Saturday, March 16, 2024

CHICO NEEDED THE MONEY (or Howl for the Funny Ones) (2024) a poem

 (one of the great loves of my life, my brother Jerry, was killed almost a month ago.  Today, March 16th, would.... not, it *should* be, and is, his 43rd birthday - mine is two days from now, big 4-0 - and it is this immense sadness that I still and never will shake about it all.  

Before this, I had started work on a poem - just a few lines and left unfinished - that I had in mind for a while - it had to do with a recurring refrain from the late Gilbert Gottfried that Jerry and I would sometimes quote to each other, which initially started on The Howard Stern show, where as "Old" Groucho Marx, he would do a bit responding to any question with "Chico needed the money" since, as legend or just recorded history would have it, the real Chico Marx was perpetually bad with his money and Groucho, his younger brother who also wasn't very good with money, had to bail him out.  And of course the fact that it was *old* Groucho and not the younger and more famous image of Groucho Marx for the public was one of the funniest things about it.

With Jerry's death... I stayed up in the middle of the night when I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, two nights after he died, writing more of it.  And then more.  And then this morning I actually did something I should have done earlier and re-read Ginsburg's "Howl" and realized I knew how I should end it: with the last part replacing "I'm with you in Rockland" with "I'm with you in Teaneck," our home-town and where we grew up

So... here it is.  I don't know if this is any good, but that's not the point of it.  I had to write it).  












CHICO NEEDED THE MONEY

(Or: Howl for the Funny Ones)

I

"Chico - needed- the money,"
Is that what they
Used to say,
And by they? We mean all of they
You say.
Of course, it's Chico,
You see him coming and think
Yeah, when does he not need it?

Chico Marx, 1887, Leonard Joseph,
A guy you know
Is always a "whatsamatta"
Kind of guy.
First, we went to their house,
He wasn't-a home;
Then we went to da ball game-
He wasn't a-there;
Then we went to the ball game-
But he fool us, he no a show!
Then he went do da ball game-
And, and, and I'm a gettin
Through to yous guys? 

Who's line was it anyway?
Groucho,
that's the one.
Must have said it in... 1911
Or was it 1933
Or 1945
Or 1961
Or 1971

Or 2024, I say…. And think of Jerry….

No, not yet.

(Who’s line is it.)


Or 1976, or all those later years:
He was, by then, "Old Groucho,"
Less Groucho,
More Julius,
Or maybe more Groucho?

I don't a-know
I wasn't a there, boss.
OK, I digress, Chicolini.

But I never heard this from
The actual, alive
Old Groucho.
That's a bit, a construct,
An imitation of life
From Gilbert Ignatius Gottfried
(No, he had no Ig- what am I saying).
He knew,
Somehow,
From old TV,
As a kid,
That Old Groucho was...funny.
Old winded, weathered, tried
and true, stories
Of Old Hollywood,
With a good quip here and there.
And why, you ask
(Or I do)
Was Old Groucho broke
And couldn't manage a cent
To his name?
Say it with me now:
Chico - Needed - the Money!

For what?
Chico, Chicolini,
Leonardlini, whoever he was,
In days at the races-
Or horse feathers-
Or the one with Marilyn Monroe-
Whenever the case
Chico went to the race
And another, and another
And maybe a card game
Or three, or ten, or twenty,
And at the end of the day,
Not a cent to his name,
Or was there a dame
… I couldn't think of anything else to say.
Don't get the picture?
The guy could
Tell a joke
Take a Fall
Make Harpo look better
And play a piano or two.

Where was I...
Gilbert Gottfried
The amazing, colossal,

(How was he not a crow)
The asshole who's voice
Could break
A glass window. 
He brought
Old Groucho
To a new generation.
Who would find that funny?
Who wouldn't?
Think of these words
In the tired, craggy cadence
Of a man so long,
And so knowing,
And so without Chico;
Chico - needed - the Money.

Ask the Gilbert "Old Groucho" anything:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
Chico - Needed - the Money.
Why did the stock market crash?
Chico - Needed - the Money.
Why (reads small print) Onlyfans?

Chico… Needed the money (that bad?)
Why "A Night in Casablanca"
(Which only you and I
But not the others remember?)
Chico - Needed - the Money.

It could go on...
That was an imitation,
An impression,
A running bit,
And it made us laugh,
Us, me and Jerry.
And then I,
Invariably, on occasion,
Would do Gilbert
"Doing" Old Groucho
And maybe slip in
A random aside
If I could remember
A name that nobody remembers
From 1910s Vaudeville.

… Or 1994: The Critic
(Watch me do a hula dance
to shake these egg rolls from my pants)
…. Or 1983: Trading Places
(Merry New Year – on New Years, usually)
… Or 1988: The Naked Gun
(No, Dutch Irish, my father was from Wales)
 … Or 1992: Wayne’s World
(Did you know Milwaukee is the only American city to have elected 3 socialist mayors?)
… Or 1952: Donald (Duck) Applecore
(Applecore
Nor de more
Who’s your friend)
Or Or Or Or Or Or-

Now
Chico's gone.
Groucho's gone.
Gilbert's gone.
Jerry is gone. 


Gone to where
There
Is no money
There
Is no funny
There is
No harp, no piano, no Country, no cars on the highway-
To see what it looks like when I get
Through with it. 

II

The funny men.
What is it?
Funny is funny
And money is still money.
Is it from
A sum of hurt? 
A well of pain?
Insecurities to mask the expanse upon expanse
of self-esteem?

Do you chase the funny,
Like the dog
Chasing the car?
What do you do
If you catch the funny?
Except-
Run to catch more -
Run to catch Harpo-
With those peanuts
Peanuts, Get Yer Peanuts!

And the harp,
Or Groucho, with
The immortal words of;
Looks like an idiot-
Talks like an idiot-
Acts like an idiot-
And
Don't let it fool you,
He really is an idiot.

Gilbert wasn't an idiot.
Chico wasn’t an idiot.
Groucho wasn't an idiot.
Jerry wasn't an idiot.
These are
The wise men-
The silly men-
The brave men-
The sharp and clever
And always,
Of course,
Needing
The
money. 

Our fucking society.
All about money.
Bills and stocks and liquidity.
Streams and Rivers and Oceans of Shit.
It won’t make you whole.
It won’t bring him back.
It won’t fill the crater
Where our hearts now lack
Closure.  Or one more minute.
One more look.
One more thing
To make me piecing his final, ruptured face
in my mind’s eye not all I can do.   

Maybe, born a hundred years
past the due date too late;
When I think of Jerry,
Who kept needing… money?

Maybe?

No.

He needed my imitations -
- And I needed him needing my imitations -
My impressions, my impression of an impression.
Inside Christal Gattanella baseball
that others have impressed -
Like Chico at the card game
Or the race track-
Or in the Circus-
Or in the West (I didn’t see that one)-
Or the guy down that long dark turn -
Of a century alley
You don't want to meet.

A hundred years before,
He would be
The sixth Marx brother...
Or was it seventh
Or eighth
19th century math is fucking hard, man.
What would he be?
Jumbo? Jimbo? 

So many brothers,
the glue of Minnie (Mama) Marx.
This life I now live
Is mishappen by the pox. 

Sobs have made me a shell.
I'm too tired to guess.

III

Jerry wasn’t the sixth Marx,
Or any Marx,
He was better than that.
And maybe worse than that.

And And And… That’s all past
Now.

And now:
The crying fits-
And the laughing fits-
And the memories sitting
in greasy and tasty diners, with lovers gone by.
Fits and Starts and everything Fit to Knit
My heart into Knots

Always so long, long drawn out.

There’s no Chico
Or Groucho
Or Gilbert
To make the feeling flee, or dissipate.

I’m not quiet like Harpo-

My heart thumps and thumps and turns
into curdled blocks of sorrow.

When did I see him cry?
There were bad times-
Times with money-
Times where he was Chico
Needing the money
Or losing it-

Losing it all-

Spending it all-
Spend Spend Spend All Over the Place-
Or, no that’s not right.

He was better than Chico
Because he was my brother,
That’s what I want to say
Or know how to say.

Wittier than Gilbert,
Or even Groucho,
Because he was… Jerry. 

The refrain from our Baba:
“Jerry, Jerry,
My Strawberry.”
And his infamous retort:
“Janet, Janet,
Get off the Planet.”

And I saw the best minds of my generation….

No.  Fuck that.
They’re not Jerry.

Complicated?  Flawed?  A bucket of neuroses and addictions and
Holy Toledo,
did you see that Instagram story??!

And I know this.
I know the pain.
Or wish I did.
Or could talk with him that I wish I did.
And the strange times.
And…  The money. 

What am I saying?

The Howl is still there!
The Howl is the Remains!
The Howl for all the Funny Men
We won’t see again.

IV

Chico, a cheeky rascal,
Groucho, Cynic-King.
Gilbert, the Obscure,
fabulous Court Jester,
None of them hold a candle is the thing.

And Jerome Michael, I’m with you in Teaneck,
  Where you make the “yeah, that’s right”
  Perennial joking face, to which, I know,
  That is you and isn’t you
   all at once.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   Where we played Nintendo(s),
   And my Starfox character voices
   became ensconced in our hidden language
   All the way to the end.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   Where the fire blazed in 95
   (And, funny, “joking,” said I started)
    And you, at 13, looking on, crest-fallen
    more for yourself, than me, Mom or Dad;
    And that stuck and will stick
    Because it is still human to be that way, at 13 or 42.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   260 Highwood and Queen Anne,
   third house on the left;
   The white house,
   bent, ungainly plum tree,
   Bad plumbing, and -
   (don’t get me started on the toilet).

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   In the mocking and bullying and teasing and worse;
   that red-hot, scalding coffee method of your affection
   I was too young to understand.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   When you hugged and said sorry,
   And when you laughed at my haircut
   From Dad’s “Suck-cut,” but,
   You got that haircut, too. 
   L-O-L.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   When I watched “Taxi Driver,” and you,
   On shrooms, in the downstairs, later said,
   You saw luminous, flashing orange BOOMS
   When the guns went pow and pow and pow.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   For all the arguments, the cursing, the fighting,
   The laughter, the runs to get Calzones,
   The juggling, the juggling,
   oh the fucking juggling.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   The conspicuous
   splintered-hole through the bathroom door;
   Another blaze of fire there, and for a time I’d forget
   And then ask, and then you’d say why, and I don’t say here,
   Because it wasn’t about the door.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   The mornings with the Stooges;
   the bongs lit;
   the drums bashed;
   The swing outside that we gloriously split
   into swing putty;
   The basketball hoop where you formed
   into an un-stoppable Jerry
   Jerry, Jerry, Basketball Strawberry.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   Another impression, our Reform Rabbi, his cadence
   Like William Shatner; and you cracked up
   Like an egg that can’t wait to be fried.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   The deep red and black walls,
   the hair dyed orange - Because
   it was 1995-
   And who didn’t have that then,
   Or that tongue piercing, which raised questions
   Like a barn in Witness
   (I never asked if you saw that).

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   At the high school, at the game, a cheerleader
   And I was so proud and befuddled and charmed and
   Like Groucho,  raised eyebrows.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   Driving fast fast fast for the lunch, freshman and a senior,
   “Hot for Teacher” cranked,
   Wendy’s fries and nuggets,
   Racing against someone from school and racing against time.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   At the theater, 4 bucks,
   choppy 35mm of “There Will be Blood,”
   And your reactions more to Upton Sinclair and… money.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   Bischoffs, Taipei Noodle, Cedar Lane Grille, BoBo Kitchen,
   The gone places, the gone time, the tasty times.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   Our minds fighting and accepting and loving and always blazing,
   We didn’t know how to fix things then, Or know where to see. 

I’m with you in Teaneck,
  Like “Cats,”
   your Cats,
  Now and forever,
  The Winter Garden Theater Commercial
   That you, at the time, looked at
  And snarled your lip,
  to which, you could do both sides
   And I was always jealous, I could only do one!
  But those cats,
  Blinken and Poppins,
  And the one I vaguely forget,
  And the one with square poop.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   Where Little Boy is a Man
   Little Man is a King-
   And not once,
   but twice,
   seemed more than that,
    you’re Tony.
   For Sondheim and Bernstein
   and the Old Bard sound,
   And I don’t know how ill watch that video
   Without breaking down.

I’m with you in Teaneck,
   In my dreams, and you’re not there yet;  
   You still are too there, not there so far away.
   But I know you will be,
  As another funny man
  We loved so: Rodney, said:
   the unbearable Heavyness
  
That will have to be cracked,
  
Slacked, wracked, fracked, smacked and frapped.

Because life is not Teaneck
Anymore.
Life isn’t money, or funny,
Without you. 












(Jerome Michael Christal Gattanella
March 16th 1981 - February 20th, 2024)

Saturday, January 27, 2024

Jonathan Glazer's THE ZONE OF INTEREST (2023)

 


Zone of Interest has some of the most sickeningly extraordinary diegetic sound design of the century. You are never about to tear the fabric off the armchair of the seat in the theater you're sitting in while watching, especially when characters talk idly about lilacs and flowers as wails of death and bullets are faintly yet very recognizable in the distance. There is also the cumulative effect of the multitude of horrors and horror ignored; the ashes wiped away; the jaw-bone found seemingly suddenly in the water; the teeth being played with (that was a hard one for me); the routines and cleaning and that one Jewish girl that we see, maybe the only one for any extended period of time, who does her cleaning and has to be unseen even though she's there (a Jeanne Dielman of this world).

The characters we are seeing throughout this are the Nazis, and in one of the most unflinching of the Banality of Evil depictions in a lifetime, we just see their every day routines, the connectivity of this morally rotten family, and the sadness the wife has when it looks like the husband/Commandant of the Auschwitz death camp may (gasp) have to be assigned to another post. We aren't supposed to connect to them, and that's the point; these are people in a precise environment of serenity and beauty when just over the side of that gray giant wall is.... death, abyss, killing, what this wife and kids dont have to face. 

These are people, after all, who believe what they are doing is completely right and just, both the domestic and militaristic levels, ie when the Nazi officers discuss how the gas chambers and processes work they might as well be talking over widgets in a factory, and only a couple of them, like the older mother of "Queen of Auschwitz" Mrs Hoss (Huller) starting to cough from the, you know, smoke and ashes and all the things from the bodies coming over to her feel some physical inconvenience about it.

Huller by the way is very good once again in her other soul-scorching performance of the year (*very* different from that Fall character of course), and this time with a particular gait and walk I am as curious to know as with Giamatti's eye in the Holdovers (or, on the flipside, I don't need to know, it's a choice and that's it). It's not exactly a film for the performances as it is a directorial tour de force (excuse this kind of basic bitch level of description but I can't think of anything else), but everyone here is as believable as they should be. It's all very natural and the tone of their performances is stripped down but, importantly, they aren't dull on screen (a particularly ugly bit between the two boys where one locks the other in the little greenhouse comes to mind).

And among the many things I'm still mulling over (and I talked about with my mother and wife, the former knew nothing about this going in except "Nazis and Auschwitz" and that is always of unfortunate interest for her) is the ending; the editing of that moment with Hoss in the stairwell cutting to what we are seeing in present day, it has such a sharp and cutting insight into the nature of evil and how a person may have some idea, especially if they aren't aware of it, that this barbarism and genocide won't last, but we do and we shouldn't forget.... even if that remembrance is still being cleaned and scrubbed for us to see - and, crucially it cuts back to him in the hallway as he stares into the darkness, it stares back at him, and he goes on his way. Ill bee mulling over that for a long time.

One thing I'm not sure on: the b&w infrared moments when Hoss reads the bedtime stories. Didn't work for me, but maybe it will after I watch some interviews.

Friday, January 19, 2024

Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS (2001-2003) revisited

 (I decided to share here the reviews I wrote upon revisiting the Extended Editions of the Peter Jackson/Wingnut Films productions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy at Alamo Drafthouse; I saw "Fellowship of thr Ring" in January of last year, 2023, then meant to see the other two "Two Towers" and "Return of the King" then but had to wait until this month. It was worth it).












(January 7th, 2023)

"Go back, Sam! I'm going to Mordor alone."

"Of course you are! And I'm coming with you!"

Time to see if my rating will go up or down (and I'm finally listening to Andy Serkis' masterful reading of the book on Audible)... (3 1/2 years err hours later), yep, this really rocks a whoooole lot of fuck. It's a classic tale of corrupting influences - or how clearly the Ring corrupts so completely, and casts doubt and darkness and if it doesn't crush someone into their worst self, they may rise to meet the evil in the world.

I think perspective, as with many things when looking back now not just a few years (like when King Kong 05 came out) or a decade (the darn flawed but sometimes successful Hobbitses) but a near generation later, is in order and Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring - and by extension I'll assume the other two films though it's been an equally long while away from them as well - is full of artistic personality, quirks, and enough heart to flood five Shires.

We've had years of Marvel movies and other blockbusters that don't carry much in the way of a beating distinction of filmmaking pathos - and ones I've liked or even loved by, say, the Russo's are directed in such a way where it's more on the screenplays and the stars/actors to carry them into anything unique- and, like revisiting the Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, there's joy and thrill and exhilaration and even meditation to be had in the full throated SONG that Jackson and his hundreds of crew have put together here.

Even the art of the Close-up shot is staggering in how Jackson utilizes it, and he and Dp Andrew Leslie do so a great deal, because it's creating an intimacy with the audience that reaches deeper into Tolkien's text (especially on a giant screen, which, 2001 vfx bits that don't hold up and all, it was intended and painstakingly crafted and located for). Some of it is just a hair over from being cheeky close-ups out of a shocker of a horror movie - it made me smile uncontrollably to hear someone gasp at the moment when Gandalf grabs Frodo's arm in the dark and we suddenly see the old dude disheveled and in a panic in full profile do the line "Is it Secret?! Is It Safe?!"

Most of the filmmaking is so sincere that, mayhap, when I was younger and thinking I was already matured in late high school/college I wasn't. Not really. Not after I've lived a little while and seen as an adult hoe greed, ego (oh those Christopher Lee close-ups are worth a thousand ::Chef's kisses::), bewilderment, desire and humility and fear shapes people. And I love the mix of real textures and creatures and make-up and good lord those gigantic Miniatures and I'll just call them Matte paintings even if they were all done by Weta computers (some are designed by people who I assume had their artistic feet in making luminous Mattes for years and years).

But I was taken aback by how emotional I got at the end; Sean Bean has had a Meme or two from this film (the crowd at Alamo mostly chuckled at the not inherently funny "One does not just..." bit and hos hand gesture because clearly we've all seen that out of context), but he's giving it all to Boromir, and while Frodo has this ongoing existential horror that he's been made to become and carry it's Son o' Gondor who is the tragic figure ultimately of the picture. And did I shed a tear or ten in that final scene he has? I cannot tell a lie, as another Tolkien character said... or no that was some other historical figure or other.

Great stuff. I hope to see the others theatrically this *month if not sold out. If only I'd some Fine Pipe-Weed to go along with it. (*EDIT I didn't due to car problems, but a year later in 2024, I am!)














(January 14th. 2024)

"How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something."

"What are we holding on to, Sam?"

"That there is good in the world."

Maybe it's a bit of contrarian in me, which is foolish given the unfathomable popularity of this series of films, but for a long time I called this the best (or favorite whatever you want to dub it) of the Lord of the Rings; sure, for Serkis and the titanic force of wicked fire and (I think intentionally) sad-sack insane humor that came from his turn, but moreover because of how Jackson and his writers and editors managed to condense a whopping metric ton of story into even this long of a package and manage to make you feel and think about so much in every storyline.

 Yes, even with the Ents/Tree-Beard characters (and look, I know they are designed to talk... slow, but maybe you need a moment or two amid all of the high palace drama and melancholic Aragorn romantic passages to sit and think about... Treeeees. Or use the bathroom during those bits).

As it stands now seeing this again for the first time in at least fifteen years start to finish? This still as the Tik Tok runs say "slaps," and every performance in it is peak (special mention to Dourif, Bernard Hill and Miranda Otto, but Mortensen may be underrated strangely, like the scene with the soup). It's close. Or... tied with the first one (?) Maybe it's more because of Fellowship and the forward throttle of that film's beat for beat power and momentum and Jackson and company getting everything so so right with that cast that I love that more after that revisit, especially with a touch more heartbreak to find with Boromir and Bean.

But it's also hard, especially as I get older, for Sam's speech not to kick me in the heart and head and tell me that what we are seeing in this Battle of Helm's Deep, this awakening of the Ents to see, despite/because of their reluctance, how they are a part of this world, and Frodo as he stands face to face with that Ringwraith, is all metaphor for how life will always be hard and always the world is on the brink. 

And yet... people keep going and going and going on. And for Gollum/Smeagol, yes had chances to turn back as well, and the doom that is there for him is in his struggle - Maybe (or no Maybe I'm sure) that's why that character is so harrowing, in his split sense he's the embodiment of Darkness... and what is still there that *could* bring him back. Or not.

I'm sure there's things I can nitpick here, especially as time goes on and like the beast dogs with the Orcs look more fake over time. On the other hand, the flooding of Isengard looks all the more powerful and impactful because you can tell how much actual water they used for flooding on a matte-level, like they added real water on top of the CGI, and on a giant screen it's like what they tried to do in all those B movies of old with a bathtub or what have you, but... it looks like the best it will ever be. There's so many great effects and spectacle and all of those glorious high-flying crane and dolly shots and HOLY SHIT TO FIGHT DEM ORCS GIMLI moments, and they outweigh any of the handful of effects that have aged.

I think why I love this film is because, as I mentioned before, it has so much still and yet it's never so overwhelming as you lose the thread or get too tired of one storyline since it's all about *everyone* in this world. That's what was tricky for Jackson and Bowens/Walsh et al to pull off, and that's also what's different than Fellowship; that was about Frodo, Sam, the core group, while this is widening the scope to show that, no, now *all* of Middle Earth is in this shit, whether they like it or not. And they managed to make it an engrossing, tragic yet hopeful saga, the darker middle chapter where all the relationships deepen and the scars show more.

(Wait...who likes it? Uh, Wormtongue, probably - didn't he ever think of a name change, by the way? He's either going to be slimy little weasel, or the one gent with the caustic wit and beleaguered sense of charm that you'd never expect to meet at the castle at Rohan. Oh, well).














(January 19th, 2024)

"Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It'll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they'll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields... and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?"

"No, Sam. I can't recall the taste of food... nor the sound of water... nor the touch of grass. I'm... naked in the dark, with nothing, no veil... between me... and the wheel of fire! I can see him... with my waking eyes!"

"Then let us be rid of it... once and for all!"

Let's see if i will like this more in a theater again... (3 hours in), welp, this time I got teary eyed when King Theodin has his final moment on the battlefield with Eowin (like a softer version of Luke and Vader: "Ive got to save you," "you have already" :( , so yeah, this gets to 5 stars this time. Maybe this is one of the more flawed 5 star ratings, but I can't deny when a filmmaker like Peter Jackson can punch a hole in my gut and not let go.

Matter of fact, this time I surprised myself with how much of a mess I became when Sam does the "I can't carry the Ring, BUT I CAN CARRY YOU" to Frodo on Mount Doom. I was pretty much unmoved by that when I saw it in a more cynical and "Im Above These Feelings" 19 mindset. 

I think I needed to live for another 20 years for it to really hit, how in life it becomes invaluable and meaningful to have someone like that in your life. And my goodness, Sean Astin really sells the hell out of every moment as Samwise (like with Spider-Man, which I'll come back to near the end of this review in another context, I like Samwise more as I get older).

I think it helps having finally read the books last year and seeing how close they actually get so much of the source material into this to find this more enjoyable and less of a corny slog. And it really works being longer in EE form for it to have moments to breathe and for characters to get to connect even more, hence the moments with Theodin.

Maybe still my least favorite of the 3 mostly because there's parts of the giant battle at Minis Tirith when it's just the Orc/Uruk-Hai army vs Gondor, it drags in the choreography and that some of the CGI hasn't aged the best (though I could also say that for the undead army, and somehow they work and are badass as all get out). And as fun as it can be seen a CGI war elephant. Getting shot with arrows and fall down. That also is a very long sequence in a very long movie. And next time I'm watching that home. I'll probably keep playing that as a bathroom break.

But what I liked before I love this time, especially everything with Frodo and Gollum, and that storyline is just about perfect, especially all of the betrayals and recriminations and apologies. Nasty schizo acting doesn't get better than Serkis, but he's not as strong without Wood and Astin to play off of. And I especially was John Noble and Denethor the tragically awful Steward of Gondor.

We know that Gollum-cum-Smeagol is a total mess and is not trustworthy, mostly to himself; Denethor Is the villain who has the power over his Kingdom, even as it's a tenuous power and his grief becomes this kind of crutch that he uses to excuse away his responsibility for his people... But it's also not even that simple because he's also a raving egomaniac, and sad because he has suffered loss... then again get in line. 

He's still thinks and acts that he's in charge And is the scary kind of mentally ill person who doesn't see that they need many years of therapy instead of a hearty meal and a song from a Hobbit. He may actually give my favorite performance of the movie, and that saying a lot given the other actors I've mentioned above (not to mention Mortensen and Otto and of course McKellan).

Overall, The Lord of the Rings movies are so beautiful and creative not simply because the filmmakers understand what the author was going for, and to make it palatable for everyone, it's that the filmmakers (Jackson most of all as the Harryhausen nut) don't forget what they love about movie making and specifically all of the popular monsters and gnarly grandeur in fantasy. Like the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies, these are bigger than any one creator and yet they are loaded with personality and weird little asides and I just wanna own some of those Orc molds.

That's actually what I come away with loving most; I don't think I would ever necessarily say this is on the artistic level of, oh I don't know, the Bondarchuk Russian War and Peace movies from the 1960s for example. But they are comparable as far as a artist getting to execute their vision on the biggest canvas possible, and whatever compromises they might have had to make are not from nitpicky corporate interests.

On the other hand, like War and Peace, The Lord of the Rings is this mind bogglingly (often extremely violent and gruesome and emotionally manipulative) grand spectacle that manages to communicate so many ideas about how humans use all this military might to conquer others and how consistently ego and pride fuck things up... and in the face of love and kind ness and going above and beyond, so much can be fought back against (though not all). 

This is all to say.... I'd love an oral history how this became so totally embraced by the Hippies. This shit is dark!

Friday, January 12, 2024

Jan Troell's THE EMIGRANTS (1971)

 (Full director's cut via Criterion blu-ray)

One of the more fascinating and often miserable humanist epics I've ever encountered in all my years on God's green earth (not miserable in how one feels, just how so much goes so badly for the characters), with Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann always completely vulnerable and pained and courageous in their performances (courageous as far as going beyond what I imagine Jan Troell asked for in anguished hardship after anguished hardship for these peoeple). 

So, of course I loved it, though the first third when they're still in Sweden, and it takes some time to warm up to the supporting characters like the younger brother and his friend (almost like Swedish discount Hobbits to me), is not as quite as powerful and harrowing as the other two thirds... which isn't to say it isn't bloody bleak as it is!

What Troell emphasizes so strongly above all else is Realism, but it's still a Theatrical and sort of stylized realism. Real Naturalism wouldn't be so affecting and existentually a continual punch in the guts, and he didn't cast his film (save I assume for the children) with non-professionals as it isn't quite to the level of Neo Realism exactly, though it has the sensitivity and intimate attention to details of how to get by on this or that crust of bread or how this or that person can suddenly get sick and get close to (or just) Die. He has two of the towering furnaces of Acting Craft at his direction, and whether he took them as far or further than Ingmar Bergman did is hard to say, but he gets some of their most riveting, heartbreaking embodiments.

It's an Epic story, but what makes the Emigrants so unique is that Troell's camera and editing (the shot/cut hinself) makes faces and places, the nature all around them, all matter just as equally, and that one shouldn't overwhelm the other. This isnt to say Epics like this weren't being made a good deal in the 1970s - the other nominee for best picture (and winner) at the Oscars, the Godfather, is a prime example of the interior struggles and decisions of characters making for the "Epic" scope more than cinematographic prowrss - but in The Emigrants there's a sense that the people of these farms in rural Sweden can barely get by by the skin of their teeth in the best of times, and the series of unfortunate (at best) and crippling and devastating (at worst) leads them to have to leave.



He shows the cruelty of a place, and the ironic beauty of a place like the Atlantic Ocean, but it's not meant to inspire awe rather to make it completely (or mostly) uninspiring, like... oh, there's the ocean, there's the farm land that won't grow a damn thing, there's the cows that won't make milk anymore. And the God fearing part of it? It's almost like they can't not be in this environment: devastation and desolation, of the soul, of the family, of one's place in the world and universe, is always in Flux and at stake, just by nature of what can kill you via virus and poverty and sickness in the 19th century. No wonder Kristina breaks down and thinks she will die at one key point, I wouldn't last five minutes!

For the first third or so, I felt like Max von Sydow's Karl had more complexity or just more to do, but that's mostly because he had the conflict of "I keep having kids, I keep having a horrible situation with this farm, the people around me are either uncaring or desperate or full of rage or all the above" but he still is a decent and good hearted person, and meanwhile Liv Ullmann's Kristina is "don't blaspheme God, don't be mean to me, why do you say that about having another child" etc, and I was worried that, much as Ullmann was giving it 10010% as always and found the dignity and pain and the confounding mix of the two to play for her so well, it wasn't as deep a character as I'm used to seeing her get with Ingmar.

But then once it's on the ship and everything after, even (maybe more so) as she is in great pains and sickness and even contends with things like lice, it occurred to me, I'm dumb, Kristina is a great and complex character and it mostly took the story to take all the drastic turns for her to come to the fore as the most captivating person in all of this (and there are many). The Emigrants has a way like that in general of having so much room to breathe as a narrative, with the sort of sweep and time to get to know everyone on the minutae and humdrum aspects of daily life, that the film becomes more impactful as it goes along, as it has to.

This isn't always the case for me with immigrant stories; I liked, say, James Gray's the Immigrant or El Norte or to an extent Amrrica America, but they sometimes get held back by certain story turns or melodrama that didn't always land for me (or got so bleak as to be oppressive). The Emigrants is long, possibly too long in its full director's vision, with a couple of tangents I'm sure weren't missed that much on its shorter American release in the 70s, and yet I'm not sure what I would cut out if I were in a position of an editor. 

It's one of those times where plot doesn't matter so much as the depth of feeling you need with the characters, and after a while it's like the film is like getting to know a family (and on a personal level I've had experiences with immigrants in my life who just wanted to make good on what America promises at its shiniest and that struck me as honest about the film too).

And by the end of the film, there is, if just for a moment, peace and beauty in the nature shots and landscapes... for a moment, things seem like they could be okay.  Or as someone on Letterboxd said: it's Oregon Trail: the movie.

Sunday, December 24, 2023

A LETTER TO ELIA (2010) Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones Documentary


 









An important documentary on cinema and the ideals of how a radical push to something "New" in movies can make an impact on a person; if nothing else, it strikes me that this is rare as a white elk level mention by Scorsese of his older brother, who almost never comes up in conversation. It is in contexts that hit him as a teenager regarding the car scene in On the Waterfront and the repetance scene in East of Eden - and reading in between the thick-black lines it says to me things were... rough between them.

Anyway, Letter to Elia, which I've been meaning to see for years but has been unavailable outside of the giant Kazan box set with all of his films (a good box set by the way), is a quality tribute more than a documentary, and the (interesting) interview footage with Kazan himself you wish went on longer. Even as the director didn't make quite as many films as his contemporaries, you want to get deep into the thick of it with Face in the Crowd or Baby Doll (which he doesn't touch on at all, crazy), or oddly enough not much at all on his signature film (to me, even more than Waterfront), Streetcar.

But you're in class with Professor Marty and the value comes in the film scenes and how Scorsese analyzes just as he did with the Personal American Movies Journey doc and My Voyage to Italy and (to an extent) Val Lewton, and when that happens you sit up and pay attention regardless of how you feel about Kazan as a person (and Scorsese seems *kind* by calling what he did in HUAC as "self destructive" and leaving it at that). After all, Martin Scorsese talking about Cal trying and failing to give his dad the money in East of Eden is worth it alone!

Frankly, what Scorsese talks about in that specific case and right after - "thinking you've done something good and instead being told you've done something terrible without realizing it... most movies I'd seen didn't deal with private feelings like that... it felt like the people who made the movie knew me better than I knew myself... the brothers exhanging identities, it all became reall full life horror - no one's good, no one's bad, and I knew from experience it could happen like that," to an extent that's what I've felt at times with Scorsese's own films (or as he also puts it: you project onto a 'father's figure as him). So it was wonderful to see how the most personal has to hit you past the technique, as just... this is the voice.

So ok, not that comprehensive, but who cares when this acts as film history *and* in its way Film-as-Confession. Still don't love America America, though.

Monday, December 18, 2023

Pier Paolo Pasolini's THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST MATTHEW (1964)

 MERRY CHRISTMAS!  (or I should say Cristomas)

And... this largely lived up to the hype as a remarkable work of art.

Gospel According to St Matthew is so fulfilling and kind of in its (at times) unassuming presentation so awesome to experience from Pasolini as about Jesus Christ and his times that not only is he steeped in making this a full-bodied CINEMATIC experience of this man's life and teachings, writing with the camera much more than just working off of a script, but that it needs to be so rooted in the reality of people who live in the world of the poor and downtrodden so that the idea of understanding, the poetry of it and those faces, rings so strongly.

Look it, I don't believe in the God of Christianity or do the whole "Jesus is my savior" thing (us lapsed Jews have a thing about that), and I am closest to Agnostic. Yet personal belief doesnt matter to me so much with a film about a subject like this so long as a) the filmmaker doesn't rub my face in the muck of spectacle (I'm looking at you, Mel Gibson), or b) try to overpower me with spectacle. What matters to me is if the filmmaker can use ideas through technique, location, and empathy, and one need not to be a believer to feel something about what Jesus spoke of to mean lots of things. In fact, it takes a cinematic treatment precisely like this to make those teachings of be enlivened.




I think if you take much of what Jesus said, at least of what Pasolini presents here as a word for word translation of this part of the Bible, it is so much about seeking what is both good and in reality potentially good (will you be the rich man trying to get into Heaven? Fat chance, pal). 

It is about the message of simple while not being so simple (or I should say not dumbed down for an audience like in a Sunday School presentation); compassionate while also not acquiesing to the structures of power (hence the whole, you know, "sword" talk); and that at the core if you have real love for humanity, for those that do and even dont deserve your love and compassion, and don't take for granted the time you have on this plane of existence then you'll not be taken for granted yourself (and that's putting aside the, you know, heaven business).

But all those messages are redeemed by the frank style; this is stripped down to not be this bombastic spectacle, and while all in Italian the atmosphere feels closest to what raw and unfettered existence it might have been like at the time of Jesus and his group's existence. That sounds like it could potentially be drab, but that's far from the case.

Thanks to Tonino Delli Coli's precise camerawork, Irazoqui's laser focus through mostly his eyes but also his soft and equally ferocious voice, it is breathtaking to watch many times - even when it's operated and presented in hand-held, in some moments like a documentary crew was there listening in on his speeches, there are many others like when Jesus delivers the "thy kingdom come... lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil" trip, something about how he is lit and framed, how this man Irazoqui plucked from a college and made to be Pasolini's 'Cristo,' gives this figure grandeur but never with prevention - and this performer is surrounded by scores of unique, unvarnished, working-class, young and old, faces. Souls.

These are not faces most other filmmakers of Pasolini's time or I'd wager even years before with the core Neo Realists like Rossellini would consider for any film, and that's what makes it extraordinary to me. They're locked in like us into a world that is unkind and rocky and rough and dry as a desert, and there's no escape into the fantasy that so many movies usually give us. Even Last Temptation of Christ, which is still for me the more substantial and unique and formally daring of films about this person and idea of this person as a character, still shows us Actors from an industry and faces we recognize somewhat. Pasolini gives no such recognition; he's saying through these scenes of Jesus and his apostles meeting and talking with the citizens of his world *this is it.*

Dont avert your eyes. And thus the miraculous Walking on Water moments are no less "real" in feeling than those parts where he is among others or in the villages. Jesus is a guy who is too focused on saying his Word to pluck that unibrow to do much else. In other words, this is serious as a heart attack, but it's not a dry sermon or something that is Eating Your Vegetables homework. It's a rousing intimate epic because it prioritizes how an "Average" person living off the land is not so Average, he or she is worth much more than that. Yes, there are many shots showing Jesus talking and preaching to the masses, but more often he shows those people listening to him, surrounding him, filling out the frame around him and surrounded by those real locations and structures.







Gospel According to St Matthew is forceful and, sure, didactic, but alwayd wonderful because it is a radical film (shot with clarity and poetry hand in hand), made by a Radical about a Radical... and so what if not everything he says you or I believe in? What matters is that the film stays true to the subject and is as passionate as it is honest about the point of view. 

And when the film branches out from Jesus to cover, say, the saga of John the Baptist, notice how Pasolini builds up a scene like with those wealthy women and the girl who says so deadpan (I am paraphrasing) "bring me his head on a platter." These are also shot more locked down while those with Jesus and the disciples are more immediate and in-your-face. This is before it became a "style" choice or affectation.

I could go on, but you should just go watch it, preferably in its new 4K restoration via Criterion channel. It's pure.




Sunday, December 10, 2023

Erich von Stroheim's FOOLISH WIVES











Firstly.... As much as I can always dig and be completely absorbed and entertained by a committedly melodramatic and beautifully ironic (without being that comic) Con-Man story like this one with Erich von Steoheim as the "Count," a fake aristocrat posing to get money off of a diplomats wife and the ups and downs he has in getting closer to her in the backdrop of Monte Carlo - and Stroheim himself as a performer understands what vicarious thrill an audience has not only in seeing him get very deep into this debonair POS but that he is going to go further into being a total scoundrel in his attempts to seduce and get closer to this wife (sometimes with her not being awake for his advances!) - there is one curious element about it to

There is a book in this world titled "Foolish Wives" written by none other than... Erich von Stroheim, and when we are shown a page of this book, it is a section admonishing uncultured Americans in comparison to Europeans and caring little for decorum in their practices of commerce. And.... it is just a very odd thing for von Stroheim to do, frankly kind of distracting. Like, imagine if in, I dunno, Paper Moon the characters were sitting around at one point reading a book called "Paper Moon" written by Peter Bogndanovich. It'd be a little batty!

Anyway, as for the rest of Foolish Wives it is moment to moment a film directed with a sensitivity to nuances in behavior and how what we know of what this man is capable of (and the couple other ladies who really know him and want in on the money potentially at hand) was surely ahead of its time, whether that was due to von Stroheim as an actor himself knowing how to milk every moment and drawn out piece of self-created theater from this character (his suave air and severe manner can be two sides of a coin, and eventually the begging) and his cast, not least of which Miss Dupont as the Naive and lovable mark err wife Mrs Hughes, but also others like the old lady at the Inn or the one maid who is on pins and needles about when this suave Russian Count will marry her, or that he knew what was going on in theater with the early Method and tapped into that.

It's also difficult to fully appreciate what is going on in the entire scope of the film's story because it is a truncated and cut-into work; to Stroheim/the studio's credit, you actually don't *quite* notice compromises until that scene with the Count and the desperate Maid as she begs him to marry (once he has the black armband on his uniform is the visual cue), but it's clear a lot of time has passed with reels missing, and one is not fully lose solely because of the framing snd context of this "Count" being a ruthlessness crook who may be going so deep into his Con he won't be able to get out so easily.

And yet, despite some jumps in the story, I am still enamored in the exquisite attention to details on screen in Foolish Wices, how vast Monte Carlo looks and set pieces like the casino games, while the filmmaker doesn't lose sight of this being about how such a setting was, and still probably would be today, ripe and rife for exploitation of trusts in the world of the upper crust and well to do; what's remarkable is how you do feel for Mrs Hughes all the more as the story goes on, part of that from Dupont playing her as someone more vulnerable and sweet natured (but not so that we necessarily want her to go down, at least the whole time) - and even with Sergius, even as he is so cruel and conniving you still sense his humanity in there, somewhere.

It's a richly drawn and textured crime melodrama where tragedy is just around every corner - and one helluva twist in the last act.