March 2020

KIRK DOUGLAS and MAX VON SYDOW

    No doubt it’s a stretch to put these two iconic actors in the same entry, but, other than dying within weeks of each other, they were among the last of the major cinema figures from the 1950s still working in the new century.

    In the post war era, each played an important role in the quickly changing movie landscape, with Max von Sydow, as Ingmar Bergman’s alter-ego, becoming one of the faces of the growing popularity of sub-titled foreign films  and Kirk Douglas taking key roles in a more cynical, subversive American cinema.

    Additionally, each actor headlined ambitious Biblical epics of the 1960s, “Spartacus” and “The Greatest Story Ever Told.” 

    Douglas, who died February 5 at age 103, made his film debut in 1946, opposite Barbara Stanwyck in “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers.” Not a bad way to start a career. Before mid-century, he starred in the noir classic “Out of the Past,” Joseph Mankiewicz’s Oscar-winning drama “A Letter to Three Wives” and “Champion” (1949), as a reluctant prize fighter, which earned Douglas his first Oscar nomination.

   But it was in the ‘50s that he established his status as one of the best-known American performers, in many ways the cliché of “an actor.” Douglas wasn’t a subtle actor. He demanded center stage for his characters: pouring every tick, head jerk, strutting walk, his high-pitched commanding voice into his roles…and his always present, jutting, dimpled jaw.

     Yet there were few actors of his generation who could be both action hero and intellectual artist with equal conviction.

     He earned two more best actor nominations, for “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952), as a heartless movie producer, and, as Vincent van Gogh in “Lust for Life” (1956). He also deserved a nomination for his tough-talking police detective in William Wyler’s “Detective Story” (1951), but his best work in this incredibly productive decade was in Billy Wilder’s “Ace in the Hole” (1951) and Stanley Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory” (1957).

      As cynical as any movie made to that point, “Ace in the Hole” (also known as “The Big Carnival”) follows a manipulative, self-centered reporter, slumming for a small town paper in the Southwest, as he milks every drop of drama out of a story of a trapped man in a cave. Douglas’ Chuck Tatum prefigures the coming era in which too many journalists saw only fame and fortune instead of duty and ethics while digging into stories, while Wilder (writing with Lesser Samuels and Walter Newman) presents a world in which everyone is looking for a piece of the action.

      For Kubrick, Douglas is at his most commanding as French solider Col. Dax, who must condemn three of his soldiers to make an arrogant, amoral commander look good. From the horrific scenes in the World War I trenches to the hot house moral debates between Dax and Gen. Broulard (Adolphe Menjou), this film stands as the ultimate exploration of military madness. “Paths of Glory” remains one of the most underappreciated masterpieces of the American cinema.

    After this impressive run of major films, Douglas began the 1960s with his most famous role, as the slave turned soldier, “Spartacus,” also directed by Kubrick. The picture also established Douglas as a man whose principles came first—he “broke” the blacklist by giving screenwriter Dalton Trumbo on-screen credit.

    Though his star began to wane in the mid ‘60s, he never stopped acting, even after a stroke, working with son Michael and grandson Cameron in “It Runs in the Family” (2003) at age 87, and made television appearances until recently.   

     Von Sydow, who died March 8 at 90, was the most acclaimed actor of the Swedish cinema who became just as well-known as an English-speaking Hollywood supporting player. In his fifth film, he played a knight seeking life’s mysteries, playing chess with “death” in Bergman’s first masterpiece, “The Seventh Seal,” one of the films that opened the door for a generation of American filmgoers seeking out foreign movies.

    The tall, lanky, sad-faced actor’s reputation was firmly established with Bergman’s early 1960s studies of human sorrow, “The Virgin Spring,” “Through a Glass Darkly” and “Winter Light,” all questioning the existence in God and the point of existence. In 1965, he was cast as Jesus of Nazareth in George Steven’s telling of “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” a ponderous film but a big first step to a Hollywood career.

       By the 1970s, while still acting for Bergman, von Sydow became a familiar face in American films, including as the true believer, Father Merrin, in “The Exorcist” (1973) and a hired assassin in “Three Days of the Condor” (1975). In the 1980s, he was perfect as the artist repulsed by the pretense of New Yorkers in “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986) and then earned his first Oscar nomination as a Swedish emigrant working in Denmark in “Pelle the Conqueror” (1987).

    In this century, von Sydow remained active, with supporting roles in “Minority Report” (2002), “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (2007), “Rush Hour 3” (2007), Shutter Island” (2010) and, scoring another Oscar nod, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” (2011) as an elderly mute man who befriends a young boy.

    His striking gaze and naturalistic acting made von Sydow one of the most distinctive actors of the last 60 years.

     While the 1950s are best remembered as a conservative, restrictive era. With the nuclear family and the Cold War setting the tone, the seeds of the freedom and innovation that was coming in the next two decades were planted.  Douglas, through his role choices, and von Sydow, as Bergman’s public voice, were at the forefront of sowing a new age of cinema that played a part in a worldwide cultural revolution.

THE DANGEROUS CHRISTMAS OF RED RIDING HOOD (1965, TV)

    I can’t remember who alerted me to this forgotten television special available on YouTube—it’s probably been a few years—but it took a pandemic for me to get around to watch this curiosity.

    The hour-long black-and-white musical stars 19-year-old Liza Minnelli, fresh off her Tony Award-winning performance in “Flora the Red Menace,” as a version of the fairy tale’s heroine, who ventures into the frightening woods to visit grandma. Yet in many ways, this version is more the story of the Big Bad Wolf, played with aplomb and wit by Cyril Ritchard, the infamous Captain Hook in the TV version of “Peter Pan,” an annual TV event for those who grew up in the 1960s.

    While the songs aren’t very memorable and the set design isn’t much more elaborate than a segment on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” Minnelli’s powerful voice is mesmerizing. And then there’s the Animals.

    Yes, the British rock ‘n’ roll band (“House of the Rising Sun,” “I’m Crying,” “It’s My Life”) led by singer Eric Burdon are featured as the Wolf’s pack. Sporting tails and Spock-like ear extensions, they mostly encourage the Wolf to be bad, but at one point they sling on their guitars and bring something a bit more hip to the Broadway-style musical. (The music is by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill, best known for “Funny Girl.”)

     The other key player in this odd collection of talent is Vic Damone, a popular singer of the era, playing the friendly woodsman who saves Red Riding Hood from the Wolf’s boiling pot.

    Though in some ways it looks like an ancient television artifact, 55 years after it first aired, it also represents an era when TV was trying to bring culture to the masses. That dream didn’t last long.

JUST MERCY (2019) and CROWN HEIGHTS (2017)

    It’s not surprising that most of the films about criminal injustice feature African Americans, as they are incarcerated in state prisons five time more often than whites, despite representing about 12 percent of the population.

    This movie genre started, in modern times, with “To Kill a Mockingbird,” portraying Southern racism. The many films that followed usually involved a white attorney or advocate fighting to free the persecuted black man.

      But two recent pictures move away from the “white savior” aspect that has tainted many films in this genre.

     In the December 2019 release, “Just Mercy,” the center of the film is Harvard-educated lawyer Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) who sets up shop in Montgomery, Alabama to aid death-row prisoners. The real-life Stevenson, whose memoirs the movie is based on, has been doing this for 35 years and is responsible for overturning at least 125 death sentences.

      The movie follows the case of Walter McMillian (a quietly powerful Jamie Foxx), a middle-aged man who is railroaded through the system on fabricated testimony in the killing of a white woman. His real offense: he had previously had an affair with another white woman in Monroeville, the Alabama town where he lived.  Ironically, it is also the setting for Harper Lee’s classic tale.

    What becomes clear once Stevenson starts looking into the case is that it takes more than a couple of bigoted cops to condemn an innocent man—it’s systemic racism up and down the justice system, including jurors, lawyers, sheriffs, judges and the local white citizens.

     Of course, we’ve all seen this story. Which means it all comes down to how convincing the acting and script are in making the characters come alive on the screen. The cast of “Just Mercy” is uniformly superb.

 Jordan might not be a great actor, but he knows how to bring that sincere everyman charisma to his roles, starting with another story of a persecuted innocent, “Fruitvale Station” (2013). Stardom came with carrying on the “Rocky” tradition in “Creed” (2015) and “Creed II” (2018) and in the Marvel hit “Black Panther” (2018).

      Foxx gives his best performance since he won the 2004 Oscar for “Ray.” His Walter has given up on hope as he’s seen first-hand how casually the system puts an innocent man on death row. But the most deeply felt, memorable performance of the film is given by Rob Morgan as a death row prisoner whose date with the executioner finally arrives. Not many death row scenes as moving; Morgan brings a harrowing realness to it that reminded me of Sean Penn performance in “Dead Man Walking”—I can’t think of higher praise.

    The first-rate cast also includes Brie Larson, Oscar winner for “Room,” playing a local woman who partners with Stevenson in organizing and keeping alive the justice center, and Tim Blake Nelson as a tough, damaged convict whose testimony is crucial to the case.

    Director Destin Daniel Cretton (“Short Term 12,” “The Glass Castle”) never lets the film slip into TV-movie sentimentality. Every emotion is well earned and the characters are real, not caricatures.

    In “Crown Heights,” no lawyer really steps up for Colin Warner, sent to prison for a murder he had nothing to do with. LaKeith Stanfield, an emerging star after bringing very different characters to life in “Get Out,” “Sorry to Bother You” and “Uncut Gems,” gives another fine performance as the 18-year-old who grows more bitter as he remains in prison for more than 20 years. (This too is based on a true story.)

    His best friend KC (Nnamdi Asomugha, former NFL Pro-Bowl player with the Oakland Raiders) is the one who risks his marriage and responsibilities to keep pressing the case for Colin, no matter how costly or hopeless.

     “Crown Heights,” a section of Brooklyn, is more about street crime and how the assumption of guilt comes with being young, black and a member of the neighborhood. KC spends years trying to convince those who lied to gain leniency to offer the truth needed for Colin’s freedom.

    Maybe the most poignant lesson of both films is how the system, once you are convicted, never doubts your guilt, making it almost impossible to reverse the original judgment.

   “Crown Heights” writer-director Matt Ruskin, in just his second feature, keeps the film lively—as Colin sits in prison—as we’re introduced to the shady characters who conspired, willing or not, to keep him behind bars. It’s clear that justice, for what it’s worth, requires much patience and persistence.

THE BRIDGE (1959) and JOJO RABBIT (2019)

    Both of these World War II pictures, made 60 years apart, in styles that couldn’t be more different, offer a view of the conflict through the eyes of Germany’s youth.

     The West German-made “The Bridge,” a 1959 Oscar nominee for best foreign film, tells the story of a group of enthusiastic high school boys who, as the war nears its end, all receive draft notices on the same day. For this group of true believers, it is, finally, a chance to fight for the Fatherland and, just as important, get out of school.

     Though anxious to transfer to the front lines after basic training, this fresh-faced group is assigned to guard a bridge in their hometown—a bridge that German troops have plans to destroy.

    Austrian director Bernhard Wicki, who went on to serve as one of the directors of “The Longest Day” and helmed the Marlon Brando film “Morituri,” doesn’t pull any punches in portraying the morally vacant attitude of the Nazi leadership in the waning days of the war. Made just 15 years after the Allies’ victory, “The Bridge,” based on actual events, was acclaimed in West Germany, winning that country’s award for best picture and director. You won’t see many films more damning of blind patriotism.

     “Jojo Rabbit” turns a similar story into a comic coming-of-age story that, while featuring moments of poignancy, inevitable undercuts it with its central conceit.

     Ten-year-old Nazi devotee Johannes (Roman Griffin Davis) has an imaginary friend—the Fuhrer himself, played with quirky buffoonery by the film’s director, Taika Waititi. He hops around Johannes’ bedroom/imagination, filling him with patriotic inspiration.

     I found it hard to sit through the first 45 minutes of the film, when the kid and, needless to say, his friend Adolf spew Third Reich rhetoric, offensively glorifying the Nazi regime. Yes, “Springtime for Hitler,” remains a hilarious bit, but it’s a short segment in Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” and performed by a clearly insane man—not a young, fresh-faced boy in the midst of the war. By the time “Jojo Rabbit” starts showing the other side of Nazi Germany, it had lost me.

     Of course Johannes is going to realize that there might be something wrong with the twisted morals of the Nazis, but it takes too long.

   Scarlett Johansson scored a supporting actress nomination for her role as Johannes’ mother, a quiet resistance member who hides a young Jewish girl in a secret room. But I didn’t see anything special in her performance; Johansson has been more impression in a half-dozen pictures.

    Even more baffling to me is the Oscar for adapted screenplay (from a novel by Christine Leunens) awarded to Waititi, a New Zealand writer-director-actor-comedian who previously directed “Thor: Ragnarok.”  For me, it was too clever for its subject and too obvious to be taken seriously.

DON QUIXOTE (1992)

     Movie aficionados and historians spent years salivating over the possibilities of Orson Welles’ “lost” films. The great director—maybe the most talented filmmaker to work in Hollywood—completed a dozen movie, five of which are great films, including the anointed “greatest American film,” “Citizen Kane.” But he also teased the cinematic world with unfinished works “Don Quixote” and “The Other Side of the Wind.” 

     Now that versions of these films are available, it is clear that the time Welles spent on these projects—decades, in fact—was all but wasted, as they both contain little evidence that the material ever could have been pulled together to create an entertaining, even slightly interesting motion picture. 

    I went on at length about the disaster of “The Other Side of the Wind” last year. Now I’ve seen “Don Quixote” and can confirm that it’s equally convoluted. I’ve seen better short films made by high school students than what the great man shot for his version of the Cervantes story. 

     Spanish actor Francisco Reiguera plays (or, more accurately, poses as) Don Quixote, roaming the countryside in search of someone to rescue as his trusted sidekick Sancho Panza (Hollywood actor Akim Tamiroff) tries to keep up. At least 40 percent of the movie is Sancho struggling through crowded streets to find the ever-wandering dreamer. The hook of the film is that it's set in modern times, even though Quixote and Panza look like characters out of the 17th Century.

     At the same time, a film of "Don Quixote" is being made (by Orson Welles) in the same area where the "real" Don Quixote is roaming. That’s right: Welles has made a film about fictional characters existing in the same world that Orson Welles is directing a film that stars those fictional characters. The scenes of Welles show him riding in a car, in what looks like paparazzi video. 

     This version of Welles film, first shown in 1992, was put together by Spanish producer Patxi Irigpyen and editor Jess Franco (who served as an assistant to Welles during the shoot) seven years after Welles death. It's hard to say this is what Welles was hoping for, but since he spent nearly a decade, starting in the late 1950s, fooling around with the film, it probably as good as it was going to be.

    The film is poorly shot and thoughtlessly constructed. Occasionally I recognized Welles voice, for both actors, but the voice changed from scene to scene, adding to the amateur quality of the movie. And the performance by Reiguera resembles someone either senile or on death’s doorstep. Though Welles reportedly had a script of 1000 pages for this film, not a word of any insight is offered in this version.

   I’ve never understood the appeal of the tale of Don Quixote. What are we to learn from a delusional fool and his comical buddy who indulges the old man’s incoherent mutterings? I guess I’m missing the profundity in the story; the characters come off as irritating simpletons.

    Terry Gilliam, another director who tilts against windmills, made a version of this story, “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” that was released in 2019. It’s not much better while presenting the tale in modern times with a filmmaker (the ubiquitous Adam Driver) returning to the scene of a previous movie he shot in Spain. At least, Jonathan Pryce brings some humor to Quixote.

   Welles could have used that; or at least something to bring some coherency to this pointless, rambling travelogue of Spanish countryside.     

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (2019)

   The overarching sentimentality of the concluding trilogy of the George Lucas saga reaches its apex in this concluding episode.

    The plot is as predictable as the fractured grammar of Yoda, sadly missing, and not near as endearing. 

     As usual, it looks like the end for the rebels as that damnable Palpatine returns, vampire-like from what all assumed was actual death in one of these episodes where Hayden Christensen was ruining the character of Darth Vader.

     Rey (a more stoic Daisy Ridley), not much of a team player, is focused on connecting with the Force in anticipation of the ultimate showdown with the dark side and Kylo Ren (Adam Driver, who I’ve never liked in this role). Apparently, it was important to determine Rey’s family history—I never gave it much of a thought in the previous pictures—and that becomes a central aspect of the story.

     Meanwhile, Finn (John Boyega) and Poe (Oscar Isaac) battle overwhelming odds to stop the seemingly invincible Empire, now calling themselves the First Order.

    Skilled sci-fi director J.J. Abrams keeps everyone moving at a breakneck pace to the point that you stop paying attention to actual plot developments. Sad to say, but his two “Star Trek” films far outshine his two “Star Wars” pictures.

     While this trilogy has washed away the bad taste of the Christensen-Natalie Portman disasters, it remains in the shadow of the first two Lucas originals.