TARGETS (1968)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Crime / Horror

Director: Peter Bogdanovich

Cast: Tim O’Kelly / Boris Karloff / Peter Bogdanovich

Plot

A psychopath goes on a shooting spree through Los Angeles, creating a blood bath at a drive-in theater where elderly film star Byron Orlok is scheduled to make a personal appearance.

What I Liked

*spoiler alert!*

It’s ironic that Boris Karloff of “Frankenstein” fame is one of the stars of this movie, which is in itself a kind of patchwork monster assembled from the dead.  Director Peter Bogdanovich pieced together much of this movie with the help of his mentor, Roger Corman.  Corman had surplus unused footage lying about from some of his kitschy horror films and handed them off to Bogdanovich, along with the added gift of two days to film with Karloff.  The fact that Bogdanovich was essentially forced to make his debut film with left-overs makes the fact that it happens to be a fascinating motion picture all the more impressive.

Instead of going the expected route of working Corman’s footage (low-budget if stylish costume horror featuring a young Jack Nicholson) into yet another castles-and-monsters schlockfest, Bogdanovich made an adult film about timely concerns.   On the surface it’s a shock film with a body count that would have been unacceptable in mainstream American film at the time.  But the film is multi-layered, the director deftly weaving real suspense and discomfort by setting all of the horror against the backdrop of familiar American life and making both the killer and the victims look just like average, everyday people.  Underneath it all is not-so-subtle commentary about violence in entertainment and society, about the generation gap, and about the role of entertainment in daily American life.

Even better, it all ends with Karloff heroically slapping the shit out of the villain, which is one of Bogdanovich’s many nods to the films of yesteryear.  Yet it also leaves us pondering what role Karloff and the old guard of horror films played in developing the American taste for gore and violence, thus helping to create men like the shooter.

Despite the fact that the gore level is tame by today’s standards, moments in “Targets” remain very unsettling to this day.  Perhaps most disconcerting is the director’s choice to shoot much of the film from the visual perspective of the killer, allowing the audience to be one with him as he sights his prey.  High profile suburban shooting sprees and psycho snipers have destroyed many lives since 1968 and make for media sensations.  Depending upon the eye of the beholder, that the film predicts these tragedies can be seen either as a testament to or a condemnation of its power.  What’s even more disturbing is to realize that “Targets” was no blockbuster; the mainstream American public didn’t really pay much attention to it.  Yet today real-life mass shootings make for terrific television ratings as millions stare in morbid fascination, as entertained by the slaughter as Bogdanovich’s triggerman.

What I Didn’t Like

As far as the acting in this movie goes, Boris Karloff gives the best performance of the film.  Part of this is that he just does a terrific job.  The other part is that he’s the only one who does a terrific job.

Writer, producer, director Bogdanovich sure didn’t do himself any favors by giving himself a sizable part in his movie.  Like Karloff, he plays a character much like himself.  Unlike Karloff, he does a bad job of it.  He is hammy, awkward, and distracting as a young, cinephile-turned-director.  The self-referential aspect of “Targets” is one of its greatest strengths, but the director should have cast someone else for this role.

There are a few technical oops moments common to films shot on a slim budget and an even more limited shooting schedule.  For example, one more than one occasion we can see the shadow of the camera man.  Still, these types of moments happen far less than one might expect and never take away from the story or suspense.

Most Memorable Scene

My personal favorite moment is when Karloff is given the chance to do what he does best.  With Bogdanovich looking on, Boris tells us all a scary story in his eerie British accent, his hair eyebrows rising and lowering, his lips curling and sneering.  The story itself isn’t as frightening as it is darkly comic, which makes it all the more suited for the 79-year-old actor.  Boris is astonishingly good throughout this, his last important picture, but never more so than in this moment.

My Rating: 4 out of 5

M*A*S*H (1970)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Comedy / War

Director: Robert Altman

Cast: Donald Sutherland / Elliott Gould / Tom Skerritt

Plot

Assigned to an army field hospital, a group of cut-ups goof their way through the Korean War.

What I Liked

Hilarious hijinks about sums it up.  There are enough pranks and smart ass comments to go around the entire 4077 to keep the film entertaining the whole way through its two hours of length.  The actors were clearly given plenty of freedom to ad lib with Ring Lardner, Jr.’s script and it works to the film’s benefit.  Some of the best moments are the clearly improvised banter between Sutherland, Gould, and Skerritt, which gives the viewer the impression that great fun was being had by all in the making of this film.  There is less the impression that one is watching a film, than one is simply hanging out with friends.  Which is just as well, since hanging out with friends is almost all that happens in this movie’s bare-minimum plot.  The filmmakers, taking advantage of the freedom brought to mainstream American filmmaking in the preceding five years and clearly looking to cash in on the openness of the surging youth culture, made the wise move of not letting conventional storytelling get in the way of a good movie.  What resulted was a freewheeling, clever, and all-unexpectedly subversive movie that made for a perfect fit with the "Don't Trust Anyone Over 30" market of the early 1970s.

What I Didn’t Like

However, fitting in with 1970s was part of my problem with this movie – and was always a problem I had with the hit TV show that followed.  Everyone dresses and acts like young people in the 1970s.  The Korean War took place from 1950 to 1953.  I wasn’t there, obviously, but I’ve seen plenty of film and pictures of people who were and I’ve spoken to some people that were as well.  It’s a safe bet to say that few if any American men enlisted during the Korean War looked anything like what Donald Sutherland and his compatriots look like in this movie.  The same goes for the women.  There wasn’t a 1950s hairdo among the ladies.  They all had the long, straight cuts of 1970s women.  Yes, I understand authenticity wasn’t the first consideration of the filmmakers here (except maybe in the surgery-related gore), but it is just something that always prevented me from completely suspending my disbelief in what was happening on screen.

Most Memorable Scene

For overall fun from start to finish, one can’t help but go with the football game that substitutes for what would normally be the climax in a more typical film.  Especially since I just watched this movie the day after this past Super Bowl and the similarities were hilarious (for the movie) and pathetic (for the NFL).

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5

BULL DURHAM (1988)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Comedy

Director: Ron Shelton

Cast: Kevin Costner / Susan Sarandon / Tim Robbins

Plot

Cynical Minor Leagues catcher Crash Davis is assigned to babysit his team’s wreckless, young pitcher through a season of baseball.  Meanwhile local baseball groupie Annie does her best to improve both men’s games on the field and under the sheets.

What I Liked

My source book, the 2011 edition of “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die,” includes so many movies for being artistically revolutionary, socially profound, or intellectually complex that is kind of refreshing to watch a film on the list that is really none of these.  “Bull Durham,” like the sport it celebrates, is mainly just an old-fashioned good time.  Essentially Americana filtered through a baby boomer perspective, the movie doesn’t go for anything groundbreaking, but hits all the bases for entertainment and laughs.

A great deal of what makes the film work is that it gives us what feels like an authentic look inside a mediocre ball club.  Writer-director Ron Shelton was in the minor leagues himself and thus his experience informs his debut film with language, relationships, and experiences that crowd the comedy in truth.  Thus the old adage, “it’s funny because it’s true” applies as well here as it does to maybe any comedy.

Kevin Costner’s performance has been hailed as perhaps his best, and maybe it is.  He hits the perfect balance between cynicism and vulnerability to be both cool and relatable.  But Tim Robbins deservers at least equal praise in my eyes for playing the asshole-you-can’t-help-but-root-for Nuke LaLoosh.  Though the character of LaLoosh - basically a man-child jock blessed with terrific physical talent and no brains – is somewhat of a cliché, Robbins’ performance rises above the caricature to make his character charismatic and funny.

What I Didn’t Like

Perhaps Susan Sarandon deserves a good deal of praise for her role as the poetry-reading seductress Annie.  Annie is sometimes legitimately sexy, despite the fact that I don’t’ find Sarandon physically attractive in the least.  At other times I found her skeletal, bug-eyed face so off-putting that I had difficulty even looking at the screen.

And, as mentioned above, truth be told, the film is in no way idiosyncratic, profound, enlightening, or ground-breaking.  It's really just a pleasant comedy good that failed to score with audiences in theaters at the time of its release and ultimately doesn't deserved to be mentioned in the same book as heavy hitters like "Citizen Kane," "The Wizard of Oz," or "Metropolis."

Most Memorable Scene

In terms of laughs, for me the funniest moment was when a meeting between Crash and Nuke on the pitcher’s mound turns into a regular “convention” of most of the rest of the team as they hold up the game discussing everything from family to where to find a sacrificial chicken.  Costner and Robert Wuhl in particular shine in this moment which one feels might also be based on some of Shelton’s real experiences.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5

HEAVENLY CREATURES (1994)

Country: New Zealand / Germany

Genre(s): Crime / Drama

Director: Peter Jackson

Cast: Melanie Lynskey / Kate Winslet / Sarah Peirse

Plot

Based on the true story of two teenage girls who became obsessed with one another and the imaginary world they invented for themselves, and what happened when their parents tried to separate them.

What I Liked

There are a great many genres mixed into “Heavenly Creatures.”  Drama, crime story, romance, mystery thriller, dark comedy, coming-of-age, and fantasy are all deftly assembled by director Peter Jackson and his co-screenwriter Fran Walsh into this unique period piece that also happens to be based on a true story.  In order to successfully convey this story to the audience, Jackson and Walsh had to deal with the two complex characters at its heart.  That complexity requires not only going into the facts of what happened, but the family dynamics and personal histories of each character, the social conventions of the time and place, and the fantasies of these teenage girls.  Meanwhile they have to make their characters sufficiently real, fragile, and likeable and simultaneously entertain an audience.  Once you see the film, you’ll realize what a weighty task this would have been for the filmmakers.  Yet somehow this is all accomplished so well that the view doesn’t really notice all of the complexity until the film is over; the storytelling has a very natural flow, never seeming forced or disjointed.

It helps that the film is perfectly cast, with each actor embodying their role with precision.  Most important is that the two young protagonists are made sympathetic and interesting, a mission accomplished well by Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet.  Lynskey is Pauline, a brooding misfit to the extreme, complete with an outrageously exaggerated scowl.  Winslet is rich girl Juliet who appears daring on the surface but is soon revealed to be desperately fragile.  Surrounding them are the actors playing their parents, each making an important contribution by playing the parents not as they would see themselves but as they were seen through the eyes of their children.

What I Didn’t Like

I don’t have anything to put here.  I’m thinking hard here, but if the film has a flaw, I didn’t notice it.

Most Memorable Scene

I mentioned earlier that the story has a natural flow to it.  The seamless blends between reality and fantasy are particularly powerful.  My favorite might be when the girls, having just left the theater after a showing of “The Third Man,” are chased through the streets and Juliet’s home by a trench-coated Orson Welles, who appears in black & white.  The successful blending of fantasy elements into the everyday lives of the girls is largely thanks to Jackson’s subtle use of special effects.  He displays remarkable refinement for a man who to this point had been known for gruesome (and terrific) low-budget horror outings with titles like “Bad Taste” and “Dead Alive.”

My Rating: 4 out of 5

SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Comedy

Director: Billy Wilder

Cast: Tony Curtis / Jack Lemmon / Marilyn Monroe

Plot

Having inadvertently witnessed the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, two down-and-out musicians go on the run from the Chicago mob by disguising themselves as women in an all-female jazz band.  Hijinks ensue when they both fall for the band’s voluptuous singer.

What I Liked

Were it not for the talents of its cast, “Some Like It Hot” would not be nearly as revered as it is today.  Or perhaps the praise belongs to casting director Phil Benjamin for assembling them and placing them in the perfect roles.  Tony Curtis is a natural as mischievous ladies’ man, Joe.  Lemmon in turn provides the perfect foil as the high-strung and exuberant Jerry.  Monroe does her thing about as well as she ever did it as the love-crazy bimbo Sugar.  Last but really not least, George Raft – who was a lifelong friend of Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky – gives an understated and underrated performance as the cold-hearted gangster Spats.

One of the other appeals for viewers back in the 1950s, particularly male audience members, would have been all the risqué subject matter, jokes, and shenanigans.  For a mainstream American film of its time, “Some Like It Hot” puts an abundance of female flesh on display, particularly legs and cleavage.  The best laughs in the movie come from watching Curtis and Lemmon get all kinds of curves shoved in their faces and not be able to react for fear of blowing their…ahem… cover.  And this twenty-first century viewer is not going to complain about two hours of watching Marilyn Monroe shimmy and swoon in a variety of barely-there outfits.

  

What I Didn’t Like

Criticizing a film that has been beloved by millions, is considered one of the defining moments of Marilyn Monroe’s career, and has been rated the single greatest comedy ever made by the American Film Institute might not be considered rational to some, but here goes anyway.

As I said at the beginning of the previous section, “Some Like It Hot” wouldn’t be nearly as respected of a film if it weren’t for the cast.  The plot and script itself are fair, but nothing spectacular.  The characters are about as stock as characters come.  The banter, clearly meant to be crux of the comedy between Curtis and Lemmon, often falls flat.  In short, I’ve seen this film more than once and on no occasion did it illicit more than a few chuckles from me in its entire two hour length.  Those chuckles came from the actors and how they delivered the dialogue or reacted to the situations in which their characters were placed, not from the script.

Here’s something else that bugs me about this and other old movies.  Outdoors in the Chicago winter the main characters are bundled up and constantly harping about how cold it is, yet we never once see their breath.  I know, nit-picking, but it’s just a pet peeve of mine to see something so simple overlooked in a major motion picture.

Most Memorable Scene

Tony Curtis gives us a terrific impression of Cary Grant when his character tries to woo Monroe by passing himself off as the heir to Shell Oil.  These scenes, all shared with Monroe, are the funniest of the film, particularly when they are together alone on a yacht and Curtis pretends that he is impervious to the wiles of women, convincing Monroe to use all of her curvaceous charms on him.  The actors have some enjoyable chemistry with one another, especially for two people who apparently couldn’t stand one another.  Monroe’s erratic behavior and lack of professionalism was a real trial for everyone else involved in the film.  By the time they got to film this scene, Curtis said later, kissing Monroe was “like kissing Hitler.”

My Rating: 4 out of 5

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946)

A.K.A.: La belle et la bete

Country: France

Genre(s): Fantasy / Romance

Director: Jean Cocteau

Cast: Jean Marais / Josette Day / Marcel Andre

Plot

In order to save her father’s life, Belle is held prisoner by the hideous Beast in his magical castle, but soon develops unexpected feelings for her captor.

What I Liked

My last entry was about a redefining exponent of neorealism.  Now we head in a completely different direction into a classic in surrealism.

I’m not much of a fantasy fan, but ironically what I enjoyed about this film were the elements most often associated with the genre: the sumptuous set design, dreamlike cinematography, elaborate costumes, primitive but elegant special effects, and dramatic musical score.  It all blends into an overall ethereal tone for “Beauty and the Beast” that always reminds the viewer of the story’s fairy tale origins.  Whether we’re in the gorgeous forest surrounding the Beast’s castle or inside of the foreboding castle itself, the sense of the magic, both light and dark, is ever-present.  Then there are the cinematic slights-of-hand that director Jean Cocteau and crew use to galvanize the eyes.  Just when all the histrionic drama gets a little too heavy, we’re treated to surprisingly quick special effect that probably amazed audiences of the time.  Even today, one can’t help but grin at these effects; we’re familiar with all of them and how they work now, but Cocteau’s timing and tastefulness in using them to their fullest effect is impeccable.  Even something as simple as cutting out the sound completely from some scenes, to where one can’t even hear footsteps or wind, adds to the film’s surreal

To me, George Auric’s music is indispensable to this film.  It’s every bit as lavish as what we see on the screen and in scenes where the emotional content lies under the surface, the music does much of the work in conveying the necessary feelings to the audience.  Most of all, the melodies are just plan gorgeous to the point where one wouldn’t really mind in just listening to the soundtrack alone.

What I Didn’t Like

Jean Marais seems to get a lot of praise for his dual-role performance, but I found him cheesy, one-dimensional, and not very creative in his portrayals of both Belle’s suitor Avenant and her captor, the Beast.  Granted, as the Beast, he does convey some of the anguish inherent in the character through his eyes and facial expressions, which are still easily seen thanks to the painstaking work of special effects designers.  However, his physical gestures and body language reminds one of a junior high school student trying to fumble his way through “Hamlet.”  And what does it say about an actor that his best work happens when there’s a mask over his face?

As a matter of fact, most of the male leads were disappointing; Michel Auclair and Marcel Andre don’t fair much better than Marais.  One could argue that he was a product of acting his time, but there were terrific actors in movies in the 1940s.  He just wasn’t one of them.

Most Memorable Scene

When Belle’s father first finds himself lost inside the Beast’s castle, we’re are transported from a fairly quaint reality into a convincing fantasy world in a manner not unlike “The Wizard of Oz” scene where Dorothy passes from black and white into color of Oz.  The castle scenes, like the rest of the movie, are entirely in black and white, but still dazzle the eyes with floating characters, disembodied arms, self-opening doors, living statues, and the constant presence of mist and smoke enveloping the characters in the same way the viewer in surrounded by a sense of mysterious splendor.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5

VOYAGE IN ITALY (1953)

A.K.A.: Viaggio in Italia / Journey To Italy

Country: Italy

Genre(s): Drama

Director: Roberto Rossellini

Cast: Ingrid Bergman / George Sanders / Maria Mauban

Plot

A trip to Italy widens the emotional gap already threatening the marriage of a British couple.

What I Liked

Historically speaking, “Voyage in Italy” is a transitional film in the development of world cinema, most particularly of European cinema.  Director Roberto Rossellini takes the themes of Italian neorealism, which dominated that country’s moviemaking in the post-War years, and has them play out in a whole new manner which takes a sideways look at traditional storytelling.  Neorealism, for all its nonconformity, still told stories along the traditional structure we’re all familiar with: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, conclusion; the operative word in all of this being action.  The characters cause things to happen, the characters must confront these things, and then we’re told that things are either back to normal or things will never be the same; then the movie is over.

What set neorealism apart from other movies of the era was that the people, events, and places involved were of relatively trivial importance when compared with the mainstream.  There was an intentional lack of kings, castles, cutesy kids, aliens, sword fights, gunfights, celebrities, talking animals, star-crossed lovers, wizards, monsters, magic, happy endings, or even attractive people; it was all gritty, down-to-earth studies of everyday people plagued with everyday problems, an approach that was very unique in the 1940s.  With “Voyage in Italy,” Rossellini takes that focus on the importance of the banal and puts it not in the action on screen but in the relationship between his main characters, to whom not much really happens in the way of external events.  Thus the story does not play out in a series of experiences happening to our characters, but in feelings happening between them.  The pendulum-like emotional sway of a husband and wife away from one another (emotionally), then closer, then further away, and then back again is the entire story.  If you think about it, this approach to exploring conflict is much more life-like than the traditional one, isn’t it?  How many of life’s real problems fit into the traditional story structure we’ve all learned since childhood?  Few if any.  Our problems are a better fit for the nonlinear and subtler approach Rossellini brings to “Voyage in Italy.”

Sounds boring, doesn’t it?  Well, yes, on the surface it can be; but that’s a little bit of what Rossellini was intentionally going for, actually.  That’s because his characters are bored, too.  They are so tired of one another, of their life together, and of their inability to enjoy any intimate connection at all, that they pretty much self-destruct when what is supposed to be a romantic vacation turns into a dull exercise in mutual irritation and contempt.  That boredom, irritation, and contempt, and the impending collapse of a relationship are portrayed with a level of accuracy likely unprecedented in film history up to that point, and that’s what makes the movie fascinating: how real it all seems.

What I Didn’t Like

I felt that Rossellini somewhat betrayed his revolutionary approach to storytelling by finally having something happen – even if it is completely believable – to the couple at the very end.  This happening then brings about an abrupt end to the film, wrapping things up a bit too nicely for a film that had spent so much time exploring the complexity of a relationship.

Both of the main characters are portrayed by very well-known English-speaking actors, Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders, which makes sense, since they are playing two English people familiar to one another travelling through a strange land, Italy.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find the version of the film in English.  This left me with the Italian-released version, which is both subtitled and overdubbed.  Normally I don’t mind subtitles at all.  But the fact that the actors were originally speaking their lines in English, then were overdubbed in Italian for release in that country, and then subtitled in English proved distracting for this English-speaking viewer.  I’ve seen both Bergman and Sanders in multiple other movies and admire them both as actors.  That I couldn’t hear them speak their lines as they were spoken was frustrating and irritating.  Then again, that the emotional turmoil of the characters still moved me, even with the problem of the subtitled overdubs, speaks to how well the actors could communicate, even without their voices.

Most Memorable Scene

Outside of the unconventional story of a relationship, the film has another appeal found in it’s setting.  As a tourist, Bergman’s Mrs. Joyce visits several memorable locales in and around Naples.  Vesuvius, the catacombs, various ruins, the sybil’s site, Pompeii, and a museum.  Each of these scenes is shot on location and make for fascinating viewing for the audience, who get to be tourists by proxy.  Even in sixty-year-old black and white pictures these ancient sights and places are extraordinary.

My Rating: 4 out of 5

REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Drama

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Cast: Jared Leto / Ellen Burstyn / Jennifer Connelly

Plot

Four people, feeling unable to fulfill their deepest desires, comfort themselves with drugs, losing themselves and each other to their addictions.

What I Liked

I’m pretty well convinced that Darren Aronofsky can do no wrong.  Of course, I’ve yet to see “The Fountain,” but I’ve seen all of his other movies.  Each and every one of them is among the most unforgettable films I’ve ever seen.  On an emotional level, “Requiem for a Dream” is the most devastating of them all.  It’s about as repulsive as staring into a public port-a-potty toilet for two hours, and yet it is somehow simultaneously a thing of absolutely beauty.

The toilet is of course the subject matter: likable human beings destroying themselves on every level for no good reason.  Aronofsky puts the grimy, nauseating reality of addiction on display through the use of surrealism.  The slow motion, the fast motion, the off-kilter camera angles, the dizzy point-of-view shots, the fast cutting, the uncomfortable close-ups, they’re all there not just to show off but to drive home the disjointed, nightmarish experience of the characters.

And that’s the beauty of it.  In Aronofsky we have a master of his craft, still very young when this movie was made, who has assembled a near-perfect portrait of that thing all Americans are trained to either deny or despise: failure.  In his hands, it’s all so wonderfully rendered, so painfully poignant, that one can’t help but admire the grotesque beauty.  Each of the film’s four protagonists is after some image of what we are all supposed to want: family, respect, success, and love.  It is their relatable pursuit of these supposedly all-American ideals that is most heart-breaking as it leads each of them into a personal Hell.  After all, each of us has our own thing too, whether it's drugs, alcohol, sex, television, junk food, violence, porn, nicotine, caffeine, energy drinks, crime, or whatever else is your fix.  You just haven't let it destroy you.  Yet.

Even forgetting Aronofsky, there are still the performances to admire.  As though they are participating in a painstakingly refined symphony orchestra, everyone from the four leads to the extras strike the perfect notes at the perfect time.  Hardly a second goes by where a well-known film star isn’t on the screen; and yet never once does the star power of the actors distract one from believing that the characters are very real people.  But first and foremost should be mentioned Ellen Burstyn, who turns in one of the most astounding performances of the last decade and yet somehow got passed over at the Oscars for…Julia Roberts.  And that, people, is why I don’t watch the Academy Awards.

Not-so-incidentally, the novel by Hubert Selby, Jr. (who co-wrote the film) is well worth a read.

What I Didn’t Like

I’ve seen “Requiem for a Dream” several times; I own it; It’s one of the most movie pictures I’ve ever seen.  Here’s the thing, though.  I can’t watch it any more often than once every five years.  I can literally still remember the first time I saw it, about two or three years after it came out.  After it ended I had to leave my apartment just to move around and get the anxiety and depression out of my brain.  It’s that goddamn powerful.

If you do decide to put this one on, hide the sleeping pills, sharp objects, and rope from yourself.  You’ve been warned.

Most Memorable Scene

Although Ellen Burstyn deservedly gets most of the kudos of all the actors in the film, Jennifer Connelly also turns gives a sorely underrated performance.  Her character, Marion, is nowhere near as manic as Burstyn’s Sara, which means Connelly’s role calls for more subtlety, a trait at which she has proven more than adept since her beginnings as a child actress (See “Once Upon a Time in America.”  Really, see it.).  Marion’s unravelling is the slowest of them all and at first we might not pay attention to how badly she is suffering, when compared with the others.  That is until her final scene in the movie.  She doesn’t speak a line, but her face, as beautiful as it is, becomes difficult to look at amid the ugliness of her torture and the heartbreaking performance of Jennifer Connelly.

My Rating: 5 out of 5

THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN (1933)

Country: U.S.A.

Genre(s): Drama / Romance / War

Director: Frank Capra

Cast: Barbara Stanwyck / Nils Asther / Walter Connolly

Plot

A Christian missionary held prisoner by a Chinese warlord gets history’s worst case of Stockholm Syndrome.

What I Liked

There simply were not any other films like “The Bitter Tea of General Yen” made in the 1930's.  Of course, I haven’t seen ever film made in the decade; yet I’m absolutely sure of this assertion.  In a movie highly atypical of him, director Frank Capra has one strangely dark scene follow another, romanticizes an interracial relationship, scratches the surface of Buddhist philosophy, and portrays American Christians as ignorant and naïve.  No wonder it didn’t sell well to a Depression-era American audience.  Still, it shows great bravery on the part of all involved to participate in a film with so many taboo themes.  Sure, a cynic could suppose that Capra and crew were hoping that shock value would sell their film.  If they did, they were wrong.  What they ended up with was a very strange piece of work entirely unique from anything else of that medium, in that time and place.

I spent much of the movie simply wondering where the filmmakers were going with this picture; but not in a bad way.  It’s just that the film defies so many early film conventions, even when it comes to plot structure, that figuring out exactly when or how the conflict would end proved mystifying.  Indeed, seeing the strange plot – and the surprisingly complex themes underneath it – unfold is what kept me watching without a moment of boredom.

What I Didn’t Like

Even with how boundary-pushing this movie was, it is still not surprising that a white man was cast to play the Chinese General Yen.  Today that decision might seem politically incorrect in the extreme; however one honestly can’t blame Capra and the others in this case.  To have Barbara Stanwyck actually romantically kiss a real “Chinaman” on the big screen in the 1930's probably would have doomed the careers of all involved in the picture.  They do deserve credit for at first playing off of the stereotypical Chinese villain common in films of the time and then twisting that character into a sympathetic, truly complex character by the conclusion.

Apparently Nils Asther has received a great deal of praise for his performance as the title character.  Other than the aforementioned going against the mold of the Chinese characters of the period, I don’t really see why Asther deserves so much praise.  His accent is ridiculous to the point of pathetic and he never once convinces the viewer, at least this 21^st century viewer, that he is actually Chinese.

Most Memorable Scene

*spoiler alert*

The processes by which Stanwyck’s character does eventually fall in love with the General is certainly difficult to fathom.  In one scene she’s convinced he’s either going to rape her or murder her and in the very next she’s professing her undying love for him.  By the time the Christian missionary walks through his door transformed into a glittering, face-painted, Orientalized (sorry if that’s not the politically correct term) woman and throws herself on her knees, kissing his hand, and saying “I could never leave you,” one is still trying to piece together at what point her heart changed and why.  There are hints here and elsewhere of a kind of breakdown of Stanwyck’s Westernized independence by an increasing sense of submissiveness.  This dom/sub subtext runs through much of the relationship between she and Yen and climaxes with these shots of her at his feet.  Even when the credits roll, it’s the only explanation that makes even a little sense, at least to this viewer.

Perhaps I’m over analyzing and it was simply a matter of the film finally needing to get to its conclusion and the filmmakers not being sure of how to pull it off, so they just did it.  But we’re talking about a filmmaker of the caliber of Capra, I’d doubt that.

My Rating: 3 out of 5