Category: 1975

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)

Chantal Akerman | 3hr 18min

When Jeanne Dielman stops by her son Sylvain’s room to wish him good night at the end of each monotonous day, she has what may be the deepest conversations of her life – not that her standard is terribly high. Her mind is a clockwork contraption that sees no value in abstract discussion or personal growth, but which rather dedicates itself to a single, methodical task at a time, maintaining a stable household for the benefit of her offspring. She is a Sisyphus for the modern age, each day pushing that boulder up the mountain as she polishes shoes, folds clothes, and cooks dinner, only to find herself starting all over again the following morning.

Despite remaining largely ignorant to his mother’s endless toil, Sylvain is the sole stimulus for introspection in Jeanne’s life, gently piercing her insular, middle-class bubble. “You’re always reading, just like your father,” the widow remarks the first night we join them, prompting him to ask about the early days of their relationship. “I didn’t know if I wanted to marry, but that’s what people did,” she ponders, dispassionately reflecting that “sleeping with him was just a detail” like any other in her meticulous daily routine. This comes as no surprise to us, of course. Every afternoon a different male client visits her apartment to pay for sex, and although Chantal Akerman usually cuts away from the act, it evidently unfolds with about as much excitement as making the bed or washing dishes.

Jeanne’s life is in service of her son, who barely recognises her sacrifices. Through him, ideas from the world outside penetrate their bubble, considering notions of sex she would rather ignore.

On the second night, Sylvain’s topic of choice turns to his friend Yan, whose experiences with dating have sparked a deliberation on the nature of sex.

“He says a man’s penis is like a sword. The deeper you thrust it in, the better. But I thought, ‘A sword hurts.’ He said, ‘True, but it’s like fire.’ But then where’s the pleasure?”

Jeanne is not nearly as eloquent as her son, but her dismissive response nevertheless articulates the sexual insecurity she has been stifling for years. Sylvain’s confession that he hated his father upon learning about these bodily functions as a ten-year-old verbalises that Freudian relationship between them too, giving her even greater reason to shy away from the topic despite conforming to its associated gender roles. Sex is a messy, complicated thing, and its distillation down to a simple business transaction allows her to rationalise its functionality beyond childbearing – so anything which endangers the pleasureless system she has built her life upon may very well reach the magnitude of an existential threat.

Sex as a transaction is the easiest way for Jeanne to rationalise its functionality outside of childbearing, stripping it of pleasure and denying herself release.

Perhaps the only thing longer than the title Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is the film itself, stretching out over three hours which force us to feel every passing minute. Its selection as the greatest film of all time according to the 2022 Sight and Sound list is no doubt an odd choice, but for those who deny its lack of artistic value, its lofty ranking has ironically proven to be the most common argument against it. Overrated it may be, but Akerman’s slow, laborious study of domestic anxiety is far from a failure, constructing this plotless narrative around rigorous formal patterns before incrementally eroding them with Jeanne’s psychological state.

Beginning on the afternoon of the first day and ending on the afternoon of the third, we watch every detail of her routine play out twice, with one major exception. The rendezvous she conducts with three men visiting her apartment mark the opening, midpoint, and conclusion of Jeanne Dielman, each one escalating in psychological impact and rippling out to the rest of her life. The delicate balance which Akerman cultivates in this character study attunes us to her habits, finding peace through meditative, dutiful repetition of familiar actions such as turning off the lights whenever she leaves a room.

Extraordinary form in the repetition of shots, familiarising us with Jeanne’s dutiful routine throughout the day.

Although Jeanne treats her home like a palace, Akerman’s drab mise-en-scène of beige tiled walls and chequered floors tells another story of soul-sucking mundanity. The film may not possess the compositional precision of Yasujirō Ozu’s domestic dramas, but Akerman is his equal in long, static shots, distantly sitting as a neutral observer while Jeanne’s movements fill the frame and often leave it altogether. The camera primarily sits at square angles relative to whichever room it occupies, rejecting the disorder of diagonal lines and maintaining Jeanne’s systematic harmony in whichever perspective we take. Outside as well, Akerman layers each shot using her full depth of field, tunnelling the sidewalk outside Jeanne’s home between buildings and parked cars, while the green park bench across the road from her apartment building sets a firm boundary between the foreground and background. Of course, there is barely a shot in Jeanne Dielman which Akerman resists calling back to either, ingraining this perfectionist’s strict regimen within the very language of the film.

Lovely depth of field in Akerman’s tableaux, shot on location in Brussels and centring Jeanne as she walks the same sidewalks each day.
Defined layers of the foreground, midground, and background – each segregated in the mise-en-scène, maintaining orderly perfection.

As a result, the first time Jeanne misses a crucial step in her routine and forgets to flick off the light switch after leaving a room, we are totally thrown. Akerman’s extratextual clarification that it was an orgasm with the second client which instigates this chaos seems a little lazy given that we never see any specific suggestion of it in the text, yet we can at least reach the conclusion that this encounter is somewhat responsible given how soon afterwards the breakdown begins. She has deeply internalised the idea that pleasure is a luxury that women are not allowed to experience, and the slightest breach of that doctrine may very well destabilise the life of tedious self-sacrifice that has been built upon it, setting off a catastrophic domino effect.

Because Jeanne must return to the bathroom and switch the light off, she accidentally lets the potatoes boil for too long, and is left wandering the house unsure where to place the pot. Eventually sitting down at the kitchen table to peel them, Delphine Seyrig’s performance shifts from mechanical indifference to silent frustration, slicing into the vegetables with harsh, aggressive motions. When Sylvain arrives home, dinner is served late, and his desire to go to bed early rather than head out for their evening walk is promptly rejected.

Seyrig’s performance is one of subtle variations, shifting from mechanical indifference to harsh, aggressive motions as control slips from her grasp.
Jeanne arrives early at the store, and we must wait with her for the shutters to roll up, throwing off her perfectly timed routine.

Unfortunately, the start of a new day doesn’t exactly bring relief for Jeanne either. When she polishes Sylvain’s shoes in the morning, her strokes are just a little too forceful, causing her to drop the brush. When she wakes him up, she accidentally turns the light on, before quickly switching it back off in a panic. At the kitchen sink, she rewashes the same dishes several times in a row, unsatisfied with her work. Even when she leaves home to buy groceries, she arrives early at one of her regular shops, and must awkwardly wait for the shutter to be rolled up. This day is even more of a disaster than the one before, leaving Jeanne scrambling to adapt to what may be considered minor inconveniences in anyone else’s life, but which to her are cataclysmic acts of violence escaping her impeccable control.

It is here where Akerman’s recurring shots begin to pay off as well, instilling remarkable form in the disintegration of Jeanne’s strict procedures. In the diner that she visits for lunch each day, she has previously been positioned in the middle of the frame – though now she enters to find a stranger sitting in her usual seat. As a result, she may no longer occupy the centre of this once-balanced composition, but rather the humiliating, undignified seat on its edge.

Theme and variation in repeated shots – we expect to see Jeanne take her preferred place centre frame in this diner, so the discovery that another customer has taken her seat literally pushes her to the edge.

When the culmination of Jeanne’s frustration intersects with the arrival of her third client, Akerman no longer even cuts away from the intercourse as she writhes and struggles beneath him, holding on one of the few standalone shots that isn’t doubled anywhere else. Is this an assault, we wonder, or another orgasm, provoking intense discomfort as she tries to rid herself of this forbidden pleasure? Either way, her reaction is the most visceral we have seen from her at any point – not that it holds this distinction for long. The following shot catches the reverse angle in the dresser mirror, dissociating Jeanne from herself as she rises from the bed, retrieves a pair of scissors, and stabs the man in his throat.

The only time we watch a scene play out in a mirror is the climactic murder, as if to dissociate Jeanne from her own actions.

The dam was bound to break eventually, but never do we expect it to happen so violently, shattering the illusions of mundanity which conceal Jeanne’s mounting aggravation. Is this her escape from a limbo of domestic servitude? Is she trying to conquer an inconsistent world which has undermined her need for absolute control, or does the object of her forceful suppression lie within, secretly longing for pleasure? As Akerman’s final shot hangs on her at the dinner table, blood staining her blouse and hands, an ambiguous, peaceful smile makes its way across her face. Perhaps not even she has the words to express the gratification she has discovered, but with the boulder wilfully released from the top of the mountain, it is clear that this lonely, fastidious homemaker will never have to trek that torturous Sisyphean journey again.

Jeanne relinquishes control and accepts whatever comes next, escaping her eternal, Sisyphean punishment.

Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The Passenger (1975)

Michelangelo Antonioni | 2hr 6min

Television journalist David Locke doesn’t know much about fellow hotel guest Robertson, but based on their limited conversations, it appears that he is joyfully liberated from the burdensome responsibilities that so many carry in modern society. “No family, no friends. Just a few commitments,” the mysterious Englishman shares in their first meeting. “I take life as it comes.” Now as Locke finds his new friend’s body lying cold in his room, he does what any man seeking to escape an unfaithful wife and unsatisfying job would do. This is his opportunity to make a clean break from his dull, disappointing life, reporting the death as his own and adopting Robertson’s identity.

In this moment, Michelangelo Antonioni plays a familiar trick of discontinuity that he had previously experimented with in L’Eclisse and Blow-Up, though in The Passenger it is his camera movement rather than editing which shifts our perception of reality. As Locke forges a new passport, an audiotape recording of his and Robertson’s first meeting plays over the top, and we slowly pan towards the balcony where the voiceovers imperceptibly transition into a live flashback. When their discussion begins to wrap up, Antonioni similarly drifts the camera across the room back into the present day, effectively eroding the boundaries of time and identity which have long been missing in Locke’s life. Perhaps becoming an entirely different person is the key to finding that purpose he has never known, our protagonist resolves, and thus he sets out on a globetrotting journey meeting all of Robertson’s scheduled engagements.

Locke stares down at the dead man whose identity he wishes to claim, resolving to start a new life.
Camera movement plays an unusually important role for Antonioni, erasing boundaries between past and present as it floats into this flashback…
…and then back to the present.

The Passenger’s scope is immense, spanning multiple countries across Europe and Africa which each hold some sort of clue to Robertson’s actual identity. This narrative might conceivably sound like a mix between Alfred Hitchcock and The Talented Mr. Ripley, though Antonioni is not so concerned with the meticulous plotting of its mystery, instead framing Locke as a man aimlessly wandering both a literal and figurative desert. This is where we meet him after all, not long before he is abandoned by his guides and gets his Land Rover stuck in a dune. He can scream at the sky all he likes, but that simply drives him to the point of exhaustion, collapsing him against the car as Antonioni’s camera despairingly pans across the Sahara’s vast, flat expanse.

Locke wanders a literal and figurative desert, searching for purpose in a world that simply drives him to exhaustion.

There are no manmade structures bearing down on Locke in this environment, and no busy crowds to stifle his expressions of anguish. Even when Antonioni does introduce magnificent architectural marvels into his mise-en-scène though, these aren’t the giant, oppressive monuments of his previous films, subjugating characters to a harsh, modern civilisation. Locke is not dominated by his surroundings, but lost in them, drifting through scenes set against vast backdrops of apartment buildings, cultural landmarks, and abstract public artworks. Somewhat ironically, this is also the sort of freedom that he relishes, every so often taking the time to appreciate this newfound independence. Leaning out of a cable car spanning a channel of water, he stretches his arms wide open, and he almost seems to fly as an overhead shot revels in his liberation.

One cinema’s great overhead shots as Nicholson leans out of a cable car, and for a brief moment seems to fly across the water.
Architectural marvels impose bold shapes and patterns on Locke’s environment.

Negative space is key to Antonioni’s compositions here, underscoring the emptiness which encompasses both urban and rural locations, though he often fills them in with textures that project Locke’s mental state onto the world. His outfit almost blends in with the white-washed plaster walls and green shrubs of a rustic Spanish settlement, and when he begins to realise that his wife Rachel has sent a television producer to track him down, his fragmented psyche manifests in a mosaic sculpture decorated with jagged ceramic shards.

Matching colours between Locke’s costume and surroundings, both bleeding into each other.
Negative space filled with gorgeous textures, underscoring the emptiness which encompasses our protagonist at every turn.
Locke’s fragmented psyche manifests in this mosaic sculpture decorated with jagged ceramic shards.

Without any clear boundaries defining these eclectic settings, the tension between Locke’s desire for both freedom and purpose sits at the heart of his inner conflict. To unite the two, he must effectively design his own labyrinth of winding paths and dead ends – and now that he has officially taken Robertson’s identity, what better artefact is there to arbitrarily craft it from than the dead man’s diary? Not even he knows what this itinerary might lead to, though it is surely more enticing a prospect than returning to the wife, house, and job that he has grown so disillusioned with.

Antonioni traps Nicholson in a modern labyrinth of winding paths and dead ends.
Modern structures rise up from concrete, forming the basis of Antonioni’s long shots and world building.

Jack Nicholson is sublime in his navigation of this quest, turning in his bombastic screen persona for a subdued uncertainty that pairs nicely with Maria Schneider’s gentle encouragement, spurring him on as a loyal companion. With no name given to her other than the Girl, her identity is kept vague enough to become whatever Locke needs in any given moment. It is fitting that he should introduce her as an architecture student as well, displaying an intellectual appreciation and understanding of their environments, even if she can’t always directly assist him. He alone must be the one to pave his path forward, discovering what it means to a live a life on his own terms.

The danger that comes with this unfettered independence is simply a part of the deal, Locke reasons, but there are certainly caveats here he would rather dismiss. When he learns of Robertson’s profession as a black-market arms dealer, he does not retreat to the comfortable confinements of his old life, but instead maintains the belief that he can keep outrunning trouble before it catches up to him. With both Rachel and a militant guerrilla movement on his tail though, each believing they are looking for Robertson, it is evident that the consequences of his decisions are inevitable – and perhaps there is a subtle recognition of this in his final monologue to the Girl as they lay down together in a rural Spanish hotel.

It is fitting that Locke’s love interest should be an architecture student, their first meeting taking place in this grand cathedral loaded with history and culture.

In the story Locke tells, the joy that a blind man found in regaining his sight was quickly dashed upon realising that “the world was much poorer than he imagined.” It doesn’t take a great imagination to recognise him framing himself in this allegory of existential suffering. The darkness that once consumed them both at least concealed the truth of life’s ugliness, and in the blind man’s case, suicide was tragically the only escape.

This is not the end that Locke is destined for in the final minutes of The Passenger, though his listless resignation to an early grave certainly aligns their respective deaths. The 7-minute long take which skirts around the edges of this incident formally caps off the wandering camerawork that has pervaded the film, and perhaps even stakes its claim as the strongest single shot of Antonioni’s career, divorcing us from Locke’s perspective as he lays down in his hotel room. With only his legs in frame, we peer across the bed at the window grills, opening onto the bright, dusty courtyard where each plot thread converges at once.

A 7-minute long take, and perhaps the finest shot of Antonioni’s career, beginning with a slow creep forward past Locke in his hotel.
The camera approaches the window grills and slyly slips through, seemingly defying the laws of physics.
The camera floats around the dusty courtyard as narrative threads collide.

As the Girl lingers in hesitation over whether to leave, the African assassin who has been right behind Locke for some time arrives, and Rachel arrives in a police car a couple of minutes later. Drifting forward ever so slightly, Antonioni’s camera frames everything perfectly between the iron bars, before it squeezes through the narrow opening and emerges outside. Antonioni’s nifty manipulation of the set in this moment lifts us beyond Locke’s subjective perspective, effectively defying physics as we take on the role of an invisible, neutral observer wandering the scene, and patiently wait for Locke’s inevitable collision with his pursuers.

Like our protagonist, we are but passengers on this journey, fluidly taking the point-of-view of whatever character we are positioned to identify with. There is an entire world beyond Locke’s solipsistic journey, but only now as the camera circles back on the building to look through the window from the other side do we view him within alternative contexts that he was blind to. Little did he realise when stealing Robertson’s identity that he was also adopting his fated demise, and the aftermath as well reveals a complicated legacy in his wake. “Do you recognise him?” the police officer asks Rachel, whose response in finding her lifeless husband rather than Robertson is layered with profound disbelief.

“I never knew him.”

The camera turns back around to look in at the hotel room from the outside, revealing Locke’s body as his wife arrives a few minutes too late.

Given the identical position of Locke’s body from when we last saw it, we can infer that there was little struggle when the assassin entered the room. That The Passenger should conclude not with this though, but rather a far simpler shot of the Girl departing the hotel at dusk only underscores his total irrelevance in a world that keeps moving on, fading his strange, fruitless bolt for freedom into the milieu. Antonioni does not seek to overwhelm us with grief here – that would be far too straightforward in its clear distinction between life and death. Like Locke, we must confront the desolate, senseless banality of the emptiness, and continue living with it long past his consciousness is granted a merciful release.

The Passenger is not currently streaming in Australia.

Mirror (1975)

Andrei Tarkovsky | 1hr 48min

If one were to ask Andrei Tarkovsky, applying literal interpretations to his semi-autobiographical film Mirror is about as futile as discerning the past through rigorously objective methods. After all, factual history cannot possibly take any tangible form that may be touched, smelt, and tasted by future generations the same way it could for those who were there. The moment it disappears from the present, it no longer exists even in the minds of firsthand witnesses, who now filter it through their own subjective recollections. To then attempt a faithful reconstruction of its events through whatever form of media they deem most effective only separates our current understanding of the past further from whatever truth once existed.

This is no reason to give up entirely on such an endeavour though, Tarkovsky asserts, but rather to appreciate the reflection of our imperfect humanity that is found in such evocative illustrations. It is through his cinematic manipulation of time’s subjective flow that Mirror escapes the false impression of constructed reality, and instead becomes a portal into his pre-war childhood memories warped by the dreams, doubts, and desires that have emerged in the decades since. No decent film should be interpreted purely through a literal lens, but Mirror least of all ought to be taken as such, lest one finds themselves misguidedly rejecting Tarkovsky’s profoundly spiritual meditation on family, nostalgia, and humanity’s flawed consciousness.

The elderly Maria is played by Tarkovsky’s real-life mother, emphasising the autobiographical nature of this surreal study of memory.
The setting of Alexei’s family cottage on the edge of a forest suggests an ominous tranquillity, framing his childhood as a fairy tale where things that were once deemed impossible manifest with ethereal wonder.

It quickly becomes apparent that the first-person perspective taken by Tarkovsky is a surrogate for his own, as we realise our protagonist Alexei is never quite visible in the post-war timeline. He is the source from which these memories spring forth, his face always sitting just outside the frame while he commands the non-linear narrative with pensive voiceovers and conversations, and only ever appearing onscreen as a child in the story’s pre-war timeline. That he seems to be recalling the past as an out-of-body experience is the first clue that these flashbacks aren’t quite accurate renderings, but as Tarkovsky sinks us deeper into Alexei’s pool of dreams, we come to recognise it as the mirror upon which this unseen man’s life is reflected and distorted.

It is revealing too that the figure who looms largest here is his mother. Being named Maria after Tarkovsky’s real-life mother, and thus drawing parallels to the Blessed Virgin Mary, she becomes an icon of sacred veneration in Mirror, yet also a woman with a vividly complex life just beyond the periphery of Alexei’s view. In our first meeting with her, Tarkovsky even painstakingly recreates an authentic photograph of the real Maria sitting on a roughly erected fence of sticks, gazing towards the green fields beyond her home as if expectantly waiting for an important arrival. With her face totally hidden, she seems to exist in a world inaccessible to the young Alexei, her thoughts preoccupied by ideas and emotions beyond his naïve understanding. Still, the camera pushes forwards past rustling branches and into her orbit, where we can finally see what she sees – a man approaching from the distance.

Tarkovsky painstakingly recreates a photograph of his mother sitting on a fence, though here he dollies the camera forward past branches and leaves into her orbit, compelled to understand her world that has been kept secret from her children.

He is not her husband, we discover, but rather a passing doctor who carries a warmer demeanour than Alexei’s actual father, and who on this day happens to be walking the same path. In the grand scheme of Alexei’s childhood, this man holds very little significance, and yet it is notable that this memory stands out in the absence of the family patriarch. Though his appearances are rare, the void he leaves behind is often filled with the poetry of Tarkovsky’s own father, Arseny Tarkovsky, standing in for a traditional film score.

With evocations of Greek tragedy, physical death, and spiritual transcendence emerging from one poem ‘Eurydice’, new impressions are drawn from Maria’s reluctant slaughter of a cockerel at her neighbour’s house and her guilty departure. Though the scene eventually comes to an end, the poetry continues its gentle contemplations through black-and-white, slow-motion imagery of a mighty wind running through dense vegetation, rolling a brass ornament off a small wooden table, and billowing through translucent white drapes hung in Alexei’s home. Whether expressed in spoken word or moving image, the romantic abstractions of both father and son run strong, and merge to create a cinematic lyricism.

“I dream of a different soul dressed in different garb,

burning up like alcohol as it flits from timidity to hope,

slipping away, shadowless,

leaving behind lilacs as a memento on the table.

Run, my child, and mourn not for poor Eurydice,

but drive your copper hoop through the wide world,

while in response to every step, you hear the earth reply, its voice joyful and dry.”

An excerpt from ‘Eurydice’ by Arseny Tarkovsky

Though Arseny Tarkovsky’s words encourage his son to move on from the lost love of Eurydice, the actual struggle is far more burdensome with the weight of memory holding him down. Does the mythological figure of Orpheus’ deceased wife stand in for Alexei’s childhood, his ex-wife Natalia, or perhaps even his mother? Andrei Tarkovsky would never claim such a direct correlation, though given his Oedipal casting of Margarita Terekhova as both Maria and Natalia, the two women are tied very strongly to Greek legend. Where they split is in their characterisations – where Maria embodies divine grace, Natalia is cold and cynical, suggesting a spiritual corruption that has degraded with time.

An inspired Oedipal casting of Margarita Terekhova as Alexei’s mother and wife, drawing a sharp division in their personalities – and of course Tarkovsky creates doubles of her in this mirror.

At least, this is how Alexei perceives them, and Tarkovsky is fully aware that he is far from a reliable narrator. It is more than likely that Maria never had the face he recalls now, instead letting her take the appearance of the other most significant woman in his life, and when Alexei even admits this to Natalia he also expresses a slight suspicion of why this is the case.

“I pity you both, you and her.”

He is not alone in seeing these echoes across past and present either, as the double casting of both a young Alexei and his son, Ignat, reflects the patriarchal side of the Oedipus allegory that Natalia bears witness to. Just as Alexei’s father grew distant from his son, so too is Alexei failing to connect with Ignat, who Natalia notes in horror “is becoming like you.”

Tarkovsky does not seek so much to explain these repeated generational patterns though as he wishes to capture the raw essence of time as it passes through them, cycling in rhythms that may be more richly experienced from outside history’s traditionally linear progression, and beyond the limits of conscious thought. As Tarkovsky intercuts Alexei’s reluctant rifle training during World War II with archival footage of Soviet battles, time is compressed into a single point that weighs on the young boy’s mind. Meanwhile, those long, slow camera movements which gently drift through uninhabited rooms stretch it out into eternity, offering a retreat into the soothing reverie of his frozen dreams.

Tarkovsky intercuts archival footage of Soviet battles, interrogating the notion of memory from historical artefacts as well as subjective recollections.
Tarkovsky’s camera drifts through the hallways and rooms of Alexei’s childhood home, offering a retreat into the soothing reverie of his frozen dreams.

Perhaps the greatest manifestation of time’s transient passage though is in Tarkovsky’s observation of nature’s effervescent, primordial elements, moving independently of any human influence. As if brought to life by some invisible creator, a gust of wind sends a single rippling wave through a field of long grass while Alexei’s neighbour walks away, and the frequent emphasis on grass, snow, dirt, mud, and stone on the ground imbues Tarkovsky’s mise-en-scène with distinctly earthy textures. Even the setting of this cottage on the edge of a forest suggests an ominous tranquillity, framing Alexei’s childhood as a fairy tale where things that were once deemed impossible manifest with ethereal wonder.

Elemental imagery as a sudden gust of wind ripples across a field of grass, as if touched by some invisible hand.
Snow, ice, and wood – so much of Tarkovsky’s imagery is connected to the earth and its seasonal changes.

Somewhat paradoxically, fire and water frequently co-exist in the same spaces throughout Mirror too, creating a subtly incongruent dreamscape where candles light the room of Maria’s self-baptism, while rain simultaneously trickles in from cracks in the ceiling. The water which consecrates her as a divine entity in Alexei’s mind is the same which eventually caves in the room’s ceiling, wielding an equally immense power over life and death.

Water drips from the ceiling and down walls even while candle flames burn around the room, making for an eerie visual paradox.

Elsewhere, Tarkovsky’s floating camera pauses on a dirtied mirror reflecting the burning of Alexei’s family barn, but as it turns around and directly approaches the disaster, we note the quiet patter of rain dripping from the wooden roof. Like the grand final set piece of Tarkovsky’s later film The Sacrifice, this fiery structure becomes a theological icon of divine destruction in stark contrast to the nourishing waters of life. On an even more fundamental level though, he is composing a surreal image of primal elemental power that we, like the characters, are simply forced to gaze at in helpless awe.

The camera first catches sight of the burning barn through a dirtied mirror in the house, concealed from our view as the family watches on.
The camera slowly spins around and moves outside to the porch, and suddenly the rain becomes audible and visible – another visual contradiction revealing either an impossible spiritual force, or an unreliable memory.

From within the fragile bubble of Alexei’s dreams, we can easily see why he pities those like Natalia who claim to have never witnessed a true Old Testament miracle. For Alexei, such miracles are impossible to escape. One strange visitor disappears mid-scene, leaving no trace of their existence besides the condensation of their absent teacup, and in what may be the defining shot of Tarkovsky’s filmography Maria levitates several feet above her bed, draped in white bedsheets. “Here I am, borne aloft,” she tenderly whispers to Alexei, becoming an angelic image of maternal transcendence in the eyes of her child.

One of the defining shots of Tarkovsky’s career, transforming the mother into an angelic figure levitating several feet above a bed, spiritually elevated in the eyes of the child.
An unexplained miracle as one strange visitor disappears mid-scene, leaving no trace of her existence besides the condensation of her now-absent teacup.

As much as sequences such as these feel like a total departure from reality, their roots in mid-century Soviet Union history remain incredibly relevant. We see them not just in the grainy newsreels of the Spanish Civil War, nuclear explosions, and the launch of a USSR balloon that tangentially connects Alexei to a broader cultural context, but Tarkovsky even takes the time to examine a portion of Maria’s life working in a printing press for propaganda under Stalin’s totalitarian rule. Her fear that she may be responsible for a misprint is understandable when considering the consequences of such an error in this oppressive era, which may see her accused of treason. Though the young Alexei is absent from these scenes, touches of an almost imperceptible slow-motion continue to suggest that they are similarly being lifted from outside their original time frame – perhaps some attempt from an older Alexei to reconstruct an alternate image of his mother through second-hand stories.

Black-and-white flashbacks to Maria’s work at the printing press are weaved into the split timelines, infiltrating Alexei’s childhood with the politics of 1940s Soviet Union under Stalin’s totalitarian rule.

It is not uncommon for hazy memories such as these to come flooding back when one reaches the end of their mortal life, though Tarkovsky suggests that Mirror is in fact depicting the complete inverse of this. Alexei is not revisiting his past because he is dying, but as the doctor mysteriously hints after his death, he rather wasted away due to his heavy conscience. Tarkovsky’s pain can be felt acutely here, trying to resolve his guilt over perpetuating those cycles of distant fathers and overburdened mothers that were ingrained in him as a child. Even as the mysteries of the human mind continue to elude us throughout Mirror, his precise control over the raw elements of time, memory, and life keep sinking us further into its surreal depths, not so much crafting an artefact of absolute historical truth than revelling in the extraordinary impossibility of such a task.

Mirror is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, can be bought or rented on Apple TV, or you can buy the Blu-ray on Amazon.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Sidney Lumet | 2hr 4min

Over the course of a few hours on one hot summer day, crowds congregate around the First Brooklyn Savings Bank in New York City, with journalists and television crews eventually joining the mix. Inside, a failed heist has turned into a police stand-off, with the two robbers taking the entire building hostage, and incidentally providing a bit of light entertainment for the masses. A pizza delivery guy milks his time in the spotlight when he brings lunch around, and the head teller excitedly flirts with the cameras while being used as a human shield, momentarily putting aside the present danger to feed her ego.

It appears for a time that Sonny, the brains behind the operation, doesn’t mind the attention either. Despite being out of his depth in this robbery gone wrong, he quickly learns that many viewers see him as a hero of the common man, railing against the police and throwing cash out to feverish onlookers. A small riot starts as they burst through the barricades, undermining the police’s attempts to control the situation, and yet media sensationalism is an unwieldy beast. When a more complicated portrait of Sonny begins to emerge, revealing a man desperately seeking money for his transgender wife’s gender affirming surgery, audiences aren’t quite sure how to reconcile that with their preconceived notions. The breaking news story soon becomes solely about his queerness, and the praises once thrown his way become nasty jabs. There is no regard here for the figure at the centre of it all, rich with flaws and personal struggles. Looking in from the outside, he is just the latest television character to capture the fleeting interest of the public.

To the general public of New York, this failing bank heist is little more than afternoon entertainment, with hostages and pizza delivery boys alike relishing their moment in the spotlight. In this context, Sonny and Sal’s humiliation is made even worse – they are victims of a ravenous media frenzy.

This is not the perspective Sidney Lumet decides to take in Dog Day Afternoon though. The real events upon which the film is based are readily available in historical records, while this fictional interpretation lends a greater sensitivity to those trapped inside the bank. The false confidence that Sonny and his friend Sal initially project dissipates almost instantly when the third part of their trio, Stevie, nervously backs out and leaves them stranded. They have clearly never done anything like this before, caving a little too easily to the demands of their hostages and even developing somewhat friendly relationships with them. These are not the heroes nor sick-minded villains that the media would like to believe – merely short-sighted victims of their own poor decisions.

The uneasy nuances of these characters offer a wealth of rich material for both Al Pacino and John Cazale to deliver two standout performances as well. In Cazale’s case, Dog Day Afternoon would be the second-last film of his short career before passing away in 1977, though he makes every minute of his screentime count as the nervous, simple-minded Sal. He partly serves as comic relief from time to time, telling Sonny that the country he would want to escape to most of all is Wyoming. Most of all though, we feel pity towards this man who takes offence at being mislabelled a homosexual, and who we come to realise is too easily exploited by both the police and his own friend.

This is not a film that gets by on visual style like so many others on its level, leaving Al Pacino to singlehandedly carry many scenes with his powerhouse performance.
Pacino may be the feature, but John Cazale shouldn’t be slept on. Along with his performance as Fredo in The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon features some of his best acting as the tragically dim-witted Sal.

The true tour-de-force of acting in Dog Day Afternoon comes from Pacino though, who in 1975 was coming off a hot run of the first two Godfather films and Serpico. His portrayal of Sonny treads a fine balance between the deep, internalised performances of his early career and the loud personas he would play further down the line, generating an instability that cuts through layers of insecurity and anger. His incendiary evocation of the Attica Prison riot which saw police carelessly mow down hostages and inmates alike becomes a powerful catch cry as he furiously paces outside the bank, inciting a righteous anger in the anti-authoritarian crowds.

Still, the longer we sit with him inside, the more we understand the sensitivity of those wounds being picked at by the mass media. His trans wife Leon has been hospitalised for attempted suicide and now, despite Sonny’s good intentions, wants nothing to do with these criminal plans, while his estranged cis wife Angie laments his stubbornness and abandonment of their family. Even his mother is brought in to help the situation, though she is insistently blind to his culpability, blaming everyone in his life but him for his own mistakes. Sonny may be reckless, but he does not lack self-awareness, as Pacino’s face slowly breaks down with guilt, self-loathing, and a tragically weakened resolve over the course of the film.

Sidney Lumet may not develop a strong cinematic style, but his blocking can’t be faulted in many scenes, using the camera’s full depth of field to keep the ensemble dynamics visually alive.
A tangible arc unfolds on Pacino’s face throughout Dog Day Afternoon as we watch him grow shabbier, sweatier, and increasingly anxious.

On top of all that, Lumet never quite lets us forget the physical factors of the environment that Sonny must contend with, observing the sweat form on his face from both the humid summer heat and the sheer stress of the stand-off. Though Lumet is picking up a few techniques from Hitchcock with the long camera takes and tight, suspenseful editing, he is largely committed to the authenticity of the piece. By and large, Dog Day Afternoon does not draw the same breathtaking beauty out of its New York location shooting as we see in The French Connection or Taxi Driver, and yet there is still a cumulative effect in the grounded urgency of its gritty aesthetic and pacing, pulling a highly-strung Pacino into an uncontrollable whirlpool of rapidly escalating stakes.

Solid location shooting out on the streets, grounding this story in real world stakes.
Instead of shooting on a studio soundstage, Lumet converted a warehouse into the bank interior, and then slowly dims its lights as the stand-off stretches on and night begins to fall.

Paramount to Lumet’s realism is the pained sympathy he has for these complicated characters, both naively believe that some happy ending is still possible at the end of it all. When the two men finally secure a deal that will let them fly out of the country, one of their hostages takes the time to comfort a nervous Sal who reveals he has not been on a plane before. It is a small twinge of unexpected kindness in an otherwise tense sequence, enveloped by Lumet’s cutting between Pacino’s anxious face and the suspicious police activity unfolding around him.

Remarkably tense editing from Dede Allen all throughout, but especially as Sonny and Sal secure a deal and nervously make an exit while surrounded by police.

Dog Day Afternoon’s denouement unfolds rapidly from there – a fatal shot to Sal’s head ends his life before he even knows what’s going on, while Sonny is arrested at gunpoint. The shame we have seen him bear throughout the film is nothing next to the guilty anguish on his face as he watches Sal’s body taken away, recognising the role he played in the death of his far more innocent friend. Within this great tragedy though, Sonny’s delicate story of queer love and financial desperation was never going to survive the noise of sensationalist journalism. All that is left is a cheapened legacy embedded in New York’s quirky local history, destined to be recalled by strangers as that bizarre, failed bank heist they spent one hot, summer afternoon following on television.

Lumet lands a devastatingly tragic blow to end the film – robbed of hope, Sonny submits to the police, as he gut-wrenchingly watches Sal’s lifeless body wheeled away.

Dog Day Afternoon is currently streaming on Binge, and is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, YouTube, or Amazon Video.

Nashville (1975)

Robert Altman | 2hr 39min

It is difficult to think of a film as organically structured as Nashville, with its gentle progression from one narrative thread to the next carrying the impression that Robert Altman could point his camera in any direction and still find just as equally fascinating characters as those who make up his main ensemble. On the surface, the only thing that these people might have in common is their connection to the city’s country music scene, though as each storyline is teased out and interwoven around others, we discover a unifying motivation emerge in each of them – a simple yearning for recognition, whether through fame, respect, or love.

The concept of sprawling narratives that follow concurrent plot threads between large groups of strangers was still in its relative infancy in 1975, as it wouldn’t be until a few decades later that it would be dubbed hyperlink cinema, with the impact of the World Wide Web extending our understanding of lives beyond our own. Not only is Altman’s interpretation of this narrative structure fully matured before its rise in popularity, it also makes for a perfect fit for his own style of filmmaking, where the individual lines of dialogue matter less than the impression they collectively form in overlapping others. We can choose which conversation to listen to at any time, and his camera zooms often helps us in this decision as it pans through crowds and pushes in on individuals to pick out some above the others, but it is more often the holistic blend that gives each scene its own unique acoustic texture.

Altman capturing large ensembles in his shots, overlapping conversation to create an organic environment where everyone wants to be heard.

The impression we quite frequently get from this is chaos, though never to the extent that we doubt Altman’s loss of control. It hits us right from the first few seconds when a radio announcer begins reading out the opening credits over the top of several country songs fading in and out, mimicking the sound of a radio flicking through stations, each one a taste of what is to come. And true to its musical commitment, Nashville affords us the time to listen to each of these country music pieces in full, at times leading from one right into another like a concert. Not one to micromanage his cast, Altman let many of them write their own songs, allowing an authenticity into their performances that turns each number into a natural extension of their characters.

Patriotism and music so tightly bound up together all through Nashville. It isn’t the first movie you think of when the musical genre is brought up, but by definition it most certainly fits in, and is one of the best.

The most prominent of these country ditties is one that is formally repeated several times through the film, until it becomes an anthem for the city itself. “It Don’t Worry Me” is an assertion of freedom and the right to stay cool in the face of adversity, sung as a gentle reassurance in quieter moments, and every so often marking a significant disaster. Its first appearance follows a car pileup on the highway that we can assume almost certainly results in serious injuries, though as it plays in the background our attention remains on those who are only tangentially affected by the incident. BBC journalist Opal uses it as an opportunity to interview locals, in search for a decent story. Kenny Frasier, a mysterious traveller carrying a violin case, hitches a ride with Star, whose wife, Winifred, has taken the chance to run off, resolved to pursue her singing ambitions. All through the film, there is a pattern of unifying events like this, frequently bringing characters together in concerts, church services, and unexpected disruptions. It is within them that Altman’s editing is at its most finely balanced, relishing the interconnectedness of each individual narrative thread.

Winifred and Kenny briefly meeting following the highway pile-up, just one of many narrative threads transiently crossing over in Nashville.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of seeing these characters evolve through shared experiences is realising how much these incidents take on separate meanings within each story. When Tom vaguely dedicates his song “I’m Easy” to “someone who might just be here tonight,” L.A. Joan, Mary, and Opal quietly smile to themselves, teasing the notion that it could very well be them. For gospel singer Linnea, who has been slightly more resistant to his charms, it becomes a sensual seduction. As she sits at the back of the audience, Altman slowly zooms into her mesmerised gaze of guilt, disbelief, and adoration, picking her story out above everyone else’s as the one worth paying attention to.

Altman has always found great use for his zoom lenses, and although they aren’t quite as wild here as they are in MASH, they bring such remarkable visual dynamism and a sense of wandering curiosity to the film.

And compared to the rest of this wild ensemble of musicians and super fans, Linnea may be our most quietly grounding force. In the case of Sueleen, a humble waitress with a terrible voice, it is crushing to see her degrading humiliation in a room of chauvinistic men, who force her to strip when her singing proves unsatisfactory. In Barbara Jean, who represents the sort of musical success that so many other characters aspire to, we observe the pressures of fame crack open that charming sweetheart image she has spent years cultivating. The celebrity worship culture that pervades Nashville projects an idealism that almost every character is blinded by on some level, and through his ensemble cast Altman comes at it from several angles, trying to get at the social problems it smoothly glosses over.

Perhaps then we might find some sense of reality in the disembodied voice of presidential hopeful Hal Phillip Walker that echoes through the streets from a campaign van, although even his politics appear to be defined by the same populist appeal as that which underlies Nashville’s music scene. He promises a vague sort of change and throws out catchy slogans, but not once in the film does he make a physical appearance. As such, he might as well stand in for the city itself in all its cultural idealism.

Great narrative form in constantly returning to Hal Phillip Walker’s campaign van, tying Nashville’s music scene closely to the political turmoil of the 1970s.

His fundraising gala concert thus sets the perfect scene for Nashville’s epic finale, whereby each storyline arrives at a single location to find their resolution. Though we have followed the mysterious Kenny since the start, it is still a complete unknown as to why he chooses to shoot Barbara Jean. Perhaps he is seeking his own sort of fame, or maybe he harbours resentment towards the culture she represents. But Nashville is not the place to investigate why such bad things happen. The focus must always be on the aftermath. Not just in the rebuilding of this community, but in recognising how each affected individual in some way finds their own meaning in the tragedy.

Altman setting up the perfect final set piece of the film, where each storyline collides beneath a giant American flag.

There is an amusing irony that the last time we see the story-seeking journalist Opal she is asking around about what just happened, having missed the incident entirely. Meanwhile, Barbara Jean fan Pfc. Glenn Kelly is the first to disarm the shooter, Sueleen is fortunately denied the opportunity to embarrass herself again, and country superstar Haven quells the disturbance in the crowd, angrily affirming that “This isn’t Dallas!” In this sly reference to the assassination of JFK, still fresh in the minds of these Americans, there is also a reluctant acknowledgement of political woes existing out there in the world. But of course, Nashville is a city of music, and any politics that makes its way in must be filtered through its culture of bright idealism.

Within the chaos, it is Winifred who somehow ends up with the microphone and is told to calm the crowd, fate finding its way into her arc just as it does the others. Perhaps if we had heard her sing earlier in the film, we might have been able to guess that she would become the new Barbara Jean. In holding out until these final minutes to take on the final rendition of “It Don’t Worry Me” though, the song arrives in its entirety for the first time with both a fresh revelation and a biting indictment, cheerily underscoring the revolving door of celebrities that has now revealed a new idol to replace the one who died just mere minutes ago. Altman doesn’t cast heavy aspersions here, but whether we read this uniquely Nashvillian brand of optimism as the bedrock of a thriving community or a mass delusion, it still remains a powerful force of culture-defining magnitude in this sprawling city.

A brilliant wide shot and a tilt upwards as a new star emerges, bringing the film to a magnificent end.

Nashville is currently available to rent on iTunes, or to buy on iTunes, YouTube, Google Play, Amazon Video.

Love and Death (1975)

Woody Allen | 1hr 25min

Two years before Woody Allen left his immortal mark on the romantic-comedy genre with Annie Hall, he pushed another set of narrative and film conventions in Love and Death. Early 19th century Russia is his chosen setting, and those great Russian novels by Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky are his inspiration, but this is no insipidly self-serious period piece. Anachronisms abound here, as playfully irreverent as they are pointed in their satire, targeting the quaint pretensions of this era with rapid-fire repartee and a good deal of meta-humour.

Subjects of enormous weight treated with such hilarious flippancy, as Boris apathetically goes to commit suicide and then decides against it when he is already hanging.
Anachronisms everywhere – Love and Death pushes narrative and formal boundaries in every scene.

Allen continues the trend of starring in his work in Love and Death, playing the part of a Russian literary protagonist reluctant to take part in his war-bound destiny. Boris Grushenko might as well stand in for Allen himself in all his contemporary sensibilities, as he gleefully belittles those around him while suffering the consequences of his own hubris. The Groucho Marx influence on his work has always been evident, but rarely has it been so palpable as it is here in one of his earliest films, when in the most dire of circumstances of being challenged to a duel he continues rattling off quips with all the speed and impudence of a man who possesses both great intellect and great ego, and can’t help letting both show.

“My seconds will call on your seconds.”

“Well, my seconds will be out, let them call on my thirds. If my thirds are out, go directly to my fourths.”

Quite unusually for Allen, slapstick rules alongside verbal wit in Love and Death, though once again such a smooth integration of both high and lowbrow humour comes back to his love for the Marx Brothers. A sophisticated conversation over moral imperatives is deflated in an instant when Boris and his wife, Sonja, pause mid-way to hit an unconscious Napoleon Bonaparte on the head with a wine bottle, underscoring the incongruency between the lofty philosophical questions and life-or-death scenarios often presented side-by-side in Russian literature.

A sly reference to Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin in the editing and imagery, with a cheeky visual metaphor thrown in there for good measure.

Even as Love and Death is drenched in jokes and references to classic novels, Allen’s focus remains on the cinematic applications of his satirical commentary, further building out his movie into a pastiche of European arthouse films. The montage editing of a battle deliberately evokes the Odessa Steps sequence of Battleship Potemkin right down to a shot of broken spectacles, though when Allen cuts to the view of the war from the general’s perspective he amusingly slips in a shot of sheep running together in a flock. Meanwhile, a white cloaked figure representing Death acts a direct allusion to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, even as its austere presence is undercut by Boris’ flippancy, considering his own mortality as little more than an inconvenience.

“Boris! What happened?”

“I got screwed.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. Some vision came and said that I was gonna get pardoned, and then they shot me.”

“You were my one great love.”

“Oh thank you very much, I appreciate that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m dead.”

In his fourth wall breaking voiceovers and facetiously subversive attitude, Allen smashes through cultural, narrative, and cinematic convention, fashioning an entirely new kind of artistic statement out of the fragments left behind. Though there is a cerebral and ironic detachment in his attacks upon old-fashioned ideals, it does not possess the sort of savagery that he reserves for his own self-criticisms. Ultimately, it is in that combination of the two where Love and Death reveals itself to be just as much a pointed comment on the way haughty academics and artists interpret history as it is a critique of the foibles of history itself, all the while wryly refusing to take itself seriously on any level.

Dancing off into the distance with the white cloaked figure of Death – an irreverent play on The Seventh Seal.

Love and Death is available to rent or buy on iTunes, Youtube, and Google Play.

Barry Lyndon (1975)

Stanley Kubrick | 3hr 5min

Stanley Kubrick has never been one to engage empathetically with his characters and their deep sentiments of love and pain, but it is ironically in his single most focused character study (at least on par with A Clockwork Orange) that he expresses his utmost disdain for humanity in all its self-aggrandising monuments and traditions. The ironic detachment with which he approaches Barry Lyndon is several layers removed from any genuine attempt at historical appreciation of the man himself, or the high society surrounding him. After all, this a 20th century film adapting a 19th century novel that narrates fictional events from 18th century Britain, and much of the text as written by author William Makepeace Thackeray is preserved in the form of narration, archaic and reserved in manner. It warns us of narrative developments before they occur, keeping us from identifying too strongly with any characters, and yet even this filter through which we interpret the past is rendered entirely obsolete by its own self-importance, and its desperate attempts to insert itself where it is not needed. Just as the voiceover will often speak over character dialogue, so too does Kubrick fade out its rambling into silence as Barry Lyndon approaches its intermission, condemning it to its own antiquated spot in history for matching the vapidity of its subject of interest with its own equally insipid musings.

One of the greatest opening shots of any film. The layering within the frame, the distance from which we observe the action, the natural lighting and earthy colours drawing our eyes around the composition – and of course, the inconsequence with which we watch the death of Barry’s father.

Barry Lyndon was not a well-loved film upon its initial released. Begrudgingly respected, perhaps, but ultimately condemned for its self-conscious arrogance and emotional distance, the exact same qualities that were celebrated in previous Kubrick films. Perhaps it was the glacial pace that frustrated audiences, combined with its colossal three hour run time which was typically reserved for epic, action-packed Hollywood blockbusters like Ben-Hur. Or perhaps it was the tension between Kubrick’s astonishingly beautiful visual compositions and his scorn for the subjects of these cinematic paintings that rubbed people the wrong way.

The greenery, the clouds filtering through natural light, and low framing of Barry in these stunning Irish landscapes.

If anything though, this grating contrast only lends itself to his wickedly dry sense of humour. Whenever Kubrick cuts to a new scene, we are often immediately struck by the sheer artistry of the frame, whether we are laying eyes upon the green, rolling hills of Ireland, shaded and textured as if gone over with a fine brush, or the interior of an exquisite manor lit entirely by candles, adorned with giant paintings stretching across walls as magnificent backdrops. The camera’s stiff, controlled movements are as equally rigid as those formations in which Kubrick blocks his cast, maintaining a stillness that turns each scene into oil paintings, much like those hanging in the characters’ chambers and galleries.

The use of actual paintings as backdrops also makes for magnificent period decor – and builds up the self-import of these characters.
A countless number of perfectly composed images in Barry Lyndon. When Kubrick isn’t throwing soft natural lighting through windows, then he is using an abundance of candles to light his interiors and give them the look of oil paintings.

Often the only movement to be found is in a slow zoom out from a close-up, this specific aesthetic device not only keeping intact the two-dimensional, painterly quality of each image that an alternative dolly shot might destroy, but also physically expanding Barry’s world around him, revealing immaculate compositions that appear almost too perfect to be real. But then, every now again, there are small breaks in the performances – Captain John Quin’s attempt to charm a woman through a ridiculous dance, or Ryan O’Neal’s meek line delivery of “I’m not sorry”, feebly asserting Barry’s refusal to back down from courting his own cousin.

It is towards this conflict between the perfectionistic standards of British high society and the messy, flawed beings who built them that Kubrick angles his most significant cultural critique of humanity in all its inflexible customs and traditions. It isn’t that he can’t engage with Barry emotionally, but why should he when it is evident from his behaviour that he is not a figure worth taking seriously on any level? As a young man, Barry’s cocksureness and imprudence are qualities which allow him to work his way up the ranks of aristocracy, engaging in fights and duels bound by rules which attempt to boil down the savage human instinct for violence into civil demonstrations of strength and marksmanship. He joins an army of redcoats in the midst of the Seven Years’ War, and as these stoic Brits march defiantly towards the enemy’s ranks and are picked off one by one, they maintain their worthless honour even in the face of certain death. Fortunately for Barry, he will only play the part for as long as he is held accountable for it, and with no sense of loyalty to any nation, leader, or woman, he finds himself rising up this dishonest society as a con artist.

Tremendous staging of large ensembles, especially as the redcoats march in passive defiance towards the French infantry.

It is here where Kubrick bisects his narrative right down the middle in a show of great formal ambition. Where Part I is named “By What Means Redmond Barry Acquired the Style and Title of Barry Lyndon”, Part II is titled “Containing an Account of the Misfortunes and Disasters Which Befell Barry Lyndon”. His new stepson, Lord Bullingdon, is the first person we meet to call him out on being a “common opportunist”, but before we attach to him for his apparent insight, Kubrick is sure to identify him as simply another fop caught up in a pallid social hierarchy. It is a little surprising that Barry is earned a shred of our sympathy in the way he lovingly interacts with his biological son, Brian, though even this relationship gets caught up in questions of how it simply propagates his own empty legacy, and one that he nevertheless has some part in destroying through his own coddling and overindulgence. “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,” recites a priest at Brian’s funeral, though it might as well be a summation of Barry’s own life as he continues into this downward trajectory, finally ruined by his own hubris, gluttony, and cowardice.

Once again, natural light shining through slits in the walls in this final duel. Also fantastic form in narrative – three duels, each one decisively affecting the course of Barry’s life.

The fight that earned him respect in the first half is mirrored here with one that reveals a degrading loss of control, and just as he once came out on top in an earlier duel, here a similar conflict marks the loss of everything he had remaining – his title, his home, even one of his legs. How cruel it is as well that this duel might have actually gone his way thanks to the same random chance that lifted him up the ladder of success, had he not chosen that moment to do the first noble, fair thing in his life and let his opponent shoot again. In a final display of acerbic irreverence, Barry is sent off on his way out of high society with a zoom into his behind, and a freeze frame immortalising this image of him as his final appearance. The narration does not get the last say either though, but rather simple some plain text reading:

“It was in the reign of George III that the aforesaid personages lived and quarreled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor they are all equal now.”

If we were to entertain the slightest notion that Barry or this empty culture he lives within possess any substance whatsoever, Kubrick cuts it down at the stem with this derisive jab. Like the voiceover fading into obscurity, the pomp and circumstance of these histories and cultures fade over time, unable to live up to the impossible standards of perfection set by humanity’s own foolish ambitions as displayed here in Barry Lyndon.

Not just disconnection, but complete callousness in all these relationships, especially as they are reflected in the blocking.

Barry Lyndon is available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.

The Man Who Would Be King (1975)

John Huston | 2hr 9min

In an era when American directors like Stanley Kubrick and Robert Altman were pushing the boundaries of cinema with the cynical and risqué artistic expressions of New Hollywood, John Huston was still finding joy in the classical Technicolor adventures that were more popular in the industry’s Golden Age. At the same time, it is important to note that this particular adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s novella The Man Who Would Be King could not have been made under the censorship of the Production Code, especially given the debauchery and outright irreverence of its two central characters, Daniel and Peachy. On page, neither are entirely likeable in their overt representations of imperialistic British hubris, and yet the performances of Sean Connery and Michael Caine tactfully draw out the self-deprecating, even endearing foolishness of both men, setting up a pair of boisterous egos we wouldn’t mind seeing knocked down a few pegs.

John Huston has never created anything this epic before, making superb use of long shots for these magnificent set pieces.

After being mistaken for a god by the locals of a Kafiristan village, Daniel quickly latches onto delusions of grandeur, becoming a literal manifestation of British colonisation that asserts itself as superior to those foreign cultures they invade and dominate. The greed of men has often been a primary preoccupation of Huston throughout his oeuvre, but never has he expanded it to the large-scale, godlike proportions we witness here, matching the epic historical backdrop against which it is set. Huston has rarely ventured so far into such pure, cinematic spectacle, using sweeping long shots to isolate Connery and Caine upon the snowy Khyber Pass, filling his frames with extras in kinetic battle scenes, and later, simply letting us gaze upon the holy city of Sikandergul, sitting high up on the peak of a rocky mountain range. With the whole world laying itself at their feet, Daniel and Peachy quickly grow carried away with megalomaniac aspirations of wealth and power.

“The two richest men in England.”

“The empire.”

“The world.”

The world falling at their feet, an image of ego and megalomania.

But just as we observe, the path to glory is through a precariously stacked tower of falsehoods. At Daniel’s wedding to a beautiful local woman he barely knows, Huston builds a frenzied pace in his cutting, reminding us of a holy statue’s all-seeing eye caught in intimidating low angles, all the while the percussive beats played by black-clad musicians build to a feverish crescendo. We fully expect the artifice to come tumbling down around them in this moment, but given the light, reckless tone with which Daniel and Peachy have ripped through these foreign lands and cheapened cultural customs, we aren’t prepared for the heavy weight of the comeuppance when it finally arrives, revealing the true devastation which Daniel and Peachy have wreaked in their careless endeavours.

A brilliantly edited sequence, building to a climax through the percussive beat and rapidly accelerating pace.

In a moment of poetic justice, the tearing down of Daniel’s greatest infrastructural achievement during his time as King brings about his own personal, literal downfall as well. Huston offers some sympathy for the death of this rollicking friendship between two arrogant, irresponsible adventurers, though he has no misgivings regarding how it came about. The men and women of Kafiristan may have dealt the final blow, but the fault lies entirely at the feet of these two pompous Brits who believed the world was theirs to own.

The Man Who Would Be King is available to stream on The Criterion Channel, and available to rent or buy on iTunes, YouTube, and Google Play.