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)