1971: The French Connection (William Friedkin)

1971: The French Connection (William Friedkin)
Easily the biggest influence on my first feature, The Last Lullaby.  I love the way this Friedkin film looks, and I love the way it sounds.  

Let's start with the look.  The cinematographer, Owen Roizman, has a pretty impressive body of work.  Aside from this marvel, he was also responsible for the look of The Exorcist, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Three Days of the Condor, Network, and Straight Time. What I love most about his work here is that it is both raw and painterly at the same time.  Usually I find movies that are gritty and raw not terribly pleasing on an aesthetic level.  And the films that I consider extremely refined on a visual level can often be a little distancing.  But here Friedkin and Roizman are able to combine, in a unique way, intimacy and painterly.  

As for its sound, the film mostly relies on ambient noises to propel it forward.  There is very little music.  And when music is used, it's usually between rather than during scenes.

I also love Friedkin's use of the zoom in the film.  And both the extended, wordless opening and abrupt ending continue to be references for me.  I still think this stands as one of the high points of Hollywood naturalism, and a tremendous hybrid of art and entertainment.  I would argue that much of Michael Mann's early style comes from this film.  And I would say that Friedkin's formal achievements here still tend to be a little undervalued.   

Other contenders for 1971: I still have several things I need to see from this year.  These include:  Roman Polanski's Macbeth, Grigori Kozintsev's King Lear, Claude Jutra's Mon oncle Antoine, Ken Russell's The Devils, Robert Bresson's Four Nights of a Dreamer, Jacques Rivette's Out 1, Jan Troell's The Emigrants, Jean Rouch's Petit a petit, Jacques Tati's Trafic, Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout, and Barbara Loden's Wanda.  I need to re-watch Don Siegel's Dirty Harry as it's been to long since I've seen it to know where it'd place on this list. Meanwhile, from this year, I really like Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs and Francois Truffaut's Two English Girls.  I love Alan Pakula's Klute. And my closest runner-up (and one of my other favorite films of all time) is Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller.  

7/27/11 I watched Claude Jutra's Mon oncle Antoine.  A strange, atonal coming of age flick that never fully connected with me.  

10/15/11 I watched Abel Ferrara's earliest short film, Nicky's Film.  It reminded me of a surreal recreation of the finale of Shoot the Piano Player.  Short and interesting

12/16/13 I watched Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge.  Nichols shoots it in a very artsy way that feels more under the spell of Antonioni or Bergman than any neorealist influence.   I found it too theatrical though rambling more than building towards anything. 

1/12/14 I watched Nicolas Roeg's Walkabout.  There is much to admire here - Roeg's cinematography is powerful and the two young actors very effective, and the opening sequence until the kids go off into the outback is among the strongest I have ever seen.  Emtionally however Roeg's sensibility eludes me at times, and I am left feeling more squeamish or confused than connected for the ride.  

4/30/16 I watched Stephen Frears' Gumshoe.  I am a big fan of Frears but this homage to noir lacks some of the heart of the director's greatest work.  His team is already strong, Menges and Andrew Lloyd Webber, but Frears spends so much time paying tribute that he makes it difficult for us to connect or fully identify when anyone up on screen.

11/11/16 I watched Jacques Rivette's Out 1.  With my biggest commitment yet to Rivette's cinema (it is over 720 minutes long), I am beginning if not to like him even more, at least to better understand his interests and style.  First his interests.  Rivette is fascinated by the process of being an artist and the steps by which one finds and makes its work.  He loves Paris, its architecture and infinitely picturesque locations.  He adores his actresses who seem to intrigue him more than his actors.  He likes communities.  In fact until now it hadn't occurred to me but the "13" plot line could certainly be read as a substitute for Cahiers and Rivette's yearning for a reformation of the gang.  As for style.  Rivette favors the long take, a handheld camera, and frames that allow the actors to roam both physically, and I suspect, emotionally.  Of course, much has already been written about Rivette's unique use of time and nowhere is it more evident than throughout the more than twelve hours of Out 1.  Rivette seems to possess if not a disdain then certainly an indifference to what is typically considered an acceptable duration for a film.  The same for his relationship to the conventional rules of narrative storytelling.  He rejects story arcs, traditional expectations of plot, and the entire concept of beginning, middle, and end.  Watching Out 1, I realize finally that it is not Godard but actually Rivette who is the most unconventional of all the Cahiers filmmakers; Godard's cinema plays within more known and accepted parameters of time and plot.  Rivette's cinema is challenging and frustrating because it defies convention and forces us into a space with very few recognizable cinematic landmarks to derive comfort from and cling to.  On the other hand, its importance, if one is willing to go with it, is that it opens up new directions for the medium, shining light on areas previously considered prerequisites for the filmmaker (a beginning, middle, and end; 150 minutes max) and proving there is still new cinematic language to write and uncharted cinematic territory to explore.    

1/8/17 I watched Robert Wise's The Andromeda Strain.  Sci-fi is not my thing but this one is very impressive, from the sets to the acting to the tension Wise is able to create.  Very stylish and proof that Wise was not just a Hollywood hack.  He did after all make The Set-Up and The Day the Earth Stood Still, two films for which I have a great amount of respect.

1/22/18 I watched Maurice Pialat's La maison des bois.  It is very possible that within one of the cinema's greatest bodies of work this little seen seven part series for television is Pialat's greatest achievement.  It is certainly his most humanistic film and the work that most clearly grants him the title as Jean Renoir's closest French cinema successor.  All of it is remarkable, its characters, its Frenchness, its patience, its rigor.  And Pialat, time and time again, gives us moments that are so alive and so rich, and that surprisingly make us feel as if we are seeing them on film for the first time.    

12/1/18 I watched Elaine May's A New Leaf.  The first May film I have seen in its entirety, and it immediately made me want to go watch her entire filmography.  Her style is loose and modern while still feeling intimate and restrained (I know, some of those words seem to be in direct conflict with one another!)  Perhaps it's her ability to achieve such lived-in, natural performances from her actors that makes her work vibrate so or maybe it's the fact that she never feels to be following any known framework or genre.  Her output as director is limited, but if her debut film is any indication, it ranks up there with the highest shelf of American filmmaking in the seventies and that's no small statement.

3/29/20 I watched Blake Edwards' Wild Rovers.  There are some wonderful passages with a tremendous group of actors but it never fully worked for me.

4/1/20 I watched Jacques Rozier's Du Cote d'Orouet.  Rozier has a disciplined looseness that is in perfect sync with his nearly three hour trip to the beach.  He approaches time like Rivette, allowing his scenes to unfold in blocks that are far longer than most directors would allow for similar moments.  He is gifted with his actors and immerses the viewer in something that feels as close to documentary as fiction.  

1/1/22 I watched Mike Leigh's Bleak Moments.  The acting is extraordinary and Leigh seems to have incredible control of the canvas he has chosen.   Where his work becomes difficult is in understanding his perspective.  Is Leigh empathetic toward these struggling souls or does he simply know to draw them so well and then derive pleasure from making us laugh at their awkwardness or squirm at their shortfalls?

1/30/22 I watched Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Beware of a Holy Whore.  I'm still fairly new to Fassbinder's films; I've seen maybe four at most including this one.  Inspired by an interview I heard with Olivier Assayas saying that this influenced him I was excited to check it out.  

There's an energy in Fassbinder's cinema that's hard not to admire.  In this one, it almost seems as if Fassbinder wants to rip the medium apart, gut it of its first 75 years and find new directions and new truths for it to explore.  In this, he is not so different from Godard who he clearly looks up to, from the film's many parallels to Contempt to his decision to cast Eddie Constantine.  Yet, whereas Godard often supplements, even offsets his experimental side with breathtaking moments of visual and sonic beauty, Fassbinder seems unwilling to give the audience much to make them feel better about life or the world.    

1934: L'atalante (Jean Vigo)

1934: L'atalante (Jean Vigo)

I first saw this at one of my favorite theaters in the world, Cafe des Images in Herouville-Saint-Clair, just outside Caen, France.  When it was over, I knew I'd seen something very special.  Vigo died when he was only 29 -years-old but forever left his mark on the medium -- this film ranks up there for me as one of the two or three most poetic films in the history of cinema.  

I think it's fairly easy to create a poetic moment in a film.  Usually, you just have to use slow-motion and some evocative music, and presto, you've probably created a moment of poetry.  But, sustaining this lyricism and poetry for the entire duration of a narrative film is nearly impossible.  For me, the only other films I can think of that accomplish this are Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, some Tarkovsky, The Thin Red Line, The Night of the Hunter, and maybe McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

Without Vigo, I'm not sure we'd have two of my other favorite filmmakers: Leos Carax and Jim Jarmusch (I'm not positive about Carax, but I've read where Jarmusch has cited this film as a major influence.)  Vigo was a master of mood, atmosphere, and creating lasting images.  There's nothing else quite like this film, and it's one I'll continue to re-visit with great enthusiasm as the years pass.

Other contenders for 1934: I'm not without my gaps in this year, as well.  I still need to see Yasujiro Ozu's A Story of Floating Weeds, Ernst Lubitsch's The Merry Widow, Alfred Hitchcock's first The Man Who Knew Too Much, Josef von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress, Raymond Bernard's Les Miserables, Edgar Ulmer's The Black Cat, and Jack Conway, Howard Hawks, and William Wellman's Viva Villa!  I need and plan to re-watch Howard Hawks' Twentieth Century.  For some reason, the first time it didn't have much of an impact.  But there are three other films from this year that did challenge for the top spot. I'm a big fan of the interplay between Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night.  I think Gable's cynicism probably helps offset some of Capra's sentimental tendencies that sometimes rub me the wrong way.  I haven't seen that much of WC Fields, but Norman McLeod's It's a Gift had me laughing as hard as anything I've seen from this period.   And Jean Renoir's Toni is my second favorite film from the director.  But, finally it's L'atalante, with its one of a kind beauty and lyricism, that has the most special place for me this year.

5/30/10 I watched Edgar G Ulmer's The Black Cat.  Features my favorite performance so far from Boris Karloff.  He is just deliciously sinister in it, and it's obvious he's having great fun with the role.  And the film also makes a case for Ulmer being incredibly inventive and having a superb eye.  

6/11/10 I watched Josef von Sternberg's The Scarlet Empress.  An epic with a ton of personality and a film with a tremendous reputation. Emotionally, I struggled with it and never fully connected.  But Dietrich is wonderful and von Sternberg pulls out all the stops.  

6/16/10 I watched Raymond Bernard's Les Miserables.  They certainly cut no corners with this 280 minute version of the Hugo novel.  I like some of the characterization we gain in this longer version, when compared to the Richard Boleslawski film of the following year.  But all in all, I felt closer to the characters in the Boleslawski film than in this one.  


6/23/10 I watched Howard Hawks' Twentieth Century.  I had seen it before but couldn't remember it very well.  It's amazing seeing it now to realize how much of a sibling film it is to His Girl Friday.  Both revolve around the male protagonist trying to lure the female lead back into his world through cunning, manipulation, and humor.  Although I prefer Friday (it's one of my all-time favorites), John Barrymore is absolutely incredible here and single-handedly makes it a great film in my book.

7/10/10 I watched Yasujiro Ozu's A Story of Floating Weeds.  It didn't affect me emotionally on the same level as another one of his films I saw recently, I Was Born, But....  However, it still demonstrates Ozu's mastery.  His eye, his feeling for nature, the framing, the cinematography are all otherworldly.  And here, in the final shots, Ozu says so much by saying nothing.   Ozu was still doing silent work when most had moved onto sound.  And his silent films have a poetry about them that is very singular and memorable.  

6/26/11 I watched Alfred Hitchcock's The Man Who Knew Too Much. Some nice, early Hitch touches, and of course Lorre is great.  But some of the plotting feels a little suspect, and doesn't pack the same punch as the remake.  

2/19/17 I watched John Ford's The Lost Patrol.  What I was most struck by, aside from Ford's signature ability to bring out the haunting poetry in natural landscapes, is a certain modern quality to the work.  McLaglen's physicality towards the end does not feel too much different than Pacino in the latter stages of Scarface and the fact that Ford almost never cuts to the opposition gives the film artful restraint that really helps create the effective, ominous atmosphere he sustains throughout.

5/28/18 I rewatched Frank Capra's It Happened One Night.  This film is a marvel.  I loved it the first couple of times I saw it and continue to be astounded by every aspect of it.

1/5/19 I watched Mervyn LeRoy's Heat Lightning.  A noir that stands out the most because it never quite allows you to know what it is or where it is going.  Everything about it just seems a little off, from the gas station location to the actors' faces to the way the camera moves.  I am not sure if it would be considered pre-code but it has a sense of being on the edge and pushing Code boundaries like the other great pre-code cinema I have seen to date.

10/14/19 I watched Ernst Lubitsch's The Merry Widow.  A few great moments like the encounter at Maxim's between Chevalier and Jeanette MacDonald but it lacks the overall shape and passion of the greater works by the master filmmaker.

12/27/21 I watched King Vidor's Our Daily Bread.  From a political perspective it was probably an important film, almost propaganda to the American people struggling through The Great Depression.  Visually, it is quite striking as well as is usually the case with Vidor's cinema.

1/9/23 I watched John Ford's Judge Priest.  It's nice to see Ford take on our history, and particularly nice that he's engaged with one of arguably our most shameful moments, our Civil War.  And it's great to see Will Rogers and the strong presence he brought to the screen.  What's less comfortable is what Ford is saying, is he celebrating the Confederacy, challenging our nation's early morals and actions?