Movie Masterworks

“Whatever God does is for the best.”

Synopsis: One of the greatest directors of modern cinema, Satyajit Ray became an instant success with his debut film, PATHER PANCHALI (Song of the Little Road). The first Indian film to ever become a hit in the West, PATHER PANCHALI is the moving story of a rural family cursed with bad luck. Father Hari is a dreamer and poet, while his hard-working wife struggles to feed the family. But Durga, a free-spirited and petty thief, brings tragedy to the family in a moment’s carelessness. Awarded many prizes at film festivals all over the world, PATHER PANCHALI catapulted Satyajit Ray to international acclaim and launched one of the cinema’s most distinguished careers. Pather Panchali is part of the Apu Trilogy, along with Aparajito and The World of Apu.

Critique: Imagine for a moment that a twenty-nine year old commercial artist living in Calcutta decides out of the blue that he’d like to make a movie based on a complex multi-volume novel. He has no money, no connections, and few resources of any kind. He teams up with a still photographer who has never previously operated a motion picture camera. They borrow a 16 mm motion picture camera. They choose a bunch of children with no acting experience without so much as conducting screen tests. For one of the adult leads, they find an eighty year-old hunched-over wreck of a woman who had done some acting decades earlier but who is presently living in a brothel. (She initially thinks they’ve come looking for sexual services!) They enlist the services of an unknown solo musician to provide the musical score. The script involves precious little in the way of a plot, providing instead mainly a stark portrayal of abject poverty. Two of the five main characters die over the course of the film. How would you rate the chances of success for such a project? I know . . . not good! Now, consider that the resultant film went on to win the top prize at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in 1956. It revolutionized filmmaking in its country of origin – India. It has impacted many filmmakers throughout the world by its intimate and poetic portrayal of the simplicities of daily living. It is widely regarded by filmmakers and critics as an unqualified masterpiece.

Pather Panchali accomplishes something that great films achieve: it finds the core of universal truths and human feelings while telling its plaintive tale in a culturally specific context. This film captures what appears to me, as an outsider, to be the essence of life in India. It is about the struggles and deprivations related to poverty and death of loved ones.

-Metalluk

My thoughts: Have you ever noticed some photographs are more powerful in Black & White? The cinematography in Pather Panchali is of that quality. Images ingrained in my memory are of children playing in a downpour and a distant train chugging across a field of wheat.

“You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.”

Isn’t it ironic that one of the greatest Westerns ever made was directed by an Italian, filmed mostly in Spain with an international cast, and dubbed? Usually, I regard watching a foreign language film dubbed rather than with subtitles as a sin, but this is the only exception. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is not just a Spaghetti Western, it’s THE spaghetti western. It’s the film that made Clint Eastwood a star and turned the Western genre upside down. Before it was a simple formula, white hats vs. black hats, everything was clear cut and there is usually a happy ending. Now in GB&U, we have anti-heroes, morally ambiguous characters, likable because of their flare, wandering through a story with many twists and turns. The sensational opening credits indicate The Good, the Bad and the Ugly will not be typical Western fare. Bright reds, greens and blues are splashed across the characters faces to the sound of gunfire while trumpets blare. When the director’s name, Sergio Leone appears, everything gets blown away by cannon fire.

In the opening scenes we are introduced to the main players. First the Ugly, a bandit played by Eli Wallach, who has all the cunning avarice of a hungry predator or a Richard Hatch. Tuco “the rat” has lived a hard life which has hardened him in turn. His sole motivation is money. Then we meet the Bad, who wears a black hat and rides a black horse, played by Lee Van Cleef. Sentenza, the bad, is a cold blooded murderer with piercing dispassionate eyes. We can almost smell the malice he emanates off the screen. He is just as greedy as Tuco but totally amoral. Lastly the man with no name, the Good is introduced. Only known as “Blondie,” the Good is a laconic gunman played by Clint Eastwood. The film’s title is a bit of a stretch because all three men are bad; it’s just a matter of degree. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, are all preternaturally good with a gun and they all have a unique style. They roam the vast barren landscapes fearlessly, until chance and greed bring them together, and set them on a quest for $200,000 in gold.

I won’t divulge any more of the plot on the off chance you are one of the few who have not seen this great flick. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, debuted in Rome with about a 3 hour run time. It was felt this was too long for American audiences so the runtime was reduced to about 161 minutes. A new DVD version was recently released that restores the American version to match the original Italian version. One of my favorite things about the new release is the 5.1 surround sound. It really makes Ennio Morricone’s score, one of the most original in movie history, come to life. I still get chills when Tuco searches for the grave in the “ecstasy of gold” sequence. The restored footage needed to be re-dubbed since it was originally spoken in Italian. Ironically, the voice actor for the late Lee Van Cleef sounds more authentic than Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach. Eastwood’s and Wallach’s voices have changed from 40 years ago but the restored scenes play well. The new transfer is first rate. The cinematography ranges from wide panoramas showing the vastness of “Texas” to extreme close-ups of the actors. I also like the little details Leone includes in GB&U. You see the steam rise from the food eaten by Sentenza and a wayward mongrel scared off by Tuco when he enters the cemetery. The ending of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is one of the best I’ve seen. Only Sergio Leone could draw out the tension for so long. Quentin Tarantino called The Good, the Bad and the Ugly the “best directed movie of all time.” As far as “Westerns” go, only Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid comes close in terms of entertainment value.

“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!”

Synopsis: The “dialogue is scintillating, characters…extraordinary, direction…perfect and production as fine as anything 20th Century Fox has turned out” in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s “captivating” (Variety) Oscar winner for Best Picture. From the moment she glimpses her idol at the stage door, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter) moves relentlessly towards her goal: taking the reins of power from the great actress Margo Channing (Bette Davis). The cunning Eve maneuvers her way into Margo’s Broadway role, becomes a sensation and even causes turmoil in the lives of Margo’s director boyfriend (Gary Merrill), her playwright (Hugh Marlowe) and his wife (Celeste Holm). Only the cynical drama critic (Oscar winner George Sanders) sees through Eve, admiring her audacity and perfect pattern of deceit. Thelma Ritter and Marilyn Monroe co-star in this acclaimed classic, which won six Academy Awards and received the most nominations (14) in film history.

Critique: All About Eve isn’t just a great movie about the theater, it’s a great movie about talent. Talent has nothing to do with being a nice person; if it did, Celeste Holm’s long-suffering wife would be center stage, not catty Margo Channing. It used to be, in old musicals, the snooty star would break her foot, and the sweet, plucky understudy would be vaulted to stardom. Mankiewicz’s tale is a variation on that chestnut–in this case the ingenue, Anne Baxter’s Eve Harrington, is a snake, and she still gets pretty much what she wants.

The reason? She may not be good, but she’s good at what she does. Ability beats virtue any day. Which is why Mankiewicz can’t bring himself to punish Bette Davis’ glorious Margo for her ego, her temper, and her insecurity. As George Sanders’ deliciously wicked theater critic Addison DeWitt tells her, “You’re maudlin and full of self-pity. You’re marvelous.”

Even if you’ve seen All About Eve a dozen times, there’s always something new to catch in Mankiewicz’s sumptuous, spiked plum pudding of a script–the knowing banter between Margo and her director boyfriend Bill (Gary Merrill), the way Margo smirks at hateful Addison before chomping down hard on a stalk of celery. Every character has been blessed with a viper’s tongue, down to Margo’s skeptical maid (the perpetually underrated Thelma Ritter), and it’s a pleasure to hear them bicker: No other movie makes being smart and cynical look like more fun.

-Jim Ridley NashvilleScene

My thoughts: I had never seen Betty Davis until seeing her in All About Eve. What she lacked in beauty she made up for in raw force of personality. A young Marilyn Monroe also steals scenes, drawing the camera to her like a magnet. Along with the film’s personalities, it’s the dialogue that makes All About Eve so memorable. If I had to sum this movie up in one word, it would be “sharp”… sharp dress, sharp minds, and sharp tongues.