by Dean | Aug 14, 2019 | General
Centered on the characters of Krystyna, Stefan, Bruno and Rachel, the novel Polonaise, by Piers Paul Read, concerns Polish people from decades past who join, and eventually depart from, the Communist movement. One of the book’s themes is nihilism. Another is the way Life overwhelms Ideology, or at least forces it to take a back seat. It is a compelling read which nevertheless mildly disappointed me with its final standard anti-nihilistic philosophy—a not very fresh summation.
All the same, the book is wonderfully intelligent. It is interesting to see it go from being a depiction of political sweat and commitment to being a chaste drawing room drama before it gets its hands dirty again. And, ineluctably, Read is disinclined to ignore sex—significant but no source of salvation—but is never sensationalistic.
by Dean | Aug 11, 2019 | General
In Martin Scorsese’s 1973 film, the mean streets of Little Italy remain mean because they are far removed from such spiritual values as repentance and stillness—and, in the case of Robert De Niro’s Johnny Boy, from honor. Charlie (Harvey Keitel), the levelheaded lost soul raised a Catholic, knows all this.
It’s all too bad, however, that Mean Streets is an arty dud. Constantly it is unbelievable as it moves desultorily to some loud, inept drama in its last 15 minutes. I admit that the film captures the free-floating absurdity and madness in the urban characters’ lives, but that’s its only contribution to cinematic art. It doesn’t help that De Niro looks like a homely beatnik.
Cover of Mean Streets
by Dean | Aug 7, 2019 | General
I disesteem Elvis Presley‘s charmless and shallow acting in Flaming Star (1960), but the movie manages to be one of the better Westerns of the Sixties. With the help of Nunnally Johnson, Clair Huffaker scripted her own, probably not boring novel, and it was shot effectively for Cinemascope by Don Siegel.
Presley plays a half-white, half-Kiowa young man. Chief Buffalo Horn (Roldolpho Acosta) is vexed by the white man’s land expansion and fears for the Kiowas’ survival. The whites react to Indian violence with obtuseness and hardheartedness, but the film does not side with the Kiowas. It mostly sides with Pacer (Presley) and his white relatives, justifiably sympathetic to the half breed when he joins the harsh Indians for battle. See the movie to find out what flaming star means.
The flick is unpretty-looking without rawness, and the action scenes are bluntly, thrillingly done; good for 1960. Star isn’t dated, though; it’s nearly as watchable, I bet, as it was on Cinemascope. And it has a thoughtful screenplay.
by Dean | Aug 5, 2019 | General
Not long ago I dissed the song “Better Now” by Post Malone. I listened to it again, and it’s better now. That is, the song is a bit better than I thought. I still don’t think it’s melodically meritorious but that doesn’t mean it has a bad sound. This despite the lousy grammar in the unimportant lyrics.
For a perfect contemporary pop song, there’s the Carly Rae Jepsen album cut, “I’ll Be Your Girl,” a catchy little moral drama if there ever was one. The music is speedy, the words finely wrought, and Jepsen’s voice that of a smart undergrad. It’s too good for corporatized radio.
by Dean | Jul 30, 2019 | General
I did not like the Hal Hartley films Henry Fool and Fay Grim, but the third one in the director’s trilogy—Ned Rifle (2014)—is something else again. It’s a characteristically oddball intellectual comedy about a young Christian, Ned Rifle (Liam Aiken), who is confused enough to want to kill his repelling father (Thomas Jay Ryan) for ruining his imprisoned mother’s life. Not romantically Ned takes up with Susan (Aubrey Plaza) who, unknown to Ned, was once the victim of his father’s, Henry Fool’s, statutory rape. Susan is aware of this too.
It seems we may infer from this movie that the twenty-first century is no different from any other century in that it is one of sin and one of enlightened religious self-interest, and religious commitment. The century inevitably serves up America the saved and America the damned, as it were; and it is sometimes challenging to tell one from the other.
This is probably Hartley’s best picture, despite more striking characters in some of those earlier films (e.g. Trust). But Ned Rifle is just as piercing and palatable as the early stuff, and its black-comic plot is free of the artist’s past adolescent jolts.
by Dean | Jul 24, 2019 | General
Having little character exploration, Rawhide (1951)—the movie—is nevertheless a good one about criminal men. It wasn’t meant to be The Wild Bunch, though, and so it offers a hero in Tyrone Powers‘s Tom and, in fact, a heroine in Susan Hayward’s saucy Vinnie. For good measure, Henry Hathaway’s film is one of the best I know about the holding of hostages: Tom and Vinnie need to free themselves and Vinnie’s toddler niece from a pack of fugitive thieves. One of them, smart Rafe Zimmerman, seems like a gentleman but isn’t (Who are you, Zimmerman? Tom demands). He will eliminate witnesses.
Hathaway’s directing is impeccable, with concentrated action in the frames and expert camera placement. He gets real Westerner prowess from his actors—notable performances by Hayward, Hugh Marlowe (Zimmerman) and Jack Elam. Dudley Nichols wrought what is apparently an original script, and it’s the kind of entertainment piece that makes you want to see the writer’s talent in other movies.
