It’s the moment persnickety cinephiles have been waiting for: the first batch of Criterion Blu-ray releases come out today, and the quality of the transfers doesn’t disappoint. More details, with an emphasis on Wes Anderson’s “Bottle Rocket,” making its Criterion debut in both standard and high definition versions, can be found here.
UPDATE: Gary Tooze, the webmaster of the indispensable dvdbeaver.com, has created a toolbar that allows for fast, direct searching of several cinephile sites, including (for reasons known only to Gary) this one. It’s very tiny and very useful, and you can download it here.
SABRINA and LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON are amongst my favorite Wilder films. Miguel, Alex,JP, yes, I do like the “noir” stuff more than any of the “comedies of manners”. To a french “cinephile” liek me, the “values scale” of film history has dramatically shifted and evolved in the past ten years, thanks to friends like Kent Jones…and also filmmakers whose name I won’t mention here.
For instance, it was a “natural” to just loathe everything that Wyler and Huston did and praise every film by Hawks, Wilder or Blake Edwards.
I still believe WISE BLOOD and FAT CITY are much more satisfying films than say, EL DORADO and that impossible skeleton of a movie called RED LINE 7000. And the sense of despair of CARRIE, or even DETECTIVE STORY can easily compete with Wilder’s “angst”.
COUNTESS FROM HONK KONG is more beautiful than ever when you watch it today: it mentions rape and sexual abuse in a very unorthodox manner. It’s also a very disturbing counterpart to Hitchock’s MARNIE, not only because of Tippi Heddren in both films but also because of the visual connections with the boat scenes in MARNIE… We could elaborate and say that there are filmmakers that associate sexuality with the beginning of sentiment where as others see it as the realization of a sentiment. Chaplin seems openly “cool” about the subject whereas Hitchcock obviously was not.
Miguel, there’s no comeuppance intended. That’s why I couched the remark in my own experience. You’re certainly entitled to express your dislike of Wes Anderson, a judgment which knows no national boundaries. Sentiments about Fincher, PTA and the Coens don’t seem to run as high.
NS, EL DORADO is an interesting case. The first half is so powerful and somber, and then all that antic stuff with Robert Mitchum and James Caan spoils it. It’s all likeable and the violence is bracing, but the tonal shifts are rough.
Don’t opinions about the Coens rank just about as high on the divisive scale? (Unless you mean that the weight is almost all here on the negative side).
I get in more arguments about their work (which I mainly loathe) more than any other contemporary filmmakers.
An old joke that I love: a guy goes in the best restaurant in town. asks for a dish, says, “I don’t like it” and has it sent back to the kitchen. Another dish, then another, then another. All are sent back to the kitchen. The waiter shows up with a plate of something warm and brown. The customer tastes it and adds “But that’s shit !” and the waiter answer’s “It’s the chef’s monsieur, the best in town”…
It looks like what we are seeing here is a return of the directors that “Cahiers” repressed and “Positif” championed: Wyler, Wilder, Huston, Mankiewicz, etc. These aren’t filmmakers who have been undervalued over the years — quite the contrary, they were the critics’ darlings of their time and dominated the Oscars for a generation — but for some reason they are now perceived as underdogs who have to be defended, even at the unnecessary expense of putting down an excellent film like “El Dorado.” My objections to “Wise Blood” and “Fat City” are essentially the same as my objections to Wilder in general: a superficial, reductive approach to character that encourages the audience to feel superior to the people on screen; a slack, undistinguished mise-en-scene that at best exaggerates the grotesqueness of the performances; a relentless judgmentalism that seldom allows the viewer any room for reflection or interpretation. The “Cahiers” critics were no doubt guilty of playing down the genuine virtues of the “Positif” auteurs (Wyler’s mid to late period films, while impersonal, do offer professional and efficient representations of mostly pre-existing material), but by and large (with apologies to Jean-Pierre), I think the “Cahiers” pantheon represents a more profound and original appreciation of the qualities that make movies an art unto themselves, while the “Positif” crew could just as easily function on stage or in print.
Dave, I’m not sure about this, as I’ve always considered RIO BRAVO one of the great movies.
I am not for instance a Losey afficionado. What you say about Huston is interesting. Being a former “Cahiers” critic, I have to say that to me, as a writer, the most important thing was the “mise en scène”. I agree that it should not play at the expense of the characters but it should not be an exclusive criterion per se. My relationship to Wilder for instance is marred by the overall heaviness of his approach in almost every film he made in the fifties. Wyler is no Preminger for sure, and in my personal pantheon, Otto has reached the ultimate heights in the past few years. He was a “Cahiers” director, wasn’t he ?
This is all a matter of context. Wyler, Wilder, Huston and Mankiewicz are four of the most lauded directors in the history of the medium. Partly because of their vaunted reputations but for other reasons as well, there was a reaction against them from the Cahiers end of the spectrum, which at a certain point calcified into a judgment in stone. Every generation finds its way by taking a second look at such judgments – I’m speaking for Saada and myself here, who are both about the same age. On the one hand, I don’t disagree with Dave about “the qualities that make movies an art unto themselves.” On the other hand, if I hadn’t taken another look at Wyler, I would have missed a lot of good movies. If I want to be reminded of what’s at the core of movies as an art form, I am certainly more likely to look at Hawks than Wyler – that includes EL DORADO, which I didn’t intend to put down and which I watch from time to time, but which I also don’t think goes all the way to being a masterpiece. And if I want to commune with painting as an art form, I look at Turner. But I also like looking, from time to time, at a comparatively academic painter like Cuyp. And I like looking at Wyler, too.
When all the Cahiers critics were erecting their pantheons, Bazin was the one who most cogently addressed the problem of drawing endless lines in the sand – he also happened to be a very eloquent admirer of Wyler. So, following his lead, I’m not arguing for replacing EL DORADO and A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG with FAT CITY and THE HONEY POT, but for less severe lines of separation between the great and the very good. I think this is a direction Andrew Sarris has taken over the last 30 years. Starting with Wilder, every single director he put in “Less Than Meets the Eye” has risen in his estimation, and he’s been teaching DODSWORTH and THE GOOD FAIRY for years now.
I don’t think one can characterize Huston’s stature without attention to his great unevenness. For me there is the clearly great of 1941 through 1950 or 1951, a producer of a pretty steady stream of masterpieces [The Maltese Falcon (1941), San Pietro (1945),Let There Be Light (1946), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948),The Asphalt Jungle (1950)and maybe The African Queen (1951).]
Arguably, this Huston extends through 1956, through Moulan Rouge and his last two pre-1970s failed quest films, Beat the Devil (1953)and Moby Dick (1956).
Then there is the revitalized Huston who emerges with his return to the failed quest film with he Man Who Would Be King (1975), who is strong in Wise Blood (1979) Fat City (1972),Prizzi’s Honor (1985), Under the Volcano (1984)and the masterly The Dead (1987). In between there’s no director of distinction, though there are arguable moments of it [The Unforgiven (1960), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)]. Overall, I would say the 1975- Huston is a director of unequivocal masterpieces other than The Dead, though I suspect Positif types applaud all the middle and latter film I’ve mentioned except perhaps “The Unforegiven,” a personal favorite. However, I think the director of The Maltese Falcon, San Pietro, Let There Be Light, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Asphalt Jungle and The Dead has all the qualifies as a “great” of at least the not-quite Pantheon variety like Capra and LaCava and, dare I say it, MacCarey, although more of you think Ill the films I’ve mentioned, plus a few more, are pretty good.
Wyler is also very uneven –marked by his great Betty Davis director, a 50ish spike, and a lot of slick hack work.
I’m not big Mankiewicz fan but he certainly ahda masterpiece or three.
Enough said already of the great but spotty Wilder.
Cerainlt all four of these director are stronger as writer or adoptors than as original visual creatirs, even Wyler if you bracket out Toland. But a style/mise-scene auteurism can only take one so far.
Now that I’m thinking back on it, Godard loved Mankiewicz’ films. He also spoke very highly of THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES when SCHINDLER’S LIST came out. The one time I ever met Rivette, he was raving about BEST YEARS too.
Alex, for my money, DODSWORTH, THE LETTER, THE HEIRESS and CARRIE are four of Wyler’s best films. Gregg Toland shot none of them.
Oh yeah, comoassion could hardly run deeper and wider than in the Huston of the WWII docs,”Sierra Madre,” “Asphalt Jungle,” “Moulon Rouge,” and “The Dead,” although the Huston of “Maltese Falcon” is as tart as Hammett — and effectively so.
The arrival home in the B-17(the World rising slowly up from behind the returning Vets through the planes windowed nose) is great enough to immortalize “Best Years,” and a high poiunbt of Tolan’s carreer.
Dave, I have to take exception, for a couple of reasons. First, what you call the Positif “crew” is too varied to be casually swept under the rug in its entirety, especially as something that “could just as easily function on stage or in print,” a statement I confess I don’t quite understand. Also, neither “Cahiers” nor “Positif” ever were monolithic and unmovable in their preferences. Even back in the fifties and early sixties, the period of their fiercest antagonism, the dichotomy never was that clear-cut. For example, Positif never “championed” Wyler, quite the opposite. He was seldom mentioned at all in those early years, but Ado Kyrou’s vicious drubbing of THE DESPERATE HOURS, and Wyler’s work as a whole, in the July 1956 issue gives a fair idea of the director’s status at Positif at the time. It wasn’t until 2001 that he was “rehabilitated” in a Positif Wyler “Dossier” coming on the wave of reassessments started in the early nineties. Similarly, Mankiewicz was not originally a Positif favorite; actually he was one of seven “overrated” directors thrashed in an infamous 1954 article collectively signed by “LA REDACTION” (among the others were Nicholas Ray, Cukor, Fritz Lang and Hawks — which all became much admired by Positif in later years (or decades).As for Wilder, there was no great enthousiasm for him at Positif (they panned LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON, among others) Finally I don’t see where it shows that Wyler, Wilder, Huston, Mankiewicz etc are “now perceived as underdogs.” Where and by whom?
Wyler and BEST YEARS: I am on record as calling the film a masterpiece in an otherwise rather negative entry on Wyler for TRENTE ANS DE CINEMA AMERICAIN as far back as 1970, so I must have been at the avant-garde of Wyler’s rehabilitation. It’s nice to know that Godard and Rivette love BEST YEARS. but a more typically “Cahiers” evaluation came as late as 2001(#549)when Antoine de Baecque called the film “heavy-handed and indigestible.”
Oh you read that nonsense by de Baecque, poor Jean-Pierre! It’s a piece that is just a listing of all the “clichés” on Wyler. I’m sure that Antoine has never seen DODSWORTH or CARRIE. But he’ll give five stars to MISSION IMPOSSIBLE and SLEEPYN HOLLOW.
Dave, I think quite unfair to list among the “Cahiers”-repressed filmmakers Mankiewicz. You’ve only to look at their Best of Year list in the ’50s. Of course, some of them were more pro-Mankiewicz (Godard, Rohmer, Douchet) and some (like Rivette) were rather against him. Neither “Cahiers” nor “Positif” were so monolithic, nor unchanging over the years, nor so opposed in their likes and dislikes as people seem to recall. Of course, there’s always the unfair tendency to put down some people to upgrade others, and Wyler was a victim of that policy. I think he was a pretty good director, and certainly “The Best Years of Our Lives” is as great a masterpiece as those of Ford, Hitchcock, Hawks or Capra that very year of 1946. And many others, from the ’30s, ’40s and ’50s (such as “Carrie” or “Detective Story” are very good), as was “The Collector” in 1965. Huston is quite uneven, but his best films (for me, “The Dead”, “Fat City”, “The Man Who Would Be King”, “The Misfits”, even “Moby Dick”, “The Asphalt Jungle” or “The Unforgiven”, are very good, although I find utterly schematic, hysterical and grotesque “Wise Blood”). Wilder and Mankiewicz, for me, almost made no bad movies, although not all of them are very good. It’s hard to generalize when a director has had a long career in the commercial cinema, there are always (apart from mistakes or failures, which can be interesting) commisions which did not interest them at all, bad scripts or castings which they could not change, pressures or tamperings. Had we the time (ad the life-span) everything should be subjected to permanent revision and re-evaluation: whe may have dismissed or overlooked great films and even filmmakers, and over-appeciated some others. The case of “failed” films like Hawks’ “El Dorado” can be very interesting: I agree the first, tragic half is wonderful, and the second, funny part is on first viewing a disappointment. But then you get used to it and can find it quite appealing as well and enjoy it.
Miguel Marías
Alex, I was mainly referring to the common critical opinion of A COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG not the re-evaluations that have been made on this thread by people who are far ahead of the game.
From “Wise Blood”:
Landlady (Mary Nell Santacroce), finding that the founder of the Church of Christ Without Christ, Hazel Motes (Brad Dourif), has wrapped himself in barbed wire to repent for his sins, for which he has also blinded himself — “It’s like bein’ a saint or wallin’ up cats! Folks have quit doin’ it!”
Hazel: “They ain’t quit doin’ it as long as I’m doin’ it.”
I’m pleased to see this sublime film surface here, since otherwise it seems to be lost, certainly to DVD.
John Huston achieved both fidelity to both Flannery O’Connor’s Catholic perspective in her dazzling novella and his own agnostic view of the world. The film is both hilarious and heartbreaking, often simultaneously, every frame of the way, thanks in large measure to fabulous acting in the supporting roles by Amy Wright, Dan Shor, Harry Dean Stanton, pre-”Prizzi’s Honor” William Hickey, and Ned Beatty.
Mary Nell Santacroce’s ability to blend her character’s utter commonplaceness and the leap into generosity that the dialoque quoted above foretells causes many moments from her work in “Wise Blood” to replay spontaneously in my memory quite often.
As for Brad Dourif, scene-by-scene chapter and verse could be cited (including the commingled defiance and plaintiveness in his reading of the aforementioned line); but, in short, his Hazel Motes is nothing less than a Pantheon performance in the entire history of cinema.
Finally, not for one instant have I ever felt even a hint of condescension in “Wise Blood” toward any of its characters, even the most momentary bit players.
I’m glad to see THE DEAD getting some love. It’s a beautiful film.
Kent, I agree that DODSWORTH, THE LETTER, THE HEIRESS and CARRIE are four of Wyler’s best (indeed, great) films, and all of these but the DOSWORTH — which I foolishly failed to mentioned are encompassed by my terse sumamry of Wyler’s best.
I’ll stick with my comment about the Positif directors (Wyler, Wilder, Huston and Mankiewicz” that were under discussion as “stronger as writer or adoptors than as original visual creators even for Wyler once we bracket for Toland” This was said as a partial concession to DK’s point about Poitif-applauded work “could just as easily function on stage or in print” and is not as expressive of “qualities that make movies an art unto themselves” as the work of directos more favored by Cahiers. I can’t think of any highly innovative or personally expressive –as opposed to crisply craftsmanly– Wyler visual accomplishments not aided by Toland (as in the visually striking “Little Foxes” and “Best” and maybe “Wuthering Height”) though I’m surely missing some bits that other will thnk differently of like the fight in long-shot in “The Big Country” or that Chariot Race.
Four of my original auteurs when I was a teenager were Mankiewicz, Wilder, Huston and Wyler. When I started loving movies, I did not know of either CAHIERS or POSITIF (sorry), but if I went back and forth over the years about these directors’ virtues, then it seems okay that C&P did the same.
Watching any film by Joseph L. Mankiewicz provides a spectator the highest experience possible of “the qualities that make movies an art unto themselves.” Okay, who would agree with that statement? Damn few, I would suspect (though both C&P seem to like him. Godard paid tribute to JLM as recently as NOUVELLE VAGUE). For many, he may have made (as Alex said) “a masterpiece or three,” but he is still an underdog from what I can determine. While I regard him as the equal of Hawks and Hitchcock, most others do not. He is not a lyrical filmmaker and lyricism seems to be a necessary component of greatness for some (many?). His use of cinematic space is remarkable: he is the auteur who introduced performativity into mise en scene (admittedly, JLM’s use of the performative is as rare as Mulligan’s use of the subjective). But what about those spectators who do not vibe with the performative? I would suspect that no amount of writing on my part or that of other queer theorists would help. But if you think that JLM is all dialogue and no visual, go to one of those benefit readings of ALL ABOUT EVE that occur once in a while. Yes, the words are great and can be performed with gusto, but without JLM’s images they seem hollow, and you realize that Mankiewicz chose the spaces in which these words would be uttered with extreme care and precision. Add in his actors’ gestures and you begin to see how rich JLM’s mise en scene is.
Jean Douchet wrote “Such is Mankiewicz, the cinematic virtue of the word.” (full thumbnail sketch available at: http://jdcopp.blogspot.com/search/label/%22Jean%20Douchet%22 ). That was Mankiewicz’s great gift to movies: he brought words into the fold of the cinematic and made them the companions of images. And what he used to suture word, image, gesture together into an expressive, robust mise en scene was performativity.
As to feeling superior to Wilder’s characters: I just do not see how or where Wilder does this. His characters are flawed, realistic, grotesque, opportunistic, kind – in short everything that is human. Wilder holds a mirror up to his audience and shows that amidst the myriad hustles and cons of contemporary life, there is the possibility of being a mensch, but it takes effort and persistence. Like JLM, Wilder is not big on lyricism (until the 1970’s and a return to Europe), but the grotesque and perverse possess abundant charms that the lyrical knows nothing of.
As for Huston, he has fallen furthest in my estimation (save for THE DEAD which I like). I return to his films and am most often disappointed by their mise en scene. In interviews, Huston said he was trying to be unobtrusive, but he never seems to be able to be unobtrusive in an expressive way.
As for Wyler: I like him today for the same reasons I loved him then. I think THE CHILDREN’S HOUR is a great late film where he is more daring about lesbianism than he is given credit for. I also love CARRIE.
‘ I agree that DODSWORTH, THE LETTER, THE HEIRESS and CARRIE are four of Wyler’s best (indeed, great) films,’
I do not understand THE LETTER. It reminds me of Japanese National Policy propaganda movie, not to get involved with Chinese while operating colonial business. Is Gale Sondagaard supposed to attractive Asian woman? What was lover’s attraction to her? I cannot see it. I did not like scene in dirty Chinese native quarter.
William Wyler was not smart man to see through colonial convention of Somerset Maugham play, he accepted, no question. Because of that the movie is not good to me. I like other Wyler movies better. Not mentioned yet is JEZEBEL and THE LITTLE FOXES, good movies to me.
Yeah, you can always count on De Baecque to render all the hottest opinions of 1957.
Miguel, I don’t think I would characterize EL DORADO as failed. All the comic stuff works, but it doesn’t resonate so much for me. I love Robert Mitchum but I’m not so fond of him in the second half of that movie. It seems like he’s in 2nd gear. On the other hand, some of the camaraderie between Hunnicut and Wayne and Caan is very good.
Junko: THE LETTER is about a woman who kills her lover because he is abandonning her, and her subsequent efforts to disguise her murder as an act of self-defence. The racist elements have little to do with this central theme, and indeed could be completely dropped (the lover could just as well drop her for some other British upper-class woman, it would change nothing to the plot). The race stuff is definitely the weakest element of the movie (and, I suppose, the play), and today it looks not only “racist” but almost ridiculous. However it’s so irrelevant to the actual plot that I find it easy to forget about it. I have much more difficulty dealing with the racism of THE BIRTH OF A NATION. I think it’s too bad that those silly, dated extraneous details prevent you from enjoying one of Wyler’s finest works (and one of Bette Davis’s most memorable performances).
I very much agree with Michael Dempsey about WILD BLOOD, and with dm about THE DEAD, one of the most extraordinary last films in any director’s career.
Junko, When I referred to a Wyler as a “great Betty Davis director” I was referring to JEZEBEL and THE LITTLE FOXES as well as THE LETTER.
Re THE LETTER: the vehemence of Leslie’s response to being dumped is in direct relation to the fact that she was dumped for an Asian woman. After all, she and her husband are only there because “rubber won’t grow in a civilized climate.”
Wyler could have shown up the racism of his British characters, but he directs Sondergaard to embody every Asian stereotype. As Mrs. Hammond, Sondergaard (in pure yellowface make-up and costume) is denied any Enlish-language dialogue. She is first introduced by a verbal description from Leslie: “Horrible. She was all covered with gold chains and bracelets and spangles, her face like a mask.” Wyler could have undercut this racist description, but all he does is illustrate it. There is also the duplicitous legal assistant Ong Chi Seng who obsequiously and without compunction arranges the sale of the letter. In contrast, the British attorney Joyce is shown as stricken with guilt and recriminations over his actions (the result no doubt of a superior European moral conscience).
So Brian is telling us how racist the movie is. We all know all that. My point is that it’s largely irrelevant to the plot and whatever about the movie is of interest as a good melodrama.
As for the vehemence of Leslie’s response, it may be enhanced by the fact that she is dumped for an Asian woman, but nothing in the movie makes this clear, or that the fact that she is shooting him has anything to do with the other woman’s race, or taste in jewelry… Seems to me that a woman scorned hates everything about the woman she is scorned for. If the other woman had been white and British, Leslie might just as well have shot her lover. She doesn’t kill him because of any racial hatred, she shoots him because she is being dumped. If you can do that, you’ll do it whether your rival is white, yellow, black or anything else.
This discussion reminds me of people blaming Woody Allen’s movies because they don’t have black people in them.
It surely is plausibly considered racist for Mrs. Hammond to be both marked by Asian stereotypes and a villainess. However, doesn’t Leslie’s introduction by from Leslie’s point of view as “Horrible…. all covered with gold chains and bracelets and spangles, her face like a mask” cut both ways with regard to racism? Isn’t Leslie Crosbie a villainess as well, and a weaker, less dignified, less justifiable, perhaps even ultimately less sympathetic one than Mrs. Hammond? Not only would I agree that the film’s racist elements are “largely irrelevant to the plot and whatever about the movie is of interest as a good melodrama.” I’d say they are mitigated by psychological realism (milieu and point of view), indeed by the routine ambiguity of “what is propagated, what exposed?”
‘She doesn’t kill him because of any racial hatred, she shoots him because she is being dumped. If you can do that, you’ll do it whether your rival is white, yellow, black or anything else.’
I agree about that, but rival must be equal or better than Bette Davis for lover to want. Melodrama can be ruined by bad casting. Gale Sondergaard was bad casting. If Anna Mae Wong played the part, then it could be seen that she was beautiful woman, then it could be belived.
But I agree with Brian too, Bette Davis character was insult more because of race of rival.
Because Black people is not in Woody Allen movie to compare with THE LETTER criticism is not the good comparison. Maybe you could make that comparison if Woody Allen made movie in New Orleans and didn’t show Black people.
Jean-Pierre, you must love this movie, because of strong emotional raction to criticism, so this movie is great movie probably. But reminding me too much of similar Japanese movie taking place in China that was anti-Chinese propaganda movie. That is why I cannot see it with clear eyes.
Alex Hicks wrote: “I can’t think of any highly innovative or personally expressive –as opposed to crisply craftsmanly– Wyler visual accomplishments not aided by Toland…”
I think the opening of FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO (John F. Seitz) is beautiful. The opening of A FOREIGN AFFAIR (Charles Lang) is also memorable, though not exactly a ‘visual accomplishment’. It’s a helicopter shot of Berlin during the post-war occupation. Those opening sequences have stood out in my mind since I saw the films several years ago. I’m not sure if my opinion would change on a second viewing. Come to think of it, ‘crisp craftmanship’ is a description that likely applies. Someone else mentioned that they admire Wyler’s work with Bette Davis. I’d say the same about Wilder and William Holden. His characters are definitely reductive, like Dave K. said, but I still enjoy watching them. Wilder drew a seediness out of his actors like Holden (and Douglas in ACE IN THE HOLE) that may be simplistic or sadistic, but entertaining nonetheless.
Wise Blood has been popping up with some frequency on premium cable – the Encore channels, I believe.
“I’m pleased to see this sublime film surface here, since otherwise it seems to be lost, certainly to DVD.”
No, not in France where it has been released by carlotta.And five graves to cairo as well…
http://www.amazon.fr/malin-Brad-Dourif/dp/B001E8N9G4/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1229936194&sr=1-1
Margaret B-F, You bring up some interesting visuals for Wilder -especially with Lang’s work for “Affair,” but what about WYLER (or Huston or Mankiwicz)?
The most memorable Wilder visuals for me are those of Wilder with John Seitz for “Double Indemnity” and “Lost Weekend” though they might entail more crisp craftmanship than real innovation. (Is their as good an example of Noir “expressionism” as “Indemnity” before “Indemnity?”)
Agree with Dave about the condescension in FAT CITY, which misses the compassion for the characters in Gardner’s excellent novel, and in WISE BLOOD. O’Connor’s characters are grotesques but with complex layers of emotions bubbling beneath their surfaces. Huston never gets below this surface. Huston’s best post-Bogart films are easily PRIZZI’S HONOR, which I watch once a year, and the vastly underrated, as noted above, THE DEAD.
Is THE DEAD “vastly underrated”? It was highly praised in France at least, and I even remember listing it as my favorite film of 1987. Tavernier wrote enthusiastically about it in our book (“A freedom of tone almost unique in the history of cinema.”) It’s also unique or nearly so as a director’s last film, something close to von Sternberg’s ANATAHAN.
THE DEAD was also highly praised in Sweden, and deservedly so. Didn´t American critics like it?
Paramount was smart enough to give Wilder one of the most experienced cinematographers on the lot, John Seitz, when he began directing. The visual interest of those early Wilder films can be safely ascribed to Rex Ingram’s favorite cinematographer, I believe. A lot goes out of Wilder’s work as soon as he loses Seitz, even with the excellent Charles Lang at his side.
I had a chance to see the 1929 version of “The Letter” not so long ago, directed at Paramount’s Astoria studios by Jean de Limur and produced by the estimable Monta Bell. It’s the only surviving sound film of the legendary Broadway actress Jeanne Eagels, and one of the many interesting things about the film is how strongly it suggests that the young Ms. Davis was influenced by Eagels, who possess much of the nervous intensity that Davis would later make her trademark. In the earlier film, the Chinese rival is indeed played by a Chinese woman, the otherwise mysterious Lady Tsen Mei, who projects none of the yellowface cliches of the Sondergaard performance, but rather an unshakable dignity that allows her to call out the Eagels character on her imperial smugness and racism (something Wyler probably had to soften in deference to Davis’s star stature). Altogether, the first version of “The Letter” seems a more mature and engaging work than the second.
Wyler did frame some memorable Davis performances, but I don’t think anyone directed Bette Davis but Bette Davis.
I stand corrected by J-P in regards to Wyler as a Positif director; he was of course one of Bazin’s great favorites, as well as much admired by Jean-Pierre Melville, one of the few observers who stood up for Wyler’s often tepid 50s work (“The Desperate Hours,” etc.). “The Heiress” is very good and “Carrie” is quite decent, but neither can stand up to their source material, in Henry James or Theodore Dreiser (and “The Heiress” was already a hugely successful stage play before Wyler adapted it). For me, most of Wyler’s best films were made during his tenure at Universal, before he fell under the baleful, middlebrow influence of Samuel Goldwyn, with the early Goldwyn collaboration “Dodsworth” being the exception that proves the rule. “Best Years” is an honorable film, but it seems two-dimensional next to “They Were Expendable,” a film that effortlessly achieves the plangent tone that Wyler has to strain for.
Late Huston underrated? I don’t think so — not with Pauline Kael pushing him like crazy. “The Dead” was very well received here, and racked up a lot of critics awards — as did “Fat City” and “Wise Blood” (which don’t stand up to their source material, either). I’m not monolithic on Huston: “The Maltese Falcon” is obviously a model of literary adaptation, and “The Man Who Would Be King” is a great movie (that indeed transcends its source) and one that possesses a visual expansiveness pretty much unique in Huston (and in direct contradiction of the google-eyed, wide-angle work that characterizes “Wise Blood”).
Brian, as for “performativity” and “the cinematic value of the word,” I would be curious to know what you think of Sacha Guitry or Curt Goetz, whose work in a similar aesthetic predates Mankiewicz. Goetz’s “Doctor Praetorious,” which Mankiewicz adapted as “People Will Talk,” is very interesting and well worth seeking out.
‘In the earlier film, the Chinese rival is indeed played by a Chinese woman, the otherwise mysterious Lady Tsen Mei, who projects none of the yellowface cliches of the Sondergaard performance, but rather an unshakable dignity that allows her to call out the Eagels character on her imperial smugness and racism’
I wanted to say something like that Dave, but I couldn’t think of how to write it. Thank you.
I admire both the Cahiers and Positif, two great journals that have done so much for film art.
And wish to de-couple them from this discussion.
With that said:
I agree with Dave Kehr’s skepticism about Mankiewicz, Wilder, Huston and Wyler. The four seem like talented-but-uneven directors, who occasionally create fairly good movies, among a welter of less successful material. Billy Wilder directed some solid entertainments (STALAG 17, WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION, ONE, TWO, THREE and AVANTI) and some genuine oddities (SUNSET BOULEVARD, FEDORA). But I don’t understand the passion so many people here and elsewhere feel for these directors. To be fair, I have seen less of these filmmakers’ works, than have some people here.
Still, one suspects that aesthetic forces, unseen but powerful, lie behind these enthusiasms. Many cinephiles today, are strongly oriented towards “serious drama”. These are film set in modern times, among daily life and ordinary, non-famous people, solemn in tone, not involving social problems, are not using experimental film techniques. Much contemporary American film criticism revolves around such movies. For a decade, if you look at the top 50 films in the annual Villiage Voice polls, around 66% fall into the serious drama category. Mankiewicz, Wilder, Huston and Wyler – and one can add Zinnemann – specialized in such serious drama.
The exact literary analogue of the serious film drama is the realistic novel. The same people enthusing over Mankiewicz, Wilder, Huston and Wyler seem have to read the complete works of Philip Roth, for example. It’s a “realistic” orientation that is deeply held among many American intellectuals. By contrast, it is rare to meet a cinephile who has read – or often even heard of – major current mystery writers like Edward D. Hoch, or science fiction writers like Ursula K. LeGuin.
I think of Edgar G. Ulmer as a major filmmaker, and Billy Wilder as a minor one who sometimes did solid work. Judging from posts here and elsewhere, many contemporary cinephiles have exactly the opposite point of view.
THE LETTER (1929): This was the first movie I ever saw at AMMI in Queens. The auditorium had yet to be built and spectators sat on folding chairs. Dave is correct that it is the more mature work. Eagel’s impassioned confession of love is startling and cuts much deeper than Davis’ work in the same scene (an interesting side note is that Herbert Marshall goes from playing the lover in this version to playing the husband in the second). If I am remembering correctly, it was the first sound film made at Astoria Studios.
Sacha Guitry: The films of his I have managed to see I liked very much. Unfortunately, my viewing of Guitry’s work has been sporadic over the years. He along with Mitchell Leisen sits atop my personal wish for retrospectives in New York City.
I have never been able to see the Goetz and want to.
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Bette Davis fought Wyler tooth and nail throughout THE LITTLE FOXES, but not on JEZEBEL. “Davis was always grateful to Wyler for improving her technique in JEZEBEL and deepening her art. ‘He made my performance,’ she said. ‘It was all Wyler. I had known all the horrors of no direction and bad direction. I now knew what a great director was and what he could mean to an actress.” But he also did more. “Willy really is responsible for the fact that I became a box-office star,’ she said.” – from Jan Herman’s Wyler biography
I don’t think those later Huston films needed a push from Pauline Kael. Andrew Sarris, for instance, was just as enthusiastic about FAT CITY, as were many others. For the record, I don’t have a “passion” for Wyler or Huston, I just like some of their movies a lot. And while I know what Dave means with his comparison between THEY WERE EXPENDABLE and THE BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES, I think they’re extremely different experiences, one grounded in the war, the other in post-war unease. Mike, since you’re so fond of letting us all know how addicted we are to solemn, serious dramas that don’t involve “social problems,” then I would suggest that you take a look at BEST YEARS, read a few later Roth novels, and try getting past your aversion to the Jewish lawyer in THE WIRE.
Nicolas,
I love Otto Preminger, too!
Preminger has a huge auteurist following. Just read Chris Fujiwara’s new book on Preminger, last summer.
FALLEN ANGEL has some of the best camera movements in the history of the cinema. And who can forget the final vote in ADVISE AND CONSENT?
There must have been something in the water in Vienna. It produced so many great filmmakers: Lang and Ulmer, too.
By the way, I’m not a Wilder-hater. In other contexts (say, non-cinephiles who are looking to learn about films made before 1995), I’d be talking Wilder up. Once even gave a DVD of WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION to a friend. This is all relative. Just don’t understand how people could like him as much as Sternberg or Mizoguchi or Ford…
There is nothing wrong with reading realist novels, or liking serious dramas. It’s a different cultural tradition – one of many out there. It definitely seems to be a strong component of much modern USA cinephilia.
But there are other traditions.
I do wonder why there is so much enthusiasm, and yes passion, today for Wilder and Wyler, and so little for Lang and Ulmer. Try to get a good discussion going about WOMAN IN THE MOON or MURDER IS MY BEAT, and see how far you go. Maybe the realism of Wyler and the non-realism of Lang and Ulmer has something to do with it.
By the way, I’ve loved Turner ever since I was twenty.
I wish I had seen the 1929 THE LETTER (a French- language version was also filmed, directed by Louis Mercanton and with an actress I have never heard of in the role of Leslie;the Chinese woman was played by one “Princess Hoang Thi The”. According to the AFI Catalog “scenes from the English-language version were incorporated in the new version.” Scenes with no dialogue?)
The major weakness of Wyler’s version is the over-melodramatic ending in which Leslie is stabbed to death by the Chinese woman’s assistant (who is promptly arrested, together with the woman, by a policeman providentially passing by). The Production Code demanded that every wrong-doing be punished, and this ludicrous ending reluctantly but swiftly took care of it. Wyler is reported as saying that he wished they would cut the ending when the film was shown on television.
Neither the play nor any of the film versions are “about” race and colonialism but of course those elements are built into the plot. The Europeans are all middle-class or upper middel class Brits who live in the East Indies (Malaysia?) as though they were still in England, insulating themselves from their asiatic environment.Their’s is a kind of ordinary racism that doesn’t have to be belabored, it’s a given of “colonial” life and their attitudes speak for themselves.
One strange thing about the film’s plot is that Leslie’s lover has actually married the Chinese woman, which sounds highly improbable given the social conventions of the time and place. I wonder whether such a marriage does exist in the original film (or the play)or if it was just an affair.
PS If people here have read tons of Hoch or LeGuin, please speak up! I’d love to know what you think. I’m eager to be proved wrong. And if anyone reads Western novelists like Merle Constiner, please say so too.
I do know who Turner and Cuyp are. Turner is one of the major figures in art history, perhaps the founder of Modern Art. Cuyp is a superb draftsman, but he seems to have “all the personality of a paper cup”, as Chandler slandered Los Angeles.
Mike Grost,
I guess you like “Detour” more than “Double Indemnity”
I think Wyler was at his best with Dead End and The Desperate Hours
I do like DETOUR infinitely more than DOUBLE INDEMNITY.
I can justify my admiration for DETOUR. There is a long discussion of it in my web site article on Ulmer.
By contrast, who knows if my boredom with DOUBLE INDEMNITY means anything more than that I’m just ignorant about Wilder, and don’t get his movies. Maybe I’m wrong, wrong, wrong.
THE DESPERATE HOURS shows Wyler’s skill with depth staging. So does THE LITTLE FOXES. I’m just learning about Wyler. Still, I dread the thought of seeing such angst-central productions as DETECTIVE STORY or CARRIE again.
“Detour” is so much richer stylistically and thematically than “Double Indemnity” that is seems almost unfair to compare the two films. Can you imagine Wilder coming up with something like the subjective camera movement that reveals to Tom Neal that he has accidentally killed Ann Savage? Coincidentally, Savage played the Stanwyck role in Sam Newfield’s outrageously bald-faced rip-off of “Double Indemnity,” the 1945 “Apology for Murder” (which IMDB has bizarrely categorized as a short, even though they list the running time as 67 minutes). Newfield’s squarely framed, matter-of-fact approach to the material works stands up well in comparison to Wilder’s typically moralistic perspective.