Thomas Graal's Best Film (1917) Stiller & Sjöström

Arguably the pre-eminent filmmakers between Birth of a Nation and Metropolis were not the Americans or the Germans but the Scandinavians. The Danes had everyone from Urban Gad, Benjamin Christensen to Carl Theodor Dreyer whilst the Swedes had the sophistication of Victor Sjöström and Mauritz Stiller.

A gross generalisation of course, but there was something in the fjords at that time…both the main Swedish film producers were able to move the form on through a series of dramatic adaptations of classic stories and they were also adept at comedy. Not so much slapstick as “social”. And, in Thomas Graal’s Best Film (Thomas Graals Basta Film), Stiller produced what was not only one of the first films about film but something that could reasonably be described as post-modern.

Made in 1917 from a script by future director, Gustaf Molander the film stared Victor Sjöström as the eponymous Graal and his wife, Karin Molander as the impish Bessie Douglas.

Even watching a nth generation video the skill of this film is unmistakable and places it ahead of much contemporary comedy: who knew the Swedes were so sophisticatedly sardonic? (that alliterative back-hander is in tribute to my old pen pal from Stockholm!).

The story is based on a lazy scriptwriter who is more interested in pursuing his pretty secretary than polishing off his latest script: "If he weren't the laziest, he might well be the most successful writer of cinema plays....". Bessie leaves in a huff after he takes things just too far and this sets off the story of the film within a film that follows. Thomas decides that the only way to lure Bessie back is to write the story of her imagined life and then get her to play the lead (alongside himself, natch!).

Sounds contrived? But it’s so well acted and put together that you go with it and are never quite sure how Bessie is going to work out until the very end. Throughout there are knowing quips as the mechanics and business of film making is shown in unprecedeneted detail. A cigar-chomping producer casually discards scripts with weary disdain, a stunt man complains about the harness is is wearing to be shown hanging…in the end the crew decide to drop the scene: “if we don’t cut it the censors will anyway!”…Bessie disturbs what looks like an assault but the man on horseback she disrupts is an actor mid-scene. It’s real but it’s not real.

And, it's witty throughout with some crisp inter titles: "Bessie knows nothing whatever about acting, so naturally is filled with ambition to play all the great tragic roles."

If Sjöström was adept at comedy, sending himself up with just the right amount of restraint, his wife was superb. Naturalistic and watchable she throws herself into the role whether it’s her energetic hamminess in pastiching the contemporary dramatic style so prevalent across the Atlantic (and indeed in her husband’s earlier films), her belting smile or knowing looks (occasionally direct to the camera…how arch is that?!).

Throughout Stiller directs with crisp economy and marshals the strands of reality and un-reality well. Graal is driven into the act of creation by his longing to find Bessie again and through his fantasy attains reality…Is that the films’ message?

Only at the very last does Thomas discover that Bessie is of wealthy stock and not the pauper he imagined. She had willingly left home, on many occasions, driven by the need for adventure…in the same way the audience is. We can’t help ourselves from identifying with her for that.

She reads his script and smiles directly at us as she works out how she is going to play out the story and, head thrown back in a beaming smile, we hope it’s the same ending we would write.

Thomas Graal was so successful that a sequel was made in quick order, Thomas Graals Bästa Barn (Thomas Graal’s Best Child) in 1918.

Featuring largely the same cast and crew, Best Child picks up the story with Thomas and Bessie’s wedding. It’s as well made as the first film but lacking the twists and turns of logic. It’s more of a serious attempt at comedy but still full of whimsy and adult themes. The parents are like children and behave as such for as long as they can get away with it, Bessie mimics Isadora Duncan (a hippie well before her time) and Thomas tries to avoid responsibility like a modern man-child!

Ultimately their child grows them up: a very contrary conclusion in line with the impact “unreal” cinema has on them in the first film.

Stiller and Sjöström went on to greater things but these films show them gaining full control of the medium and approaching the top of their game.

It is therefore, particularly annoying that neither film is commercially available even though decent quality prints seem to exist. So...Kino. Criterion...BFI, anybody...get your act together please!

As Thomas Graal says..."like me the poor curtain is consumed with burning emotion!" ...exactly!!

Ecstasy (1933) Hedy good!

Even 80 years down the line, you still feel that watching Ecstasy is a tad risqué... the very definition of a euro "art house" movie which some, misguided, individuals might see as an excuse for titillation. It is renowned of course for the opportunity it provides to view the legendary Hedy Lamarr in the nude and that's certainly something that attracted my younger self as I browsed the movie textbooks in my formative years...

But, is it any good? And, watching it with my wife and mother-in-law... is the nudity justified by the plot (that old excuse)? Did the 18-year old Hedy Kiesler (17 when she was cast) make the right decision in making the film and exposing herself in a way that was daring for 1930's middle Europe and explosive for 1940's middle America?

Directed by the Czech art film maker, Gustav Machatý, Ecstasy is the story of emotional and physical awakening. Its message is to trust to instinct and to seize the moment but to do so responsibly.Hedy plays Eva, a young woman just married to a much older man (Zwonimir Rogoz) who turns out to be incapable of matching her passion and energy. She is unleashed in nature as she rides her horse into the country and skinny dips in the famous lake sequence. Her horse runs off with her clothes (drawn supernaturally to it's mate) and she encounters a handsome young engineer (played by Albert Mog, Hedy's boyfriend at the time).

Eva and the engineer are drawn to each other and like Cathy compelled to visit her Heathcliffe across the moors, she goes to him in the late evening and they consummate their love in a rush of intercut shots: Eva's head thrown back, her arms falling limp to her side ... the beads falling to the floor...

It's hard to view this particular scene without thinking of the many, many times more modern films have depicted the act of love (including those with Leslie Nielsen and Pricilla Presley) but its well done and you can only imagine the impact this would have had on contemporary audiences. Some were shocked and others wanted a lot more (there were loud complaints from some more... hardcore elements) whilst Henry Miller, who saw the film a number of times, said: "their meeting is that of pure bodies, their union is poetic, sensual, mystical. They do not question themselves - they obey their instincts... (they) represent the life force blindly struggling to assert itself."

Machaty coached Hedy's performance and, painfully so, using a safety pin to help her emoting..."when I prick you a little on your backside, you will bring your elbows together and you will react!"

The two lovers decide to begin a new life together in Berlin but, as her makes his way to meeting Eva, the engineer is given a lift by her husband. Spotting his wife's discarded beads in the man's hand, her husband realises what has happened. After almost crashing his car the elder man is taken ill and helped by the engineer to the same hotel where the latter is to meet his wife... The two meet in passionate embrace but the sound of a single fateful gunshot breaks them up as the husband takes his own life.

The ending of the film is enigmatic. Eva leaves her lover at the station as she takes the train alone to a new future. Whether this is a decision based on guilt is unclear. Then there is a soviet-styled sequence showing railway workers in the field, their wives and young children as a stirring song is sung about the merits of hard work. The engineer is seen overlooking this industro-pastoral scene and imagining Eva at home with his baby... a bitter turn in his expression indicating this to be fantasy.

Ecstasy has the look and feel of a silent movie with only 15 lines of dialogue. It has many striking sequences and not just the obvious ones with a heavily symbolic approach echoing DH Lawrence and Freudian thought. Hedy and her lover's relationship is mirrored by the two thoroughbred horses at the two pivotal moments of their relationship: this is nature, validating their decision to submit to impulse over rational thought.

Hedy's performance is good and maybe one of her best. She is the visual fulcrum of the film and Machaty makes great use of her beauty. This is not the finely honed goddess of 1939-49 Hollywood but a teenager with limited experience and without the glamour-backup of the big machine. Yet she's well cast and the enigmatic almost over-powering nature of her looks works well - it's as if, here and throughout her career, her looks got in the way of her acting. We see Hedy Lamarr first and her characters second...there's a sensory delay that knocks things off kilter; stuck in the gap between "wow!" and her words...

Hedy's acting ability was always questioned and she seems to have been better suited to comedy. Watching her in Comrade X (1940) she pretty much matches Gable in the quick-fire one liners and you can sense her formidable intelligence, but, the great Algiers (1938) and a few others aside, she seems to have been less adept at drama; always cast for visual impact more than anything else.

Ruth Barton's excellent recent biography, Hedy Lamarr:The Most Beautiful Woman in Film tells her story well and I love the fact that Hedy co-invented the basis for spread spectrum broadcast technology in one of the most bizarre side-lines in film history.

In Ecstacy, Hedy is more remarkable as an actress than in many of her fully-clothed roles. And that is testament to her intelligence and ability to function in a role that wasn't always instinctive or natural. Hence the pin-prick and her preference for the light-hearted: how else could she take acting seriously?

In Ecstacy, she is believable, honest and true as much as she is beautiful.

So, I'd recommend Ecstacy, for most of the family - it's still available at Amazon. Comrade X is here and Ruth Barton's great book is here.

Remake, Remodel...Rank? Wages of Fear (1953) vs Sorcerer (1977)

Does anyone else get fed up with "best of" lists and the ceaseless ranking of modern culture? This week The Guardian music writer, Alexis Petridis listed Saturday Night Fever as his all time greatest album...yes, that'll be ahead of Kind of Blue, Revolver, Unknown Pleasures, Endtroducing and the rest. He may have a point (it is his personal choice after all) but it's like comparing apples with sausages or Tories with caring humanity...it goes to the heart of classification and qualitative analysis.

So...I'm not really going to compare these two versions of George Arnaud's novel. I watched them back to back and they're both worthwhile: similar tales but vastly different in the telling.

Wages of Fear ( Le Salarie de la Pleur) is a major film from Henri-Georges Clouzot. It is split broadly into halves with the first section setting the scene as a variety of characters waste away in a small latin american town; miles from more structured civilisation and from the unknown consequences of the actions that drove them there. They are all trapped without the means or the funds to escape and perhaps they have no choice anyway.

The men include Yves Montand as Mario, all tense and taught in his first major feature, Charles Vanel as the villainous Jo on his uppers after a no doubt slightly superior life of crime, Peter van Eyck as Bimba and Folco Lulli as Luigi, the most likable of the crew. Véra Clouzot is the only prominent female character as Linda, almost chained to the bar they all frequent and seeing Mario as her only salvation.

The men are offered a highly risky chance to escape following an explosion and fire at the oil well. They are to drive two trucks of lethally unstable nitroglycerine through the jungle to blow the fire out. The nitro is too dangerous for the unionised drivers to take on and only the most desparate of men would take on the risk. How frightened would you have to be to take this chance?

The second half of the film shows the journey as the men attempt to forge their way to the well and to the big pay-off that will give them all a second chance.

It is almost unbearably tense and Clouzot expertly sets the tone through a series of obstacles and uncomfortable set pieces: there is no margin for error and, quite literally, the teams could be blown to bits in a split second at the slightest drop, bump or spark.

This was one of the first french movies I saw as a child and I vividly remember the trucks and the tension. I was also fascinated by the nitro, a strange liquid more explosive than dynamite.

Watching Wages of Fear 20 years down the line was similarly intriguing. A strange highly-combustible mixture of, largely unlikeable, characters all of whom want to return to the normality we take for granted. Clouzot piles on the pressure and with savage twists and turns we reach the journey's end reeling from the pace and with the nagging feeling that the choices made through fear drive us all.

I also go back a long way with Sorcerer but it's the soundtrack and not the film that I know. If Tangerine Dream's music for L'Inferno (covered elsewhere on this blog) is inappropriate, it works very well here. Written at the tail end of their most creatively successful period (just after Ricochet), Sorcerer is atmospheric and packed full of original, inventive, music. It's as if the discipline of writing 3-4 minute tracks let Edgar Froese, Chris Franke and Peter Baumann express themselves more than their side-long soundscapes (LP fans!). It's a last gasp of Krautrock experimentation for the group before the vocals started and it became a Froese solo project.

The music is used sparingly in the film but it plays a major part in evoking the strange atmosphere director William Friedkin specialised in. The soundtrack is key to the best parts of the journey as Friedkin's drivers forge ahead with their deadly cargo.

Friedkin's film is similar in structure to Clouzot's but his first half gives us more specific details of the men's backgrounds. They are all different from in the earlier films but they are the same in terms of being in the only place they could be and incapable of escape. The always excellent Roy Scheider is Jackie Scanlon a small time New Jersey crook on the run from mob retribution whilst the brooding Bruno Cremer is Victor Manzon, a parisian businessman running from the consequences of bad deals gone horribly wrong. Francisco Rabal plays the hit man Nilo, whilst Amidou is Kassem a middle eastern terrorist (reminding us also how long the techniques of fear have stayed the same...).

The explosion this time is sabotage and the cargo dynamite that has degraded seeping nitroglycerine into boxes no less deadly than Wages of Fear's containers. The trucks set off to a different set of challenges from Clouzot's but the tension is maintained in similar fashion. There is a particularly memorable sequence when the trucks have to cross a wooden bridge as the rains pounds down. This is the image used for the soundtrack cover and it's the best bit of the action.

Sorcerer is the name of one of the trucks and Friedkin has argued that it also refers to the "evil wizard" of uncaring fate. We are none of us the masters of our own destiny and all make our choices based on circumstance and primeval reactions.

This is the consistent tone and message from both films. If I had to plump for a winner it'd be the french film but Sorcerer has an uncomfortable charm of its own and a cracking soundtrack to boot.

Wages of Fear is easier to find but you can also get both the Sorcerer DVD and the soundtrack from Amazon.

Unfinished cinematography... Clouzot's L'enfer (1964)

There's always a fascination for works that don't get completed; there's the allure of trying to establish exactly what went wrong and just how good the finished piece could have been? The unobtainability intensifies the perception of what's left: you fill in the gap with imagination for the unreleased, the fragmentary, the bootlegged...the "lost". In this way "Smile" would have outdone "Sgt Pepper" wouldn't it...if only Brian Wilson had been able to complete it. The magnified glory of the object partially glimpsed...

As film "buffs" we know so much about this feeling. There are just too many lost films.

Henri-George Clouzot's L'enfer is an unfinished film from 1964. Highly innovative and experimental with a substantial budget, excellent cast and three camera crews, it would have languished in legend had it not been for a lift breaking down... The lift contained film archivist Serge Bromberg and Ines Clouzot who got talking as they waited to be rescued. Finding out that many hours of film survived from one of his favourite director's unfinished film, Bromberg set about reconstructing what he could.The result was released as a quite brilliantly realised documentary in 2009, L'enfer d'Henri-Georges Clouzot.

Bromborg skilfully interweaves what remains of the footage - selected from over 13 hours' worth - with interviews with the cast and, mostly, crew who speak passionately about the film making. No useable soundtrack survived and so contemporary actors are used to fill in key dialogue.

It all works remarkably well and is compelling viewing in its own right never mind the "what might have beens". Clouzot obviously was a man driven by a vision he couldn't quite master in spite of the budget and the resources he was able to command. Things began to spiral out of control as the time ran out on their location (the lake was due to be drained), tempers frayed and his health gave in.But the film he was able to put together is striking and bold. It tells the story of the breakdown of relations between a married couple of disparate ages, the young and vibrant, Odette played by Romy Schneider and her insecure middle-aged husband, Marcel (Serge Reggiani). Marcel becomes convinced that Odette is having an affair with a hunky driver, played by Jean-Claud Bercq. He is driven to despair becoming more and more incapable of believing in his wife's love and even imagines her in a liaison with Dany Carrel (portraying the cheeky and uninhibited Marylou).

Whether these feelings are based on actuality we do not know and that is beside the point. Clouzot was more interested in the reality of the mind (well he was). He wanted to show the impact of unreasoned jealousy on perception and the distorted reality this can create.

Clouzot used various devices to underline the emotional narrative of the film: black and white to show the everyday and colour to show the distorted view of the fevered mind.

He also used modern kinetic art to unsettle and to show the unsettled and there are many shots of art installations that would have been used (some of which were later featured in his 1967 film La Prisonnière). There are also some amazing sequences with light strobing across of Romy Schneider's exquisite face, reflecting off its oiled surface which is then lightly coated with sparkling metallic dust...ahem!

Faces were painted and odd cloured lipstick was applied to allow even more unreality to be filmed and these produced the now iconic shots of Romy in blue.

Clouzot famously pushed his actors hard and whilst this certainly brought out a striking performance from Ms Schneider, it proved too much for Serge Reggiani. At one point, Clouzot forced Reggiani to run for long periods at a distance a stunt man could have been used. Exhausting for the then 42 year old. Reggiani eventually quit citing a mystery malady. Yet, by this stage this was merely one of many things going wrong on the film and Reggiani's replacement never even filmed a scrap of his part.

Clouzot succumbed to a heart attack and filming had to be stopped. That was it and, maybe, as some of the crew contend, that was the best outcome.

Possibly all Clouzot needed was a really good producer and he could have been coached into making a more focused effort and delivering what could have been one of the films of the 60's. But there I go again...we don't know how good the film could have been. However, what is presented in film by Bromberg is one of the best documentaries on film I've ever seen. And, what is shown in the reconstructed narrative is very strong; atmospheric and liable to linger in the mind.

It is a great pity that Clouzot made only one more film but what he left behind with L'Enfer, shows the same hallmarks of class as Les Diaboliques and Wages of Fear.

Respect also goes to Romy Schneider - what an actress! What ever Clouzot threw at her she handled and she stands out for the depth and strength of her performance. All this and she still managed to act, water ski like a champion and wear blue lipstick!

Please buy this DVD!

Stylish Blogger Awards

A little while ago, "The Big Parade" aka Zoe Walker's excellent film blog, kindly awarded me with the Stylish blogger Award.

As a recipient I am to post a link to Zoe's blog which is here. It's well informed and very stylish, one of my favourites and it should be one of yours too!

There are also two duties to carry out:

• Pass it on to some 7 stylish bloggers,
  
• and write 7 random tell all facts about yours truly (the real me and not just "Arthur"!)

7 facts!
- I am from a place called Lydiate...now part of Liverpool. John Lennon lived near by for a few months (before I was born) and, indeed, went to the same school as my dad
- my aunty's husband was in a film with Rock Hudson called "Captain Lightfoot"
- my mother in law was chair of the Wellsian Society and knows all things about HG Wells; she curated a series of Wells films at the BFi a few years' back
- I work in publishing and once wrote a book on the marketing of leisure services...
- my then girlfriend was removed from shot as an extra in the Rob Lowe *classic* "Oxford Blues" for being too "distracting" (she made it into some of the movie though and is distracting!)
- I was almost an extra in "Heaven's Gate"but couldn't be bothered (big mistake eh!?)
- I once said hello to Jack Lemmon in the street, much to his annoyance (sorry Jack, I was young!)

7 stylish blogs? So many to chose from but the first to come to mind win:

1. Thomas Gladysz quite brilliant Louise Brooks Society blog
2. Pamela Hutchison's similarly superb Silent London the beating heart of the capital's silent film revival!
3. Zoe Walker's above mentioned blog, The Big Parade, a great film and a great site!
4. Matthew Coniam''s well-informed and witty Movietone News
5. Roy Bean's wildly-diverse and dedicated Ganarse un Acre
6. D For Doom's opinionated (in a good way!) Classic Movie Ramblings
7. Ferdinand Von Galitzien's extraordinary cinematic cornucopia..."Spreading The Silent News Around The World..."

I'd also add Stacia's She Blogged by Night because it's also very stylish! And it's a blog, a very good one!

I urge you to visit these sites and there are plenty more our there but if I had to pick 7 (or 8) then these are my choices today!

Great Scott! The Great White Silence (1924)

Last Monday brought the extraordinary Great White Silence to Hertford's Castle Theatre...a small, remarkably well-informed and enlightened, audience sat slack-jawed (speaking personally) as Herbert Ponting's film of the fateful Terra Nova Expedition unfolded.

In my ignorance I'd never expected there to be a film of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's journey to the South Pole, that it was so skilfully assembled by Ponting was another surprise. But, I should know by now, don't ever take "silent film" for granted...

Ponting sailed out with the Terra Nova in 1910 and it was his job to record the expedition for scientific and commercial purposes. His photographs and film were to form the basis of Scott's lecture tours after the anticipated success of the mission. He was to record the unfamiliar wildlife and did this with much rigour. "I could have done without the seals and penguins..." was one comment I overheard from a jaded 21st century viewer but looking at them through the enthusiastic lens of Ponting you can understand why: he's loving his time with these strange and unfamiliar creatures.

But that's not the real story, it's Scott and his band of brave explorers man-hauling their sleds, joking around a frozen campfire, hanging out their socks to freeze-dry and, most poignantly of all, waving goodbye as their horses carry them away from the camera for the very last time.

Whatever the merits of the venture, their nationalistic motivations and organisational capabilities these were courageous men. As Scott wrote in his diary as they trudged towards death..."Had we lived I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale."

Seeing these men, hale and hearty, ready to take on the challenge when we know they will not succeed is very moving.
Ponting filmed them setting up camp, conducting research and preparing for the push to the pole. There are some haunting images of the forbidding landscape and the film is strikingly clean for a century old print. Ponting used an early portable camera and is shown balanced precariously on a wooden platform to film the Terra Nova crashing through the ice. He almost gets nailed by one of the seals and apparently nearly got toppled into the sea after getting too close to a pod of killer whales.
Mr Ponting was a pioneering and brave film maker in the truest sense. Never could those reviewer staples be more aptly applied.

After the shattering conclusion to the expedition Ponting's films were not used as anticipated but he came back to construct this film and tell the story of the journey. He used models shot in studio to show the progress of the journey as well as mixing his stills with the film of Scott's men rehearsing their routines for the trek. His witty intertitles underpin the images well and he quotes from Scott's fateful diary entries...I liked the penguin jokes: they were in the spirit of this bold adventure. Scott's team took the risks in good humour but they were fully aware of the dangers they faced.

The striking new score by Simon Fisher Turner should also be mentioned: it is stark and skilfully embelishes Ponting's images.

Scott's reputation has taken a pounding over recent years with arguments for and against...but as one commentator, Diana Preston, has said: "The point is not that they ultimately failed but that they so very nearly succeeded."

Ponting's film helps show us how great that feat was.

The BFI have this on DVD/BluRay.

Gloriously grotesque... Greed (1924)

I've just finished watching the near-four-hour restored version of Erich von Stroheim's "Greed". It took me a few sessions but it's definitely worth it to get a proper feel for how his vision for the fuller version of this once ten hours' long epic would have played out.

The film is renowned for its cost, its length and its director's ambition. Von Stroheim wanted to film the whole of Frank Norris' 1899 novel McTeague and he wanted to leave nothing out. His whole approach was uncompromising and stubbornly brave for a film of its period - any period really. The commercial pressure was no different in the early 20's from the era of "Heaven's Gate", Kubrick's never filmed "Napoleon" or any number of Francis Ford Coppola epics.

This tale of human frailty and the perverting, twisting power of greed pulls no punches either dramatically or visually. Von Stroheim cast an offbeat and strikingly un-attractive cast or at least one that didn't mind unforgiving lighting, unsympathetic make up and prolonged exposure via close ups. Gibson Gowland is McTeague, Jean Hersholt his buddy turned bitter nemesis Marcus and Zasu Pitts plays Trina who marries McTeague, wins the lottery and sets things off. All give honest and unflinching performances, but Pitts is particularly unsettling. She was more noted as a comedienne in her career bur maybe clowns make the transition to grotesquerie more easily than those more used to playing heroes?

There are few sympathetic characters in this film and almost all are made unpleasant by selfishness and a lack of human concern so prevalent in Hollywood then, now and forever. This is not a film to be taken for granted and it’s a hard, challenging experience.

It's paced like a book and reminds me of Zola and other late nineteenth century "realists". The characters are largely doomed and mostly by their own decisions. Their world is horrible and not unlike our own: how would we act in "Greed"?

The closing section is a work of genius, prefiguring dozens of desertpursuits in later westerns, it shows the options fatally running out for men, horses and even birds. The story is wound up by a classic device which rams home the central point that the consequences of selfishness are terminal and damning in this world not just the next.

Now...I think I need something light! Maybe Jean Harlow again in "Bombshell"!

But watch "Greed" if you haven't already seen it. Reconstructed youTube viewing here otherwise you'll have to track down a VHS copy; there's one left on Amazon!.