Easy Rider

 I understand the allure of ambient music.  I get why someone wants a song to just go on and on, to gradually surrender to the experience, to observe as the subconscious creates an arc that isn't really there.  I get the draw of minimalist music, of Philip Glass, of seeing how a theme evolves in the music and in the experience of the music over longer periods of time than might be strictly necessary.  And I suppose I see the point of "mood" pieces in general.  I know why some people don't mind that a movie or TV show or book doesn't quite work on a thematic or plot level, why it doesn't matter that Bret Easton Ellis or Ryan Murphy don't really care about "meaning" or "plot" or "logic".  I get it.

I just don't like it.

There are plenty of ways to create a mood.  It is my belief, fixed and outdated as it may be, that there is more to Art, Literature, and Cinema than just feelings.  I was fully prepared to dismiss this movie; with its protracted,  well-underscored, and scenic interludes; as a "mood piece".  Until, that is, the last quarter or so.  Jack Nicholson's brilliant semi-monologue about what freedom means and why people fear it is worth becoming an audition piece in and of itself.  The movie is not just a "mood piece"; it is a movie about mood--about the feeling of freedom, of letting go, of abandoning chains and fetters.  It becomes in that moment, more than a movie, it becomes metaliterature, the very highest form in my estimation.  

And then it regresses slightly.  Perhaps it is because I have no personal experience of the "mood" of that decade that it seems tone deaf to end the movie with a message about how oppressed straight cis white people with long hair are.  Maybe that group really does serve as an appropriate metaphor for prejudice in general.  All I know is that the movie is brilliant and innovative (actually getting high while filming?  Cutting edge.), but the generation that it seems to be speaking for has become the very thing the movie rails against.

Frankenstein (1931)

 It's hard to imagine a better example of an adaptation hijacking and replacing the source material.  There are examples, of course, of the adaptation being more popular.  I can't however, think of anything close to this phenomenon: of a movie adaptation not only altering the source material to such an extent as to make it unrecognizable, but then replacing it in the public consciousness.  Society's idea of the monster is undeniably this version--hulking, incoherent, childish--and not the philosophical, erudite original with which it shares nothing more than a father.  It is as if people lined up to see L.H.O.O.Q. instead of the Mona Lisa.  

Which is not to say that the movie doesn't deserve its place in the cinematic canon.  It is solid, filled with strong performances and directorial choices, and occasionally brilliant.   My favorite touch is that Karloff is uncredited, his name replaced with question marks in the opening titles.  And neither do I feel that one version is superior to the other; they are fully divergent works, and to compare them would be to compare Pando to Aspirin.

Mutiny on the Bounty

It is no wonder that this story has multiple adaptations.  It has everything: epic scope, human drama, the  battle between good and evil, and the ultimate triumph of the former.  I would even go so far to say that it is not yet milked for all its value; the story of Pitcairn island only began with this story, and I would love to know more about what happened thereafter.  

Silly me, I assumed that the better movie version would be the more modern, ambitious, and Brandoed of the two.  It is clear that his power and emotions ran away with him during filming, though.  Focusing so much on the romance, and the resulting blow to pacing and narrative, was clearly his fault.  And there are character choices that make his version of Fletcher Christian suffer in comparison to Gable's: a certain foppery and affectation that reduce the stakes of his choices among them.  

But overall I think the credit for the earlier version's ultimate superiority can be given to the editors, rather than the performers.  Even if Laughton's version of Bligh descends into caricature rather too often, the tight pacing and streamlined script of the 1930s version are what ultimately make it the better of the two.

But was it great?  I can't bring myself to go that far.  Surely the cinematography is a marvel (in both versions), and one struggles to imagine how the filming of either was even possible with existing techniques and technologies.  However, I maintain that a movie can only ever rise to the level of its concept, and in both cases the intention was just to tell a story, not to reflect a larger truth.  Good, but Great was never going to be in reach.

Duck Soup

 As much as I like this movie, and as much as several elements from it have been part of my family shorthand lexicon for decades, I don't know that I ever thought of it as great.  Perhaps my criteria differ so widely from the AFI's that it's not even a fair test.  Let's examine.

My definition of a great film is one that has a solid reason to exist, and rises to that reason in every aspect of its production.  While on the surface this movie is just a silly, chaotic farce, can one really call that a reason to exist?  I don't see why not, especially considering the context.  At the same time that this movie was released, Georges Bataille et al were spinning themselves into an overly serious echo chamber in France.  The ponderous weight they gave to their project, and the deadly seriousness with which they pursued it, were no doubt factors in its ultimate failure.  Is there not something to be said for mockery and parody as tools, rather than philosophical omphaloskepsis?  

And if it is granted that such a goal is valid, necessary even, does Duck Soup rise to its purpose?  Clearly it does.  The performances, production value, and writing were all top tier, far above what was necessary for the stated ends.  Why then do I hesitate to call this movie great?  Is it just snobbery?  I didn't hesitate to apply the label to Modern Times or The Gold Rush, both equally silly and equally well-executed.  Perhaps it is snobbery, but not against comedy.  The only hesitation I can find in myself is that the music was uninspired.  Is that one flaw enough to justify my caution, or am I just feeling bitchy?

Platoon

 Sometimes our own experience gives us unique insight and perspective that the world needs to know about.  Sometimes it blinds us to the kernel of truth and leads us astray from it.  In this movie, I would say that both are true.  Stone's own experiences in Vietnam no doubt made him uniquely qualified to create this film, and justify the existence of yet another in the "War is Hell" genre, even after Apocalypse Now should have had the final word.  Unlike that masterpiece though this film feels like it lost its way about halfway through.  I could put no finger on exactly why or where, until reading Pauline Kael's analysis: "too much poetic license, and too damn much romanticized insanity ... The movie crowds you; it doesn't leave you room for an honest emotion."  That's it exactly.  The film feels just grounded enough in authentic human experience and emotion, thanks in large part to Sheen's masterful performance, to promise something better--something real--but then loses itself in the effort to become Art.  Each piece is a part of a slightly different puzzle, and they never come together in a way that feels whole.  A good movie, but not great.

Giant

 Without really meaning to, this blog has turned into something of a meditation on what I really believe about Art, Literature, Poetry, and, especially in the case of cinema, "greatness".  Suppose I were to take this opportunity to  review where I'm at with each, and apply them to this work?

ART

A great deal of what I have come to think about Art comes from Giorgio Vasari, who seems to have come closer than anyone else to putting his finger on it.  My fairly faithful summary of his definition is that Art is the successful transmission of a truly human moment through honesty and mastery of a medium.  

Is Giant Art? At times, yes.  Three of the Artists involved deserve to be credited for their mastery and success in my opinion.  Two of them were at least acknowledged for their work: Ivan Moffat and Fred Guiol were nominated by the academy for their screenplay, which does most of the work here, especially in the dialogue.  A quick look at her other work and achievements make it likely that the real artist is Edna Ferber, who wrote the novel on which it is based.  In every scene, however, it is Elizabeth Taylor who is clearly the master.  Though Hudson and Dean were the ones recognized for their acting, it is Taylor who Vasari would have applauded: every moment both technically perfect, and excruciatingly human.  Though not recognized for her work here, it seems safe to say that her status as an artist, rather than a mere actor, is pretty universally recognized.

LITERATURE

My approach to this label is more practical and, perhaps, unique to me.  To be Literature in my mind, something need merely be literate, literary, to exist in communication with the body of human work that precedes and follows it.  This, like all of these labels, is a continuum; Literature is not a bar to be cleared, but rather an attribute.  Something is Literature "to the extent that . . . "

Is Giant Literature? Certainly.  Ferber has a place in that conversation, though not often by name.  And this work in particular gives more than it took, inspiring other works that have become inextricable from the fabric of culture.

POETRY

This definition is entirely my own, and completely unsupportable.  Poetry is more than verse; we often speak of poetic justice, or apply the term to music, visual art, or dance.  To me, and to any of my students who will listen, Poetry is layering, the act of doing many things at once with only what is necessary.  In verse, this means imagery, figurative language, texture, form, etc. all working together to create a unified moment, elegant and magical in its efficiency.  The opposite, of course, is Prose: one thing at a time, sequential, mechanical.

Is Giant Poetry? Perhaps the only element that could really qualify by my criteria is the art direction of Boris Leven and Ralph S. Hurst, for which they were duly nominated, though I can't argue with the ultimate victory going to  Lyle R. Wheeler and John DeCuir, and  Walter M. Scott and Paul S. Fox for The King and I. The one award Giant won, that for best direction, seems to be a nod to the more popular criterion that something be merely beautiful.  

GREATNESS

This is the definition that I have worked hardest to put into words.  In my current thinking, something is Great to the extent that it has a reason to exist, and then rises to the level of that reason in every facet.  It is the intersection of importance and mastery.  Truly Great things arise irresistibly from a collective moment, almost without the willingness of their respective creators.  The word itself has as many meanings as there are people, and could just as easily mean "enjoyable", but I am not known for being easily satisfied.

Is Giant Great? It certainly needed to be made.  Its criticism of Texas style capitalism, and the subtlety with which it strove to meet that need, are certainly noteworthy.  But that's the label I would give it, rather than Great: noteworthy.  The moment that called for its creation was approached, but not reached.  It remains specific, rather than universal, and is correspondingly liked, but not worshiped.

Modern Times

 I am well on record in my admiration for Charles Chaplin.  His feats of art and skill in romance and comedy have not been matched in the 100 years since.  He was a visionary the likes of which we are do to see again in our generation, but do not seem to have yet.  Nonetheless, there is something to the perception that his films are mere entertainment, fluffy, meaningless, and ultimately unimportant.

As if in answer to such accusations, although in reality from some deeper urge to comment on changing worlds conditions, he created Modern Times, and critics should consider themselves forever silenced.  To his already masterful art as writer, director, and performer, which in and of themselves are more than enough, he adds here insightful and timeless social commentary--executed with the same level of command.  

Everything he has to say about the lie of capitalism, and its effects on the humans under its yoke, is as true today as it was 90 years ago.  Equally true is the deaf ear upon which such warnings fall.  Now, as then, those who pull aside the veil of opportunity to reveal the leering bloodthirsty machine underneath are labelled as communists, lazy, or weak.  One looks at the way Chaplin was treated in his own time, and is left with a sour despair of humans ever learning his lessons.  His art, at least, endures.  Perhaps it is the only thing that ever can.

The Wild Bunch

 What in the Peckinpah?  When was this movie made?  Violent, chilling, and nihilistic even by modern standards, it is no surprise that audiences in 1969 blanched at this offering, and astonishing that critics of the time seemed to appreciate it.  Fifty years before Walter White, Tony Soprano, and Don Draper, Pike Bishop appeared on the screen to show reality as it is: nasty, brutal, and short.  

I did not enjoy this movie, but I have been hoisted by my own petard, and have to admit that it is great.  My current standard for the question is to ask, as a Reader's Digest critic evidently did at the the time of this one, "Why did this movie need to exist?"  Peckinpah's own answers are only the surface of a deeper truth.  One of his stated goals was to de-glamorize violence: "... it's ugly, brutalizing, and bloody awful; it's not fun and games and cowboys and Indians. It's a terrible, ugly thing," as quoted in David Weddle's biography.  He also drew parallels with the violence of the Vietnam War, as broadcast nightly at the time.

But at its heart, this movie is not about violence.  It is about the worldview that allows it.  It is not only the blood that would have shocked contemporary audiences.  The gratuitous nudity, casual sex, profanity, drunkenness, bloodthirstiness, and general lack of a moral center make it a wonder that it was created at all, let alone screened.  The opening sequence reveals the truth: as we watch the movie, we are all those children, gleefully torturing bugs, and watching as they devour each other.  Once we exit the theater, however, we are no longer the children.  We are the bugs.

Rocky

 Choices, choices, choices.  What interesting choices were made here.

On the surface, this is a straightforward allegory.  The scrappy young protagonist, armed with nothing but the virtue traditional to every American movie of this sort--pluck, grit, spirit, heart, whatever mask it wears--is oppressed by the machine of wealth and business.  No matter what they take away from him, or how they try to keep him in his place, that virtue cannot be squelched, and ultimately, somehow, he triumphs.  The American Spirit cannot be defeated, and though tragedy and hardship are unavoidable, all is well.  The hero is rewarded with love, wealth, and victory.

Except for one choice, this would be every movie of that type, serviceable for an endorphin rush, but utterly transparent and unimaginative.

In every other movie of this sort, the villain, the oppressive symbol of an unjust and corrupt system, would be an old, rich, white man.  Why on earth was the choice made to cast a black man?  Was the intention to turn the trope on its head? Was the choice written into the script?  If so, that is the whole point of this movie.  It is not Rocky who carries the message, but Apollo.  The system is not the villain here, but the very idea of success and wealth.  As Rocky is here, Apollo once no doubt was.  He was the plucky underdog, oppressed by the system, equipped only with an unsquelchable spirit.  Pluck.  Grit.  Drive.  Will.  Determination.  Nothing could beat that out of him, no oppressive system, no unfair riggery of the game.  The only thing that could take his virtue was success itself, just as it inevitably will for his younger counterpart.

The Deer Hunter

 Am I imagining it?  Am I simply displacing my own thoughts and experiences onto the work that I just witnessed?  Let us examine the facts.

Various synopses of the movie state that both Nick and Michael were in love with Linda.  I can find no evidence for this in the film itself, however.  Nick's engagement to Linda is definitely not a romance, but rather an offhanded suggestion.  Michael can barely be bothered to touch her, though she is gorgeous, fun, and obviously in love with both of them.  

Nick and Michael live together, and Michael says that he doesn't want anyone but Nick--albeit in the context of hunting.  

Stan says that he has repeatedly fixed Michael up with women, but that nothing has ever happened, whereupon he accuses him of being a faggot.

The gazes that the two share are too many to enumerate, and every other relationship in the movie is flat and sterile, if mentioned at all.

Michael suddenly strips off all his clothes and runs naked through the streets with Nick chasing him?  WTF?

As Nick dies, Michael declares his love in a way that could be homosocial, but at this point that is more of a stretch than the other conclusion.  I feel like I am trapped in an alternate reality where I even have to make this case.  The opposite should be true. Ink should be spilled by those who wish to see the relationship as platonic, brotherly love, not the other way around. On top of which, we can layer writer and director Cimino's life as a confirmed old bachelor with no record that I could find of relationships hetero or otherwise, and a super gay presentation.  One could argue that it is just how a Hollywood director presents himself, but nuh-uh.  Not the straight ones.  Have you seen how they look?

It's all speculation, of course, and furthermore irrelevant.  The movie was good, if flawed, and it means to people whatever it means to them.  I am reminded of other times, however, that there was something in a work that I felt insane for seeing: Mrs. Dalloway, for one.  That book was gay as fuck, and only later did I learn that Virgnia Woolfe was an initiated Sapphist.  Maybe this will be another example and I'll get to be, if not right, at least sane.

American Grafitti

 What I experienced watching this movie can best be described as nostalgia for nostalgia.  As I sang along with the soundtrack, smirked at the cultural references and period-specific design choices, it was as though I was returning to my youth.  Except it wasn't my youth.  It was my father's youth.  It was his youth that formed the basis of my own youth, as though  he were reliving it vicariously through me, attempting a redo at whatever he felt went wrong.

And of course that's not too far off from what George Lucas was trying to do with the film.  Even though the film has the tone of a period piece, a scarce decade separates the setting from the filming.  Lucas does not seem to have been trying to recapture 1962; he was trying to remember it.  Lucas was reliving that period through me as the viewer, much as my father did throughout my youth. 

Which makes it nearly comical that Ron Howard went on from this sincere, if edited, version of the past to an altogether more disingenuous one in Happy Days--which one might also call nostalgia for nostalgia.  The people who watched that show were not entirely those who lived through its setting.  Many of them were, like me, those who had only heard the legends and claimed them as part of our own identity.

In The Heat of the Night

 Objectively speaking, this is the perfect film.  Every single element of it was executed to the very highest standards, not just mine but those who are in charge of doling out awards and laurels of various sorts.  Furthermore, it transcends the realm of good filmmaking and reaches the apex of "great" by virtue of having a reason to exist, a painful truth to uncover, and a message that people needed to hear whether they wanted to or not.  

Which makes my reaction to it a bit incongruous.  When the movie ended, I was seriously frustrated.  Such a good movie, and yet so many plot holes, unanswered questions, and tenuous connections.  I stewed in that frustration for a good while.  As a film, it was genius.  As a story, it was almost insultingly amateurish.  So I thought.  

Whether intended or not, my reaction revealed another element of the genius of this film.  somehow over the course of the film, I had become so invested in Tibbs' story, his outlook, that I had fallen into the same trap that almost undid him.  Those plot holes and incongruities that so frustrated me--they didn't really exist.  I only felt them because I expected something else, for the vast conspiracy at the heart of the mystery to be exposed, and for the bigots and bullies to get their comeuppance.  When that didn't happen, I was so frustrated that I instinctively blamed the film for what I perceived as a flaw, but was instead the very fabric of the story.

If I had watched the movie purely as a murder mystery, it would have been tied up in my mind as neatly as Jessica Fletcher or Matlock could have hoped.  But I didn't watch it that way.  I scarcely noticed the ostensibly central mystery, just as Tibbs did and, like him, was blinded.  Blinded to the extent that for some time after the movie was over, I didn't even believe that the mystery had been solved.  And that, in my book, is art.

Dances With Wolves

 I still remember the awe with which this movie was received when it was released, and being specifically struck with the gumption it must have taken for Kevin Costner to reveal his own bare buttocks (gasp!) on screen.  Some years after its release, I sat down to watch it with some friends on a battered VHS tape.  I fell asleep a quarter of the way through.

At least twenty-five years later, I can appreciate what I was unable to at the time.  The slow, vaguely European way the camera makes love to the scenery, in particular, was probably what put me to sleep at that first viewing, but finds a sympathetic audience in me now.  Unfamiliar as I was with the way indigenous people were usually treated in film, the novelty of a respectful treatment that gave agency to its subjects was also lost on me at that time.  

But I have missed the sweet spot where I might have truly appreciated this film.  I am too old and jaded to accept lovely cinematography as a justification for a film;  to me it is now merely frosting.  Likewise, I have become far too aware of the realities of Native American life to accept what was, at the time, rather a progressive approach.  The film is not as deplorable in its treatment as its predecessors, but still bears the marks of the white gaze, the noble savage trope, and the sanitization of complex issues. This film probably earned its accolades at the time, but while I am now prepared to stay awake for it, I cannot bring myself to bestow laurels today.

The Gold Rush

Sometimes we must, in the interest of fairness and objectivity, appreciate a movie in its context.  "Sure the camerawork, effects, writing, or structure weren't up to modern standards, but Intolerance was the first one to even try those things so give some credit", one might reason, or "It Happened One Night is even more impressive when you realize that all the movies of a similar style drew upon it for inspiration."

None of that is the case here.  How often does a movie do better with less technology and convention to draw on?  How often is the first example of something still the obvious best?  How often does a movie create practical effects that afterward have only been attempted in cartoons?  I'd say exactly once, and it is the oeuvre of Mr. Charles Chaplin.

As with City Lights, the director, lead actor, writer, and even composer?!?!?? of this movie did all of those jobs so well that if one didn't know its release date, one would be forgiven for assuming that it had just copied all of the tropes instead of having actually invented them.  At first I was in awe of how wonderfully he had captured the feel and style of a Looney Tunes cartoon.  What a marvelous feat to have reproduced all of those complicated gags without modern technology.  Imagine my surprise when I learned that I had it backward.  The Gold Rush predates Bugs Bunny by a decade.  Bugs Bunny copied Charlie Chaplin, but Chaplin did it so well that I just assumed the opposite.

After first watching this movie, I was affirmed in my opinion that Chaplin was a genius.  But further digging has revealed that I was mistaken.  He is a demigod. 

Wuthering Heights

I'm not sure by what criteria this movie should be evaluated.  It would seem remiss to not include "faithfulness to the source material" as a criterion.  Adaptations exist in a vacuum even less than original works.  By that measure, and within the limits of my memory, the film passes fairly well.  I do not recall enjoying the book, rather finding the characters unsympathetic and dreary, and the structure unnecessarily meandering.  The movie, by way of contrast, was tightly woven, and the performances gave depth and sympathy, especially to poor doomed Heathcliff.

Even viewed on its own, the movie was perfectly watchable.  Score, direction, cinematography, and performance were all of a very high level, and I suppose I can't find fault with its inclusion in the AFI's "100 Movies" list.  But my reaction to the movie itself is exactly as tepid as it sounds.  It was . . . fine.

Evaluation, however, is not the only way of reacting to a work--either written or filmed.  There is something about the story of Heathcliff that transcends evaluation.  I, an inveterate evaluator, have no special place for it in my memory; I can barely remember reading it at all, though I believe I wrote a paper on it as an undergrad.  But its fans are legion, and mysteriously fanatic.  There is something about Heathcliff that speaks to people, making the book a legend, and the movie, to be honest, far more well-regarded than it merits.

Perhaps if I were to read the book again, I would find in the text that which was rather clearly woven into the film: that the worst people we meet often have very sound reasons for being that way.  The call is implicit in portraits of such tortured bastards that we should endeavour to understand them before passing evaluation.  That even terrible miscreants were once pure and innocent.  That all such Heathcliffs need is love, and all cruel and vile men deserve forgiveness.

It seems to be on this level that those who have a soft spot for the book, and I suppose the movie, react to it.  It is seemingly irresistible for a certain subset of optimistic romantics to embrace horrible people, trying to save, redeem, or heal them.  I have several personal acquaintances in mind when I write this, and know of far more second-hand.

As for me, it is likely a character flaw that I do not react to them the same way.  I have infinite patience for children, but once Heathcliff is an adult, his tragic youth ceases to be an excuse.  At a certain point we all, myself included, must heal and grow and unfuck ourselves from our universally tragic youths.  Only then can we lay claim to a greater evaluation than "fine".  The book was fine.  The movie was fine.  And the many Catherines in my acquaintance are fine.  But if any of them want a better reaction than that from me, they would do well to grow up.

Ben-Hur

This is the first movie I have seeen in a while that I can confidently call "great".  Many movies are Art;  some few are even Literature.  But the element that elevates something from being masterfully done and perfectly executed, to the level of greatness is its overwhelming necessity.  A film cannot be great without having a reason to exist. 

Which is not to say that I personally must agree with that reason.  In the case under consideration here, I decidedly do not.  Evangelism and religious apologia of all sorts are rather nauseating to me, and I experienced just that nausea at certain baldly didactic moments while watching this film.  But the niche that this film occupies, its necessity in the biome of human ideas, is undeniable. 

But that necessity only allows the film's greatness; it does not predicate it.  To reach that potential, it also had to succeed on every technical level, from orchestration to set design.  And even if this film had no reason to exist, it would still be Art.  The art of cinematography is on full display in every facet of this film.  How to describe the spectacle of the chariot race?  The naval battle?  That it was all achieved without modern technology only makes it more marvelous, but is not a condition of admiration.  Those sequences could stand beside similar ones in contemporary movies without handicap. 

And perhaps the greatest miracle of all is how gracefully the writing trod the line between entertainment and propaganda.  The metaphysical themes of the setting never once departed from the very real, human, and believable personal drama that gives them their power.  I can find no complaint even with the central romance, which never felt contrived for appeal, though it surely was.  I place this movie confidently near the top of the list of movie I call great, though I must in good conscience demote it slightly because it advertises what I consider to be a lie. 

Saving Private Ryan

If I were able to separate my opinions about this movie from my opinions about its topic, I would have to agree with the general consensus.  On every technical level, it was a masterwork; the performances, direction, cinematography, score, even the sound editing was clearly the work of someone at the top of her or his game.  And the screenplay was great, too I suppose.  Its only real sin was a deus ex machina moment that robbed the film of its dramatic potential.

But even in spite of all of these flawless elements, my overall reaction is summed up with "What in hell was the point of that macho bullshit?"  This is my problem with war movies in particular, and "Manly" genres--westerns, crime capers, police thrillers, and the like--in general: how tiny does a man's penis have to be to think that this is the way to behave?  To believe that honor and virtue equal nationalism and violence?  The truly great (by which I mean: those I enjoyed) representatives of these genres are those like Apocalypse Now (which mock the macho ideal) or High Noon (which turn it on its head).  Saving Private Ryan was not one of these. In spite of its claim to deglamourize war itself, it beyond glamourized the attitudes and societal expectations that make war possible.

I am clearly living in a bubble.  I acknowledge that.  War is real, and is likely to remain a dominant force in human history for as long as our race can hold off exterminating ourselves.  But to glamourize it, albeit artistically, has no particular appeal for me.  

The French Connection

Either I have a blind spot, or there is an appeal to this sort of movie that completely escapes me.  The "based on a true story" crime drama probably has few better examples than this one, but it still left me wondering why I should care.  Perhaps I've pigeonholed myself into a mindset where I watch movies, especially those on the AFI list, with an expectation that they will be great, rather than merely serviceable.  Perhaops my working definition of "great"--namely that there should be a compelling reason for the film to exist, and that the individual elements of the film should live up in quality to that necessity--is narrow and short-sighted.  Perhaps I'm just a fuddy-duddy who doesn't see the point of these movies (this last is unlikely).

At any rate, the only pont I can think of in this film's favor is its decidedly postmodernist ending.  The ultimately frustrating wrap-up could easily have been the result of a Coen brothers collaboration, and perhaps it is this refusal to satisfy, along with certain technical elements and its place as the first R-rated movie to win the Academy Award, that prompted the AFI to have added it to its list.  And perhaps it is the films overall averageness by modern standards that caused it to drop to 93rd place on the most recent edition of the list.

Shane

I knew I wasn't making it up!  Way back at the beginning of this blog, when I was still teaching public high school, I made this comment, to the effect that there was an awful lot of sexual tension in a book intended for young adults.  What was subtext in the book became quite textual in the movie, to the credit of the director.  It was a solidly constructed movie, with nice cinematography and performances, though the lighting director should have been sacked.

But that which captures the notice of a modern viewer most about this movie is not the quality, by which measure it could fairly be described as "serviceable".  Rather, it is a depiction of masculinity that it at once toxic and frighteningly accurate.  The two men at the center of the movie seem, on the surface, to be motivated by what some might call "honor", the desire to do the right thing.  But while they have some tendencies in that direction, their honors are constantly undercut by an even more powerful motivator: concern over how they are perceived.  And it is pointedly not only in the eyes of the woman they both have feelings for that they struggle to be perceived as "men".  They struggle even harder for honor in the eyes of the young boy through whose eyes we witness the story.  They can bear any manner of indignity and insult, but the one thing they cannot endure--and that which leads them into foolish, performative masculinity--is for little Joey to think of them as cowards.

The film treats this as a virtue, rather than what it really is: a fatal flaw that nearly gets everyone killed.  But I don't think of this as detracting from the film.  It is, in fact, a perfectly accurate description of the way males are raised to view themselves, and the forces against which even such noble men as Shane and Joe continue to struggle.

An American in Paris

In 2015, when I saw the Broadway show based on this movie, I came away thinking it was tedious, convoluted, and a little rapey.  In 1952, I suppose it was common, though still unacceptable, for an adult man to chase a 19 year old girl around like a fawn, corner her, and badger her until she agreed to a date.  Perhaps then it didn't set off any alarm bells, and maybe was even perceived as romantic.  Perhaps it was normal for a wealthy woman to do the same to that man, using financial instead of social pressure.  Serious scrutiny in power imbalances in relationships is rather a modern development, after all.  The composer and his muse, the savior and his ward, the artist and his prey, the patron and her protege, every relationship in the musical was a study in harassment and coercion.  Gross.

As tedious and convoluted as the musical was, at least the movie was not those things.  But it was still a study in the relationships of horrible people.  A suitable alternate title might be "A Fuckboi Gets a Taste of His Own Medicine".  It was art, no doubt.  The score, cinematography, performances (although Leslie Caron visibly struggles to hold her own in the longer sequences), choreography, all top notch.  And in a movie from 1952, it's natural to see the unpleasant social practices of that decade reflected under the glamour.  But of all the changes that were made for the musical, why preserve the one element that aged poorly, and falls on modern tastes like spoiled milk?