Sight and Sound (2002) Greatest Films Club - Page 34

Lew Crippen · 09-24-2003, 06:02 PM

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In a Marx Bros movie, it's understood that surreal and unrealistic things are going to happen. It's just the type of comedy it is. Eve is not a surrealist comedy. Sturges is asking me to believe that this otherwise normal, seemingly intelligent and educated person wouldn't figure it out. Sturges is a moron. When he needs us to believe something, he makes no effect to sell it. He just throws it out there and expects us to buy it, because hey, it's Hollywood and movies are magic blah blah blah.

Here we disagree Martin. We all agree that in a Marx Brothers movie certain things will happen that are not realistic—indeed they are surrealistic.

By the time Sturges was making his films (sort of the end of the screwball era and the beginning of the romantic comedy era) the screwball conventions were fully established—and this included the hapless young man and the fast-talking dame. For example Jimmy Stewart in The Philadelphia Story is so clueless he has no idea which girl is in love with him and so hapless that he just accepts the inevitable. And he represents the smart guy in the film—a world-weary, cynical reporter. In Bringing Up Baby Cary Grant is a leading paleontologist in New York (I’ve read that there is a certain amount of sophistication in New York) and is completely unable to cope with Katherine Hepburn, a rich, spoiled socialite and the epitome of a fast-talking dame.

No one believes any of this in either of these films for a moment. Any more than they believe that all of the rich people that populate these films are as generally stupid as portrayed (though to be sure in many, such as The Lady Eve, there is someone like Horace Pike, who is merely long-suffering, not stupid). But of course with the understanding that these films were made during the depression or with the depression as a background (look at My Man Godfrey and Sullivan’s Travels for direct examples), it is not at all surprising that the rich were portrayed as twits in mass entertainment.

In short, I don’t expect to change your mind about liking this film, but I do think that your reasoning is incorrect.

Dome Vongvises · 09-24-2003, 11:51 PM

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And since you bring it up Dome, I’d put this so far above Star Wars the even Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon could never catch up.

Wish me luck on my two tests tomorrow. I can get back to watching movies finally afterwards.

Brook K · 09-25-2003, 02:16 AM

Good luck Domester. Pass your tests and get back to movies. I wish I'd been into film when I was in college, I could have seen so much...then again, movies would have seriously cut into my Sega time.

I know this is a tit-for-tat excercise since you call Sturges a moron while I think his nickname "The Genius" is as fitting as The Sultan of Swat, but...

George and Martha...I've seen the movie but all I could think of was Washington or Plimpton

I"m TERRIBLE with movie character names (and names in real life too), often I can't even remember names of characters in movies I love and have seen multiple times. off hand I couldn't tell you Ruby Keeler's name in 42nd Street and I've seen that movie 10 times or more.

Bottom line these are movies, time is compressed, blah blah, a zillion couples in a zillion movies have fallen in love at the drop of a hat. But I've continued to think about this some more. There is an explanation. Each possess qualities not present in the other person. Hopsy is attracted to her wit, sophistication, and beauty "you're an awfully funny kind of girl for a guy to meet who's been up the Amazon for a year". While she is attracted to his innocence, his naivete. Something she lost a very long time ago.

Stanwyck's performance is just incredible here, convincing without words. Watch how her face glows and her eyes shine during the various love scenes. Yes she starts out making fun of him, she's on the grift, but on the couch Cupid's arrow strikes, and while she hooked Hopsy, she got hooked on him as well.

Actually he does pause and let her speak, but she's so hurt at the accusation and stunned that her dream is falling apart that she doesn't offer an explanation simply saying "the good ones aren't as good as you think they are, and the bad ones aren't as bad, not by a longshot" and then she walks off and leaves him at the bar. She thinks his mind is already made up and he won't understand no matter what she says. They each make mistakes. Sure each could have handled it better, but logic and feelings don't always mix. Maybe if your S.O. hurts your feelings you always give them a chance to explain, me, I'm more of a walk away and leave me alone kind of guy. And I've been married 8 years and still do it even though I know its the wrong thing to do, my instinctual reaction is to flee.

Two things, #1, you seem to be expecting logical reactions from emotional situations, and #2, as Lew aludes to, we have genre conventions that Sturges is adhering to. An adjunct to screwball is the "comedy of remarriage" - you get the characters together, then break them up, then get them back together again at the end. And the plot is hung around that concept - Now The Lady Eve is a variation, since the characters aren't actually married as they are in The Palm Beach Story or divorced as in His Girl Friday or The Philadelphia Story, but the basic concept is the same.

Again on the gag, Sturges does offer an explanation. Demarest is sure its her, but Hopsy says it couldn't be precisely because it looks like her. Something like "if it really was her, she would have disguised herself". There's also the conjecture that I believe Laura Mulvey makes in her commentary that perhaps he really does know its her and simply wants to be fooled because he still loves her.

Huh? lots of movies make fun of the conventions of the time they were shot in but it doesn't mean they still aren't relevant or entertaining. For instance Ikiru (and The Bad Sleep Well) is a virulent attack on the Japanese bureaucracy of the time, but also completely relevant to today's society, which obviously Kurosawa had no real way of foreseeing. Hopsy's reaction is stuffy and narrow-minded, because on one level, he IS stuffy and narrow-minded, having lived a sheltered life of privilege. But really even now one doesn't necessarily aspire to have an S.O. with vast amounts of sexual experience. Taken to a different comedic extreme because they are different writers and because this was the 40's rather than the 90's, but is Hopsy's reaction to Eve that far off from Dante's 36 dicks?!! in Clerks or even closer to that of Holden to Fingercuffs in Chasing Amy? Holden also jettisons his great love over a past sexual exploit and that was 1997.

Got to get some sleep, I feel a song coming on If they asked me, I could write a book....

Eve isn't even my favorite Sturges movie, how much will I write when you lay into Sullivan's Travels?

The Bad Sleep Well is terrific btw. Great looking print and seeing that wide Tohoscope image on a big screen is a rare treat. Criterion, your Kurosawa assignment for 2004 is DVD's of Ikiru, Stray Dog, The Bad Sleep Well, and Record of a Living Being.

MartinTeller · 09-25-2003, 10:39 AM

Well, I don't want to belabor the issue. I'm just saying it didn't work at all for me. Sure, he says "you're an awfully funny kind of girl for a guy to meet who's been up the Amazon for a year" ... but the same could be said for any of the ladies trying to catch his attention on the boat. And you may say "she is attracted to his innocence, his naivete", that isn't shown in the movie. I can dream up reasons for them to fall in love, too, but it's the movie's job to show me.

That isn't even the major problem for me. It really doesn't matter if or why or how much the characters love each other, because I don't like either of them. Yes, Hopsy's shortcomings (sulkiness, stuffiness, stupidity) are understandable and forgivable... but he seems to have no good qualities to redeem his bad ones. Jean/Eve fares slightly better, but in the end I find her deviousness and manipulation to be character flaws that are too great to ignore.

And lastly, if the movie made me laugh, I'd be more forgiving. But it's apparently not my kind of humor, and I'm afraid there's nothing to be done about that. It's just my taste.

I apologize for the "Sturges is a moron" comment. I'm far too inexperienced with his work to judge.

Brook K · 09-25-2003, 02:41 PM

No problem Martin, I was doing some belaboring myself.

As we both have said, bottom line if a comedy isn't funny to a viewer, it isn't going to work for them no matter what else is going on onscreen.

I didn't think I would convince you of anything, but I've heard comments like yours before and wanted to get a more positive take on the film out there to give future viewers "the other side".

Planning on seeing La Jetee tonight so I'll actually have a review to contribute. Time to climb back on the brontosaurus and get to work.

Lew Crippen · 09-25-2003, 04:04 PM

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Wish me luck on my two tests tomorrow. I can get back to watching movies finally afterwards.

Good luck and return safely.

Brook K · 09-26-2003, 02:15 AM

#219 is La Jetee, Chris Marker's short film (27m) that would later serve as the influence for Twelve Monkeys is a bold and powerful experiment in filmed storytelling.

It tells the story of a man describing a memory he experienced on a dock at the French seaside, right before the beginning of World War III and the destruction of Earth. The survivors live underground and we are told scientists have begun to conduct strange experiments, trying to send people forward or backward in time in a search for food, medicine, or anything to aid their survival. The experiments fail because the subjects either die or are driving insane by the experience, until our protagonist is discovered. Haunted by an image from his past, he has an anchor that allows him to survive and function after the trip across time. His experiences and journey through time and memory form the basis for the remainder of the film.

Rather than filming actors or events, La Jetee is composed of still photographs and the story is chiefly told through these images and the words of a narrator, though we also hear whispers of dialogue in French and German that are left untranslated in the edition I saw. The use of stills is integral to the theme of the film - the way that an image or photograph sends a viewer on their own personal journey into past memory and future dreams.

As the film continues it delves into ideas about love and death, reality and fantasy, and some of the "time travel dilemmas" that are inherent when a writer chooses to include time in their story. The protagonist, himself becomes lost in his isolation as he begins to wonder if his experiences are reality, dreams, or the results of scientific experiments.

The narrative depth of La Jetee enables a viewer to experience the film on whatever level they choose - from a sci-fi what-if? genre piece to a philosophical film about memory and time to an indictment of humanity's abuse of the Earth's gifts. Highly recommended.

Kirk Tsai · 09-26-2003, 08:21 AM

Movies that offer too much psychoanalysis or motivation for crimes are suspect. That can't be said of Badlands (148). Terrence Malick's film offers no explaination for Kit's (Sheen) trigger happy tendencies, and it's all the better for it. Coupled with Spacek's narration and Malick's beautiful images, the result is a hypnotic and surprisingly tough film. If one were to look for characters to "like" in this film, then he would come away disappointed.

This emotional distance might be the best way to tell such a story. I've always felt the sensationalistic treatments of Bonnie and Clyde or Stone's Natural Brown Killers try to have it both ways: that they want us to identify with the criminals, and still condemn them. Even Godard in the finale of the self-conscious Breathless offers tremendous showmenship when Michel runs and runs.....and runs. Malick does not romanticize, and it's both more truthful and frightening; this bored killer could be any one of us.

Lew Crippen · 09-27-2003, 03:49 PM

Days of Heaven, like Badlands is an emotional tale told with restraint. And the cinematrography is perhaps even more striking than in Malick’s debut film.

Enigmatic and poignant, this is a must-see film, but not necessarily one that will (or was intended to) please everyone.

MartinTeller · 09-27-2003, 08:41 PM

There are two types of Kubrick films for me... those that I like, and those that I love. Barry Lyndon belongs to the former. It reminds me a bit of Full Metal Jacket, in that the first half is far more interesting, and entertaining, than the second. Which is not to say that I didn't enjoy the second half. I was interested throughout the film and don't at all agree with complaints that BL is "boring". Nonetheless, as technically and artistically masterful as it is, it lacks the potency and staying power of Kubrick's more daring works.

I've now seen (and own) every Kubrick film except Spartacus and Killer's Kiss. I would rank them thusly:

Love
2001: A Space Odyssey
A Clockwork Orange
Paths of Glory
Dr. Strangelove
The Shining

Like
Lolita
Barry Lyndon
Eyes Wide Shut
The Killing
Full Metal Jacket