Psycho and the self-seriousness of criticism.

Psycho promotional material

            1960’s Psycho is, along with Veritgo, widely considered Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece among critics. The film, a low budget horror/dark comedy, is credited with being one of the earliest influences on slasher film cycle of the late 70’s and 80’s. The only common criticism against the film is the final sequence, which has a psychologist explaining the motivation of Norman Bates.

            In his review for the New York Times, Bosley Crowther wrote that, “There is not an abundance of subtlety or the lately familiar Hitchcock bent toward significant and colorful scenery in this obviously low-budget job…The consequence is his denouement falls quite flat for us.” Roger Ebert also condemns the scene in his essay, stating that, “For thoughtful viewers, however, an equal surprise is still waiting. That is the mystery of why Hitchcock marred the ending of a masterpiece with a sequence that is grotesquely out of place.”

            Critics accused the scene of being unnecessary exposition that was better found in a lesser “B” movie. What these critics seem to miss is that Hitchcock set out to make a “B” movie. Rather than use his usual film crew, he shot the film with the crew from his television series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, in order to give the film a cheap look that would match its budget. Hitchcock envisioned the film as a comedy, a film that serves at a joyride for the audience, and little more.

Simon Oakland as Dr. Fred Richmond in Psycho (1960)

            The fact that Hitchcock would produce an exploitation film was unfathomable to the critical community and when a trope of these lower films appeared, they choose to condemn it. The rest of the film is rightly regarded as the masterpiece that it is, especially the heralded shower scene, perhaps the most written about scene in film history.

            It is possible, however, to be both a perfect film and a “B” film. To dismiss the final scene is to deny the atmosphere of fun absurdity that the film has. Much like the William Castle or Roger Corman films, it is not meant to be taken seriously. Critics and cinephiles sometimes take films too seriously and forget to have fun and enjoy them, the reason they love films to begin with. To take Psycho too seriously is a disservice to one of the most entertaining films in history.

Why The Great Train Robbery isn't a Western.

         

The Great Train Robbery (1903)

1903’s The Great Train Robbery is often credited as being the first film in the western genre. Although it shares many conventions with the genre; including horses, trains, and bandits, it isn’t really a western, but rather a contemporary film for its time.

          Edwin S. Porter’s film was billed upon release as a, “Faithful imitation of genuine ‘hold ups’ made famous by various outlaw bands in the far west”. This is of course in the present tense. Westerns are period films dealing with the old west. The Great Train Robbery is an account of events that were still happening at the time. Train robberies were still common place in the early 1900’s, most famously the Fairbank Train Robbery of 1900 in Arizona. The film features characters dressed in styles of the time in response to actual occurrences of the time. This makes The Great Train Robbery more of a heist film than a western.

          Another argument for it being a film of its time is the number of true westerns that take place in the same time period as The Great Train Robbery’s release. These include such films as The Man who Shot Liberty Valance, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Shootist, and True Grit.
         A film must be working within a genre, and there were genre films of the time, such as comedy and actualities. The Great Train Robbery, a milestone in editing and filmmaking in general, isn’t one of them. 

Hal Ashby in the 70's

Hal Ashby started out as an editor for films such as The Russians are Coming The Russians are Coming and In the Heat of the Night before making his directorial debut with 1970’s The Landlord. He directed a total of 7 films in the 1970’s, becoming one of the defining auteurs of the New Hollywood Cinema. His films are socially conscious in the vein of Robert Altman or John Cassavetes rather than the more violent films of Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma and Francis Ford Coppolla.

                The Landlord, starring a very young Beau Bridges, is about an upper-class white man who becomes the landlord of an inner-city all black apartment building. The film is probably Bridges best role. His work is down to earth and humorous. Like many Ashby characters, he feels alienated and out of place among his peers.  Lee Grant almost steals the movie as Bridges’ prejudiced mother, for which she earned an Academy Award nomination. The film stands out to me because of its realistic portrayal of African Americans. Previous to this film, any black actor whose name wasn’t Poitier played strictly stereotypical roles. The following year saw the beginning of the blaxploitation boom with the release of Shaft and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, showing that Ashby was slightly ahead of his time by having a mostly black cast.

                Ashby followed up with Harold and Maude (1971), a dark comedy dealing with the May-December romance of the titular outcasts. It has since became one of the greatest cult films of all time and is Ashby’s best film in my opinion. Bud Cort plays Harold as dead pan and very removed emotionally from the rest of the world. He strives for attention from his society obsessed mother, another recurring theme for Ashby. Cort’s performance here should have made him a huge star, but unfortunately he has been relegated to small roles in films by directors such as Wes Anderson and Kevin Smith, mostly out of nostalgia for this film. Harold is finally able to connect with someone upon meeting Maude, whose outlook on life is 180 degrees from Harold’s. Maude is played by the great Ruth Gordon in her most fun and spirited role.  The polar opposite personalities, ages, and classes allow for the two to balance out and find happiness during their short romance. The score by Cat Stevens perfectly accompanies the film’s free spirited attitude.

                With two films under his belt, Ashby was able to attract star power with Jack Nicholson for The Last Detail (1973). The film cast Nicholson as “Badass” Buddusky, a Naval Petty Officer, who escorts Randy Quaid’s kleptomaniac Seaman from Norfolk up the east coast to the brig. Buddusky’s partner is Otis Young’s Mulhall, another example of Ashby’s color blind casting. The film serves as the most accurate portrayal of Navy life I have seen on film, at least when it comes to shore duty. Nicholson turns in one of his signature loose screw performances while also portraying genuine compassion to Quaid’s martyr prisoner. Like Harold’s uncle in Harold and Maude and his later film, Coming Home, Ashby manages to savagely satirize the military, a counter cultural response to the still open wounds of Vietnam.

                Shampoo (1975) and Bound for Glory (1976) were the low point of Ashby’s 70’s films. They aren’t bad films (Both were nominated for Oscars, Bound for Glory for Best Picture even); they just lack the unique voice of his other 70’s films. Shampoo was written, produced, and stars Warren Beatty and comes off feeling more like Beatty’s picture than Ashby’s. It is a pretty straightforward sex comedy and doesn’t seem to have much on its mind besides a poorly executed allegory to the Nixon administration. Bound For Glory is a Woody Guthrie biopic that suffers from star David Carradine’s lack of charisma in the role of Guthrie. 

                 Ashby returns to form with Coming Home (1978). The film was the closest Ashby ever got to winning an Oscar for best picture, barely being beaten out by another film about the aftermath of Vietnam, The Deer Hunter. Coming Home is less about Vietnam than it is about how people change over time and grow apart from loved ones and closer to others as they mature. Jon Voight does the best work of his career in this film as a paralyzed war vet, who is given a reason to move on through Jane Fonda’s hospital volunteer. Voight manages to make his character both loveable and an asshole at the same time. The movie really belongs to Fonda. She starts as a conservative officer’s wife and through her relationship with Voight, becomes liberated and empowered. Bruce Dern rounds out the perfectly cast film as Fonda’s husband. Dern’s portrayal of a man suffering from PTSD is one of the earliest in film alongside Christopher Walken in The Deer Hunter.  The film’s score consists of a sampling of nearly every popular song from the late 60’s. It gives the film a slight feeling of ADD and is sometimes distracting.    

                Being There (1979) closed out the decade for Ashby. The film is a satire of presidential politics and is still pretty relevant today. Peter Sellers gives one of his final performances as Chance the gardener, a mentally handicapped savant who through several misunderstandings is brought in as an advisor to the President of the United States and captures the public’s imagination. Sellers plays the part with a child like quality. His character befriends Melvyn Douglas’s political man behind the curtain and their chemistry is amazing. Shirley MacClaine costars in the type of no-nonsense role that she perfects in the decade following.

                Ashby’s mental health declined in the 1980’s. He directed a Rolling Stones documentary and some television pilots as well as a handful of lesser successful films. He died in 1988, but his films have continued to gain stature as the years have passed.   With his themes of racial and social equality, he was a pioneer of auteur filmmaking in the United States.  

Peeping Tom

                Along with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960) is considered to be the grandfather of the slasher film. Psycho contains a man in costume and a killer who slashes people with a kitchen knife, but Peeping Tom features more of the aesthetics that would go on to be associated with the horror subgenre.

                The most obvious of these visuals is the point of view shot. The killer here is filming his murders as they happen and we the audience gets to see these films within the film. The opening murder of the prostitute shows a long tracking POV shot that shows up almost 20 years later in John Carpenter’s Halloween before being ripped off in almost every subsequent slasher, almost to the point of comedic proportions in the Sleepaway Camp films.

                There is also the stand in’s murder scene at the film studio. She enters the sound stage to meet up with Mark, unaware he is a killer. The studio seems empty and is eerily quiet. She calls his name a few times, with no answer. Suddenly spot lights come on, pointed at the actress. She is blinded by the light and can’t see Mark. After toying with her a bit longer, he finally appears to continue his game of cat and mouse before killing her. The buildup to the murder in slasher films is often much more suspenseful than the murder themselves. The audience knows people are going to die, it’s the when that builds tension. This scene in Peeping Tom set this device to be used many times over.

                Psychology plays a large part in Peeping Tom. Mark, played by Carl Bohm, was abused by his father at a young age by being constantly scared by him while on film. His father used these films as research to write a book on the psychology of fear. Due to this, Mark grows up feeling that his place is behind a camera and uses it as a security blanket. When a date insists he leave his camera behind, he becomes anxious and fearful at not being able to escape behind the lens when confronted with other people.

                The larger psychological effect is that he believes the camera should be used to capture fear. His murders are almost sexual and he has a fetish for fear. Bohm, playing mark, reminds me of a blond Peter Lorre. The both are able to capture the perverse and the fear of that perversion at the same time. Like Lorre’s murderous child killer in M, Bohm conveys a sense of being out of control and hating himself for it without having to say a word of dialogue. His eyes say it all. This sympathy towards the killer is what makes the film truly disturbing.

                Unlike the later wave of slasher films, this film actually has something important to say. It is a comment on the voyeurism of viewers and the complicity they (we) have in the images of horror films. The killer is only sympathetic because we sympathize with him.  Doesn’t this make us as perverse as the titular peeping tom?

Carl Bohm in Peeping Tom (1960)

The Tingler

                William Castle’s The Tingler, released in 1959, is one of the most well known examples of the gimmick films of the time. Many films were released in 3D or had skeletons fly through the theatre during the movie in hopes of adding excitement to an otherwise mediocre fright flick.  In the case of The Tingler, buzzers were attached to theatre seats that would go off whenever a scream was heard during the film.

                While these gimmicks could be fun, I believe The Tingler would have been a better film without it. The opening introduction by Castle warning the audience of the devices is only effective to audiences of the time. Now, it is distracting and serves as a way to remove the audience from the film. This is a shame, because for the most part, the film is not as bad as its reputation.

                The plot involves Vincent Price doing his thing as an obsessed, jealous mad scientist.  While performing autopsies on the bodies of executed criminals, he comes across the discovery that they have an additional attachment to their spine. His hypothesis is that this was caused by fright. He continues to experiment on people and discovers that the attachment is actually a separate organism, dubbed The TIngler.  Price manages to remove one from a body and it escapes, leading to a chase climax.

                The majority of the film plays as a low budget David Cronenberg predecessor.  Price’s mad scientist is similar to the Jeff Goldblum Character in The Fly. (Vincent Price was the star of the original version of The Fly, released in 1958) The Tingler creature itself calls to mind the odd centipede type bugs of Naked Lunch. It’s easy to imagine this was an influence on Cronenberg.

                The unique aspects of the film are severely over shadowed by the gimmickry, however.  The creature eventually is let loose in a movie theatre, obviously an excuse to turn the audiences’ buzzer seats up to 11. The film limps to an ending that feels detached from the rest of the film as an apartment is suddenly possessed and a body comes back to life. This closing has nothing to do with the preceding events and feels like a letdown, most of all because Price is no longer in the scene.

                Seeing so many horror films remade these days, this is a movie that could actually benefit from an update. With less gimmicks and better effects, I think a filmmaker such as Cronenberg or Guillermo Del Toro could do a lot with the concept.

Vincent Price in The Tingler

Sunset Boulevard: The Beginning of Post Modernism

Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard is the story of an aging silent screen star and an opportunistic young screenwriter whose symbiotic relationship leads to both murder and madness.  Using a style influenced by German Expressionism and a storyline that looks back to the silent days of cinema, Wilder manages to make a film that looks ahead to present day culture, inventing the post modern film.

The film belongs to the film noir cycle.  Rather than support the standard conventions of the genre, however, Wilder deconstructs many of them. The film contains a voice over narration much like earlier noirs, but the narrator is revealed to be dead in the first scene. The film then flashes back to the standard man on the run tale, as Joe owes money and his car is to be repossessed. This storyline is quickly pushed aside once he arrives at a seemingly vacant mansion in Beverly Hills. Here we are introduced to Norma Desmond and her butler, Max. Desmond is established as the femme fatale type, but rather than being the sexpot of other noirs, she is older and past her prime. The lighting is low key and contains many shadows as well as deep focus photography. This is on display during the end of the film when Norma is in the foreground on her bed and Joe enters in the background, both clearly in focus.

Though released during the refined period of noirs, Sunset Boulevard falls under the baroque phase of the genre in every other way. In his Notes on Film Noir, Paul Schrader describes the final phase of noir as a “period of psychological action and suicidal impulse. The noir hero, seemingly under the weight of ten years of despair, started to go bananas.” (Schrader, 59) This is a perfect description of Norma Desmond. Having been out of the limelight for so long, she has lost her grasp on reality and is suicidal to the point that the locks have been removed from her bedroom doors. Roger Ebert seconds this characterization of Desmond, “The point in Sunset Boulevard is that she has aged not in the flesh, but in the mind; she has become fixed at the moment of her greatness and lives in the past.” (Ebert, 438) Schrader continues to assert that “The later noir films finally got down to the root causes of the period: loss of public honor, personal integrity, and psychic stability.” (Schrader, 59)

Another tenant of the Baroque phase is that the films are often hybrids of genres, in this case, a hybrid of both noir and satire. The film satirizes Hollywood. As pointed out by Ebert, an example is found in the famous exchange between Norma and Joe: “I am big. It’s the pictures that got small.” Hardly anyone remembers Joe’s next line: “I knew there was something wrong with them.” (Ebert, 439) The satire cut so close to home, that MGM head Louis B. Mayer told Wilder following a screening, “You bastard, you have disgraced the industry that made and fed you” (Dickstein, 279) The hybridization is also found in the character of Desmond herself. She is both the femme fatale of film noir, dealing in sexual allure and entrapment, as well as the German Expressionistic vampire figure that sucks the life out of ineffectual men. (Dickstein, 281) .

German Expressionism is a major influence on the film. Wilder began in the German cinema and it apparent here.  The mansion scenes were filmed in a gothic set inhabited by shadows, crooked lines, and a creepy organ. The dead monkey and his funeral harkens back to creepiness of German cinema. Gloria Swanson’s “carnivalesque” acting style and heavy make up as Norma pays tribute to the performances in films such as Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Nosferatu. The film chooses to use expressionistic techniques to “convey Wilder’s sense of two Hollywood generations, both out of touch with anything real: one immured narcissistically in its past glories, the other trapped in the tawdry superficiality of the present.” (Dickstein, 280)

In addition to its use of German Expressionistic style, Sunset Boulevard also employs some of the classical Hollywood style. Continuity editing is used and no attention is called to transitions from shot to shot. Aside from a framing device, the narrative of the film is linear and there are no loose ends at the end, only loose screws. Betty Shaffer is the passive love interest, who does little to drive the plot and she is presented as the wholesome type seen in hundreds of Hollywood films. It is also able to fit into the genres described earlier.

This is where the classic Hollywood style ends. The protagonist is a white male, but he does not drive the story. Joe spends most of the film reacting to Desmond. There is no real antagonist. Norma does antagonize Joe; but she is more of a product of her time than a villain. Her relationship to Joe is not a simplified one, but full of neediness and subtext. The narration gives us Joe’s side of the story which goes against the objective point of view found in most films utilizing the classic Hollywood style.

With Sunset Boulevard, Wilder truly does bite the hand that feeds him. “The mood of the film is immediately established as decadent and decaying by the posthumous narrator, a dead man floating face down in a Beverly Hills swimming pool” (Dirks, web) Wilder presents a Hollywood willing to chew someone up and spit them out, applaud them one day and forget them the next. The toll Hollywood takes on a person is shown in the juxtaposition of Joe and Betty. Both screenwriters, Betty is new to the game, eager to work long nights and then take strolls through the Paramount back lot. Life is still magical to her. She has a naiveté about the business that Joe, in contrast, doesn’t. He is cynical and has tired of working hard only to achieve credit on “a couple of B-pictures”. Betty represents the way Hollywood wants to be seen and Joe represents how it actually is.

Several noir themes are found throughout the movie.  The Hollywood cynicism seems to indicate that the American Dream is a lie.  In the case of Norma and Max, it is impossible to maintain it.  Social norms are no longer meaningful. Rather than present a love story that leads to a nuclear family, Joe and Norma uses each other for their own personal gain. Joe needs a house and money. Norma sees Joe not as a true companion, but as more an audience. She spends more time performing Sennett routines and Chaplin impressions than she does trying to bed him. (Dickstein, 283) Although they are clearly not in love, they are still the perfect match for each other. They “feed upon each other as performer and audience, actress and writer, grand dame and cheap gigolo: Both in the sunset of their careers” (Dickstein, 283)

Wilder suggests that gender roles no longer apply either.  Norma holds the purse strings, forcing all the men around her to become dependent on her.  The use of literary allusions such as Great Expectation, the story of Salome, and Sampson and Delilah all point to themes of imprisonment, sexual bondage, and female hysteria. (Dickstein, 283) The age difference further illustrates this idea. Like Charles Foster Kane and Susan Alexander, Joe and Norma are a May-December romance, only this time Norma is the December.

Wilder’s status as an auteur is easily seen in the film. Like Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Sunset Boulevard contains two styles that Wilder is widely known for. It is clearly a noir in the vein of his previous films Double Indemnity and Ace in the Hole. It is more satirical than these films however, and in this sense is more in line with Wilder’s later comedies The Apartment and Some like it Hot. The film acts as a transition for Wilder.

His films all contained similar ideas.  His view of humanity is a jaded one. His characters are always out for their own personal gain. Ray Milland will lie to his family and sell out his own livelihood for a drink in The Lost Weekend, Ace in the Hole’s Kirk Douglas will allow a man to die in a shaft to get the exclusive story, and Jack Lemmon will pimp out his own home for job advancement in The Apartment. He also feels that the pursuit of happiness is a trap. No matter how hard his character’s attempt to achieve their goals, it always backfires. He is almost socially conservative in his punishment vice seeking.

Wilder’s cynicism is more than likely a product of his life before arriving in the U.S.  His family was killed in concentration camps during WWII which lead to his self exile to America.  His story is not unique, however. The effects of the Second World War gave many of the noir films from this period a pessimistic outlook on life that spoke to an American people worn down by the horrors of war and the great depression that preceded it.  The film arrived just before the Eisenhower conservatism swept in and provided America with a reason to be hopeful again. American cinema used this newfound cynicism to look back to the silent age, the last time America had been hopeful. The casting of silent star Gloria Swanson adds an aura of realism and her performance is reminiscent of the acting style of old. Morris Dickstein discusses this in his essay on Sunset Boulevard, “Though Swanson tells William Holden that, ‘We didn’t need dialogue. We had faces,’ her own face is often a garish mask of self-absorbed posturing and melodrama; precisely what the 1940s saw when it glanced back at the silent film era.”  (Dickstein, 280)

The audience didn’t seem to hold the era in very high regard. The film featured cameos from many great stars of the era, including H.B. Warner and Buster Keaton. People who had been vastly loved by audiences just 20 years earlier were now reduced to a walk on role. These cameos act as a mirror to the plot, reminding the audience that even though Norma Desmond is fictitious, her situation is not.  The house the film is set in underscores this. It is, like Desmond, a decaying remnant to the silent film days. (Dickstein, 279) It wouldn’t be until a few years later that the time would be looked at fondly in films such as Singin’ in the Rain.

The most poignant example of the fallen silent era is Max Von Mayerling, played by Erich Von Stroheim in an almost autobiographical role for Von Stroheim.  He was a real life silent film director who often worked with Gloria Swanson. Max, who had once called the shots on film sets and had been Desmond’s first husband, has been reduced to a literal servant to the star. He is devoted to Desmond to the point of writing her anonymous fan letters and even playing the mock director to her as she makes her final psychotic performance at the film’s end. As Ebert writes, “Because he believes, because he is devoted to her shrine, we believe. His love convinces us there must be something worth loving in Norma Desmond, and that in turn helps explain how Joe Gillis can accept her.” (Ebert, 438)

Sunset Boulevard seems to be as much about the present day as it was of its time or the silent era. That Norma’s comeback in the public eye is a result of a murder scandal rather than her talent serves as a perfect allegory for today’s celebrity culture. Fame is no longer based on talent, but personal lives. The obsession with beauty in Sunset Boulevard is another parallel to modern culture. Norma spends day after day preparing herself to be camera ready, not realizing the toll it is taking on her face. Even Betty, the purest character in the film has gotten a nose job in response to advice from casting directors.  Social status is judged by appearance.

The paparazzo of today is still as aggressive as they were then. For every Hedda Hopper of 1950, there is a Geraldo Rivera interviewing a convicted murderer today, a glamorization of the degenerate.  Just as Joe Gillis was forgotten the moment he was pulled from the pool, so are the victims of today. Norma Desmond, however, will be remembered.

The film seemed more broadly comedic and satirical at the time, but because of where our culture is today, the film stands as more relevant and true to modern audiences. The treatment of Hollywood as a type of fleeting royalty has gone a long way in maintaining its status as a masterpiece. With its hybridization of genres, mixture of real life personalities and fictional characters, view of cultural imperialism, and deconstruction of both the noir conventions and silent days; it could also be said that Sunset Boulevard is the first postmodern film. Not only does the film serve as a bridge between Wilder’s noirs and his comedies, but it is a bridge between the past and the future.

Works Cited

Dickstein, Morris. "Sunset Boulevard (1950)." The A List: The National Society of Film Critics'

100 Essential Films. Ed. Jay Carr. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002. 279-83. Print.

Dirks, Tim. AMC Filmsite. Ed. Tim Dirks. American Movie Classics Company, n.d. Web. 18        Apr. 2013. <http://www.filmsite.org/suns.html>.

Ebert, Roger. The Great Movies. New York: Broadway Books, 2002. 438-39. Print.

Schrader, Paul. "Notes on Film Noir." Film Noir Reader. Ed. Alain Silver and James Ursini.          New York: Proscenium Publishers, Inc., 1996. 53-59. Print.

Symbolism in Annie Hall

Woody Allen’s Annie Hall is a film about a man looking back on a key romance in his life and how it affects him. Alvy Singer is constantly in conflict with the world due to the fact that he perceives himself to be more intellectual and superior than most people. This causes conflict within his relationship with Annie Hall as he is intimidated by finally meeting his match. These problems cause an inner conflict within him as he analyzes his past relationships, including Annie, to find out what it is that causes the relationships to fail. The film presents the idea that life and love are not always ideal or perfect, but worth the trouble. Allen also suggests that all relationships offer opportunities for growth, even if they don’t work out.

            The tone is humorous and absurd. Most situations in the film are presented in a comical manner and Allen uses a narrative out of chronological order as well as direct address, exaggerated flashbacks, and animated fantasy sequences to underscore how ridiculous he views his own place in life.

            Alvy is shown through flashbacks as literally growing up under a rollercoaster. The rollercoaster is how he feels about his life. It is full of ups and downs and can cause stress or uneasiness, but is ultimately thrilling. The flashback sequence also lets us in on the fact that what we see is uniquely Alvy’s perspective of the story and may be littered throughout with other half-truths and exaggerations. His childhood education is presented as being populated with dunces, including the teachers. This lets us in on Alvy’s sense of being above the rest. He can’t imagine that any of his former classmates have gone on to something greater than he has. His condescending manner is presented with a lot of self-deprecation, which keeps him from being unsympathetic or unrelatable.

            Alvy has spent his entire life in New York, which serves as an extension of himself. His personality is energetic, dark, and full of intellect; much like New York City. He feels anxiety whenever he is out of town and leaves as little as possible. His religion is also key to his identity. Although he is not shown to be overtly devout to the practice of Judaism, he still considers it an important part of his life. His temple is the art house cinema, where he regularly attends screening of The Sorrow and The Pity. Rather than celebrate his heritage, he chooses to constantly be reminded of the dark chapters of Jewish history, even confiding to Rob that he often feels passively persecuted. This reveals his cynical side, along with his morbid fascination with death. From a young age, he has been preoccupied with death. He struggles to find meaning in life due to a lack of immortality.

            The cynical side of Alvy is offset by his imagination and dream of an ideal world. Whether he is conjuring Marshall McLuhan to take his side in an argument or imagining the people of New York as being able to be approached for advice at any moment, he believes there is a magical potential to life.

            We are first introduced to Annie Hall in the film as the middle to late stage of her relationship with Alvy. He awaits her arrival wearing a green Army combat jacket, ready for the argument that has come to define their lives together.  Alvy looks to his previous marriages for clues to what might be going wrong. His first marriage started off strong. When they met, she was wearing a red necklace and he a red tie. This shows the passion he had for her and is a color motif that reappears throughout the film. The passion doesn’t last though. When we next see them, they are in a darkly lit apartment, dressed in grey and beige.  Alvy uses the JFK assassination as a form of intellectual stimulation which is missing from his relationship with Allison. His second wife is also shown to wear dark, mournful colors. This reflects her cold personality, more interested in her place in society than with passion.  Both his former spouses were New York liberal, intellectual types with nightstands full of books. This would be a seemingly good match for Alvy, but we learn from that that he needs someone from a different background to provide a challenge.

            These are qualities that Annie has. She is a mid-western photographer whose book collection largely consists of cat books and high school curriculum level literature. She is not of the same world as Alvy, which he finds exciting. He is thoughtful and well read whereas she being a photographer is more interested in the visual aesthetics of life. They meet while playing tennis with friends. Following the match, she appears to formally introduce herself dressed in a man’s suit. Both the tennis game and the clothes represent that Alvy has met his match. He suspects she is someone he could easily fall in love with. When she drives him home, she proves to be a reckless driver. This shows the excitement Alvy feels about Annie.  He feels a frightening, but exciting feeling that he never felt about his previous wives and more than likely hasn’t felt since his childhood days of roller coasters and bumper cars.

            Their relationship starts off great. During a weekend at the beach, they attempt to cook lobsters for the first time. Like the red lobsters, Alvy feels passionate and alive. He is comfortable enough with her to leave the safety net of New York and try new things with her. The waterfront is in the background. Most of their shared romantic moments take place near water, including their walks at night and the tennis match at the pier. The water is calm and represents how tranquil Alvy feels. Red roses line the balcony of Annie’s apartment, again a symbol of warmth.

            The rosy times don’t last, however.  They slowly become more argumentative and Alvy resorts to using a red lightbulb to light the now cold, depressing bedroom. This is his attempt to recapture the fun and glory of their “honeymoon” phase. An Easter dinner with Annie’s family highlight that Alvy no longer feels connected to Annie. Annie’s family is distantly polite and in a stark, white dining room. Alvy thinks of his family, warmly lit and equally warmly argumentative with each other. He speaks to Annie’s brother in his bedroom. The ceiling is slanted much like Alvy’s view of Annie and her family. Dwayne confesses his suicidal thoughts and gives them a ride to the airport. Like his first car ride with Annie, this one  is equally terrifying, but the sense of fun has been replaced with dread. The once tranquil waters of life are now a violent thunderstorm.

            Annie performs in a night club twice in the film. The first time, her performance is mousey. She stares toward the ground and almost whispers the song into the microphone. The second time is long into her relationship with Alvy. She is now in command of the stage, confident and captivating. This shows Annie’s change in personality. She seeks growth in life and because of her relationship with Alvy, feels more emboldened to try new things, such as college classes and cocaine. Alvy is set in his ways and doesn’t feel like major change is something he wants. They both learn this during their visit to Los Angelos. L.A. is shot with blinding light bouncing off the buildings and windshield. This shows the disoriented, nauseous feeling being away gives Alvy. Annie, however, takes to it naturally. She is excited to try new things and meet new people.

            Their relationship ends and Annie moves to L.A. Alvy still doesn’t have closure, though. He attempts to take control of the situation by trying to win her back by travelling to L.A. and driving. This trip shows that Annie is important enough to Alvy to try and drive, but the car and his attempt crashes. When this doesn’t work, he writes a play based on their relationship. The ending is changed to a happy one, hoping to feel fulfillment through revision.  It is a chance lunch with Annie that finally brings him closure. As they rehash their past, flashes of the film’s key scenes are shown. This is the healing that is happening to Alvy. When they say goodbye for the last time, a crosswalk signal changes from “Don’t Walk” to “Walk”. This signifies that Alvy is satisfied with this chapter of his life and can now move on; taking what he has learned from Annie, as well as the memories, with him to the next one.

David Cronenberg's Leading Men

I was in a David Cronenberg mood last night and decided to watch A History of Violence, Dead Ringers, and Naked Lunch. As I watched these films, I began to notice that all three leading men had a similar look: lean, middle aged, with a weathered face. After some thought, I realized that this is common for a Cronenberg lead. Let's take a look:

Scanners: Stephen Lack

Videodrome: James Woods

The Dead Zone: Christopher Walken

The Fly: Jeff Goldblum

Dead Ringers: Jeremy Irons

Naked Lunch: Peter Weller

Spider: Ralph Fiennes

A History of Violence: Viggo Mortensen

The Dangerous Method: Michael Fassbender

There are a few rare exceptions, such as James Spader in Crash, but for the most part Cronenberg seems to have a favorite type for his leading men. I believe he cast all of the above actors because he perhaps sees himself in them. Here's a photo of Cronenberg:

Their Greatest Performances: Jeff Bridges

                                  
Bad Blake/Crazy Heart
This is the film that won Jeff Bridges an Oscar a career that has spanned almost half a century. Only an actor as great as Bridges can make a washed up, alcoholic country star equally likeable and stomach turning. Watching the film, I go back and forth from wanting to have a drink with him and feeling as if I could actually smell him from my seat. Here’s a scary side note: After seeing the film with my mom, she stated, “I’ve dated that guy before.”

Rooster Cogburn/True Grit
Other than Heath Ledger as The Joker, I can’t think of an actor other than Bridges that has been able to take on another actor’s most iconic roles and make me completely forget about it. I never expected Bridges to do a John Wayne impression, but what he does with the role still surprised me. He almost disappears into the role and continues to be the top most actor to play inebriated characters.


                                  

President Jackson Evans/The Contender
As President Evans, Bridges gives us his most morally “decent” character to date. He is always in control and always one step ahead of the politics that are being played around him. He is what we all want a president to be.

The Dude/The Big Lebowski
The Dude is THE iconic Bridges role. He is a jellies and bathrobe clad stoner who drifts through the film in a laid back manor that is truly original for a film about kidnapping and ransom. Bridges give a master acting class and makes me believe he is actually stoned, which is a feat that Cheech, Chong, Bill, and Ted has never accomplished.

Ted Cole/The Door in The Floor
Bridges stars in this under-appreciated film as a popular children’s book writer who is coping with the death of his two sons as well as the dissolution of his marriage. This is not as showy as his top two performances, but is instead very grounded in reality. He has proven to work very well with children in films such as True Grit and Crazy Heart, but his scenes with Elle Fanning as his 4 year old daughter in this film is what makes this character so memorable.

Bad Movies: Stargate

Things I thought while watching Stargate last night:

-If the Stargate was found in Egypt by an Englishman, How did it end up in American hands?

-When Kurt Russell’s character is informed that he is being reactivated while sitting in his son’s room holding a gun, why didn’t the soldiers bother to ask him if he was feeling alright?

-If Kurt Russell was so suicidal, How did he manage to get over his grief and report for duty fully committed by the next scene? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for him to have been committed in the other sense of the word?

-When they reach the other planet, why is the tribe they first meet portrayed as middle eastern stereotypes? That and the score both appear to have been ripped off from Lawrence of Arabia.

-Speaking of rip-offs, Wasn’t the mutli-moon world used in Star Wars?

-Who the hell let French Stewart into the military?

-Why did we choose to send a monkey into space before humans, but have no problem sending a group of seemingly ordinary military members to an unknown star system almost overnight without any way to return?

-How much did Kurt Russell get paid to sport that hair cut…and cover it with that beret?

-Isn’t Ra’s back-story essentially the same as Superman‘s?

-Hey!, There’s Academy Award nominee Djimon Hounsou. I wonder why he choose only to be credited as Djimon in this instead of by his full name?

-Ra isn’t a very scary looking villain. He looks more like a crazy ex-girlfriend. (Maybe that is pretty scary)

-Why is Roland Emmerich still allowed to make movies? Someone take the camera away already!

-Looks like Emmerich re-used the space ships in Independence Day and the costume designs for 10,000 B.C.

-Kurt Russell may not have destroyed Stargate, but Stargate seemed to destroy Kurt Russell’s career.