‘Taxi Driver,’ the ultimate big-city bad dream, screens Sunday at TCM Classic Film Festival

April 26, 2011 by

Taxi Driver/1976/Columbia Pictures/113 min.

One of the many highlights of the TCM Classic Film Festival is Sunday’s showing of “Taxi Driver” by Martin Scorsese, which this year turns 35. One of the most sordid urban nightmares ever, “Taxi Driver” stands as the ultimate big-city bad dream.

And where else could it be set but New York City? In the mid-1970s, the mighty metropolis seemed to be falling apart: the economy had stalled, people were deserting the troubled island in droves, and crime was rampant. (Other cinematic portraits of the dismal period are “The French Connection” 1971 by William Friedkin and John Schlesinger’s “Midnight Cowboy” 1969.)

Jodie Foster in "Taxi Driver"

In the middle of this urban mess is anti-hero Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) – a Vietnam vet and taxi driver, whose desperate loneliness and disgust with NYC’s squalor and decay slowly pushes him over the edge of sanity. Long hours of driving jerks and freaks around isn’t good for anyone’s mental health, let alone an introverted downer like Travis.

Early on, there seems to be a shimmer of hope when Travis encounters a woman named Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), lovely and stylish, ambitious and free-spirited (kudos to costume designer Ruth Morley). Betsy is a campaign worker for Senator Charles Palantine (Leonard Harris), who is making a bid for the presidential nomination. Rather surprisingly, Betsy agrees to meet Travis for coffee. Rather astonishingly, Betsy agrees to go on a date with him, which thoroughly annoys her co-worker Tom (Albert Brooks).

Instead of candlelight and roses, or even strip lighting and sandwiches, Travis takes Betsy to a porn movie. She storms out, quashing any hope of romance, though Travis keeps angling for another chance by sending her flowers and showing up at Palantine’s campaign HQ.

After that, Travis tries to keep busy – you know, the usual breakup stuff – writing in his journal, shaving his head, talking to himself in the mirror, buying guns and pointing them at Palatine. When Travis spies a child prostitute as she walks the streets (Jodie Foster), he makes it his mission to rescue her from the degradation of working for sicko pimp ‘Sport’ Harvey Keitel. His quest, fueled by his worsening mental illness, culminates in out-of-control violence.

Once you see “Taxi Driver,” you’ll never forget it. Coming on the heels of Vietnam and Watergate, the film tapped the overall dark mood of the nation and did well at the box-office. Additionally, it catapulted Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader into the big league, making its mark with the Hollywood tastemakers and earning four Oscar noms: best picture (it lost to “Rocky”); best actor (De Niro); best supporting actress (Foster); best original score (Herrmann). It also won the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

Though he didn’t win the Oscar, DeNiro turned in one of the best and most iconic performances of his career, spanning the emotional gamut from hardened cynicism to earnest and utter sadness. The most moving scene for me is when he sends a corny anniversary card to his parents and jots down some details of a life he pretends to live. Foster’s performance is raw and gutsy. Keitel’s brief but searing scenes are repulsive, disturbing, stomach churning; even for crime-movie aficionados, they are hard to watch.

Scorsese’s virtuoso filmmaking taps the sensibilities of the finest American and European filmmakers. He draws thematic inspiration from classic Western director John Ford (specifically 1956’s “The Searchers”) and from his beloved ’30s and ’40s crime movies as well as the visual aesthetic of French New Wave auteurs. [Read more…]

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Quick hit: ‘Taxi Driver’

April 26, 2011 by

Taxi Driver/1976/Columbia Pictures/ 113 min.

In this Martin Scorsese neo-noir, Robert DeNiro won an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of angry loner Travis Bickle, who’s on the brink of insanity in sad and seedy ’70s New York. Says Travis: “Someday a real rain will come and wash this scum off the streets.” While waiting for the rain, he makes it his mission to save a child prostitute. Co-star Jodie Foster, then 12, earned an Oscar nom of her own. Harvey Keitel, Cybill Shepherd and Albert Brooks round out the cast.

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‘Long Falling’ a strangely intense neo noir with superb acting

April 18, 2011 by

Friday night was the noir series at the 15th annual City of Lights, City of Angels (COL•COA) film festival in Los Angeles. My favorite: director Martin Provost’s “The Long Falling,” based on a Keith Ridgway novel, which follows a guilty woman in her fleeting days of freedom.

Actress Yolande Moreau had her work cut out for her in playing the woman, Rose, who has murdered her alcoholic and abusive husband of 30 years. That’s because what’s left of Rose is just a shell of a person.

"The Long Falling" poster

Nonetheless, Moreau deftly inhabits Rose. Her worn-down, resigned expression when she runs him over with her car is not much different than when she takes her nightly bath, immersing her perpetually bruised skin in the hot water and glancing warily over her shoulder, listening for his footsteps.

It is Moreau’s authenticity as an actress and Provost’s skillful direction that make this movie so compelling. The somber story starts with a mighty jolt, then takes its time unfolding. Agnes Godard’s atmospheric cinematography and Hugues Tabar-Nouval’s original score also draw you into this strangely intense neo noir.

After Rose commits the crime, she leaves her isolated farm town, telling no one, and heads to Brussels to be with her son (Pierre Moure). But their relationship is strained — he has also been abused by the same monstrous man and feels an undercurrent of resentment toward his mother for her inability to protect him as a child. Meanwhile, the police are investigating and there’s little chance that they won’t apprehend her.

Eventually, she leaves her son’s place, rents a room and then attempts to flee the country with the help of a woman who is essentially a stranger (a bit too wildly implausible). Once more, Rose does not or cannot challenge her fate.

We have sympathy and feel sadness for Rose, yet Provost (who also directed Moreau in 2008’s “Séraphine,” a winner of many prestigious awards) does not whitewash the moral choices Rose has made in her life. The film also reminds us that we never exist alone in the world, no matter how desperate or dire our circumstances.

“The Long Falling” image from uniFrance

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A literate, exciting action movie that’s drop-dead gorgeous

April 9, 2011 by

Hanna/2011/Focus Features/111 min.

Michael Wilmington

By Michael Wilmington

“Hanna” is “Kick-Ass” and “The Bourne Identity” filtered through “Pride and Prejudice” and “Atonement.” And I don’t mean that as a knock.

Director Joe Wright, who made the 2005 Keira Knightley version of Jane Austen’s best-loved novel and the lauded film of Ian McEwan’s grim tale “Atonement,” is a director with a style both flashy and sumptuous.

And in “Hanna,” he’s demonstrating something we might not have expected from him: burn-down-the-house action-movie skills. The movie — starring Saoirse Ronan (the jealous little girl from “Atonement”) as the kick-ass title heroine Hanna, Eric Bana as her action-mentor dad Erik, and Cate Blanchett as Marissa, the vicious C.I.A. agent villainess — is such a departure from what Wright has done before that it’s hard not to be impressed.

Saoirse Ronan

Wright starts the film with a snowy deer hunt and kill in the wilds of Finland, where the gifted 16-year-old Hanna, trained in all manner of martial arts and assassin skills, brings down a stag and muses philosophically. The story moves with dizzying speed to the Moroccan desert, Hamburg and Berlin, escalating into spectacular brawls, subway battles and bloody showdowns.

It’s quite a ride. The whole movie is a long three-sided chase: Hanna is captured early on by Marissa when Erik leaves her on her own, after arranging to rendezvous with her later in Berlin. Then Hanna escapes and Marissa pursues both her and Erik. The fights are all set-pieces and Wright shoots one of them in a virtuosic unbroken Steadicam take, which reminds you of the spectacular tracking shot on Dunkirk Beach in “Atonement.”

The three lead actors — along with Tom Hollander as the perverse villain Isaacs, Olivia Williams, Jason Flemyng and Jessica Barden as the British family Hanna meets in the desert — have the kind of acting chops you don’t usually see in movies like this, and they display them as much as Seth Lochhead and David Farr’s script lets them.

All the characters, in fact, have more fullness and surprises than the action-movie norm. They’re reminiscent at times of the psychologically detailed or richly eccentric characters in an old-style British thriller by Alfred Hitchcock.

We haven’t had many really literate thrillers lately (The “Bourne” movies excepted), and it’s a pleasure to see one here, to see filmmakers who are trying to please us on a multitude of levels and not just trying to blow us out of our seats.

The results are drop-dead gorgeous and exciting, but not completely satisfying. What we’d expect from Wright — memorable characters and high-style high drama — are here, but not emphasized as much as the story sometimes needs in order to make total sense.

The action scenes are scorchers, and they’re shot beautifully by cinematographer Alwin Kuchler on stunning sites and sets by designer Sarah Greenwood. (Her interrogation chamber below the Moroccan desert is an homage to Ken Adam’s great War Room set in “Dr. Strangelove.”) But I thought they became a little too set-piecey at times, took over the show a little too much.

Ronan has a talent for bewitching the camera and for suggesting levels of thought, memory and passion beneath the surface. Ronan is kind of strong and silent here, which deepens the film’s mysteries, including any nagging questions we might have about the relationship among Hanna, Marissa and Erik. [Read more…]

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‘Mildred Pierce’ by Haynes savors subtext of Cain’s novel

March 25, 2011 by

Crawford and Blyth

HBO’s “Mildred Pierce” mini-series, directed by Todd Haynes and based on James M. Cain’s 1941 novel, starts this Sunday.

In director Michael Curtiz’s 1945 movie version of the book, Joan Crawford won the Oscar for her portrayal of the title role in the ultimate story of a self-sacrificing mother and her ungrateful child, Veda (Ann Blyth). Mildred’s hard-earned success as a restaurateur allows her to support not only her family but also her aristocratic and cash-poor love interest Monty Beragon (Zachary Scott).

In Haynes’ mini-series, Kate Winslet stars as Mildred, Guy Pearce plays Monty and two actresses share the Veda role: Morgan Turner as the girl and Evan Rachel Wood as the young woman. Haynes and Jon Raymond wrote the teleplay.

In many ways, the series, which follows the book more faithfully than the 1945 movie and covers nearly 10 ten years in the characters’ lives, is a delight to watch. Depression-era Southern California is beautifully recreated and shot by Edward Lachman. Carter Burwell’s original music is spot-on as is Ann Roth’s costume design. And the acting is excellent, particularly the leads.

Whereas Crawford’s Mildred is stoic and dignified, Winslet’s is sensitive, wistful, often tentative and unsure of herself. Her expressive features suggest her mounting anger, guilt and desperation as her business grows but her relationships deteriorate.

Early on in the series, Winslet’s Mildred identifies in her daughter a “pride or nobility I thought I had” and we glimpse the complexity and closeness of her bond with Veda. The mother-daughter relationship in Haynes’ five-hour version is perhaps more nuanced than in Curtiz’s film.

Pearce easily inhabits the playboy scoundrel Monty and Wood sizzles as the junior miss femme fatale. As the story unfolds, we learn that Mildred and Veda also have very similar taste in men. This year’s supporting actress Oscar winner Melissa Leo and Mare Winningham are quite good as Mildred’s friends.

A disappointment, however, is James LeGros’ insipid performance as Pierce family “friend” Wally Burgan. In Curtiz’s version, the role as played by Jack Carson – conniving and sly, but charming – was one of the movie’s many strengths.

Another downside is the pacing, which is far too slow. It would have benefited from shaving about an hour, especially in the beginning. But then if Haynes’ aim was to be true to every page of the book, he has succeeded.

I prefer Curtiz’s original because it is canonical film noir, in tone, look and story. Granted, Cain’s book was altered because in 1940s Hollywood, immorality was never allowed to triumph. Instead of the evil-doers leaving California to begin a new life in New York, one is fatally shot and the other eventually is punished. The murder sets the story, told via flashback, in motion and lends an edgy suspense.

Still, Haynes did not set out to make a noir; apparently his aim is to explore the subtext and subtleties in Cain’s novel. Cain was, arguably, sympathetic toward his feisty protagonist (what choice does she have but to establish independence and security, given the weak and deceitful men she has to choose from?). But she pays a dreadful price for doing so and the book decries materialism, the class system and social climbing. As for Cain’s ultimate take on Mildred’s power, in Hayne’s work, there is fodder for both sides of the argument.

Warner Bros. image of 1945 “Mildred Pierce”

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‘Black Swan’ charts madness, dreamily voluptuous terror

February 24, 2011 by

Black Swan/ 2010/ Fox Searchlight Pictures/ 108 min.

Michael Wilmington

With the Oscars this Sunday, I want to highlight a contender with intriguing noir elements: “Black Swan.” Critic Michael Wilmington shares his thoughts on director Darren Aronofsky’s latest foray into tortured psyches and Natalie Portman’s startling performance.

Who makes crazier art movies — agonized characters, trapped in more nightmarish fixes — than Darren Aronofsky? David Lynch, Bong Joon-ho and Roman Polanski, maybe, but few others. A specialist in tales of the brilliantly sick and the sickly brilliant, Aronofsky has spun, with disorienting intensity, barmy movie stories of a crazed math genius going nuts on the stock market (in “Pi”), of a family of lower- depths junkies and pill-poppers flipping out together (“Requiem for a Dream”), and of a  battered, over-the-hill wrestler putting himself through hell for one last fight (“The Wrestler.”) In “The Fountain,” Aronofsky’s whole universe went bonkers, in segments.

And in his latest movie, the justly hailed but occasionally (understandably) ridiculed dance melodrama “Black Swan,” this chronicler of mad lives charts the psychological disintegration of a young, ambitious New York ballerina named Nina Sayers (played by Natalie Portman with ferocious dedication), who’s been given the dream role of the swan princess of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” at Lincoln Center and promptly goes over the edge into some kind of madness, as well as, apparently, self-mutilation, paranoid fantasies and sexual hysteria.

As we watch, Nina whirls and leaps and goes delusional. And the camera seems to whirl and leap and go delusional along with her, executing wild leaps and dizzying spins, peeking over her shoulder, Polanski-like, wherever she goes. When the ballet company’s seductive bully of a master choreographer, Thomas Leroy (played by French star Vincent Cassel, as a kind of sexy, sadistic puppet-master) casts Nina as the lead in Tchaikovsky’s classic ballet, replacing his former prima ballerina, Beth Macintyre (Winona Ryder, who plays Beth like a mad, self-destructive witch), he’s simultaneously anointing her and hurling her into hell.

When he tells Nina she’s ideal casting  for half the part (the role of the pure white swan) but not the other half (the wicked black swan), he’s dropping her into an inferno of nightmares, hurling a dart at the splintering psyche we glimpse beneath Nina’s “Persona”-like, beautiful, introverted face.      

Aronofsky bombards us with Nina’s fears and desires, in scenes of dreamily voluptuous terror. The ballet studio and stage become arenas of paranoia. So does her home, an art-cluttered Manhattan apartment she shares with her painter mother Erica (Barbara Hershey).

Stricken with fear, Nina tears and rips at her own flesh, on her shoulder blades, her hands, near her cuticles, and then the cuts are mysteriously healed.  She’s flung into predatory sexual escapades or fantasies, involving Thomas, and her main rival, Lily (Mila Kunis), whom Thomas says is the perfect Black Swan, and who (seemingly) dives between Nina’s legs one night, a fling that Lilly then denies. (“You fantasized about me? Was I good?” she asks delightedly.)

As the fantasies (?) rage, Nina becomes ill, is berated by Thomas, attacked by Beth, played for a fool (maybe) by her rival Lilly, bossed by her devoted yet domineering mother. Nina works herself into near-collapse, her mind unhinges, her body is ripped open. Lilly plays the part of seductress/rival/friend, the earthy black swan against Nina’s ethereal white. Amid this accelerating chaos, the beauty and classicism and first night of “Swan Lake” looms.

But how much of this is really happening? Is there really a theater, really a company, even really a white and black swan? We know some it is real, some of it a dream. We can never be too sure which is which. That’s what makes the movie so interesting. It hovers on camp, of course. More than hovers: it swoops and circles and dives right in. [Read more…]

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‘Blood Simple’ launches Coen brothers’ brilliant careers

February 16, 2011 by

Blood Simple/1984/River Road, Foxton Entertainment/97 min.

T.S. Eliot wrote that the world ends not with a bang but with a whimper.

In “Blood Simple” banging precedes death, but one life ends spitting dirt; another with a belly laugh. Perhaps that’s not surprising given that “Blood Simple” was the writing and directing debut of first-rate storytellers and masters of neo noir Joel and Ethan Coen. For anyone who saw this movie, now nearly 30 years old, in its initial release in 1984, it must have been exciting to witness the talent of the then almost unknown Coens (Joel was 26, Ethan was 25).

"Blood Simple" was Frances McDormand's first big movie.

The young brothers made a knowing homage to classic noir, updated for ’80s audiences and heavily injected with dark, often perverse, humor. Not only do the Coens honor the traditions and touchpoints of their ’40s predecessors, they also subvert convention and reinvent visual language to serve the story.

Their original tale of adultery, revenge and murder takes place not in the big city, but in Texas, and they nail the mood of a dusty, sweaty small town where lax morals, lust and lawlessness are the only markers on the vast landscape. The title comes from a Dashiell Hammett reference to a dulled mental state (blood simple) that results from repeated exposure to violence.

In her first major screen role, Frances McDormand plays Abby, an appealing country girl – no makeup and all healthy glow – whom some might call a hick. She’s cheating on her husband, tavern owner Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya), with one of his employees, Ray (John Getz). It’s hard to imagine that Abby would even go on a second date with greasy, seething, sleazy Marty, let alone marry him, but hey, that’s why she bedded kinder, gentler Ray. That and his washboard abs.

Dan Hedaya and M. Emmet Walsh

When Marty learns that he’s been cuckolded, he hires venal but philosophical butterball P.I. Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to knock the lovers off. The movie opens with this narration from Visser: “The world is full of complainers. And the fact is, nothin’ comes with a guarantee. Now I don’t care if you’re the pope of Rome, president of the United States or man of the year; something can all go wrong. … What I know about is Texas and, down here, you’re on your own.”
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It seems that Visser has done his duty, but he double-crosses Marty. After that comes a slew of misunderstandings, mistaken identities and messy cleanups, which is pretty impressive, given that there’re only four main characters in the story.
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One plot detail in particular to watch for: Though money stolen from Marty’s safe is repeatedly referred to, we never know conclusively who took it. Since three people know the combination, your guess is as good as mine. Part of the fun of this movie is anticipating what comes next so I don’t want to reveal any more twists – it’s unpredictable but not convoluted. In fact, the tight plot and spare dialogue lend the movie an earthy sort of elegance.
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Cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld’s arresting visual style – stark camera angles and repetition of certain images, such as the overhead fan – heightens the suspense. Sonnenfeld was the cameraman on several other Coen Bros. movies and later became a stylish and successful director on his own, best known for the “Men in Black” series. Carter Burwell wrote the “Blood Simple” score and has worked on every Coen brothers movie since.
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The characters might be a bit cartoonish, rendered as they are in broad, sweeping strokes. But that approach works in a movie like this and for these characters who are archetypes of noir love triangles. Life is short and they live it hard. Who has time for psychological complexity and multiple layers of personality? “Blood Simple” is taut, suspenseful, slyly funny and very entertaining. And it holds up well. “Blood Simple” was remade as “A Woman, A Gun, and A Noodle Shop” in 2009 by Zhang Yimou.

Joel, left, and Ethan Coen at the New York premiere of 2010's “True Grit,” their most recent movie.

Additionally, the Coens get excellent performances from their actors. With little to say, McDormand instead conveys feeling, especially fear, through nervous gesture and subtle facial expressions. Walsh’s gross gumshoe effortlessly glides from mutton-headed and dawdling to powerful and menacing.

Hedaya’s Marty fights to the bitter end and has since made a reputation in films as a snarling villain (I also loved his tough-love Dad in “Clueless.”) Getz makes the most of his part as well, the neo-noir version of a knight in slightly tarnished armor, though in his case, the armor is more muddy and dusty than tarnished.
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The Coen brothers, who later made Oscar winners “Fargo” and “No Country for Old Men,” rank with the world’s finest filmmakers and they are the undisputed champions of American neo noir.
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Coen brothers photo by Evan Agostini/Associated Press/New York Times
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‘Blood Simple’ quick hit

February 16, 2011 by

Blood Simple/1984/River Road, Foxton Entertainment/97 min.

How FNB would love to meet those darling Coen brothers and probe their diabolical little minds. And of course I’d gush about “Blood Simple,” their first baby, a fast-paced, taut thriller that will keep you guessing till the end. When a husband (Dan Hedaya) confirms that his wife (Frances McDormand) is cheating on him, he decides to have the lovers killed. But simple? Not so much, especially not in Texas.

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Exquisite suspense, anguished obsession and sleek blonde style in ‘Vertigo’

January 27, 2011 by

Vertigo/ 1958/Paramount Pictures /127 min.

Since I still have San Francisco on the brain, my next few reviews will highlight Fog City.

Kim Novak plays two parts, elegant Madeleine and brassy Judy.

On a cold morning several years ago, my colleague Joe bumped into me at Starbucks and said: “You look like Kim Novak in ‘Vertigo’ in that suit,” referring to my fitted gray jacket and skirt. I’d twisted my hair into the best chignon I could manage pre-coffee using the three hairpins I was able to find on my cluttered bathroom shelf.

I was relieved to put off a shampoo for another day, but never thought my impromptu bun had the added effect of contributing to a Hitchcock-blonde vibe.

Alfred Hitchcock was always extremely fastidious about his leading ladies’ wardrobes and for 1958’s “Vertigo” he and costume designer Edith Head agreed that a gray suit would lend a particularly eerie air to Novak’s character, Madeleine Elster. Though stylish, sophisticated and perfectly appointed, Madeleine seems to be struggling to hold onto her sanity.

Her worried husband Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore) taps an old acquaintance and former police detective John “Scottie” Ferguson (James Stewart) to keep an eye on her. Gavin tells Scottie that Madeleine is tormented by family ghosts and that he’s afraid she’ll commit suicide.

Like Madeline, Scottie is a little delicate too, having recently been treated for his fear of heights, brought on by a nasty bout of vertigo. So, he’s taking it easy and hanging out with his upbeat buddy Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes). Reluctant at first, Scottie accepts Gavin’s assignment and, over time, becomes obsessed with saving Madeline, then falls in love with her.

But alas, Scottie can’t provide foolproof protection against her demons because he hasn’t completely conquered his vertigo. After Madeleine takes a fatal tumble, Scottie is inconsolable, until he encounters a shop clerk named Judy Barton (also played by Novak).

Judy bears an uncanny resemblance to his lost love, even if she’s less refined and has the wrong hair color. Scottie decides that’s where hair dye and haute couture come in and he sets his sights on transforming this new object of his affection into the spitting image of Madeleine. “It can’t mean that much to you,” Scottie growls at Judy when she balks at bleaching her hair. But the déjà vu does not go according to plan.

“Vertigo”’s surreal, sometimes unsettling exploration of two troubled minds bears Hitchcock’s distinctive stamps: intense but masked emotion, exquisite suspense, altered identity and disguises, and technical innovation – in this case, the use of forward zoom and reverse tracking to depict Scottie’s vertigo. Intense color and meticulous composition heighten our sense of Scottie’s anguish and frustration. Robert Burks, a longtime Hitchcock collaborator, was director of photography.

Though reviews were mixed upon its initial release (critics complained that the plot was far-fetched), “Vertigo” has since been acknowledged as a crowning cinematic achievement. In 2002, “Vertigo” landed the No. 2 spot on the Sight and Sound critics’ top 10 poll, second only to “Citizen Kane.”  Leonard Maltin calls it: “A genuinely great motion picture that demands multiple viewings.” [Read more…]

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‘Vertigo’ quick hit

January 27, 2011 by

Vertigo/ 1958/Paramount Pictures /127 min.

James Stewart as Scottie and Kim Novak as Madeleine/Judy are unforgettable in this Hitchcock classic, one of the all-time great noirs. Stewart is an ex-detective with a fear of heights and Novak plays two women – one, a damsel in distress and another who receives the ultimate makeover. Best of all for femmes fatales: Novak’s timeless, elegant wardrobe.

“Vertigo” bears Hitchcock’s distinctive stamps: intense but masked emotion, exquisite suspense, altered identity and disguises, and technical innovation. Intense color and meticulous composition heighten our sense of Scottie’s anguish and frustration. Robert Burks, a longtime Hitchcock collaborator, was director of photography.

Tremendous performances from Stewart, Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes as Scottie’s pal Midge.

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