If We Make It Through the Night

LOVE! Can't stop listening to Portugal. The Man. Can't contain myself. Amazing amazing Alaskan band from Wasilla. Needless for me to explain, these songs say it all... See, I can't even make proper full sentences!

Wild Things Leave Their Skins Behind

REVELATION!!! Can someone tell me why I haven't seen this film before? I love what I've seen of Sydney Lumet's films, and of Tennessee Williams' scripts, and yet I waited so long to discover The Fugitive Kind! I came across it every week for the past three years telling myself "I'll rent it this week", and now that I have finally gone for it, I feel the relief I should have felt three years ago. But better late that never so they say.

Quick summary before I start praising the sweet bejesus out of this 1960 work of art. Valentine Xavier, also known as Snakeskin for his jacket that only Marlon Brando could have still worn nowadays and been incredibly cool, had spent his life "on the party", going from bar to bar as an entertainer, his best friend in the world being his guitar (which he always holds on to for dear life). Now 30 years old, and sick of getting in trouble, Xavier freshly arrives in a small town, ready to leave that lifestyle behind, find a regular job and spend his life doing an honest day's work. But this is the kind of character that just can't catch a break, no matter how pure his motives may be, for once a fugitive, always a fugitive. He starts working for Lady (Anna Magnani), the middle-aged wife of an ill, crippled and cruel shoe shop owner, Jabe Torrence, confined to his bed, but still more than capable of doing the damage from up that retched flight of stairs. As Xavier and Lady grow closer together in the most dramatic and passionate ways, falling and catching eachother constantly, the man up there boils until he pops. Between his hatred for his wife, his wife's abhorrence for the things that he had done to her family, and Xavier's failing to gain any popularity with the town's men, these characters have no chance in the world.

Tennessee Williams' dialogues are so poetic and genuine, and his characters extremely strong, beautiful and marvelously interpreted. Marlon Brando had by then already done A Streetcar Names Desire, The Wild One and On the Waterfront, and had by 1959 already hit a peak in his career. Anna Magnani was by then well-known on the Italian scene, and had already recently made an entrance into the world of American film. The growing chemistry between Xavier and Lady as they converse, philosophize, confide in eachother, tenderly hold eachother and ragingly clash is enough to give one chills down the spin. I can't stop thinking about the scene where Brando confronts Magnani about her lies and her motives for wanting him to stay, pushes her down and threatens to leave, before she avidly throws herself at his mercy.

Marlon Brando's Xavier doesn't need to say much for us to know that he understands everything that's going on around him. He's obviously been through it all in the past, and his lack of innocence makes him extremely conscious of the second degree to people's words and actions. His utter lucidity is what makes the plot advance the way it does. Jabe doesn't need to be direct in his thoughts for Xavier to know not only that he feels threatened, but that he is himself a threat. Xavier also always knows what Lady's intentions are, but never says anything until they burst. But even his consciousness can't tear him from his fate.

One might think that Lady's tormented character is pathetic and unable to relieve herself from all the burdens that she has carried around throughout her life, which is true in a way, but she is perhaps the strongest one of them all, for she demonstrates dignity through all her actions. Though broken in so many places, she can still stand tall, confront those who must be told off, and seek revenge on those who tried to destroy her. She never ran away though she had the chance, but there was nothing she could have done against the tragic outcome.

The only one left standing in the end is Carol (Joanne Woodward), the troubled and rebellious tramp, another outcast of society just like Xavier, but who, on the contrary, embraces her kind of decadent lifestyle, never trying to turn it around the way he did. Another thing remains undamaged in the end, Xavier's snakeskin jacket: "Wild things leave their skins behind them so the fugitive kind can follow their kind".

Amazing amazing film!

A Quick Climb to the Top of Hanging Rock Anyone?

Renowned Australian director Peter Weir’s 1975 film Picnic at Hanging Rock is strange and eerie, but most of all filled with mystery. What makes this scenario strong and unique is that, after all the attempts to uncover the mystery that begins to unfold in the first half hour, nothing is solved in the end, and the events remain just as ambiguous as they started. The more certain elements of the intrigue are solved, more the storyline becomes complex and puzzling. The spectator never knows why something is happening at the moment of its occurrence, and in most cases, never finds out. Questions remain unresolved, and the end... unfinished.

Picnic at Hanging Rock, an adaptation of Australian author Joan Lindsay’s 1967 novel of the same name, tells the tale of three adventurous school girls who disappear after having climbed an enormous geological marvel called Hanging Rock in 1900. After a week of intensive search by policemen and hound dogs, only one of the girls is found on the verge of death. She is discovered by a boy who had seen the girls right before they started to mount the Rock. As for the others, their case remains unsolved. There are however other puzzling and unexplained occurrences that surround the main storyline, such as the disappearance of the children’s governor (Vivean Gray) as she goes on looking for them, the near death of another boy when he tries to do the same a week later, the sudden death of the school’s principle (Rachel Roberts), and the death of Sara (Margaret Nelson), whom we find out is the sister of the boy who found the first missing girl. Dreams, predictions, sounds and odd sentences and philosophies pronounced by the characters provide us with clues, but clues that in the end decipher nothing. Certain hints, however, do allow us to foresee situations, only if we remain very aware.

But why would one girl be retrieved and not the others? Why would Miranda (Anne-Louise Lambert), the most admired of the missing girls, really say before the trip that she "won't be here much longer"? Why do the two boys who spotted the girls before their climb become so obsessed with finding them, as if drawn to them, or to the Rock? Why are the girls themselves drawn to the heights of this Rock, more and more in trans as they move towards the peak? Why near the sight do all the watches stop at twelve? It is difficult to establish here the boundary between fantasy and reality, for the story can very likely derive from the unknown, just as it could be factual and simply full of genuine mystery. There is no concrete proof that the paranormal plays a definite role in the occurrences, but their eccentricity is beyond belief.

Although some rare scenes are a exaggeratedly peculiar and mystical, the cinematography is astonishing, and the shots meticulous and elegant. Picnic at Hanging Rock establishes a perfect balance between extremely thrilling sequences and moments of relief during which the plot progresses, and the tangles grow deeper and tighter. The scene extending from the moment the boys decide to go looking for the victims up to the discovery of one girl, was of the most exhilarating and staggering I’ve witnessed in a while. It is safe to say that Weir leaves us with quite a cliffhanger. Ha!

A World Gone Mad

There's a film that has been circulating amongst employees at the video store where I work, and that film is Network, directed by Sydney Lumet in 1976, starring Faye Dunaway, William Holden and Peter Finch. And now, the movie is in my hands, and I'm glad it is because I definitely enjoyed it, as did my colleagues.

Network is a window to the realities of television and media, both more obsessed with ratings than with truth, and both willing to go as far as altering the truth or straight up transforming it completely, just to get as many viewers as possible, or worse: to make the naive people sitting at home gobble up whatever junk is fed to them, characterized as "bullshit" by Finch's character. Network also shows the inhuman side of the media world and of the people who control it, obsessed and insensitive like Dunaway's character. In this case, the heads of the industry exploit a sick man to get good ratings instead of getting him the help he obviously needs, then plot to assassinate that same sick man when his ratings begin to plunge. This might be a bit of an exaggeration (the characters, the plot and the script are all embroidered and slightly blown out of proportion), but a useful one; one that forces awareness upon movie goers, news watchers and newspaper readers, awareness of the backstage animosity of this industry, but also the vigilance one must have to be able to avoid becoming a humanoid, to take some and leave some, because the media is a powerful force in which every word is man-written and chosen for a reason.

Here are the main lines of the insanely intriguing plot: An acclaimed newsman, Howard Beale, starts to get ongoingly low ratings, which leads to his eventual lay off. His  already fragile state of mind takes a shock, bringing him to announce his suicide which would take place on air, a statement after which he becomes completely insane (insane enough to see clearly) and begins to rant about the lies told by the media. His madness and illumination obviously brings about tones of viewers. Despite his need for psychological help, he is put back on air to continue on with his ranting and to get people involved with his new found clarity. Although he is elucidated by the truth, he remains a frail human being, capable of being manipulated by higher forces. The head of the channel tells Beale that he must change his usual speech and prone capitalism, non-existing democracy and dead ideology. This new lecture results in lower ratings once again. The news crew, in order to keep the madman quiet without disobeying the boss, plot to assassinate Beale, which they successfully accomplish.

The final line of the film sums up the absurdity of the whole plot: "This was the story of Howard Beale: The first known instance of a man who was killed because he had lousy ratings." A ridiculous sentence for a ridiculous world.

Let the Seasons Begin

I could watch Zach Condon sing all day and all night. An eccentric and beautifully choreographed video for such an amazing song.

A Damned Pleasure

I'm reading The Pleasures the Damned, which is a huge volume of Charles Bukowski's poems (from 1951 through 1993).

I admire Bukowski's sense of observation,
The way he speaks about the old hobo on that bench
And about love, whores, sexe and Jane,
About the lost youth that he doesn't seem to miss
And the ripe old age that doesn’t seem to scare him
I admire his freedom to act as he pleases
And to speak as he thinks
And to think like no man speaks.
I admire the way he writes about the tiny details of life,
The ones we tend to miss
To make invisible though they’re not.
He makes them exist.
He gives them a chance.

He makes pessimism and morbidity humane
For life has a way of making us morbid and pessimist.
So many speak about life as it were wonderful
And eternal.
But he seems to understand
That the rich are doomed just as much as the poor,
If not more,
That old men on benches eventually disappear
That lovers die on us
Although their spirits tend live on for decades if we really loved them.
That being crazy is sane
And that being sane is foolish,
And he is one insane man.

His poetry lacks structure
But lack here is genius,
And his rhymes are too postmodern to even rhyme.
His poetry inspires me.
Blunt truth is inspiring.

More Film Noir Please!

Film Noir is one of my primary cinematic choices. From gangster movies from the 30's, to murder and detective films from the 40's and 50's, to subtle political thrillers from McCarthy's Red Scare period, to every type of cinema that has derived from Film Noir since. It is stylish German Expressionism mixed with an America in depression, in total decay, where bad people stay rotten, and where the good are corrupted by society, poverty, broken fantasies and needs that one can only fulfill by crime.

Last week, I saw one of the most original, influential and daring films of its time: Double Indemnity by Billy Wilder (1944), based on James Cain's 1935 novella. This film was so risky, that no great Hollywood actor wanted to interpret its characters, from fear that such a role in such an unusually hazardous film would end their career. However, Wilder finally got Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck to star in his movie, alongside Edward G. Robinson, who at first wasn't too comfortable with the fact that he would be playing a secondary role, considering that he had always been the main character in every one of his films. Though afraid that going from Little Caesar to a paranoid insurance man would set back his career, it did no such thing, for his performance is brilliant and essential.

The story starts off in an office in Los Angeles, where a successful insurance salesman, Walter Neff, is sitting at his boss' desk while recording a confession to a murder that he had committed. As he admits everything that happened, the whole story unfolds before us. Walter went up to a rich man's house for insurance sales purposes, where he met his client's wife, Phyllis Dietrichson. Given her charm and fatal appeal, he fell deeply in love with her, which brought him to help her murder her husband and collect a double sum of indemnity by making the assassination seem like a freak accident. However, Walter's boss, Barton Keyes, didn't buy into the verdict, and wouldn't stop until he could prove that the client was indeed murdered. When Keyes finally thought he figured out the identity of the killer (another one of Phyllis's lovers), Walter Neff went over to Phyllis' home and murdered her after being shot by her. All this pressure is what brings Neff to confess to his good friend Keyes, who is secretly standing at the door of his office, listening to the whole story.

What aspects make this film so praise-worthy? Film Noir is known for its artistic shots and its way of experimenting with light and shadow, but Double Indemnity's lightworks and precisely thought-out still frames are over the top. Some scenes are so dark that only the strictly essential is apparent to the naked eye, and the window blinds trace such sharp lines throughout the rooms and onto the characters, giving a claustrophobic sense of imprisonment. Wilder also has a way of adding certain subtle elements such as silence, long suspenseful sequences and unexpected setbacks, in order to amplify the tension. On another note, Phyllis Dietrichson is a femme fatale character worthy of the term, appearing to us wrapped in a little towel, bare-shouldered, two years before Gilda took the spotlight with her famous flip-haired entrance as she says “Me? Sure I’m decent”. However, Gilda turns out to be humane, whereas Phyllis is all stone inside. And to create a strong female character with a rock instead of a heart took guts in the 40’s. And to kill off that character in the end, probably took even more guts. Phyllis is equipped with an enormous sex appeal, although treachery is written all over her face. Her attractive yet elegance-lacking character is brilliantly brought to the screen by Stanwick. Double indemnity masters all the elements of Film Noir and much more, making it one of the greatest films of its genre.