The Homogenization of the American Parable

I recently sat down to watch The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) and Limelight (1952) both for the first time. For the longest time, Humphrey Bogart's tent-pole and Charlie Chaplin's final great film have been embarrassing features on my must watch list. Sierra Madre is featured on a lot of Must See movie lists including AFI's Top 100. It's currently at 76 on imdb's Top 250 and it is often considered one of the quintessential westerns of Hollywood's golden age. I used to not think too highly of westerns but after growing accustomed to the stoic glares of Clint Eastwood and the tall man's swagger of John Wayne, I have gained a stalwart appreciation for them that rivals the gusto of any old-timer who remembers Hee-Haw. Likewise Limelight is considered a masterpiece. A retrospective triumph that brings Chaplin's career full-circle while telling the charming story of an aging comedian mentoring a young ballerina.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre does not disappoint and certainly deserves its accolades. It's smartly written, excellently filmed and brilliantly acted. Like many westerns it is more than just mean-looking men with pistols on horseback but a parable about mans' potential and shortcomings. Bogart and his compatriots play prospective gold miners who in time grow to mistrust each other as they dig in the lawless wilderness of central Mexico. What starts as small slights and unclear motives soon become outright rivalry brewing to the point of violence.

Limelight, while not on the same level as Charlie Chaplin's silent classics like City Lights (1931) and The Kid

(1921), it likewise guides us though a maxim or two about human nature; a little more hopeful than Sierra Madre but no less truthful. Like the farmer who reaps and feasts during the harvest, a man of wisdom and knowledge must plant seeds for the next season through mentoring and tutelage.

The point of parable is to tell stories with an intent of making a moral point. Moral points that are culturally accepted and part of the social construct that we create for ourselves to give life meaning. "Do unto others as you would like unto you," "A man is known by the company he keeps," "He who attempts to please everyone, pleases no one." etc. In this case the key takeaway from Sierra Madre is avarice leads to man's undoing. In Limelight: cathedral build.

Carpe diem bro! Seize the carp!

In recent decades there seems to be a lack of diversity in the messages placed in the stories we tell. Entire genres of film are now dedicated to a single thread of thought. Romantic comedies: love conquers all, superhero movies: good triumphs over evil, in coming-of-age dramas: just be yourself and finally in general comedies: carpe diem. Don't get me wrong, occasionally one movie comes along and pilfers through Aesop's fables. However even in the independent film world, the focus is more on how to bring innovative high-concepts to the screen with a smaller price tag than uncovering deep truths about human nature. Big budget blockbusters? Forget about it.

I'll teach you to cannibalize my childhood!

High quality blockbusters focus less on human interaction than they do on geopolitical musings. Take the perfectly high-quality popcorn flick The Avengers (2012); in-depth analysis would lead to discussions about its subtle political implications. Perhaps something about the commercialization of our youth; blah blah blah. Notice there's nothing in there about personal relationships or recognition of some universally recognized truths. It's all larger than life characters walking through larger than life sets making statements about larger than life things. But on a intimate level I feel we come to a point in time where our society no longer has much to say.

Special effects like this!

Thankfully with DVD, blu-ray and Netflix we can enjoy the American parables as if during their heyday and seed our minds with the musings of the past. While I'm not much for golden age thinking, I am a fan of learning from the past to build a brighter future. After all, for every Charlie Chaplin masterpiece there were a few Mr. Moto movies. For every John Ford western there was a Roy Rogers joint and for every good human centered story there were a dozen cheaply made B-movies with little to say other than look at these "state-of-the-art" special effects.

Roger and Me: Part 2

It has been just over a week since the passing of one of the strongest voices in film criticism. Since that fateful Thursday, life has seemed to return to normal in Roger Ebert's native Chicagoland playground. I suppose the majority of Chicagoans caught a glimpse of the front page cover of the Redeye last Friday and paused for only a brief moment before continuing through their day. Admittedly even an ardent fan like myself took the tact of going about my life as if nothing had happened; reflecting only in warm yellow glow of my neighborhood coffee shop. I suppose grief isn't as tumultuous if its tertiary.

Best movie ever...EVER!

Again I never knew Roger Ebert. I grew up watching him on satellite and later Armed Forces Network. When I was older and disciplined enough to sit down and read his reviews I was taken in by his warm and welcoming prose and his rapier wit. Even when I disagreed with his opinions I always appreciated the analysis. Sometimes I imagined sitting with him arguing over the validity of Brazil (1985) my favorite film of all time and one he seemed to almost despise. He would win the debate of course but at least by the end of the conversation I'd know what an ouroboros was.

It cannot be reiterated enough that we have lost a gifted writer and major contributor to the film industry as a whole. Last week I sat back and watched five of Roger Ebert's Ten favorite movies of all time. I gave an honest personal assessment of each. This week I want to finish that list.

Vertigo (1958)

The world has a serious Vertigo fetish

The action of Vertigo centers around former detective Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) who had to call it quits due to disabilities incurred while on duty. Now a few years out of the game, he is hired as a private investigator to tail a mysterious young woman (Kim Novak) who he eventually becomes obsessed with.

I find that in addition to Ebert's official selections being ambitious works by talented directors, to me, they all have another thing in common: they're hard to watch a second time around. Don't get me wrong Vertigo is a strong choice especially since it is considered to be THE best movie ever made but the labyrinthine story combined with a slow build-up and fetishistic subtext makes the final twist in this Hitchcock classic unconvincing to me.

As indefensible as calling Vertigo just an above average Hitchcock outing is, you must consider the fact that Vertigo wasn't exactly popular during its initial release. That's not to excuse the taste of the viewing public in 1958 nor give it credence but to highlight one of my primary beliefs about film and art as a whole; its visceral. While I do appreciate Roger Ebert's attempt to intellectualize Vertigo as "[creating] a moral paradox" and "may be the one time in his entire career that Alfred Hitchcock completely revealed himself," I simply cannot reconcile that with its uncomfortable psychological themes.

I don't do drugs, I am drugs

That being said, film is a visual medium and Vertigo is certainly an example of an incredibly talented director at the top of his game. The film's rich color and setting provides a level of aesthetic appeal absent from other films like Sabotage (1936) or the ever popular Psycho (1960). Additionally the camera techniques and dreamlike sequences involving Scottie (James Stewart) and Judy (Kim Novak) are a striking improvement from 1945's Spellbound, which had dream sequences designed by none other than Salvador Dali.

I know I may have been ragging on it but I highly recommend Vertigo. Not just to film students but to anyone not turned-off by its release date. I suppose because it was only recently named best movie on earth and will be canonized as such for at least ten years, I had to take a pot shot at the largest kid on the block.

Raging Bull (1980)

Speaking of trying not to take pot shots at the largest kid on the block, lets talk for a moment about Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull. Raging Bull is based on the life of middleweight champion boxer Jake LaMotta who because of his uncontrollable rage distanced himself from friends and family, petering-out into obscurity. It's a sad, personal story that paralleled the director's own struggles at the time. During the filming of Raging Bull, Scorsese was recovering from substance abuse. Both Robert De Niro and Scorsese viewed Raging Bull as a very personal project.

Roger Ebert caught onto the directors zeitgeist from the get go. "The project languished while Scorsese and De Niro made the ambitious but unfocused musical “New York, New York,” and then languished some more as Scorsese's drug use led to a crisis. De Niro visited his friend in the hospital, threw the book on his

Would later make Hugo (2011)

bed, and said, 'I think we should make this.'" Ebert was such a big fan and ardent supporter of Scorsese's work he wrote a book about his filmography and art, "Scorsese by Ebert".

Now for my money, Taxi Driver (1976) is quintessential Scorsese but take away the boxing aspect of Raging Bull and its essentially a continuation of the same themes. While Robert De Niro's Travis Bickle was unable to unleash his violent tendencies as a taxi driver, Jake uses the ring as a form of release and absolution. The black and white cinematography stunts the impact of the violence (which is great for a hemophobic like me), I much prefer Taxi Driver's climactic coda to Raging Bull's constant claustrophobic jabs.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972)
The only first time director on Roger Ebert's list is Werner Herzog and his freshmen project Aguirre, the Wrath of God. The movie concerns Spanish conquistador Lope de Aguirre and his obsession with finding the lost City of Gold in the unforgiving Amazon. Starting out as an assisting lieutenant, Aguirre eventually takes over the doomed expedition into the jungle descending deeper and deeper into madness.

What if this guy was the only one with a gun?

Aguirre once again highlights Ebert's fascination with plot lines paralleling with the obsession, personal passions and frustrations of a singularly gifted filmmaker. The making of Aguirre and Herzog's similarly themed counterpart Fitzcarraldo (1982) is legendary in film circles. "Herzog, a German director who speaks of the 'voodoo of location,' took his actors and crew into a remote jungle district where fever was frequent and starvation seemed like a possibility. It is said Herzog held a gun on Kinski to force him to continue acting, although Kinski, in his autobiography, denies this, adding darkly that he had the only gun."

Aguirre is a hauntingly beautiful film pure and simple. One that creates a verboten sense of dread within the first frames and doesn't let up. Like a dream, the film delves into the psyche of film history's most potent evil madmen and forces audiences not only to experience such madness but transcend it. Herzog is brilliant at fashioning dreamlike states in naturalistic settings. While at times his stoic naturalistic approach may be maddening at times as it was in Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979) and Woyzeck (1979) it works to stellar heights in Aguirre.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

I love the smell of kitty litter in the morning

Perhaps it was because I first saw Aguirre before I sat down and watched Apocalypse Now but at times I find the two movies too similar. Not in plot mind you; Apocalypse Now isn't exactly a conquistador epic as it is, on the face of it, a soldier's story. But the themes and the mood set by yet another singularly obsessed director are similar enough for me to let my eyes wonder around the room instead of having them affixed on the screen.

I suppose one of the major differences between the two films is Apocalypse Now's American sensibilities. While Ford Coppola tries a similar form of transcendence through cinema as Herzog, he can't help but punctuate the point with iconic scenes meant to create tension instead of keeping the camera at arm's length to create godlike perception. Iconic scenes such as when Chief (Albert Hall) is hit by a spear, an entire family is dispatched by a trigger happy private (Laurence Fishburne) and finally when Col. Kilgore orders the attack on a Vietcong village. I suppose it doesn't matter all that much, it really just depends on your personal bias.

Tokyo Story (1953)
Tokyo Story marks my introduction to Yasujiro Ozu's filmography and unlike most other masterpieces on Ebert's list, I have only just now seen it. Admittedly I was afraid to watch Tokyo Story as it was the perfect

storm to avoid for everyone but serious film buffs. It's black and white, in a foreign language, its a seemingly simple family drama and its over two hours long. With such a description even Pulp Fiction (1994) fans are running for the hills. Still I sat down and promised myself that I would finish Tokyo Story.

Believe it or not I actually enjoyed it. Not enough to recommend it to my college roommate but serious film-folk shouldn't be afraid of its superficial faults. Ozu has a way with sympathetic disconnect. The family getting the star treatment in the film aren't portrayed with sentimentality nor with a sense of cruelty. It's a simple story of human nature told with an intellectual maturity and matter of fact-ness that doesn't blunt its emotional core but advocates for it.

Let me back up. Tokyo Story tells the story of an aging couple who go to visit their grown-up children in Tokyo only to find out the kids have less time to dedicate to them than anticipated. The only member of the family that gives them much time and attention is their daughter-in-law whose husband died in WWII.

Its a bittersweet story but instead of admonishing the children for their busy schedules and modern sensibilities, the parents expose Ozu's ultimate message. Things change. Sure children don't turn out how you expect them to but we must all be thankful that they turn out at all.

The final scene involves the elderly father telling the daughter-in-law that she must get remarried, and forget her sadness. In a world constantly in motion, "improving" from the hard fought battles of the past, we must always remember the words of Robert Frost "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on."

But before life goes on I leave but one last message from the late and great Roger Ebert:

“I believe that if, at the end of it all, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try.”-Roger Ebert

Roger and Me: Part 1

For those of us who have forged a hobby of making priggish and snarky remarks anonymously over the internet about popular culture, we owe a great deal to Roger Ebert, formerly of the Chicago Sun-Times. I was saddened by the news of his passing and went through the rest of the day contemplating the significance of this event. Roger Ebert was one of the few movie critics in the world that enjoyed household name recognition. Through his collaboration with Gene Siskel on Sneak Previews with Siskel and Ebert, Ebert enjoyed much notoriety and fame and was noted for his "everyman" approach to film criticism. When Gene Siskel passed away in 1999, Richard Roeper took over his theater seat and both would continue At the Movies with Ebert and Roeper until 2008. Throughout a 45 year career Roger Ebert kept at it, not only writing weekly reviews for the Chicago Sun-Times and 200 other syndicated newspapers but also wrote more than 20 books and curated his own website rogerebert.com.

Vertigo: Best movie ever ---- Arachnophobia: Remains unrecognized for its greatness

He was a real pioneer who shall be missed. I thought for a while and decided my humble way to honor the man I have never met but always admired was to watch his Top Ten favorite movies of all time and give you an honest introspective personal view of such masterpieces in true Ebert fashion. According to the British Film Institute, Roger Ebert has contributed to Sights & Sounds Magazine's Greatest Films of All Time List for the past 30 years. For those of you who don't remember or know, the Sights & Sounds List is the most respected list in the world and is only released every decade. It created a stir this year when Citizen Kane (1941) was finally overtaken from the No. 1 spot in favor if Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). This decade Roger picked:

Must eat monkey!

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Aguirre the Wrath of God (1972)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Citizen Kane (1941)
La Dolce Vita (1960)
The General (1926)
Raging Bull (1980)
Tokyo Story (1953)
The Tree of Life (2010)
Vertigo (1958)

Let's take a look and see what we got.

I'm just far too passive to care right now

La Dolce Vita (1960)
Since La Dolce Vita was one of only two films on the list I have not seen, I sat back and decided to dive right into it. I must admit, I've had my reservations about this film for a very long time. First, I've been aware for a while that La Dolce Vita doesn't have typical story structure. Not altogether a bad thing but whenever that's the case, the film ends up being polarizing; I either love it or hate it and Fellini has not had a good track record with me I'm sorry to say. Thus far I have seen La Strada (1954) which I loved, Satyricon (1969) which I loathed, 8 1/2 (1963) which I found supremely overrated and Nights of Cabiria (1957) which was so-so. If La Dolce Vita was going to impress it needed to gear towards Fellini's neo-realist tenancies and less towards his vulgar costume filled meta-art.

Yea, not so much. I appreciate the material and what it attempted to do (namely make an incitement of flaccid modern bourgeois culture) but each episodic scene became less and less convincing. The movie follows a passive paparazzo who woos his fair share of women while covering a series of subjects and attending multiple parties. The translation of the title means "the good life" probably mocking the mistaken notion that this guy has it all.

It's art I say! ART!!!

While doing some research on the production of La Dolce Vita, I came across a common interpretation of the events in the film. Seven vignettes to represent the seven deadly sins or seven sacraments punctuated by a prelude and an epilogue. I'm not sure about this interpretation and neither was Ebert when he reviewed it in 1997; saying that breaking it down that way would treat the film like a crossword puzzle. Nearly every scene involves basically the same sin only with an increasingly unhappy protagonist passively waltzing in and out of drama. The tone is all over the place, the symbolism is at times prominent yet unclear and with no one to really root for the movie listlessly meanders along until it listlessly ends. For my money Vittorio De Sica is my personal pick for best Italian director. Even his derivative Sophia Loren sex comedies have higher entertainment value than La Dolce Vita.

Citizen Kane (1941)
After watching La Dolce Vita I decided to sit down and watch something I knew I wouldn't be bored with. Orson Welles's masterpiece Citizen Kane. Considered for decades to be the best film ever made, Citizen Kane wasn't exactly the cat's meow when first released. Welles made a film a clef of powerful business entrepreneur and newspaperman William Randolph Hearst's life. The last man you wanted to make an enemy of in 1941. Because of the backlash of Citizen Kane, Orson Welles was never allowed to have free reign on another American film project which is a real shame.

Citizen Kane tells the life story of a newspaper magnate who recently died secluded and alone in his mansion. The film tells the story of his meteorically quick rise to prominence, his several marriages and his unsuccessful campaign for public office. Althroughout you as the audience are captivated by the man who once sat on top of the world and quizzical about his last utterance "rosebud."

I think your brain is this big

Now I love this movie, as did Ebert. It's ambitious, it scores on an emotional level, it has some brilliant acting on the part of Orson Welles, Agnes Moorehead and Dorothy Comingore but it's the directing, writing and cinematography that made the biggest impact. One thing I appreciate about Welles as a writer and director is his gregarious sense of humor. He likes to toy with his audience sometimes through complex intellectual exercises imbedded in character motivations and sometimes with deceptively simple cheap mirror tricks.

Now I'm not saying Citizen Kane is a funny movie in the sense that its ha-ha funny. Quite the contrary, the movie can at times feel rather heavy. But if you find yourself straying from the story (not really an easy task), you may see some of the trickery at play here. Not bad coming from the guy who first fooled the world with "War of the Worlds" in 1938.

What do these things have in common? No seriously?

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
According to legend, during the premiere of 2001, Rock Hudson walked out of the screening yelling "Will someone tell me what the hell this movie is about?" Today I feel his frustration. Is the movie a marvel? Yes. Is this film ambitious? Yes. A beautiful, poetically entrancing film? Yes. An entertaining film? Well...define entertaining. For while those on its wavelength would certainly benefit from having watched what is still regarded as not just a gold standard in science fiction but the ONLY standard in science fiction, others not inclined to watch ten minutes of flickering, tunneled lights shouldn't bother. My unbiased mind tells me I have just watched something near perfect, yet my biased, more affecting senses yen for something a little more emotionally rewarding.

The only human emotion you see in this movie

I honestly find 2001: A Space Odyseey to be prosaic. Stifled from the movie's top-heavy ambitions and need for perfection that it cannot register on an emotional level; at least not to me. It justifies itself by sending a message about technological society and how one day we will move beyond the tools we use to a higher form of consciousness. It's a message worth postulating and the midriff of the film properly highlights the movie's motif of said tools used for mutually assured destruction versus self-discovery but can't we encompass these themes into a tighter package? Then again I suppose if the film's point was introduced in familiar wrapping it would be easily digestible but also easily forgettable.

Stanley Kubrick's work as a whole just doesn't hold much sway with me. His earlier work like The Killing (1956), Paths of Glory (1957) and Spartacus (1960) are to me, the perfect balance between intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying. Dr. Strangelove (1964), A Clockwork Orange (1971) Full Metal Jacket (1987) have their moments if only for their macabre sense of humor but 2001 along with Barry Lyndon (1975) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999) remain aloof. Too clinical to be engaging.

The Tree of Life (2010)

Tree of Life is similar to 2001. It's a movie with foolhardy ambition that hides its complexity with beautiful imagery. But unlike 2001, Tree of Life is unabashedly personal and unapologetically hopeful. It's inertia is based on conjecture and inhabits many places in my mind both sublime and maddening. It may be because the imagery on the screen (images in the first act notwithstanding) unlocked details and memories dormant in my mind. The exhilaration of jumping off my bike mid pedal, the bitterness of talking back to my father for perceived cruelties, the calmness of being embraced by my mother. The whole spectrum of emotions traveled back and forth between the film and myself that at points I wanted to walk out take a breather.

Because people have two feet

Each segment starts with the same wisps of light, not unlike the first images a baby might see upon being born. The voice-over during these segments speaks of nature and grace; Nature can be selfish and self-gratifying while "Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries." Malick is part of a select few filmmakers who fully appreciates film both for its storytelling capabilities and its potential as a visual medium. Bookend before the family drama, there are vibrant images of the universe forming, microbes taking shape and creatures bravely venturing out from the primordial ooze. As we are introduced to the character of Jack, the eldest son (Hunter McCracken/Sean Penn), we understand that he is meant to present that duality. His story is then put into perspective as occupying a place in time.

Luckily unlike Kubrick's opus, Malick takes natural human impulses and paints a vibrant picture of hope. We as human beings have come to a point in time where we vaguely understand the nature of grace. We look up at the stars or down at the blades grass and try desperately to make connections, find meaning, and hope for salvation. The last scenes show a large group of people greeting each other familiarly on a plane of shallow water. Sean Penn walks through a doorway to join the rest of his family and friends. It's a beautiful image and one I will not soon forget.

Buster Keaton-Nickname: Railsplitter

The General (1928)
The final film in Part 1 of my two part Roger Ebert retrospective, is Buster Keaton's The General (1928). Now I'm a Charlie Chaplin man myself but while The Tramp has an innocent naivety that can be admired, Keaton has Chaplin beat when it comes to sheer physicality. The man was an unstoppable force; able to take collapsing debris, speeding trains and harsh pratfalls with the same stone face that has become his trademark.

Buster Keaton plays Johnnie an locomotive engineer eager to fight for the south in the Civil War but can't because of his important job tending to The General, his beloved steam-engine. But when Union spies steal it to disrupt Southern train-lines, its up to dear old Johnnie to bring it back. He also must rescue his sweet Annabelle Lee (Marion Mack) who has wondered into the mix. It's a simple story that requires little setup or explanation but does require enough stunt work to make Jackie Chan think twice.

Jackie Chan? Yea, that guys a pussy

Just like in Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928) and Sherlock Jr. (1924), Buster Keaton shows absolute fearlessness in the face of overwhelming odds both in the story and in front of a camera that doesn't give him a break. The camerawork is pretty elaborate if you keep in mind the movie was made in 1928. My only real beef with The General is its run time. Don't get me wrong, 107 minutes goes by pretty swiftly when you're already a convert to the Order of Keaton. Still Sherlock Jr. was only 45 minutes long, used stunts of varying complexity and honestly, had a more engaging story.

Roger Ebert once described his criticism as "relative, not absolute." He worried very little about consistency and often contradicted himself even while he regaled us with his words. I do not fault him nor anyone who gives an opinion so long as they are willing to balance the intellectual with the emotional; the objective with the subjective, the virtues with the values. True criticism requires introspection and sharing a piece of yourself with an audience. Those who seek to hide themselves in layers of academic prattling do little to sway the masses from avoiding crappy remakes or sequels, or sequels to remakes, or remakes to spin-offs to sequels to movies that shouldn't have been made to begin with. Nor do they sway people to watch movies actually worth their time and $10 ticket price. Roger Ebert understood this. He knew true advocacy came from the heart and that is why he will always remain the best.

Battlefield Earth salutes you Roger Ebert!