The Movie Book (Big Ideas Simply Explained)

REBEL REBEL 199

What else to watch: Le Corbeau (1943) ■ Shadow of a Doubt (1943) ■ Les Biches (1968) ■ The Unfaithful Wife (1969) ■
La Rupture (1970) ■ Just Before Nightfall (1971) ■ Wedding in Blood (1973) ■ L’Enfer (1994)

Claude Chabrol Director The final act brings revelations
and confrontations in an intense
Claude Chabrol admirer of Alfred Hitchcock, scene that shows as much about
was born in but he was the only one of his the couple’s similarities as their
1930 in Sardent, peers to gravitate toward differences. The audience is left
in rural France, the thriller, making a series grappling with more questions
where he ran a movie club as a of murder mysteries until his than answers. In the very last
child. Before directing his own death in 2010. shot, Chabrol returns to a scene
movies, he worked as a critic for of the River Dordogne, with which
influential magazine Cahiers Key movies he had started the movie. “I adore
du Cinéma. Like the other symmetry,” Chabrol once said.
directors of the French New 1970 Le Boucher “But I’m not for simple symmetry.
Wave who emerged from that 1971 Just Before Nightfall Symmetry doesn’t mean putting
magazine, Chabrol was an 1994 L’Enfer one chandelier on the right and
another on the left.” The credits
Why wasn’t Hélène scared? This is the Upper Paleolithic era. Hélène roll, and we are left to wonder
the dynamic that Chabrol chooses gives her class a guided tour, noting about the nature of loyalty, the
to deal with in a movie that doesn’t that the paintings were the first step desires that take the people
so much resemble a woman-in-peril taken by man toward civilization. experiencing them by surprise,
saga as a beauty and the beast story. “Do you know what we call desires and the dark mystery of what
Comparisons could be made with when they lose their savage goes on between couples. ■
Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a quality?” Hélène asks. “Aspirations”
Doubt (1943), in which a young girl is her answer. The teacher seems Hélène is drawn to Popaul and his
discovers that her favorite uncle is a to respect Cro-Magnon man and his gauche advances despite, or perhaps
killer of elderly widows. violent purity, which suggests a lot because of, the fact that he has been
about her fascination with Popaul. damaged by his violent past.
Violent purity
The second murder scene explains
the movie’s unusual opening
credits, which depict the Cougnac
grottoes in southwestern France,
home to a series of paintings from

Le Boucher has us always
thinking. What do they

know, what do they think,
what do they want?
Roger Ebert

SOME DAY

AND THAT DAY

MAY NEVER COME

I WILL CALL UPON YOU TO DO

A SERVICE FOR ME

THE GODFATHER / 1972



202 THE GODFATHER

IN CONTEXT F rancis Ford Coppola’s movie Overflowing with life, rich
The Godfather changed with all the grand emotions
GENRE the gangster-movie genre and vital juices of existence,
American gangster entirely, with its depiction of up to and including blood.
gangsters grappling with complex
DIRECTOR existential dilemmas, rather Kenneth Turan
Francis Ford Coppola than as one-dimensional, lowlife
hoodlums. Previously, all such Los Angeles Times, 1997
WRITERS gangster stories had been told
Francis Ford Coppola from an outsider’s point of view, of his own about how the script
(screenplay); Mario Puzo and the gangsters themselves were should be written, and he and Puzo
(novel and screenplay) seldom portrayed sympathetically. worked together to complete the
final draft. Coppola’s insight was to
STARS The Godfather was also the first see that the essence of the story,
Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, movie to show a Mafia organization and the focus of the movie, should
James Caan, Robert from the inside. Its sprawling be the personal transition of
Duvall, Diane Keaton portrait of the Corleone family and Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) from
their travails acquires the grandeur respectable, law-abiding young man
BEFORE and scope of an ancient Greek and decorated war hero to eventual
1931–32 Little Caesar (1931), tragedy, in which honor, duty, and head of a crime family, when he
The Public Enemy (1931), and loyalty to family are seen as the takes over from the Godfather, Don
Scarface (1932) whet the public characters’ main motivating forces, Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando).
appetite for gangster movies. rather than criminal intent. Coppola also saw the story as a
metaphor for American free-market
AFTER The background capitalism. The Corleones aspire
1974 The Godfather: Part II is The Godfather is based on a best- to the American Dream and fight
the hugely successful sequel, selling novel of the same name
focusing on Michael Corleone by Italian-American author Mario
(Al Pacino) as he becomes a Puzo, which was published in 1969.
brutal Godfather. Within a year, Paramount Pictures
had commissioned Puzo to write
1990 The Godfather: Part III, the screenplay.
the less successful third movie,
concludes the Corleones’ story. A successful screenwriter
himself, Coppola, who had been
hired as the director, had firm ideas

Minute by minute 00:45 01:54 02:32
After refusing to help Carlo beats the heavily Don Corleone collapses and
00:01 a narcotics gang, Don pregnant Connie. She dies while playing with his
At his daughter Connie’s Corleone is gunned down speaks to her brother grandson. Just before he dies,
wedding to Carlo, Don Corleone in the street. He is shot five Sonny, who goes to see he warns Michael that he will
receives a series of men seeking times but survives. her, but he is gunned be betrayed.
favors. His son Michael is there down at a toll booth.
with Kay, who is introduced to
the family.

00:00 00:30 01:00 01:30 02:00 02:30 02:58

00:33 01:29 02:04 02:38
Movie studio boss Jack Michael shoots Michael’s new As Michael
Woltz wakes up with his drug baron Sollozzo Sicilian wife, attends his godson’s
prize horse’s head in and corrupt police Apollonia, is killed christening, his rivals
his bed. This persuades chief McCluskey. He by a car bomb. are killed across the
him to cast Johnny then leaves for Sicily. Fabrizio, Michael’s city. He also has
Fontane, as requested by bodyguard, has Carlo killed.
consigliere Tom Hagen. betrayed him.

REBEL REBEL 203

What else to watch: Little Caesar (1931) ■ The Public Enemy (1931) ■ Scarface (1932, p.339) ■ White Heat (1949) ■
The Long Good Friday (1980) ■ Rumble Fish (1983) ■ Once Upon a Time in America (1984) ■ Goodfellas (1990)

The Corleones want to appear as
a respectable American family. The
marriage of Don Corleone’s daughter,
Connie, is a lavish affair, but the
invited senators and judges stay away.

to establish their place in the world.
Few movies have focused quite so
starkly on the moral contradictions
involved in this pursuit.

Justice and loyalty daughter outside of the law. It is no exchanges such as this are central to
The movie opens with the wedding accident that the movie begins at a this portrayal of the Corleone family.
celebration of Don Corleone’s family gathering. The Corleones are There are, in fact, many more scenes
daughter, Connie (Talia Shire), presented as a family that must set around the dinner table than there
at which the undertaker Bonasera, remain close-knit in order to survive are shoot-outs. The men describe
a family associate, seeks a private in the world. Loyalty is everything. what they do as business, which they
audience with Don Corleone. Later in the movie, Michael warns keep strictly separate from family.
Bonasera asks the Godfather’s his brother Fredo, “Don’t ever take “This is business, not personal,” they
help in avenging the beating and sides with anyone against the insist. They see themselves simply
rape of his daughter by men who family again. Ever.” Domestic as men doing their job. ❯❯
escaped justice through being
wealthy and well connected.
“I believe in America,” Bonasera
says. “America has made my fortune.
And I raised my daughter in the
American fashion.” He has bought
into the American Dream, yet
America has betrayed him. To Don
Corleone, then, falls the task of
getting justice for Bonasera and his

Marlon Brando Actor

A Hollywood actor renowned first Academy Award for playing
for his brooding presence and a longshoreman in Elia Kazan’s
the championing of the “Method” On the Waterfront. In the 1960s,
style of acting, Marlon Brando Brando’s career hit a low, but
was born in 1924 in Omaha, was revived in 1972 with The
Nebraska. After being expelled Godfather and Last Tango in
from military school, he enrolled Paris. He died in 2004.
in Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio in
New York, where he was coached Key movies
by Stella Adler. In 1947, he was a
sensation in Tennessee Williams’ 1951 A Streetcar Named Desire
play A Streetcar Named Desire. 1954 On the Waterfront
Four years later, he reprised his 1972 The Godfather
role in the movie. He received his 1972 Last Tango in Paris

204 THE GODFATHER

Carlo Rizzi Tips off RIVAL Don Corleone,
FAMILY the Godfather, is
Married Constanzia at the center of
“Connie” Kills a web of family
Frederico Father of Corleone-Rizzi and associates,
“Fredo” Corleone Santino “Sonny” bound together
Father of Corleone by respect,
honor—and
violent revenge.

Kills Adopts Don Vito Corleone Father of
Tom Hagen The Godfather Ally to

Apollonia Married Father of Betrays Salvatore Tessio
Vitelli-Corleone (1st wife)

(killed by bomb)

Michael Married Kay Adams
Corleone (2nd wife)

Coppola is careful to avoid showing but others maintained that it
the victims of the family’s criminal captured perfectly a man wearied
enterprises—the drug addicts, by power and its obligations. Puzo
prostitutes, and ruined families. told Brando that he was “the only
The only victims of the Corleones’ actor who can play the Godfather.”
brutality that the viewer sees are Studio executives were initially
the members of rival gangs who wary of the actor’s disruptive
posed a threat. And so the viewer reputation and box-office credibility,
sees the Corleones as they see but he won a Best Actor Oscar for
themselves, as a quasi-respectable his performance.
family fighting to maintain
supremacy in a dangerous world, Although Brando supplies the
rather than as a bunch of thugs. face of the movie, it is Al Pacino’s
They have a code of honor, and Michael who carries the story.
when Don Corleone finally dies At the start, he is a college
while playing with his grandson graduate, engaged to a beautiful
in his vegetable garden, we see
it as the passing of a giant, the The Godfather changed my
sad end to a titan. The effect is life, for better or worse.
reinforced by Nino Rota’s lush
musical score, which gives the It definitely made me have
movie a heroic and tragic feel. an older man’s film career.
Francis Ford Coppola
Acclaimed cast
Brando was given prosthetic jowls Most telling of all are the remarkable
to give him the appearance of ravaged performances from the universally
seniority. He was just 48 years old at superb cast. Marlon Brando gives
the time of filming. an iconic performance as Don
Corleone. At the time of the movie’s
release, there were critics who felt
his rasping delivery was affected,

REBEL REBEL 205

I’m gonna make him an offer
he can’t refuse.

Don Vito Corleone / The Godfather

non-Italian girl, Kay, played by out of reach of their family. They Francis Ford Coppola
Diane Keaton. He appears to have may have senators in their pockets Director
every hope of living a crime-free but, in public, the senators will
life, of fulfilling the American always shun them. Coppola was born in 1939
Dream. Pacino, then a little-known to a Detroit family of Italian
actor, received an Oscar nomination The sequel descent. His father Carmine
for Actor in a Supporting Role. The Godfather: Part II returns to the was a composer who would
Corleone family once Michael has work on the scores of The
Family destiny taken control. While he may have Godfather: Part II and
Michael is drawn inexorably into been reluctant to step into his Apocalypse Now. In his early
the gangster world of the Corleone father’s shoes, Michael soon loses twenties, Francis enrolled in
family, finally pledging by his both his morality and the family’s the University of California,
father’s hospital bed, “I’ll take care respectable aspirations. Unlike his Los Angeles (UCLA) film
of you now. I’m with you now. I’m father, Michael no longer has ties school, and was soon writing
with you.” When his brother Sonny to Sicily, the “old country,” and its screenplays for Hollywood.
(James Caan) is gunned down, code of honor, however skewed He began making movies
Michael becomes the new heir and violent. Nor does he have the during the New Hollywood
apparent. His descent from a bright same belief in the New World. He movement, also referred to
hope is the movie’s central tragedy, becomes, in the end, more brutal as the American New Wave,
yet we understand how strongly than old Don Corleone. ■ which aimed to tackle new
he feels that he has no choice. Don subjects using different styles.
Corleone had wanted Michael to Sonny (James Caan, left) is Corleone’s The Godfather, one of the
become a senator or a governor, eldest son. When his brother-in-law highest grossing movies in
but the movie hints that such Carlo (Gianni Russo) hits Connie, Sonny history, was the first major
respectability will always be beats up Carlo in the street. movie he directed, and he
cemented his reputation with
a string of hits throughout
the 1970s. Considered one
of America’s most energetic,
if erratic, filmmakers, his
later movies have not quite
matched his early successes.

Key movies

1972 The Godfather
1974 The Conversation
1974 The Godfather: Part II
1979 Apocalypse Now

206

THAT MAN IS A HEAD
TALLER THAN ME.
THAT MAY CHANGE

AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD / 1972

IN CONTEXT W erner Herzog’s Aguirre, hardships as Aguirre’s expedition:
the Wrath of God is one climbing mountains, braving rapids
GENRE of the most original on makeshift rafts, and hacking
Adventure pieces of cinema ever created. It through jungle. Kinski went beyond
is based on the doomed 1561 the confines of “temperamental”
DIRECTOR expedition of Spanish conquistador into the outright unhinged, regularly
Werner Herzog Lope de Aguirre to find El Dorado, raging at Herzog, the crew, and
the mythical Amazonian city of gold. local extras. At one point, he shot
WRITER Herzog’s story is of an obsessive off an extra’s fingertip.
Werner Herzog quest that descends into madness,
driven by a mesmeric performance The fact the movie was even
STARS from Klaus Kinski as Aguirre. finished is due to Herzog’s ability to
Klaus Kinski, Helena Rojo, see possibilities on the spot. He
Ray Guerra, Del Negro Extreme location made up much of the dialogue as
The filming of Aguirre has become he went along, and frequently
BEFORE something of a legend. It was shot incorporated incidents into the
1968 In Signs of Life, Herzog in the Peruvian rain forest in a movie that occurred among the
explores how isolation causes matter of weeks, and the cast and extras. Herzog’s cinematographer,
a man’s madness, a theme he crew endured many of the same Thomas Mauch, produced a visually
would develop in Aguirre. stunning movie, described by a

AFTER Werner Herzog Director
1979 Francis Ford Coppola’s
Apocalypse Now pays homage Werner Herzog He made his first feature movie
to Aguirre by using “visual is a director Signs of Life in 1968. Four years
quotations” from the movie. with a singular later, Aguirre, the Wrath of God,
cinematic brought him international fame.
1982 Fitzcarraldo, Herzog’s vision. Born He has also made many
second movie about a deluded in 1942, he grew up in a remote acclaimed documentaries.
European in the Amazon, also village in Bavaria, Germany. He
stars Klaus Kinski. was a rebel at school, but at 14 Key movies
he read in an encyclopedia about
1987 Cobra Verde is Herzog’s filmmaking and, as he later 1972 Aguirre, the Wrath of God
final work with Kinski as a admitted, stole a 35mm camera 1979 Nosferatu the Vampire
madman lost to civilization. from the Munich Film School. 1982 Fitzcarraldo

REBEL REBEL 207

What else to watch: The African Queen (1951) ■ Deliverance (1972) ■ Apocalypse Now (1979, p.338) ■ Fitzcarraldo (1982)
■ The Mosquito Coast (1986) ■ Platoon (1986) ■ El Dorado (1988) ■ The New World (2005) ■ Apocalypto (2006)

German reviewer at the time as “a dynasty the world has ever seen.” Mr Herzog… is a poet who
color-drenched, violently physical He lets nothing stand in his way. constantly surprises us with
moving painting.” This look, When a man talks of turning back, unexpected juxtapositions…
combined with a churchlike he says, “That man is a head taller
musical score, gives the movie an than me. That may change.” Then This is a splendid and
almost mythical quality. he beheads him while he is still haunting work.
talking. Aguirre’s brutality and
Smashing taboos resilience are so breathtaking, we Vincent Canby
Aguirre is a monstrous figure, so might almost find him heroic.
overtaken with ambition that he The New York Times, 1977
completely ignores all social rules But Herzog leaves us in no
and human obligations. He shows doubt that Aguirre’s ambition is to the monkeys. The scene is
no mercy or sympathy. Left alone futile and destructive. The final bathetic in the extreme. Aguirre is
in the jungle, he contemplates an scene shows Aguirre alone on a man to be ridiculed and pitied, a
incestuous relationship with his a raft, and his only company is man who has brought nothing but
teenage daughter. “I, the Wrath of hundreds of monkeys. He grabs destruction through his own folly. ■
God, will marry my own daughter, one, and his heroic declamation, “I
and with her I will found the purest am Aguirre, I am the Wrath of God. From the outset of the
Who else is with me?” is addressed expedition, Aguirre’s eyes
shine with the insanity of
I am the Wrath of God! The earth I his obsession. The
pass will see me and tremble. movie’s message warns
of the dangers of myths
Aguirre / Aguirre, the Wrath of God on the human psyche.

208

THE GUESTS
ARE HERE SIR

THE DISCREET CHARM OF THE BOURGEOISIE / 1972

IN CONTEXT L uis Buñuel was a master of why. In The Discreet Charm of the
social satire and the surreal, Bourgeoisie, Buñuel carries out a
GENRE who had been making droll variation on the theme, as six
Art-house drama movies for nearly half a century by well-to-do friends attempt to have
the time he made The Discreet dinner together but are continually
DIRECTOR Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Le charme thwarted by a brilliantly unhinged
Luis Buñuel discret de la bourgeoisie). Buñuel series of mishaps.
took the idea for the movie from an
WRITERS anecdote told by his producer, At first, the problems are
Luis Buñuel, Serge Silberman, about guests mundane: the hosts were simply
Jean-Claude Carrière turning up at his home for dinner expecting the guests to arrive the
only to find his wife in her robe and following day. But soon, a dead body
STARS no food, since he had forgotten to shows up to disrupt the proceedings.
Fernando Rey, Paul tell her he had invited them. Thereafter, flamboyant sexual
Frankeur, Delphine Seyrig, escapades and the interruption of
Bulle Ogier, Stéphane In Buñuel’s earlier movie, The the army on maneuvers are just
Audran, Jean-Pierre Cassel Exterminating Angel (1962), guests some of the obstacles. The movie
at a dinner party are marooned becomes increasingly surreal, yet
BEFORE there for weeks, unable to leave shows the guests behaving as if
1929 Luis Buñuel’s first movie, without them or us ever knowing nothing untoward is going on.
Un Chien Andalou, a short
made with Salvador Dalí, is Luis Buñuel Director
a startling surrealist work.
Luis Buñuel was Andalou, and a second, L’Age
1962 In Buñuel’s The celebrated for d’Or (1930). Buñuel moved to the
Exterminating Angel, guests his surreal US during the Spanish Civil War,
are unable to leave a dinner. movies, biting then to Mexico, and finally
social satire, and interest in France in 1955. He died in 1983.
AFTER religious fanaticism. He was
1977 Buñuel’s last movie, born in Calanda, Spain, in 1900, Key movies
That Obscure Object of and studied as a Jesuit before
Desire, is about the frustration he met playwright Federico 1929 Un Chien Andalou
of an aging man’s desires for Garcia Lorca and painter 1967 Belle de Jour
a young Spanish woman. Salvador Dalí, with whom he 1972 The Discreet Charm
made his first movie, Un Chien of the Bourgeoisie

REBEL REBEL 209

What else to watch: The Rules of the Game (1939, pp.60-61) ■ Divorce Italian Style (1961) ■ The Exterminating Angel
(1962) ■ Pierrot le Fou (1965) ■ Belle de Jour (1967, p.336) ■ The Ruling Class (1972) ■ Amarcord (1973)

Buñuel is not remotely concerned satirized through the The poster for the
with conventional narrative flow. movie as, for instance, cinema release had
Intercut with the frustrated efforts the bishop is thrown a suitably surrealist
of the dinner guests are dream out when he is design in the style
sequences that pop from their heads mistaken for a mere of Belgian painter
and sometimes overlap with each gardener, then René Magritte.
other, as well as skits involving prop welcomed fawningly
food, flashbacks, and at the center when he returns in his countryside, a
of it all, the ambassador to the Latin episcopal vestments. metaphor for their
American Republic of Miranda hollow obsession
(entirely fictional), who finds himself Road to nowhere with status.
drawn into a bizarre terrorist plot. Even as the world
crumbles around Buñuel won the
Class and convention them and everything Oscar for best
Dinner is the occasion on which begins to fall apart, foreign picture for
the social elite can come together the six friends are determined to the movie, and many directors
to display their taste, refinement, press on with their dinner, and no acknowledge its influence. Its
and material wealth. It assumes obstacle, no matter how absurd, message about the self-obsession
a symbolic place far ahead of will stop them. Throughout the of the well-to-do is as relevant as
anything else in these people’s movie, the six are often seen ever, and the inventiveness of
lives. The party’s snobbery and striding purposefully down a Buñuel’s playful vision remains
superficiality are continually seemingly endless road through the hugely fun. ■

You’re better suited for making
love than for making war.

Rafael Acosta / The
Discreet Charm of
the Bourgeoisie

In one of the movie’s
digressions, a soldier
tells how he poisoned
his stepfather as the
ghosts of his real father
and mother looked on.

210

DID YOU REALLY
SEE HER?

DON’T LOOK NOW / 1973

IN CONTEXT D on’t Look Now opens What can and cannot be “seen” is
with the death of a child, the enigma at the heart of this
GENRE but it’s more concerned devastating movie, whose title
Supernatural thriller with the fate of her
parents, John (Donald
DIRECTOR Sutherland) and Laura
Nicolas Roeg Baxter (Julie Christie).
The grieving couple
WRITERS relocate from their home
Allan Scott, Chris Bryant in Britain to wintry, out-
(screenplay); Daphne of-season Venice, where
du Maurier (short story) John busies himself with
the restoration of a church
STARS mosaic. When Laura
Donald Sutherland, befriends two elderly
Julie Christie sisters—one a blind
clairvoyant—her husband
BEFORE begins to catch glimpses of
1970 Roeg’s twisted crime a figure that resembles their
drama Performance stars Mick dead daughter. Is John
Jagger as a reclusive rock star. seeing things? Or could it
be that Christine has come
AFTER back from beyond the grave?
1976 David Bowie plays an
alien in Roeg’s sci-fi odyssey The movie poster hints
The Man Who Fell to Earth. at the ending without giving
anything away. Like John,
1977 Julie Christie is attacked the audience only finds out
by a computer in Demon Seed, at the end of the movie what
directed by Donald Cammell. the “warning” was all along.

REBEL REBEL 211

What else to watch: Dead of Night (1945) ■ Peeping Tom (1960, p.334) ■ The Birds (1963) ■ Rosemary’s Baby
(1968, p.336) ■ Death in Venice (1971) ■ Walkabout (1971, p.337) ■ The Wicker Man (1973) ■ The Shining (1980, p.339)

The movie opens with a slow-
motion sequence in which John
drags Christine’s lifeless body
from a pond. It introduces many
of the movie’s key motifs, including
water and the color red.

seems to be a warning. “Don’t look quick, disjointed cuts between contemporary viewers assumed the
now!” it screams, begging the the couple in bed and the two of sex was real. This is a movie that
audience to avert its gaze. But, as them dressing for dinner later in forces us to look again, to ask
with many things in Nicolas Roeg’s the evening. The result is a sex ourselves, “Did I really see that?”
paranormal chiller, the title is not scene unlike any other—intense, John cannot see what is in front
what it seems. In fact Roeg wants touching, melancholic, and comic; of him: that he possesses the gift of
the viewer to look carefully, and so realistic that many second sight. He doesn’t believe in
especially at the patterns created psychics, and when Laura tells him
by his strange, kaleidoscopic that the clairvoyant has “seen” their
arrangement of images. daughter in Venice, he reacts by
getting drunk and angry. Even
The director experimented with after he sees Christine’s reflection
complex visual editing in his in a canal, rippling across the ❯❯
previous movies, Performance (1970)
and Walkabout (1971); in Don’t Look
Now, he uses these techniques to
convey both a sense of menace and
the fractured psychological states
of his two main characters. Images
are repeated and echoed at jarring
moments: ripples on water; the
color red; breaking glass; close-ups
of gargoyles and statues. The
viewer glimpses them here and
there, just as John catches sight
of the scarlet-coated figure from
the corner of his eye, and they
accumulate to build an atmosphere
thick with paranoia.

Love scene
Perhaps the most celebrated
example of this fragmented editing
style is the sequence in which John
and Laura make love for the first time
since Christine died. Roeg makes

This one who’s blind.
She’s the one who can see.

Laura Baxter / Don’t Look Now

212 DON’T LOOK NOW

water, he refuses to open his mind mistaken for a peeping tom while traps; St. Mark’s Square, for example,
to the existence of ghosts. In Don’t searching for the home of the makes a single, easy-to-miss
Look Now, seeing is not believing: peculiar sisters. Other characters appearance. The movie sticks to the
you must believe in order to see. have no problems navigating the backwaters, creating a trap of its
city, but John is forever getting lost own from a maze of dank passages,
Roeg and his writers, Allan Scott and finding himself back where he churches, and empty hotels.
and Chris Bryant, find moments started. For him, time and space
of sly humor in John’s willful are jumbled up and compressed, Much of Roeg’s Venice is unseen:
“blindness.” When he loses his just as they are in Roeg’s editing. the audience hears cries in the
way in the labyrinthine alleyways night, a piano playing somewhere
of Venice, he pauses beneath an Venetian setting nearby, footsteps that echo all
optician’s sign (in the shape of a Venice is the perfect backdrop for around. “Venice is like a city in
huge pair of glasses). “Do look now!” a horror movie about déjà vu; there aspic,” says the blind clairvoyant.
it seems to say, but he ignores it and are reminders of death and decay “My sister hates it. She says it’s
hurries on. In another scene, John is around every corner, and its bridges like after a dinner party, and all
and canals all seem to look alike. the guests are dead and gone.
John follows the red coat on Shot on location in and around the Too many shadows.” The camera
the Calle di Mezzo to the gates Italian vacation destination, Don’t lingers on dust-sheeted furniture
of the Palazzo Grimani where he Look Now mostly avoids the tourist and shuttered windows, suggesting
encounters the dwarf. something concealed from view.

REBEL REBEL 213

The fanciest, most
carefully assembled enigma

yet put on screen.
Pauline Kael

5001 Nights at the Movies, 1982

The sense of danger intensifies the sisters know more than they The danger of falling is ever present.
when the audience learns that a are letting on? Eventually, Roeg Laura is taken to hospital after a fall in
serial killer is on the loose. This pulls focus on fate and a truly the restaurant. John is nearly killed in
revelation comes late in the movie, macabre finale, the kaleidoscope a fall, their son is injured in a fall, and
but Roeg leaves a bread-crumb trail resolving itself into an image of Christine died after falling in the lake.
of clues leading up to it: the killer is pure Gothic horror.
seen in one of John’s photographic Finally, in a fog-chilled Venetian
slides, hidden in plain sight, in the Closing montage chapel, memories come to life and
very first scene; a police inspector Roeg saw his movie as an “exercise tragedy descends in a queasy flash
doodles a psychotic face as he in film grammar.” This is never more of horror and recognition. Roeg
interviews John at the station. evident than in its extraordinary crowned the movie with a dizzying
“What is it you fear?” he asks. climactic sequence, which begins montage of moments, images, and
with a séance and ends with a overlooked clues from the past 108
The subplot of the murderer funeral. Don’t Look Now forces minutes of story. Much too late, the
adds another layer to the movie’s John to stare death in the face. audience sees everything. ■
kaleidoscope, forcing the audience
to question everything it has seen
so far. Is Christine in fact a ghost or
something even more sinister? Do

Nicolas Roeg Director

Roeg first made his mark as the and the complex relationship
cinematographer for such cult between time and space. Don’t
classics as Roger Corman’s The Look Now is often referenced
Masque of the Red Death (1964) by other filmmakers, but Roeg
and François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit has directed many fascinating
451 (1966). In 1970, he teamed movies since, including The
up with the writer and painter Man Who Fell to Earth (1976).
Donald Cammell to create
Performance, a gangster movie that Key movies
starred Mick Jagger as a reclusive
rock star. Roeg’s next two movies, 1970 Performance
Walkabout (1971) and Don’t Look 1971 Walkabout
Now (1973), continued to explore 1973 Don’t Look Now
his fascination with sex, death, 1976 The Man Who Fell to Earth

214

YOU CAN TALK TO HIM
WHENEVER YOU WANT.
JUST CLOSE YOUR EYES
AND CALL HIM

THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE / 1973

IN CONTEXT Even though he was going it is so slow-moving and enigmatic
blind, cinematographer Luis that the censors believed it would
GENRE Cuadrado shot every frame never find an audience.
Historical drama of The Spirit of the Beehive (El
espíritu de la colmena) in honey- Finding the monster
DIRECTOR colored sun and earth tones, rich in The movie opens with the arrival of
Victor Erice texture and deep, soft hues. Yet the a traveling cinema in a village. The
movie’s true beauty lies in the way movie playing is James Whale’s
WRITERS director Victor Erice immerses us 1931 monster flick Frankenstein.
Victor Erice, Ángel in the imagination of a six-year-old The child Ana is thrilled by the
Fernández Santos, child, unforgettably played by the monster, but baffled by the
Francisco J. Querejeta wide-eyed Ana Torrent. scene in which he
appears to drown the
STARS The movie is set in 1940, the year little girl—thanks to
Fernando Fernán Gómez, after the Spanish Civil War ended in a misleading cut
Teresa Gimpera, Ana victory for Franco’s Nationalists. It made by Spanish
Torrent, Isabel Tellería was a violent period of bloody censors, who were
retribution, about which it was still showing the movie
BEFORE not possible to talk openly in Spain, as propaganda
1961 In British movie Whistle even in 1973. General Franco was that equated
Down the Wind, a little girl still in power, and censors strove to the monster
finds a fugitive in a barn curtail any criticism of the regime. with socialism.
and believes he is Jesus. Erice’s movie not only depicted a
controversial era, but also contained
AFTER coded messages about the state of
1976 In Carlos Saura’s Cría the nation. Yet the movie made it
Cuervos (Raise Ravens), Ana past the censors, possibly because
Torrent again plays a little
girl haunted by visions. Ana (Ana Torrent)
offers an apple to the
1983 Erice’s second movie, The fugitive she finds
South (El Sur), is about a girl hidden in the
fascinated by the secrets her family outhouse.
father left in southern Spain. She believes he
is the monster.

REBEL REBEL 215

What else to watch: Pather Panchali (1955, pp.132–33) ■ Whistle Down
the Wind (1961) ■ Cria Cuervos (1976) ■ Fanny and Alexander (1982)

Obsessed by visions of the monster, Ana and her sister Isabel talk with Victor Erice Director
although not afraid of him, Ana goes their father (Fernando Fernán Gómez).
home. Here, in echoing, shadowy He keeps bees, and writes of his Victor Erice is regarded by
rooms behind honeycomb-shaped revulsion for their mindless lives, one many as Spain’s finest movie
windows, her bookish beekeeper of many allusions to Francoist Spain. director. Yet he has made
father and her far younger mother few movies. Indeed, his high
seem impossibly far apart, literally tender relationship, but the reputation rests on just two
Francoist troops are never far away. poetic works, The Spirit of the
and emotionally, as her mother Ana has more visions of the monster, Beehive and The South, both
Teresa (Teresa Gimpera) writes although the doctor reassures her of which are period pieces
sad letters to an unknown mother that the delusions will pass. centering on rural childhoods.
young man.
Ana’s sister Isabela fuels Political allegory Erice was born in Karrantza
Ana’s visions, telling her to The movie ends with an image of in the Basque country (Spain)
close her eyes and call the Ana at the window, her eyes closed in 1940, around the same time
monster, like a spirit. When again. When the movie was made The Spirit of the Beehive is set.
Ana closes her eyes and in 1973, Franco’s regime was He studied economics, law
calls, “It’s me, Ana,” she already faltering; its end would and politics at the University
finds, hidden in the outhouse, have felt very near to a Spanish of Madrid before going to film
a haunted-looking young audience. Telling a story from the school in the early 1960s. He
man, presumably a Republican past, The Spirit of the Beehive also worked for almost a decade as
on the run, who she believes gave Spain a glimpse of its future. ■ a film critic before making a
is the monster. They develop a series of short movies.

Little but the walls remain The Spirit of the Beehive
of the house you once knew, was Erice’s first feature-length
movie, but he did not make his
I often wonder what became second, The South (El Sur),
of everything we had there. until almost 10 years later. Ten
years after that, he made a
Teresa / The Spirit of the Beehive beautiful documentary, The
Quince Tree Sun, about the
painter Antonio López García.
While Erice has contributed to
other work, these have been
his only feature-length movies.

Key movies

1973 The Spirit of the Beehive
1983 The South
1992 The Quince Tree Sun

YOU KNOW WHAT

HAPPENS TO

NOSY

FELLOWS?

CHINATOWN / 1974



218 CHINATOWN R oman Polanski’s movie Time has lessened our sense
Chinatown is a gripping that this superlative 1974
IN CONTEXT thriller with a truly nasty film is simply a pastiche of
sting in its tail. Jack Nicholson the classic ’30s gumshoe
GENRE plays the seedy private detective thrillers—it now looks like
Neo-noir crime thriller Jake Gittes, who investigates a straightforward classic.
a conspiracy surrounding the Peter Bradshaw
DIRECTOR Los Angeles water supply in
Roman Polanski the 1930s. During the course The Guardian, 2013
of his investigation, he uncovers
WRITER a disturbing personal tragedy as
Robert Towne he becomes involved with the
chief water engineer’s wife, Evelyn
STARS Mulwray, played by Faye Dunaway.
Jack Nicholson, Faye
Dunaway, John Huston Powerful script becomes Hollis Mulwray, and the
Key to the movie’s power is Robert story turns into a fictional tale of
BEFORE Towne’s Oscar-winning script, the corrupt manipulation of the
1941 John Huston’s movie which is widely regarded as one Los Angeles water supply for profit.
noir The Maltese Falcon is of the finest screenplays ever
released, and Polanski studies written for Hollywood. It was partly Towne wrote the script with
it avidly before he embarks inspired by the true story of William Jack Nicholson in mind for the
on making Chinatown. Mulholland, chief engineer of the character of Gittes, the private
Los Angeles Water Department, eye who becomes unwittingly
1968 Rosemary’s Baby is who, on March 12, 1928, declared embroiled in the shadowy affairs
Polanski’s acclaimed horror that the St. Francis Dam was of Mulwray’s associates. Nicholson
movie about a young woman, safe, just hours before it failed is said to have been responsible for
played by Mia Farrow, who catastrophically, with the resulting
is impregnated by the devil. flood killing at least 600 people. In
Towne’s screenplay, Mulholland
AFTER
1988 Frantic, starring He owns the police!
Harrison Ford, is Polanski’s
first successful return to Evelyn Mulwray / Chinatown
the thriller genre since
making Chinatown.

Jack Nicholson Actor

Jack Nicholson is one of the Pieces (1970) was widely
leading American movie actors of acclaimed. Both movies brought
the last half century, renowned him Oscar nominations for his
for playing difficult outsiders acting, while One Flew Over
who can disarm with charm and the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) earned
humor. He was born in 1937 in him his first Oscar win.
Neptune City, New Jersey, where
he grew up. His Hollywood acting Key movies
career was slow to take off, and
he had more success with writing 1970 Five Easy Pieces
screenplays. He had his first big 1974 Chinatown
acting break in Dennis Hopper’s 1975 One Flew Over the
Easy Rider (1969), and a year later, Cuckoo’s Nest
his performance in Five Easy 1980 The Shining

REBEL REBEL 219

What else to watch: The Maltese Falcon (1941, p.331) ■ The Big Sleep (1946) ■ Kiss Me Deadly (1955, p.134) ■
Vertigo (1958, pp.140–45) ■ The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) ■ L.A. Confidential (1997)

Gittes has his nose slashed as he
gets too near the truth about the plot
to dump water from the LA reservoirs.
He is warned that if he continues to
snoop, his whole nose will come off.

the hiring of Polanski, renowned detective movies such as The the wrong conclusions. At the
for the psychological thrillers Maltese Falcon. The audience start of the movie, for instance,
Repulsion (1965) and Rosemary’s knows that Marlowe will triumph he is commissioned by the wife
Baby (1968). Polanski was in Europe in the end, but it becomes apparent of Hollis Mulwray to prove her
at the time, having left the US after that Gittes is going to mess up husband’s adultery. Very quickly
the murder of his wife in 1969. He again and again, as he jumps to all Gittes hands her the seemingly
was tempted back by the strength incriminating photos—only he’s
of Towne’s script, although Polanski got it wrong twice over. First,
and Towne had many differences the woman who commissioned
over the final version. him is not Mulwray’s wife but
an impostor. Second, the young
There were two elements in woman that he snaps out with
particular that Polanski changed. Mulwray is not his mistress at
First was the tragic and disturbing all, as he, and we, the audience,
ending. Second was the decision will discover much later. Later in
not to use the voice-over narrative the movie, Gittes wrongly assumes
that so many private-eye film-noirs that the real Evelyn Mulwray
had employed in the past. Polanski murdered her husband. ❯❯
insisted on letting the audience
discover each new twist as Jake Noir conventions overturned
Gittes does. The effect of this is
that both Jake and the audience are Genre convention Chinatown subversion
much more in the dark and far more
unsettled by each new revelation. Female lead is typically Evelyn is revealed
a “femme fatale” to be a victim

Protagonist is a hard-boiled Gittes is incompetent,
private investigator missing clues and
making mistakes

Antagonist gets punished Noah Cross escapes to
continue his crimes

Incompetent sleuth Protagonist succeeds in Gittes leaves town
Gittes’ desperate attempt to make resolving crime or issue after failing
sense of everything makes him a
different kind of private eye from Narrative closure No resolution
Humphrey Bogart’s Philip Marlowe
a generation earlier in hard-boiled

220 CHINATOWN

An audience familiar with the roles supply to his own advantage different from other crime thrillers,
of femmes fatales in earlier noir leads to the murder of his former and makes it linger long in the
movies would naturally assume the business partner, Evelyn’s mind. In most movies about power
same. But Mrs. Mulwray is the real husband Hollis Mulwray. and corruption, the detective
victim, and the truth is so unsettling simply homes in on, and then
that Gittes can barely take it in. Unexpected twist exposes, those responsible for a
The real villain of the piece, it turns There is a twist at the end of crime and its cover-up. But at the
out, is the seemingly urbane old crucial moment in Chinatown,
man Noah Cross, Evelyn’s Chinatown that makes the focus is diverted away from
father. He is the wealthy the movie disturbingly Cross’s efforts to control the water
man whose determination supply. Instead, we are faced with a
to use the city’s water shocking revelation that appears to

Gittes confronts Mrs. come out of the blue. Right at the
Mulwray with his theory that end of the movie, we are left
she killed her husband. But with the deeply disturbing
Gittes still has no idea what image of Cross—who appears
is going on. to have got away with

everything—comforting
his granddaughter.

Controlling men
Chinatown, it
turns out, is
not just about
power and
corruption.

Minute by minute 00:42 01:30 01:57
After nearly drowning in Gittes follows Mrs. Mulwray to Gittes arranges for Mrs.
00:19 a water channel, Gittes is a house in which her husband’s Mulwray and her sister to escape
Evelyn Mulwray reveals threatened at knifepoint “mistress” is staying. Mrs. Mulwray to Chinatown. He then confronts
to Jake Gittes, the private and his nose is slashed. tells him that she is her sister. Noah Cross with the glasses.
detective, that he has been
duped in a ploy to discredit
her husband, Hollis Mulwray.

00:00 00:15 00:30 00:45 01:00 01:15 01:30 01:45 02:10

00:31 01:15 01:45
Gittes turns up at the Gittes and Mrs. Mulwray After finding the woman who had
dam just as the police follow the paper trail of the pretended to be Mrs. Mulwray dead, Gittes
are pulling Mulwray’s property sales, which leads them goes to the Mulwray house and finds a pair
body out of the water. to an old people’s home. Gittes is of glasses in the pond. He confronts Mrs.
shot at and narrowly escapes. Mulwray, who tells him the shocking truth.

It also concerns the whole notion You have to show REBEL REBEL 221
of male control. At one point, Gittes violence the way it is.
asks Cross why he feels the need Roman Polanski
to be richer: “How much better can If you don’t Director
you eat? What can you buy that you show it realistically,
can’t already afford?” “The future, then that’s immoral Born in Paris in 1933 to Polish
Mr. Gittes,” Cross replies, “The parents, Roman Polanski grew
future.” Women and water are the and harmful. up in Poland. During World
source of the future that Cross Roman Polanski War II, his parents were sent
wants to control. And in his own to a concentration camp where
way, Gittes, too, is pursuing control, The problem for Gittes is that his mother died, but Roman
probing and sticking his nose in he is living, metaphorically, in survived by hiding in the
where it is unwelcome. Chinatown, a place that holds countryside. After the war, he
bad memories for him, which went to film school. His first
His investigations lead to one date back to his time spent in feature movie, Knife in the
of Chinatown’s nastiest and most the police force. Yet it is Gittes Water (1962), was acclaimed
memorable scenes. Gittes has internationally, and he moved
his nose slit by a thug, played by himself who in to the UK to make movies such
Polanski himself: “You know what the end chooses as the chilling Repulsion. In
happens to nosy fellows? Huh? Chinatown, a 1968, he met actress Sharon
No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay. world where Tate and moved to the US,
They lose their noses.” It is a kind of anything goes, where he made the horror
emasculation, and Gittes’s dogged for the movie’s movie Rosemary’s Baby. The
determination to solve the mystery tragic denouement. following year, Tate was
reflects his need to regain control. There is no point murdered by the serial killers
in trying to do known as the Manson Family.
the right thing, Polanski left the US but
his former police was invited back to direct
colleague tells him Chinatown. A few years later,
in the movie’s final he was convicted of unlawful
line: “Forget it, Jake. sex with a minor and fled to
It’s Chinatown…” ■ France, where he still directs.

The poster for Key movies
Chinatown suggests an
old-fashioned film noir, 1965 Repulsion
with a chain-smoking 1968 Rosemary’s Baby
detective and a femme 1974 Chinatown
fatale. But Polanski 1979 Tess
effectively subverts the 1988 Frantic
genre and plays with 2002 The Pianist
audience expectations.

222

AND WE’LL BUY
OURSELVES A LITTLE
PIECE OF HEAVEN

ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL / 1974

IN CONTEXT R ainer Werner Fassbinder’s Fassbinder (left) plays Eugen,
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul son-in-law of German cleaning woman
GENRE (Angst essen Seele auf) Emmi (center). He and his wife Krista
New German Cinema is an intense study of an unlikely (Irm Hermann) laugh at Emmi when she
but tender relationship between says she has fallen in love with a
DIRECTOR an aging German cleaning woman younger Moroccan man.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder and a younger Arab immigrant
worker.It is also a trenchant achieved the emotional
WRITER commentary on the state of 1970s engagement of classic melodrama
Rainer Werner Fassbinder Germany, as the couple face the while exposing the underlying
derision and criticism of their tensions in German culture.
STARS family and friends. By focusing on
Brigitte Mira, El Hedi ben the relationship between a white New German Cinema directors
Salem, Barbara Valentin, German woman and an immigrant, such as Fassbinder sought to create
Irm Hermann and placing it in the tough urban something peculiarly German by
heart of Munich, Fassbinder bringing together the sharp
BEFORE modernity and realism of the French
1955 Douglas Sirk’s romantic and British new waves with the
melodrama All That Heaven
Allows provides inspiration
for Fassbinder’s Ali.

1972 Fassbinder makes
his mark as a provocative
filmmaker with The Bitter
Tears of Petra von Kant.

AFTER
1979 The Marriage of Maria
Braun is Fassbinder’s biggest
mainstream success.

1980 Fassbinder’s TV mini-
series Berlin Alexanderplatz
becomes a cult classic.

REBEL REBEL 223

What else to watch: All That Heaven Allows (1955, p.130) ■ Lola Montès (1955) ■ The Damned (1969) ■ The Bitter Tears
of Petra von Kant (1972) ■ The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) ■ The Tin Drum (1979) ■ Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)

Happiness is not always fun.

Epigraph / Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

storytelling power of Hollywood. Ali: In his movies, Fassbinder In many of Fassbinder’s movies, his
Fear Eats the Soul can also be seen presented to German society attitude to his characters can be
as a homage to one of Fassbinder’s an uncompromising portrayal harsh and mocking. In Ali: Fear
cinematic heroes, German émigré of its flaws. While Emmi and Eats the Soul, it is the cruelty of the
Douglas Sirk, whose 1955 movie Ali may stay together, the people around Emmi and Ali that is
All That Heaven Allows portrayed racism that makes him ill exposed. By contrast, Emmi and
the romance between a well-to-do will not go away. Ali’s relationship is handled in a
widow and a younger gardener. touching and sincere way.
They move in together,
Fassbinder always worked realize that they love each At the end of the movie, Ali
quickly, but this movie was made other, and decide to marry. collapses and is taken to a hospital,
exceptionally fast—in under two Their marriage is quickly suffering from a stomach ulcer—
weeks, squeezed between two exposed to the prejudice something common, the doctor
other projects. The result of this and gossip of everyone says, among migrants, because of
rapid shooting schedule is a lean, around them, and an end the continual prejudice they face.
stripped-down work of great to outright hostility only As Ali says, “Fear eats the soul.”
directness and immediacy. comes from the local Emmi promises to do everything
shopkeepers’ and bar she can to reduce the stress, and
Racial tensions owners’ hypocritical has a solution that is profound in
The German woman in the movie need to keep their its almost banal simplicity: “When
is the 60-year-old Emmi Kurowski custom. The constant we’re together, we must be nice to
(Brigitte Mira) and the immigrant is pressure threatens to one another.” ■
40-year-old Ali (El Hedi ben Salem). destroy their relationship,
They meet when Emmi ducks into and Ali seeks solace in the arms of
an Arabic bar to get out of the rain the female bartender who used to
on the way home from work. Ali asks cook for him, Barbara (Barbara
Emmi to dance, and despite his Valentin, far left). Yet in the end,
limited grasp of German, a heartfelt their love endures.
relationship develops between them.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder Director

Fassbinder was directing play after play. He
the driving force made his first feature movie in
of New German 1969 and quickly achieved
Cinema. In a international acclaim, but his
career spanning private life was often troubled,
just 14 years, he made more than and he died of a drug overdose
40 movies, many TV dramas, and at just 37.
24 stage plays. He was born in
Bavaria, Germany, in 1945, and Key movies
had a lonely childhood in which
he watched thousands of movies. 1974 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul
By 21, he was running a theater 1979 The Marriage of
company, manically writing and Maria Braun

ANGELS
MONSTE

1975–1991

AND
RS

226 INTRODUCTION

Steven Spielberg’s Jaws Taxi Driver and All the Star Wars takes Two epic turns usher in
ushers in the era of President’s Men reflect science fiction and the 1980s: Jack Nicholson
the blockbuster, and the psychological scars franchising into a
of the Vietnam War whole new galaxy, while in Kubrick’s psycho-
is a box-office triumph. Spielberg thrills again horror The Shining
and the Watergate with Close Encounters. and Robert De Niro in
scandal, respectively. Scorsese’s boxing
of the Third Kind. biopic Raging Bull.

1975 1976 1977 1980
1975 1977 1979 1981

Video recorders go New York inspires both Science fiction veers from While Raiders of the
mainstream as Betamax Woody Allen’s wry look crazed dystopias in Lost Ark launches
and (one year later) VHS at love in Annie Hall and the Indiana Jones
long-play formats enable the disco inferno that is Stalker and Mad Max to franchise, a German
Saturday Night Fever. all-out horror in Alien, U-boat stalks its
moviegoers to record while Apocalypse Now prey in Das Boot.
and play movies at home. lays bare the horrors of war.

A fter the major upheavals of Two years later, when George (starring Robert De Niro as cabbie
the Swinging Sixties, the Lucas’s Star Wars came along and ex-Marine Travis Buckle)
1970s saw a different kind to capture the imagination of a would be the first of Scorsese’s
of revolution unfold. For all the generation, the movie business was masterworks, a dazed snapshot
tremors at their foundations, it further transformed. Entering the of paranoia and urban decay that
seemed Hollywood’s big studios world of Wookies and Jedi would became an instant time capsule.
were still standing, but now a new become a rite of passage for each
kind of movie burst onto the scene. new generation of moviegoers, but Alvy Singer was the hero
Lucas’s success also meant that and neurotic narrator of another
Director Steven Spielberg was, soon, for Hollywood, there was no consummate New York story:
like so many of his peers, a young, such thing as mere movies any Woody Allen’s romantic comedy,
movie-literate hotshot. But deep more—only franchises in waiting. Annie Hall. For years to come, rare
down he was also an old-fashioned was the movie that wasn’t in debt
showman. In the classic Hollywood And yet this was also a time to one of those characters and
tradition of happy accidents and when some of cinema’s finest its creators.
unlikely triumphs, the production minds made their most audacious
of Jaws was cursed by a man-eating and enduring movies. In America, Beyond Hollywood
great white shark that Spielberg after Chinatown’s definitive Outside America, ambiguity
felt was so laughably unrealistic he portrait of LA’s murky backstory, throbbed at the heart of movies that
could barely bring himself to put it the spotlight now fell brilliantly once seen, would be impossible to
on screen. And yet it became the hit and unforgivingly on New York. By ignore. From Australia, in the same
that changed the movies, installing the mid 1970s, Martin Scorsese year that Spielberg’s shark thrilled
a new type of blockbuster at the top had already announced himself audiences in Jaws, director Peter
of the food chain. as a giant talent—but Taxi Driver Weir made Picnic at Hanging Rock,

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 227

Spielberg’s heartwarming Blue Velvet achieves Pedro Almodóvar’s black Set in 1920s China, Raise
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial instant cult status for comedy, Women on the Verge the Red Lantern seduces
is science fiction for all David Lynch’s surreal audiences worldwide with
the family; not so Ridley and subversive take of a Nervous Breakdown, the intensity of its visual
Scott’s epic Blade Runner, wins the Spanish director a and emotional power.
a neo-noir vision of Los on Americana.
global following.
Angeles in 2019.

1982 1986 1988 1991

1985 1987 1989 1992

The Sundance Institute Angels alight in Indies come of age with Disney’s Beauty
hosts its inaugural movie Berlin in Wim Wenders’ Sex, Lies, and Videotape, and the Beast is the

festival in Utah, to Wings of Desire, two a breakthrough hit for first animated
champion independent years before the fall of studio Miramax and movie to be
the Berlin Wall dividing
and world cinema. East and West Germany. debut director nominated for an
Steven Soderbergh. Oscar for Best Picture.

a story that inspired equal dread Now more than ever we need by the subconscious, and at least
with its wispy account of missing to listen to each other and as surreal, funny, and disturbing
schoolgirls in the outback of 1900. understand how we see the as real dreams can be.
Meanwhile, in an industrial pocket
of Estonia, the great Russian world, and cinema is the best By the end of the 1980s, other
director Andrei Tarkovsky was medium for doing this. voices were speaking up. Indie
making Stalker, poised between Martin Scorsese movies were in the ascendant, from
science fiction and philosophy. Spike Lee tracking racial tensions
These are movies that remain, even gung-ho landmark, Top Gun (1986). in Brooklyn, to Steven Soderbergh
now, gloriously unfathomable. And then there was David Lynch— training his lens on sexuality and
who, like Hitchcock before him, relationships. From China, Zhang
New decade, new voices was unique enough to exist as a Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern was
In the 1980s, Wall Street traders genre of his own, his movies driven both a gorgeous period drama and
and mainstream movies looked a signal of a global future.
slicker than ever, but around the
edges, directors still drilled down Meanwhile, cinema itself
into what lies beneath. Perhaps survived another attack on its
nothing sums up that better than very existence: just as TV had been
the fact that David Cronenberg— supposed to leave it for dead in
whose notorious “body horror” previous decades, so too was the
scenes were less disturbing than rise of home video in the 1980s.
the psyches of his characters—was In the battle between VHS and
once offered the chance to make that cinema, there was only one winner:
new formats come and go, but the
movies endure. ■

228

YOU’RE GONNA NEED
A BIGGER BOAT

JAWS / 1975

IN CONTEXT T here are many memorable which smashes out of the water,
lines in Jaws, but “You’re mouth gaping, heading straight
GENRE gonna need a bigger boat” for the audience in their seats.
Action adventure is the one most people remember.
It comes just after Brody (Roy The shark’s first victim is lone
DIRECTOR Scheider), the aquaphobic police skinny-dipper Chrissie (Susan
Steven Spielberg chief of Amity Island, first sees his Backlinie). The attacker is all the
nemesis: the great white shark, more terrifying for being unseen.
WRITERS
Peter Benchley, Carl
Gottlieb (screenplay);
Peter Benchley (novel)

STARS
Roy Scheider, Richard
Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw,
Lorraine Gary

BEFORE
1971 In Spielberg’s thriller Duel,
a driver is chased by a truck.

AFTER
1977 Close Encounters of
the Third Kind is Spielberg’s
ambitious sci-fi drama.

1993 In his blockbuster Jurassic
Park, Spielberg brings dinosaurs
back from extinction.

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 229

What else to watch: Godzilla (1954, p.129) ■ Moby Dick (1956) ■ The Deep (1977) ■ Piranha (1978) ■
Alien (1979, p.243) ■ Open Water (2003) ■ The Shark Is Still Working (2007) ■ All Is Lost (2013)

What this movie is
about, and where it
succeeds best, is the
primordial level of fear.

Gene Siskel

Chicago Tribune, 1975

It’s a theme-park moment—the with deliberately tricky characters Brody (Roy Scheider, center) wants
shark is clearly mechanical, a and ambiguous moral codes. to close the resort, but is overruled by
prop on a hydraulic crane, but Spielberg’s big-fish tale was a the mayor (Murray Hamilton, left), who
we don’t mind because Jaws throwback to the fun-house origins fears that rumors of a shark attack
is as much a ride as it is a movie. of the moving image—it was pure will ruin the tourist season.
entertainment, a roller coaster
When Steven Spielberg’s that promised scares but at the After Jaws came the Star Wars
monster movie was released in same time sought to reassure movies, Spielberg’s Indiana Jones
June 1975, there was a sense its audience. The movie contained saga, Back to the Future, and then
that something new had arrived. all the elements that would go the superhero mega-franchises
Adapted from a best-selling novel on to make a typical Spielberg of the 21st century. But, looking
by Peter Benchley about a shark sideshow: ambitious special back, the picture that spawned
that terrorizes a small beach effects, a high-concept story, these behemoths is a very different
community, Jaws sold 25 million cute kids, a small-town American creature. Jaws, in comparison, is
tickets in 38 days—it started hero who finds himself out of his a relatively modest adventure, its
big and swelled to mammoth depth, and plenty of opportunities chief spectacle a rubber shark so
proportions. Studio executives for marketing. unconvincing that Spielberg ❯❯
quickly realized that they were
onto something—Jaws 2 was This was not a boat accident.
rushed into production and came
out in 1978. Spielberg had invented Hooper / Jaws
the “summer event movie”—the
action-packed blockbuster aimed
at summer audiences that became
Hollywood’s great obsession for
the next four decades.

Pure entertainment
Jaws changed American
cinema, which, for the first half
of the 1970s, had been in thrall
to low-key, European-style movies

230 JAWS

worked hard to keep it off the
screen as much as possible. Instead
of the full-blown orchestral swoons
for which he would later become
famous, composer John Williams
employs a jaggedly minimalist
musical score to herald the approach
of the shark; the result, a kind of
panicked heartbeat, is the most
haunting movie motif since the
stabbing strings in Alfred
Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960).

Claustrophobia story of the sinking of the USS With the Orca sinking and the
As the narrative moves into its Indianapolis in World War II. “Eleven shark about to swallow Brody, he
final act, the big showdown with hundred men went into the water, has one final desperate plan to kill
the great white, its trio of heroes three hundred and sixteen men it in a spectacular finale.
journeys out to sea—but Spielberg came out,” he growls. “The sharks
narrows his focus on their tiny took the rest.” awesome terror. Spielberg is a
fishing boat, the Orca, and the canny showman, and he knows
story shrinks to a human drama. Quiet before the storm that roller coasters rely on a lull
The Indianapolis speech is a before each stomach-churning
For all the movie’s snapping moment of quiet that gets under plunge. It’s a mark of his genius
shark jaws, exploding gas canisters, our skin, so when that fake-looking that Jaws contains more lulls than
and severed heads bobbing toward mechanical shark-prop rises out of plunges, yet is remembered for its
the screen, the most memorable the ocean we see it as the director shock horror and white-knuckle
scene in Jaws is nothing more intended: a monster imbued with action adventure. ■
spectacular than three men talking:
Chief Brody, shark expert Hooper
(Richard Dreyfuss), and psychotic
sea dog Quint (Robert Shaw) share
a late-night drink below deck. They
compare scars and sing songs, and
eventually the conversation turns
dark, as Quint tells the chilling

Steven Spielberg Director

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1946, drama. In 1993, he told a true
Steven Spielberg has been a story of heroism during the
household name for four decades. Holocaust with Schindler’s List.
An all-American storyteller with Since then he has balanced
a European eye, he has made historical drama with special-
some of the most successful effects spectacles.
movies of all time. With Jaws, his
first hit, he invented the “event Key movies
movie.” His enthusiasm for the
silver screen led him to make the 1975 Jaws
Indiana Jones series, a homage 1978 Close Encounters of the
to 1930s action adventure serials, Third Kind
while his family fable E.T. proved 1982 E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
he was a master of emotional 1993 Schindler’s List

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 231

The movie’s
poster is one of
the most iconic
designed for any
movie. As with
most Spielberg
movies there were
extensive spin-off
toys and products.
Surprisingly, though,
it took 15 years
before a Jaws theme
park attraction
opened, with
enormous success,
in Florida.

232

THERE’S SOME QUESTIONS
GOT ANSWERS AND
SOME HAVEN’T

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK / 1975

IN CONTEXT P icnic at Hanging Rock mysteries posed in this haunting
opens with a caption Valentine’s Day trip into the wilds
GENRE stating that on February 14, of the Australian bush.
Mystery drama 1900, a party of schoolgirls went on
a picnic at Hanging Rock near No resolution
DIRECTOR Mount Macedon in the Australian The strange events at Hanging
Peter Weir state of Victoria. It ends with the Rock were first related in a
words: “During the afternoon 1967 novel by Australian author
WRITERS several members of the party Joan Lindsay, which itself was
Cliff Green (screenplay); disappeared without a trace.” This ambiguous about whether the
Joan Lindsay (novel) creates the impression that the case of the missing party was
story that follows is based on true true. When Weir came to adapt
STARS events—but it isn’t. The movie, the book for movie, he faced an
Rachel Roberts, Anne- made in 1975, is entirely fictitious. unusual challenge: Lindsay had
Louise Lambert, Vivean offered no explanation for the
Gray, Helen Morse So why are the words there? story’s central mystery. The three
Are they a trick, or a clue—or girls and their teacher simply
BEFORE both? This is the first of many vanish—there is no suggestion of
1974 Weir’s first feature, The where they go, or why. Could the
Cars That Ate Paris, develops A movie composed director expect his audience to
his trademark theme of almost entirely of clues. sit through a two-hour mystery
macabre happenings in that has no resolution? Weir’s
a small community. It forces us to stretch response was to draw out themes
our imaginations. of absence—not only do the girls
AFTER Vincent Canby and Miss McCraw, their teacher,
1981 Like Hanging Rock, disappear early in the story, but
Gallipoli, Weir’s World War I The New York Times, 1979 no solutions or clues are found to
drama, authentically captures the questions asked. Another
Edwardian Australia. teacher, Mr. Whitehead (Frank
Gunnell), is the first to accept that
1989 Weir’s acclaimed US the event is unsolvable—“There’s
drama, Dead Poets Society, some questions got answers and
echoes Hanging Rock in its some haven’t,” he says simply. In
story of a tragedy at a school. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Weir is

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 233

What else to watch: Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) ■ Wake in Fright (1971) ■ Walkabout (1971, p.337) ■ The Year of Living
Dangerously (1982) ■ The Blair Witch Project (1999) ■ The Virgin Suicides (1999) ■ The Way Back (2010) ■ The Babadook (2014)

Irma, Marion, and Miranda share 1900, when European settlers Peter Weir
an eerily idyllic moment just before were still strangers in an ancient Director
they set off to climb Hanging Rock. land they did not fully understand.
Irma will be found later with her corset Born in Sydney in 1944,
missing. The other two, along with Possible hint Weir started his career
Miss McGraw, disappear without trace. There is a hint that sexuality making documentaries with
is at the heart of the vanishing. Australia’s Commonwealth
asking the viewer to respect the When one of the girls “returns,” Film Unit. Associated with
mystery for what it is. A kind unable to put her experience into the movement dubbed the
of supernatural event seems to words, why is her corset missing? “Australian New Wave,”
have occurred. It has no context Is it significant that the vanishing which included performers
and is therefore frightening. Weir occurs on Valentine’s Day? Or that and filmmakers who found
builds his drama on this menacing the rock itself sits on a dormant international acclaim in the
atmosphere, which hums with volcano, a potential symbol of 1970s and 80s, he went on to
the stifling heat of the Australian repressed desire? It’s impossible make movies that focused on
summer. He shoots Hanging Rock to know. Any answers to the riddle communities under strain, his
as though it were the surface of evaporate in the dry haze of the atmospherics mirroring the
a hostile alien world, which is bush. In Picnic at Hanging Rock, tumultuous forces affecting
what it must have felt like to the it is the mystery that endures, and the characters’ lives. After the
characters. The movie is set in not the explanation. ■ success of his World War I
drama Gallipoli, Weir’s films
We shall only be gone have often been star vehicles
a little while. that put a man into a closed
society and watched him
Miranda / Picnic at Hanging Rock struggle to connect, such as
Harrison Ford’s John Book in
Witness (1985), set within an
Amish community.

Key movies

1975 Picnic at Hanging Rock
1981 Gallipoli
1989 Dead Poets Society
1998 The Truman Show

SOMEDAY A REAL

RAIN

WILL COME

TAXI DRIVER / 1976



236 TAXI DRIVER

IN CONTEXT I t is 1976, and there are around The immediate response
7.8 million people living in is usually very visceral
GENRE New York City. Travis Bickle and angry. But if this film
Psychological thriller (Robert De Niro) regards them all weren’t controversial,
through the filthy windows of his there’d be something
DIRECTOR cab—everywhere he looks, from wrong with the country.
Martin Scorsese Times Square to East 13th Street
by way of Park Avenue South, there Paul Schrader
WRITER are people, but to Travis they may
Paul Schrader as well be characters in a movie. Interview with Roger Ebert,
He is an outsider, alienated and
STARS angry, who views the world from Chicago Sun-Times, 1976
Robert De Niro, Jodie the inside of a car. This is the taxi
Foster, Cybill Shepherd, driver of Martin Scorsese’s movie,
Harvey Keitel who drifts through the city in a
clammy fever dream.
BEFORE
1973 Martin Scorsese, Cleansing rain degenerate, railing against
Robert De Niro, and Harvey Taxi Driver is a dirty movie, prostitution, homosexuality, and
Keitel team up for the first not in the same way as the porn drug taking. When Travis talks
time with Mean Streets, the movies that Travis likes to watch about a cleansing rain, he means
story of a low-ranking New in the run-down theaters of 42nd it biblically, apocalyptically. But
York mobster. Street, but in its depiction of the he is not a religious fanatic—he
grimy city. Scorsese shot the movie just wants a purpose. His God
1974 De Niro shoots to fame in the summer heat wave of 1975, exists only to give him the order
in The Godfather: Part II, as during a trash-collection strike that to kill, just as his commanding
the young Don Vito Corleone. left Manhattan mountainous with officer did when Travis served
rotting garbage. “Thank God for as a marine in the Vietnam War.
AFTER the rain to wash the trash off the
1982 Scorsese directs De sidewalk,” says Travis. “Someday Lost soul
Niro in The King of Comedy, a real rain will come and wash all Travis is lost in so many ways:
a black comedy about another this scum off the streets.” he fought on the losing side in the
delusional New York loser. war in Southeast Asia, and now
In Travis’s world, the only clean
1990 Scorsese returns to the things are his conscience and his
mob with Goodfellas, one of driving licence. To him, everything
his most popular movies. else is disgusting, including his
fellow New Yorkers. He finds them

Minute by minute 00:32 01:05 01:30
When Travis takes Betsy A store is held up at At a rally for Palatine, Travis
00:19 to a porn movie, she walks gunpoint while Travis is in it. is spotted by a security guard
Travis enters the out in disgust. He calls her He shoots the thief. The store as he approaches the Senator
campaign office of Senator and sends flowers, but she owner covers for him, since and seems to reach for his gun.
Palatine to volunteer, as an brushes him off. Travis has no gun permit. Travis leaves without firing.
excuse to talk to his aide
Betsy. He takes her for coffee.

00:00 00:15 00:30 00:45 01:00 01:15 01:30 01:53

00:27 00:51 01:21 01:34
Palatine gets into Travis’s After nearly running The day after paying for Travis shoots Sport,
cab. Travis tells him the city over Iris, Travis buys her time, Travis sees Iris for a hotel owner, and a
needs to be cleaned up. Later, guns. He starts an breakfast. He says that he will gambler who is with Iris.
teenage prostitute Iris gets in, intense fitness regimen give her the money to leave He tries to shoot himself
but pimp Sport pulls her out. and practices shooting. Sport and go to a commune. but is out of bullets.

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 237

What else to watch: Mean Streets (1973) ■ The Deer Hunter (1978) ■
Raging Bull (1980, pp.338–39) ■ The King of Comedy (1982) ■ After Hours (1985)

he has lost his faith in the country are his passengers—but, like Martin Scorsese
that he was fighting for. Even his him, they have no idea where Director
ability to sleep has deserted him. they are heading.
Most crucially, he has lost his “My whole life has been
way in life. “All my life needed Ride through hell movies and religion,” Martin
was a sense of someplace to go,” From the opening moments of Scorsese once said. “That’s it.
he murmurs in his half-awake, Taxi Driver, Scorsese invites the Nothing else.” He was born a
half-dreaming narration, as he viewer into the tormented mind Catholic in Queens, New York,
glides endlessly through the of this antihero, suggesting his in 1942, and movies have
night in his taxi, taking others to character’s instability through become for him a religion in
their destinations. Travis’s eyes chaotically arranged images and themselves, an art form to
are glimpsed on-screen in the rear- camera angles. revere and treasure.
view mirror, as though the audience
The first shot of the movie is Scorsese studied film
Travis determines to save Iris a cloud of steam venting from the at New York University. He
(Jodie Foster), a 12-year-old prostitute, sewers, tinged by red neon light. directed his first feature, I Call
from her pimp, Sport, whether she It looks like brimstone rising from First, in 1967. Since then, his
wants him to or not. By saving her, hell, and Travis’s cab appears output has been diverse, from
Travis can be the cleansing rain. suddenly in its midst, as if it is ❯❯ gritty urban thrillers to grand
historical dramas, paying
homage to screen classics.

Religion finds its way into
most of his movies, most
notably The Last Temptation
of Christ (1988) and Kundun
(1997). He also has another
great passion: New York City,
the subject of so much of his
work, from his first major
success, Mean Streets, to
Gangs of New York.

Key movies

1973 Mean Streets
1976 Taxi Driver
1980 Raging Bull
1990 Goodfellas
2002 Gangs of New York
2006 The Departed

238 TAXI DRIVER

on a journey through the underworld. (Cybill Shepherd), a campaign I know of nobody who can
The car rolls across the screen, volunteer he has fallen for, “and surprise me on the screen
slowly, as though pulling up and you’re gonna die in a hell, just like the way De Niro does…
asking the audience to step inside. the rest of ’em!” Hell is what he sees
On the sound track, the music when he looks around him, and he who can provide such
swells and crashes. It’s a moment wants to save her from the flames. power and excitement.
of dread that tells the audience- She is an activist campaigning for
as-passenger exactly where “clean politics,” and in her own way Martin Scorsese
it’s heading. she, like Travis, is praying for rain.
It is a sentiment that struck a chord a 12-year-old prostitute called Iris
“You’re in a with audiences at the time. When (Jodie Foster), who is every bit as
hell,” Travis confident as Betsy—and equally
tells Betsy the movie was released in 1976, uninterested in being saved by
the Watergate scandal, in Travis. But Travis gives her no
which President Nixon choice in the matter.
was exposed as a liar and
removed from office, was still Travis happens upon a hold up
fresh in the national memory. in a store and shoots the robber
Many Americans had lost dead. The store owner covers for
their faith in politicians, and Travis, advising him to leave the
felt they were leaderless. scene because he does not have
a gun licence. Travis sees that
Finding a cause
Betsy, a beautiful and self- this killing, his first act of
assured young blonde, rejects “cleansing,” is gratefully
Travis after he takes her to a received. Now he
porn movie on their first date. dons the
Travis reacts badly, sending Betsy combat
flowers afterward and harassing
her at work, but then he turns his
attention to another cause:

Travis, alone in his apartment,
prepares for his day of action.
He meticulously builds holsters
for his guns and imagines talking
to his victims as he looks at
himself in the mirror.

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 239

Travis Bickle’s transformation

Before After Robert De Niro Actor

• Is mentally unstable, • Shaves his hair into a threatening Robert De Niro has starred
drinks heavily, and suffers mohawk, and wears sunglasses in more than 90 movies, eight
from insomnia to hide his eyes of them directed by Martin
Scorsese. He rose to fame
• An ex-marine, • Becomes ever more playing the young Vito
struggles to fit in mentally unstable and Corleone in Francis Ford
and connect with violent, developing an Coppola’s The Godfather:
other people obsessive delusion that Part II, and soon won a
assassinating Senator reputation for his dedicated
• Wears a casual Palatine will make approach to researching
checked shirt, jeans, him a hero his roles. His preparation for
and shoes Scorsese’s Raging Bull became
• Wears an army legendary after he gained
• Keeps a diary combat jacket and 60 lb (27 kg) to play the boxer
a badge bearing the Jake LaMotta.
• Visits porn presidential slogan,
theaters regularly to help him blend into For the first three
the crowd during his decades of his career,
assassination attempt De Niro specialized in the
portrayal of misfits, outsiders,
• Conceals guns and and violent, unpredictable
a knife under his clothing personalities, from Corleone
and Travis Bickle to Al
gear, shaves his head into a with the cab emerging through Capone in Brian De Palma’s
mohawk, and sets out to enact it, and Travis’s mumbled narration, The Untouchables (1987)
vengeance on Iris’s pimp, Sport the climax of the movie appears and Max Cady, the stalker in
(Harvey Keitel), in what turns out to take place in a nightmare Scorsese’s Cape Fear (1991).
to be a horrific bloodbath. Inside world. Scorsese has often talked More recently he has played
gentler, less volcanic roles,
Travis’s head, about movies existing at the and diversified into comedy.
the storm breaks—the intersection of dreams and
real rain has come at last. reality, and this is where he Key movies
takes the audience.
Nightmare world 1973 Mean Streets
The cinematography of Travis’s A dreamy coda to the 1974 The Godfather: Part II
rampage is hallucinogenic in its slaughter, in which Travis survives 1976 Taxi Driver
contrasting colors and unnerving and becomes a tabloid hero, has 1978 The Deer Hunter
angles, as though the movie is now been interpreted as his dying 1980 Raging Bull
descending fully into unreality. fantasy. Whether real or imagined,
Like the opening shot of the steam, it is Travis’s longed-for moment in
the spotlight. Writer Paul Schrader
sees the end as taking the audience
back to the beginning, and so
Travis drives away, but neither he
nor the world has been cured. ■

Are you talkin’ to me?
Well, I’m the only one here.

Travis Bickle / Taxi Driver

240

I LURVE YOU YOU
KNOW? I LOAVE YOU.
I LUFF YOU. TWO ‘F’S

ANNIE HALL / 1977

IN CONTEXT W oody Allen’s Allen’s movie stole
1977 movie the Best Picture Oscar
GENRE Annie Hall from Star Wars, a rare
Romantic comedy is a New York romantic example of a small,
comedy with its two intellectual movie
DIRECTOR elements in perfect beating a major
Woody Allen balance. Allen himself blockbuster to the
plays comedian Alvy coveted prize.
WRITERS Singer, and Diane Keaton,
Woody Allen, Allen’s girlfriend at the As a New Yorker,
Marshall Brickman time, plays Annie Hall. Alvy is dismissive
The movie is imbued with of Los Angeles,
STARS Allen’s trademark neurotic which he sees as a
Woody Allen, Diane humor, and may have been a comic cultural wasteland. Upon receiving
Keaton, Tony Roberts reflection of the ups and downs of an invitation to present an award
his real-life relationship with Keaton. on TV there, he replies: “In Beverly
BEFORE Hills, they don’t throw their garbage
1933 The Marx brothers, a It is also very much a document away. They turn it into television
huge influence on Allen, make of its time and place, focusing as it shows.” And when Annie expresses
Duck Soup (p.48). He later does on the preoccupations of the a desire to go to LA, Aly sees it
uses a clip from it in his movie late 1970s Manhattan intelligentsia, as a defect in her personality.
Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). with their long-winded, competitive At the same time, however, he
opining on the meaning of art, film, recognizes that he is trapped by
1973 Ingmar Bergman’s and literature. Alvy lampoons their the persona that New York has
Scenes from a Marriage pretentiousness while at the same given him.
shows a married couple’s time reveling in it.
ups and downs in a hyper-
realistic way. A relationship, I think, is like a shark.
You know? It has to constantly move
AFTER forward or it dies. And I think what we
1993 Allen and Keaton reunite got on our hands is a dead shark.
on screen for the last time
to date in the director’s Alvy Singer / Annie Hall
Manhattan Murder Mystery.

ANNIE HALL 241

What else to watch: 8½ (1963) ■ My Night at Maud’s (1969) ■ Scenes from a Marriage (1973) ■ Sleeper (1973) ■
Manhattan (1979) ■ Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) ■ Deconstructing Harry (1997) ■ Blue Jasmine (2013)

The self-absorption of the New Woody Allen Director/Actor
York set is central to Annie Hall,
and Alvy epitomizes it. In many Born Allen Konigsberg in slapstick comedies before
ways the movie is an evolution of Brooklyn, New York, in 1935, developing works that were
Allen’s stand-up routine, in which Woody Allen’s New York Jewish influenced by European art-
he made comedy out of his own background would become a key house movies. Allen continues
insecurities and preoccupations. theme in his movies. He started to make a new movie almost
The movie opens with a out writing jokes for newspapers every year.
monologue to camera in which and television before becoming
Alvy sums up his problems with a stand-up comic in the early Key movies
women by quoting Groucho 1960s, creating monologues that
Marx’s famous comment: “I would drew on his mix of intellect and 1977 Annie Hall
never want to belong to any club self-doubt. By 1965, he was 1979 Manhattan
that would have someone like me making movies, starting with 1986 Hannah and Her Sisters
for a member.” Of his first wife
Allison, Alvy later says: “Why did futile, since the relationships he says, ‘Well, why don’t you turn him
I turn off Allison Portchnik? She encounters are fleeting and not in?’ And the guy says, ‘I would, but
was—she was beautiful. She was particularly meaningful. One couple I need the eggs.’” In this case, the
willing. She was real… intelligent. attributes happiness to their mutual eggs are love, and Annie is the love
Is it the old Groucho Marx joke?” shallowness and the fact that they of Alvy’s life. Annie Hall is Allen’s
have “nothing interesting to say.” analysis of how love goes wrong—
“We need the eggs” In the end, Alvy has to admit that how the eggs get broken. ■
Throughout the movie,
Alvy explores what relationships are “totally irrational Alvy (Woody
makes a successful and crazy and absurd… but I Allen) keeps being
relationship and guess we keep going through drawn back to
why relationships it because most of us need the Annie (Diane
fail, even asking eggs.” This is a reference to a Keaton), but he is
people randomly joke in which a man goes to a doomed to fail in
on the street. But psychiatrist and tells him that all his relationships.
it seems that
his search is his brother thinks he’s a
chicken. “The doctor

242

THE FORCE IS STRONG
WITH THIS ONE

STAR WARS / 1977

IN CONTEXT J ust as fairy tales begin with magical expression of the
“Once upon a time… ,” Star American Dream, stressing the
GENRE Wars opens with a title card power of the individual.
Science fiction, adventure that reads “A long time ago in a
galaxy far, far away…” With these Mixing genres
DIRECTOR words, the audience is transported For any fan of the movies, the joy of
George Lucas to a storybook universe of heroic Lucas’s blockbuster is its magpie
farm boys, dueling knights, comical approach to genre. Star Wars is
WRITER servants, dark lords, oppressed a science-fiction adventure, a fairy
George Lucas rebels, and princesses locked in tale, a Western, a war movie, a
deep, dark dungeons. George Lucas samurai epic, a slapstick comedy,
STARS combines these elements to relate a and even a Shakespearean tragedy—
Mark Hamill, Harrison defiantly American tale. Obi-Wan and all of these blended into a single
Ford, Carrie Fisher, Kenobi, the grand old Jedi master movie that’s accessible to anyone
Alec Guinness (played by Alec Guinness), is a from the age of five up. In short, it is
fusion of warrior-wizard and self- a great introduction to the endless
BEFORE help guru, while “the Force” is a possibilities of the moving image. ■
1971 George Lucas’s first
movie, THX 1138, is a science- Princess Leia
fiction fable set in a dystopian (Carrie Fisher)
future policed by androids. joins Luke
Skywalker (Mark
AFTER Hamill) to do
1980 Lucas vacates the battle with the
director’s chair for The Empire evil Empire. They
Strikes Back, the first follow-up become close, but
to Star Wars, which formed have a big surprise
“Episode V” of a narrative arc. in store for them.

1983 The initial Star Wars What else to watch: Flash Gordon (1936) ■ The Hidden Fortress (1958) ■
trilogy concludes with Return Lawrence of Arabia (1962) ■ The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
of the Jedi. It is followed in
1999 by The Phantom Menace,
the first of three prequels.

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 243

YOU STILL DON’T
UNDERSTAND WHAT
YOU’RE DEALING
WITH DO YOU?

ALIEN / 1979

IN CONTEXT A lien was released The poster was
two years after designed to give
GENRE Star Wars, which nothing away to
Science fiction, horror had rekindled Hollywood’s audiences, and the
appetite for space. Like movie reveals the
DIRECTOR Star Wars, it featured alien’s form only
Ridley Scott spaceships, distant bit by bit in order
planets, and innovative to ratchet up
WRITERS special effects. Unlike the tension.
Dan O’Bannon, Star Wars, however,
Ronald Shusett it was terrifying—a tough-as-hell
nihilistic nightmare protagonist Ripley.
STARS story spun around Audiences who
Sigourney Weaver, cinema’s most disturbing alien. went to the movie expecting laser
Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, guns and amusing robots were in
Ian Holm The project was originally called for a surprise.
Star Beast. It had a B-movie script
BEFORE about an alien stowaway onboard Terror of the unseen
1974 The concept for Alien a spaceship full of humans. In the The alien is the story’s real star, in
originates in Dan O’Bannon’s hands of director Ridley Scott, spite of the fact that Scott keeps his
student movie Dark Star. however, this seemingly unoriginal monster hidden for most of the
concept became something new in movie. The viewer glimpses its
1975 In Jaws, Steven Spielberg the science-fiction genre: a dark, spiny hand, its quivering drool,
builds up dread with only brief sinister horror movie with gore, the black shine of its skull. The
glimpses of the shark. violent deaths, and weird, audience’s imagination fills in
psychosexual imagery. Scott brought the rest. The terror comes from its
AFTER groundbreaking, grimy realism to dread and unbearable silences, and
1986 The sequel to Alien, the design of the spacecraft, engaged the knowledge—thanks to Alien’s
James Cameron’s Aliens Swiss Surrealist artist H. R. Giger to iconic tagline—that “in space, no
has multiple monsters. design the alien, and cast a woman one can hear you scream.” ■
(Sigourney Weaver) in the role of the
1992 In Alien 3, Ripley crashes
on a prison planet, where the What else to watch: It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958) ■ Jaws
aliens wreak havoc among the (1975, pp.228–31) ■ The Thing (1982) ■ Aliens (1986) ■ Prometheus (2012)
grizzled inmates.

244

IT’S SO OUIET OUT HERE.
IT IS THE OUIETEST
PLACE IN THE WORLD

STALKER / 1979

IN CONTEXT L ike all The movie’s
great artists, meaning has
GENRE Russian been endlessly
Science fiction director Andrei discussed since
Tarkovsky was it first came
DIRECTOR often asked out. Tarkovsky
Andrei Tarkovsky where he found himself refused
the ideas for his to be drawn in.
WRITERS movies. Tarkovsky
Arkady Strugatsky himself, however, It is worth
and Boris Strugatsky did not think the mentioning
(screenplay and novel) topic of inspiration these things
was really much of a since they go
STARS point for discussion. some way in
Alisa Freyndlikh, “The idea of a film,” explaining
Aleksandr Kaydanovsky, he once said, “always the director’s
Anatoly Solonitsyn comes to me in a own, oblique
very ordinary, boring attitude to
BEFORE manner, bit by bit, by his art, which he discussed himself
1966 Anatoly Solonitsyn stars rather banal phases. To in his 1986 book Sculpting In Time,
in Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev, recount it would only be a waste its title the perfect metaphor for
about a medieval iconographer. of time. There is really nothing his cinematic technique. A
fascinating, nothing poetic, Tarkovsky movie is in some
1972 Tarkovsky’s movie about it.”  ways like a piece of sculpture by
Solaris begins a prolific period. British artist Henry Moore: the
Tarkovsy’s pessimistic view abstractions mean as much as the
AFTER of art in general might also seem realities, and what is left out often
1986 In his final movie, The surprising. “It is obvious that art has as much significance as the
Sacrifice, a man bargains with cannot teach anyone anything,” he elements that remain.
God to save mankind. said, “since in 4,000 years humanity
has learned nothing at all.”

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 245

What else to watch: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968, pp.192–93) ■ The Color
of Pomegranates (1969) ■ Solaris (1972) ■ Werckmeister Harmonies (2000)

When a man thinks of the past,
he becomes kinder.

The Stalker / Stalker

Stalker, like many of Tarkovsky’s by the strange phenomena that Andrei Tarkovsky
other movies, was adapted from an they stumble across after the Director
existing work, in this case, the Visitors have left.
1971 novel Roadside Picnic by Born in 1932 to a family of
Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, The unexplained poets and writers in the Soviet
which describes the aftermath Unusually for science fiction of the town of Zavrazhye, Andrei
of a series of extraterrestrial time, the actual Visitation itself Tarkovsky decided upon a
incursions, called the Visitation, was of no concern in the novel; nor career in movie in his early
at six zones around the globe. is it for Tarkvosky. His interest in twenties. Enrolling to study
the science-fiction genre resulted direction at Moscow’s State
The casual detritus left behind in another masterpiece, Solaris, but Institute Of Cinematography,
by the unseen Visitors is compared he used the form to suit his own where Sergei Eisenstein was
in the book to “the usual mess” left artistic ends. Indeed, Stalker’s also taught, he made his first
at a picnic: “apple cores, candy slow opening does not even try to student short film in 1956: The
wrappers, charred remains of the explain what has given rise to the ❯❯ Killers, adapted from a short
campfire, cans, bottles, somebody’s story by Ernest Hemingway.
handkerchief, somebody’s penknife, The “Writer” (Anatoly Solonitsyn) Tarkovsky’s first feature,
torn newspapers, coins, faded places a crown of thorns on his head Ivan’s Childhood, launched a
flowers picked in another meadow.” as the men wait in the telephone room high-profile career of stylish
Just as a picnic’s detritus baffles— while in The Zone. Like many images and nuanced art-house movies.
and threatens—the animals that in the movie, the allusion is obscure. After a slow start—just two
find it, so too are humans perplexed full-length features in the
1960s, including the acclaimed
Andrei Rublev—he made up
for lost time in the 1970s,
beginning with the space
story Solaris. Characterized
by long takes and mysterious
symbolism, his movies pose
deep existential questions
about life and its meaning.
He died in Paris in 1986.

Key movies

1962 Ivan’s Childhood
1966 Andrei Rublev
1972 Solaris
1979 Stalker

246 STALKER

mysterious entity called “The first portion of the movie, but his The Stalker lies injured as the men
Zone.” At this point, nothing is wife still begs him not to go into first enter The Zone. As they venture
known about its origins, its purpose, The Zone and is afraid for his safety. into the unknown, to the sound of
or its nature except that anything He brushes away her concerns and dripping water, the Stalker describes
that goes into The Zone does not heads off to meet his two clients, it as “the quietest place in the world.”
come out again, and that it has known simply as the Writer and the
been sealed off by the authorities, Professor, who want to travel to The When the trio arrive at The Zone,
and is guarded by military police. Zone, hearing that it has strange the movie suddenly switches from
and possibly magical powers. sepia into the colors of the modern
What it is that lurks in The world: “We are home,” says the
Zone is something Tarkovsky has The quintessence of Stalker. But the men have not yet
no desire to reveal. As the title of Tarkovsky’s spaces, the reached their ultimate destination.
Sculpting in Time suggests, he Zone is where one goes Within The Zone, where the normal
is interested in time, something to see one’s innermost practicalities of life no longer apply
he uses a lot of—his movie clocks desires. It is, in short, and lots of strange, inexplicable
in at around the three-hour mark. It phenomena seem to occur, there
begins on the outskirts of the story, the cinema. is a place called The Room. When
where the title character (played by Robert Bird they find it, the Stalker tells them,
Aleksandr Kaydanovsky) is getting with excitement and awe, “Your
ready for work. The word “stalker” Andrei Tarkovsky: most cherished desire will come
suggests menace, but in this near- Elements of Cinema, 2008 true here…” adding, “The desire
future world, a Stalker is both a that has made you suffer most.”
thief who tries to smuggle artifacts
out of The Zone and a guide who is However, it is not The Room
willing to take others in. itself that concerns Tarkovsky
but his characters’ arrival at its
Entering The Zone threshold. What is it that they really
The Stalker’s world is poor and want? And what will they find
run-down, a fact reflected in the inside? At this point, Stalker mutes
sepia cinematography used in the its thriller aspect and becomes a

ANGELS AND MONSTERS 247

My conscience wants vegetarianism interview, “but we are judged
to win over the world. And my by people who don’t want to
subconscious is yearning for a piece understand the work as a whole
of juicy meat. But what do I want? or even to look at it. Instead they
isolate individual fragments and
The Stalker / Stalker details, clutching to them and
trying to prove that there is
postapocalyptic existential drama, movie, it comes with no some special, main point in
in which its three protagonists explanation. One might see Stalker them. This is delirium.”
discuss their lives and destinies, as a Soviet answer to Stanley
reminiscent of Samuel Beckett’s Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, To realize his stark vision,
play Waiting for Godot (1953). which poses the question, “Where Tarkovsky searched for a suitably
do we go from here?” But as to bleak location for Stalker, and
What next? whether Tarkovsky was making a found it in Estonia, at an old
The final section deals with the comment about life in the Soviet hydroelectric power station and a
Stalker’s wife and child, finally Union or life on Earth, the director factory dumping toxic chemicals
closing in on his daughter’s face himself refused to be drawn in: upstream. He, his wife, and
as she lies with her head on the in his mind, a true artwork should actor Anatoly Solonitsyn all later
kitchen table, staring at three not be reduced to its components succumbed to cancer, possibly due
glasses that seem to rattle under and interpreted so simply. “We are to contamination at the location. ■
her gaze while a train passes. Like judged not by what we did or
many of the images in Tarkovsky’s wanted to do,” he said in an After the men draw lots, the Writer
is chosen to enter a metal tunnel in
The Zone. The tunnel leads them
toward the mysterious Room.

248

YOU HAVE TO HAVE
GOOD MEN. GOOD
MEN ALL OF THEM

DAS BOOT / 1981

IN CONTEXT W olfgang Das Boot has been
Petersen’s released as a movie and
GENRE Das Boot as a TV mini-series with
Action thriller (The Boat) is an action added scenes. In 1997,
movie set almost a 209-minute director’s
DIRECTOR entirely in the cut was released.
Wolfgang Petersen narrowest, most
claustrophobic space Mediterranean. Das
WRITERS imaginable—a German Boot is not a movie
Wolfgang Petersen U-boat during a single about heroes; its
(screenplay); Lothar- voyage in World War II. characters are all
Günther Buchheim (novel) The story follows the ordinary men whose
anxieties of the crew survival depends on
STARS in such a way that our each other. “You
Jürgen Prochnow, attention, like theirs, is have to have good men,” says the
Herbert Grönemeyer, gripped within this undersea apolitical, battle-hardened captain.
Klaus Wenneman vice of iron and rivets. “Good men, all of them.”

BEFORE After a brief scene in which the An antiwar war movie?
1953 Charles Frend’s The crew carouses in a French bar before Lothar-Günther Buchheim, on
Cruel Sea, the story of a a mission that seems to fill them, whose novel the movie was based,
British corvette protecting and the viewer, with a feeling of criticized the movie for being too
a convoy from U-boat attacks, impending doom, the U-96 departs exciting to convey the antiwar
establishes the World War II La Rochelle and heads deep into message he intended. This echoed
naval thriller genre. the North Atlantic. There the boat the view of the French director
intercepts Allied convoys, is heavily François Truffaut, who said that a
AFTER damaged in a depth-charge attack, true antiwar movie was impossible
2009 Samuel Maoz’s tense then makes a perilous attempt because such movies inevitably
war movie, Lebanon, which to slip undetected into the
tells its story entirely from
the inside of an Israeli tank, The sea cannot claim us, Henrich.
is compared to Das Boot by No ship is as seaworthy as ours.
film critics.
Captain Lehmann-Willenbrock / Das Boot