125) To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Director: Robert Mulligan

Starring: Gregory Peck, Mary Badham, Phillip Alford, Frank Overton, Estelle Evans, Brock Peters, Robert Duvall

Somehow I managed to complete high school without ever being called upon to read Harper Lee's classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Probably as a result of this I'd never gotten around to seeing the film version. I'd known it was supposed to be very good and Gregory Peck was meant to be great, but it had just never figured that highly in my list of priorities. But Kate decided I should definitely see it, and I'm glad she did.

Atticus Finch (Peck) is a single parent to Scout (Badham) and Jem (Alford) and a lawyer. He is called upon to defend a Tom Robinson (Peters), a negro accused of raping and beating a white girl, in a case which flares up the simmering racial tension in the town of Maycomb. While in 1930s Alabama, the verdict in such a case is a foregone conclusion, Finch believes that Robinson is innocent and seeks to defend him not only in court, but outside of it too, an unpopular stance with the townsfolk.

You could do a very interesting racial study of this film, in fact I'm sure someone has, because it is quite noticeable that the black characters in the film are pretty voiceless. In the scene towards the end of the film where Finch goes to see Tom Robinson's wife, she does speak a line. In fact the actress who plays her is not even credited. In general, the scenes which contain numerous black characters treat them more like props than characters. I guess it demonstrates the gap between the noble intentions of the story's message and the reality of the situation at the time of the film's production.

However, To Kill a Mockingbird is not actually a story about racism, it is a story about a noble white man. This is most evident in the courtroom scene. After the verdict there is quite a stirring moment when the court has cleared except for Finch and all of the black people in the upper deck. As Finch goes to leave, Rev. Sykes instructs Scout, "Jean Louise, stand up. Your father is passing." With that all of the black people stand in respectful silence as Finch walks past. This scene kind of sums up the film, because even at this moment the focus of these characters, and the viewer, is not on the fact that Tom Robinson has just been found guilty of a crime he didn't commit, but on the noble effort of Atticus Finch in trying to defend him.

I found Robert Duvall's presence as Boo Radley in the film's climax strangely jarring. For me Duvall represents a different era in Hollywood. He is New Hollywood whereas Peck is definitely old Hollywood. So having them in the same scene seemed really strange. It didn't help that Duvall looked so different to everyone else in the picture. He had this crazy, tall, Eraserhead-like hairstyle which made him really stand out among the well manicured looks of the other characters. I understand that Boo Radley is supposed to not fit in and his presence is supposed to be uncomfortable, but to me it looked like Duvall had been Forrest Gumped into this old movie. I assume this was not an issue for many other viewers of To Kill a Mockingbird, but it was for me.

Throughout the 2000s, to celebrate the centenary of cinema, the American Film Institute published a series of top 100 lists. In 2003, they released a list of the top 100 cinematic heroes. Atticus Finch topped the list, pipping Indiana Jones and James Bond for the number one position. That was kind of a surprise for me. Of course there is plenty that is admirable and heroic about Atticus Finch, but I'll admit he's not the first name that jumps into my head when I think of great movie heroes.

To Kill a Mockingbird is a well constructed film and by all reports and fairly honest adaptation of Harper Lee's book. It is a very stirring film and with Peck giving a career-defining performance, you can't help but be filled with admiration for Atticus Finch. However it is quite an innocent and naive take on what is actually quite a dark story. Obviously some of that naivety comes from the films desire to emulate Lee's book, which is told from the perspective of a small child, but none the less there are moments in this film where I couldn't help but feel that a film from slightly later in the decade would have endeavoured to make a slightly stronger comment. That being said, all films are a product of the era from which they came and that is how we have to judge them. To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic, though it is probably fair to say that it's classic status is derived from it being an honest adaptation of a classic novel rather than it being a masterful piece of cinema. I did thoroughly enjoy it though. Maybe even enough to get me to read the book.

Status Update

September

Films Watched: 14 (124 in total)

Pick of the Bunch:

I can't go past The Big Lebowski. It is a brilliantly made and really clever film that is also heaps of fun. You really can't beat that combination. Great characters, good story. The Dude abides.






Also Up There: Up, Gone with the Wind, The Prestige

Don't Waste Your Time: Wanda. Not only is it tortuously slow and depressing with fairly uninteresting characters in a fairly uninteresting plot, it is also incredibly difficult to get your hands on. So really not worth your time.

124) The Prestige

The Prestige (2006)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johanssen, Rebecca Hall, Andy Serkis, David Bowie, Piper Perabo

The Prestige is a film that I feel has never quite received the acclaim it deserves. This is partly a result of the fact that Neil Burger's The Illusionist, a film exploring a similar area, came out at roughly the same time, and partly a result of it having been overshadowed by some of Christopher Nolan's other achievements. I think it's a cracker of a film though, so I've been wanting to give it another look for some time.

Alfred Bordon (Bale) stands accused of the murder of fellow acclaimed magician Robert Angier (Jackman). The Prestige traces the history of this feud, starting with the accident which resulted in the death of Angier's wife (Perabo), and following the fierce personal and professional rivalry which has led to this current situation.

At the very beginning of the film Michael Caine's character explains to a little girl, and to us, that every magic trick has three parts; the Pledge, in which you are presented with something ordinary; the Turn, in which the magician takes that ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary; and the Prestige, in which order is restored. The classic example being the sawing of a woman in half. The pledge is the woman. The turn is when she is sawed in half. The prestige is when she is put back together. We are given this information from the very get go because it informs the in which we understand the film. On the micro level, The Prestige is all about two magicians trying to learn each others tricks, trying to unlock the prestige. On a macro level the entire film is a magic trick, with the audience waiting for the prestige. Waiting to see how order will be restored, and how things will be explained. Nolan does not present The Prestige in chronological order, but rather jumps and forth in time, primarily through devices such as the reading of journals and letters, in such a way as to present us with important bits of information, key to unravelling the mystery. Of course, the solution is not what you expect it to be. The film has a great series of twists towards the end.

Unfortunately, as a second (or maybe third) time viewer the wow factor of the twist ending, and thus the mystery of the story, does not quite have the same impact. Much like with The Usual Suspects, there is a different type of enjoyment to be taken out of a second screening of The Prestige. Rather than seeing all the clues and trying to work out the solution, on the second viewing you have the solution and the enjoyment comes from spotting all of the clues that point to it. The twist ending in The Prestige is the best kind of twist, rather than coming out of left field it is actually completely obvious... providing you were looking for it. Much like any magic trick, once you know how it is done you can't work out how you ever didn't see it in the first place.

Christian Bale is very good playing a grumpy, incredibly determined artist (which when you think about it makes reasonable sense), Michael Caine is good as always and Scarlett Johansson struggles valiantly through an English accent, but the real treat is Hugh Jackman. It is not a case of his performance being better than the others, but rather his being the most surprising. The Prestige shows a darker side of Jackman than has been seen in anything else he's done. Wolverine was gruff, but he was still heroic. As Angier, Jackman portrays an incredible bitterness and hatred towards his nemesis which makes him quite frightening, while still possessing that Hugh Jackman showmanship which makes him a perfect fit for the Great Danton.

There is a nice cameo, or slightly more than a cameo, from David Bowie as real life scientist Nikola Tesla. Tesla was known for his experiments with electricity and having him there as a supporting character both grounds the story in history and gives it a bit of that faux-science which movies love to use as a short cut to explain tricky premises. By faux-science in movies, I'm talking about: "How did they travel through time in Back to the Future?" "They had a flux capacitor." "Oh, ok." or "How did they bring dinosaurs back to life in Jurassic Park?" "They used DNA." "Oh, ok."

The Prestige gets lost among some of the other directorial achievements of Christopher Nolan. It wasn't big and grand enough not to be overshadowed by his Batman films and more recently Inception, but at the same time it is not small and quirky enough to match Memento. Despite this, however, it is a really good film, one which would have put Nolan on many people's radars even if he hadn't been the man who rescued Batman.

123) The Other Guys

The Other Guys (2010)

Director: Adam McKay

Starring: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Michael Keaton, Steve Coogan, Eva Mendes, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne Johnson

I met up with a good mate I hadn't seen for a few weeks to see a movie. There wasn't a great deal on that interested us so it came down to Polanski's The Ghost Writer and the new McKay/Ferrell collaboration The Other Guys. The selection was then left in the hands of the Hoyts schedule and The Other Guys presented much more favourable times.

Everyone at the NYPD lives in the shadows of detectives Highsmith (Jackson) and Danson (Johnson). They are the baddest most beloved crime fighting duo in New York City. A couple of desks over at the station sit Allen Gamble (Ferrell) and Terry Hoitz (Wahlberg). They are the other guys. Gamble doesn't particularly like taking risks so prefers to devote himself to his paperwork. Hoitz has all the ambition to be a hero, but his career has been stunted by an incident in which he accidentally shot baseballer Derek Jeter during the World Series, costing his city the title. When Highsmith and Danson are both killed in the line of duty New York is crying out for new heroes and before they know it, the seemingly insignificant case that Gamble has been working on, involving scaffolding permit violations, leads them all the way to multi-millionaire investor Daniel Ershon (Coogan) and becomes the highest profile case in the city.

I'll admit I have gone a bit cold on Will Ferrell over the last few years, as it appears most people have. Anchorman was brilliant, Talladega Nights was disappointing, Blades of Glory showed promise, Semi-Pro was the worst film I had seen in a number of years and as a result I didn't bother seeing Step Brothers. It didn't help Ferrell's cause that at the same time as his shtick was starting to feel a bit stale the Judd Apatow crew really took off with The 40 Year Old Virgin, Superbad and Knocked Up all kicking goals. The Other Guys is, however, a step in the right direction. The semi-improvisational comedy style is a bit hit and miss as it always is (the whole back story about Ferrell's character being a pimp in college I could have done without), but generally it's more up than down.

The film had a really interesting cast, which is really what peaked my interest. It was great to finally see Will Ferrell playing a different character. His character in The Other Guys is a slightly repressed nerd, much more like the character he played in Stranger than Fiction than the wailing, screaming man-child we are used to seeing him play. Whalberg has his moments playing a kind of pathetic version of his character Dignam from The Departed. The two aren't quite a natural match, there isn't a real spark there, but they bounce off each other alright. The supporting cast is where the action is though. Steve Coogan, Samuel L. Jackson, Dwayne "Don't call me The Rock, I'm an actor now" Johnson, Eva Mendes and, the highlight of the bunch, Michael Keaton, who it is great to see back on the big screen generally, and in comedy specifically.

McKay and Ferrell have fun playing with the very well established conventions of the buddy-cop movie, and get some good laughs out of it. The over the top hero-cops Highsmith and Danson are great, in particular the way they meet their demise is quite funny. In general, though, The Other Guys is not nearly as clever as Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz or even, for Australians, Tony Martin's often maligned Bad Eggs.

One thing which did leave my a bit confused was the final credit sequence for the film. While the credits where running there were animations on the screen which included all sorts of statistics about white collar/corporate crime, Bernie Madoff, embezzlement, etc. It seemed to suggest that the filmmakers believed that The Other Guys had made some sort of serious statement about white collar crime, but that is not at all the impression I had got while watching the film. The specific details of the crime that Coogan's character had committed hardly seemed to be highlighted in such a way as to promote moral outrage. If McKay and his team are of the belief that in The Other Guys they had achieved biting satire which made valuable social commentary, I think they might be slightly overestimating what they have produced. The film is reasonably funny, but hardly profound and you don't walk out of the cinema feeling more aware of a certain issue.

If you're a Will Ferrell fan you'll probably find that the constraints of the buddy-cop genre restrict him too much. If you aren't a Will Ferrell fan you'll probably feel there are still a few too many moments where he reverts to playing a wailing man-child. I sit somewhere in between the two. The Other Guys is not the best film Ferrell has made, but it is also far from the worst. It will make you laugh, but it's not hugely memorable.

122) The Blind Side

The Blind Side (2009)

Director: John Lee Hancock

Starring: Sandra Bullock, Quinton Aaron, Tim McGraw, Jae Head, Lilly Collins, Ray McKinnon, Kathy Bates

My third double up for the year is John Lee Hancock's The Blind Side. With her strong sense of social justice, this has fast become Kate's favourite film, so it was only a matter of time before she wanted to show it to the kids at the youth group she runs, and I help out with, at Turramurra.

Again, I don't want to repeat myself from last time but I will say that second time around I was just as impressed with Sandra Bullock's performance. It really was the performance of her career and a well deserved Oscar win. My main concern now is that she will go straight back to doing another All About Steve or The Proposal equivalent, where she plays a character she is about 5-10 years too old to be playing (what I like to call Cameron Diaz territory). Having seen this great performance, and not having the faith in Bullock's ability to maintain excellence the way someone like Meryl Streep does, I kind of never want to see her in anything again so that she will always remain Leigh Anne Tuohy. But hey, she might prove me wrong and this might be the career turning point for her. Who knows.

While it was probably a bit overrated as a whole this movie is incredibly uplifting, it will restore your faith in humanity (and in Sandra Bullock).

121) Young Frankenstein

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Director: Mel Brooks

Starring: Gene Wilder, Peter Boyle, Teri Garr, Marty Feldman, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn, Kenneth Mars, Gene Hackman

Before there were the Zucker brothers, Mel Brooks was the undisputed king of spoof comedy, with hits like Blazing Saddles, The Producers (the film which spawned a Broadway musical which in turn spawned another film) and the one I consider to be the cream of the crop, Young Frankenstein.

The grandson of infamous mad scientist Victor Frankenstein, Frederick Frankenstein (Wilder), a respected neurosurgeon, has spent his life trying to distance himself from his grandfather, even changing the pronunciation of his name to Frunkenshteen. When Victor's will is opened, Frederick inherits his grandfather's castle. Upon his arrival, he discovers a book entitled 'How I Did It' by Victor Frankenstein which convinces him that his grandfathers experiments may have had some merit. With the help of his attractive lab assistant Inga (Garr) and his not so attractive assistant Igor (Feldman), Frederick sets out to continue his grandfathers quest to create life.

Young Frankenstein is not just a spoof of the Mary Shelley's Frankenstein story, rather it is specifically a spoof of James Whale's 1930s horror classics, Frankenstein and The Bride of Frankenstein. Brooks has perfectly recreated the look of these legendary horror films, even going so far as to rent the original set used for Dr. Frankenstein's laboratory. The result is this fantastic contrast between the beauty and subtlety of the image and the incredible unsubtlety of the comedy. Brooks was never afraid to go low-brow. This is, after all, the man who in Blazing Saddles gave us cinemas most famous farting scene. He once claimed of his comedy, "My movies rise below vulgarity". So you probably shouldn't be surprised that Young Frankenstein gives you more of the same. One of the key running jokes of the film is the fact that the monster has, as Inga puts it, "an enormous schwanzstucker."

My earliest memory of this film was from when I was quite young, visiting Warner Brothers Movie World on the Gold Coast. They used it in a demonstration of how a Foley sound studio worked. They got a series of volunteers up to perform different sound effects, they would play the scene from the film and when a certain coloured light came on each person had to make their sound to fill out the scene. My dad had been chosen. I can't remember what his job was, but I remember the fact that he had to go on the green light. The only problem was he is red/green colour blind. I can't remember how it panned out, I was only young, but the first time I saw Young Frankenstein for real, I recognised the scene (specifically Gene Wilder's line "What knockers!").

There is a great little cameo from Gene Hackman, playing a blind man whose house the monster shows up at while on the run. It's a pretty bawdy, slap-stick scene but I like the idea that a Best Actor winner would not be above taking on a part like that just for a bit of a laugh.

I was underwhelmed by Blazing Saddles when I saw it for the first time last year. I thought The Producers was good without being great. But I genuinely love Young Frankenstein. I think it is easily Brooks' best film and even if the comedy isn't to your liking it stands up as a really good piece of filmmaking. I think, though, that what this movie really shows is that for spoofs to work the filmmaker must have a genuine affection for the material that they are lampooning. Brooks isn't paying out James Whale's Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein because he thinks they were lame or crap, rather, he clearly loves the source material and this is shown in the incredible detail that goes into the mimicry. This is, I think, the key factor that has been missing from recent awful spoof attempts like Date Movie, Vampires Suck, etc, etc. Good spoof movies should be like making playful jokes at your friends rather than teasing those you dislike.

120) The Man Without a Past

Meis vailla menneisyytta (2002)

Director: Aki Kaurismaki

Starring: Markku Peltola, Kati Outinen, Juhani Niemela, Kaija Pakarinen, Sakari Kuosmanen


We are into the second half of Screens, Images, Ideas so have left the New Hollywood behind in favour of a much more incoherent grouping of films under the banner of 'European and French Canadian cinema from roughly the 1970s until now'. We got the ball rolling with Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismaki's The Man Without a Past, the second installment in what is affectionately known as his loser trilogy.

A man (Peltola) is beaten nearly to death outside a train station in Helsinki. After flat lining in hospital he miraculously sits up, gets dressed and walks out, without being noticed. With no memory of who he is, he finds himself a place to live (a converted shipping container by the river) and with the help of Irma (Outinen), a woman from the Salvation Army, starts establishing a new life for himself.

Kaurismaki is a famous pessimist. His films are primarily about the Finnish working class, which has been under great economic hardship over the last two decades. As a result his films tend to have a bit of a downbeat tone. As I mentioned above, this film goes along with Drifting Clouds and Lights in the Dusk to form what is known as his loser trilogy, with all three films dealing with issues of unemployment, homelessness and loneliness.

While The Man Without a Past has this pessimistic tone, it is actually quite a funny movie. One of Kaurismaki's traits is an incredibly deadpan humour. There were a lot of exchanges of dialogue which in an American or British film would have been really punchy, sharp back-and-forth, but Kaurismaki prefers to have them delivered slow and monotone. You almost don't realise how funny the film is, because there is a moment of delay while you register that something was actually a joke. There is nothing contrived about the humour in the film, rather it is just the kind of humour that springs from everyday life.

This film was an interesting take on the amnesia trope. Usually, films about someone who has lost their memory are primarily concerned with regaining it. While the man, known simply as M, does eventually find out his identity, for the majority of the film it is not really his aim. The Man Without a Past is more about him starting afresh, and his difficulties in doing that, rather than his search to find his identity. If anything, his identity finds him, rather than him finding it.

The acting in the film seems almost wooden, though without the connotations of bad acting that using a word like wooden suggests. The emotions of the characters are very restrained and downplayed. Kaurismaki has an established company of actors he likes to work with. You can understand why he always ends up working with the same actors when you read about his working methods with them. In an interview he said "My relationship with my actors has never changed. I hold up my finger when I want them to say the line. They say it, and then I say, 'Thank you very much.' If they want more detailed direction, in that case there is always the door." While there is obviously a bit of hyperbole being used there (as Kaurismaki is very prone to doing when he talks about his methodologies), at the very least it suggests that he is probably not a fan of letting actors experiment and improvise their way through a scene. I can't imagine he would be a great director to act for, so having found a group of actors happy to work with him it doesn't surprise me that he's hung onto them.

The Man Without a Past was the first Aki Kaurismaki film I've seen (though we did watch snippets from a couple of others). He is said to be very much an acquired taste, and it is not hard to see why. Fans of his work would call him a comic director, but it is definitely tragic comedy rather than 'get your mates around for a laugh' comedy. The Man Without a Past is Kaurismaki's most decorated film having won awards all over the world, including the Jury Grand Prize at Cannes and a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. This film was interesting, it was well made, and it leaves you with a real feeling of contentment, but I don't think it'll be most people's cup of tea.