Top 10's of the decades - 1940's

10. Stray Dog (1949, directed by Akira Kurosawa)

The earliest of Kurosawa's many masterpieces (he's got at least 8 I'd call out and out great movies), Stray Dog is about a young post-war Tokyo cop who has his gun stolen on the train home one hot summer day. This gun later turns up as the murder weapon in another case, and sends the young officer on a manhunt to find who stole his gun. One of Kurosawa's underappreciated non-samurai movies, Stray Dog has a palpable sweat to it, evoking those unbearable summer days and humid nights. Wrapping that setting around a cop movie was a good choice, and having his favorite actors Toshiro Mifune (as the young cop) and Takashi Shimura (as the veteran helping him out) as his stars was never anything but brilliant.

9. Bambi (1942, 5 different directors)

One of those odd "nostalgic" movies that I'm not actually nostalgic for. Bambi was never one of my favorites when I was a kid, I think I thought it was too slow. But when I saw it as an adult, I was mesmerized by the nature scenes and the evocation of seasons and life in the forest. I still don't cry when Bambi's mother is killed, but I tense up as they're trying to get out of the burning forest, and get all dewy eyed when the characters are growing up. One of the great Disney movies for sure.


8. Double Indemnity (1944, directed by Billy Wilder)

The earliest of Billy Wilder's many great movies, Double Indemnity did what a lot of the classic noir movies did, it took a terrific noir book, and didn't screw anything up in the translation to the screen. Fred MacMurray is a great choice as our everyman protagonist, drawn into the web of femme fatale Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson makes for a great investigative foil who witnesses the whole thing unravel (as it always does in these noir movies). Great atmosphere, writing, acting, it's got all the usual hallmarks of a Wilder movie.


7. Foreign Correspondent (1940, directed by Alfred Hitchcock)

The greatest movie Hitchcock ever made that most people haven't heard about, Foreign Correspondent doesn't have any big stars, or any iconic set pieces, it's just a damn fine movie. A globetrotting reporter played by Joel McCrea runs around Europe during WWII having all kinds of Hitchcockian hijinks happening around him (ya know, murder and blackmail and all that good stuff). Despite being nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars that year, Foreign Correspondent seems overshadowed in history by Hitch's other 1940 release, the Best Picture winning Rebecca. But it has some of Hitch's best work (especially the plane crash), including a deviously villianous turn by a pre-Santa Claus Edmund Gwynn.


6. Monsieur Verdoux (1947, directed by Charlie Chaplin)

One of the great dark comedies ever made, I've written about Charlie Chaplin's diabolical opus before, but I'll recap that it was an idea Orson Welles had for a movie that he wanted Chaplin to star in. Chaplin had never been directed by anyone but himself, and wasn't gonna start at the age of 58, so he bought the script, re-wrote it, directed it, starred in it, and wrote the score for it (a typical day at the office for control freak Chaplin). It's the story of a man who marries women, kills them and takes their money. It abides by the production code of the day by not letting Chaplin get away with it, but coming out just after WWII, Chaplin can't help commenting "One murder makes a villain, millions a hero." I've only seen 2 Chaplin's I'd call genius. And while I think his The Gold Rush is superior to this, Monsieur Verdoux is certainly his other.

5. Citizen Kane (1941, directed by Orson Welles)

What more can really be said about this, likely the most talked and written about movie in cinema history? I'll just quickly posit that obviously I don't put it as one of the 1 or 2 greatest movies ever made, it is most definitely a great movie. Orson Welles' work as director is incredibly ambitious and impressive, his work as writer nearly flawless, but it's his central role as Charles Foster Kane that really carries this textbook of a movie. He doesn't need the aging makeup he's put in, he believably takes us through different stages of Kane's life with just body language and voice control. It's truly amazing work on every level from a man who was only 26 at the time. And for those who haven't seen it, yes Rosebud was his sled, but what does that mean?

4. He Walked by Night (1948, directed by Alfred L. Werker)

Probably the most unfairly overlooked noir movie ever made. Serving as the blueprint for Dragnet's use of real police files, and having that shows creator and star Jack Webb in a small role, He Walked by Night is a fascinating police procedural noir with some striking cinematography, terrific performances, and a tightly wound script that never lets up, even if it only lasts 79 minutes.

Credited to journeyman filmmaker Alfred L. Werker, but directed at least in part by the legendary Anthony Mann (reports conflict on how much), the calling card of the movie has to be its finale, a flashlight lit chase through the L.A. storm drain system that shames the more famous, and very similar, chase at the end of The Third Man, released the following year. The wonderful suspense of the chase is heightened by what we already know of the killer's knowledge of the underground system, and his preparation of just such a scenario. The little details adding up into a tremendous sequence that's the best I've run across in my quest. The photography of the picture overall should be commended as well, shot by master cinematographer John Alton (An American in Paris, The Big Combo), the finale is not the only memorably photographed sequence (although I can't impress upon you how much I loved that finale), we get many great shots of faces lit by the light shining through the blinds, lonely intersections broken only by a single street lamp, and many more.


3. Miracle on 34th Street (1947, directed by George Seaton)

Everyone has that movie (or movies) that just make them feel good. No matter what your mood is, no matter what's going on in your life, you can watch it and feel thoroughly good. Well, this is that movie for me. I watch it multiple times a year and cry with joy every. single. time. The tale of faith and Santa Claus and legal loopholes and all that stuff add up to be the movie that just makes me the happiest I can be.

I have always wanted to point out that it makes me laugh that the finale of the movie is all driven by people acting selfishly. Fred is so sure of himself as a lawyer he says he can prove Kris is the real deal. Judge Harper refuses to dismiss the case because he has to keep his integrity, but can't risk pissing off the voters and he's up for re-election soon. The post office workers simply want to be able to get rid of all the Santy Claus letters they have in their dead letter office, so they send them to Kris. It doesn't exactly underline the giving mentality of what Kris preaches, but the movie makes me so happy that even as I'm watching it and thinking about how everyone is selfish, I just don't care and I sit back and be happy.

But as a movie buff I couldn't put it on the list if I didn't admire it from a filmmaking perspective too. It's got a tight script, is nicely photographed, and the acting by everyone involved is top notch. So it satisfies anything I could want from it.


2. Notorious (1946, directed by Alfred Hitchcock)

One of the great performances from one of our greatest stars, Ingrid Bergman, is contained right here in one of the most low-key spy stories the movies have ever given us. It's really not a spy tale at all, it's the story of love and how these two people let their jobs get in the way, and put their country above themselves just long enough for things to get all screwed up, while we hope that they get out of it in the end. It's a nearly perfect movie, in my eyes, with Cary Grant's career best work, and Bergman's only being surpassed by another movie on her resume...


1. Casablanca (1942, directed by Michael Curtiz)

Speaking of perfect movies, I don't think I can find a flaw in the world's most famous B-movie. Not intended as one of the big studio productions, Casablanca simply came together in the happiest of accidents and became one of the most beloved movies ever made. It took me a long time to see it, but as soon as it was over I wasn't asking myself what the big deal was, I was kicking myself for waiting so damn long to see one of the greatest movies ever made and the best movie of the 1940's.

I have to detail my personal favorite scene in the movie and the reason why Humphrey Bogart was one of our greatest stars. After seeing Ilsa again, and hearing "As Time Goes By" for the first time in years, Rick sits drinking alone after closing the bar. Sam comes in and starts playing piano, Rick gives his "of all the gin joints in the world, she walks into mine" speech, but then asks Sam what he's playing. Sam says it's something of his own, and Rick lashes out at him to "stop it! You know what I wanna hear. If she can stand to hear it, I can!" and the look of complete devastation on Bogie's face should've won him an Oscar.

Upcoming posts - top 10 lists

Since I've always been a list maker, I've decided to create my top 10 movies for the decades of film I care about. Now, I'm a movie nerd, so I care about everything back to and including the silent era. For these lists, I didn't do the decades before the 1940's because as I was going through I realized that I didn't know enough about those decades to feel confident enough about my top tens to defend them. I know me some Keaton, Chaplin, and Lloyd, but not a lot else from the silent era (other than the big ones like Sunrise, The Birth of a Nation, and other agreed upon classics), and my list from the 30's of movies I'd rank as all-time greats was barely double digits. I've made these lists and will write a bit about why each movie is on there, starting with...

Nicolas Winding Refn triple feature

 

Nicolas Winding Refn is a director who has started making his name in America after much international success. He started off in his native Denmark with 1996's Pusher, a strong (if not talked about) influence on the famous Dogme 95 movement. He ended up making it a trilogy, all highly acclaimed. I've not seen any of the Pusher films, but I recently watched 3 of his other movies, and all were quite interesting and worth a look.

In 2008, Refn made a "biopic" of Charles Bronson (born Michael Peterson), the man who has been called "the most violent prisoner in Britain" and has spent only 69 days free from prison since 1974, despite being proud to say he has never killed anyone. Tom Hardy (who many now know as Bane from The Dark Knight Rises, or perhaps as "the British guy" from Inception) gives a performance of incredible power, humor, and unrestrained rage. It's the most animalistic performance I've seen from an actor, and with this character, might be the only way of making him watchable without turning the audience off.

Refn, thankfully, never tries to explain away Charlie's behavior, nor make any type of excuses for him. He simply shows Bronson, unjudgingly, unabashedly, unapologetically. Bronson narrates in what becomes a kind of vaudeville show about his life, from briefly seeing his childhood (which he said was pretty good, his parents were hard working folks doing their best), to becoming a petty criminal who likes to get oiled up and fight guards, teachers, other prisoners, basically anyone who's in front of him. Forcing him to be moved more than 100 times to different prisons. Hardy's pit bull without a leash performance is reason enough to see this movie, as it's extraordinary. Thankfully, Refn keeps us at 90 minutes, because I'm not sure I would want any more.

The next movie I watched was Valhalla Rising, from 2009. A Viking story set in the year 1000 AD, we follow One Eye (the great Mads Mikkelsen, who many remember as the blood crying villain in Casino Royale), a prisoner made to fight other prisoners until he breaks loose and kills his captors. Sparing a little boy who begins to follow him around, the mute One Eye makes his way across the harsh landscape until he joins up with some crusading Christian Vikings looking to sail to the holy land and take it back. What follows is a hellish journey full of symoblism, silence, and plenty of tremendous cinematography.

Refn's compositions are often bold, almost garish in color, which he attributes to being slightly color blind. If they aren't big loud colors, he reasons that he can't really see them very well, so that's how his movies look. I like it, in general, and it works for the symbolic nature of Valhalla Rising. What also works in our descent into this cursed acid trip of a journey is, again, the lead performance. Mikkelsen is one of the most respected actors in Europe, having won many acting awards (most recently a Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival). His work here as One Eye is tremendous, making his character dangerous without ever uttering a word, or often even emoting at all. He's an enigma, a mystery, and fascinating every second of the way. The movie itself is also quite good, though just like Bronson, it's not for everyone.

The third and most recent movie in Refn's catalog that I watched was his most mainstream and successful movie, 2011's Drive. Ryan Gosling came aboard to star and was allowed to select a director he wanted to work with, and said Refn was his only choice. Drive is like a 70's character study movie, in the cool cold sheen of an 80's movie. Gosling stars as The Driver, stuntman by day, getaway driver by night. Peppered with terrifically cast supporting roles, Drive is a damn fine little modern crime movie.

The opening getaway, where The Driver sets up his rules (5 minutes, no more, then I'll drive you anywhere) and we see him elude the LAPD at every turn, is extraordinary and the highlight of the movie. Thankfully, the rest of the movie is good too, though nothing reaches the heights that that opening sequence does. Still, it's interesting to see Refn's take on a mainstream movie, and Drive is certainly different enough to set itself apart from the other crime, gangster, and driver movies out there. It'll be interesting to see what Refn and Gosling's next collaboration, the currently shooting Only God Forgives, delivers to us.

Dumbo

Dumbo was an odd movie for me in my life. I loved many parts of it, but remembered it as being scary and kind of a downer. Specifically the "Pink Elephants on Parade" section scared the bejesus out of me as a child, but I still liked the movie. I recently put it on for my daughter (who loved it), and found myself feeling like a kid again.

It begins as storks are delivering babies to all of the animals, including the animals of a circus in Florida. Everyone seems to be getting a baby, except Mrs. Jumbo, one of the elephants. Of course, her stork is just running a little behind, and she eventually is delivered little Jumbo Jr., who is discouragingly nicknamed Dumbo by the others because of his enormous ears. Mrs. Jumbo doesn't care, and loves her little boy with all her heart. When she gets angry and lashes out at people who make fun of Dumbo, they're separated, and Dumbo finds himself having to make his own way, with only a small mouse as his friend and mentor.

Sounds like a downer of a movie, and thankfully Disney's 7 credited directors don't skimp on the emotion attached to either mother or child. We get multiple beautifully heartbreaking moments, as Dumbo does what he can to succeed, and to ultimately be reconnected with his mother. Dumbo himself doesn't really make much of an impression, even though he's exactly the kind of silent hero I usually love so much. The supporting cast steals the show, a recurring happening in Disney movies. Dumbo's mouthy mouse friend, the petty and easily hateable other elephants, and even the controversial crows steal the show. The crows, if you haven't seen the movie, are fairly offensive black stereotypes, which audiences may or may not have noticed in 1941 when the movie came out, but post Civil Rights movement, can't help but stick out like a sore thumb.

That said, what sticks out most like a sore thumb for me is the idiotic "Pink Elephants on Parade" section, as Dumbo hallucinates because he gets drunk off a part of a bottle of champagne that one of the circus clowns accidentally drops in with Dumbo's drinking water (must be better shit than I've ever shelled out money for, maybe I need to be partying with those clowns). Not only is this sequence a bit scary, and far too long, it is simply at complete odds with everything else around it. It has no place in the movie. It's terrific animation, would've been mind blowing at the time, and certainly must've influenced The Beatles and much of the imagery of psychedelia, but it doesn't belong in Dumbo. Dumbo is a powerful story of unconditional love, and this sequence is the single thing keeping it from being a truly great movie. It has no business, on a story or animation level, being here.

But still, a movie I remember liking as a kid, I love as an adult. The heartwrenchingly simple story, the splendid animation, terrific voice acting, and a very friendly 64 minute runtime, it's all there and I love it.

Charlie Kaufman

I’ve written about writer Charlie Kaufman a bit before, writing about Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I recently revisited it, and the two movies he initially made his name on, as writer of 1999’s Being John Malkovich and 2002’s Adaptation. Both directed by former music video director Spike Jonze, these movies established Kaufman as a master of bringing odd ideas to the screen in new and interesting ways. He went on to win an Oscar for his screenplay for Eternal Sunshine, and in 2008 debuted as director as well, with the divisive Synecdoche, New York. I think he’s one of the most interesting artists in Hollywood, as his work is so different, but isn’t obtuse or intentionally alienating.

Kaufman’s work heavily explores the theme of identity. In Malkovich, Craig and Lotte (John Cusack and Cameron Diaz) are both unhappy being themselves, both fall in love with Maxine (Catherine Keener), and once Craig discovers a portal into the mind of actor John Malkovich, he and Lotte both want to stay there indefinitely. Craig, a puppeteer, discovers he can not only experience life through Malkovich’s eyes, but actually control him like a puppet and live inside him indefinitely. Lotte finds she feels more natural as a man, and uses Malkovich to live her love of Maxine as a man. That doesn’t even begin to describe half of the movie, which like all of Kaufman’s work winds and curves in ways we don’t expect, with this movie having one of the most hilariously surreal scenes in cinema history, where Malkovich himself enters the portal into John Malkovich’s head.

Adaptation. concerns the fictionalized account of Kaufman trying to adapt the Susan Orlean book The Orchid Thief into a movie. Unable to figure out how to do it, Kaufman decided to write a script about him trying to write the script. Twin roles by Nicolas Cage (in one of the great performances of the 2000’s) have Charlie juggle his frustration in adapting the book while keeping his artistic integrity against the upstart success of his brother Donald, who seems like a Hollywood wet dream, churning out a script about a serial killer with cliché after cliché and finding much more success than Charlie seems able to find. The movie is famous for Charlie’s speech at the beginning of the movie saying he doesn’t want to write a movie where people find love, learn life lessons, get involved in shootouts and car chases, or anything like that, and as the movie goes along, it becomes the thriller that Charlie didn’t want to write, bringing Meryl Streep’s Susan Orlean and Chris Cooper’s titular orchid thief along for the ride. It sounds twisty and turny, but Kaufman’s writing is so flawless, and Jonze’s assured direction bring the movie to life in a way that I didn’t even realize until leaving the theater that the movie had turned into the one Charlie had talked about in the opening moments of the movie.

I still believe his crowning achievement is the heartbreaking romance Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where Clementine (Kate Winslet) goes to a doctor to get her newly ex-boyfriend Joel (Jim Carrey) erased from her memory. In a retaliatory move, Joel decides to do the same thing, but realizes during the process of the erasing that he wants the memories, good and bad, that made Clem have such an impact on his life. Eternal Sunshine has a heart that the others don’t. Not that the first two scripts are heartless, it’s just that dealing with the memories of a relationship gives a lot of space for tugging at the heartstrings. Directed by Michel Gondry, the movie has a lo-fi visual invention not often seen, which goes a long way to revealing the memories that Joel begins to realize he treasures. The absolutely infallible work by Winslet and Carrey is something to behold, and the partially fractured narrative makes it easy for me to revisit again and again.

His most “out there” work as writer, his directing debut Synecdoche, New York needs a re-visit by me. But it also concerns ideas about the identity, as it follows a theater director Caden (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who stages a version of his life, increasingly blurring the lines between fiction and true life. It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I remember a similar surreal humor during things like Caden casting an actor to play him in his play about himself, and then casting an actor to play the actor playing him, and things along those lines. I don’t remember quite the same type of humor throughout the movie, but maybe I was just getting caught up in the movie’s labyrinthine structure and not sitting back and enjoying the ride like I did with the others. We’ll see how I feel once I re-watch it, as I find Kaufman’s work endlessly watchable.

Kaufman is also credited as the writer of George Clooney’s directing debut Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, about former Gong Show host Chuck Barris’s assertion that he was a CIA assassin the whole time he was in the public eye. Kaufman angrily criticized Clooney’s adaptation and made it known that the movie was far removed from his script. I liked Clooney’s movie, but I would be even more interested to see what Kaufman’s original draft looked like. Nobody in Hollywood has a mind like Kaufman’s, no matter how much we need more people like him.

Bernie

Bernie is the most normal movie that I’d ever call odd. It is a very odd little movie, based on the true story of Bernie Tiede. Jack Black plays Bernie, an effeminate assistant funeral director in the east Texas town of Carthage who, was put on trial for murdering his 81-year-old companion Marjorie Nugent (played by Shirley MacLaine). This shocks the town, as Bernie was the nicest person imaginable, endlessly generous with money and time, and Marge was “a hateful old bitch.”

We see Bernie be as accommodating as you could possibly be to every family who came through the funeral home. When Marge’s husband dies, it seems like Bernie almost takes her animosity as a challenge, a wall to be climbed over to become her friend. He does, but before long finds her controlling nature holding him back from being himself. We see Bernie shoot her, there’s never a question of his guilt for us in the audience. But writer/director Richard Linklater interviews many of the real people of Carthage who insist that Bernie couldn’t possibly have done it, he was just too nice and honest and Marge was the dragon of the town and nobody was really gonna miss her. District Attorney Danny Buck Davidson (Matthew McConaughey) has to combat how he’s gonna get a conviction in a town where the people would sooner have the murderer around than they’d have deceased.

All of this is played as the slightest of comedy. Linklater (co-writing with journalist Skip Hollandsworth, on whose article the screenplay is based) doesn’t go for any big laughs, but he doesn’t try to darken the material either. Black’s extraordinary work as Bernie (a performance of truly the highest order) is pitched just this side of caricature. None of Bernie’s mannerisms are camp or insincere at all, Black goes for realism, making the performance all the more astounding in its creation of this odd character. MacLaine seems like she is having the time of her life playing the nasty Marge, and McConaughey shows again that he can be a good actor with the right material. And the right filmmaker, as both he and Black are working with Linklater again. Black previously starred in School of Rock, while McConaughey starred in The Newton Boys as well as getting his breakout role in Linklater’s Dazed and Confused.

But back to Bernie. I think it’s the townspeople that take this movie over the top, as they’re the ones the most comedy comes from. Linklater, being from Texas, knows these types of people and doesn’t try to make fun of them, he just lets them bring their own small town humor and charm to the movie, and we’re better off for it. My only real complaint about the movie is that there’s no drama. We know from the beginning that Bernie kills Marge, and we don’t really think that Bernie will get off, no matter how much the people love him, so there’s no dramatic tension. And the only real surprises come from the actors. Still, those surprises are so wonderful that the movie should be seen.

Coriolanus

William Shakespeare’s work has been updated for new generations many times over the last 400 years. Actors like Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh made their name on adapting Shakespeare to the silver screen. Ralph Fiennes has been an established and respected actor for many years now, and he decided to make his directorial debut with the first screen adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy Coriolanus, about a Roman general banished from his homeland who takes up with his former enemy in a plan for destruction of Rome. Often thought of as a “lesser” work in Shakespeare’s canon, Fiennes’ adaptation makes one wonder why it isn’t more famous. It’s a powerful work, flawlessly acted, and gorgeously directed by Fiennes.

Fiennes keeps the language of Shakespeare, while transposing the action to an alternate modern setting. Obviously influenced by the setting of Cuaron’s Children of Men, the police state into which we’re dropped is frighteningly realized. The citizens of Rome are on the brink of riots as General Caius Marcius (Fiennes) conquers the city of Corioles, gaining him the title of Coriolanus. When he refuses to hide his contempt of the common folk, he’s eventually banished, leaving behind his family (a commanding Vanessa Redgrave as his mother, and the ethereal beauty Jessica Chastain as his wife) as he ends up seeking out his former enemy, rebel leader Aufidius (Gerard Butler), to join him in a sacking of Rome. Being a Shakespearean tragedy, things don’t turn out well.

Fiennes is electric in the lead role, his intensity and command of the language giving life to a play I had no prior knowledge of. Gerard Butler is, honestly, the only actor who doesn’t quite acquit himself, and that may only be because of Fiennes’ power making him seem unworthy of being an equal adversary. Redgrave is tremendous as the mother, Volumnia, and the always reliable Brian Cox is also a welcome addition as Roman Senator Menenius. Fiennes assuredness behind the camera is surprising and delightful. He stages every scene in a way that is imminently clear, even if you’re not able to keep up with the language density that plagues many people’s enjoyment of Shakespeare.

I have no idea whether Fiennes plans to bring any more Shakespeare to the screen, and follow the Branagh/Olivier multi-adaptation legacy, but the skill with which he has brought what is allegedly a “lesser” work to the big screen would make me welcome anything he does in the future as a wonderful filmmaker, now more than just being one of our best actors.

Indie Game: The Movie, and are video games art?

Before watching Indie Game: The Movie, I was never quite sure where I stood on the philosophical debate of “are video games art?” Roger Ebert caused an outrage in the gaming community a few years ago when he said that video games are not and cannot be art. There’s even a whole Wikipedia page devoted to the divisiveness of the issue (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_games_as_art). Ebert, as the most famous critic, noted after a presentation by game designer Kellee Santiago, that “One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite an immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.” I think there is a certain understandable logic to Ebert’s thoughts. But I find myself now disagreeing with him fairly decidedly.

Indie game Fez, in which you play as a 2-D character realizing he lives in a 3D world

I think people like Ebert, generally of his “older” generation, view video games as that, just a game. There’s luck of the draw in card games, luck of the roll in board games, and only a finite number of possible logical moves in a more complex game like chess. But Ebert is right that a game “has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome.” Video games, on the other hand, have a certain ability to achieve a higher goal. There’s no artistic reason why a video game has to have objectives or the ability to beat the game. There’s only the commercial drawback of it being possible no one will want to buy your game if they can’t defeat the alien invasion with all kinds of cool weapons in your game. But at its base level, that’s no different than people not buying tickets to your movie where stuff doesn’t get blowed up real good. So really is the only reason they are even video games because they’re interactive? Does interactivity negate art? Of course not. There are plenty of interactive art exhibits that are not denigrated because of their interactivity.

Indie game Limbo, an atmospheric, wordless journey through a dangerous black-and-white world

The game designers Indie Game: The Movie follows around talk about the artistic expression that the games provide them. They talk about how video games encompass visual arts, storytelling, and music, while simply being interactive. After all, the interactivity of video games is only allowed by the designer. A player can’t do anything in a game that they were not allowed to do by the constraints of the designer. Therefore, video games still possess the authorial intent that all art contains. We see the designers and programmers painstakingly work and re-work to get the desired effect in the game, while working against the clock to deliver the final product for release. All of that is directly comparable to the technical issues a filmmaker or a musician runs into when prepping their newest movie or album.

Screen shot from Super Meat Boy, one of the subjects of the movie

The designers in the movie talk with disdain about the people who work at the big video game studios as designers and programmers, because it would kill their creativity. But I came to see those jobs like those hundreds of names we see in movie credits, technicians helping realize the visions of the artists in charge. But these guys are like indie filmmakers, who work with smaller budgets and crews and are able to more easily deliver something close to their heart and artistic vision because it had to go through fewer people to get to us, the consumer. I can understand that mentality.


But the ultimate point of the movie and this discussion, to me, was: art video games art? I can now firmly say that yes, I think they are. And Indie Game: The Movie is what finally swayed me to that point.

Werner Herzog

Werner Herzog is one of the great masters of cinema. Through work in both his native Germany and his work here in the US, he’s always given us uncompromising genius. His movies are like no others, and his documentary work has actually made him my favorite documentary filmmaker. I recently watched his 2010 doc The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, his 2011 Into the Abyss, and re-watched his 2005 doc Grizzly Man.

Much of Herzog’s work centers on obsession of some kind, perhaps none more obviously than Grizzly Man. Timothy Treadwell spent his last 13 summers in the Alaskan Katmai National Park and Preserve “protecting” the grizzly bears that lived there. Treadwell was a moderately successful amateur diver and failed actor who for unknown reasons felt drawn to nature and to this National Park, where he became obsessed with the wildlife there, the bears in particular. Treadwell filmed his last 5 trips into the wild, and Herzog’s film is made from that footage. Herzog provides the narration in that calming voice of his (the only case in which a German accent has ever been comforting), and guides us through interviews with both friends and family, as well as the park service that repeatedly told Treadwell he was doing the bears more harm than good.

Herzog has always had an ability to, to me, seem to evoke the most human emotions in us, while also acknowledging the ambivalence of the universe to our existence. He never makes fun of Treadwell, though it would’ve been immensely easy to do so. He doesn’t share Treadwell’s affection for the bears, instead only seeing murderous hunger in their eyes. However, he lets Treadwell speak for himself, show his own misguidedness, and receive no judgement from Herzog. Instead, Herzog imbues the film with almost the sad resignation of the fact that Treadwell would eventually be eaten by the bears he wanted to “protect.” That footage, rightly, isn’t in the movie. We only get a scene of Herzog listening to the audio tape (the lens cap had been on the camera) of the deaths of Treadwell and his girlfriend. He tells the owner of the tape not to listen to it, and that it should be destroyed.

It’s not Herzog’s greatest work, but it fits perfectly into the boundless depths of obsession that he has plunged into throughout his career.

The Cave of Forgotten Dreams is an odd movie. It’s about the discovery of the Chauvet Cave in southern France. In this cave were found paintings made somewhere around 32,000 years ago, more than twice as old as the oldest previously discovered human paintings. The area is so tightly controlled that Herzog had only a few days, of only a few hours at a time, in which to film. The crew could only be 4 people, with Herzog himself working the lights, which had to give off no heat and run on battery packs the crew wore around their belts. All of this while only being able to walk on a two foot wide platform, because the cave is so delicate that nothing can be risked to be destroyed in any way.

It’s certainly fascinating to see these paintings, almost all of animals ranging from rhinos and bison, to horses and deer. Some were even drawn with 8 legs, as a way to convey movement, “almost a form of proto-cinema” Herzog says. And at only 89 minutes, it’s the shortest Herzog film I’ve seen, but the only one that’s ever had me checking my watch. Sure, it’s awesome seeing things created by humans 32,000 years ago, but there’s not much more to the movie after that. I didn’t feel like Herzog really had an hour and a half of things to say about this subject. It got almost universal critical approval, and it was the highest grossing independent doc of 2011, but it didn’t grab me like the next movie did.

Into the Abyss is the most thought provoking movie I’ve seen from Herzog. He uses the Texas triple murders committed by teenagers Michael Perry and Jason Burkett, both of whom are in prison (Perry on death row), to study life choices and the ripple effect of how it impacts the people around you. One of the deepest emotionally affecting movies he’s ever made, Herzog interviews victim’s families, officers who worked the cases, Burkett’s father (also in prison, as is his brother, whom we don’t see), and those involved in the prison system. The interview with Michael Perry was 8 days before the then 28-year-old was to be executed, in July of 2010. Herzog makes clear from the start that he’s against capital punishment, but says it only once. He’s not the type of filmmaker to harp on a subject, he lets the film and its subjects speak for themselves.

In the opening scenes, filmed among the unmarked graves of some of those executed by the state of Texas, Herzog talks to the prison minister. When he asks why God would allow the death penalty, the minister doesn’t have an answer. Later, Herzog talks about the execution process with Fred Allen, a former Captain on death row. Allen talks about leading prisoners the ten or so steps from the holding cell, into the execution room, and the protocal for strapping them onto the gurney to be executed. After doing more than 120, by his count, Allen one day couldn’t do it anymore, and at the risk of losing his pension, quit. In my favorite sequence, Allen tells the story of “your dash”, the hyphen on your tombstone between your birth and death, and asks “how do you live your dash? What are you doing with your dash?” It’s the perfect ending note for Herzog’s meditation on life and what we’re all doing with our dashes. Into the Abyss easily fits alongside Herzog’s other masterpieces as a profound work of art from one of the greatest filmmakers in all of cinema.

Meek's Cutoff

Much like her previous two movies, Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff is a minimalist little gem that refuses to fit into any sort of mold that we've seen before. It's a western, but it's completely unlike any western I've ever seen. It concerns a small group of pioneers trekking across 1845 Oregon, led by Stephen Meek (a never better Bruce Greenwood). Reichardt successfully evokes the hardship that these settlers came up against, the exhaustion, dehydration, and simply the physical harshness of the land and travelling over it. Michelle Williams continues her streak of brilliance, working with her Wendy and Lucy director again, as Emily Tetherow, the strongest and most vocal of the women of the group.

Meek was hired to lead the pioneers through the dangerous and unforgiving land, but some think he has lost his way and is too proud, or incompetent, to say it. When they capture an Indian (Rod Rondeaux), it's Mrs. Tetherow and her husband Soloman (Will Patton, also returning to Reichardt's world after Wendy and Lucy) that says they should let him lead the group towards water, of which they're quickly running out. They can't communicate with the Indian, and there are some in the group, specifically the Gately's (Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan) who think the Indian is leading them into an ambush from his tribe. The paranoia and sense of impending doom don't really ever disipate, letting things fester in the minds of the pioneers and us in the audience.

Most people who dislike the movie have said things along the lines of "it's boring, nothing happens, etc." and I kind of think that's part of Reichardt's point. These people were traversing the land on the hope of finding something, but that doesn't mean that they will. Often times, one day melded into the next, as you rode from one generic valley to the next without any clue of what you're leading towards. I felt a profound sadness as Emily throws an old clock that belonged to her husbands mother, and some chairs out of the back of the wagon, just to ease the load on the oxen as they got further into the depths of the land.

Reichardt shoots the scenery in an oppressive vastness. It's a very lonely movie, as the neverending landscape insulates the group further and further, letting them see far enough to know that they're not close to anything, but with the manifest destiny belief that paradise could be just over the next hill.

The acting in the movie is top notch, especially by Michelle Williams, who has become possibly my favorite actor to watch think. She shows so much with her eyes and body language, and not every actor can tell a story without much dialog. Rod Rondeaux, as the Indian, has the mystery they leads our eyes to him over and over again, as we try to read him and figure out his motives. Is he leading them to water and more? Or his he leading them to certain doom? He certainly doesn't hate the settlers, as he gorgeously sings a lament for one of the men dying from dehydration. Reichardt's final shot lets us decide for ourselves, though I'm not sure what I think

Stephen Meek was a real man, a fur trapper and guide through the old pacific northwest. He even has a path named for him, the Meek Cutoff, a road branching from the Oregon Trail. Greenwood plays him with something of a messiah complex, false humility, but certain intelligence behind his bushy facial hair. Reichardt definitely, from her comments on the movie, wished to make comparison between the divisive historical Meek, and our current times (or at least our former president). I didn't really care about drawing modern comparisons (though I wondered about the choosing of the phrase "stay the course"), I simply looked at the movie self contained, and liked it a great deal.