Kino Biff

Best of 1945

They Were Expendable John Ford
Les Enfants du Paradis Marcel Carné
The Southerner Jean Renoir
Rome, Open City Roberto Rossellini
Scarlet Street Fritz Lang
I Know Where I'm Going Michael Powell
Leave Her to Heaven John Stahl
Ministry of Fear Fritz Lang
Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne Robert Bresson
My Name is Julia Ross Joseph H. Lewis

Films I Enjoyed

Fallen Angel, The Suspect,

The Seventh Veil,

Mildred Pierce, Spellbound,

Objective Burma, The Spanish Main,

Detour, The Picture of Dorian Gray,

The Woman in the Window, And Then There Were None,

The Bells of St. Mary's, The Clock,

The Body Snatcher, Ziegfeld Follies,

Anchors Away, Incendiary Blonde,

The House on 92nd Street,

The Story of G. I. Joe, The Enchanted Cottage,

State Fair, A Walk in the Sun,

Below the Mendoza Line

Brief Encounter, Dead of Night,

The Wicked Lady, Madonna of the Seven Moons,

Rhapsody in Blue,

The Lost Weekend, Along Came Jones,

Kolberg, The Corn is Green

I've been waiting years for the Blu-Ray release of Josef von Sternberg's 1931 feature Dishonored, the most obscure of his collaborations with Marlene Dietrich. It more than lived up to my expectations. I would place it in the middle of the pack amongst their films, just below the level of their masterpieces: The Blue Angel, Morocco, The Scarlett Empress and The Devil is a Woman. As in Blonde Venus and Shanghai Express, the lack of an effective male foil for Dietrich detracts from the picture. Victor McLaglen is an effectively virile presence. The effect is palpable when he sweeps Dietrich off her feet and deposits her with a thump on a bed. However, he utilizes a bizarre accent and has little chemistry with la Dietrich. It's a pity Gary Cooper turned down the role, but he, apparently, had had enough of Sternberg.

I never get enough of Sternberg's visual plays of light and shade. The art direction and costumes are riveting in themselves, especially during the carnival scene which Sternberg recycled to even more bizarre effect in The Devil is a Woman. Sternberg shows off Dietrich at her most curvy, even utilizing a hoop skirt to contrast her with the ramrod, vertically rigid military officers. Her real match, the secret service chief who recruits her from off the streets, is well played by Gustav von Seyffetitz, an always welcome character actor from the silent era. The chief, who christens Dietrich "X-27", has no qualms about sending his agent to her doom; on to X-28, I suppose. Nevertheless, it provides Sternberg with a moving and romantic send off for his heroine where the pacifism of the era and the director's critique of a stern and unyielding patriarchy are beautifully melded in a film about the intersection of Eros and Thanatos.

All the Money in the World, The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach

Christopher Plummer and Mark Wahlberg in All the Money in the World

All the Money in the World is one of the more successful examples of Ridley Scott's recent work. Part of this is due to a good script which clearly delineates all the twists and turns in the story of J Paul Getty III's kidnapping. It is also because the material jibes well with what has become Scott's go to theme: the futility and emptiness of corporeal power. When Scott has a good script, say in American Gangster and especially The Counselor, the results are interesting. When the script is not up to snuff, as in Robin Hood and Exodus: Gods and Kings, we are left with white elephants.

Even at his best, there is a certain vacuity in Scott's work. When we see Christopher Plummer as Getty Senior surrounded by antique busts, ornate tapestries, expensive paintings and other prized tchotchkes, we are not seeing a particularly realistic portrait of the wizened tycoon, but another of Scott's portraits of hollow titans (always men) whose thirst for power has erased their humanity: think of Joaquin Phoenix in Gladiator, Joe Turkle in Blade Runner or Guy Pearce in Prometheus. This is precisely what Getty was, but it is not the Getty on display here. Christopher Plummer has too much charm and charisma for one thing. Getty had the looks, charisma and charm of a mummy; at least in 1973. I think Kevin Spacey, booted from the film for various transgressions, may have been more interesting in the role. Plummer always gives intelligent, well-modulated performances, but there is too much of a twinkle in his eye to be convincing as the reptilian Getty whereas Spacey is perfectly cast as cold-blooded opportunists.

The casting of Mark Wahlberg as Getty's fixer is a worse fit. When cast as a mook or a mick, as in The Departed and The Fighter, Wahlberg can be extremely effective. Here a dollop of sophistication is needed and Wahlberg is as sophisticated as a meatball grinder. I know Wahlberg is a name and a competent performer, but how could anyone believe he would be well cast as someone named Fletcher Chase?

Happily, the two other main performances are home runs. Charlie Plummer is astonishingly good as the young Getty, a reminder at how adept Scott is in drawing fine work from young performers. Even better is Michelle Williams, who pretty much carries the film on her thin shoulders. Expert at both vocal and physical performance, Williams' provides the heart of the film as a mother determined to save her son. Scott's work is often icy and glacial, it needs the heat of an impassioned performer like Williams or Russell Crowe to bring it to life. Scott's oeuvre is a mixed bag, half tabula rasa, half stylish and intriguing. Primarily due to Williams' performance, All the Money in the World is one of his more effective films.

Daniele Huillet and Jean-Marie Straub's The Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach, from 1968, is an entirely different kettle of fish. In essence, this is an art film whose relation to the commercial narrative cinema is tangential at best. The title itself announces that Huillet and Straub are not seeking to tell a tale, but to present sequential annals of time that pictures Bach's life, mostly through glimpses of his wife, children and music. There are numerous historically accurate recreations of Bach's musical performances with Dutch musician Gustav Leonhardt impersonating the maestro. Huillet and Straub intersperse the film with various Bach related scores and documents. This makes the film more an exploration of the semiological possibilities of the cinema than its narrative ones. This limits the appeal of this kind of film. I know that other members of my household will not be clamoring for me to bring home another disc by Huillet and Straub anytime soon.

Still, I was riveted by the film and I am rather lukewarm to the composer finding him, at times, more mathematical than musical. Leonhardt's period appropriate performances let the music breathe in a way that most modern arrangers, synthesizer twiddlers or Glenn Gould do not. In a weird way, the minimalist direction reminds me of David L. Wolper productions like Appointment with Destiny and You Are There from my youth. This is not a diss. These shows entertained the young history buff Biff greatly and their pedagogic impulses are not dissimilar from the ones behind the historical films Rossellini did for television. What directorial touches there are moved me, particularly a slow dolly back from Bach to include the ensemble as they chime in to join the master. I was a Straub and Huillet virgin until this film, but seeing it will spur me to seek out their other works. Even in this age of streaming gluttony they are hard to find, Netflix certainly has none of them, but I will endeavor. (8/29/2018)