Out of the Past (1947)

QFS No. 172 - The invitation for April 9, 2025
I can’t quite remember how this movie made it on to my radar, but I have heard good things. And you can’t possibly go wrong with two of the greatest faces and square jaws in movie history – Robert Mitchum and Kirk Douglas. What else do I know about this movie? It’s a 1940s noir thriller and so it probably contains a dame, low key jazz saxophone or horn playing, fog, copious amounts of smoking, inky night scenes, and at least one trench coat. (I cheated on that last one and saw a still from the picture.)

Join us in discussing Out of the Past!

Out of the Past (1947) Directed by Jacques Tourneur

Reactions and Analyses:
Movies, especially ones with twisty noir-like plots, thrive when they contain moments that make the audience gasp. They reflect the filmmaker’s ability to keep the viewer guessing, to fill the story with surprises and the unexpected, which is what give a story it’s life and vibrancy.

Out of the Past (1947) had at least one if not more such gasp-inducing moments. The scene in question happens about half way through the film. We learn in a long-narrated flashback that Jeff (Robert Mitchum) had fallen in love with the woman he was supposed to track down, mobster Whit Sterling’s (Kirk Douglas) erstwhile girlfriend Kathie (Jane Greer), who had fled after shooting Whit and stole $40,000 from him. Jeff and Kathie, now lovers, go on the run from Acapulco back to California but were eventually tracked down by Jeff’s ex-partner Jack Fisher (Steve Brodie) now working for Whit. Kathie shoots and kills the henchman at their mountain cabin hideaway and flees, leaving Jeff alone knowing that the story of Kathie taking the money from Whit is true, but also now alone, abandoned by his lover, forced to bury the body.

Jeff (Robert Mitchum) learns the hard way that it’s ill advised to fall in love with the woman you’re tracking down (Kathie, played by Jane Greer) at the behest of a wealthy gangster.

We haven’t gotten to the part that induced gasps. This entire portion of Jeff’s backstory is told through flashback, narrated by Jeff to his new lover Ann (Virginia Huston), an innocent small-town girl in Bridgeport, Calif. where Jeff has presumably attempted to lead a quiet life running a gas station. At this point in the story, Jeff has been met by one of Whit’s goons Joe Stefanos (Paul Valentine) who drove through this town on a whim and serendipitously saw Jeff’s name on the gas station. He more or less orders Jeff to go see Whit in Lake Tahoe. 

At this point in the story, we don’t know whether Whit is aware that Jeff ran away with Kathie or did he believe that Jeff simply not find Kathie and also then never showed up to collect the rest of his paycheck. Jeff believes either Whit doesn’t know about his relationship with the ganster’s ex-girlfriend or Whit is upset that Jeff skedaddled. Either way, Jeff goes to Whit to clear things up and get on with his life with Ann.

Jeff arrives at Whit’s (Kirk Douglas) home and the other shoe is about to drop, isn’t it?

Whit is just eating this up.

He's brought into Whit’s beautiful lakeside estate and Whit is all charm, no real hint that he’s upset with Jeff at all. In fact, he wants to hire Jeff again. Which is unusual – so this is probably all a setup to something terrible or violent to happen to him.

And in a way it is – they sit down for a fancy lunch and who shows up? Kathie. The woman who tried to kill Whit, ran away, fell in love with the man who was supposed to bring her in, Jeff (or so we thought!), who then shot and killed a man, and ran away from Jeff. She came back to Whit? Why?!

Jeff is blindsided by Kathie’s return - as we, the audience, are meant to be as well.

 It’s such a terrific moment in the film, a true surprise – at least for me, where I let out an unexpected gasp. From our discussion, several members of our QFS group did the same.

 The plot, twisting and turning throughout, is what makes this and other noir films compelling. What elevates the genre is when the film says something about the human condition – greed, betrayal, love. Love features at the center of these twists. Does Kathie love either of the men or is she playing them? Who does she really love? She seems sincere in her love for Jeff but left him once and can she be trusted now when she says she had no choice but to return to Whit? After all, she lied about the stolen money. And does Jeff love the passionate Kathie or is her true love the innocent Ann?

Jeff appears to love Ann (Virginia Huston) but will he fall for Kathie again once she’s reentered his life?

In the end, Kathie reveals her true self as does Jeff. Jeff plans on turning her in and they barrel towards the authorities. Kathie, calls Jeff a dirty rat and swerves the car as the bullets rain down upon them, killing them both. Ann, in the final moments of the film, asks the mute teenager at the gas station attendant and Jeff’s friend (Dickie Moore) if Jeff was planning on leaving with Kathie or turning him in, and he signals that they were going to run away - which is a kind lie. It feels like his intention was to turn Kathie in and return to Ann in the small town, but the kid spared Ann the heartbreak of a lost lover.

Jeff, trench coat on, marches up to confront Kathie.

The twisting nature of the story, allows for the various plot holes and logic gaps to be forgiven or not even noticed until later. For example, what are the chances that Whit ends up in Lake Tahoe, not but an hour or so from Bridgeport where Jeff is hiding away with a new lift? To where did Jeff send the all-important tax documents that end up being not important at all? Is it possible to kill someone like that with a fishing pole?

Moments before perhaps the greatest fishing pole murder of all time (in self defense, of course).

All of this becomes secondary to the Jacques Tourneur captivatingly efficient storytelling, the terrific cast, and the utterly perfect whip-bang dialogue found in the best of noir. The lines come so quickly and with such percussive ease that it’s hard to gather them all in. Here’s just one of many classics, when Whit has found Jeff and “invited” him to his place in Lake Tahoe before the reveal that Kathie’s returned. He’s about to blackmail Jeff into hiring him again.

Whit: Well, you told me about your business. Mine is a little more precarious and I earn considerably more.

Jeff: So I've heard.

Whit: So has the government.

Jeff: Well, this may sound ridiculous, but you could pay 'em.

Whit: Oh, that would be against my nature.

All of this makes for just the type of great noir – the kind of twisty, fun, compelling movie - you can just wrap yourself in and permit all the plot holes and logic leaps to just fade into the background. Jeff, for all of Mitchum’s hard-boiled square-jawed machismo, never once shoots or kills anyone in the film. The bodies all fall around him – literally, as Joe is felled by a fishing pole – with Kathie having by far the highest body count.

Jeff and Kathie after she’s shot and killed another.

Kathie finally did it - killed Whit.

Trench coats, fasting-talking, femme fatales, and a truly fantastic amount of smoking makes for the perfect noir mood in any picture. But what makes it endure and why we should continue to watch Out of the Past are the moments of the unexpected, the turns in the story that keep you guessing and maintains the joy of watching a film that knows how to entertain.

A heroic about of smoking is one of the more enduring aspects of Out of the Past.

Devdas (2002)

QFS No. 171 - The invitation for March 26, 2025
For those of you who have been with us for a few years now, our Intro to Indian Cinema 101 is our most popular mini course, in that it is the only QFS mini course really. The films we’ve seen so far from the Indian Subcontinent cover the various distinct areas and eras of the world’s largest and multi-faceted filmmaking region. As a recap, this is what we’ve watched and discussed, in chronological release order:

 ● Apur Sansar (1959, QFS No. 16), directed by Satyajit Ray, as part of the Apu Trilogy and the origin point of Indian Art Films (aka Parallel Cinema), what we would call in the US as an independent film. Also launches indigenous Indian cinema into the consciousness of the global filmmaking community.

● Kaagaz Ke Phool (1959) directed by Guru Dutt, representative of the Golden Age of Bollywood directed by an auteur, a classic musical with melodrama at its heart but an adherence to high aesthetics and artistic cinematic quality.

● Sholay (1975, QFS No. 62) directed by Ramesh Sippy, Indian “Western” with megastar Amitabh Bachchan. With India’s first (sorta) 65mm film, the country is starting to be influenced more by international filmmaking, including Hong Kong action films and American Westerns, as it grows into its young nation 30 years after independence.

● Dil Se.. (1998, QFS No. 32) directed by Mani Ratnam, represents an example of the influence of MTV on Indian cinema, music videos and the opening of Indian media markets to the West. (Also stars global megastar Shah Rukh Khan, who is the star of this week’s selection Devdas.)

● 3 Idiots (2006, QFS No. 118) directed by Rajkumar Hirani, a comedy that’s a portrait of a more modern Bollywood film that’s more (sorta) self-aware than its predecessors and adapted from a successful Indian novel.

● RRR (2022, QFS No. 86) directed by S.S. Rajamouli, an example of “Tollywood,” or films from the Telegu language film industry – technically not a Bollywood film, which are in Hindi. An example of a rare global megahit from a regional film industry. Also an example of India’s embrace of digital filmmaking technology on a massive scale.

● Additional subject material: international films by non-Indian directors that take place in India: Gandhi (1982, QFS No. 100) directed by Richard Attenborough and The Darjeeling Limited (2009, QFS No. 59) directed by Wes Anderson.

That’s actually quite a lot of films about or from India over five years when it’s laid out like that!

So where does this week’s selection Devdas fit in? Devdas is probably the apex Bollywood film, the type of film that screams “Bollywood!” especially if you’re not from India and you think “what makes up a Bollywood film.” The most Bollywood of Bollywood films. You get what I’m driving at – melodrama, colors, costumes, passionate forbidden love, beautiful people, romance, the greatest choreography, set design and cinematography to enhance it. Devdas feels like it crosses eras, influenced by the gaudy past of Indian Hindi films but unleashed into the modern world. It features screen darling Madhuri Dixit of the 1980s and 1990s, giving way to screen darling Aishwarya Rai*, star of the 2000s. And of course, SRK, Shah Rukh Khan in the center at the ascent of his stratospheric career.

Devdas, also is the most adapted story for the screen of all time – the 1917 novel has been adapted 20 times in multiple languages since the 1928 silent film version! This is as classic an Indian tale on the screen as can be told. Join the discussion below!

*Roger Ebert once said (paraphrasing here) Aishwarya Rai is the second most beautiful woman in the world. When asked who was the first, he said, Aishwarya Rai is also the first. You decide!

Devdas (2002) Directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali

Reactions and Analyses:
There is no medium, there is only maximum.

Modern Hindi films (aka Bollywood films) are not known to be subtle. They are, by and large, maximalist, gaudy, extreme in their emotions and light on nuance or finesse. And the most extreme of those extremes are the films of Sanjay Leela Bhansali, and in particular the opulent Devdas (2002) – perhaps the most maximalist of modern Bollywood films.

Devdas (2002) achieves peak Bollywood.

“Who the hell drinks to tolerate life!” - Devdas (Shah Rukh Khan)

Devdas is the peak, the most Bollywood of Bollywood films. One line of dialogue in particular stands out as an unintentional descriptor of Bollywood films. The titular character Devdas (Shah Rukh Khan) wallows in self-pity and self-destruction for a better part of the last third of the film. His family friend Dharamdas (Tiku Talsania) warns him that he’s drinking to excess. To which Devdas replies rhetorically, “Who the hell drinks to tolerate life?!” There’s only abstinence and inebriation for Devdas, only extremes, nothing in between.

Similarly, who makes a modern Bollywood film to explore subtlety? (The answer to the drinking question also should be the answer to the Bollywood one – lots of people!) Swinging along from one extreme to the next throughout Devdas is an enjoyable endeavor to be sure, highs and lows abound. Bhansali takes the well-known Indian story and gives it the appropriate operatic treatment it deserves.

The stained-glass sets are astonishingly beautiful throughout Devdas.

Star-crossed lovers, Indian style – that’s Devdas. Opposite Devdas is Paro (Aishwarya Rai), photographed in the most glamorous way imaginable, usually bathed in a soft light and equally soft portrait lenses. The imagery evokes the classic cinema of American films of the 1930s, when closeups were glorious and beautiful and stood out from the rest of the film. Truly, it takes very little to make Rai look beautiful, but Bhansal and cinematographer Binod Pradhan elevate every moment she is on screen. Extreme beauty aligns with the extremes throughout the film.

Close-ups of Paro (Aishwarya Rai) are so stunning they hardly seem real.

Devdas executes the operatic scope befit a melodrama – massive (truly massive) beautiful stained-glass sets, shimmering (and heavy) costumes in the traditional Indian classical style with modern twists, exquisitely choreographed dancing sequences – all enhanced by synchronistic cinematography to capture it all. It isn’t simply the use of color and costume and camera work, but the synthesis of all together in harmony and in concert with each other. The dancers in twirling lehengas are nice, but the overhead shot to show the symmetrical pattern of the dancers and the fabric spinning in unison with the music is what makes Devdas a stunning work of film craft.

Overhead shots of dancers twirling in Chandramukhi's (Madhuri Dixit) brothel enhance the choreography and musical numbers.

Literal candle that cannot be extinguished, burning for Devdas.

One of the hallmarks of Bollywood cinema is dramatic character introduction. The filmmakers know that their audiences come for the melodrama, the spectacle, but most of all the larger-than-life stars who loom as large as gods and goddesses on and off the screen. Take the first time we meet Paro – for a long time her face is hidden. She dances with the other women in anticipation of the imminent return of her childhood crush, her beloved Devdas. We learn about the candle that has been literally (not figuratively) burning since he left, a flame that cannot be extinguished. But her face, throughout this sequence, remains cleverly hidden by camera work, blocking and choreography. Then she dances onto the balcony where a storm continues to rage.

The first time we see Paro in Devdas, literally glowing from the lightning strike. Stunning character introductions are the norm in Hindi cinema.

A lighting strikes, a flash fills the sky and the shot cuts to Paro’s face, literally glowing in the flashing light, a vision of beauty and yearning. It’s fantastic. The filmmaker knows what’s important – the power of the close up of his stars. Throughout, Paro’s yearning close ups, as well as Devdas’ and later Chandramukhi’s (Madhuri Dixit) close ups, tell the story of love, anguish, sorrow, hope, desire. Behind Chandramukhi, a courtesan, the gold mirrored tassels that hang in her brothel shimmer like stars behind her when she speaks in her domain. It’s overdone and extreme but that’s the point.

Equally stunning closeups of Chandramukhi, utilizing reflective materials behind her when she’s in her brothel.

What point is there in filming to tolerance, after all?

Bad guys have mustaches, don’t you know? Excellent one here on Kalibabu (Milind Gunjal).

There is no let up in the melodrama and the full-throated extremes of characterization. You suspect Kalibabu (Milind Gunaji) must be one of the “bad guys” immediately. Why? Well who else would have a mustache like that? Only someone with the inclination to commit evil, according to Bollywood logic.

The waterfall and river setting - perfect for a scene to suggest something more than just an innocent collecting of water and removing of a thorn from a foot.

There are other conventions of Bollywood that Devdas adheres to. Up until recently, Indian films refrained from overt acts of love on screen - no kissing, certainly no nudity, PG-13 at most by American standards. This puts Indian films squarely in line with American filmmaking of the 1950s and earlier, with suggestion being more powerful than actual directness. And Devdas has suggestive scenes to the extreme. Take the scene with Paro and Devdas by the riverside, intercut with her mother Sumitra (Kirron Kher) dancing for Devdas’ mother Kaushalya (Smita Jaykar) at a party. The scenes by the river are incredibly seductive, bathed in moonlight, as Devdas tries to remove a thorn from Paro’s foot, the music of “Morey Piya” swelling as the scene cuts between Devdas’ home and at the riverbank. It’s clear, at least to me, that this scene between the two lovers suggests they are making love (off-screen of course), the blue waterfall behind them, the setting awash with lusty romance.

Perhaps more than an innocent meeting by the river.

The entire scene is bathed in a soft blue glow from the moonlight.

And despite all the technical mastery for most of the film, there are a number of scenes that feel as plainly shot and amateurish as an Indian television soap opera. Probably because, at it’s core, Devdas is a soap opera, a melodrama. The evil sister-in-law Kumud (Ananya Khare), jealous of the lower class but beautiful Paro, tries to prevent her from marrying the higher class Devdas. She manipulates Devdas’ mother Kaushalya by whispering poisonous doubts into her ear. Paro’s mother Sumitra is humiliated by Devdas’ family and forbids Paro to marry him, setting of the cascade of tragic events that follow for the next three hours or so. These scenes, however useful they are for the plot, if cut together separate from the rest of Devdas, would appear as if they were from a different film. For someone who didn’t grow up with a steady diet of Bollywood films, these scenes felt excruciating. If the rest of the film was so innovative artistically elevated, why are these other scenes the opposite?

These scenes between the mothers seem to deviate from the artistry of the rest of Devdas.

Regardless, the film captivates. Though it’s been told many times on screen, I didn’t know the story myself. After Devdas has nearly drunk himself to death and strives to go to Paro – now married to another wealthy man who doesn’t love her – Devdas collapses at her gate, about to breathe his last breath. Paro races through her palatial home, her white gown flowing down the massive staircase and sprinting through the halls. Her husband’s guards attempt to slow her down and begin to shut the gate. And at this point, I truly had no idea what would happen. I thought for sure Paro would reach Devdas, the two would finally be together, and her love would resuscitate him, save him, and they would live happily ever after.

Paro racing to be with Devdas near the end of the film.

Devdas near the end.

Paro racing for the gate - will she make it?

The gate closes, red leaves from the tree above Devdas drift downwards, and they are separated forever by his death. It’s a riveting sequence, made the more stunning if you don’t know the outcome of this story and hadn’t grown up with it like everyone in India has. I found myself truly shocked and moved, in awe of the filmmaking but captivated by the frenetic what-will-happen narrative at the end.

Devdas breathes his last breath below the tree with red leaves.

The flame, like Devdas, has died.

There is no comparison in the West, really, to this type of uniquely Indian film. While Bollywood has been influenced by American and European filmmaking to some extent – look at Hollywood glamour of the 1930s including Busby Berkeley’s musical choreography and you’ll see commonalities – there are no purveyors of this level of melodrama and craftsmanship outside of the Subcontinent. Baz Luhrmann probably comes closest, especially Moulin Rouge (2001) and Elvis (2022). I’d say you could even throw in John Chu, but even his Wicked (2024) is more classic American musical than Indian Hindi film melodrama.

The stunning final dance number “Dola Re Dola” brings all of the craft elements perfectly in sync and stars arguably the two greatest female leads of two separate decades - Madhuri Dixit at her peak in the 1990s and Aishwarya Rai rising in the 2000s.

Perhaps we in the West need this. Perhaps we need more of the maximalist movies, bathed in colors and sound and music and tears and laughter and deep sadness and exquisite beauty. There’s a catharsis, or more accurately a chance to disappear into a world that completely envelopes you to the max. Why else make a film but to go to the extreme?

Newlywed Paro in her home, the blues, purples and lavenders of the stained glass surrounds her.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973)

QFS No. 170 - The invitation for March 19, 2025
Personally, I love Westerns and could’ve picked any number of them this week for our 170th (!) film. But I was recently given a Criterion Blu-Ray of Pat Garret and Billy the Kid as a gift and, consarnit, I’m going to watch it.

Sam Peckinpah is one of those filmmakers who’s beloved by a lot of people – especially filmmakers – and was known primarily for the Western genre, first as a writer then director. The Wild Bunch (1969) remains a classic (and violent) reinvention of the Western and a favorite of many. Straw Dogs (1971), The Getaway (1972), Convoy (1978), Cross of Iron (1977) are all revered in their own ways and I challenge you to find a better title than Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974).

This is our first Peckinpah selection and I’m excited to watch our first Western in three years (!) since The Power of the Dog (2021, QFS No. 68), and that might not be even considered a Western. We might have a few more in 2025 to balance out the scales.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) Directed by Sam Peckinpah

Reactions and Analyses:
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) feels oddly recognizable, familiar. The criminals are now the authority, running the government and enforcing the laws. Not too long ago, they were outlaws, pariahs, deemed a menace to society. And the lawman now enlisted to bring down the most notorious lawbreaker was once his friend and partner-in-crime.

This blurring of the line between who is good, who is the one we trust and who is evil and how close they are together lie at the heart of Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. Sam Peckinpah, often concerned with nihilistic violence, explores something even deeper here, something about the nature of friendship, regret, and poking in holes in the traditional good-versus-evil dynamic in the Westerns of old.

The use of “something” here is deliberate, because it feels as if Peckinpah is circling a thesis but never quite lands on it. Pat Garrett (James Coburn) as the lawman, is nominally the protagonist. But his actions are not at all laudable for much of the film. He shoots first then ask questions later, gunning down Bowdre (Charlie Martin Smith) in cold blood at a distance as they ambush Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) and ultimately capture him for hanging. Later, Garrett physically abuses women, sleeping with several prostitutes at once while he’s supposedly diligently attempting to find Billy. And he’s the “good guy” in this Western.

Billy, on the other hand is affable and clearly beloved by his crew. Though he’s not all that noble himself – he shot people in the back throughout his notorious career and also in this film – he has a more devil-may-care code of ethics. If there was a party, you’d much rather invite Billy than Pat.

One of the members of our QFS discussion group suggested the dynamic between Billy and Pat represents something of the early 1970s and the Baby Boomer generation. By the 1970s, the decade of free love, free spirited hippiedom was in decline and it was time for those kids to “grow up” and become part of the establishment.

Pat Garrett here has done that. His days as a criminal are over and he even says, “It's a job. Comes an age in a man's life when he don't wanna spend time figuring what comes next.” It’s time to become an adult – but even adults can retain the unsavory elements of the past.

And while this is the backdrop, Peckinpah also explores celebrity and notoriety. After Garrett has finally tracked down Billy to Fort Sumner and plans to shoot him at night, Garrett finds Billy in bed with his lady friend and simply waits in the night air. Garrett appears to be allowing Billy one final night of joy before he ends his life. Or perhaps Garrett feels guilt for killing someone who he once treated like a son. Billy steps out of his bungalow into the night air for a moment on the other side from where Garrett awaits, and it’s Deputy John Poe (John Beck) who suddenly has a chance to shoot him. But upon seeing the legendary Billy the Kid before him, the deputy cannot pull the trigger. He is in too much awe, blinded by Billy’s fame to pull the trigger.

It’s no surprise that Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973) comes out at this same time. In it, Kit (Martin Sheen) becomes a celebrity outlaw after going on a shooting rampage with Holly (Sissy Spacek) in tow. When the state police finally catch him, they show more admiration of him than fear, impressed with a man romanticized in the newspapers. Bonnie and Clyde (1967), a few years earlier, famously explores this dynamic and became the blueprint that filmmakers continue to follow even now.

Celebrity outlaws are not uniquely American, but they are very much a part of the Old West and the portrayal of that time through the Western genre. Though not a Western technically, Badlands showcases much of the traits and features of the classic American genre. Both Malick and Peckinpah don’t say on the screen that criminal celebrity worship is a good thing. If anything, both are criticizing how much we laud the criminal, value fame above morality. And that nothing is as clear cut as good from evil.

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is an imperfect film, circling ideas but not exactly landing on them. Just look at the editorial and release history of the movie and you can see why. The fabled drunken master Peckinpah battling with the studio over the cut, only years later to reclaim the cut, and only years after his death to have missing scenes – including the scene with Bob Dylan’s “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” – restored at the insistence of Kristofferson, to yield the version we see now, more than 50 years later.

Speaking of Dylan, his soundtrack is perhaps what sets this film apart and makes it required viewing despite its imperfections. Dylan’s classic folk music lends itself perfectly for the film – a somber, reflective undertone for a movie that’s more meditative than action. The above- mentioned scene with “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” is the most effective moment in the film. Sheriff Cullen Baker (Slim Pickens) and Mrs. Baker (Katy Jurado) join Garrett in trying to question Billy the Kid’s old partner Black Harris (L.Q. Jones), before Baker is shot in the stomach. He slowly dies and his wife sits with him, tear-streaked, as they watch the sunset and the painted sky, Dylan’s music playing us to the end of the old cowboy’s life. The scene strikes at the heart perfectly, an unexpected mature death scene for a Peckinpah film.

How does it feel, Billy asks Garrett in one of the first scenes of the film – right after Billy’s been obliterating chickens for fun near the opening of the film.

Garrett’s answer, It feels like … times have changed.

Times maybe, but not me, Billy says.

This, perhaps, is as close as Peckinpah gets to a thesis, a central idea. What’s like to sell out, to betray yourself and those around you? Well it’s not that simple – things change and you have to change with it. But that growth can come at a cost. It’s no mistake that the mirror shatters when Garrett finally shoots and kills Billy, his own image of himself destroyed and fractured. The price of selling out is your own soul.

Witness for the Prosecution (1957)

QFS No. 169 - The invitation for March 12, 2025
Billy Wilder, one of the American greats, now can add another posthumous feather in his cap – three-time QFS selectee. There can be no greater honor. We previously selected The Lost Weekend (1947, QFS No. 84) and Ace in the Hole (1951, QFS 136), and this week’s selection Witness for the Prosecution has been on my to-see list for a while now.

It’s a classic that’s been overlooked by me for far too long, and it gives us a chance to once again see Marlene Dietrich, who we briefly saw recently in Touch of Evil (1958, QFS No. 160) and will watch her at length in here. And also a treat to see the great Charles Laughton, all in Wilder’s capable hands. Very much looking forward to watching and discussing with you.

Watch Witness for the Prosecution and join us to discuss

Witness for the Prosecution (1957) Directed by Billy Wilder

Reactions and Analyses:
A somewhat standard question came up in our QFS discussion about Witness for the Prosecution (1957) that revealed a surprising result – had anyone seen this before? Only one person had, and that person is not a filmmaker and happens to be the only one in our group who is old enough to have seen it in the theater about the time it was released.

For a group of filmmakers who have a wide variety of cinema watching history from all parts of the world, many of whom went to some of the greatest film schools around – nobody had seen this Billy Wilder classic before. This would be understandable if this wasn’t a good film, lost in the dustbin of time.

The accused murderer Leonard Vole (Tyrone Powell) is questioned on the stand by the prosecution in Witness for the Prosecution.

Although released in the same year, 12 Angry Men (1957, QFS No. 81) has endured in the minds of filmmakers and the public in a way Witness for the Prosecution has not.

But Witness for the Prosecution is quite the opposite. Wilder executes a nearly flawless whodunnit with his typical firm direction with a cast delivering stellar performances. So why is this film not remembered and revisited in the way Some Like it Hot (1959) or Double Indemnity (1944) or Sunset Boulevard (1950) or The Apartment (1960) or even Ace in the Hole (1951) or The Lost Weekend (1945) are? The film is not outdated, not in a way that would render it quaint or old-fashioned. In fact, in that same year there’s another courtroom drama that continues to be regarded as one of the great films that has withstood the test of time, and that’s Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1957, QFS No. 81).

Witness for the Prosecution is worthy of that stature as well, in many ways. Lumet’s film is a classic, real-time, single-room masterpiece so it’s understandable that it continues to be studied by film students and storytellers today, so it’s no wonder that legal drama has endured. Wilder’s film, adapted from an Agatha Christie play, is a masterclass in setups, payoffs, and twists.

Sir Wilfrid Robarts (Charles Laughton), infirm and told to no longer take complicated criminal cases, takes one he can’t resist – a man accused of murdering an older woman with whom he had become friendly. Leonard Vole (Tyrone Power), the accused, of course maintains his innocent and the case is thin with mostly circumstantial evidence pointing a finger at him. But why would he kill a woman who was giving him money and attention Robarts speculates, so the case seems pretty open and shut.

Charles Laughton is perfectly cast as Sir Wilfrid, a man with serious health issues and who always seems like he’s on the verge of collapse. Just as genius is the casting of Elsa Lanchester as his nurse Miss Plimsoll - Laughton’s real-life wife. The dynamic is perfectly suited for appropriate bickering and comic relief, and also a type of tenderness between them.

That is, until the newspaper shows up and it’s revealed that the murdered woman, Emily Jane French (Norma Varden) had changed her will to leave a huge amount of cash to Leonard. Well now the case is too much to resist and Sir Wilfrid must take it, despite the protestations of his nurse Miss Plimsoll (Elsa Lanchester). The police arrive at the law offices and take Leonard into custody.

Further complicating manners – and here is another great setup – is Leonard’s wife, the seemingly steely cold Christine (Marlene Dietrich). Christine, a German émigré, appears unphased by her husband’s arrested and accusation of murder, not wailing and sobbing as Sir Wilfrid said he expected. In fact, it’s not entirely clear whether Christine’s testimony on behalf of their defense will actually be useful in any way.

The enigmatic Christine Vole (Marlene Dietrich) presents a wild card for Leonard’s defense team.

All of this is a perfect mystery setup and it’s no wonder that enough people over the years assumed this was an Afred Hitchcock film that they would go up to him and tell him how much they loved Witness for the Prosecution. You’ve got a money-based motive from a man who vociferously proclaims his innocence. Throw in a mysterious femme fatale. Toss in some question marks about crime timeline and the couple’s history. Add an ornery lawyer willing to step into the fray, and there it is – the making of enough compelling elements and twists to keep us guessing.

So we, the audience, are led to believe – with some uncertainty – that Leonard was in a “relationship” with Mrs. French, much to the disappointment of his wife Christine. And maybe Leonard was playing the long game to get at her money to fund his flimsy inventions. And it’s revealed that Mrs. French spotted Leonard with a younger woman visiting a travel agency. All of this is circumstantial, though, as Christine had provided an alibi that Leonard had come home that evening of the murder.

The case seems on track with some wobbly uncertainty but Leonard hasn’t been pinned down with any hard evidence. But then a bomb is thrown into the case. Christine is called as a witness for the prosecution, not the defense. Sir Wilfrid voices his objection because a wife cannot be legally compelled testify against a husband.

The eponymous witness for the prosecution - the accused’s wife! But wait - she’s not legally his wife!

But wait! She is not his wife! Not legally. She was still married to her German husband and had misled Leonard. Or so we think! On the stand, she says that Leonard did it, that he came home with blood on his sleeve and confessed to her. Threatened with perjury, she stands by her story and says she used Leonard to come to England and leave post-war Germany behind. The testimony is devastating and crushes both Leonard and Sir Wilfrid’s case.

The accused cannot believe his wife testified against him!

But wait! A mysterious Cockney woman summons Sir Wilfrid to a bar and provides letters that say this mysterious woman’s husband Max and Christine were having an affair and they intended to frame Leonard in order to send him away to prison so Christine and Max can be together. The letters, proven to be authentic in court, provides enough evidence for Sir Wilfrid to sway the jury to acquit Leonard.

A mysterious Cockney woman presents Sir Wilfrid with enough proof to exonerate Leonard. Or is it?!

But wait! After the verdict, Christine reveals that she was the mysterious woman in a fake Cockney accent and stage makeup with the letters that were … fake! It was all a ploy because she really did love Leonard and though it’s true he murdered Mrs. French for the money, he can’t be tried again. Leonard, free, comes and embraces Christine for her perfect execution of the plan. Sir Wilfrid is actually bested.

But wait! A young woman, seen earlier as an audience member next to Miss Plimsoll, turns out to be indeed the woman at the travel agency with Leonard and they did indeed intend to take Mrs. French’s inheritance and sail away somewhere. This twist is incredible – it even shocks Christine who went through all the trouble to save Leonard from the gallows. And Leonard is matter-of-fact and transactional about it – you used me to leave Germany, so what’s the difference if I use you? Even Steven, as they say.

Who is this random interested observer sitting next to Miss Plimsoll? It’s the young woman (Ruta Lee) mentioned in the trial that Mrs. French had seen with Leonard at the travel agency - she was real!

But wait! Christine, devastated, grabs the murder weapon, still (oddly) on the evidence table, and plunges it into Leonard, killing him in the court. As Christine is taken away, Sir Wilfrid says – cancel my trip to Bermuda, I’m taking this case.

Husband and wife in real life playing what seems like a husband and wife on screen.

All of this in a tight less-than-two-hours runtime. And this is Wilder’s genius and perhaps also why he may not always get his due on the all-time greats – his directing does not draw attention to itself. His characters are terrific, his performances are legendary, and his camera work is subtle and usually enough to tell the story with the frame. His side characters here are terrific, as they are in Some Like it Hot for example – the suspicious Scottish maid Janet MacKenzie (Una O’Connor, reprising her role in the original stage production), is a scene stealer, for one. And the exquisite married-couple bickering between Sir Wilfred and Miss Plimsoll is even more delightful once you discover that Laughton and Lanchester were an actual married couple – a wink to the contemporary audience who would’ve enjoyed seeing the two on screen as “adversaries.”

Although it might not be remembered as immediately as other films of the era, several of us in the QFS group quickly found a modern comparison in Primal Fear (1996) in which Edward Norton’s character in the end reveals he was actually the guilty “Roy” the whole time, not the innocent “Aaron,” which leaves Vail (Richard Gere) alone, stunned, and defeated.

Wilder in Witness for the Prosecution could have ended the film that way, with Sir Wilfrid losing in the end. This would’ve aligned with his bleak ending of Ace in the Hole. But instead, the story concludes with Wilfrid not giving up, not retiring, and taking on a case that’s seemingly a lost cause. (Which got us wondering – does that case seem winnable? Answer: argue Christine suffered from temporary insanity.)

Leonard is stabbed in public with witnesses. Will this case be a lost cause for Sir Wilfrid. Find out in the sequel!

Witness for the Prosecution may also have suffered from the advent of television. This type of story, though still told on the big screen, becomes a staple of procedural episodic TV – everything from Law & Order to Criminal Minds to Perry Mason – for the next half century. Is that the reason people tend to forget or not revere Witness for the Prosecution?

Whatever the reason may be, it’s clear that Wilder’s unassuming style was ideal of a seemingly simple film with complexity lurking beneath. It’s also clear that Witness for the Prosecution should be remembered and studied for its writing, characterizations, and the simplicity with which Wilder tells a story on screen.

Christine wins, but then doesn’t.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024)

QFS No. 168 - The invitation for March 5, 2025
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) has been on my list since I saw a riveting trailer and have read a little bit about the film. Shot in secrecy in Tehran, this will be our second film from Iran, after the terrific A Separation (2011, QFS No. 49), directed by Asghar Farhadi. A Separation and his following one The Salesman (2016) both won the Academy Award for Best International Film, making Farhadi the only filmmaker from the Middle East to direct an Oscar-winning film in this category – and he did it twice.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig could’ve made Mohammad Rasoulof the second filmmaker to do so, but I’m Still Here (2024) took home the prize this year. Still, looking forward to seeing this our second selection from Iran (via Germany) - join the discussion!

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024) Directed by Mohammad Rasoulof

Reactions and Analyses:
The idea of Chekov’s gun – that if you see a gun at the beginning of the story you need to see it be fired later on – is what appears to be the initial setup of The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2024). The very first shot are bullets being dropped onto the table and a gun handed to its new owner, Iman (Missagh Zareh). Moments later, it’s on the passenger seat as Iman drives away, the camera tilting down to reveal it, overtly drawing out attention to the weapon.

But for so much emphasis on the gun and the thriller-style opening of the film, the gun ends up being only a very small part of the film for the entire first half – so much so that it’s almost forgotten, the way Iman inadvertently forgets it in the bathroom until his wife Najmeh (the incredible Soheila Golsestani) discovers it one day. She’s already let him know that she’s not thrilled with having a gun around. But what we don’t yet realize is that this is all a long setup by filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof for a payoff later on. What we learn later is that the gun is more than a gun in this present-day Iran – it’s a symbol. It represents state power, and Iman will be a proxy for the people who wield that power.

To get there, the filmmaker focuses on the very real protests of 2022 unfolding in Iran with women standing up to the country’s misogynistic totalitarian regime, refusing to wear hijabs and standing up to the very real possibility of harm and death. In The Seed of the Sacred Fig set against this backdrop, Iman, an investigator trying to climb the ranks within the government, discovers in his new role that he’s supposed to rubber stamp death warrants without really looking into their veracity. He’s not thrilled about compromising his morals and is caught in a bind, and Najmeh talks him through his obligations. This, too, seems like a setup by the filmmakers about a man with a moral dilemma.

Their two young daughters, one a college student, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and the other Sana (Setareh Maleki), a teenager, are firmly in the crosshairs of the forces of change roiling their city and country Najmeh tells her children that they must dress modestly and avoid any hint that they are anything other than rule abiding because her father’s promotion depends on it – though they don’t know exactly what their father does. And besides, they’ll get government housing if he’s a judge and they’ll each have their own rooms.

But the forces of the world can’t be kept out because of social media. And here, the filmmakers are very inventive (perhaps too much?) with their use of real-life footage posted online at the time. The government was able to control their people in darkness, but with the light of videos and media, it’s a different story. Sadaf (Niousha Akhshi), Rezvan’s friend, is injured at a protest, shot in the face with buckshot. Secretly brought into their home, bleeding, Najmeh – despite very vocally opposing the protests and the women involved – patiently removes each pellet from Sadaf’s face. It’s a wrenching, horror-filled scene told in two close ups with the music rising, tight shots of bullets being removed cut with the mother’s stricken face, holding back tears. This is textbook in visualizing a character’s turning point – we see it in Najmeh’s face: this could’ve been her daughter.

She’s not all the way convinced the protests are good, but she knows that even innocent women – children – are caught in the crossfire. Later, the girls find out that Sadaf is taken away after she returned to college but nobody knows where she is. And Najmeh tries to get information covertly from Iman, without betraying that it’s someone they know for fear of getting him into trouble. She seeks out a family friend, Fatemeh (Shiva Ordooie) for information through Fatemeh’s husband who also works for a secret faction of the police.

And throughout all this, Najmeh’s concern remains mostly domestic. Her husband works too much and she pleads with him that her daughters need their father, especially now. He reveals that the arrests have escalated so much that he’s up all day rubber stamping guilty confessions.

Finally, the family is able to sit down and have dinner, but it leads to an inevitable explosive fight. The girls know what’s happening through social media, through the injury to Sadaf, that the people who might be injured are innocent and their lives are being destroyed just because they don’t want to wear the veil. Iman says they are misled by people with ill intentions, by women - whores, he believes - who want to walk around naked on the streets. The fight is vicious and ends with Najmeh firing back at the girls we finally had a dinner together and you ruined it.

All this time – the gun is not even remotely a part of the story. In fact, the entire QFS discussion group forgot its existence by and large except as an accessory carried by Iman. So when the gun disappeared, it truly was a surprise as much as it was a mystery. Iman can’t find it and Najmeh scramble to locate it. The children never even knew the gun was in the house, but they become Iman’s the primary suspects.

And it’s at this point the film kicks into overdrive and leaves the outside world’s tumult and brings it inside. Consumed by paranoia and fear of being imprisoned for his negligence, it’s a riveting next hour or so – in part because we really have no idea who could have taken the gun. Several of us believed he must’ve just lost it, which is set up nicely by the filmmakers as mentioned earlier when the overworked Iman accidentally left it with his clothes on the laundry hamper.

Instead of accepting that he could’ve possibly made a mistake, Iman assumes his family must’ve taken the gun. It’s unfathomable that someone in his position could do something in error, so he turns his ire and focus on the family. He makes Najmeh search the children’s room, turning everything inside out. She thoroughly searches the home and cannot find it. Iman begins to unravel and follows his colleague’s suggestion to have his children professionally interrogated by their mutual friend Alireza (anonymous actor). When you have your children professionally interrogated, you may have gone past the point of no return.

And in many ways, he has. The interrogator is certain it’s Rezvan, the college student. But she vehemently denies it. Further escalating Iman’s paranoia is that protestors have been finding people who work for the regime in secret and posting their names and addresses online – which is what happens to Iman. His colleague suggests he leaves with his family for a few days, is given a backup gun, and decides to go to his ancestral home. But before that, he drives home in a terrific sequence that showcases Iman’s paranoia. Everywhere he looks he thinks people are following or watching him. He looks over at a young woman driving next to him without a hijab and notices her small neck tattoo – is she one of these loose women, one of his enemies? A motorcycle seems to be driving a little too close – is that someone following him or is it just normal traffic? He gets home and sees someone on a cellphone outside their apartment building – is that someone keeping tabs on him, or is he waiting for a friend?

Iman is forced to experience life the way people without power live under the totalitarian regime of the country. The filmmaker has cleverly set this up throughout the film with echoes of Brazil (1985, QFS No. 158) or George Orwell’s dystopian 1984 as unavoidable comparisons. The state can turn on one of its own; no one is safe from the state’s mindless cruelty. And all of this seems like it’s going in that direction– a story about a man who is part of the system becomes a victim of that very system, leading him to question the system itself and his place within it, to perhaps renounce or even move to transform it.

That is not what Rasoulof does. Iman still convinced that one of his family took the gun and the final portion of the film devolves into a chaotic madman, unable to love his own family any more, becomes the cruel embodiment of the country’s leadership, still convinced that one of the three women in his life have stolen the gun. And in fact, one has! The one no one suspected, the younger daughter Sana. But Iman doesn’t know that yet, which makes for more suspense. After running two people who have recognized him off the road, the family arrives at the abandoned, dusty desert homestead of his youth where he locks the family in a room until they come out and reveal who has the gun. It escalates with Iman locking all of them in the room – except Sana who has escaped with the gun.

And there it has returned, Chekov’s gun, waiting to be fired. The final chase, though perhaps longer than it ought to be and slightly illogical, is still suspense filled and in a great location that evokes the longevity of Iran and Persia – something older than the mores of the current Iranian regime. Sana has the gun and Iman, who has another gun, chases her with the two others scrambling. I found myself wondering what is the desired outcome here? I don’t want Iman to be shot and killed, but I don’t want the women to suffer either. But what then? It makes for great drama that ends with Sana unable to shoot Iman except into the ground at his feet, where her father then collapses under the ancient sand walkway and is swallowed by the land itself.

Though Rezvan and Sana are Iman’s flesh and blood, he has become unable to see them as such in this final sequence, only concerned about his own ambition and safety. He seems prepared to kill his daughter Sana, even taunting her that she doesn’t know how to shoot. The filmmakers have chosen to have Iman embody the state – he is modern Iran’s government, unmoved and unwilling to bend.

It's a choice that feels like perhaps more symbolism than rooted in reality. Would a father actually do that? Would he forsake all of his memories, his love for his wife, seeing his children grow, all of their history together, because he’s been blinded by power and control? The filmmakers seem to say, yes, this is what totalitarianism does to ordinary people. Iman is the state and the state can only be eliminated, not changed – that’s what the director seems to be saying

Rasoulof can’t be faulted for any of these choices. After all, he’s been a victim of the regime for what appears to be his entire adult life. Much has been made about the fact that he filmed this movie entirely in secret over a 70-day period, and had to escape the country to arrive at the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere. So when we criticize the excessive chase sequence at the end or the imperfections in the conclusion of the film – aren’t the women now in even more danger and will be heavily questioned about the whereabouts of their dead husband/father? –  all of this might have to be taken with a grain of salt (sand?).

What an extraordinary feat of pure will to make this film under circumstances we, living in the West, couldn’t possibly imagine. Sure there are a handful of plot holes, including how did Sana know there was a gun in the house and where it was and how did she hide it during the search, but as a group most of us found ourselves easily forgiving much of this given the larger scope of the film and the extreme lengths Rasoulof went to make it.

His filmmaking is incredibly savvy, using real footage shared on social media with even a nod to YouTube as a way to learn about all things, including how to load and fire a gun. This element of the old Iranian overlords unable to contain the new information-laden world is a fascinating additional angle to both The Seed of the Sacred Fig and the true protests that swept the nation in 2022 and beyond. For Rasoulof to pull all of this off in a contained thriller, a family social drama, and a commentary on society, the film is an extraordinary piece of filmmaking – both creatively and production-wise. While everyone might not agree on the story and ideas contained within the film itself, it’s hard not to take inspiration from the execution and commitment to telling a story like this against all the unimaginable odds to do so.

The Brutalist (2024)

QFS No. 167 - The invitation for February 26, 2025
The Brutalist will be our longest QFS film selection, a full three minutes longer than Ben-Hur (1959, QFS No. 35). That’s right, this three-hour-and-thirty-five-minute nominee for Best Picture rivals last year’s Killers of the Flower Moon (2023, QFS No. 126) for length, coming at just nine minutes longer. I’m in for it! It’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff! Who of you will ride with me off this cinematic cliff into the great glorious unknown?!

And by that I mean – watch The Brutalist this week and discuss it with us in a civilized manner.

The Brutalist (2024) Directed by Brady Corbet

Reactions and Analyses:
We’ve seen countless films detailing the horrors of the Holocaust and mass genocide of the Jewish people enacted by the Nazi regime in Germany in the early 20th Century. From true first-hand accounts to artistic recreations, the depths of human cruelty and the bravery of those who were able to survive or help others survive have been portrayed in every genre over the previous 70 years or so. In fact, a couple decades ago, Adrian Brody, star of The Brutalist, previously played Wladyslaw Szpilman, the true story of a survival and heavily influenced on director Roman Polanski’s own escape from Poland in The Pianist (2002) a couple decades ago.

Rarely, however, do films portray what happens afterwards, how someone attempts to live after surviving such horrors. The messy reintroduction into society having lost everything but his or her own intelligence and wits. One of our QFS discussion group members brought this up in our conversation, that The Brutalist chronicles what comes after. And while the film isn’t any one thing, we discovered, the aftermath of trauma is perhaps the most predominant thread of a big epic film that lacks a clear single theme.

The film begins at this point, at the what-happens-afterwards moment. In one of the more extraordinarily beautiful shots from a film filled with them, the camera finds Brody’s Laszlo Toth in the dark, awaken in second sequence of the film. The shot is handheld, messy, with lots of people in darkness and scattering of light between him and the camera as a woman in voice over dictates a letter written to Toth. We follow him through the ambiguous space – is this a prison camp? – through the chaos and uncertainty, until he bursts through a door and light floods in as the brassy fanfare from the score explodes, and Laszlo, giddy with joy, grasps a friend and they celebrate in Hungarian, looking up. It’s an electrifying way to start a film.

Above the new immigrants, as if from their perspective, looms the Statue of Liberty, sideways. It’s an angle rarely scene, evoking the arrival of the Italian immigrants to America in The Godfather Part II (1974). But this is different – the iconic symbol of freedom is askew. Perhaps the filmmaker Brady Corbet suggests that this new home will be a complicated, contradictory place. Freedom, yes, but also hardship.

Throughout the film, there is a sense that immigrants and those on the margins built America, but what thanks do they get? They are Jews and are tolerated – a line overtly stated by Harry Lee (Joe Alwyn), the wealthy benefactor Harrison Lee Van Buren’s (Guy Pearce) son. Tolerated, but barely.

Laszlo and his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola), hired by Harry to secretly rebuild his father’s library, are thrown out when Harrison comes home to find this modernist, minimalist room Laszlo created. Harrison shouts at them, berating that he’s out front with his his mother who is sick and comes home to find the construction mess outside and, gasp, a black man is on the grounds as part of the working crew. Harrison tosses the Hungarians out. But later, a fancy design magazine deemed the new library an artistic masterpiece forcing Harrison track down Laszlo to apologies. The wealthy American hires the immigrant Hungarian to build a massive monument and center in honor of his later mother. (A woman who wasn’t fond of Blacks apparently. If only could’ve known that a Jew is building a sanctuary in her honor.)

But even then, Harrison has to hire a second designer – Jim Simpson (Michael Epp), a Protestant to appease the community – as a check against Toth’s expensive artistry and to make sure that a Christian is involved. The “consultant” second guesses the Hungarian immigrant throughout and in response, Toth belittles Jim’s work designing shopping malls.

This is only one thread of the film, the experience of immigrants in post-war America, and interwoven with it are the power dynamics between art and money, between Toth and Harrison. Harrison, mercurial but seemingly supportive of Toth, funds his massive project that Toth designs. He even introduces Toth to his personal lawyer Michael Hoffman (Peter Polycarpou), a fellow Jew who helps Toth bring his wife Erzsebet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy) to immigrate to the US so they can be reunited.

Even there, power dynamics take lead – the powerful and connected can work the immigration system because they have access to lawyers and are valued for their creations. But the laborers who build these buildings will find no such help. Harrison trusts Toth, but also knows he can never be loved or as talented as immigrant artist. He says as much to Toth in what is probably one of the least graphic but most disturbing rape scenes. While at the stunning Carrara, a massive ancient marble excavation site in Italy, the two have been drinking and Toth has been using heroin to feed his addiction. They’ve wandered away from a party in the marble caves when Harrison rapes Toth in a wide shot, silhouetted, without seeing the expression of either and only hearing Harrision’s tauns. The scene serves as an overt metaphor of exploitation by the rich that wasn’t necessarily needed according to many in our group. The film clearly shows Harrison having power over Toth and the wealthy exploting the artist was crystal clear already. This extreme act drives it home in a way that was both over-the-top and perhaps unnecessary. Nevertheless, it's part of the story – Toth is raped by Harrison, just as the natural marble of Italian mountainside has raped by humans for centuries.

Toth is an imperfect protagonist, perhaps permanently scarred by surviving a genocide, quoted by Zsofia later in the film as having said, “No matter what the others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey.” Apt, for someone who experienced what we assume he experienced, as we encounter him in this what-comes-after phase of his life. We find him addicted to pain killers and eventually heroin, with which he nearly kills Erzsebet by giving her too much to help her with the pain that has rendered her unable to walk easily.

In one of the many beguiling aspects of the film, here’s another one - is this entire tale told through the eyes of his mute niece Zsofia? The opening scene is her being interrogated by unseen officers, a character we don’t yet know and are unsure of anything beyond the questions being asked of her that she doesn’t answer. And in the end, a retrospective of Toth’s work in 1980 is being narrated by an older Zsofia now speaking fluently at the Venice Biennale of Architecture. There are several aspects of The Brutalist that feel frustrating, but perhaps the end is the most glaring. Throughout, I was curious why - why was this style of art and architecture developed? The answer is given to us in this Venice lecture, not visually or through the narrative of the film. Grown Zsofia explains that Toth and others from the Brutalist movement took the grim, brutal reality of the Holocaust, of the unfeeling grey walls of concentration camps, and repurposed it, filling spaces with life and hope as opposed to death and horror. He does to Harrison earlier on in the film, this somewhat thesis:

“Nothing is of its own explanation. Is there a better description of a cube than that of its construction? There was a war on. And yet it is my understanding that many of the sites of my projects have survived. They remain there still in the city. When the terrible recollections of what happened in Europe cease to humiliate us, I expect for them to serve instead as a political stimulus, sparking the upheavals that so frequently occur in the cycles of peoplehood. I already anticipate a communal rhetoric of anger and fear. A whole river of such frivolities may flow undammed. But my buildings were devised to endure such erosion of the Danube's shoreline.”

Would’ve been nice to have Toth actually, you know, display that artistry in the film. His eloquent explanation about the enduring nature of physical buildings aside, we are only told of the reasoning behind the Brutalist style in an overt scene expository concluding seminar. For a visually stunning film this is a decidedly un-visual conclusion.

The Brutalist is not any one thing. Epic in scope – perhaps worth watching for the score and Lol Crawley’s VistaVision cinematography alone – it seemingly is an immigrant tale. Or maybe it’s a story of art versus commerce. Or maybe it’s about the building of America on the backs of the downtrodden. Or maybe it’s about the creation of Israel, which pops up from time to time. Or maybe it’s all of those or none of those. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Films can be ambiguous, of course, and the filmmaker has made it clear in his public statements that he believes film should require you to think, to engage, to find meaning for yourself. And for that, The Brutalist definitely succeeds.

Nickel Boys (2024)

QFS No. 166 - The invitation for February 19, 2025
I know even less about Nickel Boys than perhaps any of the other nominees. Which is exactly why I want to see it.

Here’s what I know about the film – Nickel Boys is based on a Colson Whitehead book, who is an author I tell people I’ve read but actually I have only had his Underground Railroad on my list for nearly a decade. And that concludes my knowledge of Nickel Boys. 

Join us to discuss this blank slate of a film (at least for me) as we continue to watch the Oscar Nominees for Best Picture this year!

Nickel Boys (2024) Directed by RaMell Ross

Reactions and Analyses:
As a filmmaker, one of the most powerful tools you can use is the point-of-view shot. The POV allows the director to put the audience in the perspective of the main character or to experience the scene through one person versus the other. Whose scene is it was the most common question asked of us in film school.

At the American Film Institute, where several of us in the QFS discussion group attended graduate film school, they hammer home this idea, that the film is told through someone. Scenes, which may have more than one protagonist (or antagonist, for that matter), must still be told to someone. These rules can be broken, of course, but the POV shot is one of the important concepts that separates film from stage and other forms of visual art.

Being stared at from the back of the bus in Nickel Boys (2024), in a pure POV where the person stares directly at “us” - the camera, the audience, the main character. It’s unnerving and feels very real.

Nickel Boys (2024) takes this idea to the extreme. The film is told entirely through a character’s perspective, through POV shots, and never deviates. There are no shots, nothing we experience in the film that is not from the point of view of one of our main characters. Even the still cutaways or stock footage-like vignettes are the imaginations of Elwood (Ethan Herisse). If you wanted to split hairs about it, there are a few moments when we’re behind our main character, seeing the back of his head. But the effect is the same - we are living this story with him.

One of the only times we “see” the first main protagonist Elwood (Ethan Herisse), who is us.

Turner (Brandon Wilson) joins nearly half way through the film and becomes our second perspective. But there’s a reason for it that is revealed at the end of the film.

The “him” changes, though. What appears to be Elwood’s story becomes also Turner’s (Brandon Wilson) story. At first, this feels sudden and not exactly with any real purpose. The addition of Turner’s perspective begins when Elwood and Turner meet, now at the brutally abusive Nickel Academy reform school, in a pretty ordinary school lunchroom scene. After nearly half the movie as Elwood, we now experience the the film through two pairs of eyes, which gives us the additional benefit of seeing Elwood and Turner instead of only through reflections.

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Nickel Boys seem exist in the same artistic plain.

Later on in the film, the real reason to add Turner’s perspective is revealed - they become the same person. Turner, who survives and escapes Nickel Academy, runs to Elwood’s grandmother Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) and informs her that her grandson Elwood was shot and killed in a field. Distraught, Turner and Hattie embrace which kicks off one of the most overwhelmingly emotional montages I’ve ever seen on screen. Intercut with black-and-white footage that feels like it’s from the slavery era, featuring White men on horseback hunting down “fugitive” Black people, we see old footage of a young Elwood, disappearing from each shot. One moment he’s on screen, the next, in the exact same frame, he’s gone. Blinking away, like a ghost, like he never existed. This all aligns with the terrible experience of Nickel Academy itself - kids would routinely just “disappear,” the administrators of the school claiming that the children ran away. When instead they were killed and buried and forgotten. I’m reminded of Ralph Ellison’s seminal work Invisible Man in which the Black first-person protagonist may as well be invisible by a cruel and indifferent society.

But wait - in Nickel Boys’ well-timed flash-forward sequences, aren’t we with a grown-up Elwood? Didn’t he survive? No, it turns out that Turner has assumed Elwood’s identity after escaping and surviving and traveling north to New York in the decades since his traumatic childhood at Nickel. It’s a remarkable and completely unexpected twist, but it also serves as a message about commonality and shared trauma. An absorbing of experiences between the two boys. Their unity after Elwood’s death is in a way making whole something that was severed and ripped away from these boys - a normal upbringing and childhood.

Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) embracing Turner, who will eventually “become” Curtis Elwood.

One person in our group brought up the unrelenting injustice of it all, and how it felt unfair and unjust - there was no way out. Especially for Elwood, who was hitchhiking and became an innocent passenger in what turned out to be a stolen car, ends up paying for something he didn’t do. Ultimately, paying with his life. While alive, he was the one attempting to expose the brutality of Nickel, only to have his life cut down by the very people running the place. It’s all incredibly unfair, and that’s the point the film illustrates. The injustice of growing up Black in America - specifically in the timeframe of the film, but also today. One scene in particular illustrated the filmmaker’s point of view on this, it seems to me. The kids are preparing for a sanctioned boxing match for the White kids of Nickel Academy and Griff (Luke Tennie) is their big fighter. Elwood and Turner overhear the head teacher Spencer (Hamish Linklater) tell Griff to throw the fight, to intentionally lose in the third round (turns out the White administrators put money on this fight). If Griff loses, the Black kids will be subjected to a year’s worth of ridicule until the next annual match. If he doesn’t, then perhaps Griff will suddenly disappear. He certainly will face truly brutal punishment, as was portrayed earlier in the film’s most truly horrifying sequence in which Elwood is tortured by his “teachers” in a sweaty room that feels like a slaughterhouse.

In the fight, there is no victory for Griff. He ultimately, accidentally, wins the match, and pleads with Spencer that he didn’t know what round it was, all while his classmates surround him in celebration. But in the center of their jubilation, he is remorseful and horrified. It’s heartbreaking, because we as an audience know what will happen to Griff - and it does. He’s “disappeared” and becomes one of the dozens who were killed an buried in unmarked graves, only to be uncovered a generation later with modern DNA testing and investigative journalism, including work done by (what turns out to be) grown “Curtis” Elwood (who was actually Turner).

The film devastated me, as I know it did for several in our group. Why, when other films have portrayed this era, was this even perhaps more heartbreaking? The answer lies in part due to the style of the film. From the very beginning, we see the world through someone’s eyes and only through their eyes. They (we, therefore) look up at an orange, dangling from the tree, in the first shot of the film. You soon realize that the film’s aspect ratio is 4.3, which is a square and not often used in modern cinema. But its affect is to make us feel as if we’re seeing something closer to natural human vision, not the cinematic widescreen movies to which we’ve become accustomed. This isn’t a movie but someone’s life and we are living within it. We’re actually seeing life through another’s eyes. And the initial images are the very details that stick in your mind as a child - close up on a glass, a glimpse of your mother as she leaves the room, the playing cards being shuffled, tinsel dropped down onto your face from the Christmas tree. Low angles, looking up at the world.

We stay in this perspective, never seeing “us” - the person through whom we’re experiencing the film - except in reflections, such as in his (our) grandmother’s iron as it travels back and forth on the ironing board, or a storefront window. This relentless commitment to pure POV, purely seeing the story through someone’s eyes, forces us to be in their shoes. Director RaMell Ross and cinematographer Jomo Fray keep us in this exhausting, taxing world with glimpes of beauty in between the darkness. And throughout, an extraordinary attention to the detail of life.

This is all to ask the question - is this the best way for us as a modern audience in the 21st Century to experience life in the Jim Crow segregation-era south, artistically? I argue that it is. Film is, if nothing else, the greatest empathy device every created. You live through someone’s experience in any film told well when using all the tools of cinema in a way to enhance the storytelling. In Nickel Boys, the filmmakers chose to mostly use only one tool - the POV - arguably the medium’s most powerful one to extraordinary affect. And the result is nothing short of an immersion, a disappearing into the life of one (two) boys who live through horror but throughout are able to find beauty, friendship, and ultimately, a measure of justice.

A Complete Unknown (2024)

QFS No. 165 - The invitation for February 12, 2025
Is A Complete Unknown this year’s Elvis (2023)? No, of course not, because for one thing, it’s about Bob Dylan and not Elvis Presley. Also, this week’s film is directed by James Mangold, who is a very very different filmmaker than Baz Luhrmann is so many ways. First, they spell and pronounce their names differently, which is how you know they are different people. Second, Mangold is an American while Luhrmann is from Australia, two entirely different places. And third, Mangold is about as mainstream, down-the-line filmmaker as we get these days – which is something that you wouldn’t say about Luhrmann. When you want a film that hits all the marks but might not push the envelope too much, you hire Mangold. This generation’s Chris Columbus (the filmmaker, not the explorer), or, perhaps, Ron Howard.*

Mangold, of course, is no stranger to big name music icon biopics, having directed Walk the Line (2005), the solid film about the life of Johnny Cash. That film earned Reese Witherspoon an Oscar for portraying June Carter Cash and a nomination for Joaquin Phoenix in the title role. Fast forward twenty years later** and Timothee Chalamet is nominated for Best Actor with Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro getting nominations in the supporting categories.

So let’s continue our march to watching all the Best Picture nominees and discussing a few of them between now and the end of the month! Get out to the theater and see A Complete Unknown and join the discussion!

*No disrespect intended. Hit singles and doubles consistently and you’re in the Hall of Fame.

**What?! Twenty years since Walk the Line?

A Complete Unknown (2024) Directed by James Mangold

Reactions and Analyses:
Perhaps it only has to be about the music.

This was a sentiment shared by a few of us discussing A Complete Unknown (2024). James Mangold, a solid, steady filmmaker, didn’t fall into the standard clichés of the biopic – including the clichés to which he was susceptible in his Walk the Line (2004) musical biopic two decades ago. In that, the roots of Johnny Cash’s music are explained. His childhood, his loneliness and drug use, depression and ultimately redemption – all of it captured as a cause, a wellspring for his music. It’s the “Rosebud” effect, a childhood trauma that explains an adult’s life.

A Complete Unknown skips all of that. We know very little about Bob Dylan (Timothee Chalamet) as he arrives in the folk-rock scene of New York City in the early 1960s and right away he spins beautiful poetry as he sings to his hero, the bed-ridden Woody Guthrie (Scoot McNairy). We don’t see Dylan being directly inspired by the world around him except for one civil rights rally he attends and current events unfolding in the background - but he must be inspired by the world because his music speaks to the time and tumult of the era. We don’t see his writing process or how he develops his poetry, but it comes to him and he writes it without struggle. He is a conduit from on high, the filmmakers appear to be saying.

And yet, the movie is enjoyable, pleasant, and inoffensive throughout. Perhaps all you need is (a) legendary music by the only Nobel Prize-winning American songwriter in history and (b) utterly fantastic performances by great actors. Without exception, the cast is stunning and the fact that they play their own instruments and sing is even more astonishing.

Narratively though, there is no specific central tension of the film. Dylan doesn’t struggle with depression or doubt, though he does try the patience of those around him. Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) and Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), both lovers, both find him to be kind of a jerk (to paraphrase them). He’s not a tortured artist, but he’s a selfish one - an enigma as you’d expect from a demigod. Dylan expresses the belief that music is music, it doesn’t need to be put into a category or sanctified, which is how he finds himself up against folk music establishment, including his early mentor Pete Seeger (Edward Norton).

It's that tension between innovation and tradition that is almost at the center of the film. “Almost” because it’s not overtly the driving central narrative of the film, but an undercurrent that culminates in the well-known Newport Folk Festival in which “Dylan Goes Electric.” And here, the filmmakers attempt to create a dramatic conclusion of the film, exaggerating history for dramatic effect. Which is fine – filmmakers often bend real events to fit the narrative of a biopic. But the culmination, the climax is somewhat affixed at the end as opposed to building towards it.

And they can’t be blamed. With all of Bob Dylan’s music at the fingertips of the filmmakers and all the artistry and poetry contained in Dylan’s words, a film about his life and ascent to the apex of American music and culture doesn’t have to be more than a celebration of the music and a nostalgic portrayal of a turbulent time in history. The film only spans four or five years of Dylan’s life and we know almost as much about him at the end as we did the beginning. A Complete Unknown is, therefore, an apt title – he remains an enigma and the film doesn’t strive to demystify him. Music comes to him as visions to an oracle, it seems. A telling line in the film, one of the most effective, is spoken by Dylan after getting punched in the face at a bar and arrives a his ex-girlfriend Sylvie’s home. He says, “Everyone asks where these songs come from, Sylvie. But then you watch their faces, and they're not asking where the songs come from. They're asking why the songs didn't come to them.”

This is the closest the film gets to an insight or reflection of Dylan. Is the answer it came to him because he is sent from the heavens? It’s as plausible an explanation in this narrative.

One other scene gives us an insight into Dylan as a person. It’s the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis when all of New York is panicking with nuclear war possibly looming. But Dylan, instead of preparing to flee as Joan Baez is, instead plays music in the basement of the folk bar, railing against the idiocy of global war. The world might end, but to him it’s only about the music. These two scenes are the closest Mangold gets to probing the soul of Dylan.

The scenes lack visual dynamism or real cinematographic artistry. Which is the polar opposite of last year’s celebrated biopic of another American groundbreaking legend of music and culture, Elvis (2023). In that film, Baz Luhrman uses frantic, manic, expressionistic mayhem to bring music and the Elvis Pressley experience to visual life. In that way, Elvis more about the filmmaking than it is about Elivs, you could argue. Contrast A Complete Unknown with this or something like Whiplash (2014), in which Damien Chazelle brings music and the experience of playing music to life visually. Or even 8 Mile (2002), where Curtis Hanson portrays the life of a young musician who finds inspiration for his music from the immediate world around him, and also a glimpse into how he crafts the music – writing, rewriting, testing.

Dylan, in Mangold’s hands, does none of that. He arrives in the film a phenomenon and remains one. Dylan inherits mantle of the folk masters and their tradition of speaking truth to power on behalf of the undercast, then removes folk music from the dustbowl into the mainstream and ultimately electrifies it. Is it all planned out by a god from on high? It feels that way in A Complete Unknown.

But perhaps that’s all it needs. Perhaps it just has to be about the music.

Conclave (2024)

QFS No. 164 - The invitation for February 5, 2025
It’s that time again – time to cram in a bunch of Academy Award nominees! Personally, I’m going to attempt to watch all of the Best Picture nominees before the broadcast on March 1st.

This selection was made by throwing a dart a dartboard, metaphorically. I haven’t seen a majority of this year’s Best Picture nominees so might as well start somewhere. Is Conclave the most interesting of the bunch? Who knows!

So join us in watching our first film from 2024 and discuss below!

Conclave (2024) Directed by Edward Berger

Reactions and Analyses:
For a (literal) closed-room thriller, one moment in Conclave (2024) stands out as an outlier and punctures the closed box in which much of the movie is contained. The Dean of the College of Cardinals and man in charge of the vote for the new Pope, Lawrence (Ralph Finnes), finally follows his heart and casts a vote not for himself but for Benitez (Carlos Diehz) to become the leader of the Catholic faith. The moment Lawrence delivers his vote, an explosion rocks St. Peter’s Cathedral and light finally enters the building. The scene stands out in part because it’s incredibly dramatic – the most action in the entire film – but also because it conveys a message.

A blast from the unrest outside punctures through insular sanctity of the papal conclave in Conclave (2024).

And that message from Conclave seems clear: spiritual faith does not happen in a box. Modern religion requires the leaders of that faith to be out in the world. The real world is out there and it will invade and burst through, so you might as well deal with it directly. It’s not an accident that turtles appear in the film, a creature that can put its head in its shell and insulate itself from the world.

Benitez’s stated mission is decidedly the opposite. We discover that his life as a priest has been in the trenches as a secret archbishop in Kabul and other hotspots around the world. He toiled with the people and gives a speech that states his personal thesis, which is also the film’s thesis:

No, my brother. The thing you’re fighting is here… inside each and every one of us, if we give in to hate now, if we speak of “sides” instead of speaking for every man and woman. Forgive me, but these last few days we have shown ourselves to be small petty men. We have seemed concerned only with ourselves, with Rome, with these elections, with power. But things are not the Church. The Church is not tradition. The Church is not the past. The Church is what we do next.

Benitez (Carlos Diehz) preaches to the other cardinals: “The Church is not the past. The Church is what we do next.”

Conclave on its surface is about religion – and, yes, it is of course because it takes place in the highest realm of the Catholic church. But in essence, the film is about politics. Without squinting all that much, you can see the film is speaking to our time, right now, in this world. Petty men and power, feckless liberals trying to hold off a radical conservative takeover, someone who wants to make the church great again, when meanwhile the world is burning outside. Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), the Italian cardinal, decries the liberal march the church has taken over the last 60 years. If the clergy were all still speaking Latin – which they were before the Vatican II reforms from 1962-65 – everyone would be united instead of going off to seek their own countrymen or language groups, as they do in the Vatican cafeteria, he points out. And also, for good measure, in the next breath he exposes his personal racism and bigotry by stating to Lawrence that he couldn’t possibly imagine the disgrace of having a brown or black Pope (though, one would argue, people in populations with mostly brown and black people are often the strongest Catholic countries so that is indeed the face of the faith…).

Bickering and fighting is at the heart of the conclave in a film that’s as much about politics as it is about faith.

But even the middle-of-the-road cardinals can’t get their act together, unable to find a leader to satisfy all tastes. The moderate, Tremblay (John Lithgow) is proven corrupt, having bought votes which is a grave sin for a priest in the Catholic tradition. Ultimately, it’s Benitez, an outsider with a pure heart who convinces them that he’s the true voice of the people, in part by saying he doesn’t want to become Pope or the trappings of power. If anything, Conclave is a story about dysfunctional political systems.

It’s also a story the distance between lived faith and institutional faith. With few exceptions, there is very little discussion about religious doctrine. And the men, for the most part, don’t appear to be running to be the next Pope for any honorable or noble reasons, but a need for power or to prevent someone else from obtaining it. Lawrence himself states repeatedly and openly that he does not want to be Pope and very nearly left the clergy. But his homily in which he extolls the virtue of doubt just before the conclave begins inspires several cardinals to vote for him instead of Bellini (Stanley Tucci), which throws the plan of the liberal faction into disarray. As someone in our QFS group put it, these are not gods or special people, just ordinary people put in positions of power.

Lawrence’s moving speech about the dangers of certainty and the power of doubt, for that is wellspring of faith, inspires some cardinals to cast their votes for him.

And what ordinary people do can sometimes be messy, which is in part why this film is so thrilling. Edward Berger, who directed the excellent All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) is an exacting filmmaker. His percussive score helps drive the suspense, but Berger’s visual framing that enhance the film. The compositions are stately and tightly composed, very little camera movement except when absolutely necessary. The rigidity of the framing reflects the rigidity of the Vatican, one of the world’s great seats of power. And with it, the lighting at times evokes the great Renaissance masters including Caravaggio. There’s lovely synergy between the visual references this film suggests and knowing that the Roman Catholic church was perhaps the greatest sponsor of art in Europe and likely throughout the world.

Stately grandeur, captured and framed thusly.

The lighting in several scenes evoked Renaissance paintings, religious in nature, often commissioned by the Roman Catholic churched.

Bellini (Stanley Tucci) calls this war, not a conclave.

For all of the pomp and global interest in selecting a new Pope, the film feels small and therefore thrilling. Lawrence breaks into the deceased Pope’s quarters, breaking a wax seal, to investigate Tremblay’s possible malfeasance. The scene had me on the edge of my seat and really all the scene consists of is one man breaking a rule in order to weed out a larger problem. But even here, Bellini breates Lawrence and commands him not to reveal Tremblay’s problems because they need to vote for him, because this is war – and the conservative Tedesco will win if Tremblay is eliminated. Lawrence takes a principled stand and, with the help of Sister Agnes (Isabella Rossellini), prints out the documents for all the cardinals to see. And here again, the film is not about religion but about politics. About doing what is perhaps expedient but morally questionable versus doing what is noble and right but perhaps could lead to bad consequences.

Benitez ascends, breaking ground in more ways than one.

In the end, it’s Benitez, the outsider who earns the most votes and becomes the new Pope. And the twist is he is neither man nor woman – someone who is as God made them. He’s the first Pope (as far as we know) to have female reproductive organs. Is this the way the Catholic church will finally have female clergy? And here is another statement by the filmmakers, and arguably this is the one that contains the most spirituality. Perhaps the best person to lead the faith is someone pure of heart, who knows true suffering and what humanity needs in organized religion. That faith is in the world – someone who is neither man nor woman, not from the old world but something new. That the church has to live, as he says in the film, in the future.

Lost Highway (1997)

QFS No. 163 - The invitation for January 22, 2025
David Lynch, one of singular, most unique directors in American movie history sadly passed away this past week – a lifetime of cigarette smoking finally catching up to him. Graduate of the American Film Institute’s first-ever class, he was, of course, America’s only even slightly known surrealist or avant-garde filmmaker. Even then, Lynch could never be put into a single category. The Straight Story (1999) is literally a Disney movie and earned him and the film several Academy Award nominations. He was seriously considered by George Lucas to direct Return of the Jedi (1983)! This is the same man who made what is one of the most bafflingly unique fantastic insane film ever made, Eraserhead (1977, QFS No. 22), a film we gleefully watched and discussed back in 2020 when we first started this group.

Lynch pulled off the incredible in his career, perhaps never to be matched - to create his own movies on largely his own terms. What an amazing feat, to be able to tell his completely off-beat and non-traditional films and often got studios to pay him to do so. He came up at a time when unique filmmakers were all the rage and there was a willingness to see what they could do. And he rode that wave the rest of his career – I mean, he made a surrealist television show … on ABC … in the ’90s! That’s truly incredible.

Though he was from Montana, Lynch was able to capture some kind of strange essence of Los Angeles in several of his films, notably Mulholland Drive (literally named after a notable LA street). So perhaps it’s appropriate, as LA undergoes a cataclysmic firestorm event, we turn to the city’s great surrealist. I haven’t yet seen Lost Highway which I’m ashamed to admit, but in Lynch’s honor we’ll remedy that and discuss.

Lost Highway (1997) Directed by David Lynch

Reactions and Analyses:
David Lynch’s enduring gift to me is surrender. I know this is a somewhat strange thing to be grateful for, but I am. Watching a Lynch film requires surrender. His films take on a bizarre meditation if you let them in, which makes sense when you discover that the filmmaker followed and practiced transcendental meditation. Lynch’s gift to many of us is this practice of surrendering the active part of your mind trying to make meaning all the time.

Early on in our nascent Quarantine Film Society group, we selected Eraserhead (1977, QFS No. 22). Many of us in the QFS group were once classmates at the American Film Institute, a place where Lynch had an outsized mythic presence as its more celebrated alum from AFI’s first graduating class. And Eraserhead is a direct product of his time at AFI, having started it while he was a graduate student (“Fellow” is what we’re called). Sheepishly, I had still not seen Lynch’s landmark work even though I had been out of AFI for a couple of decades.

Eraserhead (1977, QFS No. 22), began while David Lynch was still a graduate fellow at the American Film Institute, a member of its first graduating class.

So in 2020, we selected Eraserhead for QFS. And while watching for maybe the first half hour, I found myself attempting to figure out what is going on. It was uncontrollable, the urge to piece together narrative and meaning. I was flustered and perhaps upset at myself – why wasn’t I enjoying this seminal work? And then I made the decision to let go. Release myself from understanding. I let the imagery wash over me, allowing my brain to quiet and just observe. It was a remarkable viewing experience for me – and after that, I was able to see something in the story, in the film, make connections that came to me without even trying. It was, oddly, bizarrely, Lynchianly transcendent.

Renee Madison (Patricia Arquette) has black hair in the first half of Lost Highway (1997) - that much is clear. The rest? A little less so.

I was reminded of this practice with our current selection, Lost Highway (1997). Without even trying, as the movie began I attempted to make meaning of the story in the first portion of the film - knowing full well this is a film directed by David Lynch. But then, five years removed from finally seeing Eraserhead, I relented and just observed. Lost Highway is a different viewing experience and a different narrative structure of course than Eraserhead, a film Lynch cobbled together with scraps of money, sleeping in a barn near AFI, just making what can be called an elevated student film through his imagination.

The partially visible highway motif Lynch returns to throughout Lost Highway.

After more a quarter century later and Lynch’s ascension to becoming the only known American mainstream surrealist, Lost Highway exhibits the sheen of a Hollywood film instead of the scrappy grad student AFI cycle project. Movie stars, evocative cinematography, period vehicles and car stunts. But it retains the flavor of an elevated student film – and I mean this as praise, a testament to Lynch’s integrity as an artist. Lost Highway possesses the familiar devil-may-care, this-is-my-vision-deal-with-it feeling of a story that doesn’t have to explain itself or justify its worth or try to be hip and stylish. A confident film student, unshackled by the need to turn a profit on a film. And the actors perform in the way you find in so much of Lynch’s work – they’re not quite behaving as normal humans behave. Long pauses between very simple reactions. The performances feel very film-school like (speaking from experience).

Performances are often a little off kilter in a David Lynch film.

Mystery Man (Robert Blake) - deranged vidoegrapher? Angel of death? Unsettling at the very least.

But then again, nothing is “normal” in a Lynch film, which is entirely the point. The first half of the film I found to be a terrifying nightmare. Just about one of the most unnerving movies I remember seeing, especially when the Mystery Man in black (Robert Blake) shows up, pale faced and wide-eyed, maybe the angle of death. Many in the QFS group brought up that the movie doesn’t exist in traditional logic, but in fact dream logic – so the “nightmare” comparison is perhaps apt.

And suddenly, this is Pete Dayton (Balthazar Getty) and Mr. Eddy’s (Robert Loggia) story, a young hoodlum and his gangster friend, who really really doesn’t like tailgaters.

For example, halfway through the film, Fred Madison (Bill Pullman), convicted of murdering his wife, is in prison. But then, the prison guards look in and they find a completely different man inside the same prison cell (Pete Dayton, played by Balthazar Getty). The perspective change is striking – everything up to this point is being told through Fred’s point of view. But now we’re outside of his body and even his cell, so is this actually happening? It’s such a shift, but if you think of this as dream logic, that perspective changes and people transpose from one person to the next, then you can accept that these prison guards and officials are now dealing with a fantastical phenomenon without missing a beat. It only causes a minor stir – Pete Dayton, a low-level young criminal, is set free and sets off the second half of the movie that seems like a completely different storyline. But… is it? Alice Wakefield (Patricia Arquette), looking very much like a blonde twin of Fred’s murdered wife Renee Madison (also Patricia Arquette) shows up at Pete’s garage as Mr. Eddy’s (Robert Loggia) girlfriend – the two halves of the film relink.

Alice Wakefield (Patricia Arquette) looking very much like Renee Madison but with blonde hair shows up in Pete’s story, linking the two halves of the film and giving us a window in a connection. Or teasing us with one at least.

Delving further into this plotline goes against what was written before about surrendering and resisting attempt to make narrative meaning, but for a moment, let’s speculate that Fred did indeed kill his wife Renee – haunting, but murky. Then perhaps, perhaps, this second half of the film is a dream-life, Fred’s alter ego of some kind while he’s in prison awaiting execution. A projection of his youth. There are unexplained mysteries throughout, but the stories begin to overlap as if the dream is ending or merging.

Stepping back outside from the attempt to make narrative meaning, one member of group suggested that perhaps Lynch is telling a story about what happens when you repress your shadow. The deep, dark, evil that lurks in all of us, something that would drive us to kill our spouse and behave as if we haven’t. A thing we can repress, in the way that say a murderer can kill his wife and the next day be golfing as if nothing happened. Is Robert Blake’s Mystery Man then the imp that brings out the darkness? (Let’s leave aside the real story of Robert Blake and it’s grisly connection here.)

Mystery Man, playful imp who brings darkness with him.

This idea, that it’s a story about the evil inside and the ability to live on as if it didn’t happen, and if you follow that logic and believe that Fred is also Pete and in the Pete story all of the characters are part of Fred’s inner dream life, then you can squint and see logic forming. Which is not exactly what Lynch wants, but it’s the tantalizing thing, the question of what is it all about that surfaces until we push it back down and quiet it.

Sergei Parajanov (The Color of Pomegranates, QFS No. 130) forces you to let go from gleaning meaning directly, just as David Lynch does a decade later in the West.

Which is why it’s important to inject an analysis of movie viewing when talking about Lynch and what we can learn from that in watching movies made by other filmmakers. Some filmmakers lead you straight to the meaning, as clear as a shopping list. And others force you to let go, as Sergei Parajanov does in The Color of Pomegranates (1969, QFS No. 130) and as Lynch had done throughout his life as a filmmaker. Letting go is probably useful in watching any movie, but particularly essentially for Lynch and others including Parajanov.

And yet, Lynch does this all without coming across as condescending in a way many artistic filmmakers tend to. This notion that you’re too obtuse if you don’t get it like the smart ones among us. Lynch doesn’t come across that way in his work. The haunting imagery, the unclear connections, the inky darkness of night, the playful naivete of many characters - crucially the playfulness, which takes the edge off of any feeling of snobbery, is perhaps the director’s masterstroke in these complex dreamscapes he creates.

Lost Highway contains it all, as do Eraserhead and Blue Velvet (1986) and Mulholland Drive (2000). Lynch’s work just stands as it is, forcing you to observe and take away from it what you will. To surrender.

Chungking Express (1994)

QFS No. 162 - The invitation for January 8, 2025
Happy New Year! We resolve to watch movies and argue about them in a constructive manner!

We last watched a film from the great Wong Kar-wai in 2023 with his In the Mood for Love (2000, QFS No. 105) – another favorite of mine. Now, if you have watched In the Mood for Love and found the pace a little too languid for your taste, I assure you that Chungking Express is vastly different on that account. It’s actually somewhat surprising that the same filmmaker made both films when you see them side-by-side, with Chungking Express flying a little more kinetically than the rhythmic, elegant pace of In the Mood for Love.

I first watched Chungking Express on what was likely a bootlegged VHS tape that a fellow AFI Fellow had obtained and snuck in a viewing at school back in 2000 when the film was not in wide distribution in the US. The film blew me away and that started my long, steady trek towards Wong Kar-wai becoming one of my favorite filmmakers of all time. And in case you like lists, Chungking Express is No. 88 on BFI’s Greatest Films of All Time list (In the Mood for Love is No. 5, incidentally).

Chungking Express is a film that fills me with joy, and I feel like we’ll need a lot of that this year – so why not start the year off this way? Join us in the discussion!

Chungking Express (1994) Directed by Wong Kar-wai

Reactions and Analyses:
What is it like to live in a city? A city, teeming with life, with people, with corners unexplored and places undiscovered. At times exciting, at times isolating, paradoxically producing loneliness amidst the masses. Serendipitous, concealing, frantic and sleepy all at once. In this, the city, Wong Kar-wai paints a poetic, chaotic mess in Chungking Express (1994).

Scenes of Hong Kong at night during the first half of Chungking Express (1994), the West and East colliding in this city on the eve of the handover back to China. The Woman the Blonde Wig (Brigitte Lin) almost disappears as if she’s one of the goods in the store.

The kinetic swish of running through the city at night.

Indians, Europeans, Chinese all collide in this little universe.

So often when writing or thinking about a movie or a television show, we use the expression “the city is a character.” In films where this is truly the case, the city has become more than a backdrop or a setting, but directly influences the characters’ decisions and actions. New York takes on this quite frequently, with probably Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976) being the most clear example of this.

The neighborhood is more than just a place in Do the Right Thing (1989).

The city block in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) is not just a setting, but its very dynamic of race and class influences the narrative. You could argue that in John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood (1991, QFS No. 12), the protagonists’ Los Angeles neighborhood influences how they behave, what they attempt to achieve, how they try to survive. Rio de Janiero explodes to life in Walter Salles’ City of God (2002) and is as much an influencer of the narrative as any film about a place. Lost in Translation (2003) for Tokyo, Mystic River (2003) for Boston, maybe even Blues Brothers (1980) for Chicago - a place oozing with music at ever turn.

Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro) in Taxi Driver (1976), the red lights of the city illuminating him.

Woman in the Blonde Wig and He Zhiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) illuminated by red light in the city tavern.

In Chungking Express (1994), Wong Kar-wai captures Hong Kong at a particular inflection point in history. On the eve of the handover of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom back to the China, the city is a nation state, influenced by the West and the East, a crossroads but more than that. The ancient city is crisscrossed with oddities that span the old and the new – an outdoor moving walkway next to Cop 663’s (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) home, a cloth-covered vegetable market near the Coca-Cola adorned Indian food stalls. The cold iron and steel and neon of a city but the red and swish of color of fruit merchants and factory produced goods. The Indian goods makers, the Chinese shop keepers, the European drug dealer/bar owner.

One comparison that came up in our QFS discussion was Slumdog Millionaire (2008), and specifically its portrayal of a city. The time frame of Chungking Express and Slumdog Millionaire are different - Danny Boyle’s film takes place over the protagonists’ childhood into adulthood as opposed to the very compressed time in Chungking Express - but both capture a city at an inflection point. In Slumdog Millionaire, “Bombay became Mumbai” says Jamal (Dev Patel), which is to say a sprawling Indian city became an international megalopolis complete with wealthy homes and, to the main narrative point, fancy game shows. But it’s this moment in time, when slums are about to be turned into high rises and the messy city that grew up as a child of British Empire, Indian Kingdoms and Indian Democracy will accelerate into a new iteration. Hong Kong is similar, another child of Empire and an in between democracy, is on the verge of something new. It’s that energy that Wong Kar-wai so adeptly harnesses throughout Chungking Express.

The Woman in the Blonde Wig inadvertently extracts He Zhiwu from his melancholy.

But it’s not just the vibrancy of the city that concerns the filmmaker, but how a city influences the people who dwell within it. The men, Cop 663 and He Zhiwu, Cop 223 (Takeshi Kaneshiro) are sad poets, so caught up in their own loneliness that they are unaware of something critical right in front of their noses. He Zhiwu doesn’t realize that the blonde woman he’s falling for (Briggitte Lin) is the very woman that his police force is on the search for after she went on a vengeful shooting spree. And Cop 663’s apartment life continues to improve, somehow, though he’s completely unaware an elf is the one doing the improving – Faye (Faye Wong), who is either smitten or just mischievous and craves a mission. In a city, she can slink through unnoticed among the masses, infiltrate 663’s home, and return to work without anyone being the wiser - just one of a million people on their own solitary task.

Cop 663 tries to inspire the inanimate objects around him or shares his disappointment in their recent performances.

The isolation the men feel in the city manifests differently for both men. He Zhiwu seeks out companionship actively, calling women he’s known – even ones he hadn’t spoken to since grade school or ones that now have children. He’s obsessed with an ex-girlfriend and buys cans of nearly-expired pineapples with her name, May, on it. Cop 663 communicates with his “community” of inanimate objects in his home after his air hostess girlfriend leaves him. He gives his wash rag a pep talk and expresses disappointment in his toothbrush. It’s the women, the connection of people accidentally thrust together in the sprawling metropolis that bring life to these men, that bring them out of their bad poetry and self-pitying.

Faye on her secret mission in Cop 663’s apartment.

And just as serendipitously as people intersect, they disappear. The Woman in the Blonde Wig disappears into the night, a freeze frame capturing a split second of her without her wig and her true identity. Faye stands up Cop 663, the swirl of colors becoming an oil painting as she disappears, only to return as a flight attendant, of all things – having made it to California of California Dreamin’ fame. The two reunite and perhaps, perhaps, the city has had a hand in curing loneliness.

Would these people have met had it not been for what a city can be, how it can push people together just as easily as it can obscure them? Hard to say, of course, but if you believe the city is a character - as it is almost certainly is here - then their fate is maybe not totally in their hands. It’s the unseen, alive presence of the urban world that has set their lives in motion.

Cop 663 now knows Faye’s been in his apartment and confronts her at her food stall.

Wong Kar-wai captures a city perhaps better than anyone else. You feel the sweat, the grime, the physicality of the place. The fluorescent lights of the soda shops, the interplay of shadow and light from buildings and cloths draped across alleys. The city is a character in many films but it is, arguably, the star of Chungking Express.

Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

QFS No. 161 - The invitation for December 18, 2024
What kind of sicko would watch a French film from the 1960s during this time of the year when there is an entire subgenre of “Christmas movies” available at our fingertips?

You, is the answer. And me, more accurately.

Yes, Umbrellas of Cherbourg may not seem like a holiday classic. But it very well could be! It appears that way on at least one site I’ve consulted, and nevertheless I’ve had this movie on my radar for a long time. For starters, the visuals have inspired a legion of filmmakers, including most recently Greta Gerwig who cites it as one of her inspirations for the visual style and color palate of Barbie (2023). And it stars the great Catherine Deneuve in this unique musical from France.

Everything I’ve heard about the film is highly positive, including its inclusion on the BFI Greatest Films List where it’s 122nd Greatest Film of All Time, tied with There Will Be Blood (2007), The Matrix (1999), The Color of Pomegranates (1968, QFS No. 130), Johnny Guitar (1954) and Only Angels Have Wings (1939). Quite a logjam at 122nd! (Also, just after The Thing, 1982, QFS No. 115.

Look, I know – French film, and a musical no less! Have you gone mad? The answer is – have you seen 2024? It’s made us all a little mad. My dislike of musicals aside, I’ve heard great things about Umbrellas of Cherbourg and very much looking forward to seeing it on this, the 60th Anniversary of the film’s release!

So do join me in watching this, our final film of 2024 and discuss below!

Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) Directed by Jacques Demy

Reactions and Analyses:
Early on in Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), one of Guy Foucher’s (Nino Castelnuovo) co-workers in the auto mechanic shop finds out that Guy is going to see the opera Carmen and can’t stay late at work or join them at the game. One of the co-workers says, “I don’t like operas. Movies are better.”

Guy’s (Nino Catelnuovo) co-workers prefer movies to operas. We’ve got news for you…

The great irony, of course, is that the co-worker is singing this line of dialogue, just as everyone is singing every line in this movie. Opera, being the other medium where singing from start to finish is what we expect. Here, of course, in Umbrellas of Cherbourg, everyone is also singing throughout – the throw-away line feels like director Jacques Demy’s fun inside joke to us, the audience, watching this film that’s more opera that movie.

The more traditional musicals, by and large, rely on a certain artifice of course and the musical numbers puncture the realism that movies attempt replicate on the screen. But with a musical, you know you’re watching something not-quite reality and any time a musical number begins it’s a necessary interruption from the narrative norm. Take an animated Disney film or a standard Hindi/Bollywood film – the narrative usually continues forward until the next musical number where you’re reminded you’re watching a musical.

Everyone is singing in Umbrellas of Cherbourg, but it’s their language.

In Umbrellas of Cherbourg, the music is constant and all the mundane aspects of life are sung. It was as if I was watching a movie in a foreign language (beyond just French) in which that’s just they speak in Cherbourg. I found myself giving in to the singing and in a way didn’t even realize I was watching a musical any longer. Once a film’s grammar or its style is established – could be fantastical or documentary style or neorealist – it’s easy to disappear into it. For me, I find myself as a viewer less able to disappear into a standard musical because of the puncturing of reality the musical numbers take.

But I didn’t experience that sensation in Umbrellas of Cherbourg – I was swept away into its world and could accept that even the mailman will sing his only line, saying he has a letter for Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve) or that the gas station attendant will sing when he asks whether she wants diesel or regular. The language was set and the grammar established and the rules were clear – everyone sings.

Our group also got to wondering: Is Umbrellas of Cherbourg the greatest wallpapered movie of all time? If not, what could be No. 1? The use of color in Umbrellas of Cherbourg, of course, have long been celebrated. But despite the vibrancy of the sets and costumes, the film is not candy and saccharine, which is what I had anticipated. The film contains teenage pregnancy out of wedlock, discussions about what to do about it, a depressed man visiting a brothel and hiring a prostitute, a dying aunt, going off to war, and a gas station of all places as a climactic romantic scene. Though it might look like it, this is not candy.

Roland (Marc Michel) and Genevieve get married in haste, and the montage enhances the rapid nature of the relationship.

And the filmmaking isn’t candy either. There are no dance numbers, no nods to the audience except for that clever line about the opera at the beginning of the film. There’s nothing cutesy about the relationships - Genevieve’s mother (Anne Vernon) consistently berates her and is more concerned about what others will think about her pregnant teen instead of her actual well being. When Genevieve decides to marry Roland (Marc Michel) in order to avoid financial ruin, that montage is a prime example of how to advance time and story simultaneously. And in that advancing of time we get the hasty nature of the relationship - it’s full-steam ahead and Demy shows us how quickly events unfold from decision to marriage.

And this shot of Guy leaving for war and pulling away from Genevieve is utterly stunning and evocative - the music crescendos and Genevieve gets smaller and smaller in the distance and eventually out of Guy’s life altogether. It’s utterly perfect.

A stunningly emotional scene of Guy’s perspective of his train pulling away from Genevieve (Catherine Deneuve) as he goes off to war.

With the deft filmmaking and use of color throughout to enhance the storytelling, it's no wonder Umbrellas of Cherbourg have inspired contemporary filmmakers, most notably the costumes and set design utilized by Greta Gerwig for Barbie (2023) and much of the story, the color and the climactic sequences of Damien Chazelle’s La La Land (2016). But several of us in the group suspected that Spike Lee perhaps took some inspiration from Demy’s film as well. Guy has been drafted and about to leave for war in which he and Genevieve are in the alley in embrace. They’re moving but not walking, and the wall moves behind them as they sort of glide along – it’s one of the only non-realistic (other than the singing) moments in the film, so our attention is brought to it immediately.

Colors awash in Barbie (2023).

Bold colors in La La Land (2016).

Spike Lee uses this technique of putting the actor or actors and camera on a moving platform so often that it’s hard to list all the films he deploys this shot - most recently seen in BlacKkKlansman (2018, QFS No. 83). Demy is not the first to do this of course, but throw in the use of big bold colors on the set design and decoration along with the melodrama of the story, and it’s not too much of a stretch to believe that Umbrellas of Cherbourg had an impact on Do the Right Thing (1989) (especially given Lee’s admiration for great cinema that came before him).

Guy and Genevieve on a platform with a camera, the world moving behind them as they “float.”

BlackKklansman (2018, QFS No. 83) using the platform shot to bridge into the final sequence.

Do the Right Thing (1989) uses bold colors to accentuate the heat.

Genevieve’s mother (Anne Vernon) against bold pink in the umbrella shop.

Coconut Sid (Frankie Faison) against red on his street in Brooklyn in Do the Right Thing (1989).

The film has endured with filmmakers in many ways similar to the way Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has endured over the years, I’d argue. Not on the historic magnitude as Shakespeare, of course, but Demy’s story about young impetuous love, missed opportunities, and bittersweet tragedy would be familiar to The Bard. Shakespearean melodrama elements all right there, tragic and beautiful at the same time. In the end, Guy and Genevieve never manage to build a life together and Guy is her daughter’s biological father – but they will never meet. And Roland has chosen to love Genevieve and marry her despite knowing she was pregnant at the time. We never see Roland again on screen but we see that Genevieve is now the wealthy wife and seemingly happy – though now, draped in brown fur as the wealthy do and not awash in the colors of her pre-motherhood youth.

Genevieve and Guy and their chance encounter at Guy’s new service station at Christmas time.

And the final shot – perhaps arguably the most cinematic conclusion you can have at a gas station – suggests that although life didn’t work out as planned for either Guy or Genevieve, they have found a life that has made them happy, or at least content. It’s not the ending you expect of a standard musical, but if anything from the movie is clear, Umbrellas of Cherbourg is anything but standard.  

The final crane shot above the service station - a unique way to conclude a unique movie musical.

Touch of Evil (1958)

QFS No. 160 - The invitation for December 11, 2024
Let’s get this out of the way first – in Touch of Evil (1958) Charleton Heston plays a Mexican.* (But… barely.) Do with that information what you will. For me, this is just about the only negative I have about this film. Everything else in Orson Welles’ masterpiece places it high on my list of personal favorites.

This is our first Welles film since Chimes at Midnight (1965, QFS No. 36) which kicked off the beginning of 2021 for us. Now as we wind down 2024, we revisit the auteur in one of the finest examples of film noir you can find. The opening shot alone is worth the price of admission (rental), which is how I first encountered the movie. A professor in college showed us this shot in class, stating that it’s probably the first (and maybe only?) continuous tracking shot that spans two countries,** and I was immediately hooked. And the fact that it was made in 1958, before the advent of Steadicam and sophisticated Technocrane systems makes it even more stunning.

Touch of Evil is a masterclass in staging and directing. You can see aspects of the director’s visual style from Citizen Kane (1941) here throughout, but this time in a crime and police procedural in which two detectives from two countries have to work together. Welles’ staggering physical presence is also something to behold in Touch of Evil – especially if you have in mind a young Charles Foster Kane.

Join our discussion below!

*In the 1995 movie Get Shorty, John Travolta’s character tells Rene Russo that Touch of Evil is playing in the theater and asks if she wants to join him and go see “Charleton Heston play a Mexican.” Which I think might be the first time I had heard of Touch of Evil and, yes, that piqued my curiosity.

**Another border-crime-based film we selected, Sicario (2015, QFS No. 153), does have a continuous shot that spans two countries but with a drone so … that’s cheating, isn’t it?

Touch of Evil (1958) Directed by Orson Welles

Reactions and Analyses:
The border between the United States and Mexico is the central locale of Touch of Evil (1958), the explosion and murder having taken place on the US side but the explosives having come from the Mexico side. The border is a physical space, but it’s the metaphoric nature of the border, the blurring of that line, that concerns Orson Welles throughout the film.

There’s a sense early on in the film that it’s not entirely clear which side of the border we are in at first in a given scene, the Mexican side of the American side. I recall having this slight confusion when I first saw the film nearly 25 years ago, but in the years and several re-watches since, I concerned myself less with this physical place than others in our QFS discussion group watching Touch of Evil the first time. But it’s certainly the case that at times it’s not immediately obvious where we are – Mexico or the US. And maybe this is intentional?

Early on in Touch of Evil, we see Ramon Vargas (Charleton Heston) and Susan (Janet Leigh) cross from Mexico into the United States. But after that, at times their location as it pertains to the border is murky.

Welles’ ambiguity or lack of clarity on which side of the border we’re on appears to be deliberate. The border is neither here nor there, a between space that’s trying to create an artificial separation between the two. A fascinating place to set a crime and a movie – the in-between. And what happens in these in-between places? Shades of gray, ambiguous morality. Ramon Miguel Vargas (Charleton Heston) says, “This isn't the real Mexico. You know that. All border towns bring out the worst in a country.”

And in this, as the story unfolds Welles indeed shows some unsavory behavior on both sides of that dividing line and the filmmaker flips our expectations in this borderland. The “good cop,” the one holding up American ideals of justice, due process, innocent until proven guilty – that’s Vargas, the Mexican officer, from a place that is often portrayed as lawless and dangerous. It’s Hank Quinlan (Welles) who’s the “bad cop,” who skirts the law, who does things his own way in a manner of the Old West.

The “good cop” is Mexican.

The “bad cop” Hank Quinlan (Orson Welles) is the American.

At the heart of Touch of Evil lies a central tension we find at the heart of many movies and series that take place in the world of criminal justice today – two competing visions of “justice.” Vargas goes after criminals but does it “by the book.” Some version of this code: there are people who commit crime and evil out in the world, and we put them away without compromising ourselves and our ideals. Quinlan is something closer to there is evil in the world so let’s not mess around by letting the courts and the lawyers screw things up and let these evil-doers go free. To put it another way, to catch monsters you have to become a monster.

Depending on the show, your hero is either the cop who goes by the book or the one who doesn’t. Both approaches to criminal justice have been lionized, but I’m guessing the one who breaks the rules to ensure the “bad guys” get put behind bars is the one we’ve come to see as our hero - a law-breaking good-guy to be admired on the screen. In Touch of Evil, Welles makes it clear that Vargas is the protagonist and Quinlan, at best, the antihero.

Quinlan takes up drinking and reminisces about his departed wife.

But he’s not “evil” or even a villain. There’s a fleeting moment where a drunken Quinlan shares a little of the motivation behind his particular brand of justice. His wife was strangled to death and the memory haunts him, drives him to prevent anything like that happening to anyone else. Is this justification for causing the suffering and misery of others? Vargas doesn’t think so and ultimately convinces his sergeant Pete Menzies (Joseph Calleia) that while they may have put some guilty people away, they definitely planted evidence and abused their power.

The most surprising turn is Pete Menzies (Joseph Calleia) who starts off as a sycophant but realizes the error and illegality of his partner Quinlan’s ways.

By the end of the film, Quinlan’s misdeeds catch up with him, thanks to Vargas exposing his past and with Menzies. Perhaps the most unexpected turns of in the film is Menzies’ who starts as an apparent sycophant but later on reveals a surprising moral compass. It’s his sergeant’s “betrayal” to Quinlan, after all, that leads to his ultimate downfall and the death of both of them.

Quinlan’s final moments.

But in the end, after Quinlan is dying, we hear that the suspect Sanchez (Victor Millan) admitted to being guilty of killing his lover’s father, Rudy Linnekar a local construction magnate (Jeffrey Green) and his girlfriend. Whether this is a real confession or a coerced one, the fact is that someone has confessed to the crime. So was Quinlan right – should he have just planted the explosives on Sanchez and the case would’ve been wrapped up? Is he vindicated, is his way of doing things actually more effective and efficient? This is an unanswerable question for sure, but one thing is certain – the chain of events of the film would not have happened, Quinlan would be alive, Uncle Joe Grandi (Akim Tamiroff) would also be alive, and Susan (Janet Leigh) wouldn’t have been drugged had Vargas not known and exposed the truth.

These dynamics play out in a film we selected at Quarantine Film Society recently – Sicario (2015, QFS No. 153). Another film that plays with the lawless nature of border towns, Sicario blurs the line between right and wrong but isn’t leaving it ambiguous, the filmmakers clearly have an opinion. In their version, the conflict at the modern border is a war, and as such the rules of war apply, not the rules of justice, law and order. Those ideas are quaint, antiquated, and useless in a borderland conflict where that conflict is military, not a law enforcement issue.

In Sicario (2015, QFS No. 153) the border is a war zone, not an in-between ambiguity as it is in Touch of Evil.

Welles appears to differ. If anything, even though Quinlan is ultimately right, his methods lead to destruction and death – including his own. This appears to be an indictment of the lawless man doing whatever he can to get results. Sicario believes the opposite.

Story aside, Welles gives a masterclass in staging just as he did seventeen years earlier in Citizen Kane (1941). Here, he fills the frame with his detectives, shoots everyone a little low angled – especially himself, giving Quinlan a massive presence in the frame. He’s imposing, terrifying. And Vargas mostly is on his own in the frame, heroic, the only good cop in a crooked world. The filmmaking, the camerawork, the snappy dialogue. If people want an example of noir, Touch of Evil is it.

There’s one undercurrent, though, that Welles submerges in the story, and that’s of race. The one thing about a border story between the US and Mexico is that race, class, capitalism – all of these play a huge part in any modern tale taking place along that dividing line. Sanchez, if he is ultimately guilty, was driven to do it because his girlfriend Marcia Linnekar’s (Joanna Moore) white father wouldn’t approve of her being in a relationship with him, a Mexican. The father Rudy Linnekar is the one who was murdered - so for the white American detectives, this is a plain and clear motive and add the fact that he’s from Mexico … well, it’s all an open and shut case. Just let Quinlan handle the particulars.

The interracial newlyweds in Touch of Evil.

Vargas has just married Susan, and her actions can be interpreted as either naïve (she goes off with a Grandi gang member after all) or perhaps she feels safe being the wife of a senior Mexican narcotics officer. She’s brash, strong-willed, throws a light blub out of the window in anger at people peeping in on her. She feels as if nothing will happen to her – because she’s a white American? Maybe. And Vargas, for his part, “doesn’t sound like a Mexican.” (Of course this is because Heston doesn’t use an accent at all really.) But the American cops’ implications are is clear – maybe he’s not like one of them and we need to work around him. Race and nationality comes up throughout the film – even Uncle Joe Grandi says he’s an American citizen, using it as a shield to say how good he is. Welles deploys this throughout – not so much that it’s overwhelming, but enough to be unavoidable.

Welles asks - in a dark world, who do you trust? A man willing to do anything to put evil-doers behind bars (even if they might be innocent)? Or a man who goes after the corrupt but is beholden to rules that may allow the corrupt to buy their way back to freedom? Or is it not as simple as all of that? The exploration of these ideas is what makes Touch of Evil endure beyond its pulpy noir, and its artistry is what cements it as a classic.

From the film’s opening after the car explodes in the United States with explosives from Mexico.

City Lights (1931)

QFS No. 159 - The invitation for December 4, 2024
It’s that time again at Quarantine Film Society – time to watch a Silent Film! Long time followers may recall our first one The Freshman (1925, QFS No. 20) and our most recent Sunrise: A Tale of Two Humans (1927, QFS 104) – both exemplary works of filmmaking, especially F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise. So now we return to the land of not speaking words out loud as we do about every fifty or so selections it seems.

City Lights is one of the classics of the Silent Era (or any era), directed by and starring the most iconic personality of the beginning of Hollywood. The funny thing is that this film was made after “talkies” have taken over movies. City Lights came out four years after The Jazz Singer (1927) introduced sync sound into motion pictures, but Chaplin preferred staying in the silent realm and made arguably his two greatest films in the decade after movies became almost universally a full sound-and-picture affair. His fantastic Modern Times (1936) incorporates some sound effects and voices in the film to enhance the storytelling, but his character and the others in the film communicate mostly nonverbally.

This week’s selection City Lights is not only one of Chaplin’s finest as The Tramp character, but also considered one of the greatest films ever made, to the extent that you trust the oft-cited/derided British Film Institute Greatest Films of All Time list. City Lights checks in at No. 36, just after Pather Panchali (1955) at No. 35 and tied with M (1931), Fritz Lang’s early sound film masterpiece from Germany the same year. This is one time where I feel like maybe, just maybe, the BFI list has got it right.

In any case, City Lights is a film I haven’t yet seen. Mostly because, you know, silent film and I’m late to watching the great ones. Still I continue to learn more and more how important these silent movies are to watch for today as a filmmaker. Without language and dialogue as a crutch, the filmmaker is forced to be visual, innovative, and engaging to keep the audience interested. Framing and juxtaposition of actors in space become crucial to tell the story without sound. In that era, Hollywood, too, was in its infancy so there was no “algorithm” (to use today’s parlance), no accepted structure to make a successful film. So the films have a loose, free feel, unmoored by storytelling convention and cliché. And if a movie has endured until the next century, as City Lights has, then all the more reason to watch, study and, more importantly, enjoy it.

So let’s cozy up with Chaplin and City Lights – and join us to discuss.

City Lights (1931) Directed by Charles Chaplin

Reactions and Analyses:
Everything in City Lights (1931) pays off in the final shot – the very final shot – of the film. This is a remarkable feat of filmmaking and storytelling. The entire film, of course, contains and exhibits Charlie Chaplin’s extraordinary command of the medium and there are moments throughout that contain beauty and pathos and humor and realism.

But it’s the final image that pays it all off. How few films can claim that, that everything builds to a final, joyful, emotional apex? There’s little wonder City Lights has endured into the sound era, through the ubiquity of color films, and into the next. And what we see that allows this film to endure is Chaplin mastery of setups and payoffs. The entire film is a masterclass in paying off the ending, but he does it throughout in ways big and small. There’s not a wasted moment in City Lights.

Along the way, we’re treated to Chaplin’s Tramp, the downtrodden, well-meaning everyman and the first image we see of him sets the tone. City officials are unveiling a new statue, giving meaningless self-important speeches. We don’t even know what they’re saying, but Chaplin uses a sort of “kazoo” in this hybrid silent-sometimes-sound film, as he does later in Modern Times (1936). The kazoo sound has the officials quacking away – which is perfect on so many levels. First, Chaplin was pressured into using sound for City Lights so we put ourselves in the mindset of the 1931 viewer, this is both a nod to that pressure and also a jab at it. (Or, a middle finger, if you will.) It’s Chaplin saying oh you want sound? Here ya go!

The Tramp (Charlie Chaplin), with the prefect place to sleep overnight in City Lights (1931).

But also, this is a clever use of sound. How often do we hear city officials blather on about the unveiling of a new public work or a monument, as opposed to using what they can to prevent people from sleeping on, say, that new monument during it’s unveiling. And here is where Chaplin is a visual comedic genius. He juxtaposes city elites proclaiming greatness all while a homeless man sleeps on that very symbol of greatness, bursting their bubble so to speak.

This man only speaks kazoo.

It’s all about the class divide and class struggle in this and other Chaplin films. Although specific for the 1930s, it’s definitely recognizable today and it’s the underlying theme of City Lights. Take the storyline with the Eccentric Millionaire (Harry Myers). When drunk, he’s magnanimous, grateful that the Tramp  save his life by preventing him from committing suicide. He treats him to a drunken night on the town and even later offers him his car. Not to use, to have. He doesn’t need it.

Alcohol has removed the live between the classes, has removed class distinctions and instead allows the Millionaire to see the Tramp as a human, a person worthy of being seen as someone good and decent. But when sober, he has no idea who the Tramp his. He’s never seen him before and he definitely would never ever been seen with someone of Tramp’s standing.

This man (Harry Myers) should probably not be driving. “Am I driving?” he even says.

Again, this is all set up for the ending of that storyline. Later when the Tramp is given money by the drunk Millionaire to save the Blind Girl (Virginia Cherrill) and her grandmother (Florence Lee) from being evicted, it’s all thwarted when the Tramp is accused of being a burglar due to sober Millionaire realizing his money was missing.

Even in the scene when the Blind Girl and the Tramp first meet, there you get the perfect set up for the main premise of the film. In it, Tramp is smitten by the flower girl. But how to convey to a person who is blind that the Tramp is someone rich? With sound, oddly enough. She hears a car door slamming and driving away, assuming it’s the Tramp who left without taking his change. And only wealthy people have cars, so it stands to reason that’s what he is - one of the elites.

And the Tramp plays this up – shows up later in a very fancy car, buys all her roses with money from the Millionaire, then later still promises to save her from eviction. (This too shows Chaplin’s attention to detail – when at her home, the Grandmother is never around because she would’ve seen the Tramp’s clothes and know he’s destitute.)

The Tramp with the Blind Girl (Virginia Cherrill) who has no reason to believe he’s anything other than a wealthy elite.

So later, when the Blind Girl has gotten surgery to give her vision, thanks to the Tramp’s money “stolen” from the Millionaire, she does not know what the Tramp looks like but only believes that he’s wealthy. And he, having spent time in prison for that alleged theft, can’t find her at her usual corner. He doesn’t realize that he helped them start a corner flower shop. So when he sees her and knows who she is, she doesn’t think he’s anything but another homeless man shuffling along, picked on by the same kids who picked on him earlier in the film.

The Tramp, seeing her, astonished, realizes she can see. But speechless – I found myself urging out loud at the screen for him to say something – surely the sound of his voice will be what makes her realize this is her long-lost love. (I realize the irony in this, a silent film.) And then finally, it’s not words but touch that do it – how perfect in this film that Chaplin is making at the start of the sound era. He doesn’t use sound at all, but the tactile visual. She feels his hand and knows – this is the hand she felt before, when she couldn’t see.

It’s touch not speech, not sound, that let’s the Blind Girl know that this is the man she fell in love with before she could see.

And then, the delicate last lines. You can see now? Yes, I can see now. Followed up by that masterful final shot, that endure close up – probably the only real close up in the film – in which the Tramp, overcome with glee, joy, and also something of a bit of sadness or maybe regret. The grin, the flower. It’s utterly perfect. I found myself unable to restrain tears from welling up.

The very final, masterful shot of the film.

And it’s the final shot of the film. No embrace, no kiss, no montage of them falling in love or getting married. We just know that this, this is the most satisfying, earned conclusion to this story.

When you eat soap, you talk in soap bubbles - that’s just science!

All of this would be enough of a fantastic dramatic narrative, but I’m leaving out the thing that sets it apart as a film – the humor. There’s the entire boxing sequence – also rife with setups and payoffs – that is an uproarious balletic performance. One QFS discussion group member pointed out how this is clearly inspiration for Looney Toons cartoons that emerge about a decade later. The soap versus cheese bit, when the man eats the soap and bubbles come out of his mouth – this becomes a cartoon convention for the rest of time, but City Lights must be where it began. The entire boxing sequence could be straight out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Even the drunken revelry at the club shows Chaplin’s astonishing gifts as a physical comedian.

Bugs Bunny was likely in the audience of this fight, taking notes.

The Tramp launching himself at his opponent is a spectacular feat.

The boxing sequence does get special note in that there’s a moment in which we think that the Tramp might win, might then get the money he needs to save the Blind Girl’s home. But he’s knocked out and loses – his opportunity lost. One member of the QFS group pointed out it would’ve been disappointing and too easy if he won. The Tramp was unlikely to win but by pure spirit and moxie had a chance. In the end, though, reality settled in and he was defeated.  

And that’s what Chaplin also does extremely well – he doesn’t live in sadness for too long, but also not in joy. His pacing is superb and we don’t spend time in one emotion for too long. He stares longingly at the Blind Girl after she think he’s left and he’s now cowered nearby by the fence. But the revelry doesn’t last – she dumps her dirty flower water towards the fence, not knowing it’s his face that gets hit. After he’s knocked out, he runs into the Millionaire again and this leads to maybe there’s a chance he’ll give him the money to save the Blind Girl’s home.

The drunk Millionaire, social and class boundaries dissolved by alcohol, permit him to see the Tramp as a human, a friend, and, apparently, worthy of a smooch.

Chaplin brings us high and low and we end where he intends – in joy, as seen in the Tramp’s eyes and expression. I tried to think of other films where the final shot, the very final shot, pays off the entire film and I’m struggling to find one that’s as satisfying as this. Planet of the Apes (1968) is probably the greatest final shot in its surprise and punch. The last image of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) is clever and ingenious. THX 1138 (1972) gives us the glorious sun, the final escape of 1138. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is certainly a candidate in its enigmatic way. Inception (2010) is a great one that leaves your head scratching and debating. Before Sunset (1999) – the last line of the film, when I saw it in the theater, elicited an audible gasp and reaction. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), the duo going out in a blaze of glory is certainly memorable. I’d even throw in The Wrestler (2008), with his the final leap from the ropes in what we assume is his last is truly terrific.

(Below - spoiler alert: final shots of note from THX 1138, 1971, Before Sunset, 1999, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, 1969, Planet of the Apes, 1968, The Wrestler, Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1981, and of course City Lights.)

And on that list belongs the last moment of City Lights. Earned, a climax, simple. And, importantly, nothing more to be said. Which is how Chaplin wanted it.

Brazil (1985)

QFS No. 158 - The invitation for November 27, 2024
Brazil is directed by Terry Gilliam, the mad-genius behind (and part of) Monty Python’s Flying Circus, the still-quotable Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Time Bandits (1981), Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Fisher King (1991) in which Mercedes Ruehl* won an Oscar, the terrific 12 Monkeys (1995) and other films that are all a little ... askew. What a fascinating career Gilliam has had as a comedian, animator, actor and filmmaker. This is our first of his movies we’ve selected for Quarantine Film Society.

And this one is a favorite of mine – darkly funny, unpredictable and visually captivating, stunningly so at times. I first saw Brazil after someone recommended it to me while a student (…fellow…) at the American Film Institute and the movie stuck with me immediately. The story of how Brazil was made and released has become something of a dark tale itself. There are three versions of the movie that exist in the world – the original European release that’s 142-minutes long, the American version that’s 132-minutes long (probably the one you’ll find out there on streaming), and the so-called Sheinberg edit also known as the “Love Conquers All” version that’s only 90-minutes long. I’ve seen some aspects of each of these, and whatever you do, do not watch the Love Conquers All version because it’s an abomination.

Is now the right time to watch a film about trying to live under the gaze of a dystopic government with a crippling and heartless bureaucracy on the eve of what could be the downfall of representative democracy in this country? Sure why not. Good to know what’s in store for us! Eh.

Anyway, join watch and and discuss below!

*Not only was she later to be directed by yours truly in an episode of television, she also has the distinction of her first and last name sounding like a complete declarative sentence.

Brazil (1985) Directed by Terry Gilliam

Reactions and Analyses:
There’s a sequence in Brazil (1985) that captures so much of what the film attempts to say about society, progress, perception versus reality and also captures director Terry Gilliam’s unique vision, all in one 20-second (or less) moment and series of shots.

Sam driving in his miniscule car in his futuristic city.

Sam (Jonathan Pryce) is driving in his ludicrously tiny car, dwarfed by the wheels of a huge construction vehicle driving next to it. Then, the shot cuts from Sam’s face to what we presume is a POV shot of him driving through the city which we haven’t yet seen. This sort of cut is a conventional type of edit where we as the audience sees what he’s seeing.

Oh what a nice looking city they’ve got in Brazil.

It’s a driving point-of-view through a sleek, futuristic world with what appear to be cooling towers above uniform, efficient-looking buildings. But then, as the shot keeps moving (again, as though we are in the car looking out the domed windows as Sam is doing), suddenly a giant head of a disheveled-looking man holding a beer bottle appears above the buildings.

Wait, what’s going on?

The moment is long enough to give us a sense of what is going on? Is this some sort of giant? But then it cuts to a wide shot of the actual city – this was just a model in a glass case of what the city was proposed to look like, with this drunken fellow now peering into it and Sam’s car driving past the model in the background through what the city actually turned out to be.

It was just a model!

This sequence is illustrative of Gilliam’s work generally and themes of Brazil specifically in the following ways. First, it toys with filmic convention – we have an expectation of what we should be seeing (a POV) but the gag is a misdirect, played for laughs. But it’s also a commentary. People (government or businesses) promising one thing but the reality ends up being something totally different – both the shot and the subject in the shot (the cityscape). The wide shot shows the same towers as the model, but run down, graffiti covered. It’s no mistake that these buildings are named “Shangri-La Towers,” an elevated name for a dilapidated place.

Hidden in this is a third aspect: who is to blame for these promises not being kept? And are we simply powerless to hold anyone accountable?

We are victims of indifference to our circumstances in an uncaring world, Brazil tells us. Bureaucracy (paperwork!) is dehumanizing – no one takes responsibility because in a world where authority is both decentralized and opaque, there’s no one person to blame. Everyone is at fault therefore no one is. As perfectly described in this exchange:

Sam Lowry: I only know you got the wrong man.

Jack Lint: Information Transit got the wrong man. I got the right man. The wrong one was delivered to me as the right man, I accepted him on good faith as the right man. Was I wrong?

Mr. Buttle - whose fault is it that this is the wrong man? The paperwork said it was Buttle.

That wrong man was poor Archibald Buttle (Brian Miller) who later died after being taken away in a case of mistaken identity – in that, they have the wrong name entirely and are looking for Archibald “Harry” Tuttle (Robert DeNiro). Jill Leighton (Kim Greist) attempts to find out what happened to her neighbor Mr. Buttle but since he’s considered a criminal, she’s only met with institutional indifference, given the ol’ run-around.

Sam, however, is in the system. So surely he can fight it – that’s where we think the film is going. Someone who is of the system but doesn’t really care for it will use his knowledge of the system against it to take it down and make the world a better place.

Will Sam take down the system? If this was a simple film subject to studio tinkering, then yes. If it’s a complex film about our real contemporary world, then no.

Gilliam, however, isn’t one for the Hollywood convention of a happy ending (as is thoroughly documented in his fight with Universal Studios and Sid Sheinberg to get Brazil released back in 1985). Instead, Sam, who has apparent privilege as a worker drone in the Ministry of Information and as the son of a prominent member of the government, in the end can’t defeat the system nor can he prevent himself from being a victim of it either.

One of our QFS group members brought up this phrase that I’ll try to remember when talking about Brazil in the future – it’s Kafka meets Capra. Comparisons to George Orwell and his 1984 are of course impossible to miss, but it’s not entirely accurate. The seminal book paints a bleak and ultimately joyless world living under a totalitarian state. Brazil’s world isn’t quite as bleak – in fact, the rich among them are very happy. They can endure routine terrorist attacks as “poor sportsmanship” and can continue to eat brunch so long as a barrier blocks them off from the horrors unfolding behind them. Or they can completely change their appearance with the right cosmetic surgeon. And Sam’s inner mind is full of fantasy and light - he’s actually fighting the system in his dreams, as opposed to being swallowed by it in reality.

Winged hero Sam Lowry, in flight during a dream.

Although the less wealthy and poor are victims of an uncaring world – the Buttles, for instance – Gilliam plays all of this for absurdist laughs as opposed to bleak sadness. The film is satire, not a post-apocalyptic look back at a world lost as we inhabit a brave new world. Gilliam has said that Brazil does not take place in the future and even the title card says “somewhere in the 20th Century” (which now of course puts this film firmly in the past). So it’s about our present day where consumerism is most important, a world where a child asks Santa for a credit card, a procession marches by with people holding up “Consumers for Christ” banners, and the guard implores Sam to confess quickly otherwise his credit score will suffer. Twentieth century “satire” here comes dangerously close to full on 21st Century reality.

Consumers For Christ banner parades through the city.

And, I dare say, the film does find a way to have something resembling hope. Well maybe not as far as hope, but one can interpret that, in the end, Sam has found a place unreachable by the overbearing State – his innermost mind. The ending – the very ending, not what appears to be ending with Sam being rescued by the very terrorists he’s accused of being a part of – but the final moment of Sam in the chair humming the tune that’s the film’s namesake. He has gone off into the sunset with a woman he loves, free from paperwork and the dirty city.

Perhaps this is a happy ending? Sam smiling, lost in a fantasy for good.

Or, maybe they’ve already performed the lobotomy and it’s as bleak as saying – whatever you do, the State wins in the end (as does Big Brother in Orwell’s work). It’s unclear here in Brazil, but what’s clear is that the filmmaker shows a man in a chair surrounded by darkness, only to have that darkness dissolve into clouds and the world of his dreams. To me and to several of us in the discussion group, that is a glimmer of something brighter from the outside world.

Sam enters Information Retreival.

Much has been written about the groundbreaking production design and imagery in the film and what’s striking about seeing it now, in the 21st Century, is that this film was made at all. In our current movie landscape, only a two or maybe three directors are able to create an entire world something as big, bold and maniacal as this – perhaps only Christopher Nolan, Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and maybe Denis Villeneuve – without relying upon pre-existing source material. “I.P.” to use the language or our times. And Brazil is a lot for a first-time viewer, we discovered – it’s full of visual gags and stimulation, extraordinary camera work, clever dialogue with that Monty Python-esque British humor inflected throughout. You could watch the film all the way through just for the propaganda signs throughout (“Suspicion breeds confidence.”) And it’s just a utter stroke of genius that this whole thing is set off by a bug falling into the printing machine. A system so confident in its infallibility but yet the tiniest of creatures can cause it to fail.

This set is both excellent in its design but also photographed nearly perfectly by Terry Gilliam and cinematographer Roger Pratt with one of the all time great camera dolly movies.

Brazil is full of big ideas packed into a madhouse of a film. If there’s one thing we’re missing, one sadness at revisiting a work as innovative and inventive as Brazil, is that there are so few of its kind since then. So few original films on that scale that are about ideas. Perhaps Nolan is the only one making inventive big world creation films about ideas. There’s a bleak homogenization in our movies, one big action or comic-book based film looking almost exactly like the next. It’s our version of being surrounded by gray walls.

Are we living in Gilliam’s Brazil or some version of that now? I don’t think it’s as bleak as all that. After all, we’ve all but gotten rid of paperwork.

Paperwork reigns down after Sam disrupts the tube system in Information Retrieval.

Princess Mononoke (1997)

QFS No. 157 - The invitation for November 20, 2024
We are all long overdue to be taken away to a different land. At least for a couple of hours.* And there’s perhaps no one better suited to take us elsewhere than the Japanese master of animation, Hayao Miyazaki. We have technically never selected a Miyazaki directed film, but his Studio Ghibli produced Grave of the Fireflies (1988, QFS No. 23), which was the first animated film we selected to watch for Quarantine Film Society.** Studio Ghibli films’ streaming distribution opened up more widely recently, which is an exciting development and will make it easier to see all of these great Miyazaki masterpieces.

Princess Mononoke is high on that list. In 1997, there was not yet an Academy Award for animated feature. Had there been, Princess Mononoke would’ve been the odds-on favorite to win that year. Disney, who dominates the category, had the above average Hercules (1997) and Anastasia (1997) – not classics, which is how Princess Mononoke is often described.

Fast forward a few years when the Oscar category was created, and Miyazaki takes home the statuette for Spirited Away (2001), a truly magnificent film that I’d rank among the greatest animated movies of all time. And just last year, at 80-years old, Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron (2023) won the top animated prize again. My Neighbor Totoro (1988) remains a favorite around the world. Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Howl’s Moving Castle (2004), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) are among the titles that are celebrated by anime fans and others alike – and there are dozens more.

Miyazaki’s storytelling contains magic on par with Disney’s, but I’d argue even more so with stories that are layered and contain even deeper explorations of character and the soul. His stories take on complex emotions and never pander to the audience – which we definitely saw in the post-war tale of Grave of the Fireflies. Though animation as a medium is often aimed at children, his stories cater to adults as well, often with haunting imagery and disturbing sequences. Miyazaki has elevated the medium and the genre and has made an indelible mark on the film industry as a whole.

I’m very much looking forward to finally seeing Princess Mononoke. Disappear into Miyazaki’s world for a couple hours and join us to discuss here!

*Ideally, longer.

**Flee (2021, QFS No. 69) is the only other animated film we’ve selected due to a long-standing bias among some members of our QFS Council of Excellence (QFSCOE).

Princess Mononoke (1997) Directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Reactions and Analyses:
At the end of Princess Mononoke, the victor is nature. The enraged, decapitated Forest Spirit has just decimated Iron Town, the human-made walled outpost that’s been mining ore and decimating the forest in its path. Iron Town’s ruler Lady Eboshi (voiced by Minnie Driver in the English dubbed version) has had her arm bitten off by the wolf goddess Moro (Gillian Anderson).

But San (the titular Princess Mononoke, voiced by Claire Danes) and the story’s main protagonist Ashitaka (Billy Crudup) have retrieved the head and returned it to the Forest Spirit, healing it and the cataclysm has ended. In the spirit’s wake, the Iron Town is destroyed - but it’s not the end of the story. Instead, over all the destruction, sprouts being to spring and grass grows and nature reclaims the land. In the end, nature is victorious.

Nature has reclaimed Iron Town, now a grassy hill, near the conclusion of Princess Mononoke (1997).

If there’s a central idea of Princess Mononoke - and there are several, some that were a little harder to discern for us in the QFS discussion group - it is this: nature will endure and prevail, if we help it. If we, as humans, can live in harmony with it, symbiotically.

It’s no surprise that several movies including Avatar (2009) are influenced by Hayao Miyazaki’s epic story in Princess Mononoke - from both a story perspective and also visually. But what sets Princess Mononoke apart from Western fare including Avatar is that neither humans nor nature are all entirely good or entirely bad.

Take Iron Town. The town is clearly destroying the land and exploiting its resources. Lady Eboshi is an unrepentant capitalist hell bent on ruling the world. (In fact, she holds up a newly created rifle saying that it’s a weapon that you can rule the world with.) But even she has more layers than that - she is not the villain of the film, to the extent that there is a villain of the film.

Iron Town busy extracting resources from the forest.

And using fire-laden rifles to attack the wolf spirts and wipe out the countryside.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite - she is extremely benevolent. We learn she took women out from working in brothels and gave them dignity and power - but also putting them to work in the bellows of the iron works. She’s taken in lepers who were cast out from society - but also has given the task of making weapons for Lady Eboshi’s growing empire.

Lady Eboshi has empowered the women of Iron Town, rescuing them from brothels

But also employing them in the ironworks.

In this way, Miyazaki is pointing out something that we see every day in real life. Large corporations whose business is tearing up the Earth for resources to fuel modern economy and industry, claim that they are benevolent. Sure we’re extracting fossil fuels and poisoning the atmosphere, but we’re also providing jobs, education, and look how many renewable energy projects we’re funding!

Look how happy we all are living in Iron Town - how could a place this joyful also be causing grave harm to the world? Miyazaki’s juxtaposing these two realities in fantasy medieval Japan reflects our current reality today.

All of the characters are complex in this way. Even nature isn’t all good either. The wolves are particularly nasty, threating to bite off Ashitaka’s head at any given moment. The boars in particular are brutish, headstrong and unwilling to compromise. It’s their inability to let go of hatred that brings on the demon - or something like that.

I found the apes the most unsettling of the forest creatures.

The boars - just listen to reason, please!

Which is one aspect of the film we all found confusing - the rules and the mythology. Narratively speaking, the first half of the film or so is breathtaking in its scope and clear in its vision of a journey for Ashitaka to find a cure for his arm and “to see with eyes unclouded by hate.” But in the second half, Ashitaka encounters humans at war - samurai versus Iron Town, messy allegiances, even in the forest with the animals including the apes. And in the end, after all is said and done, Lady Eboshi and the conniving Jigo (with strangely aloof voicing by Billy Bob Thornton) receive no comeuppance. Eboshi does have an arm cut off, but even when nature is restored there is nothing to suggest, necessarily, that she’s going to change her tune and live in more harmony with nature. And Jigo - whose mission was to decapitate the Forest Spirit at the Emperor’s behest - survives and shrugs it all off.

The Forest Spirit, whose head is valuable - all of this is allegory that is up for analysis and discussion.

Perhaps this, too, is Miyazaki’s point several in our group contended - that these people continue to live among us. People who would live in discord with nature, with ill intentions who are only looking out for themselves. So this balance between nature and life will continue. And it’s also true that we, as American filmmakers and viewers, expect a narrative arc or change in a character. But in the East, perhaps that’s less necessary or expected - even in an animated film. After all, Ashitaka doesn’t really change at all, if you consider him the protagonist - he begins righteous and stays righteous. If anything, he’s trying to have everyone fight against resorting to anger and destruction and he loves the people of Iron Town but also Princess Mononoke and the denizens of the forest. San (Princess Mononoke) in fact still distrusts humans and her human self and doesn’t actually end up with Ashitaka.

San (Princess Mononoke) and Moro - not all good, not all evil.

Despite this lack of a narrative arc we’re hoping for as Western audience members, Miyazaki is painting a picture of there is no good and no evil. Nature itself destroys and brings to life. The Forest Spirit saves Ashitaka but also kills plants and destroys the countryside, just as life springs forth beneath its feet.

Miyazaki has mastered the animated film. But what he’s done to elevate it is that he manages to make the fantastical feel realistic. He manages to make the world three-dimensional, as if it’s there’s a camera on that hillside filming the wolves as they carry the masked San/Princess Mononoke, dodging real rifle shots. It’s a truly remarkable experience to disappear into a Miyazaki world.

But the world he’s creating, especially here in Princess Mononoke is a mirror to our world - a plea for what he hopes is ultimately balance in a world living in the absence of that balance, teetering on mutual destruction.

Near the end of the film, Princess Mononoke/San says, “Even if all the trees grow back, it won't be his forest anymore. The Forest Spirit is dead.”

Ashitaka replies, “Never. He is life itself. He isn't dead, San. He is here with us now, telling us, it's time for both of us to live.”

“It’s time for us both to live.”

Shaun of the Dead (2004)

QFS No. 156 - The invitation for October 30, 2024
Shaun of the Dead is directed by Edgar Wright, wacky genius behind one of my favorite Quarantine Film Society selections Hot Fuzz (2009, QFS No. 29), selected in our group’s first year.

And since my involvement with zombies and zombie fare as a filmmaker has been long documented, Shaun the Dead seemed like an appropriate pick to discuss on the eve of Halloween. If this movie is even remotely as funny as Hot Fuzz, it’s going to be a very satisfying viewing experience.  

So for now let’s ignore our current apocalypse and watch Shaun of the Dead (one of the great plays on “of the dead” you can find) and discuss.

Shaun of the Dead (2004) Directed by Edgar Wright

Reactions and Analyses:
For a comedy about zombies and a zombie apocalypse, Shaun of the Dead (2004) actually has something very pointed to say about humanity – especially at the beginning and the end of the film.

That commentary begins in the opening credits which roll after the opening teaser sequence where we meet Shaun (Simon Pegg) and all the main characters. During the opening credits, director Edgar Wright shows humans sleep-walking through life, zombie like. They sway in unison with their music devices, drugged out, waiting for the bus with vacant expressions and checking their watches simultaneously. Or they go through the motions as cashiers or in the supermarket parking lot. Even Shaun, when he wakes up, lurches like the undead.

Zombies or people? Or can we even tell the difference?

In Shaun of the Dead (2004), Edgar Wright asks the question if we’d even notice a zombie apocalypse at all.

The filmmaker appears to be saying – we’re already acting like zombies. So if an actual zombie apocalypse happens, would we even notice?

The answer, for a while, is no. At least not for Shaun and Ed (Nick Frost) – roommates and disconnected from the world and occupied by their own concerns. (Or lack of them, in Ed’s case.) Meanwhile, a strange disease or occurrence is turning people into the undead. The fact is, we are so distracted and going through the motions of life that we can easily avoid knowing that an apocalypse is at our doorstep.

Shaun, moving zombie-like through the world already.

Wright cleverly continues to show us that we’re already among people who are the walking dead already. A homeless beggar asks Shaun for cash and later, when that beggar has been turned into a zombie, Shaun barely notices the difference. In another scene, Shaun looks out at the park and sees what appears to be a homeless person with mental health issues who goes after pigeons. Is he about to eat one? Before we can find out, a bus comes between Shaun and the man, and both the pigeons and the – homeless person? zombie? – are gone.

Shaun even stares, zombie-like, at the television, a television set that is desperately trying to tell him that the world is crumbling and people need to take cover because humans are mutating into some sort of animal-like undead creature. It’s an incredibly brilliant device – Shaun is flipping through the channels and each one is filling out a statement, telling us (who already know this) and Shaun (who still isn’t hearing it) that the world is ending. It’s terrifically funny and a perfectly clever coordination of exposition, character development, and plot setup.

Even when one of the undead women nearly kills Shaun, they think she’s drunk and coming on to him. It isn’t until they see her impaled and survive with a hole in her torso do they finally understand that something is very very very wrong. It’s fantastic.

Shaun still doesn’t quite get that there are zombies now in the world, even when one is literally on top of him.

He finally finally gets it.

As several us in the discussion pointed out, Wright and his collaborator Pegg are clearly fans of genres. We screened and discussed Hot Fuzz (2009, QFS No. 29) four years ago, a film that’s a perfect homage and satire of action films that could only be done by someone deeply immersed in the genre. Same goes for Shaun of the Dead – it’s clear that Wright and Pegg are zombie movie nerds. The film contains a multitude of reference and possibly my favorite one is Shaun’s mother, named “Barbara” (Penelope Wilton) which gives the perfect set up to reference a line from Night of the Living Dead (1968, QFS No. 44) – “we’re coming to get you, Barbara!” Not to mention that they can’t say the “zed word,” a reference to the fact that zombie movies and shows go to painstaking lengths to call the undead anything but “zombies.” Even the Hindi-language broadcast in the Indian-run corner convenience store is broadcasting about the zombie apocalypse - but in Hindi so Shaun doesn’t get the news.

This tactic of smearing zombie guts on your body to move among the zombies will be used later in The Walking Dead series. 

The flowers for Shaun’s mother Barbara are an example of a simple gag set up and paid off much later.

Wright’s comedic setup, timing and use of dialogue are unmatched in contemporary filmmaking, I feel. His comedy isn’t based on improv or relies on clever characters the way a Judd Apatow film might, but uses visuals and filmmaking in the way that Charlie Chaplain may have done to enhance comedic scenarios. It’s true directing to enhance a story. And for Shaun of the Dead, it’s his clever use of satire to make a sideways dig at humanity that elevates this film from something like Zombieland (2009) that’s a funny action zombie-genre film but nothing much beyond that. Shaun of the Dead is an insightful film about our current civilization – still “current” even though it was made 20 years ago. I’d argue it's even more relevant now, frankly. He’s saying – we’re already in a semi-catatonic state of detachment. How much different are we than the zombies of movie lore?

Watching useful zombies on television in the aftermath.

And what cements his apparent commentary is the film’s denouement, the final moments after the climactic finale. Humanity has now learned to live with the undead around them. Shaun and Liz (Kate Ashfield) watch TV and see that there are the mundane type of shows we have now – talk shows, game shows, news documentaries – but with one key difference. They all have folded zombie-life into their world. Zombies have been utilized to do daily labor tasks humans once did. Others are part of a game show where they’re raced or used for sport. There’s a sensationalized talk show where a woman talks about the love of her life is a zombie. It’s so perfect – humanity hasn’t so much as learned from their mistakes and made life more vibrant, they’ve just adapted to the reality of having zombies living among them.

The clincher for this is the final scene – Ed, now a zombie, is chained in a little shed in Shaun and Liz’s yard, where he’s hooked up to a video game system. Just as we saw him at the beginning of the film. And Shaun plays with him. Ed is living the same life as before. Just now, as a zombie. Which is basically what he was all along.

Shaun and Ed, living on the couch in front of a video game console.

As Ed was in the beginning - on the couch, playing video games with his friend  Shaun.

Is this a scathing criticism of people, society, of men in particular? After all, Shaun’s journey throughout the film is evolving from an overgrown child into a man who can take charge and actually prove his love to Liz. Regardless, the commentary or criticism would be nothing without humor, the performances, and the execution from the deft hand of an elite-level filmmaker.  

Carnival of Souls (1962)

QFS No. 155 - The invitation for October 23, 2024
We go from low-budget drama for our previous selection to low-budget horror this week. This is going to be an incredibly short invitation, compared to the usual, because I deliberately know nothing about Carnival of Souls. I know that it’s a film that has been influential to filmmakers over the years, enough to be in the Criterion Collection, and that it from the 1960s. And maybe it has a carnival of sorts? Or perhaps its metaphoric!

Also, importantly – the film is originally in black and white. In my briefest of research, Amazon Prime is offering a color version. My suggestion is to eschew this colorized film and go for the original because we’re purists here at the Quarantine Film Society, as you know.

Okay, watch Carnival of Souls and join us to discuss this our 155th film!

Carnival of Souls (1962) Directed by Herk Harvey

Reactions and Analyses:
Although Carnival of Souls (1962) is not the origin point for person-is-dead-but-doesn’t-know-it-yet film, it certainly must be considered one of the first. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1961), a short film from around the time Herk Harvey was conceiving of his story for Carnival of Souls is perhaps the first – that film is based on a 19th Century short story so it wasn’t a totally new concept. The “Twilight Zone” was incredibly popular on television in the early 1960s and featured a number of episodes where a main character is not alive who may not know it.

And now, in 2024, after we’ve had more than 60 years of films with this premise – most successfully executed in The Sixth Sense (1999) – is the surprise ending of Carnival of Souls really a surprise at all? Most everyone in our QFS discussion group had determined that Mary (Candace Hilligoss) is likely dead and doesn’t know it.

Mary (Candace Hilligoss) emerges from the river after the car she was in plummeted off of a bridge in Carnival of Souls (1962). Or did she?!

So given that, the ending doesn’t really pack a surprise. But perhaps that doesn’t matter all these years later. A film, made on a miniscule budget by a director who worked in industrial and educational films primarily and never made another theatrical feature again – how does a film like endure the test of time?

Herk Harvey, bound by the constraints of the budget and what available locations and resources he had, leaned into his limitations instead of trying to mask them. And beyond that, he uses a true artist’s eye for unnerving and enduring visuals. Take for example an early scene. Mary plays a massive pipe organ in an organ factory. Harvey shoots much of the scene from high above, the long verticals of the pipes reaching upwards like rigid fingers. It evokes a queasiness too, the verticals accentuating the height and creating a sense of unbalance.

Mary surrounded by massive pipes from pipe organs at the factory where they’re made, early in the film.

On the one hand, this is a great premise – an organ player being hired to work in a church who doesn’t feel particularly religious and treats it as a job. On the other hand, we know now that Harvey had access to this particular location in his hometown of Lawrence, Kansas. He adapted his story to fit what he had.

One could say that about the actors as well. Candace as Mary is the only professional actor and the rest of the cast are “amateurs” which is a little generous. Many of them were Harvey’s co-workers, and their performances feel out of the ordinary. Something’s amiss with Mrs. Thomas (Frances Feist) the landlord of the home where Mary rented a room. John Linden (Sidney Berger) is extremely, perhaps extraordinarily, aggressive, ready and willing to sexually abuse Mary at the first chance. Dr. Samuels (Stan Levitt) is quite an aggressive doctor. No one acts in a manner that seems quite human.

Candace Hilligoss as Mary, the only professional actor in Carnival of Souls - something that director Herk Harvey turns to his advantage.

Now, on the one hand, this could be just the pitfalls of working with a cast of primarily amateurs. On the other hand, if you write and create a film to use your production’s weakness as an asset, you’re able to use the fact that no one acts quite human to help enhance the feel of the world you’re creating.

The abandoned (is it?) bathhouse occupies Mary’s mind and her nightmares for some reason.

And that’s the overall feel of Carnival of Souls – something is off. Nothing quite fits and that’s likely the point. Mary is in purgatory. And in purgatory, you’re neither alive or dead. Nothing is quite there and nothing is quite gone. In this purgatory, as opposed to Dante’s Divine Comedy where he’s attempting to pass through Purgatory, in Carnival of Souls we meander about throughout it. There’s no driving narrative, no main story in which the protagonist struggles to succeed. Instead, Mary is just mostly wandering around, trying to figure out why things are so off, why she’s obsessed with this abandoned bathhouse on the shore of the Great Salt Lake.

Mary exploring the abandoned bathhouse complex.

This uncertain feeling and mood allows for genuinely creepy imagery. I confess, the first time Mary sees the ghoulish man (NAME???) out the window while driving, I jumped in my seat. Mary looks forward, her reflection in the passenger window with the world going by as the sun’s going down, but then when she looks back it’s not her reflection she sees but our first glimpse of the man who haunts her throughout the film. Then he appears at night in front of the car as she’s about to hit him. It’s so effective at creating a sense of unease, and the film peppers these moments throughout.

This image was incredibly effective in creating an unsettling feeling as Mary drives to her new town.

This image, with a fast car-POV push in, punctuates the driving scene and is really effective in creating horror and suspense.

The man appears to be stalking her, but only she can see him. Then, she’s haunted by him so much that she is unable to sleep and has a nightmare with crash zooms and wailing organ music, images of the Saltair bathouse filling her minds. Later, when she’s playing the organ at her new church, she becomes possessed, playing decidedly un-spiritual music, seeing visions of the ghoulish man dancing with similar-looking people in fast motion, a danse macabre.

Later, she’s in the department store and suddenly no one can hear her or see her, as if she doesn’t exist. She’s driven out, crashing into the arms of a dubious medical professional who isn’t all that helpful. Mary, at wits end from seeing the ghoulish man stalking her, moves her furniture around to block her door, and the filmmakers shoot from outside her lit window – the only thing in the darkness, and her frantic movements inside with the organ music playing. All of these are low cost, high impact storytelling techniques that creates this unsettling feeling.

And Harvey accentuates this with clever filmmaking. His use of high angles makes Mary small and lost in her world, both in the street then later in the abandoned bathhouse. The abandoned bathhouse sequence itself, as many in our group pointed out, displays real cinematographic acumen, using the location and it’s emptiness in an effective way to enhance our sense of unease – especially later when Mary is there and sees all the ghouls with her, trying to pull her down into the afterlife. And they eventually do.

Harvey uses high angles very effectively to make Mary small and lost in the strange world she’s found herself in.

The film is, of course, flawed in many ways. The feeling we had as a group is that the rules of this world are not yet solidified in the way they do years later. For example, there are a number of scenes that Mary wouldn’t be privy to – when the doctor and the landlady talk about Mary’s decision to leave or even after Mary succumbs to the demons at Saltair. The sheriff traces her footsteps and says they know that her car is there and this is where she fell but then the trail disappears.

Mary’s final moments, chased down by the undead.

So… are these people real and Mary existed among them but is gone? Or was this entire extra, post-death life just in Mary’s head while she was drowning to death in the car? And what happened in the bathhouse retreat – were people horribly murdered? Why are they there? These are not major flaws but are story holes that get ironed out later on in films that feature the dead-but-doesn’t-know-it protagonist.

The undead, but … why are they here? What happened? Or does it not matter?

In the end, of course, Carnival of Souls succeeds despite much of its short comings. The fact that the filmmaker knew he had shortcomings all around him posed no obstacle. Instead, he embraced these limitations, wrote his story to fit what he had available to him, and used his meager resources to his advantage. Harvey created a film that should remain a model for scrappy, savvy independent filmmakers – and not just ones who work in stories of horror or fantastical realms. Embrace your limitations and find ways to make your disadvantages into advantages.

Low-fi scares through simple imagery abound in Carnival of Souls (1962).

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)

QFS No. 154 - The invitation for October 9, 2024
Not to be mistaken with Ali (2001), the Michael Mann biopic about Muhammad Ali. Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, as far as I know, has very little boxing and probably even less Muhammad Ali in it. But who knows!

Rainer Werner Fassbinder is one of those filmmakers whose work I, as film snob and student of film, should have seen. But instead, I pretend I know about Fassbinder – of course I do. I went to film school, you see.

Consequently, I know very little about Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, but more than one person has recommended it to me in recent years. One institution gives this film high marks as well – specifically the British Film Institute, where it came in at No. 52 on the Greatest Films of All Time List. You’re familiar, of course, with the oft-cited/derided BFI/Sight & Sound list that comes out every decade. Well, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is tied in 52nd I’ll have you know. Tied with (checks notes) News From Home (1976) directed by Chantal Akerman – you all know her as the director of the No. 1 Greatest Film of All Time, Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975, QFS No. 98).

Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing my first Fassbinder film, which will be our third German film after Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972, QFS No. 40) and Downfall (2004, QFS No. 28) – so it’s been about 112 films since our last time with the Germans. See Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and add Fassbinder to your snobby film cred as well!

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) Directed by Ranier Werner Fassbinder

Reactions and Analyses:
There’s a scene more than halfway through Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) that feels like a fulcrum of film. Moroccan-born Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) and the older German widow Emmi (Brigitte Mira) have fallen in love, but their uncommon pairing has drawn the ire of nearly everyone they encounter. Emmi is shunned by neighbors and co-workers. Her grown children stormed out in anger, with one son Bruno (Peter Gauhe) even kicking in the screen of her TV set.

All of this Emmi accepts with grace, and feels that people, though surprised at their relationship, are eventually going to come around. She knows she’s old and people are prejudiced against people from the Arab world. But in this scene, her fortitude has run out. They’re in an outdoor café, in a plaza, surrounded by yellow chairs. Not one sits next to them, they’re in the center of their own world. All the café staff stand back and away from them, simply staring.

Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) and Emmi (Brigitte Mira) hold hands in a sea of emptiness. The scene feels like the fulcrum of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) directed by Ranier Werner Fassbinder.

Emmi and Ali hold hands across the table and Emmi breaks down. She lashes out at them, at the world, for treating them this way when all they want is love. Ali tenderly strokes her hair to console her. The scene feels like a tipping point, the moment in which Emmi’s underlying belief in the ultimate goodness in people has cracked.

Emmi lashes out at the staff, but also the world, finally cracking. 

The staff looks on with apparent disdain at Ali and Emmi.

Ali consoles Emmi, displaying a tenderness that sometimes is elusive from the stoic husband.

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul feels as if it could’ve taken place today, that it could be a contemporary story. It is a contemporary story – you can imagine these characters swapped with someone who is African American or Latinx or, well, Arab. Prejudice and racial discrimination is not unique to any one country.

What makes this film so unique, however, is that this is Germany not quite 30 years after the end of the Second World War. The references to Hitler are surprisingly casual and off-handed and suggests to me that director Rainer Werner Fassbinder is making a comment about his own country’s lingering difficulty with race and prejudice. Instead of blaming Jewish people for their ills, characters throughout blame the immigrants from Arab-speaking countries.

Emmi’s son-in-law Eugen (played by Fassbinder himself), a vile misogynist, bristles at the notion that his superior at work is Turkish. He sulks at home “sick” but clearly just lazy and drunk, demanding beers from his wife Krista (Irm Hermann), The two couple are miserable with each other, constantly insulting and clearly hate each other. Fassbinder seems to be deliberate about the juxtaposition of this scene with the previous one, which is after Ali has left Emmi’s place and the two have made love in the night. People may look down on Arabs for being “swine” and lazy, cramming in homes instead of buying their own place (according to the ladies Emmi works with), but Fassbinder forces us to see that this is untrue – just look at how miserable Eugen is and his home life with Krista. If anything, native-born Germans are the ones who are taking their good fortunate and privilege for granted.

Emmi’s daughter is in what is clearly a toxic relationship. 

Which is directly juxtaposed with the preceding scene - a relationship that people don’t approve of but is clearly more loving than the other.

But everything is deliberate with Fassbinder, we found. The compositions are steady still, often using doorways or the staircase to provide a frame within a frame or obstacles to our viewing. He moves the camera only when needed and with great effect to bring our attention to something in particular.

The striking, mysterious wide shot - from Emmi’s point of view - of the bar she’s entered, lured in by the unique Arabic-language music.

But Emmi, as the older woman, is the oddity here.

Take the opening scene. There’s beautiful, hypnotic Arabic music playing and a woman steps in from the rain into a place, drawn by the music. She’s a stranger here – the frame is still. The reverse angle, her perspective, we see everyone straight upright staring back at her. Their posture speaks volumes, as if to say something’s not right here. Then the bartender Barbara (Barbara Valentin), comes around the bar and the camera pushes in, she passes buy which creates extra dynamism in the camera move and it pushes closer to Ali, who we are introduced to here, in a way.

This frame is the end result of a very deliberate push in by Fassbinder, drawing attention to Ali.

There are numerous instances when the camera’s movement is precise, purposeful, and helps tell the story in this way. Or lack of movement. Emmi and Ali go into an Italian restaurant (“Hitler used to go here!” is an unsettling plug for this place) after they’ve been married in court, and Fassbinder keeps his distance, playing much of the scene from another room through a doorway. It’s cold, like the reception they’re getting from the waiter as strangers in this place.

The cold, distant, empty space utilized by Fassbinder in the Italian restaurant where the claim to fame - among other things - is that Hitler used to dine there.

Although it had been well documented, I was previously unaware of Fassbinder’s connection with Douglas Sirk and about how he was inspired by the German ex-pat’s work in the American film industry. Sirk, who we just recently selected two films ago (Imitation of Life, 1959, QFS No. 152) mastered melodrama, but also mastered the ability to take on socially provocative subject matter. In Imitation of Life, it’s race, just as it is in Ali: Fear East the Soul. Several people over the years have pointed out that All that Heaven Allows (1955) is a direct parallel to Ali: Fear Eats the Soul – an older woman and a younger man fall in love – but Fassbinder supercharges it with race. But he does it in a way that’s even more evolved than Sirk, in my opinion.

Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman play an older woman and younger man couple in Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955) - an inspiration to Fassbinder

Where Sirk does an admirable job tackling social touchpoints, specifically race in Imitation of Life in during a time where racial discrimination was high in America – Jim Crow laws still very much in effect throughout the South – Fassbinder inflects his story with another angle. Both characters are lonely. We can see the stress it inflicts on Ali as an Arab in that it actually starts to kill him. But he strives for any sort of comfort from home – couscous, for example. (Which led to this trenchant over-simplification by one in our group: “Can you make me couscous? No? I’m leaving.”)

It’s this loneliness that bring these two together. Is that enough to sustain a relationship? No, and it frays. But they come back together and there’s a sense that they truly do love each other, even though Ali is stoic and speaks in broken sentences.

Ali confesses his wrongdoings and returns to Emmi’s accepting embrace.

If there’s a shortcoming of the film, is that Ali at times is objectified. This is possibly a comment as well by Fassbinder – he’s seen as one-dimensional if it fits someone’s needs. The woman feel his muscles, ask him for help, admire how young he is once people start to suddenly accept their relationship. Even the son comes and apologizes for breaking the television and sending a check. But even he is angling for something – he needs childcare from his mother to look after her grandkids when they need it.

Emmi’s friends marvel at Ali’s physical attributes - youth and muscles. 

So we don’t see Ali’s perspective enough, in my opinion. Had we been given a chance to see Ali speak in Arabic, for example, we wouldn’t see him as a brute as much, would see that he’s intelligent and thoughtful, perhaps, in ways that don’t come out as much when he’s struggling to speak in German. And see him comfortable in the other half of his dual identity as an Arab German.

One member in our QFS discussion group pointed out that we only see the racism and how people treat them after their married, and no other sense of their homelife. It becomes a bit too much, overly taxing, and gives us the feeling that the only thing they experience is racism. True, that’s the feeling conveyed, but if they love each other we could do with at least one or two scenes of domestic bliss. After all, we’re led to believe that they truly love each other and not that Ali is in this for some other gain or that she’s using him to stave off loneliness.

Fassbinder uses the set to block parts of his frame in deliberate ways, making our subjects harder to see. He’s a master of the use of distance to convey a feeling - in this case, loneliness and detachment.

All this aside, Fassbinder’s stripped down film is somehow captivating. It’s this bare-bones feeling, this lack of cinematic tropes – which is far different than Sirk, by the way – that gives the impression of realism. Not Realism in formal sense, but a feeling that this is a very believable, realistic story that’s happening right now as we watch it unfold. And probably that’s because it is a story happening right now, every day, in many places around the world.

Sicario (2015)

QFS No. 153 - The invitation for October 2, 2024
I’m sure many of you saw Sicario (2015) when it came out or in the ensuing nine years afterwards. I, however, am not one of them, hence this pick. It’s been on my list for a while, especially because of the filmmaker at the helm.

Denis Villeneuve is one of my favorite directors working right now. Arrival (2016) is a modern classic that got short shrift at the Academy Awards that year but I know will endure the test of time (really solid movie year with Inside Out, Mad Max: Fury Road, The Revenant, Ex Machina, Creed, The Martian, Spotlight, Brooklyn, The Big Short and the new Star Wars trilogy launched). For Villeneuve, I’ll go so far as to say his Blade Runner 2049 (2017) rivals or perhaps surpasses its legendary predecessor (come at me!). Dune (2021) is arguably his “worst” of those three it’s still a monumental and fantastic (half) a movie.*

All of these films above are likely vastly different than Sicario, which is what I’m most interested in seeing. He’s mastered atmospheric other worldly stories and landscapes, I’m very curious what he does with the Mexico-US border.

If you haven’t seen it or even if you have, please watch or rewatch join the Sicario discussion!

*I somehow haven’t seen Dune: Part Two (2024) yet which is why it’s left off this list but I’ve heard good things which is just as good as seeing it right?

Sicario (2015) Directed by Dennis Villeneuve

Reactions and Analyses:
Moments before the climactic sequence of Sicario (2015), there’s a shot in the film that evokes a specific genre of movie. It’s low light, the sun has set but there is striking reds and oranges and light in the distant horizon. The figures move in silhouette, in unison as the camera moves parallel to them, wide. The figures – some close in foreground and others in the back all wear military helmets and hold military weapons.

Classic soldiers-at-dusk shot in a war movie, which is how Sicario (2015) portrays border of Mexico and the US - as a war zone.

When I saw this shot, everything in the movie clicked for me – this is a war film. The shot is appropriately similar to imagery in Jarhead (2005), a film about the futility and Sisyphian nature of war – also photographed by the legendary Roger Deakins who is the cinematographer in Sicario as well. It’s a classic shot you’d see in a film about the conflict in Vietnam or in Middle East or Afghanistan. But here, in Sicario, the battleground is the US-Mexico border, not some far off world.

Not a shot from Sicario but from another Roger Deakins shot film, Jarhead (2005) - another film about war.

The composition here – as well as the narrative and themes that precede it – is no accident. The screenwriter Taylor Sheridan and director Denis Villeneuve have a thesis, and that thesis is that this conflict, this so-called “drug war” is indeed war. Full-blown war. Not a criminal enterprise of cartels and traffickers and something to be dealt with by the justice system. It is war. And thus, quaint rules of due process, legal procedure and the rule of law don’t apply. Because this is war, and your attempts to treat it differently are at best naïve and at worse a danger to the people of America. After all – look how brutal the faceless cartel is – they’re beheading people and hanging their bodies in major cities.

And in war, you must do what is necessary to defeat the enemy. To destroy these monsters, we need to become and embrace monsters. 

This thesis, if accurate, explains so much of the behavior of the characters in the film. Kate Mercer (Emily Blunt) is a proxy for the American people. An FBI agent, but she’s in the dark just as we are for most of the film, only given a little bit to know when it’s right. But the men around her – they know what’s best. Rest your pretty head, you don’t know what it really takes to get the job done, or so the message comes across in Sicario. It takes men willing to do ruthless things, bend the rules, break laws. That’s what it takes.

Kate Mercer (Emily Blunt) stands in as a proxy of the ordinary American - kept in the dark, just as she is as they cross the border here in Sicario.

Perhaps this is the cynical way to look at the film, but it feels very much in line with what Villeneuve and Sheridan are trying to say. In this way, it also feels deliberate that the character cast is a woman, unable to be taken seriously in a world where the only solution to our problems lies in bravado machismo and brazen law breaking in the service of “national security.” I hesitate to bring this up, but the only Black man in the film Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) and the only woman are the only two who are portrayed as naïve wimps following “rules” like wimps do. Another way of looking at it (that one of our QFS discussion group members brought) up is that they are the only two following a moral compass. That is giving the filmmakers more credit than I’m willing to give them, but it’s valid. The other way to look at it, however, is that this Black man and White woman are diversity hires who don’t have the stomach to do what needs to be done to keep us safe. Yes, this is very much a cynical take but the evidence in the film itself suggests this interpretation.

Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) and Kate are the only two people standing up for American ideals of justice. Is it a coincidence that they are also the only Black character and woman character in Sicario? There's a cynical way and a more gracious way to interpret this.

Sicario feels very much like a post 9/11 film. People entrusted with keeping America safe explicitly violated American moral values in order to do so. The film very much has that tone and I, for one, don’t love this aspect of the film. (I can disagree, of course, with what a film espouses while still thoroughly enjoying it – as I did with Sicario.) Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), after all, specifically does not want to select someone who went to law school, as Reggie has, because they know their at best skirting the law and at worst overtly breaking it.

Matt Barnes (Josh Brolin) has mastered the condescending look that "tough guys" give to people who want to follow quaint and outdated "rules" and "the law."

And throughout, the team condescends to Kate, keeping her in the dark and in the end it’s even clearer – they’re using her, including her loneliness as bait to lure in a corrupt cop (Jon Bernthal). Specifically, they’re using her status as an FBI agent to justify the CIA operating on American soil, which is otherwise against the law. But law doesn’t matter when you’re at war, as the filmmaker appear to contend.

Some in the group believed the filmmakers are just presenting the world as it is, showing what it’s really like. And here’s where I disagreed with them. It’s not just a simple expose, if you will; the filmmakers are expressing an opinion. For example, at the end Alejandro (Benecio del Toro), the shadowy international double agent of some type, has broken into Kate’s apartment to put a gun to her head and force her to sign a document saying that everything they did followed the law. But now, after Kate has seen Alejandro kidnap and kill in Mexico with impunity – in fact, he shoots her to disable her when she tries to stop him. Now in her apartment, she reluctantly signs the document, knowing that Alejandro will go through with it.

As he leaves, he says: “You should move to a small town where the rule of law still exists. You will not survive here. You are not a wolf. And this is the land of wolves now.”

Alejandro (Benecio del Toro) says here "You are not a wolf. And this is the land of wolves now." This is as close to a thesis statement as you can find in a film. 

If this is not a thesis statement, I don’t know what is. As well, the opening title card says The word Sicario comes from the zealots of Jerusalem, killers who hunted the Romans who invaded their homeland. In Mexico, Sicario means hitman.

“Invaded” and “homeland” here are deliberate, as is the framing. The Roman Empire was the ruling governmental authority, so if you swap America for Rome and the “zealots of Jerusalem” as Mexican drug dealers and drug lords – well, that’s a pretty stark interpretation. I’m not saying it’s completely inaccurate, but when you’re using those terms it definitely justifies violence for some folks out there.

Filmmakers should have an opinion, a thesis, An opinion makes a film better, gives it direction and that driving force is felt throughout the incredible craft of the film. Villeneuve is a master of showcasing scope, perhaps one of the best filmmakers using aerial photography working today. The sequence of black SUVs crossing the border from the US at Nogales into Mexico is hypnotic, ominous and incredibly effective at building tension. Similar work can be seen throughout Villeneuve’s recent work – Dune (2021), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), and Arrival (2016) are masterclasses in portraying scale and scope.

But Sicario, with all the stunning craft work helmed by Deakins and Villeneuve, it still comes down to something personal. Alejandro breaks into Kate’s home and forces her to sign the document, he leaves her apartment. She gathers herself, grabs her service weapon, and rushes out to the balcony in the cobalt dusk.

She points it at him in the near distance and he turns to her, opening himself up to be shot. Kate, shaking with a bloody eye from the firefight in the tunnel earlier, is unsure what to do. Alejandro opens himself up to her, giving her a clear shot. This moment is one of the most powerful in the film. It’s where performance, cinematography, directing, story, and theme all intersect. What will she do? Will she act as they would, act outside the judicial system and be judge, jury and executioner? In the battle’s aftermath, she told Matt she’s going to report all of it to the higher ups – but will she? Is this better?

She relents. She can’t go through with it, and he walks away. It’s a fascinating scene and we all had varying interpretations of it. Some felt that Kate realizes that Alejandro is right, that this is the way it works. She may not like it, but his way is the right way. Others felt that perhaps she knows killing Alejandro will not end anything and she, herself, will become like him – a fate she does not prefer.

The final sequence is open to a lot of fascinating interpretation.

Kate, small and insignificant at the end.

I took it to mean – Kate is bound by law, by the moral code of America. If you believe she’s a stand in for us, the general public, she has an obligation to follow that code. After all, she tells Matt this after the raid and battle in the tunnel. And Alejandro knows that. He knows she’s powerless in this world. She’s not a wolf.

And in the end, is Alejandro right? Are the filmmakers right, is the drug war only winnable if we commit to it as if it is a war? One member of our QFS group is a political scientist shared that he has a mentor from Mexico that works on issues of jurisprudence in that country. To paraphrase, though she is committed to the rule of law and governance in Mexico, she entertained the idea that perhaps maybe in this circumstance – you indeed need wolves.

Perhaps. But isn’t it true that wolves beget more wolves? In a land of wolves, what happens to the sheep? Are they all eliminated? The filmmakers pay some service to the sheep, with the somewhat innocent Mexican police officer (Maximiliano Hernandez as Silvio) who transports smuggled drugs in his police car. We see his son, his very modest homelife, and you get the sense that he’s not a violent criminal but just someone who is getting by, bending the law to survive. Until he’s callously killed by Alejandro and left to die on a dark highway. In the film’s coda, the officer’s son plays soccer near the border when gunshots are heard in the distance and everyone stops and turns towards it, before resuming play.

One of the few acknowledgements of the real victims in Sicario, somewhat tacked, here near the border wall. 

This is the only nod, really, the filmmakers pay to what is happening to the sheep in the land of wolves. It feels tacked on, an afterthought and thin compared to the complexity of the other characters and their storylines in Sicario. This has all the hallmarks of American arrogance – the story focuses on the American side of it, told through the American’s point of view. Matt, after all, accuses American drug users of being the ones who are causing all the harm. The true victims are the people of Mexico, however, where the sheep are being slaughtered by wolves. Perhaps the last thing they need are even more wolves.