This Week in Cinema, I Learned…Aug 11-17 2024
Written by Cameron Geiser
Welcome to This Week in Cinema, a yearlong film criticism project wherein I will be watching a new film that I haven't seen every single day.
This week the focus shifts from the more classical filmmakers from the first half of the twentieth century to the flashier, more genre oriented directors of the second half of the century. Well, except for the last film of the week. I simply had to include Howard Hawks into the month, after mulling it over he had far too many classics under his belt to not include him. Hawks’ filmography was wide ranging in style and genre. He had the Noir hit starring Humphrey Bogart with The Big Sleep (1946), the Western team-up co-starring John Wayne and Dean Martin in Rio Bravo, The Marilyn Monroe starring Musical-Comedy Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and even The Thing From Another World- a sci-fi B-movie in the monster of the week variety. Which brings me to the first director of the week, John Carpenter, who famously remade Hawks’ Thing and transformed his version into the stuff of nightmares in 1982.
The film from Carpenter this week was one of the only films left in his oeuvre that I hadn't yet seen, a pulpy campfire ghost story called The Fog. Next up is Martin Scorsese and I finally had to knock out one of his most famous films, Taxi Driver. Quentin Tarantino is next in the queue with the underappreciated Jackie Brown, the final film of his that I had not yet laid eyes on. Spielberg, my favorite filmmaker (it is what it is, my friends), had a few films that I missed over the years and a big one was War Horse, secretly Steven’s World War One film, just through the eyes of a horse. The last two films were from Kenji Misumi and David Lynch. Misumi simply HAD to be included in the month's tribute to the masters of cinema because the famed Japanese Chanbara sword fighting filmmaker has crafted some of the most insane and beautiful films within Samurai cinema. His films in the Zato-Ichi franchise are some of the best of the twenty-five plus titles, not to mention the hyper violent six film series Lone Wolf and Cub.
However, Kenji Misumi's film here is a strange Kaiju monster movie called The Return of Daimajin- it's also, oddly, a period piece. David Lynch's entry was a documentary detailing how he goes about walking the path of an Artist and his various creative processes. Which was an odd tonal shift with The Return of Daimajin beforehand and His Girl Friday as the follow up! Next week's films are a continuation of this idea of examining the back half of the twentieth century's filmmakers.
August 11th
The Fog (1980)
3.5/5
A small coastal town is about to celebrate their 100 year anniversary, but when the victims of the crime that founded the town rise from the sea to claim retribution in a ghostly fog- the citizens fight to survive the night! Sounds like a campfire ghost story, right? Well that's because John Carpenter's The Fog is just that. Acting like the successor of a blend between Jaws, The Shining, and Carpenter's own Halloween in that sweaty panicky sorta way, The Fog effectively crafts creepy supernatural ongoings with its own unique aesthetic. With a hearty cast including the mother daughter pairing of Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis, The Fog may not transcend its genre trappings, but it certainly wears them well!
August 12th
Taxi Driver (1976)
4/5
Written by Paul Schrader but directed by Martin Scorsese, Taxi Driver is a 1970s tale of isolation, toxic masculinity, idealized manhood, and gender relations through the prism of lead character Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) in New York City. Travis leads a solitary life as an insomniac Cabbie that works the streets in that obsessive work grind vibe. I was struck by the jazzy, almost romantic, and dreamlike score that accompanied most of the movie, though it certainly changes once Travis' mental health and non-existent social life take a downfall. After some miscommunication with a young woman in politics, Betsy (Cybill Shepherd), Travis spirals into deranged delusions of grandeur as he makes an unrealized attempt at assassinating a politician before focusing his obsessive mind on saving Iris (Jodie Foster) a child prostitute from the grips of her pimp played by Harvey Keitel. Once Travis barrels into Iris' brothel to shoot Keitel’s gangly gangster the pot boils over and the tension of the film finally erupts into some truly grisly violence. Taxi Driver was a thrilling character study, it's certainly worth checking out.
August 13th
Jackie Brown (1997)
4/5
Speaking of sudden grisly violence, we've got Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown up next. Though to expect an abundance of grisly violence from this film would be setting you up for disappointment. No, Jackie Brown is cruising at a much more relaxed pace with Noir adjacent tendencies sprinkled throughout the screenplay. The titular Jackie Brown is played exquisitely by Pam Grier, with a delightfully romantic undertone between her and bail bondsman Max Cherry (Robert Forster). Jackie Brown, a flight attendant, ends up getting caught while smuggling money from Mexico to California early on in the film. She's caught in between the cops played by Michael Keaton and Michael Bowen and the gun running gangsters played by Samuel L. Jackson and Robert De Niro. So with Max's help Jackie devises a plan to steal the money for herself by setting the cops and criminals against each other in a rather Noir-ish style of mystery. Like a more relaxed version of Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino's third feature, and the only adaptation in his oeuvre, is a rollicking good time!
August 14th
War Horse (2011)
4.5/5
I remember when War Horse came out over a decade ago and I immediately dismissed the idea that following a Horse through a War would make for an inherently cheesy and overly schmaltzy film. While there are moments of that “Awe Shucks” tone, it is only because Spielberg is playing off of those early color films with the golden hues and an overtly optimistic tone. To be fair, that really only bookends the film as the Horse journeys through the war and from both sides of the battles. There’s one long shot in which the Horse breaks away from his bearings and races through the trenches amidst soaring music and breathtaking cinematography. It felt like the lynchpin of the whole film, as the Horse witnesses both cruelty and humility from humans towards each other, other animals, and to the land itself.
As it happens the Horse changes hands several times throughout the story eventually circling back to the same farm from the beginning, but in that time not every handler made it out alive. There were several thrilling battle sequences over the course of the film, and perhaps the most touching period was when the Horse got caught in a tangle of barbed wire and two soldiers, one British, one German, crossed into No Man’s Land to help free the animal. It was a surprisingly great film, and one that I wish I hadn’t ignored until now, but alas c'est la vie.
August 15th
The Return of Daimajin (1966)
3.5/5
Since I’ve seen so many of Kenji Misumi’s Samurai cinema already, I wanted to include him somehow, but wasn’t sure how to approach the remaining films he had made. That is, until I realized that he made a Kaiju movie about a giant statue that protects its parishioners once a rival clan decides to dominate and pillage their neighbors. There’s a lot of strife and struggle between the two groups over the course of the movie resulting in a fair amount of sword fighting action, an oddity for the monster movie sub-genre. Especially odd since it is also a period piece, which is another fun deviation from the norm. Kenji Misumi brings style, good pacing, and a bit of flair in the production value to this film- but it is lacking overall when compared to his other legendary works. There’s also the fact that we only get brief glimpses of the statue threatening to do something about all of this sacrilegious nonsense going on for most of the runtime. Eventually Daimajin does awaken and wreck house in the name of justice, but it’s only within the last fifteen minutes of the movie. So, do with that what you will, it was a fun and unique monster movie, but it’s not Misumi’s best work either.
August 16th
David Lynch: The Art Life (2016)
3.5/5
This documentary was a rather fascinating deep dive into David Lynch’s personal techniques and methods he has used in his life as a filmmaker and artist. The doc follows Lynch around his house recording twenty conversations about his life pre-hollywood and how he finds inspiration from his memories and dreams. If you’re a fan of his work this is all very fascinating stuff, however, I had also read the book Room to Dream, which was written by both Kristine McKenna and David Lynch himself. It’s a mesmerizing read that I highly recommend, not only because it is unique as McKenna would write a chapter about Lynch’s life in a biography format, and the following chapter would be written by Lynch himself responding to the previous chapter, expanding upon certain events or ideas. Thus a lot of these stories, conversations, and ideas I had already read about previously, which wasn’t necessarily bad- just a road I’d already walked down before. I do recommend both the book Room to Dream and the documentary David Lynch: The Art Life though, they dole out more information about the famously elusive director than I would have expected.
August 17th
His Girl Friday (1940)
4.5/5
This film would make for a terrific double feature with Ace in The Hole as a double billed satire of morally scrupulous journalists that will do anything for the scoop. Howard Hawks crafted the quintessential screwball romantic comedy with His Girl Friday. Walter (Cary Grant), the head of a prolific Newspaper, and Hildy (Rosalind Russell), previously a top investigative journalist at Walter’s Newspaper, were former lovers that collide once more when Hildy returns to inform Walter that she’s engaged and is leaving the Newspaper business for good. This new information goads Walter into frantically plotting to keep Hildy around by cloyingly dropping tidbits of information to her of a sensational news story opportunity. Hildy just wanted to inform her ex-husband of her intentions to lead a new life but gets spun around and manipulated by Walter in his manic Tex Avery cartoon manner.
Walter makes a deal with Hildy that he’ll sign up for a hefty insurance policy with her dopey fiancé, Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy) if she does one last story for the paper. She interviews a cop-killer that clearly should have been given the insanity plea, but once details start to emerge that suspect may actually be innocent Hildy’s ace-reporter instincts take over and she gets dragged back into the newspaper world. The rapid-fire dialogue with whip-smart jabs and subtleties that reveal character details was especially appreciated. While the cinematography, editing, sound, lighting, and production design was all commendable and efficient- His Girl Friday is without a doubt a movie about the performances of the two leads above all else. Rosalind Russell owned this movie, her performance was nuanced, powerful, big and yet humanistic where humility and frustration shined through the bravado and sass.
Cary Grant was incredible, but his character was as overwhelming and all encompassing as possible. It felt as though he was the antagonist of the film, and in a way- he’d won by the film’s end. For a film that came out in 1940, I’m amazed the character of Hildy was as charming, brash, and independent as she was- she’s the real reason to watch this one folks!
Cameron Geiser is an avid consumer of films and books about filmmakers. He'll watch any film at least once, and can usually be spotted at the annual Traverse City Film Festival in Northern Michigan. He also writes about film over at www.spacecortezwrites.com.