February 11: Moneyball (2011 -- Bennett Miller)

★★★

This is a fairly classic movie, but it completely drew me in.  It’s the beaten down outsider who throws himself against a huge institution and changes the institution, it’s the triumph of the underdog against the enemy, and it’s the leader with his own insecurities who continues to lead.  And it’s baseball.  It’s hard to be more American than this, but films like it aren’t always done well.

Moneyball is done well.  The main character here, Billy Beane, has a lot of complexity, which is not common in such sports movies.  We like as he butts heads with his own institutional scouts and his tradition-oriented manager, but we squirm a little as we see him making hard calls by firing nice people, feeling conflicted about his own failure to pursue an education and succeed as a player, and trying to be a part-time father.  There’s a mix in the character of estimable and conflicted that you don’t usually see in mainstream Hollywood, and that makes the center of the film, Billy, more interesting.

Being about baseball, this is a guy’s movie, and the guys pull it off well enough.  Brad Pitt plays in his typically limited range here, so he’s a better general manager than ex-husband or part-time dad.  His numbers cruncher Peter Brand as Jonah Hill has a similarly limited range, but that works for him, too, in the role of a young geek with authority for the first time.  In contrast to those two, Philip Seymour Hoffman owns every scene he’s in.  He is the A’s manager, an immersion that Pitt nor Brand is able to pull off.  But the acting works here; Moneyball doesn’t necessarily need more from the central roles as written.

I was very engrossed in the film, so engrossed, in fact, that I eventually came to use the highly-manipulative soundtrack to help me reduce my anxiety: minor key vibration means something bad is going to happen, major key tone means something good.  When the story suspense got too intense, I focused on the music soundtrack, and the music's helped me reduce my anxiety.  Without them, the suspense would have been harder to bear.

This is a notch above average film.  I felt I was getting a little look behind what runs MLB as well as some good, capable entertainment.

February 10: The Lady Vanishes (1938 -- Alfred Hitchcock)

★★★

With Jenny back from Chile, we decided to resurrect our movie series starting with some Hitchcock that has recently come out on blu-ray.  It’s  a mystery to me why blu releases would be available for films like The Lady Vanishes while classics like Vertigo, Rear Window and Strangers on a Train are still not available, but there is some pleasure in this 1938 outing.

For one, it’s thoroughly engaging and has a good deal of suspense to it.  Because of the omniscient camera, we know that something’s up with Miss Froy’s disappearance, but we can only assemble the clues as Iris and Gilbert find them to construct the plot behind the abduction.  And no sooner is that question answered than the film presents another: Will the heroes escape?  So the film is fairly suspenseful once the characters finally get on the train.

But before they leave the station, the expository beginning of the film is a bit long.  That said, the scenes in the hotel establish a range of characters that provide a richness in the rest of the film.  And Hitchcock uses this variety of Brits for social commentary and satire.  There’s a spineless adulterer who has aspirations of being a judge and his much clearer-thinking mistress.  There’s the comedic, stiff-upper-lip duo of cricket fans who are so ingrained in their British convention that they have no interest what’s happening around them, though when finally aroused from their nose-to-the-ground stance, they capably resist the bad guys.  A gallant, young musicologist, too, rises to the occasion by helping solving the mystery and aid Britain.  Of course, the governess Miss Froy is an understated patriot.  And a British collaborator with the forces of Bandrika takes a moral stand and joins those seeking to save Miss Froy when the evil of the Bandrikan plot becomes apparent.  It’s hard not to see a vague allegory here with the Germanic bad guys pushing around this eclectic set of Brits until the later are roused to successful resistance.

Other aspects of the movie also please.  The dialog is often snappy and witty in the way of dialog in a screwball comedy, and it’s also fun to see this early film as presaging later Hitchcock elements.  Psychology is already an interest here with the idea of hallucination as a result of a blow to the head, and the character of menacing Baroness certainly prefigures future threatening mothers and housekeepers.  There is also a love story wrapped in the thriller, and lots of play with cinematic devices like sound and reversals.  And a cameo by the director.  A lot of Hitchcock is already apparent in 1938.

The Lady Vanishes isn’t the tightest or most compelling of Hitchcock’s work, but it’s fun.  And it certainly hints at what’s to come in Hitchcock’s career.

February 8: If.... (1968 -- Lindsay Anderson)

★★★★

February 7: L’Atalante (1934 -- Jean Vigo)

★★★★★

Some classics really are classic, and this is one.  L’Atlante is touching, beautiful, and true.  At base, it’s a love story about a period in a relationship I don’t see many films about, the time right after the wooing and marriage. 

We get Juliette’s character very early in the film from listening to those in attendance at the wedding: very unsophisticated, restless, perhaps naïve.  We soon see her enrapt with the radio and allure of Paris, but along with that, we see her sweetness in the way she cares for her new barge home and its first mate, Père Jules.  Her plan to do everyone’s laundry says much about her loving spirit.

We also soon see that her husband Jean is very in love with her but inexperienced in dealing with someone in a relationship; he is as immature as she is.  He wants to please her, but his barge work continually interferes, and he’s sometimes oblivious to her or to what she might think.  And he is prone to jealousy and temper.  L’Atalante is the story of two newly-weds who are immature and are having to learn how to get along with another person in their life.

That dynamic alone would be enough for a good movie, but Vigo goes far beyond that.  One interesting addition is the old first mate Père Jules.  This crusty, irascible character has many idiosyncrasies but is basically a good man.  Despite his gruff exterior, he loves cats, which give cinematographer Boris Kaufman a rationale for having them run in and out of the frame throughout the film.  Père Jules’ little cabin on the barge is filled with exotic curios that show how much more experience he has than do the newly-weds but that also give L’Atalante visual thrills.  For example, a pair of hands in a jar, says Père Jules, is all he has left of one of his former friends.  A very touching scene in the film is when Juliette puts a skirt on the grumpy Jules so she can hem it.  This scene tells us much of Juliette’s openness, Jules’ inner softness, and the relationship between the two.  When the immature Juliette sneaks off to see Paris and the equally immature Jean gets mad and leaves her, it is Jules who treks into Paris to find Juliette and reunite these two kids who are much in love but too inexperienced to handle it.  Père Jules is not successful or handsome, but he is worldly and wise.

And there’s more still to enjoy about L’Atalante: the sheer beauty of the film.  The opening scenes alone prepare the viewer for a unique cinema experience as the bride’s white wedding dress glows in the black-and-white wedding procession out of the village.  Soon the couple is walking across fields in their formal dress and the same luminescent tone.  We also see elegant cinematography as Juliette, still in her gown, walks from the bow to the stern of the barge.  During this walk, the camera is motionless and the barge moves past at the speed Juliette walks.  This shot is a beautiful, visual thrill.

There are many other such images.  At one point in the canal in Paris, we go to a cut and see Jean managing a rope with the barge far above him in a lock, a jarring image.  Later we see a river port outside of Paris that is in its early stages of development with a few factories, skeletal building frames and makeshift establishments.  Inside one of these, a beer hall, we watch as Vigo and Kaufman give a tour de force performance of choreography and cinematography with a flirtatious salesman, dancing and dialogue.

Vigo and Kaufman also make ample use of the river mists to create almost painterly images in L’Atalante, and they revisit some underwater imagery from Taris when the lovesick Jean dives into the river to see the face of his true love.  In an eerie double exposure, the figure of Juliette floats by, creating another memorable image while creating a plot and character point.  And the film communicates the love – and desire – that the two have for each other by intercutting scenes of the two alone in bed in different locations. These shots of a buff, mostly undressed Jean and a nightgown-clad Juliette sweating and writhing with desire in their respective beds are of a daring sexiness.

L’Atalante is a true classic film, outstanding in story, characters, cinematography and direction.  It’s one highly-praised film that doesn’t disappoint.

A Familiar Ship's Bow Shot

February 7: Taris (1931 -- Jean Vigo)

★★★★

This little film is as short as it is fun.  Taris starts out as a lesson in how to swim, but Vigo is soon doing underwater shots showing Taris’ technique from below as well as well as above water shots showing the technique from the surface.  There is a beauty in the shots as well as instruction.  There is also some fun as the champion swimmer Taris manages a few cute gestures like reclining on the pool floor as the narration is giving advice.  And Vigo plays with film technique by running a diving clip backwards and forwards, creating a humorous effect as well as instructional one. 

Restrained in most of the film, Vigo’s wit breaks totally free at the end of Taris, as the swimmer is suddenly wearing a top coat and hat and, thanks to a double exposure, appears to walk out on the water.  Then down into it.  It’s as though Vigo simply couldn’t control the pleasure he had in using the medium and just cut loose.

I doubt this is a groundbreaking film, though it goes far beyond an instructional short.  I’d be interested to see how it matches up with other sports documentaries of the era like Triumph of the Will.  And it was fun to see this just before I watched L’Atalante, which includes a pivotal scene that is similar to the footage in this film.

Taris is a nice taste of Vigo. 

February 6: Zéro de conduite (1933 -- Jean Vigo)

★★★★

Zéro. That’s the conduct grade you’re going to get if you’re one of the student heroes of this film.  And the grade probably isn’t altogether unjustified from the point of view of the stupid, dictatorial, incompetent administration.  Our sympathy lies with these irrepressibly-rebellious boys, and it’s the struggle between them and the authority, informed by moments of cinematic poetry and childhood fancy, that make Zéro de conduit such a beautiful, political and philosophical movie.

One of the strengths of Zéro de conduit is the way we can enter into childhood here.  Kids play games and fantasize throughout the film, eventually developing a complicated fantasy to overthrow the school administration, a fantasy that becomes real.  Throughout, Vigo uses play and cinema tricks to create the kids’ point of view.  An editing trick makes a ball appear and disappear, and the one sympathetic surveillant walks on his hands while doing a sketch of the principle, a sketch that comes alive through cinematic sleight of hand and morphs through several forms before becoming Napoleon.  At one point, too, the boys strap their house monitor into his bed and raise the bed so it sits on its bottom board, the sleeping authority hanging slightly out of the bed like a religious figure with elaborate, knotted cords strapping him in.  But the most beautiful moment of the film is when the boys finally start their revolution with a dormitory-wide pillow fight.  As the fight continues, reality morphs into poetry, the action moves into slow motion, and the boys form a saint’s procession carrying one of their own sitting in a chair as slowly descending feathers fill the air.  Even here in the 21^st century, that’s a beautiful moment in film, and one formed of would have impressed a contemporary child.

Authority in  Zéro de conduit is as rigid, petty, corrupt, and stupid as the rebellious boys are sympathetic.  The pompous Surveillant-Général is a pretentious, self-important administrator whose small size puts him physically on the same level as the children though he waxes eloquent about the importance of his role in the kids’ moral education.  He’s also concerned that the upcoming ceremony, with its visiting dignitaries, come off flawlessly.  There’s more than a little satire of authority at that ceremony, too, as the dignitaries consist of a brocade-heavy man covered wearing an oversize triangular hat with trim  and a number of paper mache heads watching in the background.  The ceremony’s entertainment consists of a couple of overweight guys doing awkward gymnastic moves.  Meanwhile, Ma Beans, the cook, gets her name from the food the boys are served so regularly that even the woman complains about having nothing else to serve.  But beyond its pretension and ineptitude, authority here is corrupt.  Beanpole rummages through the boys’ bags while they are at recess and steals things like chocolate; a teacher makes an improper advance toward one of the boys in class.  Characters like these give a darker side to the portrayal of authority, and it’s hard to imagine that contemporaries wouldn’t see some social commentary in this portrayal of power.  What theatergoer wouldn’t rejoice at the sheer joy of the kids raining down books and other items onto the ceremony spectators in opposition to such an authority?

Zéro de conduit is a marvelous film filled with magic, joy, and rebellion.  Many people point out its descendants, and it certainly would seem that Truffaut mined the film for Les quatre cents coups some 25 years later.  In addition to the general theme of a stupid and repressive authority, the scene when the boys sneak away from a school excursion in the city in 400 Blows looks almost lifted from a scene in Zéro de conduit when the boys march away from their surveillant and rejoin him later.  The two scenes even share some shot angles.

This film is a great cinema pleasure and one I'm glad to have finally experienced.

February 5: À Propos de Nice (1930 -- Jean Vigo and Boris Kaufman)

★★★★

What a unique movie.  This was my first time with this film, and I’m finding it growing in my appreciation the more I think back on it.  It’s partly a city symphony like Man with a Movie Camera or Berlin Symphony, but it has so many experimental gestures that it fits solidly in the avant-garde.  There is one memorable scene after another, scenes of joy and scenes of pain.  It’s a great impression of that great Mediterranean resort.

The documentary aspects of the film are shots of people walking along the Promenade des Anglais or sitting in chairs people-watching.  Each person, or more specifically each woman, is making a unique style statement with a range of dress from 1930, and I enjoyed the many permutations of that look.  There was also some documentary interest in the warships in the bay and a seaplane landing and taking off.  And street kids playing paper-rock-scissors.  And some very beat-up people.  À Propos de Nice has all this.

 

But there are also many 20s avant-garde cinema gestures here.  The camera spins and the imposing Hotel Negresco turns upside down.  A series of cuts reveal to us a woman always in the same posture but wearing a series of different dresses…until she is nude.  In another editing trick, some partying dancers on an elevated platform dance madly away as the camera cuts to people looking up – a priest, an old woman – creating a cinematic link between the two levels.  And the Mardi Gras parade is simply delirious with dancers and huge paper mache figures prancing in the street.  A human face peeking out one of these figures looks for all the world like a cinematic mask.  The film goes on to cut back and forth between the hyperactivity of the parade and expressive cemetery statues, and it shows soldiers marching in the parade in fast motion as well as people heading to a funeral march.  À Propos de Nice has all these elements, too.

The movie also clearly has a certain amount of provocation as its aim.  It spends time lingering on women's legs and peeking up their dresses.  While the poor work and gamble, wealthy relax in excess.  A man burns crispy on the beach.  Épater la bourgeoisie would seem to be a clear goal here, and one that the film royally achieves.

À Propos de Nice is several things at once: avant-garde experiment, city documentary, social commentary, poke.  Anyone will enjoy their time with this unique, original amalgam.