Woodstock and the Cinema of the 60s

If there was a decade I would want to live through if only for its cinema I think it would be the 60s. While I love all the classic films that came before it, as well as the new Hollywood movies that came after it in the 70s, for me the 60s was the time that changed all the rules.

This may seem like romanticising the decade, and coming from someone who never went through it, I probably am a little. I pretty much just know of the sixties from a historical point of view. It was a turbulent time which included the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, as well as the Vietnam war and civil rights being shown all across the television.

I first became entrance with the sixties throught its music. As a kid I listened to The Beach Boys, then The Beatles, and as I grew older I leaned towards Dylan as my one true poet laureate. I remember writing a short story in my seventh grade English class about a kid who felt he belonged in the sixties rather than today.

It was only till later on I started viewing more films from the sixties. Growing up I only remember watching the films that the old studio system was still dishing out. I was fed on big budget Broadway musicals like "My Fair Lady", and "West Side Story", along with Disney's "Mary Poppins". It was all fairly lighthearted stuff, strange I thought, considering the music I was listening to at the time seemed to have more of a raw feeling of rebellion and revolution, it was odd the films of that time didn't reflect the same thing. However I wasn't really getting the whole picture.

Two films that soon changed my opinion were Richard Lester's "A Hard Days Night" and D.A. Pennebaker's "Don't Look Back". As a fan of both The Beatles and Dylan, I simply had to see them. The thing I noticed right away, which differed from the other 60s films I was seeing at the time was they were done in a crude fashion, but there was something unique about that whole approach. In "A Hard Days Night", The Beatles were in an absurdest comedy not unlike a Marx Brothers film, things were never as it seemed as scenes would cut away to something completely different. In "Don't Look Back", it was a behind the scenes look at Bob Dylan who is seen more of an anti-hero who seems to resent his celebrity status but at the same time embraces it. He's seen as sometimes unlikable and isolating, but that's what draws us to him.

My first impression of these films was one of intrigue, if these films were made during the sixties perhaps there's more of them. I found out there was not only more, but better films.

It's safe to say the old golden age of Hollywood crumbled in the 60s, but in its wake a new generation arose, however the bulk of the talent were coming from Europe. The French New Wave exploded in the late 50s early 60s with the first films by Truffaut, Godard, and Malle. They were film critics who saw American films but were able to put them into context. They had their own theories about what films were, and what they could do. They came from a background of film criticism, and approached it as an artform rather than popular entertainment. Along with them came Fellini and Antonioni from Italy with films like "La Dolce Vita", "8 and a half" and "L'Avenntura".

The 60s became a breeding ground for freedom of expression, filmmakers became open to discuss philosophical and political issues more openly. There was a need for this all over which made arthouses more popular than ever.

Film criticism itself became more relevant as we saw the breaking out of important writers as Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris, as well as the blossoming of a young Roger Ebert.

All this came to a boil, and it wasn't long until Hollywood changed its tune starting in 1967 with "Bonnie and Clyde" paving the way for more personal films to come in the 70s.

When the 70s came, there seemed to be more of an open door policy for filmmakers, more and more people were seeing movies not just from Hollywood but from all over the world, this then paved the way to the indie movement of the 80s, right up to today where a director can now show their latest film on Youtube.

I think this all started with the 60s, the ending of that decade for me came with the monumental documentary about "Woodstock" which celebrated its 40th anniversary just this year. After recently re-watching that film, it brought to my mind everything about the sixties that I loved. There was the music, but there was also this talk about change, and the opening of new possibilities, and a hopeful future. Of course we can't say that would all come to pass, but I still would say that sensibility is in me today.

Today I get tired of a somewhat jaded and cynical point of view in our films, not much of what I see seems to move me in any such way. Of course there is the exception, but the 60s represented something alive, youthful, and vibrant, and it's lacking not only in our films today, but in some of the audiences that go to them.

My favorite film of the 60s would probably be Truffaut's "Jules and Jim" which represented something more than just a doomed romantic triangle, but a certain bohemian life that seems to be drifting more and more away from us. Perhaps this was just Truffaut's romantic idealism, but maybe in the 60s it seemed more possible. People seem to take into conformity a lot easier these days.

I long for the day when the kind of rebellious and reactionary films that the 60s represented come again, and something is telling me that day is coming soon.

Anyway what's your take on this, plus I would love to know if there was a decade of film you'd love to live through, what would it be?

The Untouchables: My first DePalma

This is my contribution to the DePalma Blog-a-Thon

"The Untouchables" was the first DePalma film I had ever seen. I was a very impressionable 11 or 12 year old with a love of films. I had seen most of everything Spielberg had done up to that point, however I had not seen my first Scorsese. I was kinda in the middle of popular cinema and more serious cinema. I had heard of "The Untouchables" because of my love of gangster films. In my world Al Capone and Eliot Ness were the iconic figures of good and evil. I wanted to see the film because at that time both Kevin Costner and Sean Connery were two of my favorite movie stars and to see them in a film together was a dream come true for a little kid. However I had also discovered the term of a director, and while I was still unsure as to what their job was, I had this notion that they were the guys in charge. I had heard of Brian DePalma before, but I wasn't sure what to expect from him. My parents probably thought I was too young for "The Untouchables" and maybe I was,but that didn't stop me from seeing it behind their backs.

The moment I saw "The Untouchables" with that great opening credit sequence and the memorable Ennio Morricone score which was exciting and heart pounding, I knew I was in for something great.

The film of course starts with the first scene of Al Capone (Robert De Niro) in a barber chair during a press conference. DePalma's camera is seen from high up and it cranes down to De Niro's face as the barber takes off his hot towel in a nice reveal. I remember De Niro's performance being rather brood, a nice choice for this kind of picture. His Capone is larger than life, sort of a comic villain that you love to hate. There's even a scene with Capone in his bed reading the newspaper about Ness being foiled, and you can sense his comic presence from his over the top chuckle and his giant cigar.

We soon get the Eliot Ness as played by Kevin Costner, who has taken some flack for his performance being bland, even as a kid I couldn't help notice this. However how else are we suppose to see this young by the book young man turn into the "What are you prepared to do" law enforcer he becomes? Costner was probably the only leading man at the time who could make this "too good to be true" lawman believable.

After one failure, Ness soon recruits his infamous band of "Untouchables". He starts with the most memorable character in the film Malone (Sean Connery), an aging beat cop who teaches Ness that it will take more than just being honest to beat Capone. This role of course became a crowning moment in Connery's acting career for which he won the Oscar. He commands each scene he's in, and of course after his death, you can really feel his presence sorely missed.

The other members of the small band are Any Garcia's rookie cop Stone, who is more or less there to represent the precision of an ace gunman, and Charles Martin Smith's accountant Oscar Wallace who doesn't exactly fit in with the rest of the tough guys, but can carry his own weight. In one of the film's many set pieces by the U.S./Canadian border, it is Wallace who really goes all gung ho when the cards are down.

The trick "The Untouchables" had to accomplish was doing a cops and gangster picture like it had never been done before. As a boy, I was familiar with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart films thinking they were the be all and end all of the genre, but this was the first time I was in DePalma territory. I don't think DePalma accomplished anything new with this film, in the sense that he had done some of this before in his past films. However the difference here was the budget, DePalma got a little bit of breathing room, and this was a great way for him to show off to a wider audience.

The first sequence that got me rattled was the first big one which included a little girl who is killed while holding a briefcase containing a bomb. The sequence happens very early one in the film, and it's like DePalma is telling us, this will be the kind of blockbuster where no one is safe. It's unsettling, and indeed as the picture moves along we will see more innocent blood be shed, which is one way this film does separate itself from other mainstream movies.

However despite all the blood shed, DePalma is the kind of director who sympathizes with the audience, he knows when too much is too much, and that is no more prevalent than in the death of Wallace. DePalma does a quick cut away just before Wallace is shot, so we never see his murder. Though the murder scene itself is rather graphic, DePalma doesn't dwell on Wallace too much to make in unbearable, just enough for the audience to feel the loss of someone we've come to like.

Malone's death happens in a more poetic, and ironic way. We are set up with one of DePalma's great stalker sequences, where the camera becomes the view point of the man sent to kill Malone. We see Malone alone in his apartment. From our viewpoint, it doesn't look like he suspects anything, however by the time the sequence ends, Malone surprises us when he pulls out a gun and points it to the killer. We think he has the drop on the bad guys, but alas, his fate awaits him from a second gunman waiting in the ally.

Of course nothing can be said about this film without referencing the main set piece at the train station. After budget constraints forced DePalma and his crew to rethink the sequence, he pulls from his film knowledge the Odessa Steps sequence from "Potemkin". DePalma re imagines Eisenstein's vision for his famous shoot out, and the scene becomes the most memorable sequence in the film. As a kid not knowing who Eisenstein was, I was under the impression DePalma made the whole thing up himself. It certainly made an impression on me, I remember sweating with anticipation as to what was going to happen, and the sigh of relief when it was all over. Not many films made me feel that way when I was a kid.

When the film ended I was completely satisfied, I thought "The Untouchables" was a masterpiece, I remember watching it again as soon as it was over. Even though it was probably the most graphic and violent movie for my age, I didn't feel effected by it. The film was an old fashioned gangster story, and I felt sophisticated enough to understand what was real and what was fake. This was way before I was to see Scorsese films and "The Godfather" where violence was depicted more realistically. DePalma uses it in a way that's operatic and it services the outlandish and unrealistic world he created.

Now after returning to "The Untouchables" after so many years, I still enjoy it. It is probably DePalma's most accessible film. It doesn't try to redefine the genre the way the Coens did a few years later with "Miller's Crossing", but it does tell an old story in a new way. Today I don't consider it my favorite DePalma film or his best, but that's only because I've seen more of what he's done since, and what he did before. What I can say is "The Untouchables" was the right film to come along for me at that time. I was young and in love with the movies, DePalma found that primal thirst I had for something new and different, and even if I didn't know it then, it opened up a new cinematic world for me.

A Basterd of a Movie

I'm a little late in joining the fun of the critical reception for "Inglorious Basterds", but I've had a hell of a time reading what there is about it. It's great seeing a film inspire such debate in a critical community. "Inglorous Basterds" is the kind of film you can't have no feelings for, because it is designed to grab your attention.

Some have called it an outrageous revenge fantasy, others have called it an exercise in style stripped of all emotion, while others accuse it of Holocaust denial.

For me I felt I had to see it again a second time, it's the kind of film that warrants it. I didn't fully enjoy my first viewing of "Inglorious Basterds", perhaps I was loooking at it a little too critical. I felt the chapters didn't hold together as well as I would've liked them, although Tarantino achieved some of his best individual scenes in these movies. I also thought the narration by Samuel L. Jackson felt out of place and took me out of the movie, and the final scene with Brad Pitt's Aldo Raine and Christoph Waltz's Hans Landa didn't ring true. I was entertained by it as a whole, and didn't think of Tarantino's rewriting history to be nothing more than fun fantasy fulfillment. Overall though the film left me underwhelmed, I was expecting a lot more from Tarantino. However I still had the nagging feeling inside me, which caused me to suspend judgement until the second viewing because knowing Tarantino he would've filled his film with things I perhaps missed the first time.

Now after having just come from my second screening, I can now say that Tarantino has created a near pulp masterpiece perhaps second only behind his "Kill Bill" films. This time I felt the chapters did hold together well as a whole rather than just individual pieces. I enjoyed the elaborate set pieces, that Tarantino does better than most anyone, using long bits of dialogue underscoring the intensity of every scene. I appreciated some performances more the second time around as well. Much has been said of Waltz's Hans Landa: "The Jew Hunter" and indeed he is charming and sinister, but I also appreciated Pitt's broad comic turn as the hero Aldo Raine. Like he showed last year in The Coen Brothers' "Burn After Reading", Pitt has a flare for comedy, and I truly hope he decides to take more roles of this nature.

Another thing I love about Raine is how he is the kind of hero people want in a movie, he's smart, he's funny, he's merciless to his enemies, and he does exactly what we want him to do. This comes to no surprise, Tarantino excells in delivering to the audience what we want to see.

Another performance I admired is Michael Fassbender's stiff upper lipped British officer Archie Hilcox. Again like Raine, Hilcox is the kind of hero who reacts the way we want him to, he always plays it cool even when he is literally under the gun.

Tarantino's own flare for dialogue has become even more tightly gripped and in control. He doesn't let his characters riff on things on and on as he did rather a little too much in "Reservoir Dogs" and parts of "Pulp Fiction". Tarantino is now an assured director more confident than ever before. The joy of Tarantino is in his delivery, he understands what film is and what it can do, and we delight in his playfulness.

I don't think "Inglorious Basterds" is the kind of film to take seriously, it is a revenge fantasy, and if anything it's a love letter to cinema. The climax takes place in a movie theatre with an ending that can only happen in a movie. It's a testament to Tarantino's belief in what film can do particularly in the movie's most poignant scene. The film's heroine Shosanna (Melanie Laurent) is in the projection booth about to unleash her masterplan when she is interrupted by the German war hero Fredrik Zoller (Daniel Bruhl) who is the star of the propaganda film being shown. After a romantic entanglement that goes awry, Shosanna shoots Zoller, but after looking at his face on the screen, her face changes. What does she feel for him? Is it empathy? Is is sadness? Whatever it is and perhaps forgetting for a moment what Zoller represents, she kneels down beside his dying body, thus sealing her fate. For Tarantino, it is film itself that has the power to move us in unexpected ways.

2 or 3 Things I Know about Godard

A few days ago I viewed Jean-Luc Godard's film "2 or 3 Things I Know About Her", and it continues to nag me. There are those films that you watch and you know right away it is a masterpiece, "2 or 3 Things I Know About Her" is one of those films.

The way Godard tells the story is a mesh of different styles, and for those familiar with the director's work, this comes to no surprise. This year I've discovered many of Godard's films for the first time including his other masterpiece "Contempt", "A Woman is a Woman", "Masculine-Feminine", and "Made in U.S.A." He's the kind of director who can entertain as well as frustrate, he is perhaps the most intellectual of filmmakers, he uses the medium sometimes against itself to prove a point, for many of his films, I'm still trying to figure out what the point is, but I continue to be more and more drawn to his work.

"2 or 3 Things I know About Her" was made in 1967 near the end of his great run of films ("Breathless" to "Weekend"). It tells the story of a woman who turns to prostitution in order to stay in her living conditions. If that weren't a great film subject already, Godard has other things on his mind as well. The film not only shows the life of this woman, but it also becomes a personal attack on consumerism in our culture. Throughout the film we hear the soft whisper of Godard as a narrator (although he sounds more like an essayist)as he spouts out his general distaste for the culture. In one poignant scene, the greatest one I've seen in his films thus far, Godard takes us to a cafe where the main character has a coke. Godard cuts to separate people in the cafe and then gives us a brilliant close up on a cup of coffee. Godard begins on a thoughtful monologue about the state of the world: "The world alone today, where revolutions are impossible, where bloody wars menace me, where capitalism is no longer sure of its rights and the working class is in retreat, where the overwhelming progress of science gives future centuries an oppressive presence, where the future is more present than the present, where far-off galaxies are at my door.....Mon semblable, mon frere"

As he says this,a sugar cube is added to the cup of coffee and we see it form into a sort of universe. Godard's film becomes philosophical, that other films would never dare to travel, the story of a housewife who has to work as a prostitute becomes a personal statement in a most unexpected way.

I am in no way an expert of Godard, I have only seen a handful of his films. I am confident to say he made perhaps the greatest films of the sixties, he moved them further to what they could convey than any other director of that time. It seems with this film he was building up to something, which to my knowledge was unleashed with "Weekend", a film only know by reputation.

"2 or 3 Things I know About Her" was released the same year as "Bonnie and Clyde", which was America's answer to the French New Wave. While "Bonnie and Clyde" was the beginning of a new generation of personal filmmaking in Hollywood, Godard proved with his film, he was still miles ahead of them all.

News from the dead plus New Coen Brothers Movie!

I've been preoccupied with a few things lately, but fear not, I've seen a bunch of movies, some good, some great that I want to discuss very soon. In the mean time, here's the new Coen Brothers movie trailer. I hope it wets your appetite as it does mine.

A Films of My Life Coming Attraction: The Three Colors Trilogy

Jeremy Robinson: The Films of My Life

Taking a cue from the famous book of critisisms compiled by Francois Truffaut, and a recent blog by Roger Ebert concerning the lists of greatest movies, it occured to me all through this blog, I have never really stated what my favorite films are. You people out there sitting at home are probably wondering that very thing: What are Jeremy's favorite movies? Yes sir this 28 year old guy from Red Deer Alberta sure talks big about movies, but he hasn't really revealed what he thinks are the greatest of all time.

It's quite simple why it has taken me so much time, that is because I believe films should never be condensed into such a list, I am convinced there are no such things as a top ten greatest films of all time, and to tell you all my favorites would just take up too much space. The thing I enjoy doing the most is discussing films that I am interested in, or the directors who create these wonders, or the actors who give equally memorable performances.

This is the reason I have chosen to keep writing my blog, and probably the main reason no matter how I try I will never completely abandon it.

Still despite all my feelings about frivilous lists, I wanted to share with you a list of some films that have had some impact on me. You might consider them favorites of mine, my life has certainly been richer with them. I could probably compile a list of over 100 films, but for now here's just a taste of great ones.

(Note: This list is subject to change depending on how I feel on a particular day, however I admit that there are some films on this list that i don't think will ever leave. Also they are not in any particular order.)

It's a Wonderful Life
2001: A Space Odyssey
Tokyo Story
Jules and Jim
The Shop Around the Corner
The Apartment
The Searchers
Vertigo
Do The Right Thing
City Lights
The Three Colors Trilogy
Miller's Crossing
Horse Feathers
Top Hat
The Seven Samurai
I Was Born But...
Lost Horizon
Sherlock Jr.
Mulholland Dr.
Once
E.T.
The Rules of the Game
Metropolis
The General

I'll stop there, but I could keep going. I wanted to give you just a taste, I haven't even really touched on classic westerns or film noir which I hold near and dear to me. You could pick any of those films I listed as favorites but I would just watch any film from these directors as well

Capra
Ozu
Keaton
Chaplin
Lubitsch
Kubrick
Spielberg
Kurosawa
Truffaut
Godard
Renoir
Lynch
The Coen Brothers
Hitchcock
Ford
Hawks
Wilder
Kieslowski
Altman
Allen

Another list will be compiled soon, but like I said, this is a taste. I'll leave you with some more favorites down below.

















That's all for now, but I'm just getting started.

Okay just one more.