Essential Cinema - 2

The Night of the Generals

ACTORS
Peter O'Toole
Omar Sharif
Tom Courtenay
Donald Pleasence
Joanna Petite
Charles Gray
Christopher Plummer

DIRECTOR
Anatole Litvak

SCREENPLAY
Joseph Kessel and Paul Dehn

CINEMATOGRAPHER
Henri Decae


SYNOPSIS:
The murder of a polish prostitute in WWII Warsaw is traced to one of three Nazi Generals. A Nazi Intelligence Officer takes it upon himself to determine who the killer is.


CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER:
There is something sexual and masochistic about Nazi regalia and the totalitarian aspect of Nazi occupation. As if a perverse and sadistic veil has fallen over society. These are Nazi Generals as tragic Shakespearean figures, caught in a web of power and deceit. This is war at the Board Room level, not in the trenches. Ego and power are at odds here, not tanks and planes. The major characters are all stereo types, the timid alcoholic, the anal retentive - closet homosexual, the manipulating power usurper, the truth seeking subordinate. This story could be placed in any setting where men wield great power, have no oversight and are burdened with dark unknowable secrets.


PROS AND CONS
There is something about Peter O'Toole playing a mad Nazi general that is fascinating, and he does it pretty well. The cinematography is better than you would expect when viewed in its wide screen format. The plot does not have any confusing or misleading twists or turns and you can figure out the ending about 2/3 of the way through the film.

I am a stickler for accuracy in historic period pieces and this film does not get high marks in that regard. The vehicles are often times incorrect for the time, and none of the German officers even speak with a German accent, much less actually speak German. And it was a stretch to believe Omar Sharif as a German officer. But most of this can be overlooked by the fact that most of the players are first rate actors, and can pull off just about anything on film. Speaking of stretch, this film is over 2 hours long and probably could have benefited from a bit of editing. Overall an interesting work on the concept of power and secrets and how one can mask the other.

The Artist

Stained Glass


I didn't know in the beginning
It all seemed scattered
No real structure
Paint cans and brushes

She changes her mind
So did Leonardo
and Michaelangelo
Painting over the mistakes

She never had the opportunity
Past lives, past loves
Repressed her
Like a seedling underfoot

When she realized
she had been released
She grew slowly
Took small steps

She transformed
a broken pipe
and shattered concrete
into a marble hall.

Bare windows
overlooking an alley
became Notre Dame
or a field of roses

Brick by brick
she rebuilt a house
with paint
and stencil

She wipes out the past
makes a new future
where beautiful things
cover the ugly

When someone this old
becomes a child again
it is a wonderful thing
to behold

Essential Cinema - 1

FAIL-SAFE

ACTORS:
Dan O'Herlihy
Walter Matthau
Frank Overton
Ed Binns
Fritz Weaver
Henry Fonda
Larry Hagman


DIRECTOR
Sidney Lumet


SCREENPLAY
Walter Bernstein


CINEMATOGRAPHER
Gerald Hirschfeld A.S.C.


SYNOPSIS
A squadron of nuclear armed bombers is accidentally sent to destroy Moscow. The film centers around the deliberations of the politicians and military officers as they attempt to control the crisis and its potential ramifications.


CONCEPT IN RELATION TO THE VIEWER
Hard to envision in this day and age, but this film played toward the paranoia fostered by the cold war and the military industrial complex in the United States during the early 1960s. Taking the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) to its limit. The film is dark and intense, with a minimum of special effects or military imagery. The age old struggle of good and evil, right and wrong, redemption and the ego are in full force here. The underlying message is one of technology getting away from its human controllers.


PROS AND CONS
The film is well done and an acting tour de force for some of the cast. Henry Fonda, as the president, is a cross between Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. Larry Hagman (before I Dream of Jeannie and Dallas) shows that he was a capable actor as the presidential translator. The Oscar here would have to go to Walter Matthau as the serious and calculating foreign policy professor who only sees opportunity in the incident and backs up his optimism with cool logic and projected death counts.

When it came out in the 60s, this film was considered subversive and anti-American for its portrayal of a military industrial system that had failed. It spread fear through the population that a nuclear attack could be considered an accident. As a backlash, Stanley Kubrick created the film "Dr. Strangelove" as a farcical black comedy with the same theme. All in all, a fascinating glimpse into a world that the youth of today (those under 30) have little understanding of. Back then, we were our own worst enemy and afraid of our own shadow.

Essential Cinema

Hurray for Hollywood (land)


I have this huge collection of film. Most of it is on LaserDisc, but there are other sources as well. Recently, I have been burning a lot of film to DVD from HBO and Turner Classic Movies (TCM).

I am not a big fan of the current crop of film from Hollywood. Ever since the expansion of mass media such as cable, satellite, VHS, DVD, Blockbuster and Netflix, films have become more of an everyday distraction and are no longer the hand crafted pieces of art that they once used to be.

In my ongoing attempt to not rail against the system but instead try and improve it (in some small way), I will be lighting this candle instead of cursing the darkness.

In an upcoming series of blogs called "Essential Cinema" I will be reviewing films. Not the new films that you pay $9 to see at your local multi-plex. These are films I have collected either because I know they are good, or because I am curious to see if they are good. Some I have seen numerous times, and some I haven't seen at all. But it is time to start sifting through the coal pile to find the diamonds in the rough.

I have learned from reading reviews by some friends on MySpace that it is best not to be long winded and over detailed about anything that you critic. So rest assured, these will be short blogs, direct and to the point. Hope you find them helpful.

Pump You Up!

Feel the burn...


I was watching some old Government films from the 1940s last week. I downloaded them from the Internet. You won't find these on any other media outlet like cable television or Blockbuster. No one watches them and quite frankly, no one wants you to. They show an America that doesn't exist anymore and it also shows things that they don't want you to know ever existed. The races were segregated, the government was all controlling and there wasn't any poverty or descent. It was a perfect world...on the surface. (See my other thoughts on our changing past in the blog Revisionist History.)

One of these short films celebrated the 1940 4th of July. It splashed a graphic across the screen to the sound of John Phillip Sousa.

Enjoy America, Land of the Free, Home of "Fair Play".

It sort of dawned on me, that "Home of the Brave" probably didn't come into vogue until after we whupped some ass in World War II. But it also sank in that this really wasn't the land of 'Fair Play' anymore.

While we still preach this ethic to our children and discuss it at cocktail parties, the truth is, no one plays fair anymore. You are considered a moron if you do. We preach safe sex and abstinence but the number of on-line prostitutes and clergymen groping little boys isn't diminishing. We continue to endorse the concept of American democracy, but even Republicans will tell you that George Bush 'bought' the White House, twice. (Read more of my ranting on this in the blog Don't Vote.)

Over the past few months we have been hit with this 1...2...3 punch of steroid / doping scandals. Barry Bonds is about to break the all time home run record in baseball, but should it really count? The Tour de France has seen leader after leader stripped of the Yellow Jersey and thrown off the tour for doping. Where I live there is a 'Federal' investigation of whether or not local Police and Firemen have been using illegal steroids. A pro-Wrestler (is there really such a thing?) goes into a psychotic rage after taking 5 times the recommended steroid dosage for over 6 months and murders his family over the weekend.

We still mouth the words that these people are 'cheating' and that this is a shameful thing to do.

Hold on a minute.

Is it?

In this society winning is everything. Sports, Business, Politics....are things we win at. We don't even give the losers a footnote. I can't even recall the name of the last person that lost the governors race in this state.

When you played baseball in the 1930s, it was for the love of the game and the fact that you could make a 'living' at it instead of working. You didn't have to grow up, you could be a kid until you were 30. Now, the 30 year olds are making over $50 million dollars a year. That is a bit more of a living than most of us make.

If the difference between being a minor league player who makes $35,000 a year and a Major League player that makes $135,000 a years is a needle with some testosterone in it, wouldn't you do it? Or would you settle for letting your kids go to public school and drive a beat up Volkswagen, instead of the Lexus?

If I call the police because there are three drunken transients sleeping in my back yard, I don't want Police Officer Limpet showing up in a squad car. I want the Incredible Hulk showing up with his buddies The Thing and Spiderman.

If I could pay $1500 for a pill that guaranteed me a 27% pay raise within the next year, would I be whipping out my credit card?

"Wait", the angel on my right shoulder is telling me the pill is illegal!

"After you swallow it, who is going to know?" says the little devil on my left shoulder.

Here, you take Visa, right?

Whether surviving in your job or excelling in your job performance, we are all looking for any edge we can get. Training and hard work is only going to get you so far.

I learned this in college. During my freshman year, I went out for the crew (rowing) team and made it. I worked out three times a day, ate right, ran 5 miles to the docks and back for practice. But regardless of how hard I worked out, there were other guys on the team that seldom worked out and had muscle mass twice mine. They didn't take steroids (we didn't have them back in the 70s). They were just luckier genetically. They were always going to be stronger or quicker than me. It was the luck of the draw. If I were going up against my old crew-mates in the real world, I know I could never beat them.....but with the little golden syringe I might stand a chance.

This is what any cop is going to think while driving through gang-land. That is what every second string corner-back thinks while trying to stay on the squad. The pressures on our society have made this a reality. Anything to get a head is acceptable. Playing fair and loosing, is just loosing. There really isn't any 'love of the game' anymore.

We have turned a corner in our evolution and are no longer willing to let nature make the decisions. The luck of the draw only gets you so far, best to have an ace up your sleeve. Or better yet....12 aces.

In our future, the young people of today will have a new concept of self worth and success. Breasts not big enough? get them enlarged! To fat?, gastric bypass! Not strong enough?, take this drug! Not smart enough....smoke this! Can't keep it up....try this little blue pill! Want to father a son instead of a daughter, rub this on your skin!....you want your boy to have blue eyes?, that will be another $100!!! (I have first hand knowledge of this, read my blog Scenes from a Marriage - Part 2 to find out why.)

Steroids, body enhancement, the human genome project, stem cell research, hair implants, botox, they are already here. The government might try and regulate them on 'moral' grounds, but that just means the research will be pushed off shore, where monetary gain has more sway than religious dogma.

Think of the ramifications. If you can choose the sex of your child, how many daughters will be born in India and China where women are considered second class citizens? If your enemy is twice as fast and twice as strong as your army, wouldn't you slip some human growth hormone into your troops k-rations? If a better figure, gets the handsome rich husband, isn't it a good investment?

We have moved past Darwin and Natural Selection. We are charting our own evolution into the future, without a compass. The coming master race won't be bred by the government. It will be created by those that have the money and the will to afford it. Barry Bonds isn't the cheater of the century, he is one of the pioneers of the new genetic age.

Motel 666

B&B, Wildwood, New Jersey


It is all the same. One world, where everything is the same. I am certain that sometime before I die, I will be able to step off an airliner in Hong Kong or Rio De Janeiro and walk into a McDonald's or a Wal-Mart or a Walgreen's and buy a Big Mac and some Tylenol. 7-11 and Circle K will be the one stop shop for everything, everywhere. The homogeneous society, where they tell us we have choices, but in reality we don't. Choosing between Motel 6 and Best Western really isn't a choice. Circle K and 7-11 both sell the same thing, the only difference being Coke or Pepsi. (Does anyone else actually recall a time when 7-11 was actually open from 7am to 11pm? That is where their name comes from.)

My wife and I have been bucking this trend. We go out looking for those remnants of Americana that haven't been swallowed up by corporate America. Sadly, they are getting harder and harder to find where we live. We have to travel quite a ways from our home to get back to our roots.

When we are on vacation we have some rules. We can't stay at chain motels and we can't eat fast food. If we did, it would be no different than staying home and walking down the street. So we hunt for the out-of-the-way places in hopes of finding the people and culture that are never reported on the nightly news. One of the ways we do this is to stay at Bed & Breakfast Inn's. There is a whole sub-culture of these across America.

We have stayed at several in the past few years. They are all interesting in their own way. Some are grand and grandiose and some are small and un-assuming. They usually have rather eclectic owners. Most of the people that run these places are feed up with the rat-race. They were once professionals (lawyers, engineers, business owners, CEOs) that finally came to the realization that their lives were going no where. They wanted to re-focus on something else in their latter years. They sold everything they had, liquidated half their stock portfolios and bought an old mansion in a remote unspoiled corner of the world. They fixed it up and started to take in overnight boarders. They all seemed to be a pretty happy lot. None of them appeared to be very stressed out in life. But they told stories of being depressed before making the jump.

On our vacation to the Jersey shore in July, 2007, we stayed at one such place. It was in the town of Wildwood in South New Jersey. A small town by the beach, whose only source of income seemed to be the beach and an elaborate Boardwalk that ran up and down it. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast run by a petite 40 year old woman named Pam. She stood all of 5 foot high, was very bubbly and talked with a slight New York / Jersey accent.

We slept in the upstairs bedroom of her large 1940s home that was about 3 blocks from the shore. There were three other bedrooms that were occupied during the weekend with other boarders. It was a full house. Pam had a menagerie of pets living in the home. A cat and two uncaged parakeets that lived in one room, a large African gray parrot named Bob that hung out on the front porch and a small short hair Chihuahua named Margaret that basically ran the house and had to approve of everyone that stayed there.

On our last night at Pam's Bed & Breakfast, I was laying on the bed, sipping some wine from a paper cup and watching the evening news. We wanted to see how hot it was back in Phoenix. It was 70 in Jersey, 110 in Arizona. As I shifted on the bed I spilled some of the wine on the bed spread. Red wine on white cotton doesn't go to well together.

I went downstairs and found Pam to tell her about the accident and she came up, got the bedspread and hauled it to the kitchen to try and get the stain out before is set in. To say we were embarrassed about the whole thing was an understatement. It was a nice bedspread.

About 20 minutes later Pam came knocking on our door to tell us that the stain was history and thanked us for telling her about it. In the past, guests had done the same thing and 'hidden' the accident until they were gone, making it impossible to fix the problem. Margaret the dog had followed her upstairs (she followed Pam pretty much everywhere) and jumped up on the bed where I was sitting. I started to wrestle with Margaret and she became the typical playful dog, chasing my hand as I moved it under the sheets. My wife, Pam, Margaret and I sat on the bed for about 20 minutes swapping stories about other Bed & Breakfasts, New Jersey, Arizona and our pets.

This is the sort of Americana that my wife and I are always amazed to find. I can't imagine a Motel 6 where you could ruin a bedspread, and have the owner sitting on your bed a half hour later chatting away while you played with their dog. I can't be sure, but doubt this happens at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas very often.

Cultural Diversification

Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


My wife and I went on vacation during the first part of July, 2007. We flew from Phoenix, Arizona to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania so my wife could complete one of her life long projects. We both have "lists" of things we want to do in life and this was her chance to complete one of them. If you want to see what it was, the video is here.



Fairmont Park, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


My wife and I do this sort of thing a lot. We go someplace off the beaten path and find things. Sometimes wondrous things, sometimes just odd things. It is always an adventure and we sometimes come back scratching our heads regarding what we have experienced. We usually come back with a different perspective on our lives.

The more we travel, the more we come to realize that Phoenix, Arizona is an odd place. It is a boom-town. It has grown up really fast, and culturally it doesn't have a lot going for it. It is a place where people come (by the thousands each day) to start a life and make money. There are very few 'natives' here. They have all come from somewhere else. You might think that this would give Phoenix a 'melting pot' sort of feel. But it doesn't. The weather here is so hot and the landscape so barren, that most people spend their time in air conditioned buildings or their automobiles. There isn't a lot of social interaction here.

Which is why Philadelphia was such a shock for us. By leaving Arizona and traveling to a place that we had never been before, we once again realized just how far from the 'norm' Phoenix is. In case you haven't seen how diverse our culture is in America, here are a few of our observations.



Fairmont Park Tunnel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


Lawyer Ads: There aren't any lawyer ads in Philadelphia or New Jersey. We saw one or two, but they were hardly noticeable. Lawyers compete for advertising space at intersections here in Arizona. At any given time there are over 400 billboards for accident / injury attorneys in Phoenix. They also advertise on the sides of buses and on the back of phone books here. I guess Phoenix is a sue happy place. Philadelphia must be a bit more civil.

Hummers: There weren't any Hummers in Pennsylvania. They are the preferred mode of transportation in Arizona and are a status symbol here. I think I counted 3 in our vacation to Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I suppose that looking really intimidating while getting 8 miles per gallon isn't considered cool back East.



Spring House Roof, Morris Arboretum, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania


Parallel Parking: We don't have it in Arizona. All the streets here are as wide as football fields and there isn't any need for it. For the old streets of Philadelphia, that were laid out for buggies in the 1850s, it is another story.

Tall Houses: I mean really tall houses in Philadelphia. I guess this is a matter of zoning and needing more space. Here in Arizona, all the houses are one story. Every dwelling here is done in a ranch style motif that is low and wide. Back east, the minimum seemed to be three stories with a basement. I guess that folks are healthier on the Atlantic Seaboard because they walk up and down so many flights of stairs.

Coffee in Saucers with Sugar: This may seem strange, but you don't get that in the West. If you order coffee here, it either comes in a large Styrofoam cup that you pour yourself or in a mug with a little tray of white / blue and pink packets, corresponding to your preferred type of sweetener. In Philly, you get a 'cup' of coffee on a little saucer and you can have sugar with it. If you ask for 'Equal' or 'Splenda', they look at you funny and think you are speaking a foreign language.



Old City Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


Roads: Except for the main streets in the older towns, there aren't any straight roadways in Philadelphia or New Jersey. The streets all conform to the contour of the land and meander through woods and over creeks. There also seem to be stop lights about ever 50 yards in the cities. It is pretty much impossible to get over 35mph before having to round a sharp corner or stop for red light. Conversely, here in Phoenix, the roads are all straight, 50 yards wide and there are stoplights somewhere out there on the horizon. It is a drag race to get to the next major intersection every time a light turns green here. NASCAR is really big out here ya know.

Shopping: There were no Wal-Marts or Costcos back East. I suppose that it has to do with no large plots of land zoned for commercial use being available back there. Everything, and I mean everything was sold through small mom & pop operations. Everything was at the local level with very little corporate involvement. You have to know your grocer, since he is the only one for 10 miles in any direction. Out here in Arizona, we shop at huge mega-malls and buy everything in bulk, from toilet paper to coffee, then stuff it in our Hummers.

Infrastructure: There is massive infrastructure back East. Bridges, rail systems, huge public buildings, docks, seaports and airports. We have infrastructure in Arizona as well, but it is all new and you can tell it won't last more than 20 years before it starts to fall apart and has to be rebuilt. The bridges in Philadelphia were all massive things made of stone that looked like they had been there since the time of the Druids. They had become part of the landscape and melded with it. They are heavy, ornate and indestructible. Everything in Arizona is basically disposable.



Sue, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


Murals: As referenced before, there are a lot of tall building back East. Since you can't move out, the only place left to go is up. This means a lot of tall walls with no windows on some buildings. Easterners see these as blank canvas and there are murals everywhere in Philadelphia. I mean everywhere. In places that you would never see them unless you went looking for them. I am not talking crappy graffiti murals either. We are talking public art on a grand scale. Something that is totally absent out here in the Southwest. Public art was the norm back East.....it does not exist here in Phoenix. Interestingly enough, almost none of this public art was ever defaced or spray painted either. Most art in Phoenix has to be designed to be 'vandal proof' or surrounded by a fence.

White Puffy Clouds: It may seem weird, but we don't have these in the desert. We have high wispy clouds or massive thunderheads that explode from heat and humidity and then disappear. Back east, there is this cotton candy sky that provides shade 50% of the time and slow rainy days where it drizzles for hours. These are things never experienced in Arizona.



Cell, Eastern State Penitentiary, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


Toll Roads: They are talking about putting them here in Arizona, but it is doubtful that will ever happen. We don't have the law enforcement or the courts to go after the folks that wouldn't pay, and there would be a lot of them that wouldn't pay. This brought a whole new meaning to those little coin holders that they build into cars these days. We don't use them in Arizona, but they become and necessity on the East coast. We learned to never go on a trip anywhere without filling up the coin holder. We also realized why there were never any high-speed car chases on the East Coast. To many curves, stop lights and toll booths.

Benches:.....benches everywhere. I stopped counting when I got to around 350 in Philadelphia. These aren't benches at bus stops, they are benches along the sidewalks and in parks. They are more common than traffic lights back there. It seems that people are encouraged to stop and sit and look at their community. It is like the town sofa. Sit down, take your shoes off.....relax awhile. If you did this in Arizona, you would be shot, mugged and die of heat stroke in about 20 minutes.



Gazebo, Morris Arboretum, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania


Flying Billboards at the Beach: I guess this makes sense, but it seemed odd. While on the Jersey shore, a plane flew by pulling some sort of advertising banner about ever 5 minutes. There was a small air force of these planes flying up and down the coastline in a never ending succession, advertising Atlantic City casinos and tire stores. It was all a bit surreal. In Arizona, all the billboards are on the ground.

All in all, the culture back east is one of tight knit inclusion and civic responsibility. Even the ghettos looked more cultural and closely tied together. There were thousands of small churches everywhere and scores of African Americans all dressed in white, headed off to pray on Sunday. There were very few Hispanics but scores of Middle Easterners in Muslim attire.

There were many other things. Too many to mention. These were just the ones that I remembers to jot down on my Palm Pilot.

All the differences were astounding. I suppose this is what you get when you look at a culture that has been growing, in close quarters for 200 years and a culture that has sprang up through commerce in just 50 years. I am sure that each city has it good points and bad points. However, the longer Sue and I live here, the more we look forward to seeing how the other half lives.