Irving brings love and loss to Garp’s World

 

John Irving is probably most famous for writing The Cider House Rules, whose movie adaptation won a few Oscars in the late ’90s. A better book though was his The World According to Garp, released in 1978 (and also later made into a movie starring Robin Williams). I’m not ashamed to say this book had me bawling in the end, even though I wasn’t sure I’d like it in the beginning.

The book starts with Jenny Fields, an independent woman who comes from money, but refused to be married off to pump out kids. In fact, she is asexual, not attracted to men or women, but she decides that she would like to have a child. So she has one in the most unusual way, basically impregnating herself from a brain damaged soldier during World War II. The soldier, Garp, is unaware of his surroundings and in fact dies shortly after Jenny used him. Not knowing his first name, she names her son T.S. Garp (T.S. being his name, standing for Technical Sergeant, though Jenny never tells anyone who the father is, much to the chagrin of her well-off family). Jenny takes a position as a nurse at an esteemed all-boys school, and raises Garp as a single mother.

*Major spoilers below, that would really ruin it for you if you think you might read this book (which I highly suggest). If you love an emotional roller coaster, stop reading this and go get it! Otherwise, continue.*

Garp is raised just as his mother wants: he is a free thinker, free doer, and completely independently minded, caring little for others. Without giving you the whole life story, he does grow to have a family, including a wife (who he cheats on sporadically early in the marriage, but eventually stays with) and kids. Along with the relationships in his life, we are privy to Garp’s longing to be a good writer. He begins writing in college in order to impress his future wife Helen, who, as a life-long reader, has said she will only marry a man who can write well enough to appease her. While living in Vienna with his mom after graduation, Garp writes a short story which is indeed very good, and soon after is able to complete his first novel. This book is published, and while not a huge seller, it does get critical acclaim. However, Garp is by now playing second fiddle to his mom, who has written an autobiography titled A Sexual Suspect, which has become a world-wide bestseller and vaulted her to the class of feminist icon. Jenny is now wealthy enough to take care of Garp and his new family, so while Helen does get a job, Garp stays at home and continues to try to write. Jenny goes on to open a women’s sanctuary which helps women of all types, including transexuals, and a fanatical sect of women who cut out their tongues in support of a young girl named Ellen James who was raped and mutilated in this way by her attacker.

Garp’s second novel is not as good as his first, but still well received (but again, not a big seller). After this, Garp finds he is unable to find new ideas. His life has gotten stale, and he seems to have lost his imagination, and can only write about things in his life. Tragedy strikes though, giving Garp something to write about, from a terrible situation. Coming home with the kids in the car one night, Garp rear-ends a parked car in his driveway. The car belonged to Helen’s lover, and the two were engaged in sex in the front seat. Everyone is severely hurt, physically and emotionally, and their youngest son dies. While spending months recovering at his mom’s sanctuary, Garp writes an explosive new novel, full of sex and violence. His friend and editor tells Garp that the book is not up to the standard of his previous books, but it will most definitely sell. And that it does, making Garp famous and rich. Trying to restore their family, Hellen and Garp decide to have another child, and soon after, Garp is approached by the real Ellen James, and they unofficially adopt her as well (as her parents recently died). The family of five finally find happiness, though it will be short lived.

In the final chapters, everyone dies, many within a couple years of each other. In quick succession, Helen’s father, a close family friend, and Garp’s mother Jenny all die (Jenny is killed by a redneck because of what she stands for). There is to be a memorial for Jenny by a pro-feminist party in New York, and no men are to attend, but Garp sneaks in, dressed in drag. He is found out and barely escapes the anger directed his way, by many of the women who think his big novel shames and objectifies women. This foreshadows Garp’s eventual death, when one of these fanatics approaches him and shoots him point blank. Afterwards, life goes on for the rest of the family (Garp was only 33, so there was much life still to live), and the rest of each of their lives are told in summaries, so by the end of the book, we know the entirety of the life and family and T.S. Garp.

This is not a short book, and Irving does not write in an overly descriptive manner, so a whole lot happens. The above synopsis is extremely abbreviated. But because so much happens, because we grow with Garp and know all of his little flaws and brilliance, it really hurts when we see him go. He is just one person, but his larger-than-life persona (and ego) fill the pages of this book, making him feel real, tangible, as does his family and friends. If you enjoy deeply emotional books, ones that build slowly but surely (giving you time to get to know everyone involved), this is one you’ll like.

Quick takes on 5 films

Venom is a Marvel movie outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but (according to producer Sony) takes place alongside the same Spider-Man of those films. Really this is just because Sony owns the rights and wants to ride the coattails of that epic series. In any case, it is obvious that the film is not made by the same team. Venom isn’t really bad, but it is a far cry from really good. This is an origin story for the (in)famous Venom super-villain character. An alien life-form is brought to Earth, where it gets out and merges with Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) in a symbiotic relationship. The two consciouses share Brock’s body but Venom provides super strength and durability. Together, they try to stop the other Symbiotes that have come to Earth to kill everyone. I really like Hardy, one of my favorite actors, and honestly I think he is the only saving grace in this film. Otherwise it is pretty rough, with shoddy direction, a thin plot, and wooden acting. Sony made enough money that I’m sure a sequel will come, but they need to get better writers involved if they want to turn this into their own shared universe.
I didn’t hear about Bird Box until the memes hit, and I wasn’t in a rush to see it until I finally just had to see what all the hoopla was about. It stars Sandra Bullock as Malorie, a soon-to-be single mother who witnesses the end of the world. Some evil entity has sprung up that causes people to commit suicide. Anyone that sees it either immediately, violently kills themselves, or, if they are a certified lunatic, they live but go around forcing others to look at the entity. Malorie and two young children, all blindfolded, are making their way down a river by boat, while their backstory is told. Originally holed up in a house with a dozen or so other survivors, we see how Malorie came to be alone with the children. Not a bad movie, and there are moments of great tension and thrills, but a movie without sight isn’t nearly as edge-of-your-seat as a movie without sound, like last year’s A Quiet Place. Still, I enjoyed it, and it is better than your average thriller.
I greatly enjoyed the next film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, the newest by acclaimed writers/directors the Coen brothers. It is set up and displayed as a film of 6 short stories, related only in their setting of the old, wild west. In order, there is a story about a gregarious, singing gunslinger who shoots almost as much as he talks; a bank robber who is able to avoid death and hanging more times than luck should allow; a pair of traveling entertainers, one with no arms or legs, who see their oratorical performances get passed over for lesser means of fun; a grizzled old prospector seeking his riches along a peaceful meadow; a woman going west to find a husband, but who finds life alone on the frontier is more than she bargained for; and a group sharing a stagecoach to a hotel, where two of them end up being bounty hunters, scaring their companions. At turns funny (in the Coen brothers’ typical quirky, sometimes zany style) and melancholy, I found the entirety of the film a whole lot of fun. Beautifully shot and exquisitely acted by an all star cast, it is the Coen brothers at their best. Their fans will find plenty to enjoy here.
One great modern western, followed by a dud. Damsel is marketed as a western comedy, but unfortunately I don’t think I laughed a single time. It follows a man, Samuel, as he grabs a minister and goes off into the frontier to find the woman he loves, in hopes to rescue her from an abductor and then ask her to marry him (thus the minister, for a quick impromptu wedding). When the big confrontation comes, we learn that Penelope was never abducted, and the deranged Samuel is wanting to whisk her away from her happy life. I’m not giving anything away, because there was enough foreshadowing that the big “surprise” was no such thing. After it goes down, the survivors head back to town for some more misadventures, but still no laughs to be found, and it become even duller. Samuel is played by Robert Pattinson, and if you’ve read my blog for awhile, you know I absolutely love his acting; the former Twilight star has shown in The Rover and Good Time that he is much more than a one trick pony. He is still good in this film, but he alone can’t save it.

The final film today is a “new old” one. The Other Side of the Wind was the final, long unfinished movie by the great director Orson Welles. Filmed over a period of years from 1970 – 1976, Welles continued to work on it sporadically until his death in 1985. It then spent decades being fought over in the courts, as Welles had borrowed from several sources, all of whom wanted the rights. Finally completed, it was ultimately released by Netflix in 2018.

The film is a fake documentary detailing the last living day of a famous director, Jake Hannaford (played by the famous John Huston). Hannaford is known for making low budget, commercially unsuccessful films, but is adored by film critics. At age 70, he is attempting a comeback and is currently completing “The Other Side of the Wind,” which features a ton of sex scenes, in hopes of grabbing the attention of a younger audience. But his star actor has walked off the set, so the end is most definitely uncertain. Along for the ride is Brooks Otterlake (another great director, Peter Bogdanivich), Hannaford’s protege, a successful director in his own right, whose films are more commercially successful but less critically acclaimed than Hannaford’s. Parts of Hannaford’s last film is shown throughout, as a “film within a film.” The “documentary” is set to a frenetic pace. At his big 70th birthday party, Hannaford is besieged by journalists, paparazzi, and amateur filmmakers, who are constantly taking pictures and filming, and it is all of these films that are edited together to make up the story of this director’s final day on Earth. As such, the flow of the film is at breakneck speed, with most shots lasting no more than a couple seconds. The longest shots are reserved for when we are watching “The Other Side of the Wind” with everyone else. In our current high speed, internet society, it doesn’t feel disjointed, but I’m sure it was revolutionary when Welles was first working on it in 1970. This is one of those films that almost requires multiple viewings. Welles is telling us a lot about what he thinks about the future of filmmaking (which seems to be even more true now in 2019 than it was was in 1970), and admittedly I feel like I missed much the first time through. There are moments that scream for contemplation, but they come and go so fast that, unless you pause and rewind, you have to almost forget about it and move on, or you’ll miss the next moment in this frenzied, tumultuous film. Thankfully it does slow near the end. It is a definite lasting legacy of Welles, that I wish he could have enjoyed fully in his life.

Quick takes on 5 Kurosawa films

Up today is a set of films from Akira Kurosawa, Japan’s most well-known and most influential director. These are the 5 films he made from 1958 to 1963, after some his early art-house successes. First up is the so-called inspiration for Star Wars, The Hidden Fortress. George Lucas himself has said this was an influence, and there are easily-seen similarities, starting with the opening scene of 2 bumbling friends, one tall and one short, walking down a desolate stretch of land together. They are fleeing a war when they stumble upon Makabe Rokurota (long-time Kurosawa lead Toshiro Mifune), a general of the losing side of the battle. This roguish man is hiding the princess of their side, and needs to sneak her back to her people, along with a cadre of gold, in order to bring hope and money to buy supplies and mercenaries for their side of the conflict. The 2 peasants are more greedy and less wholesome than R2 and C3-PO, and Rokurota is more of a do-gooder than Han Solo, but the framework is there for sure. Lucas even lifted the side-swiping scene transitions. A decent enough film, though not on the same level as some of Kurosawa’s best.
1960’s The Bad Sleep Well is a great film, but it is two and a half hours long, and for me, it felt every minute of it. This is a slow burning film about a man on a mission for revenge. In the world of high dollar business, two companies seem to have a shady deal going on, and are under investigation by the government. Nishi, who has just married the daughter of the Vice President of the Dairyu Construction Company, is secretly working to take down his new father-in-law, though for much of the film, we do not know his reason. The company has a history of (allegedly) forcing employees to commit suicide whenever the law circles close to one of them, but Nishi saves one man before he can, and frames another to take the fall. Nishi (and the director Kurosawa) work slowly to develop the story, but when it finally hits, that Nishi is the illegitimate son of a man who committed suicide in the company 5 years previously, then the pace picks up. Excellent acting by Mifune in the lead role, but you’ve got to come with your patience in hand for this film.
Kurosawa followed this with Yojimbo (bodyguard). Mifune plays a nameless wandering samurai who stumbles upon a town in need of help. Unlike The Seven Samurai, this town doesn’t pitch good vs evil, but instead, evil vs evil. Two warring factions have turned the town into a den of gamblers, thieves, and murderers, with each side having their own puppet mayor, and the only local business doing well is the coffin maker. Our hero comes in, establishes himself as a master swordsman for hire, and then proceeds to play the sides against each other, in hopes of getting them to take each other out and leave the town alone and in peace. This film has great action, intrigue, and while not a very deep plot, it is still very entertaining. Just like The Seven Samurai was remade as The Magnificent Seven, Yojimbo was later remade as A Fistful of Dollars, though this time without permission, leading to a lawsuit and an out-of-court settlement.
Kurosawa’s next planned film involved a bumbling samurai who helps a group of young trainees uncover a conspiracy by organized crime in their area. After the huge success of Yojimbo, the plot was rewritten as a so-called sequel, and instead of bumbling, Mifune returns as the skilled samurai who plans with his brain and leads with his sword. Sanjuro (meaning 30-year-old, though our nameless hero quips early on that he is closer to 40 now) has Mifune trying to keep his group of young samurai together and alive, while the corrupt villains circle the waters. Though the film is more straight-forward than Yojimbo and also lighter fare (we have clear good guys and bad guys this time), it is still equally engaging, and Mifune is fantastic as the gruff, deadly, and often-times comedic hero. The technical aspects of the film may even surpass Yojimbo, as the swordplay is dynamic. Yojimbo gets all the acclaim, but Sanjuro is a worthy sequel.
High and Low has an almost film noir kind of feel. It is about a successful shoe company executive, Gondo (Mifune starring again), who is about to take control of the company he works for in a buyout, having secured enough funds by borrowing against everything he owns. On the eve of the takeover though, his chauffeur’s son is kidnapped (the kidnapper thought he was getting Gondo’s son), and the ransom is 30 million yen. After much wrangling and consideration, Gondo uses the funds for the buyout to get the kid back, knowing it will ruin him financially and professionally. Much of the film plays in Law and Order style, following the police investigation to find the kidnapper and bring him to justice. Kurosawa does a remarkable job of drawing us into the plight of the family, and rather than let up on the tension when the son is found, the director keeps his foot on the pedal while the police tighten their circle around the villain. This is a fantastic, accessible film that anyone can enjoy, even if you aren’t typically a foreign film viewer.

Quick takes on 5 Spanish films

Released in 1955 and directed by Juan Antonio Bardem, Death of a Cyclist is an incredible psychological nail-biter. It starts with the death: a pair of lovers (Maria and Juan) are driving on a country raid when they hit a biker. The do not immediately go the police because they are having an affair and don’t want to be exposed. Maria is married to a wealthy and powerful man, Miguel, who keeps her in a lifestyle she enjoys. However, Maria and Juan are confronted at their next social gathering by Rafa, an entertainer who doesn’t have money (and seems to resent the privileged class he performs for) but who gets to hang out in the social circles because of his skill. Rafa hints that he knows something that will damage Maria and Juan. Fearing that Rafa knows of their tryst and the killing, the two spend the rest of the film fearing their exposure. Bardem used shadows and close-up shots to brilliant effect, ratcheting up the tension until a spellbinding conclusion.

The Executioner is a dark, black comedy from director Luis Garcia Berlanga, released in 1963. It is about a young undertaker, already an outcast in society because of his job, who is smitten by an executioner’s daughter, also an outcast because of her father’s job. What is meant to be a one night stand turns in to a marriage when the girl becomes pregnant, and in order to secure the family a place to live under Franco Spain (where he must have a government job to apply for a decent apartment), he takes up his new father-in-law’s business and becomes an executioner himself. However, the mere thought of death scares him (as an undertaker, he could disassociate with the body since he didn’t see the death occur) and he refuses to take a life, so he spends the next year living in fear that someone in the area will commit a bad-enough crime to warrant the death penalty. When it finally happens, he holds out hope for a pardon, which never comes, and he must perform his first execution. The penultimate scene where the guards are marching the quiet, acquiescent doomed man and the wailing, reluctant executioner is dark comedy at its finest. When the young executioner returns to his wife and father-in-law and states he will never do it again, the retired father-in-law, who has casually spoken of death throughout the film, can only affirm that he once thought so too. A very funny, but also at times touching, film, with subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) digs at the authoritarian government.
The Exterminating Angel, from 1962, is a fun surrealist film by acclaimed director Luis Buñuel. It takes the implausible scenario of what were to happen if a group of cultured men and women did not leave a dinner party when they were supposed to. What happens in this film, is they find once they’ve missed their chance to leave, they are stuck in the living room. Each of them finds they cannot find the will to cross the threshold, and what is more, the police and family outside the house find that they cannot gather the courage to pass the front gate. So we are left with a group of 12-15 guests inside, for days or weeks or months (we are never told. It seems like an eternity but so would any situation when you are cannot leave a single room.). This group of bourgeois socialites at first try to maintain decorum, but as hunger and ultimately insanity take hold, they devolve to survive. A fascinating look at humanity, with Buñuel’s typical poking fun at the bourgeois and cultural norms.
This was supposed to be all Spanish films, but I’ve been on a Buñuel kick lately, and he’s at least a Spanish director, so that’s ok? My final two today are two of his French movies. The Phantom of Liberty (1974) was, for me, unfortunately a dud. I’ve enjoyed most of his films, but like The Milky Way, this one did nothing for me. Also like The Milky Way, this film was bereft of a coherent story, and felt almost like bad sketch comedy. Imagine sitting through an entire episode of SNL and not laughing, and that’s where I was for The Phantom of Liberty. It is a stream of ridiculous scenarios, one after another. There is the family that gathers at the dinner table, but their chairs are toilets, and they each drop their drawers or hike up their dresses to sit, and then have a normal conversation, before retiring to a private bathroom-like room to eat alone. One skit involves a pedophilia-like man sharing pictures with some young girls in a park. When the parents find the pictures, they are repulsed, but when the viewer finally sees them, instead of nudie pics we see pictures of famous buildings and monuments. Other such skits pepper the film, the next more absurd than the last. I felt like Buñuel made this film for his own amusement, and he didn’t care much if viewers were in on the jokes. Extreme fans of surrealism, and especially film lovers who like to see the envelope pushed just for its sake alone, would love this film, but its not my cup of tea.
For my tastes, Buñuel got back on track with That Obscure Object of Desire in 1977, the last film he made before his death. This one has it all: an engaging story, terrific acting, and brilliant filmmaking. A rich older man, Mathieu, is smitten by a young Spanish woman, Conchita, and becomes obsessed with her. It quickly grows to him lavishing her with gifts and money, but she refuses to sleep with him, (correctly) knowing that she will be cast aside once he gets what he wants. She doesn’t do this in order to keep receiving gifts though, but only because she wants him to love her. All of this is told as a story, by Matheiu to his fellow train passengers, after they witnessed him dumping a bucket of water on Conchita’s head in the beginning. A great story, but the most fascinating aspect of this movie is Buñuel’s decision to use 2 actresses to play Conchita, one a very Spanish-looking, voluptuous, sultry woman, and the other a slimmer, more model-esque, cold French-looking woman. Did he do this to drive home the point that Mathieu only saw her as an object and it didn’t matter who the woman was, or because in doing so, it forces the viewer to see her as an object too? I couldn’t help but have different feelings towards Conchita depending on which actress was on screen. Is it my imagination, or did Buñuel give them different personalities, or did he use 2 woman to force the viewer to self-examine how we feel towards women based on appearance? We’ll never know, but fantastic work.

Corruption and salvation found in All the King’s Men

 

In storytelling, one of the oldest tricks in the book is to not give you much information up front, but to let details flow out slowly, over time. If done poorly, you lose interest and move on, but when done well, this gets you more invested than you might otherwise have been. This technique is done to perfection in Robert Penn Warren’s All the Kings Men. For much of the first part of this book, the reader knows very little. For awhile, we don’t even know much about the main characters, other than their names. We don’t know their motives, their backgrounds, their causes. But the little breadcrumbs that are dropped (almost miserly) are enough to keep us going, and by the time the real story gets going, nearly 200 pages in, we are hooked.

This book follows Jack Burden, a college dropout but an intelligent man, who works for the governor of the state, whom he refers to as “the boss,” Willie Stark. We learn more about Stark than Jack at first. Stark is a self-made man, coming from a humble farm. As governor, Stark excels in bullying his opponents and getting what he wants. He prefers not to bribe people, but to “bust” them, completely tearing them down. Because of his background, his cause is that of the common man, which makes him popular among the general population but doesn’t earn him any friends in the affluent and political circles. Even so, he pushes his agenda, which, for must of the book, is building a grand hospital that will cater to the poor, offering free services by top-notch doctors.

Whereas Stark is full of drive, Jack Burden seems to have none. He’s going through life fairly aimlessly, and follows Stark’s instructions to the T, no matter what they are. He is basically Stark’s go-to guy, whenever he needs to “get something done.” His devotion to Stark is driven home when Stark asks Burden to dig up dirt on Judge Irwin, a local celebrity with an impeccable record, but who happens to be opposing an upcoming vote Stark needs. Irwin practically raised Jack when his own father abandoned the family. While Burden does hope to find no “dirt,” he still does the job to the best of his ability. The betrayals don’t stop there, as Burden’s childhood friends, Adam and Anne Stanton, are also targeted by Stark in the course of the book.

This investigation by Jack is the driving force for much of the book, and tangents into his college days, his first love (Anne), and his failed marriage to another woman, provide incite as to what makes him tick. We also slowly learn more about Stark, including his marriage and constant infidelities. Everything comes to a head when Jack confronts Irwin with proof of a past bribe. Though it is ancient history and the only thing that would be hurt would be Irwin’s reputation, Irwin cannot accept even that, and kills himself. This finally shakes Jack, and even more so when he learns afterward from his mother than Irwin was really his father, and thus the reason that his mother’s husband left them when Jack was a child. The waves keep crashing down, as Burden finds out Anne has been sleeping with Stark, and Stark asks Jack to approach Adam to lead the new hospital. Even then, Jack still follows Stark.

If it sounds convoluted, it really isn’t. The book is well written, and while it does jump around quite a bit between past and present, it is easy to follow. The final, explosive conclusion is stunning, and comes completely out of left field. This book won the Pulitzer for the author in 1947 (he would win 2 more for poetry later on, the only person to have ever won Pulitzers for both fiction and poetry). The writing style is a bit different and it took me awhile to really get comfortable in the flow of words, but once in, I sped through the final half of the novel quickly. Willie Stark and Jack Burden are those kind of people that you really want to hate, for some of the despicable things they do, but I found myself continuing to root for both of them.

Quick takes on 5 Malick films

If you’ve read my blog for awhile, you know I write about classic books, classic movies, and newer films. Rarely do I write about the movies “in between” the 70’s and today. I still watch them, but I figure no one wants to read about movies they’ve probably all ready seen. I’m making an exception today for one of film’s best modern directors, Terrence Malick. I’ve always heard about him but only seen one film until now, so I thought there might be other people in the same boat as me.

Badlands was his first film, from 1973. It stars Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek (before they were household names) as a pair of young lovers who go on a murder spree, or rather, the mid-20’s man does and his teenage girlfriend tags along. Kit is a bit of a drifter and ne’er-do-well, but the young and pretty Holly is drawn to his rebel, “James Dean” look. When Kit decides they are leaving town together and Holly’s father objects, Kit kills him. The love birds then go off to hide in the woods, but it obviously isn’t long before they are discovered. Kit continues to kill people who find them, even a friend of his. Finally Holly decides she’s had enough, and just as the police close in, she abandons Kit and turns herself in. Kit gives them one more chase, but eventually also gives up, though to keep his pride, he makes it look like he had no choice. The smooth and care-free Kit is popular even among the cops at the jail, and they all wish him luck as he heads to federal jail to face the death penalty. With his dashing good looks and devil-may-care attitude, Malick makes the viewer like Kit too; even when he is killing we secretly hope he never gets caught.
For much of the film, I didn’t know what to make of 1978’s Days of Heaven. It is heralded for its cinematography, and the vast, sweeping landscapes of rural Texas are indeed gorgeous, but the plot wasn’t doing much for me. Until the last half hour that is. It stars a young-looking Richard Gere as Bill, a man fleeing Chicago after he accidentally killed his boss at a factory. He takes his young sister (Linda) and his girlfriend (Abby), but insists they call her a sister as well to avoid attention. The trio end up working as harvesters on a wheat farm, run by a single rich man with no family (an even younger-looking Sam Shepard). When Bill overhears a doctor telling the farmer that he only has a year to live, he encourages Abby to marry the farmer and thus inherit all his money after his passing. Abby reluctantly goes along with it, but afterwards grows accustomed to the new lifestyle, and even falls in love with the farmer. The shit hits the fan when the farmer begins to suspect that Bill is more than just a brother. The film is indeed beautiful to watch, but I found the editing to be a bit choppy, almost like they had 30 hours of film and were trying to cut it down to 90 minutes of movie (maybe not far off the mark knowing Malick’s reputation). The ending does make it up to the viewer though, with all of the characters (with a single exception) getting their just rewards, and there plenty of deeper meanings to weed out if you have the patience for reflection.
Malick waited 20 years to make his third film, The Thin Red Line in 1998. This one I’ve seen before, and while I try not to write about films I’ve previously seen, I’ve made an exception for what I consider to be one of the best war films ever made. Based on a book, this movie tells the tale of an American attack on an island during the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Pacific in World War II. It shows humanity at its best, and at its worst. There is an aging colonel intent on making a name for himself no matter the cost of human lives, a captain unwilling to see his men die, even if it means disobeying an order, and an enlightened soldier who sees beauty in all things, even in the ugly. There are moments of heroism and cowardice. When the Americans first assault the ridge and are taking heavy losses, we see some men rise to the occasion and others cower in fear, and Malick does an excellent job of humanizing the Japanese forces, showing them go through the same gamut of emotions when the tide of the battle turns. This film has a large military-full cast, and it seems every face is a recognizable movie star, and all do a marvelous job. This is an action film first and foremost, but the pacing on the slower, more philosophical moments may bore some viewers. If you want a war movie with heart, with emotion, and with deeper meaning than just “kill the enemy,” it doesn’t get any better than this.
After a 20 year break, 7 years seems like just a pause, but that’s how long it was until Malick returned with The New World in 2005. A new take on the classic John Smith/Pocahontas tale, it stars Colin Farrell and Q’orianka Kilcher as the star-crossed lovers, and also Christian Bale as Pocahontas’s later husband, John Rolfe. I watched this one shortly after The Thin Red Line, and except for the color of the trees, I thought Malick may have used the same shots of sunlight sneaking through leaves in both films. That minor criticism aside, this is a very lovely film, though not very historically accurate. John Smith comes to the new lands and is part of the group that founds Jamestown. Struggling to survive, they do some trading with the local native tribes, where Smith meets Pocahontas. When the two peoples start fighting each other though, Pocahontas is caught in the middle, ultimately being cast off by her people for it. She lives with the English in their new town, but is left by Smith when he goes back to England. Rolfe then falls in love with her, and in the end, brings her back to London. Lots of lovely shots as you’d expect in a Malick film, but a good film too. The narrative voice-overs aren’t quite as enigmatic as his earlier film, which creates a stronger, more linear story.
In 2011 Malick made what some call his most philosophical film, The Tree of Life, but it might as well be called the story of life. It has a basic story about a trio of brothers in the 1950’s, in a house with a loving mother but an enigmatic father. Like most fathers of that period, he was what was called “strict” back then, but these days would be considered emotionally abusive and borderline violent, berating the boys for things like leaving elbows on the table, addressing him as “sir,” and forcing them to say “I love you” and giving him a kiss good night. It would be easy to hate him, but Malick does a great job of painting him as a human being; we can loathe his actions while still commend him for working a job he hates just so he can support his family. Much of the film is told in flashback to the kid’s childhood and his two brothers (one of which we know died later on at 19). As the main boy gets older, he grows rebellious and becomes a bit of a problem child. This story is really just the frame of the film though, which deals more with life in general, from the big bang to evolution to hints of a greater power orchestrating it all. We see births and deaths, but beauty in it all. The family’s lives are told in pieces, like the memories of our own lives: some are fleeting images which seem unimportant at the time but which stick with us (playing games as children, laughing with mother), others are more detailed and longer moments. A very profound and beautiful film, and honestly, I didn’t think it moved as slow as some of its critics decried (and I watched the 3+ hour extended edition too!). Superb acting by Jessica Chastain and Brad Pitt as the parents. Malick would never tell you what his movie means, leaving that for the viewer’s interpretation. I came away from this one thinking that for those that seek the meaning of life, one need look no further than their own family.

Quick takes on 5 Cronenberg films

Long before the underground hit Crash in 1996 (not the Paul Haggis movie of the same name obviously) and even before the Jeff Goldblum-starring The Fly in 1986, director David Cronenberg was making strange, and sometimes disturbing films. I of course have seen The Fly several times, and saw The Brood sometime in the last year or so, and decided to give some of his other earlier works a shot. His first two films are shorts (about an hour each), and while a bit amateurish, they still show glimpses of his style and you can see what is to come. Stereo, from 1969, follows a group of young people being experimented on for telepathic abilities. The experiments get increasingly dark as the movie goes along. It is narrated in an emotionless, dry, detached voice; viewers today will see an almost Siri- or Alexa-like comparison. I don’t mind slow films (in fact I like them when done well), but this film tried my patience with its long, quiet scenes with no sound, and felt long even at just an hour in length. Told in a documentary-like fashion, it is honestly a bit of a slog.
The much better Crimes of the Future followed in 1970. Like Stereo, it was shot in silence with a voice-over and sound added later. In a dystopian future, all women of child-bearing years have died, due to a mysterious fatal illness caused by cosmetics. The disease has just started to spread to men too. When someone comes down with it, they begin to bleed from the nose, ears, and mouth, and this secretion acts as an aphrodisiac: people seeing a dying person are unable to resist licking the blood. Our main character is a scientist at a dermatology institute, who sees his last patient die to this illness, and he then wanders from group to group looking for somewhere to fit in. These groups are strange and often erotic in nature (foot fetishes, etc). Eventually he stumbles upon a pedophilia group, “illegal but inevitable” the narrator says, since older women are all but extinct. Throughout the film the narrator has decreasingly used first person narratives and by the end, is referring to himself in the third person, as he loses his grip on his humanity. Needless to say, there isn’t a happy ending here. A very strange, and deliberate (i.e. slow paced) film, but with a good sense of dread from the very first words, this is a haunting depiction of humanity on the cusp of annihilation. I enjoyed it more than Stereo, and here, the sparse dialogue added to the overall creepiness which the director was aiming for.
Scanners was Cronenberg’s first hit, in 1981, and it spawned a rash of sequels (of which Cronenberg was not attached). Often parodied, this movie is “the one with the exploding head.” Cameron Vale is brought in by a secret agency called ConSec, where he is told that he is a scanner, someone with psychic abilities who can control other people’s actions. Though he was never taught how to use these skills, he can learn to control them and become very powerful. ConSec wants to use Vale to go after Revok, a strong but evil scanner who is recruiting others to his cause, though we do not yet know what that cause is. Vale finds help of his own and is finally able to get close to Revok, but not before realizing there are moles inside ConSec attempting to help Revok along. The final showdown between Vale and Revok, when they turn their abilities upon each other, is pure 70s/80s gorefest. The film is a bit dated and lacks strong acting (though Revok is portrayed by long-time B movie hero Michael Ironside), but it is fantastic in the sci-fi/horror vein, with thought-provoking elements like Cronenberg’s The Fly, offering moments of deeper contemplation. Fun film.
From 1983, Videodrome is a psychological horror film starring James Woods as Max Renn. Renn runs a sleazy cable channel that showcases softcore porn and slasher films, and he is looking for something stronger to help his ratings. He runs into a program purportedly from Malaysia called Videodrome, which shows rapes, tortures, and murders, and seeks to get it on his channel. Renn gets more than he bargained for, because it turns out that the TV signal causes hallucinations to the viewer, and Renn starts seeing all kinds of crazy stuff. He ends up in the middle of a battle for the control of people’s minds, fought between the Spectacular Optical Corporation and a cult praising the “new flesh,” both of whom seem to want to send signals through the TV to control viewers. Renn sees people go into and come out of the television, as well as sees fissures open in his abdomen, and a gun fuse to hand in a grisly fashion, and he goes on to carry out murders in the name of his controllers. In a prophetic look from 1983, Cronenberg sees a time when the viewer has their own humanity and will do whatever the person on the TV tells them to. Disturbing viewing for sure, but like Scanners, it is still a gore film with message.

Dead Ringers (1988) drops the gruesomeness (except for a single scene near the end) but keeps the psychological thrills. The film is a tour-de-force for Jeremy Irons, who plays both Elliot and Beverly, twin adult men, both brilliant gynechologists. Elliot is suave and confident, Beverly (his effeminate name is not a mistake) is quiet and bookish. Beverly falls for a famous actress named Claire, but only after Elliot has “warmed her up.” When Claire realizes she was seduced by one but ends up with the other, she storms off, and Beverly is unable to cope with her loss. He resorts to drug use, which impacts the twins’ professional lives. When Claire comes back and Beverly is able to sober up, they find that Elliot has now sunk into drugs and alcohol himself. Beverly realizes that they cannot both lead a whole life at the same time, so he kills Elliot, telling himself that he is simply “finally separating the conjoined twins.” In the end though, he is unable to share joy with Claire, and returns to his brother’s dead body, to lie next to him. A fascinating film, and Irons is brilliant in the dual role; the movie can be interpreted as a look at split personalities and the difficulties in leading a normal life with the disorder.

Finally, just a quick note about Cronenberg’s Naked Lunch, released in 1991. It is of course based on the famous (or infamous) book by William Burroughs, which I read a couple years ago. I hated the book, but absolutely loved the movie. Unlike the book, the film has an actual plot, and it does a great job of showing Billy Lee’s fall into addiction. As his hallucinations pile up, even the viewer doesn’t know what is real and what is imagined. Highly recommended if you want to go for a wild ride. Semi-biographical about Burroughs, as he admitted his books were too. Probably my favorite Cronenberg flick.

Quick takes on 5 films

First Reformed was always going to be a divisive film, too religious for some and not enough for others, but it is most definitely a contemplative film that seems to fit well with the world we live in. Ethan Hawke portrays Toller, a priest of a small church facing a crisis of faith. He doesn’t take care of himself, drinking too much and ignoring signs of something grossly wrong with his body (blood in his urine). Outwardly he is a good reverend to his small flock, encouraging members and doing and saying everything he is supposed to, but he himself has not prayed to God for years. When a member comes to him for help about her emotionally lost husband, who worries about the future of our planet due to global warming, Toller is unable to help, and the husband kills himself. Toller then gets wrapped up in the cause as well. He is faced with a crossroads, unable to answer questions about humanity’s increasingly bleak looking future. As many people of faith do, he finds it harder and harder to place those worries in God’s hands. You hope for Toller to find his faith again, but whether he does or not is left up for interpretation. The ending is very enigmatic, but maybe not so much when you remember that the surviving, pregnant widow’s name is Mary after all. A well acted, well directed film (by the great Paul Schrader), this film, like faith, doesn’t provide all the answers, so don’t watch it if you want a neat, tidy ending wrapped up in a bow for you.
Isle of Dogs is the newest from quirky director Wes Anderson, and his style is evident from the opening scenes. It follows a near-future time in Japan when dogs have been outlawed due to a “dog flu” outbreak, and sentenced to “trash island” where they scrounge for scraps. The mayor has made it his mission to wipe dogs out, but he is opposed by his ward Atari, who misses his dog Spots. Atari runs away to trash island to find Spots, and is there aided by a team of lost dogs led by a life-long stray, Chief. Lots of eccentric Anderson-style humor, but a lot of heart as well, with not-so-subtle political themes about the dangers of a leader ruling on a platform based on fear-mongering. Something we should all remember.
I’ve been wanting to see The Darkest Minds since the first preview I saw, and still wanted to despite all the really terrible reviews. I should have listened. It is made up of terrible acting, worse dialogue, and a plot with more holes than substance. In a near-future time when 90% of the world’s children have died from a mysterious sudden illness, and the remaining 10% have developed varying levels of supernatural abilities, the living kids have been rounded up and put in camps. Those that escape try to find ways to survive. Sounds intriguing for sure, but unfortunately the filmmakers on this one screwed it up worse than imaginable. It plays out like a bad young adult novel, or a rough B-movie with a big budget. Some moments are worse than eye-rollingly bad, such as when our group of teens, on the run for their lives, manage to find time to stop at a deserted mall to shop. Don’t do what I did: follow the advice of others and avoid this one.
The Seagull is a period drama based on a play by Anton Chekhov, and takes place on an estate in Russia in the early 20th century. It features an all star cast of Annette Bening, Saoirse Ronan, Elizabeth Moss, Corey Stoll, and Brian Dennehy, among others. Irina is a famous but aging actress, very full of herself. Her son Constantine is an aspiring writer, but writes very esoterically. Irine’s boyfriend Boris is a famous writer but walks around with self doubt, and he is smitten by the young and beautiful Nina, who is in love with Constantine. There are plenty of other love triangles going on around the estate, but everyone seems to be in love with the wrong person. With this cast, you can expect strong acting and there is that, and the sets are gorgeous, but the film feels a little trite. Early in the film, Constantine is discussing with Nina his lack of appreciation for the current state of theater, since the plots are thin and spoon-fed to the audience, and then the film proceeds to beat the viewer on the head with a very linear and direct story. It feels like it could have been so much better, but I still overall enjoyed it. It glorifies youth and new ideas, and it is the older generation that are spiteful and self absorbed.
Mission Impossible: Fallout is the newest adventure for Ethan Hunt and his crew, and is close to a direct sequel to the previous film in the franchise. This time they are tasked with stopping a maniac (returning villain Solomon Lane, played by Sean Harris) from setting off three nuclear weapons simultaneously, in an effort to bring down the “world order” in a conspiracy theory sort of way. Tom Cruise is joined by franchise regulars Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg, along with Rebecca Ferguson returning from the previous film, and newcomer Henry Cavill, who plays a badass assassin. It brings the same great action and intrigue that you’ve come to expect. The who’s-side-are-you-on subplot that is a staple of the spy thriller genre plays out well, and there are enough surprises to keep even genre regulars enthralled. The action sequences are unparalleled, truly fantastic scenes from hand-to-hand fights to car chases to helicopter battles. Quite possibly the most thrilling MI film to date.

A woman finds her own independence in A Room With a View


A Room With a View is the fourth E.M. Forster book I’ve read on this journey, and probably my 2nd favorite to A Passage to India. It is a short novel and written in a very floral, bourgeois style, but is easy to follow. Released in 1908, it follows a young woman, Lucy Honeychurch, who lives at a time when women are starting to become more independent, and Lucy dreams of doing more than just marrying a man to whom she will be a decoration.

The book starts with Lucy and her older cousin Charlotte (who’s advancing age is nearing spinster status) taking a holiday in Italy. Lucy is expected by her family to get this adventurous nature out of her character, but instead she falls for a young man in Italy named George Emerson. The Emersons have money, but because they are from a working class, they are looked down upon by the other members of Lucy’s clique (though Lucy’s father himself was a working man, and the family was only accepted into society because he moved to a desirable neighborhood before it was desirable. The high society families that came later just accepted the Honeychurch’s, thinking they were always there.). Lucy’s mother especially wants to cement the family’s status by getting Lucy to “marry up.” When George and Lucy share a kiss, Charlotte immediately whisks Lucy off to keep them apart, something Lucy agrees to because she wants to keep her family happy.

The second half of the book brings Lucy back to her home in England. She is now engaged to Cecil, who definitely fits the mold of what her mother wants, but Cecil wants a wife who will laugh at his jokes, agree with everything he says, and not put forth her own opinions. Lucy seems consigned to this, but her emotions are thrown out of whack when the Emersons amazingly rent a house nearby. Lucy struggles to cling to Cecil despite his flaws, but ultimately has to admit (to herself as well as everyone else) that she does truly love George. She breaks her engagement to Cecil, and the book ends with Lucy and George together in Italy again. Her mother has not accepted her decision, and the two are alone, though seemingly happy.

This is a very well written novel, though like a lot of books from this era, the ending is rather abrupt and everything falls into place very quickly once the characters make up their mind. Forster does a great job of getting in Lucy’s head and showing her internal struggle between her family and her own desire, even though she refuses to admit that desire to herself for most of the novel.

Quick takes on 5 Buñuel films

Here are a set of films made by the famous Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel, who worked in Spain, Mexico and France. This first film was made in the latter in 1964, Diary of a Chambermaid. One of his most accessible films, it lacks much of surrealist elements that Buñel is often associated with. Celestine is a beautiful young woman who takes a job as a maid on a rich estate outside the city. She finds the politics in the estate very strange. The owner is an old man with a foot fetish, but the house is run by his overbearing daughter and her womanizing husband, who seems to always get the help pregnant before moving on. When a young girl is raped and murdered in the woods, Celestine suspects the roguish gameskeeper, and even goes so far as to plant evidence to set him up, but the viewer is left wondering if he was the guilty party after all. A nice little film, though perhaps not as deep or lasting as some of Buñuel’s other works.
Simon of the Desert (1965) has the distinction of being the last movie Buñuel made in Mexico. A short movie at just 45 minutes, it is loosely based on the Syrian saint Simeon Stylites. Simon is an ascetic who lives upon a tall pillar in the middle of nowhere, praying continuously to get closer to God and performing miracles for those that come to see him. He is visited three times by Satan, in the guise of a beautiful young woman, who tempts Simon to leave the pillar and come down for some of Earth’s physical pleasures like food and sex. He rebuffs her as much as he can, but ultimately she shows him a vision of the future (a ’60s dance club where young people are casually dancing without a care in the world), and Simon is forced to realize that his goal of bringing people closer to God will ultimately have no value. A not very subtle showing of the atheist Buñuel’s caustic view of religion.
Buñuel’s most famous work came in 1967, Belle de jour. Severine (famed French actress Catherine Deneuve) is a beautiful young woman who is bored by her hard working, dutiful husband, to the point that she can’t get sexually excited by him. She day dreams about her husband being more forceful with her, and this leads her to finding an upscale brothel to get her kicks. She becomes a “lady of the afternoon” since she needs to be home before her husband. As a prostitute, she indulges in all of the fetishes that even the other girls don’t want to partake in. Eventually one john gets attached to her, finds out where she lives, and comes to her house, threatening to expose her to her husband. He ends up doing more than that, and tries to kill Severine’s husband. He isn’t successful, but this does leave the husband in a wheelchair. At the end, Severine is waiting hand and foot on her husband, but the film ends on a decidedly vague note, leaving the viewer to wonder if the whole film was a dream, or what exactly really happened. A fantastic film, it is a great example of the 60s awakening of a woman who knows what she wants and goes to get it.
Next up was a film I did not enjoy, 1969’s The Milky Way. Filmmakers cannot help but put their views in their works, as an artist will always base their work on their outlook on life. I understand Buñuel was raised in a devout Catholic house and rebelled against that as an adult, becoming an atheist, but this film is basically just a big attack on Catholicism and standardized religion in general. A couple men are headed toward Santiago de Compostela, a famous religious site, but they are going there to hustle people, not for any religious reason. Along the way, they find themselves around others who are having philosophical or religious debates. Routinely, people are poking holes in scripture or Catholic church credo. At the same time, some of Jesus’s actions are shown in flashbacks, but these are sacrilegious more often than not, like some of his regular every-day words are misinterpreted by his followers to have greater meaning. In a typical Buñuel surrealist moment, the present and past are brought together when some people previously interacted by our duo run across Jesus and his disciples, just in time to witness a miracle of Jesus restoring site to the blind. But in another poke of fun, the camera zooms down to their feet at the end, where we see that, though no longer blind, the men still pull out their walking sticks, implying that they are still “blindly” following Jesus. Even if I were not a believer, I’m still not sure I would enjoy this film. Some of the statements made to attack the church are so blatantly ridiculous or taken out of context, that it ruined the whole experience for me.
Buñuel redeemed himself in my eyes with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeois (1972), a delightful dark comedy art film by the surrealist expert, which won the Oscar for best foreign film. It follows a trio of couples in their attempt to have dinner together, people that show only a bare modicum of discretion and share charm only with each other. Their dinners are always interrupted, by confused dates, or a restaurant where the workers are mourning the death of the owner (who is laid out in back), or a cafe which is out of tea, coffee, and milk. In the latter half, when they are finally able to eat together, violence always breaks out, only to end with one or the other of them waking up realizing it was all a dream. These dreams blend with reality, as does past, present, and possibly future, into a cacophony of events leaving the viewer (joyously) wondering what is real. To give away more would spoil it for you, if you ever get a chance to watch (and I suggest you do). I didn’t even bother trying to look up what Buñuel meant with this film. If I’ve learned anything from reading interviews he gave, it is that he disdained giving interpretations of his work, and wanted people to form their own thoughts. My thoughts is this is a great film with a high re-watchable factor.