#510: Written on the Wind

Directed by: DOUGLAS SIRK
1956, TSPDT Rank #347

At last long last I have ventured once again to the Technicolor dream-world of Douglas Sirk. Written on the Wind is neither as hypnotically beautiful or overpoweringly sentimental as All That Heaven Allows - but it does have its share of sensational moments and visual innuendo. In fact, I watched this film the other day in my Cinema Studies class, and Dorothy Malone's not-so-subtle "hand acting" in the final scene could probably give my professor enough material to fill a two-hour lecture (and probably gave film audiences in the mid-1950s a real shock)!

But I digress. Despite a few ridiculously over-blown moments, Written on the Wind is actually a more pensive and nuanced film than most contemporary reviewers seem to give it credit for. Sirk's films like All That Heaven Allows or Imitation of Life are more immediately accessible, but also more broadly-drawn and obvious in their approach. Written on the Wind is more akin to The Tarnished Angels than the aforementioned Sirk films - there's an element of ambiguity to the film, and the characters have more depth. Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, and Robert Stack all bring a lot to their roles - but the Dorothy Malone character was the one who interested me the most. Malone won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this role, which seemed to shock my professor - but I thought it was much deserved. Her character is usually written off - by both reviewers as well as the characters in the film - as a crazy nymphomaniac, but really she's in the same situation as Rock Hudson's character is in the film. They are both in love with someone else - except that Hudson's character deals with the situation in a way that would be seen as "noble", and Malone's approaches it in the opposite way. But regardless of the melodramatic fine points, the character of Marylee Hadley is an interesting example of how women with their own personal agenda were portrayed in Hollywood during this era. She didn't seem like a nymphomaniac to me - more like someone who was just lonely, lost, and desperate.

Nevertheless, this is a film that should be seen by anyone interested in classical Hollywood melodrama. One of the things which has always fascinated me most about this era of film history is how much filmmakers had to rely on visual metaphors and pure sexual tension to convey ideas which could not be explicitly shown or referred to in dialogue. The level of craftsmanship displayed by someone like Douglas Sirk makes the difference between a forgettable film and one which the viewer truly feels and experiences during the process of watching it.

#509: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Directed by: RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER
1974, TSPDT Rank #122

This film, situated right in the middle of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's extremely short but equally prolific career, is almost an exact remake of Douglas Sirk's All That Heaven Allows - only with the Hollywood varnish stripped off and the plotline's ante upped considerably. Fassbinder transports the story to 1970s West Germany, trades operatic plot turns for harsh, subdued moments of reality, and replaces the attractive leads of Sirk's film with a cast of battered, beaten, and world-weary characters. And while the story still involves the love between an older woman and a younger man, Fassbinder also adds race into the equation - along with several references to Hitler along the way. All of this adds up to create a considerably more uncomfortable film than All That Heaven Allows was, while still playing on the audience's emotions in such an effective and subtle manner that it's no wonder that the film also ranks higher on the TSPDT list than All That Heaven Allows. The story of romance between an elderly German cleaning lady and a much younger Moroccan immigrant could definitely not have been achieved as powerfully by any other director of the time, or any other time for that matter. Fassbinder not only pays homage to his melodramatic influences with this film, but subverts them to create a unique and spellbinding effect - much like Sirk himself did with the Hollywood conventions of his day. A truly impressive film from a legendary figure in cinema history.

#508: Shadow of a Doubt

Directed by: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

1943, TSPDT Rank #492

Shadow of a Doubt was supposedly Alfred Hitchcock's favorite of all the films he directed, and while it might not jump out at you quite like some of his later films such as Psycho or Vertigo, if you read between the lines and pay attention to the small details, you might get some idea of why Hitch was so pleased with this film. It functions very well as a psychological thriller of its time, but there a lot of hidden subtexts hidden under the surface which suggest something more sinister and twisted than just a murderer on the loose in small-town America. The relationship between Joseph Cotten's Uncle Charlie and his niece, Teresa Wright's "young Charlie" is something which has often been brought up in discussions of the film, but which is only vaguely alluded to onscreen as "something more than an ordinary uncle and niece". Certain events early in the film seem to suggest that there is some psychic connection between the two, but this seems less and less true as the film progresses. Uncle Charlie and his niece don't really seem to have a lot in common on the surface, but there does seem to be a strange bond between them. What exactly this bond implies is definitely one of the film's major themes - and I would bet that Hitch had his own perverse, unspoken ideas about it. On a more conventional level, I'm sure that he liked toying with the idea that someone could get away with murder - and even achieve a certain level of comfort and respect after the fact. This concept is usually dealt with much solemnly and resolutely in other films noir or thrillers of the time period, but if there was anyone determined to push the boundaries of film morality in Hollywood, it was Alfred Hitchcock - who always appreciated the dark humor and grey matter inherent in macabre situations, and put these signature preoccupations in prominent display for Shadow of a Doubt. 

#507: Picnic at Hanging Rock

Directed by: PETER WEIR
1975, TSPDT Rank #515

Picnic at Hanging Rock is one of those rare films which does not have any of the typical hallmarks of the horror genre, yet which envelops the viewer in a mood so eerie and relentless that it's hard to avoid classifying it as a horror film. The first line heard in the film is an Edgar Allen Poe quote - "What we see and what we seem are but a dream... A dream within a dream" - and this line seems to capture the feeling that the film conveys. It has an impossibly dreamlike feel that is very ethereal and haunting, and the effect that I got from watching it was just about as implausible as the disappearance of three Australian schoolgirls and a teacher from their Victorian girls' college, which the film is centered around. One of the things that never ceases to amaze me about the art of film is how the disparate elements involved in a film's production can combine to create a mood as palpable as life with just the right touch. And Picnic at Hanging Rock has "the touch" in spades. After watching it, I felt overcome by the same strange, unnameable feeling which seemed to haunt those who returned from the excursion to Hanging Rock - and the hazy feeling of unrest didn't shake entirely for a few days afterward. Now as I think back on the film I can feel it flooding back...

With this sort of film, you only need to see it once for it to leave a permanent trace in the back of your memory. It's truly a weird and hypnotic gem - and a great example of a horror film that ventures well away from the beaten path, while retaining an accessibility that will ensnare the imagination of anyone not too unsettled to venture on with it.  "What we see and what we seem are but a dream... A dream within a dream."

#506: All That Heaven Allows

Directed by: DOUGLAS SIRK
1955, TSPDT Rank #303

All That Heaven Allows is one of the more famous Douglas Sirk and Rock Hudson collaborations - and it is also one of the most extreme, uncompromising melodramas I have ever seen. Many retrospective assessments of Sirk's work have read large amounts of irony into his sweeping Technicolor melodramas, interpreting them as over-the-top criticisms of 1950s society and the type of films that the Hollywood system of that time produced. From what I've read about Sirk, it seems that this is a pretty credible interpretation - especially since it seems that he considered most of the films he directed to be trash. However, All That Heaven Allows is still an extremely effective melodrama with stunningly beautiful and sophisticated visuals. It is impeccably crafted, and what irony Sirk might have intended is concealed discreetly beneath the surface of an immensely powerful love story that is anything but discreet. I knew basically what to expect before the film even started, but by the time it was over, I was overpowered and wrapped up in it to a ridiculous degree. That's the definition of a knockout melodrama.

#505: Five Easy Pieces

Directed by: BOB RAFELSON
1970, TSPDT Rank #369

Five Easy Pieces is a simple, yet extremely powerful film. It seems that it must have been quite groundbreaking when it was released, being a character study with an open-ended plotline and poetic visuals of bleakly beautiful American landscapes. This was a new kind of film that was emerging in American cinema at the time, so this film and its fascinating leading man (Jack Nicholson) must have made quite an impression on people who happened to go out and see it in 1970. I remember seeing parts of it on TV when I was about 11 or 12, and it definitely made an impression on me. Despite the fact that I didn't really understand what was going on in the film at that age, certain images (the brother in the neck brace, the mute father with the piercing gaze) and scenes (particularly the final shot) were burned in my memory, and flooded into my mind whenever I heard about this film later on. Seeing the film now, I found it just as vivid and haunting - only with the shattering impact of understanding. With a film like this one that has so many powerful moments and well-drawn characters, understanding the context and the "big picture" isn't entirely necessary in many respects, but with the extra layer the experience can be just that much more meaningful and effective. And that was certainly the case for me as I revisited this film from the perspective of experience.

Five Easy Pieces is one of the most potent portraits of restlessness, yearning, and disaffection that I've seen. But these feelings are mainly present in Jack Nicholson's main character, Bobby Dupea. The true brilliance of this film is in the richness of the whole - the structure, the flow, the superbly-acted supporting characters, the cinematography, and most importantly how it shows the effects Bobby's actions have on the people around him. He is a misfit wherever he goes - even in his own home. He tells his estranged father that he moves around to prevent the situations he finds himself in from getting worse. He sabotages nearly every relationship in his life because he can't come to terms with his place in it. This is a rare example of a film in which the effects of the main character's actions toward those around him are as deeply felt as his own "inner feelings", and this results in an experience which evokes many complex emotions yet provokes none. Once you've taken in the details, and sat through the progression of the story, there are still no easy answers. You can feel that the film could continue for countless miles in any direction and still be just as rich and engrossing. It's the type of film that Robert Altman strived to make, and that I feel is the best that narrative cinema has to offer. Not a self-contained storyline, but an open-ended snapshot which adds up to much more than the sum of its parts. While I continue to find endless pleasure in things like horror films and Hollywood melodrama (and think that there is a great deal of artistic potential in that type of material) - it's films like Five Easy Pieces that truly keep my interest and appreciation for film alive and well.

#504: The Thing

Directed by: JOHN CARPENTER
1982, TSPDT Rank #424

This might be another film that has been built up too much for me over the years, but having finally seen this remake of the 1951 Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks film, The Thing from Another World, I am very underwhelmed. I was particularly excited about seeing John Carpenter's remake - partially because it had been recommended to me in response to a claim I made that David Cronenberg's remake of The Fly was one of the few examples of a horror remake which expanded and improved upon the original, and also because I hadn't seen any of Carpenter's work besides Halloween (another famous horror film I'm not that crazy about). However, the original was much more effective as far as I'm concerned. The special effects work here is impressive, but impressive special effects never make or break a movie for me. In fact, I think that the effects were too over-the-top, and prevented the film from building the momentum it needed. The elements of paranoia which are often mentioned as one of the film's main attritubutes are present, but are moreso overstated rather than deeply felt - such as in a film like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, or even the original Thing from Another World. Overall, the film seemed dull and lacking in tension what it had in gruesome special effects, pyrotechnics, and overt paranoia. My favorite aspect of the film was how it seemed that the Americans were dealing with the Thing in almost exactly the same fashion as the Norwegians did at their camp, judging from the remains of the Norwegian camp shown at the beginning of the film. This early scene is very telling of the apocalyptic destruction to come, and probably made more of an impact for me than any other single moment in the film. But I can't think of much else that really interested me - although I will give full disclosure that I would probably be considered a horror snob by most people. Still, I feel that The Thing most likely deserves its reputation as a horror classic even if it didn't make much of an impact on me personally. There are better horror films out there in a similar vein, but The Thing does have a certain blunt impact and visually striking quality which have certainly made an impression on many since its release, and will most likely continue to do so for years to come.