Category: Film

Is Fido a communist? Thoughts on Andrew Currie’s unlikely hero in suburban America.

Irony with zombies
‘Fido’ is not strictly a zombie movie. Yes, its main premise is the story of a domesticated zombie, played by a strictly-grunting Billy Connoly, in a 1950s ‘perfect America’ universe where zombies are the ‘pets’ of mankind. The trick is to simply lock a collar around their necks to surpress their need to eat and create fenced off communities that protect them from the ‘Wild Zone’ where all the remaining un-domesticated zombies live. These communities are perfect in every way (it never rains apparently) and the families living in them look like they came right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. The working 9-5 husband Bill (Dylan Baker), the stay-at-home wife and mother Helen (Carrie-Ann Moss) and the well-mannered skinny kid Timmy (Kesun Loder). Only in this movie, instead of a dog, the pet is a zombie called Fido who starts to wake up from his permanent state of apathy and develops a will of his own despite the collar’s technology. As parts of his humanity emerge, seen through his cravings for a cigarette and appreciation of a woman’s scent, he protects and cares for Timmy and his family, as the ugliness of this seemingly-perfect American community appears. Through an accidental malfunction of his collar, Fido attacks Ms. Henderson, the generic old lady that spies on her neighbours, and before we know it there is a containment problem as zombies spread and death multiply. The head of ZomCom security, Mr. Bottoms, a decorated veteran of the Zombie Wars, succeeds in stopping the contamination just in time but many people are dead and he needs to make an example out of Fido and little Timmy.
The charm of this movie is not just its vibrant palette of colours, its shiny settings or the classic 50s images, like the wife greeting her husband at the door with a three-olive martini while the ham is in the oven. The images of this blissful suburban life are now romantic flashbacks, back to a time where family values were at the core of the American Dream and husbands, mothers and children had specific roles to play, a far cry from some family images we see in the movies today (absentee fathers, drunk mothers, rebellious sons and daughters). There is almost a longing to see a James Dean look-a-like appear at a some point to shake that blinding white smile off everyone’s face and make them act human, because they are as ‘zombified’ as their pets. This is what this film is all about though. It is the zombie that teaches Timmy to stand up to his bullies, it is the zombie that ignites the spark of feminism in Helen, it is the zombie that makes Bill want to be a better father to his son and it is the zombie that transforms this generic, dull community into a lively and human mix of people that have to face their inner demons. Irony at its best and the definitive charm of this film.

Zombies spread the life
When Mr. Bottoms, the illustrious war hero, declares that there is a containment problem within his perfect community, it is as if the film screams at you ‘Sound familiar?’. A decorated Zombie War veteran, risen to politics, protecting a town from a dangerous pandemic that kills people and turns them into heartless, emotionless eating machines? A pandemic whose source, Fido, seems to make women stand up to their husbands (‘Get it yourself dear’ ) and children rebel against their parents wishes. This film brings back memories of old Cold-War science fiction films like ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’, ‘The Thing from Another World’ and ‘It Came From Outer Space’ where such contamination scenarios do occur but their consequences are different. Instead of breathing life into a community, the threat tries to destroy all humanity it finds and replace it with pale copies of people, devoid of all emotion and free will. But this was 60 years ago, since then the Cold War has ended and the threat does not come from space but from the all-American home, from the people in power. They talk of perfection, control and safety, attainable only through the use of a gun and isolation.
Fido does not talk, does not actually control anything but through an accidental ‘dinner’, he sets off a sequence of events that show the rotten state of the American family core. However it is not beyond salvation. The solution? Human contact, conversation, sentiment and understanding, something that the status quo forbids in order to contain the zombie virus. In this world, if your mother turns into a zombie, well then she is easy to kill if you don’t love her. If your neighbour tries to eat you, you forget that he gave you 10 extra dollars for mowing his lawn and you chop off his head. Easy, simple and emotionally detached. Mr. Bottoms is a fervent believer in this ethos and is the representation of how America should live in this post-Zombie War world, looking more and more like communist-hunter Joe McCarthy who imprisoned and persecuted any citizen deemed to challenge American values and show left-wing sympathies in the 1950s. Timmy and Fido are challenging the status quo and draw in more people in their movement, until finally the whole town is contaminated. But this illness does not bring the community to an end, in fact it makes the viewer connect with the characters, love them, admire them and cheer for them, because they found their true voice and a lifestyle that makes them truly happy instead of acting like actors in a 50s toothpaste commercial. Helping Fido and Timmy in their quest is Mr. Theopolis (played by the brilliant Tim Blake Nelson), the only human adult in the film that sees through this technicolor sham and does not quite fit in. The cares for his zombie, Tammy, despite her nature and keeps her beside him as a partner, not just a servant. Their relationship is frowned upon by the rest of the town, showing that every community has their black sheep. However Theopolis and Tammy are the perfect example of what the community should in fact aspire to be.

Lenin, Guevara, Trotski and Fido
Communism in American cinema, as with its current politics, will never belong on the good side of popular culture. The so-called ‘Third World War’ between America and Soviet Russia lasted from the end of the Second World War, till the collapse of the Soviet block in 1989 under Republican hero Ronald ‘Second coming of Christ’ Reagan. But unofficially, Hollywood never liked ‘lefties’ and probably never will. They will always be portrayed as either eccentric, remnants of the losing side, or just mad but Fido seems to be neither. The similarities between this film and the ones mentioned above is undeniable but the formula is reversed. As the bodysnatchers suck the life out of Americans, Fido retrieves it for them even though he is undead. Is Hollywood changing its mind about Communism? Wishful thinking there I’m afraid since this battle will go on in cinema and American politics for as long as uneducated right-wingers scream on Fox News that healthcare is socialism. No, this is not about communism in the end. It’s about family, it’s about loving your neighbour and it’s about breaking the wall of silence that our society today lives in.
The people in the town are seemingly fenced off from the rest of world, they hardly talk to each other unless it is to improve their social standing, the kids learn how to shoot to kill without a second thought (a nice critique on gun-laws there) and the best accomplishment one could hope for when they die, is to have their heads cut off and to be buried in the cold ground and stay there. All fitting metaphors of the crippling isolation modern society is going through. Emotional detachment, lack of empathy and individualism are all stigmas in today’s world, mostly due to technology, fear, lack of trust and digital networking. All these hinder human contact and increase the chance of living a solitary life while being constantly surrounded by people. In this film, Fido is our saviour. He will accompany you outside to play in the park, he will help you wash you dad’s car in the driveway while you mum makes lemonade, he will help you get the girl, he will save you from bullies, he will want you to be a decent human being to your family and friends. Fido has all the traits of a Hollywood 1950s communist but in fact he is not a revolutionary, he is not a messiah.
He is what we used to be, imperfect in a lot of ways but alive, smoking, drinking, running and biting.

Film Review: Breathless (À Bout de Souffle)

Very few films can lay claim to being called innovative; after all, film-making is fundamentally a craft and a craft is basically an activity that involves making something with one’s hands. There are a number of well-trodden steps to follow in order to attain the end result in much the same way as there is when making a cake. First you do this, then this and then this and so on. In essence, the camera captures the shots and then the screen shows the result but of course, there can be an entire directory of additional technical processes in between, not to mention all that comes before the camera is even taken off the truck.

But each one of these processes is a craft unto itself and the individuals involved are all skilled technicians of their own particular field whether that’s to do with the actor’s wardrobe, the make-up they wear, the design of the sets, the editing, the special effects, the coordination of stunts, the lighting, or the cinematography (the list can go on), but they all have steps to follow; steps that define their job, their reason for being involved.

However, film-making is also an art; a medium for expression and an outlet for creativity. Part of that creativity could be defined as bending the rules, of thinking outside the box, of trying something new. This is innovation.

One film that can definitely be labelled innovative and still sleep soundly at night is Breathless, or if you prefer the French title – À Bout de Souffle. Released in 1960 to both critical and box office success, it quite simply rewrote the rule book, certainly for editing style. Its use of jump-cuts was totally radical for the time and to watch it now, amazes and horrifies in equal measure. Some of the editing is in-your-face noticeable and looks positively amateurish, jarring even – as though the film stock snapped and was poorly spliced back together – and yet it adds a nuance of freshness and intensity to the film that wouldn’t be there if the editing was smooth. Love it or loathe it, it was a stroke of genius. It was also filmed entirely on a hand-held camera (tracking shots were courtesy of a wheelchair or a postal cart with the camera hidden and the lens poking through a hole because no permission was given from French officials) and with virtually no additional lighting – made possible by using a specific type of film stock that needed to be painstakingly modified.

It was director Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature length film and was one of the earliest examples of the French New Wave of cinema or Nouvelle Vague and it would go on to become one of the most influential films of that era. The young Godard was very critical of mainstream cinema, saying it “emphasised craft over innovation” and many of his films challenged the well-established conventions of traditional Hollywood as well as that of French cinema. Together with his group of contemporaries that included Claude Chabrol and François Truffaut (who both wrote the foundations of Breathless), he set about shaking up the establishment and the way it was perceived that films could be made. He has influenced numerous directors like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, John Woo and Bernardo Bertolucci and is often ranked by critics as one of the greatest directors of all time.

The plot of Breathless revolves around a petty criminal named Michel Poiccard (played sublimely by the then soon-to-be-famous Jean-Paul Belmondo), who fancies himself as a sort of Humphrey Bogart tough guy stereotype. He steals a car in Marseille and then shoots the policeman who has pursued him out into the country. Now a penniless fugitive, he flees to Paris and hides out with an American girlfriend Patricia (Jean Seberg), a student and aspiring journalist who sells newspapers along the Champs Élysées to earn her living. He spends his time attempting to seduce her while trying to call in a loan from a local hood so that he can fund their escape to Italy. The police soon make the link between her and her boyfriend and when questioned by them, Patricia learns that Michel is on the run for murder. She eventually betrays him and yada yada yada. Watch it and you’ll find out what happens. Oh and an added bonus – Paris has never looked cooler!

 

 

 

 

Maestros of Film Music

If I were to ask you to name your top ten favourite movies of all time, how long would it take you to settle on a list? Would you find it as easy as 1,2,3, able even to put them in order of preference all the way up to 3,2,1? Or would it take hours of head-scratching, soul-searching and discussion, with DVDs and old videos being pulled out and watched over to remind yourself of how great or maybe not so great a film is? I was asked this recently and I must admit that I found the idea of naming my top ten favourite films absolutely impossible. I can name the titles of numerous films that would most certainly be included in the list but I couldn’t for a single moment begin to arrange them in any order of preference. Nor could I stop at ten. I’m guessing, but I think the number would be at least twice that and likely many more. For me, there are quite simply more than ten films worthy – for reasons aesthetic, technical, artistic or simply just plain entertaining – of standing on the shoulders of all the rest. Of course, if you want to see such a list the Internet has dozens of them. Dozens of top tens, top fifties and top one hundreds compiled by movie fans, critics and institutes alike, all with most probably a far greater knowledge of cinema than do I.

However, the idea of compiling a top ten list of something appealed to the pop-picker in me and so I continued to think of one that would be related somehow yet easier, nay possible to come up with. What I decided on came to me via my iPod and although it initially seemed fairly straightforward, as I scrolled through my music library and then began researching certain items that were on my wish list, so began the head-scratching, the soul-searching and the discussion. Nevertheless, finally after what I consider too long a time, I have compiled a list of my ten favourite film music composers. But please don’t think there’s any order of preference here.

I will kick off with the only one on my list that I happened to have shared a ceiling with because ten years ago, I was fortunate enough to see Elmer Bernstein perform at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Needless to say, it was a fabulous evening and I think I whistled The Great Escape tune all the way back home, probably to the annoyance of my fellow tube travellers. Bernstein (not to be confused with Leonard) is probably best known for his scores for The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven, the latter of which undoubtably helped turn a fairly routine western into one of the most enjoyable films of the genre. His upbeat western themes, of which there are many, are a true joy but a quick look at his credits prove him to be an extremely versatile composer, capable of writing for any genre. He won an Oscar for Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and would go on to be nominated a total of 14 times giving us along the way great scores like The Man with the Golden Arm, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Age of Innocence.

Last year (2012), Hitchcock’s Vertigo replaced Citizen Kane at the top of the British Film Institute’s Greatest Films of All Time list. That’s somewhat significant when you consider that Orson Welles’ debut film had previously occupied the top spot for 50 years. What’s also of interest is that Bernard Hermann wrote the score for both movies. Hermann, who started off working in radio as a staff conductor, wrote some incredibly atmospheric pieces – The Ghost and Mrs. Muir and The Day the Earth Stood Still are about as atmospheric as you can get. He collaborated on many a Hitchcock picture and gave us the classic dramatic soundtracks to North by Northwest and Psycho. But there was much much more great music throughout his career too.  Mysterious Island, Cape Fear and On Dangerous Ground to name but three. He won an Oscar for The Devil and Daniel Webster in 1941and would go on to receive a total of 5 nominations.

Next up on my list of no particular order comes one of the most successful and influential film composers of all time, a man who, aside from Walt Disney, is unmatched in Academy Award nominations with a total of forty eight to date. Out of these he has garnered five wins. He has composed some of the most recognisable and whistleable music in film history including Star Wars, Superman and the Indiana Jones films. I refer, of course, to John Williams. Williams moved to Los Angeles and began writing film scores in the late ’50s but it wasn’t until he penned the music to Spielberg’s Jaws in 1974 that his career really took off. The ominous three-note motif that he composed was a stroke of genius and has since become synonymous with sharks. Many of his compositions employ a full orchestra and this gives his music a classical neoromantic style, making it very easy to pop in a CD and listen to. His grand symphonic score to Star Wars has become the highest grossing non-popular music recording of all time. His score for Jurassic Park is sublime as are those for Saving Private Ryan, Empire of the Sun and the Harry Potter films. His most recent work for Spielberg’s Lincoln shows that even after fifty years of composing film scores, he’s still got what it takes to give the world beautiful music.

Another John now, this time John Barry. Barry will probably be remembered as the man who gave musical accompaniment to the world’s coolest spy. Although the writing credit for the James Bond theme goes to Monty Norman, it was Barry’s arrangement that has made it one of the most instantly recognisable pieces of music the world has ever heard. He wrote the scores for eleven more 007 films throughout the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s and for my money, the Bond music was never better. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is, in my opinion, the high point of the series but all those that came before it have terrific soundtracks. He scored numerous other films throughout a fifty year career and picked up five Oscars (Born Free (best score and song), The Lion in Winter, Out of Africa and Dances with Wolves) out of seven nominations along the way. Zulu, The Ipcress File, Midnight Cowboy and Enigma are great examples of his film soundtracks. Early in his career, he had a number of hit singles with his band The John Barry Seven – Hit and Miss, Walk Don’t Run and Beat for Beatniks to name just three – and these tunes simply ooze with the style and coolness that was inherent on the streets and in the clubs of London in those swinging ’60s. He also penned some memorable TV themes, none more so than The Persuaders!

Ennio Morricone, like the preceding four composers here, has a certain style. And this style is no more apparent than in his scores for the spaghetti westerns for which he is most famous. In 1964 director Sergio Leone set out to make a different kind of western and when he hired Morricone to write the score, they created an accompanying soundtrack that was equally different from the orchestral standards of the genre that had come before. Making use of the then new Fender electric guitar, jew’s harps and trumpets they basically came up with a whole new twangy sound for a western movie soundtrack. And what a sound it was. As instantly recognisable after just a few bars as the James Bond theme and equally as evocative. His music adds another dimension to these films and is arguably a character of its own. Without their soundtracks, these films simply would not be the same. And like Elmer Bernstein, Morricone’s versatility ensured that he wasn’t restricted to just cowboy films. His long list of credits include, the comedies La Cage aux Folles and Bulworth, John Carpenter’s excellent 1982 chiller flick The Thing, the Schwarzenegger fantasy movie Red Sonja, The Untouchables starring Kevin Costner and Robert De Niro and Clint Eastwood’s In the Line of Fire. Aside from the spaghetti westerns, perhaps his best known work is the soundtrack for The Mission, a 1986 film by Roland Joffé about the experiences of a Jesuit missionary in South America during the 18th Century. It is considered to be a perfect example of what music can do for a film and has sold over 3 million copies worldwide. Surprisingly, Morricone has never won an Academy Award but he has been nominated a total of five times.

Another composer who enjoyed a long and successful career was Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith began scoring radio shows in the early 1950s and this quickly progressed to television shows such as The Twilight Zone and later, the theme to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. His first feature film was a western in 1957 called Black Patch. More TV and film scores followed but it wasn’t until he scored the classic 1962 western Lonely Are the Brave that he began to receive widespread recognition. Throughout the decade his career flourished with critically acclaimed achievements like A Patch of Blue and The Sand Pebbles both of which garnered him Oscar nominations. Another nomination together with enormous critical attention came for his controversial soundtrack to The Planet of the Apes in ’68, a score which saw him using innovative techniques to get the ape-like sounds he wanted. The Omen in ’76 saw him win his only Oscar out of a total of 18 nominations and before his death in 2004, he would go on to give us some of the most stirring and memorable film music ever. Star Trek: The Motion Picture is perhaps his most recognised work and following its success, he would go on to score four more films for the franchise (my personal favourite score being First Contact) as well as the themes to the TV series The Next Generation and Voyager. Other highlights include the wonderfully eerie Alien, the spooky Poltergeist and the cool jazzy L.A. Confidential.

Long considered to be one of the giants of Hollywood movie music, Dimitri Tiomkin was musically trained in Russia and made his performing debut in the early ’20s as a pianist playing with the Berlin Philharmonic. He moved to Hollywood in 1929 but it wasn’t until ’37 that his score for Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon helped him achieve any sort of recognition. The next ten years saw him work with Capra on films including Mr Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life. Over the course of his career, he wrote music for some of the most popular and spectacular films ever including The Guns of Navarone, The Alamo, The Fall of the Roman Empire and Land of the Pharaohs. He scored four Hitchcock films including Strangers on a Train and Dial M for Murder and numerous westerns, the genre with which he perhaps became most associated. His first was Duel in the Sun in 1946 and his most well-known was High Noon 1952, a film which received seven Oscar nominations and won four, two of which were for Tiomkin – Best Original Music and Best Song. This was the first time a composer had received two awards for the same movie. He won twice more for The High and the Mighty in ’54 and The Old Man and the Sea in ’58. In total he would be nominated twenty two times. Other highlights include Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, The War Wagon, Town Without Pity and Giant. Tiomkin also penned memorable themes to TV shows such as Rawhide and Gunslinger.

In complete contrast to the classic style of Tiomkin comes Lalo Schifrin, an Argentine pianist at heart with jazz running through his veins. He is perhaps best known for his theme to the Mission: Impossible TV show and several of Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry movies. These are excellent examples of his often edgy, frequently pumping and sometimes cool jazzy soundtracks but there are so many more scores worth attention. Schifrin moved to Hollywood in 1963 and was offered his first film project by MGM in the form of an African adventure called Rhino! That year he re-arranged Jerry Goldsmith’s original theme to The Man from U.N.C.L.E. into something far more jazzy and ended up winning the 1965 Emmy award for Best TV Theme. His credits encompass virtually every genre and include some of the coolest tunes associated with film. Notable soundtracks are Cool Hand Luke, Bullitt, Enter The Dragon and Rush Hour. Classic TV themes penned by him include Starsky and Hutch and Planet of the Apes. He’s yet to win an Oscar but he’s been nominated six times to date.

Another composer who knew how to write “cool” was Henry Mancini. Some of his best known works include The Pink Panther theme, Moon River and Breakfast at Tiffany’s and the score to Victor Victoria. His career as a musician began in 1946 when he became a pianist and arranger for the newly re-formed Glenn Miller Orchestra. Six years later he joined Universal Pictures music department where he contributed to dozens of films including The Glenn Miller Story starring James Stewart. This gave him his first Oscar nomination. In ’58 his thirty-five year collaboration with Blake Edwards began when he scored the TV series Peter Gunn. Breakfast at Tiffany’s followed as did The Pink Panther and it’s sequels, The Great Race and Victor Victoria to name just a few of their pairings. He worked with numerous Hollywood directors throughout his career and along the way gave us such scores as those for Hatari! which includes the chirpy and well-known Baby Elephant Walk, The Molly Maguires, Charade, The Glass Menagerie and Santa Claus: The Movie. In Oscar terms he was nominated eighteen times and won four.

One of the first composers to ever write musical scores for movies was Max Steiner, an Austrian-born music prodigy who was trained by Johannes Brahms and Robert Fuchs. He conducted his first operetta at age twelve and became a full-time professional conductor/composer at fifteen. Steiner is referred to as “the father of film music” and is widely considered one of the greatest film score composers in the history of cinema. He composed over three hundred scores for RKO and Warner Brothers throughout his career and was nominated for an Oscar twenty four times, winning three for The Informer (1935), Now, Voyager (1942), and Since You Went Away (1944). Besides these, his more popular scores include King Kong (1933), Casablanca (1942) and his most famous work and arguably the greatest film score ever recorded Gone with the Wind (1939). From Austria, the young Steiner toured to England, then to New York for a fifteen year stint on Broadway as musical director or conductor before accepting an offer from RKO to move to Hollywood. His first screen credit as orchestrator came on a musical called Dixiana in 1930. His breakthrough came three years later with King Kong. Actor and musician Oscar Levant later called the film “a symphony accompanied by a movie”. After a move from RKO to Warner Bros. Steiner was sought after by the leading directors of the day. Other notable scores include The Searchers, They Died with Their Boots On, The Big Sleep and The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Marvin Hamlisch wasn’t the first composer to take the musical reigns of the 007 franchise from John Barry. George Martin was that man. George ‘The Fifth Beatle’ Martin composed the score and the title song for Live and Let Die and while the latter is arguably one of the best of the series, the former is not quite up to the standard set by Barry. Marvin Hamlisch contribution to the franchise was The Spy Who Loved Me and again one can argue that the title song he co-wrote with Carole Bayer Sager – Nobody Does It Better – is a strong entry in the series but the rest of the soundtrack is below Barry’s high standard. Having said that, it’s by no means the weakest in the franchise’s history. Hamlisch’s first job was as a rehearsal pianist for Barbra Streisand’s Funny Girl. His first film score was for the 1968 Burt Lancaster movie The Swimmer. He followed this with a number of comedies including two Woody Allen films but it wasn’t until 1973 that things got interesting for him. That was the year he wrote the title song and score for The Way We Were as well as adapting Scott Joplin’s ragtime music for the movie The Sting and he would walk away from the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on the following Oscar night with three gold statuettes in his grip. The Way We Were is beautiful romantic music and The Sting is a fun collection of Joplin’s classic rags sewn together and embellished by Hamlisch’s wonderful orchestrations. He would go on to receive a total of twelve Oscar nominations with three wins. Other fine works include Sophie’s Choice, A Chorus Line and The Informant! a 2009 Matt Damon film directed by Steven Soderbergh.

And now, I hesitate to continue because, as those of you who are still awake will have observed, I have already surpassed my allowance for this list of my ten favourite composers. And yet I still have more to share, more names that should be in that top ten. You see how awful I am at these lists! Oh well, maybe next time I’ll share with you my thoughts on Maurice Jarre’s exquisite scores to Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago and A Passage to India all of which he won an Oscar for, and Ron Goodwin’s excellent wartime music for Where Eagles Dare, 633 Squadron and Battle of Britain as well as Yann Tiersen’s gorgeous score to Amélie.  But until then, if you get a chance, pop in a soundtrack CD and listen to the music that our film composers have written. Sit back and enjoy their hard work unaccompanied by the sights and sound effects of a movie and allow yourself the pleasure to hear their talent in all its pure, undiluted form.

 

Film Review: Trance

Oh Danny Boy, we know you are a national treasure after the success of the Olympic Opening Ceremony but I’m not sure your new film is going to be winning gold this year.  Okay, so some of Boyle’s past films have involved some suspension of disbelief but excellent storylines and endearing characters can help an audience forgive even the unlikeliest scenarios; unfortunately Trance has a distinct lack of both of these.

Trance, directed by Danny Boyle and starring James McAvoy, is a crime thriller that tells the story of an art heist; Simon (McAvoy) receives a blow to the head which leaves him unable to remember where he hid the stolen painting.  Desperate to find the painting and with a crime boss breathing down his neck, he seeks help from hypnotherapist Elizabeth (played by Rosario Dawson) who claims she can help him find it by taking him into a trance state.

The plot undergoes a number of twists and turns which make it hard to tell you much more about the storyline without giving too much away, but probably the most important thing to note is that your instinct about where the plot is going within the first half hour is probably right on the money.  As a cinema audience we are quite jaded and as soon as something labels itself a thriller you are immediately looking out for potential twists – unfortunately this means that all too often you see them coming a mile off.

It will not necessarily ruin a film when the twists aren’t quite as clever as the writers thought they would be; I was able to really enjoy Shutter Island despite guessing early on what the dramatic twist would be.  In this case the film was so well executed you could almost blame yourself for being just a smug viewer and seeking out clues.  With Trance you get the sense that the writers are the smug ones, thinking they have been ever so clever that even avid film watchers would miss the huge hints that are scattered throughout the film until the (un)surprising conclusion.

Trance is not an awful film, the talented Boyle givens us a visually pleasing journey, taking us through trance state and reality and exploring the notion of how far hypnotherapy can and should go.  However, despite being a fan of McAvoy I wasn’t convinced by his good boy gone bad character and Vincent Cassel does what he can with a fairly vague and unthreatening crime boss.  How many crime bosses do you think would be sympathetic to amnesia and hold your hand through hypnotherapy?

You get the impression that Boyle was trying to take us on an exploration of the mind and leave us questioning what was real and who the real criminal of the film was, but like the scene that involves a full frontal and shaved Rosario Dawson, you wonder if Boyle should have perhaps left a little more to the audiences’ imagination.

Film Review – The Man From Laramie

I hope regular readers of my musings on this website will not react with a weary roll of their eyes when they see, once again, I’ve employed that timeworn word – “classic”. Though I suppose more than this, I actually hope there are regular readers of my musings on this website. Even just one. Or perhaps two or maybe even a handful. Well, being the optimist that I am – Hi, hello, thanks y’all for stopping by.

You see, the word “classic” gets bandied about all too often in my opinion. It seems to be used as an enticing adjective for anything that isn’t particularly young. Art, architecture, furniture, clothing styles, cars, literature, music – and so on. But surely, there’s more to it than mere age – after all we don’t say “his grandfather was a classic person” or “Hadrian’s Wall is a classic defensive fortification” do we? Not usually anyway.  So what quality must be present for something to warrant the term “classic”? What does Cary Grant’s Savile Row suavity have in common with an original Jaguar E-Type? And what do they both have in common with New York’s Flatiron building? They are, after all, three things that could be described as being about as “classic” as you can get. Style and popularity? Yes and yes and certainly important. But age? Well okay, they’re all of the past but is that what defines them as classic? If the new iPhone 5 can be described as having classic styling, then surely age can be dismissed as being an influencing factor.

Perhaps all it comes down to is an initial opinion. The very first one. An opinion offered by an admirer who uses the term “classic” and the ears that hear that opinion agree and so the label sticks. I’m sure we can all summon something to our minds that has long held the “classic” monicker, something which we utterly abhor and deem totally unworthy and likewise on the other side of the coin something we hold dear that hasn’t garnered the label. If this should prove true for you, I suggest writing about it and giving it the label yourself, after all, the certification starts somewhere right? Did Khufu glance over the plans of his new pyramid and say to his chief architect, “Yes, it’s a classic design”? Maybe, maybe not.

Anyway I digress. Back to The Man From Laramie – a CLASSIC western if ever there was one. This was the last of eight collaborations between the film’s star (the wonderful James Stewart) and its director (the sublimely gifted Anthony Mann) and five of those eight were westerns. Over the years, Hollywood has churned out thousands of these horse operas and “cowboys and indians” films, many of which would blush with guilt at having to live up to being called “average”. But there are a good number of watchable ones too and of course as we reach the higher levels of excellence and artistry the number diminishes significantly just as it does in any other genre. But these five Anthony Mann westerns (and by the way, I already reviewed another one of his some months ago, see The Tin Star) can, in my opinion at least, sit right up there with all but the elite, the creamiest of the creamiest, the royalty of the genre.

Sometimes it’s hard to define, to put into words why something works so well when the same ingredients were used elsewhere less successfully. While there are plenty of things that can be said about these five westerns – Winchester ’73 (1950), Bend Of The River (1952), The Naked Spur (1953), Far Country (1954) and The Man From Laramie (1955) – they are all sums of their parts with many things working together in harmony to create that perfect “whole”. Certainly Mann and Stewart were the main factors. In productivity terms, their partnership was as harmonised as Wayne’s and Ford’s, Bogart’s and Huston’s, Eastwood’s and Leone’s or for that matter, De Niro’s and Scorcese’s . For a start Stewart’s glittering star was at its peak throughout the 50s but a quick glance at Mann’s credits suggest that his value in Hollywood during that decade was substantial as well.

But let me get to the point. The Man From Laramie tells the story of Will Lockhart (Stewart) a former captain in the U.S. Army who rides into the isolated town of Coronado to deliver supplies from Laramie. He has a personal vendetta to fulfil while there – to search for and kill whoever is responsible for selling repeating rifles to the local Apache Indians, Apaches that attacked and murdered his brother at nearby Dutch Creek.

What he finds is a town run by ailing cattle baron Alec Waggoman (Donald Crisp), his worthless and vicious son Dave (Alex Nicol) and ranch foreman Vic Hansbro (Arthur Kennedy). Plus of course a pretty woman in the guise of Barbara Waggoman (Cathy O’Donnell). Lockhart’s presence soon stirs things up like a mongoose at a snake party and it’s not long before he’s having to stand up to Dave and Vic. He’s persuaded to take a job with neighbouring rancher Kate Canady (Aline MacMahon), which he does in order to stick around and continue his investigations but again he’s soon facing the vicious Dave, who this time maims Lockhart in a most cruel way. As Lockhart begins to unearth the truth behind the sale of the rifles to the Apaches, conflict threatens to destroy the guilty party from within.

The film builds familiar themes like greed and betrayal into a tense climax however don’t for one minute think that ‘familiar’ here means average. This film has been described as a western version of King Lear and whilst that might be stretching the facts a little, it’s quite easy to see that Mann was hinting at something Shakespearean. The actors who do the most work are all terrific but the prize for audience captivation has to go to Stewart for yet another performance of brooding intensity (The Naked Spur being another fine example). An actor once said of his style, “It’s not what I say that’s important, it’s what I don’t say,” – a sentence that fits Stewart’s portrayal of Lockhart perfectly. He makes you feel what he’s going through as much by reading what’s behind his eyes as by what comes out of his mouth. He’s awesome. But then, he is James Stewart.

The Man From Laramie was adapted from a story of the same name in The Saturday Evening Post by Thomas T. Flynn in 1954. It was also one of the first westerns to be filmed in CinemaScope, a technique used for shooting wide screen movies which was popular from 1953 to 1967. It certainly helped Anthony Mann capture those sweeping vistas of scenery, which was something of a trademark in his James Stewart westerns. In this case it was the arid brown landscape of New Mexico but in The Naked Spur is was the mountainous beauty of Colorado and Lone Pine, California. Check it out. On film, you’ll never see it look better.

While there may be better examples of this most American of genres, they would be the exception rather than the rule. Anthony Mann was a director who never really garnered the praise he deserved and for all his contributions to cinema, he never won any awards. He received a few nominations, a Golden Globe for El Cid and three Directors Guild of America awards for El Cid, Men in War and The Glenn Miller Story but he was overlooked completely when it came time to hand out the Oscars. And yet, his body of work is truly solid and includes crime dramas, musicals, comedies, biopics, action adventures, historical epics and of course westerns. And he rarely failed to tell a story well. For me though, it’s his five westerns made with James Stewart that immortalises him in the pantheon of the great moviemakers for they are as “classic” as anyone else’s you’d care to mention.

Film Review: The Quiet Man

As far back as I can remember I’ve been a John Wayne fan. I may have been but a freckle-faced junior with grazes on my knees and dreadfully sensible sandals on my feet but there I was, sitting with my father watching those weekend matinee cowboy films on one of the three TV channels (remember those days?). I recall Dad frequently telling me not to sit so close to the screen – “You’ll make yourself cross-eyed!” Wayne’s embodiment of heroism, strength and honour was, to my young mind, as right and true as any natural law of the universe, something to aspire to so that whatever you did, wherever you went, everything would work out fine as long as you conducted yourself in the same manner. Sure, there’d be hardships along the way and battles to fight but if you’d quit bellyaching, stand firm and face your adversaries head on, you’d triumph in the end and be able to ride off into the sunset with love and righteousness by your side. (Sounds almost biblical, doesn’t it?)

Well, I’m older now (you don’t say!) and, I hope, a little wiser and a little more knowledge about some things in life but when I sit through a Wayne movie my mind just goes right back to those formative years when life seemed simpler, when love and honour seemed to truly mean everything and when a man was only as good as his word.

Hand on heart, I can say that I’ve watched pretty much all of John Wayne’s films – certainly those of which came after Stagecoach in 1939 and with equal sincerity, I can attest to having enjoyed them all. To me, he’s just so watchable. However, when it comes to truly great pictures, classic films, I have to concede that he made but a handful. And yet that’s okay because let’s face it, any artist, be they an author or a painter or an actor, if they leave even just one shining example of their craft – one book, one painting masterpiece or one performance that is unmatched or unquestionable in its brilliance, then they’ve hit the jackpot. They’ll inspire generations and live on forever. Wayne did just that – some might say with the help of a great director but as I’ve said before in these pages, sometimes in the movies, the stars in the heavens align, the talents of cast and crew come together in total harmony and perfection is created.

For Wayne this is clearly evident in The Searchers, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Red River. Three superb films directed by two of Hollywood’s greatest movie makers –  John Ford and Howard Hawks – with performances from the Duke that should be ranked as highly as any performance by any actor, ever! There are a few other titles that could arguably join this group – True Grit (for which Wayne won the Oscar for Best Actor), Rio Bravo and The Shootist (his last and most poignant performance) and I cannot omit The Quiet Man. If you’ve only seen Wayne wearing a gun-belt or brandishing a Winchester, then this is a bit of a departure but it is an absolute GEM. If you’ve never seen it, I urge you to do so. It’s beyond beautiful, it’s funny, moving and utterly charming. And it’s the sort of film that would not, nay, could not be made today. No matter how overused it is, the aphorism is true – they just don’t make ’em like they used to. Yes, modern cinema had gained much with its CGI, its new fangled digital cameras and lightning quick editing techniques but along the way something has been lost. If you’re into great movies, you’ll know what I mean.

Anyway – The Quiet Man. Wayne plays Sean Thornton, an Irishman by birth who returns from 1920s America to his childhood home with the intention of settling down. He’s also running away from something in his past. He meets and falls in love with the beautiful but feisty Mary Kate Danagher (played by the incredibly lovely Maureen O’Hara). Unfortunately, she happens to be the younger sister of local squire and ill-tempered bully Will Danagher (a role that suited the hulking Victor McLaglen to a tee). Sean’s attempts to court Mary Kate are met with stiff resistance from her brother however, with the help of the friendly locals – an impossibly loveable bunch of village stereotypes – the romance gets a leg up (so to speak). Sean’s romance of Mary Kate forms the main plot of the movie but there’s an intriguing undercurrent because the past that Sean was hoping to leave behind in America returns to haunt him.

The script was based on a 1933 Saturday Evening Post short story by Irish novelist Maurice Walsh.  Apparently director John Ford read the story and soon after bought the rights for $10. Republic Pictures, the studio through which the film was made, was known mostly for low budget B-movies and considered The Quiet Man to be a big risk with Wayne and Ford stepping away from their usual genre of the western. They only agreed to finance it if Wayne and O’Hara and Ford agreed to film a western with them first, which they did. Rio Grande was that western. The studio needn’t have worried though because The Quiet Man was a commercial and critical hit upon release and it went on to become the first and only time the studio received an Oscar nomination for Best Picture.

The Quiet Man would go on to win two Oscars out of seven nominations, one for Ford’s directing, the other for Winton C. Hoch’s cinematography. All of the outdoor scenes were shot in various locations around County Mayo and County Galway in Ireland throughout the early summer of 1951and Hoch used his lens to capture the vivid green beauty of the countryside like Constable used his paintbrush. It’s just lovely. Many of these locations have since become tourist attractions and the pub used in the film (though it had been a shop at the time of filming) hosts daily reruns of the film on DVD! The production employed many actors from the Irish theatre as well as extras from the surrounding countryside and the film is one of the few Hollywood movies in which the Irish Gaelic language can be heard.

Wayne’s performance as the stranger in a strange land is well judged. The little town of Innisfree, its people and their customs are a far cry from the world his Sean Thorton has left behind. Wayne doesn’t do peaceful and quiet very often in his films  so it’s great to see him in something with a gentler pace but he still bellows his authority when he has to. The chemistry he shares onscreen with Maureen O’Hara is something special too. They must have adored working together because it shows in their performances and it’s no surprise to note that they would go on to make a total of five films together. As always, O’Hara is just wonderful, portraying innocence and youth, romance and passion like few are able. The other main characters are played by some of John Ford’s regulars – Victor McLaglan, Ward Bond and Barry Fitzgerald. The latter is absolutely hilarious as the cheeky Michaeleen Oge Flynn who likes a drop o’ whiskey every now and then. The music by Victor Young compliments the picture perfectly – frequently romantic and cheerful and at times wonderfully cheeky but always keeping that Gaelic heart. At a certain point in the film, Michaeleen begins humming a catchy little melody called “The Rakes of Mallow” and if you’re anything like me, you’ll be humming the tune yourself as he credits role.