WWII: Camera Moves

In playwriting class, Professor Levy taught us that if we were to set a play in the middle of the 20th century, then we need to ask what our characters did during the war, especially if we had male characters. "Saving Private Ryan" (two years after the class) impressed in me a better understanding of those war years. A visit to the National WWII Museum in New Orleans a few years later made me understand my grandfather more.  

WWII is arguably the first war when the film medium played an important part: in propaganda and in processing its aftermath. The body of work is also immense because the war affected many countries. If I were a film curator, I would program films across the globe and group them into pre-war, the war years, and post-war.

The three films below stand out because of their technical peaks. The camera movements feel more agile. I wonder how much of that is due to how documentarians shot the war.

The racing scenes that open "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" pump adrenaline and the levitating camera in the duel scene embodies a God's-eye view of a world at war.

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp

(1943, dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)

Candy through three wars.

Kerr ageless in all. Walbrook

Goes for hearts and mind.

***

A Matter of Life and Death

(1946, dir. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger)

Pilot appeals to

Stay on earth. Down: vivid hues.

Up: clerical drab.

***

One of my favorite scenes from "The Cranes are Flying":

The Crane are Flying

(1957, dir. Mikhail Kalatozov)

Lovers torn by war;

Camera flies and dives as

We wait for Boris.

Murder Mystery Theater

It has been awhile since a thriller has graced the Rialto, so I reached out to theatrical works past for murders committed on stage.

THE WORKS

The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie premiered in 1952.

Locked room whodunnit

In manor. Nods at self and

Plays up shuffling roles.

Sleuth by Anthony Shaffer premiered in 1970.

Ex invites wife's new 

Beau. To kill? Play with? Twists tire.

What is partnership?

Deathtrap by Ira Levin premiered in 1978. 

Meta thriller: old

Author invites new. To kill?

Collaborate with?

Getting Away with Murder by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth premiered in 1996.

Plods, mechanical.

Murder in group therapy.

Power is a sin.

NOTES

SETTING

"The Mousetrap" - Great Hall of Monkswell Manor, snowbound

"Sleuth" - A manor house in Wiltshire

"Deathtrap" - A house in the woods in Westport Connecticut

"Getting Away with Murder" - A psychiatrist's office

The more isolated the setting the better - as in "The Mousetrap" and "Deathtrap." One reason "Getting Away with Murder" does not work is because it relies on too many contrivances to isolate a group in an urban setting: elevators (one shaft conveniently out of order), key restrictions to the bathroom and the office.

LIGHTS OFF / ON

"The Mousetrap" set the cliche for murders during blackouts, a staple of murder-mystery weekends. (See "The Golden Girls" Season 7 Episode 1: "The Case of the Libertine Belle.) In the latter works, the murders take place in full view onstage. Christie's play is a whodunnit and the rest are whydunnits. 

META

"The Mousetrap" still holds up and "Deathtrap" even more so. They are meta-thrillers. Near the end of the first act in "The Mousetrap" Mr. Paravicini acknowledges the play's contrivance after the last character arrives at the manor. 

"Deathtrap" is a play that revolves around a play called "Deathrap" - a thriller in two acts with 5 characters. The characters self-reference the actions that the audience sees. It's like having the lights turned on the whole time, making the twists more surprising.

Part of the reason why I like "Deathtrap" is because it summoned Marian Seldes' spirit. She played Myra Bruhl and appeared in all 1,793 performances (or 1,809 depending on your source) of "Deathtrap." That's 5 years of perfect attendance, a feat she modestly cut down during an interview in Theater Talk saying, "I wasn't really in the play for 5 years. I was in the play for sort of two and a half."

MCU

Near the end of John Boyne's "The Heart's Invisible Furies," a teenager exhorts his grandfather to watch a superhero movie with him and at the end of it he offers to give him a box set to view so that it will all make sense. This no doubt refers to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). 

The first one was "Iron Man" (2008, dir. Jon Favreau) and the most recent one (as of this writing) is "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" (2017, dir. James Gunn). It was with "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" (2014, dir. Anthony and Joe Russo) when these movies lifted off the genre for me. They have the ability to subvert themes into the genre, much the way Douglas Sirk stuffed all his subversions in his later melodramas, and reflect the current times.

Included in this group is "Logan" (2017, dir. James Mangold), which is not officially part of the MCU, but is a Marvel property. It is also an outstanding synthesis of the western and the superhero genre. 

I have not seen them all (16 so far). And maybe I'll listen to the grandson in Boyne's book and start from the beginning. 

Iron Man 

(2008, dir. Jon Favreau) 

War profiteer's heart

Replaced. Reflects feeling to 

End Bush era wars.

Doctor Strange

(2016, dir. Scott Derrickson)

Doctor journeys east,

Turns wizard. White-washing mars

Mind-blowing effects.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

(2017, dir. Jon Watts)

Spidey as eighties

High school comedy. Keaton's 

Vulture airborne high.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

(2017, dir. James Gunn)

Quill meets dad, true blood

Disappoints. Tribe of misfits

Better family.

Logan

(2017, dir. James Mangold)

"X-men" grows up, blends

Genres, cribs "Shane." Future

Mutants, true country.

Notes from November

From November's movie-watching, reading, and theater-going - in haiku ...

1

Aliens land. Friend? Foe?

Adams soars. Film grammar play:

The flashback reframed.

*

Lila and Lenu -

Girlhood in Naples. What drives

Friendship? Rivalry?

*

Dad dies, Penny meets

Squatters. Skewers activists.

Reader must like quirk.

*

"Traffic" in Punjab.

Collisions feel too contrived.

Seriousness kills high.

*

Serb turns to black cat.

Fear of assimilation,

Losing ethnic past.

*

Old flame visits with

Script. Doubles, Hitchcock, and the

Femme fatale re-dressed.

*

"Blow Up" sendup, two

Men expose murder, corruption -

Systems collapse farce.

*

Widow offs five men.

Hitchcock homage by Truffaut.

Jeanne Moreau commands.

*

More than just noir,

A love story, too. Deneuve 

Is joy / hurt, hot / cold.

*

Nate recalls break-ups.

Dies. Truth: life's ephemeral.

Awesome tilting set.

*

Moana restores 

Goddess' heart.  Digital peak

Of water effects.

*

Markie in Winesburg

I'll-fitted/ fated. Late Roth,

Same misogyny?

*

Bruno's blot removed

In Berkeley. Player? Or played?

There's always rebirth.

Haiku Reviews: Storybook Edition

Dir: Jennifer Kent (2014)

Aussie mom sleeps no
More. Pop-up book monster as
Dysfunctional grief.

Dir: Rob Marshall (2014)

Fairy tales mash-up,

Lost some wit in translation,

Well acted and sung.

"Agony" shines, for wit it retains:

Spring on Broadway

From the Great White Way, 2014-2015 Season

Coming of age gay,
Closeted dad. Memory
Musical that soars.

("I could relate. A
Burt Reynolds poster for me,
Not a ring of keys.")

Old fashioned Bernstein:
"Lonely Town" slayed. Zany tone
Glued with solid score.

Henry, Anne, Cromwell
Plot to live in Tudor times.
Swift, broad sweep of book.

Haiku Reviews: B Movie Edition

Dir: Robert Montgomery (1947)

Sterling B movie.

Exotic noir, post war angst.

Credit Metty's lens.

The single take above serves as Russell Metty's warm up for "Touch of Evil."

Dir: Chad Stahelski (2014)

Grieving hit man on

Revenge spree, lives by code like

Melville's cons. Poor dog.

Haiku Reviews: "The Boxtrolls" and "Pompeii"

Still catching up on last year's Contenders:

Dir: Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi (2014)

Underground critters

Are not monsters. Light Laika.

The lesson: embrace change.

Dir: Paul W.S. Anderson (2014)

Sword and sandal weds
Disaster flick. Stiff acting

Best buried in ash.

Gaze

Dir: Bennett Miller (2014)

Trophy collecting,

American male study.

Shift in movie gaze.

The gaze alluded to above is Laura Mulvey's "the male gaze." Channing Tatum carries the flag for this current wave. In Magic Mike, Steven Soderbergh (of sex, lies and videotape no less) knowingly objectifies the male body ... I mean, bodies. And there's Magic Mike XXL, for a more protracted gaze. Can't vouch for Fifty Shades of Grey because it's not on cable yet, but it's made half a billion dollars and whose active gaze is responsible for that?

Dir: Jean-Luc Godard (1980)

"Godard" hates women,

More essay than feature film,

Control by slow mo.

Found it hard to like this Godard, mainly because it's like reading a "composed" thesis. I don't see a Godard to get "lost" in it. It's a discussion and he does not make one forget that one's watching a movie. Took me a while to figure out why he employs slow motion in certain frames and not others. Is this what a lingering gaze is to him? Used Amy Taubin as Cliff's Notes to get to an answer that it's how he demonstrates man's control over woman. It's telling that the film has three different titles when it was released. The object's meaning is subject to the gazer.

Dir: Dan Gilroy (2014)

Dark media satire
That would make Chayefsky proud.

Jake's hungry eyes haunt.










In a different kind of gazing, the viewer becomes complicit to Lou Bloom's crimes in Nightcrawler. I rooted for him to shoot the footage he wants because I am the type of viewer who wants to see those types of images. The viewer sees through different lenses: the camera view, then Bloom's view, and then the footage. By the time the viewer sees the last, s/he ought to question the voyeur in him/her.

Dir: John Maloof and Charlie Siskel (2014)

Pack rat nanny shoots

Photos found posthumously.

Life lived on one's terms.











All the photographs and negatives Vivian Maier mostly shot in her Rolleiflex cannot solve the mystery of who she was. She was by all accounts a loner and eccentric. Do the works inform us about the artist or the person?  A few times the movie felt like an infomercial in its attempt to lobby for her place as a major artist. The movie lacks dissent, which would have made it stronger. This I know: from the headlines she hoarded, she's the type of viewer Lou Bloom from Nightcrawler aims to please.

Woh Kaun Thi?

In haiku:

"Is my wife a ghost?

Or am I losing my mind?"

Indian Vertigo.

Dir. Raj Khosla (1964)

In the words of Julie Andrews, this movie has been "egregiously overlooked" by Rachel Dwyer in her 100 Bollywood Films. 50 years on, it stands the test of time. I first came to know it through it's timeless and haunting song, "Lag Jaa Gale."

How timeless is it? In Bombay Talkies, the omnibus to celebrate the centennial of Indian cinema, Karan Johar uses the song in his segment as a crucial connection between the two men in the story:

This brings to mind the camp potential of the film. This may explain why I gravitate to its Gothic storytelling - a trait I also share with Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. It feels like something Charles Ludlam or Charles Busch would repurpose.

(Spoilers ahead.)

I would argue for its inclusion in BAMcinematek's program, "The Vertigo Effect." Woh Kaun Thi explores the same "potent themes":

- Erotic obsession: A haunting in Woh Kaun Thi? is obsession. Dr. Anand could not save the ailing woman / ghost. Those in the business of saving are haunted by those they cannot save. Just ask any doctor, nurse, firefighter, or James Stewart's cop in Vertigo. Dr. Anand also fails to save his girlfriend Seema from a cyanide injection. Those are two worthy damsels to obsess about.

- Identity: It's evident in the title, which translates "Who was she?" There's also the question of sanity that Dr. Anand faces throughout the bulk of the movie.

- Doubles: Sandhya has a twin. One's bad, the other good.  Who's who? And then we get to the part of erotic twin fantasy ...

- The link between sex and death: Are Dr. Anand and Sandhya lovers in a past life? Are they doomed to live the same fate? And then we get to the part of necrophilia ...

But the sequence that brings to mind Vertigo is the following scene, reminiscent of Stewart's Scottie dragging Kim Novak's Judy Barton dressed as Madeleine to the bell tower:

My favorite part? It's the most shocking part of the movie: Helen speaks! But of course she is best appreciated in an item number: