Elliot's Watching week of 7-18-21: Bergman on TV

 Elliot’s Watching - Week of 7-18-21

Ingmar Bergman’s 6-part TV series, Scenes from a Marriage (1973), was a precursor to the many great series that everyone in the world watches today - a true innovation and a daring experiment in its time (Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz may be the only equivalent - though that was based on a famous novel, whereas Bergman’s was his original script - in essence, a 5-hour drama. SfaM focuses closely and intensely on one couple, Johan and Marriane, played brilliantly, through some extremely difficult and challenging scenes, by Liv Ullman and the less-well-known Erland Josephson. We follow these two - with only a few isolated scenes involving others - over the course of about ten years and through all the tempests for marriage, affairs, break-ups, divorce, reconciliation. The film is in its way typically Swedish: A lot of repression and social nicety, with problems “swept under the rug” (the title of one of the episodes), and then with sudden sometimes violent explosions of feelings and pent-up rage or tearful remorse. The cinematography (Sven Nyquist of course) is exquisite, almost all at full or close focus - very few exteriors, tracking, or panning shots. It’s a troubling and demanding 5 hours but a landmark for both cinema (one of Bergman’s early forays into color and into a study of contemporary life - though often criticized for its focus on only one social class, the comfortable Swedish professionals) and, years later, television. 

Elliot's Watching week of 7-11-21: Godard et al

 Elliot’s Watching - Week of 7-11-21

Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 film, Band of Outsiders (Bande a part) must have been, at least in part, a response to Truffaut’s sweet and sentimental story about a threesome, Jules et Jim. Godard’s is also about a 3-some, two guys and a girl (Anna Karina in a great role!), that is not in the least “sweet”: the 3 meet up in an adult-ed English class (one of the men presciently notes that he’s going to drop English and study Chinese, as that will be the dominant culture in the future), where the Karina (Odile) lets slip that in one of the other tenants in the suburban house where she’s rooming has a huge stash of francs - and the two guys, Arthur (he tells the naif Odile that has last name is “Rimbaud, one of several literary in-jokes) and Franz, hatch a robbery plot. But these guys (and they seem a bit too old for the part) are dopes and their entire plan is cock-eyed from the start; for most of the movie the robbery scheme is played as a high comedy of blunders, but in the end, no surprise, things go radically wrong in every imaginable way. We don’t watch this film, today, for its plot; rather, for its highly imaginative use of cinematography - most notably in the dash through the Louvre (how did they get permission to film that? Maybe they didn’t) and the terrific scene in the diner, with the great dance sequence and the surprising minute of silence. Also, we watch this film to see a Paris that is no longer - mostly grungy and not at all scene or touristic (scars of the war seem still evident), yet in some ways an idyllic setting - esp. the rooming house in one of the Paris suburbs; lots of scenes involving driving - easy to do in Paris and environs back in the day, no traffic jams, parking everywhere - it seems many lifetimes ago, and not at all the way we think of Paris on film - it’s the dark flipside of the record. 

John Dower’s true-crime documentary Sophie (2021, on Netflix) is a three-part examination of the death of the eponymous Sophie (Toscan du Plantier  in remote West Cork, Ireland, in 1996 and the failure of the Irish police to come up w/ sufficient evidence to charge and convict anyone of the murder - though not without arresting a villager who aroused many suspicions through his bizarre and at times self-incriminating behavior (he was a known eccentric even in the small, highly tolerant community in which he lived). The series gives us a great sense of the small town of Schull and a pretty good portrait of the late Sophie, through interviews with her family members and friends, although mystery surrounds her throughout the series: Who was she? Why did she retreat to Ireland sans family? Why did her prominent husband make no appearance in the film? The film will keep you thinking and guessing, and the crew knows well how to end each of the first two episodes at a cliffhanger or crisis point. On the other hand, like so many t-c dox, the film could be cut by about 25 percent - like, we know already that this is a town with great diversity and with tolerance of artists and others with “alternate life styles,” one might say. Still a good film - and spoilers will occur right here so skip this if you haven’t seen the film: Although the film does everything possible to build toward a satisfying conclusion with the trial in absentia of the local suspect,  it’s impossible to think that the case was really closed. Yes, there’s a lot of behavior (and hearsay) about the suspected killer, but none of it comes close to conviction beyond a reasonable doubt; the cops came up w/ no forensic evidence, and no witnesses - and I can’t imagine an American jury convicting him on the basis of suspicion - yeah, he seems like a self-important oddball and would-be writer, w/ a violent streak, but that’s not a enough to convict a guy, I would hope - at least not in the U.S. In my view, he was railroaded and the Irish cops, who’d never encountered a murder investigation!, screwed up big time. 

Elliot’s Watching - Week of 7/4/2: Lupin and Bunuel

 Elliot’s Watching - Week of 7/4/21

Luis Bunuel’s 1972 film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, is far from this best work, but it has its moments of weirdness, maybe too much weirdness and not enough charm. Posing as a social satire - in which the wealthy lead corrupt lives of selfishness and dissolution while maintaining throughout a strangely courteous and acquiescent demeanor, the social commentary is mild rather than biting and obvious rather than subtle (or discreet, for that matter). The film begins as two well-to-do couples arrive at the country house of another couple for an expected dinner party - but the hosts are nowhere to be found. When they turn up, it seems there’s been a confusion about the date - so the 3 couples go out for dinner. At the restaurant nearby, it seems that they’re open, but no food is available. Profuse apologies, but their founder has just died and he is lying in state in just off the dining room. And thus begin a series of missed connections - and the 6 never really get a chance to eat anything (some repulsive appetizers aside). This apparent reality mixes with many scenes that seem and feel realistic and vivid, at least within the established terms of this film, but turn out to be dreams - usually involving shootings and death (one of the sextet, played by the great Fernando Rey, is an ambassador from Latin America and involved in Rx-running). The film ends with the six, still hungry I guess, walking down a long, flat stretch of (Normandy?) highway, aimless and confused. I’m not really sure what any of this amounts to, though it’s worth watching once for the dark humor and for the depiction of a group of the privileged who get what they deserve. 

The George Kay Netflix series Lupin Season 2, based on the detective stories about the eponymous Lupin from early 20th century and set in present-day Paris, is a great star vehicle for Omar Sy and is entertaining but also totally preposterous, so much so that the unlikelihood of any of Sy’s escapades and schemes working out becomes part of the humor. Just to imagine Sy himself - a distinct and massive star - going unrecognized on the streets of Paris when his face is on every screen as the most wanted man in France - well, it’s all part of the joke. His schemes are so outlandish, elaborate and dependent on every step along the way going right as to be comically absurd. The episodes are well-paced, even frantic, with a dominating score (I enjoyed watching some of the chase and fight sequences while imaging no background track - and without the music they were for the most part mundane and boring. Bring it on!) So, OK, yeah, quite binge-able, but in the end you’ve feasted on froth and air. 

Elliot's Watching week of 6-27-21: Golden State Killer doc

 Elliot’s Watching week of 6-27-21

Liz Garbus’s true-crime documentary I’ll Be Gone in the Dark (2020), based on the posthumously published book by Michelle McNamara, is a harrowing account of MM’s pursuit of the murder/rapist known as the Golden State Killer who terrorized California communities through a string of unsolved house invasions in the 1970s and 80s that involved extreme cruelty and weirdly morbid behavior. I won’t give everything away, though it’s important to note three aspects of this unique project: First, MM, a young mother married to well-known actor Patton Oswalt, devoted most of her life to trying to track this killer, who had been largely (and criminally I would say) ignored for much of his reign of terror, mostly because police departments notoriously fail to cooperate across jurisdictional lines and also because the communities want to downplay violent crime in their midst to protect property values (!) I guess; second, writing her book actually cost MM her life, as she felt pressured on deadlines and expectations and eventually addicted to Rx that killed her - her editor and agents have some soul searching to do; and third, this can be an extremely upsetting film, as many of the dozens of victims cooperated with the filmmakers and told their stories in horrifying detail. With those warnings, it’s a brave and necessary documentary that still may have some repercussions, as amateur detectives are at present seeking info on a string of unsolved murders in the Chicago area - where MM was raised and where her interest in a frightful killing near her home led her to her career as a crime writer and case solver.