1933: Female

Female (Michael Curtiz; William Dieterle; William Wellman; 1933) 7/10

During the pre-Code era of the early 1930's, Hollywood studios cultivated an array of fast-paced pictures drenched in sin, sex and vice. Depression-era audiences flocked to their local theatres to witness the latest taboo-pushing motion picture featuring hyper-sexual dames, gun-toting gangsters and the frenzied spectacle brought on by illicit drinking, prostitution, narcotic use and racketeering. The popularity of these tawdry tales kept Hollywood afloat during the Depression, but also brought the wrath of religious and state censorship boards.

One of the most daring and controversial pictures to emerge in this period was a sixty-minute film entitled Female: a novel work about the escapades of Allison Drake, a sexually vivacious female industrialist played by Ruth Chatterton. Having bequeathed her father's automobile plant through his will, Allison decides to run the plant herself. But Allison is not just a pretty face.

Punctual, efficient, intelligent and demanding, Allison expects her employees to follow her example of unrelenting professionalism and hard work. Adorned in masculinized attire and well-versed in the industry, Allison intimidates her male employees with her seemingly cold and unfeminine exterior, as she aggressively attempts to save her father's fledgling company. Unknown to the majority of her employees, she is not all work and no play. Her discreet invitations to conduct one-on-one business meetings at her spacious, art-deco home soon materialize to be far more sensual than professional affairs.

In these sequences Chatterton's character embodies the spirit of Catherine The Great. Like the famed Russian Czarina, Allison is equipped with both masculine gendered conceptions of leadership and a vigorous sexual appetite. In yearning to deal with men in a manner analogous to how men have treated women, Allison uses her power and seductive skills to utilize men less as 'household necessities' and more like pets. Her pillow strewn floor and crude electronic gadgetry enable her to entice men with vodka-fuelled sessions, before quickly dropping them from her roster the next day.

Marriage is not in the cards for Allison centrally because unlike many other women of her era, she is not financially dependent on men. Rather, her lurid affairs offer her the physical elements found in marriage through a brand of expedient satisfaction that is wholly without commitment. Repulsed by the willingness of men to believe sex equals love, Allison runs a crushingly swift program of elimination. When men do try to shower their affections upon her, Allison either ignores them or exiles them to other branches of her international empire. Allison even incorporates a system of salaried performance bonuses to pay for the additional 'labour' her male employees have exerted.

Subsequently, it was the combination of Allison's pre-marital affairs and willingness to compensate her workers for their sexual endeavours, which drew the ire of censors in the mid-Thirties and resulted in the picture being banned indefinitely until the Production Code's demise in the 1950's. Allison's liberalized sexual practices are performed without any regard for psychological burdens or notions of romance. The latter emerges in Female as a factor despised by the film's cynical and realistic protagonist, who shuns romance for its falsehoods and hyperbolic acts of flattery.

In one particularly striking scene, Allison ultimately shuns intercourse with a young artist, because of his repeated assertions of her divine status: proclaiming that she is "a goddess" basking in the heavenly atmosphere of her palatial estate with its church-like organ, extensive white walls and modern art statues.

The concept of duality and duplicity emerges as two key themes in Female. The film's repeated use of mirrors presents a concept of Allison having two sides: opposing personalities concurrently working in tandem. A masculine side is ever-present in the workplace as witnessed through her demanding demeanor and unisexual clothing. Although the masculine elements are present in the film's period ideals of sexual appetite, they are draped within sexually alluring female attire: seductive thin dresses and perfectly coiffured features.

The film's reversal of gender roles fizzles in the latter stages of Female when Allison becomes enchanted by the company's new engineer Jim Thorne (George Brent). Unlike her other male playthings, Jim is not interested in neither her money nor her sexuality. Preferring civilian work to animalistic hunting for sexual prey, Jim becomes the one entity, the omnipotent and predatory Allison cannot sink her claws into. Rather than relinquish Jim, Allison decides to win over him by playing the game: the marriage game that is.

Her subsequent actions in Female's final moments become an embarrassing farce in contrast to the film's overarching progressive ideals and sentiments. Regurgitating to a state of female stereotypes and clichés, Allison's sang froid interior cracks in a bevy of tear-soaked hysteria, yearnings to recede into a domesticated world and desires to leave the world of business to men. The closing onslaught of images including a bizarre, dreamlike picnic sequence border on the surreal. Like the memories of courtship in Alfred Hitchcock's I, Confess, this sequence in its unabashedly romantic flavour could possibly be ascertained as a mere dream, if it was not for the film's redundant finale in which Allison symbolically allows Jim to take the driver's seat in her luxury convertible.

Female was initially began by German emigre William Dieterle, who was replaced by William Wellman after the former fell ill. When Jack Warner disapproved of the actor playing one of Allison's early love interests in the film, the picture was then handed over to Michael Curtiz who, re-shot those scenes with a new actor Johnny Mack Brown and, ended up with final credit for the film. Bolstered by a brilliant, authentic lead performance by Ruth Chatterton alongside her then husband George Brent, Female still remains a feisty, groundbreaking film, which is only crippled by its regressive stance on gender in the film's closing scenes.

*Female is available on DVD exclusively through Warner Home Video's TCM Archives: Forbidden Hollywood Collection Vol. 2

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

1932: Three On A Match

Three On A Match (LeRoy, 1932) 6/10

In her autobiography, Bette Davis referred to it as “a dull B picture,” while the New York Times called it “tedious and distasteful.” Yet, in the seventy-five years since its initial release, Mervyn Le Roy’s Three On A Match has garnered a cult status as one of the most exploitative and controversial films of its era for its overt promiscuity, drug use and crude imagery.

The film’s title is derived from a superstition popularly believed to have existed during the First World War, but in actuality devised by a post-war Swedish industrialist to sell more matches. According to the myth, if three soldiers lit their respective cigarettes from the same single match, then one of the three would die. This idea is neatly incorporated into LeRoy’s diminutive 64 minute film, when three distant friends decide to share a match during their reunion.

Featuring a cast including a slew of then-unknown actors who later became stars, the film centers around the evolving friendship between three women from childhood to adulthood. After going their separate paths following elementary school, the group unexpectedly re-unites at a New York restaurant and begins to discuss their divergent lives.

Over lunch both Mary (Joan Blondell), a former juvenile delinquent turned showgirl and Ruth (Bette Davis), an academically gifted, but underprivileged woman forced to work as a stenographer enviously pine for the life of the popular and wealthy Vivian (Ann Dvorak). Married to prominent lawyer Robert Kirkwood (Warren William) and having a small child (Buster Phelps), Vivian appears to have it all: money, security and family.

Unbeknownst to both Mary and Ruth, Vivian is also crushingly bored by her existence. Unsatisfied by her marriage, Vivian plans an unaccompanied trip to Europe with her husband’s consent in the hope that the break will rekindle her interest. However, prior to departing for Cherbourg, Vivian falls heavily for a slick Manhattan playboy (Lyle Talbot) during an evening party. Disembarking with her young son, Vivian takes flight from her husband and enters into a destructive world of sex, gangsters, narcotics and alcoholism.

Barely running sixty-four minutes long, Three On A Match is a deliriously trashy boudoir of cinematic sin. Featuring a cast including Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, Three On A Match is a wicked parable on the transformative effects of time. Utilizing stock footage and recurring glances at timepieces, the subject of time is expressly recounted throughout LeRoy’s film. Newspaper headlines become dualistic devices: escorting the viewer to the major events of the period, but also as examples to metaphorically describe the changing socio-cultural ideas affecting the film’s protagonists.

In locating his protagonists within a rapidly modifying environment, LeRoy is able to establish the internal alterations within the personalities of his characters. No more so than in the film’s central character Vivian, who is initially, presented as a “goody-two shoes,” but is subtly revealed to have a repressed sexual element: a fact evident in her nightly surreptitious perusals of tawdry, sexually explicit novels at boarding school.

The ability to change from good-to-bad and vice-versa is at the cornerstone of LeRoy’s film: enabling Vivian to regress into a drunken wastrel, whilst allowing Mary to develop from a reform school brat into a successful, good-hearted woman. In contrast to the female characters in George Cukor's The Women released seven years later, the women in Three On A Match display a complex range of emotions that are genuine in their content and intricacy. Nevertheless in strictly emphasizing the opposing paths undertaken by Mary and Vivian, the character of Ruth suffers immensely and quickly becomes an overlooked and undeveloped figure.

In connection to Bette Davis’ wasted performance, LeRoy’s film also suffers from one its principal thematic attributes: time. Packed into a sixty-four minute framework, LeRoy’s film offers scant breathing space in its clutter of visual aides memoire that dominate the film’s first half. In contrast to its stolid build-up, the film’s second portion is a frenzied, scandalous affair.

Exploiting its pre-Code conditions, the latter stages of Three On A Match contain a cavalcade of illicit ideas and brazen images including child neglect, cocaine use, extramarital affairs, kidnapping, extortion and an otherworldly suicide. It is in these moments that Dvorak and Bogart, as an unrepentant gangster, demonstrate their talent. The former’s spiraling descent from jaded socialite to a ghostlike addict is particularly riveting; the latter in his first thuggish role snarls and seethes his way to the forefront in a small performance that includes a particularly memorable swipe at Dvorak’s addictions and a scaly reaction to her son’s pleas for her to be left unharmed.

Featuring a wealth of controversial material, Three On A Match is a raw and audacious "B" picture. Filled with a trio of strong performanaces (Blondell, Bogart, Dvorak), Three On A Match exhibited Mervyn LeRoy's ability to create gritty contemporary pictures with minimal refinements or pleasantries. Although nowhere near as consistent as his best films (Little Caesar and I Am A Fugitive On A Chain Gang also released in 1932) Three On A Match is still an enjoyable and riveting picture more than three quarters of a century after its initial release.

* Three On A Match is available on DVD exclusively through Warner Home Video's TCM Archives: Forbidden Hollywood Collection Vol. 2

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

1939: The Women

The Women (Cukor, 1939) 6/10

The one-sheet tagline for George Cukor's 1939 film The Women declared 'It's all about men!" Yet, throughout the course of Cukor's 133 minute melodrama, there is not a single masculine presence visible. Furthermore, despite having an entirely female cast featuring some of the biggest stars of the period, it is the topic of men that dominates the proceedings through hearsay, third-party gossip and the rare off-screen appearance.

Before Sex and the City monopolized the superficial plight of the modern Manhattan socialite, there was The Women. Released by MGM in 1939 and shot by famed ‘women’s director’ George Cukor, The Women is an archetypal example of MGM's high production values during the 1930's. Taken from a play by Clare Booth Luce, the film centers on a group of catty and shallow high-society women who are as eager to backstab one another, as they are to indulge in sherry-filled fashion shows and afternoon tea parties.

The crux of the film details the collapse of Mary Haines' (Norma Shearer) marriage to Stephen Haines, the latter having absconded his marital vows to embark on an illicit affair with snarling working-class perfume saleswoman Crystal Allen (Joan Crawford). Unbeknownst to Mary, this information has been spread without her knowledge throughout her Park Avenue social circuit by her garrulous cousin Sylvia (Rosalind Russell). After crushingly hearing the news via a talkative manicurist, Mary leaves Stephen and heads to a ranch in Reno, where along with other divorcees she must decided whether her pride is more important than her marriage.

Adapted by pioneering female screenwriters Anita Loos and Jane Murfin, The Women is mostly a callous and throughly bitchy affair. Despite its projections of aristocratic sophistication, The Women features waves of snappy dialogue drenched in sexual innuendo and vitriolic assaults quite unbecoming for MGM's output during the period. Besides its physical exclusion of the male sex, The Women is also particularly interesting for its conceptualization of "the modern woman."

Mary Haines certainly considers herself to be a progressive character and avoids the recommendations of her mother to act obliviously toward Stephen's indiscretions. Nevertheless, Mary's supposed liberal mindset is rarely applied with conviction throughout the film: resulting in a rather regressive portrayal of womanhood. Although characters exist from each class bracket in Cukor's film, it is the upper-class figures who are garnered the majority of the film's attention. Subsequently, a skewed upper-class definition of contemporary femininity emerges that today appears volatile, negative and rooted in stereotypes.

The women in The Women are primarily portrayed as solely interested in gossip, money, fashion and physical fitness, the latter purely for sexual purposes. Scarcely any of the women are employed and even fewer are educated at a tertiary level. Any progressive attempts toward gender solidarity are also non-existent in the film. The rigidity of class relations takes precedence in their lives, as evidenced when Sylvia appears to take greater offense to Stephen having an affair with Crawford's Crystal for the clerk's social rank, rather than the act itself.

With little personal socio-economic freedom separate from their husbands, yet an abundance of leisure time, the film's characters tend to take an unhealthy interest in their friends' private lives. Their leisure time is not devoted to a pursuit of the liberal arts, but rather engaging in the art of liberally pursuing each other's dirt, secrets, lies and scandals. For several of the characters in The Women, pleasure appears to be obtained more so from the anguish of others, rather than personal development.

Consequently, the examination of feminine identity and gender-related struggles in The Women intrinsically follows a singular track. Maternalism is given preference over careerism, as Cukor's film tends to laud Shearer's doting mother. The latter's progressive 'feminism' is aggressively gnawed away by the film's insistent unspoken idea that dependence and loyalty is greater than independence and pride. Often the film tends to characterize women as petty, hysterical, chatty, irrational and primal: no more so than the film's zoological-themed opening credits delineating a corresponding animal for each character.

In casting the film in its initial moments as an animalistic menagerie, the film underscores the rare outlets for power available to its protagonists. In the concrete jungles of Manhattan, survival is obtained through uncouth alliances and marital usurpation. In trying to manipulate their surroundings or re-invent themselves, several characters in the The Women attempt to address the imbalance of power between the genders and the fetishized and sexualized commodification of their sex.

Nevertheless, feminine power in Cukor's film is a device limited to the female community which adheres to its own racial, class and socio-political prejudices. With limited options for personal socio-economic growth, the male animal becomes vital for the women in the film. The failure to transcend the autonomy of their gendered environment results in characters like Mary Haines capitulating to the status quo: as her defiant resistance to her husband's immoral actions relinquishes toward a passive acceptance of her position.

In spite of Cukor's reputation as a 'women's director,' the adherence to patriarchal and conservative values is at the cornerstone of The Women. It is this advancement of male domination which perhaps sits most uncomfortably in Cukor's purportedly 'feminist' film. One certainly has to wonder had the film been made deeper into the Second World War, when women performed a greater role on the homefront, would Cukor's film have retained the same glowing appraisal of male dominance.

Recently remade by Murphy Brown creator Diane English, The Women still retains its classic status, despite its increasingly waning critical stature. Although some critics have posited Cukor's film as a comedy or a satire, the film places far too much in the melodramatic plight of its central heroine to conform into any strict comedic classification. The performances range in divergent standards with Shearer's overwrought cuckold aging poorly, whilst Crawford's conniving temptress maturing into a fine flavour. Nevertheless it is in the snappy, fork-tongued dialogue of Loos and Murfin's script that The Women briefly exceeds the overcooked melodramatics of Cukor's direction in an otherwise clichéd and dated ensemble film

*The Women is released by Warner Home Video and is available in their Joan Crawford Collection Vol. 1

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

1942: Mrs. Miniver

Mrs. Miniver (Wyler, 1942) 6/10

"This is the People's War. It is our war. We are the fighters. Fight it then. Fight it with all that is in us and may God defend the Right" (Vicar)

During the Second World War, American cinema played a crucial wartime role. At the front, motion pictures were used to entertain the troops; at home, films became important tools in providing information, influencing public debate and assuaging the masses. Perhaps no other film of this era did more to affect the general public than William Wyler's 1942 classic Mrs. Miniver.

Heralded by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill as being "more important to the war than the combined work of six divisions," Mrs. Miniver was both a monumental commercial and critical success: a polished archetype of 1940's MGM high drama that raked in over five million dollars and collected the Academy Award for Best Picture. Adapted from the short stories of English novelist Jan Struther, Wyler's inspirational melodrama focused on the war-time struggles of the film's titular "middle-class" heroine Kay Miniver played by Greer Garson.

Set during the first two years of the war, the film examines the changes affecting the Miniver household and their rural southwest England community. Prior to the war, the Minivers are portrayed as a typical, hard-working English "middle-class" family. The family patriarch Clem (Walter Pidgeon) is a successful architect, whilst their eldest son Vincent (Richard Ney) attends Oxford. Whenever the couple are not spending their "little money" on extravagant purchases behind each other's back, they are raising their two younger children: one of whom takes piano lessons, the other who is perpetually holding a kitten.

The onset of the war however threatens to destroy this bucolic splendor within the Miniver household. Whilst the conflict hampers Vincent's impulsive romantic pursuits of Carol (Teresa Wright), the socially conscious granddaughter of the town's lone aristocrat Lady Beldon (Dame May Whitty), it also deeply changes the community and its rigid class identities. This is most sharply evident in the conflict between the haughty Lady Beldon and Mr. Ballad (Henry Travers), the town's working-class stationmaster.

For over three decades Lady Beldon has won the grand prize at an annual flower show hosted on her property. When the meek Mr. Travers decides to enter his own rose into the competition, his audacious act is seen by Lady Beldon as a swipe against her rank in the community: threatening to jeopardize her status. Furthermore his decision to name the flower after Mrs.Miniver, rather than a lady of the gentry causes a stir throughout the town. These ideas soon become relics of the past. Within a matter of weeks, the war's arrival brings with it a minimization of class boundaries. The caste-like walls, previously unchecked only in the town's local pub, are torn down in the name of sacrifice and communal spirit.

The attempt to project the dissolution of class lines in Britain was one of the key driving forces in the film's production. At the behest of the American Office of War Information, MGM were asked to create a film that not only stressed the importance of communal togetherness during the war, but also projected a new image of Britain to American audiences detached from traditional Hollywood conceptions of Britain as a stuffy, anachronistic society. Wyler's film was meant to create a more democratic idea of Britain that could allow American audiences to sympathize with the plight of the British.

In its presentation, the film's contemplation of the British class system is severely flawed. In MGM's glamorized depiction of British "bourgeois" life, the Miniver family manages to maintain a spacious house located on the banks of the Thames equipped with a motorboat, two live-in servants and a luxury automobile. The Minivers and their fellow townspeople are deemed to be ordinary, everyday figures through this logic; despite the fact they- The Minivers- are clearly more privileged than their middle-class background suggests.

The village's working-class are easily identifiable through their colloquial accents and speech, yet are routinely characterized as almost childlike citizens who look up to the more adult and responsible bourgeois and aristocratic members of the community. There is little mention of the economic strife and class-orientated politics that affected Britain at the time. Rather this is a sanitized and wholly idealized image of Britain that continued to feed into popular, weatherworn images of people enjoying cups of tea or a rousing pint of bitter at the quaint local pub. Mrs. Miniver's Britain is a conservative one of stiff upper-lips and upper-crusts.

Nevertheless, by projecting an image of quotidian activities and individuals, Wyler's film managed to transcend international cultural boundaries. The film became important because it stressed the ideas of sacrifice, duty, solidarity and harmony. In this way it is easy to see both why U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked for the film to be rush-released and why the film itself became so popular. In an era when propaganda and jingoistic war films tended to focus on the battle front, Mrs. Miniver turned its lens toward the rarely analyzed home front. There despite their economic superficialities, the Miniver's struggles and strife became easily identifiable and therefore offered comfort and empathy to millions of viewers. The film's brilliant and rousing final speech delivered by the local Priest (Henry Wilcoxon) is a magnificent piece of inspirational screenwriting.

The film also provided a blueprint for how the citizen soldier should operate during war time. Although the film fails to address the true historical realities, which would have likely have seen both Clem and Kay Miniver holding voluntary positions to assist local war-time organizations, it does offer a moral layout of how they should act socially and politically. In Mrs. Miniver, dissension on the home front is non-existent. Everyone unquestionably acts without exception. Non-conformity or fear is invisible. Not only does everyone in Wyler's film participate in the war effort to the best of their abilities- forfeiting relationships and economic progress in the process,-but they further defy the war's horror by continuing to engage in regular activities. Thus, the film became an important political tool in providing an example of good conduct and citizenship for viewers, as well as emotional support and encouragement for millions of viewers.

Since its initial release in 1942, Wyler's film has lessened in stature. Its idealized view of British society appears dated and weather-worn. The film's soapy melodramatic narrative that once appeared honest and realistic, today appears long, contrived and ponderously slow. The film's glossy patriotism that once aroused and inspired audiences in particular feels naive and calculated. For the majority of Mrs. Miniver, the film's leading performances including Greer Garson's Oscar-winning effort as the title character loom as synthetic archetypes of cool, calm and collected citizenship.

With her expansive eyes and unflappable serenity, Garson's Miniver rarely comes across as genuine. As a result, the film's infamous scene in which Mrs. Miniver single-handedly combats the Nazi threat appears especially ludicrous. Walter Pidgeon's portrayal as Clem is stiff and nondescript. Despite appearing in several films together, Garson and Pidgeon lack any believable chemistry in Wyler's film. The only genuine romantic chemistry in the film awkwardly belongs to Garson and Richard Ney, who woodenly plays her garrulous son Vincent. Ironically, the pair dated during filming and were later married. Only Teresa Wright, as the fresh-faced Carol, Henry Wilcoxon as the motivational cleric and Henry Travers as the shy flower enthusiast seem to have injected any genuine spark and humanity into their performances.

Despite its slick, outmoded approach, there are still moments when Mrs. Miniver's polished artifice still manages to kindle something more than sentiment. Joseph Ruttenberg's cinematography, particularly in the film's climatic coda in the village church is especially rewarding. Packaging the film around a series of set-pieces, Wyler managed to extract some of the film's best performances during these segments. Scenes including those during an air raid and the film's finale added an element of authenticity and intrigue often absent in the film's fabricated projections.

Nevertheless, through its images and essence Mrs. Miniver became an important and immensely popular film, which spawned a far-less successful sequel, 1950's The Miniver Story. Four years after directing Mrs. Miniver, Wyler would helm a far more authentic and less idealistic conceptulization of the home front with his 1946 Academy Award winning film The Best Years of Our Lives.

* Mrs Miniver is available on DVD through Warner Home Video

Other William Wyler films reviewed:
The Letter (1940) 7/10

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

1956: Baby Doll

Baby Doll (Kazan, 1956) 7/10

"Excuse me, Mr. Vacarro, but I wouldn't dream of eatin' a nut that a man had cracked in his mouth." (Baby Doll)

Sitting on the floor of a rotting Southern mansion, Archie Lee Meighen (Karl Malden) once more grabs his tools and heads upstairs to a vacant room. Fending off a scrawny dog, Archie Lee peeps through a frayed array of torn drywall toward a small hole opened up to the room next door.

Through the cracks, Archie Lee manages to catch a glimpse of the opposing room's lodger: a blonde girl laying in a gaudy bronzed cradle sucking her thumb. Excited by what he sees, Archie once more tries to flesh out the hole. But to no avail. The girl has awoken and has chastised him for his voyeurism.

But Archie Lee is no "Peeping Tom." Rather, the decrepit house happens to be his own and the girl happens to be his nineteen year old wife known as Baby Doll (Carroll Baker). And thus begins the sleazy, suggestive world of Elia Kazan's ultra-controversial Baby Doll: one of the most notorious American films of the Fifties. Based on a screenplay by eminent American playwright Tennessee Williams, Baby Doll is a bizarre offbeat black comedy that encapsulates Williams' central themes of youth, sexuality, decaying Southern society and combustible figures into a story of revenge.

Set in the Deep South, Baby Doll centers on the sexual and marital friction between Arthur Lee and the film's title character. Although twice her age, the balding and high-strung Arthur Lee secured Baby Doll's hand-in-marriage through a series of unfilled promises to her dying father. While Arthur Lee promises Baby Doll the world, all he can offer her is a run-down mansion and an antiquated cotton-gin. Unable to pay the bills due to the success of a rival gin-owner, the house lies void of furniture, aside from Baby Doll's miniscule bed. The bed itself has seen no movement between the couple, as Arthur Lee promised not to consummate the marriage, until Baby Doll turned twenty.

Embarrassed by their overt poverty, Baby Doll plans to renege on her end of the bargain just days before her birthday. Despite lacking in intelligence and qualifications, Baby Doll yearns to get a job. But when Arthur witnesses Baby Doll try to acquire a secretarial position by flirting with a local dentist, the jealous Arthur looks for a desperate solution to his problems. His answer is to set fire to the gin of his rival, an ancestral Sicilian named Vacarro (Eli Wallach). Incensed by Arthur's late-night act of arson, Vacarro enacts his Old Testament view of "justice" to avenge his loss; by seducing Arthur's wife.

Released in 1956, Baby Doll sparked a firestorm of criticism from religious and political leaders for its suggestive imagery, double-edged wordplay and raw sensuality. Much of this censure arrived before the film reached theatres by way of the film's racy poster adapted from the film's now infamous still of Baby Doll laying in her bed. Severely boycotted and banned by theatre distributors upon its release, the film was famously derided by Time magazine as "possibly the dirtiest American motion picture that has ever been legally exhibited." The Catholic Legion of Decency declared viewing the film was a sin.

Much of the film's controversy certainly stems from the divergent psychological worlds that Arthur Lee and Baby Doll reside in. Arthur Lee simply wants sex; Baby Doll refuses partially because she is not "ready for marriage." Her childlike world is solidified through living in a rotting house strewn with discarded Coke bottles, a hobbyhorse and her infamous bed. Her ambivalence is reinforced through her lack of education after she stopped at the fourth grade.

When Vacarro tries to seduce her on a swing and in an abandoned car on the Meighen property, Baby Doll appears reluctant not only because Vacarro's movements appear strange and uncomfortable, but also because she enjoys to participate in children's games, rather than engage in adult activities. Yet, the sensuality of these scenes is underscored by a suggestiveness, rather than an explicitness. Boris Kaufmen's camera never reveals where Vacarro's hands go, nor does it show anything more than Baby Doll singing to Vacarro as he lays in her bed.

For much of Kazan's film, the narrative strongly interjects between carnality and comedy. The decaying Southern mansion Arthur has purchased typifies much of the film's darkly comedic stance toward the South and Southerners. Arthur dreams of rebuilding the house merge with an ethos of restoring Southern glory, which contrasts with the reality that the region's cotton industry is now operated by the "foreigner" Vacarro, whose high-tech gin represents the modernity yokels like Arthur appear to reject. This is all evident in Vacarro's repeated praise for his Sicilian roots in that ancient civilization. The clean, progressive approach Vacarro adopts in his business plans or method of seduction sharply differentiates from Arthur's messy emotional imbalances and a house filled with trash Arthur that is unwilling to pay to have removed.

Surprisingly a comedy thematically centered upon Southern decay and repressed desires, the controversy surrounding Baby Doll has often strayed viewers away from its actual premise and approach. Directed by Elia Kazan with a bawdy eye, Baby Doll manages to eroticize some of the most pathetic and squalid surroundings captured on celluloid. While its lusty content has been dimmed by the passages of time, Baby Doll is still an interesting, flavorful film, which only threatens to fall apart in its frantic darkly screwball final third. Nevertheless, its flaws are amended by superb performances from the film's stars Karl Malden, Carroll Baker and Eli Wallach.

* Baby Doll is released on DVD by Warner Home Video and is also available in their excellent Tennessee Williams Film Collection

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

1961: The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (Quintero, 1961) 6/10

Throughout the his illustrious career, the American playwright Tennessee Williams produced numerous plays and poems, but only a single novel:The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. Adapted for the screen in 1961, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone marked the return of Vivien Leigh to films after a six-year absence.

In her second-to-last project, Vivien Leigh plays Karen Stone: an aging New York stage actress, who flees to Rome with her ailing husband after receiving poor reviews as Rosalynde in Shakespeare's As You Like It. On their journey to Italy, tragedy strikes when Karen's frail husband abruptly dies onboard a Transatlantic flight. Unwilling to resurrect her career and unable to face her critics, Karen decides to reside permanently in Rome.

After a year hidden away in her spacious apartment, Karen is introduced to the manipulative Contessa (Lotta Lenya) in a bid to end her solitary life. Adorned in gaudy clothing, the Contessa is in actuality an upper-class pimp who operates a niche market; offering young men to lonely middle-aged women amongst Rome's wealthy American expatriates and native noblesse. Desperate to count the prosperous Mrs. Stone as a valued client, the Contessa pushes the selfish Paolo (Warren Beatty) on her. But when the proud former actresses senses fail to be initally aroused, Paolo and the Contessa begin to hatch their own schemes with volatile results.

Partially shot on location, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is a flawed film, albeit one with a stimulating array of sub-texts. As with other Williams compositions, themes such as sexuality and youth play an integral role. From the film's first shot of Mrs. Stone's Roman enclave, illicit sex is found in abundance. Located adjacent to a series of notorious piazze, Mrs. Stone's living quarters are principally positioned at the epicentre for prostitution in Rome. Subsequently, when the Contessa champions the view from Karen's balcony, one wonders if she is referring to the historical sites or the physical sights below.

With her supercilious air and exultant manner, Mrs. Stone certainly represents one of Tennessee Williams chief thematic maxims as the moralistic individual who indulges in a covert lifestyle. Nevertheless, the presentation of this aspect of Mrs. Stone's life is particularly mystifying in Quintero's film. There is little inclination either through Gavin Lambert's script or Leigh's body language in the film's opening stages to explicating Karen's motivations or her erotic impulses. Rather, for the vast majority of The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Karen appears to be desperately seeking companionship of a platonic kind, which she can sadly only accrue through Beatty's local gigolo.

As demonstrated through her repeated glances in her mirror, Karen is beginning to feel her age. With his flirtatious gestures, Paolo certainly provides an element of flattery. Yet, throughout The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone there is little evidence that Karen really desires this type of intimacy. In one scene, Karen is described by a friend as a person eager to avoid love. The mere fact she has successfully holed up in her apartment for a year with scant social contact seems to suggest her character is content in her independence and introversion. Furthermore, the fact Karen has not explicitly ventured down to the piazze below to pick-up men indicates her lack of overt interest in sex. Thus, making her converted opinion of Paolo even more enigmatic.

Unlike Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, which also features a relationship between an aging former star and an obnoxious young man, Quintero's film does not propagate the idea that his female protagonist is either saddened by her plight or desiring a younger lover. Rather, the film makes repeated assertions that Karen is not a forgotten figure in New York and that she has intentionally chosen to avoid her former friends and associates.

While the emotional stimuli and physical cravings of its characters are questionable, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone does offer some compelling sideshows. Like Federico Fellini's masterpiece La Dolce Vita released a year earlier, Quintero's film explores the seedy and decadent Roman underworld of the affluent. Additionally, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone does address celebrity culture, although not nearly to the extent analyzed in La Dolce Vita.

Arguably the most interesting aspect of The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is the film's overall darkness. The maliciousness of its characters coupled with the film's sub-plot involving a stalker demonstrate a misanthropic outlook rarely addressed in American cinema during this period. The film's ambiguous finale is in particular especially bleak in its resolution.

Released in 1961, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone proved to be a critical and commercial disaster. Consequently, it became the only film ever assigned to experimental theater director Jose Quintero. Despite a subtle effort by Vivien Leigh and Lotta Lenya's twisted turn as the Contessa, most of the film's criticisms were directly attuned toward Warren Beatty's awkward performance as Paolo: a fact aggrandized by his errant faux Italian accent. Ever since its initial release, Beatty has somewhat unfairly continued to be earmarked as the film's achilles heel.

In actuality The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is a film broken by its slow, suggestive script emphasizing scintillating sin, over plot and character development. The result is arguably the weakest of Hollywood's Tennessee Williams cycle during the Fifties and Sixties. Nevertheless with its dark moral corners, Herbert Smith's luscious art direction and Franz Waxman's fluid cinematography, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone does at times propose to be something more than a flat jaded tale of forlorn romance.

*The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is released on DVD by Warner Home Video and is also available in their excellent Tennessee Williams Film Collection box set

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

1964: The Night of the Iguana

The Night of the Iguana (Huston, 1964) 9/10

The last major entry in the cycle of Tennessee Williams' adaptations that permeated Hollywood from 1950 to 1966, The Night of the Iguana is a rich, sensual experience: a tropical fever dream of a film filled with crippling anxieties, devilish rogues and bittersweet redemption. Directed by famed Hollywood auteur John Huston, The Night of the Iguana is one of the finest translations of Williams' work on celluloid: a film that produced an iconic performance from Richard Burton and turned Puerto Vallarta from a remote village barracked by mountainous jungle into a bustling tourist destination.

Shot in stunningly sharp monochrome by Luis Buñuel cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa, The Night of the Iguana centers on the moral and spiritual trials of the Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Richard Burton). Locked out of his Episcopalian Church for indulging his immoral appetites, the former Minister now spends his time working as a tour guide escorting tourists on religious pilgrimages, rather than guiding a flock of parishioners. Yet, even south of the border, his errant ways and bothersome habits continue to clutch at his soul.

His response to the lusty whims of a promiscuous minor named Charlotte (Sue Lyons) in particular cause a stir amongst the busload of middle-aged female Baptist school teachers. Despite his best efforts, Shannon is unable to abscond from her rash erotic impulses. Accused by Charlotte's infuriated chaperon Miss Fellowes (Grayson Hall) of seducing the teenager in his bedroom, the desperate Shannon cracks under the strain and diverts the tour from their base at a modern hotel in Puerto Vallarta to another locale, the Costa Verde Hotel: a folksy hilltop establishment on the outskirts of town owned by his highly sexualized, proto-hippie friend Maxine (Ava Gardner).

Yearning to stop Miss Fellowes from contacting the tour company in Texas, Shannon mistakenly hopes that he and Maxine can win over the tour's patrons at Costa Verde in order to spare him his measly job. Nevertheless, Shannon's predilections for the flesh and alcohol continue to haunt him in the cool mountain air. Soon "at the end of his rope," Shannon descends into madness and physical anguish: culminating in breakdown during a frenzied stormy night with only the assistance of his friend Maxine, the soothing words of traveling painter Hannah Jelkes (Deborah Kerr) and the poetry of her ailing eight-year old grandfather Nonno (Cyril Delevanti).

The Night of the Iguana is an intense portrait of human destruction. Bordering on a nervous breakdown, Burton's Shannon is a figure drowning in his anguished mistakes. Unable to truly connect with others for help, Shannon is a figure caught up in his own dissolution. As shown visually throughout the film, this strain takes on an almost torturously biblical route. In one memorable scene, a barefoot Shannon walks across broken shards of glass in order to resist the tempting Charlotte as taunts and teases him with her lusty flirtatiousness. Convinced the weight of God's fury is upon him, Shannon even tries to strangle himself with a gold crucifix, he procured from a pawnshop.

Yet, despite his weaknesses and failings, Shannon is still an intensely proud individual. After Miss Fellowes engages in a fact-finding mission in order to taint his credibility, Shannon rebukes her claims that he was defrocked with conviction and intensity. In response, Shannon expresses his tormented relationship with God at the source of his professional woes; highlighted by his unwillingness to view God as a childish and petulant figurehead. In his frank discussions with Hannah Jelkes, Shannon strives to correlate a genuine spiritual association with Him. This connection is partially frayed by the inability of others to understand Shannon's moral faux-pas as the strain of enforced perfection on a broken individual.

The women in The Night of the Iguana play an important part in Shannon's misery and search for purpose. Like her earlier and more infamous role as the title character in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Sue Lyons plays a teenager who tempts an older man. But unlike the lecherous Humbert Humbert in Lolita, Shannon earnestly wants to suppress his feelings. Lyons plays her role in The Night of the Iguana as a series of quick emotional outbursts; flitting from one frothy viewpoint to the next as each constituted an aspect of eternity.

Her chaperon, Miss Fellowes is an all together different creature. Unlike, the flirtatious Charlotte, Miss Fellowes is stiff and distant. Portrayed in the film as a closeted lesbian, her vocational need to protect Charlotte seems both connected to her highly moralistic character, but also her own interests in the girl. Her sharp tongued attacks are not only leveled at Shannon, but to his highly-sexed friend Maxine, who also poses a threat to the social character she aspires to represent.

Bouncy, yet bearing an undercurrent of contempt, Maxine is a highly independent woman. Sexually liberated even before the death of her husband Fred, Maxine is characterized by her earthy and carnal characteristics. Despite the censorship of the era, it quickly becomes apparent that Maxine regularly engages in a multitude of sexual activities with her two young Mexican cabana boys. Aging, yet still beautiful, Maxine feels alive and wanted through them. Yet, in spite of their presence, Maxine still desires Shannon, who has continually rebuffed her advances out of respect for Fred. Nevertheless, Maxine offers Shannon a sense of home and permanency that his troubled life is crucially lacking.

The final woman who offers Shannon comfort is the gentle painter Hannah Jelkes. Unlike Charlotte and Maxine, Hannah is a highly asexual creature. Contemplative and assured, she resists Shannon's advances because she believes in love for it what offers beyond its physical capacities. Traveling with her aging grandfather, the pair offer their art as payment for their lodgings and food. Unlike the proud Shannon, Hannah feels no shame for her destitution, because she is not bound to a world of materialism and money. Rather, she is complete in the world around her and thus tries to make Shannon understand his shortcomings and flaws.

The principal metaphor in the film emerges from their plainspoken conversations. Like the Iguana, Maxine's cabana boys have tied to a post in order to fatten up to eat, Shannon too has a noose around his neck. The weight of his religious commitments and his moral principles is too great a weight for his tortured soul to bear alone. Thus, Huston's film becomes a homage to companionship, to art and to ethereal beauty. The film's principal characters are each astutely acted. With his booming voice and theatrical disposition, Burton is perfect as the plagued priest. Ava Gardner is equally remarkable against-type as the primal Maxine, while Deborah Kerr adds a saintliness and calming resonance to the picture.

Featuring a series of superb performances and gorgeous on-location cinematography, John Huston's adaptation of The Night of the Iguana is a criminally overlooked and undervalued entry into his filmography and the filmic Tennessee Williams' canon. Unlike other "prestige pictures" of its day, The Night of the Iguana does not appear dated and bloated; in large part due to Gabriel Figueroa's cinematography and Huston's emphasis on capturing the emotional pitfalls and sensual primacy of Williams' work set to an exotic background.

At times a stunning achievement.

* The Night of the Iguana is released on DVD by Warner Home Video and is available in their excellent Tennessee Williams Film Collection box set

Other John Huston Films Reviewed:
Across The Pacific (1942) 3/10
The Unforgiven (1960) 7/10

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

1973: Tennessee Williams' South

Tennessee Williams' South (Rasky, 1973) 5/10

The theatre of Tennessee Williams is indelibly associated with the South. With its steamy passages and sweaty textures, the work of the famed American playwright has become crucially inseparable from the American south in its dialect heavy language, settings and themes.

In 1973, the Canadian Broadcasting Company released Tennessee Williams' South, an eighty minute documentary directed by Canadian documentarian Harry Rasky that aimed to analyze Williams' relation to the South: its geography, its culture and its people. The result was a curious amalgamation of interviews, theatrical performances and poetry readings that overall reinforces the mythology of Tennessee Williams, rather than de-construct his personal and literary biography.

Filmed over the course of a year, Tennessee Williams' South traces the roots of Williams' work in a series of interviews at the author's Key West residence and former New Orleans haunts. The film's recorded conversations between Rasky and Williams unearth elements about his influences and his relationship to the South. Describing himself as an "angry old man,"Williams conversely appears jovial throughout the majority of his interactions.

Despite frequently discussing the South as both a geographical place and a state of mind in his art, Williams readily stresses the importance of personal experience in his work. The dualistic influences of the experiential and the cultural penetrate into a host of unique influences from his Ohioan grandparents to his absent father, his schizophrenic sister to African-American culture. Although Rasky frequently tries to imbue a sense of Williams as the preserver of a broken Southern identity, the renowned writer is quick to stress his eccentric ways and his status as the head of his own unique country.

Subsequently, the authentic South in Rasky's film clashes with the "South" of Williams' work. As the progenitor of a personalized realm of broken Southern damsels and a frittered plantation culture, Williams' "South" is one of a fading aristocratic environment reluctant to change, a society gone with the wind. Nevertheless, there is little in Williams' central output emphasizing the spiritual and social plight of the Southern working-class or African-American populations who represented the real South. Williams' conception is thus one unique to his work, a fact that Rasky fails to centrally address throughout the documentary.

Instead Rasky attempts to incorporates elements of Williams' work that found their influence in his life. Rasky achieves this by fusing interviews and poetry readings with slices of Night of the Iguana, The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire and other plays to inject Williams' personality and biography onto his literary legacy. Featuring performances by actors such as Burl Ives, Jessica Tandy and Michael York, the theatrical bits are hit-and-miss. Dated in their approach, these pieces suffer from stiff performances (see, for example, John Colicos and Colleen Dewhurst's rendition of Night of the Iguana) and an overly textual approach that emphasizes Williams' words, over the performers' respective renditions.

Paralleling the efforts of the film's thespian interpretations, Rasky's film suffers partially due to its slavery to the script; its adherence to the Williams' legend. There are no critical insights into his relationships, his political opinions or his feelings towards cinematic representations of his work. Nor is there any genuine disassembling of the themes in Williams' oeuvre beyond the grandiose idea of "the South." Consequently, Rasky's benign and myopic questions fall into Williams' eager hands, producing a film that warmly addresses with panache the roots of Tennessee Williams, but fails to explore his broken branches and torn stems.

* Tennessee Williams' South is released on DVD by Warner Home Video and is only available in their excellent Tennessee Williams Film Collection box set.

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

1958: Cat On A Hot Tin Roof

Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (Richard Brooks, 1958) 7/10

"Big Daddy...What is it that makes him so big? His big heart? His big belly? Or his big money? (Brick Pollitt)

The theatre of Tennessee Williams is one of liars and failures, conniving creatures and tortured customers. Perhaps no other work in his oeuvre better represented and quantified these diverse characteristics than Williams' 1955 Pulitzer Prize winning play Cat On A Hot Tin Roof: a tawdry story built around the falsehoods of its characters and the complex socio-cultural environment they operate within.

Set in southern Mississippi, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof focuses on the destructive crises affecting the affluent Pollitt family and their divulgence over a tumultuous weekend. The film specifically centers on the fractious relationship between former athlete Brick Pollitt (Paul Newman) and his alluring wife Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor). Escaping a lifetime of poverty through marriage to the youngest member of the Pollitt clan, Maggie is perturbed by their failing marriage. Sexless and fraught with altercations, the couple's relationship reaches a nadir when they travel to Brick's family plantation to celebrate the birthday of his father known as Big Daddy (Burl Ives).

Rather than a celebratory event, Big Daddy's birthday quickly unravels into a specter of violence, drunkenness and collusion. Partially stemming from the rumour that Big Daddy is possibly dying of colon cancer, the party sours from a festival of life into a gala of connivance. Leading this scheming are Brick's solicitor brother Gooper (Jack Carson) and his acquisitive wife Mae (Madeleine Sherwood). Spawning five hellish brats, Gooper and Mae are eager to secure Big Daddy's illustrious fortune through any means possible; even through coercing Gooper's emotionally unstable mother Big Mama (Judith Anderson) into signing a series of contracts to ensure their ownership of Big Daddy's properties.

Holed up in his room with a broken ankle, the alcoholic Brick stews about the culture of lies, the family have structured itself upon. Guilt-ridden by the death of his "best friend" Skipper and distrustful toward materialism, Brick spirals into an inebriated stupor that threatens to tear apart not only his childless marriage to Maggie, but also his status in the Pollitt household.

Throughout Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, the theme of mendacity emerges as a key idea. Structuring their lives on false images and dreams, the Pollitt family sees the undoing of their individual acts of subterfuge during Big Daddy's birthday celebrations. During a stormy weekend, family members such as Brick and Big Daddy begin to see the unravelling of these lies through an earnest attempt to reconcile truth into their relationships. Big Daddy's curmudgeonly approach to others reveals a volatile desire to truly express his repressed contempt toward his wife, his ill-behaved grandchildren and Brick's wallowing into an alcohol-induced world of self-pity.

In contrast to his family's boisterous patriarch, Brick prefers to drown his resentment in liquor. His inability to express his pain and sorrow pushes him further away from his estranged wife and isolated family. Brick's anger is both recent and long-term. He virulently detests his father's idealization of love through the form of material transactions, but Brick also despises both his wife and himself for their role in Skipper's suicide. While Brick rancorously objects to his family's culture of lies, he neglects his own aggressive and frequent participation in this realm.

Brick and Skipper's past friendship is presented throughout Cat On A Hot Tin Roof in ambiguous terms, yet their is an underlying sense their relationship probably held homosexual qualities. As the recipient of a homosexual advance or perhaps a repressed homosexual himself, Brick vigorously attempts to deny the true extent of his emotionally intense bond to Skipper. In doing so, he creates voluminous fissures in his marriage to Maggie and isolates his feelings from others with disastrous consequences.

The distancing effects brought on by the repression of these feelings is smartly addressed by director Richard Brooks throughout much of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Frequently, Brooks places characters in stark opposition to one another, often shooting characters talking to one another faced in opposite directions. This particularly works well in several of the film's key speeches involving the emotionally cold Brick. Notably, much of the play's homosexual content was muted by the censors at the time. In spite of the enforced revisions, Brooks manages to admirably maintain the sense of equivocal uncertainty fermenting in Brick's soul.

Originally earmarked for the openly gay director George Cukor, the film was instead given to Richard Brooks after Cukor turned the film down. While Cukor would have more likely given the film a greater visual eloquence, the more action-orientated Brooks offered the film a biting, steamy flavour that ultimately won over critics and audiences. The film's success aided not only the careers of Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, but also Richard Brooks who would later go onto adapt another Tennessee Williams' play (Sweet Bird of Youth) also starring Newman and Madeleine Sherwood.

Brooding and snarling, Newman carved a niche for himself as a serious actor capable of skillfully playing the arrogant/angry young man: an archetype he would frequently revisit throughout the early stages of his career in films such as The Hustler, Hud, Sweet Bird of Youth and The Young Philadelphians. Despite losing her then third husband Mike Todd in a fiery plane crash during filming, Elizabeth Taylor continued working and produced one of the most sultry and dynamic performances of her career. Yet, the film's true show stopper was neither Newman or Taylor, but Burl Ives who reprised his Broadway role as the cranky larger-than-life patriarch Big Daddy. Played with cantankerous verve, Ives' performance provides the film's strong moral core, as well as the centre of much of its anger and sorrow.

Director Richard Brooks' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof remains one of the most enduring cinematic adaptations of Williams' work. Constructed with a moody mis-en-scene, Brooks gave Cat On A Hot Tin Roof the type of scorching, sultry atmosphere that has defined Williams work for audiences and critics alike. Unlike his second Williams' adaptation Sweet Bird of Youth, Brooks' first attempt at translating the Southern playwright was not as fatally destabilized by the censorship of the era. Rather, the film's tedious pacing is its only truly detrimental attribute; a factor that is nevertheless ultimately redeemed by its acute performances and evocative visual ornamentation.

* Cat On A Hot Tin Roof is released on DVD by Warner Home Video and is available in their excellent Tennessee Williams Film Collection box set

Other Richard Brooks films reviewed:
Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) 6/10

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

1962: Sweet Bird of Youth

Sweet Bird of Youth (Richard Brooks, 1962) 6/10

"Provocative Adult Entertainment." In 1962, Richard Brooks' second cinematic Tennessee Williams adaptation Sweet Bird of Youth truly embodied the three words emblazoned in the middle of its orange hued poster. Today, the topics discussed in Sweet Bird of Youth would appear tame to a modern audience, despite their immoral nature.

Yet in 1962, Williams' play was so risqué that when Brooks transferred Sweet Bird of Youth onto celluloid, he was unable to incorporate several topics found in Williams' play such as venereal disease and castration into the shooting script. The removal of these aspects may have changed the overall effect of the film in its conclusion; yet even without their inclusion into the film's final cut, Brooks' film still featured several taboo elements: some so controversial their existence was merely hinted at indirectly during the film.

Reprising his role on Broadway, the film stars Paul Newman as Chance Wayne: a young Floridian man desperate for success, but undeniably naive in his actions. Madly in love with Heavenly (Shirley Knight), the daughter of tyrannical Southern politician. Boss Finley (Ed Begley), Chance is informed by her father that he must acquire riches and fame in order to secure her hand in marriage. Leaving his job as a busboy at a Gulf Coast country club, Chance heads for the bright lights of New York and Hollywood to find his fortune in order to retrieve Heavenly from her father's potent grip.

Unbeknownst to Chance, his glorious vision is a fatefully flawed apparition. After years struggling to break into Hollywood as an actor, Chance has achieved little in the way of wealth or fame. The only notoriety he has accrued is through being an objectified instrument of pleasure for the wives of millionaires, the debutantes of "the horsey set" and lonely eccentrics. One such eccentric is fallen star Alexandra del Lago (Geraldine Page). Once one of Hollywood's greatest names, del Lago's latest notable escapades have less to do with her on-screen performances, but through her off-screen exodus from the preview of her latest film. Copiously addicted to drugs, alcohol and sex, Alexandra has become an agoraphobic wastrel desperate to nullify her public rejection, yet still living up to her reputation as a diva.

Believing he has found the key to his future success, Chance takes the emotionally unstable Alexandra with him to St. Cloud during a sunny Easter weekend. The religious nature of the weekend should offer all its participants a chance from redemption, cleanliness and resurrection. Nevertheless, the presence of sin and evil is well-noted. Despite confessing a sensitivity to Alexandra's plight, Chance desires to use her to fulfill his self-inflated ambitions whether it be through tender words or blackmail. Blinded by his need to impress Heavenly's father, Chance has failed to recognize the nature of his surroundings, whilst chasing his "phony dream." Nevertheless, reality and his past actions soon return to haunt him, as the follies of his ambitions and his failures become achingly clear.

At its core Sweet Bird of Youth is a film about failed dreams. Several of the film's principal characters engage in the creation of overly ambitious dreams, whose success is struck a fatal blow due to the constraints of reality. Whilst, initially inspired by Heavenly's plight, Chance's dreams morph into inflated, self-centered projects that have little chance to succeed. Lacking any genuine acting talent, Chance's only skills and attributes are purely corporeal and sexual. His in-roads into Hollywood have been through the exploitation of his youth not to sell films, but for jaded aging women to purchase youth through relationships with him. Yet, youth is a fleeting commodity and Chance in his imaginative gullibility notably fails to realize its true nature. His plans are bold and engaging, but are reliant on unlikely breaks that divert him from the original purpose of his project.

Youth is also a commodity traded by Boss Finley. Utilizing his hot-headed son (Rip Torn), Finley has amassed a small army of neo-fascistic thugs to terrorize his enemies. Despite, his Christian populist rhetoric, Finley has also used Heavenly's sexuality to secure powerful contracts, only to- as with Chance- exile these men from his state once they no longer have any socio-political value to him. In Sweet Bird of Youth Boss Finley's aggressive machismo and misogyny contrasts neatly with Chance's flaccid approach to Heavenly, whom he promises to abscond, but repeatedly fails to confront.

The theme of failure also abounds in Sweet Bird of Youth. Like the Rev. T. Lawrence Shannon in Williams' The Night of the Iguana, Chance struggles to understand his errors and seek an alternative path: instead he recreantly looks to exploit weaknesses in others (i.e. Alexandra del Lago) to writhe out of a problematic situation of his own doing. The downfall of her career has also left Alexandra del Lago in a situation, were unwilling to commit to rebuilding her reputation, the actresses sinks into a world of debauchery and sin. Yet, rather than attempting to amend these flaws directly, several characters in Sweet Bird of Youth use duplicitous means to either forget via sex and drugs or correct through violence, blackmail and fear-mongering.

Released by MGM in 1962, Sweet Bird of Youthwas a popular and critical success, which aided in cementing Paul Newman as a genuine Hollywood star. In the forty-six years since its initial release, Sweet Bird of Youth has dated in parts of its overcooked southern melodrama. Brooks' method of cutting to flashbacks is particularly poor: appearing more at home in a 1940's comedy with its swirling dissolves and similar devices. Slowly paced in parts Sweet Bird of Youth is slightly too baggy, often engaging in sub-plots that divert from the true essence of the film. Additionally, the removal of certain plot elements involving Chance and Heavenly's relationship from the play due to censorship, leaves the film's finale in a discomforting position that fails to recognize the emotional complexity of their past.

Nevertheless, Sweet Bird of Youth does feature some excellent performances in this morally acidic film. Newman is commendable as aspiring actor-cum-gigolo Chance Wayne. Geraldine Page's swings back and forth on a tumultuous emotionally pendulum as Alexandra del Lago and produces one of the film's highlights. Ed Begley's work as the nefarious Boss Finley won him an Academy Award, whilst Madeline Sherwood offers an electric performance as Finley's favourite prostitute, who becomes victim of an act of misogynistic violence that rivals Lee Marvin's coffee pot in The Big Heat and James Cagney's grapefruit in The Public Enemy

Controversial and corrosive, Sweet Bird of Youth is an enjoyable, but often turgid entry in the cycle of Tennessee Williams films Hollywood produced during the Fifties and Sixties. Despite a strong cast and edgy subject matter, Sweet Bird of Youth probably failed to fulfill its full potential on film. Certainly censorship was a critical factor, but also Brooks' direction, whilst at times laudable lacked the ability to translate Williams' intense emotionalism into the type of fruitful vehicle of pity, depravity and quasi-religious redemption Sweet Bird of Youth could and should have been.

* Sweet Bird of Youth is released on DVD by Warner Home Video and is available in their excellent Tennessee Williams Film Collection box set

Other Richard Brooks films reviewed:
Cat On A Hot Tin Roof (1958) 7/10

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

2008: The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008) 9/10

"Some men just want to watch the world burn" (Alfred Pennyworth)

In The Dark Knight, the latest addition to English director Christopher's Nolan's revisionist take on the Batman series, there is a brief, but important conversation in a Gotham restaurant between Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) on the subject of security and history.

Underneath the glowing chandeliers and golden textured walls, Dent the crusading newly appointed district-attorney pontificates on Gotham's criminal underbelly, seizing the opportunity to express his solaced call for a return to an era when threats to democratic republicanism were thwarted through the instillation of power into the hands of a trusted and respected leader.

Before the brash public official can finalize his thesis on the matter, he is reminded by his girlfriend Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal) that in Roman times, this protection of the republic resulted in its ultimate disintegration through the dictatorship of Julius Caesar. The balance between liberty and security echoes freely through the post-9/11 prism of Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. More than a simple action film, Nolan imbues his project with a sense of social and philosophical debate rarely evident in the genre.

With The Dark Knight Nolan puts forth questions designed to mirror our modern societies and the ethical and existential implications faced by contemporary governments in an unstable age. It is a tale of not simply the external competition between good and evil forces, but also the internalized struggle of heroes and villains. It is a story of personal and public corruption, tragedy and crisis; a story demonstrating the tempting lust of power and its dissolute attributes. The result is at times an incredibly dark, vengeful and bleak film scurrying through the depths of the human soul.

Although the plot primarily focuses on the emergence of the Joker (the late Heath Ledger) and his stated claim to destroy Batman, its undercurrent is one deeply rooted in the Joker's appropriation of Nietzschean and Machiavellian philosophies. Whilst, the Joker openly states to an assortment of Gotham gangsters his willingness to kill Batman for a price, the Joker himself needs Batman to satisfy his own psyche; at one point informing Batman: "You complete me."

Unlike, Gotham's other criminals, the Joker is not motivated by material goods. A self-proclaimed "agent of chaos", the Joker's incentive is through the promotion and adoption of his anarchic and nihilist ideology of terror. Performed in a darkly humorous, yet philosophically intrusive and psychologically violent manner by Heath Ledger, the Joker is no longer the twisted campy trickster of Romero or Nicholson. Rather, he is an earnest observer of humanity: a figure whose terrorist actions are partially designed almost as scientific tests or sociological experiments to hypothesize on the moral fabric of the human race.

The ethical dilemmas posed by the Joker's actions also affect Batman, exposing the hero's flaws and limitations. The result is at times an almost quasi-religious contest between the forces of good and evil. Their relationship mirrors a scene from the New Testament between Jesus and the Devil in the desert. In the film, the satanic Joker taunts and plays with the flawed messianic Batman's soul in a push for him to break his vows, rules, oaths and commandments. This biblical thread can also be adopted in the Joker's attempt to convert Harvey Dent from a beacon of hope into a vindictive force of evil. In a rare move for a Hollywood action film, almost every principal character in The Dark Knight has their faith in humanity tested.

As a noted admirer of Film Noir [1], Christopher Nolan adopts the genre's tropes and insights into moral conflict with visual skill and aplomb. The decay of morality and the corruptibility of individuals through power, materialism and hate filters into almost every aspect of The Dark Knight. Even the film's protagonist is not spared, after all he too is human. The ramifications run deep in this dynamic inspection of the darkest capsulizations of individuals and societies. In Nolan's film, the price of success comes at the cost of loved ones, friendships and external perceptions.

In doing so, The Dark Knight also questions the role of the Caped Crusader himself. As Batman's mere presence appears to increase the proclivity of his criminal foes, his corresponding actions repeatedly and simultaneously undermine the democratically elected officials and the necessary legal and judicial forces designed to protect ordinary citizens. Batman's presumptuous subversion of this system espouses doubts into not only the legality of his vigilante role, but also his increasingly individualistic usage of extra-legal procedures.

Subsequently, Christopher Nolan's film along with Heath Ledger's stunning performance raises the bar for Hollywood action films. The Dark Knight is not merely a source of entertainment, but also a fountain of social debate spraying forth images and concepts resonating ideas topical and fresh to its contemporary audience. The Dark Knight is a contemplative gesture in an era of insensate big-budget filmmaking, which certainly will be remembered for generations to come.

[1] See Nolan's appearance in Film Noir: Bringing Darkness Into Light found as a bonus disc featured in Warner Brothers' Film Noir Classic Collection Vol. 3

* The Dark Knight is released by Warner Brothers

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

2007: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Burton, 2007) 9/10

"I Will Have Vengeance! (Sweeney Todd)

Since the days of the "penny dreadfuls," Victorian London's dank and dark narrow streets have offered us a cornucopia of thieves, swindlers and murderers. From Dickensian workhouses to Jack the Ripper, 19th century London has been mythologized as a sordid terminal for criminal activities; subsequently branding a series of gloomy images into our minds and cultural impressions.

Whilst the age brought us scientific advancements by Charles Darwin and Alexander Graham Bell, it is the bloodlust, exploitation and deviousness lying within the belly of an elephantine empire that modern culture remains most interested in.
Recorded in the literature of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Dickens, these themes and motifs have been extended and preserved by Hollywood.

In 1980, David Lynch directed the masterful The Elephant Man about John Merrick, whose disfigurement was showcased for commercial profit; in 2001, Johnny Depp entered these quarters as an opium-addled detective in From Hell a stylish, underrated period thriller by the Hughes brothers. In 2007, Depp once again forayed into the seedy underbelly of Victorian Britain in Tim Burton's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The title character is an amalgamation of fact, fiction and urban legend: a serial killer driven to madness and obsession after his true love is taken away from him. In the film, Johnny Depp stars as Benjamin Barker, a renowned and happily married Fleet Street barber, who is sent to fifteen years of hard labour in the colonies on false charges by Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman); a sinister figure who lusts for Barker's young wife. Rescued by sailor Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower), Barker returns to London vowing vengeance on those who stole his life from him.

Upon re-emerging in London, Barker finds his former home is now a rundown restaurant owned by Nellie Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) who gleefully serves "the worst pies in London." Hearing that his wife has poisoned herself and his daughter is now a ward of the Judge, Barker re-fashions himself as Sweeney Todd and along with the smitten Lovett plots his revenge. He is further assisted in his plans by Anthony Hope who, after catching a glimpse of Todd's daughter Johanna (Jayne Wiesner), yearns for her heart.

While Nellie Lovett lusts for Todd's broken heart, the brooding and impatient barber begins to utilize his profession for barbary, rather than barbering. To placate his embittered soul and cravings for cruel justice, Todd begins to transform his acts of violence into a singular and calculated act of reprisal, but into a random outburst against a society at large that has allowed for the destruction and wasted hours of his life.

The specter of obsession dominates Burton's film. These obsessions are usually of the heart, in the hope of obtaining a desired figure. Yet, these possessive lusts are often one-sided and selfish: lacking a reciprocal beating of hearts. The one-dimensional nature of these overriding infatuations is ultimately crushing. Only those with a mutual love obtain the happiness they desire. For others, their compulsions hasten their downfall and the destruction of their facile minded souls.

Similarly, the film's sub-narrative regarding the content of Lovett's pies is also indicative of a society that gorges upon violence and is willing to accept murderousness as a necessary component. As Lovett changes the ingredients in her pies, she gains a previously absent degree of fame and fortune, in spite of the macabre composition of her creations. Yet, as Burton's film and Sondheim's musical note, only one figure begs to question the morality of those consuming Lovett's pies. Interestingly, this character is an insane homeless woman, whose own fractured sense of scope is able to see through the advertising and falseness associated with Lovett's mini-enterprise.

Throughout his career, Burton has not been a director associated with extensive socio-political commentary in his films and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is no exception. Rather like Vincente Minnelli before him, Burton is an aesthete: a visual artist who creates fantastic images imbued with the grotesque and maligned in society. Like Sleepy Hollow and Edward Scissorhands, Burton channels the familiar Gothic tones of his filmography into a stylish, blood-soaked musical that never descends into parody.

Burton and his cast do not turn the picture into an excessive pantomime. Both Depp and Bonham Carter are perfectly cast in their roles. The actors sing in naturalistic tones that fervently express their frenzied emotional states. Depp's character is reigned in not through visceral bombast, but the sulking anguish within his soul. His frantic hair and melancholy blackened eyes are those of a man suffering from an incurable insomnia brought upon by tragedy and extirpation. Despite, her gloomy appearance, Bonham Carter's Nellie is a wonderfully naive figure, driven by her salacious attitude toward the barber; a point exemplified in an imaginative sequence in which Lovett daydreams about their future.

Alan Rickman is deftly cast as the imposing Judge. While Rickman is usually selected for his deep vocal tones, his seething eyes and imposing figure are perfectly suited for his character. The villainous supporting cast including Sascha Baron Cohen as the faux-Italian rival barber Pirelli and Timothy Spall as the Judge's henchmen Beadle Bramford offer deliciously poisonous vehicles for Todd to act out his revenge.

Utilizing the sadness and hate within his characters, Burton crafts an internalized musical. Unlike traditional Hollywood musicals, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is not a bombastic colourful romp. Rather it is a bitingly dark disclosure of the soul. Under the auspices of another director, the feelings and emotions divulged through songs of rage could easily have turned into extraneous feats. Yet, in Burton's hands, these sentiments are closeted entries into the private enclaves of humanity. The result is a rich, blackened musical of the human spirit and the raw obsessive reactions it emits.

One of the best films of 2007.

* Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is released by Warner Brothers

Other Tim Burton Films Reviewed:
Big Fish (2003) 9/10

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

2006: The Good German

The Good German (Soderbergh, 2006) 6/10

Dating as far back as Lillian Gish and D.W. Griffith, associations between stars and filmmakers have become noted in cinematic lore. From Anthony Mann's collaborations with Jimmy Stewart to Martin Scorsese's outings with Robert De Niro, these relationships have been long feted as a special artistic bond emerging from cinematic circles.

And while today, viewers are quick to note the six films of Burton and the three outings between Depp and Scorsese and DiCaprio, the frequent partnership between George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh has been surprisingly underrepresented.
Beginning with 1998's Out Of Sight, the pair have worked together on no less than six films as actor and director, as well as a multitude of collaborations through their joint production company Section Eight Productions including Christopher Nolan's remake of Insomnia and Clooney's sophomore film Good Night and Good Luck. The pair's most recent outing outside of the successful the successful Ocean's Eleven franchise was 2006's The Good German.

Adapted from Joseph Kanon's novel, Soderbergh's film is an experimental homage to the noirish Hollywood thrillers of yesteryear. Featuring odes and references to films such as Casablanca and The Third Man, The Good German stars George Clooney as Jake Geismar a war correspondent for the New Republic who lands in post-war Berlin to cover the realignment of Europe's post-war map underway at the nearby Potsdam Conference. Upon his arrival, Geismar is gifted a brash young driver named Tully (Tobey Maguire) to drive him from one location to the next.

Despite his boyish looks and enthusiasm, Tully is a con artist and violent manipulator; engaging in black market profiteering with the help of the Soviets, in order to assist his prostitute girlfriend Lena (Cate Blanchett) in her quest to leave Berlin. Unbeknownst to Tully, Geismar is already familiar with the mysterious Lena, as he too had once had an extended affair with her. Yet, Lena is not only the object of their obsessions. Her estranged husband Emil (Christian Oliver) is wanted by both the Russians and the Americans for their post-war rocket programs; leading both Tully and Geismar into an even deadlier and murkier world of murder, deception and Cold War politics.

Thematically, the film focuses on two concepts: obsession and guilt. Both Tully and Geismar are besotted by Lena. Their mutual infatuation with her is one that is sexually driven. Each either consciously (Tully) or unconsciously (Geismar) view Lena as belonging to them. Yet, Lena herself is a being easily detached from others. Her commitments and loyalties belong to Lena and only Lena. She is a selfish, brooding manipulator of men: using her sexuality for self-advancement in a world with restricted socio-economic mobility for women, particularly those with familial links to Nazism. Survival is her one true obsession.

Thus, Lena almost becomes a fusion of the numerous fictional German women that flooded post-war German literature and cinema. Prostitutes such as Fassbinder's Maria Braun- herself played by Hanna Schygulla in the spirit of Dietrich- whose central purpose becomes the necessity to survive. Amidst, the chaos of the wartime era, their black-market offerings ensure some stability in uncertain economic times. Yet, perhaps in part due to the untold levels of death and destruction, it is a guiltless tactic.

The theme of German guilt and complicity in the atrocities of the Nazi era is also central to the film. Lena repeatedly insists her husband is a good human being, literally a good German. Frequently during The Good German, Clooney's Geismar comes into contact with American officials at OMGUS, who are rummaging through libraries of files and documents in an attempt to separate the victims from their victimizers. Geismar's assertions that placing the entire country on trial is wrong may have come to fruition, but Lena's lack of remorse and guilt toward her actions in the film is an interesting concept that unfortunately Soderbergh does not explore to its full potential.

The Good German is an both an exercise in style and in homage. Shot in colour and then converted to crisp black and white, Soderbergh replicates the style of classic Hollywood thrillers of the Forties and Fifties through the extensive use of editing wipes, rear projection and stock footage. This ode to Hollywood's Golden Era extends into the acting as Clooney channels Bogart and Cary Grant; Blanchett mirrors Dietrich and Tobey Maguire adopts the clipped dialogue of an endless array of wiseguys. Yet, like most tributes, the film lacks the dynamics of the original.

The inclusion of sex scenes and swearing dilutes the potential for a complete deferential treatment, even if Soderbergh believed mimicking the last shots of Casablanca would merely suffice. While Blanchett's cold performance is a beautiful replication of Dietrich's finest work, Maguire is completely miscast. Appearing in monochrome in Pleasantville may have advanced Maguire's physical adaptability to black and white cinematography, but his ability to reach into the style of the era is severely limited and one-dimensional. Certainly, Ryan Gosling procuring the spirit of William Holden would have been a far better choice. Clooney suffices in a decent, if unmemorable turn as a lovelorn journalist.

Without question, the film's weakest element is Paul Attanasio's screenplay, which convolutes itself with a myriad of cloudy, twists that are often neglected and unresolved. Yet despite the lack of structure in its frail narrative, The Good German is still an interesting film for the curious filmgoer. Whilst the partnership between Clooney and Soderbergh fails to create the creative masterpiece the pair potentially strove toward, the film deserves to be watched for Cate Blanchett's scintillating performance alone.

* The Good German is available on DVD through Warner Home Video.

Copyright 2008 8½ Cinematheque

2007: Zodiac

Zodiac (Fincher, 2007) 10/10

There is more than one way to lose your life to a killer (Zodiac Poster Tagline)

American director David Fincher is one of contemporary cinema's most perplexing talents. His films are often artfully constructed, yet he has been noted for his fondness for mainstream fare such as Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. His career began in music videos and- has continuted to be involved with- commercials, yet his films overtly use the cinematic medium to its fullest, rather than to create extended pop videos.

His oeuvre has currently been defined by two characteristics: first, a dark aesthetic prowess embodied in astute cinematography and a taste for psychologically menancing and often violently gruesome subject matter. From The Game through Seven and Panic Room, Fincher has demonstrated a cunning ability to create films that artfully menace both the audience and his high calibre actors with suspenseful chills and morbid curiousities.

The second notable facet of Fincher's career has occurred off-screen. For all his talent and precision in creating gems such as Fight Club and the aforementioned projects, Fincher has had a hit and miss connection to the audience. Seven, Panic Room and The Game all raked in hundreds of millions, whereas Fight Club and Zodiac tanked at the box-office. And while the former notably became a best-selling cult classic after its release on DVD, one can only believe that the public response to Zodiac will be less vocal, yet equally passionate amongst its supporters.

Despite its critical acclaim, Zodiac was a major flop domestically; breaking even due to the ever-important overseas markets. Certainly several factors played into the film's commercial failure. The almost three-hour running length turned off countless viewers asininely unwilling to sit through Fincher's work, which also limited the amount of times the film could be run. The studio's decision to release a film with potential for mass critical acclaim at the beginning of March, rather than the Fall award season was equally damning to the film's commercial potential. But then again, grosses and popularity does not automatically equate brilliance.

Brilliant however is an appropriate euphemism to describe Zodiac: a jazzy riff of a film that winds through dark alleys, smoky factories, cluttered apartments and decrepit basements with obessive intrigue and innate destruction. With Zodiac, Fincher has created a mature and fully realized project that will probably always remain a forgotten classic when bookended against his other films. Yet, a contemporary classic it is: a film with countless potential to be acclaimed the year's best film a decade from now.

Based on two books by former San Francisco Chronicle cartoonist Robert Graysmith, the film documents the hunt for the elusive killer through the eyes of three principal characters: Chronicle cartoonist Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), Chronicle crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) and San Francisco police officer Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo). Through a series of encrypted letters in the aftermath of a slew of gruesome crimes, the mysterious individiual simply known as "The Zodiac" terrorizes The Bay Area for almost a decade. Armed with their own respective interests into the case, the three men each desire to solve the riddled identity of the killer, yet at a cost to their own personal and private lives.

Filmed with neo-noirish sensibilities, Fincher creates a masterly and detailed portrait of San Francisco and California in the late Sixties through the Seventies. Spending eighteen months researching, interviewing and investigating the case, director David Fincher and screenwriter James Vanderbilt created a dialogue-driven film structured in fact, yet coolly enveloped in mythology, intrigue and personal loss.The period flavour is astutely captured by referencing the styles and cinematic approaches used in films ranging from San Fransisco based action films such as Dirty Harry and Bullitt to 70's political thrillers like All The President's Men and The Conversation, as well as the photography of Stephen Shore.

Hauntingly shot in digital cinematography by Harris Savides, Fincher is able to convincingly utilize CGI to create a forgotten analog world of Noirish tropes, spacious offices and amateur sleuthdom. Through this environment, Fincher uses Graysmith's work and the research he and Vanderbilt undertook to establish a thematic aura of obsession. Toschi, Graysmith and Avery each become gripped on discovering the true identity of the killer at the expense of their personal and private lives.

The lust to solve the case takes each man to the edge. Like the Zodiac, they court the media and lose the sanctum of privacy governed by their badge or pen strokes. Their faces become exposed to the media and subsequently their personal downfall hastens. The extroverted Avery retreats into an alcohol induced solitude to ease his demons, only for alcoholism to quickly envelop him.

Toschi can no longer decide whether he wants a principal suspect to be the Zodiac simply to end the case, or to find satisfaction in unravelling the riddle. Toschi's partner William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) asks for a transfer to prevent himself from becoming too attached to the case. Like Toschi, Graysmith wants his main suspect to be the killer at all costs; in his case to simply to release himself from the marital and professional strife his obsession has brought into his home.

The stressful, tension-filled hours of disappointment and desire are perfectly captured in Fincher's astute pacing, allowing the audience to soak up the atmosphere. Although Fincher's film tends to lean toward the conclusion's of the Zodiac's identity as in Graysmith's book, the director produces a fair and balanced film. His protagonists are not glorified, but rather are viewed as victims of their own self-induced tragedies brought upon by their obsessions. Furthermore, the director grounds his story deep in fact to produce a gritty texture and realistic mood. There is an everyday ordinariness to the proceedings. There are no action sequences, no political critiques or unneccessary and stereotypical glances toward Haight-Ashbury drug culture and hippiedom.

Instead, Fincher avoids cliches and happy endings to create a swath of darkness. When moments of suspense do arrive, they are usually created through situations in which the characters are trapped by their increasingly dangerous personal involvement into the case. This unsettling realm is enhanced by an excellent cast and crew featuring a nervy performance by Jake Gyllenhaal, a distrustful effort by Mark Ruffalo, a somber Anthony Edwards and a marvellously unkempt Robert Downey Jr. If the film does have a weak point in the casting is that the baby-faced Gyllenhaal seems too young to be a divorced father, but his nerdy awkwardness produces a superb counterpoint to Downey's cocky Avery and Ruffalo's unrelenting Toschi.

Filmed with an unnerving spectre of bleakness, Zodiac is an intelligent, meticulously constructed epic thriller. Structured with elegant digital cinematography and gaunt production design, Fincher creates a sphere of destructive compulsions and dearth infatuations. The result is a film not bound by contemporary cliches of the recent past, but rather it is attunted and gratefully indebted to a filmic language of yesteryear: an era when thrillers needed no pre-fabricated solutions, but rather captured the destitute realities of puzzles that forever remain unsolved.

* Zodiac is availble on a bare-bones DVD through Paramount Home Video. An edition featuring the director's cut, director and cast commentary as well as extras regarding the unsolved case is to be released in 2008.

Copyright 2007 8½ Cinematheque