Papa Mike's Video DOUBLE FEATURE (24/25): FIEND WITHOUT A FACE and TWO ENGLISH GIRLS

How about two films that have practically nothing in common (well, I suppose they both have some English actors, that's about it), except that they are part of my father in-law's video collection and I'm watching and reviewing them:

Fiend without a Face looks to be somewhat decent if basic 50's nuclear-age militaristic-leaning science fiction (gotta make sure that radar can cover those Russians!)  However, the horror of it though, the kill set pieces, are fairly intense for the time (it even spurred on controversy in Parliament in the UK of all places) and consistently effective. 

Where it gets to be even more engrossing is once the aged professor finally reveals what he's been up to in his secret lab, and it's a fantastic explanation of a process that feels closer to an EC Comic.  And once you finally get to that brain, if it is still cheesy it's forgiven for how well the filmmakers use sound design, stop motion animation (especially the animation, man it's so gloriously violent) and creative compositions to amplify the creepiness.  Indeed the last 25 minutes or so is pretty badass overall.

In short, God bless Criterion.

For as much as I sometimes (mistakenly but not without some reason) look at Truffaut and, how do I put this, I don't not take him seriously as a major artist but his works often feel rather light when compared to some of his contemporaries, I can forget how potent he could depict real ache and heartbreak and longing that people get for others (or in another less complex word, attachment). 

Two English Girls is the second adaptation Truffaut made from the author of Jules and Jim, and if it isn't quite so exceptional as that (Jeanne Moreau and the effervescent and energetic, wonderfully inspired cinematography elevated that to maybe his greatest work), this is nonetheless a fully rewarding emotional experience that means to to and succeeds in taking us on a long-winding journey.  It takes its time to set up Claude and these two women, Muriel and Anne, not to mention the (not uncommon for Truffaut) very, um, 'literate' narration style (it also connects it to Jules and Jim, but is even more literal at points to what we're being shown).

Jean Pierre Leaud first tried the move that Kramer would later do with George's mother on Seinfeld

 But once Truffaut finds the right groove and especially by the middle - once Claude and Muriel are separated (the "Give it a Year" thing that used to happen when I assume the young were a little too quick to elope) and Anne comes into the picture - it has the effect of working like a sad but very potent love song; Truffaut's "Love Hurts" could be another way to phrase it.  And once Anne really comes in to the picture, it becomes even more complicated.  Even the narration adds to this feeling (ie when after Claude first makes a move on Anne in her studio, the voice mentions how Claude will go to get an island for them, and it's like... Okay then!)

Also, while I may prefer the cinematography overall in J&J, I have to also note that there is much to admire in how this is shot - Nestor Almendros hits the spot again - especially when the camera has this sweep across locales, or certain moments feel like a painting in composition (fitting for art being what some of these characters are into).  Lastly, Delerue's score fills one with sorrow almost from the start.  I don't know where I would tank this in his oeuvre, yet it is one of this filmmaker's most significant as far as execution and pathos.  It's actually kind of devastating in a different way than J&J - it's made by a director who is a little more mature, if edging toward austere.

(PS: I in part finally pulled this off the shelf after watching a Q&A with Greta Gerwig and how she took the Talking-of-the-Diary parts for Little Women from this film.)

Papa Mike's Video #23: THE LATE SHOW starring Art Carney

Not to be confused with a story set in TV, this is writer-Director Robert Benton digging into fairly hard-boiled but also idiosyncratic and lightly comic neo-noir, with a plot that kicks off with a dead body and a search for a cat, which is a strange combination that could only come off like this - much less from a major studio like Earners - in the mid 1970s (via Altman too, who I'll get to shortly).  And boy, Art Carney could perform a badass with a hardened but true heart of gold and a bad gut like nobody's business! This may be his high water mark as an actor.  

As I should have expected, the plot has some crafty twists and turns, but it's not what makes The Late Show stand out 40 some odd years later. Altman, who tried briefly to branch out from directing (though was asked originally to direct) just produced, but it's clearly his cup of tea of what he'd like to see. and thankfully wants us to get to see (via Benton): this is really about the quick-and-equally-not-enough wits of people in tight criminal situations, and how interactions involve saying just as much too much (Lily Tomlin, who grew on me as the story went on) and/or not enough. 

 It may seem slight but it actually is about something, which is vulnerability. And not to mention it also gives some excellent time for character actors like Bill Macy as Ira's once-and-always flunkie partner Charlie and Joanna Cassidy as the cuckolding wife of the bad guy.   I almost come close to thinking this might lean too heavily on it being a self-conscious noir homage, from the music to the final expository explanation from our hardened gumshoe.  But again, ultimately and luckily, original behavior prevails as the dominating force - and I simply enjoyed seeing Carney and Tomlin playing off each other, where it's not about romance or even a paternalistic thing, but where a self-imposed loner makes an unlikely friend.

Papa Mike's Video #22: Andrzej Wajda's KANAL (1957)

The first half of Kanal which is above ground in war-tarnished 1944 Warsaw (set almost two months into their uprising), and one helluva tracking shot early on introducing our main characters, is very very good and has its share of brutal moments while setting up some important characters... When it goes into the second half, when this beleaguered platoon goes into a gas-riddled sewer to try to stay alive, it becomes a stunning, harrowingly depicted saga of survival. It overall isn't quite as great, but everything in the sewers can stand on the same level of Ashes and Diamonds. 

Even if you know nothing about WW2 or what Poland's situation was by this point (I frankly know only a little, which is they were struggling to not be completely obliterated by the Germans, even this late into the war), it still packs a steady series of punches to the gut as far as Wajda keeping this graphic, horror-movie level of intensity with his direction of everyone in these tight locations. It's not even about an enemy as a person so much as danger from massive flooding water and the gas. 

Kinda looks like Polish Dean Stockwell a little, no? 

Kanal is a grimy, dark and sorrowful tale that has as its credibility the word of its makers - the writer Stefan Jerzy Stawinski and Wajda fought in the resistance and some/a lot if their experiences are worked into the story. On top of this, the actor Janczar, who plays Jacek (he is an other presence that connects to A Generation), along with several others, convey despair and fear and yet sometimes some slivers of hope very convincingly; watch when Wanda pushes in on the musician who plays the instrument thinking he can get someone else to hear him... Maybe it isn't hope but just a prayer for something else that isn't... What is everything about this hell of a place. 

Matter of fact, the sewers *are* another character, as one can say, as a metaphor for something like a horrible no-good wretched war (or entering any pit of chaos) that seems endless and without anything human. And yet despite this, it's not an unpleasant experience watching Kanal, on the contrary Wajda means to enthrall his audience and it brings everyone in that sewer, usually with their petty squabbles, together. 

But make no mistake: this shit's bleak, like almost Come and See level.

Papa Mike's Video #21: Andrzej Wajda's A GENERATION (1955)

I watched and absolutely loved and was blown away by the power of Ashes of Diamonds several years ago, but for some reason I can't fathom now never got around to the other two parts of Andrzek Wajda's "War Trilogy" (one of those like Bergman's "Silence of God" triptych that is more about theme and ideas than a running story).  Luckily, of all people, Bill Hader in a few interviews in the past couple of years spoke very highly on Wajda and especially on these films, so I thought it was time to see this and Kanal.  I'm very glad I did.  

What stands out so patently and vividly here in A Generation is how Wajda uses a consistently moving camera to add another level on to what the film is speaking to.  This is set around 1942 during world war 2, after the Nazis have already ravaged the place (sometimes bodies of supposed traitors hang in the street square for the townspeople to see), and Warsaw looks as bad as you might think it does.  In this backdrop, a young man named Stach tries to get by and finds work as an apprentice, but soon realizes his worth is marginalized by his boss.  He's persuaded to join the Underground - which is Communist but about more than just that, fighting Fascism and Nazism - and meets a young woman in the group. 

What I mean by Wadja using his medium to great effect can be seen simply in one scene where the young man goes to his first People's group meeting; the young woman speaks about how workers need to organize and do this and that in these times, and Wajda tracks a cigarette being passed from one man to the next.  It's not the longest shot of the film or even the most complex (the opening shot may be that), but it brings cinematic language to the forefront.  We have what the woman is saying in audio, and (not but, and) what we are seeing makes the theme clear and even explicit: we can share a cigarette, or share other things like material possessions but also ideals, while being engaged in what matters.  This is on top of his expressive use of close-ups throughout, often emphasizing these actors looks of equal points of hope and desperation, fear and determination.

And yet, this active and alert mis en scene doesn't detract from the realism (one could even say Neo-Realism) of the time and place it's set in; this is looked at as a major point of entry to the "New" Polish cinema of the time, but it could also play on a double feature with Rome, Open City.  How can one fight oppression?  Easier said than done, and especially when guns are in one's face.  And all the while, Wajda makes one feel like you're there in this war-tattered place (I assume this was when Warsaw had most of the physical scars left over from the war) with these workers who only have so many options to survive and want/deserve better for themselves.  And like Rossellini's film, too, there are moments of shocking and brutal violence.  It should be.

One might say what dates it somewhat is that it was made under Communist rules and regulations, that it may even be propaganda.  I don't think I see it so much it only because Wadja makes it more about how one feels in this world (look at the use or narration, or how kids on a merry go-round in the foreground is contrasted with smoke from a burning Ghetto in the background), so it's more of a poetic expression of the ideas, and how such struggles with a young People's Group can falter.  If there's any minor criticism it's that the episodic structure means it isn't always so tight a narrative, but this isn't a major knock against what is so great here.  

(And yes, that is a young Polanski)

Papa Mike's Video #20: Dalton Trumbo's JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN

"DARKNESS
IMPRISONING ME
ALL THAT I SEE
ABSOLUTE HORROR
I CANNOT LIVE
I CANNOT DIE
TRAPPED IN MYSELF
BODY MY HOLDING CELL"

Without getting too much in depth, this is a very good and occasionally moving - and for the time probably as good and moving as imaginable - adaptation of a masterwork of first person surreal-satirical narration and about what communication really means. The black and white scenes with our beleaguered but positive hero Joe are the sections where it feels the most compelling and where Trumbo finds a balance with his literary technique and visual style... 

Though I can't help but wonder if it would have gone beyond into another impressionistic or consciousness-expanding scope if Bunuel had it (I also wonder if Lynch saw this - how Joe trashes and moves in stunning black and white makes me think of the baby from Eraserhead - and I bet he would have nailed it too). The color scenes have their moments and Robards is solid (and Sutherland is... Not quite as weird as he was in Little Murders the same year, actually), but some of the acting and even Writing is stiff. 

I read the book a few years back and I wonder if Id have responded more seeing it closer to when I finished it. Johnny Got His Gun is captivating, sometimes deeply felt, and never boring, but something is missing here to make it a full story of the human spitit. Come to think of it, it is ultimately about the failure of it. 

(Oh, and the Metallica music video for "One" is the greatest thing this could have happened to the film.  It's iconic now.)

"S.O.S. Help Me."