The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained)

A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 99

What else to watch: It Always Rains on a Sunday (1947) ■ Passport to Pimlico (1949) ■ Whisky Galore! (1949) ■
The Man in a White Suit (1951) ■ The Titfield Thunderbolt (1953) ■ The Ladykillers (1955)

The charmingly selfish Sibella his materialistic The movie’s title is
presents her marriage deal to Mazzini childhood sweetheart taken from a poem by
in his cell. Sibella is competing with Sibella (Joan Alfred, Lord Tennyson:
Edith, the widow of one of Mazzini’s Greenwood), who “Kind hearts are more
victims, to marry him. made the mistake than coronets, and
of turning down simple faith than
Here is director Robert Hamer’s the lowly Mazzini Norman blood.”
genius in having Guinness play all to marry the rich but
eight victims. Because the audience very dull Lionel, only the one death of
knows that when one Guinness to see Mazzini rise which he’s innocent.
character is bumped off, another to become a duke His only hope of
will take his place, it never feels and fabulously escaping the hangman
repelled by the murders, but rather rich, while Lionel comes when Sibella
remains in thrall to Price’s charm descends into hints that she might
and wills him on as he eliminates bankruptcy and “find” Lionel’s suicide
the obstacles to inheriting the suicide. Mazzini, having got away note if Mazzini promises
title. A subplot shows Mazzini in a with the D’Ascoyne murders, is to marry her. But even then, the
complex romantic relationship with convicted of murdering Lionel, movie has one more twist up its
sleeve—a typically sardonic finale.
I shot an arrow in the air; she fell Ealing movies were not always
to earth in Berkeley Square. as sweetly innocent as their
reputation suggests, and Hamer’s
Louis Mazzini / Kind Hearts and Coronets movie was the perfect mix of the
comic and the caustic. ■

100

THE WORLD DOESN’T MAKE
ANY HEROES OUTSIDE
OF YOUR STORIES

THE THIRD MAN / 1949

IN CONTEXT C arol Reed’s 1949 film noir played by Orson Welles. Echoing
The Third Man captured through it all is the haunting zither
GENRE Europe’s fractured spirit music of Anton Karas, whom Reed
Film noir after World War II. Unusually for the found while shooting in Vienna.
time, Reed shot it in partly on
DIRECTOR location, in bomb-damaged Vienna. The movie was hugely popular
Carol Reed Dramatic pools of light and shade, in Britain, but fared poorly in
and tilted camera angles, turn the Austria. To Austrian audiences,
WRITER city into a nightmarish setting for it was a painful reminder of a
Graham Greene the tale of racketeer Harry Lime, troubled past.

STARS
Joseph Cotten, Alida
Valli, Orson Welles,
Trevor Howard

BEFORE
1941 The film noir genre is
established by US movies such
as The Maltese Falcon.

1941 With Citizen Kane,
Orson Welles establishes a
film-noir staple—the narrative
voice-over.

AFTER
1951 Welles revives his Third
Man character on radio in The
Adventures of Harry Lime.

A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 101

What else to watch: The 39 Steps (1935) ■ Brighton Rock (1947) ■ The Fallen Idol (1948) ■ Our Man in Havana (1959) ■
The Manchurian Candidate (1962, p.334) ■ The Ipcress File (1965) ■ The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

The screenplay was developed by revealing that Lime was a black
novelist Graham Greene from his marketeer who sold adulterated
own novella. It came from a simple penicillin. Martins visits Anna,
thought that occurred to Greene: who tells him that she might be
“I saw a man walking down the deported to the Soviet sector
street whose funeral I had only of the city. As he leaves,
recently attended.” This idea he spots a figure in the
inspired the story of a man who shadows. It’s Lime.
fakes his own death.
Martins meets
The third man Lime the next day
American pulp-fiction author Holly at the Riesenrad,
Martins (Joseph Cotten) arrives where Lime has
in a Vienna wrecked and divided invited Martins to join
by war at the invitation of his old him. Martins, realizing how
friend Harry Lime, only to find much his old friend has changed,
that Lime has been killed by a agrees to help Calloway trap
speeding car just days earlier. At Lime, on the condition that Anna
the funeral, Martins meets the two receive safe passage out of
men who were with Lime when he Vienna. When Anna refuses to
died. He also meets Lime’s girlfriend accept the police chief’s deal,
Anna (Alida Valli), with whom he Calloway takes Martins to
becomes smitten. Together they a children’s hospital
question the porter at Lime’s to show him the
apartment building, who tells them devastation caused
there was an unknown third man by Lime’s adulterated
present at the fatal moment. penicillin—and ❯❯

On Vienna’s giant Ferris wheel, Lime is cool and
known as the Riesenrad, police calculating, and has
chief Calloway (Trevor Howard) disdain for Martins’
advises Martins to leave Vienna, moralistic view of
the world. In Lime’s
cynical opinion,
there are no heroes
in the real world.

Has there ever been a film
where the music more perfectly

suited the action than in
Carol Reed’s The Third Man?

Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times, 1996

102 THE THIRD MAN

persuades Martins on moral Welles can be seen not just in his As ever-growing teams of police
grounds to help him trap Lime acting but in the dramatic film noir chase Lime through the sewers,
even if Anna is not saved. shooting style, which clearly owes a only the running water and the
lot to Welles’s own movies Citizen cops’ echoing calls in German can
Anna warns Lime of the trap, Kane (1941) and The Lady from be heard. The sense of panic rises
and he tries to escape through the Shanghai (1947). as Lime flees like a rat.
sewers. The climax, a masterful
symphony of action beneath the For the final chase through the Both Selznick and Greene had
Viennese streets, is one of the most sewers of Vienna, scenes were wanted an upbeat ending, but Reed
thrilling moments in cinema. shot partly on location and partly insisted on keeping it bleak. Greene
on studio sets. Reed brilliantly later admitted Reed had been right.
Casting Welles edited together the long, empty
That the movie turned out as it did caverns of the sewers, with their Clever use of shadows heightens
is due largely to the determination glistening bricks and sudden the sense of menace in the dark streets
of the director Carol Reed. Producer shafts of light, and the echoing of war-ravaged Vienna. The noir style
David O. Selznick had wanted footsteps and close-ups of Lime’s is strongly reminiscent of Orson Welles’s
suave British actor Noel Coward to sweaty face glistening like the own movies, but Welles later insisted
play Harry Lime, but Reed insisted bricks, eyes darting this way and that he had taken no direct role in the
on Orson Welles. The influence of that as he searches for a way out. movie’s direction or editing.

A GOLDEN AGE IN BLACK AND WHITE 103

Moral vacuum Over it all spreads the Carol Reed Director
As part of the postwar Allied melancholy, inert beauty of a
occupation of Austria, Vienna had ruined city, passive on the Born in London in 1906,
been divided into four zones—US, Carol Reed was the son
British, French, and Soviet—with a surface, twitching with of the famous Shakespearean
jointly controlled central district. uneasy life underneath. actor-producer Herbert
The Third Man exploits the political Beerbohm Tree and his
tensions that existed between the Vogue, 1949 mistress May Reed, whose
occupying forces, and the dramatic name he took. He started
potential of characters’ movements would you really, tell me to keep acting at an early age, and
between the sectors. Those without my money, or would you calculate joined the theater company
papers, such as Anna, are desperate how many dots you could afford of the thriller writer Edgar
to avoid the Soviet sector, where to spare?” Wallace, becoming his
their fate is uncertain. personal assistant. This
Back on the ground, Lime says, led to his first work as
As far as Lime is concerned, in lines added in by Welles for an assistant director.
this situation has created the timing: “You know what the fellow
perfect moral vacuum, in which said—in Italy, for 30 years under Reed’s early movies as a
inventive, dynamic, ruthless the Borgias, they had warfare, director, such as Midshipman
men such as him can, and should, terror, murder and bloodshed, Easy (1935), met with only
thrive. Europe is world-weary but they produced Michelangelo, moderate success, but the
and cynical in the aftermath of Leonardo da Vinci, and the novelist Graham Greene saw
the war, and for Lime, his fellow Renaissance. In Switzerland, they great potential in them. Reed
American, Martins, is a naive had brotherly love, they had 500 made his first significant
child stepping into it. years of democracy and peace, and movie, Odd Man Out, about
what did that produce? The cuckoo an Irish terrorist on the run, in
Improvised lines clock.” According to Welles, the 1947. The producer, Alexander
Greene’s script for The Third Man words came from an old Hungarian Korda, introduced Reed to
is as taut as you would expect from play. Ironically, the Swiss did not Greene and they made two
such a peerless writer, but some of invent the cuckoo clock at all, great movies together, The
the movie’s most memorable lines and they had been decidedly Fallen Idol and The Third Man,
were improvised by Welles. One warlike at the time of the Borgias. which was critically acclaimed
reason for the movie’s durability is Nonetheless, the words seem to and a huge box-office success.
that it successfully connects the sum up perfectly Lime’s amoral Reed died in London in 1976.
talents of three hugely gifted men: outlook on the world. ■
Reed, Greene, and Welles. Key movies

Lime looks down from the wheel 1947 Odd Man Out
on the people like dots below, and 1948 The Fallen Idol
asks Martins if he would feel pity 1949 The Third Man
if one of them “stopped moving 1968 Oliver!
forever”. He challenges Martins:
“If I offered you twenty thousand
pounds for every dot that stopped,

In Switzerland, they had brotherly
love, they had 500 years of democracy
and peace, and what did that produce?
The cuckoo clock.

Harry Lime / The Third Man

FEAR AN
WONDER

1950–1959

D

106 INTRODUCTION

Hollywood introduces Billy Wilder directs A Streetcar Named Fred Zinnemann’s
widescreen cinema Sunset Boulevard, a Desire, directed by Elia From Here to Eternity,
and gimmicks such controversial satire on the Kazan, catapults a young based on James Jones’s
as 3D to counter the Hollywood system; Bette epic novel of military
Davis lands her sharpest Marlon Brando to
growing medium role in All About Eve. movie superstardom. life, sweeps eight
of television. Academy Awards.

1950 1950 1951 1953
1950 1951 1952 1953

Akira Kurosawa’s The Day the Earth US judges rule that With the success of
Rashomon tells a crime Stood Still is the first of
story from four different many science-fiction movies are a form of free the thriller The Wages
viewpoints, a template
that would be imitated movies that reflect speech: Roberto of Fear, director
widespread fears about
in many movies. Rossellini’s L’Amore Henri-Georges
the Cold War.
cannot be banned Clouzot is dubbed the

for “sacrilege.” “French Hitchcock.”

T his chapter covers the The movie’s impact was sudden imbued with an existential dread.
shortest time period of any and immense: not only did it make In The Wages of Fear (1953), a movie
in the book—the 10 years Kurosawa’s name as a director, about a group of desperate men
between 1950 and 1959. Yet in that but it sparked a growing curiosity driving truckloads of nitroglycerine
one decade we find a swathe of in the West toward international through rough country, French
extraordinary movies. Many, as cinema. Also from Japan came director Henri-Georges Clouzot
before, are American movies the finely drawn, deceptively simple made what was probably the most
produced in Hollywood (which, by dramas of Yasujirô Ozu. And of tense movie since Battleship
this period, had enough of a history course, there was Godzilla, whose Potemkin (1925). It was also a
to inspire the Tinseltown satire towering monstrousness was bitingly satirical story of imperialism,
Sunset Boulevard), but great cinema inspired by Japan’s direct capitalism, and human greed.
was also rising to prominence in experience of nuclear war, still
other parts of the world. raw in the national memory. In several countries, directors
were creating movies that offered
In the years that followed Cold War dread at once entertainment, intellectual
World War I, it had been Germany Many movies of the 1950s provided stimulation, and stunning displays
that blazed the trail of cinematic the most delirious form of popular of technique. Douglas Sirk, for
innovation. Now, after World War II, entertainment (even today, it’s example, made lush melodramas
it was the turn of Japan. impossible for anyone to watch about suburban American life, such
Singin’ in the Rain without a grin on as All That Heaven Allows (1955).
Rise of Japan their face), and yet some of the key Long dismissed as kitsch, they are
In 1950, Akira Kurosawa released movies of this period also reflected now recognized as sensitive,
Rashomon, a fractured, brilliant anxieties over the Cold War and are multilayered masterpieces. In
story of a murder in ancient Japan. France, meanwhile, a group of

Federico Fellini’s Satyajit Ray’s Hollywood drops FEAR AND WONDER 107
La Strada is released low-budget Pather racial epithets from
(and later wins the first Panchali, a coming- Alfred Hitchcock’s
Oscar for best foreign of-age story, is the first movies, and allows psychological thriller
Indian movie to win some references to Vertigo is released.
film); François international acclaim. drugs, abortion, and Hitchcock is hailed
Truffaut describes by French critics as
prostitution.
his auteur theory. a true auteur.

1954 1955 1956 1958
1954 1956 1957 1959

Toho studios in The science-fiction Ingmar Bergman Truffaut’s debut movie,
Japan releases the first classics Forbidden releases The Seventh Seal The 400 Blows, marks
of the Godzilla monster Planet and Invasion
of the Body Snatchers and Wild Strawberries, a high point in the
movies. Kurosawa dealing with his French New Wave,
redefines the Western are released. trademark themes dealing realistically
with Seven Samurai. of life and death. with modern society.

young film critics from the If it’s a good movie, the Henri-Georges Clouzot, with
magazine Cahiers du Cinéma sound could go off and whom he enjoyed a friendly rivalry,
expounded a whole new way the audience would still and who turned the book into the
of looking at movies. To them, have a perfectly clear idea supremely creepy Les Diaboliques
movies deserved respect and of what was going on. (1955). Hitchcock made sure he
intellectual scrutiny. Their studious Alfred Hitchcock secured the movie rights to what
gaze examined not only “serious” Boileau and Narcejac wrote next—
directors such as Ingmar Bergman, movies. Some years before, he had and the result was the intense
but also the populist brilliance been eager to adapt a novel by psychological thriller Vertigo (1958),
of Alfred Hitchcock. The best French crime writers Pierre Boileau a tale of memory, lust, and loss that
directors, they argued, filled their and Thomas Narcejac. On that now frequently tops the lists of the
work with personal obsessions and occasion he was beaten to it by greatest movies ever made.
visual signatures—what we saw on
screen was “authored” by a director In 1959, a movie was made by
just as a novel is by its writer. This one of those young French critics
was the auteur theory, and for responsible for the auteur theory.
decades it would shape perceptions His name was François Truffaut,
of movies and their makers. and the movie, a portrait of a rough
Parisian kid, was The 400 Blows.
High ambition Influenced by Orson Welles but
Fittingly, this was the decade in possessed of an energy all of its
which Hitchcock made what is now own, it marked the end of an
the most highly regarded of all his extraordinary cinematic decade,
and the start of a new era. ■

WE ALL WANT TO

FORGET

SOMETHING SO WE

TELL STORIES

RASHOMON / 1950



110 RASHOMON A kira Kurosawa’s Rashomon Human beings are unable to
is a thriller that revolves be honest with themselves
IN CONTEXT around two possible crimes
that take place in a secluded about themselves. They
GENRE glade: the rape of a woman (Machiko cannot talk about themselves
Mystery drama Kyô) and the violent death of the
woman’s samurai husband without embellishing.
DIRECTOR (Masayuki Mori). The truth, This script portrays such
Akira Kurosawa however, is hard to get at; it is
tangled up in a knot of yarns spun human beings.
WRITERS by four eyewitnesses. Whom does Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa the audience trust to tell them the
(screenplay); Ryunosuke truth? The alleged rape victim? The
Akutagawa (short stories) bandit accused of committing the
offense? The ghost of the dead
STARS man? The woodcutter who found
Toshirô Mifune, Machiko the body? Whose story is the story?
Kyô, Masayuki Mori,
Takashi Shimura Beneath the gate is told about the crime and the
The opening shot of the movie is subsequent arrest of the bandit
BEFORE of the Rashomon city gate, a huge Tajômaru (Toshirô Mifune).
1943 Akira Kurosawa makes ruin in medieval Kyoto, seen from
his directorial debut with afar through a curtain of rain. As the woodcutter and the
Sanshiro Sugata, a historical Sheltering beneath the gate are a priest relate the tale, flashbacks
drama about the struggle woodcutter (Takashi Shimura) and show the bandit and the woman
for supremacy between the a priest (Minoru Chiaki), and they explaining what they saw at an
adherents of judo and jujitsu. are soon joined by a commoner inquest—or what they think they
(Kichijirô Ueda). The newcomer saw. Then a medium (Noriko
AFTER strikes up a conversation, and
1954 Kurosawa’s Seven
Samurai, a 16th-century epic Dead men tell no lies.
in which a village enlists
seven warriors to protect The priest / Rashomon
it from bandits, is widely
regarded as his masterpiece.

Akira Kurosawa Director

Kurosawa was the first Japanese cinema, which saw him develop
director to find popularity in a sensibility that was partially
the West. His movies Rashomon, Westernized. He experimented
Seven Samurai, and Yojimbo were with courtroom drama, crime
remade as Westerns (The Outrage thriller, film noir, and medical
in 1964, The Magnificent Seven in melodrama. He continued making
1960, and A Fistful of Dollars in movies until his death in 1998.
1964, respectively). Kurosawa
ultimately found greater critical Key movies
appreciation in Europe and the US
than he did in his native country. 1950 Rashomon
1954 Seven Samurai
The son of an army officer, 1961 Yojimbo
Kurosawa studied art before 1985 Ran
embarking on his career in

FEAR AND WONDER 111

What else to watch: Possessed (1947) ■ Stage Fright (1950) ■ To Live (1952) ■ The Hidden Fortress (1958) ■ The
Outrage (1964) ■ Red Beard (1965) ■ Samurai Rebellion (1967) ■ Ran (1985) ■ The Usual Suspects (1995) ■ Fight Club (1999)

Honma) shows up and channels he observed a fight between the Tajomaru describes the fight
the spirit of the dead samurai, who bandit and the samurai, but that between himself and the samurai as
gives his version of events. Finally, it was a messy scrap between a heroic struggle between two master
the woodcutter relates what he two physical cowards. swordsmen. The woodcutter saw it as
saw. Each of the stories is radically a brawl between two terrified men.
different, and in its own way On the surface, Rashomon is
entirely self-serving. a whodunit: it sets up a mystery, the evidence, and asks the audience
The bandit asserts to draw its own conclusions. But
that he killed the introduces the there’s a problem. Kurosawa is more
samurai in a heroic suspects, presents interested in the elusive nature of
battle; the woman truth than he is in capturing it—
claims not to recall the The movie he refuses to provide the audience
moment, but suggests established with a definitive account of what
that she stabbed her Kurosawa as an happened in the glade.
husband on seeing his internationally
expression after the renowned filmmaker. Shot in an unfussy, austere
rape; the samurai It also made a star of style, Rashomon relies on subtle
claims to have killed Toshirô Mifune (the symbolic imagery to communicate
himself; and the bandit), with whom its ideas about memory and truth.
woodcutter says that Kurosawa would make The curtain of rain, tinted black by
16 movies between Kurosawa so that it would show up ❯❯
1948 and 1964.

112 RASHOMON

Four conflicting versions of events Forests have always had a primal
association with the human

imagination—as dark places

The bandit’s version The samurai’s version located far from civilization. In
• He tricked the samurai • The bandit raped his wife; the traditional folklores of many
and tied him to a tree she chose to go with the bandit cultures, forests are the sites of

• He seduced the samurai’s • The bandit gave him a choice: magical, inexplicable encounters.
wife, after initial resistance let his wife go, or kill her as The earliest known Japanese prose

• The wife convinced him to punishment for her infidelity narrative, The Tale of the Bamboo
fight a duel with the samurai; • His wife fled, followed by Cutter, also known as Princess

he defeated him honorably the bandit; he killed himself Kaguya, is a 10th-century fable

in which a lonely and childless

The wife’s version The woodcutter’s version woodsman stumbles across a
• The bandit raped her • The bandit begged the phantasmal infant in the depths
samurai’s wife to marry him; of a forest.
• She begged her husband to instead she freed the samurai
kill her to save her honor Kurosawa’s movie reaches
• The wife encouraged the back to such folklore with its rural
• She fainted, holding bandit and the samurai to duel setting, its archetypal characters,
the dagger, and awoke and its notion that what we see
to find her husband dead • They dueled pathetically, is shaped unconsciously by our
and the bandit won by luck deepest fears and desires. The

movie even features an abandoned

child at the end, whom the

on camera, divides the present from leads the viewer away from reality woodsman takes home with him

the past, which is sun-dappled in and into the febrile undergrowth as the rain stops.

flashbacks. The forbidding gate of the subconscious; the forest

symbolizes the viewer’s gateway clearing is an enchanted space in Embellishing stories

to the world of the movie, a realm in which the drama of the samurai’s Kurosawa has said that humans

which nothing is what it seems and death will unfold again and again, cannot help embellishing stories

no one can be trusted. each time in a different way. about themselves, and this is what

The glade is also symbolic. We

first see it through the woodcutter’s Just think. Which one of these
eyes as he traipses deep into the

forest at the beginning of the stories do you believe?
first flashback. In this beautiful,
wordless sequence, Kurosawa The commoner / Rashomon

Minute by minute 00:17 00:51 01:11
At the inquest, Tajomaru tells The dead samurai tells The woodcutter
00:07 his version of events, in which the his version through a medium. describes a desperate
The woodcutter says wife begs him not to leave, and he He says that his wife and fight between the
that he was the first cuts her husband loose so that Tajomaru ran off, and that samurai and the
person to find the body of they may fight for her honor. he stabbed himself. bandit, in which
the samurai, and also the both shake with fear.
person who found Tajomaru.
01:15 01:28
00:00 00:15 00:30 00:45 01:00

00:12 00:39 01:03 01:20
The priest recounts The wife tells her story. At the gate, the woodcutter A baby is found
how he saw the She says that she fainted, says that he saw everything. crying at the gate.
samurai before he only to come round to find He says the husband did not The woodcutter
died, leading a the dagger in her husband’s want to fight, and wanted his offers to take the
woman on a horse chest. She then tried to wife to kill herself. baby home with him
through the woods. drown herself. as the rain abates.

FEAR AND WONDER 113

happens in Rashomon’s glade: four sleight-of-hand potboiler plots of truth remains elusive because no one
people witness a simple chain of The Usual Suspects (1995) and can agree on what happened. What
events, but they interpret it through Gone Girl (2014). However, rarely is certain is that Rashomon was one
the filter of their own imaginations. do the imitators dare to withhold of the most influential movies of the
Each of them transforms what they a satisfying solution, as Kurosawa 20th century. It set box-office records
have seen into a story. These stories does at the end of his masterpiece. for a subtitled movie and acted as
are not lies, however, but tricks of We never find out who killed the a gateway through which Western
the mind—indeed, with Rashomon, samurai, nor what really happened moviegoers could look for the first
Kurosawa suggests that there is no between the woman and the time at the beguiling, unfamiliar
such thing as objective truth. bandit, but we do see the world of Japanese cinema. And
characters change as they sift each of those moviegoers would
Since the movie’s release in through their own recollections. have seen something different. ■
1950, the primary storytelling
device of Rashomon has been The Rashomon effect In the wife’s story, she offers her
borrowed and imitated countless The “Rashomon effect” has entered husband a knife to kill her after she
times, from the American remake language as shorthand for any sees a look of disgust on his face
in 1964, The Outrage, a Western situation, in art or life, in which the following the rape.
starring Paul Newman, to the

114

I AM BIG. IT’S THE
PICTURES THAT
GOT SMALL

SUNSET BOULEVARD / 1950

IN CONTEXT A t one point in Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard is a blackly comic
Sunset Boulevard, faded elegy to Hollywood’s silent age, and
GENRE silent-movie star Norma the movie is filled with faces from
Drama Desmond (Gloria Swanson) flashes those glory days, including Buster
a look at the audience. “We didn’t Keaton, looking time ravaged at a
DIRECTOR need dialogue. We had faces!” card table, and legendary director
Billy Wilder she says, as her eyes shine with Cecil B. DeMille, both playing
madness, sorrow, and fear. Norma’s themselves in wry, self-deprecating
WRITERS cracked state of mind, and her fall cameos. Norma’s servant Max is
Charles Brackett, from sanity and fame, can all be played by Erich von Stroheim,
Billy Wilder seen in that single close-up. another famous director of the

STARS Joe dresses in white tie and
Gloria Swanson, William tails for Norma’s New Year’s
Holden, Erich von Eve party, only to find that she
Stroheim, Nancy Olson has invited no other guests

BEFORE and is trying to woo him.
1928 Gloria Swanson’s silent
movie career peaks with
Sadie Thompson, a drama
set in the South Pacific.

1944 Double Indemnity is Billy
Wilder’s classic film noir about
the double dealings at an LA
insurance company.

AFTER
1959 Wilder shows his
versatility with Some Like It
Hot, a comedy in which Tony
Curtis and Jack Lemmon dress
in drag to escape the mob.

FEAR AND WONDER 115

What else to watch: A Star is Born (1937) ■ All About Eve (1950, p.332) ■
Some Like It Hot (1959, pp.148–49) ■ Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)

Wilder’s movie marked
an extraordinary screen
comeback for Gloria Swanson.
She effectively retired from
movies afterward.

silent era. Swanson herself had with the reclusive Billy Wilder
been a huge star of the silent Norma when she asks Director
screen, so in taking on the role of him to write her comeback
the deranged Miss Desmond, she movie. The aging diva is “Nobody’s perfect” is the final
creates a grotesque parody of her convinced that her millions line of Billy Wilder’s Some Like
celebrity self. of fans are waiting, “out It Hot. All Wilder’s movies are
there in the dark,” for her based on this simple truth—
The movie tells the story of Joe return to the silver screen. with characters whose flaws
Gillis (William Holden), a down-on- Joe reluctantly moves into the are fascinating, from Fred
his-luck screenwriter who falls in star’s creepy mansion on Sunset MacMurray’s Walter Neff in
Boulevard, and Norma falls in Double Indemnity to Robert
love with the young writer, who Stephens’s detective in The
is drawn into her delusions. Joe Private Life of Sherlock Holmes
eventually tries to escape Norma (1970). As a filmmaker, Wilder
and salvage what little dignity he himself was as close to perfect
has left, but we know things end as it’s possible to get.
badly for him because his story is
told in flashback; at the start of the Born in Austria in 1909,
movie he is a corpse floating in a Samuel “Billy” Wilder fled the
swimming pool. “The poor dope. Nazis to make his directorial
He always wanted a pool,” is Joe’s debut in Paris. In the 1930s
narration—a gallows-humor gag he came to Hollywood, where
told from beyond the grave. he wrote movies with Charles
Brackett. Double Indemnity,
Silent tribute his collaboration with novelist
Wilder’s movies are celebrated for Raymond Chandler, is often
their cynical dialogue and one- credited as the first film
liners—“You’ll make a rope of words noir. His later movies were
and strangle this business!” is one mostly comic, but retained
of Norma’s most memorable lines— the cynical bite—and eye
but there is also a suggestion of for human weakness—of
melancholia in Sunset Boulevard. his earlier tragedies. He
Beneath his cynicism, Wilder’s died in 2002.
reverence for a vanished era is
obvious. Ultimately, while there Key movies
is a glittering monstrousness to
the deluded Norma, she is also 1944 Double Indemnity
a tragic figure. Wilder suggests 1945 The Lost Weekend
that she may have a point about 1950 Sunset Boulevard
the movies: that they lost some 1955 The Seven Year Itch
of their magic when their stars 1959 Some Like It Hot
began to talk. ■

116

I HAVE ALWAYS RELIED
ON THE KINDNESS
OF STRANGERS

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE / 1951

IN CONTEXT T here isn’t much One of only two movies in history to
kindness on win three Academy Awards for acting,
GENRE display in A Streetcar Named Desire made a
Drama A Streetcar Named household name out of its star, the
Desire, which tells the now legendary Marlon Brando.
DIRECTOR story of Blanche Dubois
Elia Kazan (Vivien Leigh), a woman attack. This taut adaptation of
whose past catches up Tennessee Williams’s play sparked
WRITERS with her one stifling outrage when its director, Elia
Tennessee Williams, summer’s evening in Kazan, first screened it for Warner
Oscar Saul (screenplay); New Orleans. “Deliberate Bros., and he was forced to cut five
Tennessee Williams (play) cruelty,” she says, “is the minutes from his movie before the
one unforgivable thing.” studio’s executives would release it.
STARS
Marlon Brando, Vivien When she comes to stay with Controversial themes
Leigh, Kim Hunter, her younger sister Stella (Kim These small but crucial edits
Karl Malden Hunter), Blanche thinks she is papered over the more sordid
running away from her former life aspects of the story—Blanche’s
BEFORE as a scandal-hounded teacher. “nymphomania,” her late husband’s
1950 Tennessee Williams In reality, she is running toward secret homosexuality, Stella’s lust
adapts his own play, The Glass a cataclysm of destruction and for Stanley, and the climactic rape—
Menagerie, for the screen. It is cruelty in the hulking shape of inadvertently mirroring the self-
a thematic companion piece to Stella’s husband, Stanley Kowalski
A Streetcar Named Desire. (Marlon Brando). Blanche has a
horror of the naked truth, which
AFTER she has a habit of disguising with
1954 Elia Kazan is reunited illusions and wily fantasies: “I don’t
with Marlon Brando to make tell the truth. I tell what ought to be
On the Waterfront. the truth!” The moment Blanche
arrives at Stella’s apartment,
1958 Elizabeth Taylor and Stanley scents her fear, and a game
Paul Newman star in Cat on a of cat and mouse ensues. He is a
Hot Tin Roof, another blistering predator who resents his sister-in-
adaptation of a Williams play. law’s snooty put-downs, and the
game ends with a violent sexual

FEAR AND WONDER 117

What else to watch: A Place in the Sun (1951) ■ The Wild One (1953) ■
Rebel Without a Cause (1955, p.131) ■ The Rose Tattoo (1955) ■ Baby Doll (1956)

delusional madness of its central the inner life of the brutish Stanley, Elia Kazan
character. However, the movie was and the results are truly volcanic. Director
also criticized for its staginess, and it The performance made Brando
is true that Kazan refuses to open up into a star, but even he could not Turkish-born US director Elia
the drama beyond the four peeling outshine Vivien Leigh’s flickering, Kazan was one of the most
walls of Stella and Stanley’s poky, iridescent portrait of a woman famous practitioners of the
run-down love nest. But it is the haunted by her own desires. “Method” technique
movie’s claustrophobic atmosphere “Whoever you are,” she says at the developed by Lee Strasberg,
that becomes the source of its end of the movie, her Southern-belle which encouraged actors to
electricity—the actors prowl and accent fluttering delicately around draw on their personal
pace the set like caged animals, the sad truth at the heart of her experiences and to “become”
straying into each other’s territories self, “I have always relied on the the characters they played.
and overstepping their marks. kindness of strangers.” ■ In the 1930s, he joined New
York’s experimental Group
This is especially true of Theatre and triumphed on
Brando. A student of the “Method” Broadway, cofounding the
approach to creating a character, he Actors Studio in 1947. By
dedicated himself to unearthing
the mid-1950s he was a
Stella’s major player in Hollywood.
husband In 1952, Kazan testified
Stanley before the House Un-
has a brutish American Activities
attraction for Committee. Having been
Blanche, but a member of the American
his attentions Communist Party, he
quickly turn informed on eight former
to abuse. colleagues who had been
communists. He resumed
his career but his focus

changed from controversial
movies to historical allegories,
such as an adaptation of John
Steinbeck’s East of Eden.

Key movies

1951 A Streetcar Named Desire
1954 On the Waterfront
1955 East of Eden
1961 Splendor in the Grass

118

IT’S A HARD WORLD
FOR LITTLE THINGS

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER / 1955

IN CONTEXT U pon its release, The Night with its use of exaggerated framing
of the Hunter was such a shots and shadow to create
GENRE critical and commercial an escalating mood of dread.
Thriller, horror failure that actor-turned-director Contemporary audiences were,
Charles Laughton never directed perhaps, confused when their
DIRECTOR another movie. The movie was expectations were confounded, but
Charles Laughton marketed as, and appeared to be, over time the movie has established
a film noir, an idea reinforced by itself as a key work of American
WRITERS the casting of genre mainstay cinema, a modern-day fairy tale
James Agee (screenplay); Robert Mitchum in the lead role. Yet unafraid of reveling in its darkness,
Davis Grubb (novel) it has more in common with 1920s both literally and figuratively.
German Expressionist horror movies
STARS than it does with hard-boiled noir, Wolf in sheep’s clothing
Robert Mitchum, Shelley This is the story of a psychopath
Winters, Lillian Gish Charles finally had very little in preacher’s clothing, Harry Powell
respect for [screenwriter] Agee. (Mitchum), a con man who seduces
BEFORE and murders women. The action is
1933 Charles Laughton wins And he hated the script, but set in the Great Depression, which
an Oscar for the lead role in he was inspired by his hatred. has driven desperate family man
The Private Life of Henry VIII. Ben Harper to attempt a bank
Elsa Lanchester robbery. Harper is caught and
1947 Robert Mitchum makes sentenced to death for murdering
his name in film noir with Charles Laughton’s wife two people during the robbery.
Build My Gallows High.
Powell shares a cell with Harper
AFTER while Harper awaits execution. He
1962 In Cape Fear, Mitchum learns that the condemned man
again plays an ex-con who has hidden $10,000 with his family.
terrorizes a family, pitted On his release, Powell sets out to
against lawyer Gregory Peck. ingratiate himself with Harper’s
widow, Willa (Shelley Winters), and

FEAR AND WONDER 119

What else to watch: M (1931, pp.46–47) ■ Build My Gallows High (1947, p.332) ■ Angel Face (1952) ■
Les Diaboliques (1955) ■ Touch of Evil (1958, p.333) ■ Cape Fear (1962)

her two children. Willa is to be the dialogue. For instance, encroaching Light and shade are used to frame
next hapless victim of his creepy threat is conveyed by the overtly key images. As Powell stands over
yet all too smooth preacher act. styled framing of the children’s Willa, knife in hand, her bedroom
hiding place in a barn, juxtaposed is converted by the shadows into
Light and shadow with Powell on the distant horizon, a perverted church.
One of the most notable aspects or by the way shadows overwhelm
of The Night of the Hunter is a bedroom, leaving what little light image of a corrupted altar in a
how powerfully it communicates remains to create the effect of an church mirrors Powell’s own status
significance in ways other than altar as Powell murders Willa. The as a false prophet, an amoral man
who uses the word of God to serve
She’ll not be back. I reckon I’m safe his own nefarious purposes.
in promising you that.
The use of high-contrast black-
Harry Powell / The Night of the Hunter and-white photography also helps
to highlight the contrast between
good and evil in the movie. ❯❯

120 THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

Menace and meaning are further Its lyrics are about the peace and subsequently disappears. He
conveyed through the use of song. joy believers find in the arms of appears to be the picture of
Harry Powell appropriates a hymn the Lord. In the small town that charity, and a trusted authority
“Leaningon the everlasting arms,” he infiltrates, Powell poses as a figure—but his true intentions
which he sings to himself as he man of God whom the bereaved are to abuse, exploit, and steal.
hunts the children, Pearl and John. Willa can lean on as she copes
with the loss of her husband, and Magical realism
Powell uses his tattoos to tell whom the local community trusts As John and Pearl escape Powell’s
a moralizing tale of love and hate, with the care of clutches in a rowboat that carries
but Rachel Cooper can see right the children
through him. after she them away by river, their journey
into a dangerous unknown is
conveyed by song, rather than
dialogue. Pearl sings of a fly
soaring up to the
moon. A tiny thing
in a vast world,
the fly does not
know what perils
lie before it, yet it
goes anyway, for
there is no other
course. The song adds to

the expressionistic feel of the
movie, creating a sense of

magical realism.

FEAR AND WONDER 121

The widow Willa is
won over by the phoney
charm of the false
preacher, who brings
horror into her home.

down to the cellar by
candlelight. These scenes
terrify audiences because
they tap into an innate
fear: the violation of the
home, the place where
people should feel safe.

Horror in the home Fairy-tale ending Charles Laughton
In the 1970s, movies such as Eventually, the children are Director
Halloween and The Exorcist were taken in by the kindly and
praised for domesticating horror, wise Rachel Cooper (played Charles Laughton was born
bringing it out of the abandoned by Hollywood veteran of the in 1899 in Scarborough, in the
asylums and castles and into the silent era Lillian Gish), an old north of England. He trained
home. Yet, 20 years earlier, The woman who has adopted a at RADA, the London dramatic
Night of the Hunter had already number of children that have arts academy, which enabled
done this. Terror is built up during fallen victim to the Depression. him to get his first acting work
the movie as Powell ingratiates his Like a fairy godmother, Rachel on the London stage.
way into John and Pearl’s family, protects Pearl and John—but
seducing their mother with his Powell is not yet finished, and He made his Hollywood
religious fervor. One by one, he the children are not yet safe. movie debut with the 1932
violates the domestic norms that The Night of the Hunter is hard movie The Old Dark House,
are supposed to make the children to categorize, which may explain starring opposite Boris Karloff.
feel safe in his care. Rather than why, on its release, it was met with His most iconic role came a
nurturing and feeding them as incomprehension. It is experimental, year later, starring as the title
expected, he starves them in his with close stylistic ties to German character in The Private Life
attempt to make them confess Expressionism. Scene after scene of Henry VIII, a performance
where the money is hidden. The hovers on the cusp between dream that won him the Academy
sense of menace becomes almost and nightmare, real and surreal. Award for best actor in 1933.
unbearable as he leads them Above all, it is a terrifying but Laughton went on to star in
hopeful fairy tale—candid in its such movies as Mutiny on the
depiction of the evil Powell, but also Bounty (1935), Jamaica Inn
insistent on the possibility that evil (1939), and Spartacus (1960).
can be fought. It is a story of love
and hate, the words tattooed on Laughton’s only foray
Powell’s knuckles. These two into directing was with The
elemental forces collide in one of the Night of the Hunter. Although
most magical movies ever made. ■ it has gained critical mass
over the years, the movie’s
Salvation is a last-minute initial box-office failure
business, boy. discouraged him, and he did
not direct again. He died in
Harry Powell / The Night of the Hunter California in 1962.

Key movie

1955 The Night of the Hunter

122

WHAT’S THE FIRST THING
AN ACTOR LEARNS? “THE
SHOW MUST GO ON!”

SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN / 1952

IN CONTEXT F rom A Star Is Born in 1937 corrupting influence of fame and
to The Artist in 2011, the money, and the compromises they
GENRE movie industry has exhibited make for the sake of their careers,
Musical, satire a narcissistic obsession with itself. many filmmakers have made satires
Drawing on its own experiences of about the movies. Singin’ in the Rain
DIRECTORS studios stifling creativity, the
Gene Kelly, Stanley Donen approaches the movie industry
with more affection than others.
WRITERS It sees Hollywood, despite its
Betty Comden, decadence and eccentricities, as
Adolph Green a place where talent can thrive,
and it remains one of the finest
STARS examples of why that optimism
Gene Kelly, Donald is justified: a movie so brimming
O’Connor, Debbie Reynolds with creativity and invention

BEFORE that more than 60 years later, it
1927 The Jazz Singer is the retains the capacity to inspire
world’s first feature-length and entertain.
“talkie.” It is mentioned in the
plot of Singin’ in the Rain. End of an era
Singin’ in the Rain is set in the
1945 For Anchors Aweigh, late 1920s, toward the end of
Kelly was given free rein to the silent-movie era, and it
create his own dance routines. deals with the need for a
studio and its silent star, Don
AFTER Lockwood (Gene Kelly), to
2011 The Artist revisits the
end of silent movies and the Singin’ in the Rain is
birth of cinematic sound. considered one of the all-time
great musicals for its gentle
satirizing of Hollywood mores.

FEAR AND WONDER 123

What else to watch: The Jazz Singer (1927, p.330) ■ Top Hat (1935) ■ A Star Is Born (1937) ■ Anchors Aweigh (1945) ■
Ziegfeld Follies (1945) ■ On the Town (1949) ■ Sunset Boulevard (1950, pp.114-15) ■ An American in Paris (1951)

change with the times. Unless he making with his shallow co-star, In one of Don’s (Gene Kelly’s)
can learn to work with synchronized Lina Lamont (Jean Hagen), is being flashback career moments, we see
sound, Don is destined, in his words, reshot for sound. The cast and crew him becoming a big Broadway star
to become “a museum piece.” are out of their depth with the new and performing Gotta Dance.
technology; for example, even the
His position very much mirrors talented Don asks for dialogue to be mistakes he makes on account of
the status of the musical as a genre replaced with him repeating “I love that anxiety, but it is also about the
at the time that Singin’ in the Rain you,” unaware of how wooden that eclipsing of the musical by other
was released: in 1952, it was a will sound in a “talkie.” The scene genres of movie.
format whose heyday seemed to be addresses his fears of replacement,
passing. There is one memorable as his skills and methodology The arc of creativity
sequence when The Dueling become redundant, and the One of the key themes of Singin’
Cavalier, a silent movie Don is in the Rain is the undignified and
humiliating work that creative people
If we bring a little joy into your are willing to do in order to get ahead
humdrum lives, it makes us feel as in the industry. This is highlighted
though our hard work ain’t been in in three stories within the movie.
vain for nothin’. In the first, Don reminisces to a
journalist on the red carpet at a
Lina Lamont / Singin’ in the Rain premiere. As he waxes lyrical about
his dignified rise to stardom, the ❯❯

124 SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN

Actress Cyd Charisse as herself is
Kelly’s sensational dance partner in the
“Broadway Melody” musical sequence.

viewer is shown a montage that performer and is then corrupted movie star from the moment we
contradicts his words. He is seen by fame and adulation, before meet him, yet he is not truly
working his way up from rock eventually rediscovering why he successful until the last scene, when
bottom as a musical performer, as wanted to sing and dance in the he is in his element, having become
he and his partner Cosmo Brown first place. The final story is that of a musical star instead of a silent
(Donald O’Connor) perform in dive the movie itself, in which Don actor, and is with the girl he loves,
bars, get booed off the stage, and evolves from a silent star to his true Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds),
stand in the unemployment line. vocation as a musical performer. instead of the self-serving Lina. The
The second story takes place within movie takes an optimistic view,
the extended fantasy sequence The movie uses these stories suggesting that the path to finding
“Broadway Melody,” in which Don to examine just what it is that your creative self is long and
arrives on Broadway as an eager constitutes artistic success. It is difficult, but if you have the talent
not the same as simply making it, and conviction, as Don does, you’ll
and getting rich—it is about the eventually get to where you belong.
artist doing what he or she loves
without compromise. Don is a Singin’ in the Rain stands out
in the pantheon of musicals for
a number of reasons. It takes a
self-deprecating look at its own
craft, and it features several iconic
musical numbers (from the titular
Singin’ in the Rain to the comedic
Make ’em Laugh), but above all
it has endured because it speaks
to a timeless fascination: the
celebration and power of talent.
While many movies portray the
eventual corruption of talent and
creative ambition, Singin’ in the
Rain salutes genuine talent as
an irrepressible force that will
always prevail. ■

Gene Kelly Actor

One of this movie’s pleasures Gene Kelly was starred in, won several Oscars,
is that it’s really about born in 1912 in including Best Picture. Singin’ in
Pittsburgh, PA, the Rain was a modest success
something. Of course it’s and became a upon release, but its popularity
about romance, as most dance teacher soon grew. Kelly died in 1996.
musicals are, but it’s also before making it to Broadway.
about the film industry in a His big break came in 1940 when Key movies
period of dangerous transition. he got the lead role in Rodgers
and Hart’s show, Pal Joey. 1945 Anchors Aweigh
Roger Ebert Anchors Aweigh gave Kelly his 1946 Ziegfeld Follies
first and last Oscar nomination 1951 An American in Paris
for best actor, although An 1952 Singin’ in the Rain
American in Paris, which Kelly 1960 Inherit the Wind

FEAR AND WONDER 125

Don is finally in
his element as a
song-and-dance
man, not a silent
movie star, as
he performs the
movie’s titular
musical number.

126

LET’S GO
HOME

TOKYO STORY / 1953

IN CONTEXT T okyo Story The movie depicts
was made Japan at a moment of
GENRE in the wake profound change, but
Drama of the decades of its story of familial
militarism in Japan disintegration
DIRECTOR that culminated in resonated with
Yasujirô Ozu catastrophic defeat in
World War II. Ripples audiences
WRITERS from the war can be worldwide.
Kôgo Noda, Yasujirô Ozu detected in it, but unlike
many Japanese movies As the title
STARS of the postwar period, suggests, Tokyo
Chishû Ryû, Chieko Yasujirô Ozu’s movie Story is a simple
Higashiyama, Sô remains even-keeled tale. The movie is
Yamamura, Kuniko Miyaki throughout. Its characters more a carefully
go about their lives curated collection
BEFORE without fuss, and it ends with a of moments than a drama, and
1949 The first great movie in quiet tragedy that mirrors Japan’s concerns relations within a family.
Ozu’s final period, Late Spring, somber introspection at the time. Shukichi (Chishû Ryû) and Tomi
is an example of shomin-geki, (Chieko Higashiyama) have four
a story of ordinary people’s lives
in post-war Japan. Yasujirô Ozu Director

1951 Ozu continues his Often described as the most them focused in some way on
preoccupation with the state Japanese of filmmakers, Yasujirô the changing rhythms of family
of the Japanese family with Ozu is also the most accessible life in the modern age. His
Early Summer. of the great directors to emerge “Noriko Trilogy,” of which Tokyo
from that country in the postwar Story was the last, all starred
AFTER period. His unfussy style Setsuko Hara as Noriko.
1959 In Ozu’s Floating Weeds, won him the reputation of a
a group of kabuki theater minimalist—but his movies Key movies
actors arrive in a seaside town, are busy with the rich detail of
where the lead actor meets his human life and drama. Between 1949 Late Spring
son for the first time. 1927 and 1962, Ozu directed 1951 Early Summer
more than 50 features. All of 1953 Tokyo Story

FEAR AND WONDER 127

What else to watch: Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941) ■ There Was a Father (1942) ■ The Flavor of Green Tea
Over Rice (1952) ■ Tokyo Twilight (1957) ■ Equinox Flower (1958) ■ Good Morning (1959) ■ The End of Summer (1961)

The children return home for
Tomi’s funeral. Over the funeral
dinner, the conversation turns into
a discussion of the inheritance
with almost indecent speed.

children: Kyoko (Kyoko Kagawa), an
unmarried daughter who lives with
them at home; Keizo (Shiro Osaka),
their youngest son, who works in
Osaka; Koichi (Sô Yamamura), a
doctor living in Tokyo with a wife
and two sons of his own; and Shige
(Haruko Sugimura), also a Tokyoite,
who runs a beauty salon. A fifth
child, a son, died in World War II.

A journey down, at the eye level of a person acceptance between them,
Shukichi and Tomi decide to pay a seated on a tatami mat. Characters an acknowledgment that their
visit to their children in Tokyo and come and go, moving in and out of shared role as parents has become
meet their grandchildren for the the frame, but Ozu sees everything, redundant. This sparse exchange
first time, and embark on a train as though a silent and invisible is typical of the couple’s interaction
trip to the hurly-burly of the city. observer planted in every scene. in that few words are spoken but
They are unfailingly positive and The camera’s positioning is all much is said. It is also Ozu’s way
polite, but viewers sense the pair’s about tradition, just as the story it of telling stories on film: a small
disappointment in the way their records is about the mutation of and fleeting moment that contains
offspring have turned out. None family life and an ancient culture huge significance.
of the children make time for their in the age of modernity.
parents in their busy schedules. The couple is sitting on a sea
Indeed, it seems that Noriko “Let’s go home,” says Shukichi wall in their spa gowns. As Tomi
(Setsuko Hara), the widow of their to his wife after a few days. “Yes,” gets up, she has a dizzy spell. “It’s
dead son, is the only person who replies Tomi. In their words is an because I didn’t sleep well,” she
cares about them. At one point, explains to her concerned husband.
the parents are packed off by Shukichi’s face tells us what he is
Koichi to a coastal spa, so that the thinking: she is going home to die,
room in which they are staying can which she does a few days later.
be used for a business meeting. Now it is the turn of their children
to make a journey for the family. ■
Static observer
This funny-sad odyssey is observed
in Ozu’s trademark style: through
a static camera positioned low

This place is meant for the
younger generation.

Shukichi / Tokyo Story

128

WHEN I WAS A KID I USED
TO SEE MEN GO OFF ON
THESE KIND OF JOBS—
AND NOT COME BACK

THE WAGES OF FEAR / 1953

IN CONTEXT H enri-Georges Clouzot’s village. When they are hired by a
The Wages of Fear is a ruthless US oil company, they think
GENRE juggernaut of suspense it’s their ticket out. But they are told
Drama driven by greed and desperation. to drive trucks of nitroglycerine
A contemporary and friendly rival across a wilderness of potholes,
DIRECTOR of Alfred Hitchcock, Clouzot crumbling ledges, and rickety
Henri-Georges Clouzot succeeds in gripping the viewer bridges to put out an oil fire hundreds
with a nerve-wracking story. Four of miles away. Not everyone is
WRITERS men, Mario (Yves Montand), Jo expected to make it back alive.
Henri-Georges Clouzot, (Charles Vanel), Luigi (Folco Lulli),
Jérôme Géronimi and Bimba (Peter van The movie exhibits a low opinion
(screenplay); Georges Eyck), are desperate to of men’s motives, and an even lower
Arnaud (novel) escape life in a grim one of the aggressive capitalism that
South American exploits them, but first and foremost
STARS it’s a movie about terror: a white-
Yves Montand, Charles Mario (Yves
Vanel, Peter van Eyck, Montand) knuckle adrenaline ride. From the
Folco Lulli accidentally treacherous road that threatens
runs over Jo the trucks, to the fire-and-
BEFORE (Charles brimstone finale, each set piece
1943 Clouzot’s caustic drama Vanel) in is more gut-wrenchingly tense
Le Corbeau tells the story a pool
of a poison-pen writer who of oil. than the one before. ■
signs his missives “The Raven.”
What else to watch: Le Corbeau (1943) ■ Eyes Without a Face (1960) ■
1947 Clouzot’s third movie, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno (1964) ■ Duel (1971)
Quai des Orfèvres, is a crime
drama set in postwar Paris.

AFTER
1955 In Clouzot’s taut and
twist-filled Les Diaboliques,
two women take revenge on
a sadistic headmaster.

FEAR AND WONDER 129

BUT IF WE DON’T USE YOUR
DEVICE AGAINST GODZILLA
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?

GODZILLA / 1954

IN CONTEXT G odzilla (Gojira in Japanese) new threats and mass devastation.
is a low-budget monster Honda is bold in his use of images
GENRE movie in which a giant ripped straight from his country’s
Science fiction lizard rises from the Pacific Ocean recent memory: huge, white-hot
and attacks Tokyo. For all the explosions that turn night into day;
DIRECTOR clumsiness of its special effects, Tokyoites cowering in concrete
Ishirô Honda the monster of Ishiro Honda’s movie bunkers as cityscapes crumble to
resonated powerfully with its rubble. The only hope of defeating
WRITERS audiences in 1954. Godzilla is a device called the
Takeo Murata, Ishirô
Honda (screenplay); The creature remains “oxygen destroyer,”
Shigeru Kayama (story) mostly in shadow as an another grim
indistinct threat, while invention of human
STARS the grainy, black-and- progress. Honda, a
Akira Takarada, Momoko white imagery is nature lover, saw his
Kôchi, Akihiko Hirata, chillingly reminiscent lizard-king as Earth’s
Takashi Shimura of newsreel footage revenge for science’s
from August 1945, environmental
BEFORE when atom bombs recklessness.
1949 Ishirô Honda works as were dropped on Japan
assistant director on Stray in the final days of Mega franchise
Dog, a film noir directed by World War II. Japanese Godzilla spawned a
his friend Akira Kurosawa. viewers were therefore franchise of monster
no strangers to the proportions, with
1953 In Honda’s Eagle of the concept of horrific sequels stretching from
Pacific, special effects are 1955’s Godzilla Raids
created by Eiji Tsuburaya, who Honda saw Godzilla Again to the US
would go on to create Godzilla. as means of absorbing blockbuster of 2014,
the trauma of the atom although the creature
AFTER bomb attacks into itself has become an
1961 Atomic tests summon Japanese culture. icon of kitsch. ■
another monster in Honda’s
movie Mothra, about a giant What else to watch: King Kong (1933, p.49) ■ The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
moth terrorizing Tokyo. (1953) ■ Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) ■ Monsters (2010) ■ Pacific Rim (2013)

130

JUST WAIT UNTIL YOU
SEE YOUR MOTHER.
SHE’S NEVER LOOKED
SO RADIANT

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS / 1955

IN CONTEXT D ouglas Sirk was a director kids object, Cary breaks off the
skilled at balancing the affair. Beneath this tragedy is an
GENRE conventional with the indictment of small-town America’s
Romantic drama subversive. His lush Hollywood moral codes, which contrived to
melodramas were the chick flicks keep women in their place.
DIRECTOR of the 1950s: a parade of magazine-
Douglas Sirk cover movie stars dressed and lit “The community saw to it,”
to perfection, falling in and out of says Cary’s daughter early in the
WRITERS love against a backdrop of cherry- movie, as she explains an ancient
Peg Fenwick (screenplay); blossom suburbia. But these big- Egyptian custom in which widows
Edna L. Lee, Harry Lee screen soaps contained dark depths were buried alive in the tombs
(story) that were disguised by Sirk’s craft, of their husbands. “Of course, it
and none more so than All That doesn’t happen anymore.” But Sirk
STARS Heaven Allows. shows his audience that it does.
Jane Wyman, Rock The glossy colors he uses to portray
Hudson, Agnes Moorehead, Suburban prison Cary’s suburban cage mock its
Conrad Nagel On the surface, the movie is a ideal image. Every frame
love story, in which a widowed communicates her unhappiness, to
BEFORE housewife, Cary (Jane Wyman), the point where even her daughter
1954 Sirk pairs Hudson falls for her handsome gardener, admits that it may have been
with Wyman in Magnificent Ron (Rock Hudson). Ron doesn’t wrong to force the breakup with
Obsession, a melodrama care about the difference in age or Ron. Will Cary find the courage to
about a reckless playboy. social class. Unfortunately others defy the conventions that dictate
do, and when Cary’s college-age her life? Sirk knew he’d get his
AFTER audience firmly on Cary’s side. ■
1956 In Written on the Wind,
Sirk directs another romance You were ready for a love affair,
with Hudson as a working- but not for love.
class underdog.
Cary / All That Heaven Allows
1959 Sirk’s Imitation of Life
tackles gender and race with What else to watch: Written on the Wind (1956) ■ Imitation of Life (1959) ■
the tale of an actress hiring a Seconds (1966) ■ Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974, pp.222–23)
widow to care for her daughter.

FEAR AND WONDER 131

I DON’T THINK THAT
I WANT TO LEARN
THAT WAY

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE / 1955

IN CONTEXT T he title of Nicholas Ray’s father tells him. But Jim rejects his
iconic teen movie is parents’ life lessons; he gets into
GENRE misleading, because the knife fights at school and races cars
Drama movie’s central character is a rebel in a game of “chicken” to prove he
whose cause could not be more clear: hasn’t inherited their cowardice.
DIRECTOR 17-year-old Jim Stark (James Dean)
Nicholas Ray wants his parents to stop lying. Rebel Without a Cause spawned
numerous imitations—teen movies
WRITERS When Jim starts a new school noisy with sex, drugs, and rock
Stewart Stern, Irving in a new town, his troubled past and roll. But the loudest noise in
Shulman (screenplay); catches up with him and his home Ray’s movie is the howl of anguish.
Nicholas Ray (story) life deteriorates. Jim looks at the He does not exploit his young
respectability of his mother and his characters, he sympathizes,
STARS weak, ineffectual father and sees coaxing a powerful performance
James Dean, Natalie Wood, nothing but hypocrisy and failure. from Dean, who came to symbolize
Sal Mineo, Jim Backus “You’ll learn when you’re older,” his teen angst for a whole generation. ■

BEFORE Jim (James
1948 Ray’s They Live by Dean) attacks
Night, about three outlaws his father, Frank
on the run, explores his (Jim Backus), for
fascination with the outsider. his cowardice. Jim
is unhinged and
1955 Elia Kazan’s East of violent, but he’s not
Eden, the first of James Dean’s a sociopath—he’s a
three movies, is an adaptation victim, and his
of John Steinbeck’s epic novel. cause is the truth.

AFTER What else to watch: The Wild One (1953) ■ Bigger than Life (1956) ■
1956 Dean is killed in a car Easy Rider (1969, pp.196–97) ■ American Graffiti (1973) ■ The Warriors (1979)
crash before the family saga
Giant is released, lending
George Stevens’s movie added
tragic resonance.

132

WHEN I’M BETTER
WE’LL GO AND LOOK
AT THE TRAINS AGAIN

PATHER PANCHALI / 1955

IN CONTEXT P ather Panchali tells the story Apu isn’t the only one who is
of Apu (Subir Banerjee), a learning. Ray himself had never
GENRE young boy learning about written or directed a movie before;
Drama the world around him. He lives with his cast had never acted before, with
his mother, father, sister, and aunt the exception of Chunibala Devi; the
DIRECTOR in an impoverished Bengali village photographer Subrata Mitra, whose
Satyajit Ray in India. The family edges ever cinematography captures the
closer to financial ruin, but Apu’s languid beauty of an Indian
WRITERS eyes are full of wonder. Although his summer, had never worked
Satyajit Ray (screenplay); life is blighted by despair, he doesn’t with moving images; even
Bibhutibhushan yet know it, and director Satyajit Ravi Shankar, who
Bandyopadhyay (novel) Ray allows the audience to share provides the movie’s
in his protagonist’s innocence. shimmering sitar
STARS score, and who
Kanu Banerjee, Karuna would later
Banerjee, Subir Banerjee, be world famous,
Chunibala Devi was a novice.

BEFORE The family cares
1948 Vittorio De Sica’s The for the elderly Indir
Bicycle Thief inspires Ray Thakrun, played by
to make the story of Apu. Chunibala Devi, who
died before the movie
AFTER
1956 Ray’s follow-up to Pather was released.
Panchali, Aparajito, continues
the story of Apu, who journeys
to a new life in Calcutta.

1959 The final movie in the
“Apu Trilogy,” Apur Sansar
follows the adult Apu on a trip
to a provincial town that will
change his life forever.

FEAR AND WONDER 133

What else to watch: The Bicycle Thief (1948, pp.94–95) ■ Jalsaghar (1958) ■
The Cloud-Capped Star (1960) ■ Charulata (1964) ■ Ashani Sanket (1973)

On the first day of shooting, Ray Sarbojaya Ray (Karuna Banerjee) Satyajit Ray Director
had no script, but Apu’s story— tends to her sick daughter Durga
based loosely on the novel by (Uma Das Gupta). She is helpless “Never before had one man
Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay— to stop a deadly fever. had such a decisive impact on
was all in the director’s head. He the films of his culture,” wrote
had already visualized it in a series “we’ll go and look at the trains again.” American film critic Roger
of illustrations for the novel, which It’s possible that Durga believes she Ebert, summing up Satyajit
perhaps explains why so much of will recover, and that Apu believes Ray’s contribution to cinema
Pather Panchali’s beguiling power it too, but the audience knows there in his review of the
can be found in its imagery: white- is really no hope. The camera paces filmmaker’s “Apu Trilogy.”
hot light cutting swathes through queasily to and fro in the storm- Before Ray, Indian movies
wracked sickroom, following Apu’s were generally musicals,
the forest; the gathering clouds mother, Sarbojaya, as she watches romances, and swashbucklers;
of the monsoon; water bugs her daughter slip away. It’s a long, after Apu, something of what
twitching on a pond; a steam heartbreaking moment, and one it meant to be alive in India
train glimpsed on the horizon. that Apu will carry with him to the had been captured on film,
end of the movie and beyond, into and a new cultural tradition
Slow speed two more movies about his life. ■ was born.
Apu and his sister Durga (Uma
Das Gupta) delight in running Beautiful, sometimes Ray founded Calcutta’s
funny, and full of love. first film society in 1947. He
alongside the train, whose was working at an advertising
whistle vibrates along the Pauline Kael agency when he directed his
wires of vast electricity first feature, Pather Panchali,
pylons and can be heard which won awards in France,
long before the train London, and Venice. This and
itself appears. This is the two other Apu movies all
the fastest moving strove for realism, but Ray
thing in Ray’s later experimented with genre
tranquil movie. cinema, including fantasy and
“When I’m science fiction. His instinct for
better,” says Durga character, however, remained
later on, as she lies strong. He died at 70 in 1992.
dying of a fever,
Key movies

1955 Pather Panchali
1956 Aparajito
1959 Apur Sansar
1964 Charulata
1970 Aranyer Din Ratri

134

GET ME TO THAT BUS
STOP AND FORGET YOU
EVER SAW ME

KISS ME DEADLY / 1955

IN CONTEXT C hristina Bailey The movie
(Cloris Leachman) used the form
GENRE is a mysterious of a pulp-
Science fiction, crime blonde with a terrible fiction crime
secret. She begs private drama to
DIRECTOR eye Mike Hammer (Ralph explore the
Robert Aldrich Meeker) to forget he ever
saw her. For the viewer, atmosphere
WRITERS however, nothing about Kiss of fear and
A. I. Bezzerides Me Deadly is easy paranoia
(screenplay); Mickey to forget, from Christina that had
Spillane (novel) running barefoot down a developed
highway at night, her eyes in the US by
STARS wide with fear, to the movie’s the 1950s.
Ralph Meeker, Albert shocking climax.
Dekker, Cloris Leachman, must never, ever
Gaby Rodgers Science fiction meets noir be opened. The paranoid nihilism
Robert Aldrich’s crime thriller of 1950s science fiction overlaps
BEFORE is based on one of a series of with film noir: instead of a priceless
1955 Aldrich adapts Clifford popular novels about the exploits jewel or a lost statuette, these pulp-
Odets’s play The Big Knife, of thuggish Los Angeles private fiction crooks are fighting over a
about Hollywood corruption. eye Mike Hammer. Aldrich uses doomsday weapon. Yet despite its
the story to explore the weirder bleakness of spirit, Kiss Me Deadly
AFTER pathways of the film-noir detective is highly entertaining. The dialogue
1962 What Ever Happened genre, adding a sinister science- is diamond sharp in every scene.
to Baby Jane? is Aldrich’s fiction edge. The movie opens with “The little thread leads you to a
twisted drama with Bette Christina’s escape from a mental string, and the string leads you
Davis and Joan Crawford. institution and veers into a quest to a rope,” wisecracks Velda
for “the great whatsit,” a strange (Maxine Cooper), “and from the
1967 In Aldrich’s wartime box that is hot to the touch and rope you hang by the neck.” ■
thriller The Dirty Dozen, Lee
Marvin, John Cassavetes, What else to watch: The Maltese Falcon (1941, p.331) ■ Murder, My Sweet
Ernest Borgnine, and Charles (1944) ■ The Big Sleep (1946) ■ Touch of Evil (1958, p.333) ■ Repo Man (1984)
Bronson form a suicide squad.

FEAR AND WONDER 135

THAT’LL BE
THE DAY

THE SEARCHERS / 1956

IN CONTEXT F rom the moment John Westerns of the 1960s. Ford takes
Ford gave John Wayne pains to portray the difficulty of
GENRE his big break in the 1939 surviving in the West, with its
Western movie Stagecoach, one of the most icy winters and scarcity of food.
iconic partnerships in cinema was Meanwhile, Ethan Edwards is
DIRECTOR born. Wayne’s rugged masculinity portrayed as ruthless, bigoted, and
John Ford combined with Ford’s riveting crazy, a man who would rather kill
action sequences to create movies his niece (who is not happy to be
WRITERS that elevated the Western from rescued) than see her grow up as
Frank S. Nugent B-movie status to a classic popular an Indian. At one point, he shoots
(screenplay); Alan Hollywood genre in its own right. at the eyes of an Indian corpse so
Le May (novel) that its spirit cannot see in the
The Searchers is regarded by afterlife. This is not a simplistic
STARS critics as the best movie of the Ford– tale of cowboys and Indians. ■
John Wayne, Jeffrey Wayne partnership. Its story follows
Hunter, Vera Miles Ethan Edwards (Wayne) as he
tracks down his niece (Vera Miles),
BEFORE who was kidnapped by Indians in
1940 The Grapes of Wrath is an attack that killed her family.
Ford’s screen version of the
famous Depression-era story. New vision of the Old West In The Searchers I think Ford
Many Westerns benefited from was trying, imperfectly, even
1952 Ford directs John Wayne (and contributed to) the romantic nervously, to depict racism
in The Quiet Man, a lavish revisionism of the time, which
comic drama shot in Ireland. presented the Old West as a that justified genocide.
dangerous place, but also one Roger Ebert
AFTER of noble heroes with clear-cut
1959 In Rio Bravo, Wayne American values. In The Searchers,
stars as a sheriff standing any heroism is tempered by the
up to a powerful rancher. harsh realities of place and time.
The movie foreshadows the darker
1969 True Grit is the story
of a young girl who hires an What else to watch: Stagecoach (1939) ■ Rio Bravo (1959) ■ The Good, The
aging US marshal (Wayne) to Bad and The Ugly (1966) ■ Unforgiven (1992)
track down her father’s killer.

136

I HAVE LONG WALKED
BY YOUR SIDE

THE SEVENTH SEAL / 1957

IN CONTEXT T he Seventh Seal (Det sjunde The knight Antonius Block offers
inseglet) takes the form of Death a game of chess for his life. Death
GENRE a medieval morality play. agrees to the game, to which they will
Drama A knight returns from the Crusades return several times during the movie,
to find his native land devastated but which Block cannot win.
DIRECTOR by plague. He goes to confession in
Ingmar Bergman a church surrounded by corpses. “I The figure reveals itself as Death,
want God to put out his hand, show who has been following the knight
WRITER his face, speak to me,” he says to on his journey from the Holy Land.
Ingmar Bergman (from his the hooded figure on the other side
play Wood Painting) of the grille. “I cry out to him in Having fought for God in the
the dark but there is no one there.” desert, the knight, Antonius Block
STARS (Max von Sydow), is experiencing
Max von Sydow, Gunnar
Björnstrand, Bengt Ekerot,
Nils Poppe, Bibi Andersson

BEFORE
1955 Bergman’s first hit,
Smiles of a Summer Night, is a
partner-swapping comedy.

AFTER
1957 Bergman’s next movie,
Wild Strawberries, is a tale of
an old man preparing for death.

1966 In Persona, Bergman
directs a bleak fable about
death, illness, and insanity.

FEAR AND WONDER 137

What else to watch: Death Takes a Holiday (1934) ■ The Virgin Spring (1960) ■ Through a Glass Darkly (1961) ■
The Silence (1963) ■ Winter Light (1963) ■ Hour of the Wolf (1968) ■ Cries and Whispers (1972) ■ Love and Death (1975)

What will happen to us who want was taken from the apocalyptic
to believe, and cannot? Book of Revelation) has its roots
in Bergman’s childhood: as the

Antonius Block / The Seventh Seal son of a Lutheran pastor, he was
surrounded by religious art from

a young age. The director was

a crisis of faith. Whereas the his wife Mia (Bibi Andersson). haunted by memories of the crude

Almighty refuses to show Himself, They are traveling players, and they yet graphic representations of Bible

Death (Bengt Ekerot) turns out have a baby son, Mikael, who is stories that could be found in the

to be a certainty with a fondness their hope for the future. Jof and woodcuttings of rural churches and

for morbidly funny one-liners. Mia are creators—of both art and households. As a filmmaker, he

“Appropriate, don’t you think?” says life—and as such they are the dedicated his career to asking the

the Grim Reaper when he chooses enemies of Death, who only knows same, unanswerable question over

black in a game of chess—a game how to destroy. When the knight and over again: where is God? ❯❯

that the knight must win if he encounters them on the road to

wants to live. It is Antonius who his castle, Death not far behind,

suggests the contest, a battle he finds comfort in the couple’s

between black and white, darkness laughter and lust for life. In fact,

and light, death and life. he is reminded of Joseph and

Mary from the Bible—could these

Playing for his life performers be emissaries of God?

The image of the knight and Death

playing chess on the beach has Where is God?

become one of the most iconic— The grim, austere imagery and

and imitated—in the history of obsession with biblical allegory

cinema. It is a starkly monochrome in The Seventh Seal (the title

vignette, the absence of color

symbolic of the absence of God. Squire Jöns (Gunnar

The world of Ingmar Bergman’s Björnstrand) saves

movie is drained of life and a girl (Gunnel
vitality: the water that laps the Lindblom) from a
shore is slate gray, the sky rapist. He is a just
above it smudged with dark man, but tires of
clouds; the faces of God’s the venality
abandoned subjects are flinty, of human
beings.

bloodless, and unsmiling,

while Death’s is chalk white.

Antonius already

resembles the carved

stone effigy on a

Crusader’s tomb.

There are

two flickers of

hope in this

miserable

landscape:

Jof (Nils

Poppe) and

138 THE SEVENTH SEAL

Feel, to the very end, the
triumph of being alive!

Squire Jöns / The Seventh Seal

The movie’s original Swedish poster The knight searches, but emptiness.” The squire is scornful
shows death waiting impassively at he finds nothing. At one of people’s fears and the ignorance
the bottom, with the human characters point he happens upon that leads them to burn the witch.
on the black squares of a chessboard. a girl (Maud Hansson)
imprisoned in a cage, Self-flagellation
who is about to be If all of this sounds somewhat
burned at the stake. earnest, that’s because it is.
She is accused of The Seventh Seal is concerned
sleeping with the with the soul and damnation; with
Devil and bringing the man’s masochistic relationship
plague upon the people. with his Creator; and with the
howling wilderness that awaits
Antonius is hopeful: if each of us at the end of the road.
the Devil exists, then so Bergman communicates his vast
must God. “Look in my ideas in the simplest and most
eyes,” the girl says, as striking of images. In one
she tells him that the extraordinary sequence, a group
priest would not come of self-flagellating monks lurches
near her. “I see nothing past the camera, some staggering
but terror,” the knight under the heavy weight of crosses,
replies, sadly. The others whipping themselves. The
girl is burned, and plague, which they believe to be a
the knight’s squire, Jöns (Gunnar punishment from God, has driven
Björnstrand), can see no meaning them insane. Bergman cuts to the
in her murder. “Look into her eyes,” faces of Jof and Mia as they watch
he echoes. “She sees nothing but

this spectacle from their wooden There are light touches of dark FEAR AND WONDER 139
stage, which suddenly resembles humor all over The Seventh Seal,
the platform of a gallows. They and its final image is a cruel joke. Ingmar Bergman
have been singing a comical song “The master leads with scythe and Director
about death, which they stop as the hourglass,” says Jof, pointing to the
penitents appear. Death spreads all horizon, where the Grim Reaper Born in Uppsala, Sweden, in
around them, like the fog of incense leads his latest victims—including 1918, Ingmar Bergman was
spread by the monks, infecting and the knight—in a danse macabre the son of a Lutheran chaplain
transforming everything in the against the gray sky. “They move and was raised in a strict
frame. Many onlookers fall to their away from the dawn in a solemn household. Invariably bleak,
knees in prayer. It is a powerful, dance, toward the dark country, his movies deal with the major
wordless metaphor for the human while the rain washes over conflicts at the heart of human
condition, blackly comic in its their faces and cleanses their existence: madness versus
surreal grotesquery. cheeks of salt.” sanity, death versus life,
nothingness versus God. The
Regardless of whether I Jof is mesmerized by the parade human spirit rarely triumphs
believe or not, whether I am a of the dead dancing beneath the in these battles. The Seventh
Christian or not, I would play darkening skies, but for some reason Seal was followed by Wild
Mia cannot see the phantoms. She Strawberries and, later, a
my part in the collective tuts affectionately at her husband. trilogy that explored the
building of the cathedral. “You and your dreams and visions,”
she smiles, and the two of them effects of human isolation:
Ingmar Bergman shake their heads, turn their backs Through a Glass Darkly,
on Death, and return to the business Winter Light, and The
of living. ■ Silence. His celebrated

Death leads the dead in a dance Persona was the first in
that only Jof can see. The scene was a series inspired by Farö, a
improvised at the end of a day’s filming remote island in the Baltic Sea.
on the coast at Hovs Hallar, using Bergman died in 2007.
crew members and a couple of
passing tourists. Key movies

1957 The Seventh Seal
1957 Wild Strawberries
1961 Through a Glass Darkly
1966 Persona

IF I DO WHAT
YOU TELL ME

WILL YOU
LOVE ME?

VERTIGO / 1958



142 VERTIGO D irector Alfred Hitchcock’s My good luck in life was to be
career was a 50-year-long a really frightened person. I’m
IN CONTEXT duel with the audience. fortunate to be a coward, to
The more they thought they knew have a low threshold of fear,
GENRE about his work, the more he would because a hero couldn’t make
Thriller use that knowledge against them.
He would employ structural devices, a good suspense film.
DIRECTOR narrative twists, and other tricks to Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock give the audience something they
had never seen before. While some eventually earned her own moniker:
WRITERS directors sought to understand the “The Hitchcock Blonde.” Although
Alec Coppel, Samuel Taylor meaning of art or the essence of this left him open to accusations
(screenplay); Pierre Boileau, human relationships, Hitchcock of misogyny, it is also true that his
Thomas Narcejac (novel) was the great trickster. Audiences movies had more leading roles for
could never be sure what was women than many in Hollywood.
STARS coming next. Hitchcock’s blonde was cultured,
James Stewart, Kim fashionable, and intelligent, but
Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes Vertigo plays the same games also icy and initially resistant to
as the rest of Hitchcock’s catalogue, the male hero’s charms. Over the
BEFORE but it has come to stand out as course of the movie, the character’s
1946 In It’s a Wonderful Life, something more complex. It is the barriers would be broken down
James Stewart plays to type story of a retired cop, John “Scottie” and she would end up in awe of the
as a sympathetic everyman. Ferguson (James Stewart), who is hero, her individualism slightly lost
roped in to an investigation into the in the process. Hitchock himself
1948 In Rope, Stewart teams mysterious behavior of Madeleine indicated that blondes were ideal
up with Hitchcock for the first (Kim Novak), the wife of old college
of his Technicolor movies. friend Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore).
He becomes obsessed with her,
AFTER adding an emotional intensity
1959 Eva Marie Saint is to the movie’s usual magic show.
the next “Hitchcock Blonde,”
playing opposite Cary Grant The Hitchcock Blonde
in North by Northwest. As a director, Hitchcock used a
certain type of female character
1960 Hitchcock shocks in his movies so frequently that she
audiences with Psycho.

Alfred Hitchcock Director

Hitchcock was born in London on to have a 30-year career in
in 1899. He started in the movie Hollywood, directing classics
industry as a set designer. His such as Rear Window (1954),
first chance to direct came with North by Northwest (1959),
the incomplete movie Number 13, Psycho, and The Birds. He
and then in 1925 The Pleasure died in 1980, at the age of 81.
Garden. After gaining fame as
a director in Britain with such Key movies
movies as The Lady Vanishes
(1938), Hitchcock moved to 1929 Blackmail
Hollywood in 1940, when he 1951 Strangers on a Train
was hired by David O. Selznick 1958 Vertigo
to direct an adaptation of Daphne 1960 Psycho
Du Maurier’s Rebecca. He went 1963 The Birds

FEAR AND WONDER 143

What else to watch: Laura (1944, p.79) ■ Spellbound (1945) ■ Rear Window (1954) ■ North by Northwest (1959) ■
La jetée (1962, p.172) ■ Marnie (1964) ■ Bad Education (2004)

Hitchcock’s blondes self-examination by Hitchcock
regarding the way he treats women

Hitchcock favored on film, makes it as unsettling as
icy, “sophisticated anything he ever filmed.

blondes” in his The fallen star
movies. “We’re after

the drawing-room Tippi Hedren Grace Kelly Ingrid Bergman Another common theme in
type, the real ladies, Hitchcock’s movies is the
who become whores The Birds Rear Window Spellbound exploration of the concept of the
once they’re in the movie star and how it affects the
bedroom,” he said. telling of a story, more specifically

how stardom could be manipulated

to surprise the audience. The most

famous example of this is Psycho, in

which star Janet Leigh is murdered

after just 30 minutes, manipulating

Kim Novak Janet Leigh Eva Marie Saint Marlene Dietrich audience assumptions of the way
stories with stars in leading roles
Vertigo Psycho North by Northwest Stage Fright usually progress in order to shock

them. But while the twist in Psycho

for creating cinematic suspense, specifically geared around is loud and unavoidable, in Vertigo

saying in a 1977 TV interview, creating tension, but the subtext of it is subtle and slow to unfold, and

“Blondes make the best victims. emotional abuse in this sequence, its effect depends on the particular

They’re like virgin snow that shows along with the notion that it is a star chosen to play Scottie. ❯❯

up the bloody footprints.”

Vertigo’s lead, Scottie, remakes He did nothing. The law has little
salesgirl Judy Barton (also played

by Kim Novak) in Madeleine’s to say on things left undone.
image. He removes everything

that makes Judy an individual in Coroner / Vertigo

order to have her conform to this

visual archetype, a lifeless host for

sexual objectification. Scottie’s

requirements are hugely specific.

He agonizes over the exact shades

of gray for Judy’s suit, and is

disappointed when she returns

home with a hairstyle slightly

different from the one he chose

(changing her from brunette to

blonde). Hitchcock may have put

together bloodier sequences,

Scottie (James Stewart) is a police
officer seen in a rooftop chase at
the start of the movie. He slips, and a
colleague falls while trying to help
him. This is the start of his vertigo.

144 VERTIGO

The casting of James Stewart process is never more clear than plan succeeds, the love story
affects the direction and impact in a dream sequence that sees is poisoned by lies, and the
of the movie profoundly; it adds an Stewart’s disembodied head protagonist is broken emotionally
extra textual layer of dissonance spiraling down into an abyss. His and physically. It is arguably
to the final act. Stewart’s image usual clean-cut image is distorted the darkest movie the director ever
as an actor since the days of his as a wind unsettles his hair and made. It is a Hitchcock movie with
early career, including previous his expression. He looks lost. no Hollywood obligations, as the
roles for Hitchcock in Rear Window director seeks a richer form of
(1954) and The Man Who Knew Twisted thriller terror—not simply to shock,
Too Much (1956), had always been Vertigo is an expertly
that of the incorruptible everyman, crafted thriller, but repulse, or unsettle the
decent and likeable to a fault. John one with twisted audience, but to disturb
“Scottie” Ferguson begins as a perspectives. them, to take everything
good man, a typical Stewart The villain’s they think they know
character, but ends it as a man lost murderous about his style of
in sexual despair, his mind ruined filmmaking and to
by tragedy. By putting James corrupt it to reveal
Stewart through this something new.
transformation, Hitchcock In Vertigo,
is not just undoing a man, Hitchcock bares
he’s undoing a screen icon. a little bit more
What we think we know of of his soul so
Stewart’s character makes that he can
Ferguson’s psychosis that twist the
much more painful to watch, knife a
and his unraveling affects us little bit
that much more deeply. The deeper. ■
visual representation of this

Scottie and Madeleine (Kim 00:34 01:16 01:47
Novak) first embrace after she has At a bookstore, Elster tells Scottie Madeleine climbs Scottie buys Judy
asked him whether she is crazy. and down-to-earth friend Midge the the bell tower. Scottie clothes and has her
Judy, as Madeleine, has fallen for story of suicidal Carlotta, Madeleine’s tries to follow but dye her hair in order
Scottie, and it is this that will great-grandmother. Elster says that cannot. He sees a to make her look just
ultimately lead to her downfall. Madeleine is possessed by her. woman fall to her death. like Madeleine.

Minute by minute

00:12
Scottie meets with old college
friend Gavin Elster, who asks him
to follow his wife, Madeleine.
Scottie first sees her as she is
having dinner with Elster.

00:00 00:30 01:00 01:30 02:08

00:28 00:40 01:34 01:58
Scottie follows Madeleine jumps into the Scottie sees Judy Scottie recognizes
Madeleine to a bay. Scottie is watching and Barton and asks her to the necklace. He takes
hotel, where she pulls her out. He takes her dinner. When he leaves, Judy back to the
is registered back to his apartment. She she starts to write a tower. They climb to
under the name appears not to remember what note, and the plot with the top as he reveals
Carlotta Valdez. happened. Elster is revealed. She that he knows. She
decides to stay. panics and falls.

FEAR AND WONDER 145

This poster shows
the spiral motif that
features in Scottie’s
nightmare, and
which recurs with
the staircase and in
Madeleine’s hairstyle.

146

WHAT DID YOU
DO DURING
THE UPRISING?

ASHES AND DIAMONDS / 1958

IN CONTEXT The title of Andrzej Wajda’s Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski) is
war movie comes from a plunged into self doubt when he
GENRE line of romantic poetry by meets Krystyna (Ewa Krzyzewska).
War drama 19th-century Polish poet Cyprian His crisis is played out over a single
Norwid: “Will there remain among night—May 8, 1945, the last day of war,
DIRECTOR the ashes a star-like diamond, the when Poland, too, is deeply divided.
Andrzej Wajda dawn of eternal victory?” It is this
uncertainty that characterizes all Wajda emerged as a world-class
WRITERS of Wajda’s movies, most of which filmmaker during the renaissance
Andrzej Wajda, Jerzy recreate the horror and heartbreak of Polish cinema in the 1950s. He
Andrzejewski (screenplay); of Poland’s recent history—from made three movies dealing with the
Jerzy Andrzejewski (novel) its occupation by the Nazis during war. A Generation (1955) followed a
World War II to the Stalinist regime group of men and women fighting
STARS that lasted until 1989—in order to in Nazi-occupied Poland. This was
Zbigniew Cybulski, make sense of it. They sift through followed by Kanal (1957), which
Waclaw Zastrzezynski, the wreckage of ordinary people’s chronicles the tragic events of the
Adam Pawlikowski, lives, looking for glimmers of hope. 1944 Warsaw Uprising, in which
Bogumil Kobiela

BEFORE
1955 Wajda’s directorial debut,
A Generation, is the story of
Stach, a wayward teen living
in Nazi-occupied Warsaw,
Poland, during World War II.

AFTER
1969 After the death of actor
Zbigniew Cybulski in a train
wreck, Wajda channeled his
grief into his next, highly
personal work, Everything for
Sale, a movie within a movie.

FEAR AND WONDER 147

What else to watch: How to Be Loved (1963) ■ The Army of Shadows (1969) ■ The Birch Wood (1970) ■ The Promised
Land (1975) ■ Man of Marble (1977) ■ Rough Treatment (1978) ■ Man of Iron (1981) ■ A Love in Germany (1983) ■ Katyn (2007)

Andrzej Wajda Director remember. Looking up at the sky,
Maciek sees fireworks exploding
Born in Poland endured the war, and his movies in the darkness. The fireworks—
in 1926, Andrzej play an enormously important glittering diamonds rising from
Wajda became part in understanding what the ashes of Warsaw—announce
one of his happened to Poland—and the Germany’s surrender and the end
country’s most celebrated world—in the last century. of war. Yet Wajda’s trademark
filmmakers. He lived through the note of uncertainty hangs in the
German occupation of Europe, Key movies air: it’s the end of an era for Poland,
which shaped most of his work. but what will the future bring?
A key figure of the “Polish Film 1957 Kanal
School,” he brought a fresh air 1958 Ashes and Diamonds Dubious dawn
of neorealism to his depictions 1975 The Promised Land “What did you do during the
of the men and women who 1977 Man of Marble uprising?” is a question that
echoed around daily lives in Poland
Polish Resistance fighters were the killing. This time he is waylaid for decades after the war. In his
crushed by the German army. when he falls in love with Krystyna portrait of one man’s fractured
Third was Ashes and Diamonds, an (Ewa Krzyzewska), who works at the identity, Wajda constantly draws
angry, melancholy movie set during hotel in which his target is a guest. our attention to broken glass and
the chaos of the German occupation’s She confuses him further, forcing splintered buildings. This sense of
aftermath, once the dust of the him to question the beliefs that have fracture runs through the country,
liberation had begun to settle. driven him for as long as he can and cannot be ignored. ■

Questioning the cause You know not if flames bring
Ashes and Diamonds focuses on freedom or death.
Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski), a
young soldier in Poland’s right-wing Krystyna / Ashes and Diamonds
Nationalist Army who fought in the
uprising against the Nazis with
the goal of establishing Polish
sovereignty. As the Soviet Union
takes control, Maciek is ordered
to assassinate a new Communist
official, but he has second thoughts
about waging a doomed war
against the incoming left-wing
administration. He bungles the
murder, killing two bystanders.

Torn between his conscience
and loyalty to the cause for which he
fought in the war, Maciek embarks
on a second half-hearted attempt at

In the ruins of a bombed-out church,
Maciek reflects on his equally battered
ideals. It is here that Krystyna finds an
inscription of the poem from which the
movie takes its name.

148

WELL NOBODY’S
PERFECT

SOME LIKE IT HOT / 1959

IN CONTEXT The final words This poster
of Some Like It flaunts the
GENRE Hot, “Nobody’s glamour of its
Comedy perfect,” could have starry cast,
been writer/director but other
DIRECTOR Billy Wilder’s motto. His versions of
Billy Wilder movies are case studies
of the fatally flawed and this group
WRITERS the cheerfully cynical, the shot show the
I. A. L. Diamond, suckers, hustlers, and two leading
Billy Wilder fraudsters who are men dressed
motivated by money and in drag.
STARS sex and not much else.
Marilyn Monroe, Jack as they come—they’ll do anything
Lemmon, Tony Curtis Set at the tail end of the Roaring to get what they want. But Wilder’s
Twenties, Some Like It Hot is no movie is also a breezy feel-good
BEFORE exception. Its main characters are comedy that sparkles with charm,
1953 Gentlemen Prefer as selfish, deceitful, and grasping pathos, and the spirit of romance.
Blondes, Howard Hawks’s
musical comedy, is an early Hilariously innocent, Money and lust
hit for Marilyn Monroe. though always on the Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon play
brink of really disastrous Joe and Jerry, two Chicago jazz
1955 In Billy Wilder’s romantic musicians who disguise themselves
comedy, The Seven Year Itch, double-entendre. as women to flee the mob after
Monroe poses on a subway Pauline Kael they witness a gangster shootout
grate, an updraft lifts her dress. during the famous Saint Valentine’s
5001 Nights at the Movies, 1982 Day Massacre of 1929. They join an
AFTER all-girl orchestra en route to Florida
1960 The Apartment reunites and meet vocalist Sugar Kane
Jack Lemmon with Billy Wilder (Marilyn Monroe), who dreams of
for a darker, more cynical take bagging a millionaire husband.
on romantic comedy. Joe falls head over heels in lust and
disguises himself again, this time
1961 John Huston’s The as a playboy, in a bid to bed the
Misfits is Monroe’s last movie. singer. He’s after sex, she’s after
money, but they also fall in love.