1950s List Discussion and Suggestions (Lists Project Vol. 3)

[knives]

Lucky son of a gun. I've only seen about five of his films as director, but they've all been great. Too bad that any of them are MIA.

[puxzkkx]

Suzaki Paradise: Red Light District is an interesting film by Yūzō Kawashima that, while full of piquant moments, somehow achieves the opposite cumulative effect to contemporary films by Naruse (with whom he would later collaborate): unlike Naruse who exploited the unspoken tensions in domestic situations to create a mood of suppressed violence and poison in otherwise innocuous scenarios, here Kawashima employs a rather languid mood that saps the dynamism from his dark and lurid setting. The film is definitely engaging and many parts demand your attention with their construction or the sheer rigour of their style - a virtuoso opening tracking shot, a nighttime reunion between a middle-aged woman and her estranged husband - but the assembly borders on the soapy. Kawashima glosses over, or ignores, some of the more interesting aspects of his story and characters: the hinted-at sadomasochistic side to Yoshiji and Tsutae's relationship yields to half-hearted quasi-romantic subplots with other characters, and the frighteningly violent behaviour of the barwoman's children is set up but then rather neatly summarised as the product of a fatherless upbringing (another instance of the film skirting the edge of socioeconomic commentary). Flawed but worth a look - mainly for the gorgeous photography, a surprisingly dynamic use of wipes (completely at odds with Kurosawa's enervating use of them) and the performances.

This is a great ensemble. I haven't been fond of Michiyo Aratama in other films, but the glassy quality that held me back in those pictures is gone here: she's a real livewire, hit and miss but reaching sparkling heights. Tatsuya Mihashi indulges at times but otherwise has a truly intriguing, watchful energy, always threatening sex or violence under a calm exterior. With his wide eyes and lanky build he's almost like an erotic Henry Fonda. Probably my favourite performance comes from the incredibly sympathetic Yukiko Todoroki, who pulls you in with every minute gesture. It is a work of deceptive simplicity worthy of Tanaka, and its mystery, modulation and depth remind me of that actress' fantastic perf in Naruse's Flowing, from the same year.

[colinr0380]

I know it is not a popular view but I really like On The Beach for the ways in which all of the stodgy Kramerisms get put into the service of the relentlessly bleak plot. For once I don't find the preachifying too bad since everyone in the film is doomed. There is no chance to pull things back for a pat redemptive ending, and I feel that final banner does not feel too preachy to the audience simply because it is so amusingly blatant, almost like the ultimate version of a 'message' film! A message that is both impossible to follow (no one in Australia seemingly could have stopped the nuclear war taking place elsewhere), and ironically wrong in its sentiment that "It's not too late, brother!" - highly wrong in terms of the already doomed at the outset world of the film, but also with the suggestion that this message will have just as little impact in the real world of the watching audience at stopping any kind of nuclear confrontation. In the end they're just words with no-one left to read or understand them.

I also like the way that the usual traits of a Kramer production of the film grinding almost to a complete halt for long, turgid sections actually seems to work in the film's favour in creating a sense of almost endless hopelessness. The way that the characters almost totally ignore the doom for the bulk of the film also feels like a nice move, creating that strange atmosphere of non-acknowledgement that almost seems like a statement of the way that other Hollywood films ignore issues staring them in the face for inane, shoehorned in romance subplots!

One of the best things about On The Beach is that it manages to make the cord of a blind and a desk fan into significant players in the narrative, as much as any of the actors, and they end up seeming far less stilted in their actions than the human characters (I quite like the drunken, annoying, orgiastic tipping into hysterical reiteration of the song of "Waltzing Matlida" in the background which undermines the final love scene, which I think is a great example of humanity turning nightmarishly abstract. A final insane wail from the remnants of a silly, self-destructive race of creatures that shows that even when the world is doomed, some people can still irritate the rest of us by their behaviours!) even if those objects, like everything else in the film, are forced into highly mannered performances in service of the inhuman plot mechanics!

(I also like pretending that the film takes place in the aftermath of The Bedford Incident! Even though that film came out years later, I like to consider it the explanatory prequel! )

[knives]

I actually agree with that. The setting and general weirdness of the whole thing especially in that nonsensical ending at least make the film a compelling watch even if I wouldn't call it a good movie. It's awkward and delusional which while keeping the film from being a particularly smart commentary on its subject does make it an interesting look at dissonance. You might as well as call it by that REM song given how cheerful the film is even when its saying that the world is over.

[colinr0380]

Absolutely. I think the prime example of that 'dissonance' is on display in the casting of Fred Astaire in a major role which involves him sat motionless behind a steering wheel for many of his big scenes (including that delirious moment of beatific joy while gassing himself to death in his garage sat behind the wheel of his prize-winning racecar, as the camera moves into his face in a manner that often gets used in musicals to suggest the pure joy of two lovers!)

[gcgiles1dollarbin]

Yes, but that was the film I was referring to as different from the two Kramer's.

OK. Should have figured.

[domino harvey]

A game defense, Colin, but On the Beach is really the Kramer film that moves me into offense mode. Here's a film that wants nothing more than to convince the viewer that life must be salvaged by the living, but it does so by presenting famous and pretty people carrying on like they normally would in any film, really, and then killing them (even if most are offed by default). The end. It's a bizarre methodology that backfires because the thesis is at its very core offensive: the beauty of life can only be revealed by removing it? Take what for me is one of the most obscene sequences in all of cinema: Anthony Perkins and Donna Anderson as the young parents, wallowing in their efficiency apartment as a family, preparing to commit suicide. The suicidal act itself isn't abominable, but its signifiers are: here are two "characters" whose only purpose in this film has been to be attractive, like flowers in bloom they are the promise of tomorrow and the beauties of today, and Kramer's only default response is to crush them slowly under his heel. That's their sole narrative function: to be snuffed out. It's symptomatic of the simplistic thinking the film operates on, the binary reductiveness that would provoke the very sort of nuclear disaster he's warning us against! So, I guess if I were Derrida, I'd love it.

[dustybooks]

and then that'll probably be the last time I do one of these things.

coming out of lurk-hiding to quickly say please no, I've greatly enjoyed these. Of course it does seem like a lot of work.

My '50s progress has been slow because of outside obligations. I am about to watch or re-watch all of the Best Picture winners from the decade though, out of both the strange masochism of my larger canon-ish projects and for an excuse to watch All About Eve again.

Incidentally, am I the one person who loves Eve and Sunset Blvd. pretty much equally? I'm sympathetic to the points made here about Norma Desmond being an unfair caricature but I still find her, and the film, extremely compelling -- particularly the integration of Old Dark House mythologizing into what's really a story (to me) about a man losing his grip and giving up on larger ambitions. I do wish there weren't so much voiceover in the film, underlining too many things that should have been left unsaid (like the allusion to Havisham). And I missed the recent intense Eve discussion and don't want to dredge it back up again but I love how it too serves to confirm the audience's darkest suspicions about its characters, yet manages to undercut us because we don't expect movies to "go there."

[colinr0380]

I want to agree with dustybooks - I really like your write ups of directors domino!

Re: On The Beach, I don't know domino - isn't the Perkins character at least a member of the (albeit Australian) navy, so therefore a representative of the military complex that had a hand in destroying everything? He might just be a little cog in a pre-disaster regime (unlike Peck's sub captain, whose need to get back to his likely already long dead family gets contrasted with the here and now family pack of suicide pills in the Perkins subplot) but presumably the point of the film is that global nuclear disaster destroys big and small alike with scant regard for the sanctity of a nuclear family. It just takes a little longer for some to die compared to others.

But then I never really connected with the Perkins and Anderson characters that strongly. Anderson seemed a bit too delusional at first, even among the rest of the cast pointedly ignoring the events around them (The one character not to cotton on to the severity of the situation until very late in the game, or the one character to have a 'real' response to facing the knowledge of the certain death of herself and her family? I'm undecided!), and I have to admit to wanting to see Perkins's character die just to atone for his accent!

Although surely that just emphasises the 'message' of the film about the necessity of preventing nuclear war, to stop these "flowers in bloom full of the promise of tomorrow and the beauties of today" from being crushed? On The Beach is an extremely anti-dramatic film in that sense as everything is already lost at the very start and there is nothing left to do but die, and all of the various subplots are all utterly pointless pieces of busy work (only emphasised in the section of tracking down the morse code signal), or meaningless repititions of actions (the potential adultery, the car race turned into death sport, the acceptance of a speedier death by radiation for a final chance to go fishing) that would only have held some significance with wider, important consequences for those involved in an era before the world ended. The characters are unable to do anything to change the situation or save themselves (or others), so instead are left uncomfortably marking time as things move inexorably towards that inevitable, literal dead end.

That makes it the most interesting Kramer film for me, since it is not dealing with a 'here and now' issue through characters who are supposed to live in a world the audience is inhabiting. It is also not revisiting a historical issue through the prism of a more enlightened contemporary perspective (Judgment At Nuremberg, Inherit The Wind, The Pride And The Passion). Instead it is asking what happens when the battle over those kinds of important issues (hegemony, ideology, values) have been definitively lost and there is nothing left. How would characters react when placed in a kind of limbo where they are still alive for the moment but have no future and nothing to build or fight for (or a world to bring their children up in, however imperfect)? Mostly the answer seems to be that they carry on with hollow, now meaningless actions which only serves to emphasise that pointlessness in the performance.

[domino harvey]

Thanks for the kind words guys, but it wasn't a fishing expedition-- I never really intended to work past the fifties on these things. However, if you like opinionated posts about a bunch of movies from a given time period, you'll be glad to know I am still working one list project ahead by concurrently prepping an annotated guide to Hollywood's brief glut of Sex Comedies for the Sixties List

[knives]

I just wanted to say that these have been greatly helpful for me too. They made me aware of a lot of films I'd probably never would have discovered on my own. I'd take up the mantle, but have only completed eight from that decade.

[zedz]

Thanks for the kind words guys, but it wasn't a fishing expedition-- I never really intended to work past the fifties on these things. However, if you like opinionated posts about a bunch of movies from a given time period, you'll be glad to know I am still working one list project ahead by concurrently prepping an annotated guide to Hollywood's brief glut of Sex Comedies for the Sixties List

Hey, I thought I was the only person doing advanced work on the 60s list!

[Tommaso]

I'm already doing advanced work on the next 30s list. Michal Wacszynski's "The Dybbuk" is a f'cking masterpiece that went completely under my radar last year...

[domino harvey]

Round whatever!

JOHN HUSTON

the Asphalt Jungle (1950) R1 Warners
the Red Badge of Courage (1951) R1 Warners (OOP)
the African Queen (1951) R1 Universal
Moulin Rouge (1952) R1 Fox
Beat the Devil (1953) PD
Moby Dick (1956) R1 MGM
Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1957) R1 Fox
the Barbarian and the Geisha (1958) R1 Fox (Blu-ray only, Walmart exclusive) / R2 Fox
the Roots of Heaven (1958) R1 Twilight Time (Blu-ray only)

I called the forties John Huston's most consistent year, but in compiling this I think his fifties output gives it a fair shake! The Asphalt Jungle (1950) gets a lot of play from amateur noir fans (and has its well-versed defenders) but it's not nearly as clever as it wishes it was, though certainly it's never a dull affair. Huston got his first of three Best Director nods this decade for it as well, so there's another couple thousand votes against me. The Red Badge of Courage (1951), famously butchered by the studio, is a tight and concise piece of Civil War claustrophobia that very well may be all the better for its compromised state. Huston notoriously put his crew through hell on the African Queen (1951) and I wish I could say it was worth it, but this is one of those well-known "classics" that has zero apparent appeal to my eyes. Bogart won his Oscar here (for what really is an uncharacteristically bad performance) because, well, he was Bogart and hadn't yet. Huston will later make a spiritual cousin to this film in Heaven Knows Mister Allison and to much greater effect.

Moulin Rouge (1952) is the must-see Huston film this round, and indeed it gets my vote as the best biopic of the decade (and among the best ever). Here, unlike fellow Best Picture nominee High Noon, is a film that ushers in fabulously modern elements that result in rendering the film vibrant and alive rather than rote and ordinary. As you'd expect, Huston's love of the grotesque serves him well with the titular club's dancing girls, but what really makes the film pop above the obvious level of gorg mise-en-scene is the psychosexual drama of Jose Ferrer and Colette Marchand's vicious and spirited relationship. The film feels so relevant because it is so human and Huston exhibits a great capacity to recognize the universal theme of a mutually abusive pairing. I want to shake everyone who gave this a middling review in the Alt Oscars thread by the shoulders and insist they try again-- this is a masterpiece. As for Beat the Devil (1953), I want to shake the film itself like a British nanny-- this caper-y nonsense is so awful that film lovers have since entertained themselves in idle moments by concocting novel new ways to defend the indefensible. Don't buy it.

Moby Dick (1956), once you get past the faux-pas of its missing punctuation (See: things you'll always remember when one of your professors is the world's leading expert on Melville), is an at times effective adaptation, but (by default really) scripters Huston and Ray Bradbury condense a tome of procedure, both internal and external, into an action-adventure yarn, to rapidly diminishing returns. But it works for a while, the special effects are quite good, and Huston has some fun with his muted muck-brown color palette. Can't recommend, but could certainly have been worse. Heaven Knows, Mr Allison (1957), Huston's first 'Scope film, is a lovely and meditative two-hander between Robert Mitchum's sweet marooned military man and a devout Deborah Kerr (so fantastic in Huston's the Night of the Iguana). There's a soft sadness to Mitchum's juvenile affection for the unattainable nun, and for a while the film hints at being something special. Eventually though, the plot gets in the way and Japanese invade their deserted island and the film becomes more ordinary (but still quite good). The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958) allegedly was conceived and shot in mimicry of Asian cinema, but the studio once again took scissors to Huston's vision and what we're left with is one beguiling film that will leave both John Wayne fans and history buffs unsatisfied. It's a strange one, and Roots of Heaven (1958) is unusual too, particularly in how progressive its politics are, even for a liberal film, with Howard's rampant protection of animals is at direct odds with the very popular "safari" subgenre it's sandwiched into (King Solomon's Mines, Mogambo, Hatari!, &c). Huston never quite knows what to do with the audacity of its premise as it settles into a fizzling narrative structure that ramps down rather than up, but it's of some interest if you're so inclined (apologies to DVDBeaver).


IDA LUPINO

Outrage (1950) No commercial release
Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951) R1 Warner Archives
the Hitch-Hiker (1953) R1 Kino
the Bigamist (1953) R1 PD / R2 Wild Side (best quality)

Ida Lupino is held in high regard, here and elsewhere, so I'd like to be clear that I'm not trying to pick a fight or be a contrarian with this thumbnail response to her work this decade. I understand why people want Ida Lupinos films to fit the narrative of being the first significant female director of the studio system, but her films just do not justify their lofty reputations. Of the four films she directed this decade, only one seems to be offering something of novel import (and whether what it brings to the table is a good thing is debatable), with the rest of her work clocking in varying degrees of regressive sexual politics that are unbelievably repackaged and sold by modern critics as progressive or even, vom, feminist. If only!

Outrage (1950) is a film that would be far more offensive were it not so melodramatic and misguided. A young city girl gets raped, regresses, and runs away to the country where she eventually encounters another scenario not unlike that which drove her away in the first place. The film ludicrously places the brunt of this problem picture on a society that's loosened its grip on the criminally deranged (no, really) and not on the horrifying reality of rape as an everyday threat from possibly any man. The film works for about two minutes near the end of the first act as the girl tries to return to a "normal" life, only to have everyone stare at her and treat her with kid gloves. More honesty and less hinderance of studio-mandated niceties might have made this the important landmark it can never be. Hard, Fast and Beautiful (1951), Lupino's least-interesting film of this period, is a standard issue stage mom (court mom?) tale about an overbearing tennis starlet's mother's plans for her happiness and her own, which of course revolve around domesticity. Yet more of the regressive sexual politics that Lupino will take even further with the Bigamist. As for the Hitch-Hiker (1953), Lupino's harsh tale of two innocents held hostage by a third, I will consent that it is a well-made and handsome film, and I understand the appeal-- the same way I understand the appeal of the most debased stalk-and-slash films that this played no small part in inspiring (I believe I invoked Wolf Creek in discussing the film earlier on the board, which I'd consider a fair and true barometer). So I will admit that I don't like this movie simply because I think it's sadistic and cruel and it just plain makes me feel bad. Obviously some people enjoy or can intellectually appreciate an unnerving feeling of this sort, but I don't like films like this now and I don't like them from the Golden Era either.

Liking the Hitch-Hiker comes down more to personal tastes and endurance, and so it's not a film I'd exhaust much effort arguing against. But Lupino's final directed film of the decade, the Bigamist (1953), is. Here's a movie that is so smitten with its utter shit of a protagonist that it goes out of the way to show how Edmond O'Brien is both a dutiful husband and a loving boyfriend, what Christlike attributes he maintains while making his mistress Ida Lupino "legitimate" in the eyes of the community (which, given that she interacts with exactly two people in her day-to-day life, is definitely worth destroying one's life for) by marrying her while remaining married to Joan Fontaine. C'mon, it's not his fault-- he was lonely! The adulterer apologia would be bad enough, but it's how the film paints these two women that makes it all so objectionable. There's nothing wrong with Fontaine's character other than that she exhibits traditionally masculine attributes-- she can't be a mother, she's focused on business, and worst of all, she's better at the job than her husband-- and there's nothing appealing about Lupino outside of her tradionally negative female attributes-- neediness, a desire to be cared for, unwavering forgiveness of a husband's indiscretions. But the film gives more sympathy to Lupino than Fontaine due to its regressive sexual politics, as one is more "right" than the other-- and then the film has the gall to end with both giving those I Still Love Ya lingering glances at O'Brien. Because there's nothing so irresistible as a man who does the wrong thing and calls it the right thing. Fucking infuriating.


ANTHONY MANN

the Furies (1950) R1 Criterion
Winchester '73 (1950) R1 Universal
Side Street (1950) R1 Warners
Devil's Doorway (1950) R1 Warner Archives
the Tall Target (1951) R1 Warner Archives
Bend of the River (1953) R1 Universal
Thunder Bay (1953) R1 Universal
the Naked Spur (1953) R1 Warner
the Glenn Miller Story (1954) R1 Universal
the Far Country (1954) R1 Universal
the Last Frontier (1955) R1 Universal
the Man From Laramie (1955) R1 Sony
Strategic Air Command (1955) No commercial release
Serenade (1956) R1 Warner Archives
the Tin Star (1957) R1 Paramount (OOP)
Men in War (1957) R1 Geneon (OOP)
Man of the West (1958) R1 MGM
God's Little Acre (1958) R2 Wild Side (Full version)

So, that Anthony Mann, huh? The Furies (1950) starts the decade off right, with Barbara Stanwyck, Walter Huston, and Mann's most comically inappropriate act of violence ever. But the western antics are kicked up twenty-fold in Winchester '73 (1950), an impossibly entertaining western of constant invention and novelty on the level of North by Northwest or Backlash or Scaramouche-- all the sort of brilliantly executed crowd-pleasers that tend to outlast objectively better films more handily withered by memory or overexposure. Side Street (1950), Mann's noir repairing of Cathy O'Donnell and Farley Granger, is standard issue, though it does climax with quite a memorable car chase. Like most of his films, Devil's Doorway (1951) looks great, but it is saddled with an impossibly dense social liberalism that sells the message first and everything else a distant second.

No matter how you classify it genre-wise, the Tall Target (1951) is a masterpiece, a delightfully convoluted thriller that never abuses the gimmicky premise of utilizing Abraham Lincoln as the titular figure. Dick Powell's harried police chief has complications compounded to such a level that the film achieves a passionate "release" when Powell ***SPOILER ALERT*** thwarts Abraham Lincoln's assassination in Baltimore (For those of you who did not know that Lincoln did not die on a train, I apologize for ruining history). Following next chronologically are two middling James Stewart collabs, Thunder Bay (1953)-- which transposes a western-ish plot onto an oil derrick in Louisiana-- and Bend of the River (1953)-- a slight western (also with western-ish plot) that transposes a story we've all seen before. Neither are particularly memorable, though Thunder Bay at least has a decent set piece with the hurricane-set fist-fight. Impossible to forget is the Naked Spur (1953), Mann's best western collaboration with Stewart, and the director drags out of Stewart a twisted, psychosexual performance that ranks among his best. And Robert Ryan and Janet Leigh are no slouches either. An essential for fans of anything or anyone.

I'm not sure which of Mann's films this decade is widely considered to be his most aesthetically pleasing, but my vote certainly goes for the gorgeous the Glenn Miller Story (1954), another non-Western collab with James Stewart. Stewart's joined by June Allyson and her chic array of stylish garb (my ex-girlfriend models/sells vintage clothing and just about had a seizure of envy during this film) as Mann somehow navigates the tricky waters of the musical biopic with the grace and melody the subgenre should command but rarely does. Which of Anthony Mann's westerns is his worst? I don't know, but Alaska is the setting of the Far Country (1954), a regrettable speed bump in an otherwise solid working western relationship with Stewart. I think people actually like this one, though God only knows why. Perhaps they'll tell you! Lord knows zedz will talk yr ear off about the Man From Laramie (1955), and with its legacy-minded machinations that result in shocking violence (even for Mann) and solid perfs from reliable support staff like Donald Crisp and Arthur Kennedy, who could deny him the privilege? Fewer would defend Mann's Victor Mature-fronted the Last Frontier (1955) over Mann's other westerns, but it's an interesting change of pace, with a strong villainous turn by Robert Preston, cast perfectly as an arch dick.

There's really only two reasons to see Serenade (1956), so you'll likely know if it's a film for you beforehand. One is Mario Lanza, who gives any adoring fans in the audience their money's worth with his exhaustive collective of musical numbers here. There are many, many songs sung here. So many songs. Two is Joan Fontaine, who gives one of the great Ice Queen perfs of the period-- a sort of spiritual cousin to her work in Ray's Born to Be Bad. It's truly worth watching the whole thing just to witness Fontaine's nonplussed response to the threat of a sexual rival late in the film. The Tin Star (1957) is a good, small scale western with reluctant pro Henry Fonda showing neophyte Anthony Perkins the lawman ropes. In a decade where Mann has so many worthy films to offer, it can't help but pale to most, but it's not a wasted viewing by any means. Biskind devotes quite a bit of space to Strategic Air Command (1955) in his fifties cinema book but this one is a total failure, with the reverence and lack of distance from Stewart towards the subject hindering Mann's better instincts. As for the strained marital relations between Stewart and June Allyson that Biskind hones in on… eh, frankly, Above and Beyond and the Bridges at Toko-Ri had more to say and said it better.

Mann gives us one of the great unsung war films in Men in War (1957), a brisk, brutal, snappy piece of business that unfolds in something approaching real-time. The plot specifics-- Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray butt heads as Ryan tries to take an impossible hill-- is second to the formal assault of the narrative's pacing and structure. Would make for a perfect war double feature with Fuller's Fixed Bayonets!. What can I possibly say about Man of the West (1958) that hasn't already been said? Mann's ultimate artistic achievement placed first on the board's Westerns List, and for good reason: Here is a brutal, uncompromising film which posits the depressing reality regarding one's ability to escape from past mistakes. Yes, it really is as good as everyone says it is. Mann finishes a strong decade with a peculiar film, an adaptation of a trashy (and highly popular) cracker barrel bodice ripper God's Little Acre (1958). This is the kind of movie where you could catch any given ten minutes on TV and be fooled into thinking it might be a masterpiece, but unfortunately the episodic parts do not amount to much more than a beautiful hole with no gold inside. Robert Ryan, it must be said, has an absolute ball playing slightly against type as the gleeful patriarch, and his positive energy contributes greatly to the watchability of the film. This isn't a good movie, but it's one I could certainly be tempted to sit through again!


Three down, three more to go and then out: Delmer Daves, Mark Robson, and Robert Rossen still to come

[knives]

Moulin Rouge is also the second time Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing were in a film together (though they share no screen time sadly) for the curious horror fans. Though I find Moby Dick to be the best. Can't believe you've managed to see all the Mann's though. Now that's as tough a trip in just amount as there is. I've said it before, but The Naked Spur really deserves the following praise. Stewart has never been more frightening and effective. Vertigo may be 'the' masterpiece of his career, but The Naked Spur is a pure violent acting quality that has to convince everyone of his talent. In general I think that Mann is a bit of a preparation for Pechinpah, but here he outdoes Pechinpah and without being as violent he feels far more violent. Some of those scenes just send shivers down my spine.

[puxzkkx]

Martin Ritt's Edge of the City is admirable for its un-self-conscious colourblindness but is let down by most facets of its production - absolutely terrible direction of group dialogues, Cassavetes' hideously stilted Method (he is like Joey Tribbiani doing drama) and his inability to give-and-take with the likeable but synthetic Poitier, an intrusive score and climactic double fight scenes that make very little sense. Two scenes stand out near the end for striking rather than frustrating with their emotional simplicity - a genuinely moving phone call scene between the Cassavetes character and his parents (nicely played by Robert F. Simon and Ruth White) and a confrontation with Poitier's wife, brilliantly acted by Ruby Dee. Otherwise, nice deep-focus and attentive set dressing (although I don't see how Poitier could have afforded such an apartment on a dock worker's salary, boss or not).

[knives]

I mostly agree with you, though it's weaknesses are even more highlighted if you watch Paris Blues which is more or less the same film, but far better. That said I enjoy Cassavetes performance a large bit despite rather disliking method on the whole.

[Lighthouse]

I do think that The Defiant Ones is Kramer's best film, which, I realize, is saying very little in the face of Judgment at Nuremberg, Ship of Fools, On the Beach, and Inherit the Wind--just writing those titles makes my brain feel starchy and undernourished.

For me Kramer's only good film was The Oklahoma Crude (1973).
A typical 70s revisionist western which is pretty dirty for a Kramer film and less preachy than the rest of his output.

[the preacher]

MEXICO
Aventurera (Alberto Gout, 1950)
Doña Diabla (Tito Davison, 1950)
Los olvidados (Luis Buñuel, 1950)
El rey del barrio (Gilberto Martínez Solares, 1950)
Rosauro Castro (Roberto Gavaldón, 1950)
A.T.M.: ¡¡A toda máquina!! (Ismael Rodríguez, 1951)
Doña Perfecta (Alejandro Galindo, 1951)
En la palma de tu mano (Roberto Gavaldón, 1951)
Sensualidad (Alberto Gout, 1951)
El suavecito (Fernando Méndez, 1951)
Susana (Luis Buñuel, 1951)
Víctimas del pecado (Emilio Fernández, 1951)
La noche avanza (Roberto Gavaldón, 1952)
Subida al cielo (Luis Buñuel, 1952)
El bruto (Luis Buñuel, 1953)
Dos tipos de cuidado (Ismael Rodríguez, 1953)
El (Luis Buñuel, 1953)
La red (Emilio Fernández, 1953)
Abismos de pasión (Luis Buñuel, 1954)
La ilusión viaja en tranvía (Luis Buñuel, 1954)
Raíces (Benito Alazraki, 1954)
Ensayo de un crimen (Luis Buñuel, 1955)
Escuela de vagabundos (Rogelio A. González, 1955)
Espaldas mojadas (Alejandro Galindo, 1955)
Ladrón de cadáveres (Fernando Méndez, 1957)
El vampiro (Fernando Méndez, 1957)
Nazarín (Luis Buñuel, 1959)

The Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, part II: The fifties.
Quoting myself from the musicals list, For more enterprising moviegoers I would recommend taking a look at the cabaretera genre, a bizarre amalgam of music, melodrama and noir. The cabaretera became a staple of postwar Mexican cinema and launched Cuban rhumba dancer Ninón Sevilla to stardom. Alberto Gout’s Aventurera (1950) and Emilio Fernández's Victims of Sin (1951) are the unquestioned masterpieces of the genre.

"Víctimas del pecado" is one of the most over-the-top melodramas ever made by Emilio (El Indio) Fernández. The reason may be the presence of Cuban star Ninón Sevilla in the leading role, whose screen persona and religious faith permeate the story, the dance numbers, and even the tone of this genre film. It is one of the "películas de cabareteras" (cabaret dancer films) that were so popular in México. In these musical melodramas, brutish men seduced and abandoned young women who would become prostitutes, but for a chance of destiny, they had the opportunity to become singers or dancers. This chance transcended the bleakness in their lives and transformed them into icons of female supremacy, even in the machista frame where the films were conceived. Ninón, a well-known santería practitioner in real life, and daughter of Changó in this Yoruba religion, plays Violeta, a strong-willed dancer-prostitute that works in Cabaret Changó, where she performs sensual African dance numbers, and sings Panamanian songs as "La Cocaleca". Violeta wants to become a star and leave the seedy nightclub, but she gets into trouble with a pimp (Rodolfo Acosta, in outrageous pachuco outfits, swings on the dance floor, turns into violent fits of rage, admonishes a prostitute in French, and shows her how to strut.) He forces another woman to get rid of her newborn, but Violeta rescues the baby literally from the garbage can and decides to keep him to herself. She eventually gets help from Santiago (Víctor Junco), the owner of another nightclub who goes around town followed by a mariachi band that provides him with a soundtrack! Tragedy is a prerequisite in these films, so the story follows the usual pattern of fall and redemption, although tinted with Violeta's (and Ninón's) strong personality and raw sexuality, adding a different angle (also present in Rossana Podestà's character in "La red", an almost forgotten film by Fernández) than the usual suffering of all the tearful female characters in his films, mostly played by Dolores del Río or Columba Domínguez. Violeta dances and sings for survival, she argues and fights in constant revolt against the cabaretera's destiny. "Víctimas del pecado" is a true joy, a real gem, with musical performances by Cuban superstar Rita Montaner, Mexican singer Pedro Vargas, and Dámaso Pérez Prado, the Mambo King. Call it camp if you will, but it is one of the outstanding pieces of the golden era of Mexican cinema and one of the best films by El Indio Fernández.
Edgar Soberon Torchia

From the horror list don't forget Fernando Méndez's The Vampire.
And finally you have Buñuel's greatest films. Speaking for myself, far better films than any French or Spanish film he made. From the not-so-famous titles I recommend "Susana (The Devil and the Flesh)".


ARGENTINA
El crimen de Oribe (Leopoldo Torres Ríos & Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, 1950)
Los isleros (Lucas Demare, 1951)
Las aguas bajan turbias (Hugo del Carril, 1952)
Si muero antes de despertar (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1952)
Armiño negro (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1953)
El vampiro negro (Román Viñoly Barreto, 1953)
Más allá del olvido (Hugo del Carril, 1956)
Los tallos amargos (Fernando Ayala, 1956)
La casa del ángel (Leopoldo Torre Nilsson, 1957)
El jefe (Fernando Ayala, 1958)
Rosaura a las 10 (Mario Soffici, 1958)

In contrast to Mexico, the best Argentine films of the decade are hardly available with English subtitles. Cornell Woolrich's adaptations, a (very good) remake of M, an Argentinean Vertigo two years before Hitchcock's film or a Rashomon-style masterpiece! Well, here are a few suggestions if you can find it:
Dark River (Hugo del Carril, 1952)
Beyond Oblivion (Hugo del Carril, 1956)

An Argentine Vertigo made two years before the Hitchcock masterwork! Fernando (played by director Hugo del Carril) cannot get over the premature death of his beloved wife Blanca, so he decides to embark on an extended trip to Paris. There, he meets Monica (Laura Hidalgo), in every way an exact duplicate of his late wife, except that she's a brazen "woman of the streets." No matter; Fernando is soon hopelessly in love and intent on bringing her back home and making her into the woman she's supposed to be; for her part, Monica imagines that she may have stumbled upon a very good deal.... Suffused with a kind of delirious romanticism, BEYOND OBLIVION was a real departure for del Carril, known more for his rugged epics (Las Aguas Bajan Turbias); here, however, his sensitive approach to depicting a passion that flies in the face of reality revealed a totally unexpected side of the director--and resulted in his masterpiece.

Rosaura at 10 O'Clock (Mario Soffici, 1958)

Camilo Canegato, a mild-mannered painter and art restorer, lives in a pension (boarding house) surrounded by friendly, inquisitive neighbors. One day Camilo gets a commission to do a portrait of Rosaura, a wealthy young woman; soon after, letters reeking of perfume written on purple stationery begin arriving for Camilo. Unable to stand the suspense, his neighbors read the letters and discover a torrid romance between Camilo and Rosaura; but then, the real Rosaura arrives at the pension... One of the great pioneers of the Argentine sound film, Mario Soffici reached new artistic heights with this remarkable, Borgesian tale of shifting borderlines between fantasy and reality. The great Susana Campos makes Rosaura an exquisite if somewhat obscure object of desire.

VENEZUELA
La balandra Isabel llegó esta tarde (Carlos Hugo Christensen, 1950)
Araya (Margot Benacerraf, 1959)

For those interested in documentaries Araya is a must.

[Cold Bishop]

Beyond Oblivion (Hugo del Carril, 1956)

An Argentine Vertigo made two years before the Hitchcock masterwork! Fernando (played by director Hugo del Carril) cannot get over the premature death of his beloved wife Blanca, so he decides to embark on an extended trip to Paris. There, he meets Monica (Laura Hidalgo), in every way an exact duplicate of his late wife, except that she's a brazen "woman of the streets." No matter; Fernando is soon hopelessly in love and intent on bringing her back home and making her into the woman she's supposed to be; for her part, Monica imagines that she may have stumbled upon a very good deal.... Suffused with a kind of delirious romanticism, BEYOND OBLIVION was a real departure for del Carril, known more for his rugged epics (Las Aguas Bajan Turbias); here, however, his sensitive approach to depicting a passion that flies in the face of reality revealed a totally unexpected side of the director--and resulted in his masterpiece.

Sounds like another adaptation of Bruges-la-Morte, also the source of Yevgeni Bauer's masterful Daydreams. The "delirious romanticism" makes it sound intriguing however; Bauer's film definitely plays up the morbid, decadent atmosphere which was unmistakable in Rodenbach's fin de siècle novella. This looks like del Carril goes for a more hot-blooded and baroque approach.

[the preacher]

Yeah, Rodenbach was the source for Daydreams, Beyond Oblivion and Boileau-Narcejac's D'entre les morts. However, the scenes, climates, plot, technique, lighting and set design in Beyond Oblivion are intriguingly close to Hitchcock's Vertigo, having been shot a couple of years before. Del Carril's approach is reminiscent of Hitchcock (Rebecca), Buñuel or Ophüls more than Bauer.

Apart from this relationship, it's also a fascinating film itself, though not usually considered Del Carril's masterpiece...

[Sloper]

The Defiant Ones

I do feel this is a film with serious problems, and trying to disentangle the roles of director, writers and actors in contributing to these problems is difficult; at various times they all seem responsible for the awkward self-consciousness that, for me, is the film's major fault. Mitchum would have been much better in the Joker role; apparently he turned it down because, having been in a chain gang himself, he knew that a white man would never have been chained to a black man. This has sometimes been misinterpreted, but in a way it's quite a telling comment on the way in which this film prioritises ideology over authenticity.

Anyway, Tony Curtis looks like a movie star trying to appear and sound disenfranchised, and while I normally like him as an actor, here he's just trying too hard. I have yet to see a bad Poitier performance - as usual, he's called upon to mingle fury and tenderness in a way that should be awkward, but somehow he pulls it off most of the time. His reaction to Joker's (abortive) decision to run off with the woman is a good case in point: here at least the script and direction leave it all up to Poitier to convey his character's emotions, and the result is (I think) the film's best moment.

I think the film often does tell when it ought to be showing. The scene among the barrels is the earliest and most egregious example: the writers are obviously aware of the awkwardness inherent in getting the characters to sit down and discuss their life stories, but they deal with this by inserting a contrived excuse (the convicts have to wait for the town to fall asleep and all the lights to go out before venturing in), rather than by making any real attempt to integrate character development and action. Direction plays a part in this as well: the camera seems to just settle down to listen to these people tell their stories, and for an inordinately long time, so that in terms of both words and visuals the scene feels inert. This is not always the case - the subsequent sequence, up until the near-lynching, is very effective and suspenseful, as is the earlier escape from the clay pit. But for much of the running time, the film-makers - all of them, not just Kramer - seem nervous about letting things get too entertaining, in case this obscures the message.

Take the climactic scene where Joker realises the woman has sent Cullen to his death, and he tries to leave her. She stands in front of the door to stop him - now at this point, our sympathies have been marshalled against her, and she appears a treacherous viper; we could see that she had it in for Cullen from the moment he arrived, and now, driven by her selfishness and prejudice, she's secured his fate. It would serve the film's dramatic purposes best if Kramer and the writers just left it at that, had Joker toss the woman out of the way, show the kid shooting him, etc. But in that split second when they should be letting the film gather momentum towards its conclusion, you can feel them all wringing their hands - have they really given this woman her say? Have they really told her side of the story? Can they trust the audience to assess this character with due moderation? No. And so the camera shifts awkwardly from the two-shot of the woman and Joker by the door to a medium close-up of the woman speechifying about 'All my life I've dreamed... I don't blame my old man for leaving'... etc'; it was such a dramatically frustrating moment that I couldn't help but tune out a little.

But what that example also tells you is that this awkwardness is on some level quite deliberate. The film's priority is not to keep adrenaline levels up but to make sure the message gets across. The lynching scene is another good example. Sam (Lon Chaney) steps in and confronts each member of the mob individually, challenging them to hang, chop up or burn the convicts, offering them a noose, an axe and a torch; of course each individual flinches away. Then he gets to the ring-leader, Mac, who grabs the torch and approaches the convicts - then Sam punches him out cold before he can do anything. It ought to be an agonisingly tense scene, but it's so obviously teaching us a lesson that it's hard to suspend disbelief and engage with it on an emotional level. In this case, Sam Leavitt's brilliant cinematography contributes to the message: the camera tracks around the outside of the lynch mob, and the intent is clearly to make us identify with these nervous spectators who have been drawn close to committing an act they didn't really want to commit (but didn't realise they didn't want to commit it). The camera doesn't go anywhere near Mac - we are kept distant from him, and relieved to be told that we, the mob, don't have to share in his hatred and brutality.

The scene also says something crucial to the film's overall point about race relations: Joker thinks his status as a white man will save him from the lynching, but Mac then makes the point that, simply by associating with Cullen, and by working alongside him, he has become the kind of white man that blacks can spit on. Mac's perspective here is very similar to Griffith's/Dixon's in The Birth of a Nation. (Can I post on this forum without mentioning this film? It seems not.) That is, there is a hierarchy with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom, and the worst crime of all is not for a black man to violate this hierarchy, but for a white man to do so; after all, he should know better. Hence, in Griffith's film, a good black is a racially pure one who knows their place; a bad one is a mixed-race 'mulatto' who results from whites' misguided (and self-serving, naturally) desire to give equal footing to blacks; miscegenation disrupts hierarchies and society falls apart.

This is pretty obviously the mentality that motivates the psychotic Mac in The Defiant Ones, but again what makes this interesting is the film's insistence that such a mentality is fostered and taken to extremes by loud-mouthed and unstable extremists - most of us, the film says, do not really want to go along with Mac's ideology. This sounds very happy-clappy, and well, itis, but it also relates in an interesting way to the later episode with the woman and the kid. Joker tells the woman his dream of being 'Charlie Potatoes' in a beautiful city with skyscrapers made of glass; later when she tries to persuade him to run away with her and leave Cullen to his fate, she talks about going to a big city where no one will ever find them. For all the awkward didacticism at play here, I think there's quite a telling statement about the American Dream (for want of a better, less well-worn phrase) in that progression from Joker's idealised dream-vision of his 'better life' to the woman's plan of carving out an insular existence in some anonymous metropolis, driven by fear and disillusionment. The plan, of course, is to use Cullen as bait, letting him take the fall so that the nice white nuclear family can ride off into the sunset and hide there in safety forever. Joker and the woman don't hate Cullen because he is black; but they'll take advantage of prevalent racial prejudices in order to be able to say 'blast you, I'm alright Jack' (to quote a great British film of the same era).

And what's really at issue here is the attitude of the authorities: it's all very well Joker having warm and fuzzy feelings for his black friend, but that won't help him when another, more powerful Mac gets hold of him. Hence the film's awkward (but ideologically necessary) parallel focus on the men tracking the convicts, and on the power struggles in that group; there too it's a fight between the 'Sam' and the 'Mac' figures, the humane and benevolent sheriff and the psycho who can't wait to unleash the dobermans. It isn't enough that we all get along on the level of personal relationships: the law, which has no personal relationship with the convicts, must also be impartial, un-prejudiced and humane. In some ways I found the ending more problematic than I did before: on a first viewing, like Gregory, I found it despairing and angry, but this time I couldn't help but notice that it was the 'good cop' alone who eventually catches up with the convicts. The film is drawing a connection between the bond Cullen and Joker have formed and the benevolence of the authority figure who eventually catches up with them. There's even a sense that these 'defiant ones' may no longer need to be so defiant, as they now find themselves in the hands of a more understanding authority figure than they have been used to encounter; another Sam, who this time may not be able to set them free, but will at least do all he can for them.

That's exaggerating the sunny aspect of the ending, however, and it should also be noted that this benevolent authority figure has had to stick his neck out and risk his career (and his life) in order to reach this point. Yes, you can read it as being kind of smug and self-satisfied on some levels, but ultimately the film does preach defiance as the answer to our problems - defiance of received ideas, of certain kinds of authority, of the hollow dreams society tells us to pursue. The sheriff and Sam are 'defiant ones' just as much as the convicts are, and the film doesn't express any firm faith in the power of such people to bring about any change in society. Yes, Cullen, Joker and the sheriff meet at the end and smile at the situation they find themselves in - there's a kind of solidarity between them. But they're all meeting in an arid ditch beside a railway track. They may all have stuck to their principles, but there's no suggestion that doing so will make everything 'work out' in the end. This film is nothing if not preachy, and (I think) frequently deficient as entertainment. But overall, it doesn't strike me as complacent.


I'm fascinated by this issue of didacticism in art: it's a commonly accepted truism that the two don't mix easily, and that a work of art with a message has to work very hard to sweeten the pill by being exciting or funny or beautiful. When a film so deliberately eschews entertainment (I'm using this term in the broadest possible sense) to deliver a message, as I think The Defiant Ones does, it's probably either because the artists involved lack the talent to make a really effective film or because they feel the message is too important not to be insisted upon at every turn. Which explanation you go for is a matter of taste, but to me it seems pretty clear that the latter applies to Kramer's film.

I tend to feel that overt or excessive didacticism kills art stone dead because it closes off the spectator's chances of having a personal reaction; if there is a single, simple message being expounded, it won't serve the film's purposes to allow for multiple responses. This often seems to be the case with The Defiant Ones, and for the most part interpreting it is a matter of working out what we're 'supposed to think'. However, as I've tried to show above, there are enough complexities in the development of the message that the work of interpretation can itself be a pleasure, and I wonder whether it might be worth making room for this as a criterion by which to judge films: even when they lack (or eschew) more conventional qualities, they might be judged on the intelligence and intricacy of their didactic methods. For example, it would be interesting to explore questions about what kind of audience Kramer is addressing here (perhaps building on Gregory's earlier comments on class issues in the film); is it really so patronising, or is it actually demanding an unusually high level of cerebral and moral engagement from the audience?

It's interesting that some of the most acclaimed TV shows of recent years have been extremely moralistic. The Wire, for instance, is overtly and relentlessly didactic: it has a message to put across about society and human nature, and it challenges its audience not only to follow a complex and multi-layered plot, but also to keep track of the ideas and lessons being explored. No doubt this is part of what makes it hard-going for some viewers, but generally it maintains a level of complexity, authenticity and entertainment that keeps people interested; more than that, though, I think its preachiness is part of its appeal, because the message itself combines topical relevance to the here and now with more universally relevant insights into the human condition. In that sense it's a model example of how finger-wagging and art can enjoy a happy marriage.

Treme, on the other hand, too often interrupted its immersive and authentic portrait of New Orleans life to deliver some cringeworthy lesson with a John Goodman-shaped sledgehammer. There, as with Kramer, it felt like the problem stemmed from the earnestness of the writers and directors involved - ideology trumping artistic quality.

On yet another hand, Breaking Bad (which I should say I've only seen up to the fourth episode of Season Three) is a fascinating example of a series that starts out as brilliant story-telling with complex moral issues woven into its fabric, and then gets more and more implausible and dramatically slack as the finger-wagging gets more and more vigorous, and notions of good and bad come to be treated in less and less nuanced ways. The finale of Season 2 has been the nadir so far - a preposterously contrived 'deus ex machina' plot twist that hurls authenticity out of the window in order to make a moral point which is, even on its own terms, pretty dubious. This seems to me a case, not just of ideology trumping art, but of limited writing talent, running out of good ideas and trying to replace them with half-arsed self-righteousness. (Apologies to any fans of the show - I did think those first three episodes were pretty much the best opening to a TV series I've ever seen. It just feels like it's becoming more and more the 'Let's Hate Walter White' show.)

[domino harvey]

Good socially liberal Hollywood movies from this era are hard to find, though they exist: From this decade, Caged certainly offers what could have been a rote preaching to the choir reform pic but the film has such intelligence in its composure that it is compelling outside of its message-based social desires, with a central character who is so fully fleshed and expertly acted by Eleanor Parker, a performance that cannot be overvalued, facing off against a villain who herself is more competently sketched and rendered than she needed to be for mere plot mechanics. Add to it the colorful supporting cast and the sure direction and script operating within a gorgeous mise-en-scene and you have a film with outwardly liberal aims that allows the audience to ignore Agnes Moorehead's finger-wagging completely and focus on the already apparent downside to the wanton criminal sentencing seen in the film. The final scene is a gut-punch on the level of the ending of I Am A Fugitive From a Chain Gang! (unfair to single out in this discussion since it was made during a period when many great liberal films were made under the social problem banner) and Caged is a film that earns such a lofty comparison

[puxzkkx]

Late Chrysanthemums is one of Naruse's most respected films from the 50s and, while I liked it, I found it diffuse in a way that obscures potential moments of great power. Actually, I guess it really didn't strike me on the level of, say, its thematic sibling Flowing because I can't think of very much to write about it - although the gently satirical tone of the early humour (I especially loved the motif of the first half of violence mediated by domestic ritual - throwing a cigarette with force into an ashtray, slamming a gate, throwing water in the direction of a disliked neighbour) is one that only works, in my opinion, when confined to and focused on one or a couple narrative strands. The amount of stories juggling for attention, and the tonal shifts required between them, came off as sloppy rather than intriguingly dissonant. Another great ensemble here - Haruko Sugimura gets a better opportunity for building character than she usually did in this period, and she creates a very complex character. Also nice to see respectable yeoman actresses such as Yuko Mochizuki, Chikako Hosokawa and Ineko Arima bite into some meaty parts, even if the results are sometimes broad.

[zedz]

It's interesting that some of the most acclaimed TV shows of recent years have been extremely moralistic. The Wire, for instance, is overtly and relentlessly didactic: it has a message to put across about society and human nature, and it challenges its audience not only to follow a complex and multi-layered plot, but also to keep track of the ideas and lessons being explored. No doubt this is part of what makes it hard-going for some viewers, but generally it maintains a level of complexity, authenticity and entertainment that keeps people interested; more than that, though, I think its preachiness is part of its appeal, because the message itself combines topical relevance to the here and now with more universally relevant insights into the human condition. In that sense it's a model example of how finger-wagging and art can enjoy a happy marriage.

Treme, on the other hand, too often interrupted its immersive and authentic portrait of New Orleans life to deliver some cringeworthy lesson with a John Goodman-shaped sledgehammer. There, as with Kramer, it felt like the problem stemmed from the earnestness of the writers and directors involved - ideology trumping artistic quality.

I think it's a comment on the degraded state of popular and political culture that the only model people have for art dealing with ideas of contemporary relevance is didacticism or "delivering a message." I've heard The Wire in particular tarred with this brush more times than I can count, and I think it's a gigantic red herring. I don't think the show was concerned with (merely) 'delivering a message' at all. Sure, you could say that everything that happened ultimately indicated that "institutions fail individuals and communities", but that's not so much the message of the series as the premise, and what The Wire is really about is analysing and exploring the hows and whys of that failure, and that analysis and exploration involved levels of complexity and nuance far beyond those found in most popular culture. That's a valid, maybe even essential, artistic project, and it's about as far from 'delivering a message' as you can get. I don't think it's possible to extract any quick fix solution from the series, or condense the points it raises and processes it exposes into one paragraph or fifty, so if all you're getting from The Wire is its 'message' in the broadest sense, you're missing 99% of the show's point. And anyway, is "institutions fail individuals and communities" even contentious enough to count as a 'message' any more?

I think Sloper and I are largely on the same page about the show, but I think 'didactic' is the wrong word to use for a series that works with its ideas in such a complicated way. I really don't think people come away from watching The Wire with a little package of lessons about how to make the world a better place.

What Simon does dramatically that misleads a number of viewers, is has his characters articulate their particular political viewpoints from time to time. This leads the inattentive to raise the red flag of preachiness, but that's an age-old dramatic technique, and the characters who tend to do it are writers, academics, politicians and public figures: it's their job to articulate their views. Sometimes these views presumably coincide with those of the management (Goodman's character in Treme springs to mind), but even then the views are problematized and undermined by views articulated by other characters and the character's own actions (again, Goodman's character provides an extremely obvious instance of this). And again, in the case of Treme isn't much of what Goodman was ranting (e.g. the government fucked up bigtime) pretty much objectively verifiable? And when he's harping on the prurient interest of 'outsiders' in the city, that's a topic that's more and more contested within the series (and by its very existence!) and largely espoused by characters who are non-natives.

So, getting back to the question of 'didacticism' in art (which I'm also fascinated by), the problem arises for me not when I catch whiff of a political agenda, but when the argument of a given film never rises above a simple message (my God, if five series of The Wire really did amount to nothing more than the moral "institutions are fucked, y'all" being gift-wrapped and delivered in the final episode, what a terrible series it would be); when it cheats to make its points (e.g. taking narrative shortcuts in order to ensure the 'correct' dramatic outcome, or messing up the lives of its protagonists simply in order to exaggerate a social evil, or making the local representative of the social evil du jour a cardboard villain, or forcing the characters to make dumb decisions in order to exacerbate their plight - see any number of Ken Loach films for examples of the latter); or when its argument is illogical or over-egged. Basically, if a film is going to tackle Big Ideas head on, it needs to be able to engage me intellectually. Otherwise, it's probably best to tackle them obliquely and work on engaging me in other ways.