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

[Gregory]

in true Kramer fashion, you've focused almost entirely on the film's ideology and not its filmic function (though blanket value statements like "The direction frequently executes well the film's most powerful scenes" leaves you in no position to chastise knives' comment that the film is "simplistic").

I followed that "blanket" statement up with a specific example of a scene in the film, which you've chosen to elide here.

I wasn't chastising knives for thinking the film is simplistic; rather for making a mere assertion of that in the face of a more elaborate discussion of things specific to the film, none of which anyone here cared to engage with. When I try to argue that it's actually less simplistic and pandering than it's usually considered to be, because of x, y, and z, and then someone says "it's simplistic and pandering" and doesn't address x, y, or z, that adds nothing to the "discussion."

Films don't exist in a vacuum, and just because this is a more popular and well-seen film doesn't mean overarching claims about its importance or supposed social value should be made willy-nilly

Good to know, thanks for that! I can't imagine what you apparently take me for.

[knives]

Does his odd tendency for medium shots count enough towards the visual aspect of his cinema. I will readily admit he is a bland director, but that doesn't mean he isn't the primary author of his movies. He is the sort to shout things rather than let them be told visually (I can't imagine a scene of silence in his cinema), but just because of that doesn't mean that he is unable to be an author. If he isn't the author (or co-author in his producing cases) than where does the commonalities in his work come from? This isn't a case like Cutiz or Hathaway where there is no connective tissue in a career, rather to the contrary we see so many related things that even a film in which he merely produced like The Sniper elements of his cinema are heard loudly.

I'm not even arguing that No way Out is a better film than The Defiant Ones (though I feel it is) let alone a good one, but that it manages to feature in a major and at least as complex role a black person (the same individual in fact) while tackling the subject of race at least in the same fashion as The Defiant Ones even if it is not as successful (I'd argue the final riot's claim of the no easy solution is enough to make the film more complex than the let's get to know each other and than racism will be cured easy answer of The Defiant Ones). Certainly a film which was also very prominent (to the point of an oscar nomination) in addition to fulfilling those requirements is enough to illustrate that the social importance which The Defiant Ones rests its reputation on and which you are primarily arguing from is greatly exaggerated.

[domino harvey]

Based on Gregory's posts in this thread, it should at least be acknowledged that he's operating under a different perception of "auteur" than most

The last two pages have just been the opposite of discussion. Gregory, I think you're being weirdly arrogant about your positions and making unsubstantiated claims while accusing others of the same. And no doubt I've been no picnic, either. This is all embarrassing for those on the outside looking in, so I'm done, and if you think me refusing to feed into it any further is an indication of you "winning" this argument (whatever on earth that would look like), then congratulations.

[Gregory]

Knives: I don't understand what you're trying to say about auteurship (a [presumed] preference for medium shots is an auteurist stamp?) and we seem to be talking a cross purposes here:

If he isn't the author (or co-author in his producing cases) than where does the commonalities in his work come from?

Superficiality? Coincidence? I don't know what commonalities you mean, because you haven't specified them. I don't think it serves any purpose to discuss this further unless someone really wants to try and convince me that Kramer is an auteur filmmaker, for some reason.

Here again

...more complex than the let's get to know each other and than racism will be cured easy answer of The Defiant Ones

you're asserting that the film is simplistic, ignoring all the claims I tried to make for it. But fine, I'll try with another specific example. It's not essentially Cullen and Joker getting to know each other that cuts to the heart of the racism and overcomes it. Look at the scene when the two have already begun to get to know each other, and then are about to be lynched by Mac and his mob. Joker tries to fall back on his white privilege to save his own hide but then finds that in some situations it doesn't count. Any simplistic views of a society divided along racial lines are complicated throughout the film as particular circumstances, including socioeconomic background, are brought into the equation. I don't want to be accused of reading the film strictly on ideological grounds, so I'll give another example which relates more directly to the characters' personalities: In the scene where they're waiting among all the barrels to get into the turpentine camp, Joker talks about his "dog eat dog" outlook and disavowal of cooperation.
Again, the film doesn't "solve" the problem of racism. It shows how two people are able to overcome it, but it's not just by getting to know each other. The turning point of the film, as the characters must escape from the pit, is physical, visceral, and predicated on grounds of survival rather than ideology. This in a film that knives says the director shouts things rather than showing them. So much of the film's richness is elaborated through the characters' movement through various spaces of pits, bogs of quicksand, and many other hostile and shadowy landscapes, that I can't fathom this as a film that tells rather than shows.
EDIT: to clarify who I'm replying to.

[Gregory]

Based on Gregory's posts in this thread, it should at least be acknowledged that he's operating under a different perception of "auteur" than most

Auteurism has been a question of considerable disagreement among critics for a long time. I'm not sure what you're trying to imply about that thread, but you're clearly not interested in really discussing anything here. I've tried to question the grounds for your defensiveness (my personal opinion about who is/isn't an auteur is somehow a slap in the face to you for having spent time writing up films under the heading of a director's career?). I've pointed out that you've claimed directors as auteurs that I've never seen anyone claim, and that I'm not averse to the idea but am just not convinced yet. I've shown how you've changed my words, and accused me of making a blanket statement by quoting a partial sentence that included an example of a scene I hoped might be grounds for discussion... But you seem willing to respond to nothing I have to say.

This is all embarrassing for those on the outside looking in, so I'm done, and if you think me refusing to feed into it any further is an indication of you "winning" this argument (whatever on earth that would look like), then congratulations.

Embarrassing for those on the outside? I'm not embarrassed, except I wish I'd made the point about Poitier's role better before people jumped down my throat for it. And again, I have no idea what I ever did to you that would lead you to take me for someone so petty as to warrant a parting shot like that. In the future, I invite you to ignore my posts, especially if you're going to talk down to me the way you consistently have here.

[swo17]

Where is Stanley Kramer when we need him to teach us all how to get along?

[knives]

Spinning in his grave over the fact that white people didn't cure racism.

[domino harvey]

Here's hoping Entertainment Weekly comes out with a Top 25 List for the 1950s so we can have something of value to discuss

[Mr Sausage]

Spinning in his grave over the fact that white people didn't cure racism.

You mean Crash didn't cure racism?!

[knives]

I wonder what he though of Do the Right Thing? I could very easily see him despising it.

[Gregory]

Apparently it was stupid of me to defend this specific film on its own terms. Maybe none of you have seen it recently enough, or just have nothing really to say about it but want to jump into a discussion surrounding it if you see an easy "in". Oh well, have your fun bashing the director. He's such an easy, obvious target nowadays, and therefore, I suppose, so are all of the films he directed, especially if you ignore the substance of dissenting opinions. It's just something else to see "auteur" status (unsupported even when prompted) used to tie the film to the tainted director and thus support prevailing views and snarky dismissals -- and I'm said to be "operating under a different perception of 'auteur' than most." Supposed authorship is not a means of lazily condemning everything by a middling director at one fell swoop.
Not only am I really upset by what's happened here, but now it's Friday night and I still have work to do and wish I hadn't wasted my time with this.

[knives]

Is there really a question of authorship though and does it even really matter? Obviously all films are the vision of at least one person with the role of director and/or producer being the most easy to take advantage of that authorship position. No one hear would deny the influence of a writer for providing some semblance of authorship which seems to be you claim of concern here (after all look at all of the discussions about Charlie Kaufman on this board), but the script as it is present in its final form (as a film) resembles in ways that go beyond coincidence the other films by Kramer suggesting that he had a hand in writing the script uncredited. On the other hand the writer you've pointed to has (at least amongst the films of his I've seen) only one film which shares these qualities of script and that one film is also directed by Stanley Kramer (in fact The Train is so different from The Defiant Ones that I would have never guessed that anyone on the story level was shared). So in this case condemning a film in part for showcasing the bad qualities of a mediocre director and producer seems entirely within reason.

[puxzkkx]

Pickpocket was an interesting case for me. I adore Bresson, and it was interesting watching him work in a more cynical vein - he takes such glee in the repetition of the theft sequences, and his scoring of them never seems less than tongue-in-cheek. But I feel like this asks and answers one question - can a person benefit the world/others by prioritising themselves? - rather than opening the broader dialogue that something like Diary or Balthazar does. I guess the still-waters simplicity of his other most famous works strikes me as mere simplicity here, which prevents me from really loving it.

[serdar002]

Here are some Soviet films, most of them from the post-Stalin thawing period, custom subbed versions in the back-channels

Boris Godunov (Vera Stroyeva 1954) - the complete Mussorgsky opera, Eisensteinian colour mise-en-scène, glorious singing too

Borets i kloun (the wrestler and the clown - Boris Barnet 1957) - another beautifully toned colour film, set in pre-WW I Russia, lots of circus scenes

Sorok pervyy (The 41st - Chukrai 1956) - Russian Civil War setting, colour cinematography with "black-filtered" skies by Urusevsky

and here are two quiet and realistic home movies in black-and-white (which I much prefer to The Cranes Are Flying 1957 or Ballada o soldate 1959)

Dom v kotorom ya zhivu (The house I live in - Lev Kulidzhanov & Yakov Segel 1957) - A Moscow apartment building, the lives of three families in the period 1935-1945, most of the story taking place during the war

Vesna na Zarechnoy ulitse aka Spring comes to Zarechnaya Street (Marlen Khutsiyev & Feliks Mironer 1956) - this is even out on bluray, a young woman is starting her teaching job (literature in evening class to the workers) in a remote industrial town

[the preacher]

I support the ones I have seen: The Wrestler and the Clown (directed by the always unpredictable Barnet), The Forty-first (arguably the most beautiful color cinematography of the decade) and Spring on Zarechnaya Street (incredibly romantic without a single kiss).

Concerning the two most famous films I have different feelings: I love Ballad of a Soldier but I don't like too much Kalatozov/Urusevsky's approach to romantic melodrama in The Cranes Are Flying. Hand-held camera, impossible angles and aggressive editing work better in a propaganda-film like Salt for Svanetia. Of course I'm one of the few who thinks Soy Cuba is technically impressive but, otherwise, awful cinema.

[swo17]

Of those I've only seen The Forty-First, which is indeed a visual marvel. There is a Ruscico DVD available, which you can get, for example, here. Thanks for the other recommendations, serdar!

[knives]

Does anyone know where I can get Kinuyo Tanaka's films as director?

[Michael Kerpan]

Does anyone know where I can get Kinuyo Tanaka's films as director?

Her first film Koibumi came out on (unsubbed) DVD in Japan. So far as I know, this is all that is commercially available. I have seen a rather rough copy of a TV broadcast (unsubbed, of course) of Ruten no ôhi / The Wandering Princess (1960). Not aware of anything else -- disappointing, as I'd especially love to see her second film, Tsuki wa noborinu (1955) (whih was Ozu-scripted).

[knives]

That's unfortunate, but I suppose should have been expected.

[puxzkkx]

Ozu's Early Spring was very good. Here he shifts his focus to the generation caught in the middle of the divide he usually depicts - those who were in their early 20s during the war, old enough to serve at the front but young enough to be directly impressed by the shift from imperialist attitudes after the surrender. Ozu paints a rather bleak picture here - at the beginning of the film a character remarks upon the view of hundreds of workers finishing their commute: "so I'm 1/30,000th then?". Devotion to country has been replaced by a devotion to industry, deadening and as emotionally destructive as war was physically destructive. Children and young people provide a more hopeful image than those of Tokyo Story or Early Summer - the Teiji Takahashi character's unexpected fatherhood is narratively placed as a potential redemption for a life lost in the epochal crevasse. And a gorgeous scene late in the film lends a group of youths happily rowing a kind of forward symbolic momentum pointing to a bright future. So the cynicism of his colour films is tempered although these images of hope lend extra gravity to the profoundly lonely but bittersweet final scene.

This is interesting because Ozu seems to be working on a larger canvas than ever here. Early Spring has a tapestry structure that approaches sprawl, with the narrative arcs of its central characters (Ikebe & Awashima) repeatedly yielding to the miniature stories of minor characters. As a result the runtime - 2hrs25mins, the longest in Ozu's canon - breezes by, and the sadness of the "1/30,000th" sentiment is directly written on screen. It is a clever reflection of the theme but as a result of the baton-passing of narrative focus perhaps a bit too inconsistent in tone for me to call it a masterpiece. Another excellent Ozu film from this period, however, with a very strong ensemble (perhaps one of the tightest of his 50s works - although no-one stands head-and-shoulders above the rest).

Ida Lupino's The Bigamist was interesting, a well-acted, nicely structured B with a unique way of depicting LA emotional malaise. I like that it doesn't make pretenses towards encapsulating the whole psychological experience of bigamy - if it did, certain story elements would have raised some gendered red flags. It is content to explore the specific psychology of one bigamist - Harry (Edmond O'Brien giving a sensitive performance), a critically lonely man whose minute-to-minute emotionalism, profound need to love, and to make others feel loved, leads him into a bizarre situation. Ida Lupino directs herself in the film's meatiest part and she is excellent without ever seeming indulgent.

A nice miniature but never quite able to shuck off its "issue film" trappings (especially in the climactic courtroom scene). Enough to keep me interested in Lupino's directed work, as there are glimmers here of the same exacting psychological insight she shows in her acting.

[Tommaso]

Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (Albert Lewin, 1951): This film has already had a bit of discussion on this site, but mostly with respect to the problems of the new restoration and its DVD/BD incarnations. I agree with the criticisms, but the colour problems on the Park Circus release (DVD version) didn't disturb me as much as to distract me from the enjoyment of this very strange film. It's really a weird one: it looks as if Powell & Pressburger had picked up one of the lesser books of Henry Rider Haggard and transplanted the whole thing to the Spanish sea coast. Visually, this is an absolutely gorgeous film with Jack Cardiff at his very, very best. The cockpit shots in the record-breaking speed race reminded me a little bit of the initial plane shots in "A matter of life and death", and of course the colour photography in the whole film is as stunning as anything you'd see in the P&P films shot by Cardiff. But unfortunately, Lewin was not Pressburger, and so the dialogue feels pretty heavy-handed in places (and the off-screen narration didn't help either), and sometimes even a bit didactic: think of the repeated appearance of that Omar Khayyam book, or the way the archeologist puts together the ancient vase as an obvious symbol for the story. And in general it seems that Lewin tried to cram a few too many myths into the film: from the telling name of Pandora to a tarot card depicting "Death" to the completely unnecessary subplot of bullfighting (a modern myth as much as car-racing, of course), this feels a little all over the place. No wonder that the film was apparently liked by some of the French surrealists. So quite a bit of suspension of disbelief is required here, but it's still an absolutely memorable film, with a ravishing Ava Gardner and a thoughtful James Mason in the main roles. A feast of sensuality and visual treats all the time. I loved it, but I'm just not sure if it's really a successful film. And perhaps that doesn't matter at all.

[knives]

Magnificent Obsession
This was a rather silly experience and not in the good Written on the Wind sort of way. The film seems so light weight with a larger target that is such an easy bullseye. It's almost like watching Bunuel's The Milky Way where this very great and talented thinker puts out a satire that looks at things in such an obvious fashion that the specific way of looking at things could have been done by anybody else. I'm not the biggest fan of All That Heaven Allows, but at least that film deals with modern malaise and isolation in a stunningly mature and complex fashion. The look of the film and performances are typically good especially Wyman's closeup post accident in the hospital, but Sirk has so large an output that missing out on the scripting level even when everything else works makes it come across as very minor. That said it's probably my favorite Wyman performance at once hilarious and rather touching to the point of almost dragging the film up to what it could have been.

Really though the film does at least manage to be very good with my loving the rather gay relationship between Moorehead and Wyman (though that unfortunately seems one sided. I guess there's only so much wish fulfillment one film can have). If that had been the whole film, well it would probably be a Haynes film, I'm sure I would have actually loved the film. Though as the Stahl version shows things could have been far, far, far worse.

The Brave One
The best Irving Rapper film I've seen for what that's worth. The movie is as stiff as can be with this very awkward delivery. Much to my surprise the kid is the most expressive actor on display here giving the film a lot more life than the other aspects take away. The stuff where the kid just goofs off with the calf is as good as anything I've seen in one of these Old Yeller types and I suspect if the whole film had been that I'd have loved it, but in Trumbo's bizarre attempt to be sympathetic to the culture the film develops one of the most baffling moral spaces I've witnessed. The kid is pretty consistently right on things, but with only the explanation of 'it is our way' he and the calf constantly get kicked to the curb and it is treated as some necessary lesson. It makes for a very ugly film when a pleasant one is shining just underneath.

Not as a Stranger
This is without question the single worst film I've seen. Its badness is a unique sort of horrible that slowly creeps up on you. At first it doesn't seem all that bad. Certainly by Kramer standards it is rather alright with a fantastic if horribly histrionic Lon Chaney cameo (the only actor who seems to hit the right tone for the material) and a nice set of goals that will give the film a good sense of drama come out of this and a few other relationships. Even the direction is competent which is more than can be said of his other efforts I've seen.

The film begins to reveal what a horrible mess it is early in just leaving the Chaney character as a cameo. As a cameo it could conceivably work, but like all of the other dramatic arcs of the story it just seems like Kramer got bored instead. His scene does nothing except to give the movie one more scene as if this over two hour monstrosity needed it. Likewise why bring up that Crawford's doctor is Jewish? It doesn't add anything to the film and is not acknowledged anywhere else in the film except maybe in a turn of wish fulfillment when Crawford literally throws the book at Sinatra who is at least self aware enough to turn his role into one big joke. It's almost as if Kramer has social issue tourette's with this film which is otherwise an ordinary Patch Adams sort of deal that awkwardly shoehorns drama that will be forgotten in the very next scene. It's a contemptible manipulation of the audience whose biggest success is just how large a failure is at its vague goals.

The real clincher is Chaney's death which comes long after we've forgotten he exists as a character and is treated with such hyperdrama that an already distanced audience could never conceivably care. Thank god it has no repercussions on the film though. Heavens no as that would take talent of any sort. Instead we get more marital drama which isn't drama from a self righteous git played by a bored and miscast Robert Mitchum. As individual scenes this is a waste, as a movie this is a crime.

As a side thing is Cahn's Invasion of the Saucer Men available anywhere on a good DVD?

[gcgiles1dollarbin]

On the other hand the writer you've pointed to has (at least amongst the films of his I've seen) only one film which shares these qualities of script and that one film is also directed by Stanley Kramer (in fact The Train is so different from The Defiant Ones that I would have never guessed that anyone on the story level was shared). So in this case condemning a film in part for showcasing the bad qualities of a mediocre director and producer seems entirely within reason.

Didn't Frankenheimer direct The Train, assuming that's the film you are referencing (I couldn't think of a "train" film directed by Kramer)? Or did you mean to write "Inherit the Wind," which was also co-written by Nedrick Young? Regarding the debate above (which I'm sure everyone is eager to resurrect!), it reminds me how much I resist invoking the word "auteur" as some kind of debatable inference of total responsibility (as if that were in any way, shape, or form controversial), only because the term itself is so meaningless to me personally, particularly as a big fan of avant-garde/experimental film: to call Brakhage, Benning, or Snow "auteurs" is about as useful as calling them "human." I agree that the term, as such, is not necessarily invested in canon construction, although to read auteur stalwarts like Dave Kehr, you wouldn't guess that the word is merely descriptive and non-judgmental. I think he would have trouble bestowing the title upon Stanley Kramer, for example, for risk it might taint Leo McCarey, or someone more "worthy" of analysis. 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.

[knives]

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

[domino harvey]

Yeah, talking about auteurism on the board is definitely somewhere up there with unnecessary dental surgery on my to-do list! Any definition that recognizes Kramer as awful is probably okay though I'm working on getting the rest of my what-if-I-just-call-them-Director-Guides written, hopefully within the week, and then that'll probably be the last time I do one of these things. For those curious about my earlier cryptic reference, I was able to get that rare non-circulating film from a private collector-- Robert Rossen's the Brave Bulls! I was gonna have go to UCLA just to see this thing when I was planning out my thesis, so it's nice to finally have a copy of the only Rossen film I was missing. More on him and it l8r