Editor's Note: On Haitus

That's right, folks. We're going on a brief hiatus.



Yes.

The fact is, my life is a little too hectic right now to keep up a blog. I'm applying for graduate school and have to write two papers and complete a college thesis.

I know this may seem like a bad time to go on hiatus. I mean, I just got a new follower!

(Hi Jack L! Glad you joined!)

But seriously...I need a brief break.

This site, this blog is MUCH too important to me than to allow its quality to dwindle just because I'm tired and can't keep up with the schedule. You, the readers, deserve better. The FILMS deserve better, too.

No, this is not the infamous indefinite hiatus that has doomed so many blogs and webcomics. Mark your calenders, because Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear will return on Saturday, December 18, 2010.

That's a promise.

Oh, I won't abandon the blog entirely. You may get a special treat every now and then when I have a moment to spare.

But until then, I hope you all keep reading and keep watching.

Peace,

Editor-in-Chief, Nathanael Hood

Distant Voices, Still Lives

Directed by Terence Davies
1988
United Kingdom



In a drab, almost desolate Liverpool flat, a melancholy voice creeps through doorways and empty rooms. The voice sings a sad song, wizened by long years of a difficult life. In this opening shot of Terence Davies’ Distant Voices, Still Lives, we hear the soul of mid-century working class Britain laid bare. Davies bravely lets the camera hold on a empty room, thereby letting the off-screen song engulf us. In this moment, we learn one of the fundamental truths about the characters in this priceless gem of British cinema: the voices define the character. Roger Ebert once wisely quoted, “We laugh so that we may not cry.” In this film, the characters sing so that they don’t fade away.

Distant Voices, Still Lives is a unique creature in the pantheon of British cinema. First, it is a hybrid of two shorter films, Distant Voices and Still Lives, which were filmed two years apart from each other. Second, it is an autobiography without a subject. Director Terence Davies based the films on his own upbringing in Liverpool during the 40s and 50s. We know that the events in the film were reflective of his experiences growing up. The characters are based off his family. But, there doesn’t seem to be a character representative of Davies. The effect is such that we are a ghost floating through this Liverpool family’s life.



Third, the film does not opt for a linear narrative. Instead, the film is more of a collection of brief vignettes. Seemingly disjointed, Davies seems to choose his scenes at random. A shot where the mother is cleaning an upstairs window cuts to her being savagely beaten by her husband. And yet, there is an overall sense of a persistent narrative structure. Davies seems to evoke the form of human memory itself. An incredible essay on the film by Ric Burke sums up the narrative form best:

Distant Voices, Still Lives plays out in the same fashion that memories are triggered by sights, sounds and smells; certain things, locations and noises that transport you back to a certain place and time in your life, which is then easily married into another memory of a differing time yet still sweep into one another with ease. In using this technique Davies' moving account dispels with some of the more traditional narrative devices, yet through the skill of threading images and music, the suture of themes, colours and characters, there remains a cohesion, a story and a beautiful rendition of life in working class Liverpool.

In addition to the narrative structure, the cinematography matches the action by utilizing a “Bleach-By-Pass printing process” which desaturates the color, eliminates primary palette tones, and fills the screen with browns and grays. Truly, by the end of the day, Distant Voices, Still Lives creates a perfect representation of one man’s memory.

Fourth, and finally, the film is uncharacteristically introverted and personal for British cinema. I discovered some interesting quotes by Francois Truffaut and Satyajit Ray that both seemed to stress that the British are “temperamentally incapable of holding movie cameras.” Now, there have been plenty of groundbreaking and influential British directors. But what they seem to be implying is that the British are incapable of achieving an introspective cinema that examines the core of the British experience. In that respect, Distant Voices, Still Lives is the exception that breaks the rule. The entire film is an aching mediation on British family life. It demonstrates such piercing and devastating insight that it seems to be channeling Ingmar Bergman.

As mentioned before, the film is divided into two different parts. Distant Voices follows the early life of Davies’ family. It is dominated by a cruel father played by Pete Postlethwaite. An unpredictable man, Davies juxtaposes sweet moments of him tearfully filling his children’s stockings on Christmas morning with him throwing his wife down the stairs after brutally beating her. He represents a kind of patriarchal archetype for the neighborhood. Indeed, we witness other men acting cruelly to their wives. In one scene, a woman reveals how she had been attacked by her husband. Unfortunately, she choose to reveal such information in a crowded bar. She is reprimanded by the men who happen to overhear, as if she broke an unwritten rule.

It is here that the songs become so important. After being scared into submission by their father, the women of the family have no other way to express themselves but to sing. Popular American and British songs are evoked by the cast. The songs express the emotions and feelings that the characters cannot. They also serve to comment on the action in the film. Nowhere is this more evident than a devastating scene of domestic violence played to the tune of Ella Fitzgerald’s Taking a Chance on Love. One of the taglines for the film’s movie posters was “In memory, everything happens to music.” Nowhere is this truer than for the film’s central family. Music is life. It is pain, sorrow, joy, escape, and salvation.

The events of Distant Voices all lead to the father’s death. In a sickly state, we watch as one by one his family rejects him for the years of abuse. It’s almost enough to help us forget what a monster he was. Almost. But soon the film transitions to Still Lives which follows the children after they have grown up. The world is a bit brighter and more inviting. The children are beginning to get married. But there is a sinister undercurrent beneath it all as we are led to suspect that the girls may be headed towards the exact same kind of relationships as their parents’. The film suggests a never-ending cycle of abuse, love, and abuse that transcends the generations.




Distant Voices, Still Lives is a true treasure of British cinema. Yet, few have seen it outside of film festivals. Why is this? Filled with the melancholy of memory and a beauty and insight rarely seen in British cinema, one would assume that it would be more popular. Hopefully we can break the cycle of ignorance surrounding this film. It deserves to be seen and treasured. It deserves to escape the same fate of its unfortunate characters: that of neglect, suppression, and abuse. Only then can the healing truly begin.

Ric Burke Essay:
http://filmforthesoul.blogspot.com/2008/09/distant-voices-still-lives-watching.html

Sources:
http://www.filmreference.com/Films-De-Dr/Distant-Voices-Still-Lives.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/distant-voices-still-lives
http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/01/16/distant.html http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews32/distant_voices_still_lives.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Voices,_Still_Lives



 

Editor's Note: Still Sick...

Well gang....I'm still ill....


In the beginning...all I had was the flu. But now it has been complicated by a viral infection in my trachea.

So...no update tomorrow. Sorry.

I'll try to post a review early next week during one of my more lucid moments.

Nathanael

Trente-Deux Films Brefs Sur Glenn Gould (32 Short Films About Glenn Gould)

Directed by François Girard
1993
Canada



Editor’s Note: Please forgive me if this article seems somewhat incoherent. It was written while under the influence of the flu and copious amounts of cold medicine.

Glenn Gould: My mother tells me that by five years old l had decided definitively to become a concert pianist. l think she had decided sometime earlier.

As of the time of writing this article, the average human life expectancy is 67 years. To put that into perspective, that equals 586,920 hours of life. As humans, we are unable to comprehend that amount of time until we have actually achieved it. So for many, 586,920 is simply a number. But for filmmakers, 586,920 can be one of the scariest figures imaginable. For in movies that depict the course of an individual’s lifetime, known as the “biopic,” the filmmaker must examine all 586,920 hours of living and select only two hours worth of material to show. How is that possible? Two hours is only 1/12 of a single day! How is any director supposed to properly depict a life in such a small amount of time?

Filmmakers have struggled with this challenge since the heyday of the cinema. The vast majority practice the technique of picking out and portraying what history has declared to be the most important parts of their lives. But do those particular moments truly define a man or a woman? Is a human merely the sum of their greatest accomplishments, or something more?

And then there is the challenge of perspective. The vast majority of biopics are fairly linear in approach. There may be the occasional flashback or flash-forward, but for the most part we start at the beginning and end at the end. This technique sounds like common sense, doesn’t it? But, consider this: who truly views their life in such a way? Few, if any, can definitively say that they remember the moment that they first came into existence. And we will probably never know if we are conscious or coherent when our lives truly end. Our experience as humans, the way that we view and comprehend our lives, is anything but linear. It is the grand total of not just actions, but experiences, feelings, and emotions. So how is a filmmaker supposed to depict this? Is the cinema even capable of approaching any kind of truth about how somebody lived? Is the concept of the biopic meaningless even by its definition?

So imagine the task set before Canadian filmmaker François Girard when he decided to do a biopic on Glenn Gould. Gould, a Toronto-born concert pianist widely accepted as one of the greatest virtuosos that the instrument has ever seen, would prove to be a difficult person to explore within the limits of traditional filmmaking. Able to read music before he could read words, Gould was a child prodigy who quickly became one of the most famous pianists alive. And yet, on April 10, 1964, at the height of his popularity, Gould suddenly announced that he would never perform in public again. He would go on to devote his life to doing recordings, nearly living in studios, and only maintaining contact with friends and relatives via telephone. In a sense, Gould was the Howard Hughes of the music world: endlessly brilliant, yet subjected to a self-imposed isolation from the world.

Glenn Gould

How can so strange a life be properly committed to film? Girard realized that it couldn’t be, at least in a traditional sense. So he constructed one of the most unique and penetrating character studies to ever grace the cinema: Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould.

As the title suggests, the film is literally made up of thirty-two short films, ranging from a few seconds to six minutes. They consist of interviews with people that Gould knew in real life (such as concert violinist Yehudi Menuhin) and reconstructions of various scenes from Gould’s life (starring the pitch-perfect performance of Colm Feore as Gould). Some are fairly straightforward: in one of the first short films we explore Gould’s childhood. In this segment, Gould narrates how music was an intrinsic part of his youth. Indeed, we watch as his mother played him classical music as he was still growing in her womb. Another segment shows him signing an autograph backstage of his last public concert. He coyly tells the man that he is lucky, adding, “I'm never going to sign one of these again.”



But the real magic of the film lie in the more unique and abstract segments. In one, he turns on a series of radios in his studio and seems to conduct the noise, as if hearing some inexplicable music that nobody else could. In “Gould Meets Gould” he literally argues with himself over the roles of the artist and their audiences. “Pills” shows all of the medications that Gould would consume late in his life, with him monotonously reciting a laundry list of side effects for each one. “Diary of One Day” confronts the audience with living x-rays of Gould’s hands, skull, and chest, as if proving that he has nothing to hide. And then, in “Gould Meets McLaren” we are treated to an animation of floating orbs pulsating to Gould’s music.



All thirty two segments serve to do more than give us a glimpse or summary Gould’s life. Instead, they serve to give the audience a snapshot of something much more illuminating and intimate: a chance to experience how Gould encountered and interacted with the world. It is impossible to truly know what Gould felt when he saw something or heard a piece of music. But Girard does his utmost to prove that it was wholly unique. Just as how the same piece of music can never be performed the same way twice, no human can ever live the same way, experience the same things, or feel the same feelings as anybody else. In Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, Girard has created more than a biopic: he reconstructed a life itself.

Editor's Note: I just realized that this is the first Canadian film to be featured on my website. Exciting, eh?

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32_Short_Films_About_Glenn_Gould
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19940429/REVIEWS/404290306/1023
http://www.reelviews.net/movies/t/thirty_two.html
http://www.suite101.com/content/32-short-films-about-glenn-gould-a300877
http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/t/32-short-films-about-glenn-gould-script.html
http://www.dvdjournal.com/reviews/t/thirtytwoglenngould.shtml

Editor's Note: Out Sick

Bad news, everybody.

I'm sick.
Caught myself a nasty cold.

Oh, I'll post a review later next week...but right now....I have to try and NOT die.......

Nathanael Hood

Portrait of Jennie

Directed by William Dieterle
1948
The United States of America



As I sit in my room writing this review, the sun rises on one of the first frosts of the season. The grass is glazed with iced dust that crunches under your feet. The wind’s howling reaches through closed windows to chill early risers to the bone. It is the season of destitution, of naked trees, and breath that freezes in your lungs. Soon, snow will cover the land with a chilly blanket. I look out my window with my hand under my chin and sigh. I think, “This was just like how it started. This was just like the beginning of Portrait of Jennie.” I return my eyes to my monitor and struggle to force impotent hands to clack out words that in reality mean very little. There is so much I want to say about this film, and yet I possess so little ability to express it. It reminds me of John Lennon crooning away, “Half of what I say is meaningless…Still I say it just to reach you.” So I carry on, determined to finish this article and share with you just a modicum of the beauty that is William Dieterle’s unsung masterpiece Portrait of Jennie.

Now that I think of it, maybe it is appropriate that I am suffering from writer’s block. After all, our hero Eben Adams begins the film in a similar state. A struggling, impoverished painter living in the mid 1930s in New York City, Eben lives one penny at a time. He moves from art collector to art collector, trying in vain to sell one of his paintings. His paintings are decent, yet lack a certain je ne sais pas that prevent anyone from buying them. One old art dealer named Miss Spinney takes pity on him and buys one of his paintings, much to the chagrin of her partner. This puts enough money in Eben’s pocket for a decent meal. But it isn’t enough. Tomorrow, when the money is gone he will still be just another hack with an armful of worthless paintings.

And yet, one cold day in Central Park he stumbles across a young girl named Jennie Appleton. A perpetually cheerful young lady, Jennie provides a ray of light into Eben’s life as she describes her happy life. And yet, something about her is a bit off. After all, she is wearing clothes that nobody has worn for decades and she claims that her parents work at a theater that has been gone for years. But Eben doesn’t care. She is a delight to be with. They enjoy their walk when suddenly Jennie turns to him and says, “I wish that you would wait for me to grow up so that we could always be together.” And then…nothing. She disappears, leaving nothing but a scarf tucked into a newspaper from 1910.



Baffled, yet inspired by this event, he rushes to draw a sketch of Jennie from memory. He creates a piece unlike anything else he had ever created. Whatever creative spark he was missing has arrived like a tidal wave. The sketch captivates Miss Spinney and even gains the admiration of her assistant. Eben returns to the park looking for Jennie. He finds her but is shocked to find that she seems to have aged several years in a few days. When asked about her growth, she beams and says that she’s trying to grow very fast so that they can be together. And then she is gone, disappearing into the glare of the sun.



Inspired by his second encounter, Eben is swept into a whirlwind of inspiration. Soon, his work affords him new clothes, hearty meals, and a new sense of accomplishment. And yet, like the late autumn, early winter sky, he feels empty. To him, Jennie is more than a muse, she is life itself. He goes to the park trying in vain to find Jennie. Nobody seems to have seen her. In fact, nobody seems to have remembered seeing her at all.

He investigates the dated paper that contains Jennie’s scarf and discovers that twenty years ago, Jennie’s parents were a pair of famous trapeze artists. When he goes to investigate them, he is shocked to find that they have been dead for several years. He is even more shocked to discover that they did have a daughter named Jennie. When he inquires about her, he is told that she was sent to a convent by her aunt after her parents were killed in an onstage accident. Bewildered, he returns to the park only to rediscover a heartbroken Jennie crying her eyes out. When Eben asks why she is crying, she whimpers that her parents just died and that she has to go live in a convent. Eben is shocked, but manages to calm her down. Things are made even stranger by the fact that Jennie is no longer a young girl. She is now a young woman. Before she abruptly disappears, she reassures him that she is growing as fast as she can.

I pause now in my writing. I realize that I have spelled the first half of the movie out almost word for word. I should be writing a review, not a summary. And yet, I feel an intrinsic need to recreate every plot point so that you, the reader, will understand the heartbreaking power of Portrait of Jennie. What director William Dieterle managed to do was create a film that was simultaneously a powerful love story and a supernatural…thriller? No, thriller isn’t the right word. It’s more like a supernatural curiosity, like a more subdued episode of The Twilight Zone. There is something unnatural and unusual going on in Portrait of Jennie. And yet, the fantastical elements of the picture do not insist upon themselves. The story is about Eben and his quest to capture his muse who may or may not be a figment of his imagination. After all, only he can see her. He learns that the historical Jennie died years ago in a tragic boating accident. She couldn’t possibly really be there. And yet, such impossibilities are irrelevant. She is real to Eben, the man who needs her most in the world.

As Eben becomes a better and more successful painter, he realizes that he needs Jennie in order to create. During a long absence where she fails to appear for several months, he is unable to finish anything. When she returns again, she has grown into a fully realized woman. The waiting is over. At least, it was supposed to be. She disappears again, leaving Eben to realize that the anniversary of her death is swiftly approaching. He races to the cape where Jennie drowned and….

No. I’m going to stop there. I refuse to spoil it for you. Yes, there is a traditional Hollywood rescue scene where Eben desperately tries to save his beloved. But I’m not going to tell you what happens. All I will say is that while the set-up seems to be copy and pasted from a hundred other sappy love stories, the payoff is shockingly unique. All leads to a scene set in the present day where a group of schoolchildren attend a museum exhibit of Eben’s work. The centerpiece is completed portrait of Jennie. In a final sweep, the film briefly explodes into Technicolor glory, showing that in the end Eben was finally able to create a piece of art that transcended the natural world of the film to take on a life of its own.



While working on this article, I glanced at several other reviews of the film just to get an idea of what other people think of it. One review in particular caught my eye. It was an article written by Ed Gonzalez written for Slant Magazine, the link to which I have provided below. Gonzalez argues that Portrait of Jennie is a metaphor for the creative process. He states that the film details Eben as an artist coming to terms with his dependency on his muse. Gonzalez writes:

What is Jennie then but a metaphor for supreme creative (read: spiritual) enlightenment? A quick glance at Eben's portrait of Jennie shows that he has yet to finish drawing her left arm. The shot evokes a devastating foreshadowing that isn't lost on Eben. Indeed, he is very conscious of the fact that if he finishes the arm, Jennie will disappear soon after.

Gonzalez makes a fair point. After all, Eben wants to possess Jennie because she inspires him. And yet, he is terrified that once he has her, she will disappear.



And yet, I take issue with Gonzalez’s review. It is too cold, too sterile in its approach to this haunting film. It dissects it as if it were a medical patient. It doesn’t take any time to appreciate it for what it truly is: a love story. Yes, the film deals largely with one man’s artistic struggles. But at its core it is about a man who loves a woman. After all, Eben clearly wasn’t thinking about his work when he rowed out in the middle of a storm to rescue Jennie from drowning.

Portrait of Jennie is a haunting enigma of a film. A devastating love story and a fascinating otherworldly mystery, it is a difficult film to classify. Does it belong in the romance or fantasy section? Or, maybe, does it belong in its own?

You know, it’s funny. This hasn’t been a regular review. I've said almost nothing about its production or its technical capacity as a piece of filmmaking. I haven’t mentioned the pitch perfect performances of Joseph Cotten as Eben, Jennifer Jones as Jennie, and Ethel Barrymore as Miss Spinney. I haven’t mentioned how the film was a personal project for producer David O. Selznick who agonized over every step of its difficult production. I haven’t mentioned the beautiful cinematography by Joseph H. August who frequently shot the film through a canvas to make the picture appear to be a painting. I haven’t even said a word about its miserable reception upon its first release.

And yet, here I write. The sun has come up now. The frost has disappeared on its voyage to another icy morning. It will get colder soon. But for now, the sun is still bright. The sky is a reminder of the stark, desolate beauty that engulfs the world. Such is the beauty of an autumn morning. Such is the beauty of Portrait of Jennie, a consummate masterpiece, a consummate film.

Link to Ed Gonzalez’s Review (Contains Spoilers):
http://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/portrait-of-jennie/265

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_jennie
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040705/

Мать (Mother)

1926
Directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin
USSR



The 1920s was truly one of the greatest times in the history of cinema. Hollywood was solidifying its status as a wellspring of creative filmmaking. DeMille pioneered the modern historical epic. Flaherty gave birth to documentary filmmaking. Chaplin, Keaton, and Floyd delighted the world with comedic masterpieces that have yet to be topped. Warner Brothers gave birth to sound pictures, MGM to musicals, and Paramount to the movie star. France also challenged to status quo by examining the artistic merits and possibilities of the film medium. Innovators like Dreyer, Clair, and Renoir, and Buñuel dared to take the cinema to new heights by treating it as a genuine art form instead of just a source of entertainment. In Germany, economic hardships sparked the German Expressionism movement, a fever dream of artistic expression and innovation.

And yet, there is one other country that redefined cinema during the 1920s: The USSR. Established on December 30, 1922, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics would forever change the balance of world power and become a defining force of world culture. Declared by V. I. Lenin as the single most important medium for educating the masses in the ways of Communism, the cinema took on a new role. Whereas in America the cinema was entertainment and in Europe it was art, in the Soviet Union, the cinema became propaganda.

Throughout the 1920s, several of the greatest geniuses to ever touch the medium were employed by the Soviet government to transform the cinema into a teaching tool of indoctrination. To do so, new cinematic techniques and methods were invented. Dziga Vertov pioneered the theory of Kino-Pravda, or film truth, which postulated that the cinema can witness and depict greater truth than can be seen with the naked eye. Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929) was a bold attempt to literally redefine cinematic language and is still revered today as one of the greatest films ever made. Sergei Eisenstein released what could be the greatest one-two-three punch debut in the history of cinema with Strike (1924), The Battleship Potemkim (1925), and October: Ten Days That Shook the World (1928). In these three films, Eisenstein quite literally changed the rules of cinematic construction by introducing the theory and practice of montage editing. Alexander Dovzhenko’s “Ukraine Trilogy” would become three of the most important films in early Soviet history, simultaneously gaining praise and scorn from Soviet authorities for sheer craftsmanship and political ambiguity.

And yet, there is one director from this era who almost always seems to be overlooked by film enthusiasts. While he may not be as famous as Vertov or as influential as Eisenstein, he still remains one of the most consummate cinematic craftsmen to ever come from the Soviet Union. His name was Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin. History may overlook him, but it can never overlook his work.

Just like his contemporary Eisenstein, Pudovkin helped pioneer the montage editing process. But Pudovkin differed from Eisenstein in the messages that he promoted through the use of montage. While both obviously used the montage to create scenes that praised the power of the proletariat and the strength of Communism, they highlighted different aspects of the revolutionary process. Eisenstein used the montage to glorify the image of the masses. In Battleship Potemkin the infamous Odessa Steps Massacre shows the Czarist guards as an unfeeling machine that mowed down crowds of innocent bystanders. In October: Ten Days that Shook the World, Eisenstein used hundreds of extras to create scenes where waves of humanity swept across their oppressors. To Eisenstein, there was strength, power, and significance, in numbers.

Pudovkin preferred to focus on the individual. The montage was used to highlight the individual efforts and struggles that made up the revolutionary forces that swept across Russia. In The End of St. Petersburg (1927), a single unemployed peasant becomes a revolutionary hero. His magnum opus, Storm Over Asia (1928) followed the plight of a plain Mongol herdsman who leads a revolution against English oppressors. These two films alone would be enough to solidify Pudovkin as one of the USSR’s premiere filmmakers. However, both of these films were predated by another masterpiece. The film in question was simply titled Mother (1926) and it eclipses both films in terms of emotional content and impact.



Allow me to explain. In both Storm Over Asia and The End of St. Petersburg the main heroes are exploited characters who eventually rise up against their oppressors. However, they do it by their own volition. They rebel because they believe it the right thing to do. In the case of Mother, the events are inspired by something much simpler and infinitely more powerful: love.

Based on a Maxim Gorky novel, the film follows the struggles of a simple family caught up in the failed 1905 Russian Revolution. The father is a rough brute who keeps his wife in constant terror. The son is an inspired revolutionary wholeheartedly devoted to his cause. The mother is an ever-suffering woman. Life is hard, her husband is abusive, and her only son seems hell-bent on throwing his life away. It isn’t long before her husband is killed in a worker’s strike, leaving her in charge of the family. When the son asks her to hide weapons for the revolution, she wearily agrees. But when the police come looking for them, she quickly betrays them, hoping that they will free her son.

Of course they don’t. In a farcical trial scene reminiscent of Tolstoy’s Resurrection, the son is sent to prison. Things come to a head when the prisoners try to escape. But they are brutally massacred. Inspired by the horrors of Czarist oppression and spurred on by the death of her son, she picks up a political cudgel and joins in a worker’s protest. The ending is the stuff of cinematic legend. To ruin it would be a crime. Suffice to say, the film stays faithful to history.



What propels this film to the level of a masterpiece is Pudovkin’s impeccably economic execution and delivery. As Pudovkin’s first independently produced feature, he had access to little money. So Pudovkin had to compensate with devastating cinematic grammar. Along with his cinematographer Anatoli Golovnya, Pudovkin doesn’t waste a single shot or frame composition. Rob Edelman wrote a fantastic article explaining some of the attributes of Pudovkin and Golovnya’s cinematic language:

He and his cinematographer, Anatoli Golovnya, photographed the actors from every which angle: a military officer's self-importance would be conveyed by shooting him from below; the mother's early frustration would be emphasized by shooting her from above, and at the end, her triumph and liberation is highlighted by shooting from below. When Pudovkin places his camera in this position, the character's upper body and head seem further away, more inaccessible, reaching to the sky and towering over the viewer; when the actor is beneath the camera he becomes inferior, in that the viewer is literally looking down on him. Pudovkin does not shoot his performance straight on, as if he is recording a stage play. Mood and characterization are communicated in Mother not by the actor emoting before the camera; the performer is almost a passive participant in the filmmaking process.

That isn’t to say that the acting in Mother is hackneyed. Pudovkin used a blend of professionals (the mother and son were recruited from the Moscow Art Theater) and non-actors (smaller roles like the colonel supervising the son’s interrogation) to create a dynamic world that is both highly realistic and expressionistic. The performances were also highlighted by Pudovkin’s use of montage. Take the famous scene where the son receives good news while in prison. His reaction is punctuated with images of spring: a thawing river, children playing, and birds bathing.



Inevitably (and predictably) later in Pudovkin’s career he would fall out of favor with Soviet authorities. But before he provoked Soviet ire, Pudovkin left a powerful string of films to cement his legacy. Mother will forever be remembered as one of his greatest. A genius piece of economic filmmaking, Mother also separated itself from other Soviet films by making the audience feel sympathy and love for the characters. The struggles faced by the mother reflected countless other cases of pain and suffering that permeated Soviet revolutionary efforts. And yet, as a piece of propaganda, it works its magic. It is impossible to not feel inspired and enraged by the events that transpire. Some may ask why. The answer is that Pudovkin put a human face on the revolution: that of a loving mother.

The entire film can be watched for free on youtube. Below is part 1/11.

Sources:
http://www.filmreference.com/Films-Ma-Me/Mat.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_Soviet_Union#1920s
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vsevolod_Pudovkin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_%281926_film%29
http://sovietmovies.blogspot.com/2008/11/vsevolod-pudovkin-mat-aka-mother-1926.html

Editor's Note: One Year Old

Well, to all my faithful readers I have great news!

Today is the one year anniversary of "Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear"!



The past 52 weeks has produced 87 film reviews. For those who are interested, here are some interesting statistics:



Sorry, that's supposed to say "Continent."

*Sigh*



I want to thank all of my great readers and all of those who have been so kind to leave comments over the past year.

In particular, I wish to thank:

AJB: For that great article on Seijun Suzuki!

Bruta1ity: For helping me learn about the wonders of Russian cinema! I got a special treat for you in a week!

Chris: For spreading the word about my blog and for keeping things classy!

Danielmontgomery: Thanks for adding me to your blogroll and for the great encouragement!

Dave: For keeping it real with the Western rap! I miss you, buddy! Comment more!!!

Elisabeth and Baba: Without you two, there wouldn't be a single African film on this blog! Love you!

Emptyflow: For your kind words of encouragement!

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To all my other commentators and subscribers, thank you.

This has not been an easy year for me. There were several times when this blog was my last stake on sanity. Every subscription and comment was like a dream come true.

Special thanks to Mom, Dad, and Rachael. I'd be lost without you all.

God bless you all.

Here's to another year!

Keep those comments coming!

In celebration of my first year anniversary, I will be taking this week off. I'll be back on October 30th with a new review!

Der Golem, wie er in die Welt kam (The Golem: How He Came Into the World)

Directed by Paul Wegener and Carl Boese
1920
Germany



If the cinema is a world of dreams, then German Expressionism is a world of nightmares. After the horrors of World War One, Germany was consumed by rampant inflation and a horrendous economy. In order to compete with lavish Hollywood films, German filmmakers reinvented the language of the cinema so that they could make films cheaply while maintaining a sense of artistic integrity. Disillusioned by the War to End All Wars, horror seemed a natural fit for a country that had lost 13,000,000 young men. Films began to deal more increasingly with matters of madness and monstrosities. Sets became lucid mazes of sharp angles, painted shadows, and terrifying vistas. In a sense, the fractured and distorted sets and shots reflected the shattered mindset of the films’ characters and, in a sense, those of its audience. Early German Expressionist films, like The Student of Prague (1913) and Destiny (1921) dealt with Faustian exchanges and deals with Death himself. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) and Nosferatu (1922) were progenitors of the modern monster film with lumbering somnambulists and creeping vampires that lurked in the shadows.

90 years after their production, most German Expressionist films are lovingly cherished by film makers and connoisseurs. Many have been painstakingly restored from their original prints so they can be preserved for the ages. And yet, there is always the occasional film that slips under the radar. One of these is a film of staggering power and artist merit entitled The Golem: How He Came into the World. The third in a series of films about a clay golem that comes to life and murders hapless victims, The Golem: How He Came into the World is the only one that still survives to this day. The film itself was a prequel to the first golem film, appropriately titled The Golem (1915) that took place in the (then) modern world. Set in the 16th century, The Golem: How He Came into the World deals with how the golem was first created. Truly, the origin story of this early film monster deserves to be appreciated not only as a towering example of the genre of German Expressionism, but also as a consummate work of art.

In 16th century Prague, the esteemed Rabbi Loew ben Bezalel reads in the stars that a great catastrophe threatens the Jews. The catastrophe comes in the form of an edict from Emperor Rudolf II that the Jews must leave the city of Prague due to accusations of practicing black magic and the scorning of Christian ceremonies. To protect his community, Rabbi Loew constructs a golem, a massive automaton made of clay. After a magical ceremony, the Rabbi brings the golem to life by giving it a magical pendant with the word aemaet inscribed on it (Depending on who you ask, aemaet can mean either “life,” “God,” or “truth”). He then brings the golem to the court of Emperor Rudolf II and tries to reason with him to repeal the decree of banishment. Laughing at his appeal, Rabbi Loew orders the golem to make the palace collapse onto the spectators and block the exit. Desperate, the Emperor swears that if Rabbi Loew recalls the golem, he will repeal the decree.



When they return home from the palace, all seems well. Then Rabbi Loew tries to deactivate the golem. Unbeknownst to him, the golem, having been alive too long, has no intentions of going quietly into that dark night. The golem rebels, sets the city on fire, and begins a murder spree. The golem is eventually stopped, and I will leave that incredible scene for my readers to discover themselves. Suffice to say, as the golem was borne of ignorant makers, it could only be defeated by ignorant innocents.

The Golem: How He Came into the World was a terrifying film of grim ironies. Accused of black magic, the Rabbi Loew decides to protect his people by summoning Astaroth, otherwise known as the Crowned Prince of Hell, to bring his automaton to life. The golem, originally designed to protect the Jewish community from destruction, ends up almost annihilating them himself. In a way, the film acts as a prophetic warning of the coming of fascism in Germany in the 1930s. In order to save themselves from destruction, the German people elected Adolf Hitler as the Chancellor of Germany in 1933 to lead them. Eventually, the man they elected to help rebuild and protect their country would plunge them into World War Two, leaving their cities in ruins and their population decimated.



The film, while revolutionary, is a tad uneven. Rabbi Loew has a daughter named Miriam who begins a tryst with a knight named Florian who originally delivered the decree of banishment to the Jewish community. The entire affair, while vital to the plot later in the film, comes off as out-of-place in such a nightmarish landscape. Rabbi Loew takes his automaton about town and even sends it shopping at the market in one scene. Perhaps this was intended to show how tame the golem was harmless when first constructed. But one feels that such scenes were only added to pad the film’s length and to give the golem more face time.

But such complaints are tolerable in the face of such innovation. The directors Paul Wegener and Carl Boese, were key figures in the German Expressionist movement. Boese, who actually appeared in the film as the golem, helped define how movie monsters would act, move, and respond. Along with the somnambulist Cesare from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Count Orlok from Nosfertu, the golem was a prototype movie monster that would go on to inspire the characters of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Wolfman.

As a production, The Golem: How He Came into the World may seem overly excessive for its genre. Armed with multiple sets and a massive cast that included waves of extras all dressed up in expensive period costumes, The Golem: How He Came into the World must have been a herculean production for its time. But the effect was well worth it. The end result was a film that existed in a macrocosm of fear and suspicion, terror and uncertainty. While The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari clearly existed in a series of sets, The Golem: How He Came into the World leads the viewers to believe that they are truly witnessing another world, or perhaps, a shadow from the past. Or, could it be that the film was a reflection of the future? Only the stars know….


The entire film can be seen for free on youtube. Below is a link to the first part of the film.

Sources:
http://www.suite101.com/content/the-golem-how-he-came-into-the-world-review-a76413
http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue4/golem.html
http://www.mysteryarts.com/magic/words/Ed.3/?p=89
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem:_How_He_Came_into_the_World

Girl Shy

Directed by Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor
1924
The United States of America



He was so afraid of girls that he made a secret study of them, and the more he studied them the more he feared them.

Of all the great silent comics, there was never a man quite like Harold Lloyd. He was not a rascally little troublemaker like Charlie Chaplin or the perfect stone-faced gagster like Buster Keaton. Instead, his characters were usually unassuming, white-bread men. Walter Kerr, author of the 1975 book The Silent Clowns probably best summed it up by saying, “He had to think it all out. Lloyd was an ordinary man, like the rest of us: ungrotesque, uninspired. If he wanted to be a successful film comedian, he would have to learn how to be one, and learn the hard way.” And learn the hard way Lloyd did. Of the three great silent comedians (himself, Chaplin, and Keaton), Lloyd was the most prolific. By the mid-20s he had already starred in over 100 films. As the highest paid performer of the 1920s, he became famous for two onscreen personas: Lonesome Luke and his most famous character known simply as “The Boy.” “The Boy’s” toothy smile, stylish hat, and trademark glasses made him instantly recognizable. The famous scene from Safety Last! (1923) where he dangled from a clock on the side of a skyscraper could very well be the most iconic image of the silent film era.

But at their core, Lloyd’s characters were modest, inconspicuous fellows just trying to make their way in the world. Of course, there was usually a girl involved for whom Lloyd would jump through hoops to impress or woo. But then again, that was usually the basic formula for silent comedies back then. Women were prizes for which the protagonist had to endure severe dangers or complications in order to win.

But in 1924 Lloyd released magnificent film that broke away from that formula and in the process inadvertently helped create an entirely new genre of film: the romantic comedy. The film in question was entitled Girl Shy. While it may usually be overshadowed by Lloyd’s other great films like Safety Last! And The Kid Brother (1927), it is nevertheless one of the genius’ greatest films.

We find Lloyd as his “The Boy” character working as a tailor’s assistant for his uncle in the small nowhere town of Little Bend, California. As the title suggests, Lloyd is unusually frightened by women. When confronted by a member of the fairer sex, he is seized by uncontrollable stuttering that can only be broken by the sound of a whistle. His condition makes him somewhat of a celebrity as girls come in to deliberately tease and intimidate him. In one cruel scene, one girl forces him to sew up a hole in her stocking while she wears it.

But despite his fears, Lloyd desperately craves affection. In an early heartbreaking scene, he stands outside of a dance hall and begins to meekly dance with a store’s support column. His undiluted eagerness and bittersweet innocence recall Chaplin dancing with his dinner roles in The Gold Rush (1924). Who cannot identify with such a poignant and familiar scene?

But Lloyd has big plans. He has no intention of staying a tailor’s apprentice for his entire life. He writes a book in the hopes of getting published and becoming a successful writer. His book is entitled The Secret of Making Love by Harold Meadows. Obviously, the title had much more innocent connotations in 1924. Indeed, the book is a compilation of his fantasies of being a successful playboy and ladies’ man. Many of the film’s earliest gags come from reenactments of these fantasies. He first writes his “experience” with “The Vampire,” a seductive brunette trapped within a tightly-fitting dress. After watching the scene, one wonders if Lloyd was a fan of the exploits of Irma Vep in Louis Feuillade’s Les Vampires. We then watch his exploits with “The Flapper” who he callously mistreats until she begs for his affections.



After the book is completed, he hops on a train to Los Angeles where he meets a young sociality named Mary Buckingham. She first meets Lloyd when, in one of the film’s most iconic scenes, he sneaks her Pekinese dog onto the train after it is denied entry. Forced to sit next to her in the only empty seat, he finds that he can actually interact with her without breaking down. This is in part to the fact that the train whistle periodically breaks his stutter and to Mary’s eagerness to talk to him. Played by Jobyna Ralston, a regular in many of Lloyd’s films, she channels some of the original innocence and demur beauty of no less than Lillian Gish. But her character in this film is no stock beauty. Unlike the women in Buster Keaton’s work, Mary is not rude, mean, or demanding. Unlike Chaplin’s belles, they were not helpless but well-meaning airheads. She is a funny, kind, and surprisingly experienced character. By that I mean that she is no ingénue. Notice the coy and slightly mischievous smile she gives Lloyd when she learns the name and topic of his book.

When the train reaches its destination, there is a sweet scene where Lloyd and Mary find that they are the sole passengers left after everyone else had departed. Startled t, they hurry off the train towards their different destinations. It is at this time that the audience realizes that this isn’t like the other silent comedic romances that they were accustomed to. The film takes time to develop each character as separate individuals. We watch as Mary rejects suitors and Lloyd’s book gets rejected. When they meet again, Lloyd purposefully blows her off because he was too embarrassed to tell her the truth. It is this conflict that establishes Girl Shy as one of the first genuine romantic comedies. In a romantic comedy, two characters fall in love, for whatever reason they separate, realize that they truly love each other, and get back together. Romantic comedies require there to be a problem or a roadblock in the relationship that each character must overcome. In other silent films of the era, once the protagonist wins the heart of their loved ones, the film usually ends. For them, the comedy was more important than the romance. In Girl Shy, one could make an argument that it is actually a love story with jokes.

Of course, through a series of rather silly events, the publishing company decides to publish Lloyd’s book, Mary decides to marry another suitor, and Lloyd decides that he needs to confess to Mary before she gets married. This is all a set-up to the film’s greatest sequence: the chase to the chapel. If this isn’t one of the greatest silent comedic sequences ever filmed, it is at least one of the best of Lloyd’s career. We watch as he seizes vehicle after vehicle in an attempt to get to the chapel. During the chase, he finds himself on horseback, in a shootout with criminals, and on top of a run-away trolley. The camera intersperses medium and long shots of him almost as if it is desperate to prove that it is indeed Lloyd on top of real runaway vehicles. The audience never doubts it for a second. Several of the stunts could have easily killed him, especially one near impossible shot where he hangs from a pole off the top of a trolley and falls into the passenger seat of a nearby car. Even if it wasn’t Lloyd, we know for a fact that somebody was risking their life doing that stunt.



Of course, Lloyd makes it to the wedding just in time and whisks Mary away. He begs for Mary to marry him, and of course she says yes. Would we want it any other way? After all, we are emotionally invested in both of the principle characters. It makes sense considering that Lloyd described the film as a “character story” instead of a “gag film” that was played solely for laughs. As a result, there were fewer gags and more of a focus on the characters and their relationships. That’s not to say that it isn’t funny. It’s quite the contrary, actually. Girl Shy is one of Lloyd’s funniest films. And we are lucky that he managed to be so funny. By creating that perfect balance between character development and pure humor, Lloyd helped rewrite the way that romantic films would be made for the rest of history. Pretty good for a modest country boy, huh?



The entire film is available on youtube at the following link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36bprz_Kfck

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_Shy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Lloyd