Elliot’s Watching - October 2022
Pretty much no one will like the ending of Nikos Papatakis’s film The Photograph (1987), and I won’t give away the ending but let’s look at the rest of the film, which follows the course of a young man forced by political opposition to leave his hometown in Greece and heads to Paris where he hopes his well-to-do uncle can help him find a job; thence is far from pleased to have this burden - but then, he sees among the young man’s belongings a photo of a beautiful woman. The young man tells his uncle that the woman is his sister, Joy, and the uncle falls in love with the woman and wants to marry her; problem is, the uncle is illiterate, so the young man becomes the go-between, writing a series of courtship letters. How long can this go on? A # of scenarios play out, some funny, some painfully tragic, and throughout we’re wondering how the young man can get out of the scrape of his own doing. The production of the film is at times amateurish and the subtitles leave much to be desired - but I’d say it’s an obscure film (thanks for saving it, Criterion!) that is crying out for a contemporary, possibly English-language, remake - the plot has much going for it, although the team had no idea how to bring this strangely entertaining film to a conclusion.
Hostages, an HBO documentary series (2022, 4 episodes, from a team of 5 directors) is a detailed look at the Iranian revolution of the ’70s, the American complicity based on years of support for the brutal Shah, and ultimately the collapse of all social order, a vacuum filled by the charismatic Ayatollah who turns a blind eye on the mob attack of the U.S. embassy, leading to 444 days of imprisonment of embassy staff, a few Marines (or just one?), and other Americans working w/ the embassy. Not only is the documentary footage from the era plentiful and fascinating - but so are the contemporary interviews with several Iranian ex-officials (and one still an official) who participated in the takeover and its brutal aftermath, as well as a few of the hostages as well. Like most, I would think, I had no idea how much footage has survived - and documentarians use the bounty of evidence to give a complete and detailed narration of these scary events. One aspect of the case - hinted at but not fully examined - was with the incoming Reagan administration communicated with the Iranians to hold off on release of the hostages until after RR’s inauguration. Sure looks as if they did, but who will ever fess up? The whole episode was scary and tragic - and harbinger of many other attacks against the US, culminating in 9/11, far, far worse in its death and destruction, but sudden and complete w/in hours rather than months.
Is Lucino Visconti’s biopic Ludwig (1973) really worth the four-hour commitment? Probably not, but it helps to split the film and watch it in segments. It has the panache and finesse that we expect in late Visconti’s work - extraordinary costumery and regal interior settings - along with a degree of weirdness, and Ludwig himself, aka The Mad King, does exhibit some disturbing behavior, especially dangerous in an absolute ruler. Who could imagine a head of state so removed from reality, so delusional, so cruel and narcissistic? Who can imagine the team of top advisors so troubled by the leader’s erratic behavior that they take steps to remove him from authority? Don’t answer that! If anything, I think the film could be more maddening, as seems almost that LV is enamored of Ludwig’s imperious volatility. Were the advisors wrong to remove him from office? Sure they were - and LV goes lightly on Ludwig’s extravagances (building numerous estates and palaces presumably at pubic expense - and, year, I’ve read that Ludwig got a bad rap and the expenditures were all or mostly from his own wealth - ah, that explains it!). Ditto Ludwig’s obsession with Wagner (whose music constitutes much of the score) - yet not a word, not a hint, about Wagner virulent anti-Semitism. So - despite it’s lavish production - it’s a film about which I’d say proceed w/ caution.
The 3-part documentary Aftershock: Everest and Nepal Earthquake (2022, Netflix) uses some great, terrifying on the spot footage and extensive interviews with survivors to convey the effect of the 2015 quake that killed about 9,000; we follow the course of 3 groups of people to tell the story: Some climbers, including one novice, trapped at Camp One after the avalanche that wipes out base camp and killed many; 3 Israeli travelers who trekked to a remote village and find themselves and some villagers on their own with little or no communication to the outside world, and a Nepalese businessman whose working-class hotel is destroyed - and the fate of those inside - including his family members - is unknown. So, three good story lines, lots of exciting on-the-spot footage (some re-enactment, too, I am pretty sure) - and a good film for those who can’t enough of the myriad films about the hazards of climbing, surfboarding, et al.
Ira Deutchman’s documentary, Searching for Mr. Rugoff (2019) tells of the acrimonious, volatile eponymous film distributor. well-known if not exactly famous among film-lovers for his 5 NY cinemas that screened many of the greatest art films of the 60s and 70s and were avant-garde in this - his - promotional inventiveness (e.g., putting on body-building exhibitions in the theater lobby when screening a Schwarzenegger film; promoting the films with bold iconography in NYT adverts…). All good, but after an initial montage in which a dozen or more of this former employees spoke briefly of the joy and terror of working for him (as ID had) the film ran out of gas and never quite made me curious to learn any more about Rugoff. OK he once was famous and is now almost forgotten, but truly how many film distributors/promotors are “remembered” decades after their day was done? The film (I watched the first half, about 45 minutes) never really makes the case that the material on hand would or should be of any great interest other than to those who knew the guy.
Martin Bell’s documentary Streetwise (1984) is a stunning and extraordinary film on the (mostly) teenagers living on the streets of Seattle, then, ironically, known as the “most livable city in America.” This scene is the polar opposite of the Microsoft/Starbucks Seattle culture that we know (of). Bell’s camera follows these children, all of them from broken homes or other terrible and threatening and loveless lives; they’ve made their way to this city and they get by in frightening ways: living in abandoned buildings, scrounging in Dumpsters for food, getting by through begging and through (mostly) petty theft, and most disturbing by soliciting “dates” on the street corners - 14-year-old girls living by prostitution. It’s amazing that Bell and his team had such access to these misdirected lives, and that they could maintain the rigid “I am a camera” conditions - never, apparently, intervening to stop a crime in progress. The film offers no protection to these kids - just exposure of the horrible life that they are in and that they will face; they talk at times about their desires for the future, and we know of course that few are on a path leading anywhere but downwards. Among many incredible sequences, the teenager’s meeting with his father in prison is maybe the strongest and strangest. Also, watching the completely overwhelmed social worker trying against all odds to help these kids get to a better life. There are several follow-up films showing the later lives of some of the key players (available on Criterion); once in, you can’t help but watch these supplementary materials as well.
You won’t find a more hateful character on screen than Jean Paul (JP) Williams (played by Claes Bang) in the Irish black-comedy thriller (yes, lots of genre crossings) Bad Sisters (based on a Belgian series called Clan) - and we watched the entire 9 episodes waiting for him to get his desserts - and in fact we know that he gets sniffed out in the first episode but it’s a matter of who dunnit. In essence, the series is about 4 sisters you universally despise JP, the 5th sister’s abusive husband, so the 4-some hatch a series of ill-conceived plots to kill JP. No spoilers here - but note that the series cleverly and seamlessly moves back and forth in time, both before JP’s death and after, as we follow two hapless young insurance agents who suspect foul play, which if proven would mean they would not have to pay out on a life-insurance policy. Despite the dark doings, the series his hilarious throughout, thanks largely to the 5 sisters and the loathsome JP. There’s no great meaning or message or thrilling scenes of tension nor bewildering plot twists - just a really good comic story conceived and executed, if that’s the right word?, from the start.
Wendell B Harris Jr.’s (he wrote it, directed it, starred in it) Chameleon Street (1989) won a top award at Sundance for its ahead-of-its time inventive editing, its unflinching portrayal of a not sympathetic Black lead character, and as a landmark in what today we call “docudrama,” as Harris tells the life story off William Douglas Street, a Black man who talked and charmed his way into several prominent Detroit-area professional careers: posing as a lawyer, a business developer, and, most improbable but tru, as a surgeon - he performed about 50 hysterectomies, with no training (we watch him do his first, horrifying). He also led a troubled family life, at times sweet and romantic but combustible and downright scary (some viewers’ eye closings ((mine)) when he engages in knife play w/ his toddler-aged daughter). The film is perhaps too inventive and unconventional for its own good - choppy, distracting, sometimes hard to follow - which is to say the technique gets in the way of character development; at the end, Street is still an enigma rather than a character as we’re more focused on Harris’s film techniques than on the story at hand. Still - what a loss! How can it be that he never directed another film? One can only guess.
Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil (1958; wrote - based on a book by What Masterson - directed, steals the show) as a film that’s all about atmosphere and nuance. The plot is particularly difficult to fathom, at least on 1st viewing - something about Mexican gangs and Rs dealers, leading to an attack on an American dealer across the border and into the US territory of Welles’s corrupt sheriff. Her performance is weird and outstanding and the narration show many of the OW quirks, lots of odd angles and shots up from about table height to the looming presences - film could not work and would be long forgotten had he not taken complete control. The opening sequence - a 10-minute or so single take that sets for the entire plot and gives some great footage of life and work on both sides of the Tex-Mex border. The long single take has since then been often eclipsed - thanks mostly to digital - think the coop shot (Goodfellas), that long shot at the opening of the film about an Hollywood agent can’t remember the name, and esp The Russian Ark, the entire film one take! Yet it’s still a great shot because of its scope and its grace and it’s relations to the material to follow. Some of the bit parts are especially well cast and directed - and who can forget Dennis Weaver as the motel night manager? - but today the film would definitely cast a Mexican actor in the lead role as Vargas - Charlton Heston is fine, but I could never quite see him as a Mexican official.
John Huston’s The Asphalt Jungle (1950) gives us just about everything we’d want in a b/w noir film of its era - a plot rich with double-crossings and fatal mistakes, a really good safecracking of a bank vault - maybe not as good as Rififi but good enough, dark streets and many night-time scenes, a despicable self-important evil banker/investor who’s cheating on his wife and (with a 1/3 his age airhead beauty making her major-picture debut, Marilyn Monroe), a really smart and even likable “villain,” the criminal Doctor genius just out of jail and eager for his next heist, the film’s concise length, every scene and every line counts - although I suspect the the police commissioner’s laudatory news conference at which he praises police officers must have pleased the producer and the Code. That aside, the film - directed and co-written by Huston along with co-author Ben Maddow, based on the novel by the prolific W.R. Burnett - definitely holds up after 70+ years - a standard-setter, and not a relic.
Let’s just say that the 3rd (and final) season of Lisa McGee’s Irish comic drama Derry Girls (2022) is nowhere near as funny as the first 2 seasons, save for an uproar of a comedy in the first 2 episodes (the boring neighbor brings a lot to the show, and the guest appearance of Liam Neeson was great , too ) but then the series kind of wobbled, w/ far too much attention paid to “the troubles” and the ultimate signing of a peace treaty btw N Ireland and GB - obviously important to the makers of this series but much less meaningful to xenophobe Americans (like me). The comedy withered in large part, I think, by almost writing the hilarious Siobhan McSweeney (as Sister Michael) out of show - a big loss (I wondered if her health had been an issue?). Saoirse-Monica Jackson, as the leader of the Girls, is great but not great enough to carry the expectations of this show.
Suzanne, Suzanne (1982) is a short (25 minutes) documentary in which the members of Suzanne’s family reflect on how their late father brutalized them, S in particular, and the hapless mother, a victim herself of spousal violence, failed to step in and help her daughter in any significant way - a childhood that led almost inevitably to S’s drug abuse and imprisonment. In this film and she her other confront each other and reach a tentative forgiveness and peace. The film is shot in b/w with many darkly lit scenes and noir-ish settings and shadows. The fil holds up well emotionally but what was innovative 40 years ago is, obviously, far less so now - with our so much greater, cheaper, easier, small film equipment creating such a film today would be much easier, and I’m sore about a million film students have done so, w/ varying success.
