The Sound of Crumpling Trash

Eric Jessen 6/5/2010

(Email advice to my brother John on the contents of his external hard drive)

If you still have The Sound of Music delete it immediately and never watch it in your entire life. It was one of the worst, most revolting pieces of trash I've ever sat through. I've never hated mom (a hopeless sucker for sappy musicals) and dad (a hopeless sucker for anything popular from the 1960's) more when they tried to convince me it's a classic.

After surviving three hours of Julie Andrews and her seven dwarfs spewing candy coated excrement while skipping in unison, I immediately deleted it from my desktop then put it back on my desktop just to be able to delete it again.
A computer generated crumple of trash has never sounded sweeter.

Post-Mortem

By Eric Jessen 6/4/2010

(Photograph By Weegee)

Confessions of a Killer from "The Naked City"

I guess I was ready. I guess I was as ready as I'd ever be. I'd have run if I could. If I'd have gotten the chance I'd have run. What else is there? There's always something else. So of course I would've run. I was as ready as I'd ever be, and still I would've run. It's not so bad, but I guess I understand. I understand what they were afraid of. There should've been fear. I should've been scared. There should've been fear, and anger and hate, but there wasn't. I shouldn't have been ready but I was. When there's no fear or anger or hate, that's when you're ready. When you're ready to die, you're as good as dead. When there's no fear or anger or hate you're as good as dead.
Then it was a long time. I've been dead ever since I knew I was going to die. I guess that was a long time. But that can't be true. You never really believe you're ever going to die. No one really does. You never really believe you're going to die until you're dead.

The Men I Kill

By Eric Jessen 8/4/2010

(Photograph By Weegee)

Confessions of a Killer from "The Naked City"

I wish I hated them, every one of them. I wish I wanted them dead. Right before I blew their brains out I wish I wanted to kill them. Maybe then I could live with myself. But I just didn't mind them, they didn't bother me, they didn't mean anything to me. Shouldn't they mean something? But I just didn't care. I should care. About them, I should care. I should hate them. There should be anger. It must have been there sometime or I wouldn't have gotten this far. I needed them, and there was still no anger or hate. Where would I be without the men I kill?
You never know when it's your time. No one ever tells you. No one tells you when you're about to die. You should know, it's only fair. It's only fair to know when you're about to die. So you can prepare, so you can be ready. It's the biggest moment of your life and you're never ready. You should get a chance to prepare. Someone should tell you so you can prepare, so you can be ready.
No one ever told them. The men I kill, they're never ready. But if they were ready? Where would I be if they were ready?

They Were Apocalypsed

By Eric Jessen 6/4/2010

Florida Keys and the Philippines: They Were Expendable (1945) and Apocalypse Now (1979)

Emotions run high during war time, and so too does sentimentality. So it's no surprise that apart from admitting John Ford's They Were Expendable offered “nothing much new, with no particular depth of feeling, much less idea” and was “otherwise uninteresting,” James Agee called it “beautiful” several times, “Ford's finest movie” and Robert Montgomery's performance as the dependable Lieutenant Brickley, “unimprovable” and “the one perfection to turn up in movies during the year.”
“Evidently [Ford and Montgomery] learned a tremendous amount through the war” was Agee's only explanation for They Were Expendable being such a revelation and for the rush of feeling he got watching as he described, “nothing but men getting on or off PT boats and other men watching them.” But then again it was 1945. So Agee's reaction was understandable if inherently contradictory. And Ford's movie was understandable too for war time. Although he was always one to mythologize the soldier.
It was another one in the bag for John Wayne playing Lieutenant “Rusty” Ryan. Donna Reed played the nurse who falls in love with “Rusty” and very charmingly. And as for Robert Montgomery, he fit well too. (He just looks like a swell guy.)
MGM supplied the money for some very impressive battle scenes shot in Florida, and the Navy supplied the PT boats. One could really mistake it for the South Pacific and that was crucial to stirring up Agee's emotions. Ford really knew how it should look having spent time overseas. (And Robert Montgomery had served as well as none other than a PT boat commander.)
It all went over really nice and easy in 1945 but in fact making They Were Expendable was in the early stages touch and go. Ford thought it was really hot and sticky in the Florida Keys. And too buggy.
But what Ford and his crew experienced in Florida on the set of They Were Expendable is nothing compared to what Francis Ford Coppola and company experienced in the Philippines making Apocalypse Now.
Apocalypse Now certainly didn't go over nice and easy. It was a hell according to Coppola and it nearly destroyed his career. It was a complete disaster from the very beginning. Horrible weather destroyed sets. Marlon Brando arrived on set fat and unprepared. Production was delayed months and the budget soared. Word got out early that Apocalypse Now wouldn't be Coppola's next masterpiece. Upon its release the reaction was mixed. Although it did share the Palme d'Or award at the Cannes film festival with The Tin Drum.
Today it remains a puzzling, if still very interesting, mess. One wonders if the jungle was ever meant for the screen. At least the debacle that was the production of Apocalypse Now made for a good warning.
Maybe for that reason Coppola's film is the essential Vietnam War movie. Brando's enormous belly and incoherent rambling dialogue and those numerous horror stories of production give the film a nightmarish aura that does the jungle justice.
There's no doubt Coppola could have made an adequate war movie off the coast of Florida – nice and easy. But it would have never been fitting of the Vietnam war. The war that was destined to be a disaster deserved a disaster of a movie.

Casablanca (1942)

By Eric Jessen

Classic lines are mostly schlock, almost ninety percent corn syrup. An initial cringe always comes first upon hearing one of these gems, then a chuckle – what were they thinking? I'd say about half of these lines are only famous for being so unspeakably bad. They're like a screenwriters' blooper reel.
In the movie sporting easily the most memorable lines, with Gone with the Wind a close second, a doozy lurks around every corner. It's a wonder Ingrid Bergman telling Humphrey Bogart, “From now on you'll have to do the thinking for the both of us, dear,” didn't make AFI's 100 quotes list. That one always brought tears to my eyes.
So Casablanca is one part cheap melodrama, and sometimes a bland one at that. Thankfully that isn't all it has going for it. It is also a Bogart and Bergman picture, and they're always a pleasure. In this case Ingrid Bergman is especially sweet as Ilsa, although Bogart as Rick is still who I first remember. And there's also a great supporting cast, one of the best I've been told. I was told right: Paul Henreid as Victor Laszlo, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Dooley Wilson as Sam, Peter Lorre (from M), Marcel Dalio (from The Rules of the Game) and many others.
The love triangle of Rick, Ilsa and Victor is Academy stamped and approved: Best Picture, Director and Screenplay. She showed up at his gin joint uninvited, and with a husband of all things. Sam played they're song, “As Time Goes By.” They cried and drank, Rick for the first time in a long time, and finally they made up. Just in time for him to let her go. Michael Curtiz milked the flashbacks, and good for him. Without them Ilsa is nothing but Rick's floozy.
So Casablanca is a classic, an American classic. And yet in many ways it is starkly European, with Bergman, Henreid, Rains, Greenstreet, Conrad Veidt, Lorre and Dalio contributing to a French café visual spunk.
Humphrey Bogart is the one American, and still the center of the film. He's our hero, and to some extent our reflection, a symbol of our country. At first he's a stubborn rogue with a my-way-or-the-curb mentality. And then, when it suits him, a noble savior. Casablanca peddles this kind of patriotic sentimentality with enthusiasm. And sure as the Academy ate it up, so did we, either with a handkerchief or a popcorn box at our side.
So above all Casablanca is a movie for 1942 and war time, especially when the war is just - when we as Americans can all stop, at least for the moment, acting like stubborn rogues and play the noble savior. And Rick is our embodiment. He's our hero. In fact, we're our hero. Casablanca is for us and about us and it's just like us to think so.
So get your popcorn or your handkerchiefs ready, “Round up the usual suspects,” “We'll always have Paris,” and why not, play it again.

Color Noir

By Eric Jessen 3/24/2010

Watching the end of Roman Polanski's new movie The Ghost Writer this past weekend, seeing a car abruptly accelerate as our ghost crosses the street carrying a 600 page manuscript, suddenly hearing screeching brakes, seeing nothing but an empty street then a flurry of papers scattering in the wind, I was immediately reminded of Chinatown. In particular its ending, seeing the two police detectives fire at Mrs. Mulwray's car then hearing the sound of the car horn.
It kept beeping and beeping. Finally we were told it was all just Chinatown. But what do I ask is it today? Is it Cape Cod, Tony Blair and George Bush, the American government and the CIA, all of which seemed to play a part in killing our ghost?
Maybe Polanski is living in the past. With Chinatown was it really Nixon, the Vietnam war, the assassination of JFK...? Is he living in our country's past? The ending to Chinatown could be seen as a reflection of the times - like Bonnie and Clyde bouncing about to the dozens of bullets piercing their skin, Michael Corleone closing the door on his wife, and Howard Beale being killed for having lousy ratings all rolled-up into one.
Or is it instead that Polanski is still dragging around his own checkered past? And his movies are a reflection of his tainted view of the world. With the personal tragedies he's suffered can we even blame him?
Whether it be Polanski's inner demons or a sign of overall disillusionment with government in America during the late 1960's and early 70's, it is important to note that Chinatown wasn't always supposed to have such a bleak ending. Robert Towne, who wrote the screenplay, originally intended to end the movie with Jake killing the sadistic Noah Cross then helping Mrs. Mulwray escape to Mexico with her daughter. It was in fact Roman Polanski who suggested the change in ending – as with The Ghost Writer, Rosemary's Baby, or any other he had to add his ghoulish macabre touch.
Then again that's crucial to its charm – its tawny varnished, morbid, mythic lyricism. Chinatown will always be an essential film noir of the color age.
Times sure change fast. At one point not long before Chinatown was released morbid film noirs were black and white, and blood a dark gray. They usually ended with the good guys and bad guys aligned, fitting the “crime doesn't pay” message. Another classic The Big Sleep might be an example of this. However can you even dare to say Howard Hawks' film is about good guys and bad guys? Is there really anything important on the screen but Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall's steaming chemistry? The Big Sleep is just an extension of To Have and Have Not spiced up by Raymond Chandlers' feel for the burlesque and salacious and biting dialogue by an all-star cast of writers – William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman. Who among even Chandler himself can shuffle the plot enough to differentiate the good from the bad – as long as Bogart and Bacall are the last ones left standing, as Hawks probably thought to himself when he made the film.
Can you imagine Bogart as Philip Marlowe tussling with Faye Dunaway's Evelyn Mulwray or Jack Nicholson's Jake Gittes with Lauren Bacall and the thumb sucking Carmen (Martha Vickers)? I'm sure they could both hold their own. Who knows, maybe Bogey could have given Polanski his first film with a happy ending.

Notes on Up (2009)

By Eric Jessen 3/5/2010

I watched Up and I must say I was a little disappointed. Sure it had some nice effects, the flying house makes for a nice visual. But overall it seemed bogged down by kid-movie cliches. The characters, the voices, the plot devices and even much of the humor felt more in the DreamWorks variety - I mean talking dog jokes, please. And the opening montage about the old guys life, which probably got a lot praise from critics, stole its view of marriage from a hallmark card. I think any series of colorful "wondrous" images cut together and put to classical music by Pixar will automatically be called brilliant by critics.