As I noted a couple of days ago, there are seven 2014 releases with a high-profile pedigree: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Birdman, Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice, Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher, Ridley Scott‘s Exodus, Tim Burton‘s Big Eyes, David Fincher‘s Gone Girl, Christopher Nolan‘s Interstellar. I guess I should add Jean Marc Vallee‘s Wild (i.e., the Reese Witherspoon hiking drama), Matt Reeves‘ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel for an even ten.
I’m going to re-scramble the Next Tier of Promising Films in order of highest quality (presumed or expected): George Clooney‘s The Monuments Men, Darren Aronofsky‘s Noah, Richard Shephard‘s Dom Hemingway, Ted Melfi‘s St. Vincent, Craig Gillespie‘s Million Dollar Arm, Doug Liman‘s Edge of Tomorrow, Clint Eastwood‘s Jersey Boys, Andy and Lana Wachowski‘s Jupiter Ascending, Phillip Noyce‘s The Giver, Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken (adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen), Jason Bateman‘s Bad Words. (11)
The usual seven or eight high-intrigues or must-sees (possibly Calvary, The Voices Inside, White Bird In A Blizzard, A Most Wanted Man, They Came Together, The One I Love) will emerge from Sundance 2014, which begins a couple of weeks hence. And then comes the seven-month slog of winter, spring and summer, during which an occasional pop-through might happen — maybe. The only guaranteed goodie going to Cannes will be Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Birdman. (A list of other likelies will emerge around mid-March, I’m guessing.) Anyone can recite the big-studio releases but which among these are likely to assemble a strong critical following? Okay, Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice, Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher, Ridley Scott‘s Exodus, Michael Mann‘s Cyber, Tim Burton‘s Big Eyes, Spike Lee‘s Sweet Blood of Jesus, David Fincher‘s Gone Girl and Christopher Nolan‘s Interstellar. But what else? Things always look hazy at this stage but right now? Honestly? It looks like a middle-range lineup. Which isn’t so bad. As long as it’s not flat.
Possibly Good, Agreeable or Passable 2014 Films (maybe, here’s hoping, bending over backwards, all CG fantasy and superhero crap automatically excluded): George Clooney‘s The Monuments Men, Jose Padilla‘s RoboCop, Akiva Goldsman‘s Winter’s Tale (probably not that good, to judge by the trailer), Paul W.S. Anderson‘s Pompeii (video game crap), Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Jason Bateman‘s Bad Words, Joe Carnahan‘s Stretch, Diego Luna‘s Cesar Chávez, Darren Aronofsky‘s Noah, Richard Shephard‘s Dom Hemingway, Ivan Reitman‘s Draft Day (beware-of-Reitman factor), Ted Melfi‘s St. Vincent, Wally Pfister‘s Transcendence, Nick Casavetes‘ The Other Woman, Amma Asanate‘s Belle (mezzo-mezzo?), Nicholas Stoller‘s Neighbors (likely crap), Craig Gillespie‘s Million Dollar Arm, Seth McFarlane‘s A Million Ways to Die in the West, Doug Liman‘s Edge of Tomorrow, Phil Lord and Chris Miller‘s 22 Jump Street, Clint Eastwood‘s Jersey Boys, Matt Reeves‘ Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Andy and Lana Wachowski‘s Jupiter Ascending, Luc Besson‘s Lucy (probable crap), Phillip Noyce‘s The Giver, Shawn Levy‘s This Is Where I Leave You, Antoine Fuqua‘s The Equalizer, David Ayer‘s Fury (probable crap) and Angelina Jolie‘s Unbroken (adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen).
A boilerplate riff from Deadline‘s Pete Hammond about the Oscar worthiness of Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity was posted this afternoon. It includes a new video piece about the merits of the screenplay by Cuaron and his son Jonas (below). It’s a nicely composed look at the year’s mostly visually astounding and innovative film, and I want to once again emphasize my absolute respect and admiration for the brilliant technical craft that went into this $80 million survival flick. But the Hammond piece led me back to my original Telluride review (“Spectacular, Eye-Popping Gravity Could Be Deeper“), and I really do think my reactions were solid and straight and fairly dead-on.
Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity “is the most visually sophisticated, super-immersive weightless thrill-ride flick I’ve ever seen. If Stanley Kubrick had been there last night he would freely admit that 2001: A Space Odyssey is no longer the ultimate, adult-angled, real-tech depiction of what it looks and feels like to orbit the earth. Nifty and super-cool from a pure-eyeball perspective, Gravity is certainly the most essential theatrical experience since Avatar. You can’t watch a top-dollar 3D super-flick of this type on anything other than a monster-sized IMAX screen.
Cecil B. DeMille was a pious hypocrite. The theme of his Biblical-era films was spiritual salvation through the Bible, but no other studio-era filmmaker shovelled sex, female flesh, big muscles, debauchery and blood with more relish. On top of which he was a Republican who believed in the blacklisting practices of the late ’40s and early ’50s. But he had a fairly decent eye for balance and composition — almost as good as John Ford‘s. He knew how to fill the frame, and his films were handsomely dressed and designed. Samson and Delilah (’49) is swill, of course. The dialogue by Jesse L. Lasky, Jr. and Fredric M. Frank is agony. But George Barnes’ Technicolor cinematography is ripe and richly toned. The Bluray streets in early March.
A healthy percentage of HE regulars surely caught Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity last night, so what’s the verdict? My basic Telluride response was that Gravity is technically dazzling and audacious as hell and absolutely unmissable for that, but (a) it lacks the meditative depth and resonance of J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost, which is roughly the same film (a solo traveller struggles to survive when catastrophe strikes) on a smaller scale and (b) that Robert Redford‘s stoic performance is much more satisfying than Sandra Bullock‘s, which struck me as too on-the-nose emotional. Here again is my Telluride review:
Gravity “is the most visually sophisticated, super-immersive weightless thrill-ride flick I’ve ever seen. If Stanley Kubrick were around he would freely admit that 2001: A Space Odyssey is no longer the ultimate, adult-angled, real-tech depiction of what it looks and feels like to orbit the earth. Nifty and super-cool from a pure-eyeball perspective, Gravity is certainly the most essential theatrical experience since Avatar. You can’t watch a top-dollar 3D super-flick of this type on anything other than a monster-sized IMAX screen.
I’ve seen two of the films opening on Friday, 9.27 — Joseph Gordon Levitt‘s Don Jon (formerly Don Jon’s Addiction) and Greg ‘Freddy’ Camalier‘s Muscle Shoals. I meant to see James Franco’s As I Lay Dying in Cannes but then the word got around and other stuff came up and then the one-sheet surfaced — the film (like the 1930 William Faulkner book it’s based upon) is an ensemble piece and the poster image is no-big-deal snap of a frowning Franco?
Because I live in a right-brain flotation fog, I have an annual tradition of leaving my passport at home when I leave for Telluride. Who needs a passport for Colorado, right? I don’t consider that I’ll be flying directly to New York and then Toronto hours after returning from Telluride, etc. So I had a friend send my passport to my son’s place in Brooklyn for pickup today. But the Labor Day holiday allowed for only an 8:30 am drop-off on Wednesday, which doesn’t work since tomorrow’s Toronto flight leaves from Newark at 11:10 am. But I was saved when FedEx screwed up and forgot to send the passport, so they offered to put it on a commercial flight today and deliver it in Brooklyn by 10:30 or 11 pm tonight. So all’s well. I slept 90 minutes on the red-eye so I took a nap this afternoon, and now I have a date with…uhm, a film at 6 pm.
Taken from a fifth-floor Airbnb rental at 515 West 48th, just off Tenth Avenue.
Snapped last night from a backyard patio on Sandy Cape Drive, Pacific Palisades, where I had dinner during a seven-hour stopover in Los Angeles after flying back from Telluride.
I don’t have the experience to eulogize the great Julie Harris, who died yesterday in West Chatham, Massachusetts at age 87. I never saw her once on the New York stage, where she shined the brightest and most consistently, and haven’t seen that many of her films. For decades I’ve associated Harris with only three screen performances: Abra in Elia Kazan‘s East of Eden (one of my favorite female characters of all time), the neurotic, spinsterish Eleanor in Robert Wise‘s The Haunting and Grace Marsh (i.e., Anthony Quinn‘s friend and supporter) in Ralph Nelson‘s Requiem for a Heavyweight. Three films in a seven-year stretch — ’55, ’61 and ’62.
Julie Harris with James Dean during the ferris-wheel scene in Elia Kazan’s East of Eden.
I’m somewhere between 60% and 70% positive on James Mangold‘s Japan-set The Wolverine. It isn’t ground-breaking, but how could it be? Who goes to…what is this, the sixth or seventh film with in which Hugh Jackman portrays the same old buff, gruff, mutton-chopped mutant…who goes to films like this expecting something really and truly “new”? I suppose that the bullet-train fight sequence (a good portion of which is viewable on YouTube) qualifies as something never-before-seen, but it seemed a little too hard-drivey. And I know that every time a samurai-swordfight or crossbow or dynamic physical combat sequence began I zoned out. It’s nice that…uhm, I didn’t notice any bullets being fired ( or forgot about same), but leaping aerial ballet sequences involving medieval weaponry…later. They have no real kick or throttle. They’re just “performed” and then they’re over. I know I could do very, very well without seeing another Asian-styled combat sequence for the rest of my life on this or any other planet.
16 year-old Asa Butterfield was 13 or 14 when he began shooting Martin Scorsese‘s Hugo, when he had a wide-eyed innocent look. Now as the titular, pint-sized hero in Ender’s Game, he looks like a young Elvis Costello. (Offscreen he wears Costello-styled glasses.) Dystopian sci-fi CG pic costars Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Viola Davis, Hailee Steinfeld and Abigail Breslin. Obviously cookie-cutterish. A cousin of Oblivion and Elysium with a “precocious Luke Skywalker-ish kid becoming a warrior” storyline.
It’s been reported by NY Post critic/columnist Lou Lumenick as well as HighDef Digest that Warner Home Video will release that Shane Bluray that I’ve been complaining about on Tuesday, June 4th. Regretfully, the aspect ratio will be 1.66 and not 1.37, which is how this 1953 George Stevens classic was shot and meant to be seen. The decision to ignore this fact and present a reconstituted Shane is a very bad thing, and there should be a hue and cry about it, dammit.
I don’t care how expertly WHV’s Shane Bluray has been mastered for 1.66. It will present a version with missing gun belts and dog legs cut off and missing boots and slightly lowered skylines. It’s wrong and WHV knows it.
If WHV wants to release Shane at 1.66 for commercial purposes, fine, but for decency’s sake and particularly out of respect for the vision of George Stevens and his dp Loyal Griggs they need to make the 1.37 version available via Warner Archives.
There is absolutely no basis for any debate on this. I am 100% correct and that’s that. Again — read what I wrote before. And then read the two discussions about this matter on Home Theatre Forum — discussion #1 and discussion #2. Shane was shot in 1.37 and should be at least concurrently presented on Bluray at that aspect ratio along with the 1.66 version.
Respected archivist Bob Furmanek has written on HTF that Shane “was clearly composed for 1.37:1. I prefer to see it in that ratio. I feel that is how it should be seen.”
Restoration guru Robert Harris says on HTF that “while I would love to also see the film in 1.37, the 1.66 has been formatted on a shot-by-shot basis, as opposed to locking in at a 1.66 center and running. George Stevens, Jr., whom I trust implicitly, has approved. He was not only on set for the shoot in 1951, but also, rumor has it, knew the director reasonably well. Hopefully, a dual format release can occur, as the data would have been completed both ways.”
From my HTF post: “George Stevens and dp Loyal Griggs shot Shane at 1.37 — that is a stone fact. Between July and October of 1951. Before anyone had ever heard of or even conceptualized 1.66. It was never intended to be seen at 1.66 by its makers, period.
“Has George Stevens, Jr. done an impeccable job of making the 1.66 Bluray version look as good as possible by balancing the visual elements and not chopping heads off and whatnot? Almost certainly, I’m told. But did his father and Loyal Griggs compose for 1.66? No, they did not.
“The 1.66 theatrical release of Shane in April 1953 was a studio mandate. We’ve got to look bigger and broader than TV. Get on board or else. The industry was up in arms against TV. A huge Battle Cry. Wider and bigger, wider and bigger.
“Do you suppose that the 1953-era Paramount studio chiefs went to Stevens and said, ‘Whaddaya think, George? Is it okay with you & your dp if we whack the tops and bottoms off the film that you guys shot? We won’t do it if you say no.’
“Seriously — what was Stevens going to say or do? Be Patrick Henry and fall on his sword while crying 1.37 or death? He was a political animal like all studio directors, trying to swim and stay afloat and stay viable.
“How in the world can anyone be against urging WHV to present the film as it was framed and shot to Bluray viewers? How could it possibly be a problem to urge a concurrent release via Warner Archives of the real Shane (i.e., the 1.37 version)? George Stevens, Jr. told me a while back that he prepared a highdef/Bluray version of same. It’s there to be issued. How could this possibly be a problem for anyone who cares about this film?
“As the Bluray has no doubt been pressed and duplicated and locked down by now, I’m going to send a letter out tomorrow to every person of any importance in the Bluray/home video/archive & restoration community, asking that they sign a letter urging Warner Home Video to issue a concurrent 1.37 Shane Bluray via Warner Archives.
“Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, the heads of the American Cinematheque, AFI, BFI, Robert Harris, Bob Furmanek, Scott Foundas, Todd McCarthy, Robert Osborne and the people behind the TCM Classic Film Festival, Tom Luddy, Gary Meyer, all the restoration guys in the community, Home Theatre Forum, Digital Bits, Highdef Digest, the Film Foundation…everyone of note who could or would care about seeing a Bluray of George Stevens’ film as it was actually framed and shot in 1951.
“And not some bizarre studio-slice version that did not and never will represent what Stevens and Griggs captured on the set. You can cut the pie ten or fifteen different ways and it still comes down to that rock-solid fact.”
HTF commenter Pete Apruzzese: “I hear is going to reframe Maltese Falcon for a new 1.85 version since the film played that way during reissues. I’m sure he’ll honor his father’s vision and that HTF will support his decision. Time to change the HTF mission statement — if a relative of the director does the change to the aspect ratio, then it’s okay.”
A HTF contributor who calls himself Eastmancolor has written the following:
“I’ve seen Shane many times over the years, not only on VHS, laserdisc and DVD, but also on 16mm and 35mm film. Even in previous 35mm screening held here in Los Angeles, I’ve never seen the film shown in a 1.66 aspect ratio. Never.
“As has been discussed, the only reason the film was ever shown in 1.66 was to satisfy the marketing department at Paramount in 1953. And except for screenings around that time (and only in certain venues) was the film ever shown publicly in that ratio?
“The film all of us know and love has primarily been shown in 1.37. That’s also how the original creators of the film wanted it shown.
“1.37 should be a no-brainer.
“The argument for modifying the film to a 1.66 ratio is more to satisfy the folks who want every inch (or almost every inch) of their 16×9 hi-def television screens filled. It’s this same lunacy that’s ruined the presentation of many CinemaScope ratio films. Warner Bros especially loves to take both their new and old scope films and modify them to 1.78, ruining the original screen compositions. Try watching East of Eden on Netlix or Amazon streaming. After the widescreen opening credits at 2.55 they zoom in to 1.78, thus making the film about as unwatchable as those old 1.33 pan and scan jobs from decades earlier.
“Now they want to modify Shane, only cropping off the top and bottom instead of the sides.
“The whole point of of letterboxing in the past has been to preserve the original intent of the filmmakers. This upcoming pillarboxing of Shanegoes against what the filmmakers intended. It was only what the pencil pushers in the front office at Paramount intended in 1953. I would no more think of purchasing a 1.66 version of Shane than I would a 2.1 version of Gone With The Wind, but that’s how that film was released to theaters in the 1960’s.
“At the very least, both a 1.37 and the 1.66 presentations of Shane should be offered on the Bluray. The studios love to give us newer films with a Bluray, DVD and Digital copy in the same package. Having two presentations of Shane shouldn’t be too difficult.”
I’m ready and willing to ease up on my John Fordtakedowns and I could really and truly go the rest of my life without writing another word (much less another article) on The Searchers. But yesterday the Hollywood Reporter posted a Martin Scorsese essay on The Searchers — mostly a praise piece — and I feel obliged to respond, dammit. But really, this is the end.
Scorsese’s basic thought is that while The Searchers has some unfortunate or irritating aspects, it’s nonetheless a great film and has seemed deeper, more troubling and more layered the older he’s become. Which is well and good but you always have to take Scorsese’s praise with a grain of salt, I think. A lifelong Film Catholic, Scorsese has always been a gentle, generous, big-hearted critic. Show him almost any mediocre film by a semi-respected director and nine times out of ten he’ll look on the bright side and turn the other cheek. Has he ever written anything even the least bit mean or cutting or dismissive?
My basic view of The Searchers, as I wrote three of four years ago, is that “for a great film it takes an awful lot of work to get through it. I don’t know how to enjoy The Searchers any more except by wearing aesthetic blinders — by ignoring all the stuff that drives me up the wall in order to savor the beautiful heartbreaking stuff (the opening and closing shot, Wayne’s look of fear when he senses danger for his brother’s family, his picking up Wood at the finale and saying, ‘Let’s go home, Debbie’). That said I can’t help but worship Winston C. Hoch‘s photography for its own virtues.
For me, Scorsese’s wisest observation is that John Ford personally related to John Wayne‘s Ethan Edwards, the gruff, scowling, racist-minded loner at the heart of this 1956 film.
Ford “was at his lowest ebb” when he made The Searchers, Scorsese writes. “Ford’s participation in the screen version of Mister Roberts had ended disastrously soon after a violent encounter between the filmmaker and his star Henry Fonda. For Ford, The Searchers was more than just another picture: It was his opportunity to prove that he was still in control. Did he pour more of himself into the movie? It does seem reasonable to assume that Ford recognized something of his own loneliness in Ethan Edwards and that the character sparked something in him. It’s interesting to see how it dovetails with another troubled character from the same period. Like James Stewart‘s Scotty in Vertigo, Edwards’ obsessive quest ends in madness.”
Jeffrey Hunter, John Wayne
Film lovers know The Searchers “by heart,” Scorsese writes, “but what about average movie watchers? What place does John Ford’s masterpiece occupy in our national consciousness?” Wells to Scorsese: In terms of the consciousness of the general public, close to zilch. In terms of the big-city Film Catholic community (industry aficionados, entertainment journalists, film academics and devoted students, educated and well-heeled film buffs, obsessive film bums), there is certainly respect for The Searchers but true passionate love? The numbers of those who feel as strongly as you, most of whom grew up in the ’50s and ’60s, are, I imagine, relatively small and dwindling as we speak.
I’m pleased to note that some of my complaints about Ford have at least been acknowledged by Scorsese. “A few years ago I watched it with my wife,” he writes, “and I will admit that it gave me pause. Many people have problems with Ford’s Irish humor, which is almost always alcohol-related. For some, the frontier-comedy scenes with Ken Curtis are tough to take.
“For me, the problem was with the scenes involving a plump Comanche woman (Beulah Archuletta) that the Hunter character inadvertently takes as a wife. There is some low comedy in these scenes: Hunter kicks her down a hill, and Max Steiner’s score amplifies the moment with a comic flourish. Then the tone shifts dramatically, and Wayne and Hunter both become ruthless and bullying, scaring her away. Later, they find her body in a Comanche camp that has been wiped out by American soldiers, and you can feel their sense of loss. All the same, this passage seemed unnecessarily cruel to me.”
Here’s what I wrote way back when:
“John Ford‘s movies have been wowing and infuriating me all my life. A first-rate visual composer and one of Hollywood’s most economical story-tellers bar none, Ford made films that were always rich with complexity, understatements and undercurrents that refused to run in one simple direction.
“Ford’s films are always what they seem to be…until you watch them again and re-reflect, and then they always seem to be about something more. But the phoniness and jacked-up sentiment in just about every one of them can be oppressive, and the older Ford got the more he ladled it on.
“The Irish clannishness, the tributes to boozy male camaraderie, the relentless balladeering over the opening credits of 90% of his films, the old-school chauvinism, the racism, the thinly sketched women, the “gallery of supporting players bristling with tedious eccentricity” (as critic David Thomson put it in his Biographical Dictionary of Film) and so on.
The closing shot of John Ford’s The Searchers
“The treacliness is there but tolerable in Ford’s fine pre-1945 work — The Informer, Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln , Drums Along the Mohawk, They Were Expendable , The Grapes of Wrath and My Darling Clementine .
“But it gets really thick starting with 1948’s Fort Apache and by the time you get to The Searchers, Ford’s undisputed masterpiece that came out in March of 1956, it’s enough to make you yank the reins and go ‘whoa, nelly.’
“Watch the breathtaking beautiful new DVD of The Searchers, and see if you can get through it without choking. Every shot is a visual jewel, but except for John Wayne‘s Ethan Edwards, one of the most fascinating racist bastards of all time, every last character and just about every line in the film feels labored and ungenuine.
“The phoniness gets so pernicious after a while that it seems to nudge this admittedly spellbinding film toward self-parody. Younger people who don’t ‘get’ Ford (and every now and then I think I may be turning into one) have been known to laugh at it.
“Jeffrey Hunter‘s Martin Pawley does nothing but bug his eyes, overact and say stupid exasperating lines all through the damn thing. Nearly every male supporting character in the film does the same. No one has it in them to hold back or play it cool — everyone blurts.
“Ken Curtis‘s Charlie McCorry, Harry Carey Jr.’s Brad Jorgensen, Hank Worden‘s Mose Harper…characters I’ve come to despise.
“You can do little else but sit and grimace through Natalie Wood‘s acting as Debbie (the kidnapped daughter of Ethan’s dead brother), Vera Miles‘ Laurie Jorgenson, and Beulah Archuletta‘s chubby Indian squaw (i.e., ‘Wild Goose Flying in the Night Sky’)…utterly fake in each and every gesture and utterance.
“I realize there’s a powerful double-track element in the racism that seethes inside Ethan, but until he made Cheyenne Autumn Ford always portrayed Indians — Native Americans — as creepy, vaguely sadistic oddballs. The German-born, blue-eyed Henry Brandon as Scar, the Comanche baddie…’nuff said.
“That repulsive scene when Ethan and Martin look at four or five babbling Anglo women whose condition was caused, we’re informed, by having been raised by Indians, and some guy says, ‘Hard to believe they’re white’ and Ethan says, ‘They ain’t white!’
“I’ll always love the way Ford handles that brief bit when Ward Bond‘s Reverend Clayton sees Martha, the wife of Ethan’s brother, stroking Ethan’s overcoat and then barely reacts — perfect — but every time Bond opens his mouth to say something, he bellows like a bull moose.”
Final thought: The more I think about the stuff in Ford’s films that drives me crazy, the less I want to watch any Ford films, ever. Okay, that’s not true but the only ones I can stand at this point are The Horse Soldiers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Grapes of Wrath, The Informer, The Lost Patrol, The Last Hurrah and, believe it or not, Donovan’s Reef.