Best Films of 2005...

...not just yet. I intend to post a list of my favorite films of this year sometime around the end of January, but before Academy Award nominations are announced. In the meantime I have a lot of films to catch up with before I can feel authoritative.

Memoirs of a Geisha

This seems to be one of those films which feels flawless, but isn't very good. Flawless in the sense that everything from direction, to cinematography, music, and performances are all good, yet it doesn't all add up. It's about the life of a geisha in WWII era Japan, and the rigorous life and dedication is requires. I honestly can't put my finger on where it is that this movie goes wrong, but I know it does. The luminous Ziyi Zhang plays the titular geisha, and her smile alone could carry a film, as it almost does this one, but not make it great. Of all the actors, however, Gong Li once again proves herself to be probably the world's most formidable actress, and now in two different languages. Her character, and the film itself, at times feel like an indirect sequel to Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern, also starring Gong. This film, however, is beautiful but lifeless, even though the talented cast desperately want to bring it to life. Rob Marshall is at least a competent director, but not yet good enough to elevate what may only be an average story into a good film.

The Card Player

Dario Argento's latest film is probably his most well crafted film in 20+ years and probably the most solid pure thriller of the year. It concerns an unseen psychopath who challenges the Roman police to games of video poker for the lives of women he/she has kidnapped. The chief detectives on the trail are a female Italian officer and an Irish cop from the embassy. Argento has some nice set pieces, including a trek through an underground tunnel, and he even lets loose with some of the bold visuals that helped to make Suspiria his masterpiece. Despite some graphic views of mangled corpses, the gore quotient is rather low in comparisson to many of his other films. It's solid, but not great Argento.

The Gospel of John

This three hour, faithful adaptation of the life of Christ as described in the book of John was somewhat overshadowed in the wake of the phenomenon of The Passion of the Christ. Comparing the two is difficult, because for me, they are equals. Gibson's film strives to be a work of art, and in my opinion fails. Phillip Saville's film has no lofty artistic ambitions, but is content with being an ultra-faithful (every word from the book, including the narration as read by Christopher Plummer, is spoken from the Good News Bible) treatment of the Biblical text, and succeeds at just that. He proves to be a capable director in the way he manages to keep even the lengthy passages of narration from being dull or "preachy". His film seems content with allowing the power of the story and text to carry the film, without sprucing anything up in either the script or by adding any unnecessary directoral flair. This is not a great film, but is significantly better than one might imagine (better than I imagined, anyway). Its strength and it weakness is its devotion to every single word which makes for some awkward moments contrasting the consistent narration with the dialogue of the characters. Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew is a much better example of a similar idea. Nevertheless, this is a worthy entry into the canon of films about the life of Christ.

The Flowers of St. Francis

This is a wonderful little film by Roberto Rossellini which, in its Italian neo-realist style, manages to be as simple and sublime as its subject. It's been said that only one who is willing to risk the ridiculous has a shot at the sublime, and Francis and his monk are a little bit ridiculous. Apparently the Italian subtitle of the film is "God's jester," and in their childlike simplicity, one comes to understand what this means. The film is broken up into a number of vignettes, some of which don't even focus on Francis, but on his monks, particularly the comically naive Brother Ginepro, and Giovanni, an old man who has an equally simple faith. There is a beautiful segment in which Francis sees a leper walking down the road and runs up the man and hugs him. Francis is the wisest and most mature of his monks, dedicated to fully living a life in service to God. Rossellini's direction is utterly inobtrusive, content with merely capturing the quiet moments between his non-actors (all of the monks were played by real life Franciscan monks). It's a very human film, filled with love, simplicity, faithfulness, and humor.

Porco Rosso

The fact that I can call this the least of the films by Hayao Miyazaki that I have yet seen really means nothing because this is still a wonderful little film. It's a Japanese animated film that takes place in Italy sometime in between WWI and II. A seaplane pilot, for one reason or another, has been cursed and turned into a pig, now he's a mercenary for hire. Miyazaki seems to have a particular affection for pigs and flying, considering that in one way or another, they seem to figure prominently in most of his films. The only reason I call this the least of his film is that it seems to add up to the least -- it still manages to have his loveable, well-developed characters, beautiful animation, and his belief in the goodness of humanity, but it's not quite as "transcendent" as some of his better films. It's still perfectly enjoyable and the work of a real artist.

Pretty Persuasion

What emerges from this almost satisfying mess of a film is the fact that Evan Rachel Wood is quickly becoming one of the best young actresses around. It attempts an Election- style satire of, well, just about everything, though is set in a Beverly Hills prep school -- the world of a 15-year-old puppet master. Her goal is to become an actress, so she convinces a couple of her friends to play along and accuse their English teacher of sexual harrassment, and while he does fantasize about his female students, he hasn't harrassed them. Unfortunately, despite some fairly funny moments, the films satire just doesn't hold together, and while Marcos Siega's direction seems unusually efficient and restrained for an ex-music video vet, it isn't particularly good. There is wasted potential in there somewhere.

The Devil Commands

Boris Karloff stars in this eerie horror film as an honest scientist whose life is turned upside down after the death of his wife. He becomes obsessed with the idea of using science to communicate with the dead. Director Edward Dmytryk keeps the film filled with atmosphere. The opening shot of a creepy house in a rain storm, slowly pushing in, with a voice over playing, provides an excellent set up, and the rest of the movie, while never becoming a great pseudo-zombie film (such as I Walked With a Zombie), doesn't disappoint.

Brokeback Mountain

As a conservative Christian I believe that homosexuality is a sin. Therefore, the fact that this film, perhaps admirably, attempts to portray it as "normal", may inherently lessen my admiration for it. However, that having been said, I will attempt to ignore that fact for the moment and describe its merits as a love story. Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist both get hired as sheep herders in Wyoming for a summer. During that time, they develop feelings for each other and spend the rest of their lives in secrecy, only on occasion able to rekindle their passion. After the summer, they both marry and have families -- loving families. But it becomes increasingly obvious who their hearts truly belong to. The first thing one might notice in Ang Lee's drama is the almost Fordian imagery juxtaposing the epic, well composed long shot of the landscape with close ups. Actually, as beautiful as many of these shots are, they become almost a parody of Ford because it seems to be attempting to bring out the archetypes of Western imagery, whereas Ford rarely worked with archetypes (maybe in his early days), he created and made the land an inescapable character of his films, a feat Brokeback Mountain never fully accomplishes. Heath Ledger as Ennis gives career defining performance because of what he doesn't say. Jake Gyllenhaal is somewhat less effective because his character is based on what he does say. To be honest, I found myself most moved by some of the secondary relationships, particularly the relationship between Ledger and Michelle Williams as his wife. She knows he is going behind her back, and moreover she knows that it is with a man. The straight people are not stereotyped, nor even particularly bigoted. I also found myself moved by the relationship between Ledger and his older daughter, particularly in later scenes. While I admire Lee as a director, I think that many of the strengths of the film belong to the performances and particularly the script by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, which manages to be human, subtle, and cinematically intelligent while avoiding many of the cliches that I was dreading going in. Roger Ebert observes the point that I was initially trying to put my finger on when he says, "The movie wisely never steps back to look at the larger picture, or deliver the 'message.' It is specifically the story of these men, this love. It stays in closeup. That's how Jack and Ennis see it. 'You know I ain't queer,' Ennis tells Jack after their first night together. 'Me, neither,' says Jack." It's a good film, probably one of the best of the year. It's a wise film that avoids being more morally troubling than it needs to be (considering the subject matter). And if you have an open mind and heart for star crossed love stories, this may be for you.

King Kong (2005)

Peter Jackson's remake of the classic 1933 monster movie is quite a thrill ride and the best movie spectacle since, well, The Lord of the Rings. Once again he manages to create another world that is part 1930's New York and part prehistoric terror. Naomi Watts successfully fills the role made famous by Fay Wray, as an out of work, Depression-era vaudvillian whose path intersects with an ambitious and somewhat unethical movie director played for all it worth by Jack Black. His Carl Denham is somewhat more insanely driven than the Robert Armstrong version. The first hour is spent introducing characters and building up to Skull Island. Kong himself is an utterly convincing CGI creation. If I didn't know any better, I'd be writing Jackson and asking where he found a 25'' gorilla that could act. These sequences he fills with eye popping visuals and the kind of imagination that Andrew Adamson sorely lacked with his Chronicles of Narnia. Besides the Kong vs. 3 T-rex fight, one of my favorites scenes was watching Watts perform a vaudville routine for Kong, her captive audience. The most developed relationship in the film is between the two of them. Watts is more sympathetic to Kong's plight than was Wray. The third hour, of course, is a rampage through New York City leading up the Empire State Building. My complaint with the film is that it's too long. There are a few too many extended glances between Watts and Kong and there are a number of moments that go on a bit longer than they need to. But honestly, I didn't mind. I was captivated. It still doesn't quite equal the original (the ending still makes me cry every time I see it), and it certainly isn't as efficient a piece of filmmaking, but Peter Jackson proves to be the cinematic imagination of our generation.

Vernon, Florida

Errol Morris' quirky, but short documentary seems like something of an homage to the wonderful and unusually eclectic people of small town America, particularly Vernon, Florida. His static camera allows the residents to recount various stories about their lives or hobbies. There's really not much more to it than that, but Morris obviously has an eye (and ear) for interesting subject matter, and this is the kind of film that reminds me that I could easily make a documentary like this.

Born Into Brothels

Last years Oscar winner for best documentary is the heartbreaking account of a group of children raised in the brothels of Calcutta's red light district. As children, they are wide-eyed, imaginative, joyful, and strangely down to earth. Many of them fear they will end up as prostitutes like their parents. Zana Briskie, a photojournalist from New York, somehow finds her way into this godforsaken place, but everyone is suspicious and afraid of the cameras. She decides to live there for a few years to get to know the people and teach the children photography. She gives them each a camera, they take pictures and evaluate them. Suddenly, the power of artistc creation has inspired some of them. We follow the children and Briskie through their day to day life. The film avoids being exploitive (as some documentaries can be), it also manages to truthful, realistic, and inspirational, without being either sentimental or cynical. She helps to get some of them into boarding school and does everything in her power to give the children a chance to escape. With some, she succeeds, but the point is that its going to take more than one compassionate photojournalist with a few camera's to change the endless cycle of poverty and prostitution in Calcutta. This is one of the year's best and most moving films.

Elizabethtown

Not Cameron Crowe's best film, but charming nonetheless. Much like last year's Garden State (I'm not sure which of the two is better), it concerns a young man's feeling dislocated and in desperate need of an emotional jump-start. Both return home after extended absences to a newly deceased parent and meet a quirky girl. This time it's Kirsten Dunst, as one of those lovely Crowe girlfriends (or not so girlfriend). His musical sense is in top form, and the film ends with an extended travel montage across the country as a kind of lyric to middle America. Orlando Bloom gives his most layered performance to date (or maybe it's just his most layered character), and it's Dunst's best work since The Virgin Suicides. Does it all hold together? Not perfectly, but it's a good film, that despite its flaws, makes me remember how much I love small, Southern towns.

1941

This strangely underrated comedy from Steven Spielberg is neither a disaster nor even Spielberg's worst film (as one might be led to believe). It's 2 1/2 hours of comic anarchy that plays out like a combination of The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming and the what I imagine the cut pie fight scene from Dr. Strangelove might be like. Even when it's not funny, one can sense the joy and enthusiasm in the making of it. This is a fictional account of riots in Los Angeles when a Japanese submarine is spotted off of the California coast not long after Pearl Harbor. One of the most spectacular scenes is a prolonged airplane dogfight through the middle of downtown Hollywood, with a riot going on in the streets below. In fact, I have no idea how they pulled it off as convincingly as they did. The film must have had a significant budget. It's a strangely fun film with an all-star cast that's certainly worth watching at least once.

Palindromes

It is difficult to not be engaged while watching a Todd Solondz film, because he has an uncanny way of never really letting the audience know what he's thinking. Perhaps he's throwing out various ideas, hoping that his viewers will be encouraged to think about them for themselves and make their own conclusions. Perhaps he is revealing the inherent complexities in issues that many of us consider "simple." Perhaps he genuinely has no opinion, because he either agrees with them all or disagrees with them all. Roger Ebert correctly points out, "Palindromes contains characters in favor of abortion and characters opposed to it, and finds fault with all of them. The film has no heroes without flaws and no villains without virtues, and that is true no matter who you think the heroes and villains are. To ambiguity it adds perplexity by providing us with a central character named Aviva, a girl of about 12 played by eight different actors, two of them adults, one a boy, one a 6-year-old girl. She is not always called Aviva." She desperately wants to become pregnant and have a child, so she recruits a neighbors son to help her out. When she becomes pregnant, her parents force her to have an abortion. She then takes off on a journey and meets an assortment of people, including a Christian family that shelters deformed children. Even they are as flawed as they are compassionate. I honestly don't know what Solondz thinks, but I appreciate the humanity and complexity that he allows all of his characters. Nothing and no one is black and white in this world, and I am left with a fundamental desire love people.

Martha

One of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's best films. It's something of a dark comedy wrapped in the guise of a socio-political melodrama. This was the era in which Fassbinder's admiration for the social melodrama's of Douglas Sirk was most pronounced. It is about bourgeouis, marital opression. Martha, a young librarian, marries soon after the death of her father. The man she marries insists that she need not work if his income will sustain them. He is the kind of man who won't allow her to wear sunscreen, and after she become embarrassingly sunburned, gets turned on and begins to make violent love to her. He is the kind of man who, when he leaves for a few days on business, prefers she not leave the house, and instead leaves with her a book on civil engineering for her to read so that they can talk about his job. He is the kind of man who gets angry her musical preferences or when she makes a meal he doesn't like, though later patronizingly appologizes by pointing out that she "means well". His abuse is never overt, but clear. He is a sadist and she is a masochist. His abuse of her is as funny as it is psychologically hurtful, and Fassbinder balances his social commentary and his filmmaking gusto with assurance.

The Emotion of BAD LIEUTENANT

The following is my final paper for my Philosophy of Film class:



Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant is one of the grittiest, most searing cinematic examples of a broken soul’s need for redemption. It is often vile and disgusting, because the lieutenant is an utterly immoral man. It is also one of the most bold and intensely Christian films that I have ever seen. Christian in theme and imagery, though its heart belongs in the streets of New York with the junkies and lowlife’s, also crying out for salvation. Upon second viewing, it is an even more rewarding experience as a film that clearly takes its moral and spiritual ideas seriously and offers them a potency rarely seen in modern film. In this paper I will attempt to describe and evaluate the way Ferrara utilizes emotion in his film, particularly those of horror, identification, and ultimately the sublime.

Harvey Keitel gives an uncompromisingly powerful performance as the unnamed lieutenant, a corrupt New York City cop. Roger Ebert points out that, "The movie does not give the lieutenant a name, because the human aspects of individual personality no longer matter at this stage; he is a bad cop, and those two words, expressing his moral state and leverage in society, say everything that is important about him." His self-destructive behavior leads him to indulge in all of the vices that he should be combating. He leaves drug dealers alone in exchange for their product, he steals money from the thieves that just robbed a convenience store, he drinks until he passes out, he completely ignores his family, and he perversely, verbally rapes two teenage girls driving without a license in exchange for not turning them in. Also, he’s a gambler, and right now New York is eagerly waiting on the results of the seven game playoff match between the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers. The lieutenant is betting it all on the Dodgers with some dangerous bookies, but the Mets seem to be making a historic comeback. In the middle of all of this, a nun is brutally raped by a couple of young hoodlums. She knows who did, but refuses to turn them in because she has already forgiven them, "Those boys. Those raging, sad boys. They came to me as the needy do, and like many of the needy they were rude, and like all the needy they took. Like all the needy, they needed." He can’t conceive of this kind of forgiveness, because if they can be forgiven, can he? At the absolute end of his rope – the Dodgers have lost and he can’t pay, strung out on booze and cocaine, and desperately seeking redemption – he begins to hallucinate and sees a vision of Christ standing before him in the church. "He no longer knows for sure what the boundaries of reality are," Ebert says. "His temporary remedies – drugs and hookers – have stopped working. All that remains are self loathing, guilt, deep physical disquiet, and the hope of salvation." At first he curses Jesus in His perceived absence, and then begins to beg for forgiveness, leading him literally to the feet of Christ. Eventually he finds the two young rapists, and in an unusual act of grace, gives them $30,000 dollars that he was going to use to help pay his gambling debts, and puts them on a bus to leave. He sets them free. In Ferrara’s allegory, New York City is a metaphor for a fallen and sinful world. With his act of grace, the lieutenant frees the young sinners to start over again in a better place. At the end, in an unbroken, static wide shot we see him in his car parked in front of Madison Square Garden. A car drives up alongside his, a voice can be heard, "Hey, cop!" Shots are fired, and the car drives off. The lieutenant has paid for his sins, but he has also been redeemed and had a chance to offer redemption to others. Harvey Keitel commented about the role, "I wanted to play this part because I have a deep desire to know God. Knowing God isn’t just a matter of going to confession and praying. We also know God by confronting evil, and this character gave me the opportunity to descend into the most painful part of myself and learn about the dark places."

It is difficult to describe or even evaluate Bad Lieutenant in terms of "horror," because it is not a horror film. The lieutenant is neither a monster, nor supernatural, nor a serial killer (he is, however, a less likable character than the cannibal, Hannibal Lector). Yet, there is still something disturbing and even horrible about his actions. There is something frightening about a man like this representing justice in a civil society. Perhaps it is frightening in a way that many horror films cannot be, in that we may never truly fear a monster which we know does not exist, but we can fear a self-destructive man. Perhaps this could be what Cynthia Freeland describes as "realist horror," though she uses that term primarily in reference to serial killers in film. She says, "Yet realist horror is a prevalent and important subgenre of horror that deserves consideration. Psycho and Peeping Tom, both released in 1960, initiated a significant shift in the horror genre. They chillingly depicted ‘ordinary’ men who were unable to connect with the reality around them. Due to traumas of childhood and sexual repression, so the story went, they became slashers." The lieutenant is an "ordinary" man (not subhuman or supernatural) who, at times, seems unable to connect with the reality around him. There also seems to be in him, to some extent, an underlying sexual frustration explaining his various encounters with prostitutes which never seems to involve sex (impotence?), as well as his, as one writer puts it, "queerly celibate (i.e., masturbatory) encounter with the two young women that he stops and harasses." Freeland goes on to say, "In realist horror, male sexuality is a ticking time bomb, a natural force that must be released and will seek its outlet in violence if it is frustrated or repressed." While impotence may not be an outspoken motivation for his actions, it is a possibility or at least a factor that can’t be ignored. Perhaps the most overt reference to horror in the film comes from a line spoken by a prostitute played by Zoe Lund, the films’ co-writer:

Vampires are lucky, they can feed on others. We gotta eat away at ourselves. We gotta eat our legs to get the energy to walk. We gotta come, so we can go. We gotta suck ourselves off. We gotta eat away at ourselves until there’s nothing left but appetite. We give, and give, and give crazy. Because a gift that makes sense ain’t worth it. Jesus said seventy times seven. No one will ever understand why, why you did it. They’ll just forget about you tomorrow, but you gotta do it.

Perhaps in this line could be found the source for a future Ferrara film, The Addiction. The interesting thing here is that to Ferrara, horror is not to be found in a monster, or a murderer, or even a man, but in life itself. Life, perhaps, in a fallen world. The real horror is that of decay and man’s selfish nature – both curses of the Fall. So in a way, this is a horror film, or at least a film about that which is horrible.

I am fairly certain that identification is not the point of Bad Lieutenant. In fact, Ferrara and Keitel seem to have intentionally crafted the character so that the audience would not empathize with him. He is utterly void of redeeming qualities. Perhaps we are not meant to identify with him. Perhaps he is intended to be identified with Christ. Simon Taylor observes:

As his daughter receives her first Communion, the lieutenant does not receive the sacrament but discusses his betting. Again we have the conjunction of his bad behavior and a crucifix. Here, however, Ferrara frames him in the same way as he frames the Christ on the crucifix. Ferrara is going further than a simple conjunction of religious imagery and the lieutenant and begins to suggest an identification between the lieutenant and Christ. We can see this elsewhere in the film. He goes to the home of a young dealer to whom he has sold drugs in order to collect the money he is owed. There are a number of religious pictures in this apartment, including a picture of Jesus’ face woven into a sofa. The lieutenant sits on the sofa right over the face of Jesus, as it were, in his place. Just as Ferrara has the lieutenants body form the image of the cross (itself suggesting some identification with Christ), so the lieutenant boldly takes the place of Christ. This occurs in the church. He picks up the statue of the Madonna that the rapists knocked over and lies down next to it. There is something of the cross in this pose, but most of all it resembles a pieta.

As well as this identification between the lieutenant and Christ, we twice see Christ himself during the film. Christ is never fully present in the film, only seen as a vision. The Christ we see is stripped to the waste, wounded and bleeding. He is the Christ of the crucifix. This visionary appearance of Christ is a departure from the realism that characterizes the rest of the film, and is unique to Bad Lieutenant in the whole of Ferrara’s body of work. The first time we see Christ is as the nun is raped on the altar of a church. As we watch this crime, the film cuts between the rape and an image of Christ on the cross, screaming in agony. The suggestion is as if it were happening to Christ, or at the least that Christ shares her pain. It later transpires the boys used a cross to penetrate the nun. The lieutenant sees Christ in the same church, where he has gone to plead with the nun for the names of her assailants. She refuses, saying that she has already forgiven them. The nun then leaves him, silently, giving him her rosary. She quite literally hands her cross to the lieutenant. He then drops to the floor and howls. It is at this point that he sees Christ, just as we saw Christ during the rape. He curses Christ at first and throws the rosary he has been given. Finally he breaks down and begs for forgiveness, "What am I going to do? You’ve gotta say something. You want me to do everything. Where were you? Where the fuck were you? I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I’ve done so many bad things! I’m sorry. I tried to do... tried to do the right thing, but I’m weak. I’m too fucking weak. I need you to help me. Help me. Forgive me, forgive me. Forgive me, please. Forgive me, Father." As he crawls toward Christ and kisses his feet, we see that in fact it is an old woman that has entered the church. It is she who has stolen the chalice and gives him enough information to find the rapists. The vision of Christ thus leads to his most significant identification with Christ as he takes the place of Christ in forgiving and setting free the two rapists. This identification is compounded by the fact that this costs the lieutenant his life.

Ferrara goes out of his way to insure that we will not make the mistake of identifying with the lieutenant in the sense that we condone or support his actions, and in the process he reveals a profound truth. Christ can identify with us even when we cannot with each other. Christ who is fully God and fully human, can identify with the violated nun as he can with a bad lieutenant seeking forgiveness. Most of the identification techniques described by Taylor are as much juxtapositions as they are identifications. The similar framing, the woven image on the sofa, and the pieta are as much reminders of the omnipresence of Christ as anything else. Christ is identifying with lieutenant, but the lieutenant cannot yet be identified with Christ because the lieutenant has not been redeemed or passed over into the Sacred. It is only when he receives the forgiveness of Christ that the identification can be made complete and satisfactory. Only the changed lieutenant can make an adequate identification with Christ, because it is at that point where the lieutenant is not merely passively identified with Christ, but he actively identifies with Christ by demonstrating grace and mercy to sinners. The identification is complete and a two-way process, not just one.

When one thinks of the sublime moments in this history of cinema, perhaps one might conjure up images from The Passion of Joan of Arc, or from the works of Bresson, Bergman, and even Chaplin, but I imagine that one is not likely to immediately consider Abel Ferrara and Bad Lieutenant. Yet I might go so far as to say that scene in which the lieutenant encounters Christ is sublime, not merely because of the way that I "felt" while watching the scene, but because it seems to adhere to the definition of sublime. Cynthia Freeland claims:

To call an object "sublime" means, first and most centrally, that it calls forth a characteristic conflict between certain feelings of pain and pleasure – it evokes what Burke labeled "rapturous terror." On the one hand, the sublime prompts a painful feeling sometimes designated as terror, fear, or dread. But the sublime object does not cause merely pain or terror, but also "rapture": we find it exhilarating and exciting. Kant and Burke emphasized that so long as we are safe, the ineffable, great element before us in the awesome object evokes a certain intellectual pleasure of astonishment or elevation. Kant thought that this pleasure was tied to an awareness of features of our moral selves . . . A final feature of the sublime is that it prompts moral reflection.

It is painful to watch the completely broken cop rant about his need for forgiveness and help – at that moment, my heart goes out to him. If I am correct in describing this as a kind of horror movie, or a film about that which is horrible, then one might understand the feelings of terror. One is, in fact, likely to be fearful – to feel a "rapturous terror" – in the presence of Christ. I probably need not even argue that the moment of spiritual redemption and salvation is the most sublime of all experiences, and Ferrara captures that feeling when his character, who so clearly needs that redemption and renewal (as we all do), receives it. And by its very nature – the imagery of salvation, the church location, the presence of Christ, and the consistent religious iconography – the film prompts moral reflection. The lieutenant is awakened to the "awareness of features of [his] moral self." If the salvation imagery is not sufficient to constitute a sublime moment, then I don’t what is. Ferrara’s film is more overtly dark and viscerally intense than many of its sublime cinematic counterparts, but it is through great darkness that the victory of the light shines most brightly.

Bad Lieutenant is an experience of a film is set in the horrible darkness of the human soul, though manages to make an identification between the lieutenant and Christ himself, leading to a moment of sublime victory. It is a film that knows nothing of tameness and subtlety, belonging to that type of street-tough New York maverick filmmaking, comparable to the early works of Martin Scorsese. Its boldness is a result of the palpable, all-consuming passion of the filmmaker’s, primarily Abel Ferrara and Harvey Keitel. It is an admirably direct, no-holds-barred reminder of our need for salvation, and the necessity of grace in a fallen world.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Andrew Adamson's (mostly) live action retelling of the first in C.S. Lewis' Narnia book series is good, if not entirely successful. The story is about four English children circa-WWII that find themselves transported to another world via a large wardrobe in the house of an old professor (Lewis?). In Narnia they encounter the White Witch, an evil sorceress who has left Narnia in perpetual winter, and Aslan, the mighty lion/Christ-figure. They also find themselves at the brunt of an ancient prophecy which destines them to be rulers of the land. The problem is that films strengths and allegorical depth seem solely a result of Lewis' efficient storytelling, and have little to do with Adamson. Wheras the greatness of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films can be as much credited to Jackson as to Tolkien. Adamson lacks the imagination and vision of a great fantasy filmmaker, yet I applaud his wisdom in remaining faithful to Lewis' text, and not making what could have easily become an embarrassing film. It settles for being a faithful incarnation rather than a visionary interpretation -- a visual book rather than a movie.

The Ballad of Jack and Rose

60's idealism finally dies in Rebecca Miller's latest film. It reminds us that our attempts to return to Eden and create a communal utopia here on earth, are doomed to fail, because the reality is that we live a fallen world. Daniel Day-Lewis gives an excellent performance as Jack, an aging ex-hippie tree-hugger dying of some disease and living alone on an old East coast commune with his 16 year old daughter, Rose. The two of them have an affectionate relationship, perhaps too affectionate, but that is not the point. Rose is maturing and Jack is beginning to realize that you can isolate yourself on an island, but you can't escape civilization, and you can't escape the evils of this world. It's a generally strong film that takes a downward turn somewhere in the middle when a melodramatic plot device is introduced. But I respect the fairness to which Miller offers to both Day-Lewis as environmentalist and Beau Bridges, the land developer (which could have easily turned into a useless "evil land developer and raper of the environment" role), but she realizes that their differences almost come down to a matter of taste. I slightly object to the way that Catherine Keener's character is more or less just used and discarded, though the inclusion of her and her two boy created some of the more interesting relational dynamics in the film. Also of note is Ellen Kuras' lovely camerawork that has an weightless, gliding quality to it.

Love is Colder Than Death

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's first feature film is a joy of experimentation and an homage to his influences from the French New Wave, particularly Godard, though also to a lesser extent, Eric Rohmer. Despite the critical consensus of this being average-to-lesser Fassbinder, I found it to be one of his most enjoyable films. It's one of those pseudo-gangster films (like the early films of Godard and Truffaut), in which Fassbinder plays a pimp who refuses to get involved with the mob and ultimately leads to something of a bank robbery. It features his developing trademark camerawork, and the usual complex relational dynamics.

Jarhead

Sam Mendes' Gulf War film isn't very good, despite some impressive production value. It concern a young Marine sniper sent over to the gulf, along with a lot of other soldiers, to sit around and sort of think about the meaning of life, or masturbate. Y'know, whatever works. Like his American Beauty, ultimately this film doesn't succeed because it comes across as too bitter for its own good. It lacks the solid foundation required for it indignation to be considered righteous. Nevertheless, it looks good, and when the oil wells are lit, cinematographer Roger Deakins gets to play around with some impressive image-making. Not to mention some generally solid performances, particularly from Peter Sarsgaard and Jamie Foxx. Though these soliders may recognize the iconic nature of films like Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter, the Gulf War has yet to create its defining film.

Grave of the Firefly's

This is probably the most devastating and powerful war films since Elem Klimov's Come and See, except this is an animated film. Despite its PG rating and its child protagonists, this is certainly not Disney territory. It has the feeling of a deeply personal film from director Isao Takahata, a long time collaborator of Hayao Miyazaki. It takes place in Japan during WWII, focusing on a 14-ish year old boy and his 4-ish year old sister who have recently been orphaned during one of the bombing attacks. The boy even sees the bloodied, bandaged body of his mother before she dies and begins attracting maggots -- this is not "cutesy" animation, nor is it at all graphic and exploitive. It is a poetic, realist film played out with an unusual naturalism that just happens to be animated. Despite it all, he and his sister endure, first living with an aunt who doesn't particularly like them and can't really afford to keep them anyway (food is drastically rationed), and then on their own. The film has some moments of magical beauty (like the best of Miyazaki), such as when they chase the firefly's. Each frame seems to be drawn with such love and compassion, and the characters are brought to life with such subtlty and grace. Takahata's film has a profound love and understanding of humanity -- just watch the joy on the face of the little girl -- but he doesn't avoid the sometimes tragic aspects of our existence. What a beautiful, simple, tragic little film, that I can honestly call one of the most truly sad films I've ever seen.

Fox and His Friends

Of course, the reality is, Fox has no friends. Rainer Werner Fassbinder himself stars as Fox, a naive, working class homosexual from Munich. He becomes lovers with a more sophisticated, bourgeois man, and then wins the lottery. Soon his lover is suggesting that Fox make an investment in his business. Fox is taken advantage of financially, emotionally, and sexually, and by the end he is penniless and abandoned. It's a downer of a film, but Fassbinder's highly artificial and controlled aesthetic doesn't allow his melodrama to become sentimental or artificial. We sit, we watch. While the film is firmly rooted in the homosexual community, the topic is not controversial sexual politcs, but how love, in a capitalist system, is used to exploit a naive worker. It is sad, and I image one of Fassbinder's more personal films (as if with a filmmaker like Fassbinder, one can even make that judgment).

An Examination of Three Westerns by John Ford

The following essay is my final paper for a media integration class:



Not long after making Citizen Kane, Orson Welles was asked who his influences were on the film, to which he replied, "I studied the old masters. By that I mean, John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford." He is the most honored director in Hollywood history, winning six Academy Awards, two of which being for documentaries made during the second world war. He has also been called the most influential American filmmaker of the sound era, cited by other greats such as the above-mentioned Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Peter Bogdanovich, Bernard Bertolucci, Francois Truffaut, and Jean-Luc Godard as a major or even primary influence on their work. One thing is certain, however, John Ford is one of the consummate artists that the medium has even seen, though he would even deny his own status as an artist. When asked to identify himself at a meeting of the director’s guild, Ford stood up and said, "My name is John Ford, and I make Westerns." A fascinating statement for the director of such Academy Award winning drama’s as, The Informer, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, The Quiet Man, and war films such as They Were Expendable. But no matter how well rounded a filmmaker he may have been, and no matter what success he may have had in other genres, the truth is that John Ford will always be remembered as the director of many of the most enduring Westerns – that most American of film genres. In this paper, I intend to briefly examine John Ford the man, and more extensively John Ford the filmmaker, and the Western mythos that he is largely responsibly for creating in the films, Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Searchers.

John Ford was born Sean O’Feeney in Cape Elizabeth, Maine in 1894 to an Irish Catholic family (a fact that would later permeate his films). His older brother Francis, was the first to head off to Hollywood to become an actor where he would take on the stage name of Francis Ford. In 1914, the younger O’Feeney brother made his way to California where he got into pictures as a prop man, then as an actor, and eventually as a director of two-reeler Westerns. Eventually he would follow his brother’s example and change his name to John Ford. As a director in the silent era, Ford never managed to particularly distinguish himself. It wasn’t until the 1930's and the emergence of sound that Ford’s gifts began to show through and his distinctive style began to take hold. In 1935, he made The Informer, his first film to find a strong critical reception, as well as his first Oscar for best director. It wasn’t until 1939, however, that Ford’s reputation was cemented with the release of Drums Along the Mohawk, Young Mr. Lincoln, and perhaps most notably, Stagecoach. It was here where Ford cemented a partnership with a young John Wayne that would go on to span a quarter of a century, no less than fourteen films, and one of the most successful actor-director relationships in film history. In addition to Wayne, over the years Ford gathered together a troupe of actors that he would consistently work with such as Henry Fonda, John Carradine, Harry Carey, Ward Bond, Ken Curtis, Jane Darwell, Ben Johnson, Victor McLaglen, Mae Marsh, Mildred Natwick, John Qualen, Woody Strode, Tom Tyler, Patrick Wayne, and his brother, Francis Ford. Many of his most famous Westerns also became known for their distinctive setting, Monument Valley, Utah. In fact, Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The Searchers, while all similar in that they are Westerns directed by John Ford, also bear the similarity of starring John Wayne and having been made in Monument Valley. It is through these distinct similarities that I will attempt to develop the progression of Ford’s West, and perhaps, of Ford himself.

Pauline Kael calls Stagecoach, "Perhaps the most likeable of all Westerns, and a Grand Hotel-on-wheels movie that has just about everything – adventure, romance, chivalry – and all of it very simple and traditional." Many consider it to be the first great Western from an era when Western’s were not considered respectable and were almost exclusively B-films. In fact it was Ford’s first Western since the silent era. Ford has often been referred to as a populist filmmaker, preferring the traditional values of the past to whatever alternatives their might be at present. He gathered a cast of formidable character actors as a group of social outcasts thrown together on a stagecoach and pitted against both society and a band of marauding Apaches. Claire Trevor is Dallas, the whore with the heart of gold; John Wayne, in his first major role, is the Ringo Kid, an outlaw; John Carradine is Hatfield, the gambler; and Thomas Mitchell, in an Oscar winning performance, is Doc Boone, a disreputable drunk of a doctor.

At the beginning of the film, Dallas and Doc Boone are being ousted from the town by the respectable society matrons known as "The Law and Order League." This scene is not dissimilar to a scene in D.W. Griffith’s masterpiece, Intolerance, where a group of respectable women barge in and take away the baby of Mae Marsh, an unwed and therefore unfit mother. Griffith, another notable populist filmmaker, shared a similar disdain for the kinds of social codes that would deny people basic human dignity. When faced with the alternative of taking the stagecoach through dangerous Apache territory or remaining an outcast in the town, Dallas stares at her accusers and says, "There are worse things than Apache’s," choosing instead to take the stage. The film is as much pro-army and pro-cavalry as it is pro-outcast and anti-civilization. Danny Peary points out that in Stagecoach, "civilization is not worthy of Ringo and Dallas, who leave town at the end as Doc Boone affirms that they were ‘saved from the blessings of civilization.’" It is interesting to note how, in a way, Ford attacks the notion of the conservative Right as typically against outcasts and minorities, in that Ford himself was traditionally rightward leaning and this film is firmly aligned with his outcast characters. Not to mention his casting of John Wayne, that most conservative of Hollywood actors, as the one character who inherently treats Trevor’s character with respect as a lady. The right-wing Ford would later go on to develop these ideas further in such staunchly pro-worker films as The Grapes of Wrath and How Green Was My Valley. But in the end, Stagecoach is a simple morality play in which basic human dignity ultimately eschews any political philosophies, and in which the Indians are not portrayed as stereotypes (in fact they hardly even get screen time) or as savages, but merely as the source of conflict which forces this group of people together. Steven Greydanus makes the points that, "Instead of rote good-guy/bad-guy conflict, Stagecoach emphasizes characterization, social commentary, and moral drama . . . and with the last outposts of civilization left behind, social roles and status lose meaning, and the outcasts are seen in a more sympathetic and nobler light than their ostensibly more respectable but judgmental and hypocritical companions." As the mild-mannered, Mr. Peacock says, "Let’s have a little Christian charity, one for the other." Well, I can drink to that.

Andrew Sarris describes Ford’s technique as "Double Image; alternating between close-ups of emotional intimacy and long shots of epic involvement, thus capturing both the twitches of life and the silhouettes of legend." This is an idea and technique that later directors such as Sergio Leone would go on to expand and develop in much more blatant ways. Also, this seems to be the film with which Ford establishes his use of traditional hymns and songs in place of the musical score to his film. Lindsay Anderson points out that, "Choosing for his theme ‘traditional sanctity and loveliness,’ Ford is, by Yeats’ definition, also one of the last Romantics. Nothing is more typical of his films than the traditional songs, the popular tunes and marches which accompany them: ‘Red River Valley,’ ‘Rally Round the Flag,’ ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’; revivalist hymns like [his personal favorite] ‘Shall We Gather at the River’ [which Sam Peckinpah would later pay homage to (some might say, subvert) in the opening scene to The Wild Bunch] and ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’; the Naval marches and bugle calls which echo through They Were Expendable – all in significant contrast to the pretentious symphonic scores by Steiner and Hageman for The Informer and The Fugitive. Heavily charged with emotion and nostalgic associations, this music carries us back to another, simpler world, of clear-cut judgements, of established and unquestioned value." Stagecoach establishes Ford’s mythos of the West through archetypes and characterization. As a result, we come to understand a certain type of person, but not a specific person. The characters of the film are not deeply developed because they need not be. They need only represent people.

This brings us to She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, the second part of what is known as Ford’s Cavalry trilogy which began with Fort Apache and would later conclude with Rio Grande. In many ways She Wore a Yellow Ribbon is the most Fordian of all his Westerns. All of his traditional themes are in place, it stars John Wayne in a tragically underrated performance (there are moments in this film where Wayne’s performance could easily stand amongst the great performances of American cinema), and Monument Valley which has never been more gracefully photographed, this time in Technicolor by cinematographer, Winton C. Hoch. Here, ten years after Stagecoach, Ford’s West is no longer populated by archetypes and representations, but by people – or a person, at least – in the form of Cavalry Captain Nathan Brittles. Brittles is an aging, fatherly figure, preparing for one final mission before retiring from the Army and surrendering his command to an inexperienced, younger officer. Amongst his Westerns, Capt. Brittles represents Ford’s most iconic hero. Lindsay Anderson describes the typical Ford hero as, " . . . all men of purpose, of principles unostentatiously but firmly held. Skillful and courageous in action, they combine their hardihood with a personal gentleness and moral grace; hesitant and tender in love, resolute against injustice. Owing the traditional reverences to God and to his fellow men, the Ford hero is the cinema’s most convincing representation of the righteous man." With this passage, Anderson is primarily referring to the Ford hero as played by Henry Fonda from films like, Young Mr. Lincoln, The Grapes of Wrath, and My Darling Clementine, but in this case, it could also be used to describe Wayne’s Captain Nathan Brittles. Anderson goes on to say, "With the collapse of its popular traditions, Western art has become increasingly sophisticated and eclectic. The popular themes are in general left to be exploited, and degraded, by the opportunists. Ford’s films, in this context, seem hardly to belong to our time at all. His art is not intellectual; his impulse is intuitive, not analytical. Unsophisticated and direct, his work can be enjoyed by anyone, regardless of cultural level, who has retained his sensitivity and subscribes to values primarily humane. He applies himself to traditional themes, and is happiest when his story is set in the settled society of another era." Today especially, this feels as a film of a time long past, but even in 1949, it was not so much contemporary as belonging to a forgotten era. Timeless, perhaps. In ten years, Ford’s West has developed from the misunderstood outcast of Stagecoach to the righteous hero of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, from archetype to human being, from morality tale to heroic elegy, from black and white to color, yet both remain firmly planted in the past.

Finally, in 1956, less than ten years after She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, we come to The Searchers – possibly the greatest of all Westerns, and one of the shining achievements in American film. Roger Ebert reminds us of its influence when he points out that, "It inspired a plot line in George Lucas’ Star Wars. It’s at the center of Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, written by Paul Schrader, who used it again in his own, Hard Core. The hero in each of the Schrader screenplays is a loner driven to violence and madness by his mission to rescue a young white woman who has become the sexual prey of those seen as subhuman. Harry Dean Stanton’s search for Nastassja Kinski in Wim Wenders’ Paris, Texas is a reworking of the Ford story. Even Ethan’s famous line, ‘That’ll be the day,’ inspired a song by Buddy Holly." It is a story of obsession, equal in intensity and complexity even to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Its quest focuses on the person of Ethan Edwards an openly racist, Indian-hating, ex-Confederate soldier who returns to the home of his brother just in time to put in a quick visit before they are slaughtered by a band of Comanche warriors. The Searchers and the character of Ethan Edwards provide the western genre with one of its darkest and most complex stories. John Wayne delivers the best performance of his career (it was reportedly his favorite role) as Edwards. Like the surprise of Henry Fonda’s villainous turn years later in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West, Wayne also plays dramatically out of type as the film’s antihero whose motivations are downright villainous. In one scene, when their posse encounters a dead Indian, Ethan shoots out its eyes. For Ethan, the physical death of the Indian is not enough, he wants to ensure their spiritual death as well. Much has been made of the characters uncertainty. Not until the final scene is the audience certain of whether or not Ethan is going to rescue the niece he has spent the last five years searching for, or kill her. Steven Greydanus claims, "By far the most disturbingly racist aspect of Ethan’s vendetta is his cold judgment that Debbie (the niece) would be better off dead than living as a Comanche squaw. To some extent this might be seen in terms of outrage that Debbie should be sleeping with the murderer who killed her own family. Yet Ethan unambiguously goes beyond mere issues of loyalty and betrayal when he declares that, for a white girl like Debbie at least, ‘Livin’ with Comanches ain’t being alive.’ A deep hostility to the mixing of the races itself seems to be a basic part of Ethan’s complicated, ambiguous motives."

Once again, Lindsay Anderson returns to describing Ford’s technique as being, "characterized by its extreme simplicity. Seldom indulging in the sophistications of camera movement, his films proceed in a series of visual statements – as sparing in their use of natural sound as of dialogue." Notice the way Ford emphasizes a stylistic exception in the scene where Ethan and Marty visit a Cavalry camp in hopes that they might have picked up Debbie during one of the raids. They stand confronted with a handful of young girls who had been living with Comanche’s. As they are leaving, Ethan turns to look once more, Ford’s camera quickly pushes in on his face, bathed in the shadow of his hat, slits for eyes, and a glaring expression filled with hatred. It’s one of the most frighteningly powerful moments in the film.

Greydanus also points out, "In a genre that traditionally regarded its heroes as good almost by definition and Indians as one-dimensional adversaries, The Searchers broken new ground in casting no less than the Duke himself as a flawed protagonist . . . This challenge to the Western mythos is deepened by a scene in which the ever-reliable Cavalry attacks an Indian camp, brutally slaughtering even women and children in retribution for an Indian attack." He concludes by saying, "It’s a rare classic Western that invites viewers to ponder ambiguities rather than to cheer good guys against bad guys, and even to question its hero and the Western mythos itself." What happened to the Ford hero as "the cinema’s most convincing representation of the righteous man?" Ethan is certainly courageous and capable, and he is a man of principles however questionable they may be, but he is not a righteous man. What happened to the man of virtue and the unquestionable hero? "Gone is the simple black and white morality of the early days (Stagecoach)," claims Martin Scorsese. "Gone are the old-fashioned values of the seasoned Cavalry officer (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon). The same star, John Wayne. The same location, around Monument Valley. The same director, John Ford. But a different character, different attitudes, different conflicts, almost a different country. Ethan Edwards hunts down his niece, abducted and raised by the Indians after the massacre of her parents, because he believes she has been tarnished. Living with Comanches, he insists, is not being alive. Ethan Edwards is actually the most frightening character in the film. [After finally rescuing her] This is no happy ending, though. There is no home, no family waiting for Ethan. He is cursed, just as he cursed the dead Comanche. He is a drifter, doomed to wander between the winds." The final shot of the film, with Ethan standing the doorway, not able to enter civilization, is one of the finest images in American cinema. In Stagecoach, civilization was not worth of Ringo and Dallas. In The Searchers, Ethan is not worth of civilization.

The archetypal morality tale of Stagecoach becomes the ode to the righteous hero of She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, which finally becomes the embittered antihero of The Searchers. Through the decades, Ford’s West grows increasingly darker and more complex. The consummation of this trend is realized in the director’s final great western, 1962's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, once again starring John Wayne. In this film, however, though a return to the black and white photography of Stagecoach, Ford creates a mournful elegy to the death of the old West, and likewise, the Western itself. Here, the long arm of civilization is unavoidable, and soon there will no longer be any room for the larger than life heroes of men like Tom Doniphon, Nathan Brittles, The Ringo Kid, or even Ethan Edwards – the men of character who tamed the West. This is the mythology of John Ford, the cinema’s chronicler of American history, the teller of the tales of the old West and the folk stories of legends gone by from an era that is no more. The mythology of John Ford is perhaps best summed up with a line from one of his own films, "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

The Upside of Anger

Mike Bender's suburban drama about a boozing housewife whose husband supposedly just ran off with his secretary leaving her to take care of her four strong willed daughters has moments of grace and charm, but not enough to sustain the movie. Kevin Costner possibly turns in his best performance as the equally boozy ex-baseball star, next door neighbor who seizes the opportunity to become romantically entagled with the recently singled Joan Allen. His is the most interesting character in the movie. Allen plays a very bitter and angry woman. If there is an upside to anger, the movie claims, then it is in our ability to use it to learn, grow, and move on. Many critics have called the ending a cheat, though I think it elevates the film to a level that wouldn't otherwise deserve. Much of our own anger and bitterness is based on misconceptions, not having all the facts, and merely because sometimes we like being angry, but the ending reminds us that life isn't always like that. It's a good movie, but far from great.

Quatermass and the Pit (aka 5 Million Years to Earth)

Ranks with The Devil Rides Out and The Horror of Dracula as one of Hammer Studio's best films. This, however, is a sci-fi film about a mysterious space craft unearthed in the London subways system (you just never know what you'll find down there). At first, prehistoric ape skulls are discovered, invigorating an ambitious scientist. The spaceship is revealed to be inhabited by dead, ancient insect Martians that, like the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, are responsible for initiating the evolution of ape into man. Actually, the idea that our species is a result of telepathic, insectoid Martians could explain a great deal. Nevertheless, this is a strangely intelligent film that doesn't sell itself short. The climax involving a giant ghost insect hovering over the city is one of those images that will probably stick with you.

Katzelmacher

This is probably Fassbinder's best early film. It's a spare, almost minimalist film about aimless youth centered around a group from an apartment building. They sit and stare with existential angst, and occasionally engage in meaningless sex. They sort of talk about politics, gossip about one another, discuss their relationships, and occasionally break out into jarring moments of domestic violence, though it's not a very wordy or action packed film. Actually, this description probably makes it sound rather dull, and in many was it is. Yet Fassbinder still manages to make it interesting. Apparently the title translates to "cock-master", which seems strangely appropriate, yet "Katzelmacher" just sounds so much cooler.

Castle in the Sky (aka Laputa)

There is magic in every film yet that I have seen from Japanese master animator, Hayao Miyazaki. Probably better than any other filmmaker in the last 20 years, Miyazaki transports his audience to a completely new world filled with adventure and imagination. Though this may not be his absolutely most imaginative film, it is probably his funniest. He has an uncanny way of creating likeable, complex characters (usually children or teenagers), whose goodness influences everyone around them, including, in this case, a band of pirates, and often even the villains. This film finds a boy and a mysterious girl searching for the fabled floating city of Laputa. They are aided by the pirates and pursued by a group of shadey government agents whose intentions may not be pure. Miyazaki excels at the joy of possibilities such as flying, and his fantasy is crafted with such precision and a concern for moral character and the humanity of all of his characters.

Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist

Paul Schrader's version of the prequel to William Friedkin's classic horror film is a movie that I find myself honestly wanting to like because it takes its idea's, particularly those in relation to the nature of God and evil, seriously. In fact, its focus is so centered on its ideas that one might have trouble even calling this a horror film. There are few elements that are distinctly "horror", and it's not particularly scarey -- even the exorcism itself is relegated as a minor climax in the final 15 minutes of the film. No, the film is more concerned with the testing of the faith of Father Merrin (Max von Sydow's character from the original film). The opening scene, perhaps the best in the film, pits the young priest in WWII era Holland against against a platoon of Nazi soldiers who ask him to chose a member of his congregation to be killed and made example of. Merrin refuses and the Nazi gets upset and next asks him to chose 10 people to be killed or else he will kill the entire congregation. I won't say what happens, but this event leaves Merrin to consider the nature of evil and whether God's grace has any place in a world that produces the likes of the Nazi's. Is evil a real force or is it man-made? Later Merrin finds himself at an African archeological site of a buried church and he has all but abandoned his faith. But as the evil that surrounds the chuch begins to brew, the native tribes and the stationed British soldiers become plagued and history begins to repeat itself. A sick, crippled boy slowly begins exhibiting signs of possession, but the more possessed he becomes, the more healthy and able-bodied he becomes, and Merrin must again confront the reality of God and evil. In terms of its spiritual ideas, this is probably the best horror film since Friedkin's. And while a respect Schrader's direction of the story by intentionally subverting the "goods" of the horror genre, it is ultimately too unspectacular to be a genuinely enjoyable movie experience. Even the cinematography by the great Vittorio Storaro is surprisingly bland. Stellan Skarsgard is good as Merrin, and Schrader remains one of the most religiously challenging filmmakers around, but ultimately this is a rewarding film, not a great one.

Kung Fu Hustle

Stephen Chow's martial arts comedy is probably one of the most purely enjoyable films of this year. He revels in the implausibility of the situations, but fans of the genre are likely to walk away with more than a few strong laughs. Chow plays a pathetic street hustler who dreams of becoming a vile gangster -- a member of the dreaded Axe Gang -- but he's just no good at it. Some of the moments he gets humiliated provided some of the better comic moments in any film this year. There are various kung fu masters in the film, and just as soon as you think the film has settled on the greatest warrior, another shows up and leaves the lesser mortals in awe (or dead). It plays out purely for entertainment, and delivers. It doesn't have the poetry, beauty, depth of a film like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but it does have the physical comedy and athleticism of a Jackie Chan or even a Buster Keaton, with a cartoonish bent.

It Came From Beneath the Sea

This is an enjoyable monster movie from the 50's that pits a giant octopus (awakened from the depths of the ocean by atomic explosions) against a nuclear submarmine, fishing boats, the Oregon coast, and finally the city of San Francisco. Special effects guru, Ray Harryhausen animated the beast. It worth it just to see the octopus pull apart the Golden Gate Bridge. Science fiction, the atomic age, and monsters were all just made for each other.

Gods of the Plague

To be quite honest, I was never really quite sure what was happening in this film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It seems to be a pseudo-film noir involving crime, women, and the youth culture. Aesthetically, however, I found this to be one of his most purely interesting exercises. At times, the camera work, the portrayal of youth culture, the reinvention of genre, and the loose, free flowing style is positively Godardian, particularly his films of the early 60's. So, despite the fact I can't tell you what was happening, I was always intrigued and interested by how it was being shown.

They Were Expendable

This is probably John Ford's best WWII film. It's a solid film that boasts Ford's assured direction, and a couple of strong performances from Robert Montgomery and John Wayne (who surprisingly received second billing, probably for the last time in his career). Despite its strengths it still can't match what still may be the finest WWII film of the era (and possibly of any era), Allan Dwan's The Sands of Iwo Jima. Montgomery and Wayne play a couple of PT boat captains in the Philippines, despite the fact that the Navy doesn't hold PT boats in high regard (thus the title). It's a solid, patriotic war film that never resorts to overt flag-waving or ham-handed inspirational speeches. Ford and co. know better and make the movie to prove it. There are some excellent and well-choreographed action sequences that had me scanning to see if they were faked, but as far as I can tell, they weren't. Donna Reed also has good, minor role.