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.

Dreams of Death

By Eric Jessen 3/5/2010 (Photograph by Weegee)

Confessions of a Killer from "The Naked City"

The streets were rough in those days, but aren't they always. That's just one of those things people say. Only until you've licked the pavement do you know it's true.
I never thought it would end this way: lying in a pool of my own blood, eating cement, gunned down by a cop. Death, sure I saw it coming, and not of natural causes. I wasn't that thick. I wasn't one of those hot-shit hit-men, reckless punks who think they're in the wild west. But not by a cop, never aced by a dirty pig. What a horrible way to go. I always wished a boss ordered my death. That's more dignified.
I had it all mapped-out in my head, like a teenage girl planning her wedding. I would start out committing a few petty crimes: hold up a liquor store, a drug store. Maybe I'd meet a few hoods along the way. I knew the right places to hang out. Eventually I might drive for a bank job. I'd do some time, sure. The pen's where you meet the big shots. To earn the mob's respect I'd have to bump off some middle-ranking hood – just enough to get their attention. Then I'd take one in the back.
Everyone remembers you if you're killed by the mob. I tried my best, made it pretty far. Blackmail, that's where I went wrong – pinned the wrong people in a corner, the wrong cops. The DA always told me I'd end up a stain on the asphalt – called me “scum.” I hate that I proved him right. He's probably standing over my body right now, shaking his head. It makes me sick. He's one of those high-and-mighty pricks who talks about “cleaning-up the streets.”
Standing over my body, I bet he thinks the streets are cleaner now that I'm dead. He doesn't know the half of it. I've tasted them, they're filthy.

Shutter Island (2010)

By Eric Jessen 3/1/2010

Martin Scorsese's new film Shutter Island is like a great jumble or crossword from the newspaper: fun to twiddle over while waiting for your flight at the airport. And for at least the first hour-and-a-half to two hours it was hard to put down. But as with all puzzles the solution pales in comparison to the fun of unscrambling. Although the solution is quite tantalizing. (When it's finally time to board I always peak at the up-side-down fine print on the jumble.) Reading the Dennis Lehane novel that inspired the movie it must be almost impossible to resist flipping to the final chapter.
Shutter Island certainly has all the elements of a great spellbinder. Scribbled notes, misnomers and anagrams turn our brain to mush. The story twists and turns with seemingly no regard for retracing its steps. And what better setting for a mind-bender than an asylum for the criminally insane. Ghostly crazies creep around ward A, whispering to themselves. In ward C scarred and battered faced maniacs, some with body parts held together by what look like zippers, dangle their arms through cell bars, grasping at air. Muffled screams and the thumps and screeches of the soundtrack underline the tension.
To open we see two U.S. Marshals, Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), investigating the disappearance of a convicted killer riding a ferry. From the thick fog that covers the strangely 2D looking Boston Harbor we know there's something odd in the works on Shutter Island.
Deputy Warden McPherson (John Carrol Lynch) greets the marshals at the shore with few words and a skeptical look in his eyes. At the gate when McPherson asks for the marshals' firearms Chuck has trouble getting his gun out of his holster – the first little piece of the puzzle to put in our memory bank. The marshals meet the head Doc John Cawley (played by Sir Ben Kingsley) who shows them to the escaped “patient” Rachel Solando's room. Under a broken floor board Teddy finds a note that says “Who is 67” - another puzzle piece, this one a corner.
A white haired German doctor played by Max Von Sydow gives us chills. A hurricane hits Shutter Island leaving the marshals stranded in a cemetery. From there as the story unfolds it becomes apparent that Teddy has fallen into an elaborate trap. We learn Daniels has his own agenda aside from finding Rachel Solando. He suspects Shutter Island is not just an asylum for the criminally insane but a secret government laboratory for gruesome psychological experimentation, and he's determined to prove it. But it seems the doctors and the warden are always one step ahead of him.
Questions in our mind mount. Although the movie is almost half finished our puzzle seems barely started, as if we had a mix of pieces from two different puzzles. What are we to make of Teddy's flashbacks of storming Dachau – numerous close-ups of frozen emaciated corpses seem gratuitous – as well as dreams of his late wife smoldering into ash? Were these flashbacks and dreams along with strange conversations actually hallucinations caused by a spiked aspirin or cigarette? Is Teddy in fact slowly going insane?
A vital document Teddy refuses to acknowledge and a cigarette delicately placed at the edge of a cliff – two more pieces to the puzzle which only add to our confusion. The most compelling question becomes how is this possibly going to end? Only in hindsight did it seem possible. Surprisingly almost all loose ends are tied. I can say at least the end is logically satisfying. Unfortunately the fun of the whirlwind dissipates. Teddy finds himself blabbing on and on through fire in a cave, wasting a dozen matches to light a conversation in a prison cell, then finally storming ward B, the infamous lighthouse, and learning the truth from Dr. Cawley. I guess the game has to end somehow.

Pickup on South Street (1953)

By Eric Jessen 2/11/10

The train rocks and Skip McCoy moves closer. He's picked his target: a young woman with a surprise waiting for him. A sea of people force his body up against hers. As the train starts to move again he slips his hands down by her waist, pretending to hold open a newspaper. One sway of the train and he's unfastened her purse. Two government agents stand maybe ten feet away, their eyes fixed on his every move. His fingers delicately sift through a handkerchief, some makeup, then pluck out her wallet. As the train comes to a stop he bumps her closing her purse then rushes off to find out how big he's scored.
Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) must be dim. He's definitely backward. Why if he's a “three time loser” would he risk getting caught a fourth time with his hand down a woman's purse and by state law guarantee himself life behind bars?
The simple answer given by Pickup on South Street and most film noir, crime genre movies is that he just doesn't know any better. Once a “two-bit canon,” always a two-bit canon as Captain Dan Tiger (Murvyn Vye) would say. In the world of gangs, hoods, mugs and stoolies there's no turning back. And as much as that may sound like a hell for the criminals who find themselves down the wrong path, the same movies routinely finish them off with a moral tongue lashing.
Perfect for director Samuel Fuller that such a routine exists. Fuller is an iconoclast, a maverick, a cynic if there ever was one. I must admit he is a favorite. His willingness to shock and appall is refreshing. Fuller is a master of the underground, a quintessential termite-filmmaker. And during the 50's the former tabloid journalist made a series of no-fluff B-classics.
His filmography could only have been made in pulp heaven: a murder mystery at a mental hospital (Shock Corridor); a prostitute fleeing the big city to the suburbs and finding herself handcuffed by a kind of man much worse than a pimp, a child molester (The Naked Kiss); a landowner (played by Barbara Stanwyck) with her forty body guards at her back and a U.S. Marshal finding they love the click of the trigger, and BANG of their pistol more than they care for each other (Forty Guns). And on top of that, no description of Fuller's pulp legend is complete without mentioning one simply nutty opening voice over - as a man in pajamas chases a toddler and a puppy through a destroyed city we hear, “In this ravaged city where people are starving, all the dogs have been eaten except one” (China Gate). Writing these descriptions I can't help but giggle.
It's true, any thought of sensitivity has never stood in Samuel Fuller's way. To call him “heavy-handed,” “over-the-top,” “primitive” or merely “fast, flashy, and essential empty minded” (as Pauline Kael did) would be an understatement. Fuller's movies can get downright absurd, and their violence bludgeoning. I prefer Manny Farber's description of Fuller: the first director to attempt “poetic purity” through “unlimited sadism, done candidly and close up.”
A convention commonly disregarded in Fuller movies is that the good eventually defeats the bad. Or, that the bad sooner or later get their comeuppance. In a Fuller movie like Pickup on South Street the bad don't necessarily defeat the good. Instead the bad – McCoy, a pickpocket, Candy (Jean Peters), a prostitute, and Moe (played fantastically by Thelma Ritter), a police informant – defeat those even worse – Commies.
Fuller prefers the “alternate path” not as a success story, where turning to crime is rewarded, but as a vehicle for a thrill ride and occasionally a message. No matter if that message is sometimes simple-minded or heavy-handed. Along with his best B-movies that sport hilarious tag lines, every so often Fuller delivers a gem, Pickup on South Street certainly being one.

Adam's Rib (1949)

By Eric Jessen January 17, 2010

It was convenient for director George Cukor and particularly for writing duo Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, that they had a sweet couple in Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy to play with. No amount of marital chirp would annoy us with these two. They're perfect leads for a light and wonderful comedy: warm, lovable, and also intelligent enough to convey a serious message. But I still wonder if Adam's Rib is a statement first and a comedy second or vice versa.
Gordon and Kanin certainly came up with the most logical set up to prove women are equal to men. Hepburn as Amanda Bonner and Tracy as Adam Bonner are a marriage made in courtroom heaven. She's a defense attorney and he's a prosecuting attorney. He believes in justice. She believes in equality. With those values, no matter what happens, they're both winners. And is there a setting more reasonable, more civilized, or more American then a courtroom? Perfect that women's equality would be decided by a judge and jury.
At first Amanda seems to be a stereotypical wife. In her silk nightgown, very dutifully, she serves Adam breakfast in bed. But just as she begins to smooch-up to her husband, his grumpy reaction gets her blood boiling. Terrific that a case came along Amanda thought perfect to prove a point. The very innocent and desperate looking Doris Attinger (Judy Holliday) shot her cheating husband Warren (Tom Ewell) after catching him in the act, but the fact that she trembled with fear, closed her eyes and turned away just as she pulled the trigger proves she didn't mean it. And she says she was just trying to scare him. Even more terrific that this very case fell into Adam's lap.
But who would make the better argument? I was very interested to see. Given the circumstances it seemed to be an open and shut case. I wondered how Amanda would possibly create suspense leading to the verdict. So when Adam and Amanda's daily arguments finally made the courtroom I was thoroughly disappointed.
Screwball comedy or not, Adam proves himself an absurdly incompetent attorney. And really Amanda isn't any better. Her argument for why Doris should be acquitted assumes men frequently get away with shooting their cheating wives. Do they? She claims they were only trying to protect their home, and so was Doris when she shot her spouse. Picture the defendant as a man, she pleaded to the jury, then what would your verdict be? I did and wasn't convinced.
However Adam's Rib still has its moments. Hepburn and Tracy are funny here. Certainly Judy Holliday and even Tom Ewell and Jean Hagen as Ewell's mistress in supporting roles are exceptional. It's unfortunate they're rarely given anything but easy gags. Gordon and Kanin write a pretty good comedy but a weak, at best, statement.
So they fought, they bickered, they patted each other on the bum and a few times it got raucous. A few times it got personal. But really, it never went that far. It was always all in fun. And in the end the man, Spencer Tracy, won the battle. But for a while, the woman, Katherine Hepburn, got the better of him. Long enough, I guess, for 1949 to earn Adam's Rib a brief mention for being “ahead of its time.” Some went as far as to call it “pioneering.”
It seems all that matters is that they had a battle, Hepburn even put up a fight. She wasn't a doll, she was a woman, a woman that deserved as much respect as Spencer Tracy. So she didn't win and didn't even really pack much of a profound or though-provoking punch, but for once a woman had made her way into the ring. I hope you're satisfied.

Notes on Criticism

By Eric Jessen 12/31/09

When I think of my dream job, I think of Pauline Kael describing in her fifth book Reeling, a trip she took to the Broadway area with a young critic to see a hard-core movie. She describes the small theater, the crowd full of men, the live show that accompanied the movie – a young girl, around 17 or 18 doing a strip and then a dance naked. She describes the girl's eyes scaling the audience with a look of hatred, then staring at her. She describes being overcome by a feeling similar to one she got while watching many recent movies, those as she put it with a “mixture of nostalgia and parody” and a nihilistic atmosphere, as if “everything had turned to dung, oneself included.”
There's something about all this that I love. Maybe it's that the critic sees past the popular, the marketing, the stars, and the glittering lights. The critic can point out the excellence in a small or all but forgotten film, and at the same time point out when the movies have turned to dung. And maybe in some small way the critic makes film better.
I used to just watch movies, hundreds and hundreds. But it wasn't until I starting reading great criticism by my favorites, like Kael, Farber and Ferguson, Agee and Sarris, that I came to appreciate movies as trash and art, and directors as auteurists, frauds and hacks. I worry that with the demise of newspapers and magazines, where my favorite critics worked, that my generation won't benefit from great criticism.