My Life in Movies

Two films directed by Fred Zinneman appear on the original AFI 100, High Noon at #33 and From Here to Eternity at #52.  On the 10th Anniversary list from 2007, the latter film shot up to #27, while the latter was dropped.  Both are undoubtedly classics, each released within a year of the other and iconic, reflecting the tenor of their time.  Like other German and Austrian directors who migrated to Hollywood in the 1940’s and 50’s (Lang, Wilder, Siodmak, Sirk, etc.), Zinneman brought an aesthetic sensibility influenced by German Expressionism, in addition to a seriousness and ambivalence the defines so many dramas of the period.  There is much to recommend in both film, though neither is by any means perfect.

High Noon stars Gary Cooper as Will Kane, a marshal set to retire after his marriage to young Amy Fowler (played by Grace Kelly).  After turning in his badge, he learns that Frank Miller (Ian McDonald), a criminal he brought to justice, has been pardoned and is due to arrive into town at noon to seek his revenge against Kane. While everyone in town encourage him to leave on the train with his wife, Kane decides to reclaim his badge and stand up to Miller.  Racing the clock, he scour the town for help, only to find that the townspeople, even his former deputy, are less than eager to volunteer.

The slow, deliberate pacing of the story and emphasis on Kane’s personal struggle to defuse tension separate High Noon from previous Westerns.  Zinneman purposely eschewed the grand, sweeping vistas favored by John Ford and others for minimal setups defined more by the architecture of the town.  The only noticeable camera movement occurs in the crane shot leading up to the climax, brilliantly edited to heighten the sense of urgency as Kane faces Miller and his gang.  Cooper was in his 50’s when cast as Will Kane and deemed too old for the role by some, but he’s arguably perfect in the role, with his mix of weariness, vulnerability and usual woodenness conveying an anxious and uncertain heroism that is rare in classic Westerns.  The moment when Kane, unable to round up a posse, realizes he must defeat Miller and his gang is heartbreaking, making the final victory that much more triumphant.

Much has been said about the politics underlying the story in High Noon.  During production, screenwriter Carl Foreman was summoned to appear at the HUAC and was subsequently blacklisted, causing many at the time to interpret the film as an allegory for the failure of many in academia and Hollywood to speak out against McCarthyism.  While it is likely that Foreman’s own experiences informed his script, Zinneman was more ambiguous about his intent, and High Noon’s focus is broad enough to be interpreted from numerous angles.  In an article on the film at Bright Lights Journal, Manfred Wiedhorn suggests a possible interpretation that is far more conservative.  Indeed, High Noon never goes so far to entirely dismiss Western heroism in all its violence, even if its take is more ambivalent and nuanced.  John Wayne notoriously disliked the film, claiming that it was downright un-American for daring to depict the marshall as being in need of help or experiencing any self-doubt.  Personally, I find the approach in High Noon preferable to Wayne’s notion of Western/American heroism and would regard it as one of the best–at least most interesting–classic Westerns.

Released roughly a year after High Noon, From Here to Eternity is a rather different film that also touches on the theme of the individual vs. the collective.  While today it’s probably best remembered for the sultry (and at the time risque) love scene between Deborah Kerr and Burt Lancaster on the beach, the film is a mature, slowburn drama in a similar vein to Kazan or Ray (albeit cooler tempered) and the films George Stevens began to make after WWII.  Based on a novel by James Jones, From Here to Eternity tells the story of life on an American military base in the months preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Lancaster plays First Sergeant Milton Warden, a principled soldier committed to his job, who falls for the company captain’s wife, Karen, played by Deborah Kerr.  Karen comes with plenty of baggage, as rumors of her unfaithfulness at Fort Bliss abound, but she’s desperate to leave her unhappy marriage and suggests Warden apply for officer training so the two can run off together.  Alongside this struggle plays another story, this one starring Montgomery Clift as Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt, who has just recently been transferred to the base.  Learning of his reputation as a talented boxer, the captain recommends him to join the regimental boxing club, an offer that Prewitt refuses, having given up boxing after permanently blinding his last opponent.  His life on the base becomes more difficult, as he is harassed daily by the men in the company and given harsh punishments for minor offenses.  The only respite he finds is in his friendship with Private Angelo Maggio (Frank Sinatra) and a romance with nightclub “hostess” Lorene (Donna Reed).  Events come to a head with Maggio gets into a bar-room brawl with Staff Sergeant “Fatso” Judson (Ernest Borgnine), goes AWOL, and then is sentenced to the stockade.  Maggio dies after being brutally beaten by Judson, causing Prewitt to take his revenge and himself go AWOL.  The climactic attack on Pearl Harbor serves also as the pinnacle for both Warden and Pruitt, who like Will Kane in High Noon, must make the right choice for the sake of duty.

Like High Noon, which looks and feels quite different than most classic Westerns but is not particularly awe-inspiring in terms of aesthetics, From Here to Eternity sticks with a straightforward, not quite minimalistic, approach that places emphasis on the story and the characters.  Sergeant Warden is not one of Lancaster’s more interesting roles (despite the fact he was nominated for an Oscar), Clift does bring his unique blend of toughness and vulnerability to the role of Private Prewitt, and I daresay it’s my favorite of his performances thus far.  Like Brando and Dean, his presence made an indelible impression on the films of the period and certain reflect the underlying mood in post-WWII America.

Unlike High Noon, From Here to Eternity features a complexly structured story in which three different characters must navigate their individuality in the context of the collective (The Army, in this case), remaining principled and doing what is right.  Rather than show the military in a purely positive light, we see how it stifles and finally shuts down both Prewitt and Maggio and the harm it does to Captain Holmes’s marriage.  In the end, however, the principles of the institution remain, and Warden does what he can to defend the base, the base hat Prewitt ultimately returns to, leading us to a somewhat ambivalent conclusion.  The film ends with Karen and Lorene meeting, a fascinating scene that frames the film in a somewhat different light, while retaining that same ambivalence.  Though at times the film struggles under the weight of its story, it is nevertheless a very grown-up picture that remains honest about the difficulties of staying true to one’s self.

As noted above, I’d regard both films as deserving their classic status.  High Noon is arguably the more groundbreaking of the two, defying expectations within the Western genre at the time, but the somewhat lumbering From Here to Eternity did surprise me with its depth and complexity.  Top 100?  Maybe, maybe not.  But definitely worth seeing.

References for From Here to Eternity:
Entry @ Film Reference
Fifty Years Later, Village Voice review

Fred Zinneman:
@ Wikipedia
@ Senses of Cinema

Has it really been a month since my last entry?  Yikes.  Originally, I had planned on posting a bunch of brief entries in quick succession on all the movies I saw between April and June that I didn’t feel like devoting much time too.  But my impetus to blog seems to have jumped the ship this month, and here we are.  A few years ago, I did a series of “mini-crits,” otherwise known as capsule reviews, which are a wonderfully speedy way of covering lots of movies quickly.  So why not return to this form?

Couples Retreat (Billingsley, 2009)

The kind of movie I would never pursue on my own but end up watching on cable while visiting my parents.  While most of the gags were as bland and predictable as the reassuring conclusion, I found it hard to hate this movie, maybe because Vaughn and much of the cast are fairly likable–excluding Favreau’s philandering husband.  Jean Reno plays the wacky New Age-ish guru who runs the retreat, an incongruous bit of casting in a movie that is content to allow him to coast through the story in the least interesting way possible. It’s surprising that Favreau co-authored this dull fluff with Vaughn, especially considering that almost 15 years ago he wrote the very charming Swingers and the more recent Iron Man films (neither of which I’ve seen but have generally been well received).  While by no means an awful movie, Couples Retreat is largely forgettable, with few high points of hilarity to recommend.

Terminator: Salvation (McG, 2009)

Growing up, the first two Terminator films were pretty much compulsory viewing, and I still regard both as among the best action/sci-fi of the 80’s and 90’s.  I did not see, nor really want to see, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and was only mildly interested in Salvation after seeing the trailer.  Unlike the first two films, Salvation is a bloodless, humorless affair that runs far too long and never seriously grapples with the big questions it clumsily tries to put forth.  Christian Bale, who I like in The Machinist and American Psycho, is gruff and altogether dull as the supposedly charismatic John Conner, while Bryce Dallas Howard fails to give much emotional depth to her role as his ever-faithful, ever-pregnant wife.  Worthington also fails to exude much charisma as the criminal unwittingly turned into a cyborg, but Moon Bloodgood provides a rare glimmer of humanity as the pilot he saves.  There are lots of explosions and cool-looking robots and a marked lack of wit throughout.  Don’t even get me started on the portrayal of women in the film or the inexplicable presence of makeup and teeth-whitening in this post-apocalyptic future.  In the end, Salvation attempts to convince us that what’s worth saving about humanity is its heart, but in this case the heart is deficient.  If that’s the case, why shouldn’t the robots win?

Ninotchka (Lubitsch, 1939)

I mistakenly thought this classic Lubitsch comedy appeared on the AFI 100 or the Rosenbaum list, but turns out it actually appears on the TIME 100 and the AFI 100 Laughs and 100 Passions lists, respectively.  I was lucky enough to watch this on the big screen at the Tivoli in Kansas City, and it was every bit as enjoyable as the other Lubitsch comedies I’ve seen.  Garbo is stunning and handles Ninotchka’s evolution from stern Soviet loyalist to a softer woman, finally able to laugh.  Wilder’s script is witty and full of the bite his 40’s and early 50’s are noted for, wrangled of course by Lubitsch lighter touch.  Politically, it’s not particularly deep, but it’s an incredibly charming film that reminds one of the sensuous joys of life.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Spielberg, 2008)

Not quite as bad as I thought it would be, though not exactly great.  At the very least, it retains some of the fun and humor of the previous films, in addition to non-stop action/adventure.  One aspect I liked about the story was Indy’s coming to terms with his past adventures and getting older.  Otherwise:  the Soviet villains and tinge of Cold War politics was not as interesting as it could have been, LeBeouf’s Wild Bunch routine seemed silly and tacked-on, and I’m not sure how well extraterrestrials fit into the Indiana Jones mythos.  Enjoyable enough, for the most part.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Leone, 1966)

Oh man, I have nothing but praise for this movie.  Growing up, my stepfather watched a lot of Westerns and war movies, and Clint Eastwood was a particular favorite.  I saw portions of this and Leone’s other “spaghetti Westerns” over a decade ago and liked them well enough, so while visiting family on Memorial Day weekend, I decided to sit down and watch the whole thing, not realizing that it was nearly 3 hours long.  Yet it’s not fatty or portentous.  The story has a rambling rhythm that works on the basis of beautiful cinematography and engaging performances by Eastwood, Van Cleef, and Wallach (none of whom play characters that could be called likeable per se).  With its iconic title sequence, it’s an incredibly stylish film that at moments veers into surreal territory, such as the spinning camera in the graveyard.  It also addresses the realities of the Civil War, referred to in some American Westerns, and satirizes the violence and simple-minded heroism of the form.  Morricone’s music adds to the bizarre brilliance.

Next week, I’ll be returning to the AFI 100 series with A Place in the Sun.  Other films in the review docket:  High Noon, From Here to Eternity, Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, and Micmacs.

Watching The Lucky Ones it was hard not to think of The Best Years of Our Lifes.  Like that post-WWII classic, the story concerns three soldiers returning from with physical and emotional battle wounds, each one in a different phase of life and facing individual romantic troubles and uncertainties.  Of course, The Lucky Ones concerns Army soldiers returning from the Iraq War and has a decidedly contemporary slant.  Fred Cheaver (Tim Robbins) comes home to discover his wife wants a divorce.  T.K. Poole (Michael Pena) is unsure whether his fiancee will be able to accept the impotency caused by a shrapnel injury.  And Colee Dunn (Rachel McAdams) is carrying her dead boyfriend’s guitar in hopes of returning it to his family.  The fact that one of the characters is Hispanic and another is female is a further reflection of our times.  Unlike The Best Years of Our Lives, The Lucky Ones is a modest and picaresque road movie that mixes drama with comedy, one that focuses on the effects war has on personal lives and relationships but eschews politics.

While I found its humbleness refreshing and the story engaging in a sort of low-key way, The Lucky Ones is ultimately forgettable and left little impression overall.  The movie suffers some unfortunate contrivances and forced moments of drama that detract from its earnestness.  To its credit, all three lead performances are pretty decent, and each character feels like a real person.  This was my first exposure to Rachel McAdams, who I found delightfully natural and unforced (and adorable) as the eternally optimistic Colee.  Overall, The Lucky Ones is not a film I regret having spent 2 hours with, but it’s not a film I would vehemently recommend.

Ranked at #37 on the original AFI list and winner of 7 Academy Awards, The Best Years of Our Lives is the quintessential prestige picture, one that received much critical and popular acclaim in its own time.  Clocking in at 3 hours and focusing on a particular social issue, in this case men and women coping with life after war, it’s the sort of film that fulfills shared assumptions as to what “meaningful cinema” should entail.  So it was not something I approached without some trepidation.

The Best Years of Our Lives, released only a year after the end of WWII, undoubtedly spoke to the realities faced by men returning from the front and the families they left behind.  In classic Hollywood fashion, the story is expertly engineered, with each of the three main characters representing different branches of the military (Army infantry, Navy sailor, and Air Corps officer), different life stages, and social strata.  Frederic March plays Al Stephenson, a middle-aged soldier who worked as a bank executive prior to the war and comes home to find his children nearly grown.  Dana Andrews plays Fred Perry, who grew up on the other side of the tracks and must come to terms with a hasty marriage to a nightlife-loving wife.  Harold Russell, a non-professional actor who had lost his hands in the war, plays Homer Parrish, who is struggling with the potential marriage to his childhood sweetheart and is learning to cope with his disability.  Each of these men must re-adapt to civilian life, forge some sense of normality, and cope with difficult choices in their work, romantic, and family relationships.  As contrived as this all seems, The Best Years of Our Lives feels quite natural, allowing us to get to know the characters without relying of acrobatic plotting to do the job.  All of the drama arises from real issues no doubt faced by many men returning from the war.

It’s this sense of realism and honesty about its subject that makes The Best Years of Our Lives an engrossing and memorable film, one that sometimes supersedes expectation.  There is not one homecoming that isn’t wrought with some uncertainty and tension, something rarely spoken of in war films.  The decision to hire a non-professional actor for the part of Homer gives these scenes a great deal of power that no special effect could achieve; every difficulty he faces must be one that Russell himself had to come to terms with.  The scenes in which he removes the harness bearing his hooks feels raw in a way Hollywood movies rarely feel.  Fred’s wife, Marie (played beautifully by Virginia Mayo), reminded me of many discussions about women in post-war film noir, in which women who learned to survive without men became threatening figures.  Shockingly, the film offers a frank portrayal of their unhappy marriage and Fred’s adulterous interest in Al’s daughter Peggy (a good girl who is surprisingly ready to break up said marriage). Divorce becomes a welcome escape, something rare for films of the time.

Apart from the story and characterization, The Best Years of Our Lives has some great cinematography by Gregg Toland, equally noted for his definitive work on John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath and Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane.  As with the latter film, Toland makes extensive use of deep focus, most notably in the bar scene where Al rebukes Fred for pursuing his daughter.  As Al meets Homer beside the piano, in the distance we see Fred making a phone call to Peggy:

It’s a marvelous way to pack multiple layers of storytelling information into one scene.  Here we have Homer gaining a level of mastery over his disability, while Al simultaneously marvels and keeps an eye on Fred.  Deep focus is used similarly in several other scenes, like at the end when Homer marries his sweetheart, and Peggy observes Fred from across the room:

Equally effective is the scene in which Fred visits the airplane graveyard and enters an abandoned bomber like the one he flew.  Through the use of sound, light, and shadow we momentarily enter his memories and feel his sense of lost identity.  On a purely personal level, this use of multi-layered “deep” images adds to the film’s overall appeal and elevates it beyond the standard drama and other Hollywood films of the period.

Where the film falters, for me anyway, is the way it falls back on treacly sentiment by the end of the story.  Everything is normalized, everyone is with whomever s/he belongs with, tension is relieved.  Clearly, the film is popular not only for its realism but the way it plays into the sentimental hopes of Americans at the time.  Particularly groan-inducing was the scene in which Homer’s fiancee, Wilma (played by Cathy O’Donnell, noted for playing similar “good girl” roles), declares her love to Homer, in spite of his disability.  A related weak point of the film is Harold Russell’s performance, for which he won Best Supporting Actor and an honorary Oscar.  While his presence is engaging and he pulls off some scenes quite well, there’s an awkwardness to his interaction with O’Donnell in the romantic scenes that’s unmistakable.  Up against major talents like March, Loy, Andrew, Wright, and Mayo, he inevitably pales, but it’s hard to imagine the film without the openness and authenticity he brings to the role.

It’s easy in our more cynical time to scoff at and dismiss a title like “The Best Years of Our Lives,” but the context in which the line is uttered takes on more ironic significance that reveals much of the film’s strength.  On the verge of leaving Fred, Marie exclaims, “I gave up the best years of my life, and what have you done? You flopped!”  All three men, and the families they have come home to, are forced to contend with the wasted gaps of time, spent by the war.  In the end, the script suggests that the best years are to come, and it is this sentiment that is almost too difficult to bear.  Nonetheless, I find myself wavering on this point and for its moments of honesty and rich visual storytelling regard it as a film worthy of recognition.

Film Reference entry

Wikipedia entry

Films Folded commentary, by Ted Goranson

Just wanted to note that an expanded and revised review of the 1940 Hollywood adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s play, Our Town, has been posted at The Cabalists literary collective on deviantART.  If you missed the original review posted to this blog, you can still read it here.  This marks the beginning of a bi-weekly column cannibalizing further material from this blog.  I will keep readers of this blog up to date as I post more articles in the future.

I’ll be continuing the AFI 100 series with an entry on the post-WWII drama The Best Years of Our Lives in the next few days.  After that, there are a few other films I saw this spring I may or may not choose to write about, including:  The Lucky Ones, Terminator: Salvation, Indiana Jones and The Legend of the Crystal Skull, and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.