1959: Compulsion

Compulsion (1959, Fleischer) 6/10

"Please Artie, I'll Do Anything You Say?" (Judd Steiner)

In what was dubbed "The Crime of the Century," two men Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb were convicted of murdering fourteen year old Bobby Franks in a south Chicago park. In 1924, Chicago was in the midst of the Prohibition era. The city became home to gangsters such as Al Capone and later John Dillinger, as organized crime became commonplace in the city.

Therefore what made the Leopold and Loeb case so shocking was that the two men in question were neither gangsters or hoodlums, but teenage intellectuals fervorously attempting to create the perfect crime. In 1924, Leopold and Loeb were amongst the brightest individuals in America. Nineteen year old Leopold was a revered ornithologist, spoke five languages and was attending law school at the University of Chicago; Loeb was the youngest graduate of the University of Michigan and was already taking post-graduate law classes at the University of Chicago when he met Leopold.

Misappropriating Nietzschean logic and ideas such as the Übermensch, the pair believed their intellectual superiority and affluent backgrounds placed them beyond the reproach of the law. To apply their theory, the youngsters kidnapped Bobby Franks, murdered him and dumped his body in a culvert under a railroad track on the outskirts of Chicago. Using hydrochloric acid, the pair disfiguired Franks' body and wrote a ransom letter to the deceased teenager's wealthy parents. The purpose of the ransom letter was to fool police into believing that a motivated individual had kidnapped Bobby Franks and was holding him for ransom.

But when Tony Minke, a Polish immigrant, found Franks' body, the investigation changed. A pair of prescription glasses were recovered at the crime scene, which officials traced back to Nathan Leopold. Eventually, the pairs' alibis broke down, as each publicly blamed the other for the crime. Despite arrogantly claiming that their crime was motiveless and simply driven by "the thrill," the teenagers' wealthy parents hired famed trial lawyer Clarence Darrow to defend the pair. The vile and luird nature of the crime disturbed the nation. Despite neither came from practicing Jewish homes, their family's ancesteral roots resulted in an anti-Semetic fervor, which splintered into groups which also targeted the openly agnostic Darrow and the homosexual relationship Leopold and Loeb shared.

The Leopold and Loeb story has captivated audiences since the mid-Twenties. Hollywood has loosely based several films on the characters and events surrounding the trial. Films such as Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film Rope, Tom Kalin's 1991 picture Swoon and Barbet Schroeder's Murder By Numbers have each taken various elements and positions from the case as the fulcrum of their story. Despite being based on a fictionalized treatment of the case by Meyer Levin, Richard Fleischer's 1959 film Compulsion is arguably the film which sticks closest to the facts of the case.

Beginning in media res the film stars Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman as the fictionalized Leopold and Loeb, Judd Steiner and Artie Straus. From the film's opening sequence, Fleischer fleshes out the psychological fabrc of his two central characters. Hurtling away from the scene of the crime in their rented car, the pair celebrate their success at committing an apparently "perfect murder." But when in their drunken haste, the pair almost topple a local drunk, the boys' true nature comes to the forefront; as the sadistic and arrogant Artie (Dillman) orders the sensitive and anxious Judd (Stockwell) to run down the man. In a rare act of defiance, Judd resists by swerving away.

Quietly lauding his triumph over the police, Artie is horrified to learn that a pair of glasses were recovered at the crime scene. But to Judd's dismay, Artie refuses to discuss an alibi for the pair, as he believes the pair have outwitted the police. But soon Artie's flamboyant interactions with local police officers catches up with him, as the law uses their solitary piece of evidence to connect Artie and Judd to crime: culminating in a legal trial featuring Clarence Darrow-esque lawyer Jonathon Wilk (Orson Welles).

Ideas of power and presentation are at the forefront of Compulsion. Arrogantly believing his intellectual abilities override his moral duties, Artie openly disparages professors, students and lawmen. His blind admiration for Nietzsche's philosophies results in his misinterpretation of the German author's writings. He places his entire faith in the belief that he is a superintellect and therefore above morality.

Aware of Judd's submissive attitudes, Artie regularly exploits this facet of his friend's personality for his own will. Through suggestive language and verbal abuse, Artie uses the veneration his friend holds toward him for malicious ends. His callousness is evident in the swiftness with which he abandons his lone friend when the latter needs him most. Yet, when Judd quietly attempts to foster new friendships, Artie openly mocks his friend's decision to resort to fraternizing with a less academically refined element.

Throughout Compulsion Fleischer sets up a dichotomy within a dichotomy: first showing the separate attitudes of Steiner and Straus; and then indulging in how each character creates a public persona to mask their internalized contempt. The boys' status as prodigies at the University of Chicago makes them appear unlikely criminals in the eyes of the law, as does their wealthy parentage. To enchance their public reputations, the two law students also capitalize on their family's affluence and position within the community.

Around journalists and police officers, Artie comes across as a charming, affable and overly "helpful." But in the company of Judd he is tyrannical, menacing and openly mentally ill. In an era when resourcefulness and utility were prevalent character traits in cinema, Artie is able to quickly adapt his persona and actions to his surroundings such as the rapidity with which he secretly disposes of Judd's typwriter. But we also see his sadism, when he takes Judd to a local slaughterhouse: eagerly desiring to watch the bludgeoning of sheep.

In one of the film's most memorable scenes, Artie uses a Teddy Bear he commonly carries around to demonstrate to Judd his despisal of the other's foolishness; yet when Judd's brother enters the room and interrogates Artie as to why he is carrying around a children's toy, the genius removes the bear's head to reveal a hip flask filled with whiskey. Interestingly given his persona, his attire and his close relationship with his mother, one must wonder whether Alfred Hitchcock would use Dillman's Artie as the basis for Norman Bates the following year.

Despite his quiet nature, Stockwell's Judd also has two different personas. Around Artie he is acquiescent and distressed, while in the company of others, he is overly polite and timid. When Artie orders Judd to rape a female colleague Ruth (Diane Varsi) on a private birdwatching trip, Fleischer shows the internalized struggle Judd faces. On the one hand he desires to please Artie; on the other we can see as others believe, he is incapable of commiting such heinous acts on his own accord.

At the core of Judd's attempts to satisfy Artie's whims is the film's underlying homoerotic nature. Due to censorship restraints during the period, Fleischer craftily disguises this bond through coded dialogue and character positioning. The latter is exacted by cinematographer William Mellor, who captures the pair in close proxomity and often facing each other to express the possibility of an erotic relationship. In the film's brief scenes with Judd's brother Max (Richard Anderson), the latter repeatedly expresses his distate for the pair's odd relationship involving hours "giggling" in his room with Artie. Max even suggests to Judd that he needs to participate in manly quests such as baseball or chasing girls. Throughout the film, Judd appears to be combating his sexual identity: unwilling to admit his homosexuality, but unable to hold any genuine heterosexual lust for the opposite sex.

In Compulsion, Artie associates with two of the film's most feminine characters: his mother and Judd. When Judd attempts to go on a heterosexual date with Ruth, Artie responds with aggressive sarcasm to mask his internalized hurt. Yet on the date, Judd fails to find heterosexual intimacy with Ruth: eventually resorting to hyper-masculine acts of aggression and violence, after his attempts to lust for her fail. Ironically, it is the characteristics such as sensitivity and intelligence, which other male characters ridicule in Judd that endears him to Ruth and are exploiting by Artie.

It is this psycho-sexual interplay between Artie and Judd, as well as their erroneous methodology and intentions which are the strong points of Compulsion. The brutal and innovative first half of Compulsion is fascinating due to Stockwell and Dillman's strong lead performances.But. despite being famed for a rabble-rousing cameo effort by Orson Welles in the film's final act. the film noticably loses much of its potency when it shifts from psychological combativeness to standard courtroom drama.

At the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, Stockwell, Dillman and Orson Welles shared the unique honour of the festival's best acting award. Imbued with ad-libbed theatricality, Welles' speech on the moral implications of the death penalty is steeped in poetic liberal concepts of justice; yet it is nowhere near as absorbing as the film's edgy first act. Mellor's off-kilter expressionistic cinematography exemplifies the mental state of Steiner and Straus, but it too is tamed once Welles steps into the frame. Fleischer's point of view also changes to a blunter, drier perspective: resulting in Stockwell and Dillman becoming mere extras once the film enters the courtroom.

* Compulsion is available on R1 DVD through Fox Home Video

Other Richard Fleischer Films Reviewed:
The Narrow Margin (1952) 8/10

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

2005: The Proposition

The Proposition (Hillcoat, 2005) 8/10

"Australia. What fresh hell is this?" (Captain Stanley)

The Australian Outback is one of the world's most mythical and inhospitable places. Less than ten percent of the Australian population lives in this region of eucalyptal forest, skeletal brush, sun-baked sand and orange rock. In its most liberal definition defines almost seventy percent of the Australian continent, yet the term is most commonly associated with the country's most arid and remote areas populated in Australia's national mythology by ancient Aboriginal cultures and lawless mauraders such as Ned Kelly.

In the late 19th century, British modes of "civilization" and Victorian culture collided with the indigenous population as Australia transformed from a penal colony to a bastion of imperial virtue. Like the American West, with its folkloric associations of rebellion and its earthy Aboriginal society, the Outback became unfairly equated with barbarity and insubordination: stereotypes which remain to this day. It is this clash of civilizations and societial attitudes which permeates John Hillcoat's exemplary revisionist western The Proposition.

Based on a screenplay by Australian songwriter Nick Cave, The Proposition is a throwback to the violent historical revisionist approaches of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone, but with a richer social critique. In rural Queensland, notorious outlaw Charlie Burns (Guy Pearce) is captured along with his simpleton brother Mikey (Richard Wilson) by English emigree Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone). Desperate to impose his legal authority on the area, Stanley offers Charlie Burns an extra-legal proposition: his and Mikey's freedom in exchange for the capture and assassination of the gang's vicious and sociopathic leader, Arthur Burns (Danny Huston) within nine days. If Charlie fails, Stanley informs him that Mikey will be hung on Christmas Day.

Thus begins Charlie's descent into the nether regions of the Australian Outback in search of his sadistic brother and Cave and Hillcoat's exploration of civilization, honour and family. With the rowdy Burns family substituting for Australia's most famous gang of familial Irish immigrants, the Kelly Gang, this desolate film centers upon codes of civility and culture. Drafted from the backalleys of London in order to tame the Outback, Winstone's Captain Stanley is a complex figure. In the genteel house he resides in with wife Martha (Emily Watson), he embodies the values and virtues of Victorian culture.

The couple dine on roast dinners served by aborigine servants, while sitting in a room adorned with British regalia (Union Jacks; royal portraits) and silverware. Martha orders dresses from catalogues and imports roses and conifers from England in a dire attempt to replicate an English garden surrounded by the yellow blasts of sand. Even their white picket fence is mostly constructed from bark stripped from decaying trees. Their attempts to establish an authentic Englishness on their property are implicitly artificial in the construction and absurd in their design amongst the harsh indigenous landscape which envelops their small home.

A wonderful example of this is found in Captain Stanley's Christmas greetings to his departing Aborigine servant. With a rifle in hand, Stanley apprehensively prepares for further violence; while decked in Victorian attire, his servant removes his shoes at the gate: emphasizing the awkwardness of enforcing British culture on an unwilling population and in an inappropriate environment. Furthermore, while Stanley attempts to civilize the community, he fails to recognize the irony of his failed attempt. He and his fellow policemen are racist, ignorant and arrogant toward the Australian climate and aboriginal culture. They fear the surrounding landscape and its native people, yet pompously express their ability to conquer it through further colonization of the culture. Their method of order is not through equality and justice, but through violence and capitulation. Rather than reconcile with the Aboriginal population, they hire an Anglicized Aborigine to interpret and hunt down fellow tribal members.

Yet, even he questions their tactics as he mutters "strange mob, you whites;" after a group of police officers on a routine patrol, engage in ritualistic and juvenile attempts to urinate upon one another near a tree. This inverted notion of civil behaviour is also found in the treatment of prisoners and the work habits of the community's political and legal constituants. Scenes of excessive floggings, verbal abuse, public drunkenness, explicit sexual banter and gross misuse of firearms typify the blatant misappropriation of power and authority by government and police officials in the community on a daily basis.

Education is also examined in the character of Jellon Lamb (John Hurt): a self-proclaimed adventurer who has travelled to China, Congo and Russia in search of fortune. Yet, for all his knowledge of Darwinian biological theory and foreign societies, he is supremely ignorant and racist: mocking the suggestion that white and Aboriginal peoples are physiologically equal and openly berating the Irish-born Charlie Burns. Similarly, Arthur Burns who is notorious for his brutal sadism, routinely quotes from philosophers in his mild-mannered, hushed voice.

Key to Arthur Burns' approach to life is the emphasis on family. Hiding in the rocky enclaves, Arthur lives with a blend of criminals and Aboriginals including his lover/wife. Together the group forms a "family" which Arthur prides over everything else. Upon Charlie's return, Arthur desires for his brother to return into the familial fold. But within Charlie's soul there is internal turmoil. In the film's media res opening, we learn that Charlie and Mikey had earlier left Arthur's gang. The modern integrationist concept of community is beginning to take root within the Australian landscape: supplanting traditional bonds of family. Thus, for Charlie, family no longer holds as much sway as it once did. Yet, within the community's English imaginary with its perverted notions of justice, there is perhaps little room for (re-) admission into European society: a fact belatedly revealed to Charlie.

Furthermore, the ancient codes of honour no longer are bound by blood, but rather by a flawed sense of social improvement as noted in Stanley's reluctant responses to the town's savage judicial equilibrium. When Captain Stanley breaks such a code by passively allowing the townspeople to flog Mikey in the dusty town square, he understands that Arthur with his traditional codes of family will respond with a violent repraisal. Charlie on the other hand desires progressive reconciliation: noting that while violence begets more violence, it does not balance the scales of justice: a notion the town's legal authorities fail to understand in their primal sense of "civilized" frontier justice.

Featuring a songbook engrossed with violence, betrayal and death, The Proposition highlights the central concepts and ideas prominent throughout Nick Cave's entire musical and literary career oeuvre. In his literate script, the actions and attitudes of the central characters are not black and white, but are painted in thick shades of grey. The internal motives and actions of the film's central characters often opposes their external public personas, while the Aboriginal population are not explicitly revered, but shown as either meek figures who have capitulated their cultural identity or are attempting a final gasp to preserve it against Eurocentric hostility.

Like the Italian and revisionist westerns which inspired it, The Proposition is a film which meditates upon the implications of violence, while visually demonstrating it. Hillcoat's direction uses a minimalist approach, which often results in the harshest acts shown in brief passages or heard off-screen. Furthermore, the violence in The Proposition is never gratuitous, but integral to the savagary of the story. Yet, through strong editing and direction, the film allows for the audience to feel the film's explicit aggression, while often not being privy to actually seeing it. This is noticeable in the appropriate lack of footage detailing the film's most explicit acts of violence such as rape, flogging and torture.

In Benoit Delhomme's sparse and stylish cinematography the harsh beauty of Australia's rustic plains is brutally exposed; astutely complimenting the film's understated performances particularly by Danny Huston, Guy Pearce and Emily Watson. The complex, psychological nature of the film's story impressively extends to the performances of criminally underrated veteran English actors John Hurt and Ray Winstone.

In the past four years, the Western has slowly begun to revive itself with the releases of Tommy Lee Jones directorial debut The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, Ron Howard's 2003 film The Missing and Seripham Falls starring Liam Neeson and Pierce Brosnon. Future releases such as the Brad Pitt led The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford and Walk The Line director James Mangold's remake of 3:10 To Yuma, demonstrate a possible return to the defunct genre in a style similar to that of the musical with films such as Dreamgirls and Chicago. Although a return to cultural prominence and popularity the genre held in the Fifties and Sixties is unlikely, the release of socially imbued minor classics like The Proposition herald positive possibilities for the genre's future.


* The Proposition is released on R2 DVD by Tartan Home Video and by First Look/Maple Home Video in R1.

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

Reviews By Title

The following is a comprehsive list of all the reviews I have currently published for 8½ Cinematheque. The list shall be expanded as new reviews are published. Thanks for your support and enjoy.

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A-D
Ace In The Hole(1951, Wilder)
Across The Pacific (1942, Huston/Sherman)
Across The Universe (2007,Taymor)
All That Jazz (1979, Fosse)
A Matter of Life and Death (1946, Powell and Pressburger)
Babel (2006, Iñárritu)
Baby Doll (1956, Kazan)
Barbarella (1968, Vadim)
Belle et la Bête (1946, Cocteau)
Big Fish (2003, Burton)
Birdman Of Alcatraz (1962, Frankenheimer)
Black Narcissus (1947, Powell-Pressburger)
Black Orpheus (1959, Camus)
Black Sabbath (1963, Bava)
Black Sunday (1960, Bava)
Bringing Up Baby (1938, Hawks)
Cabaret (1972, Fosse)
Casino Royale (2006, Campbell)
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958, Richard Brooks)
Children Are Watching Us (1942, de Sica)
Clockers (1955, Spike Lee)
Compulsion (1959, Fleischer)
Control (2007, Corbijn)
The Dark Knight (2008, Nolan)
Delicatessen (1991, Jeunet and Caro)
Don't Come Knocking (2005, Wenders)
The Doors (1991, Stone)
Du Barry Was A Lady (1943, del Ruth)

E-H
Easy Rider (1969, Hopper)
For Me And My Gal (1942, Berkeley)
Garden State (2004, Braff)
The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1962, Bava)
The Good German (2006, Soderbergh)
The Graduate (1967, Nichols)
The Greatest Show On Earth (1952, DeMille)
Hellfire (1949, Springsteen)
He Walked By Night (1948, A. Mann)
His Kind Of Woman (1951, Farrow)

I-M
I'm Not There (2007, Haynes)
Junior Bonner (1972, Peckinpah)
Juno (2007, Jason Reitman)
Kiss Me, Stupid (1964, Wilder)
The Kite Runner (2007, Forster)
Knives of the Avenger (1966, Bava)
La Bête Humaine (1938, Renoir)
La Dolce Vita (1960, Fellini)
Last Year At Marienbad (1961, Resnais)
The Leopard (1963, Visconti)
The Letter (1940, Wyler)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006, Dayton/Daris)
The Long Hot Summer (1958, Ritt)
Magnificent Ambersons (1942, Welles)
Man Of The West (1958, A. Mann)
Marie Antoinette (2006, S. Coppola)
The Mating Game (1959, G. Marshall)
Meet Me In St. Louis (1944, Minnelli)
Meeting People Is Easy (1999, Gee)
Mrs. Miniver (1942, Wyler)

N-R
The Narrow Margin (1952, Fleischer)
Night of the Iguana (1964, Huston)
Offside (2006, Panahi)
Oliver Twist (1948, Lean)
One, Two, Three (1961,Wilder)
Othello (1952, Welles)
Othello (1995, Parker)
Paris, Texas (1983, Wenders)
Passage To Marseille (1944, Curtiz)
Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid (1973, Peckinpah)
Persona (1966, Bergman)
Picnic (1955, Logan)
Point Blank (1967, Boorman)
The Proposition (2005, Hillcoat)
Rebel Without A Cause (1955, Ray)
Reservoir Dogs (1992, Tarantino)
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961, Quintero)
Run For The Sun (1956, Roy Boulting)

S-Z
Say Anything (1989, Crowe)
Smash-Up: The Story Of A Woman (1947, Heisler)
Smiles Of A Summer Night (1955, Bergman)
State Fair (1945, W. Lang)
Story Of A Prostitute (1965, Suzuki)
Sullivan's Travels (1942, P. Sturges)
Summer Stock (1950, Walters)
Sunset Boulevard (1950, Wilder)
Sunshine (2007, Boyle)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007, Burton)
Sweet Bird of Youth (1962, Richard Brooks)
Tennessee Williams' South (1973, Rasky)
Tristram Shandy: A Cock And Bull Story (2005, Winterbottom)
Umberto D (1952, de Sica)
The Unforgiven (1960, Huston)
Velvet Goldmine (1998, Haynes)
Virgin Spring (1960, Bergman)
Wanted (2008, Bekmambetov)
Weekend (1967, Godard)
The Wild One (1954, Benedek)
The Wind That Shakes The Barley (2006, Loach)
The Women (1939, Cukor)
Young Mr. Lincoln (1939, Ford)
Youth Of The Beast (1963, Suzuki)
Zodiac (2007, Fincher)

2005: Don't Come Knocking

Don't Come Knocking (Wenders, 2005) 5/10

Existential angst and Wim Wenders are synonymous with one another. From Alice In The Cities through to Wings of Desire and beyond, the former darling of the German Neue Welle has cultivated a visual lexicon of aesthetic beauty, frayed interpersonal relationships and concerns regarding the nature of modernity. His most recent project, the modern western Don't Come Knocking is another examination of the alien nature of contemporary society.

The film, Wenders' second collaboration with actor and playwright Sam Shepard, follows many of the previous themes the pair examined in the Wenders directed-Shepherd scripted Paris, Texas: the combustability of family, the isolating qualities of modernity, the intrapersonal need for reconciliation and the desire to find one's "home." Glossed in abstraction and reflective meditation, Paris, Texas became a cult classic thanks to Wenders' sparse direction and Harry Dean Stanton's taciturn lead performance. Unfortunately, the laconic sparseness and low-key performance, which defined Paris, Texas is displaced in favour of implausible scenarios, dubious acting and an imbecilic script.

Don't Come Knocking focuses on Howard (Sam Shepard) an aging star of film westerns, who abruptly leaves the set of his latest film in order to find himself. Arriving in Nevada, Howard reunites with his mother (Eva Marie Saint) after a three decade long absence. At his estranged mother's home, Howard learns he impregnated a waitress (Jessica Lange) while shooting in Butte, Montana twenty years earlier and thus goes on a search to find his long-lost family; encountering a collection of characters along the way including his angry, misogynistic son Earl(Gabriel Mann), a mysterious woman named Skye (Sarah Polley) and the studio's insurance agent (Tim Roth).

In an attempt to foster genuine relationships, the childike Howard jettisons his life of loose women, drugs and booze in search of something deeper. Yet, he is incapable of participating in permanent and concrete relationships. Meandering through life in a haze, Howard has failed to allow others into his life; yet childishly excepts others to allow him to reimmerse in to their life instanteously. Even his own mother only knows him from negative tabloid clippings. Despite his status as a hero of westerns, his lifestyle is better equipped to the neon environment of casinos, than the quiet platitudes of Butte, Montana.

The codes of the Old West and humble masculinity he represents on screen are lacking within his hedonistic approach to life; therefore rendering genuine interaction to be impossible. Like Harry Dean Stanton's Travis in Paris, Texas, Howard is unable to connect to the society he strives to immerse himself in. Yet unlike Travis, Howard is not a man disaffected by the glamour of modernity, but rather is a product of contemporary society's failure to build meaningful relationships. He requires modern vices to substitute for his limited emotional capacity.

Additionally, like in Paris, Texas the central characters are engaged in a personal search for applicable truths and familiarities. After the death of her mother, Sarah Polley's ambigious Skye journeys to her mother's native Butte in order to find meaning and purpose; Howard travels to Butte to find his family; while Howard's angry son looks inward to accept his estranged parent.

Wim Wenders' cinema is one centered upon the power of the moving image and thus it is no surprise that Don't Come Knocking is aesthetically stunning. Cinematographer Franz Lustig's Edward Hopper inspired photography is filled with bright colours and images inspired by the iconic American painter. Through Lustig's widescreen lens, the pictureseque detail of Butte, Montana is brought to life in colourful detail. But while previous Wenders' projects allow the respective film's visual language to advance the plot and describe the feelings of specific characters, Don't Come Knocking overindulges in Shepard's incoherent scripted ramblings: meandering in a sea of sedate ideas and choppy dialogue.

In recent films such as Million Dollar Hotel, Wenders has worked closely with friends such as U2's Bono with mixed results. Don't Come Knocking is no exception. One could argue that Wenders familiarity with collaborators such as Shepard and the playwright's partner Jessica Lange has resulted in the director's failure to criticize his friend's work. From the film's opening moments, Don't Come Knocking is propelled by a stream of improbable storylines.

The first of which focuses around Howard's status as a washed-up star of Westerns since the early '70's: a genre whose rapid decline began in the late 60's in favour of aggressive neo-police procedurals such as The French Connection and Dirty Harry . Secondly, the reunion between Eva Marie Saint is highly implausible as she re-accepts her prodigal son as though he has been gone no more than three minutes, let alone three decades. Thirdly, the interactions and dialogue between characters often defy logic in their absurdity such as the scenario in which Earl tosses his oversized furniture from a miniscule second-storey window onto the streets of Butte: failing to stir the seemingly non-existent residents of Butte in the process.

The impractical nature of Shepard's narrative results in a jarring and awkward storyline, which undermines the unsentimental realism Wenders strives for in this ill-focused film. The wandering focus of Wenders narrative and the elusive intentions of Shepard's script permeates the film's incoherent performances: Shepard's half-baked aggression and sense of loss feels contrived; Lange's waitress drifts from anger to ditzy eccentricity; Mann's over-the-top performance belongs in a high school production; even poor Eva Marie Saint comes across as a discordant Alzheimer's patient.

Only in the film's low-key performances from Roth as a slimy insurance agent and Polley's brilliant effort as an enigmatic woman does the film tap into the reservoir of talent at its disposal, which also includes a cameo from screen legend George Kennedy as Howard's embittered director and Fairuza Balk as Earl's girlfriend. In this restrained format Wenders excels; as evident in the film's noticeably excellent final thirty minutes. But these rare scenes of emotional fervor such as Lange's brutal rebuttal to Howard's romantic advances outside a health club are often wasted in favour of unnecessary directorial flourishes: such as the exaggerated encircling of Howard as he spends an entire day contemplating his past on Earl's weatherworn couch.

With its muddled intentions and mismanaged sensibilites, Don't Come Knocking is a tragic misappropriation of talent. Given its stellar cast and vibrant cinematography, there is potential for an existential critique of selfish ambitions, family and traditional values within Wenders framework. Instead the film becomes an ill-defined paean to the art of Edward Hopper and to the American West in locations such as Moab and Butte. The film lacks focus and consistency. There are too many dire performances from well-established actors and elements within the mis-en-scene which are routinely squandered in a visually fascinating mess.

* Don't Come Knocking is released by Sony Home Video

Other Wim Wenders Films Reviewed:
Paris, Texas (1983) 9/10

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

1961: Last Year At Marienbad

Last Year At Marienbad (Resnais, 1961) 9/10

"Haven't we met before?"

It is a staple of dating culture: a cliched pick-up line designed to enhance the aura of association between two people. Through its inquisitive language, it expresses a tone which emphasizes rememberance, interpretation, connection and history. And yet it is this much ridiculed attempt at expressing a kinetic bond, which serves as the catalyst for one of world's cinema's most serious, complex and abstract films, Last Year At Marienbad .

In 1961, Last Year At Marienbad was released onto a changing world. Audiences and critics were split over its content and context. The film won the Venice Film Prize (The Golden Lion) and became the forebearer for similar enigmatic pictures during the decade such as Federico Fellini's 8½, Ingmar Bergman's Persona and Michelangelo Antonioni's films L'Avventura and Blow-Up. Theatre owners were noted to have displayed signs or handed out pamphlets informing their audience that the film they were about to see was of a revolutionary nature: a radical break with traditional forms of cinema. Yet, countless filmgoers walked out in droves, due to the seemingly cold and pretentious nature of French New Wave director Alain Resnais's second film.

Directed by Alain Resnais ( Hiroshima Mon Amour, Night and Fog) and scripted by French novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet, Last Year At Marienbad was and is one of the most ambigious films to emerge from the Sixties. The interpretation over its meaning and essence is so varied that even Robbe-Grillet and Resnais were both to have drawn different conclusions about its significance. The film stars Giorgio Albertazzi as X a man who attempts to convince a (possibly) married woman named A (Delphine Seyrig) that the pair had an affair the previous year in the same baroque hotel-spa resort. Despite A's refusal to admit the pair had an affair the previous summer, X tries to resuscitate internal memories locked within her psyche; suggesting she pledged her love to abandon her lover/husband M (Sascha Pitoeff) and run away with X.

With its gorgeous black and white cinematography by Sacha Vierny, Last Year At Marienbad broke traditional cinematic logic by following the modern novel in its groundbreaking use of non-linear narratives, an unreliable narrator and an infusion of psychological complexity. Taking the elements of its plot into account, it is surprising that Hollywood has never erroneously tried to remake Resnais' film. However, it is likely that any Hollywood interpretation of the film would omit not only Vierny's dreamlike cinematography or Resnais' intellectual content, but also the film's chief focus on two individuals.

The psychological interactions between these two individuals is imperative to Resnais' film and the ambiguity that surrounds it. The three central critical debates regarding Last Year At Marienbad focus on this interplay. First, did X and A genuinely have an affair last year at Marienbad or some other spa resort? Secondly, is X simply a deviant who desires A and thus tries to concoct a counter-memory in her head? Or thirdly, is the entire film a dream or psychological experience transpiring within the head of either X or A?

Resnais' utilization of freeze-frames and supporting characters who are literally immobile enhances the film's individualization and psychological content. With Resnais' interest in the theoretics of history, one must wonder if the director was familar with works emitting from the Annales school such as l'histoire de mentalités or social historian Maurice Halbwachs and his doubts about the validity of memory due to its lack of impartiality. Halbwachs' argument suggests that memory is a flawed process, which is suspectible to changes of opinion, socio-political change and outside debate. This ability to subvert, distort or suppress memory is a theme examined by Resnais in his film.

In his conquest to steal A's heart from M, one could argue that X is simply playing upon A's personal weaknesses and frailties. Throughout Last Year At Marienbad the film utilizes imagery relating to games. Repeatedly X indulges in games of chance such as cards and matchsticks. There are paintings and floors shaped like chessboards that suggest X is utilizing A as a pawn in his erotic and intellectual game of seduction. The accentuation on mirrors advances the theory that X is simply projecting a counter-memory which suits his own passions and psycho-social desires.

There are also psycho-architectural references to doors, corridors and windows, which are either closed or open. In symmetry with the film's fluid camerawork and dialogue, X notes that sometimes these portals of memory are open or closed, when he is speaking to A: possibly musing on his ability to metaphorically penetrate her psyche with new ideas or concepts, or unearth buried memories. As a narrator X's own "memory" is possibly fallible. He repeatedly brings up the existence of clothing and paintings in A's bedroom, which she repeatedly denies. One could argue that the lack of evidence of their existence points to X's forged status as a charlatan, or X's attempts to conceal an embarrassing past.

The suppression of memory in Last Year At Marienbad is a topic recently discussed by feminist film historians. Their arguments center on the possiblity that A and X may have become acquainted the previous year and that a likely (sexually) traumatic experience between the two resulted in A suppressing her memories of their previous encounter. Another possible argument involving suppression that is rarely addressed is that X himself is simply a ghost.

Throughout the film there are repeated verbal references to "the past" and "forever;" the film also features a funereal solitary organ soundtrack; characters frozen in time like statues; as well as games which nobody can ever win- like an attempt to overcome death.While in the hotel's lavish garden, A notes that X is like "a phantom." The fractured wall along A and M's balcony that X purportedly hid upon suggests that perhaps X plunged to an accidental death, from which A has never recovered.

Other clues involve references made to a freak storm, which killed thousands within the region or Resnais' subtle emphasis on the inability to escape the hotel through references to labryniths and the fact the camera never goes beyond the forests at the edge of the hotel's grounds. Resnais' utilization of spatial concepts and mathematical approaches to time provides plausible evidence that time in the film is indeed frozen, as the hotel guests are in a permanent state of immobility through death. Furthermore, the haunting and floating nature of Vierny's camerawork and the emptiness within the cavernous hotel suggests that as well as X, perhaps A is dead also and the former is attempting to inform her of her present phantomorgasmic state.

Since its initial release in 1961 Last Year At Marienbad has divided critics, audiences and historians with its investigations into philosophical truth, memory and history. With its ambivalent nature, gorgeous cinematography, episodic editing and intense performances, Last Year At Marienbad is a film which openly defies concetre interpretation. In its abstract logic, critics have summized the film is a parody of Hollywood romantic melodramas or an anti-nuclear allegory. Yet, while for many the pretentiousness, icy personalities and liquid summarization of Resnais' film is a turn-off, others have found intrigue and suspsense in the interpretative openess of one of cinema's greatest and most complex jigsaw puzzles.

Last Year At Marienbad is available on R2 DVD through Optimum Home Video

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

1952: The Greatest Show On Earth

The Greatest Show On Earth (DeMille, 1952) 3/10

"This is not the history of the circus...We will tell the story of the circus and its people in relation to all other people" (Cecil B. DeMille)

The traditional circus is a dying art form. With its roots in ancient Rome, the circus evolved into its archetypal format in the late 18th century in imperial Britain. With the British Empire expanding its reach across the globe, alluring foreign goods and art forms were imported into Northern Europe from central Asia and Africa. Along with silks and spices, there also arrived wild animals such as elephants and lions, as well as human performers such as acrobats. Whereas previously these types of acts and animals would be restricted to royal courts and menageries, by the late 19th century the circus offered these rarely seen specimens to a larger audience.

In the immediate postwar era, the circus still held a brand of exoticism and showmanship that ordinary people would rarely be able to afford to experience otherwise. In the days before relatively affordable long-distance travel, nature channels or publicized animal and human rights groups, the circus was a travelling medium that provided access to beasts and performers to thousands in small and mid-sized communities, who were unable to see such things outside of the local Bijou, or perhaps a local zoo. In the mid-80's, the circus became intellectualized through the highbrow performance art of Quebecois group Cirque de Soleil and thus much of its vaudevillian humour and humiliated animal spectacles disappeared along with the miles of sawdust and carnival atmosphere.

Yet, prior to the early Sixties, film still had a great affinity for the circus. In 1941 alone there were three circus films: Disney's animated classic Dumbo, the noirish Humphrey Bogart vehicle Wagons Roll At Night and Road Show. In 1928, Charlie Chaplin's second feature The Circus was released, which evidently inspired Federico Fellini's 1954 film La Strada. Fellini would also direct another circus-based film The Clowns, while fellow European director Ingmar Bergman would direct 1953's Sawdust and Tinsel. In 1932 Tod Browning focused on Freaks and in 1936, the Marx Brothers were At The Circus. Both Elia Kazan in 1953 and Carol Reed in 1956 directed films about acrobats: former acrobat Burt Lancaster flew high in Carol Reed's Trapeze, while Frederic March dangled as the Man on a Tightrope. Even into the 1960's, the circus was still popular in film as noted by the success of 1962's Billy Rose's Jumbo and 1964's Circus World .

Yet, perhaps the most bombastic and notorious of all circus films is Cecil B. DeMille's 1952 Academy Award winning film The Greatest Show On Earth. Alongside 1930's Cimmaron and 1956's Around The World in 80 Days , The Greatest Show On Earth is annually judged by critics as one of the most undeserving Best Picture winners of all time. Although their assertion is justified, it should be noted that 1952 was not exactly a watershed year in Hollywood. Films such as John Ford's homage to Ireland The Quiet Man, George Cukor's Hepburn-Tracy film Pat and Mike, Vincent Minnelli's The Bad and The Beautiful and Fred Zinneman's liberal western High Noon are some of the more notable exceptions to a year, which was arguably overshadowed by better fare from overseas such as Akira Kurosawa's Ikiru, Anthony Asquith's adaptation of The Importance Of Being Earnest, Rene Clement's Forbidden Games, Vittorio de Sica's Umberto D and Orson Welles' Othello.

Contemporary scholarly debates on The Greatest Show On Earth's dubious acquisition of 1952's Best Picture award tend to primarily focus on DeMille's legacy in Hollywood as the creator and distributor of tawdry, oversized and racist films such as Cleopatra, Union Pacific and The Cheat. And therefore like John Wayne in True Grit, DeMille was bestowed the award based on his lifetime achievements in Hollywood, rather than for the actual quality of his 1952 effort. Yet, this angle of the debate seems to neglect two important alternative components. First, America was still gripped by McCarthyism and thus The Greatest Show On Earth with its conservative messages and emphasis on family entertainment was a much safer choice than the rabble-rousing anti-McCarthyist High Noon or the feminist tendencies of Pat and Mike. Furthermore, the Academy has generally been a conservative organization by nature, which champions its longest-serving allies. Thus, it would hardly make sense for the Academy to bestow an award on Vincent Minnelli for his acidic take on Hollywood in The Bad and The Beautiful when The Greatest Show On Earth characterized all the salient details of bloated spectacle the Academy prefers.

The film stars Betty Hutton as Holly, a trapeze artist whose position is threatened by the acquisition of the erratic and reckless The Great Sebastian (Cornel Wilde). Noted for his playboy lifestyle and willingness to take unnecessary risks, Sebastian is hired by circus manager Brad Braden (Charlton Heston) as a method to prop up the circus' dwindling audiences. Desperate for the stoic Brad's affection, Holly begins to take increasing risks in the air which ironically flutter the heart of the lusty Sebastian, rather than Brad; while in the film's other romantic triangle "Elephant Girl" Angel (Gloria Grahame) also attempts to endear herself to Brad, but is stalked by her co-worker Klaus (Lyle Bettiger) a sadistic elephant trainer. The film also stars James Stewart as Buttons, a mysterious clown who refuses to take off his make-up, while tough-guy Lawrence Tierney, DeMille mainstay Henry Wilkcoxon and an endless parade of real-life clowns such as Emmett Kellly also star in underwritten roles which are haphazardly strewn throughout the film's narrative.

In 1952, DeMille was virtually untouchable with critics and audiences. His films raked in millions at the box-office and won acclaim from critics of the period. With the rise of professional film criticism in France in the 1950's, DeMille's films have since lost their lustre as audience tastes and retrospective responses have changed. Today, audiences are more likely to be endeared to the caustic brutality of Billy Wilder, whose films such as Sunset Boulevard and Ace In The Hole were deemed vulgar and tasteless at the time. Thus, it is perhaps with bitter irony that the title for DeMille's picture was rumoured to have been given to him by a befuddled Billy Wilder, whose tepid response to viewing the film on Paramount's lot was to cautiously chime "You certainly have created The Greatest Show On Earth."

It is also interesting to note that prior to DeMille's involvement, another figure with a taste for epic spectacle, Gone With The Wind producer David O. Selznick was desperate to produce a project about the circus. Such was DeMille's stature in Hollywood at the time, The Greatest Show On Earth became the project that the stars of the day wanted to work on in 1952. In an attempt to ward off prospective rivals such as Marlene Dietrich and Hedy Lamarr, Betty Hutton was rumoured to have sent DeMille a flower arrangment worth a $1000 dollars; James Stewart, at the height of his critical and commercial popularity, contacted DeMille immediately to plead for the film's most psychologically complex role of Buttons, despite the fact it is one of the film's smaller roles. Real-life acraphobe Cornel Wilde put his fears aside in order to play the high flying Sebastian, while a virtually unknown Charlton Heston was made a star overnight.

Yet for all its star power and visual pomp and pagentry, the film is awfully hollow. Of its 154 minute running time, nearly two-thirds is dedicated to documentary-style circus footage augmenting the film's rickety narrative. The thin nature of this interior scaffolding is too frail to bolster the film's lavish tastes and brash drapery. In relation to the film's lack of psychological and intellectual depth, it should come to no surprise that DeMille advocated for the creation of a screenplay that could be comprehended and understood by his eight year old grandson. Furthermore, DeMille's expensive acquistion of the rights to use the name and imagery associated with the medium's most famous circus- Ringling Bros.- and his emphasis on showing circus performances through a static lens evokes the idea that perhaps DeMille's intention was simply to bring the circus to the masses: to those people for whom the travelling circus never visited. Thus, for the price of admission, audiences were obtaining access to both an abridged love story and a full circus perfomance.

DeMille's idea of exposing the backstage realities of an art form was not something new in Hollywood; after all Billy Wilder and Joseph Mankiewicz had respectively both looked at the behind closed doors antics of Hollywood and the theatre two years prior in Sunset Boulevard and All About Eve. What is notable about DeMille's film, however is that The Greatest Show On Earth represents a long-standing belief in Hollywood that celebrity and visual spectacle can compensate for a convoluted narrative. The "to-end-all" genre films of the early Sixties such as How The West Was Won and It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World are classic Hollywood examples, while 2005 Best Picture Winner Crash is a contemporary example.

The concepts most intriguing to DeMille are those embodying authority, gender and power. As Brad Braden, Charlton Heston with his stern mannerism and sawdust filled heart fulfills his role as a masculine authority figure. Like Moses (ironically also portrayed by Heston) in The Ten Commandments Brad refuses to let romance or personal relationships stand in the way of his purpose. His quest is simply to keep the circus in the black and to ensure the safety and quality of his performers. He thus represents the type of man, DeMille would have been accustomed to in his youth: a character ripped out of a Boys Own magazine who refuses to let others sway him from his chosen objectives. Thus, if for Howard Hawks masculinity is categorized by your profession, for DeMille genuine masculinity correlates to your ability to fuflill your gender role within your profession through a socially conservative approach to life.

And thus while James Stewart's Buttons hides his masculinity behind his painted visage, Klaus represents a violent masculinity and Cornel Wilde displays an impression of hyper-masculinity through his endeavours of courage and the flesh, they each do not represent the essence of masculinity that Brad evokes in his apparent coldness. Each are too irresponsible in their own way (Buttons with his past actions; Sebastian and Klaus with their present) to delienate the type of assured authority Brad addresses, nor do they bear any genuine responsibility for their actions until the film's denouement.

As in other DeMille pictures, women are portrayed as either lusty tempresses or pervayers of morality. Yet, The Greatest Show On Earth in accordance with other aspects of 1950's popular culture displays mixed messages about the role of women in society. On the one hand, the female performers are lauded for their individual craft and skill, yet conversely they are shown as requiring a man and a steady relationship to fulfill their femininity. When the Great Sebastian arrives Holly is downgraded from the center ring, yet rather than voluntarily giving up her position, she instead fights for her right to compete alongside Sebastian. Notably, her reasons for fighting back are not for the benefit of her art, but rather to force Brad into a jealous fit, which will result in their marriage. Similarly, Gloria Grahame's "Elephant Girl" Angel resists the overtures of her masochistic boss Klaus for Brad's love; but like the annoying Holly, her means are to advance a romantic relationship.

Heston's evocation of masculinity is also found in his "never-quit" spirit. Throughout the film, he refuses to acquiesce to the dilemmas which threaten the circus such as dwindling profits, Klaus' sadistic methods, a near-mortal injury to Sebastian or a costly train derailment. DeMille's emphasis on the mechanics of the circus through footage showing the construction of the big top and the loading of equipment and animals onto trains relates to this idea of strict quasi-militaristic regimentation that Brad earnestly strives for. The utilization of military language and overtones in his voiceover shows the circus as a contemporary army of capitalism: expressing the individuality of performance, educating Americans about other cultures and providing an antithesis to the highbrow gymnastics finessed by the Moscow Circus, which ironically would later be popularized in North America by Cirque de Soleil.

Unlike in his superior remake of The Ten Commandments four years later, DeMille's voiceover seems more condescending than authoritative: a relic from an era of Victorian ideals of power, showmanship and regality. Furthermore, the film's performances are equally patronizing. The German-born Klaus is overtly related to Fascism in his attire and mannerisms; Gloria Grahame is a boorish Big Top Ann Landers; Cornel Wilde's Great Sebastian is a nascent French ham; Charlton Heston's Brad has about as much personality and warmth as an ice cube; Betty Hutton's Holly is a loud and acrimonious flirt; Lawrence Tierney's character is completely unneccessary; James Stewart's Buttons is drenched in overt mystery and is not funny, while the film's best and funniest character, the famous clown Emmett Kelly is completely wasted by DeMille's excessive nature.

For all its faults, the potential for success is engrained into The Greatest Show On Earth. With its fugitive on the run sub-plot and its romantic love triangles, the material is there. The sympathetic light shone on James Stewart's Buttons and his past is an intriguing angle that is never exploited for maximum impact. But rather than exploit the material or his thematic approaches, DeMille concentrates on the vividness of the circus. Drowning within this almost three hour swollen mammoth is a skinny eighty minute melodrama that is not particularly memorable or thrilling: the lethargic presentation and monotonous delivery by Bob Carson's Ringmaster is quite possibly the best evidence for this argument. Additionally one has to wonder whether DeMille intended the trainwreck to be a metaphor for the entire film itself.

A spectacular failure.

* The Greatest Show On Earth is available through Paramount Home Video

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

1972: Cabaret

Cabaret (Fosse, 1972) 7/10

In German historiography, the pre-Nazi era interwar period between 1919-1933 is commonly referred to as the Weimar Period. Named after the city in the eastern German Land (province) of Thüringen were the German Republic constitution was drafted, the actual city of Weimar is arguably Germany's cultural epicentre. Home to the German National Theatre and located near Dessau (home of the famous Bauhaus movement), Weimar's residents have included writers such as Goethe and Schiller, thinkers such as Herder and Nietzsche, painters such as Kandinsky and Klee and musicians such as Bach and Wagner. Perhaps because of the city's link to German culture, the term Weimar Period has been synonmous with art, design and performance.

Yet, the type of art commonly associated with the Weimar Period, the cabaret, was not a product of Weimar the city, but rather Berlin. After the fall of Imperial Germany, the cabaret was briefly released from the shackles of censorship during the pre-Nazi era and became an important socio-cultural forum for political criticism and social discussion. Although cabaret is most often associated with its initial French variation featuring dancers such as Josephine Baker in venues such as the Folies-Bergère and Moulin Rouge, its more political German equivalent lost much of its edge and artistry with the rise of the Nazis: as the cabaret was suppressed resulting in the imprisonment, murder and exile of numerous cabaret performers throughout Germany.

It is during the twilight of this brief period of laxed censorship and economic turmoil that Bob Fosse sets his 1972 film Cabaret: a film focusing on a type of entertainment far removed from the classical formats traditionally associated with Weimar the city. Adapted from a 1966 Broadway musical by Kander and Ebb, Cabaret was originally offered to both Billy Wilder and Gene Kelly, who turned the project down. Instead Bob Fosse, a noted choreographer stepped behind the camera for the first time and created a film imbued with his consciously filmic interests in the erotic, ignorance and materialism.

The film stars Michael York as Brian Roberts, a graduate student from Cambridge who moves to Berlin to aid the completion of his doctorate. Penniless and homeless, Brian rents a room in an apartment building with plans to teach English to the Berlin intelligentsia and economic elite. There he meets Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) an American emigree, who becomes his friend and lover. Together the film chronicles their bohemian lifestyle amidst the decadent world of Berlin's ancien riche and the rising Nazi storm.

In several interviews, Martin Scorsese has attested that he tried to create his ill-constructed New York, New York as a "film noir musical." Despite his honourable intentions, Scorsese's vision fails to adapt to this vision. Conversely, if one were to use the rationale that noir is a mood and not a movement, then Fosse's Cabaret is truly a film noir musical. Visually the film uses limited amounts of light in its cabaret sequences, which provide these sequences with a sinister quality.

In terms of narrative, Cabaret utilizes experimental editing techniques, which enhance the off-kiler resonance of the period. Sally Bowles is an archetypal femme fatale who utilizes her sex to seduce men for power, pleasure and material goods. Furthermore, Bowles' reckless behaviour threatens to destroy her subdued lover Brian, who can be seen as noir's "fall guy:" caught up in the web of vice, sin and greed the immoral surrounding world represents and the femme fatale embodies. Additionally, the film's denouement fails to neatly resolve the world's moral order, but rather impresses the notion of distortion and paranoia in warped mirrors and the ambigious endings for several characters.

In Bob Fosse's brief directorial filmography there is an explicit interest in the erotic and sexuality. Cabaret his first film is no exception. Like All That Jazz there are several references to stripping, while the acts and performances at the cabaret often feature lewd jokes, racy puns and revealing clothing.

Interestingly, while European made films of the period such as Bertolucci's 1900, Visconti's The Damned and Cavani's The Night Porter associate Nazi's with sexual perversity, it is the bohemians, artists and capitalists who are equated with moral depravity, which is as much related to sexuality as it is materialism. Through the locale of the cabaret, sex becomes a commodity. Frequently, Bowles is seen off-stage flirting with overweight and aging businessmen in small cubicles as she tries to earn a few more Deutschmarks in order to pay her rent.

Another trademark of Fosse's cinema is his focus on duplicity and personas. In Cabaret each performance introduced by the film's anoynmous German emcee (Joel Grey) involves the creation and delivery of another identity through costume, song and style. In her make-up and costumes, Sally creates an exaggerated idealized version of herself built on half-truths about an ambassador for a father. These personas allow her, like All That Jazz's Joe Gideon, to be adored by admirers but not loved. Persona and duplicity combine when the film's homosexual transvestite performers attempt to woo clients who are unaware of their gender or orientation. The secret desires and obsessions held by Brian, Sally and her wealthy client Maximilian von Heune (Helmut Griem) are another facet of this duplicity, which results in loss and betrayal for all parties.

Like All That Jazz's Joe Gideon, one can perhaps argue that Sally Bowles represents Bob Fosse. Like Gideon, Bowles embarks on impossible ventures, which result in self-destruction; lavishes herself in empty materialism and meaningless sex to replace true affection and is ignorant of the world around her. For Sally Bowles " Life is a cabaret" and nothing more. It is a one-act show featuring an exclusive one-night only performance. As a result, Sally attempts to do everything, yet is too naive to understand the consequences of her actions. Behind her back she is often mocked as being childish and childlike by her supposed friends such as Brian and Maximilian. She trusts people to shower her in gifts, but is unreliable to others and cannot commit to true relationships. Nor can she realize that her overly ambitious attempts to be a legitimate film actress will never be fulfilled. Thus in her bid to protect and shelter herself from the blows of the world, Sally insulates herself in a somatic world, which caters to her carnal needs, but lacks the direction and organic spiritualism necessary for a truly fulfilling life.

In Cabaret, Bob Fosse demonstrates his aptitude for provactive material and characters. His hubris and auterist conceptions of the medium are present in his aesthetic approach to the narrative, which displays his thematic concerns and interests. Liza Minnelli's career-shaping performance as Sally Bowles is filled with pep in constrast to Michael York's cold and flat demeanour. Joel Grey is particularly affecting as the cabaret's emcee: further illustrating Fosse's penchant for circus-like situations and the grotesque. Additionally Fosse also shows great strength and agility in re-working Ebb and Kander's music around the cabaret itself: integrating the songs as an instrument designed to propel the film's subtext and ideas, rather than superfluous pauses in action.

Unlike All That Jazz, the film's faults can be attributed to its editing as David Bretherton's approach to editing, results in a rather slow middle to the film. Furthermore, the film's subplot involving two German lovers Fritz Wendel (Fritz Wepper) and Natalia Landauer (Marisa Berenson) is jettisoned without care in the last quarter hour; discarding the business friendship created between Fritz and Brian, while leaving the fate of Natalia and Fritz in ominous circumstances.

In Bob Fosse's 1972 noirish musical Cabaret the illusory world of art and material decadence unfolds under the auspices of the looming Nazi era. Within the darkened corners of the cabaret, there lies Fosse's critique of the erotic, artificiality, ignorance and intent; themes and visual ideas which Fosse intricately is able to successfully transfer to celluloid in order to show the ease by which intellectual and artistic fascism develops and suppresses individuals with its inherent violent authority. Thus Cabaret serves as not only an illustration of failed aspirations and dual identities, but also a reminder of the swiftness of regressive socio-political change in a society too interested in its own carnal individual pursuits.

* Cabaret is available through Warner Brothers Home Video

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

1979: All That Jazz

All That Jazz (Fosse, 1979) 9/10

The freshness of a new day never seems to reach esteemed choreographer and director Joe Gideon (Roy Scheider). Each day, like the one before, Gideon embarks on a repetitious and ritiualistic cycle of ritual cleansing, dressing and re-fueling: washing away the previous night’s sins; costuming his body in his preferred black persona; and dulling the pain of another day with a lethal mixture of pick-me-ups and downers. Once his transformation is complete, he confers to his mirrored self his preferred mantra: “It's showtime, folks!”

It is fitting that a man whose career life cycle is built upon repetition (rehersals, re-viewing dailies) begins his day in such a fashion. As a cutting-edge choreographer and auteurist director, Gideon is in a continued battle with God to produce something as perfect as a rose; something which can be a testament to his genius and satisfy his ego. His streak of perfectionism is both his gift and his curse: producing moments of personal inspiration followed by crippling moments of internal anxiety. Even Joe Gideon’s name appears to symbolize his fears and aspirations. The ordinariness of the name Joe exemplifies his consternation at being ordinary; while the biblical Gideon trumpets his own celebrity.

Directorial indulgence was a charge laid against director and choreographer Bob Fosse upon the release of his 1979 magnum opus All That Jazz: a personal semi-autobiographical project in the vein of Federico Fellini’s 8½ about a director in the midst of a creative crisis. While often compared to Fellini’s film, All That Jazz is not as aesthetically surreal as 8½, but perhaps is more autobiographical than Fellini’s flirtation with anti-modernization, director’s block and the grotesque.

All That Jazz is based upon Fosse’s own experience of trying to edit his Lenny Bruce docudrama Lenny whilst simultaneously choreographing and directing the musical Chicago on Broadway. In the film, Roy Scheider becomes Fosse's alter-ego Joe Gideon, while the picture includes a slew of other actors and actresses playing either versions of themselves or parts relating to a similar individual in Fosse's life and career. Thus, All That Jazz perhaps even transcends Fellini's picture in its intimacy and autobiographical nature.

Interestingly like Fellini in La Strada and Il Bidone, Fosse utilizes in All That Jazz symbols and ideas found in the circus in order to re-affirm his celebration of performance, as well as identifying the unforeseen rapidity of death or injury as a result of the act. Fosse uses imagery of Gideon walking on along a high wire tight-rope, only to descend: noting the craft and balance required to master all facets of life, death and art in one single performance. Additionally, in one of his early hallucinations, we see Gideon dressed as a circus clown. Earlier, Fosse may have noted that "Life is like a Cabaret" (another medium that shares the circus' penchant for the absurd and the grotesque), but here he is more cynical: life is less of a continuing show, but a one-act performance.

This philosophy can be seen in Joe Gideon's attitude towards life as he burns the candle at both ends: slaving away to create the next groundbreaking dance number or brilliant cut, whilst destroying his body in a temporal womanizing, pill-popping, chain-smoking and alcoholic blaze. There is never enough time for anyone or anything. Lovers are dispatched quickly; his daughter is granted limited time with him; and his patience wears thin with performers unable to follow the minute details of his program. He is a figure like Liza Minelli's Sally Bowles in Cabaret who wants to be adored, but not loved; nor can s/he love. Thus the physical pleasure supplied from lusts and flirtations substitute for real intimacy; as Gideon rarely gives an insight into his true self: preferring to- like Sally Bowles- adorn himself in masks and personas.

Yet for all his recklessness toward the advice of his physicians, Gideon takes personal responsibility for his actions. Unfortunately for both Gideon and his physicians however work comes before his health. Perhaps through this attitude, Fosse is attempting to validate his own physical destructive streak and need for artistic fulfillment. With its pessimistic projection of his remaining years, Fosse appears to be confessing to his audience a lifetime of sins and a desire for repentance, or at the very least attempt to emit concurrence from his admirers and critics that his cycle of creation and destruction was not for nothing.

Rarely in any musical has death played such an integral role to the narrative, yet in All That Jazz the afterlife is ever-present. The appearance of an angelic blonde (Jessica Lange) in a dressing room filled with abstract mementos and souvenirs from childhood to present seems to further impress the concept of forgiveness- as though cinematic confession to a mass audience, replaces the traditional and intimate confession to one in the Christian framework. Clad in a white dress, Lange's angel represents purity and the divine, yet conversely she also corresponds with the weiße toned colour code Fosse associates with sexuality. Thus in terms of death, white is associated with the ascension to the afterlife; whilst in terms of life, white is associated with sex and sexuality, which itself perhaps corresponds to the French term for orgasm ( le petit mort) which translates as "the little death."

White is the colour of the trousers he wears as a teenager when he has his first sexual experience working as a tap-dancer in a burlesque cabaret. White is also prominently used in the clothing of female characters. Often Fosse places these female characters in situations were either intercourse ensues or the gendered sexuality comes to the forefront. The shades of black Gideon is clothed in from head to toe appear to represent power. This is significant as the female characters who often challenge Gideon's need for control are dressed in black when they attempt to subvert his power basin; red is associated with performance as noted by the rows of red seats in the theatres and the utilization of red to cover the bodies of performers via spotlights, clothes and so forth. Although the emphasis on individual colour coded symbolism fades as the film goes on, the colour green is briefly associated with jealousy and betrayal as noted by the green seats and use of green light on Gideon's rival director Lucas Sergeant (John Lithgow).

Like in Fosse's earlier film Cabaret there is also an overt accentuation on the erotic. As discussed earlier, white is equated with sexuality in the film, but there is also an emphasis on performance as sexual expression. Often throughout the film, Gideon's work (as Fosse's was) is charged by critics and paymasters as being obsessed with sexuality. Yet it is not the mechanics of sexuality which Gideon (or Fosse) appear to be mesmerized by, but rather sexual expression as art. From the burlesque dancers that goad a young Gideon backstage to aura of stripping in the proposed Airotica sequence, there are several instances in which sexuality is deployed as a verbalization of artistic intent.

Noticeably however, as in Fosse's other work such as Cabaret and Sweet Charity the director has his protagonists believe they are capable of usurping their boundaries. Gideon believes he has found the right balance for his excessive work and leisure through prescription drugs. In order to accomplish their lofty aims, characters such as Gideon and Sally Bowles resort to vanity, materialism and an excess of vices to elevate their highs and alleviate their lows. Yet, it is these internal catalysts, which end up destroying them as they become increasingly ignorant of their surroundings: falling prey to their egos and immoralities.

Notwithstanding its co-shared Palme d'Or with Akira Kurosawa's Kagemusha, All That Jazz was considered a box-office failure upon its initial release, which divided North American critics who in both positive and negative reviews often derided it as indulgent. However, time has spared All That Jazz, the harsh penalties it has enacted on Martin Scorsese's ill-fated 1977 stab at the musical genre New York, New York :proving this zenith of Bob Fosse's career to be better than his more famous earlier project 1972's Cabaret. With its Oscar winning edgy editing by Alan Heim and a career-peaking performance by Roy Scheider, All That Jazz is a fast-paced thrill ride into the damaging effects of art on the artist, as well as being arguably the best musical of the 1970's.

* All That Jazz is released by 20th Century Fox Home Video in an upgraded DVD edition coming in April, 2007

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

1967: Weekend

Weekend (Godard, 1967) 8/10


- Didn’t you hear what he said? Marx says we’re all brothers! (Corinne)
- Marx didn’t say that. Some other communist said that. Jesus said that (Roland)

What a rotten film, all we meet are crazy people (Roland)

On a warm summer Friday, bourgeois couple Roland (Jean Yanne) and Corinne (Mireille Darc) prepare for a weekend trip to visit Corinne's mother in the country. But this is no ordinary visit. For five years, they have been poisoning Corinne's father's food in an attempt to collect his life insurance. With his death in sight, the couple plan to intimidate Corinne's mother into giving them more than their alloted share.

On the road to Corinne's mother's estate in Oinville, the couple come across an extensive car crash; prompting them to careen and twist amidst the cacophony of horns through the debris of mutilated bodies, burning cars and eccentric characters playing cards, tossing beach balls and drinking wine to pass the time. Oblivious to the events around them, Roland and Corinne are slow to discern that the world around them has changed, prompting them to belatedly ponder whether they are still in reality or part of a film.

Jean-Luc Godard's Weekend is one of cinema's most incendiary and political pieces. While its overt sloganeering is dated, Weekend is still one of cinema's most adventurous and biting black comedies. Filmed at the beginning of his period of blatant anti-commercial cinema, Godard's attitude toward traditional modes of cinema can be summed up in his final credits which read: End of Film. End of Cinema.

With its radical chic, Weekend was representative of both Godard's own immersion into the avant-garde, as well as a shift in 60's (particularly Europrean) cinema towards counter-culture, anti-narrative and "conscious" cinema in films such as Ingmar Bergman's Persona, Michaelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up and Federico Fellini's 8½. While in North America, this trend would only gain mainstream signficance upon the release of Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider, this movement was alive and kicking throughout world cinema's new wave movements.

This emphasis on consciously deconstructing cinema is prevalent in Weekend. Structurally, Godard playfully tinkers with the medium's most orthodox elements such as inserting dramatic swells of music at inappropriate moments, placing intertitles with revolutionary slogans and utilizing non-linear editing. Cinematographer Raoul Coutard uses slow tracking shots and long takes that increasingly become shot from further distances as the surroundings become less familiar to present-day reality. Additionally he uses Brechtian dramatic techniques by having his character's consciously break the "fourth wall" between performers and audience:. This is notable in scene in which revolutionally-aligned Middle Eastern and African garbage men speak to the camera about the state of the third world in Marxian socio-economic language. Several other instances are found when Roland and Corinne question the cinematic nature of "reality."

"Reality" itself in Weekend is a misnomer. As a film focusing more on cinematic and political ideas than narrative concerns, Weekend is a surrealist evocation of radical politics in the style of Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel. With its radical leftist sympathies, Godard's film is drenched in Marxian and Gramscian debates over class struggle, political and cultural hegemony and the crass materialism of the bourgeoisie. Yet, in a recent interview with Andrew Sarris, the pioneering director claimed that he never was a committed Marxist, but rather used the ideology's provactive nature to dissect the social and political concerns of the time. Additional viewings of Weekend slightly corrolate with this position, as Marx's philosophies still have support in a post-structuralist dominated academe.

And while Godard espouses these radical philopshies in Weekend and his later films with radical cinema collective Dziga Vertov, the film's nature as an ironic and surreal black comedy seems to undermine previous critical attempts to pidgeonhole Weekend as a distinctly Marxist film. Given Godard's predilection with the then fashionable cause of Maoism, Weekend focuses more on the agency of agrarian peasants rather than industrial workers. Yet, Godard does not frame the peasants in a favourable life. They are posited as uneducated imbeciles who heartily sing atop their tractors, but lack the intellectual or economic capacity to run society.

Contrarily, the bourgeoisie are neither assumed to be responsbile enough for contemporary society. The middle-class characters in Weekend are petty, arrogant, immoral, reckless and materialistic: flamboyantly displaying their wealth and status. After being forced at gunpoint to pick-up a hitchhiker who grants wishes, the couple's suggestions are all purely object-oriented such as weapons, an evening with James Bond and dresses. Similarly, when Roland and Corinne's reckless driving gets the better of them, resulting in a fiery crash, Corinne's only concern is the loss of her Hermes handbag.

Throughout Weekend, the film's bourgeois members are continually shown to be ignorant of the changes around them; thus heightening their disturbed response to these shifts upon their belated realization. Furthermore, they are constantly shown as bored. When listening to two garbage men discuss politics, Roland and Corinne pass each other cigarettes in order to fill their lethargic void. Furthermore, each of them openly engages in adulterous affairs; with Corinne telling her lover an erotic adulterous story of a menage a trois in order to arouse him.

The violence within human nature and modern life in also shown in Corinne and Roland's actions: running other motorists and cyclists off the road, fantasizing of murdering Corinne's mother and standing emotionless while others are raped, killed or beaten. When other characters refuse to offer them assistance, they engage in acts of theft and violence in order to pursue their selfish aims such as their attack on another middle-class man (Jean Pierre Leaud) singing to his children on a rural telephone, who refuses to drive them to Oinville in his sports car.

The abrasive and careless nature of the bourgeoisie is apparent when Roland and Corinne enter a quaint village, only for class distinctions to become heightened when a gruff farmer crashes his tractor into a young couple recklessly speeding in their Triumph convertible. Pejorative language and accusations are thrown around as the woman proclaims the working classes are "pissed off because we fuck in the Riveria and you don't...", only for the farmer to retort "If it weren't for me and my tractor, the French would have nothing to eat" But when Corinne and Roland refuse to drive neither part to Oinville for help, the two warring classes unite in what Godard's intertitle asserts is a "Phony Graph."

This aforementioned sequence is a rare instance of harmony in Weekend in which contemporary society devolves into anarchy and chaos: a post-apocalyptic world in which the products of industry are scattered and strewn in fields. From the film's opening moments, society slowly erupts into an orgy of death and destruction; that results in cannablist Maoist guerillas stalking the countryside. Thus, rather than being a purely didactic Marxist film Weekend is more or less a critique of contemporary society's dissolution into violence and savagery. Although released in December 1967, Weekend is the visual template for 1968: arguably the most radical and violent year of the post-WWII era. It is in this year of assassinations, student protests, war and repression that Weekend's apocalyptic vision holds true in its animated and extremist surreal outlook on society.

In Weekend Godard does not appear to prescribe revolution, but rather shows the aggressive flaws within modern society. Thus, when Godard includes several real and imagined figures from the Enlightenment and Romantic eras such as Emily Brönte, Tom Thumb, St. Just (Jean Pierre Leaud) and Joseph Balsamo, he appears to be satirically critiquing a society which has purged these elements inquiring into the nature of truth from its schema. When characters ponder the origins of civilization or question the nature of reality in Weekend, Godard seems to be suggesting the artificial nature of modern life and a need to restore organic elements of life. Unlike Roland's belief that life is film, Godard seems to assert that life is not cinema, but rather one which addresses and rectifies the violent tendecies of human nature; in order to avoid the type of surrealist apocalypse the film proposes.

* Weekend is avaiable on R2 DVD by Artifical Eye and on R1 DVD by New Yorker Video

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque

1954: The Wild One

The Wild One (1954, Benedek) 3/10

“This is a shocking story, it could never take place in most American towns- but it did in this one. It is a public challenge not to let it happen again.”

Over restrained jazz music and scenes of an open highway, the aforementioned plea appears in hard capitalized block print before the opening credits. The crisp summer silence is then muted by a guilty male voice apologizing for his past, only to be erased by the grunting roar of a fleet of motorcycles. Naturally, producer (and future director) Stanley Kramer’s statement and the entire approach to The Wild One was outlandish, regressive and hysterical. But in an America still lingering from the effects of McCarthyism and living in the placid Eisenhower era, the message was palpable.

Before they inspired the name for a neo-shoegazing band, the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club of Lazlo Benedek’s The Wild One were the kings of cinema’s “outlaw outfits:” as much a threat to the preservation of white picket fence America as rock n’ roll, Reds and flouride. One of several films from the Fifties featuring stories “ripped from the headlines,” The Wild One was based upon an actual event in 1947 in the California hamlet of Hollister on July 4th weekend. Four thousand bikers converged on the town for the purpose of refueling their bikes and drinking beer; eventually destroying and looting the town only to flee a few days later. The Hollister story was published in Harper’s magazine four years later and despite the magazine’s employment of staged photographs (or perhaps because of it) , the story caught the eye of liberal-message film producer Stanley Kramer, who developed it into a cheap, low-budget project starring Marlon Brando.

Already known for his anti-social behaviour and riveting Method performances, The Wild One was the film that elevated Brando from eccentric actor into cult icon. Brando stars as Johnny, the leader of the BRMC (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club):a gang of drunken deliquents, petty thieves and social miscreants, who disrupt the harmonious atmosphere of an unnamed California community. Over the course of a few days, Johnny and his gang drink heavily, pester innocent bystanders, court loose women and pollute the air with hepcat language, loud jazz and sexual aggression. When the BRMC’s rival gang led by the cigar-chomping unshaven Gino (an actually intoxicated Lee Marvin) enters town to settle old scores, the violence is revved up; resulting in a series of tragedies, assaults, suspected rapes and eventually the rise of vigilantism to combat the naive appeasement policies of the local sherriff (Robert Keith).

The danger of the BRMC and the Beetles is found in their collective cohesion: as the respective members continually follow the every whim of their brooding leaders. This produces a factor that intimidates meek law officials and threatens worried residents. Their lewd behaviour, raw jokes and street brawls undermine community spirit and conventional ideas of morality and civility. Yet, for some character’s such as the Sheriff’s daughter (Mary Murphy) this hyper-masculine identity is simply a ruse: a pent-up aggression brought on by the bikers inability to express their true feelings within an appropriate gendered form.

Kramer’s warning at the beginning of the film, coupled with the anonymous quotidan nature of the town, stresses the culpability of this occuring in any American town. In this quaint town untouched by asphalt or television and where everyone knows one another, the desire to proudly welcome strangers into their community is seen as part of the rustic American spirit of goodwill. Yet, the bikers abuse this cordial response; terrorizing the small community with their motorcycle races, their drinking sesions and their pogo sticks.

At the merest pull on the throttle of their bikes, a string of sexually loose women seem to flood the town, one is even a former lover of Johnny absurdly telling him: “I’m singin’ tonight Johnny, I’m really singin’...I want the Christmas tree.” Yet Johnny shrugs nonchalantly. The bikers also attempt to dismiss in laconic fashion interactions between parents and children. When restaurant waitress Kathy (Mary Murphy) excitedly informs Johnny that “My father was gonna take me on a fishing trip to Canada once. We didn’t go;” the biker again disaffectedly shrugs before muttering “Crazy” in a lethargic tone. Thus their behaviour by 1950's standards is anti-social to the core: rejecting the traditional family unit and ideas of proper heterosexuality in favour of immorality and a neo-family unit in the institution of the gang.

The gathering of a variety of stock characters and the dusty appearance of a town untouched by modernity enhances this notion of tradition. There is Jimmy, the aging mentally blunt barkeep who unbeknowst to him is being made the object of a series of jokes by the crass hoodlums; there is the money hungry restaurant owner who desires to keep the BRMC in town for purely monetary reasons, despite objections by prominent citizens; there is the innocent girl next door working at the restaurant, who prior to Johnny’s arrival figured that going to a picnic was an idea of a good time: but is now corrupted by his potent sexuality and raw language; and there is the diplomatic police officer who is framed as an inept peacemaker who continues to promote conversation against the advice of others.

Given the film’s 1954 production, it is interesting to note the similarities in appearance and approach of the police officer and British interwar Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Both characters view themselves as great peacemakers and wish to use diplomacy and appeasement to resolve the crises affecting their community. Returning from Munich with a piece of paper guaranteeing a “peace for our time,” Chamberlain assumed he had placated Hitler’s demands in acquiring the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. A year later, Britain were at war and Chamberlain’s political career was ruined. In The Wild One, Robert Keith’s Sherriff continually acquiesces with Brando’s Johnny: himself aa despotic leader of his own black attired gang. By ignoring claims such as“You let this go by, anything can happen!” and “I’ve seen hoodlums like this before, if you don’t stop them...” the sheriff becomes a Chamberlain-esque figure; who writes his own downfall by failing to aggressively combat forces dangerous to the safety and security of the community.

Reluctantly accepting the role as a favour to Kramer who gave him his Hollywood debut in Fred Zinneman’s The Men, Brando appears bored throughout the film despite his researching of real life bikers, choosing his own wardrobe and bringing his own Triumph motorcycle. In The Wild One, Brando sits uncomfortably in his performance; offering an ill-postured effort drenched in personal apathy and overstatement. Yet, within his performance one can find a template and the essence for his Oscar garnering role as Terry Malloy in Elia Kazan’s On The Waterfront. Later, the actor recalled his disappointment in the picture stemmed primarily from the picture going “off track:” Attesting the film’s initial intent was to explain “the psychology of the hipster,” Brando astutely observed that rather than showing why youths gather into groups as a form of expression, the film simply “show[ed] the violence” caused by youngsters: making the film's supposed guilty parties alluring and chic.

Financially, the film flopped as hundreds of theatre owners refused to carry the film because of its controversial and violent content. The film was even banned for decades in Finland and Britain from fear of arousing gang secretarianism. However for younger audiences in the Eisenhower era brought up on staid artificial television shows and films, The Wild One was viewed less as a portrayal of a sociological menace and more so as a forebearer of cool. In an era when black music was deemed immoral and dangerous to the moral-social fabric of white America, The Wild One was an aggressive, sexualized threat. Despite the inferior nature of its style and context, The Wild One is arguably one of the most important cultural documents of the 1950s.

In the decades since its initial release The Wild One has shaped popular opinion and stereotypes not only about bikers, but about teenagers in general. Both social groups gather their ranks in packs and create micro-communal identities from this system of interaction. These identities define them not only with their spheres, but in their interactions with the outside world. Teenagers and bikers are viewed as loud, obnoxious, criminal and loose; they are presented as threats to accepted norms of communal interaction, sexuality and vice. It can be argued that The Wild One not only provided archetypes of the appearance of these groups roaming in animalistic packs, but it also gave these groups a material code of how to operate and interact with each other and within society.

Time has not treated The Wild One with dignity. Like its adolescent characters, it has aged: becoming more of a socio-cultural document, rather than a contextual important film. Certainly, Kramer and director Lazlo Benedek would have aspired for the film to be an important picture, but this can also be argued as the film’s core issue. Its self-importance undermines everything else about it. In an era were respectable and affluent teenagers were silently rebelling against their parents generation, The Wild One does not provide a cinematic forum for debate on inter-generational relations. Rather, it demonizes and condemns one group of society without searching for or addressing the social roots of the problem.

The film’s only truly realistic sequence is a wonderfully shot moment when Johnny out of breath and fleeing from an angry mob runs to the security of his motorcycle. Interestingly, the end of this sequence contains a shot strikingly similar to the opening of Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without A Cause made three years later in which a drunk James Dean attempts to pick up a children’s toy from the floor; whereas in The Wild One Brando seeks to pick up his stolen motorcycle trophy from the floor.

Ray’s film however deconstructs the notion of teenage disillusionment, alientation and generational miscommunication. The bikers in The Wild One are framed as nomads, cut-off from their point of origin. In Rebel Without A Cause that middle-class origin is exposed as the teenagers “rebel” against their parents standards. This can be seen in the most famous lines from each film. In Rebel Without A Cause Dean claims “You are tearing me apart” to his ineffectual parents; Brando when asked by a fellow teenager “Johnny, what are you rebelling against?” ,the Method actor coolly responds “Whaddya Gat!” Thus the explosion of inward anger in Rebel Without A Cause is not evident in The Wild One; rather the act of rebellion seems to have no meaning or source: a sociological point which critics then and today have scrutinized The Wild One for failing to have.

Despite claims of authenticity in language, appearance and tone, The Wild One is an artificial mess. The dialogue is woefully contrived, the story paperthin and the direction overtly staged. Nothing feels natural or organic in The Wild One, but rather a hyper-aggressive and hyper-exaggerrated depiction of a social sub-culture antithetical to traditional America. Only Benedek and Kramer appear to be taking their subject matter seriously; as Marvin drunkenly stutters around, leaving Brando to impassively stare off into the distance. While contemporary viewers will see it for the churlish camp it is, audiences in 1954 saw The Wild One as a portent to social and cultural upheaval: identifying subversive bikers as the source of their public ills, rather than debating the social-cultural dilemmas affecting their own public communities and private lives.


* The Wild One is available through Columbia Tri-Star Home Video

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque