apeart Reviews

Un chien andalou (1929)

Dreams

[10/10 · 15 December 2004]

Films and dreams have a happy marriage. Eisenstein formulated montage, essentially inventing the art of film, and forever changing the way we dream: dreams are about films. It's a reflexive move, then, to make a film about dreams -- rather, a film that comes over us as a dream.

Really, this is pure cinema. There need be no logic other than the rhythm and cohesion of the editing. The art of film is in the editing.

And complete anarchy in films is always appreciated.

(That's all I wanted to say).

Ancient Fistory (1953)

Legend Merged with Legend

[10/10 · 16 November 2004]

This must be the most brilliant thing I've seen recently.

This is latter-day Popeye in relation to his original beginnings. So Popeye indeed is a legend of sorts. His general backstory -- the eating of the spinach to transform his persona -- is absorbed into our collective consciousness. As is the Cinderella backstory, which involves a similar transformation of worlds.

So somebody spotted this correlation and put together one brilliant cartoon. Popeye eats the spinach and not only enters HIS alternate universe, but he also enters the alternate universe of that other cultural-character mainstay.

And what I really like about this cartoon is the total anarchy that ensues. There is a lot of ancient history here, as promised, but all of it is purposely thrown into a half-assed, mismatched brew. We have a historical archetype from one period juxtaposed to one from a completely detached period, and so forth. Clearly the writer purposely threw down whatever recollections of historical figures he could conjure at the moment. The result is engrossing. This is brilliant.

They Made Me a Criminal (1939)

Bad, Yet We Watch

[11 November 2004]

This film is not good. It appears to be just another among the hordes of films dished out during this period. Yet there is something about this film, not distinguishing per se, but something that nonetheless draws us to it.

I think this film's appeal is that it sums up the period. Everything is so acutely 1930s-esque. Watching it now with a considerable amount of distance, the film almost seems a self-parody. It resembles something we'd produce today to poke fun at this time and place. Watch Claude Rains, by most accounts a 'classical' actor, attempt his best hard-boiled detective impression. That's what this film is.

Also, the proficiency and efficiency of this film are remarkable, sort of an epitome of what was standard at this time but rarely achieved at such a high degree as here. These types of things were meant to be quick and direct. People would file into the theatre, see what they expected to see, and file out. This film achieves exactly that. The camera is matter-of-fact, the editing is quick and straightforward, and the dialogue is bare-bones essential. This may not be art, but it is mastery of craftsmanship. It is competent, but so competent that it's worth noting.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928)

Film as a Religious Experience

[10/10 · 9 November 2004]

Film is largely a religious experience. So when the narrative of a film itself pertains to a religious experience, it is doubly engrossing and cinematic.

What interests me here is Falconetti's face and how Dreyer uses his camera to paint that face. Faces are purely cinematic, perhaps the most cinematic things that have yet to be experimented with, probably because they are the most human. Falconetti's face is real beauty. Pure expression and conveyance.

The camera. It is static when painting Falconetti. It is moving, sliding, sideward-dollying when painting her persecutors. Falconetti is the fulcrum or the center-point, and the others are painted in a dizzying blur surrounding her that conveys the nature of the experience.

According to my ideas this is pure cinema.

The Undying Monster (1942)

Bad

[6/10 · 7 November 2004]

This film is simply bad. Aside from some attractive and interesting atmosphere concentrated at the beginning, this film achieves nothing of interest. Brahm was adept at creating atmosphere (The Lodger) but not at much else. I supposed that's why he became relegated to TV work.

What we have here is a bland murder-mystery. It's always disappointing to expect to be unsettled or frightened and then simply compete with a bad narrative. Disappointing.

Also, we are bombarded with too many oddball characters. I can partially digest this sort of thing when the characters are interesting, but here they just grate. And I would have preferred no monster over what we get here.

Tales from the Crypt (1972)

Horror According to Bach

[7/10 · 7 November 2004]

This film is a mixed bag. It has good and bad elements but will likely suffice as something to unsettle.

First the good. We have five stories that all follow a pattern. An unsettling setting, followed by some odd occurrence, and then a shocking twist and an abrupt end. This is an engineered, or measured, manner of scaring via cinema, but it is loosely engineered enough to make it enjoyable. This whole acutely measured and engineered manner of going about things is underscored by the music which plays during the opening credits. Bach. As we all know the music of Bach is technically brilliant, technically. His pieces are always measured, engineered, technically astute. As the direct opposite of Chopin, he symbolizes this technical brilliance. We hear his music and then we are frightened by the same methodology.

Now the bad. There was a further attempt to make this an even more measured and engineered piece. The first story starts out with a very measured and controlled camera. Rather, the camera controls. Watch as the camera pans around the room and this panning draws the strings of what happens inside the frame. This is brilliance of eye, measured and meditative. But it is not followed through.

A mixed bag. But these type of things are always that way.

The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962)

Patch it Together

[8/10 · 6 November 2004]

As I ruminate over the matter right now, this is my favorite film of the genre. The general consensus of this film's silliness does not discourage me. Horror is the most cinematic of cinema avenues, and this one works for me because it evokes a mood through atmosphere and sustains it.

Ostensibly we have a story about a mad doctor who steals female bodies and uses their individual parts to patch up a unified whole. The real patching up lies in what Franco does here in regard to elements from horror past. We have Morpho, who is a composite of creatures: a Frankenstein, a Dracula, the deformed Karloff monster from The Raven. And we have Orlof, who embodies a myriad of established characters, notably Doctor Gogol from Mad Love.

And it's all wrapped up in the atmosphere of such Univeral classics. The atmosphere drips. This is a wonderful film.

Mad Love (1935)

Neurotic vs. Psychotic

[10/10 · 6 November 2004]

This film is brilliant in every way. The sets are very expressionistic and therefore very cinematic. We see things according to a certain eye, and in this case the eye is demented.

And the narrative. This is the most interesting work I've seen dealing with the two poles of humanity: the neurotic vs. the psychotic, or in general terms, the scientific vs. the creative / the bound vs. the free.

Here we have the mad doctor (neurotic) vs. the virtuoso pianist (psychotic).

The figurative psychosis of the pianist is fully brought to light by the meddlings of the neurotic, who attaches to him the hands of a literal psychotic. And this drives all else.

Oh, the irony. Here we have the doctor (who is bound to his neurosis/science) enslaving the pianist (the free/creative archetype). The bound is binding the free.

Watch for the Chopin. It's a cryptic reference, but just as we cut away from the radio broadcast concert, it is announced that the pianist will play a Chopin number: Waltz No. 11 in G-flat Major, I think. Of course, Chopin is the universal symbol of the psychotic, that is the psychotic (creative) pole of humanity. This underscores what the pianist represents for us. Always watch for Chopin references.

Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957)

Stupid race

[3/10 · 28 May 2004]

What Ed Wood did here was simple but brilliant.

Wood was a dubiously imaginative goof who created awful stories, so here he makes a film about a dubiously imaginative goof (Criswell) who creates for us an awful story, complete with terrible acting and an underlying theme dangerously close to that of The Day the Earth Stood Still.

On that note the atrocious production is in line with the self-reference.

The economy of the film is amazing.

Recommended: the camp value is undeniable, and the added layer of self-reference is intriguing.

It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958)

Human Monster

[10/10 · 27 May 2004]

There's nothing like this stuff. B-films are notoriously and characteristically one-dimensional, and they are usually enjoyable on this level alone. When the viewer uncovers an added layer or layers, his evaluation thusly reflects the film as exponentially more masterful.

Such is the case here. We have two distinct narratives: the one on earth led by the authorities (the press conference), of which we rightfully see very little; and the one in space, narrated by the accused (pay attention to the film's very beginning).

And this thread of the man accused of killing his comrades as the narrator of our story supplies the hidden layer. As a general rule, a first-person narrator invites introspection toward his own character, reliability, etc. I have two theories about this component of the film: (1.) there really was a monster onboard -- a more benign one than our narrator depicts, but its seemingly incidental entrance onboard was in fact a direct action of our narrator, of course in an attempt to shift the blame of the murders onto this creature; (2.) the existence of the monster is purely a creation of the narrator's story, a metaphor for the development in space travel as regression, bringing us toward barbarism, causing us to become "human monsters." Either way, the acts of violence were actually carried out by our narrator, the accused; the monster, whether real or an invented component of the accused's narrative, acts as a shift of blame and a ticket to credibility for our narrator.

And naturally our narrator has fun with his story. He depicts the one who remains skeptical of him as out of his head, having lost his sense after an injury that was undoubtedly inflicted by the narrator himself. (It's interesting how our narrator not only draws the crew toward his favor and against the skeptic, but he does the same to us. Self-referential glory). And, of course, our narrator steals the skeptic's girl.

The B&W is low-key, atmospheric, and highly stylistic. The expressionism of the creature is terrific. The 'problem of narrator', always a self-referential touch, is explored here wonderfully.

Recommended for those who enjoy simple films working thoughtfully on a deeper, self-referential level.

Laura (1944)

Lydecker as surrogate filmmaker

[8/10 · 27 May 2004]

Spoilers.

Lydecker is killed at the film's close, right? But he also narrates the story from the beginning as if he is reflecting upon these events after some passage of time.

This film is Lydecker's story; it did not actually happen, or he wouldn't be telling it. Thus, we have all the trappings associated with the 'problem of narrator.' Lydecker is after all, an accomplished writer; the story of Laura (the film) is one of his creations, just as Laura herself -- if she truly exists outside of Lydecker's story -- is one of his creations.

The motivation for Lydecker's telling this story is interesting. He was attracted to Laura initially because she opposed his self-absorbed persona. For some reason this attracted him. In the same way Lydecker uses the story of the film to shine himself in an unflattering light. Evidently he achieves some sort of satisfaction from having either an account of his life or a woman oppose him. Perhaps this is the very nature of his character; he shuns the company of others because he is satisfied with himself in solitude; thus, having others outwardly shun him is a reaffirmation of his self-absorbtion and self-sufficiency.

Lydecker is in no way heterosexual. As the teller of the film's story, he is surrogate filmmaker. He created Laura, just as a director creates any of his leading ladies, so that his achievement could be shone through her. When someone he deems undesirable takes a liking to his creation and subsequently decides to steal it from him, he becomes defensive.

And here we have the connection with McPherson. In his story (the film) Lydecker depicts McPherson as having an infatuation with Laura's image. Lydecker created that image just as he created the story. He's flattering himself here. As surrogate filmmaker he has succeeded in creating an alluring image.

A good self-referential piece, but Preminger's visual style has dated badly.

Vivre sa vie (1962)

The director and the pimp

[10/10 · 11 April 2004]

There is more to this film, in terms of its story, than a woman's descent into prostitution. To a large extent, it is the story of Godard's failing relationship with Karina. Or perhaps it presents Godard's overall view of the director's relationship to the actress, the artist's relationship to his subject.

Possible spoilers.

Aside from Nana, there are three characters crucial to the story: the photographer, the pimp, and the guy who reads excerpts from Poe. There are two particularly telling scenes: Nana's viewing of Joan of Arc and the subtle appearance of the Elizabeth Taylor photograph behind Nana as the Poe story is read to her.

First, the photographer. He offers Nana her last chance at an entrance into films. Soon after their meeting she falls into prostitution. He resembles the pimp in manner. Are films and prostitution the same? Rather, are the director and the pimp the same?

The real representation of the director is the guy who reads the Poe story. In fact, he represents Godard himself. This is the guy who buys Nana cigarettes, and when we see Nana consorting with him after all of her degrading experiences, it is like a breath of fresh air. He is going to glorify her and raise her to the status that she deserves. He is an artist and he portrays her ("This is our story," he says of the Poe story. "An artist portraying his love."). The Poe excerpt ends with the death of the artist's love, his subject. He drained the life from her and into the canvas. If this is their story, is the guy draining the life from Nana? Isn't that what the pimp has been doing? The pimp and the director are the same.

Nana sees Joan of Arc judged by men, and she ostensibly relates. As the Poe story is read, we see the photo of Elizabeth Taylor behind Nana. Godard is encouraging us to judge Nana (or Karina) in comparison to Elizabeth Taylor. She is being killed, just as Joan of Arc was, by this judgement. The director and the pimp are the same. Godard prostituted Karina, at least he thought so when he wrote this story. He drained the life from her and into his canvas, the screen, and presented her for our judgement. Our Nana doesn't realize that whether she had made into films or had fallen into prostitution, the end result would have been the same. La morte.