139) Howl's Moving Castle

Hauru no ugoku shiro (2004)

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Starring: Jean Simmons, Christian Bale, Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal, Josh Hutcherson, Emily Mortimer, Blythe Danner


Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have been a force in animated filmmaking for over a decade now, consistently churning out quality, imaginative animated features. I've seen a couple of his films now, and can't say that I've been blown away. I saw Ponyo last year and didn't think much of it. I was more impressed by Spirited Away, but even then not blown away. Kate and a number of other people had assured me that Howl's Moving Castle was the pick of the bunch. Kate was sitting down to watch it this evening, so I decided to join her.

A young hat maker, Sophie (Mortimer) is put under a curse by the Witch of the Waste (Lauren Bacall). The curse transforms her into an old lady (the elderly Sophie is voiced by Simmons) and also prevents her from telling anyone of the curse. Ashamed of her appearance she flees her town and heads for the hills where she comes across the amazing moving castle of the wizard Howl (Bale). She infiltrates his castle, introducing herself as the new cleaning lady. She quickly makes friends with Calcifer (Crystal), a fire spirit who powers the castle and is bound to Howl by a contract which, like Sophie's curse, he is unable to speak the details of. The two vow to help each other from their predicaments.

Miyazaki usually likes to write his own stuff, but it isn't hard to see what attracted him to Diana Wynne Jones's novel. Howl's Moving Castle is filled with his trademarks. You've got the young girl heroine (even if in this case she takes the form of an old lady), you've got the alternate fantasy world setting and you've got shape changing creatures. It was practically a ready made Miyazaki project.

While I don't quite click with Miyazaki's films the way I do with some of Pixar's more recent works, I can still appreciate why he has the reputation that he does. With Howl's Moving Castle, on the surface, it looks like Miyazaki is on the money again. The animation, a combination of traditional hand-drawn and subtle computer graphics, is beautifully detailed. The heaving, wheezing castle is definitely a sight to behold. But this film seems to lack a bit of an x-factor. He doesn't quite seem to have hit the mark as he usually does. As I said above, so many of the elements are familiar but they don't seem to be used as well.

Sophie is an awkward heroine who seems to watch the story more so than take part in it. Her transformation into an elderly lady slows her pace a lot. Unlike Carl in Up who can run and jump with the best of them when required too, the elderly Sophie is a slightly more realistic example of an elderly heroine (the scene of the elderly Sophie and the morbidly obese Witch of the Waste racing each other up the long flight of stairs is one of more unique moments of semi-suspense you will see in a film).

Again, the dubbing of the voices for the English version of the film was put in the hands of Miyazaki supporters and the minds behind Toy Story, John Lasseter and Pete Docter. After the success of Spirited Away the calibre of star they have been able to attract has risen, but rather than just going for names, as with Pixar films, they've gone for quality. Hearing the familiar voices of Hollywood legends like Lauren Bacall, Billy Crystal (Crystal's Calcifer is probably the strongest, most clearly defined character in the film) and Jean Simmons was great. Emily Mortimer didn't have a great deal to do before her character turned into an old lady and the vocal duties were handed over to Simmons. I'm not sure that Bale brought anything to the table with his voice acting. Obviously the guy is a good actor, and that is reflected in the way he uses his voice, but there is nothing overly characteristic about his voice to justify the amount of money they probably have to pay him. While the English voice cast has a bit of star power, it is said that the Japanese voices from the original version suit the characters slightly better, which is probably to be expected.

I probably came into this film with slightly too high expectations and was left a little underwhelmed. I've had a few people tell me it was really good, but I think they had read the book first. Like all of Miyazaki's films it looks spectacular, there is no doubt it is an achievement in animation, but the story didn't quite grab me. I found it quite difficult to follow early on. Maybe it's an easier watch if you are familiar with the book, but without that back knowledge there were a few points at which I thought I wasn't quite being given all the required information. It felt a bit like more of the same after Spirited Away, despite being a bit faster paced and more story driven, and I didn't think it was as good. If you love the book, you'll love it. If you love Miyazaki's work, you'll love it. If you're not sure, maybe try Spirited Away.

138) The Barbarian Invasions

Les invasions barbares (2003)

Director: Denys Arcand

Starring: Remy Girard, Stephane Rousseau, Marie-Josee Croze, Marina Hands, Dorothee Berryman, Johanne-Marie Tremblay, Pierre Curzi, Yves Jacques, Louise Portal, Dominique Michel, Isabelle Blais, Toni Cecchinato

This week in Screens, Images, Ideas we did something a bit different. We left the European continent and headed to French Canada, to Quebec. We've had a bit of a focus on small national cinemas in the second half of this course and Quebec provides an interesting case of a distinct provincial cinema within a national cinema. So much of Canada's culture is defined in relation to the United States, but Quebec has its own clearly defined identity. Quebec's most highly regarded filmmaker is Deny Arcand and his 2003 film The Barbarian Invasions won him an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

When Montreal college professor Remy (Girard) discovers that he is dying from cancer he seeks to reconnect with his estranged family. His ex-wife Louise (Berryman) persuades his son Sebastian (Rousseau) to come over from London to be with him. Remy, being an academic who prioritises knowledge and ideas, has little time for his sons high-flying corporate lifestyle, but out of loyalty to his mother Sebastian uses his influence to not only organise a private hospital room and top class medical treatment for Remy, but also for his friends to come and be with him. He also arranges for Nathalie (Croze) the daughter of one of Remy's friends, to provide him with heroin to ease his pain.

The Barbarian Invasions is a very theatrical film. You can see it working quite easily as a stage production. Structurally it has a short prologue and epilogue but otherwise adheres pretty well to a traditional three act structure, with each act being largely confined to a specific location. The first act takes place in the crowded hospital room, the second in the private room Sebastian organises for his father, and the third act takes place at the lake house. It is also a very dialogue driven film. There is not a lot of action, with the interest largely coming from what is said rather than what is done.

The Barbarian Invasions is a sequel to a film that Arcand made 17 years earlier, The Decline of the American Empire. A bit of trivia, that makes it the first ever sequel to win the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. The 1986 film, which I haven't seen, sees Remy and his academic friends come together for a meal and over the course of the day and evening discuss sex, men, women and their professional lives. It's kind of a talk-heavy, French Canadian version of The Big Chill. When all of Remy's friends from the first film arrive in the second act, even though I haven't seen The Decline of the American Empire, Arcand is so effective in creating this strong sense of relationship between them that you accept them as old friends straight away, even if, like me, you haven't seen the film in which these relationships were originally established. There is an instant rapport there which feels so authentic. Their presence really brings the film to life. The first act is quite solemn, but the arrival of his friends brings with it energy, noise and vibrancy.

As I said earlier, it is quite a dialogue driven film, and that means that the film is really dense with ideas. Arcand's screenplay explores the generational gap between Remy and his friends and Sebastian and his peers. It explores the changing of the worlds values away from the intellectual values of Remy and his friends towards the capitalist, money driven world of Sebastian. It explores the changing face and identity of Quebec. It comments on the state of Canadian health care. There are lots and lots of interesting ideas and themes being explored in this film, but they are all explored through a beautifully written, heartfelt story about a father and a son. The Barbarian Invasions is a really touching film about life and death, and about what really matters. While on the one hand you have the softening of the capitalist Sebastian whose priorities slowly shift away from work towards family, at the same time you have Remy's academic friends acknowledging that all the causes, all the 'isms' they have defined themselves by over the course of their lives (socialism, structuralism, nationalism, etc) haven't really mattered either. The closer Remy gets to death, the more of a celebration of life this film becomes. Yes, it almost gets to soap levels in terms of its emotionality towards the end, but as a viewer you don't mind. By that point you are hooked.

There is a fun little connection between this film and the one I watched yesterday, Jesus of Montreal. In Jesus of Montreal, Daniel is commissioned by Father Leclerc. He later discovers that Father Leclerc is having an affair with one of his parishioners. Father Leclerc confesses that he is not a very good priest and fears that he will be demoted from his position at the Montreal basilica if the controversial play continues. In The Barbarian Invasions, Gaelle (Hands) is an art dealer, and she is asked to inspect some religious relics that the church are looking to sell off. The person who shows her around the basement full of artifacts is Father Leclerc, played again by Gilles Pelletier. It would appear that, as he feared, he has been demoted from his position since Jesus of Montreal. Interestingly, Pelletier appears again in Arcand's 2007 film, The Age of Ignorance, though this time his character is credited as Raymond Leclerc. He is no longer a priest. It is just an interesting example of a character arc progressing through a series of seemingly unrelated films.

The joy of taking film courses, and one of the reasons I love teaching them, is that every now and then they throw up a little gem of a film which you never would have otherwise seen. If you only ever watch the movies you choose, you end up just watching the same type of movie again and again, never knowing what you're missing out on. But if you let other people choose the movie, watch things that others have recommend, work your way through various lists, do film courses, you never know when you are going to come across something you'll genuinely love but never would have seen. For a movie fan, nothing beats being surprised by a cracker of a film. For me, the film which perfectly sums this up is Wolfgang Becker's Goodbye, Lenin! It is a brilliant, hilarious but heartfelt film which I came across when I was doing this course as a student, but it is a German comedy about post-wall East Berlin, so I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have picked it up at Blockbuster of my own choosing. The Barbarian Invasions could just end up being one of those films. It'll take some time to be sure, but I was really impressed by it. It is a beautiful, touching film. Putting this together with Jesus of Montreal yesterday makes me think I'm a fan of Denys Arcand. He could just be my discovery of 2010.

137) Jesus of Montreal

Jesus de Montreal (1989)

Director: Denys Arcand

Starring: Lothaire Bluteau, Catherine Wilkening, Johanne-Marie Tremblay, Remy Girard, Robert Lepage

General busyness meant that I didn't come into last week's tutorial on Made in Britain as prepared as I'd hoped and as a result was not very happy with the class I ran. This week I've got a bit more time on my hands so I've decided to do a bit of extra preparation for tomorrow's class on French-Canadian cinema by watching Denys Arcand's Jesus of Montreal.

The Montreal basilica hires a young actor, Daniel (Bluteau), to update and modernise their long-running passion play. Daniel gathers a motley crew of performers and together they write a very unconventional play. When the season opens it is greeted with amazing critical acclaim, but the church is not happy with this more radical portrayal of the life of Christ and makes moves to shut the play down. But the players become more and more committed to their play, and strengthened by the conviction of Daniel, the continue in the face of religious uproar.

There have been many, many films made about the life of Christ, and a high percentage of them are boring as dirt. The more conservative, the more effort that has gone into strict adherence to the Biblical text, the more boring. One of the best films about the life of Christ I have seen is Martin Scorsese's adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' novel The Last Temptation of Christ. This film took a lot of liberties with the details in the story, and hence caused great uproar in conservative Christian circles. But in taking liberties with some details, it enabled the filmmaker to humanise the figure of Jesus. By giving him a psychological reality, the figure of Christ became relatable to audiences as a character in a way which he never is in more conservative tellings of the story, and thus gives the audience a different type of insight into Jesus (how much more thought provoking and stirring is the message of Scorsese's film, that Jesus was tempted, than the message of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, that Jesus suffered). Arcand's film explores the difficulties which are faced by Daniel and his troupe as they try and put on their play, the same difficulties faced by Scorsese in trying to make The Last Temptation of Christ, that in trying to give the Passion narrative new life, to make it real to people, you come up against the weight of the conservative church who wants to hear nothing more than an accurate transcribing of the Biblical text.

Arcand's screenplay is very clever. While it's purpose is not simply to retell the story of Christ in a modern (at least it was modern in the 1980s) setting, it does create some really interesting parallels between Daniel and Jesus, the finding of which will be a treat for those with a strong knowledge of the gospel narratives. There are some quite obvious parallels; the gathering of Daniel's troupe can be seen to mirror Jesus' calling of disciples; the scene in which Daniel overturns the lights and equipment at the advertising shoot when he is outraged by the mistreatment of the actresses; there is a scene in which a lawyer tries to tempt Daniel with fame and fortune; the fact that Daniel's sharing of a radical message attracts opposition from the religious establishment; and of course there is the end of the story (which you can half guess for yourself). But there are also more subtle parallels. The film opens at a theatre performance. After the show the critics hail the lead actor's performance, calling him "The finest actor of his generation", but seeing Daniel out of the corner of his eye he corrects them, "There is a good actor." This character parallels John the Baptist, pointing people to the Christ figure that is Daniel. There are other details which create parallels between this seemingly minor character and John the Baptist (for example the advertising executive insisting that she "wants his head" for her next campaign).

One thing that does hurt the film today is the fact that it has dated quite badly. It looks and sounds very 80s. Some films manage a timeless quality, this one definitely does not. The score, with it's mix of orchestral and electronic music, is particularly hard to ignore.

Arcand's film, Jesus of Montreal, is not a film of faith. It does not make a declaration either way as to who it claims Jesus to be. It is not concerned with his divinity. What it is concerned with is his teaching, his lifestyle, his human existence. Taking any claims about the divinity and messiahdom of Jesus of Nazareth out of the picture, this film simply seeks to show just how subversive and radical the teachings and example of Christ are when they are practiced rather than simply preached. A very powerful and thought provoking film.

136) Jaws

Jaws (1975)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Starring: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton

Amazingly, it's nearing the end of October and I've only watched one Steven Spielberg movie yet this year (Duel). I decided I was in the mood to see Jaws again. I've only seen it once previously, and that was when it was playing as a late night movie on TV (movies that rely on the building of tension are not helped by constant ad breaks). Kate has a thing with drowning, so when I suggested we watch Jaws her first question was "Does anyone drown?" Luckily I could tell her in all honesty, "No, everyone gets eaten by the massive shark". As it turns out, this didn't end up being an acceptable alternative, but I enjoyed it.

When the tourist community of Amity Island is rocked by a shark attack on the eve of the summer holiday season, the Mayor (Hamilton) refuses to close the beaches and tries to hush it up. The damaging economic effect the lack of tourists could have on the community could be crippling. When shark strikes again, this time taking a young boy, the new police chief Brody (Scheider), along with oceanographer Hooper (Dreyfuss) and bounty hunter Quint (Shaw) are commissioned to hunt down and destroy the shark.

As the king of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, once explained, "A bomb is under the table, and it explodes. That is a surprise. A bomb is under the table and it does not explode. That is suspense." The genius of Jaws, and what makes it such an effective thriller, is how little we actually see the shark. Rather than continually having the shark leaping out of the water, charging towards the camera with its teeth bared (as it no doubt would if Jaws were made today as a 3d movie), it is all about building suspense and tension. The most we see of the shark for the first hour of the film is a fin slicing through the water. The making of the film was plagued with delays, particularly related to the giant mechanical shark (nicknamed 'Bruce' after Spielberg's lawyer) which they had never bothered to test underwater. As a result of these delays Spielberg had to devise ways to shoot scenes without the shark being seen. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, and probably what transformed what could have just been a run-of-the-mill, monster b-movie into a genuine classic. Those scenes in which you do actually see the shark are actually quite disappointing. The shark looks awful, it is rubbery, mechanical and lifeless. But those scenes in which we don't see the shark, in which we are waiting for the shark, or in which we know he's there but can't see him or can just see a fin, are terrifying.

Spielberg employs some really clever devices to imply the presence of the shark. One of the scariest moments in the film is when a couple of punters head out in the evening to try and catch the shark. They secure a roast on a big, nasty hook and secure it to the end of a jetty. The shark takes the bait, but pulls the end of the jetty off, dragging it away. The terrifying moment comes when we see the end of the jetty turn around and start heading back into shore towards the man trying to swim to safety. On a number of occasions Spielberg uses floating devices which are caught on the shark as markers for where the shark is.

By far the most effective device for symbolising the presence of the shark though is John Williams' score. Jaws is an amazing case study in the effective use of music to build tension. Williams' score is so simple, the main body of the theme is just two notes repeated over and over, but it has an enormous impact. Whenever the silence is broken by those two notes, the audience automatically brace themselves, they he is coming, they know something is going to happen. Referring back to that Hitchcock quote, without the music Spielberg could have shocked people, surprised them, but with the music, he lets them know something is coming and makes them wait.

There was a bit of controversy about this film come award season after its release. Jaws was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar but Spielberg was overlooked for a Best Director nomination. Very rarely do you see a film nominated for the big prize without equal recognition for it's director. Spielberg was quite hurt but the implication that his contribution to the successful realisation of the film had not been major. I think though that time has judged that decision to be incorrect. It is hard to watch Jaws today and not see a Spielberg film. He has obviously played a major part in making the film what it is.

The cast are all great. The producers originally wanted Charlton Heston to play Brody, but Spielberg objected, arguing, "Moses? You want Moses? Everybody'll know he'll win." Scheider doesn't quite have the same invincible feel to him. You accept him as a man out of his depth, so to speak. You believe him when he says he's afraid of going on boats. Dreyfuss works perfectly as the slightly obnoxious oceanographer and the odd trio is rounded out with Robert Shaw putting in a chilling performance as the salty sea dog Quint. In particular his monologue about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, and the hundreds of crew members who were taken by great whites is quite haunting.

Jaws, the film that 35 years ago made people afraid to go in the water, still packs a massive punch. Jaws invented the summer blockbuster, it became the highest grossing film ever and was single handedly responsible in a downturn in numbers to American seaside tourist resorts that summer. It also installed Steven Spielberg as the people's filmmaker, a position he has arguably held ever since.

135) The Holiday

The Holiday (2006)

Director: Nancy Meyers

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslett, Jude Law, Jack Black, Eli Wallach, Rufus Sewell

Kate watches movies differently to me. She has this core group of about half a dozen films which she watches again and again. When she needs a break she'll go for one of them, a known commodity, rather than trying something different. One of these films is The Holiday. In her words, she knows it's crap but she loves it. We'd had a pretty full on busy Saturday and were zonked so our intended date night became take-away Indian and a DVD, Kate's choice, at home. Kate chose The Holiday. It was the second time this week she'd watched it.

Hollywood film trailer editor Amanda (Diaz) and British journalist Iris (Winslett) have both hit a low point in man troubles. Both deciding that they need to take a break over Christmas, they find each other on a house swapping website and before you know it Iris is living the high life in LA LA-land and Amanda is adjusting to the quiet serenity of the English countryside. However, little did they know that on the other side of the world, love was just around the corner (I'm quite proud of that sentence. That's a movie trailer sentence if ever I've heard one. Go on, read it again in the movie trailer voice.) When Iris's brother Graeme (Law) shows up drunk on his sister's, now Amanda's, doorstep the two strike up an instant rapport (they sleep with each other). Iris also strikes up a friendship with film composer Miles, who drops by Amanda's, now her, place to collect a laptop his composing partner left there.

In a film which is effectively two narratives running side by side, it makes sense that you would gravitate towards one rather than the other. In my case (and Kate's case, and just about everyone I know who has seen this film's case) I gravitated towards Iris's story rather than Amanda. Not only is Iris just lovely, the more interesting stuff happens on her side of the story. Jude Law's Graeme is alright, and the whole single-parent thing is quite touching, but Iris and Miles (I know. Jack Black as a charming romantic lead. Who'd have thought that would work?) just has a bit more spark to it. Cameron Diaz's Amanda is just a bit to prissy and annoying for my liking. Plus the whole 'Amanda can't cry' sub-plot is a bit groan worthy and results in a painfully predictable climax which kind of puts a dampener on the end of the film. If she has so much trouble crying why doesn't she just whack herself in the nose? Should do the trick.

Maybe it's because I'm male and therefore not a part of the target demographic, but I gravitated towards plot lines outside of the central love story. I really liked Eli Wallach as Iris's new found next door neighbour Arthur. He is a legendary Hollywood screenwriter who, because he is ashamed of his frailty, refuses to attend an event the Screenwriters Guild wants to hold in his honour. Iris being the good hearted soul she is makes it her mission to help him regain the strength in his legs and in his self confidence.

Arthur's presence plays a more important role than just a side story though. He is a key element in this self-conscious, meta-filmness Meyers seems to be going for. As a screenwriter he has a couple of conversations with Iris in which he describes her as though she were a movie character, and talks about her life as though it were a film plot. She is supposed to be the leading lady in her own story, but is always stuck playing the best friend character. On the other side of the narrative you have Amanda, who as a result of her immersion in her work as a film trailer editor is constantly hearing her life narrated to herself as though it were a movie trailer. Thus you get this kind of in-joke with the audience playing on everyones knowledge of film narrative and chick flick genre conventions. As a reviewer in Empire said, it's not going to make Charlie Kauffman lose any sleep, but it's something.

What really stands out about this film is the music. The Holiday has an absolutely amazing score, composed by Hans Zimmer, which you really don't expect from a film in the romantic comedy/chick flick genre. That being said, when one of the film's main characters is a film score composer if the music wasn't top notch the film would be open for criticism.

There is a great little cameo from Dustin Hoffman, playing himself in a video store overhearing Miles and Iris talking about the score for The Graduate. He has only about one second on screen, but it's great and good on him for not being too big headed to do it.

Having now seen it I can concur with Kate's assessment of it. It is a 'lovely' movie. It's good harmless fun, and while it isn't groundbreaking in any way, there are far dumber movies out there. Except for the last 5mins of the Amanda storyline. There is nothing dumber than that.

134) The Godfather

The Godfather (1972)

Director: Francis Ford Coppola

Starring: Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Diane Keaton, John Cazale, Talia Shire


The British Film Institute (BFI) has a series of books called BFI Classics. They are short books, about 100 pages long, written by different film critics and scholars about classic films. After a long wait they have finally released Jon Lewis's book on The Godfather. My copy arrived in the mail last week but before I read it I wanted to have the film fresh in my mind so sat down to watch it this afternoon.

Michael Corleone (Pacino) is a recently returned war hero. He is the son of the respected and feared underworld figure Don Vito Corleone (Brando), though Michael is keen to distance himself from his father's business. When an up and coming drug dealer, Virgil Sollozzo, comes to the Don seeking his protection over his business in exchange for a share in the profits, despite the advice from his consigliere Tom Hagan (Duvall) that the drug trade is the new frontier for their business, Don Corleone is morally opposed to drugs so declines. Sollozzo organises a hit on the Don in response. While the hit fails, it leaves the Don in a critical condition. The running of his empire is handed over to his hot tempered son Sonny (Caan) and Michael finds himself slowly but surely being dragged into the family business.

The film is based on the best-selling novel by Mario Puzo. Coppola collaborated with Puzo on the screenplay, but it is amazing the way in which the film became Coppola's film. Puzo's novel is fantastic. It is incredibly readable, a real page turner, but is actually quite pulpy. There is a whole storyline that follows Johnny Fontane in his show business dealings which is not really explored in the film, not to mention all of that stuff about Lucy Mancini and her enormous vagina. Coppola took this intriguing but pulpy material and transformed it into an operatic cinematic masterpiece. Key to this was a slight change in the focus of the story. Like most of Coppola's films The Godfather is concerned with the family. For Coppola, The Godfather was not a gangster film. It was a film about a king and his three sons. This slight change in focus which turned The Godfather into this epic family saga, and in the process differentiated The Godfather from the many many gangster films which had come before. This idea of the family side of the mafia would then become a focus of later films like Goodfellas, before really reaching it's full fruition in The Sopranos.

The Godfather is Francis Ford Coppola at his best, even if he would not agree with me saying that. In the 1970s Coppola seemed to have struck this perfect balance between his art film sensibilities and Hollywood's desire for commercially attractive realism. But Coppola's personal interest has always lay with making more artistic, personal films (as is evident in the difference between The Godfather and The Godfather Part II in which he had more creative freedom), and as such his career has headed further and further away from realism towards art film, to the point that this one time commercial phenomenon now devotes his time to making films that no one really has an interest in except himself. As film critic David Denby said, "The day Francis Coppola abandoned realism for artifice has to rank among the saddest in film history."

This was a real meeting of the old and new Hollywood. From the old Hollywood you had not only the triumphant return of the legendary Marlon Brando, who Coppola had to fight tooth and nail with Paramount executives in order to cast, but also bit part appearances from old guard stars like Sterling Hayden and Richard Conte linking the film back to the old crime thrillers of the 1940s and 1950s. Then you had the real launch of the careers of the next generation of Hollywood stars; Pacino, Keaton, Caan, Cazale, Duvall and Shire.

What amazes me when I watch The Godfather is the way that the film manages to transport me. Coppola and his team have created this world. For starters, the film looks absolutely stunning (particularly on the recent restoration for DVD and Blu-ray). By this I don't just mean that in terms of the beautiful cinematography or the detail that has gone into costume and set design. The Godfather looks different to other films. The film has a very distinctive amber tinted colour palate comprised of browns and oranges and, of course, black. Visually The Godfather is a very dark film. So many scenes take place in shadows and darkness that you really need to have the lights off or draw the curtains to watch this one or you just won't be able to see things. These visuals combined with Nino Rota's iconic score mean perfectly complement the story and the performances and just captivate you as a viewer.

The primary criticism of The Godfather when it came out was that it glorified the mafia. Vito Corleone is indeed presented as an honourable figure, a man or principle operating in an environment without any (as demonstrated by his refusal to get his family involved in the drug trade). However, the audience is not really encouraged to identify with Vito. We are encouraged to see the world through Michael's eyes. Michael is a much less heroic and glamorous figure. Michael is a cold, calculating and ruthless businessman. The fact that people had come out of the film with admiration for Michael so concerned Coppola that it was one of the key factors in his decision to agree to make a sequel. In The Godfather Part II and the later Part III it is made abundantly clear that Michael is not a good guy. His sins overtake him, leaving him well beyond any possible redemption.

Not only was The Godfather a massive critical success, it was also a box office sensation. It became the highest grossing film of all time, holding that position until the release of Spielberg's Jaws three years later. We live in a time now where there is a reasonably clear distinction between films which are box office successes and films which are critical/artistic successes. Even something like Titanic which seemingly straddled both, winning a swag of awards as well as dominating the box office, received it's fair share of critical panning. But The Godfather survived the hype of being a box office sensation to come to be regarded as one of the greatest films ever made.

The film instantly impacted the popular culture scene. Brando's performance became iconic, as did the image of the horse head in the bed. Quotes like "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse" and "Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes" became part of the vernacular. What is most interesting though is the way that The Godfather impacted on the real life mafia. Many gangsters started seeking to emulate the characters from the film, characters who were essentially idealised versions of themselves. The values and ideals of the mafia were being learned from The Godfather rather than from previous generations. The fantastic HBO series The Sopranos took great delight in demonstrating the impact The Godfather had on it's characters, with constant quotations and referencing by characters.

I know it is lame and unoriginal to say this, but The Godfather is one of my favourite films. I think it is one of the absolute finest pieces of cinema ever made and I think it deserves every bit of praise that it gets. Obviously everyone has their own tastes. I happen to love gangster movies, which suits in this case, but even if you don't and therefore don't enjoy the film, you have to appreciate this perfect combination of absolute top quality acting, direction, writing, design, cinematography and music. This film just ticks all the boxes.

133) Wall Street

Wall Street (1987)


Director: Oliver Stone

Starring: Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Daryl Hannah, Martin Sheen, John C. McGinley, Terence Stamp, Sean Young

I'm pretty keen to see Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps (even though I'm reasonably sure that it is going to be disappointing), but I wanted rewatch the original first. I saw it a few years ago but didn't have really strong memories of it and figured to get the most out of the sequel I would probably need to remember certain details from the original.

Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is a low level stock broker who spends his days cold calling people to encourage them to invest. His idol is high flying investor Gordon Gekko (Douglas). He longs to land an account for a big fish like Gekko. Every day Fox rings Gekko's office to try and arrange an appointment and when he shows up at Gekko's office on his birthday with a gift of Havana cigars, Gekko's favourite, he is granted an audience. Put on the spot for a tip, Fox gives Gekko some inside information regarding a small airline, Blue Star, which he obtained from his father (Martin Sheen), who works there. This information makes Gekko a lot of money so he opens an account with Fox, but Fox quickly discovers that doing business the Gekko way means sidestepping not only your morals, but the law.

I find it's really difficult to watch Charlie Sheen in films from this era with all the baggage that comes with Sheen now. In the 1980s when you thought Charlie Sheen, personally you thought Martin Sheen's son and professionally you thought Platoon and Wall Street. Pretty respectable. When you think Charlie Sheen now, professionally you think Two and a Half Men, and personally you think womanising sex addict/wife beater/drug rehab frequent visitor. It makes it hard to get in the mindset of taking him seriously again.

One of the great things about this film is that you don't really have to know the stock market to follow what is going on. I'm not an economically minded person (hence the reason I've spent the last seven years of my life at university studying film) and I didn't struggle to grasp what was being discussed. Stone does a great job of making the economic wheeling and dealing that is going on sound really complicated but at the same time making sure the viewer never gets left behind. At the very least you always know the motivation: greed. So even if there are moments you don't quite know what is happening, you still know why it is happening.

Gordon Gekko is one of those strange characters who seem to become cult heroes. You hear of stock brokers who idolise Gekko. I say it's strange, because if you've seen the movie you know that things don't necessarily work out for him. Tony Montana from Scarface is the other one that springs to mind. He is an idolised figure in the hip hop community. People want to be like him, and you just want to ask them "Have you actually watched through to the end of the movie?"

There are certain actresses (I find it is mainly actresses) who for me seem to sum up a decade. They aren't necessarily the biggest stars of that decade, just someone who's fame seemed to be tied to a certain period of time. Faye Dunaway is late 1960s-early 1970s, Meg Ryan is 1990s and Daryl Hannah is 1980s. I've never really understood the appeal of Daryl Hannah. She's never blown me away with a great performance, she doesn't strike me as being stunningly attractive, but I think most of all it is just I can't get past the fact that Daryl is not a particularly feminine name. When I think 'Daryl', I think Daryl Somers from 'Hey, Hey, It's Saturday!' and Daryl Kerrigan from The Castle.

Wall Street isn't so much a film about Wall Street. It is a film about capitalism, more specifically, it is a film about the value system behind it which places profit and wealth above everything else. It is a film about greed. It came out at a very poignant time for such a message in the late 1980s, giving the film a level of relevance that Stone is no doubt trying to recreate by bringing the sequel out just after the global financial crisis. There is nothing particularly subtle about the film, the characters, while brilliantly performed, are obvious caricatures, and Stone isn't afraid to really beat you over the head with his message at times, but it is an iconic and important film, and one of Stone's best.

132) Made in Britain

Made in Britain (1982)


Director: Alan Clarke

Starring: Tim Roth, Eric Richard, Bill Stewart, Terry Richards


We continued our bouncing around in Screens, Images, Ideas, this week landing in Thatcher's England with Alan Clarke's television movie Made in Britain.

16 year old skinhead Trevor (Roth) is found guilty of throwing a brick through the window of a Pakistani shopkeeper and is sent to Hooper Street Residential Assessment Centre where his punishment is to be determined. His social worker, Harry Parker (Eric Richard), and the staff at the assessment centre want to work with Trevor, encouraging him to conform to the norms of society, so as to avoid having to send him to prison, but Trevor is not interested in changing.

Made in Britain was the fourth in a series of four TV movies written by David Leland based loosely around the theme of education in the time of Thatcherism. Combined with Alan Clarke's interest in exploring the English working class, what you end up with is quite a damning view of of the influence of Thatcherism on the working class youth of England, and the rise of skinhead and Oi subcultures.

Tim Roth made his screen debut in the film. Apparently he got the part by accident, coming into the theatre where the auditions were being held in search of a bike pump. For a debut performance it has amazing power and intensity. Trevor is a confronting character. He is violent, rude, racist and completely uncompromising in his mindset.

It is important to note that we are again and again reminded that Trevor is an intelligent boy. This was in itself a political statement. At the time skinheads were largely assumed to be marauding idiots, whereas Clarke and Leland go to great lengths to show that Trevor's personality is actually a considered response to the society he finds himself in.

The natural point of comparison is with Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. Both films deal with an extremely antisocial youth in conflict with an establishment that wants to try and force them to conform. Kubrick's film is much more didactic than Clarke's though. A Clockwork Orange has the feel of a parable to it. It is set in this fantasy version of London and uses the story to make a statement about the importance of individual freedoms in the face of total state control. Made in Britain is much more grounded in reality. We also aren't encouraged to side with Trevor in quite the same way that we are with Alex in A Clockwork Orange. As a viewer you are unsatisfied with the way some people choose to respond to Trevor, but at the same time you are well aware that at no point is he the good guy or even the innocent party.

On a slightly different note, one of the first things which caught my attention about this film was that when the title slides came up at the beginning Made in Britain was credited as a film "By David Leland" rather than by Alan Clarke. I'm so used to seeing the authorship of a film being credited to the director ("A Martin Scorsese film", "A Spike Lee Joint", etc) that it seemed strange to see this authorship credit go to the screenwriter. It is often said that film is a directors' medium and television is a writers' medium, and with Made in Britain being a television movie I guess there was evidence of this mindset.

This is one of those films that is difficult to enjoy just because the central character is such an unlikeable individual. It is a powerful and aggressive film, almost as uncompromising as its central character, but this is a political statement film rather than an entertainment film and that political statement is no longer a relevant one.

131) Pirates of the Caribbean

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)

Director: Gore Verbinski

Starring: Johnny Depp, Kiera Knightley, Orlando Bloom, Geoffrey Rush, Jack Davenport, Jonathan Pryce

I haven't watched a Pirates of the Caribbean film for a few years. I really enjoyed the original, but for me, like many, the film was soured by it's increasingly disappointing sequels. After the surprise success of the first film, Disney wanted to squeeze more cash out of this idea, so a trilogy was slated. The problem was the first film was kind of intended to stand alone. The writers then had to create this elaborate story intended to follow on from the first one, integrating the story so as to make it seem as though it was always intended to be part one of a three part story. The second film was underwhelming. The third was downright awful (seriously, could anyone follow that narrative?). As a result, I hadn't really felt inspired to go back, but tonight Kate and I were in the mood for something escapist to the max, so gave it another go.

Swordsmith Will Turner (Bloom) has to team up with eccentric pirate Cpt. Jack Sparrow (Depp) to try and rescue his beloved Elizabeth Swann (Knightley) from Cpt. Barbosa (Rush) and his crew of scallywags. They have taken Elizabeth believing that she is the key to breaking the Aztec spell which has Barbosa and his crew existing in a state of living death. As the one-time Captain of Barbosa's ship, the Black Pearl, before he was abandoned to die after a mutiny, Sparrow is Turner's only chance to catch them, but Sparrow is a pirate, which makes trusting him problematic.

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise is a real marker of the times in Hollywood. Since the 1980s original ideas have been seen as secondary to pre-sold commodities. Hollywood wants films which already have an existing market. As such we've had Hollywood film adaptations of books, plays, comics, television shows, computer games and even board games, but this was the first time a film had been based on an amusement park ride, and low and behold it turned out to be a money spinner. It has becomes one of the highest grossing trilogies of all time, with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End the ninth highest grossing film ever with a worldwide box office of US$958.4 million, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest the fourth highest grosser with a worldwide box office of US$1,060.6 million. I'm sure there were a fair few Hollywood executives who did a quick Google search of amusement park rides after the first film hit, just to see if there was anything else out there worth having a go at.

The x-factor in this film is so obviously Johnny Depp. Arguing that pirates were the rock stars of their day, he famously modelled his performance on Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, and took the character of Jack Sparrow in a completely different direction to what the writers had intended. And thank God he did. It is Depp's characterisation as Sparrow which sets the fun, comic tone for this film. Had he chosen to play it straight, much like every other hero pirate in cinema history (think Errol Flynn), Pirates of the Caribbean would have been a dry movie. He turned a few heads with this performance when he earned an Oscar nomination for best actor, unheard of for this type of movie. But when you watch the film you can understand why. His unique, creative performance provides the spark. Unfortunately, everything that was fresh and different about his performance in the first film seems to become a bit more predictable in the sequels. Perhaps it is a case of Depp bringing a little bit of magic to the first film and then a team of writers trying to recreate that magic from there on in.

Geoffrey Rush is great as Captain Barbosa, showing his flair as a comical character actor by doing what is effectively the most cliched pirate impression you've ever seen but making it work (there are plenty or "Yarr!"s but I can't recall hearing a "Shiver me timbers"). However, Kiera Knightley and Orlando Bloom are both a bit dull. This was the film that made her a star after she first appeared on the radar as the best friend in Bend it like Beckham, and it built on the profile Bloom had established in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But watching it a few years down the track, when neither of them are the flavour of the month anymore, I just felt they were a bit... bland.

I don't hold high hopes for Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. They've assembled a decent cast. I think Penelope Cruz could sizzle in a pirate movie in a way which Kiera Knightley failed to, and I think Ian McShane as Blackbeard is a masterstroke, but I can't help but feel the whole project reeks of flogging a dead horse. The last film, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, was a bit of a stinker, and it just seems as though this film is only getting made to get Depp to do Sparrow again (which I'm surprised that he's actually agreed to do). Who am I kidding though. I'm still going to see it when it comes out. I'll just complain about it if it's crappy.

If you can divorce it from the disappointments of it's sequels, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl stands up as a really fun adventure movie. It is probably the best in it's genre since the Indiana Jones trilogy. It's got that great combination of a little bit of comedy, a little bit of horror, a little bit of romance and an absolute bucket load of action and adventure which makes for a fun movie experience. It's dangerous though. If you go back and watch the first one again you could get swept up in it and be tricked into watching numbers two and three again.

130) London Orbital

London Orbital (2002)

Directors: Christopher Petit, Iain Sinclair

Starring: J.G. Ballard

The second film we watched in this weeks screening for Screens, Images, Ideas was Christopher Petit and Iain Sinclair's London Orbital. It was in a similar vein to Lost Book Found in so much as it dealt with the experience of a particular location, this time the London Orbital motorway, the M25.

Inspired by Sinclair's book of the same title, in which he walked a lap of the 120 mile long M25, the world's largest ring road, Petit sets out on a similar task. He drives continuously around the London Orbital seeking to discover the beauty of this motorway which is a source of great frustration to so many.

This film starts out kind of interesting. It is an odd concept, driving laps of a motorway, but you are willing to go with it, at least initially. We get some interesting little stories and anecdotes which spring out of his journey along the M25; he passes the house where Dracula was supposed to have moved to in Bram Stoker's novel and riffs on that for a while, he talks about Margaret Thatcher's relationship with Augusto Pinochet (Thatcher was Prime Minister when the M25 was built). But after a while you realise this film is not progressing. It is not building towards anything. It is not going anywhere.

London Orbital is boring and repetitive, although it is entirely possible that this was the point. It is seeking to be experiential rather than informative. While those little stories and anecdotes are there, the film is not seeking to tell us the history of the motorway. Rather it wants us to feel what this journey is like. Petit and Sinclair seek to replicate the experience of driving around and around the M25, an experience that is boring and repetitive. So they have no doubt succeeded in their intention, but it begs the question; is something that is intentionally boring and repetitive any better than something which is accidentally boring and repetitive.

The film sits more towards the video art end of the documentary spectrum. Most of the film is done in a really off putting split screen, with the left and right sides of the screen showing different images. You feel like you don't know what you are supposed to watch, but then there isn't actually anything you are supposed to be watching.

The narration starts to ware on you after a while. It is all delivered in such a way that it seems intended to be poetic, thought provoking or profound, but it kind of falls short of that mark.

While Lost Book Found's run time of 35mins was appropriate for the type of film that it was, London Orbital ran for a torturous 77mins. I usually give films a chance. I'm always looking for positives in each film I see, but I really struggled with this one. It was monotonous and pretentious and it just couldn't keep my attention.

129) Lost Book Found

Lost Book Found (1996)

Director: Jem Cohen

Starring: Monroe D. Cohen, Todd Colby


This week in Screens, Images, Ideas we did something a bit different. We looked at the somewhat vague idea of psychogeography, the way in which people experience different places, in our case cinematically. Rather than having one film as our text we watched a couple of shorter films and snippets from others. The first film we watched was a short documentary by Jem Cohen called Lost Book Found.

The narrative centres on a nameless man who worked for some years as a hot dog vendor in New York. Every now and then he sees a homeless man who makes money by fishing things out of the sewers and selling them. One day he buys a book off him. This book is filled with dozens of random lists. These lists would no doubt have had some mundane significance to the original owner of the book, but to the man they form a code with which he can unlock an understanding of the city of New York.

While the film has a narrative, there is no actual action taking place on screen. Lost Book Found's narrative exists only in the form of a narration. What you see on screen is a series of images and shots of New York city. I'm not talking about the standard tourist shots of the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. Rather, the narrative is supported by shots of the streets of New York city. Shop windows, phone booths, garbage bins, taxi cabs, street signs, footpaths and posters. The images show the New York city that of the street hot dog vendor. The images paint a picture of New York. They create an atmosphere, a vibe. I suppose you would call the film a documentary, but Lost Book Found isn't trying to teach you about New York. It is not a film of facts or anecdotes. Instead, in a way, it wants to make you feel New York.

New York has quite a strong tradition of cinematic representations. It is a city which has become a film icon. In so many films the city of New York becomes more than just a location. It has a character which infiltrates and influences the film. Obviously there are filmmakers like Woody Allen (Manhattan), Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver), Spike Lee (25th Hour) and Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon) who are very New York centric, but you also see the city playing a prominent role in films like The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Wall Street and even Ghostbusters.

If the name Jem Cohen means anything to you at all, which I'm assuming it doesn't because it didn't to me, it is probably because he has directed a number of film clips for R.E.M. including the clips for 'Nightswimming', 'E-Bow the Letter' and 'Talk About the Passion'.

Lost Book Found is only very short, with a run time of about 35mins. This is just as well, as I don't think there is really enough there to sustain a viewers interest for any longer. But as a short film I think it kind of worked. I'm not usually a fan of this kind of unconventional film, but I found that I was willing to go with it and found it quite effective. Realistically, this is not a film that you are just going to come across. It's pretty niche. But if you are into this sort of thing, it's not bad.

128) GoldenEye

GoldenEye (1995)

Director: Martin Campbell

Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Izabella Scorupco, Sean Bean, Famke Janssen, Joe Don Baker, Judi Dench, Alan Cumming, Gottfried John, Robbie Coltrane, Desmond Llewelyn

I had a bit of a splurge during the week and I bought myself the complete James Bond DVD box set. I've wanted them for ages but could never bring myself to buy them in one hit, and at the same time didn't really want to accumulate them over time because they keep re-releasing them with different covers and then the set wouldn't match (a bit anal I know). But I figured the break in the series that was created with Casino Royale was sufficient enough that I could accept having all the pre-Casino Royale ones matching and those from after that looking different. That is, of course, assuming that MGM manages to recover and we do end up getting 'Bond 23', which is yet to be seen.

After stealing a state of the art Tiger helicopter, renegade Russian General Ourumov (John) and his deadly but beautiful right hand woman Xenia Onatopp (Janssen) attack a Russian military base at Servernya, stealing the access key to the GoldenEye weapon, a satellite which triggers a nuclear pulse, destroying all electronic equipment. MI6 send in James Bond (Brosnan) to recover the key and find out who is orchestrating the plot.

The 1980s was a difficult decade for James Bond. It was the decade of the action movie blockbuster. The 1980s saw the stakes raised in the action genre with the likes of Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Willis at the height of their careers, and as such the Bond franchises place in the action genre seemed to come under threat. The decade saw six Bond films released; three starring a visibly aging Roger Moore (For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View to a Kill), two starring one of the more underwhelming Bond's, Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights and License to Kill) and Never Say Never Again, an 'unofficial' Bond movie starring a 53 year old Sean Connery, 21 years after he first played the role. After releasing five official Bond films in eight years, MGM would wait six years before firing up the franchise again with GoldenEye.

So while GoldenEye was not complete re-imagining of the franchise like Casino Royale would be, it was none the less a reboot of sorts, seeking to get the waining franchise back on track. In this regard it would prove to be quite a success. It became easily the highest grossing Bond film to date, more than doubling the gross of the previous film in the series. Critically it was well received, being regarded as the best Bond film for well over a decade and a real return to form for the franchise. Pierce Brosnan was a hit as the new Bond. He would appear in four more films and come to be considered second only to Connery in the hierarchy of James Bonds. But watching the film today, it is amazing how much Casino Royale, and Daniel Craig as Bond, have changed my perception of what has come before.

I was a big fan of Brosnan as James Bond. I thought he had the right mix of icy coldness and smugness to play the part. In GoldenEye there was obviously an effort to flesh out his character a bit more than in previous films. There are scenes in which Bond is shown to have a level of self-awareness that was never a characteristic of his before, even if these scenes are a bit naff. For example, there is an exchange between Natalya and Bond in which she asks him "How can you act like this? How can you be so cold?" To which he replies, "It's what keeps me alive." But even with this conscious fleshing out of Bond's character, I still felt he looked hopelessly two dimensional compared to the Daniel Craig Bond.

James Bond action sequences have always been extreme, and they still are in the new Bond movies. Occasionally though, these extreme sequences go a bit too far and fall into the ridiculous. The windsurfing scene in Die Another Day was the last straw for the faithful few who had held on through John Cleese's presentation of the invisible car, but the opening scene of GoldenEye isn't all that much better. Bond chases an unmanned aeroplane down a tarmac on a motorcycle. The plane reaches the end of the tarmac and drives off a cliff before Bond can get to it, so he drives off the cliff on his motorbike and then free falls to the door of the plane, climbs in and flies the plane to safety. This was the moment in the film which really hit home I was in a different era of Bond films.

The real masterstroke of GoldenEye is the introduction of Judi Dench as M. It is no coincidence that she was the one element from the Bond series that was retained for the Casino Royale reboot. She brings a real sharpness and seriousness to the role, plus the fact that she is a woman provides a fantastic juxtaposition with the misogynist world Bond inhabits.

I hadn't watched a Bond movie in ages and this may well have been the first of the older Bonds I've watched since Casino Royale and I must say that Casino Royale has changed the expectations of the franchise. It brought a level of darkness, seriousness and severity to what had previously been the epitome of escapist cinema. GoldenEye and Casino Royale are amazingly different films given they are both directed by Martin Campbell. Casino Royale changed what it meant to watch a Bond movie, and as a result I think I was kind of disappointed by GoldenEye in a way I wouldn't have been were I watching it five years ago. Bond has changed. What we have now is a completely different series and we have to treat it as such, much in the same way that we do with Nolan's Batmans.

127) In the Heat of the Night

In the Heat of the Night (1967)

Director: Norman Jewison

Starring: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, Larry Gates

Ever since I read Mark Harris's fantastic book Scenes from a Revolution (a fantastic read which I have included in my newly added Books section), which was for some unknown reason originally released here under the title Pictures of a Revolution, I've been keen to see Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night. I spotted it at JB Hi-Fi for about $6 so thought it was a worthwhile investment.

When a prominent businessman, in the process of building a new factory in Sparta, Mississippi, is murdered, Virgil Tibbs (Poitier) is arrested at the train station where he was waiting for his connecting train to take him home to Philadelphia. Being a black man trying to get out of town seems to make him suspicious enough. When Police Chief Gillespie (Steiger) discovers that Tibbs is actually Philadelphia's leading homicide detective he reluctantly asks him for assistance with the investigation, and Tibbs reluctantly agrees under orders from his superiors. Gillespie's bigoted attitude, combined with his insecurities in the face of Tibbs expertise, makes for an uncomfortable working relationship, and the further into their investigation they get, the more apparent it becomes that Tibbs' life is in danger if he outstays his welcome in the racially charged town.

In Harris's book, he describes the scene in which Tibbs slaps Endicott as a key scene in terms of the changing racial landscape in America. Tibbs and Gillespie go to speak to the wealthy businessman Endicott (Gates), who Tibbs considers a suspect in the murder. When Endicott discovers he stands accused of murder he delivers a backhand slap across Tibbs face. Without blinking Tibbs returns the backhand slap, leaving Endicott stunned. He has clearly never had a negro retaliate to his abuse before. As Harris reported, black audiences cheered when Tibbs returned Endicott's slap. Suddenly on screen there was a strong, intelligent African American who was going to stand up for himself rather than just sit back and tolerate intolerance. This scene became a galvanising moment. It's amazing to think this was only five years after To Kill a Mockingbird. No longer was it the role of a noble white man to defend the voiceless black community, they had their own hero representing them in the form of Virgil Tibbs. And it isn't just this scene. The film's most often quoted line is another such moment of defiance:

Gillespie: (Aggressively) You're pretty sure of yourself ain't you, Virgil. Virgil, that's a funny name for a nigger boy that comes from Philadelphia. What do they call you up there?

Tibbs: They call me MISTER Tibbs!

Virgil Tibbs is presented as an admirable character in contrast to the inhabitants of the town of Sparta, Mississippi. He is shown to be easily the most intelligent and respectable figure in the film, but what makes him an excellent character is that displays frustration and bitterness about the racism he receives. He doesn't just take it on the chin. He doesn't feel duty bound to help Gillespie with his investigation, and there are a number of moments where he feels it's not worth his time putting up with the crap he's getting and makes to leave. Rather than reversing the existing racial views by placing a seemingly perfect black man in a sea of imperfect white people, Jewison's film humanises Tibbs. He is an admirable character, but still a human character.

Rod Steiger won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance as Gillespie. I think he put in a great performance as the intolerant police chief who slowly grows in respect for Tibbs. He thoroughly deserved the recognition, though I would suggest that it is highly debatable whether his was the leading role. I guess it can be read as ironic, given the film's thematic content, that Poitier was not recognised as the leading actor in the film.

In the Heat of the Night won the 1968 Best Picture Oscar over a field that included Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate. In the decades that have passed since then it hasn't quite taken on the legendary status of those other two films, possibly because the two rather underwhelming sequels it spawned, The Call Me MISTER Tibbs! and The Organization, have reflected poorly on it, but also because much of its significance was tied into the social/political context it arose from. But while it is not remembered as one of the all time greats like the other two, it is still a fantastic film, a very interesting historical document, and well worth a look.

126) Adam & Paul

Adam & Paul (2004)

Director: Leonard Abrahamson

Starring: Tom Murphy, Mark O'Halloran


After the mid-semester break we were back with Screens, Images, Ideas. As I mentioned earlier, we're done with the New Hollywood and are now undertaking a slightly more tenuously linked back end of the course. This week we were looking at Irish cinema with Abrahamson's Adam & Paul.

Two junkies, Adam (O'Halloran) and Paul (Murphy), wake up one morning on the beach in an unfamiliar part of Dublin with no memory as to how they got there, or how Paul became glued to the mattress he was sleeping on. The rest of their day is spent trying to get their hands on their next hit of heroin, trying to find the elusive dealer they know only as 'whatshisname'.

Ireland does not have an overly rich cinematic history, as it kind of lives in the shadow of British cinema, and what cinematic reputation it does have tends to come down to two filmmakers; Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father and more recently, and less notably, the 50 Cent movie Get Rich or Die Tryin') and Neil Jordan (The Crying Game, The Butcher Boy, Michael Collins and Interview with the Vampire). What Ireland does have, however, is a very rich literary tradition, which has influenced the way people think of their film industry. Irish film criticism tends to focus on storytelling and narrative rather than on direction and visual style.

In trying to explain what Adam & Paul is, director Abrahamson and writer/star Murphy have described the film as 'an inarticulate Pete and Dud in a Joycean day in the life' and 'a smacked out Laurel and Hardy waiting for Godot.' This indicates the influence of Irish literary tradition on the film. Obviously structurally the film is indebted to Joyce's Ulysses as it follows a day in the life of these characters as they wander around Dublin. However, it is Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and the absurdist theatre tradition that it is a part of, that appears to have ad the biggest influence. The day starts with no concept of any time before, and as the story goes on we get the sense that it is a cyclical tale and the day before most likely panned out exactly the same way, as would the day after. The fact that their day is devoted to trying to meet up with this anonymous figure, 'whatshisname', also works as an allusion to Vladimir and Estragon's wait for the equally anonymous Godot. The film also contains smaller allusions to scenes and characters from Beckett's play.

It is not actually until the end credits that you discover which one is Adam and which one is Paul. Throughout the entire film they are always together and thus when they encounter people they are referred to collectively as 'Adam and Paul'. The two characters are so closely intertwined that a couple of the students in my class were actually contemplating whether they were actually the same character and what we were seeing was a portrayal of drug induced schizophrenia. This lack of identity and interchangeability of characters is another technique which is used in the absurdist tradition.

While the two of them can be quite a likable pair, particularly Adam, whenever you start to find yourself becoming comfortable with who these guys are and the life that they lead, Abrahamson offers up something which brings home the harsh reality of the junkie lifestyle (the most challenging scene of this kind is when the two of them hold up a teenage boy with down syndrome because they need some money). In this way Adam & Paul presents a rather balanced portrayal of these two junkies, neither demonising them nor shying away from portraying the darker side of the lifestyle.

British cinema already has it's great heroin film, Danny Boyle's Scottish film Trainspotting. Adam & Paul is a different kind of film, coming from a different perspective. It is not nearly as 'cool' as Boyle's film, though there is something quite endearing but at the same time tragic about it. This is a film that most people are unlikely to come across, but if you do it's worth a look.