An Incomplete Education - 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn't

What All the Fuss Is About Today

The situation's been in hand for a while now—unle
ful of N Y U film students, all of whom will be notin
cameras and the realism, the fact that said realis
through the consciousness of the central character
tention is being paid to his emotional and psycholog
though, tend to marvel at how easy this movie is
narrative flow. Moreover, the story is told without
ficient and eloquent are the visuals—until, that is, a
apologize for) the tacked-on, trumped-up ending.
the washroom, which are printed in Esperanto, a t
that cinema (at the time still silent) was destined t
between nations.

GREED (American,

Director

Erich von Stroheim. More precisely, either Erich O
heim von Nordenwald, son of a colonel on the Aust
a former officer in the Austro-Hungarian cavalry,
son of a Prussian-Jewish hatter who'd emigrated to
frustrated foreman in his father's straw-hat factory
believe Stroheim's own publicity or its subsequent
man who, as director and genius, suffered more th

ess you're stranded in a room­
ng, in addition to the moving
sm is subjective (i.e., filtered
) and that a great deal of at­
gical state. Even nonstudents,
to watch, how modern in its
so much as a title card, so ef­
series of cards announce (and
Poignant oddity: the signs in
token of Murnau's conviction
to level the linguistic barriers

1924)

swald Hans Carl Marie Stro-
trian general staff and himself
, or Erich Oswald Stroheim,
Vienna and himself a former
—depending on whether you
t debunkers. Either way, the
an anybody else at the hands

AN I N C O M P L E T E

Ht**

of Hollywood. A meticulous
tention spans as a matter of c
Thalberg. O f the eight and a
years of directing, all but the f
taken away from him in midpr
so, he remains, after Griffith, t
in the years before talkies. (
1922, and The Wedding March
invariably portrayed nasty, stif
to hate") and, following the a
as Renoir's Grand Illusion (as t
Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (as

Story

From Frank Norris' turn-of-th
cisco dentist (that's McTeague
courts and marries, sweet you
party, learns she's won $5,000
elaborate wedding banquet (
cortège can be glimpsed throu
estrangement, blackmail, penu
ex-dentist and blackmailer fig
of long bony arms, belonging
coins.

E EDUCATION

craftsman who exceeded budgets and audience at-
course, he met his nemesis in profit-minded Irving
a half films he managed to turn out in over fifteen
first two were mutilated by studio cutters, one was
roduction, and a couple weren't even released. Even
the most influential director Hollywood turned out
(The other bottom-line Stroheim: Foolish Wives,
h, 1928.) Also an actor, both in the Teens (when he
ff-backed Huns and was billed as "the man you love
asphyxiation of his directing career, in such classics
the aristocratic Colonel von Rauffenstein) and Billy
Norma Desmond's butler and playmate).

he-cenrury naturalistic novel McTeague. San Fran-
e), practicing without a license, fixes tooth of, then
ung thing (Zasu Pitts), who, at their engagement
0 in lottery: the beginning of the end. A long and
(a scene in which, among other things, a funeral
ugh an open window) follows, along with boredom,
ury, murder, and a Death Valley climax, in which
ght and die like dogs. Interspersed with above: shot
g to no one in particular, clutching at pile of gold

What All the Fuss Was About at the Tim

The Stroheim method: How he'd shot the Death
(in 132° heat); how he'd made the cast and crew li
they were using as a set; how he kept his actors wo
how no detail, no bit of atmosphere, no bow in the
for this man, too much. (For other movies, he'd de
of Monte Carlo be built, that his movie archduke
and have crests on their—perforce—silk underwea
ted a forty-two reel (i.e., ten-hour) movie, edited
duress, then sat back and watched as the studio
plots, bit parts, symbolism, and narrative continui
a half hours. Also, the subject matter (avarice a
dishes and unmade beds, à la Zola), which had on
film "a vile epic of the sewer," another "the sour crè
colleagues who'd seen the original forty-two-reel v
thralled; anybody who saw the ten-reel one had a
going on. A monumental commercial failure.

What All the Fuss Is About Today

The Stroheim legend—the man more than the m
created himself: the aristocratic past, the monocle
extra-long cigarettes. The fact that while the only
the two-and-a-half-hour one, the complete scree
few extra stills—a constant provocation to cinéph
Stroheim's own original forty-two-reel prints, with
and a canary, all allegedly hand-tinted in gold, wi
know whether a ten-hour movie narrative is aesthe
possible. Then there's the object lesson for
young directors: One is overweening at one's
own expense. Finally, for the trivia buffs, the
realization that Zasu Pitts hadn't always
played ditzy manicurists.

FILM

me

Valley scene in Death Valley
ive in the San Francisco house
orking till four in the morning;
direction of verisimiltude was,
emand that a life-sized replica
es wear only authentic medals
ar.) The fact that he'd submit-

it to twenty-four reels under
o hacked it—and all its sub-
ity—to ten reels and two and
and human degradation, dirty
ne popular critic branding the
ème de la sour crème." The few
version were dumbstruck, en-

hard time knowing what was

movie. How he, a hatter's son,
e, the super-erect posture, the

version of the film we have is
enplay does exist, along with a
hiles, who keep hoping one of
h coins, fillings, picture frames,
ill turn up. How we still don't
tically, let alone commercially,

i6o AN I N C O M P L E T E

THE GOLD
Director

Charlie Chaplin. Tripped ove
English boyhood (complete w
and floggings), Chaplin never
security, social injustice, ostra
America in a music-hall act, h
ployed him in a series of short
lin had evolved the Tramp per
Fatty Arbuckle s trousers as p
pictures. Ahead lay, in additio
culturati; his conviction that h
touch with his fans, who were
more and more sentiment; inc
Times, 1936; Monsieur Verdou
tions; several marriages, most
Oona; deportation from the U
ple of less-than-successful Eng
(1966); and official rehabilitati
in 1977.

Story

The Lone Prospector (Chapl
that's him looking out at you
ture. Arrives pursued by bear,
step. Is isolated in tiny cabin
tors; eats own shoe. Meets da
New Year's Eve, in course of w
and causes them to do variety
falls over cliff. Strikes gold. Bo
girl, who, it turns out, loves hi

What All the Fuss Was

To a degree, comedy in gene
anyone-can-play segment of
rel and Hardy, and—the only
Buster Keaton. Primed, the p
too. The first movie-spawned
as well as the first internatio

E EDUCATION

RUSH (American, 1925)

er his own mystique. The product of a Dickensian
with drunken father, insane mother, orphanages,
r stopped acting out his anxieties regarding food,
acism, bullies, and the human condition. Touring
he had been discovered by Mack Sennett, who em­
ts as a puppet and pratfaller. Within a year, Chap­
sona, with a cane, a hat, floppy shoes, and a pair of
props, and negotiated a contract to make his own
on to enormous popular success, the acclaim of the
he was the Little M a n , the Tragic Clown; a loss of
e being provided with fewer and fewer laughs and
creasingly "heavy" films {City Lights, 1931; Modern
ux, 1947; Limelight, 1952) that garnered mixed reac­
notably his last one, to Eugene O'Neill's daughter
United States as a Communist sympathizer; a cou­
glish-made movies, à \&A Countessfrom Hong Kong
ion in the form of a special Oscar in 1972. He died

lin) joins mass trek to frozen Alaska gold fields;
from the lower left-hand corner of the group pic­
, and with frying pan spanking buttocks at every
in blizzard with two larger and hungrier prospec­
ance-hall girl and falls in love, but is stood up on
which he dreams he spikes two hard rolls with forks
y of dances (famous sequence, this). Cabin almost
oards ship for San Francisco. Runs into dance-hall
im back.

About at the Time

ral. Chaplin was simply the favorite in a ragtag,
the industry that boasted Langdon, Lloyd, Lau­
one now regarded as being in Chaplin's league—
ublic applauded. To a degree, Chaplin in general,
d personality to be widely regarded as a genius,
onal movie star, Chaplin fueled an icons-and-

memorabilia industry that compares favorably w
and Harry Potter. The Little Man confronting po
than ambivalently, appealed to the little man in ev
was they couldn't use every last body part to con
acuity of it all. A s for The Gold Rush itself: Great
those rolls, the precipitously placed cabin), with
critics had not yet started complaining was un
structure.

What All the Fuss Is About Today

Most of it's in the backlash. Chaplin hasn't been
actly, but he's been made to seem self-serving, e
beneficiary is Keaton, whose The General has r
Rush and Modern Times on all-time ten-best list
the former's athletic naturalness and sense of film'
balletic self-consciousness and solipsism. Not th
lin's genius—only his modesty, sincerity, and
Flashiest critical line for the undecided to take: t
put the exterior world behind him—at the exp
lived out of "the interior, almost schizophrenic r
and actor." (That's Andrew Sarris, by the way.) A
grace, the eloquence, the expressiveness of Chap
ate how he, like Griffith and Orson Welles, brid
as art and movies as entertainment.

with those of Mickey Mouse
ower and wealth, less hostilely
verybody; the only difference
nvey the pathos, whimsy, and

moments (the bear, the shoe,
h a nice thematic unity that
dermined by too episodic a

n artistically discredited, ex­
even circumscribed. The big
replaced Chaplin's The Gold
ts, as critics rushed to prefer
's "possibilities" to the latter's
hat anybody's denying Chap­

devotion to the art form.
that Chaplin, unlike Keaton,
pense of his popularity—and
relationship between director
A saner tack: Be moved by the
plin's fingertips, and appreci­
dges the gap between movies

162 AN I N C O M P L E T E

POTEMKI
Dir

Serg
cho
pass
supe
righ
fifte
duri
the
he i
cou
of a
only
the
com
Onl
and
way
and
purg
his
sojo
which he made conversation wi
press photos with Rin Tin T
Dreiser and Upton Sinclair, a
Mexico from Toltec days to the
seminal Eisenstein: Strike (192
1927), the two-part Ivan the Te

Story

It's 1905. Sailors on the tsarist
port of Odessa, grow tired of
Group of them rebels and is
mates. "Brothers! W h o are y
rebellion becomes shipwide m
workers, mothers with baby car
putee and an unforgettable old
gaily assemble on the broad wh

EDUCATION

IN ( R u s s i a n , 1925)
rector

gei Eisenstein, to movies what Freud is to psy­
ology: the theoretician who's never been sur­
sed, the practitioner who's never been entirely

erseded. Also, like Freud, the right man in the
ht place (in this case, Russia) at the right time (the
een turbulent years following the revolution,
ing which Soviet films were the most exciting in

world). You may feel he's manipulating you, and
is: Eisenstein subscribed to Lenin's belief that art
ld influence politics and that "the most important
all the arts, for us, is cinema"; saw that it could not
y capture reality, but transmute it, less through
stories it told than through bold imagery, stylized
mpositions, and, most of all, rhythmic editing.
ly twenty-six when he made Potemkin (Russians

purists pronounce that "po-7YOM-kin," by the
y), Eisenstein would live both to employ his genius

to suffer for it. Under Stalin he was alternately
ged and reinstated a couple of times a decade until
death in 1948; as personally devastating was his
ourn in Hollywood in the early Thirties, during
ith Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, posed for
Tin, collaborated unsuccessfully with Theodore
and watched his dream of filming an epic about
e present be sandbagged by the capitalists. Other
24), Ten Days That Shook the World (a.k.a. October;
errible (1942-1946).

t battleship Potemkin, anchored off the Black Sea
f, among other things, maggots in their meat.
ordered shot by firing squad made up of their
you shooting at?" shouts rebels' ringleader, and
mutiny. As it happens, the citizens of Odessa—
rriages, bearded university professors, plus an am­
lady with pince-nez—see Tightness in all this, and
hite steps in the middle of the town, where, within

five minutes, they are gunned down and trampled
Cossack soldiers. But the spirit of revolution lives
Potemkin races toward an imperial squadron, prep
drawn on it, but, in the nick of time, it runs up fla
fleet does not fire. Everybody cheers.

What All the Fuss Was About at the Tim

First off, that Potemkin didn't look like
a movie, didn't look staged (as the high-
artifice films that were coming out of Ger­
many did) or even acted; in fact, it read as a
newsreel. Second, that it was such powerful
stuff: Nobody who's seen the Odessa Steps
sequence will ever forget it (or admit that he
has, anyway). O f course, that's not to say
that he'll be aware of what went into it: on
the one hand, of Eisenstein's commitment
to "actuality," to using real people rather
than actors (a furnace man as the ship's doc­
tor, a gardener as the ship's priest, and
sailors as the sailors) and shooting on location rath
other, of his clever and intense use of montage, a ki
in which Image A (shot of boots of soldiers march
steps) is juxtaposed with Image B (shot of woman
in such a way that the audience anticipates and beco
with a third, as yet unseen Image C , resulting from
Thinkers pointed out that this was really just the a
dialectical materialism to art, but that wasn't what
Fairbanks, and Cecil B. De Mille making pilgri
American intellectuals sitting night after night in
This movie seemed to be ushering in the twentie
Griffith had left off. With Potemkin, cinema had a
and the literary, and spoken in its own language
eighty-six minutes, it blew you away besides.

What All the Fuss Is About Today

The montage is still right in there: How, without
to go on to deal with, say, Godard? A n even bigge
exciting, dynamic, idealistic, ideological, brave
didn't last; that Eisenstein and his colleagues w

FILM I

d on by a couple of hundred
on. In the final segment, the
pared to do battle. Guns are
ags spelling out "Join us." The

me

her than in the studio; on the
ind of hyper-rhythmic editing
hing relentlessly toward top of
protesting soldiers' butchery)
omes psychologically involved
the "collision" of the first two.
application of the principles of
had Mary Pickford, Douglas
mages to Moscow, or young

Eighth Street movie houses.
eth century, taking up where
at last given up the theatrical,
e. And, in just five reels and

it, is any true cinéaste going
er come-on: the fact that this
era of Soviet moviemaking
would, within five years, be

AN I N C O M P L E T E

branded formalists and decad
would take a nosedive into
place in Germany under Hit
tors, actors, screenwriters, ca
people—got to relocate to
Even if the story seems a litt
art form, seizing the mom
Promethean. For those who
Règle du Jeu and Welles' Cit
guaranteed to show up, decad
time ten-best list.

THE PASSI
(

Director

Carl-Theodor Dreyer, a Dane
designer was a German (Herm
Pole, and the star, Maria Falco
ter to aesthetics, is strictly Fre
fith, Eisenstein, and Renoir,
Three possible ins: the supern
vampires, even if he does see t
nection (having learned to tole
you shouldn't have too much
pathy ploy (Dreyer, unappreci
by dint of the money he made
got to make a movie about the
his mentor Griffith, etc., etc
Wrath (1943), and Ordet (195

Story

Based on actual trial records th
grueling cross-examinations,
(Falconetti), but not before
wanted to know about Joan an

E EDUCATION

dents by Stalin and company and that Soviet film
banality. (Of course, the same thing was taking
tler, but at least the Germans—producers, direc-
ameramen, and, for all we know, hair and makeup
L A . ) Finally, there's the sheer power of it all.
tle cartoonish, the idea of Eisenstein defining an
ment, defying hubris and Hollywood is very
o prefer the statistical angle: W i t h Renoir's La
tizen Kane, Potemkin is one of the three movies
de after decade, on every international critic's all-

ION OF JOAN OF ARC
(French, 1928)

e then working in Paris. And that's not all: The set
mann Warm, from Caligari days), the cameraman a
onetti, an Italian, but the picture, from subject mat-
ench. Spoken of in the same hushed tones as Grif-
but for most of us, even harder to get down with.
natural angle (Dreyer's obsessed with witches and
hem as all-too-human martyrs), the Bergman con-
erate one Scandinavian's bottomless guilt and pain,
trouble plugging into another's), and the old sym-
iated in his own lifetime, could pursue his art only
e as manager of a Copenhagen movie theater, never
e life of Christ, never got to work in Hollywood like
c.). Other vintage Dreyer: Vampyr (1932), Day of
55).

hat, in 1928, had just come to light: A series of five
culminating in the execution, at the stake, of Joan
giant close-ups have told us everything we ever
nd her accusers (among them Antonin Artaud, pre-

"Theater of Cruelty," as the only compassionate
here. G o instead for the passion, in this case almos
ligious persecution.

What All the Fuss Was About at the Tim

The camerawork, especially as it fixed on faces (
mention Joan's dirty fingernails) rather than actio
events, faces that fill the screen and come co
with sweat, tears, wrinkles, warts, and spittle, a
thrown into even higher relief by the starkness
sets and the dead whiteness of the sky. And, e
Falconetti's performance as Joan: the way she ma
to emanate sainthood, sorrow, and suffering, all
out benefit of makeup—or, for that matter, much
way of hair. (As one of Dreyer's assistants rem
later, "It was a film made on the knees.") A n eno
success with the critics, who hailed it as the ul
silent film, the distillation of a decade of creative
making in Europe; the man from the New York
for instance, announced that it made "worthy p
of the past look like tinsel shams." Banned in Br
piction of English soldiers stealing Joan's ring and
arm.

What All the Fuss Is About Today

Ignore the comparisons of Passion to various music
fugue); what you really have to grasp is the fact tha
terpieces of world film, is the one that separates t
aesthetes from the philistines, the devotees from
have largely shut up about Falconetti, who was so
made another. But they still can't get over those f
fleshiness and spirituality. If you must find fault, c
tive, so unnecessary, and so emblematic of the silen
at not being able to speak. By all means, point out t
in France as Dreyer began Passion, and that, had
nancing, the last great work of silent film might ha
piece of the sound era. Then finish your espresso a

FILM I

one). But plot isn't the point
st equal parts eroticism and re­

me

(not to
on and
mplete
and are
of the
equally,
anaged
l with­

in the
marked
ormous
ltimate
e film­

Times,
pictures
ritain, by the way, for its de­

d sticking their arrows in her

cal forms (most often an organ
t this, of all the standard mas­
the sheep from the goats, the
the hangers-on. The former
drained by this film she never
faces. Ditto the wild blend of
cite the tide cards—so disrup­
nt film's increasing frustration
that sound had already arrived
he succeeded in obtaining fi­
ve been the first great master­
and go home.

i66 AN I N C O M P L E T E

L'AGE D
English titl
Director

Luis Bunuel. The Spanish ma
of-fact, the blasphemous wit
flashy—and, frankly, least cine
century later, was still going
started, having arrived in Paris
ist Salvador Dali. The year bef
the seventeen-minute manifes
or Andalusians, in which a g
shown crawling with ants, and
Now they undertook somethin
obsession, and mania, finance
Noailles. Dali, who wasn't the
convince you, for instance, tha
muse, then turn around and e
that much worse since all the
set. Despite the credits (and w
with a large stone on his head

Stor

May
scorp
the M
street
mistr
rollin
party
shoot
tress
while
until
call a
some
bisho
of feathers out a window. Then
company of four worn-out org
tooned with a woman's hair. T
march, the kind you might hea

E EDUCATION

D'OR (French, 1930;
le, THE GOLDEN AGE)

averick who, yoking the outrageous with the matter-
th the banal, managed to parlay one of the least
ematic—of directing styles into a career that, a half
strong. In 1930, though, Bunuel was just getting
s five years earlier with his friend and fellow surreal­
fore, the two had collaborated on Un Chien Andalou,
sto-on-film, having nothing to do with either dogs
girl's eye gets slashed with a razor, a man's hand is
d dead burros lie sprawled across two grand pianos.
ng more ambitious: an hour's worth of denunciation,
ed by the famous French "angel," the Vicomte de
e easiest man in the world to work with (he'd try to
at his waxed moustache served as an antenna for his
expect you to buy a painting from him), had gotten
Chien notoriety, and lasted only a day on the LAge
with the exception of one gag, in which a man walks
), the film is pure Bunuel.

ry

as well begin with the documentary footage of the
pions. Not that it prepares you for the bandits, or
Majorcans, or the fellow kicking a violin down the
t. In a way, it does prepare you for the man and his
ress, though not necessarily for the mud they're
ng in. Things are a little more upbeat at the marquis'
y (ignore the kitchen fire and the gamekeeper who
ts his little boy), especially once the man and mis­

get out to the garden, where they try to have sex
e seated in two wicker garden chairs. Try, that is,
he is summoned inside to take the minister's phone
and she busies herself with the toe of the statue. At
e point somebody throws a Christmas tree, an arch­
op, a plough, a stuffed giraffe, and several pillowfuls
n, before you know it, we're leaving a chateau in the
giasts; look for a cross, covered with snow and fes­
The End—accompanied by a happy little Spanish
ar at a bullfight.

What All the Fuss Was About at the Tim

Le bourgeois wasn't just épaté—he was livid. A fun
sures and postures of the day, L'Age pilloried Churc
and monkeyed with morals, manners, and bodily
censors, Bunuel had to position the film as "the d
billed it as "a desperate, passionate appeal to mur
weeks for the news to get around, eventually gan
anti-Semites broke into the theater, threw stink b
screen, and slashed the paintings by Dali, Max Ern
the lobby. Then the right-wing press got in on the
chief. The film was banned, and Bunuel was brande
to Spain and made a scathing documentary called
banned; he wouldn't direct another movie for fiftee

What All the Fuss Is About Today

Unlike Chien, which seems a little on the adolesc
L'Age comes across as fresh, stringent, biting, if an
gone on between then and now. It's your single be
garde cinema (marked by its fondness for abstracti
and its overall flakiness), (2) surrealism (with all it
plus more Freudian bric-a-brac than you can shake
himself (whose later themes, targets, and preoccup
other avant-garde—and quasi-surrealist—film of
Blood of a Poet (also 1930, also financed by the Vico
celluloid," according to Cocteau, featuring a mou
alive, a hermaphrodite with a Danger de Mort sign i
ball fight. After its rhapsodizing and self-cong
Bunuel's outrage all the more.

STAGECOACH (Americ
Director

John Ford. The grand old man of American movies
tive Irishman with a taste for folklore and nostalgi
to Griffith (sentimental, moralistic, committed to

FILM I

me

nhouse mirror full of the pres­
ch, State, and Establishment,
functions. To get it past the
dream of a madman"; now he
rder." Although it took a few
gs of Fascists, Catholics, and
bombs and purple ink at the
nst, and M a n Ray hanging in
e action, along with the police
ed a subversive. He went back
Land Without Bread, likewise
en years.

cent, look-Ma-no-hands side,
nything enhanced by all that's
est introduction to (1) avant-
ion, its eschewal of narrative,
ts jarring, illogical literalness,
e a phallus at), and (3) Bunuel
pations it sets in motion). The
f the period: Jean Cocteau's
omte de Noailles), a "poem on
uth in a drawing that comes
in its crotch, and a fatal snow­
gratulation, you'll appreciate

can, 1939)

s. Gruff, big-hearted, medita­
ia. In many ways a throwback

the probing of character and

motive), Ford remained, through t
tant director whom Hollywood di
cars (for The Informer, 1935; The
Valley, 1941; and The Quiet Man,
umentaries. H e also received, in 1
Life Achievement Awards, a fittin
years, made some 130 movies (in
with the American experience—th
or another, most notably the weste
simplistic; you can regret that he
Informer and Grapes', and you ca
Hawks (more on him in a minute
but you can't not stand up when h

Story

Grand Hotel with sagebrush and o
Cheyenne; on board are a former
Carradine), an alcoholic doctor
O'Hara's father that same year), a
out of town, a timid whiskey sale
and, of course, the pregnant wife o
the prostitute. Andy "Jingles" Dev
by the Ringo Kid (John Wayne),
the doctor undergo radical transf
army wife gives birth; the Apache

the Forties and Fifties, the single most impor-
idn't totally undo. Instead it gave him four O s -
e Grapes of Wrath, 1940; How Green Was My

1952), plus a couple more for his wartime doc-
1973, the first of the American Film Institute's
ng tribute to a man who, over the course of fifty
ncluding silents), the majority of which dealt
he history, the dream, the legend—in one form
ern. You can complain that Ford's maudlin and
ever took on such highfalutin, arty projects as
an explain how, unlike his confrère Howard
e), he needed a strong screenwriter at his side,
he enters the room.

on wheels. Stagecoach in question is bound for
r Confederate officer turned cardsharp (John
r (Thomas Mitchell, who'd played Scarlet

prostitute (Claire Trevor) who's just been run
esman, an escaped convict, a bank embezzler,
of a cavalry lieutenant, who refuses to speak to
vine is the driver. Along the way they're joined

who's lost his horse; both the prostitute and
formations (he becomes Marcus Welby); the
es attack; the cavalry comes to the rescue; and,

finally, in Cheyenne, the Ringo Kid settles an old
then rides off with the prostitute to start a new life

What All the Fuss Was About at the Tim

The western, already an established Hollywood gen
It also gained a form, a flexibility, and an overall rel
tors could make westerns without being accused of
viously no great shakes, became a star—as did Mon
Utah-Arizona border with all those buttes, mesas
would figure in many John Ford westerns to come
trilogy (Fort Apache, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, a
got to note the resemblance to Guy de Maupassant
about a prostitute traveling in a carriage with a bu
Franco-Prussian War, while everybody else in the
ans to mass on the horizon.

What All the Fuss Is About Today

To be honest, there isn't much. Stagecoach was rem
Margret in the Claire Trevor role, but the fact th
shows you how little news there is here. Howeve
choice for those who want in on the Ford mysti
on anybody's road toward the bitter, dark (and c
careful with the important Ford/Hawks polarity.
spectively, they both made westerns (Hawks was
Ford's boy, John Wayne) and they both hung aro
danovich hounding them for interviews and dinne
way. But Hawks was never the Establishment fav
Awards, for instance, unless you want to count a "s
he eschewed art for action, sentimentality for cyni
as Maureen O'Hara for the sexy idea of woman as
lore and great humor (Ford had none), Hawks ma
important genre: the gangster picture (Scarface), th
Up Baby), the film noir (The Big Sleep), the music
and yes, the western (Rio Bravo). H e wasn't an inno
he chose, but he was the most artless of the gre
craftsmanlike, so in control as to be "invisible." A
who stopped those Cahiers du Cinéma French boys
ered Hollywood.

FILM

score with the Plummer boys,
e.

me

nre, gained new respectability.
levance: Now "prestige" direc­
f slumming. John Wayne, pre­
nument Valley, the tract on the
s, and sandstone spires; both
e, notably the so called cavalry
and Rio Grande). Literary types
t's short story "Boule de Suif,"
unch of bourgeois during the
theater watched for the Indi­

made in the Sixties, with Ann-
at we're even telling you that
er, Stagecoach is still the best
ique, an important first stop
cultish) The Searchers. D o be
Born in 1895 and 1896, re­
s even smart enough to hire
und forever, with Peter B o g -
er invitations every step of the
vorite Ford was (no Academy
special" one), perhaps because
icism, the safe idea of woman
Lauren Bacall. With no folk­
ade at least one film in every
e screwball comedy (Bringing
al (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes),
ovator, as Ford could be when
eat Hollywood directors—so
And it was Hawks, not Ford,
s cold when they first discov­

170 AN I N C O M P L E T E

LA RÈGLE
E n g l i s h title, TH
Director

Jean Renoir. The grand old ma
harder to disparage. Had his up
ther, Pierre Auguste, the Impre
portive women and creative co
film that was both a popular an
lusion, about national loyalties a
oner-of-war camp). And his d
cold-shouldered at the time t
butchered, then withdrawn, fin
cope with Hollywood during hi
self for in any discussion of Ren
cism; luminosity, spontaneity,
they're really trying to say: that
the long view, that he cared ab
whom he was willing to sacrif
artist's soul as well as eye and w
stood how—as one of the chara
everyone has his own reasons."

EDUCATION

DU JEU (French, 1939;
HE RULES OF THE GAME)

n of world cinema, impossible to dislike and even
ps (sunny, unfettered childhood overseen by his fa-
essionist painter; unbroken lifetime string of sup-
llaborators, what he called his équipe; at least one
nd critical smash, namely the 1937 La Grande Il-
and class affinities in a World War I German pris-
downs (majority of his films misunderstood and
they were released; Règle, his masterpiece, first
nally bombed to smithereens; personal inability to
is exile there in the Forties). Words to brace your-
noir: humanism, realism (and/or naturalism), lyri-

generosity; nature, artifice, civilization. What
Renoir's heart was in the right place, that he took
bout people (especially his actors, for the sake of
ice plot, dialogue, or technique), that he had an
winked at his audience with both, that he under-
acters in Règle puts it—"The terrible thing is that
" Basic Renoir, in addition to Règle and Illusion,

the two big guns: Boudu Savedfrom Drowning (19
and Out in Beverly Hills), A Day in the Country (
about a family of sharecroppers, the best from his H
(1951; shot in India), The Golden Coach (1952; in w
actress on tour in eighteenth-century Peru).

Story

Rich marquis throws elaborate country house party
somewhat vulgar) friends; sex, games, and the cha
tably those of marquis, marquis' wife, her aviator l
gamekeeper, his wife the lady's maid, and poache
(Also at the party: Octave, the friend of the family,
the course of the week or two that everyone's toget
the beaters flushing the rabbits and pheasants), el
dress ball, the shooting of the aviator by the gamek
quis' collection of wind-up toys.

What All the Fuss Was About at the Tim

To begin with, that Renoir had gotten carried away
casting problems, Règle wound up costing twice wh
ran 113 minutes and the front office insisted it be s
Europe in a tizzy and war about to break out, a lot
mood for what Renoir called "an exact depiction o
for the ultranationalists and anti-Semites among t
of a Jew (the marquis) and an Austrian (the marq
Then there were those who merely found the mov
comprehensible. More footage was cut. Even so, Rè
ing; when the Nazis arrived on the scene, it was b
insult to injury, in 1942 the Allies inadvertently des
ative. (English-speaking audiences wouldn't get to
ingly reconstructed version until the late 1950s.)
fled to America; by the time he returned to Franc
was broken.

What All the Fuss Is About Today

Half the crowd raves about how dazzling, compl
ironic it is; the other half about its richness, sensua

FILM

932; the inspiration for Down
(1936), The Southerner (1945;
Hollywood period), The River
which Anna Magnani plays an

y for high-toned (if, entre nous,
ase on everybody's mind, no-
lover, marquis' mistress, estate
er new to the neighborhood.
, played by Renoir himself.) In
ther, there's a hunt (watch for
aborate theatrics and a fancy-
keeper, and a tour of the mar-

me

y. Because of bad weather and
hat it was supposed to; plus it
shaved down. Also, what with
of people weren't much in the
of the bourgeois of our time";
them, the presence in the cast
quis' wife) was the last straw.
vie immoral, decadent, or in-
ègle was banned as demoraliz-
banned all over again. To add
stroyed the film's original neg-
o see the complete, painstak-
In the meantime Renoir had
ce in the early 1950s his spirit

lex, brilliantly structured and
ality, egalitarianism, and droll-

AN I N C O M P L E T E

ness. Then they get down to sp
root for one side or the other in
sophisticated film in which th
completely eliminated. Alterna
camera pulls back to show us a
ensnaring each other in the for
ships, establish man's interact
bringing him into the field of
the spiritual leader of the Frenc
the Thirties, as the only alterna
aren't swept away by any of the
influence on the next generat
Wave in France, to the neo-rea
jit Ray, who never stopped talk
filming The River on the banks
who pointed out how Règle for
of the 1960s—LAvventura, La
big house symbolizes the rema

CITIZEN K
Director

Orson Welles. The wunderki
(sort o f ) , and starred in, all a
pressive directorial—and entr
mind that Welles already had
wood, as an actor and direct
Theater in 1937) and radio (h
ater of the Air); it was this rep
and financial control he was g
dislike Hollywood instinctivel
be a commercial failure and a
next (and next best) film, The
his absence, and everything
quality-control problems. Stil
makers over the last fifty year
ted to art and personal visio
cinematography, a man broug
him as a big chubby boy give

EDUCATION

pecifics: the multiple viewpoint, how Règle doesn't
n the class war, how it was the first psychologically
he notion of "good" people and "bad" people was
atively, Renoir's use of the deep focus, in which the
a landscape as clear and sharp as characters busily
reground—a perfect way to probe human relation-
tion with the world, and engage the viewer by
action. Or maybe you prefer to think of Renoir as
ch cinema, whose artistry and humanity served, in
ative to Hollywood brashness and glamour. If you
e above, at least be mindful of Renoir's enormous
tion of filmmakers, from Truffaut and the New
alists (De Sica, Rossellini, et al.) in Italy, to Satya-
king about how he met Renoir when the latter was
s of the Ganges. Finally, there's critic Pauline Kael,
reshadows all those jaundiced house-party movies
a Dolce Vita, Last Year atMarienbad—in which the
ains of European civilization.

KANE (American, 1940)

ind: Kane, which he produced, directed, wrote
at the age of twenty-five, remains the most im-
repreneurial—debut in movie history. Keep in
d an out-sized reputation when he got to Holly-
tor for the stage (he had founded the Mercury
he was the force behind the weekly Mercury The-
putation that accounted for the degree of artistic
given on Kane, and the degree of suspicion and
ly felt for him. After Kane, which turned out to
a public-relations fiasco, it was all dowhill. His
e Magnificent Ambersons (1942), was reedited in
from then on suffered from either funding or
ll, nobody's had more influence on young film-
rs. Many of them see Welles as a titan, commit-
on, eager to experiment with storytelling and
ht down by nothing less than hubris. Others see
en to overstatement, unnecessary camera move-

ment, and half-baked profundity, a man done in
vorite summation of Welles: that of Herman J .
Kane screenplay, who, observing the big man on
mutter, "There, but for the grace of God, goes G
consider turning out for: The Ladyfrom Shanghai (
of'Evil'(1958), Mr. Arkadin (1962), The Trial'(1963
with Welles as Falstaff).

Story

Never a dull moment. Media baron and thwar
Kane (played by Welles and based largely on Willi
bedroom of fabulous castle home, Xanadu (cf. San
last spoken word. Cut to March of Time-style, new
outline of his overscale, somewhat unsavory, and
to newspaper office, whence young reporter is dis
same, especially as it might be summed up bywor
established by Thatcher, Kane's childhood guard
he reads of Kane's youth and, of course, this be
Kane's mother (Agnes Moorehead); then interview

FILM m

by simple egomania. Our fa­
Mankiewicz, coauthor of the
the set one day, was heard to
God." Other Welles you might
(1948), Macbeth (1948), Touch
3), Chimes at Midnight (1966,

ted politician Charles Foster
iam Randolph Hearst) dies, in
n Simeon), with "Rosebud" his
wsreel acquainting us with the
absolutely enigmatic life. Cut
spatched to discover essence of
rd "Rosebud." He visits library
ian (George Couloris), where
eing the twentieth century, of
ws, in succession, Kane's busi-

Î74 AN I N C O M P L E T E

ness manager (Everett Sloane
tress (Dorothy Comingore), a
backs, in which we observe K
niece of president (Ruth Warr
her into diva, run for office.
means. We do, though: After
name of sled, now being consi
hit Thatcher in stomach with
him from mother.

What All the Fuss Was A

Prime example of a film undon
Hearst to suppress, buy up, cal
tribution a nightmare for paren
plexing enough people so tha
vine. (Hollywood, ever vulnera
fearing another Fatty Arbuckl
Academy Awards every time o
Ford's How Green Was My Va
man, the sacred monster, the v
almost everything that could
and backward in time, montag
through, say, the skylight of a
door—and then, on top of the
dal and bravura—but Kane rem
its late-1950s art-house reviva

What All the Fuss Is Ab

Welles and Kane zoom to ver
poll! The most written about,
as producer of sound films to
that "seems as fresh today as
whose The Citizen Kane Book
hand, you can, as far as fashio
in the film's unabashed theatr
sides." Note the polished came
score. Suggest that Kane hint
ture—and American life—as b
Jeffrey Dahmer.) Get behind

E EDUCATION

), Kane's best friend (Joseph Cotten), Kane's mis­
and Kane's majordomo at Xanadu. Loads of flash­

ane run newspaper, stir up war with Cuba, marry
ick), meet toothachy mistress and attempt to turn
. But reporter never finds out what "Rosebud"
r everybody's gone home, camera registers it as
igned by workmen to Xanadu's furnace, that Kane
when, so many years ago, latter tried to separate

About at the Time

ne by advance publicity, most notably attempts by
lumniate, etc., Kane. H e succeeded in making dis­
nt studio R K O and in infuriating, boring, and per­
at, when the film finally came out, it died on the
able in the manners-and-morals department, and
le-type scandal, got so roiled it booed Kane at the
one of its nine nominations came up; that year John
alley was the big winner.) Then there was Welles the
virtuoso, who in Kane did with the moving picture
be done with it, yanking his audiences forward
ging sound as well as image, plunging his camera
a New Jersey cabaret rather than using the front
e pyrotechnics, starred in the thing himself. Scan­
mained out of circulation from its initial release till
al.

bout Today

ry top of 1972 Sight & Sound international critics
, most controversial movie ever! America on map
rival Europe's! The one American talking picture
s the day it opened"! (That last is Pauline Kael,
k is required reading for zealots.) On the other
ning a personal reaction to Kane, do better. Revel
icality, its sleight of hand, its highly visible "in-
era work of Gregg Toland, the Bernard Herrmann
ts at the insanity implicit in American pop cul­
broadly as a Busby Berkeley musical number. (Or

Kael's assertion that screenwriter Mankiewicz is

the real genius behind Kane; then cite Peter Bog
And rather than alluding to Rosebud (a gimmic
talk), take as your favorite scene the one in which
manager, reminisces about seeing the girl in the w
"She didn't see me at all," he says, "but I'll bet a m
I haven't thought of that girl."

For Extra C

THE THIRTEEN NEX

MOVIES THEY MADE BEFO

STEVEN SPIELBERG—WERE

1. The General (Buster Keaton, 1926). N o
all Twenties comedies, bar none. (In ca
no longer playing Garth to Chaplin's
that's all of a piece, rather than episodic
ern engineer gets back the supply train
as well as his girlfriend, who was accide
that integrates character and environm
instead of just capturing a few brilliant
like Chaplin, Keaton doesn't mime, em
stares, a man up against a whole army (n
face as quintessentially American as Ab
World one) and a girl who's more pain

2. Mother (Vsevolod Pudovkin, 1926). So
stein. In fact at the time, many critics
temporary Pudovkin, who was lyric an
was epic and intellectual, and who, as
used his shots as a novelist uses words r
musician uses notes. Case in point: M
the tale of a woman who, tricked by the
son (who's in league with a bunch of str
icalism is the only way to fly; it's all fr
may know in its subsequent Mother Cou
T h e professional actors (cf. Eisenstein's

FILM I

gdanovich's refutation of same.
ck in the film, a cliché in film

old Bernstein, Kane's business
white dress on the Jersey ferry:
month hasn't gone by since, that

Credit

XT-BIGGEST-DEAL
ORE YOU—OR
E BORN

w widely held to be the best of
se you hadn't noticed, Keaton's
Wayne.) The reasons: action
c and "taped together" (South­
Yankee soldiers have hijacked,
entally aboard), plus technique
ment, incident and existence,
pantomimes on celluloid. Un­
mote, or ingratiate—he merely
not just the town bully), with a
be Lincoln's (cf. Chaplin's Old
in the ass than Holy Grail.

oviet movies aren't just Eisen-
preferred the work of his con­
nd emotional where Eisenstein
Dwight Macdonald remarked,
ather than, à la Eisenstein, as a
Mother, Pudovkin's masterpiece,
e police into betraying her own
iking workers), learns that rad­
rom a Maxim Gorky story you
urage incarnation. T o be noted:
insistence upon using nonpro-

176 AN I N C O M P L E T E

fessionals); the fact t
less an individual (cf.
here is a function of
ing blocks (as oppose

3. Metropolis (Fritz L a n
tropolis—futuristic a
we're in a city (said
view of New York)
scrapers and hanging
and prisonlike—for
going. The story, wh
son who decides to
love with a girl name
easy to miss them) an
to function more as s
nut, and a bitter one
Hitler wanted him t
chant for criminality
fatale.

Life underground
in Metropolis

EDUCATION

hat the movies hero while symbolic, is neverthe­
. Eisenstein's masses); the way in which montage
"linkage," of shots being used like so many build­
ed to Eisenstein's dialectical "collision" of images).
n g , 1926). A s Caligari begot the horror film, Me­
and allegorical—generated the sci-fi one. Here
to have been inspired by Lang's first shipboard
built on two levels, one for the rich, with sky­
g gardens and air taxis, the other—subterranean
the workers who keep the aboveground society
hich is perfectly preposterous, concerns a banker's
go live with the workers, whereupon he falls in
e Maria. D o note, however, the sets (not that it's
nd the way in which the cast of hundreds is made
scenery than as crowd. As for Lang: He's a tough
e (half-Jewish, he'd fled Germany even though
to stay and make pro-Nazi movies), with a pen­
y and angst, the guilty innocent and the femme

1*

4. Napoléon (Abel Gance, 1927; full title,
The highlight of the 1927 movie season,
version premiered at the Paris Opéra. A
New York movie season, when a painstak
version (by movie scholar Kevin Brownlo
Coppola) was shown at Radio City Mus
things here. The first is scale: from the 6
nicely matched ambitions of subject N
plus the sheer enveloping scope of the tr
and-a-half-foot screen. The second is te
as wraparound as Cinerama, in fact pred
more, scholars see Napoléon as a clearing
niques (Gance wasn't known as the Fren
tend to be especially overwhelmed by hi
handheld, sometimes suspended by w
horses, pendulums, or, we're told, dancer

5. Pandoras Box ( G . W. Pabst, 1929). B y th
director who, along with Murnau and L
heard of. Not Pabst's most famous movie
his bastardization of Brecht s The Threepe
schaft, about German miners who rescu
your best investment. For one thing, it'l
Alban Berg opera Lulu, all about sex and
afford you the chance to watch American
thing as Lulu. The movie goes on forever
her fifth or sixth mate, praying-mantis-st
London, meets her match in Jack the R
high-perversity moments along the way
sexual sophisticates satisfied.

6. The Blue Angel (Josef von Sternberg, 1930
of how cabaret queen Lola Frohlich (M
"Falling in Love Again" several times
mascara, transforms poor, respectable Pr
into a whimpering clown given to doing
of an audience of vindictive former pupils
esting insight or two into the frenzy and
many; will certainly acquaint you with t
the visual bravura; the aspirations toward
ture; the all-in-the-same-breath preoccu
and, of course, with Dietrich, whom
brought to Hollywood and directed in a
veils, nets, fog, and smoke. After their co
mid-Thirties, von Sternberg ceased to c
sonal legend, the mastery of cinematic ill
commitment to languor and decadence a

FILM

Napoléon vu par Abel Gance).
, when the original seven-hour
lso, the highlight of the 1981
kingly reconstituted four-hour
ow, egged on by Francis Ford
sic Hall. You're up against two
,000 extras and 150 sets to the
apoleon and director Gance,
ripartite, fifty-foot-by-twelve-
echnology. Gance's Polyvision,
dates it by thirty years. What's
ghouse for silent-screen tech­
nch Griffith for nothing) and
s moving cameras, sometimes
wires, sometimes strapped to
rs' bellies.

he other Golden Age German
Lang, you maybe should have
e (that would be Joyless Street or
enny Opera or maybe Kamerad-
ue French ones), but probably
l prepare you for the big-deal
d parasitism. For another, it'll
n actress Louise Brooks do her

before Lulu, having devoured
tyle, and now down and out in
Ripper; but there are enough

to keep most of us latter-day

0). Perverse, psychoerotic saga
Marlene Dietrich), who sings
s a night and spits into her
rofessor Rath (Emil Jannings)

his chicken imitation in front
s. May give you another inter­
d murkiness of Twenties Ger­
he von Sternberg mystique—
d high art and European cul­
pation with glitter and gutter;
von Sternberg subsequently
a string of cult classics full of
ollaboration petered out in the
count for much, but the per­
lusion and sexual delusion, the
at a time when other directors

g* AN I N C O M P L E T E

Showgirl (Marlene
Dietrich) ensnares
educator (Emil
Jannings) in
The Blue Angel

were trying to say so
classic status.

7. Earth (Aleksandr Do
the Russian country
Dovzhenko, the third
illustrious colleagues
taught himself film
predilection for the
His movie world has
(in title cards, of co
eyes, and animals wh
revolutionary spirit. I
ture, life, death, child
tivized. Unfortunately
into a tractor's radiat
from the foreign-rele

EDUCATION

omething meaningful about society, vouchsafe him
ovzhenko, 1930). For those desiring a glimpse of
yside beyond what they got in Dr. Zhivago.
d genius of Soviet silent film, stands apart from his
s: The son of an illiterate Ukranian peasant, he
mmaking, didn't choose to theorize, and had a
folkways, nicely blended with poetry and satire.
less to do with montage than with horses that talk
ourse), paintings of military heroes that roll their
ho, as one critic notes, sniff the air and smell the
In Earth, his masterpiece, one's confronted by na­
dbirth, and a farm in the process of being collec­
y, the shot in which a group of peasants urinate
tor to keep it from boiling over has been removed
ease prints.

8. Le Million (René Clair, 1931). Breezy, fl
Lothario who leaves winning lottery tick
subsequently lent by softhearted girlfrien
pens to run secondhand clothing store on
chased by touring Metropolitan Opera
(and all his friends) winds up on stage at t
back to the hero's garret for an # V^-style
where between ballet and puppet theater
first in which the music really carries the
mensely likable; it's also the prototype fo
at the Opera. Watch what you say about C
ther of the talking picture and considered
recently as thirty years ago, he's now writ
who relied too much on special effects.

9. Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 193
well (in a sentence, male-female pair of
aristocrats, set up French perfume heire
pointingly second-order (Herbert Mars
Francis). But you'll find out, in no tim
touches" are: the "dry sparkle" of languag

FILM

irtatious tale of Parisian artist
ket in pocket of sports jacket,
nd to passing thief, who hap­
n the side, where jacket is pur­

tenor. Somehow, everybody
the opera that night, then goes
snake dance. Stylized (some­
r) and a musical (perhaps the
story forward), Million is im­
or the Marx Brothers' A Night
Clair, though. A founding fa­
d a paragon of levity and wit as
tten off by many as a fluffhead

32). The plot doesn't recount
jewel thieves, impersonating
ess) and the stars are disap­

shall, Miriam Hopkins, Kay
me flat, what those "Lubitsch

ge and sexuality; the "artless"

Jewel thieves
(Herbert Marshall
and Miriam
Hopkins, rightj
ensnare perfume
heiress (Kay
Francis) in
Trouble in
Paradise

i8o AN I N C O M P L E T E

wit, visual and other
polish, the perfection
with sex and money;
"the least Germanic
manic") was also the
Europe whom it did
case of Murnau, send
talkies, he pioneered
cal, adapted himself
performances out of
flowing.

10. Zéro de Conduite and
one selection: The r
only forty-five minu
you'll have seen Vigo
those poetic rebel typ
James Dean, he de
goose pimples; after
golden age of French
in a boys' boarding s
lently antiestablishm
in 1933 (during whi
Today's critics like t
boys' school pictures
Anderson's If. .. L'A
to adjust to life toget
commercial affair, ad
up with a Man and a
imaginative, iconocla

11. Triumph of the Will (
ordered by Hitler hi
Nuremberg in 1934
his airplane over the
the clouds and subse
Nazi soldiers, who m
Brown Shirts and B
Heilf-'mg the next; n
some drilling of the
know for sure whet
dancer-skier-actress
his political conventi
shrined as one of th
truly creative woman
work in the medium

E EDUCATION

rwise; the "moderne" period sense; the ellipsis, the
nism; the total grasp of Americans' preoccupation
; the caress. Lubitsch (according to Andrew Sarris,
of German directors as Lang was the most Ger-
only silent-era director Hollywood imported from
dn't wind up disappointing, defeating, or, as in the
ding home for burial. Gliding easily from silents to

the cinematic, as opposed to the theatrical, musi-
f to Hollywood business ways, coaxed intelligent
empty Hollywood heads, and kept the champagne

L'Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1933 and 1934). Counts as
revival houses always show them together (Zéro is
utes long); besides, having seen the two of them,
o, who died when he was only twenty-nine. One of
pes, constantly being compared with Rimbaud and
efies categorization and gives the avant-gardiste
r Renoir, he's the single biggest deal in the first
h filmmaking. Zéro, a study of revolt and freedom
school, is alternately real and surreal, and so viru-
ment that it was banned, from the critics' screenings
ch fistfights broke out) until after the Liberation.
to note the debts owed to it by such subsequent

as Truffaut's The Four Hundred Blows and Lindsay
Atalante, about a couple of newlyweds attempting
ther on his river barge, is a less experimental, more
dapted from somebody else's screenplay and tarted
a Woman-type theme song, but it's still pure Vigo:
astic, clearheaded.

(Leni Riefenstahl, 1936). T h e official film record,
imself, of the sixth Nazi Party Congress, held in
. T h e prologue has the Fùhrer en route, flying in
e waiting city, then descending Messiah-like out of
equently marching blithely by tens of thousands of
might as well be soldier ants. Torchlight parades;
Black Shirts, listening transfixed one minute, Sieg
naked-from-the-waist-up Hitler Jugend; speeches;
e troops; even dinnertime. O f course we'll never
ther Hitler really had a crush on the red-haired
to whom he encharged the making of movies on
ions and on the 1936 Olympics, but she stands en-
he few truly creative types (and virtually the only
n type, everyone but Susan Sontag seems agreed) to
m.

12. Henry V (Laurence Olivier, 1944). T h e f
films he directed and starred in (the o
Richard III, 1956); the first time Shake
good movie; and the first sign from Eng
and the documentarists—that that count
to the art of the sound film. What's in
sheer gloss on the enterprise, from its un
get through the Olivier screen presence
that Grace Jones would be proud to hav
enchantment of the movie's structure, wh
ing over a model of early-seventeenth-c
hexagonal Globe Theatre, where, get th
of The Chronicle Historié of Henry the Fi
Finally, there's the play itself: You get a fr
204) and its "Once more unto the breach
we happy few, we band of brothers" sp
you're not going to recognize anybody in
Gielgud, no Richardson, etc.). And you
Britain, as audiences felt they were when
lump in the throat or a surge of feeling i
a better chance of acquiring it at the Ken
Braveheart.

13. Les Enfants du Paradis (Marcel Carné, 1
Paradise). A lot of movie: sumptuous
Balzac; six central characters (most notab
by Jean-Louis Barrault; the ham actor
Brasseur; and the courtesan Garance, wh
the legendary Arletty); two distinct acts;
is-art, play-within-a-play-within-a-movi
ning time of three hours and fifteen m
"literary," deliberately old-fashioned style
fatalistic spectacle or you side with Truf
next page) and wonder how a director, sti
ing out loud, could make such a reactiona
Whichever, Enfants is an eyeful, concoc
screenwriter Jacques Prévert, one of the m
collaborators ever.

FILM

first of the trio of Shakespeare
others are Hamlet, 1948, and
espeare was ever made into a
gland—apart from Hitchcock
try could bring anything at all
n it for you? Well, there's the
nprecedented $2 million bud­

(in this case, under a haircut
ve come up with). There's the
hich features a camera travel­
century London, on into the
his, the premiere performance
ifth is just getting under way.
ree crack at Henry F (see page
h, dear friends" and "We few,
peeches. On the other hand,
n the cast besides Olivier (no
u aren't fighting the Battle of
n the movie first came out; if a
is what you're after, you stand
nneth Branagh version—or at

945; English title, Children of
sets re-creating the Paris of
bly the mime Baptiste, played
r Lemaître, played by Pierre
hom they both love, played by
a whole set of art-is-life, life-
ie undercurrents; and a run­
minutes. Either you love the
e of this superromantic, super-
ffaut and the New Wave (see
ill in his early thirties, for cry­
ary, pretentious piece of crap.
cted by Carné and the poet/
most celebrated pairs of screen