Masterpiece – Scene by Green

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…*

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.

Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Sergei Eisenstein | 1hr 15min

It is no coincidence that history’s most effective propaganda films have also featured fast-paced, avant-garde editing, and some of cinema’s finest at that. This device despicably valorised the Ku Klux Klan in The Birth of a Nation, celebrated Communist revolution in I Am Cuba, and stoked political conspiracy theories in Oliver Stone’s JFK – yet Battleship Potemkin nevertheless looms large among them all. The uprising of the working class against their Tsarist rulers is the central conflict here, and with Sergei Eisenstein labelling the oppressors “vampires” and “monsters,” it doesn’t take a great stretch of the imagination to realise where his loyalties lie.

This film is a product of the Soviet Union in its earliest years, not so much aiming to disseminate historical facts than to rouse passion and outrage from civilians. Under the purview of an artist who understands his craft on an intimate level though, Battleship Potemkin also transcends its own political message. The five methods of montage that Eisenstein developed in the early 1920s stand true across time, unaffected by shifting ideologies or opinions, and are cleanly distilled here in their purest forms. From this mechanical arrangement of moving images, he composes a narrative that disengages from conventional notions of heroic individualism, and in true socialist fashion identifies the collective masses as their own champions.

*In absence of a solo protagonist, the masses are our heroes in Battleship Potemkin, and Eisenstein’s eye for blocking these enormous crowds are major visual strength.*

If we are to pick a protagonist from the vast ensemble gathered in Battleship Potemkin though, that label must fall on sailor Vakulinchuk, who leads his crew’s initial rebellion against the cruel commanding officers. Even then though, his presence after Act II is largely symbolic, spurring on the Bolshevik cause as a martyr. Besides the obvious political dramatisation, Eisenstein represents the story of the real Vakulinchuk relatively accurately here, using a little-known historical event as the foundation of his artistic experimentations.

With Battleship Potemkin‘s dedication to packing hundreds of extras into the scenery and covering the full totality of this revolt, it may very well be one of the shortest epics ever put to screen, coming in well under 90 minutes. This can be mainly attributed to the sheer amount of visual information being thrown at us in the brisk, economical editing, though Eisenstein’s magnificent mise-en-scène shouldn’t be underrated either, particularly in scenes set upon that remarkable monument of naval warfare that is the Potemkin. Here, he carves out a rigorous array of geometric shapes from its industrial design, slicing through compositions with long, grey cannons and trapping its crew among vast webs of rope. Symmetry is crucial here as well, particularly in his blocking of the crew in militaristic formations along both sides of the deck, while his immense depth of field capture them in motion across multiple levels of the ship.

*Eisenstein carves out a rigorous array of geometric shapes from the battleship’s industrial design, angling the camera up through these grates to frame the sailors like prisoners behind bars.*

*Long, grey cannons slice through the mise-en-scène – these harsh diagonal vectors are especially valuable given that the length of each shot is so short.*

*Hammocks encase the sailors in a web of cocoons, hinting at the imminent emergence of newly born insurgents.*

Inside the sleeping berth where Eisenstein’s story begins, the hammocks crowding the frame almost look like cocoons, hinting at the imminent emergence of newly born insurgents. Talk of revolution has been passing around for some time, and after they refuse to eat a hunk of rotten, maggot-infested meat, the threat of execution is visualised in a haunting dissolve of bodies hanging from the masts.

The rising tension here demonstrates the first of Eisenstein’s five methods, metric montage, which creates a tempo based on a specific number of frames for each shot. As a canvas cover is thrown over the condemned sailors and a firing squad marches out, the pacing accelerates, cutting between rifles raised in perfect rows, Vakulinchuk’s stirring fury, and the officers’ malicious grins. This immediate danger is what finally triggers the riot on the vessel, leading into the first of Battleship Potemkin’s bravura set pieces.

*A creative use of a dissolve edit, visualising the threat of hanging sailors from the masts of the ship.*

*The first of Eisenstein’s masterclasses in rising tension through montage editing, accelerating the pacing as Vakulinchuk’s fury reaches the end of its fuse.*

Eisenstein’s staging here is marvellous, navigating the multiple battles unfolding across the ship with rhythmic montage – the adjustment of each shot length according to the movement unfolding onscreen. Meanwhile, cutaways to the Russian Orthodox priest onboard reveal him holding his cross like a weapon, demonstrating intellectual montage through the symbolic association of juxtaposed shots. These sailors are not merely rebelling against the government or its armed forces, but are subverting organised religion itself, toppling the power structures which bolster the Tsarist rule.

*Movement in the frame, running parallel in opposite directions – what looks like chaos is actually orchestrated through purposeful blocking.*

*The Russian Orthodox priest wields his cross like a weapon, symbolically representing the tyrannical connection between organised religion and the state.*

*A fine composition as Valukinchuk hangs from the side of the ship, martyred in his righteous rebellion against the Potemkin’s commanding officers.*

This mutiny is a victory for the Bolsheviks, yet for now celebrations must be put aside to mourn the loss of Valukinchuk, whose body is delivered to the Port of Odessa and set up inside makeshift shrine. Ships gently pass by as bereaved crowds gather, looking to pay respects in powerful solidarity. Eisenstein’s editing is not defined by tempo, continuity, or symbolism here, but rather uses complementary close-ups and long shots of unified crowds to capture the melancholy lament in the air, typifying his method of tonal montage. When one loudmouthed man tries to turn this wounded sorrow into antisemitic prejudice, fists clench and brows furrow, but not in support of his bigotry. Everyone can see that he is appropriating this tragedy for his own purposes, and thus he is promptly shut down.

Tonal montage as ships pass through the port and crowds gather to pay respects to a fallen hero. Eisenstein moves from frantic action to melancholy grief, yet still carries every emotion through his editing.

*Close-ups are played like staccato montages as one man tries to turn wounded sorrow into prejudice, only to be faced with the anger of those seeing through his ploy.*

*108 frames of blazing socialist glory, aggressively puncturing Eisenstein’s black-and-white mise-en-scène.*

As the Potemkin docks at the Port of Odessa and its locals gather in camaraderie, Eisenstein continues to navigate these swells of emotion with remarkable dexterity, even injecting colour in 108 frames of a waving red flag that he hand-tinted himself. As such, the shift from enamoured celebration to terror arrives with a jolt, heralded by a woman’s head violently spasming in uneven jump cuts as she is shot down by an advancing Cossack army. Before we can even register the threat, the infamous massacre upon the Odessa Steps has begun, seeing Eisenstein pull out every montage technique at his disposal to deliver seven minutes of raw editing genius.

*Tonal whiplash through editing – rapid-fire jump cuts of a woman being shot commences the Odessa Steps sequence.*

*Eisenstein’s greatest set piece and a monumental piece of cinema history, using this long stretch of stone stairs down to the harbour as an icon of social instability.*

From either end of this Soviet landmark, the stairway appears to stretch far into the distance, forcing citizens to flee towards either the infantry descending from above or the cavalry waiting to pick them off below. Eisenstein’s camera does not offer these soldiers the same empathetic close-ups as it does their victims, only ever taking their perspective by descending the steps with their steadfast regiment, and moving in a line as unyielding as the geometric formations of their raised rifles.

While this wall of white uniforms mows down everyone in their path, children are horrifically crushed in the stampede, pushing one devastated mother to pick up the broken body of her son and face her assailants. She stands alone in their long, dark shadows, begging them to end this terror, and for a brief moment we wonder whether she has at least slightly stirred their hearts. Within this fable of good and evil though, Eisenstein leaves no room for moral ambiguity – this mother is shot dead on the spot, and the Cossacks continue their forward march.

*Rifles aligned in perfect rows, mercilessly cutting down those who stand in their way.*

*Close-ups play a crucial role in Eisenstein’s montages, bouncing horrified expressions off the trauma surrounding them.*

*Tremendous compositions even in the midst of such fast cutting, as a lone, grieving mother hopelessly stands beneath long shadows of the descending Cossack forces.*

As the Odessa Steps sequence torpedos towards its climax, Eisenstein demonstrates the fifth type of montage that he defined as a young film theorist, inducing a more complex emotional response than metric, rhythmic, or tonal montages on their own. Overtonal montage combines all three here, suspensefully inching a baby carriage closer to the steps, following the motion of its uncontrolled descent, and spreading panic among onlookers who helplessly watch on in terror. The pacing accelerates as we cut from the baby’s face to the spinning wheels, and then just as it tips over, we are confronted by a snarling Cossack soldier striking the camera. Denying us the clean resolution of a long shot, Eisenstein instead chooses to end this sequence on a dissonant note, tightly framing a gasping woman with shattered, blood-streaked spectacles before fading to black.

*Overtonal montage as the scene builds to a devastating climax, cutting between the falling baby carriage, the reactions of onlookers, and the aggressors continuing their march.*

*Shattered, blood-streaked spectacles – the final shot of the Odessa Steps sequence is also perhaps its most memorable after the tumbling baby carriage.*

More than any political message or isolated image, Eisenstein recognises that emotion in film is derived from the timing and arrangement of these shots, congealing into a sweeping indictment of the merciless Tsarist regime. Beyond the disenfranchised men leading the Bolshevik cause, the innocence of women and children are at stake in Battleship Potemkin, and with it, the lifeblood of the very nation.

If the government considers this slaughter the best course of action to quell growing dissent among civilians, then they underestimate the furious passion of the Bolsheviks. “The ship’s guns roared into reply to the massacre,” the intertitles read, before we witness the Potemkin’s cannons shatter the Odessa Opera House into pieces.

That night as its sailors rest and prepare for an imminent confrontation with the Tsarist squadrons, Eisenstein settles an anxious tranquillity across the ship, silhouetting men against moonlit skies and slowing his montage editing down to a gentle lull. When that fleet of enemy ships begins to emerge over the horizon though, Battleship Potemkin launches into its final set piece, fearfully anticipating the gunfire that will surely sink this vessel of hope.

*Soldiers silhouetted against a moonlit sky, heavily intertwined with the ropes, masts, and ladders they hang off.*

Machines whir and black smoke billows from the warship’s chimneys, hanging a dark, ominous cloud overhead as it steers towards the squadron with nothing but a tiny destroyer by its side. Rather than meeting them with violence though, another far riskier tactic is considered. “Signal them to join us!” the sailors call out, raising flags and beseeching peaceful passage.

Once again, Eisenstein uses his metric montage to drive up tension, weaving close-ups of rotating gun turrets and rising cannon muzzles among long shots of the naval battleground – though this time bloodshed does not eventuate. “Brothers!” the sailors of the Potemkin call to their comrades aboard the Tsarist fleet, who eagerly allow them to pass between their ships. Hanging from the railings and crow’s nests, crews from both sides wave to each in solidarity, spurring on the Bolshevik movement which in years to come will take over all of Russia.

*Once again, Eisenstein builds his montage editing to a climax – and this time greets us with total catharsis as the Potemkin is allowed safe passage past Tsarist ships.*

Such bright optimism marks a notable shift from the bleak cynicism which ended Eisenstein’s previous film Strike, though if anything it simply proves the versatility of his editorial orchestrations, coordinating hundreds of dynamic images into fervent expressions that span humanity’s full emotional spectrum. In the hands of this young Soviet film theorist, cinema becomes a symphony of notes, rhythms, and textures, and Battleship Potemkin towers within the art form as the peak of such visual, kinetic innovation.

*Gorgeous symmetry as the sailors of the Potemkin celebrate their solidarity, delivering a win for the workers of Russia.*

Battleship Potemkin is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Stanley Kubrick | 2hr 39min

The mysterious, erotic cult that Dr. Bill Hartford infiltrates one night after a bitter argument with his wife Alice may be deeply sensual, but it can’t exactly be described as intimate. Anonymity is highly valued here, concealing the faces of its members with impassive masks even as they bare their naked bodies. Orgies are performed with ritualistic solemnity upon fine furniture, while other guests quietly watch from the sidelines of this manor’s lavish, Baroque interiors. Within the main hall too, their red-cloaked leader conducts a ceremonial prayer, chanting a deep, guttural hymn and swinging a thurible around his circle of prostrating followers. Whatever this is, Bill certainly finds it more exciting than his monogamous marriage to Alice, though playing in the realm of dreams is a dangerous game when reality inevitably beckons from the other side.

Having long been fascinated by cinema’s potential to unlock humanity’s repressed desires, Stanley Kubrick’s interrogation of matrimony and temptation finally sees him aim his camera towards the act of sex itself. It may be one of the most common human activities alongside eating and sleeping, but it is perhaps the only one to also be considered taboo, never to be spoken about in polite company. In essence, it is a secret club that we know everyone is part of, yet which also demands us to remain silent on the personal matter of our fantasies, habits, and history. As we witness when Bill is caught out and forced to remove his mask, the threat of being exposed does not simply incite shame and humiliation. It is an existential threat to our very being.

*A stunning piece of production design inside the cult’s manor, laying into the warm, red palette of sensuous lustful desire while injecting a harsh sterility.*

*Superb blocking throughout the manor, draping fully-cloaked and naked members across each other while hiding their identities behind masks.*

Fortunately, there is a woman at this party who is oddly protective of Bill, offering to take his punishment when he is put on trial in front of the entire cult. He is “redeemed,” and therefore allowed to leave with nothing but a stern warning to disregard what he has witnessed – though the urge to probe deeper into this underworld isn’t so easily ignored. How can he return to his ordinary life and marriage after glimpsing such a thrilling, earth-shattering secret?

Of course, this is not the only function Bill attends in Eyes Wide Shut. Being one of cinema’s greatest formalists, Kubrick foreshadows the cult’s covert gathering with a Christmas party in the film’s first act. Besides the wealthy host Victor Ziegler and old friend Nick Nightingale providing entertainment on keys, Bill and Alice do not know any other guests – an awkward situation that returns at the cult’s mansion where Ziegler and Nick are again the only acquaintances present in a crowd of strangers. If the masquerade is where identities are concealed and desires are freely expressed, then this soirée sees its guests put on courteous facades for the sake of social convention, while infidelity quietly simmers in flirtatious passes. That is, until Ziegler urgently summons Bill upstairs to save his mistress Mandy from an overdose, suddenly shining a harsh light on his private affairs.

*The first of many beautifully lit scenes, illuminating the Christmas party with golden fairy lights, chandeliers, and coloured bulbs.*

It is clearly a thin layer of decorum separating these characters’ private and public personas, even behind the closed doors of their most intimate relationships. That is where Bill’s psychosexual journey starts in Eyes Wide Shut after all, as the day after Ziegler’s party, he and Alice jealously confront each other about the strangers they flirted with. The only reason men would ever speak to women like her is to sleep with them, he asserts, while the opposite sex is simply programmed differently. This is the belief which his faith in their marriage rests upon, and so when she confesses to a fantasy that she had about another man, his fragile world is shaken.

The verbal sparring between Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman here displays incredibly fierce performances from both actors, drawing from the well of natural chemistry they shared in their real-life marriage before its breakup. While the rest of Alice’s story in Eyes Wide Shut is largely confined to their apartment, jittery, monochrome hallucinations of her making love to other men continue to haunt Bill on his night-time wanderings, as he smoothly glides across rear-projected backdrops of New York’s streets.

*Jittery, monochrome hallucinations manifesting Bill’s greatest insecurity.*

*Rear projection as Cruise wanders through New York streets, disconnecting from his surroundings as if in a dream.*

Kubrick’s reappropriation of what used to be a classical Hollywood technique is carried through with avant-garde flair here, effectively lifting Cruise out his immediate environment and submerging him in a dreamlike state. The ambient, practical lighting that is carried through the film as a whole also serves to shape his ethereal world with vibrant beauty, constantly underscoring the holiday setting with sparkling Christmas trees, golden fairy lights, and decorated shop windows. When Bill ventures into a dim, moody jazz club, its array of coloured bulbs become bleary stars in the background of shots, while cool, blue washes in his apartment contrast its festive warmth with melancholic innocence.

*The jazz club where Bill meets with Nick is an underworld of ethereal, ambient beauty, its lights becoming a backdrop of bleary stars.*

*A meticulous recreation of Greenwich Village streets despite being shot in England, maintaining the excellent use of practical lights.*

*The occasional cool, blue wash in Bill and Alice’s apartment contrasts its festive warmth with melancholic innocence.*

Eyes Wide Shut does not evoke this cultural imagery merely for its striking aesthetic though. Like the cult’s devout worship of sex, Christmas represents the intersection of the sacred and profane. It is historically a Christian celebration, yet its pagan roots stretch even further back, while in modern-day society its spiritual significance has been entirely stripped away. Religious iconography is scarce to be found here, as Kubrick instead recognises it as an annual orgy of consumerism, encouraging us to gorge ourselves on the world’s temptations. As the final scene in the toy shop demonstrates, these may merely manifest as whimsical, material goods for children, though adults are far more likely to pursue more carnal exploits as an escape from loneliness that this time of year often brings.

*Christmas represents the intersection of the sacred and profane, here stripped of religious significance and embodied purely through secular decorations.*

*An annual orgy of consumerism, celebrated in the commercial stores that Bill visits throughout the film.*

For us too, the atmosphere that Kubrick builds is deeply intoxicating, lulling us into a trance strung together by impressionistic long dissolves and a minimalist piano motif alternating between two eerie notes. His camera is fully engaged with the movement of bodies, twirling around Alice’s amorous dance with an older Hungarian man at Ziegler’s party, and later slowing down into a steady, prying zoom as she and Bill embrace in the mirror. Moments like these often break up the cold sterility that is present in Kubrick’s detached wide shots, and thus we often find ourselves alternating between perspectives of the human body as either vessels of profound emotion, or merely an anatomical collection of organs acting on animal instinct.

*Kubrick’s eye for composition did not weaken over the decades – the framing, blocking, and palette of this opening shot is a stunning formal setup for the film.*

*An excellent camera zoom as Bill and Alice embrace in this mirror shot, tentatively inching closer to the following consummation.*

*Long dissolves as dreamy transitions between scenes, shifting from intimate close-ups to wide shots.*

There is no need to settle on one interpretation over the other here – Kubrick recognises that it is merely a matter of subjective versus objective perceptions, and it is frequently impossible to tell the difference. Whether he is being seduced by his patients’ daughters or going home with a prostitute, Bill is teased with sexual advances everywhere he goes, though each time he is incidentally pulled away by some other engagement. If this is a dream, then perhaps it is his subconscious mind waking him back up, pushing him back to his duties as a faithful husband and respectable doctor who must maintain a clinical relationship with the human body. He walks a very narrow line, but the fact that he never entirely throws himself into temptation even saves his life on at least one occasion, as we learn when the prostitute’s HIV diagnosis comes to light.

*Temptation follows Bill everywhere he goes, yet each time he is pulled away as if waking from another dream.*

More ambiguously, the treatment that Bill administered to Mandy may have also incidentally been the reason he was allowed to leave the cult’s manor unharmed, as he eventually deduces the identity of his masked saviour and receives confirmation from a man who was present – Ziegler. With that said, his secret club did not actually play any role in killing her, the cultist claims. It was all a ruse to scare Bill off, and the fatal overdose being reported in the news is merely incidental.

Whether or not Ziegler is telling the truth, it is enough motivation for Bill to abandon his investigation completely. Whatever personal issues may be present in his marriage to Alice, the risk of divorce, an STD, or even death is simply too significant to be treated with such recklessness. At the same time though, can we truly appreciate what we have in front of us if we don’t grapple with the darkness that lies on the other side?

*The green hanging lights over the red billiard table – subtly evocative of the red circle in the manor’s main hall.*

“Maybe I think we should be grateful,” Alice ponders in the final minutes of Eyes Wide Shut. “Grateful that we’ve managed to survive through all of our adventures, whether they were real or only a dream.” After all, dreams do not belong to distant, far-flung worlds. They are closely intertwined with the actions and decisions we make every day, guiding us towards tangible futures born from primal fantasies. By carefully traversing that indistinct realm which dissipates each morning upon being touched by sunlight, Kubrick delicately reveals those depraved, shadowy figures that live inside us all, and the invisible power they hold over our minds, civilisations, and humanity.

Eyes Wide Shut is currently available to rent or buy on Apple TV and YouTube.

Strike (1925)

Sergei Eisenstein | 1hr 22min

Much like the factory workers uniting against their exploitative managers in Strike, Sergei Eisenstein walks a very narrow line between anarchy and order. There is the temptation in both political and artistic rebellion to throw caution to the wind, tearing down traditional institutions with reckless indignation, and yet revolution for revolution’s sake is no way to pave a path for the future. As furiously impassioned as these Bolsheviks may be, unity requires discipline and willpower, ensuring every action is driven by ideological principles rather than emotional instinct.

So too does a rigorous formal purpose underlie every visual and editorial choice that Eisenstein makes in Strike, pragmatically applying the ‘methods of montage’ that he had innovated as a young film theorist. In approaching his craft with such mathematical precision, he effectively set the stage for the Hitchcocks and Kubricks of the future, understanding the compositional details from which profound sensory experiences of art are born. More specifically, it was the ability to cut from one image to another which he identified as cinema’s distinguishing feature, separating it from theatre, literature, and painting as a radical mode of creative expression for the twentieth century. By connecting two individual shots in this manner, a third idea is born which is not contained in either, but is rather delivered through the sum of both.

It is easy to underrate Eisenstein’s skilful arrangement of mise-en-scène when so much of the discourse surrounds his editing. Geometric shapes imprinted as silhouettes against backgrounds draw ever so slightly from the German expressionist films of the era.

*Poignant editing as this suicide plays out through visual inferences, focusing on the kicked over stepladder and the fastening belt loop.*

Eisenstein was not the only filmmaker of the 1920s to be experimenting in this arena, yet Strike was among the first features to demonstrate the enormous potential of Soviet Montage Theory, wielding cinema as a tool of propaganda. Set in pre-Revolution Russia, its narrative raises up the working class as their own heroes, planning to instigate a mutiny at their factory before the suicide of one labourer prematurely lights the spark. Close-ups on Yurik’s hands fastening his belt into a loop, a stepladder being kicked over, and the belt suddenly tightening around a metal beam tell his story through visual inferences, and from there Eisenstein executes a fervent set piece unlike any other that came before.

The length of the average shot in Strike sits a brisk 2.5 seconds, half that of the typical Hollywood film, though within this sequence it is even shorter. Machines are halted, feet run by, and tools are thrown into a pile, not to be picked up again until concessions are made. Quite unusually, there are no main characters here who stand above the fray. In true socialist fashion, strength instead lies in the masses, and as such Eisenstein dedicates many wide shots to his magnificent staging of their movements in powerful unison. The visuals are frantic, but never uncontrolled, propelling the scene forward as loose rocks are thrown through the foundry windows and the office gates are forced open. With nowhere left to hide, two unfortunate managers are carted out in wheelbarrows and tossed into a filthy river, at which point the temporarily satisfied crowd heads home.

*Eisenstein’s first great set piece unfolds with tremendous vigour, carrying on D.W. Griffith’s legacy to reveal the vast, unique potential of cinema as an art form.*

*Excellent blocking of crowds in unison. There are no main characters in this story – it is the people as a collective who we sympathise with.*

Cinema is clearly more than just a narrative vehicle for Eisenstein, as this first day closes with an image that serves only to reinforce the strength of the movement – three labourers folding their arms and directing stern gazes at the camera, while a spinning wheel is projected over the top of them. Equally though, this double exposure technique is also later used to dissolve the image of a clawed hand over the strikers drawing up demands, threatening to crush their aspirations of justice. Their stipulations are nothing outrageous by modern standards – an eight-hour workday, 30% pay increase, civil treatment by management – but their momentary peace is nevertheless interrupted by troops seeking to disperse them.

*Montage extends beyond the sequential arrangement of images for Eisenstein, but also blends them into the same frame, spinning the wheel of progress over these stoic, united factory workers.*

*A double exposure effect crushes these striking factory workers as they draw up demands.*

Through Eisenstein’s parallel editing, their sit-down protest makes for a compelling contrast against the small group of wealthy shareholders gathering in a dark office, puffing cigars and using their demand letter to mop up a spill. There, the image of a lemon being juiced in a squeezer underscores the visceral brutality of the police’s attempted crackdown, once again pulverising the proletariats in the hands of their superiors.

*Symbolism through editing – the squeezing of a lemon is visually compared to the police’s crackdown on the strikers.*

When it comes to orchestrating cinematic collages such as these, Eisenstein is in a league of his own, calculating the length, placement, and type of each cut according to the needs of the scene. Dissolves do not necessarily indicate the passage of time, but are woven organically into montages like a legato musical phrase, while close-ups of incensed faces are alternately played with rapid staccato. Even lively flourishes of style are integrated here in the visual blending of undercover agents with animals, noting their shared features and mannerisms. As we examine their frozen images in a photo book, these spies suddenly spring to life with comical glee, tipping their hats at the camera before promptly leaving their individual frames.

*Spies are given animalistic qualities through their code names, as well as the dissolves which blend them together in our mind.*

*Eisenstein reveals a lively sense of humour as the photos in this book spring to life, tip their hats to the camera, and cheerfully march out of frame.*

If these editorial rhythms liken Strike to a symphony, then Eisenstein is its maestro, merging every cinematic element in orchestral harmony. Despite his aesthetic perfectionism extending to his mise-en-scène and camerawork as well though, it is an unfortunate consequence of the film’s brisk pacing that many critics also underrate the strength of its individual shot compositions, which deftly build out the expansive world of this factory and its surroundings. The industrial architecture of glass and metal juts out at geometric angles, weaves through machinery, and frames bodies that are always in motion, particularly in those recurring tracking shots past rows of men at work. There is rich detail to be gauged from the camera’s tighter framing of people and objects as well, gazing at an upside-down, spherical refraction of the town’s streets through a glass orb in a shop, quite literally turning society on its head as the strike drags painfully on.

*Geometric* *composition* *through* *the sharp angles of the factory, fanning out across the ceiling in this low angle as workers hang from the beams.*

*The camera moves in a rigid path down this line of factory workers, effectively establishing the factory setting.*

*Eisenstien exchanges straight lines and angles for wheels in the junkyard, busying shots with circles and spokes.*

*The town is turned on its head through this glass orb – Kieslowski would pick up on this years later in The Double Life of Veronique*.

The junkyard of half-buried barrels marks another superb set piece as well when the crooked King of Thieves is introduced, seeking five unscrupulous types to loot and set fire to a liquor store. Crawling out from the ground like worms, his ragtag followers set out to do his bidding, instigating a riot as gathering masses cheer on the violence. “They’re trying to incite us! Don’t give in to these provocations!” the wiser proletariats among them shout, though the authorities need little justification to enforce their own oppressive rule of law. Rather than turning their high-pressure hoses on the blaze, the firemen cruelly blast the crowd, with the military arriving sooner after to capitalise on this moment of vulnerability.

*Barrels embedded in the ground, each housing the ragtag followers of the King of Thieves who are likened to worms.*

*The instigators threaten to ruin the strikers’ peaceful efforts, once again raising the temperature of these tensions by burning down a liquor store.*

*The fire fighters turn their high-pressure hoses on the protestors rather than the fire, revealing a deep corruption among forces of state and capital.*

This is the unchecked influence of capitalists in a corrupt system, Eisenstein demonstrates, enforcing their own rule through the arms of the state. All throughout Strike, the first line of Vladimir Lenin’s epigraph declaring that “The strength of the working class is in its organisation” has proven consistently true, though now as their unity fractures, the relevance of its second part begins to surface as well.

“Without the organisation of the masses, the proletariat is nothing.”

The devastation which follows is unrelenting. It does not carry the bittersweet tragedy of Hollywood melodramas, nor the haunting ambiguity of German Expressionism, but this conclusive downbeat rather reflects the gut-wrenching national trauma which eventually drove the Bolsheviks to revolt in 1917. A child is tossed over the edge of a balcony, hands reach to the sky in desperation, and as these labourers and their families are rounded up like animals into a field, Eisenstein intercuts their massacre with the slaughter of a bull. It is a symbolic and editorial device that Francis Ford Coppola would later use in the final minutes of Apocalypse Now, though where that signified the death of a madman, here we mourn and rage at the murder of innocence.

*The police assault invades the workers’ living quarters, silhouetting figures against a bright sky as children are ruthlessly tossed over balconies and homes are ransacked.*

*Devastation reigns – Eisenstein’s parallel editing compares the massacre of the strikers to the slaughter of a bull, raging at the loss of innocence.*

We are right to feel disgust. Eisenstein would not have used such dehumanising imagery if he did not agree that the physical desecration of a living creature is a deeply disturbing sight to behold, yet only in witnessing this bold artistic statement might we experience a fraction of the repulsion the Russian people held towards their oppressors. While cinema was still young, few people understood its immense power in shaping political thought, and even fewer mastered this skill through a dextrous, virtuosic command of moving images as Eisenstein does here in Strike.

Strike is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

The End of Summer (1961)

Yasujirō Ozu | 1hr 43min

Marriage within the Kohayagawa family takes on multiple meanings throughout The End of Summer, always dependent on the individual in question. For younger daughter Noriko it is an aspiration hindered by her sweetheart Teramoto’s decision to move away for work, while her elder sister Fumiko performs her duty loyally, raising a son with her husband Hisao. The pressure for their widowed sister-in-law Akiko to remarry is also quietly mounting, even as she quietly resists with the sincere acknowledgement that her youth is long gone – not that patriarch Manbei sees this as an issue when he controversially tries to reconnect with his old mistress. A widower of his age should not be considering the prospect of marriage, his family proclaims, lest he should embarrass them all.

As is the case in most Yasujirō Ozu films, Japanese tradition is at the forefront here, merging The End of Summer’s rigorous form, style, and content into a gentle meditation on those longstanding cultural values that have ensured stability across generations. Where his penultimate film sets itself apart is in the astounding elegance of the execution, even by his own standards. In terms of pure visual storytelling, this competes with only a handful of his greatest works, while pushing his geometrically precise style forward through rejuvenating colour photography.

Ozu rpresents the entire Kohayagawa family through the brown, earthy tones of their home and sake bar – dark wooden flooring, furniture, and panelling are the dominant aesthetic in The End of Summer.

*An elegant frame beyond the crowded angles of the family home, gently imposing the tree trunk and branches on these characters as we join their conversation.*

Ozu’s layering of frames through corridors and doorways remains one of his most potent visual devices here, often containing his characters within the spaces of work, leisure, and domestic duty which define their day-to-day routines. There is often an extraordinary graphic harmony between people and their surrounding décor, symmetrically dividing a table at one of Noriko’s work lunches by gender, while running a pattern of brightly coloured bottles beneath them parallel to their staging.

*Extraordinary graphic harmony in Ozu’s mise-en-scène, symmetrically dividing a table at one of Noriko’s work lunches by gender while running a pattern of brightly coloured bottles beneath them.*

The End of Summer’s mise-en-scène also transcends conventional blocking choices, often suggesting the presence of specific characters despite their physical absence. When we transition into a scene with Akiko at an art gallery for instance, Ozu gently delivers a montage of floral paintings in an art gallery, while on a broader level he represents the entire Kohayagawa family through the brown, earthy tones that encompass them. Within their home, dark wooden flooring, furniture, and panelling are the dominant aesthetic, complementing their light bamboo drapes and striking an extraordinary contrast against their exquisitely patterned wallpaper and textiles.

Ozu uses mise-en-scène to suggest the presence of specific characters despite their physical absence, delivering a montage of floral paintings in an art gallery when we transition into a scene with Akiko at an art gallery.

*Patterned wallpaper becomes a trend towards the end of Ozu’s career, delicately framing his immaculately blocked ensemble.*

*Bamboo drapes weave light, organic textures through domestic spaces, complementing the dark wooden décor.*

As for Manbei himself, his personality and power are most strongly signified in the family sake brewery, often seen with barrels leaning obliquely against its wall in Ozu’s pillow shots. Their contents are the foundation of his small business, though in this modern era its future is looking frighteningly uncertain, as the need to merge into a larger corporation seems more inevitable with each passing week.

*Marvellous pillow shots set around the family brewery, leaning rounded barrels up against the outside wall when business is prospering.*

When Manbei suffers a heart attack, these shots consequently draw a parallel between the health of his body and his company. As Noriko rushes to call an ambulance, Ozu cuts through a series of familiar locations in their home that are now gloomily dimmed and emptied, before returning to the brewery’s exterior where the absence of barrels is poignantly noted. The graveyard shot that is additionally inserted here isn’t to be passed over either – Ozu’s careful editing weaves a mournful foreboding in the wake of this sudden illness, quietly hinting at the tragedy that has already taken the family’s beloved mother, and which will soon claim their patriarch and business as well.

*Immediately following Manbei’s heart attack, Ozu lingers in this melancholy montage of the empty doctor’s office and family home, now void of life.*

*The family business’ health is tied directly to Manbei’s – no more barrels after he is struck down by illness.*

Throughout Ozu’s career, the encroachment of the modern world into traditional Japanese spaces has steadily become more central to his narrative conflicts, even as he maintains a nuanced standpoint on the issue. With a piece of the Kohayagawa family’s identity at stake, the threat of post-war industrialism is felt especially deeply here, yet at the same time Ozu savours the incongruence of this cultural clash. The blinking neon lights of Kyoto’s cityscapes are searingly beautiful, while views of temples through Venetian blinds and pagodas peeking over tiled roofs further develop the uneasy interactions between Japan’s past and present.

*Kyoto’s dazzling cityscapes look to Japan’s future, stripped of those family businesses which were once the economy’s lifeblood.*

*Ancient temples framed through office windows, depicting a clash of eras and values.*

Quite unusually though, it is not just the younger generations subverting cultural customs in The End of Summer, but even Manbei himself. Every so often Ozu dismisses his characters’ polite reservations with glimpses of spirited humour, watching the elderly sake brewer play hide and seek with his grandchild, and elsewhere try to shake his employee’s tail while running off to his mistress’ home. His children’s concerns about this rekindled romance are understandable given its history, though now that their mother has passed, so too can we understand Manbei’s renewed desire for companionship.

*Moments of levity in Manbei’s games with his grandson.*

*Light comedy in Manbei’s sly escape to his mistress’ home, shaking the tail of his younger employee – even here, Ozu repeats shots to establish a sense of geography.*

It is obvious upon meeting Tsune that we realise she is no wily seductress, but just another lonely parent seeking love, and ultimately proving her dedication to Manbei as she nurses him through his sickness. Happiness and fulfilment can clearly be found outside the family unit in The End of Summer, even if certain relationships are left ambiguous, such as the question of whether he fathered her daughter Yuriko. The rebellious streak that he and Yuriko both share only supports this speculation, particularly manifesting in her as a rejection of Japanese culture and adoption of a heavily Westernised lifestyle. Rather than the loose-fitting and slimming garb worn by Manbei’s daughters, she wears bright, eye-catching dresses that accentuate her curved figure, and her dating life primarily revolves around white American men.

*Japan’s youth are adopting a Westernised culture, typified in Yuriko who dresses in bright dresses and dates primarily American men.*

The two sequences where Ozu takes the Kohayagawa family outside the city and into the countryside thus mark a reprieve from this modern cultural conflict, even if it is exchanged for profound mourning in both instances. In the first instance, they hold a memorial service for their late mother in Arashiyama, where Ozu’s pillow shots turn their focus to forests and hills that have barely been touched by human civilisation. The second time they venture beyond their home though, the grief is far more potent, commemorating the passing of their beloved father.

*Pillow shots as we transition to the countryside – note the formal rigour of these compositions, flooding the frame with greenery while running a brown, vertical beam through each shot.*

*Foreground and background detail in Ozu’s compositions, running a line of gravestones diagonally across the frame while two lonely figures in mourning clothes keep their distance.*

The small appearance of Ozu regular Chishû Ryû as a farmer observing the crematorium chimney with his wife is notable here, despite there being no direct interaction between them and our main characters. Judging by the crows gathering along the river where they work, they surmise that someone has died, and soon their suspicions are confirmed when smoke from that giant pillar begins rising into the air. “It’s not a big deal if an elderly person were to have died, but it would be tragic if it were somebody young,” the woman ponders, while the man takes a more positive spin on her indifference.

“Yes, but no matter how many die, new lives will be born to take their place.”

*Chishû Ryû cameos as a farmer commenting on Manbei’s death from afar, bringing Ozu’s musings on mortality to a close.*

*The crematory chimney is a poignant visual motif, marking Manbei’s final departure from the world.*

It is merely the cycle of life, his wife acknowledges – a comforting assertion given the confirmation in these final scenes that the Kohayagawa brewery will indeed be sold off, ending an era in this family’s history. No longer do these adult children wear light colours and delicate patterns, but instead exchange them for pitch-black, funereal garments. Even after they leave the graveyard, the severe imprints they cast against the pale blue sky poetically resonate into Ozu’s sombre final shot, revealing two crows cawing upon a pair of headstones. They are the grief of the living that lingers with the deceased, but so too are they the souls of husband and wife joined in death, marking the resting spot where their bodies lay. Perhaps the celebrated traditions of marriage and family can secure a longstanding stability through this loss, yet The End of Summer does not underestimate the sorrow that it entails, composing wistful lamentations of life’s transient, bittersweet joys.

*Manbei’s adult children no longer wear light colours and delicate patterns, but instead exchange them for pitch-black, funereal garments, imprinted against a light blue sky.*

Crows gather at the cemetery, and Ozu nails his final shot – these birds are the grief of the living that lingers with the deceased, but so too are they the souls of husband and wife joined in death, marking the resting spot where their bodies lay.

The End of Summer is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel.

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 17^th 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 17^th 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 17^th 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 Earrings of Madame de… (1953)

Max Ophüls | 1hr 45min

French noblewoman Louise regularly visits the local Catholic church in The Earrings of Madame de… to pray for prosperity, though the tenets of her faith do not fall in so neatly with the Christian doctrine of 19^th century Europe. The intended recipient of her invocations is not necessarily God, but rather a fatalistic universe which has already miraculously proven itself to be on her side, whether by chance or providence. As for the sacred charm which she venerates as an icon of good fortune, one needs to look no further than those precious diamond earrings which she had previously tried to part with to pay off her enormous debts, and yet have since returned through pure happenstance. This of course can’t just be coincidence, she decides, and thus these pieces of jewellery are imbued with a mystical sentimentality that she alone has conceived of in her mind.

If destiny does exist within The Earrings of Madame de… though, then it isn’t one that can be influenced simply through prayers, wishes, or talismans. It is cold and indifferent, guaranteeing that whether it is Louise’s husband André or her paramour Fabrizio who ultimately wins their contest, she will be left heartbroken by the loss of the other. Max Ophüls may have been German-born, and yet these lyrical contemplations of fate’s ironic passages position him as perhaps the greatest inheritor of France’s poetic realism in the 1950s. Moreover, this lofty status is only strengthened by his use of Jean Renoir’s favoured cinematographer Christian Matras, crafting long, elegant tracking shots that carry the legacy of his cinematic forefathers.

*Exquisite use of frames all throughout the film, wrapping characters up in ornately designed mirrors and trapping them behind windows.*

There are few visual devices that match so gracefully to the film’s predeterministic perspective as this, seeing the camera trace the winding paths of objects and people before settling on extraordinary frames that Ophüls has perfectly arranged as the camera’s destination. Right from the very first shot, he is already laying the groundwork for this overarching aesthetic in a 2-and-a-half minute long take that begins on those fateful earrings, follows the movement of Louise’s hands through dressers and armoires, and finally catches her reflection trying them on in a small, oval mirror. As a result, she is immediately introduced as a woman defined by her abundantly lavish possessions rather than her innate qualities or relationships.

Ophüls opens his film with a masterful tracking shot that starts on the titular earrings, before following Louise’s hands through her wardrobe and dresser, and eventually revealing her face in a mirror.

Ophüls is not one to cut corners on his production design either, consuming Louise in a cluttered opulence that evokes Josef von Sternberg’s busy mise-en-scène, yet without the harsh angles of his expressionism. Hanging around the edges of her bed are thin gauze drapes patterned with floral emblems, often framing her face or lightly obscuring it as the camera peers into her intimate domain, while elsewhere dining tables laden with candelabras, glassware, and bottles obstruct our view from low camera angles. Behind the seated guests, a giant mirror stretching the length of the wall turns the ballroom dancers into a lively backdrop, surrounding Louise with upper-class splendour on every side. Even when she grows depressed, she remains totally consumed by this material lifestyle, as Ophüls sinks her body into a large armchair that leaves only her head visible at the bottom of the frame. Just as exorbitant wealth incites Louise’s romantic interest, so too does it stifle relationships, including her marriage to André whose large bed sits in the same room far away from her own. Though she has taken his surname, Ophüls underscores its complete irrelevance to her identity all throughout The Earrings of Madame de…, frequently censoring it with diegetic interruptions and convenient camera placements.

*Hanging around the edges of Louise’s bed are thin gauze drapes patterned with floral emblems, often framing her face or lightly obscuring it as the camera peers into her intimate domain.*

Behind the seated guests at the ball, a giant mirror stretching the length of the wall, turning the ballroom dancers into a lively backdrop and surrounding Louise with upper-class splendour on every side.

*When Louise grows depressed, she remains totally consumed by her material lifestyle, as Ophüls sinks her body into a large armchair that leaves only her head visible at the bottom of the frame.*

That the earrings which Louise decides to sell were a wedding gift from André speaks even more to her disinterest in their marriage, motivating her pretend to lose them during a night out at the theatre, before actually pawning them off to local jeweller Mr Rémy. At least her husband returns the sentiment, or lack thereof, as once Mr Rémy secretly sells them back to him, he presents them as a farewell gift to his mistress Lola before she leaves for Constantinople. During her travels, they are again used to pay off personal debts, winding up in the hands of another jeweller who in turn sells them to a passing traveller – handsome middle-aged gentleman, Fabrizio. That he should later run into Louise twice in the span of two weeks and eventually fall in love with her seems too strange of a coincidence, and when he unassumingly gifts her the earrings that she once owned, she too recognises the remarkable journey they took to return home.

*The earrings travel from Paris to Constantinople and back again, passing through the hands of multiple strangers yet always being guided by fate.*

Within this web of affairs though, André is no fool. He indulges Louise’s pretence of losing her treasured earrings for some time despite knowing the truth through Mr Rémy, and his observations of her apparently platonic relationship with Fabrizio stoke suspicions. From his position of power and knowledge, he maliciously toys with her, and even forces her to give the earrings to his niece who has recently given birth. Quite remarkably though, Ophüls sees them sold to cover debts for a third time in his narrative, and thus Louise is given the chance to buy them back from Rémy much to her husband’s dismay. After all, no longer do they represent their matrimonial union, but rather her relationship with Fabrizio which has reliably conquered the stacked odds against it.

With Ophüls’ dextrous camera manoeuvring the ups and downs of this affair, it isn’t hard to fall prey to Louise’s romantic idealism either. The coordination of his cranes and dollies through scenes with multiple actors become a delicate dance of blocking – quite literally too in a montage that breezes through several weeks of illicit encounters at balls. As Louise and Fabrizio waltz through large crowds, the camera delicately weaves with them, drifting further and closer to their quiet conversations in rhythmic patterns. With each individual dalliance being linked by long dissolves, Ophüls creates the impression of one long, uninterrupted dance, blissfully contained inside a dream that Louise will keep prolonging for as long as destiny wills it to live.

*A splendid montage of long dissolves weaving together multiple meetings between lovers, each time with the camera freely tracking their movements across the ballroom.*

As far is Louise is concerned though, this is barely an obstacle. “Will we meet again?” Fabrizio asks on their second chance run-in, to which she replies with absolute confidence, “Fate is on our side.” Of course, this faith rests on flimsy foundations, imbuing material objects with arbitrary meaning in much the same way her friend applies clairvoyant readings to ordinary cards. Ophüls’ formal construction of this character through multiple belief systems is impeccable, eventually rolling them into one when she returns to the shrine of St. Genevieve in the closing minutes of the film, and leaves behind her earrings as an offering to whichever God may be listening.

*Louise is a woman who relies on multiple belief systems, twice visiting the church to pray for good fortune, and giving Ophüls a solid excuse to return to this marvellous composition.*

*Ophüls is an early adopter of canted angles, subtly throwing the mise-en-scène off-balance as the drama winds out of control.*

Is it fate then which coincides Fabrizio’s death with her relinquishing of these jewels, or was this merely the random winds of chance delivering a long overdue tragedy to a woman who has never known true heartbreak? Perhaps this vast, erratic cosmos does not care so much for the life of any one individual after all, with the only meaning in it being imprinted by those actively seeking out patterns. Imposing formal structure upon chaos may very well be Ophüls’ job too as a storyteller, but in what is likely the strongest shot of The Earrings of Madame de… he also recognises the human soul’s slow fade into insignificance with romantic poignancy, watching the scattered shreds of a torn-up love letter blow out a train window and join a flurry of snow. Just as it is impossible to find any meaningful configuration in their singular paths, their destinations are similarly unknowable, and yet to follow their journey upon gusts and breezes in this beautiful, fleeting moment is to truly comprehend the inscrutability of life’s unpredictable paths.

*An astounding transition from pieces of a ripped-up letter to falling snow, blowing in the wind along unknowable paths.*

The Earrings of Madame de… is streaming on The Criterion Channel and is available to purchase from Amazon.

Amarcord (1973)

Federico Fellini | 2hr 7min

Spring arrives in the Italian village of Borgo San Giuliano with white, fluffy poplar seeds floating on the breeze, bearing a striking resemblance to the snow that has just melted away. In summer, school student Titta relishes the warm weather on a family day trip to the countryside, with his Uncle Teo being granted short-term leave from the psychiatric hospital where he resides. Autumn later brings cooler temperatures, and sees the vast majority of the population sail out on boats to witness the passage of the ocean liner SS Rex, while winter’s frozen grip on the small town heralds sickness and tragedy in Titta’s family.

The year that passes over the course of Amarcord is not bound by plot convention, and yet each vignette has its formal place in the eccentric portrait of 1930s Italy that Federico Fellini sentimentally models after his own childhood. Unlike the wandering odyssey of Satyricon or the pseudo-documentary of Roma, Amarcord never falters in its lively, easy-going pacing, loosely building its episodic formal progression around the seasonal changes and communal traditions of these villagers’ mundane lives.

*Spring arrives with white, fluffy poplar seeds on the breeze – an annual occurrence that each year enraptures the small town of Borgo San Giuliano.*

*Summer brings warmer, brighter days, as Titta visits the countryside with his family and Uncle Teo for an amusing escapade.*

*The SS Rex passes by the town in Autumn, met by locals eager to witness this feat of maritime engineering.*

*Winter settles over the village, the snowflakes bearing notable resemblance to Spring’s white poplar seeds.*

Perhaps then we must look even further back to I Vitelloni for the closest comparison in Fellini’s filmography, similarly trapping young men within cyclical routines that connect them to a larger community and hamper their dreams of escape. Like his 1953 hangout film, the camerawork here is dynamic, gliding and panning in breezy tracking shots that gently soak in the remarkable scenery. Even then though, the difference between Fellini’s early neorealist-adjacent style and the vibrant surrealism of Amarcord is gaping, as if his own nostalgic reflections have grown more playfully distorted with age. Characters here slip into dreams with careless abandon, dwelling on fables that infuse Borgo San Giuliano with its own spectacular mythology, and distant fantasies that may only ever live in their minds.

*This town’s distinctive character comes together in scenes of communal celebration and tradition, the camera gliding breezily through the detailed mise-en-scène.*

*The town of Titta’s adolescence also possesses its own unique mythology, manifesting with surreal wonder in the dreams and memories of its people.*

Little do these people know, they themselves will one day become legends to be wistfully recalled by a grown Titta in years to come as well, colouring in the vibrant ensemble of his life with effervescent idiosyncrasies as they rotate in and out of Amarcord’s narrative. Much like Saraghina from 8 ½, the town’s beach-dwelling prostitute Volpina becomes a subject of fantasy for Titta during his adolescent sexual awakening. Local hairdresser Gradisca is conversely a far more untouchable beauty, frequently drawing stares in her shapely red dresses and hiding a loneliness that delicately parallels Titta’s own discontent. The Grand Hotel where she is rumoured to have slept with a prince also plays host to a tall tale propagated by food vendor Biscein that comically details his wild night with 28 foreign concubines, while the long-suffering town lawyer perseveres through the heckling of neighbours to relay this village’s culture and folklore directly to the audience.

*Minor characters cycle in and out of Fellini’s vignettes, fulfilling familiar archetypes wherever they are needed – the town prostitute, the untouchable beauty, the friendly lawyer.*

The absolute persistence of ‘Mr. Lawyer’ in offering a scholarly perspective on Borgo San Giuliano is amusingly at odds with its pragmatic, free-spirited people, and it is telling that he is the one of the few to regularly break the fourth wall. “Theirs is an exuberant, generous, loyal, and tenacious nature,” he kindly elucidates, describing their proud heritage that runs “Roman and Celtic blood in their veins.” His appearances are intermittent, yet his self-aware monologues work powerfully to divorce Amarcord from the naturalism it occasionally leans towards, sweeping us into the subjective realm of memory where Fellini is at his strongest as a filmmaker.

Nino Rota’s endless variations of the film’s main theme capture this whimsy with carnivalesque panache as well, and are absolutely crucial to the sensitive evolution of each scene. The motif swoons on strings as the camera romantically glides through a frozen tableau of soldiers, forms the jazzy underscore to Titta and his friends’ waltz with imaginary women in the foggy darkness, and even passes diegetically to a musician playing his flute in a barbershop. Its joviality is resilient, never quite losing its optimism even as it fades out with the village lights dimming at night, and ultimately becoming a pure expression of the town’s own flamboyant character.

*A dream frozen in time – the camera gently drifts through the Grand Hotel with mystical intrigue.*

*A dense fog settles over the town, while Titta and his friends waltz with imaginary women, deep in a trance.*

It is quite remarkable as well that every street, building, and monument of Borgo San Giuliano is entirely constructed on studio sets, allowing Fellini a level of control over his handsomely offbeat mise-en-scène that captures a specific era in an isolated region of Italy. At the same time, the scale of Amarcord’s production is enormous, transforming this village into an entire world – which of course it is to an adolescent Titta. The cultural and historical detail woven into the architecture is particularly rich, though Fellini also chooses opportune moments to subtly let authenticity slide for a more wistful evocation of his hometown of Rimini instead, cutting out sharp shadows and silhouettes in his low-key lighting. Even the Victory Monument which stands in its square is recreated with impressionistic elegance, baring the backside of a woman that draws the lustful gaze of visitors, while the small addition of angel wings elevates this voluptuous figure to a level of divinity that exists only in Fellini’s memory.

*One of Amarcord’s strongest compositions arrives at the Victory Monument, baring the backside of an angel who draws the lustful gaze of visitors venturing out into the rain.*

In those moments of surrealism where this narrative departs from reality altogether, Amarcord moreover reveals a pointed, satirical edge aimed towards the nationalistic tyranny bearing down on Italy’s younger generations. When Mussolini comes to town, the red-and-white papier-mâché model of his face that is raised in a formal procession is laughably cartoonish, and even begins speaking when Titta’s lovestruck classmate Ciccio imagines it marrying him to his crush, Aldina. Suddenly, this military ceremony transforms into a wedding before our eyes, and the fascist pageantry is defanged as red, green, and white confetti is joyously tossed over the underage newlyweds.

Fellini delivers one excellent set piece after another, mocking the obsessive, fascist pageantry of the era with a giant papier-mâché face of Mussolini who springs to life and weds a pair of young school students.

Fellini continues to send up the stern teachers at Titta’s school and the church’s ineffective Catholic priests with mischievous glee as well, and yet he is also delicately aware of the malice which lurks within these institutions. There is no comedy to be found in the local authority’s torture of Titta’s father for making vaguely anti-fascist remarks, nor in their chilling speeches of “glowing ideals from ancient times.”

With baggage like this attached to otherwise cheerful memories, maybe it is best for them to remain in the past, Fellini contemplates, though not without sparing a sad thought for those like Gradisca who were carried away by the cultural norms of the era. She may have been the subject of many fantasies in her eye-catching red, black, and white outfits, but she is still a woman with her own hopes and insecurities, revealed in fleeting glimpses behind her veil of cool, feminine confidence. Perhaps then the loneliness which brings her to tears one night in front of a crowd is also what spurs her to marry a fascist officer in the final scene of Amarcord, even as her own fate beyond the inevitable fall of Italy’s totalitarian regime is left sorrowfully ambiguous.

The camera pans across this low-lying landscape just outside town, where Gradisca marries a fascist officer and resigns herself to an uncertain future. Titta’s absence is only barely noted – this too is a turning point for him to carve out a new future away from the only home he has ever known.

She is evidently not the only one leaving Borgo San Giuliano with dreams of brighter futures either. As the camera slowly pans with the remaining wedding guests across the countryside, their distant shouts offhandedly mention Titta’s departure with little elaboration. Given the recent passing of his mother from an infectious illness though, it isn’t hard for us to surmise the reason. The winter months have wreaked devastation on his family, and their funereal grief has been absorbed into yet another communal ritual carried out with depressingly rote perseverance.

Still, time continues to traipse forward, seeing spring’s puffballs replace the glacial winter snow and old memories give birth to new beginnings. Escaping the routines that govern this community need not arrive as a grand epiphany, but may even be as subtle as a silent, unremarkable departure, leaving one’s name to be fondly recalled by those who have stayed behind.

*The loss of Titta’s mother also marks his loss of innocence – a rite of passage which, unlike all those other small ventures throughout the year, is carried out with depressing perseverance.*

After all, within Fellini’s portrait of evaporated childhood, memory moves in both directions. Distance across time and space may erode our physical connection with old friends, yet those relationships are revived in the mercurial oceans of nostalgia. Just as the past wistfully lingers in the present, the present sways the past, constantly remoulding it into new forms that reveal previously hidden truths. Only through Amarcord’s reality-warping hindsight can Fellini recognise the absurd norms of his youth with the nuance they deserve, from the oppressive evils and mournful insecurities of his neighbours, to the sweet, boundless joys that have faded with the encroachment of adulthood.

Amarcord is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, is available to rent or buy on Apple TV, and Amazon Video, and can be purchased on Amazon.

Juliet of the Spirits (1965)

Federico Fellini | 2hr 17min

Coming off the heels of his widely acclaimed triumph 8 ½, it seemed that Federico Fellini was done with neorealism. By delving into the fantastical dreams of a surrogate character, he had constructed a kaleidoscopic self-portrait of immense depth and ambition, while shamefully exposing his own infidelity to the world. As such, his next project Juliet of the Spirits essentially held up a feminine mirror to 8 ½, contemplating the other side of his marriage to Giulietta Masina and filtering it through an equally surreal lens. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that he derived Juliet’s name from his wife’s, and additionally cast her as the spurned housewife whose entire identity has been defined by her relationship to men. In fact, it isn’t even until Juliet’s husband Giorgio arrives home in the first scene that her face even appears on camera, having up until then been concealed by camera movements, obstructions, and shadows conveniently rendering her non-existent in his absence.

By the time Juliet of the Spirits was released in 1965, it had been eight years since Masina’s previous collaboration with Fellini, having last starred as jaded prostitute Maria in Nights of Cabiria. Now with a few extra lines on her face, she carries a mellow wisdom in her round, dark eyes as Juliet, saddened but not embittered by her husband’s extramarital affairs. The whispered name “Gabriella” first piques her suspicion one night when he is sleep talking, and the multiple phone calls that come through with no one on the other end only feeds it, sending her to seek out the services of a private detective who might provide answers. None of this can take away from the fact that Giorgio has been her “Husband, lover, father, friend, my home,” but even now as she lists everything she is losing, she does so with a wistful smile.

*In the absence of her husband, Juliet’s face is concealed by camera movements, obstructions, and shadows, barely even present on her own terms.*

*Juliet’s house is dominated by clean white tones sharply punctured by the crimson hues of flowers, setting up a visual clash between virginal purity and sexual passion.*

Though Juliet tries to explore facets of her suppressed identity through an assortment of vibrant costumes, within her home she is most often garbed in chaste white tones, while guests light up the mise-en-scène with purples, greens, and pinks. Most of all though, it is Fellini’s radiant crimson hues which dominate his palette in Juliet of the Spirits, opposing our protagonist’s virginal neutrality with a sexual passion considered dangerously out-of-bounds. With so many clashing visual elements, his production design is deliriously chaotic, yet also flamboyantly united under an aesthetic that blends circus-like extravagance with regal Baroque architecture in varying proportions. While Juliet’s lavish, upper-class house is adorned with lighter tones, Sylva’s grand manor makes for a magnificent recurring set piece, each time hosting an orgiastic fever dream of wild hedonists revelling in rowdy opulence. Further bringing these extraordinary settings to life is the slow, dollying movement of Fellini’s camera too, peering through the multicoloured gauze curtains draped around Sylva’s bed as it slowly drifts past, and dollying in on actors with dramatic grandeur.

Few directors can capture chaos with the control and beauty that Fellini brings to his mise-en-scène here. Josef von Sternberg comes to mind as a fair comparison, but he largely shot his films in black-and-white – the patterns and colours of Fellini’s scenery are distinctive and gorgeous.

*This ornate wedding banquet that Juliet stumbles across sets a stark contrast against her lifeless marriage – the hopes and ideals that she once clung to in her youth are beautifully visualised.*

This bold venture into Technicolor filmmaking is no doubt a breathtaking visual achievement for cinematographer Gianni Di Venanzo, but even more crucially it commences Fellini’s trajectory into manic expressionism, evocatively painting out his characters’ reminiscences and hallucinations. For Juliet, these only really begin taking over her life following a séance on her fifteenth wedding anniversary, conducted by the gate-crashing friends of her husband who has entirely forgotten the occasion. From there, the spirits Iris and Olaf are summoned into her life as conflicting voices in her mind and surreal visions interrupt her reality with increasing ambiguity, beginning with a dead raft of horses and a sunken tank of studly weirdos dredged up from the ocean.

*The first of many explicitly surreal sequences, dredging up a tank of weirdos onto the shoreline.*

*Juliet of the Spirits is a largely maximalist in style, but Fellini’s shot compositions of these stripped back landscapes often astound as well.*

With Juliet’s stream-of-consciousness voiceover often running through her life and dreams though, fortunately not all these visions are so impenetrably abstract. Many of these fragments are rooted directly in childhood memories that have become foundational to her identity, unfolding like reveries distorted by decades of distance and Fellini’s purposefully disjointed editing. In particular, her recollections of a circus and a pageant play formally mirror each other as a pair of theatrical performances sitting on either side of a moral divide – one being a gaudy spectacle of feathers and sparkles that satiates the senses, and the other starring Juliet herself as a virgin martyr being executed for her faith.

*A pair of theatrical performances united in the red-and-white colour palette, but diametrically opposed in morality – a circus spectacle, and a religious pageant play.*

In the former, Fellini constructs a visual extravaganza that pays homage to Italy’s rich tradition of performing arts, and the seductiveness of this lifestyle that lured her grandfather into an affair with a beautiful dancer. The career he had built as a respected professor was thrown out with this decision, and by the decree of Juliet’s disapproving mother, so too was his relationship with his family. As he runs with his mistress towards a stunt plane, each of these figures chase him from behind, playfully staged in a long shot that evokes Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Dance of Death’ from The Seventh Seal. It is clear to see here how infidelity has impacted Juliet’s life once before, and yet quite curiously her feelings towards her philandering grandfather are far more positive than those towards her controlling mother, who in her mind represents an unattainable standard of self-righteous morality and untouchable beauty.

*Fellini irreverently calls back to the Dance of the Death from The Seventh Seal in this fine composition, as Juliet’s grandfather elopes with his mistress.*

In comparison, Juliet’s pageant play arrives as a far more modest affair, surrounding her with spectral nuns in purple hooded cloaks who planted the seed of Catholic guilt in her mind. As she watches her child self be sacrifice on a pyre of paper flames and lifted to the heavens, the adult Juliet similarly recites her lines, and perhaps even finds some inspiration in them – “I don’t care about the salvation you offer me, but about the salvation of my soul.” As it is though, both versions of Juliet have essentially been sacrificed to society’s gender expectations and forced to become a virginal Madonna, serving men as a sexless, maternal figure.

*Hooded nuns designed like ethereal spectres, haunting Juliet into her adulthood.*

*The adult Juliet takes her child self’s place on the burning grill, becoming a sacrificial martyr in both life and the play.*

While Juliet’s hallucinatory flashbacks begin as self-contained vignettes, each one introduces spirits that linger through her waking life, tormenting her with obscure reminders of her psychological self-doubt. Just as she is about to give up her marital vows and have sex with a guest in Sylva’s manor, the camera swings down from the reflection of their romantic liaison on the ceiling mirror to reveal the horrifying image of a demonic girl in white robes, roasting above a fire. Whenever Juliet feels she is straying too far from her morals, that demonic vision of her younger self from the play arouses a disturbing guilt, while nude women hiding around her bedroom conversely laugh and sneer at her insecurity.

*A truly shocking jump scare as the camera swings down from the ceiling mirror to a horrific rendering of her child self in the pageant play, burning on the grill like a virginal demon.*

*Spirits follow Juliet everywhere she goes, as Fellini goes all in with his outrageous character designs.*

To complicate the conflicting pressures further, Fellini challenges Juliet’s belief in Christian salvation with a mixture of pagan alternatives, including the aforementioned séance, an Egyptian rite of passage, and an oracle named Bishma who is said to enlighten those who are lost. Speaking in a raspy voice from behind transparent white drapes though, this raving clairvoyant offers nothing but shallow advice to submit to one’s husband, even at the expense of Juliet’s own welfare.

“Love is a religion, Juliet. Your husband is your god. You are the priestess of this cult. Your spirit must burn up like this incense, go up in smoke on the altar of your loving body.”

*Fellini injects religion and new age spirituality with camp ornamentations, underscoring the emptiness in their claims to great wisdom.*

As for the private detective who represents a more secular approach to seeking truth, there is no doubt that he offers far more practical answers, yet hard proof of Giorgio’s affair does not bring with it the spiritual guidance that Juliet craves. It seems as though every character she meets is following their own path to self-fulfilment, and while many are convinced of their own eminent wisdom, few are able to satisfy her longing to reconcile moral virtue, carnal desire, and holistic enlightenment. By giving tangible form to the intangible Christian God for instance, her sculptress friend Dolores seems close to comprehending the infinite bounds of His grace, and yet Juliet also realises that she has degraded a divine beauty into objects of lust.

“Let’s give back to God his physicality. I was afraid of God before. He crushed me, terrified me. And why? Because I imagined him theoretically, abstractly. But no. God has the most superb body ever. In my statues, that’s how I sculpt him. A physical, corporeal God, a perfectly shaped hero who I can desire and make my lover.”

*Confirmation of her husband’s affairs does not bring Juliet emotional resolution, but only sinks her deeper into despair in this bleak, monochrome room.*

*Juliet’s friend tries to grasp the divine concept of God by reducing him to physical form in her sculptures, yet there is still something intangible lost in the process.*

Even easier still is ignoring the existence of God altogether as Sylva and her hedonistic guests seem to do, encouraging a similar attitude in Juliet. “I fulfil my desires in life. I don’t deny myself a thing,” this glamourous starlet proclaims, and though she is clearly out-of-touch with any spirituality, Fellini does not paint her as a wholly negative influence. The confidence she instils in Juliet is absolutely crucial to her journey, driving her to pursue an independent life that sources happiness from within, rather than from her husband or any religious authorities. It is not that she is afraid of being alone, one American therapist who regularly attends Giorgio’s parties explains, but her only true fear is rather of the happiness she might find in independence that allows her “to breathe, to live, to become yourself.”

*Sylva is a compelling foil to Juliet – outwardly expressive and confident in her sexuality, sourcing happiness from within rather than from fulfilling the expectations of others.*

That Giorgio is the one to eventually pack up and leave at least eases the burden on Juliet to instigate the separation, though there are no tears to be shed on her part anyway. Left alone, she must venture into her soul one last time, but this time not to confront any new memories or insecurities. A small, previously unseen door in her bedroom wall opens up, and against her mother’s demands, she enters to find a long, narrow corridor. There, her inner child is strapped to that flaming grill, alone and scared. Finally untying the ropes that have kept her bound to society’s scalding judgement all these years, she lets her run free, right into the arms of the man her mother had kept her from all these years. “Farewell, Juliet,” her grandfather warmly imparts. “Don’t hold me back. You don’t need me anymore. I’m just another one of your inventions. But you are life itself.”

*A beautiful dream to formally resolve Juliet’s trauma, freeing her younger self from the fiery grill which society has tried to martyr her upon.*

As present-day Juliet walks outside the large white gates of her home, so too does she find liberation from its persistent spirits. Suddenly, new voices she had never heard before begin speaking to her, coming from a deep sense of self-acceptance rather than the nagging judgement of others. There is no aggressive expressionism or cluttered opulence to found in the green, natural expanse that she walks into, and much like the final seconds of Nights of Cabiria, Masina’s eyes once again drift towards the fourth wall in poignant recognition of our presence in her story. With a simple glance, Juliet takes control of her narrative, finally escaping into new beginnings away from the imposing gaze of society, religion, and Fellini’s own prying camera.

Much like the ending of Nights of Cabiria, Giulietta Masina looks right at the camera – freedom granted from the removal of the restrictive fourth wall, allowing her to become a full person outside cinematic and social convention.

Juliet of the Spirits is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and is available to purchase on Amazon.

The Bad Sleep Well (1960)

Akira Kurosawa | 2hr 31min

When dessert finally arrives at the wedding reception of Yoshiko and Koichi Nishi, it would surely seem as if someone is pulling a cruel prank on the father of the bride, Iwabuchi. The day has already been tainted by the arrest of the senior businessman’s assistant Wada in full view of the guests and reporters, and now as the cake is wheeled out to reveal an elaborate design modelled after the Public Development Corporation headquarters, a single rose sitting in a top-floor window draws hushed whispers. It is no secret that this is where Assistant Chief Furuya jumped from some years earlier, bringing a standstill to the investigation that implicated Iwabuchi and several other executives. Meanwhile, suspicions that his colleagues pressured him into taking his own life are only ever uttered behind closed doors, with absolute confidence that no one is eavesdropping.

Only by methodically peeling back the layers of conspiracies guarding the upper-class plutocrats can the truth be revealed, though this is not a job for the police, courts, or even the media. True to his fondness for Shakespeare, Akira Kurosawa places this colossal objective on the shoulders of a single man seeking retribution for his deceased father, and thus reveals The Bad Sleep Well to be a contemporary, noir-tinted adaptation of Hamlet starring Toshiro Mifune as the vengeful son. Posing as Iwabuchi’s secretary, Koichi Nishi stands alone against the corrupt corporate culture of mid-century Japan, working from the shadows as he blackmails, intimidates, and investigates his way to the top.

Astounding depth of field in Kurosawa’s compositions, stretching the entire span of the dining hall where Nishi is celebrating his wedding to Iwabucha’s daughter Yoshiko. Kurosawa knows how to build tension without even cutting.

*Roses and crosses in that top floor window become something of a visual motif in The Bad Sleep Well, calling up the past to propel Nishi forward in his vengeful mission.*

Even by Kurosawa’s standards, The Bad Sleep Well’s plot is remarkably dense, sprawling across a vast ensemble of characters who bring personal stakes to each gear in the narrative vehicle. The wedding itself is a tremendous setup, introducing the relevant parties through a Greek chorus of journalists offering backstory and commentary, while remarkably steering clear of convoluted exposition. In his meticulous arrangement of these nameless reporters among the masses of wedding guests, Kurosawa’s extraordinary eye for blocking bodies across the full horizontal length of his widescreen canvas is immediately revealed, developing a sharp aesthetic that carries through virtually every frame of the film with astounding consistency.

*A tremendous use of blocking to draw our eye to the small details of Kurosawa’s scenery, but he also isn’t afraid to reframe his camera without cutting.*

The shapes and lines that form in Kurosawa’s crowded staging here effectively draw our eyes to the subjects of his focus, highlighting even the smallest details within his ensemble such as Nishi’s quiet surveillance of his guests, and the suspicious reactions of executives when the cake makes its damning appearance. “Best one act I’ve ever seen,” a reporter wryly acclaims at this grand twist, and if this were a short film he wouldn’t be wrong – yet the witty response from his colleague might as well be Kurosawa impishly promising to follow up with an even more magnificent pay-off.

“One act? This is just the prelude.”

*A superb arrangement of facial profiles to cap off the first act, staggered at four different layers in the frame.*

Indeed, The Bad Sleep Well is only just getting started, as from here Kurosawa effortlessly shifts between multiple narrative threads and carefully weaves them into Nishi ‘s single-minded endeavour to take down his father’s killers. After Wada is released from police custody and rescued from a suicide attempt atop a live volcano by Nishi, he quickly becomes one of our protagonist’s greatest resources, faking his own death and psychologically tormenting contract officer Shirai by appearing as a ghost. Unfortunately, Nishi is not so quick to save company accountant Miura from his superiors, who demonstrate their chilling efficiency through a single, written message – “I know you will see this through to the bitter end.” It might as well be a bullet from a sniper’s rifle, one reporter comments, as it isn’t long afterwards that Miura willingly runs in front of a truck.

*The volcano is a tremendously bleak set piece, shrinking Wada against its rocky terrain and leading him right to the edge of the crater.*

You have to feel sorry for Shirai – the most paranoid and tormented of the lot, driven mad by the mind games being played on him by both sides. Kurosawa plays out the manifestation of Wada’s ‘ghost’ with ethereal horror, even though we know exactly what is going on.

With Venetian blinds imposing severe backdrops inside corporate offices and Masaru Sato’s band of brass and percussion rhythmically carrying through a dark, jazzy ambience, Kurosawa’s admiration of Hollywood film noirs bleeds through his nihilistic take on Hamlet, positioning Nishi himself as a morally questionable antihero. This is a man who didn’t even realise how much his father loved him until after receiving a huge inheritance in his will, and yet has nevertheless taken it on himself to sacrifice innocence bystanders, marry a woman he doesn’t truly love, and implement cruel methods of torture to avenge his murder. “It’s not easy hating evil. You have to stoke your own fury until you become evil yourself,” he ponders in a shot that sinks his profile in darkness, flanking him with Wada and his friend Itakura in the background like two conflicting sides of his conscience. Even when Itakura is furiously chastising Wada in another tightly framed composition, Mifune continues to dominate the shot from the foreground like a hardboiled Humphrey Bogart detective, coolly smoking a cigarette and radiating a bitter stoicism.

*Nishi’s darkened, foregrounded profile flanked by Itakura and Wada behind him, like two conflicting sides of his conscience.*

*Tightly framed compositions maintain a visual relationship between each character – the boss, the underling, the bully.*

By this point, keen-eyed viewers will have picked up on a visual device that reliably teases out the complex character dynamics in Kurosawa’s blocking, and subtly underscores Nishi’s position as a covertly powerful player in this game. In many of The Bad Sleep Well’s most crucial scenes, Kurosawa prominently features three individuals in triangulated compositions, with each point being defined by its relative position and movement around the others. When Shirai becomes Nishi’s newest target in his scheme for instance, Kurosawa’s camera holds on a long take of his panicked discovery of stolen money planted in his briefcase, and follows him edgily through the office as his supervisor Muriyama grows more suspicious of his behaviour. Of course though, this scene would not be complete without Mifune’s confident, unobtrusive presence in the background, sitting lower in the shot as he quietly observes the disturbance. He does not say a single word, and yet this painstakingly geometric approach to composing the frame ensures that he is always at the front of our minds, crediting him as the man responsible for Shirai’s guilt-ridden, psychological breakdown.

*The scene of Shirai discovering the stolen money in his briefcase is a masterclass in blocking, particularly showcasing Kurosawa’s use of triangulated arrangements.*

Still, the cunning manipulations and exorbitant privilege of Japan’s wealthy elite are not to be underestimated either. As Nishi hides out with his small crew in the dark, dank ruins of a bombed out factory, Iwabuchi operates from a well-resourced office with countless disposable minions working beneath him, ready to get their hands dirty. Like Nishi, he too proves that he is willing to manipulate and even drug his daughter Yoshiko to save himself, drawing a dead heat between them in terms of sheer determination.

*More triangulated structures from here down, in this case using the formation of the reporters’ heads to centre the entire scene around Iwabuchi who has unlimited resources at his disposal.*

*Kurosawa locates Nishi’s base of operations in this bombed out factory, far beneath the corrupt corporation they are fighting from the shadows.*

*Kurosawa using the full horizontal length and depth of the frame here to create an astounding composition, using the scarred scenery to reveal the lingering impact of World War II.*

Even once all parties have finally caught up to each other and the finish line has come into view in the final act of The Bad Sleep Well, the competition between Nishi and Iwabuchi remains neck-and-neck. Within the Public Development Corporations’ bank books is the undeniable proof of Furuya’s assassination – all it comes down to is whether Nishi or Iwabuchi will win the race to their respective targets, infusing the climax with an uneasy suspense that Kurosawa finally resolves with a brutal, cynical gut punch. We are not even given the closure of witnessing the train collision which flattens Nishi’s car, set up by Iwabucha’s lackeys as a drink driving accident. Instead, Kurosawa simply leaves us to observe the lifeless wreckage of its aftermath, with the only survivors who know the truth being those too powerless to do anything about it.

*Like his father, Nishi’s murder chillingly takes place offscreen, with his smashed up car being the only remnant of his death.*

That Nishi should suffer the same fate as his father at the hands of the same men makes for a poetically devastating end to this saga, though within Kurosawa’s cutthroat world of corporate collusion, the ruling class’s total subjugation of the underdog is merely the way society works. At Iwabuchi’s press conference, the reporters who opened the film return to bookend it as well, reflecting upon Nishi’s life with a wary acceptance of the Vice President’s cover story in much the same way they once spoke of Furuya’s tragic suicide. Perhaps they are conscious of the corruption that runs deep in Japan’s bureaucracy to some extent, and yet its bloodied foundations remain shrouded in myth right to the end, resting upon the obedience, sacrifices, and bloodshed of disposable civilians.

*One of Kurosawa’s most cynical, devastating endings, bringing back the reporters into the final scene as Nishi joins his father on Public Development Corporation’s list of casualties.*

The Bad Sleep Well is currently streaming on The Criterion Channel, and the DVD and Blu-ray are available to purchase on Amazon.