A Viewing
List for Twenty-Fifteen
Goodbye to Language [Jean-Luc
Godard, 2014]:
The title is
non-judgmental. "Goodbye" in
the sense that technology is changing the way we live, but "goodbye"
also to the thing that has failed to define us.
The shackles of language that keep us tethered to ideas, forms, thoughts
and feelings; a liberation from expectation or the need to understand. 3D shots and the fragmentation of the image
(from one into two) again relate to the typically 'Godardian' theme of
disparity. The disparity of ideas,
politics, love, etc. The inability of couples
to co-exist. The filmmaker remarks: we
can film a landscape and an empty room, but not the landscape at the back of an
empty room. Yet here he achieves just
that, and beautifully so. At various
points throughout, Godard frames his dog with the same zealous heroism of John
Wayne, circa Stagecoach (1939), the same quiet stoicism of a van Gogh
self-portrait and the same wounded dignity of Falconetti's St. Joan. The dog is
at once a surrogate for the viewer, on the outside looking in, attempting to make
sense, to understand, but also a surrogate for Godard, the eyes and ears at the
centre of things. Remarkable.
Kagemusha [Akira Kurosawa, 1980]:
The
political implications of the scenario are enthralling. Throughout the film, themes of power,
corruption, leadership and the suppression of the 'self' (in the purely psychological
sense of the term), are each carefully woven into the fabric of the film. However, so much of the subtext can be seen as
an extension on the idea of performance; the character compelled to put on a
costume, to adopt a persona, to play a part. As such, it's not only Kurosawa's definitive
political statement, but also his most self-reflexive/self-referential commentary
on the psychology of the "warrior as performer", and vice versa. The film is a testament to the talent of
Kurosawa and his lead actor, Tatsuya Nakadai, however it is the delirious,
near-psychedelic 'nightmare sequence' occurring midway through the film that not
only draws a line of influence from the similarly personal Dodes'ka-den (1970)
to the richly-autobiographical Dreams (1990) but remains one of the most
dazzling, imaginative and purely cinematic moments of Kurosawa's entire career.
Los Angeles
Plays Itself [Thom Andersen, 2003]:
The story of
a city on film, both literally and figuratively. Like many of the films on this particular
portion of the list, too much time has passed for me to give an accurate
clarification of the film's "objective" merits, but the memory of the
work still lingers. Los Angeles Plays
Itself is at once and simultaneously an astounding documentary, a travelogue of
a city, a narrative history of that same city on film and above all else a
defining work of actual film criticism that offers a quantum leap in the
evolution of the genre. Watching Andersen's visual interpretation of his own text - less a compilation of "clips" than a
genuine adaptation, where each image or scene, each cut or juxtaposition, presents a
theoretical, geographical, historical or emotional association - can only seem to shame all
other forms of contemporary film criticism.
Sound and Fury
[Jean-Claude Brisseau, 1988]:
Arguably the
great masterpiece of Brisseau's career and a film to file alongside Truffaut's
The 400 Blows (1959) and Pialat's The Naked Childhood (1968) as one of the most
brutal and affecting works on the subject of adolescent alienation in French
cinema. Refining and re-establishing
what would eventually become his trademark style through later and no less
controversial features, such as Céline (1992), The Exterminating Angels (2006)
and The Girl from Nowhere (2012), Brisseau incorporates a milieu of gritty
social-drama against a more alarming series of scenes and images that seem to
extend from an un-tethered perspective of magical realism. The result is a film in which discussions on
socialism, unemployment and educational-reform are punctuated by scenes of
uncompromising violence, brutality and an atmosphere of near-dreamlike
surrealism that features revenants, spirits and phantoms conjured from the past. An astounding and unforgettable work.
They All
Laughed [Peter Bogdanovich, 1981]:
Too much
time has passed since my initial viewing of the film back in February 2015 to
offer any kind of definitive statement; an unfortunately consequence of my
inability to put down in words any initial thoughts and feelings that
circulated at the time. However, my
prevailing impression of the film is one of complete enjoyment! Though the narrative of Bogdanovich's career
is that of the talented "wunderkind" who created back-to-back
masterworks with his first four features, Targets (1968), The Last Picture Show
(1971), What's Up Doc (1972) and Paper Moon (1973), only to burn out and lose
it following the hostile reception of the films Daisy Miller (1974), At Long
Last Love (1975) and Nickelodeon (1976), the existence of a film like They All
Laughed seems to contradict the critical consensus and shows a filmmaker
creating what might possibly be the
greatest work of his career. Working
with Wim Wenders' then cinematographer of choice Robby Müller, Bogdanovich is
able to do for New York what Jacques Rivette often did for his beloved Paris;
turning the city into a fully fledged character, part melancholy labyrinth,
part eternal playground, where characters left on the fringes of society can
come together to share in their anxieties, eccentricities, passions and woes.
Talking Head [Mamoru Oshii, 1992]:
Many
directors of the post new-wave era of personal "auteurist" expression
have tackled at least one semi-autobiographical work on the perils of
filmmaking. From Jean-Luc Godard's Le
Mépris (1963) and Passion (1982) respectively, to Fassbinder's Beware of a Holy
Whore (1971) Wenders' The State of Things (1982) and Antonioni's Identification
of a Woman (1982), through to a vast gamut of eclectic works, including (but
not limited to) Day For Night (1973) by François Truffaut, Ed Wood (1994) by
Tim Burton, A Moment of Innocence (1996) by Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Art History
(2011) by Joe Swanberg, the very subject of filmmaking has itself proven to be
a fascinating resource for writers and directors to explore what the cinema
means to them. However, for all the
variety and individuality found the films aforementioned, no other filmmaker to
the best of my knowledge has explored the subject with the same gonzo
eccentricity and abandon as Mamoru Oshii, who envisions his
film-about-filmmaking™ as a bizarre psychodrama cum murder mystery with
elements of almost Three Stooges inspired slapstick comedy, intentionally
"bad" B-movie special effects, Godardian inter-titles and poetic
rumination (reminiscent of something like Soigne ta droite, 1987), fourth-wall
breaking and a heavy influence of Brecht. The result is one of the great works of auteur
cinema; as playful, baffling and self-deprecating as von Trier's less abstract
but no less "meta" deconstruction of the role of the filmmaker, The
Boss of it All (2006).
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid [Sam Peckinpah, 1973]:
The usual
superlatives hold true; this is Peckinpah's final statement on the end of the
"west", on violence, masculinity and the passing of tradition. When supposed lawman Pay Garrett shoots out
his own reflection following his pitiless assassination of 'the Kid', the act
itself communicates so much about the character's own loss of identity; the
self-hated and the disillusionment felt not just by the lawman corrupted by a
need to save face but by any and all who saw their own country slip away from
them as one generation gave in to the next.
Throughout the film the landscape becomes symbolic, the journey into
history expressing something about the need for heroes, myths and legends
against the often brutal and unflinching reality, as the mournful, world-weary
soundtrack of Bob Dylan becomes a disembodied chorus reflecting on the sense of
inevitable destruction, as idealism, trust, hope and even goodness are very
gradually corrupted by the bitterness of time.
For Your Eyes Only [John Glen,
1981]:
The standard
nonsensical Bond conventions are here elevated by a sense of genuine spectacle.
From the helicopter hi-jack of the
pre-title sequence to later scenes, such as the Olympic pursuit, underwater
exploration and literal mountain top cliff-hanger, the film doesn't just
provide the usual action and suspense that one expects from the genre, it's a genuinely
jaw-dropping affair! Maybe this
sentiment is simply an expression of nostalgia for a type of pre-CGI
extravagance, but some of the images here are genuinely astounding; where the
thrill of "actuality" - real cars, real locations, real jumps and hits
- becomes as much a selling point as the narrative and its wider commitment to
the requirements of the Bond "brand."
Kudos then to director John Glen, whose muscular action sequences and
injection of gritty violence, often at odds with the lighter tone of this particular
era, would find their truest expression several years later in the most brutal
Bond film, The Living Daylights (1987).
Dodes'ka-den [Akira Kurosawa, 1970]:
The
onomatopoeic title, which suggests an imitation of the sound a tram-car would
make as it moves along a track, plays into the film's notion of artifice, of a
reflection of life that's not quite the real thing but an abstraction of it,
while also suggesting the idea of the journey, of characters moving towards a
definite (emotional or psychological) destination. In terms of style, it is a film that feels
almost like a collaboration between Walt Disney and Samuel Beckett, but with an undeniable
streak of social commentary that ties it to the filmmaker's earlier movie, The
Lower Depths (1957). In its structure,
it lurches from moments of burlesque humour, its scenes presenting a pantomime
of larger than life characterisations amid flights of fantasy and child-like
sentiment, to moments that show the brutal reality of the world suggested with
a blunt, emotional honesty. The effect
can be odd and disengaging but is nonetheless unique. An explosion of colour and stylisation; the
approach offering a staggering counterpoint to the squalor and misery of the
characters lives and this reflection of the modern world (circa 1970)
re-imagined as a junkyard microcosm. The
only thing more dazzling than Kurosawa's experiments with colour, light and
composition is the sensitivity he shows to his central characters.
Magic in the Moonlight [Woody
Allen, 2014]:
Relaxed and
conversational in the best possible way, with the sun-kissed locations,
lovingly photographed, and pristine period detail only adding to the
charm. It is a film full of rich and
illustrative discussions on issues of nature and the cosmos; a mediation on the
universe analogous to a film by Jean-Claude Brisseau - such as À L'Aventure (2008),
only minus the soft-core lesbian erotica - wherein the relationship between two
people becomes the fore-grounded focal point to a grander philosophical or
theoretical discussion on the foundation of life itself. Overflowing with incredible subtext, the film's
smaller crisis of faith, love and loyalty becomes a reflection on greater themes,
such as the nature of illusion, performance and identity; of characters as
impostors, posing as something they're not; of cinema as the grand illusion, a
sleight of hand; of love as the ultimate magic act, conquering cynicism;
weaving its way through the elements of frothy romantic farce and bitter atheistic
lament like a leitmotif. Though many
found it flawed, the film for me was a little masterpiece and one of Allen's
greatest works.
