THE HOURS AND TIMES
(Christopher Münch, 1991).
In April of 1963, right before Beatlemania hit England (and later the
world), John Lennon went on holiday in Barcelona with the Beatles' manager,
Brian Epstein. This brief (60 minute), strangely atmospheric film is
an avowedly fictional imagining of what might have happened between
them while they were there.
Epstein (David Angus) is upper class, well-educated, and gay. He seems
to be quite in love with the tough, lower middle class Lennon (Ian Hart),
seven years his junior, but too self-aware to have any illusions that
anything might come of it. The film focuses on the little details of
their stay together--their conversations are mostly dry and laconic;
what there is of sexual tension is very low-key. Hart has captured a
good part of the young Lennon's persona and mannerisms--he doesn't stress
the witty, flamboyant aspects, however, but plays him as wary and self-contained.
The film's real focus is on Epstein: Angus doesn't look much like the
Beatles manager at all, but his intelligent, precisely controlled performance
allows us room to wonder what it felt like to be this extremely cultured
and emotionally troubled young man on the cusp of great success.
Shot in black-and-white on a shoestring budget, the picture employs
a minimalist strategy. Everything is spare and matter-of-fact. Münch
deliberately works against the expectation that a film about famous
people should be stylish and dramatic. He's interested instead in the
fact that there are real people underneath the mask. That these real
people happen to be John Lennon and Brian Epstein is only a way to illustrate
the contrast of the personal and the cultural, the way the private space
is always simpler and less attractive (and yet for that very reason
more interesting) than the public illusion.
The movie's restraint and brevity give it an inconsequential feeling
at times. It seems like a five-page short story rather than a novel
or even a tale. At the same time, the modest approach sets it apart.
This quiet, anti-heroic film has a style to match its message.
MARÍA CANDELARIA (Emilio Fernández, 1944).
María (Dolores del Rio), a young Indian peasant living in the river
country of Xochimilco, Mexico, has been ostracized by her village because
of a scandal involving her deceased mother. She is loved by Lorenzo
(Pedro Armendáriz), who hopes to marry her when they can get enough
money, but they are in debt to the corrupt landowner Don Damian (Miguel
Inclán), who wanted María for himself, and so tries to destroy them
out of jealousy. Meanwhile an artist (Alberto Galan) from a nearby town
who wishes to paint the beautiful María, tries to help the couple get
out of danger.
The plot elements partake of pure melodrama, but the treatment raises
the story to another level. The heroine represents a spirit of independence,
freedom, and a love that is not cowed by custom or tradition. The villagers
use ideas of honor and virtue to justify their own envy and hatred,
and the film condemns hypocrisy in sexual matters as well, which is
very interesting and rather advanced for its time. Fernández and his
co-screenwriter, Mauricio Magdaleno, cleverly wrap their social consciousness
in the conventions of popular fiction--we instinctively identify with
the downtrodden Maria and recognize the morality of the villagers as
false. They also set up a dichotomy between the light-skinned ruling
class (of which Don Damian is a member) and the Indian peasants, which
must have struck a chord with Mexican audiences. The film was a major
success at home, and won the top prize at Cannes, which helped foster
a boom in Mexican cinema during the 1940s.
Del Rio had been a Hollywood star for years-- here she looks at least
a decade younger than her actual age of 38. The part calls for sensitivity
and nobility, and she comes through with flying colors. The acting in
general is quite good, but the real reasons the film works as well as
it does are Fernández's fluid style and the photography of Gabriel Figueroa.
The budget was miniscule by American standards, but Figueroa's luminous
black-and-white images lend the film a haunting, almost mythic grandeur.
The camera movement has a calm, graceful rhythm. Fernandez also uses
some striking point-of-view shots, as in a scene where we see Lorenzo
from below as he rows down the river while María lies in the boat looking
up at him.
María Candelaria is too episodic to attain what I would consider
greatness as a work of art, but within its limits it portrays the struggles
and tragedies of the poor in a way that is affecting without becoming
maudlin. The ending finally achieves something close to poetry.
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
(Peter Bogdanovich, 1971).
In a declining north Texas town in the early 1950s, a group of teenagers
experience loss and self-discovery. Among them is the quiet Sonny (Timothy
Bottoms), who has an affair with the school coach's wife (Cloris Leachman),
but is attracted (like all the other boys) to the beautiful, spoiled
Jacy (Cybill Shepherd), the girlfriend of his best buddy Duane (Jeff
Bridges).
Adapted by Larry McMurtry from his own novel (with help from the director),
the film avoids the trap of nostalgia, instead evoking the texture of
lonely small-town life with all its pain and confusion. Ignorance about
sex, and a consequent obsession with it, are the hallmarks of adolescence
in this era, but Bogdanovich bravely focuses on the pathetic aspects
of the young characters' fumblings rather than trying to make light
of it. The picture was remarkably frank even for its time--emotionally
as well as sexually--and the clarity and openness of the treatment help
make it just as effective today.
The decision to shoot in black-and-white was a rare one in the 1970s,
but in this case unquestionably a correct one. The photography (beautiful
work by the veteran Robert Surtees) makes the town look barren and forlorn.
The director shows a great deal of patience in his style--the pace is
leisurely without dragging, and we get to know the numerous characters
by being thrust in the midst of their world rather than through exposition.
There's sadness between the lines of dialogue, while the characterization
is sometimes weird or bizarrely funny, like people you would expect
to meet in such an out-of-the way place.
Telling a story in which the central character is essentially passive
can be tricky. Timothy Bottoms makes you believe in Sonny, with his
neediness and naivete, and the basic decency inside. His brother Sam
plays a mute boy who looks up to him. Bridges is great as Duane, who
hides how little he knows behind an aggressive veneer. At 22, he still
looks like a baby (and this picture was the first to bring him any attention),
as does Randy Quaid in a small part.
Jacy is heartless, conceited, and shallow--this was Shepherd's first
role and she does fine, although she sometimes seems a bit out of place
compared to the great group of character actors that populate the film,
including Ellen Burstyn (as Jacy's mom) and Eileen Brennan. Best of
all is Ben Johnson as Sam "the lion," the owner of the town's movie
theater, pool hall, and diner. Sam represents a past in which free spirits
had more room to roam, and Johnson gives the role a perfect mix of cowboy
gruffness and old-timer sentiment. There's a great scene where he's
talking about his past to Sonny while they're fishing. The camera just
stays on Johnson's face while he makes time seem to stop with his easy
manner, full of wisdom and tired humor.
We're meant to see the demise of the town's movie house (with Bogdanovich's
beloved Red River playing on the last night) as emblematic of
the end of a period of certainty in American life, and the beginning
of a time of uprootedness and doubt, but even this symbolism is understated,
blending in with the movie's almost seamless feeling for its time. The
picture is stark in atmosphere yet almost casual in its editing style
-- there's nothing quite like it, even in that great period of the early
70s, and it's definitely one of the top films of that era. Another interesting
feature is that there's no musical score -- whatever music we hear is
playing on the character's radios. However, they listen to the radio
a lot, and most of the time what's playing is Hank Williams. The film
is practically a showcase for the great country singer's best recordings--his
voice permeates the movie, giving it a special flavor.
A WOMAN REBELS (Mark Sandrich, 1936).
Katharine Hepburn plays a free spirit named Pamela, chafing under the
restrictions of her punishing father (Donald Crisp) and the oppressive
attitude towards women in Victorian-era England. She has a fling with
a young man (Van Heflin) who turns out to be married, and ends up with
a child out of wedlock that she pretends is her niece. Later she gains
fame as a champion of women's rights, and falls for a suave diplomat
(Herbert Marshall), but the secrets in her past threaten to ruin everything.
It's easy to imagine why this story, with its theme of women breaking
out of old roles and claiming their right to work and be independent,
would appeal to Hepburn. However, the film suffers from an excess of
plot, most of it implausible. All the business involving the daughter,
the former and present love interest, Pamela's sister and her husband,
and more that I won't bother to tell, overwhelms any interest one might
have in the theme. Best are the earlier scenes, with Hepburn displaying
her rebelliousness and verve (and at the height of her youthful beauty),
but overall she seems constrained by the conventions of the Victorian
period, or rather its Hollywood version. With everyone bowing and acting
like someone's idea of proper 19th century formality, Hepburn has no
chance to portray any energy of character. She was a 20th century woman
all the way, so she could rarely come across unless her modern nature
was emphasized.
The whole thing becomes hopelessly soggy and unconvincing by the last
reel, and the pretense of feminist awareness is contradicted by the
script's reliance on tired conventions of romance and melodrama. In
addition, the usually reliable Sandrich seems bored, plodding through
the story at a dull pace. This was just one of a string of failed Hepburn
projects at RKO during the mid-30s. The studio just didn't seem to know
what to do with her, and she eventually had to break free and reinvent
herself elsewhere.
STROMBOLI (Robert Rossellini, 1950).
In postwar Italy, Karin (Ingrid Bergman), a Lithuanian refugee, agrees
to marry an Italian soldier named Antonio (Mario Vitale) in order to
get out of an internment camp. She hardly knows the man, and when he
takes her to his town on the island of Stromboli, it is not the exotic
paradise that she expected, but a poor and sparsely populated peasant
village, rocky and forbidding, the landscape dominated by a volcanic
mountain. She immediately hates her new home, and unwittingly offends
her neighbors through what they see as a lack of modesty. Her beauty,
too, becomes in some way a disruptive force, and she is suspected (unjustly)
of being unfaithful to Antonio.
The picture was maligned by just about everyone on its release, and
for different reasons, some of which were undoubtedly influenced by
the scandal of adultery surrounding Rossellini and Bergman at the time.
In fact, Stromboli, although flawed, is much better than its
reputation. Karin is an unusually ambivalent main character. She has
obviously made a foolish choice in marrying a man she doesn't know,
and when her class prejudices and love of comfort surface after coming
to the island, this makes her even less sympathetic. On the other hand,
Rossellini never idealizes the peasants. They are simple and honest,
but also hidebound and ignorant, and women are expected to stay in their
place. The film, therefore, doesn't seek an easy solution. We can't
sympathize completely with Karin's revulsion and desire to escape, but
we understand it, and the drama becomes more about a conflict within
Karin herself. She wants to accept her life, and be happy, but she can't
escape feeling like an outsider, and this loneliness makes her desperate.
The photography (by the great Otello Martelli) is stunning, conveying
the raw, elemental power of the rugged location. The film is marred,
however, by a far too insistent musical score (composed by the director's
brother Renzo) and some awkward dubbing. Bergman, whose great beauty
has caused her to be generally underrated as an actress, is very fine
here. She plays the character as complex and disturbing rather than
as the usual romantic heroine, and she pulls out all the stops. But
the contrast between her professional acting style and the behavior
of the non-actors around her tends to shatter the fictional illusion.
In addition, the open-ended finale is uneven and overwrought, which
is a disappointment, but despite this I found the film as a whole to
be surprisingly dramatic and involving.
©2005 Chris Dashiell
CineScene
