In the past few days, I've seen a few more movies I wanted to discuss, but none would have done well to have lengthy dissertations of sorts, so I'm going to run through each of them here, with one exception, which you'll find out about above. I feel like this may be how the series continues; some movies are going to constitute lengthy pieces, while some just aren't. This isn't to say that any of the movies I'm about to talk about are bad, or didn't work for me on some level (though one of them...well, didn't work for me a lot); it's just that some movies inspire a lot, and some don't. Read on, then...
Black Orpheus (Directed by Marcel Camus): This Oscar-winning film from Brazil is a fascinating look at what Carnival looks at, up close and personal. It's also a unique retelling of the myth of Orpheus and Euripides, two star-crossed lovers who end up...well, how many star-crossed lovers do you remember making it out alive? Yes, as with most myths, it's a tragic tale, and I always find myself resisting movies where the characters live in the modern day, but act out stories of old, which inherently require them to act unlike modern people (this is just about the only reason why I couldn't stand A Serious Man). That said, the soundtrack is infectious, the imagery is striking, and the final 30 minutes do their damnedest to evoke sympathy and tragedy.
The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Directed by Peter Yates): Having heard quite a lot about this movie finally getting its due on the Criterion Collection, along with the tantalizing prospect of Robert Mitchum as the title character, I checked this movie out during the week. A few things fascinated me: first, that the movie evoked The Wire more than anything else. Obviously, one came first, but in watching this movie, which is ostensibly about what happens when a low-rent criminal attempts to turn into an informant so he won't go to jail, I was compelled to notice that so much of the movie is about side characters, or sequences meant to build tension while also informing the audience what these characters go through in their daily lives. Mitchum is excellent, if low-key (and oddly reminiscent of Bill Murray), but Peter Boyle and Richard Jordan deliver equally impressive supporting turns.
Shane (Directed by George Stevens): I'm not sure if it's that I don't like Westerns in general, but there's something about this movie that didn't work for me. Obviously, one of the statements the film is making is about what it means to be a man. How do you prove your manhood? Are you more or less manly by not fighting someone, even if that someone deserves a big punch in the face? The theme is fine; however, there's just something a bit too slow-moving about Shane, despite the notable and menacing supporting turn from Jack Palance, and Alan Ladd's unwavering stolid nature, even in the face of violent ranchers. Still, the subtle romantic subplot would work more if the characters were more resonant, or even felt more three-dimensional. The cinematography is excellent, though; my issue, as it is with most movies, comes with the script.
Ordinary People (Directed by Robert Redford): So this is the movie that beat Raging Bull 30 years ago. It's hard not to watch this movie without that mindset, and I admit to going in thinking bad things about the family drama focusing on a teenager trying to absolve himself of guilt because his older, more popular brother died in an accident. And here's what: this is a good movie. But it's not better than Raging Bull. That said, it's more than obvious why the Academy awarded one movie and not the other; as with another movie that beat out Martin Scorsese, the Academy loves when its most famous actors direct, and do so well. You could watch Ordinary People and not figure that Robert Redford directed, because there is no style. It's well-made, but not uniquely so. Some of the great directors have a stamp; you know you're watching a Spielberg movie, a Hitchcock movie, a Kurosawa movie, a Powell-Pressburger movie, and so on. You don't know you're watching a Redford movie. Not a terrible thing, but not worth awarding. Also worth pointing out: the one truly great performance, from Donald Sutherland, didn't even get an Oscar nomination. Give me a break, Academy.
The Manchurian Candidate (Directed by John Frankenheimer): This was easily the most chilling film of the final three, all of which I TiVoed from Turner Classic Movies, the movie that made the most impact. Based on the novel, and later remade (into a decent film, by the way), this movie still resonates. Could Angela Lansbury's conniving wife be any political figure of recent memory? It's hard not to watch the Red Scare being brought up and not think of people like Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, people who could easily echo the dialogue and not with any irony. The world has always been a scary place, and politics is dominated by the people who will make it scarier. All of the performances, especially Lansbury and Laurence Harvey, are great; the best sequence does come early on, when the unit of soldiers lead by Frank Sinatra are captured by the evil scientists who brainwash them into thinking they're sitting in on a local meeting of old women talking about flowers. Still, this is (I know, big shock) a great film.
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