Category: 1971

Two English Girls (1971)

François Truffaut | 2hr 10min

The first time François Truffaut adapted the young adult literature of Henri-Pierre Roché on film, he shook up the entire artform with Jules and Jim, telling the story of two male friends who fall for the same woman. When he directed Two English Girls nine years later, the love triangle which forms between aspiring French writer Claude and English sisters Muriel and Ann bore extraordinarily close resemblance to its gender-swapped counterpart, though it is evident that this is no accident. Much like Roché himself, Claude distils the romantic experiences of his youth into a semi-autobiographic novel pointedly titled ‘Jerome and Julien’, trying to heal his broken heart through artistic self-expression.

An incredible accomplishment of mise-en-scène for Truffaut, working wonders with the colours and textures of 1900s Europe.

Once again, Truffaut makes Roché’s work his own in Two English Girls, casting himself as our omniscient narrator. Through this voiceover he lifts passages directly from the source material, imbuing Two English Girls with a literary quality that probes the interior thoughts of his characters, and condensing lengthy conversations into prosaic summaries. Particularly in the early days of Claude and the Brown sisters’ burgeoning friendship, the rhetoric devices that Truffaut attaches to their leisurely adventures tenderly defines each individual in relation to the others, while uniting them as a whole under self-reflective similes.

“They stopped to gaze at a waterfall. They agreed that the upper smooth falls were like Ann, the turbulent splashes were like Claude, and the calm pool beneath like Muriel.”

Truffaut’s voiceover is not alone though, as letters and diary entries written by our three leads are often expressed in this pensive form too, while on a couple of occasions he even cuts to them directly addressing the camera. “Your ironic raised eyebrow, your face when you laugh, are etched inside me,” Claude romantically writes with Muriel on his mind.

“Each day is a new step. I imagine you as my wife, raising a child in our home. This vision enthrals me.”

The ocean and house become scenic backdrops from high angles, basking in the green, rugged coast of Wales.

These days spent in the Browns’ seaside cottage atop the craggy, green cliffs of Wales may be the most joyful of their lives, held up as a vision of youthful bliss by Néstor Almendros’ ravishing cinematography. Truffaut often frames their interactions outside the house from a high angle, turning the ocean into a serene backdrop, and the lush gardens into a fertile paradise. There, Ann finds immense inspiration for her oil paintings, while Muriel is given the time and space to soothe her damaged eyes. The 1900s period décor that adorns the interiors here are equally handsome, especially in Truffaut’s use of bright blue, mottled wallpaper that sets an oceanic contrast against the harsh red walls of Claude’s home back in France.

Oceanic blue wallpaper in Wales, offering a soothing respite from Paris.
Blazing red backdrops at Claude’s home in France – locations defined by colour palettes.

With both Muriel and Claude’s mothers objecting to their proposed matrimony, Paris is where he inevitably returns, abiding by their deal that the two lovers may marry if they are able to spend a year apart from each other. While Muriel yearns for her fiancé back home though, it unfortunately doesn’t take long for Claude to fall into bohemian circles and promiscuous affairs, eventually driving him to eschew all romantic commitments so that he may focus on his career as a writer.

This might almost end their connection altogether were it not for Ann’s visit to Paris some time later as a successful painter, thus beginning a new relationship – at least until she heads off to Persia with another man. Over the following years, the two sisters’ irregular visits to the French city keep Claude in a constant state of turbulence, cycling between the outgoing, adventurous Ann and the quiet, sensitive Muriel.

Quaint iris transitions close out chapters in these characters lives, calling back to silent cinema.
Gentle long dissolves between scenes, bringing a lyrical quality to Truffaut’s storytelling.

Though Two English Girls spans almost a decade of these characters’ lives, Truffaut does not rush his narrative, but much rather prefers to savour each individual encounter before skipping ahead in time. In the absence of literary chapters, his elliptical editing frequently bridges scenes in gentle fades to black, while closing out episodes in their lives with iris transitions calling back to cinema’s silent era. The playful energy that these bring is distinctly set apart from the melodramas of Truffaut’s classical Hollywood precursors, especially given his light-hearted indulgence in his characters’ sexual exploits, though he has certainly at least taken on their influence in his picturesque recreation of 1900s Europe.

Ann’s art studio is a bohemian mess of paintings, sculptures, and art supplies laying around the room.
Claude and Ann consummate their relationship during a brief escape to a lakeside cabin – a picturesque, nostalgic paradise.

Ann’s art studio which she sets up in Paris is a highlight of bohemian production design, its rough sketches, relief sculptures, and messy array of supplies curiously studied by Truffaut’s floating camera, while the cabin that she and Claude stay in by a lake makes a gorgeous setting for the consummation of their relationship. Elsewhere, Muriel’s most beautiful scenes keep her at a lonely distance, seeing her write broken-hearted diary entries from behind a rain-glazed window and super-imposing her face over passing country views outside a train. The love that Claude holds for both women cannot be compared, though Truffaut elevates them equally in his protagonist’s eyes, even as their desires and insecurities frequently escape his efforts to keep one or the other by his side.

Muriel is kept at a lonely distance behind rain-glazed windows as she writes broken-hearted diary entries.
Muriel reads her letter to Claude, her face superimposed against the passing countryside view from a train as Truffaut visually infuses her monologue with passion and vigour.

That Claude is still single fifteen years later in the epilogue of Two English Girls reveals just how deeply both women scarred his heart, with an ailing Ann eventually passing away and Muriel deciding that he could never be a father to her children. “We only recognise happiness in hindsight,” she once wrote, and now as he observes a group of young English girls playing in Paris, it is apparent that these words have stuck in his mind. Perhaps if there is one who bears resemblance to Muriel, then it could be her daughter, returning a trace of her mother and aunt’s essence to the streets of their youth. As far as Truffaut is concerned though, these are simply the musings of a middle-aged man who only chased after real love when it was too late, now left to mourn the memories of two beautiful women who disappeared with his heart into the ether.

Truffaut leaves us on an ambiguous note, denying the resolution that Claude seeks as he wonders if a remnant of his treasured memories still lingers somewhere in the world.

Two English Girls is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to purchase from Amazon.

The Devils (1971)

Ken Russell | 1hr 51min

The French Wars of Religion had long since passed by the time the fortified town of Loudon became the epicentre of lingering tension between Catholics and Protestants in the 17th century, setting the scene in The Devils for a battle fought not with weapons, but political and religious manipulation. Urbain Grandier, the outspoken priest charged with defending the statehood of Loudon, is popular among the people for standing firmly with its high Protestant population, while making enemies of those Catholic authorities who deem him a threat. If Loudon is to be demolished and subjected to the rule of the Catholic Church though, then it would take more than an assassination to undermine Grandier’s influence. The priest must be so thoroughly discredited to the point of humiliation that no one can stand by his side without suffering the same ostracisation, thus bringing the rest of the town to its knees in feeble surrender.

It is incredibly good timing then that Sister Jeanne des Anges should come forward with baseless accusations of witchcraft aimed squarely at Grandier right as the Church begins conspiring against him. Though she is the abbess of the local Ursuline convent in Loudon, she is an outsider among her own nuns, tormented by sexual desire for Grandier and filled with self-loathing over her hunchback. “Take away my hump!” she prays in screaming agony, longing to be seen for once as beautiful. As such, when she discovers that Grandier has married another local woman, her furious, vindictive jealousy is unleashed.

A magnificently unsettling performance from Vanessa Redgrave as the villainous Sister Jeanne des Agnes, weaponising the blind faith and fear of the city, but also carrying her own insecurities as she struggles with sexual temptation.

Ken Russell’s narrative and characters here are rooted heavily in recorded history, yet the parallels shared between The Devils and Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible are extremely visible. Both storytellers are heavily concerned with humanity’s natural tendency towards irrational fear, and how it drove the discrimination against individuals in a pair of 17th century settings. Where Miller sought to write an allegory for 1950s McCarthyism by studying the infectious hysteria of the Salem witch trials though, Russell feverishly opposes 1970s religious conservatism in The Devils, treading far more explicit ground with violence and nudity that triggered the censors to come down hard with an X rating.

Sacrilege and blasphemy – Ken Russell pushes the boundaries of censorship in 70s Britain with the ‘Rape of Christ,’ violently subverting theological symbolism.

From Russell’s perspective though, the outrage that surrounded The Devils would have been far more justified had it been directed at the harsh subject matter it is depicting. He particularly expressed frustration over the deletion of the scene he called the “Rape of Christ,” in which Sister Jeanne masturbates using the charred femur of the deceased Grandier following his execution. Even without this though, Christianity’s perversion of its own spiritual icons rings loudly throughout The Devils, framing Grandier as a persecuted saviour being punished for the sins of the world. Vanessa Redgrave may steal every one of her scenes with Sister Jeanne’s hunched posture and seething contempt, but Oliver Reed’s commanding presence is a steady, unwavering force among Russell’s visual chaos, taking to the screen with the booming confidence of a seasoned theatre actor. As he is cruelly interrogated by the Church, he delivers monologues with resounding gravitas, shamefully confessing his flaws as a prideful, even lecherous man while meeting Sister Jeanne’s accusations of sneaking into her bed with righteous indignation.

“Call me vain and proud, the greatest sinner to ever walk in God’s Earth! But Satan’s boy I could never be! I haven’t the humility. I know what I have done, and I am prepared for what I shall reap. But do you, Reverend Mother, know what you must give to have your wish about me fulfilled? I will tell you. Your immortal soul to eternal damnation. May God have mercy on you.”

A magnificent close-up of Reed’s profile facing the light of heaven, yet shrouded in darkness.
Russell’s eye for composition when it comes to blocking his ensemble is astounding, filling out the height of his frame on both sides and enclosing a vulnerable Grandier in the centre.
Reed delivers a career-best performance as Grandier, facing unjust persecution yet standing firm by his principles.

Grandier is far from sinless, but what man living at this time of religious corruption and violence isn’t? In their monochrome garments, Russell’s characters often blend in seamlessly with the clean white masonry and darkened rooms of Loudon, becoming one with the dominant palette that tangibly manifests their harsh moral binaries. The town of perfectly rounded arches and geometric skyline makes for a remarkable feat of production design too, combining the stark minimalism of The Passion of Joan of Arc with the architectural ambition of Metropolis, and formally drawing this austerity through rigorously blocked scenes of black-and-white crowds.

Russell’s brutalist, black-and-white architecture is a triumph of production design, his geometric shapes towering over ensembles who carry through that palette of harsh moral binaries.

It is no coincidence that the one figure who doesn’t conform to Russell’s sparse visual design is the puppeteer of Loudon’s witch hunt, sitting high above the fray. Dressed in his blood-red robes and wheeled around by servants, Cardinal Richelieu appears to be the only true demon in this town’s vicinity, determined to destroy the man who stands between him and the demolition of Loudon’s walls. Where Sister Jeanne acts impulsively on a wounded ego and even attempts to hang herself late in the film, Richelieu carefully orchestrates Loudon’s descent into madness, chaotically underscored by a writhing, discordant cacophony of pipe organs, trumpets, and percussion. In this period setting, the anachronistic jazz of Peter Maxwell Davies does not seem so unholy as it does viciously anarchic, matching confronting scenes of nuns playing up their fake possession with an equally disturbing soundscape.

The Cardinal aggressively breaks through the monochrome palette with his bright red robes, symbolically drenched in blood of innocents.
Russell stages chaos with hysterical fervour, as if adopting the anarchy of a late-career Fellini film and possessing it with something demonic.

Only when Grandier has perished through fiery injustice at the stake does silence settle over the town again, albeit one that is despairingly lifeless. His refusal to confess to the false charges may be the only solace to be taken from this, as it is with his last breath that the walls of Loudon come crumbling down in chilling synchronicity, ushering in apocalyptic scenes of ruin and suffering. Right to the final frame, Russell’s theological symbolism continues to inform his magnificent visuals and narrative, as his camera sits on a long shot of Grandier’s wife Madeleine approach an opening in the town’s demolished fortifications.

No longer drawing a clean divide between its shades of black and white, The Devils’ bleak scenery sinks into a dirty greyscale, as the widow trudges over a mountain of debris and exits what was once a vice-ridden yet relatively sheltered Garden of Eden. No longer do the strings and woodwinds clash in fervent rhythms, yet still they whine and wander through dissonant harmonies as Madeleine shuffles forward into an uncertain future. The Devils may be set in 17th century France, and yet with his final note Russell’s mourning of what religious tyranny has destroyed continues to escape a narrow relegation to the distant past, infusing his cautionary tale with a bitter, anachronistic timelessness.

A bitter, solemn ending, shifting away from the stark black-and-white palette and shifting into a medium greyscale as Grandier’s widow leaves a ruined city now totally dominated by religious tyranny.

The Devils is available to purchase from Amazon.

The Andromeda Strain (1971)

Robert Wise | 2hr 11min

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Touch (1971)

Ingmar Bergman | 1hr 55min

David’s motivation to come to Sweden might come down to the recent archaeological discovery of a 500-year-old Madonna statue in a medieval church, but it is his affair with housewife Karin that compels him to stay. Between both these influences on his life, Ingmar Bergman draws strange, almost mystical parallels in The Touch – this Madonna figure bears a striking resemblance to his deceased mother, and later the breakdown of his relationship with Karin manifests physically in its decay, mixing Christian and Freudian symbolism. There is also something primal about those centuries-old, hibernating insects which now eat away it from the inside, reflecting the baby which later grows in Karin’s womb as a constant reminder of her failed relationships. Faith may not be at the centre of Bergman’s interrogation here as it has been so many times before, but its corruption is tangibly present in this divine motif.

No doubt this is a relatively new direction for Bergman at this point in his career, who for the first time writes a screenplay largely in English and casts an American in a leading role. Elliot Gould is volatile as David, violently swinging between overbearing affection and withdrawn melancholy, and offering a trauma-ridden counterpoint to Bibi Andersson’s apprehensive Karin. The barrier between them extends far beyond emotional misunderstanding – culturally, the two come from completely different places, with David bearing the scars of the Holocaust concentration camps, and Karin knowing little of the world beyond her Swedish town.

Given that Bergman was targeting this film to American audiences, it isn’t surprising that he shapes its style to a more typically Nordic aesthetic than usual, lingering on the delicate scenery of historical villages and autumnal foliage. When it comes to the upbeat folk score of piano and woodwinds, Bergman falters a little more, striking a jarring tone that doesn’t always match the film’s pensive sorrow. The Touch possesses neither the stylistic grandeur nor the allegorical richness of The Virgin Spring, but these elements still work in service of a similar Garden of Eden metaphor, carefully designing an idyllic paradise that is slowly leeched of colour the longer David is around to exert his corrupting influence.

If David represents Satan in this case, then it is only due to the influence of evil from elsewhere in the world. With most of his Jewish family falling to the Nazi regime, he has been left with a blend of unresolved traumas and toxic behaviours, leaving him to unintentionally inflict his own trauma upon others. The notion of original sin is even suggested in the mention of a congenital condition that he inherited from his ancestors and will pass onto his children, and serpentine imagery often surrounds him in Bergman’s mise-en-scène. There is no doubt that he is the one who brings temptation into Karin’s life, but we cannot brand him as totally evil – merely a sufferer of a greater historical tragedy that even a neutral country such as Sweden cannot keep from penetrating its borders.

It stands to reason then that Max von Sydow is the God figure in this tale, with Andreas’ occupation as a life-giving doctor standing in contrast to David’s archaeological fascination with death. His home life with Karin is peaceful, if not particularly passionate, and when she contemplates following David to London he effectively ousts her from the garden. Gone are the warm colours of falling leaves and sunny skies, and in their place are the frigid landscapes of a harsh Swedish winter.

Even with some decent cinematographic work from Sven Nykvist on display though, The Touch sits among Bergman’s more stylistically plain efforts, grating up against a screenplay that is often awkwardly written. Gould fares a little better than Andersson here who struggles with her dialogue, and the isolated choice to depict some letters through talking heads marks a clumsy formal flaw. This messiness continues right through to the very final scene, jarringly ending at a climactic peak of emotion with little resolution, and unfortunately detracting from its gorgeous wide shot on a riverbank which is otherwise one of the film’s strongest compositions.

Nevertheless, The Touch is not a failure by any means, but simply a lull between two fruitful periods of Bergman’s career. On one side, his magnificent run through the 1960s set him up as one of history’s truly great directors, while in the 70s he would push his formal experimentation further with Cries and Whispers and Scenes from a Marriage. Regardless of how this measures up in comparison, his wielding of theological symbolism to interrogate a broken love triangle is deft, bitterly driving the Madonna’s image of degraded goodness between his doomed, corrupted lovers.

The Touch is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV.

Trafic (1971)

Jacques Tati | 1hr 37min

They say that dogs often look like their owners, but in the modern world of Trafic where automobiles become companions to humans on their endless journeys to nowhere, Jacques Tati cannot help noting the shared characteristics between them. One suited man sits in a black Mercedes-Benz, puffing on a cigar while his windscreen wipers drag themselves in slow, steady motions. Elsewhere, some other wipers on a car driven by a senile old man weakly twitch on the verge of breaking down, another pair clearing the vision of two chattering women match their flappy hand gestures with equal erraticism, and those on a hippy truck seem to groove along in rhythmic unison. In Tati’s magnificently whimsical worlds, characters are not defined by their personal thoughts and feelings, but by the modernist infrastructure around them, acting as extensions of their own idiosyncratic personalities.

Cars used as extensions of people, connecting humanity to their inefficient, idiosyncratic machines.

By that logic, it follows that these new technologies aren’t the faultless solutions to contemporary living that they are cracked up to be – if humans are inherently flawed, then so too are their creations. Therein lies the perfect entrance for the bumbling Monsieur Hulot in his fourth and final film appearance, this time as a car designer with a new model to show off at an auto show in Amsterdam. Quite appropriately, this vehicle is as unorthodox as its owner, being created for the specific purpose of camping with a shaver built into the steering wheel and the front grille transforming into a literal barbeque grill. It is nothing less than the product of a mad inventor, acting on his own creative impulses untethered from conventional notions of what customers think they need, or what businesses think will make them money.

It is quite fortunate that this is the car Hulot and his publicity agent, Maria, are stuck with on their cross-country drive to the auto show, especially as it proves to be a hit with the police officers who impound the vehicle for failing to stop at border control. The reason is simple enough – the wave the custom guards give to stop them is simply taken as a friendly greeting, and this misunderstanding quickly escalates into one of many major delays encountered on their journey. Tati delights in devolving ordered arrangements of road travel into beautiful chaos all through Trafic, expertly choreographing one freeway pile-up like a comical ballet of cars impressively balancing on their front wheels, pirouetting off to the side, and bonnets flapping up and down of their own accord. In the aftermath, about a dozen drivers stumble out of their damaged vehicles in a confused daze, and without any notion of what to do next, silently begin stretching their limbs and cleaning up the minimal debris with a dustpan broom.

An expertly choreographed freeway pile-up plays like a comic ballet of cars performing complex dance moves.

Inane as it is, the rigid order that we impose upon ourselves through car and traffic systems evidently cannot stand to be broken, making virtually every aspect of automobile culture the perfect target for Tati’s satire, from the hardcore fans to the everyday drivers. It goes without saying that his framing of physical gags in wide shots is consistently seamless in playing with our perspective of specific events, such as Hulot stepping into a car at the auto show, before swiftly revealing the punchline we couldn’t see before, like flipping that car upside-down to expose it as a bisected display vehicle.

The silent cinema influence is showing in Tati’s framing of these gags in wide shots, framed perfectly to conceal the full context of the scene until the punchline.

But Tati also does not get enough credit as a skilled montagist, particularly displaying his talent here in matching the rhythms of his cutting to the mechanical routines of cars and humans. In the opening credits, the automobile manufacturing facility chugs its machinery along to consistent, comical beats, and later Tati turns the tedium of rush hour into an amusing sequence that simply observes drivers picking their noses and yawning, as if bound by common ritual. Such arbitrary customs extend into the auto show as well where he plays his mise-en-scène like an orchestra, opening and slamming car boots in syncopated patterns, and swallowing up an entire crowd of enthusiasts collectively sticking their heads under a single bonnet.

The opening montage at the automobile factory setting a rhythm carried through the film in its sound design and editing – Tati plays the mise-en-scène like an orchestra.
Social satire caught in these images with machines literally swallowing up humans.

Trafic may not possess the sheer ambition of Tati’s previous films, least of all the monumental feat of production design that is Playtime, but his resourcefulness remains as remarkable as ever in picking apart humanity’s absurd and futile attempts at progress. Within the mere image of heavy traffic, he uncovers an endlessly rich source of satirical material, recognising that the attempts of those drivers trying to get somewhere while helplessly sitting in stagnant crowds of high-tech metal boxes may be the ultimate paradox of an inept modern society.

The perfect paradox of modern society – these machines designed to push us into the future keep us rooted to the spot.

Trafic is currently available to stream on The Criterion Channel.

The Last Picture Show (1971)

Peter Bogdanovich | 2hr 6min

Perhaps in the days of the Old West, the tiny Texan town of Anarene may have been a bustling hub of oil mining and transportation. By the time The Last Picture Show picks up the story of teenagers Duane, Sonny, and Jacy in 1951 though, that landscape of idealistic prosperity is nothing but a sad, faded memory, whistling in the wind down the empty main road and faintly recalled in the crumbling facades of old storefronts. The adults who keep it running are an assortment of disillusioned schoolteachers, small business owners, and blue-collar workers, parenting a generation of children who have no frame of reference for anything greater. Whatever the American Dream looks like for them, it is not going to happen here.

Bogdanovich’s creative and thoughtful uses of his deep focus lens to capture compositions like these, making full use of both the background and foreground to build out the small town of Anarene.

As a film historian, Peter Bogdanovich does not so much pioneer cinema in The Last Picture Show as he does reflect on its past and the cultures it has represented. It should be no surprised that Orson Welles acted as his mentor during production, and the influence there extends far beyond the mere fact that he encouraged him to shoot in black-and-white. The deep focus photography that so beautifully captures Bogdanovich’s ensemble layered through frames in strikingly staged compositions directly calls back to Welles’ own distinct visual style, and the thick air of melancholic nostalgia that has settled over this once-glorious town at times even feels like a post-war Southern transposition of The Magnificent Ambersons. Car doors and diner blinds become frames through which we watch characters haunt these streets like wandering ghosts, drifting down lonely roads or otherwise congregating with peers to pass the time, waiting for the day they either escape this town or die in it.

The town’s infrastructure becoming frames trapping its inhabitants within its own boundaries, whether through a set of blinds or a car door.

For the teenagers living here, that is essentially the choice they are presented with, and the end of high school is the deadline for it to be made. Accordingly, anyone over the age of eighteen is part of the population that decided to stay, whether out of some sentimental loyalty or lack of prospects. As wonderful as the younger cast is here with Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, and Cybill Shepherd each affectingly capturing the ennui of youth, there is an even deeper poignancy to the performances from Bogdanovich’s older actors, with Cloris Leachman and Ellen Burstyn both stealing scenes as disillusioned housewives, Ruth Popper and Lois Farrow, each living inert existences. “Everything gets old if you do it long enough,” laments Lois to her daughter, Jacy, actively trying to corrupt her naïve idealism into the same tired discontent that has taken over her generation, and it is only a matter of time before she is successful.

Ben Johnson similarly has a world-weariness about him as Sam the Lion, though as the small businessman keeping the local pool, movie theatre, and café alive, he also carries a spark of the town’s old pride about him. He is stern but kind towards the local teenagers, evidently caring more about their growth than anyone else, and even spending time with them out at the “tank”, a bleak fishing spot depleted of fish. It is the flat, bleak Texan scenery which entices him there, and as he sits rolling cigarettes with Sonny and Billy, a mentally disabled neighbourhood boy, he wistfully reminisces the “old times” just twenty years ago when he took a past lover out to this same pond. Bogdanovich slowly dollies his camera in on his face, inviting us into his story of how they skinny dipped and rode horses across the water, and telling of the bright zeal for life he saw in that woman. “You wouldn’t believe how this country’s changed,” he wistfully ruminates, and given the later reveal that this woman was in fact Lois, we can infer that he is mourning the cultural shift in its people just as much as he is the physical landscape.

Flat, rural Texan scenery on the outskirts of Anarene, with dead trees and overcast skies making up Bogdanovich’s mise-en-scène.
Dollying in on Ben Johnson’s affecting monologue, reminiscing a long-gone past.

Cynical as she is, it isn’t hard to imagine a younger version of Lois behaving much like her coquettish daughter. Back then she might have flirted with men she wasn’t supposed to, but by the time we meet her here she is more or less representative of the adults in town, neglecting the widening emotional gap between her and her child. With little guidance from their elders, the teens of Anarene meander from one social gathering to the next, hoping to lose their virginity just for the sake of saying they have done it. All across the town, through cars and diners, Hank Williams’ twanging country vocals provides the diegetic soundtrack to their lives, matching their own lonesome struggles with bluesy musings over lovesickness and longing. Breaking this monotony does not prove to be easy though, with even sex proving to be dissatisfying and attempts to stir up controversy brewing nothing but shame.

Superb blocking of both actors and set dressing across layers of the frame, bring visual depth to the town and its community.

Still, what else is there to do? We get the sense that Sonny’s affair with Ruth, the wife of his school coach, has little to do with any genuine romantic feelings, and more to do with a desire to rebel, though even when word about it gets out into the community the reaction is disappointing. Meanwhile, Jacy is on a fruitless quest for attention, strip teasing at a pool party and choosing to date whoever she thinks might make for a good story. Shepherd is simply luminous in this role, naturally drawing the eye even in crowds, and challenging our sympathies when she so thoughtlessly discards the emotions of others in favour of her own self-centredness. Much like virtually everything she does, her elopement with Sonny is nothing more than an attempt to win the attention of her parents. When she catches sight of a police car on the road to Oklahoma, a little smile appears in the corner of her mouth, grateful that she is being stopped before following through on her small rebellion.

Cybill Shepherd is luminous as Jacy, always the centre of attention in Bogdanovich’s framing and lighting.
Sam’s funeral is a sombre affair, sunk low in the frame in this wide shot with Jacy once again standing out in her white dress.

With the death of Sam and the closing of his movie theatre, there is little hope left that this town will ever return to the glory of its old days again. Red River is the last film to play there, projecting a vision of the Old West up on the screen for the tiny audience of Duane and Sonny witnessing this part of the town’s history die out. Not long after, the two friends part ways, their decisions made regarding whether they will continue to haunt this limbo or make their way into the larger world beyond its borders. Given that the Korean War is Duane’s destination, it is tough to say whether he will find the meaning in his life that he is searching for. Still, at least it is a change of pace from Anarene’s dreariness, growing even more mundane with each passing generation.

In the end, Bogdanovich leaves us exactly where he picked us up at the start – stranded on the dusty, windy streets, panning across its desolate infrastructure as if searching for some lingering sign of life. It might be a barren beauty which infests The Last Picture Show, but as we grow to understand the small lives and histories dotted through its community, Bogdanovich also sensitively paints it out as a tactile landscape of feeble dreams and disappointments.

The deteriorating architecture of Anarene photographed beautifully in these wides, turning the town into its own crumbling character.

The Last Picture Show is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to rent or buy on iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon Video.

The French Connection (1971)

William Friedkin | 1hr 41min

There is a lot resting on the detective instincts of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection. If we had any less faith in his assumptions, he might come off as a far more incompetent character than he is. Even though he proves his resourcefulness right from the very first scene in getting the information he seeks from a suspect, we still harbour some reservations around his methods and the extreme lengths he will often go to. At his loudest and most persistent, he will speed down a busy highway, destroying several cars and risking his own life to hunt down a dangerous assassin, though he is also just as willingly to stand patiently outside in the freezing cold for hours on end, waiting to catch sight of a suspect. There is no spectrum of possibility or effort in his work – everything is either a lead worth following to its bitter end, or not worth his time at all. 

All it takes is one of those hunches for Popeye to latch onto a $32 million shipment of heroin arriving in New York in a few weeks’ times, and then he’s off, spinning himself up in a cat-and-mouse chase with a drug syndicate led by French mobster Alain Charnier. Around them is a vision of America’s most populous city grounded in raw cinematic realism, flooded with stagnant puddles of muddy water and coated in at least a few layers of grime. Working in the same vein as the French auteurs of the 1960s who moved their films beyond artificial studio sets to shoot on location, William Friedkin takes to the streets of New York to capture a level of authenticity that cannot be replicated anywhere else, right down to the steam billowing out from underground vents. Its instantly recognisable cityscape looms tall in backgrounds, and he often washes it in a natural blue light which, while certainly beautiful at times in its softness, more frequently works to encase these detectives and criminals in the harsh frigidity of the New York winter. 

Inspired by the Italian neo-realists, Friedkin uses his shooting location as a derelict character unto itself, often washing it in this blue natural light that emphasises its cold, gritty authenticity.

It is also a city of remarkable disparity though, and we can gage a lot about where these cops and criminals stand in how Friedkin works to contrast them in his editing. While Charnier is fine dining with associates in a high-end restaurant, Popeye is staking out the building with his partner, Cloudy, standing outside for hours on end, eating nothing but greasy pizza and coffee. At another point while Charnier stands atop skyscrapers overlooking magnificent views, Popeye remains down on ground level, barely allowing himself any time off the job to relax. Where Charnier’s dialogue is refined and mannered, Popeye proves himself to be a true New Yorker in his fast-talking mix of shouts and mumbles, offering a magnificent Gene Hackman the chance to improvise entire sequences with extraordinary vigour and naturalism.

Magnificent form in how Friedkin shoots Popeye on the ground versus how he shoots Charnier against the towering New York cityscape.

Where the two sides of this city are bound together is in their incredible intelligence and patience, relying on their wits to outsmart each other in this complex dance of crime and justice. Popeye is methodical in his manipulations, shifting his tactics to either befuddle, intimidate, or give his suspects false confidence depending on what the situation calls for, and though this works for low-level crooks who lack judiciousness and restraint, Charnier makes for a fairly equal match in his crafty machinations. In a sequence of pure tension and visual storytelling, Popeye stalks the mobster through the streets and underground stations of New York, and in Don Ellis’ grumbling staccato underscore of cellos and double basses he accompanies each glimpse of Charnier’s silver umbrella with a metal clang. Friedkin’s editing jumps lightly between both men, matching the movements of their legs as if racing the two against each other, and finally ending this dance when Popeye falls a second behind, letting Charnier make his getaway.

Repetitive rhythms in the editing – Charnier’s legs, Popeye’s legs, Charnier descending the stairs, and the next shot following Popeye right behind him.

A similar juxtaposition is also set out in one of the greatest car chases committed to film, where we see a hitman run onto a train in the chaotic aftermath of a failed assassination, and Popeye defiantly driving after him beneath an elevated railway. It is a great feat of editing, not just in the fast-moving action of his destructive pursuit along the crowded avenue, but also in the intercutting of his target’s actions on the train, growing steadily more desperate until he commits a fatal error in drawing attention to himself. Friedkin achieves a thrillingly tight balance here, once again pitting Popeye against yet another criminal, though one significantly less competent than Charnier.

Smoothly intercutting between Popeye’s car chase and the hitman making his getaway on the train directly above him. A fine piece of editing belonging among the best of the 1970s.
A bullet in the back capping Popeye’s ruthless hunt, and creating perhaps the film’s most recognisable image.

Outside these high-intensity scenes of life and death, Popeye is playing a game of patience. The same patience is asked of us in Friedkin’s meticulous teasing out of this narrative, with the inbuilt promise that there will eventually be some sort of reward for it, whether that be a victory for the police or the drug traffickers. It is certainly the case in each stake out, as well as the meticulously detailed sequence of a suspicious car being dismantled part by part to discover where the bags of heroin might be hidden, though it also one that Friedkin turns on us in the film’s final minutes, when we find ourselves waiting for the biggest pay-off of all. As we approach the denouement, Popeye’s success in busting the drug operation is abruptly soured by his own need for personal vengeance, chasing after Charnier through a dilapidated warehouse where he inadvertently shoots and kills a colleague. This might as well be a footnote to the rest of the scene though, as the detective barely stops to ponder his guilt before moving onto the next room over. Meanwhile, the camera hangs back, as if finally exhausted by his stubborn persistence.

In this moment, there is no resounding climax where Popeye or Charnier finally face off and decide who dies. Instead, a series of title cards simply informs us of their relatively unspectacular futures, both making it out alive though with nothing to gain or celebrate. In any earlier era of Hollywood filmmaking, The French Connection might have once drawn out this bitter feud to a poetically fateful ending, though in this thrilling tense narrative of sharp, biting cynicism, Friedkin chooses to finally separate us from Popeye’s obstinate need for closure, and instead allows us to simply sit in the disappointment of his demoralising personal failure.

This dark, abandoned warehouse makes for a fantastic set piece, and an especially great final shot as Popeye runs away from the camera into the next room.

The French Connection is currently available to stream on Disney Plus, and to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Stanley Kubrick | 2hr 16min

The labels of cynicism and disillusion often stuck to Stanley Kubrick should not be taken to imply misanthropy, as even here in A Clockwork Orange where he expresses perhaps his most scathing condemnation of humanity, there is still a wonder and adoration of that which makes this species so vulnerable and unique. With our right to free will comes our liberty to conduct truly heinous acts, but tied to it is also our potential to create and appreciate works of art, as well as to stand up against other evil. It isn’t just an inalienable right in this film – it is the very source of human life, as crucial to each person’s welfare as it is vulgar and repulsive. To cut that off is essentially a form of castration, or as Alex DeLarge’s victim, Frank Alexander, puts so succinctly:

“When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.”

It is from this philosophical reasoning that Kubrick’s inspired, repulsive aesthetic explodes outwards, marking nearly every corner of this dystopian British society with phallic symbols as overt as explicit paintings, lollipops, and bulging jock straps, or as subtly suggestive as long-nosed masks, canes, and Alex’s snake Basil, who mysteriously dies the moment his masculine assertion of freedom is revoked.

One of the great movie openers – a long, slow tracking shot backwards from a close-up to a wide, revealing the perversity of Alex’s environment.

From the very first shot in which the camera tracks backwards from Alex’s disturbing gaze and slowly reveals a tableau of young men dressed in white, drinking milk atop tables fashioned out of naked female sculptures, his own character is established by the perversity of the environment. Through his voiceover in a drawling, Russian-tinted dialect we gain a very specific, youth-oriented view of this society that has fallen prey to its pleasure-seeking instincts, and left to rot by weak, materialistic adults who focus more on decorating their homes with garish, mismatching designs than cleaning up the garbage and crime-infested streets outside. They have retreated into their homes out of fear, but even these private spaces are no longer safe as Alex and his droogs make a hobby out of invading and terrorising them, relishing these deeply immoral acts with a wicked sense of humour and a touch of musical irony. At least for the first act of A Clockwork Orange this is well and truly his world, and Kubrick frames him as such in commanding positions that tower over others, or otherwise centres him in shots with wide-angle lenses that seems to radiate his surroundings out from his body. Whether the speed of the film is cranked up to fast-motion in an exhilarating sex scene or slowed right down as he launches a vicious attack on his droogs, everything we see or hear is stylistically in service of Alex’s own dominance and immediate pleasure.

The magnificent slow-motion attack as Beethoven underscores it all – a vicious power play from Alex.
Another excellent tracking shot following Alex around the record store, this wide-angle lens radiating the scenery outwards from him at its centre.

Oftentimes when talking about mise-en-scène it is easy enough to link a film back to its influences, but besides the expressionist impact evident in long, stark shadows and haunting silhouettes, A Clockwork Orange very much stands alone in being a truly original piece of visual art, unbridled in its obsession with depicting sexuality in the most literally objectified manner possible. In rendering such sensitive, personal parts of our bodies in hard, inorganic materials, so too does Kubrick paint out a vision of humanity that has itself become a cheap, manufactured product of its own making, devaluing that which allows us to create life. Even beyond the physical rape that takes place, we watch as Alex weaponises a sculpture of a penis, debasing its artistic purpose by beating a woman to death with it. This is a culture that has slipped over the years into unrestrained hedonism and corruption, and it is only after thoroughly setting up this rotten, futuristic civilisation that Kubrick confronts us with something even more provocative – the notion that physically removing its criminals’ worst impulses will only lead to something far worse.

Gothic expressionism here in the long shadows and chiaroscuro lighting.

Kubrick is sure to indicate that the evils we see unfold here are not contained within this one fictional setting, but are rather ingrained in our own history as seen in Alex’s daydream of being a Roman soldier whipping Jesus, and the archival footage of Nazi Germany used to torture him into submission. Consequently, the scientists’ erasure of any desire to commit sin from his mind also inadvertently cuts him off from the rest of the world which shares his sin. These medical, legal, and government authorities who proclaim sovereignty over the laws of nature are just as prone to their own shortcomings as him even if they don’t admit it, though the truth is evident in our witnessing of furtive affairs going on behind closed curtains in hospitals, and the slimy political manoeuvring with which the Minister of the Interior goes about his work. Although Alex is deemed fit to return to society as a reformed citizen, society continues to thrive off the same evil that he too once prospered under, and as such subjugates him to its own depraved torture.

The human body turned into art and objects – you can’t say Kubrick doesn’t have a sense of humour with decor like this.

In a show of tremendous narrative form, each person who Alex wronged in the first act returns in quick succession in the third, delivering over-corrective punishments against this man-turned-doormat who no longer has the ability to defend himself. Now visually removed from all traces of phallic imagery, Alex is effectively neutered, unable to sin but also equally unable to fight against the sin of others. Furthermore, his sensitive appreciation of classical music, which was once his last remaining connection to the best of humanity’s potential, has disappeared too. In short, Alex becomes the soulless, mechanical contraption fashioned out of an organic entity that is teased by the title – the clockwork orange, which has the basic essence of life stripped from it so that it may tick along to its manufacturer’s forced rhythm.

It is just like Kubrick to omit the source novel’s last chapter to avoid any hint of a potentially bright future in this hauntingly pessimistic ending. “I was cured alright,” Alex teases upon regaining his former glory and finding his new place in society as a political poster boy. The Minister of the Interior feeds him like a servant, as with the return of Alex’s free will comes power, and his connection to a world that has no place for pushovers. These different forms of evil may possess separate objectives, but Kubrick recognises in this finale of A Clockwork Orange how similar it all really is in its origins and, quite cynically, how necessary it is for humanity to have any hope of moral salvation.

Not the most beautiful shot from the film, but probably its most terrifying in its deeply uncomfortable body horror.

A Clockwork Orange is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.