20 Movies: Ikiru (1952)

Posted by Bill Wren

I know people who can’t watch a movie like Ikiru because it’s in black and white and because it is “foreign.” I confess I have to bite my tongue when I hear such things because, while on one hand I understand what they are saying, I find it frustrating that they allow themselves to miss something as wonderful as this movie simply because they can’t give it a chance.

Ikiru isn’t fast paced. It isn’t a spectacle of colour. It isn’t in English; it’s sub-titled. It’s a slow paced meditation in black and white and in Japanese.

It is also one of the best movies ever made.

Ikiru (1952)
directed by Akira Kurosawa

You would think a movie about someone dying of cancer would be a tremendously depressing film but as Akira Kurosawa’s Ikiru shows, it needn’t be.

This is because he is not at all concerned with dying. His theme is life, just as the more recent movie by Denys Arcand is – Les Invasions Barbares (The Barbarian Invasions). But this isn’t to say Kurosawa backs away from the unpleasant fact of cancer.

Not only does he not back away from it, he embraces it – almost gleefully as he sets up the story of his main character, Kanji Watanabe (Shinichi Himori).

The movie opens with a shot of Watanabe’s x-ray and an almost officious narrator describing Watanabe’s condition – his current life (which is pretty much nonexistent) and medical condition (dying of stomach cancer).

It opens almost as if God were telling the story of Job.

We’re then shown the pathetic life of Watanabe. He’s a government bureaucrat lost amid the bureaucracy, his goal, like the system’s goal, to do nothing. He has been living this way for thirty years.

Then it’s revealed to him he has cancer and has less than a year to live. It’s interesting that, just as Watanabe in his job attempts to do nothing and keep everything steady and status quo, the doctors refuse to tell him the truth of his condition. Why disturb the waters when there is nothing he can do about it? Better he remain ignorant of his condition.

But he does find out, from another patient, and panics.

In an almost frightened stupor, he stumbles out into the street in what I found to be one of the most striking moments in the movie. It is very quiet as Watanabe enters the street. Then, just as a truck goes by, a cacophony of street sounds erupts.

It suggests that the grim news he’s received has wakened the slumbering Watanabe and he is suddenly aware of life – chaotic and noisy and endlessly vibrant.

His fear now begins to coalesce from a general, instinctive fear of death to something more specific – a fear of never having lived.

Watanabe’s journey is now underway as he tries to discover what it means to live and how this is done. Initially he meets his first guide on his journey, a writer who sees the poetry in Watanabe and his situation. He leads him through a night journey that focuses on the superficial aspects of life – drink, sex, partying – but none of this really resonates for Watanabe, at least not in a profound way. It simply opens his eyes more to the essence of living he has missed.

His next guide is a young, vibrant woman flush with excitement of youth. She takes him on more of a daylight journey where Watanabe finally begins coming out of his depressed stupor. He begins to laugh and enjoy being alive.

And this leads him to his final stage where he reconciles with his condition and decides what it is he must do in order to feel he has lived.

This is where Kurosawa suddenly shifts his focus. He cuts to a later time, after Watanabe’s death, where we see others recalling him and trying to come to an understanding of his final days.

Characters have a range of interpretations, many of which are self-serving, but as this part of the film progresses an image of Watanabe begins to cohere until we are finally left with the essence of Watanabe, the essence of life (which the word ikiru means, “to live”).

While the film’s focus is on Watanabe, Kurosawa does one of the things he loved to do which is to show story from different perspectives (such as in Rashoman). We see Watanabe but we also see how others perceive him, usually erroneously, usually from a self-centred perspective – such as his son and daughter-in-law, or his fellow workers.

Kurosawa also uses sound to great effect in Ikiru, associating life with a cacophony of vibrancy (such as the entering the street scene mentioned earlier). There is also the song Watanabe sings and occurs several times in the film, beginning, “Life is brief …”

The song is sung twice by Watanabe – first in a bar in a gloomy scene where the theme of “life is brief” negatively presented, as a reason for sorrow. The second time is toward the end of the film, after he has accomplished what he set out to do and he’s seen on a swing set. Here, there is a sense of joy to the song. The contrasting versions of the same song suggests life involves making choices and those choices determine whether the quality of life.

Ikiru is a tremendously life affirming movie made by one of cinema’s great masters, Akira Kurosawa. It makes a stark contrast to some of the tremendous samurai films he made. It has a gentleness to it that is disarming while at the same time maintaining the unflinching quality of vision constant through Kurosawa’s films.

As others have mentioned, this is a movie that should be seen every few years or so. Like the best stories, it prompts us to look at the world around us and assess our own lives and, perhaps as we get older, speculate on how much of Watanabe is within us.

20 Movies: Chinatown (1974)

Posted by Bill Wren

The problem with listing these 20 movies is that I’m building a list of movies I want to see again. But I guess that’s not such a bad thing.

With Chinatown, we get an enthralling mystery and one of the best examples of what a strong script will do for a movie.

Chinatown (1974)
directed by Roman Polanski

Chinatown, a wonderful movie, is an example of what a script can do for a film.

It’s like finding the right music at a party. Someone feels compelled to dance, then another and another.

Soon, everyone’s up dancing. And dancing well.

In Chinatown, just about every artist is dancing their damnedest because the script has pulled them onto the floor. Director, actors, lighting people, costume designers … they’re all performing at their highest level.

It’s Robert Towne’s script that has done this.

One of Roman Polanski’s great talents is creating mood and few films do it so well and so quickly as the opening of Chinatown. I can’t think of many movies I would watch simply to see the opening credits but the look and the marvellous music of the introductory credit sequence is just so good with its period lettering and sepia tone (which carries through the movie), that you’re hooked even before the movie has presented its opening shot.

Modelling itself on the film noir style (particularly films like Howard Hawks’ movie The Big Sleep), the film’s mystery is created by presenting the story through the eyes of detective Jake Gittes, the Jack Nicholson character. We know what he knows, we’re puzzled by what he’s puzzled by, we’re misled by what misleads him. In fact, just as Bogart was in just about every scene of The Big Sleep, Nicholson is in just about every scene in Chinatown, either as a participant or as an observer.

But the film isn’t dependent on Nicholson. Faye Dunaway is perfectly cast as the enigmatic, and troubled, Evelyn Mulwray. It’s hard to imagine anyone else but Dunaway in that role. The movie is also bolstered by brilliant supporting performances, particularly John Huston as Noah Cross.

I also love the leisurely way the movie unfolds. Unlike the quick cuts and thrumming soundtrack of most current movies, Polanski takes his time. And it works so well. This may be the reason why it works. You’re seduced by the mood, and become involved with the characters, and thus the story.

Chinatown is a great, fascinating movie that illustrates the importance of beginning with a great script.

See: 20 Movies – The List

Chinatown (the trailer)


20 Movies: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)

Posted by Bill Wren

Look out. I’m back to westerns. I love them.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)
directed by Sergio Leone

From it’s incredible opening to the closing credits, Once Upon a Time in the West is a mesmerizing movie about westerns. In a way, it isn’t even about westerns. It simply evokes them with a stream of iconic images.

The movie takes a simple, almost cookie cutter story, and uses it as a basis (and excuse) for a film that is essentially concerned with western myths and iconography. (Sergio Leone had done this before, as in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.)

It’s a post-modern film; it takes a kind of deconstructionist approach to movie-making (which may seem a tiresome idea today but was unusual in 1969).

At the centre of the film’s narrative is Claudia Cardinale as Jill. Around her three other characters revolve: Henry Fonda as Frank, Jason Robards as Cheyenne and Charles Bronson as the man with no name (often referred to as Harmonica).

The owner of a railroad company, Morton (Gabriele Ferzetti), hires a psychotic gunfighter, Frank (Henry Fonda) to get rid of anyone in the way of the completion of his railroad.

Frank does, by massacring the family of new bride, ex-whore, Jill.

With her new family dead, Jill must decide what to do with the land she has inherited. It seems worthless but proves to be very valuable, so valuable it is the reason her family has been killed. It’s a basic western formula: bad guys after the good guy’s land. He must defend it and himself, except in this case “he” is “she.”

At the same time, bad-guy Frank starts being stalked by a mysterious stranger (Charles Bronson). Frank doesn’t recognize him, he has no idea what the stranger wants. As for Jason Robards’ Cheyenne, he gets involved in all of this because Frank has framed him for the killing of Jill’s family.

For a film almost three hours long, it doesn’t seem much to work with. But Leone is interested in the storyline only to the extent that it provides him something to improvise on western themes and imagery. He plays with these and it is what he does with them that makes this such a great movie.

I can’t imagine how this would look in pan-and-scan form. Leone makes incredible use of the screen’s width, visually stretching it out with foregrounds oriented to one side and breathtaking backgrounds to the other.

He also contrasts the breadth and spaciousness of his wide shots with the most extreme of close-ups. He shoots human faces almost as if they, too, were landscapes. The opening sequence is a spectacular example of this as he lingers on the bored killers’ faces. He shows us every detail from lines to whiskers. You almost get the sense he uses only two shots – very close or very long.

He also uses his trademark technique of drawing scenes out to their absolute limit. The opening goes something like eight minutes before anyone says anything and it is a scene simply about three guys waiting at a train station. You get an almost visceral sense of their tedium.

With scenes like gunfights, they are choregraphed to evoke iconic imagery and are paced, again, incredibly slowly to draw them out to their limits. When violence does erupt, it is explosive and very brief. Leone has little interest in violence itself but is obsessed with its rituals.

Whether the movie is about anything is debateable. Leone seems interested primarily in style and evoking the western. (Once Upon a Time in the West is littered with references to earlier Hollywood westerns like High Noon, The Searchers and numerous John Ford films. It’s even partly shot in Monument Valley where Ford shot so many of his westerns.)

If there is a comment in the film, perhaps it is a critique of myths of America. In the film, everyone is dissatisfied. Everyone wants something more, from the railroad baron and his hired killer Frank, to the woman Jill and Jason Robards. In the land of the free, no one seems to be content with their lot (except, perhaps, for the murdered McBain.)

There may be something to the use of the railroad, too. Its arrival signals the end of the mythological West and the beginning of the modern age in the last American frontier. The train represents encroaching European civilization and the end of the mythical West, just as the film Once Upon a Time in America is a eulogistic end of the western.

But in the end, the film is simply a great homage to westerns, as well as a kind of eulogy to them. It’s a stream of riveting images; an almost symphonic evocation of filmmaking style.

20 Movies: The Big Lebowski (1998)

Posted by Bill Wren

Is it possible to like and dislike a movie at the same time? Can you really like it and find it hugely flawed? I guess so because that’s how I feel about The Big Lebowski. I wrote the review below a few years ago. I think I would likely write a different one today. But maybe not.

All I really know is that The Dude abides.

The Big Lebowski (1998)
directed by the Joel and Ethan Coen

I watched the Collector’s Edition version of the The Big Lebowski and while I still feel the same way about the film, I have to say the intro they add to this DVD edition is incredibly funny. Especially if you waste a lot of time in the world of films and DVDs.

As for the movie itself, the review I wrote quite a while ago still holds. It goes like this:

It’s taken me quite a while to get around to seeing The Big Lebowski, but I finally have. (I seem to be on a Coen brothers thing this week.) My gut response? It’s kind of boring because it’s more a pastiche of scenes than a coherent whole.

This is deliberate, part of the movie’s style. But for me, it works against it. It’s one of those ideas that is better in thought than in practice.

In talking about it on the DVD’s featurette, the Coens refer to this aspect when they discuss it in terms of a Raymond Chandler story, like The Big Sleep. I can see what they mean when they say this, but I just don’t think it works.

Part of the problem seems to be that they’ve used this “confusing plot” idea as an excuse to try interesting visuals. While those visuals certainly are cool, you can’t help wondering what the hell they have to do with anything. Just as songs disrupt the narrative flow in some musicals, so these visuals disrupt the flow in The Big Lebowski.

As usual with the Coen brothers, the story idea is very engaging and quirky. Jeff Bridges is The Dude, Jeff Lebowski, an unemployed doper who spends most of his time in his bathrobe doing dope, drinking White Russians and bowling.

One day he comes home and encounters two dimwitted gangster types, someone’s “muscle,” who demand money they say is owed to their boss. They rough up The Dude, threaten him and urinate on his carpet. Unfortunately, they have have confused him with another Jeff Lebowski, The Big Lebowski.

Thus do The Dude’s adventures begin as he tries to get his carpet replaced by the other Lebowski.

Explaining the plot is pointless. Let’s simply say The Dude encounters a rich, handicapped old man who wants him as a bag man because his young, promiscuous wife (who appears in porn films) has been kidnapped. The Dude meets pornographers, German nihilists, and assorted other characters along the way.

He’s aided by some friends, most notably by Walter (John Goodman), a Vietnam veteran with issues.

There are a host of funny, clever scenes in the film. But as mentioned, nothing hangs together very well. The movie looks great but often loses its pacing for the sake of cleverness, either in terms of getting an interesting looking visual or, in some cases, a characterization that works against it.

For example, Bridges’ character is generally stoned or otherwise unable to articulate what he is wants to say. While it’s appropriate for the character, the characterization slows the movie, clogs it. It’s an idea (this kind of man in this kind of situation) that likely looks great on paper but, on film, doesn’t quite click.

I suppose this all points to a larger problem, the lack of a narrative arc. The characters, by and large, are the same people at the end as they were at the beginning. So it doesn’t ever go anywhere.

In the end, while there is no denying there have been funny moments, The Big Lebowski isn’t satisfying. It has the feel of a young person showing off how clever he can be. There is a lot of style but not a great deal of substance.

I found it more frustrating than anything else though while watching it I also had the sense it was probably a film the Coens had get out of their system in order to move on. In movies that followed The Big Lebowski the same cleverness still appears but, in those films, it serves the movies they make rather than itself.

(The opening paragraph of this review is from 2005; the review itself is from 2003.)

See: 20 Movies – The List

The Big Lebowski (the trailer)

20 Movies: Sunset Boulevard (1950)

Posted by Bill Wren

I keep hearing a song on the radio that begins, “I want to be a billionaire so freakin’ bad…” Well, be careful what you wish for. That’s sort of William Holden’s problem in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard.

Sunset Boulevard (1950)
directed by Billy Wilder

We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces!
– Nora Desmond –

One of the best movies to ever come out of Hollywood is 1950’s Sunset Boulevard, a movie about Hollywood. It’s a kind of anodyne for the glamorous mystique of the movie business.

Interestingly, it takes core elements of Hollywood, romance and a degree of sentimentality, and, by turning them inside out, creates a noir film – cynical and dark yet just as romantic.

A struggling Hollywood writer (William Holden) is hard up for money, hiding from bill collectors and trying to hang on to what little he has, particularly his car. He hides out in run down looking mansion where he meets an aging silent film star (Gloria Swanson). He finds himself drawn into her world, one that’s fantastic and tinged by an element of madness.

There are twin seductions occurring here: she is seduced by his youth and good looks, as well as by the thought that he might hold the key for her comeback.

He, in turn, is seduced by the respite staying with her allows him, as well as the wealth he has access to by staying with her. In a sense, they corrupt one another, although both are well on the way already.

Eventually Holden winds up playing the part of gigolo as he helps her with a terrible screenplay (which she believes will re-establish her as Hollywood’s premier star). She, in turn, provides for him – a place to live, clothing, gifts and so on.

But everything is twisted, including Holden’s talent as a writer and his essential character.

By compromising to get by, he compromises his better self and, even when he begins working secretly on a script worthy of his talents, that also becomes tainted by his moral lassitude.

It’s a movie about Hollywood’s compromises and the essential deception between what is presented on screen and the manner in which films are made. In other words, there is a moral disparity between public display and private actions.

From the start, in his opening voice over, Holden’s character is cynical. There is humour here, and throughout the film, but it is dark and bitter. But even from the story’s beginning we see what has happened to Holden in terms of moral compromise.

There is an early scene where a script of his is turned down, briskly brushed off as lame by an efficient, attractive script-reader (Nancy Olson). But from the scene, through Holden’s words and action, we know why the script is turned down – it isn’t true. It’s compromised writing.

It is the script of someone writing what he thinks someone else wants to hear rather than what is true to him as a writer.

His talent, like his character, is degrading beneath his desire to succeed at any cost.

From the humour he uses, you also know that he is aware of this on one level but casually dismissive of it on the surface.

He doesn’t want to face what he knows is happening to himself, so he hides it beneath cynical wise-cracks.

In the character of Swanson, we see what is likely the result of Hollywood’s culture of compromise and pursuit of success – the dismissed artist dissolving into madness.

It’s a brilliant film, one of the best noir pieces ever, one of the best movies ever. It somehow manages to balance a number of elements – mystery, romance, humour and horror.

The movie also takes the interesting approach of basically telling us the ending at the beginning.

The film is thus not so much about what happens as it is why it happens. It’s the “why” that holds the film’s critique of Hollywood and, more broadly, the desire to succeed.

With the DVD, we get a great transfer – the movie looks great. There are also a number of excellent features on the disc, a nice plus for an older movie. (With many older films all we get are trailers.)

If you haven’t ever seen Sunset Boulevard, what are you waiting for? It is one of the great films and, now, it’s available on a great DVD. (Refers to the 2002 Special Collector’s Edition.)

See: 20 Movies – The List

Sunset Boulevard (the trailer)

20 Movies: Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Posted by Bill Wren

A list of movies that didn’t include Alfred Hitchcock wouldn’t be much of a list. One of my favourites, and one I think it’s time I watched again, is Shadow of a Doubt, with a very creepy Uncle Charlie played by Joseph Cotten.

As mentioned in the review below, in many ways Hitch is the dark twin of Frank Capra. What the angel Clarence was to Bedford Falls, Uncle Charlie is to Santa Rosa. Only inside out.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
directed by Alfred Hitchcock


It’s claimed by many that Shadow of a Doubt was Alfred Hitchcock’s favourite of all the films he had made; some say he considered it his best. The claim rings true if you’re even modestly familiar with his films, his preoccupations and his humour. You can understand how the story would delight him.

Shadow of a Doubt presents us with an almost quintessential American town of the 1940’s. It’s almost Capra-esque. In a way, Shadow of a Doubt is George Bailey’s Bedford Falls from It’s a Wonderful Life except where Capra brings an angel to it, Hitchcock brings the devil.

His name is Uncle Charlie and he’s played by Joseph Cotten with delicious charm that alternates with brooding self-obsession.

Into the charmed and innocent life of California’s little Santa Rosa, into the home of the all-American family of the Newtons, comes Mom’s little brother, Uncle Charlie, for a visit of no determined length. He’s welcomed with cheerful enthusiasm by his sister Emma (Patricia Collinge), and by his namesake niece Young Charlie (Teresa Wright).

Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt (1943).Unfortunately, no one is aware that Uncle Charlie, pleasant as he seems, is a psychopathic killer, a man who behind his charm hates the world and everyone in it.

Uncle Charlie’s secret view of the world is important as it’s in direct contrast with the Newton view, especially Young Charlie’s. Cotton’s character represents corruption; Wright’s represents innocence. The film can broadly be seen as a loss of innocence.

As the film opens, we meet Uncle Charlie and immediately become aware that he has a dark secret. Two men are after him, though we’re not sure who they are (I think we assume it’s the police though we’re not told this right away). Charlie is on the run but we don’t know why.

He escapes and goes to his sister’s family in Santa Rosa. When he arrives by train Hitchcock visually telegraphs what is about to happen. It’s a bright, sunny day and the family run down the platform to meet the train. The youngest child of the Newton’s is isolated for a moment on the platform, in the sun. As the train pulls up it’s dark shadow moves along the platform engulfing the child.

Scene from Shadow of a Doubt (1943).We then seen an apparently weak and ill Charlie get off the train. He’s bent over and almost hobbles. But as he sees the Newtons his face changes, he puts on a facade of charm, straightens up and in an instant is the picture of happy health.

Alone, Charlie is quiet and brooding. Amongst others, he’s vibrant and witty. Only every now and then does he reveal himself publicly. When he does, he quickly covers for his mistake.

Within the family, Teresa Wright’s Young Charlie is easily the brightest, most perceptive member. Although she hero-worships Uncle Charlie, she quickly sees there is something about him that isn’t right. But because she loves her uncle the way she does, she won’t admit to herself the truth about her uncle.

Joseph Cotten in Shadow of a Doubt (1943).The law catches up with Uncle Charlie, however, and soon Young Charlie is enlisted by the police to help them catch him. Uncle Charlie then discovers his niece knows his secret, or at least that she’s aware he has one, and has to deal with this threat to himself.

The contest soon becomes one between Uncle Charlie and his niece and the suspense builds to its crescendo – all very Alfred Hitchcock like.

It’s a perfect Hitchcock film. It’s easily one of the best and an argument could be made for it being the best. Shadow of a Doubt is not sensational in the way of movies like Psycho or The Birds. It’s subtler and quieter and in some ways more menacing because of this.

Scene from Shadow of a Doubt (1943).It evokes idyllic America then slowly peals back its layers to reveal a darkness beneath. (This is wonderfully illustrated when the two Charlie’s step off the Norman Rockwell main street into the smokey bar and meet the bored, defeated waitress – a kind of dark opposite of Young Charlie.)

The DVD of Shadow of a Doubt is pretty good but certainly not flawless. There is some scratching and a few awkward jumps, though nothing alarming. The image, however, is pretty solid and the sound is good for a film of this period. The disc also has Beyond Doubt: The Making of Hitchcock’s Favorite Film, an informative feature that includes the thoughts of Teresa Wright, Hume Cronyn and Peter Bogdanovich among others.

20 Movies: The Truman Show (1998)

Posted by Bill Wren

An innocent abroad in a less-than-innocent world is a standard story template. It has been used over and over. Decades ago I read Robert Heinlein’s A Stranger in a Strange Land. That was one take on the innocent story. Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, with his main character of Billy Pilgrim, was another.

It shows up in movies frequently as well, such as The Truman Show. When it is used, it is often with a satirical purpose. Through the innocent’s eyes, we see how the world really is (or how the author or filmmaker thinks it really is). It’s usually comic, at least to some degree.

But the satire isn’t just intended to illustrate what is wrong with the world. It is also to illustrate what could be right and how we’ve gone off track from pursuing it.

That is really what is at the heart of The Truman Show. It isn’t about the misguided nature of television and its audiences, though it is that in part. And it’s not simply about the hazards of over-the-top commercialism, though it’s about that too.

The story of the innocent is really about what the point of our lives is and what we could be doing with them.

Truman’s story is about a man who wants more. Not more “stuff,” but more meaning. Yes, his life is comfortable. But for Truman, that’s not enough. He wants to know, “What else is out there?”

The Truman Show (1998)
directed by Peter Weir

“You never had a camera in my head.”

Those words, I think, capture the essence of The Truman Show best. There’s much in the world that can be controlled, but controlling what someone thinks and, maybe more importantly, feels is not so easy.

For me, this is one of the best movies of the 1990’s, and one of my favourite movies, period. Now, with the recent release of it in a special edition, I have the DVD I had been wanting – better image, informative features. (Note: this review was written in 2005 and refers to the Special Collector’s Edition DVD.)

Slightly preceding the current glut of reality TV shows, the film’s concept seems simple enough, though perhaps less clever now than when it first appeared, before our reality TV world.

While the concept may seem simple – a movie about a guy whose entire life is broadcast live on television – imagine how you would execute that and make it interesting. It comes across more like a clever notion on paper, but the kind of thing that could lead you into a cinematic fiasco.

But between Andrew Niccols’ script, Peter Weir’s direction and some great casting, it works brilliantly.

Jim Carrey is Truman Burbank. His life , from birth, has been broadcast live to the world (unbeknownst to him). He lives in a town called Seahaven – always has, he’s never left – but what he doesn’t know is Seahaven is a television set in California, not a town on the Florida coast. He lives in a not-quite-perfectly controlled world.

“We accept the reality of the world with which we are presented,” says Christoff (Ed Harris), the show’s creator and mastermind.

But as much as Christoff controls Truman’s world, he can’t control everything – including Truman.

There are small errors in Truman’s world and they might go unnoticed by him except the life scripted for him is not the one he would live. The more the show’s creator, actors and crew try to steer Truman and keep him on script, the more he resists.

And so Truman embarks on discovering his world, though that’s not his initial motivation.

As mentioned in the special features, Peter Weir made one change to the script that was bang on the money. Originally set in New York, and a darker film, Weir understood that for people to watch such a show (not the movie, but in the script’s world, The Truman Show), it would need to be lighter, more comforting.

So the movie is set in Seahaven, a somewhat heightened reality. It’s roots are more in the world of 1950’s television than the real world, though not to such an extent that it lacks credibility.

Another great notion in the film’s making was the casting of Carrey. He is perfect as Truman. Charismatic and affable, he brings the right amount of innocence to the role of Truman. It might not have worked in another movie, but in the world of The Truman Show it hits the mark.

I also like that there are several ways of seeing The Truman Show. There is the obvious satire on television culture and the issue of personal freedom.

(I like the irony of Christoff “a very private man” being the architect of a very public life – Truman’s.)

Another way of seeing the film, however, is as a fable of a child leaving home.

Christoff is an obvious father figure and Truman is clearly a young man trying his damnedest to leave and find his own life – but not the one Christoff dreams for him (rather like a parent trying to impose his vision on his child.)

In fact, however you view the film, it’s essentially a fable. Perhaps this is why I like the movie so much – I’ve a weakness for these types of films when they are well done.

Weakness or not, I consider this one of the best films of the last decade or so. It’s also one I think will continue to be watched over the years as it captures, quite succinctly and in an engaging fashion, something in the nature of freedom that is deeply woven into the human fabric. The film’s ending captures an archetypal, mythic moment and it’s one that resonates. I can’t recommend this one highly enough.

The Truman Show (the trailer)

Links:

20 movies: Insomnia (2002)

Posted by Bill Wren

You may have heard of a guy named Christopher Nolan.

He’s directed a few movies such as Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and the currently in release, Inception.

He made his first really big splash with a movie called Memento (2000). Insomnia is a relatively lesser known movie he made. It’s the one he made after Memento.

Nolan is a director Hollywood must love. He has artistic stature because his films are creative and brilliantly constructed. Better still, for Hollywood, they are often big successes at the box office. What could be better?

Insomnia is a movie that is a bit lost in his body of work but one well worth seeing. It had some baggage when it came out: 1) it was the film that followed the brilliant Memento, 2) it was based on a Norwegian movie of the same name, thus suffering from comparisons, 3) it had the go-to guy for weariness, stress and/or crankiness, Al Pacino, an actor who suffers from being so good at portraying those kinds of characters the world often parodies them and thus obscure the quality of his performances.

But make no mistake, this is a really good movie and the performances are even better. Unfortunately, my review below doesn’t really do it justice. I wouldn’t call this a great movie; it’s a good one. However, amongst good movies it’s heads above the others.

Insomnia
Directed by Christopher Nolan

I’m at an advantage in that I’ve never seen the original, Erik Skjoldbjærg movie Insomnia. The truth is, I knew almost nothing about the Christopher Nolan film of Insomnia. I picked it up as a PV disc (previously viewed). Well, was I ever pleasantly surprised.

Of recent films, it’s one of the best to be released on DVD this year. It’s exciting, intriguing and intelligent. It’s shot beautifully, skilfully constructed, and gets great performances from its entire, well-chosen cast.

It’s very mysterious. While you know what the surface story is about, a murder and a cat-and-mouse game between the killer and a detective, you’re never quite sure what the undercurrents are about, not till the very end. And the movie is about those undercurrents.

While their department is undergoing an internal investigation back in L.A., two detectives are sent to Nightmute, Alaska, to help solve a murder case. While there, they set a trap for the killer.

He shows up but escapes in a heavy fog.

During the confusion of the chase in the fog, one detective (Al Pacino as Will Dormer) shoots and kills the other (Michael Donovan).

It appears to be an accident, but as the movie unfolds this becomes unclear.

Detective Dormer’s troubles then begin to snowball: the investigation in L.A., the investigation into the shooting of his partner, and a growing relationship with the killer, Robin Williams.

The killer appears to know some of Dormer’s secrets so he has a power position, which he uses. He plays with Dormer, trying to get the detective to help him deflect guilt in the murder he’s committed.

As all this is going on, Detective Dormer can’t sleep. He’s far north, and it’s in the late spring of the year, so it is daylight almost constantly. Struggle as he might, he can’t evade light; he can’t find sleep.

He starts unraveling and Pacino plays it dead on, showing us in his face the stress and anxiety the detective is experiencing.

The movie is about guilt. The light acts as a kind of spotlight in the film. No matter what Dormer does, he’s anxious he’s going to be found out.

Wonderfully constructed, played and executed, Insomnia is a very good movie.

Insomnia (the trailer)

20 movies: The Big Heat (1953)

Posted by Bill Wren

Depending on your age, you may remember seeing Glenn Ford in movies and on television. I’m thinking roughly of the 1970’s, perhaps late 60’s. He usually had an avuncular quality. He was a nice, friendly older man. He often played fatherly types. For example, in 1978’s Superman: The Movie he played kindly Pa Kent.

So for us, seeing his work from the 1950s comes as a bit of a shock. The actor we see in movies like The Big Heat is anything but Pa Kent.

It’s hard to know where to begin with The Big Heat. It is about as dark as movies get, and that sort of makes sense since it’s directed by Fritz Lang, a man Roger Ebert refers to as, “… one of the cinema’s great architects of evil.”

How does Pa Kent wind up in a Fritz Lang movie? If you see the domestic scenes in the movie, and the contrast between them and the rest of the film, you’ll see why. Lang explores evil, both its extremes and its subtleties. Ford plays his part perfectly, enunciating both sides convincingly and leaving us wondering just what kind of man this really is.

I’m not sure the review below is quite how I think about the movie today. I want to watch it again and possibly revise it. I’m wondering now if Glenn Ford’s Det. Sgt. Dave Bannion might not be the original Dirty Harry.

The Big Heat
directed by Fritz Lang

Now this is what a noir film should be. Good guys, bad guys, and a lot of dubious ground between them. (Mind you, it’s not a noir film in the strictest sense.)

Perspective is everything, I suppose, and perhaps that is why (for me) noir works best in black and white. It’s how I came to know them when I was younger. This doesn’t mean more recent, colour noir movies don’t work (just look at Chinatown and L.A. Confidential), but black and white just seems more appropriate.

Maybe it’s the sense of shadow and gray that comes across. It reflects the heart of these stories, an uncertain, dangerous world where it’s hard to tell who is on your side, or even what side you’re on.

As in Gilda, the casting of Glenn Ford is perfect. He plays these parts well. He’s the hero, but not so heroic as to be unbelievable. In fact, the type of hero he plays here is the same type Clint Eastwood got so much mileage out of for so long. He’s the ambiguous good guy.

Then there’s Gloria Grahame who gives a wonderful performance as Debby, the gangster’s girl.

But where The Big Heat really excells is in casting Lee Marvin, an actor who gives Robert Mitchum a run for his money as one of the meanest s.o.b.’s to appear on screen.

Marvin’s explosive and sadistic temper come across as so natural you would be afraid to meet him anywhere but on the screen.

In many ways, The Big Heat is a template for certain types of films (though it certainly wasn’t the first to use this pattern). This is a revenge story. But watching it from this point, over 50 years after it was made, it’s easy to forget that some of the set-ups and patterns were not established in the way they are now so, while in some ways they appear to have a certain stale, over-used quality, the truth is they were fresh and even alarming in 1953.

For example, there is the set-up scene where the domestic life of the Ford character is shattered. The scene becomes the catalyst for the character’s later actions. This pattern has been used over and over again since (again, particularly by Eastwood).

Regardless whether it’s perceived as new or cliche, it works. From start to finish The Big Heat holds you and carries you through its dark unwinding. To be perfectly true to the noir genre, Ford’s character is not as corrupt as he should be (though his revenge could be considered a form of corruption, I suppose). But this is quibbling. It certainly has the noir feel and that is far more important. Noir is really about atmosphere; it’s about tone.

This one is highly recommended.