish red hues. This vibrant burst of colour is a shock to the senses, accompanying Ivan’s final and perhaps most despicable act. Having plied Vladimir with alcohol and extracted the conspiracy from his lips, he mockingly dresses him in his own royal regalia, and lets him lead his entourage to the cathedral in prayer. Black, hooded figures trail behind Vladimir like spectres of death, and from the shadows the killer pounces, sinking his dagger into the flesh of the disguised prince.
An avant-garde eruption of blazing red hues as Ivan prepares to commit his most despicable act yet – a shock to our senses.Shadows, candles, and hooded figures as Ivan’s plan is seen through to fruition, making for an outstanding visual and dramatic climax.
Yefrosinya’s celebration is critically premature. “The Tsar is dead!” she joyfully proclaims, before recognising the tragic turn of events which has befallen her son. Ivan cares so little for these traitors, he does not even bother to have them executed. After all, they are the ones who killed his worst enemy, and who have effectively destroyed themselves in the process.
With Ivan’s greatest threats in Moscow eradicated, the time has thus come for him to turn his attention to those on the outside – yet it is at this tantalising climax that we are left wondering what a third part to Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible trilogy might have looked like. Stalin’s fury at Part II’s tyrannical depiction of the Tsar not only kept the sequel from being released until 1958, but immediately ended production on Part III, destroying all but a single fragment of its footage. Even without completion though, the legacy of this truncated series is nevertheless secured in Eisenstein’s daring ambition. Through bold, inflammatory strokes, waves of Russian despotism are painted out in striking detail, reaching across centuries to impose familiar cruelties on this nation’s long-afflicted people.
Ivan the Terrible is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.
The fight that the western world puts up again Nazi Germany in 49th Parallel is not led by individual heroes or organised military units. It takes a communal sense of justice, democracy, and moral fortitude among everyday civilians to not only pick off the six Nazi submariners who have been stranded in Canada, but to also thoroughly undermine the narrow-minded, hateful ideology which guides their actions. With the United States still being considered neutral territory in 1941, the Niagara Falls border crossing is their destination, and so all Lieutenant Hirth and his men need to do is keep their heads down for the journey south. If these fugitives are to successfully find sanctuary though, then it isn’t just a victory for them – it is an alarming affirmation of fascist indomitability.
The fact that this is one of the few Michael Powell films to be shot in black-and-white rather than Technicolor does not mean he is any less confident with his chosen aesthetic. While other works of his such as Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes possess a similarly haunting wickedness, they are also far more fantastical than 49th Parallel, whose grim severity simply would not be suited to the same stylistic vibrance. In small scenes of contained drama, cinematographer Freddie Young instead captures Powell’s rich blocking and rigorous military formations with a deep focus lens, remarkably uninfluenced by his contemporary Orson Welles who was making Citizen Kane at the exact same time.
Michael Powell was primarily celebrated for the lush beauty of his Technicolor cinematography, but this visual style would have not suited the bleak austerity of 49th Parallel, capturing grim compositions of soldiers and civilians in severe black-and-white.
Even more impressive is the grand visual scale which Powell quite comfortably inhabits, executing spectacular stunts of exploding sea vessels and crashing planes, and flying his camera over vast coastlines in extraordinary aerial shots. When the Nazi fugitives make it to Winnipeg, he confronts them with a rainy city of neon signs and busy streets where bulletins call for their capture, though it is more often the expansive alpine terrains where these ill-prepared men are mentally worn down. Dressed in suits and fine shoes, they traverse sprawling pine forests, hike up barren mountain ranges, and follow raging rivers in the hope of finding some sort of civilisation again, yet the North American wilderness is not kind to these foreigners. With long shots as sweeping as these, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Young’s work here thoroughly prepared him for his incredible landscape photography in Lawrence of Arabia twenty-one years later, especially since the editor on 49th Parallel is David Lean himself.
Thrilling spectacle in the opening act of 49th Parallel, crashing planes and exploding sea vessels to set up the large scale of the narrative to come.Aerial shots of the Canadian wilderness, revealing the enormous scope of Powell’s narrative spanning hundreds of miles.Harsh mountain scenery consuming suited men ill-equipped for their environment – a deeply ingrained mismatch between characters and setting.
Underscoring the incongruency of the Nazis’ survival in Canada even more than the natural environment though is the people they encounter, each of whom possess some liberal value which they view as weakness through their dogmatic perspectives. Powell gathers an impressive cast in his ensemble here, including Laurence Olivier as a jovial trapper whose optimistic trust sees him shot and killed, and Leslie Howard as an English novelist who camps by a lake to mentally separate himself from the war. He is thoughtful and sensitive, shrewdly analysing the repetitive rhetoric used by fascists to manipulate the minds of susceptible listeners, and yet Hirth is nevertheless quick to label him a soft, degenerate coward who would rather talk than fight.
Lawrence Olivier’s brief cameo as a jovial Canadian trapper is worth savouring, as Powell pits his naive optimism against the opportunism of the Nazis.Leslie Howard’s English novelist offers the film’s sharpest indictment of Nazi ideology and rhetoric, embodying a sensitive sophistication that Hirth and his men disparage as weak.
49th Parallel may be a piece of wartime propaganda, but it is tough to deny the astuteness of its humanitarian arguments, especially when the fugitives are welcomed into a Hutterite farming community that houses German refugees. Anton Walbrook plays their leader Peter, an amiable man who views himself as a servant of his people, rather than the other way round – a shocking discovery for these fascists who are so used to heiling their Führer. Their blind belief that this community is a cover for Nazi sympathisers would almost be comical if Hirth’s impassioned speech inviting them to join him wasn’t met with such damning, disgusted silence, followed by a solemn response from Peter that further reveals how distant these humble Christians are from the monsters of their homeland.
“You think we hate you, but we don’t. It is against our faith to hate. We only hate the power of evil that is spreading over the world. You and your Hitler are like the microbes of some filthy disease, filled with a longing to multiply yourselves until you destroy everything healthy in the world. No. We are not your brothers.”
The stupid arrogance of the Nazis is revealed in Hirth’s attempted alliance with the Hutterite community, defiantly ignorant to the fact that many of them are refugees.
It is not these words alone which moves one of the fugitives to ally himself with the Hutterites, but Vogel’s brief experience of working as their baker and finding heartfelt acceptance among their ranks is enough for him to decide to stay permanently. We can only imagine what his reformation might have looked like had he been allowed to follow his own enlightened path though, as Hirth coldly executes him for treachery before departing with the remaining party.
The readiness of Nazis to abandon their own companions is plain to see all throughout Powell’s narrative, defining its very structure as their group gradually diminishes one-by-one in a similar fashion to Agatha Christie’s murder mystery And Then There Were None. Through plane accidents, executions, arrests, and physical assaults, each fugitive is stopped in their tracks, while the others continue their relentless march south to the Canada-United States border where they might finally be safe. The danger around them increases tenfold once they start drawing attention in the media, but so too does the subsequent news from back home praising them as national heroes spur them on, right up until Hirth is left as the sole survivor struggling to the finish line.
Like Agatha Christi’s novel And Then There Were None, Powell picks off his characters one by one, giving 49th Parallel a rigorous formal structure.
It is there on a freight train heading past Niagara Falls into New York that the German lieutenant encounters Andy, another stowaway similarly keeping a low profile due to his desertion of the Canadian army. “You’re a deserter because you have a legitimate grievance against your democratic government,” Hirth acclaims, but this disloyal soldier does not take so kindly to the Nazi once he learns of his true identity.
“You can’t even begin to understand democracy. We own the right to be fed up with anything we damn please and say so out loud when we feel like it. And when things go wrong, we can take it. We can dish it out too.”
True to Andy’s patriotic sentiments, it is exactly Hirth’s underestimation of the power that democracy vests in ordinary citizens which brings about his downfall. That the deciding moment of his victory rests on the shoulders of a lowly Canadian deserter and a US Customs inspector makes for a tremendous formal pay-off to this narrative, which has consistently underscored the ability of trappers, farmers, and writers alike to weaken fascism’s forward advance. Sacrifices must be made in the struggle, and yet Powell’s wartime fable effectively cloaks these in glory, vigorously rousing the then-neutral United States of 1941 to take up arms against Nazi Germany with egalitarian pride and honour.
It is not a concerted military effort that stop the Nazis in their tracks, but rather the democratic actions of ordinary civilians, right up to Hirth’s attempt to cross the Canada-United States border as the last man standing.
49th Parallel is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to purchase on Amazon.
